All down the street flags and streamers were fluttering in the little summer breeze that stole about the houses and windows and doors as though anxiously enquiring whether people were not finding the evening just a little too warm.

People were not finding it at all too warm. Every one was out and strolling up and down, laughing and whistling and chattering, dressed, although it was only Friday, in nearly their Sunday best. The shops were closing, one by one, and the throng was growing thicker and thicker. So little traffic was passing that young men and women were already marching four abreast, arm-in-arm, along the middle of the street. It was a long time—ten years, in fact—since Polchester had seen such gaiety.

This was behind the Archdeacon; in front of him was the dark archway in which the grass of the Cathedral square was framed like the mirrored reflection of evening light where the pale blue and pearl white are shadowed with slanting green. The peace was profound—nothing stirred. There in the archway God stood, smiling upon His faithful servant, only as Brandon approached Him passing into shadow and sunlight and the intense blue of the overhanging sky.

Brandon tried then, as he had often tried before, to keep that contact close to himself, but the ecstatic moment had passed; it had lasted, it seemed, on this occasion a shorter time than ever before. He bowed his head, stood for a moment under the arch offering a prayer as simple and innocent as a child offers at its mother's knee, then with an instantaneous change that in a more complex nature could have meant only hypocrisy, but that with him was perfectly sincere, he was in a moment the hot, angry, mundane priest again, doing battle with his enemies and defying them to destroy him.

Nevertheless the transition to-night was not quite so complete as usual. He was unhappy, lonely, and in spite of himself afraid, afraid of he knew not what, as a child might be when its candle is blown out. And with this unhappiness his thoughts turned to home. Falk's departure had caused him to consider his wife more seriously than he had ever done in all their married life before. She had loved Falk; she must be lonely without him, and during these weeks he had been groping in a clumsy baffled kind of way towards some expression to her of the kindness and sympathy that he was feeling.

But those emotions do not come easily after many years of disuse; he was always embarrassed and self-conscious when he expressed affection. He was afraid of her, too, thought that if he showed too much kindness she might suddenly become emotional, fling her arms around him and cover his face with kisses—something of that kind.

Then of late she had been very strange; ever since that Sunday morning when she had refused to go to Communion.... Strange! Women are strange! As different from men as Frenchmen are from Englishmen!

But he would like to-night to come closer to her. Dimly, far within him, something was stirring that told him that it had been his own fault that during all these years she had drifted away from him. He must win her back! A thing easily done. In the Archdeacon's view of life any man had only got to whistle and fast the woman came running!

But to-night he wanted some one to care for him and to tell him that all was well and that the many troubles that seemed to be crowding about him were but imaginary after all.

When he reached the house he found that he had only just time to dress for dinner. He ran upstairs, and then, when his door was closed and he was safely inside his bedroom, he had to pause and stand, his hand upon his heart. How it was hammering! like a beast struggling to escape its cage. His knees, too, were trembling. He was forced to sit down. After all, he was not so young as he had been.

These recent months had been trying for him. But how humiliating! He was glad that there had been no one there to see him. He would need all his strength for the battle that was in front of him. Yes, he was glad that there had been no one to see him. He would ask old Puddifoot to look at him, although the man was an ass. He drank a glass of water, then slowly dressed.

He came downstairs and went into the drawing-room. His wife was there, standing in the shadow by the window, staring out into the Precincts. He came across the room softly to her, then gently put his hand on her shoulder.

She had not heard his approach. She turned round with a sharp cry and then faced him, staring, her eyes terrified. He, on his side, was so deeply startled by her alarm that he could only stare back at her, himself frightened and feeling a strange clumsy foolishness at her alarm.

Broken sentences came from her: "What did you—? Who—? You shouldn't have done that. You frightened me."

Her voice was sharply angry, and in all their long married life together he had never before felt her so completely a stranger; he felt as though he had accosted some unknown woman in the street and been attacked by her for his familiarity. He took refuge, as he always did when he was confused, in pomposity.

"Really, my dear, you'd think I was a burglar. Hum—yes. You shouldn't be so easily startled."

She was still staring at him as though even now she did not realise his identity. Her hands were clenched and her breath came in little hurried gasps as though she had been running.

"No—you shouldn't...silly...coming across the room like that."

"Very well, very well," he answered testily. "Why isn't dinner ready? It's ten minutes past the time."

She moved across the room, not answering him.

Suddenly his pomposity was gone. He moved over to her, standing before her like an overgrown schoolboy, looking at her and smiling uneasily.

"The truth is, my dear," he said, "that I can't conceive my entering a room without everybody hearing it. No, I can't indeed," he laughed boisterously. "You tell anybody that I crossed a room without your hearing it, and they won't believe you. No, they wont."

He bent down and kissed her. His touch tickled her cheek, but she made no movement. He felt, as his hand rested on her shoulder, that she was still trembling.

"Your nerves must be in a bad way," he said. "Why, you're trembling still! Why don't you see Puddifoot?"

"No—no," she answered hurriedly. "It was silly of me——" Making a great effort, she smiled up at him.

"Well, how's everything going?"

"Going?"

"Yes, for the great day. Is everything settled?"

He began to tell her in the old familiar, so boring way, every detail of the events of the last few hours.

"I was just by Sharps' when I remembered that I'd said nothing to Nixon about those extra seats at the back off the nave, so I had to go all the way round——"

Joan came in. His especial need of some one that night, rejected as it had been at once by his wife, turned to his daughter. How pretty she was, he thought, as she came across the room sunlit with the deep evening gold that struck in long paths of light into the darkest shadows and corners.

That moment seemed suddenly the culmination of the advance that they had been making towards one another during the last six months. When she came close to him, he, usually so unobservant, noticed that she, too, was in distress.

She was smiling but she was unhappy, and he suddenly felt that he had been neglecting her and letting her fight her battles alone, and that she needed his love as urgently as he needed hers. He put his arm around her and drew her to him. The movement was so unlike him and so unexpected that she hesitated a little, then happily came closer to him, resting her head on his shoulder. They had both, for a moment, forgotten Mrs. Brandon.

"Tired?" he asked Joan.

"Yes. I've been working at those silly old flags all the afternoon. Two of them are not finished now. We've got to go again to-morrow morning."

"Everything ready for the Ball?"

"Yes, my dress is lovely. Oh, mummy, Mrs. Sampson says will you let two relations of theirs sit in our seat on Sunday morning? She hadn't known that they were coming, and she's very bothered about it, and I'll tell her whether they can in the morning."

They both turned and saw Mrs. Brandon, who had gone back to the window and again was looking at the Cathedral, now in deep black shadow.

"Yes, dear. There'll be room. There's only you and I——"

Joan had in the pocket of her dress a letter. As they went in to dinner she could hear its paper very faintly crackle against her hand. It was from Falk and was as follows:

DEAR JOAN—I have written to father but he hasn't answered. Would you find out what he thought about my letter and what he intends to do? I don't mind owning to you that I miss him terribly, and I would give anything just to see him for five minutes. I believe that if he saw me I could win him over. Otherwise I am very happy indeed. We are married and live in two little rooms just off Baker Street. You don't know where that is, do you? Well, it's a very good place to be, near the park, and lots of good shops and not very expensive. Our landlady is a jolly woman, as kind as anything, and I'm getting quite enough work to keep the wolf from the door. I know more than ever now that I've done the right thing, and father will recognise it, too, one day. How is he? Of course my going like that was a great shock to him, but it was the only way to do it. When you write tell me about his health. He didn't seem so well just before I left. Now, Joan, write and tell me everything. One thing is that he's got so much to do that he won't have much time to think about me.—Your affectionate brother,

FALK.

This letter, which had arrived that morning, had given Joan a great deal to think about. It had touched her very deeply. Until now Falk had never shown that he had thought about her at all, and now here he was depending on her and needing her help. At the same time, she had not the slightest guide as to her father's attitude. Falk's name had not been mentioned in the house during these last weeks, and, although she realised that a new relationship was springing up between herself and her father, she was still shy of him and conscious of a deep gulf between them. She had, too, her own troubles, and, try as she might to beat them under, they came up again and again, confronting her and demanding that she should answer them.

Now she put the whole of that aside and concentrated on her father. Watching him during dinner, he seemed to her suddenly to have become older; there was a glow in her heart as she thought that at last he really needed her. After all, if through life she were destined to be an old maid—and that, in the tragic moment of her youth that was now upon her, seemed her inevitable destiny—here was some one for whom at last she could care.

She had felt before she came down to dinner that she was old and ugly and desperately unattractive. Across the dinner-table she flung away, as she imagined for ever, all hopes for beauty and charm; she would love her father and he should love her, and every other man in the world might vanish for all that she cared. And had she only known it, she had never before looked so pretty as she did that night. This also she did not know, that her mother, catching a sudden picture of her under the candle-light, felt a deep pang of almost agonising envy. She, making her last desperate bid for love, was old and haggard; the years for her could only add to that age. Her gambler's throw was foredoomed before she had made it.

After dinner, Brandon, as always, retired into the deepest chair in the drawing-room and buried himself in yesterday's Times. He read a little, but the words meant nothing to him. Jubilee! Jubilee! Jubilee! He was sick of the word. Surely they were overdoing it. When the great day itself came every one would be so tired....

He pushed the paper aside and picked up Punch. Here, again, that eternal word—"How to see the Procession. By one who has thought it out. Of course you must be out early. As the traffic...."

JOKE—Jinks: Don't meet you 'ere so often as we used to, Binks, eh?

Binks: Well—no. It don't run to Hopera Box this Season, because, you see, we've took a Window for this 'ere Jubilee.

Then, on one page, "The Walrus and the Carpenter: Jubilee Version." "In Anticipation of the Naval Review." "Two Jubilees?" On the next page an illustration of the Jubilee Walrus. On the next—"Oh, the Jubilee!" On the next, Toby M.P.'s "Essence of Parliament," with a "Reed" drawing of "A Naval Field Battery for the Jubilee."

The paper fell from his hand. During these last days he had had no time to read the paper, and he had fancied, as perhaps every Polcastrian was just then fancying, that the Jubilee was a private affair for Polchester's own private benefit. He felt suddenly that Polchester was a small out-of-the- way place of no account; was there any one in the world who cared whether Polchester celebrated the Jubilee or not? Nobody....

He got up and walked across to the window, pulling the curtains aside and looking out at the deep purple dusk that stained the air like wine. The clock behind him struck a quarter past nine. Two tiny stars, like inquisitive mocking eyes, winked at him above the high Western tower. Moved by an impulse that was too immediate and peremptory to be investigated, he went into the hall, found his hat and stick, opened softly the door as though he were afraid that some one would try to stop him, and was soon on the grass in front of the Cathedral, staring about him as though he had awakened from a bewildering dream.

He went across to the little side-door, found his key, and entered the Cathedral, leaving the gargoyle to grin after him, growing more alive, and more malicious too, with every fading moment of the light.

Within the Cathedral there was a strange shadowy glow as though behind the thick cold pillars lights were burning. He found his way, stumbling over the cane-bottomed chairs that were piled in measured heaps in the side aisle, into the nave. Even he, used to it as he had been for so many years, was thrilled to-night. There was a movement of preparation abroad; through all the stillness there was the stir of life. It seemed to him that the armoured knights and the high-bosomed ladies, and the little cupids with their pursed lips and puffing cheeks, and the angels with their too solid wings were watching him and breathing round him as he passed. Late though it was, a dim light from the great East window fell in broad slabs of purple and green shadow across the grey; everything was indistinct; only the white marble of the Reredos was like a figured sheet hanging from wall to wall, and the gilded trumpets of the angels on the choir-screen stood out dimly like spider pattern. He felt a longing that the place should return his love and tenderness. The passion of his life was here; he knew to-night, as he had never before, the life of its own that this place had, and as he stayed there, motionless in the centre of the nave, some doubt stole into his heart as to whether, after all, he and it were one and indivisible, as for so long he had believed. Take this away, and what was left to him? His son had gone, his wife and daughter were strange to him; if this, too, went....

The sudden chill sense of loneliness was awful to him. All those naked and sightless eyes staring from those embossed tombs were menacing, scornful, deriding.

He had never known such a mood, and he wondered suddenly whether these last months had affected his brain.

He had never doubted during the last ten years his power over this and its gratitude to him for what he had done: now, in this chill and green-hued air, it seemed not to care for him at all.

He moved up into the choir and sat down in his familiar stall; all that he could see—his eyes seemed to be drawn by some will stronger than his own —was the Black Bishop's Tomb. The blue stone was black behind the gilded grating, the figure was like a moulded shell holding some hidden form. The light died; the purple and green faded from the nave—the East window was dark—only the white altar and the whiter shadows above it hovered, thinner light against deeper grey. As the light was withdrawn the Cathedral seemed to grow in height until Brandon felt himself minute, and the pillars sprang from the floor beneath him into unseen canopied distance. He was cold; he longed suddenly, with a strange terror quite new to him, for human company, and stumbled up and hurried down the choir, almost falling over the stone steps, almost running through the long, dark, deserted nave. He fancied that other steps echoed his own, that voices whispered, and that figures thronged beneath the pillars to watch him go. It was as though he were expelled.

Out in the evening air he was in his own world again. He was almost tempted to return into the Cathedral to rid himself of the strange fancies that he had had, so that they might not linger with him. He found himself now on the farther side of the Cathedral, and after walking a little way he was on the little narrow path that curved down through the green banks to the river. Behind him was the Cathedral, to his right Bodger's Street and Canon's Yard, in front of him the bending hill, the river, and then the farther slips where the lights of the gipsy encampment sparkled and shone. Here the air was lovely, cool and soft, and the stars were crowding into the summer sky in their myriads. But his depression did not leave him, nor his loneliness. He longed for Falk with a great longing. He could not hold out against the boy for very much longer; but even then, were the quarrel made up, things would not now he the same. Falk did not need him any more. He had new life, new friends, new work.

"It's my nerves," thought Brandon. "I will go and see Puddifoot." It seemed to him that some one, and perhaps more than one, had followed him from the Cathedral. He turned sharply round as though he would catch somebody creeping upon him. He turned round and saw Samuel Hogg standing there.

"Evening, Archdeacon," said Hogg.

Brandon said, his voice shaking with anger: "What are you following me for?"

"Following you, Archdeacon?"

"Yes, following me. I have noticed it often lately. If you have anything to say to me write to me."

"Following you? Lord, no! What makes you think of such a thing, Archdeacon? Can't a feller enjoy the evenin' air on such a lovely night as this without being accused of following a gentleman?"

"You know that you are trying to annoy me." Brandon, had pulled himself up, but his hatred of that grinning face with its purple veins, its piercing eyes, was working strongly upon his nerves, so that his hands seemed to move towards it without his own impulsion. "You have been trying to annoy me for weeks now. I'll stand you no longer. If I have any more of this nuisance I'll put it into the hands of the police."

Hogg spat out complacently over the grass. "Now, that is an absurd thing," he said, smiling. "Because a man's tired and wants some air after his day's work he's accused of being a nuisance. It's a bit thick, that's what it is. Now, tell, Archdeacon, do you happen to have bought this 'ere town, because if so I should be glad to know it—and so would a number of others too."

"Very well, then," said Brandon, moving away. "If you won't go, I will."

"There's no need for temper that I can see," said Hogg. "No call for it at all, especially that we're a sort of relation now. Almost brothers, seeing as how your son has married my daughter."

Lower and lower! Lower and lower!

He was moving in a world now where figures, horrible, obscene and foul, could claim him, could touch him, had their right to follow him.

"You will get nothing from me," Brandon answered. "You are wasting your time."

"Wasting my time?" Hogg laughed. "Not me! I'm enjoying myself. I don't want anything from you except just to see you sometimes and have a little chat. That's quite enough for me! I've taken quite a liking to you, Archdeacon, which is as it should be between relations, and, often enough, it isn't so. I like to see a proud gentleman like yourself mixing with such as me. It's good for both of us, as you might say."

Brandon's anger—always dangerously uncontrolled—rose until it seemed to have the whole of his body in his grasp, swaying it, ebbing and flowing with swift powerful current through his heart into his brain. Now he could only see the flushed, taunting face, the little eyes....

But Hogg's hour was not yet. He suddenly touched his cap, smiling.

"Well, good evening, Archdeacon. We'll be meeting again,"—and he was gone.

As swiftly as the anger had flowed now it ebbed, leaving him trembling, shaking, that strange sharp pain cutting his brain, his heart seeming to leap into his head, to beat there like a drum, and to fall back with heavy thud into his chest again. He stood waiting for calm. He was humiliated, desperately, shamefully. He could not go on here; he must leave the place. Leave it? Be driven away by that scoundrel? Never! He would face them all and show them that he was above and beyond their power.

But the peace of the evening and the glory of the stars gradually stole into his heart. He had been wrong, terribly wrong. His pride, his conceit, had been destroying him. With a sudden flash of revelation he saw it. He had trusted in his own power, put himself on a level with the God whom he served. A rush of deep and sincere humility overwhelmed him. He bowed his head and prayed.

* * * * *

Some while later he turned up the path towards home. The whole sky now burnt with stars; fires were a dull glow across the soft gulf of grey, the gipsy fires. Once and again a distant voice could be heard singing. As he reached the corner of the Cathedral, and was about to turn up towards the Precincts, a strange sound reached his ears. He stood where he was and listened. At first he could not define what he heard—then suddenly he realised. Quite close to him a man was sobbing.

There is something about the sounds of a man's grief that is almost indecent. This sobbing was pitiful in its abandonment and in its effort to control and stifle.

Brandon, looking more closely, saw the dark shadow of a man's body pressed against the inside buttress of the corner of the Cathedral wall. The shadow crouched, the body all drawn together as though folding in upon itself to hide its own agony.

Brandon endeavoured to move softly up the path, but his step crunched on some twigs, and at the sharp noise the sobbing suddenly ceased. The figure turned.

It was Morris. The two men looked at one another for an instant, then Morris, still like a shadow, vanished swiftly into the dusk.



Chapter III

Saturday, June 19: The Ball



Joan was in her hedroom preparing for the Ball. It was now only half-past six and the Ball was not until half-past nine, but Mr. Mumphit, the be-curled, the be-scented young assistant from the hairdresser's in the High Street had paid his visit very early because he had so many other heads of so many other young ladies to dress in Polchester that evening. So Joan sat in front of the long looking-glass, a towel still over her shoulders, looking at herself in a state of ecstasy and delight.

It was wrong of her, perhaps, to feel so happy—she felt that deep in her consciousness; wrong, with all the trouble in the house, Falk gone in disgrace, her father unhappy, her mother so strange; but to-night she could not help herself. The excitement was spluttering and crackling all over the town, the wonderful week upon which the whole country was entering, the Ball, her own coming-out Ball, and the consciousness that He would be there, and, even though He did love another, would be sure to give her at least one dance; these things were all too strong for her—she was happy, happy, happy—her eyes danced, her toes danced, her very soul danced for sheer delirious joy. Had any one been behind her to look over her shoulder into the glass, he would have seen the reflection in that mirror of one of the prettiest children the wide world could show; especially childish she looked to-night with her dark hair piled high on her head, her eyes wide with wonder, her neck and shoulders so delicately white and soft. Behind her, on the bed, was the dress, on the dingy carpet a pair of shoes of silver tissue, the loveliest things she had ever had. They were reflected in the mirror, little blobs of silver, and as she saw them the colour mounted still higher in her cheeks. She had no right to them; she had not paid for them. They were the first things that she had ever, in all her life, bought on credit. Neither her father nor her mother knew anything about them, but she had seen them in Harriott's shop-window and had simply not been able to resist them.

If, after all, she was to dance with Him, that made anything right. Were she sent to prison because she could not pay for them it would not matter. She had done the only possible thing.

And so she looked into the mirror and saw the dark glitter in her hair and the red in her cheeks and the whiteness of her shoulders and the silver blobs of the little shoes, and she was happy—happy with an almost fearful ecstasy.

* * * * *

Mrs. Brandon also was in her bedroom. She was sitting on a high stiff- backed chair, staring in front of her. She had been sitting there now for a long time without making any movement at all. She might have been a dead woman. Her thin hands, with the sharply marked blue veins, were clasped tightly on her lap. She was feeding, feverishly, eagerly feeding upon the thought of Morris.

She would see him that evening, they would talk together, dance together, their hands would burn as they touched; they would say very little to one another; they would long, agonize for one another, to be alone together, to be far, far away from everybody, and they would be desperately unhappy.

She wondered, in her strange kind of mouse-in-the-trap trance, about that unhappiness. Was there to be no happiness, for her anywhere? Was she always to want more than she got, was all this passion now too late? Was it real at all? Was it not a fever, a phantom, a hallucination? Did she see Morris? Did she not rather see something that she must seize to slake her burning feverish thirst? For one moment she had known happiness, when her arms had gone around him and she had been able to console and comfort him. But comfort him for how long? Was he not as unhappy as she, and would they not always be unhappy? Was he not weighed down by the sin that he had committed, that he, as he thought, had caused her to commit?...At that she sprang up from the chair and paced the room, murmuring aloud: "No, no, I did it. My sin, not his. I will care for him, watch over him—watch over him, care for him. He must be glad."...She sank down by the bed, burying her face in her hands.

* * * * *

Brandon was in his study finishing his letters. But behind his application to the notes that he was writing his brain was moving like an animal steathily investigating an unlighted house. He was thinking of his wife— and of himself. Even as he was writing "And therefore it seems to me, my dear Ryle, that with regard to the actual hour of the service, eight o'clock——" his inner consciousness was whispering to him. "How you miss Falk! How lonely the house seems without him! You thought you could get along without love, didn't you? or, at least, you were not aware that it played any very great part in your life. But now that the one person whom you most sincerely loved is gone, you see that it was not to be so simply taken for granted, do you not? Love must be worked for, sacrificed for, cared for, nourished and cherished. You want some one to cherish now, and you are surprised that you should so want...yes, there is your wife— Amy...Amy.... You had taken her also for granted. But she is still with you. There is time."

His wife was illuminated with tenderness. He put down his pen and stared in front of him. What he wanted and what she wanted was a holiday. They had been too long here in this place. That was what he needed, that was the explanation of his headaches, of his tempers, of his obsession about Ronder.

As soon as this Pybus St. Anthony affair was settled he would take his wife abroad. Just the two of them. Another honeymoon after all these years. Greece, Italy...and who knows? Perhaps he would see Falk on his way through London returning...Falk....

He had forgotten his letters, staring in front of him, tapping the table with his pen.

There was a knock on the door. The maid said, "A lady to see you, sir. She says it's important"—and, before he could ask her name, some one else was in the room with him and the door was closed behind her.

He was puzzled for a moment as to her identity, a rather seedy, down-at- heels-looking woman. She was wearing a rather crumpled white cotton dress. She carried a pink parasol, and on her head was a large straw hat overburdened with bright red roses. Ah, yes! Of course! Miss Milton—who was the Librarian. Shabby she looked. Come down in the world. He had always disliked her. He resented now the way in which she had almost forced her way into his room.

She looked across at him through her funny half-closed eyes.

"I beg your pardon, Archdeacon Brandon," she said, "for entering like this at what must be, I fear, an unseemly time. My only excuse must be the urgency of my business."

"I am very sorry, Miss Milton," he said sternly; "it is quite impossible for me to see you just now on any business whatever. If you will make an appointment with me in writing, I will see what can be done."

At the sound of his voice her eyes closed still further. "I'm very sorry, Archdeacon," she said. "I think you would do well to listen to what I am going to tell you."

He raised his head and looked at her. At those words of hers he had once again the sensation of being pushed down by strong heavy hands into some deep mire where he must have company with filthy crawling animals—Hogg, Davray, and now this woman....

"What do you mean?" he asked, disgust thickening his voice. "What can you have to tell me?"

She smiled. She crossed the floor and came close to his desk. Her fingers were on the shabby bag that hung over her arm.

"I was greatly puzzled," she said, "as to what was the right thing to do. I am a good and honest woman, Archdeacon, although I was ejected from my position most wrongfully by those that ought to have known better. I have come down in the world through no fault of my own, and there are some who should be ashamed in their hearts of the way they've treated me. However, it's not of them I've to speak to-day." She paused.

Brandon drew back into his chair. "Please tell me, Miss Milton, your business as soon as possible. I have much to do."

"I will." She breathed hard and continued. "Certain information was placed in my hands, and I found it very difficult to decide on the justice of my course. After some hesitation I went to Canon Ronder, knowing him to be a just man."

At the name "Ronder" the Archdeacon's lips moved, but he said nothing.

"I showed him the information I had obtained. I asked him what I should do. He gave me advice which I followed."

"He advised you to come to me."

Miss Milton saw at once that a lie here would serve her well. "He advised me to come to you and give you this letter which in the true sense of the word belongs to you."

She fumbled with her bag, opened it, took out a piece of paper.

"I must tell you," she continued, her eyes never for an instant leaving the Archdeacon's face, "that this letter came into my hands by an accident. I was in Mr. Morris's house at the time and the letter was delivered to me by mistake."

"Mr. Morris?" Brandon repeated. "What has he to do with this affair?"

Miss Milton rubbed her gloved hands together. "Mrs. Brandon," she said, "has been very friendly with Mr. Morris for a long time past. The whole town has been talking of it."

The clock suddenly began to strike the hour. No word was spoken.

Then Brandon said very quietly, "Leave this house, Miss Milton, and never enter it again. If I have any further trouble with you, the police will be informed."

"Before I go, Archdeacon," said Miss Milton, also very quietly, "you should see this letter. I can assure you that I have not come here for mere words. I have my conscience to satisfy like any other person. I am not asking for anything in return for this information, although I should be perfectly justified in such an action, considering how monstrously I have been treated. I give you this letter and you can destroy it at once. My conscience will be satisfied. If, on the other hand, you don't read it —well, there are others in the town who must see it."

He took the letter from her.

DEAREST—I am sending this by a safe hand to tell you that I cannot possibly get down to-night. I am so sorry and most dreadfully disappointed, but I will explain everything when we meet to-morrow. This is to prevent your waiting on when I'm not coming.

It was in his wife's handwriting.

"Dearest...cannot possibly get down tonight...." In his wife's handwriting. Certainly. Yes. His wife's. And Ronder had seen it.

He looked across at Miss Milton. "This is not my wife's handwriting," he said. "You realise, I hope, in what a serious matter you have become involved—by your hasty action," he added.

"Not hasty," she said, moistening her lips with her tongue. "Not hasty, Archdeacon. I have taken much thought. I don't know if I have already told you that I took the letter myself at the door from the hand of your own maid. She has been to the Library with books. She is well known to me."

He must exercise enormous, superhuman, self-control. That was his only thought. The tide of anger was rising in him so terribly that it pressed against the skin of his forehead, drawn tight, and threatened to split it. What he wanted to do was to rise and assault the woman standing in front of him. His hands longed to take her! They seemed to have life and volition of their own and to move across the table of their own accord.

He was aware, too, once more, of some huge plot developing around him, some supernatural plot in which all the elements too were involved—earth, sun and sky, and also every one in the town, down to the smallest child there.

He seemed to see behind him, just out of his sight, a tall massive figure directing the plot, a figure something like himself, only with a heavy black beard, cloudy, without form....

They would catch him in their plot as in a net, but he would escape them, and he would escape them by wonderful calm, and self-control, and the absence of all emotion.

So that, although his voice shook a little, it was quietly that he repeated:

"This is not in my wife's handwriting. You know the penalties for forgery." Then, looking her full in the face, he added, "Penal servitude."

She smiled back at him.

"I am sure, Archdeacon, that all I require is a full investigation. These wickednesses are going on in this town, and those principally concerned should know. I have only done what I consider my duty."

Her eyes lingered on his face. She savoured now during these moments the revenge for which, in all these months, she had ceaselessly longed. He had moved but little, he had not raised his voice, but, watching his face, she had seen the agony pass, like an entering guest, behind his eyes. That guest would remain. She was satisfied.

"I have done my duty, Archdeacon, and now I will wish you good-evening."

She gave a little bow and retired from the room, softly closing the door behind her.

He sat there, looking at the letter....

* * * * *

The Assembly Rooms seemed to move like a ship on a sunset sea. Hanging from the ceiling were the two great silver candelabra, in some ways the most famous treasure that the town possessed. Fitted now with gas, they were nevertheless so shaded that the light was soft and mellow. Round the room, beneath the portraits of the town's celebrities in their heavy gold frames, the lights were hidden with shields of gold. The walls were ivory white. From the Minstrels' Gallery flags with the arms of the Town, of the Cathedral, of the St. Leath family fluttered once and again faintly. In the Minstrels' Gallery the band was playing just as it had played a hundred years ago. The shining floor was covered with moving figures. Every one was there. Under the Gallery, surveying the world like Boadicea her faithful Britons, was Lady St. Leath, her white hair piled high above her pink baby face, that had the inquiring haughty expression of a cockatoo wondering whether it is being offered a lump of sugar or an insult. On either side of her sat two of her daughters, Lady Rose and Lady Mary, plain and patient.

Near her, in a complacent chattering row, were some of the more important of the Cathedral and County set. There were the Marriotts from Maple Durham, fat, sixty, and amiable; old Colonel Wotherston, who had fought in the Crimea; Sir Henry Byles with his large purple nose; little Major Garnet, the kindest bachelor in the County; the Marquesas, who had more pedigree than pennies; Mrs. Sampson in bright lilac, and an especially bad attack of neuralgia; Mrs. Combermere, sheathed in cloth of gold and very jolly; Mrs. Ryle, humble in grey silk; Ellen Stiles in cherry colour; Mrs. Trudon, Mrs. Forrester and Mrs. D'Arcy, their chins nearly touching over eager confidences; Dr. Puddifoot, still breathless from his last dance; Bentinick-Major, tapping with his patent-leather toe the floor, eager to be at it again; Branston the Mayor and Mrs. Branston, uncomfortable in a kind of dog-collar of diamonds; Mrs. Preston, searching for nobility; Canon Martin; Dennison, the head-master of the School; and many others.

It was just then a Polka, and the tune was so alluring, so entrancing, that the whole world rose and fell with its rhythm.

And where was Joan? Joan was dancing with the Reverend Rex Forsyth, the proposed incumbent of Pybus St. Anthony. Had any one told her a week ago that she would dance with the elegant Mr. Forsyth before a gathering of all the most notable people of Polchester and Southern Glebeshire, and would so dance without a tremor, she would have derided her informant. But what cannot excitement and happiness do?

She knew that she was looking nice, she knew that she was dancing as well as any one else in the room—and Johnny St. Leath had asked her for two dances and then wanted more, and wanted these with the beautiful Claire Daubeney, all radiant in silver, standing close beside him. What, then, could all the Forsyths in the world matter? Nevertheless he was elegant. Very smart indeed. Rather like a handsome young horse, groomed for a show. His voice had a little neigh in it; as he talked over her shoulder he gave a little whinny of pleasure. She found it very difficult to think of him as a clergyman at all.

You should SEE me DANCE the POLKA, Ta-ram-te-tum-te-TA.

Yes, she should. And he should. And he was very pleasant when he did not talk.

"You dance—very well—Miss Brandon."

"Thank you. This is my first Ball."

"Who would—think that? Ta-ram-te-tum-te-TA.... Jolly tu-une!"

She caught glimpses of every one as they went round. Mrs. Combermere's cloth of gold, Lady St. Leath's white hair. Poor Lady Mary—such a pity that they could not do something for her complexion. Spotty. Joan liked her. She did much good to the poor in Seatown, and it must be agony to her, poor thing, to go down there, because she was so terribly shy. Her next dance was with Johnny. She called him Johnny. And why should she not, secretly to herself? Ah, there was mother, all alone. And there was Mr. Morris coming up to speak to her. Kind of him. But he was a kind man. She liked him. Very shy, though. All the nicest people seemed to be shy—except Johnny, who wasn't shy at all.

The music stopped and, breathless, they stayed for a moment before finding two chairs. Now was coming the time that she so greatly disliked. Whatever to say to Mr. Forsyth?

They sat down in the long passage outside the ballroom. The floor ran like a ribbon from under their feet into dim shining distance. Or rather, Joan thought, it was like a stream, and on either side the dancers were sitting, dabbling their toes and looking self-conscious.

"Do you like it where you are?" Joan asked of the shining black silk waistcoat that gleamed beside her.

"Oh, you know...." neighed Mr. Forsyth. "It's all right, you know. The old Bishop's kind enough."

"Bishop Clematis?" said Joan.

"Yes. There ain't enough to do, you know. But I don't expect I'll be there long. No, I don't.... Pity poor Morrison at Pybus dying like that."

Joan of course at once understood the allusion. She also understood that Mr. Forsyth was begging her to bestow upon him any little piece of news that she might have obtained. But that seemed to her mean—spying—spying on her own father. So she only said:

"You're very fond of riding, aren't you?"

"Love it," said Mr. Forsyth, whinnying so exactly like a happy pony that Joan jumped. "Don't you?"

"I've never been on horseback in my life," said Joan. "I'd like to try."

"Never in your life?" Mr. Forsyth stared. "Why, I was on a pony before I was three. Fact. Good for a clergyman, riding——"

"I think it's nearly time for the next dance," said Joan. "Would you kindly take me back to my mother?"

She was conscious, as they plunged down-stream, of all the burning glances. She held her head high. Her eyes flashed. She was going to dance with Johnny, and they could look as much as they liked.

Mr. Forsyth delivered her to her mother and went cantering off. Joan sat down, smoothed her dress and stared at the vast shiny lake of amber in which the silver candelabra were reflected like little islands. She looked at her mother and was suddenly sorry for her. It must be dull, when you were as old as mother, coming to these dances—and especially when you had so few friends. Her mother had never made many friends.

"Wasn't that Mr. Morris who was talking to you just now?"

"Yes, dear."

"I like him. He looks kind."

"Yes, dear."

"And where's father?"

"Over there, talking to Lady St. Leath."

She looked across, and there he was, so big and tall and fine, so splendid in his grand clothes. Her heart swelled with pride.

"Isn't he splendid, mother, dear?"

"Who?"

"Father!"

"Splendid?"

"Yes; doesn't he look splendid to-night? Better looking than all the rest of the room put together?" (Johnny wasn't good-looking. Better than good-looking.)

"Oh—look splendid. Yes. He's a very handsome man."

Joan felt once again that little chill with which she was so often familiar when she talked with her mother—a sudden withdrawal of sympathy, a pushing Joan away with her hand.

But never mind—there was the music again, and here, oh, here, was Johnny! Someone had once called him Tubby in her hearing, and how indignant she had been! He was perhaps a little on the fat side, but strong with it.... She went off with him. The waltz began.

She sank into sweet delicious waters—waters that rocked and cradled her, hugged her and caressed her. She was conscious of his arm. She did not speak nor did he. Years of utter happiness passed....

He did not take her, as Mr. Forsyth had done, into the public glare of the passage, but up a crooked staircase behind the Minstrels' Gallery into a little room, cool and shaded, where, in easy-chairs, they were quite alone.

He was shy, fingering his gloves. She said (just to make conversation):

"How beautiful Miss Daubeney is looking!"

"Do you think so?" said Johnny. "I don't. I'm sick of that girl. She's the most awful bore. Mother's always shoving her at my head. She's been staying with us for months. She wants me to marry her because she's rich. But we've got plenty, and I wouldn't marry her anyway, not if we hadn't a penny. Because she's a bore, and because"—his voice became suddenly loud and commanding—"I'm going to marry you."

Something—some lovely bird of Paradise, some splendid coloured breeze, some carpet of magic pattern—came and swung Joan up to a high tree loaded with golden apples. There she swung—singing her heart out. Johnny's voice came up to her.

"Because I'm going to marry you."

"What?" she called down to him.

"I'm going to marry you. I knew it from the very first second I saw you, that day after Cathedral—from the very first moment I knew it. I wanted to ask you right away at once, but I thought I'd do the thing properly, so I went away, and I've been in Paris and Rome and all over the place, and I've thought of you the whole time—every minute. Then mother made a fuss about this Daubeney girl—my not being here and all that—so I thought I'd come home and tell you I was going to marry you."

"Oh, but you can't." Joan swung down from her appletree. "You and me? Why, what would your mother say?"

"It isn't a case of would but will" Johnny said. "Mother will be very angry—and for a considerable time. But that makes no difference. Mother's mother and I'm myself."

"It's impossible," said Joan quickly, "from every point of view. Do you know what my brother has done? I'm proud of Falk and love him; but you're Lord St. Leath, and Falk has married the daughter of Hogg, the man who keeps a public-house down in Seatown."

"I heard of that," said Johnny. "But what does that matter? Do you know what I did last year? I crossed the Atlantic as a stoker in a Cunard boat. Mother never knew until I got back, and wasn't she furious! But the world's changing. There isn't going to be any class difference soon—none at all. You take my word. Look at the Americans! They're the people! We'll be like them one day.... But what's all this?" he suddenly said. "I'm going to marry you and you're going to marry me. You love me, don't you?"

"Yes," said Joan faintly.

"Well, then. I knew you did. I'm going to kiss you." He put his arms around her and kissed her very gently.

"Oh, how I love you!" he said, "and how good I'll be to you!"

"But we must be practical," said Joan wildly. "How can we marry? Everything's against it. I've no money. I'm nobody. Your mother——"

"Now you just leave my mother alone. Leave me to manage her—I know all about that——"

"I won't be engaged to you," Joan said firmly, "not for ages and ages—not for a year anyway."

"That's all right," said Johnny indifferently. "You can settle it any way you please—but no one's going to marry you but me, and no one's going to marry me but you."

He would have kissed her again, but Mrs. Preston and a young man came in.

"Now you shall come and speak to my mother," he said to her as they went out. "There's nothing to be afraid of. Just say 'Bo' to her as you would to a goose, and she'll answer all right."

"You won't say anything——" began Joan.

"About us? All right. That's a secret for the present; but we shall meet every day, and if there's a day we don't meet you've got to write. Do you agree?"

Whether she agreed or no was uncertain, because they were now in a cloud of people, and, a moment later, were face to face with the old Countess.

She was pleased, it at once appeared. She was in a gracious mood; people had been pleasant enough—that is, they had been obsequious and flattering. Also her digestion was behaving properly; those new pills that old Puddifoot had given her were excellent. She therefore received Joan very graciously, congratulated her on her appearance, and asked her where her elder sister was. When Joan explained that she had no sister Lady St. Leath appeared vexed with her, as though it had been a piece of obvious impertinence on her part not to produce a sister instantly when she had asked for one. However, Lady Mary was kind and friendly and made Joan sit beside her for a little. Joan thought, "I'd like to have you for a sister one day, if—if—ever——" and allowed her thoughts to go no farther.

Thence she passed into the company of Mrs. Combermere and Ellen Stiles. It seemd to her—but it was probably her fancy—that as she came to them they were discussing something that was not for her ears. It seemed to her that they swiftly changed the conversation and greeted her with quite an unusual warmth of affection. For the first time that evening a sudden little chill of foreboding, whence she knew not, seemed to touch her and shade, for an instant, her marvellous happiness.

Mrs. Combermere was very sweet to her indeed, quite as though she had been, but now, recovering from an alarming illness. Her bass voice, strong thick hands and stiff wiry hair went so incongruously with her cloth of gold that Joan could not help smiling.

"You look very happy, my dear," Mrs. Combermere said.

"Of course I am," said Joan. "How can I help it, my first Ball?"

Mrs. Combermere kicked her trailing garments with her foot, just like a dame in a pantomime. "Well, enjoy yourself as long as you can. You're looking very pretty. The prettiest girl in the room. I've just been saying so to Ellen—haven't I, Ellen?"

Ellen Stiles was at that moment making herself agreeable to the Mayoress, who was sitting lonely and uncomfortable (weighed down with longing for sleep) on a little gilt chair.

"I was just saying to Mrs. Branston," Miss Stiles said, turning round, "that the time one has to be careful with children after whooping-cough is when they seem practically well. Her little boy has just been ill with it, and she says he's recovered; but that's the time, as I tell her, when nine out of ten children die—just when you think you're safe."

"Oh dear," said Mrs. Branston, turning towards them her full anxious eyes. "You do alarm me, Miss Stiles! And I've been letting Tommy quite loose, as you may say, these last few days—with his appetite back and all, there seemed no danger."

"Well, if you find him feverish when you get home tonight," said Ellen, "don't he surprised. All the excitement of the Jubilee too will be very bad for him."

At that moment Canon Ronder came up. Joan looked and at once, at the sight of the round gleaming spectacles, the smiling mouth, the full cheeks puffed out as though he were blowing perpetual bubbles for his own amusement, felt her old instinct of repulsion. This man was her father's enemy, and so hers. All the town knew now that he was trying to ruin her father so that he might take his place, that he laughed at him and mocked him.

So fierce did she feel that she could have scratched his cheeks. He was smiling at them all, and at once was engaged in a wordy duel with Mrs. Combermere and Miss Stiles. They liked him; every one in the town liked him. She heard his praises sung by every one. Well, she would never sing them. She hated him.

And now he was actually speaking to her. He had the impertinence to ask her for a dance.

"I'm afraid I'm engaged for the next and for the one after that, Canon Ronder," she said.

"Well, later on then," he said, smiling. "What about an extra?"

Her dark eyes scorned him.

"We are going home early," she said. She pretended to examine her programme. "I'm afraid I have not one before we go."

She spoke as coldly as she dared. She felt the eyes of Mrs. Combermere and Ellen Stiles upon her. How stupid of her! She had shown them what her feelings were, and now they would chatter the more and laugh about her fighting her father's battles. Why had she not shown her indifference, her complete indifference?

He was smiling still—not discomfited by her rudeness. He said something— something polite and outrageously kind—and then young Charles D'Arcy came up to carry her off for the Lancers.

* * * * *

An hour later her cup of happiness was completely filled. She had danced, during that hour, four times with Johnny; every one must be talking. Lady St. Leath must be furious (she did not know that Boadicea had been playing whist with old Colonel Wotherston and Sir Henry Byles for the last ever so long).

She would perhaps never have such an hour in all her life again. This thing that he so wildly proposed was impossible—utterly, completely impossible; but what was not impossible, what was indeed certain and sure and beyond any sort of question, was that she loved Johnny St. Leath with all her heart and soul, and would so love him until the day of her death. Life could never be purposeless nor mean nor empty for her again, while she had that treasure to carry about with her in her heart. Meanwhile she could not look at him and doubt but that, for the moment at any rate, he loved her—and there was something simple and direct about Johnny as there was about his dog Andrew, that made his words, few and clumsy though they might be, most strangely convincing.

So, almost dizzy with happiness, she climbed the stair behind the Gallery and thought that she would escape for a moment into the little room where Johnny had proposed to her, and sit there and grow calm. She looked in. Some one was there. A man sitting by himself and staring in front of him. She saw at once that he was in some great trouble. His hands were clenched, his face puckered and set with pain. Then she saw that it was her father.

He did not move; he might have been a block of stone shining in the dimness. Terrified, she stood, herself not moving. Then she came forward. She put her hand on his shoulder.

"Oh, father—father, what is it?" She felt his body trembling beneath her touch—he, the proudest, finest man in the country. She put her arm round his neck. She kissed him. His forehead was damp with sweat. His body was shaking from head to foot. She kissed him again and again, kneeling beside him.

Then she remembered where they were. Some one might come. No one must see him like that.

She whispered to him, took his hands between hers.

"Let's go home, Joan," he said. "I want to go home."

She put her arm through his, and together they went down the little stairs.



Chapter IV

Sunday, June 20: In the Bedroom



Brandon had been talking to the Precentor at the far end of the ballroom, when suddenly Ronder had appeared in their midst. Appeared the only word! And Brandon, armoured, he had thought, for every terror that that night might bring to him, had been suddenly seized with the lust of murder. A lust as dominating as any other, that swept upon him in a hot flaming tide, lapped him from head to foot. It was no matter, this time, of words, of senses, of thoughts, but of his possession by some other man who filled his brain, his eyes, his mouth, his stomach, his heart; one second more and he would have flung himself upon that smiling face, those rounded limbs; he would have caught that white throat and squeezed it— squeezed...squeezed....

The room literally swam in a tide of impulse that carried him against Ronder's body and left him there, breast beating against breast....

He turned without a word and almost ran from the place. He passed through the passages, seeing no one, conscious of neither voices nor eyes, climbing stairs that he did not feel, sheltering in that lonely little room, sitting there, his hands to his face, shuddering. The lust slowly withdrew from him, leaving him icy cold. Then he lifted his eyes and saw his daughter and clung to her—as just then he would have clung to anybody—for safety.

Had it come to this then, that he was mad? All that night, lying on his bed, he surveyed himself. That was the way that men murdered. No longer could he claim control or mastery of his body. God had deserted him and given him over to devils.

His son, his wife, and now God. His loneliness was terrible. And he could not think. He must think about this letter and what he should do. He could not think at all. He was given over to devils.

After Matins in the Cathedral next day one thought came to him. He would go and see the Bishop. The Bishop had come in from Carpledon for the Jubilee celebrations and was staying at the Deanery. Brandon spoke to him for a moment after Matins and asked him whether he might see him for half an hour in the afternoon on a matter of great urgency. The Bishop asked him to come at three o'clock.

Seated in the Dean's library, with its old-fashioned cosiness—its book- shelves and the familiar books, the cases, between the high windows, of his precious butterflies—Brandon felt, for the first time for many days, a certain calm descend upon him. The Bishop, looking very frail and small in the big arm-chair, received him with so warm an affection that he felt, in spite of his own age, like the old man's son.

"My lord," he began with difficulty, moving his big limbs in his chair like a restless schoolboy, "it isn't easy for me to come to-day. There's no one in the world I could speak to except yourself. I find it difficult even to do that."

"My son," said the Bishop gently, "I am a very, very old man. I cannot have many more months to live. When one is as near to death as I am, one loves everything and everybody, because one is going so soon. You needn't be afraid."

And in his heart he must have wondered at the change in this man who, through so many years now, had come to him with so much self-confidence and assurance.

"I have had much trouble lately," Brandon went on. "But I would not have bothered you with that, knowing as I do all that you have to consider just now, were it not that for the first time in my life I seem to have lost control and to be heading toward some great disaster that may bring scandal not only on myself but on the Church as well."

"Tell me your trouble," said the Bishop.

"Nine months ago I seemed to be at the very height of my powers, my happiness, my usefulness." Brandon paused. Was it really only nine months back, that other time? "I had no troubles. I was confident in myself, my health was good, my family were happy. I seemed to have many friends.... Then suddenly everything changed. I don't want to seem false, my lord, in anything that I may say, but it was literally as though in the course of a night all my happiness forsook me.

"It began with my boy being sent down from Oxford. I have only one boy, as I think your lordship knows. He was—he is, in spite of what has happened —very dear to me." Brandon paused.

"Yes, I know," said the Bishop.

"After that everything began to go wrong. Little things, little tiny things—one after another. Some one came to this town who almost at once seemed to put himself into opposition to me." Brandon paused once more.

The Bishop said again: "Yes, I know."

"At first," Brandon went on, "I didn't realise this. I was preoccupied with my work. It had never, at any time in my life, seemed to me healthy to consider about other people's minds, what they were thinking or imagining. There is quite enough work to do in the world without that. But soon I was forced to consider this man's opposition to me. It came before me in a thousand little ways. The attitude of the Chapter changed to me— especially noticeable at one of the Chapter meetings. I don't want to make my story so long, my lord, that it will tire you. To cut it short—a day came when my boy ran off to London with a town girl, the daughter of the landlord of one of the more disreputable public-houses. That was a terrible, devastating blow to me. I have quite literally not been the same man since. I was determined not to allow it to turn me from my proper work. I still loved the boy; he had not behaved dishonourably to the girl. He has now married her and is earning his living in London. If that had been the only blow——" He stopped, cleared his throat, and, turning excitedly towards the Bishop, almost shouted:

"But it is not! It is not, my lord! My enemy has never ceased his plots for one instant. It was he who advised my boy to run off with this girl. He has turned the whole town against me; they laugh at me and mock me! And now he...now he..." He could not for a moment find breath. He exercised an impulse of almost superhuman self-control, bringing his body visibly back into bounds again. He went on more quietly:

"We are in opposite camps over this matter of the Pybus living—we are in opposition over almost every question that arises here. He is an able man. I must do him that justice. He can plot...he can scheme...whereas I..." Brandon beat his hands desperately on his knees.

"It is not only this man!" he cried, "not only this! It is as though there were some larger conspiracy, something from Heaven itself. God has turned His face away from me when I have served Him faithfully all my days. No one has served Him more whole-heartedly than I. He has been my only thought, His glory my only purpose. Nine months ago I had health, I had friends, I had honour. I had my family—now my health is going, my friends have forsaken me, I am mocked at by the lowest men in the town, my son has left me, my—my..."

He broke off, bending his face in his hands.

The Bishop said: "My dear friend, you are not alone in this. We have all been tried, like this—tested——"

"Tested!" Brandon broke out. "Why should I be tested? What have I done in all my life that is not acceptable to God? What sin have I committed! What disloyalty have I shown? But there is something more that I must tell you, my lord—the reason why I have come to you to-day. Canon Ronder and I—you must have known of whom I have been speaking—had a violent quarrel one afternoon on the way home after luncheon with you at Carpledon. This quarrel became, in one way or another, the town's property. Ronder affected to like me, but it was impossible now for him to hide his real intentions towards me. This thing began to be an obsession with me. I tried to prevent this. I knew what the danger of such obsessions can be. But there was something else. My wife—" he paused—went on. "My wife and I, my lord, have lived together in perfect happiness for twenty years. At least it had seemed to me to be perfect happiness. She began to behave strangely. She was not herself. Undoubtedly the affair of our son disturbed her desperately. She seemed to avoid me, to escape from me when she could. This, coming with my other troubles, made me feel as though I were in some horrible dream, as though the very furniture of our home and the appearance of the streets were changing. I began to be afraid sometimes that I might be going mad. I have had bad headaches that have made it difficult for me to think. Then, only last night, a woman brought me a letter. I wish you most earnestly to believe, my lord, that I believe my wife to be absolutely loyal to me—loyal in every possible sense of the word. The letter purported to be in her handwriting. And in this matter also Canon Ronder had had some hand. The woman admitted that she had been first to Canon Ronder and that he had advised her to bring it to me."

The Bishop made a movement.

"You will, of course, say nothing of this, my lord, to Canon Ronder. I have come privately to ask your prayers for me and to have your counsel. I am making no complaint against Canon Ronder. I must see this thing through by myself. But last night, when my mind was filled with this letter, I found myself suddenly next to Canon Ronder, and I had a murderous impulse that was so fierce and sudden in its power that I—" he broke off, shuddering. Then cried, suddenly stretching out his hands:

"Oh, my lord, pray for me, pray for me! Help me! I don't know what I do—I am given over to the powers of Hell!"

A long silence followed. Then the Bishop said:

"You have asked me to say nothing to Canon Render, and of course I must respect your confidence. But the first thing that I would say to you is that I think that what you feared has happened—that you have allowed this thought of him to become an obsession to you. The ways of God are mysterious and past our finding out; but all of us, in our lives, have known that time when everything was suddenly turned against us—our work, those whom we love, our health, even our belief in God Himself. My dear, dear friend, I myself have known that several times in my own life. Once, when I was a young man, I lost an appointment on which my whole heart was set, and lost it, as it seemed, through an extreme injustice. It turned out afterwards that my losing that was one of the most fortunate things for me. Once my dear wife and I seemed to lose all our love for one another, and I was assailed with most desperate temptation—and the end of that was that we loved and understood one another as we had never done before. Once—and this was the most terrible period of my life, and it continued over a long time—I lost, as it seemed, completely all my faith in God. I came out of that believing only in the beauty of Christ's life, clinging to that, and saying to myself, 'Such a friend have I—then life is not all lost to me'—and slowly, gradually, I came back into touch with Him and knew Him as I had never known Him before, and, through Him, once again God the Father. And now, even in my old age, temptation is still with me. I long to die. I am tempted often to look upon men and women as shadows that have no longer any connection with me. I am very weak and feeble and I wish to sleep.... But the love of God continues, and through Jesus Christ, the love of men. It is the only truth—love of God, love of man—the rest is fantasy and unreality. Look up, my son, bear this with patience. God is standing at your shoulder and will be with you to the end. This is training for you. To show you, perhaps, that all through life you have missed the most important thing. You are learning through this trouble your need of others, your need to love them, and that they should love you—the only lesson worth learning in life...."

The Bishop came over to Brandon and put his hand on his head. Strange peace come into Brandon's heart, not from the old man's words, but from the contact with him, the touch of his thin trembling hand. The room was filled with peace. Ronder was suddenly of little importance. The Cathedral faded. For a time he rested.

For the rest of that day, until evening, that peace stayed with him. With it still in his heart he came, late that night, into their bedroom. Mrs. Brandon was in bed, awake, staring in front of her, not moving. He sat down in the chair beside the bed, stretched out his hand, and took hers.

"Amy, dear," he said, "I want us to have a little talk."

Her little hand lay still and hot in his large cool one.

"I've been very unhappy," he went on with difficulty, "lately about you—I have seen that you yourself are not happy. I want you to be. I will do anything that is in my power to make you so!"

"You would not," she said, without looking at him, "have troubled to think of me had not your own private affairs gone wrong and—had not Falk left us!"

The sound of her hostility irritated him against his will; he beat the irritation down. He felt suddenly very tired, quite exhausted. He had an almost irresistible temptation to go down into his dressing-room, lie on his sofa there, and go instantly to sleep.

"That's not quite fair, Amy," he said. "But we won't dispute about that. I want to know why, after our being happy for twenty years, something now has come in between us or seems to have done so; I want to clear that away if I can, so that we can be as we were before."

Be as they were before! At the strange, ludicrous irony of that phrase she turned on her elbow and looked at him, stared at him as though she could not see enough of him.

"Why do you think that there is anything the matter?" she asked softly, almost gently.

"Why, of course I can see," he said, holding her hand more tightly as though the sudden gentleness in her voice had touched him. "When one has lived with some one a long time," he went on rather awkwardly, "one notices things. Of course I've seen that you were not happy. And Falk leaving us in that way must have made you very miserable. It made me miserable too," he added, suddenly stroking her hand a little.

She could not bear that and very quietly withdrew her hand.

"Did it really hurt you, Falk's going?" she asked, still staring at him.

"Hurt me?" he cried, staring back at her in utter astonishment. "Hurt me? Why—why——"

"Then why," she went on, "didn't you go up to London after him?"

The question was so entirely unexpected that he could only repeat:

"Why?..."

"Oh, well, it doesn't matter now," she said, wearily turning away.

"Perhaps I did wrong. I think perhaps I've done wrong in many ways during these last years. I am seeing many things for the first time. The truth is I have been so absorbed in my work that I've thought of nothing else. I took it too much for granted that you were happy because I was happy. And now I want to make it right. I do indeed, Amy. Tell me what's the matter."

She said nothing. He waited for a long time. Her immobility always angered him. He said at last more impatiently.

"Please tell me, Amy, what you have against me."

"I have nothing against you."

"Then why are things wrong between us?"

"Are things wrong?"

"You know they are—ever since that morning when you wouldn't come to Holy Communion."

"I was tired that morning."

"It is more than tiredness," he said, with sudden impatience, beating upon the counterpane with his fist. "Amy—you're not behaving fairly. You must talk to me. I insist on it."

She turned once more towards him.

"What is it you want me to say?"

"Why you're unhappy."

"But if I am not unhappy?"

"You are."

"But suppose I say that I am not?"

"You are. You are. You are!" he shouted at her.

"Very well, then, I am."

"Why are you?"

"Who is happy really? At any rate for more than a moment. Only very thoughtless and silly people."

"You're putting me off." He took her hand again. "I'm to blame, Amy—to blame in many ways. But people are talking."

She snatched her hand away.

"People talking? Who?...But as though that mattered."

"It does matter. It has gone far—much farther than I thought."

She looked at him then, quickly, and turned her face away again.

"Who's talking? And what are they saying?"

"They are saying——" He broke off. What were they saying? Until the arrival of that horrible letter he had not realised that they were saying anything at all.

"Don't think for a single moment, Amy, that I pay the slightest attention to any of their talk. I would not have bothered you with any of this had it not been for something else—of which I'll speak in a moment. If everything is right between us—between you and me—then it doesn't matter if the whole world talks until it's blue in the face."

"Leave it alone, then," she said. "Let them talk."

Her indifference stung him. She didn't care, then, whether things were right between himself and her or no? It was the same to her. She cared so little for him.... That sudden realisation struck him so sharply that it was as though some one had hit him in the back. For so many years he had taken it for granted...taken something for granted that was not to be so taken. Very dimly some one was approaching him—that dark, misty, gigantic figure—blotting out the light from the windows. That figure was becoming day by day more closely his companion.

Looking at her now more intently, and with a new urgency, he said:

"Some one brought me a letter, Amy. They said it was a letter of yours."

She did not move nor stir. Then, after a long silence, she said, "Let me see it."

He felt in his pocket and produced it. She stretched out her hand and took it. She read it through slowly. "You think that I wrote this?" she asked.

"No, I know that you did not."

"To whom was it supposed to be written?"

"To 'Morris of St. James'."

She nodded her head. "Ah, yes. We're friends. That's why they chose him. Of course it's a forgery," she added—"a very clever one."

"What I don't understand," he said eagerly, at his heart the strangest relief that he did not dare to stop to analyse, "is why any one should have troubled to do this—the risk, the danger——"

"You have enemies," she said. "Of course you know that. People who are jealous."

"One enemy," he answered fiercely. "Ronder. The woman had been to him with this letter before she came to me."

"The woman! What woman?

"The woman who brought it to me was a Miss Milton—a wretched creature who was once at the Library."

"And she had been with this to Canon Ronder before she came to you?"

"Yes."

"Ah!"

Then she said very quietly:

"And what do you mean to do about the letter?"

"I will do whatever you wish me to do. What I would like to do is to leave no step untaken to bring the authors of this forgery to justice. No step. I will——"

"No," she broke in quickly. "It is much better to leave it alone. What good can it do to follow it up? It only tells every one about it. We should despise it. The thing is so obviously false. Why you can see," suddenly holding the letter towards him, "it isn't even like my writing. My s's, my m's—they're not like that——"

"No, no," he said eagerly. "I see that they are not. I saw that at once."

"You knew at once that it was a forgery?"

"I knew at once. I never doubted for an instant."

She sighed; then settled back into the pillow with a little shudder.

"This town," she said; "the things they do. Oh! to get away from it, to get away!"

"And we will!" he cried eagerly. "That's what we need, both of us—a holiday. I've been thinking it over. We're both tired. When this Jubilee is over we'll go abroad—Italy, Greece. We'll have a second honeymoon. Oh, Amy, we'll begin life again. I've been much to blame—much to blame. Give me that letter. I'll destroy it. I know my enemy, but I'll not think of him or of any one but our two selves. I'll be good to you now if you'll let me."

She gave him the letter.

"Look at it before you tear it up," she said, staring at him as though she would not miss any change in his features. "You're sure that it is a forgery?"

"Why, of course."

"It's nothing like my handwriting?"

"Nothing at all."

"You know that I am devoted to you, that I would never be untrue to you in thought, word or deed?"

"Why, of course, of course. As though I didn't know——"

"And that I'll love to come abroad with you?"

"Yes, yes."

"And that we'll have a second honeymoon?"

"Yes, yes. Indeed, Amy, we will."

"Look well at that letter. You are wrong. It is not a forgery. I did write it."

He did not answer her, but stayed staring at the letter like a boy detected in a theft. She repeated:

"The woman was quite right. I did write that letter."

Brandon said, staring at her, "Don't laugh at me. This is too serious."

"I'm not laughing. I wrote it. I sent it down by Gladys. If you recall the day to her she'll remember."

She watched his face. It had turned suddenly grey, as though some one had slipped a grey mask over the original features.

She thought, "Now perhaps he'll kill me. I'm not sorry."

He whispered, leaning quite close to her as though he were afraid she would not hear.

"You wrote that letter to Morris?"

"I did." Then suddenly springing up, half out of bed, she cried, "You're not to touch him. Do you hear? You're not to touch him! It's not his fault. He's had nothing to do with this. He's only my friend. I love him, but he doesn't love me. Do you hear? He's had nothing to do with this!"

"You love him!" whispered Brandon.

"I've loved him since the first moment I saw him. I've wanted some one to love for years—years and years and years. You didn't love me, so then I hoped Falk would, and Falk didn't, so then I found the first person—any one who would be kind to me. And he was kind—he is kind—the kindest man in the world. And he saw that I was lonely, so he let me talk to him and go to him—but none of this is his doing. He's only been kind. He—"

"Your letter says 'Dearest'," said Brandon. "If you wrote that letter it says 'Dearest'."

"That was my foolishness. It was wrong of me. He told me that I mustn't say anything affectionate. He's good and I'm bad. And I'm bad because you've made me."

Brandon took the letter and tore it into little pieces; they scattered upon the counterpane.

"You've been unfaithful to me?" he said, bending over her.

She did not shrink back, although that strange, unknown, grey face was very close to her. "Yes. At first he wouldn't. He refused anything. But I would.... I wanted to be. I hate you. I've hated you for years."

"Why?" His hand closed on her shoulder.

"Because of your conceit and pride. Because you've never thought of me. Because I've always been a piece of furniture to you—less than that. Because you've been so pleased with yourself and well-satisfied and stupid. Yes. Yes. Most because you're so stupid. So stupid. Never seeing anything, never knowing anything and always—so satisfied. And when the town was pleased with you and said you were so fine I've laughed, knowing what you were, and I thought to myself, 'There'll come a time when they'll find him out'—and now they have. They know what you are at last. And I'm glad! I'm glad! I'm glad!" She stopped, her breast rising and falling beneath her nightdress, her voice shrill, almost a scream.

He put his hands on her thin bony shoulders and pushed her back into the bed. His hands moved to her throat. His whole weight, he now kneeling on the bed, was on top of her.

"Kill me! Kill me!" she whispered. "I'll be glad."

All the while their eyes stared at one another inquisitively, as though they were strangers meeting for the first time.

His hands met round her throat. His knees were over her. He felt her thin throat between his hands and a voice in his ear whispered, "That's right, squeeze tighter. Splendid! Splendid!"

Suddenly his eyes recognised hers. His hands dropped. He crawled from the bed. Then he felt his way, blindly, out of the room.



Chapter V

Tuesday, June 22: I. The Cathedral



The Great Day arrived, escorted sumptuously with skies of burning blue. How many heads looked out of how many windows, the country over, that morning! In Polchester it was considered as only another proof of the esteem in which that city was held by the Almighty. The Old Lady might deserve and did unquestionably obtain divinely condescending weather for her various excursions, but it was nothing to that which the Old Town got and deserved.

Deserved or no, the town rose to the occasion. The High Street was swimming in flags and bunting; even in Seatown most of the grimy windows showed those little cheap flags that during the past week hawkers had been so industriously selling. From quite early in the morning the squeak and scream of the roundabouts in the Fair could be heard dimly penetrating the sanctities and privacies of the Precincts. But it was the Cathedral bells, pealing, crashing, echoing, rocking, as early as nine o'clock in the morning, that first awoke the consciousness of most of the Polcastrians to the glories of the day.

I suppose that nearly all souls that morning subconsciously divided the order of the festival into three periods; in the morning the Cathedral and its service, in the afternoon the social, friendly, man-to-man celebration, and in the evening, torch-light, bonfire, skies ablaze, drink and love.

Certain it is that many eyes turned towards the Cathedral accustomed for many years to look in quite other directions. There was to be a grand service, they said, with "trumpets and shawms" and the big drum, and the old Bishop preaching, making, in all probability, his very last public appearance. Up from the dark mysteries of Seatown, down from the chaste proprieties of the villas above Orange Street, from the purlieus of the market, from the shops of the High Street, sailors and merchantmen, traders and sea-captains and, from the wild fastness of the Fair, gipsies with silver rings in their ears and, perhaps, who can tell? bells on their dusky toes.

Very early were Lawrence and Cobbett about their duties. This was, in all probability, Lawrence's last Great Day before the final and all-judging one, and well both he and Cobbett were aware of it. Cobbett could see himself that morning almost stepping into the old man's shoes, and the old man himself was not well this morning—not well at all. Rheumatism, gout, what hadn't he got?—and, above all, that strange, mysterious pain somewhere in his very vitals, a pain that was not precisely a pain, too dull and homely for that, but a warning, a foreboding.

On an ordinary day, in spite of his dislike of allowing Cobbett any of those duties that were so properly his own, he would have stayed in bed, but to-day?—no, thank you! On such a day as this he would defy the Devil himself and all his red-hot pincers! So there he was in his long purple gown, with his lovely snow-white beard, and his gold-topped staff, patronising Mrs. Muffit (who superintended the cleaning) and her ancient servitors, seeing that the places for the Band (just under the choir- screen) and for the extra members of the choir were all in order, and, above all, that the Bishop's Throne up by the altar was guiltless of a speck of dust, of a shadow of a shadow of disorder. Cobbett saw, beyond any question or doubt, death in the old man's face, and suddenly, to his own amazement, was sorry. For years now he had been waiting for the day when he should succeed the tiresome old fool, for years he had cursed him for a thousand pomposities, blunders, tedious garrulities, and now, suddenly, he was sorry. What had come over him? But he wasn't a bad old man; plucky, too; you could see how he was suffering. They had, after all, been companions together for so many years....

Quite early in the morning arrivals began—visitors from the country most likely, sitting there at the back of the nave, bathed in the great silence and the dim light, just looking and wondering and expecting. Some of them wanted to move about and examine the brasses and the tombs and the windows—yes, move about with their families, and their bags of sandwiches, and their oranges. But not this morning, oh, dear, no! They could come in or go out, but if they came in they must stay quiet. Did they but subterraneously giggle, Cobbet was on their tracks in no time.

The light flooded in, throwing great splashes and lakes of blue and gold and purple on to flag and pillar. Great in its strength, magnificent in its beauty, the Cathedral prepared....

* * * * *

Mrs. Combermere walked rather solemnly that morning from her house to the Cathedral. In spite of the lovely morning she was feeling suddenly old. Things like Jubilees do date you—no doubt about it. Nearly fifty. Three- quarters of life behind her and what had she to show for it? An unlucky marriage, much physical health and fun, some friends—but, at the last, lonely—lonely as perhaps every human being in this queer world was. That old woman now preparing to ride in fantastic procession before her worshipping subjects, she was lonely too. Poor, little, lonely, old woman! Well, then, Charity to all and sundry—Charity, kindliness, the one and only thing. Aggie Combermere was not a sentimental woman, nor did she see life falsely, but she was suddenly aware, walking under the blazing blue sky, that she had been unkind, for amusement's sake, more often than she need.... Well, why not? She was ready to allow people to have a shy at herself—any one who liked.... "'Ere you are! Old Aunt Sally! Three shies a penny!" And she was an Aunt Sally, a ludicrous creature, caring for her dogs more than for any living creature, shovelling food into her mouth for no particular purpose, doing physical exercises in the morning, and nearly fifty!