Then, not in the least expecting that she was about to cry, she burst into tears.

She had remembered his voice and his look when he said something about honor and dishonor, and about working for her till he dropped. Noble and splendid love had spoken in that—such love as few women are lucky enough to get. Oh, surely if he loved her like that, he could not leave off loving her altogether, and never, never, want his Mav again.

Sadness and desolation overcame her. She was alone in their dear, dear home, disgraced, abandoned, heart-broken; and her thoughts for a little while were all prayers. With each one of them she prayed her husband to go on loving her; to come back and bruise her limbs, to punish her with fierce glances and cutting words, to subject her to systematic penitential discipline, if only at the end of it all she might have his love again.

She sat crying most bitterly; and then, when at last she dried her eyes, and went down-stairs to gratify Mary by pretending to eat some breakfast, a supremely commonplace and yet poignantly sad reflection brought another flood of tears. What wretched little chances can produce the most tragically terrific upheavals! Had she not bought a return railway ticket, the whole disaster might have been averted. But for that horrible square inch of pink cardboard, all would have been well, her ordeal would not have been suffered in vain. The wickedly strong intoxicant had of course begun the mischief by making her blurt out those imbecile words that first set Will on the rampage; but it was the knowledge of the telltale ticket, close at hand, unguarded, certain to be found if looked for, that had unnerved her so completely. Otherwise, as she now believed, she could have held her own under his rapid fire of questions. She could have laughed off his accusations as absurd—or, at the worst, she could have gained time to think of plausible explanations. But the ticket simply paralyzed her.

And she had known that she was running a risk when she made up her mind to keep it. She bought it without any thought at all—a stupid thing to do, considering that the cost was the same as two single fares. Not so stupid, however, as the thrifty idea that if she and Will traveled home in different trains, she might after all use her return half. Oh, fatal economy! In scheming to avoid the loss of five shillings she had wrecked all her peace and comfort.

On this Sunday she would have liked to go to church, but a dread of loquacious and inquisitive neighbors kept her a prisoner in the house.

On Monday morning she almost determined to go out for a walk but her courage again failed her. Until noon the village street was dull and lifeless, with only one or two people visible at a time, and yet she dared not go down and walk through it. Were she to show herself, all the idle shopkeepers would issue from their shops, to congratulate her on the postmaster's victory, to inquire where he was spending his holiday and why she hadn't gone for the holiday with him.

Nearly all day she sat by the window of the front room, staring at the trite and familiar scene, and encouraging her thoughts to wander away from her misery whenever they would consent to do so. A butcher's boy leaned his bicycle against the curbstone in so careless a fashion that it immediately fell down; Mr. Bates the corn merchant passed by with an empty wagon; then Mr. Norton the vicar appeared, going from house to house, distributing handbills of special services. And she wondered if he and his wife had ever had a hidden domestic storm in their outwardly tranquil existence. Mrs. Norton must have been quite pretty once, and perhaps at that period she caused Mr. Norton anxieties. But if she had ever needed forgiveness for some indiscretion or other, she had obviously obtained it; and again the thought came strong and clear that people who hold conspicuous positions—such as vicars, tax-collectors, postmasters, and so on—owe a duty to the world as well as to themselves. They must hush things up, and preserve appearances: they can not wash their dirty linen in public.

After twelve o'clock there was much more to look at. The children came shouting out of school, laborers passed to and fro on their way to dinner, and with horns loudly blowing, three heavily-laden chars-a-bancs arrived one after another from Rodhaven. The tourists filled the street, and for about two hours the aspect of things was lively and bustling. Then the horns sounded again, the huge vehicles lumbered away, and the whole village relapsed into drowsiness and inertia. Literally nothing to look at now.

But before tea time that afternoon she saw something in the street that held her breathlessly attentive as long as it remained there. It was Mr. Barradine, riding slowly toward her between the churchyard and the Roebuck stables. She shrank back behind the muslin curtain of her window, and, watching him, passed through an extraordinarily rapid sequence of emotions.

The horse was a chestnut, and it stepped lightly and springily. As she thought of how and when she had last seen its rider, she felt a sensation that was like helplessness, shame, and fear all mingled. It was as though her whole body, muscles, flesh and nerves, quailed and grew weak at the mere sight of him; as though inherited instincts were controlling her, and would always control her whenever she was in his presence; as though she the descendant of serfs must infallibly submit to the descendant of lords—must forever fear the man who had been her master even when he was her lover. Rationally she hated him for the harm that he had done her, but instinctively she feared him for the further harm that he might yet have power to do.

And together with the hatred and the fear, there was a pitiful sneaking admiration. He looked so grand and unruffled—so old, and yet sitting the skittish, high-mettled horse so firmly; so feeble, and yet full of such an absolute confidence in his power to rule and subordinate, accustomed for forty years to the unfailing subjection of such things as servants, horses, and women. Her heart bumped against her stays, and her face became red and then white, when she thought that he intended to stop at the post office and ask for her. But he rode on—gave one glance up toward the windows from which she shrank still further, and rode by, right down the street, with the horse swishing its long tail and seeming to dance in a light amble.

Then, as soon as he disappeared, the spell was broken.

In all that she had confessed to her husband she had been sincere; but hers was a simple and easy going nature, and exaltation could not be long sustained. After excitement she returned rapidly to a passive and unimaginative level; and now, quietly brooding, she could not do otherwise than justify herself for all that had happened.

At the end of everything she felt a deep-seated conviction that she was in truth blameless. She was not a bad woman. Therefore it would be wicked to treat her as a sinner and an outcast. Sinners did wrong because they enjoyed the sin; but she had never been vicious, or even selfishly anxious for pleasure. Pleasure! She had never cared for that sort of thing. Girls of her own age used to talk to her about it, and what they said was almost incomprehensible. She had never had such feelings, however faintly.

No, her only fault had been in giving way to the people who had charge of her, and who were too strong to be resisted. Just at first she had been flattered and pleased when Mr. Barradine had begun to take notice of her—patting her, and holding her hand, and saying he admired her hair; but she had not in the least known where all this was leading. What she told Will was substantially correct as to the beginning—but of course her eyes had been opened before anything definite occurred. Then she had told Auntie that she was afraid; and then it was that Auntie ought to have saved her, and didn't. Far from it. Auntie, who in early days had been severe enough, now became all smiles, treating her deferentially, saying: "If you play your cards properly you'll set us all up as large as towers. Don't lose your head. For goodness' sake, don't be wild and foolish, and go offending him so that instead of coming back again he'll look elsewhere."

Then later, when she had, as it were, sacrificed herself on the family altar, she was indignant at finding that he had nevertheless looked elsewhere. There were others—and she said she would never forgive him. Yet she did forgive him. Finally, there came the outrage of his stopping at the Cottage with somebody else. Her aunt had sent her out of the way, but she heard of it; and this time she determined to be done with Mr. Barradine. And yet again she forgave him.

Then she discovered, without any explanations, that he had done with her. He was paternal and kind, but she had become just nobody; and her aunt was very angry, saying that she had played her cards badly instead of well. That was about the time that Dale had been two years at Portsmouth. She liked Dale from the first because he was honest and good, and because he seemed to offer her an escape from an extremely difficult position. But if she had been a nasty girl, she would not have made such a marriage; instead of being anxious to secure respectability, however humble, she would have followed Auntie's suggestions and looked out for another protector instead of for a husband. And she had wanted to tell Dale the whole truth; but there again she had been overruled. Auntie forbade her to utter a whisper or hint of it; she said that Mr. Barradine would never pardon such a betrayal of his confidence, whereas if a properly discreet silence were preserved he would give the bride a suitable wedding present, as well as push the fortunes of the bridegroom. "Besides," said Aunt Petherick, "a nice hash you'll make of it if you go and label yourself damaged goods before you're fairly started. Why, it would be just giving Dale the whip-hand over you for the rest of your days." Looking back at it all, Mavis felt that this argument was irrefutable.

After marriage she began to love Will most truly and devotedly—but not for his embraces, which did not even stir her pulses, which only made her tenderly happy that she could make him happy. Now after eleven years her feeling toward him was all unselfish and beautiful, a gentle and deep affection, without a taint of anything that one would not call really lady-like. The passion and boisterousness were all on his side.

And thinking of things that she had never told Will, she wondered if this calmness of temperament, or perhaps unusual failure in response, was but another fatal consequence of the Barradine slavery. If so, what cause she had to hate and curse him! The episode with him was simply an irksomeness: it had frozen her instead of warming her, checked her expansion, and perhaps, breaking the cycle of normal development, made her imperfect as a woman.

Perhaps this was the real reason why she had remained childless. She represented completed womanhood in this respect at least, that she desired to be a mother. The possession of children was the one thing that made her envious of other women. The idea of having a child of her own made her almost faint with longing—a baby to nurse, a little burden to wheel about in a perambulator, a companion to prattle to her all day while Will was busy down-stairs. If the hope of such joy had been taken from her by Mr. Barradine, oh, how immeasureably great was her cause for hatred!

She sat staring at the distant point where he and his horse had just now vanished, and for a little while her thoughts were like curses. Any attributes of grandeur were transitory illusions; he was wholly mean and base: he was the embodied principle of evil that had spoiled the past and that still threatened the future. She wished that he might eventually suffer as much as he had made her suffer. She wished that he might be racked with rheumatism, burned up with gout, tortured with every conceivable painful disease. She wished him dead and crumbling to dust in his coffin.

After tea she came back to the window and stayed there till nightfall.

Little by little the street became dim and vague. Two or three futile oil lamps were lighted, and the shop fronts shone brightly, but all the rest grew dark, like a river or a canal instead of a street. One heard voices, and then people showed themselves momentarily as they passed through the lamplight.

While she watched them passing, her thoughts drifted into generalized sadness.

The shutters went up at the saddler's, and she saw Mr. Allen for a moment—a long, thin man, looking too tall for the frame of the lamplit doorway. Mr. Allen used to have a fine business but he was spoiling it by his folly. It had been his custom to go to neighboring meets of hounds and ask the young gentlemen if the saddles he had made for them were satisfactory, insinuate his fingers between saddle-tree and hunter's withers to see if there was plenty of room, and generally render himself obsequiously agreeable. That was good for trade. But then the hunting gradually fascinated him, and he followed on foot throughout the season, halloaing hounds to wrong foxes, standing on banks and frightening horses, being a nuisance to the gentlemen, and coming home to boast that although he was fifty he had walked twenty-seven miles in the day. And his trade was all going or gone, and he not seeming to care. His wife let lodgings to make up a bit. Very sad.

Candle-light showed in a window of the house next door to the saddler's, and Mavis thought of these neighbors—two sisters, old maids—who had a very, very little money of their own and who endeavored to add to what was barely enough for necessities by selling butterfly nets, children's fishing-rods, stamp albums, and picture post-cards. Two years ago the elder sister tumbled down-stairs and injured her spine; and since then she had been bedridden, lying in the upper room at the back of the house, with nothing to amuse her but a view of the graveyard behind the church. Mavis had been to see her one day this summer, had sat by the bed, and read her a chapter out of the New Testament and then the weekly instalment of a novel in the Rodhaven District Courier. Extremely sad.

Then livid-faced, matty-haired Emily Frayne passed by, carrying a brown-paper parcel. This poor overworked girl was the only daughter of Frayne the tailor, who was a confirmed drunkard. All day long she was kept toiling like a slave, cutting out, beginning and finishing gaiters, breeches, and stable-jackets, doing all the work that was ever done at Frayne's; and at night she went round trying to get orders, delivering the goods that she had completed, and being forced to support the impudence and familiarity of coachmen and grooms, who chucked her under the chin and said they'd give her a kiss for her pains because they weren't flush enough to stand her a drink. All painfully sad.

There was a dreadful lot of tippling at Rodchurch: in fact, one might say that drink was the prevailing fault of the village. The vicar publicly touched on the matter in his sermons, and privately he often said that Mr. Cope, the fat landlord of The Gauntlet Inn, was greatly to blame. The tradesmen had a little club at the Gauntlet, where Cope employed a horrid brazen barmaid who sometimes sang comic songs to the club members. Mrs. Cope felt strongly about the barmaid, and quite took the vicar's side in the dispute the day that Cope came out of the tap-room and was so rude and abusive to the reverend gentleman. Mrs. Cope said she'd be glad if Mr. Norton brought her husband to book before the magistrates and got his license taken away.

Dale openly expressed contempt for this boozing Gauntlet club, refused to take up his membership when elected, and had received a complimentary letter from the vicar thanking him for the fine example he had set for others. No, dear old Will, though he liked his glass of beer as well as anybody, would often go a whole week on tea and coffee; and she thought what a merit his sobriety had been. Merely considered as economy, it was a blessing. It is always the drink, and never the food, that runs away with one's household money.

Mr. Silcox the tobacconist hurried through the lamplight, unquestionably on his way to the Gauntlet. Silcox was a chattering foolish creature who had lost his own and his widowed mother's savings in a ridiculous commercial enterprise—a promptly bankrupt theater company over at Rodhaven—and it was thought that the workhouse would be the end for him and Mrs. Silcox. But early this summer people had been startled by hearing that the Courier had appointed Silcox as their reporter; and local critics were of opinion that Silcox had taken very kindly to literature, and that he was shaping well, and might perhaps retrieve the past in making name and fortune. Dale, who used to chaff Silcox rather heavily, was at present quite polite to him. It had always been Will's policy to stand well with the press, and there was no doubt that during the recent controversy Silcox had endeavored to render aid with his pen.

Lamplight moving now—a cart coming down. Mavis, peering out, saw that it was old Mr. Bates again, in a gig this time, going home to his pretty little farm two miles off on the Hadleigh Road. Fancy his being still at it so late, only finishing the day's work long after so many younger men had done. Mr. Bates was reputed rich—a highly respected person; but the sorrow of his old age was a bad, bad son. Richard Bates raced, and habitually ran after women—that is, when he possessed the use of his legs and was able to run. But he was a heavy drinker, and it was no unusual thing for the helpers at the Roebuck stables to have to get out a conveyance at closing time and drive Richard, speechless, motionless, to Vine-Pits Farm. He never went to the Gauntlet, but always to the Roebuck—beginning the evening in the hotel billiard-room, trying to swagger it out at pool with the solicitor and the doctor, then drifting to the stable bar, and finishing the evening there, or outside in the open yard. One could imagine the feelings of the old father, waiting up all alone, knowing from experience what the sound of wheels implied after ten o'clock. Will said once that he believed Mr. Bates was glad Mrs. Bates hadn't been spared to see it.

And Mavis, moving at last from the window, thought that she was not the only sad inhabitant of Rodchurch. There is a cruel lot of sorrow in most people's lives.



IX

The second week of the fortnight was passing much quicker than the first week. By a most happy inspiration Mavis had hit upon a means of filling the dull empty time. On Tuesday morning she told Mary that they would turn the master's absence to good account by giving the house an unseasonal but complete spring cleaning, and ever since then they had both been hard at work.

The work gave exercise as well as occupation; it furnished a ready excuse for declining to go over and see Mrs. Petherick or to allow a visit from her; and, moreover, it had a satisfactory calming effect on one's nerves. While Mavis was reviewing pots and pans, standing on the high step-ladder to unhook muslin curtains, and, most of all, while she was going through her husband's winter underclothes in search of moths, it seemed to her that she was not only retaining but strengthening her hold on all these inanimate friends, and that they themselves were eloquently though dumbly protesting against the mere idea of forcible separation. When she sat down, hot and tired, in the midst of shrouded masses of furniture, to enjoy a picnic meal that Mary had set out on the one unoccupied corner of a crowded table, she was able to eat with hearty appetite; and yet, no matter how tired she might be by the end of the day, she could not sleep properly at night.

If she slept, a dream of trouble woke her. As she lay awake her trouble sometimes seemed greater than ever. It was as though the spring cleaning, which by day proved mentally beneficial, became deleterious during these long night watches. The neater, the cleaner, the brighter she made her home, the more terrible must be a sentence of perpetual banishment.

On Friday afternoon the work was nearly over. Kitchen utensils were like shining mirrors; the flowers of the best carpet were like real blossoms budding after rain; and Mavis on the step-ladder, with a smudged face, untidy hair, and grimy hands, had begun to reinstate the pictures handed to her by Mary, when Miss Yorke came knocking abruptly at the parlor door.

"A telegram, ma'am."

"All right."

Mavis had come down the ladder, and as she opened the yellow envelope she began to tremble.

"Answer paid, ma'am. Shall I wait?"

"No. I—I'll—No, don't wait."

It was from Dale. She had sat down on the lowest step of the ladder, and was trembling violently. "Oh, how dreadful!" She muttered the words mechanically, without any attempt to express her actual thought. "How very dreadful!"

"What is it, ma'am? Bad news?"

"Oh, most dreadful. But perhaps a mistake. I'm to find out;" and she stared stupidly at the paper that was shaking in her fingers. Then, spreading it on her lap, she read the message aloud:—

"Evening paper says fatal accident to Mr. Barradine. Is this true? Wire Dale, Appledore Temperance Hotel, Stamford Street, S.E."

Then she jumped up, ran into the front room, and looked out of the window. A glance showed her that the village was in possession of some sensational tidings. There was a knot of people standing in front of the saddler's, and another—quite a little crowd—in front of the butcher's; all were talking excitedly, nodding their heads, and gesticulating.

She ran down-stairs and joined the group at the saddler's.

"I never cared for the look of the horse," Allen was saying sententiously. "And I might almost claim to have warned them—no longer ago than last March. The stud-groom was riding him at a meet, and I said, 'Mr. Yeatman, you aren't surely going to let Mr. Barradine risk his neck with hounds on that thing?' 'No,' he said, 'Mr. Barradine has bought him for hacking.' 'Oh,' I said, 'hacking and hunting are two things, of course, but—'"

Then somebody interrupted.

"Chestnut horse, wasn't it?"

"Yes," said Allen, "one of these thoroughbred weeds, without a back that you can fit with to anything bigger than a racing saddle; and I've always maintained the same thing. A bit of blood may do very well for young gentlemen, but to go and put a gentleman of Mr. Barradine's years—"

"Mind you," interposed a Roebuck stableman, "Mr. Barradine liked 'em gay. Mr. Barradine was a horseman!"

Mr. Barradine liked gay horses. Mr. Barradine was a horseman. That tremendous sound of the past tense answered the question that Mavis was breathlessly waiting to ask.

"Shocking bad business, isn't it, Mrs. Dale?"

She did not reply; but nobody noticed her silence or agitation. They all went on talking; and she only thought: "He is dead. He is dead. He is dead." She was temporarily tongue-tied, awestricken, full of a strange superstitious horror.

Presently Allen spoke to her again. "There'll never be such another kind gentleman in our times, Mrs. Dale; nor one so open-handed. And it's not only the gentry that's going to mourn him. The pore hev lost a good friend."

"Yes," she whispered. "Indeed they have. Indeed they have."

Miss Waddy came out of her absurd little post-card shop and kept saying, "Oh, dear!" She, like almost everybody else in the village except Mavis Dale and Mary, had known the news for hours; but she was greedy for the more and more particularized information that every newcomer brought with him along the road from Manninglea.

"How was the body taken to the Abbey?"

"Sent one of the carriages."

"Oh, dear!"

They continued to talk; and Mavis, listening, for a few moments felt gladness, nothing but gladness. He had gone out of their lives forever. There could be no divorce. Now that he was dead, she would be forgiven. Then again she felt the horror of it. The thing was like an answer to her secret prayer or wish—like the mysterious overwhelming consequence of her curse. It was as though in cursing him she had doomed him to destruction.

"They caught the horse last night, didn't they?"

"Yes. Some chaps at Abbey Cross Roads see un go gallopin' by, and followed un up Beacon Hill. Catched un in the quag by th' old gravel pits."

"Oh, dear!" said Miss Waddy.

Little by little Mavis pieced the story together. Mr. Barradine had been out riding late yesterday, and the riderless horse had given the alarm some time about nine o'clock in the evening. But, although a wide-spread search continued all through the night, the body was not found until past noon to-day.

They had found it at Kibworth Rocks. These rocks, situated in Hadleigh Wood, about two miles from the Abbey, were of curious formation—a wide mass of jagged boulders cropping out unexpectedly from the sandy soil, some of them half hidden with bracken, while others, the bigger ones, rose brown and bare and strange. They provided a redoubtable fortress for foxes, and contained what was known as the biggest "earth" of the neighborhood. Not far off, the main ride passed through the wood, making a broad sunlit avenue between the gloomy pines; but no one without local knowledge would have suspected the existence of the rocky gorge or slope, because, although only at a little distance, it was quite invisible from the ride.

The body had been discovered lying in a narrow cleft, the head fearfully battered; and how Mr. Barradine came by his death was obvious. He had been riding through or near the rocks, and the horse, probably stumbling, had thrown him; and then, frightened and struggling away, had dragged him some considerable distance, until the rocks held him fast and tore him free.

What remained doubtful was how or why Mr. Barradine approached the rocks. Of course, his horse might have shied from the ride and taken him there before he could recover control of it; or, as perhaps was more probable, Mr. Barradine might have ridden from the safe and open track in order quietly to examine what was called the main earth, and, if fortunate, gratify himself with a glimpse of two or three lusty fox cubs playing outside the burrows.

However, as Mr. Allen sagely observed, such conjectures were at present idle. These and all other matters would be cleared up at the inquest.

"Oh, dear!" said Miss Waddy. "Will there have to be an inquest?"

"Certainly there will," said Mr. Allen.

"Yes, that's the law always," said somebody else.

"Surely not," said Miss Waddy, "in the case of such a well-known gentleman as Mr. Barradine."

"It would be the same," said Allen, "if it was the Prince of Wales, or the Archbishop of Canterbury. Coroner's Court sits on everybody who doesn't die in his bed certified by his doctor."

"And it rained, too, last night," said Miss Waddy.

"Yes, there was some heavy showers."

"Fancy the poor gentleman lying out in the rain. Oh, dear!"

Mavis Dale left them talking and went back to the post office. In her agitation she had forgotten about the reply telegram to her husband. She got Mr. Ridgett to write the message—her hands were trembling so that she could scarcely hold the pencil.

"Very sorry, I'm sure," said Mr. Ridgett sympathetically. "This was the party you told me of—the gentleman that was giving his support to Mr. Dale?"

"Yes."

"Well, well—very sad. How will you word it?"

"Please say—'Report true. Mr. Barradine killed by fall from his horse yesterday.' And sign it 'Mavis.' No, sign it 'Mav.'"

"Mav!—Ma-v!" Mr. Ridgett looked round, smiling. "That's hubby's pet name for you, isn't it? Upon my word, you two are a pair of love-birds.... There, off it goes. Good night, Mrs. Dale. I'm truly sorry that you've been deprived of such a friend."

She went up-stairs to her bedroom, and did not come out of it that evening. For a long time she sat on the bed sobbing and shivering. She was glad really, and she knew that she was glad, and yet all the blood in her body seemed to be running coldly because of unreasoning superstitious fear. It was as though she had seen a ghost, and as though the ghost, while imparting to her a piece of surprisingly good news, had at the same time almost frightened her out of her wits. It is so wicked, so impiously wicked to wish for the death of a fellow creature. But what are wishes? Common sense revolts from the supposition that thoughts can kill. Why, if they could, half the population of the world would succumb beneath the impalpable weapons wielded by the other half. It is only toward nightfall, when rooms begin to grow dark, and the deepening shadows give queer shapes to furniture, curtains, and other familiar objects, that one can be foolish enough to entertain such fancies.

She told Mary to bring the candles, and to run out and buy a night-light. Then Mary helped her to undress and to get to bed; and she slept dreamlessly. The feeling after all was one of unutterable relief. Mr. Barradine was! Never again would her flesh shrink at the sight of him; never again could those lascivious hands touch her.

Next day, between dinner-time and tea-time, while she was giving final touches to the well-cleaned parlor, she heard her husband's voice just outside the door. He had come up-stairs very quietly and was speaking to Mary on the landing.

"Will, Will!" With a cry of delight, Mavis rushed out to welcome him. "Oh, thank goodness, you've come home." She boldly took his arm, drew him into the parlor and shut the door again. "Will—aren't you going to kiss me?"

"No." And he disengaged himself and moved away from her. "No, I can not kiss you."

"Oh, Will. Do try to forget and forgive." She stood stretching out her hands toward him imploringly, with eyebrows raised, and lips quavering.

"I can never forget," he said, after a moment's pause.

Then she tried to make him say that things would eventually come all right, that if he could not pardon her and take her to his heart now, he would do so some time or another. He listened to her pleadings impassively, stolidly; his attitude was stiffly dignified, and it seemed to her that, whatever his real frame of mind might be, he had determined to hide it by maintaining an impenetrably solemn tone and manner.

"Will, you've come home, and I'm grateful for it. But—but I do think you're cruel to me. Especially considering what's happened, I did hope you'd begin to think kinder to me."

"Mavis," he said solemnly, "it is the finger of God." And he repeated the phrase slowly, with a solemnity that was almost pompous. "It is the finger of God. If that man had not chanced to die in this sudden and startling way, I could never have come home to you. It was the decision I had arrived at before I read of his accident in the paper. Otherwise you'd 'a' never set eyes on me. Now all I can say is, you and I must trust to the future. It will be my endeavor not to look back, and I ask you equally to look forward."

She was certain that this was a set speech prepared beforehand. She knew so well the faintly unnatural note in his voice when he was reciting sentences that he had learned by rote: she who had helped in so many rehearsals before his public utterances could not be mistaken. However, she had to be contented with it. And, stilted and stiff as it was, it certainly seemed to imply that she need not relinquish hope.

He added something, in the same ponderous style, about the probability of its being advisable to put private inclinations on one side and attend the funeral of the deceased in his public capacity of postmaster. This mark of respect would be expected from him, and people would wonder if he did not pay it. Then he left the parlor, and again spoke to Mary.

Mavis, listening, heard him give orders that an unused camp bedstead should be brought down from the clerk's room and made up in the kitchen. He told Mary that he wished to sleep by himself because he felt twinges of rheumatism and was afraid of disturbing the mistress if the pain came on during the night. And Mavis noticed that all the time that he was talking to Mary his voice sounded perfectly natural.

Then he went down-stairs, speaking again when he was half-way down.

"How goes it, Miss Yorke? Is Mr. Ridgett in the office?"

And this time it was absolutely his old voice—rather loud, rather authoritative, but really quite cheerful.

Thinking of his manner to her and his manner to others, she believed that she could now understand all that he intended. She was to be held in disgrace perhaps for a long time, but appearances were to be kept up. No breath of scandal was to tarnish the reputation of the Rodchurch postmaster; the curious world must not be allowed the very slightest peep behind the scenes of his private life; and she, without explicit instructions, was to assist in preventing any one—even poor humble Mary—from guessing that as husband and wife they were not as heretofore on the best possible terms.

Down below in the sorting-room Dale greeted Mr. Ridgett very heartily.

"Here I am. May I venture to come in a minute? I'm only a visitor till Monday, you know." And he told Ridgett how he had taken a liberty in returning before the stipulated date; but he had written to headquarters explaining the circumstances, and he had no doubt they would approve. "There's the funeral, you know. Though I suppose that won't be till Tuesday or even Wednesday. But there's the inquest. And I felt it like a duty to attend that too."

"Yes, I suppose this is a bit of a blow to you—knowing him so long. Your good lady was mightily upset."

"So she had cause to be," said Dale gravely.

"He'd always shown himself a real friend?"

"The best friend anybody ever had," said Dale with impressive earnestness. Then, going, he returned to speak in a confidential whisper close to Mr. Ridgett's ear. "It was he who did the trick for me up there. But for him, I was to be hoofed out of this, as sure as eggs."

"Really! Well, I'll tell you frankly, I'm not surprised to hear it. Ever since the little Missis came home with the happy tale, I've been wondering what miracle pulled you through so grand with them."

Then Dale went out and down the street, talking to everybody he met.

The village received him with tranquil indifference. No one congratulated him. The greater excitement had obliterated all memory of the less: not a soul seemed to recollect the famous controversy, the postmaster's campaign against detractors, his long absence or his brilliant success. Kibworth Rocks, the drawn blinds of the Abbey House, the decorations of the Abbey Church—these were the only things that Rodchurch could now think of, or talk about.

The inquest, held on Monday in one of the state rooms at the Abbey, brought to light no new facts that were of the least importance. All sorts of people gave evidence, but no one had anything to say that was really worth saying. Mr. Allen, it appeared, had "acted foolish" and been reproved by the Coroner, first for irrelevance and then for impertinence.

Allen had attempted to persuade the Court that the prime cause of the accident was simply this, that poor Mr. Barradine's saddle was made by a London firm instead of by him—Allen. He pooh-poohed the stud-groom's statement that Mr. Barradine had an ineradicable objection to patent detachable stirrups, and maintained that he would have been able, in five minutes' quiet conversation, to prevail on the deceased gentleman to adopt a certain device which was known to Allen but to nobody else in the trade; and then he attempted to read a written paper in which he advocated the superiority to the modern plain flap of the ancient padded knee-roll as a means of rendering the seat more secure for forehand stumbles.

"It was laughable—but for the occasion—to hear him spouting out his nonsense, until Doctor Hollis told him straight he wouldn't put up with it any longer."

Dale gave this account of the proceedings to Mavis and to Mr. Ridgett, who had come up to take high tea on the eve of his departure just as he had done on the day of his arrival.

"But I admit," said Dale, conscientiously, "there was one bit of sense in Allen's remarks. He convinced me against trusting to these blood animals. They're too quick, and they're never sure. The grooms an' all spoke up to Mr. Barradine's knowledge of his ridin' gen'rally; but it stands to reason, when you're past sixty your grip on a horse isn't the same thing as what it once was. Say, your mount gets bounding this way, that way;" and with his body and hands he indicated the rapid lateral movements of a horse shying and plunging. "Well, it's only the grip that can save you. You aren't going to keep in your saddle by mere balance—and it's balance that old gentlemen rely on best part of the time."

Mavis listened wonderingly and admiringly. When her husband spoke of the dead man, his voice was grave, calm and kindly. No one on earth could have detected that while the man lived, he had been regarded with anything but affection. She thought of that epithet that people so often echo—Death the Leveler. Could one hope that already, although Will might not know it, might not be willing to know it, death had taken from him all or nearly all of his anger and resentment? If it was only just acting—the stubborn effort to keep up appearances—it was marvelous. Then she sighed. She had remembered that Will never did things by halves.

She felt almost gay, certainly quite light-hearted, when driving out with him to the funeral. It was such a glorious day, not a bit too hot, with a west wind sweeping unseen through the limpid sky; and the whole landscape seeming animated, everywhere the sound of wheels, the roads full of people all going one way. She simulated gravity, even sadness, as they passed the dark pines near Hadleigh Wood; but in truth she was quite undisturbed by her proximity to the fateful spot. It seemed to her that with the murmur of the wheels, the movement of the air, the progressive excitement of every minute, all the tragic or gloomy element of life was rolling far away from her.

The scene presented at the Abbey struck her as magnificent. She had never seen so many private carriages assembled together, and she would not have guessed that the whole county of Hampshire contained so many policemen. There were soldiers also—members of some volunteer or yeomanry corps of which the deceased was honorary colonel. Their brilliant uniforms shone out dazzlingly on a background of black dresses and coats.

Naturally there was not space in the church for all this vast concourse. The nobility, gentry, and other ticket-holders were admitted first, and then there came an unmannerly rush which the constables checked with difficulty. Mavis and Dale were just inside the door; and Mr. Silcox close by, whispering, and pointing out several lords and ladies near the chancel steps. The service was long but very beautiful, with giant candles burning by the draped bier, organ music that seemed to swell and rumble in the pit of one's stomach, and light voices of singing boys that made one vibrate as if one had been turned into glass—all stirring one to a quite meaningless regret, not for the man who lay deaf and dumb and blind beneath the velvet pall, but because of vague thoughts about children who die young and have wings to hover over those they loved down here below. And, oh, the increasing heat of the church, the oppressive crush, the heavy odors of flowers and crape and perspiration! When at last one emerged, and the open air touched one's forehead, it was like coming out of an oven into a cold bath.

Then the remains were consigned to the family vault in the small graveyard behind the church—the crowd filling every vista, the bells tolling, and the soldiers discharging a cannon and making one jump at each regularly timed discharge. Mavis, turning her eyes in all directions, looked at everything with intense interest—at the gentlefolk, now inextricably mixed up with the tenantry and the mob; at her husband, standing so black and solemn, with a face that might have belonged to a marble statue; at the puff of smoke that crept upward when the gun went bang, at the sunlight on the church tower, at the birds flying so high and so joyous above its battlements. And all at once she saw Aunt Petherick—the blackest mourner there, with crape veils trailing to the ground, a red face down which the tears streamed in rivers; sobbing so that the sobs sounded like the most violent hiccoughs; really almost as much noise as the soldiers' gun.

Will had seen her too. Mavis noticed his stony glance at Auntie, when the crowd began to move again.

While he was slowly making his way toward the stables, she got hold of Mrs. Petherick and had a little chat with her. Auntie had now entirely recovered from her recent hysterical storm; the redness of her face was passing off, and its expression was one of anxiety, rather than of grief.

"My dear girl," she said, "I don't yet know what this will mean to me. You know, he promised the house for my life—but he wouldn't give me a lease. I've nothing to show—not so much as a letter. I may be turned out neck and crop."

"Oh, Auntie, I should think his wishes would be respected."

"How'm I to prove his wishes?" said Mrs. Petherick, quite testily. "It'll be wish my foot, for all the lawyers'll care."

"Oh, Auntie!"

"You know, he faithfully promised to provide for me. And now the talk is he never made a will at all. You can't believe the talk. But, oh, it's awful to me. The suspense! It'll break my heart to give up North Ride."

"Auntie," said Mavis presently; "if you chance upon Will, don't speak to him."

"Why not?"

She whispered the answer. "He found out about him and me."

"Oh, did he? How did he take it?"

"Awfully badly."

But Mrs. Petherick did not seem to care twopence about the domestic trouble of Mavis and Will. Her thoughts were engrossed by her own affairs.

"Mavis, I do think this: that if there's a will found, I shall be in it. He wasn't a liar, whatever he was."

That night there seemed to be a tremendous lot of drunkenness in Rodchurch, and when the Gauntlet Inn closed you could hear the shouting as far off as the post office. But next day the village was quietly drowsy as of old: it had got over its excitement.

Weeks passed, and for Mavis time began to glide. All things in the post office itself had resumed their ordinary course, and she felt instinctively that up-stairs, as well as down-stairs, a normal order would rule again before very long. Outwardly she and Dale were just what they used to be. They were not, however, really living as husband and wife. She suffered, but made no complaint. All would come right.



X

Mr. Barradine had not died intestate. This fact was made known at the post office in a sudden and perturbing manner by a letter to Mavis from Messrs. Cleaver, the Old Manninglea solicitors. Messrs. Cleaver informed her that the London firm who were acting in the matter of Mr. Barradine's will had instructed them to communicate with her, because certain documents—such as attested copies of her birth certificate, marriage certificate, and so on—would presently be required; and it would be convenient to Messrs. Cleaver, if she could pay them a call within the next two or three days.

Mavis gave the letter to Dale when they met at breakfast, and he read it slowly and thoughtfully.

"What do you suppose it means, Will?"

"I suppose it means that you're one of the leg'tees."

"Yes." Mavis drew in her breath. "It came into my mind that it might be that."

"I don't see what else it can be."

His face had become dull and expressionless, and he spoke in a heavy tone.

"I may go over and see Mr. Cleaver, mayn't I?"

"Yes," he said. "But I must go with you."

"When can you get away? I don't think we ought to put it off."

"No. There mustn't be an hour's avoidable delay. I'll take you over this afternoon."

Then, without another word, he finished his breakfast and went down-stairs. Mavis was vibrating with excitement, her eyes large and bright, a spot of poppy color on each cheek; she longed to burst out into all sorts of conjectures, to discuss every possibility, but she did not dare speak to him again just then.

Though the market town of Old Manninglea was only eight miles distant, the roundabout journey thither by rail offered such difficulties that Dale hired a dog-cart from the Roebuck and drove his wife across by road.

Their route for the first four miles was the one they would have followed if they had been going to the Abbey, and as they bowled along behind a strong and active little horse Mavis felt again, but in an intensified degree, those sensations of well-being, of comfort, and hopefulness, that she had experienced when passing through the same scenery on the day of the funeral. All the country looked so warm and rich in its fulness of summer tints—corn ready to cut, fruit waiting to be picked, cows asking to be milked; everywhere plenty and peace; nature giving so freely, and still promising to give more. It seemed to her that as surely as there is a law under which the seasons change, sunshine follows storm, and trees after losing their leaf soon begin to bud again, so surely is it intended that states of mind should succeed one another, that after sorrow should come gladness, and that no one has the right to say "I will keep my heart like a shuttered room, and because it was dark yesterday the light shall not enter it to-day."

About a mile out from Rodchurch they passed the Baptist chapel—a supremely ugly little building that stood isolated and forlorn in a narrow banked enclosure among flat pasture fields—and Mavis, making conversation, called Dale's attention to the tablet that largely advertised its date.

"Eighteen thirty-seven, Will! That's a long time ago."

"Yes," he said, "a many years back—that takes one. Year the Queen came to the throne."

"I wonder why they built it out here—such a way from everybody—such a tramp for the worshipers."

"In those days all non-conformists were a deal more down-trodden than they are now. It was before people began to understan' the meanin' o' liberty o' conscience; and, like enough, that's a bit of evidence."

"How so, Will?"

"Quite likely there wasn't a landlord lib'ral enough to give 'em a patch o' ground within reach o' th' village. Shoved 'em off as far as they could, to please Mr. Parson, and not contam'nate his church with the sight of an honest dissenter."

He said all this sententiously and didactically, as one who enjoys speaking on historical or sociological subjects; but then a cloud seemed to descend upon him, and he relapsed into gloomy silence.

After another mile they came to Vine-Pits Farm, the home of Mr. Bates the corn-merchant. It was one of the few stone houses of the district, a compact snug-looking nucleus from which an irregular wing, rather higher than the main building, advanced to the very edge of the roadway. A much smaller wing, merely an excrescence, on the other side, seemed as if it had gone as far as it could in the direction of making a quadrangle and had then given over the task to a broad low wall. The square piece of garden, though untidy and neglected, derived a great air of dignity from its stone surrounding, and importance was added to the house by the solid range of outbuildings, barns, and stables. A rick yard with haystacks so big that they showed above the tops of fruit trees and yews, three or four wagons and carts, half a dozen busy men, made the whole Bates establishment seem quite like a thriving little town all to itself.

"It's a funny name, Vine-Pits," said Mavis, still making conversation. "I wonder why ever they called it that."

"There was formerly a quantity of old pits 'longside the rick-bargan—same as you see forcing-pits at a market-gardener's—and the tale goes that they were orig'nally placed there for the purpose of growing grapes on the same principle as cucumbers or melons."

"What a funny idea!"

"'Twas a failure. Sort of a gentleman farmer had the notion he knew better than others, and tried it on year after year till he made a laughing-stock of himself. Anyhow, that's the tale. Mr. Bates has shown me the basis of the pits—built over now by the buildings you were looking at. Ah, here is the old fellow."

Mr. Bates driving toward them in his gig pulled up, and invited Dale to do so also.

"How are you, William?" And he took off his hat to Mrs. Dale. "Your servant, madam. Turn head about, William, and come into my place and take a bit of refreshment."

"No, thank you, Mr. Bates. Not to-day. Some other time."

"No time like the present. A cup of tea, Mrs. Dale. I don't care to see those I count as friends pass my place without stopping."

"I know you mean what you say," said Dale cordially; "but we're for Old Manninglea—business appointment."

"Then I mustn't hinder you. But look in on your way back. Your servant, madam."

Mavis liked the fresh clean complexion and the silvery white hair of Mr. Bates, and there was something very pleasing in his old-fashioned mode of address, his courteous way of saluting her, and his gentle friendly smile as he spoke to her husband.

"Will," she said, as they drove on, "I believe Mr. Bates is really fond of you."

Dale gave a snort; and then after a long pause spoke with strong emphasis.

"I'll tell you, Mavis, what Mr. Bates is. He's a good man, every bit and crumb of him. There's no one between the downs and the sea that I feel the same respect for that I do for that old gentleman."

"Yes, Will, I know you've always praised him."

"And since you make the remark, I'll admit its truth. I do verily believe that Mr. Bates is fond of me." Then he laughed bitterly. "I'm not aware of any one else I could say it of."

"Oh, Will—there's lots are fond of you."

"No—none. That was one small part of my lesson last month in London. I got that tip, straight, at the G.P.O."

"Will!"

They were driving now through the woods, and Mavis, glancing from time to time at her husband's face, saw that it had become fearfully somber. She guessed that this indicated an unfortunate turn of thought, and she talked incessantly in the hope of rendering such thought difficult, if not impossible.

After crossing the bridge over the stream that runs serpentining through the Upper Hadleigh Wood on its way to join the Rod River, they were soon at the Abbey Cross Roads. Here, as they turned into the highroad by the Barradine Arms and the cluster of adjacent cottages, they had a splendid panoramic view of the Abbey estate rolling downward on their left in wide, sylvan beauty as far as the eye could see. From this higher ground, the park showed like an irregular pattern of lighter color on a dark green carpet, and a few of the main rides were visible here and there as truncated straight lines that began and ended capriciously; but all the houses and buildings lay hidden by the undulating woodland. Mavis turned her eyes toward the point where North Ride Cottage shyly concealed itself, and then she glanced back at Dale. He was staring straight in front, not looking to left or right, as if focusing the roadway between the horse's ears.

"It's uphill now, Will, all the way, isn't it? Oh, that's a new cottage. How red the bricks are!"

They had left all the trees behind them now, and, going up the slope through the last strip of fields, they soon emerged on the open heath. For a mile or two the landscape was wildly sad in aspect, just a waste of sand and heather, with naked ridges and boggy hollows, one or two wind-swept hillocks that bore a ragged crest of blackened firs, and in the farthest distance massive contours of grassy down rising as a barrier to guard the fertile valleys of another county. It was here that the riderless horse had galloped about and been hunted by the people from the cross road cottages.

"You have driven well. I think it's wonderful, considering what a little practise you get.... Look, I believe that's a hawk. Must be! Nothing but a hawk could stand so still in the air. He can see something down under him, I suppose. Rabbits, perhaps. Though I don't suppose he'd strike at anything as big as a rabbit, would he?"

Mavis chattered vigorously, to prevent her husband from brooding on painful things; but, even while talking, she did not obliterate her own real thoughts. Inside her there seemed to be a running chorus of unuttered words, and she listened to the inner voice even when at her busiest with the outward sounding voice.

"Has he truly left me money? If so, how much?" These mute questions were perpetually repeated. "A hundred pounds? Perhaps more than that. He gave me two hundred when I married. Suppose he has left me quite a lot of money."

It was not market-day, and the town therefore was not at its best and brightest. Nevertheless, the appearance of shops, pavements, and nicely dressed young ladies, had a most exhilarating effect on Mavis when, after putting up the horse and cart, Dale solemnly conducted her through the High Street to the solicitor's office in Church Place.

The interview with Mr. Cleaver did not take long, although such weighty concerns were spoken of. Dale sat on a chair near the wall, his hat held between his knees, his eyes lowered; while Mavis sat on a chair close to the solicitor, talking, flushing, throbbing, gradually ascending a scale of excitement so feverishly strong that it seemed as if it must eventually consume her just as fire consumes.

Mr. Barradine had left her two thousand pounds, and this sum was to be paid to her free of all duties. The will had not yet been proved, but everything was in order and probate would be granted any day now; minor legacies would then immediately be cleared off; and, since Mavis would have no difficulty in satisfying the executors as to her identity, she might really consider the money as safe in her pocket. Mr. Cleaver, having made this stimulating communication and described the formalities that she must fulfil, asked a few questions about certain of her relatives.

"Ruby Millicent Petherick. That is a cousin of yours? Yes." And he jotted down a note of any facts that Mavis could supply. "Still a spinster. About your own age, and living abroad. Thank you. That is all you can tell me? There seems to be doubt as to her whereabouts. Your aunt—Mrs. John Edward Petherick—does not know her address. But she will no doubt present herself in due course."

Then Mr. Cleaver indicated that he need not further detain them, and Dale, rising slowly and still looking at the crown of his hat, spoke for the first time and in a very ponderous way.

"This has come as a complete surprise to my wife."

"Yes," and the solicitor smiled, "but not by any means as an unpleasant surprise, Mr. Dale!"

"No, sir, naturally not. My wife having been connected with the family since childhood would be naturally one to be thought of by the head of the family if wishful to benefit all old friends after he was called away."

"Quite so," said Mr. Cleaver.

"Will," said Mavis, "we mustn't waste Mr. Cleaver's time by telling him our history;" and she gave a nervous fluttered laugh.

"Mr. Cleaver," said Dale glumly, "will pardon me for desiring to learn how others stand, as well as yourself."

"Oh, well," said Mr. Cleaver, "I think it might be premature to go into matters that do not directly concern Mrs. Dale."

"Yes," said Mavis, nervously, "we mustn't ask for secrets."

"It's just this," said Dale, with stolid insistence. "I do hope he has done something equally handsome for those relations of my wife whose names you mentioned—especially for her aunt, Mrs. J.E. Petherick, who is now past her youth, and to whom it would be a comfort. Also my wife's cousin Ruby, who is earning her livelihood on the continent by following the profession of a musician. Such a windfall would come as a blessing to her."

"Mr. Dale," said the solicitor, "I may safely say as much as this. No one who had the smallest grounds for expecting anything will find himself left out in the cold."

"Thank you, sir." Dale had raised his eyes, and, while speaking now, in the same sententious manner, he seemed to be observing Mr. Cleaver's face very closely. "The fact is, my wife and I had no grounds whatever for expecting to be singled out for special rewards. On the contrary, it was never in my wife's power to render the long and faithful service rendered by the others; so that if a bequest had fallen to us while others of the Petherick clan—if I may employ that expression—had bin passed over, it might have bin difficult for us to benefit to the detriment of the rest of 'em—at least, without causing fam'ly squabbles."

"Then I'll freely reassure you. Such a contingency will not arise. No," and Mr. Cleaver's tone became heartily enthusiastic. "It is a beautiful will. You'll see all the particulars in the newspapers before a week is over, and you'll say that no critic—however hard to please—could find fault. It is a will that is bound to attract the attention of the press."

"Then thank you again, sir. And good afternoon—with renewed thanks for the courteous way you wrote to my wife, and received the two of us to-day."

"Good afternoon." Mr. Cleaver smiled and shook hands good-humoredly. "My congratulations, Mrs. Dale; and one word of advice, free gratis. Invest your legacy wisely, and don't confound capital with income. You're going to have two thousand pounds all told, not two thousand a year, you know."

"Oh, no, sir—I wouldn't be so foolish as to think so."

They had tea at a pastry-cook's in complete silence, and they were half-way home again before Mavis ventured to rouse her husband from his ominous gloom.

"Will," she said, with an assumption of calmness and confidence, "I didn't at once catch the drift of what you were saying to Mr. Cleaver, and when I tried to stop you it was because I was all on edge from hearing such a tremendous piece of news. Such a lot more than ever I could have dreamed of."

He did not answer. Steadily watching the horse's ears, and holding the reins in both hands with the conscientious care of an unpractised coachman, he drove down the slope to the Cross Roads and round the corner into the woods.

"No, but I soon saw what was passing through your mind, Will. You wanted to make quite sure that there would be nothing to cause talk. I don't myself believe people would have really noticed if I had been the only one. But, of course, as I am one of several, it stands to reason nobody can say anything nasty."

Still he did not answer.

"Will, you'll let me take the money, won't you?"

"I don't know. I must think."

"Yes, dear, but you'll think sensibly, won't you? Think of the use—to both of us. If it's mine in name, I count it all as yours every bit as much as mine."

"That's enough now. Don't go on talking about it."

"All right. Are you going to stop at Mr. Bates'?"

"No."

"He was very pressing."

"I've no spirit to tell him—or any one else—what we've heard over there."

"Will," and she drew close to him, nestling against him as much as she could venture to do without causing him difficulty in driving, "you said we were to look forward, not back. Don't get thinking of the past. What's done is done—and it must be right to be happy if we can."

"Ah," and he gave a snort, "that's what the heathens used to say. I thought you were a Christian."

"So I am, Will. Christ preached mercy—yes, and happiness too."

"Thought He preached remorse for sins before you reach pardon and peace. But never mind religion—don't let's drag that in. And leave me alone. Don't talk. I tell you I want to think."

"Very well, dear. Only this one thing. Keep this before you. Now that he's dead—"

"I've asked you to hold your tongue."

"And I will. But let me finish. However lofty you choose to look at it, it can't be wrong to take the money now he's gone."

"I wish his money had gone with him. Look at it lofty or low—take it or leave it—this cursed legacy reminds me of all I was trying to forget."



XI

Full particulars of the disposition of Mr. Barradine's fortune had now been published, and the world was admiringly talking about it.

The claims of the entire Petherick family would be once for all satisfied. Mrs. Petherick and that young person who had been sent to learn music at Vienna were each to receive as much as Mavis Dale; three other Pethericks would get five hundred pounds apiece; still more Pethericks would be dowered in a lesser degree. Then came the ordinary servants, with legacies proportionate to terms of service—everybody remembered, nobody left out in the cold. Then, with nice lump sums of increasing magnitude, came a baker's dozen of Barradine nephews, nieces, and second cousins; the Abbey domain was to go to an elderly first cousin; and then, after bequests to various charities, came the grand item that the local solicitor had in his mind when he foretold a salvo of newspaper comment.

The residue of the estate, the larger half of all the dead man's possessions, was to be employed in the establishment of a Home for parentless, unprotected, or destitute female children. The trustees of this institution were to find a suitable site somewhere within five miles of the Abbey House, and if possible on the Barradine property, being guided in their selection of the exact spot by expert advice as to the character of the soil, the qualities of the air, and the facilities for obtaining a supply of pure water. When they had found the site they were immediately to build thereon, and provide accommodation at the earliest date for fifty small inmates, each of whom was to be reared, educated, and finally launched in life with a small dowry. The funds available would be more than sufficient for the number of children named; and Mr. Barradine expressed the wish that the number should not be increased if, as he hoped, the income of the Trust grew bigger with the passage of time. He desired that extension of revenue should be devoted to improving the comfort and amenities of the fifty occupants, to increasing their dowries, and to assisting them after they had gone out into the world.

Not only the Rodhaven District Courier, but great London journals also, experienced difficulty in marshaling enough adjectives to convey their sense of admiration for such a perfect scheme. Ever since his death the local praise of Mr. Barradine's amiable qualities had been taking richer colors, and now the will seemed so to sanctify his memory that one felt he must be henceforth classed with the traditional philanthropic heroes of England—those whose names grow brighter through the centuries.

When on Sunday Mr. Norton took for his text those beautiful words, "Suffer little children to come unto Me," all instantaneously guessed what he was getting at, and by the time he finished there was scarcely a dry eye that had not been wet at some point or other of an unusually long sermon. "We have had," he said in conclusion, "a striking instance of that noblest of all the feelings of the human breast, tenderness and care for the weak and helpless; and without abrogating the practise of our church which forbids us to pray for the souls of those who have been summoned away from us, I will ask you all before dispersing to-day to join with me in a few moments' silent meditation on the lesson to be derived from a kindness that has proved undying—a pity that has the attribute of things eternal, and, speaking to us from the other side of the grave, may in all reverence be described as Angelic."

The talk about the vast sums to be expended in charity produced a curious effect on Mavis Dale. It seemed that her own two thousand pounds was a steadily diminishing quantity; she was still greatly excited whenever she thought about it, but she could not feel again the respectful rapture caused by her first thought of its lavishly generous extent. Perhaps just at first, doing what the solicitor advised her not to do, she had not altogether discriminated between capital and interest. Dazzled by the abstract notion of wealth, she had over-estimated concrete potentialities.

Of course William would allow her to accept the legacy. In the early days after their visit to Old Manninglea she had tormented herself with fears that he would attempt to force a renunciation of benefits from that quarter, and she had determined never to yield to so preposterous an exercise of authority; but now she felt certain that he would not thus drive her to open revolt. He was still somber and silent, but, however long he remained in this gloomy state, he would not interfere with her freedom in regard to the money.

Nevertheless, she felt relieved when he explicitly stated that there would be no further opposition on his part.

"Oh, Will, I can't tell you how glad I am to hear you talk so sensibly about it."

"It is not willingly that I say 'Yes.' Don't you go and think that."

"No. But you do see we couldn't act otherwise?"

"You must accept it—for this reason, and not for any other reason. Our hands are tied. If you refuse it, people would wonder."

"Yes—yes. But, Will, you keep saying you, when it's really us. It will be ours, not just only mine, you must remember."

"Ah, but I doubt if I could ever take you at your word, there."

After this she sang at her household work. She took as a good sign the fact that he had spoken doubtfully, instead of formally repudiating her suggestion that they were to share alike in all the good things which the money might bring them. She thought it must mean that he was very near to forgiving her. Death had now almost wiped out everything. He was feeling more and more every day what she had felt from the beginning, that it was palpably absurd to go on harboring resentment.

Free now from exaggerated estimates, with ideas readjusted to the measure of reality, and her natural common sense at work again, she thought of what the little fortune might truly do for them. It ought to yield a hundred pounds, twice fifty pounds a year—roughly two pounds a week coming in unearned. Why, it was wealth. On top of William's annual emoluments such an income would make them feel as if they were rolling in money.

Visions immediately arose of all sorts of things that would now be within the scope of their means—choicer meals for William, aprons and caps for Mary, new curtains and much else new and delightful to beautify the home. Little excursions too—a regular seaside holiday during leave-time!

Messrs. Cleaver had intimated that the London solicitors were ready to hand over the money, and Mavis was talking to her husband about its investment.

"I trust your judgment, Will—and I'd like it put in both our names."

"Oh, no, I couldn't quite consent to that."

"I do wish you would. If it's invested well, I make out it ought to bring us a hundred a year."

"Mavis," he said, thoughtfully, "it might be invested to bring more than that, if you were prepared to take a certain amount of risk."

"Oh, I don't want any risk."

"An' p'raps the risk, after all, would be covered by the security I'd offer you. That'd be for your lawyers to decide; it's not for me to urge the safety."

"Will, what is it?"

"I hesitate for this purpose. I want to lead you up to it, so that you shouldn't turn against the proposal without yourself or your representatives giving it consideration."

"Will, I wish you'd tell me—I can't bear suspense."

"Then here's the first question. If satisfied of the security, would you lend out the money on mortgage with a person who has the chance of setting up himself in an old-established business?"

"What business?"

"I'll tell you in a minute. Take the person first. You haven't asked about him. In a sense, his character—honesty and straight ways—is a part of the security. He is somebody you've known for a many years."

"Who is it?"

"Myself."

"Will? What on earth do you mean?"

"Mavis, it's like this—There, bide a bit."

They had been sitting in the dusk after their high tea; and now Mary brought a lighted lamp into the room, and put it on the table between them.

"All right, my girl. Never mind clearing away till I call for you."

He waited until Mary had gone out of the room, and then went on talking. His face with the lamp-light full upon it looked very firm and serious, and his manner while he explained all these new ideas was strangely unemotional. He spoke not in the style of a husband to a wife, but of a business man proposing a partnership to another man.

"It seems to me, viewing it all round, a wonderful good chance. An opening that isn't likely to come in one's way twice. Mr. Bates' son has bin and got himself into such a mess over a horse-racing transaction that he's had to make a bolt of it. I can't tell you the facts, because I don't rightly know them; but it's bad—something to do with checks that'll put him to hidin' for a long day, if he doesn't want to answer for it in a court o' law. Well, then, the old gentleman being worn out with private care, wishful to retire, and seeing a common cheat and waster in the one who ought by nature to succeed him, has offered me to take over the farm, the trade, an' the whole bag of tricks."

"But, surely to goodness, Will, you don't think of giving up the post office?"

"Yes, I do. I think of that, in any case."

"But you love the work."

"Used to, Mavis."

"Don't you now?"

"No. Mavis, it's like this." He had raised a hand to shade his eyes, as if the lamplight hurt them, and she could no longer see the expression of his face. But she observed a sudden change in his manner. He spoke now much in the same confidential tone that he had always employed in the old time when telling her of his most intimate affairs—in the happy time when he brought all his little troubles to her, and flattered her by saying that she never failed to make them easy to bear. "So far's the P.O. is concerned, all the heart has gone out of me. The events through which I've passed have altered my view of the entire affair. Where all seemed leading me on and on, and up and up, I see nothing before me now."

"Promotion!"

"I don't b'lieve I'd ever get it. The best I could hope for'd be that they'd leave me here to th' end o' my service life. And besides, if promotion comes tomorrow, I don't want it."

"Will, let me say it at once. Take the money. I consent. Whatever you feel's best for you, that's what I want."

He altogether ignored her interruption, and went on in the same tone. "I used to think it grand, and now it all seems nothing. I do assure you when I was down there handing out a halfpenny stamp or signing a two-shilling order, I used to feel large enough to burst with satisfaction. I felt 'I'm the king o' the castle.'—That was thrown in my teeth as how I appeared to others. Well, now, I feel like a brock in a barrel—or not so big as him. Just something small that's got into the wrong box by accident, and had the lid clapped to on it. I want room for my elbows, an' scope for my int'lect. I must get the sky over my head again, and the open roads under my feet. If I stopped down there much longer, I should go mad."

"Then, my dear, you mustn't stop."

"These last weeks—fairly determined to chuck it—I bin thinking o' the Colonies as affording advantages to any man who's got capacities in him; but now this chance comes nearer home, and it lies with you to say if you'll give me the help required for me to take it."

"Yes," said Mavis, earnestly, "and more glad than words can say to think I'm able to do so."

Indeed she was delighted. She had been deeply moved by all he told her about his distaste for the work he used to love, and she recognized that he had been magnanimous in refraining from reproaches, but rather implying a purely personal change of ideas as to the cause of disillusionment and depression. So that, jumping at the opportunity to prove that she counted his inclinations as higher than mere money, she would have accepted any scheme, however unpromising; but in fact the enterprise appeared to her judgment as quite gloriously hopeful. Every moment increased the charms that it presented; above all, its complete novelty fascinated, and with surprising quickness she found herself thinking almost exactly what her husband had thought in regard to their present existence. It seemed to her too that she was pining for a larger, freer environment, that this narrow home had become a permanent prison-house, and that she could never really be contented until she got away from it; then she thought of Vine-Pits Farm, the peaceful fields, the lovely woodland, the space, the air, the sunlight that one would enjoy out there; and then in another moment came the fear lest all this should prove too good to be true.

"But, Will, however can Mr. Bates be willing to part with such a splendid business as his for no more than two thousand pounds?"

"Ah, there you show your sense, Mavis." As he said this Dale took his hand from his forehead, and resumed his entirely matter-of-fact tone. "You must understand things aren't always what they seem. The business is not what it was."

"But Mr. Bates is very rich, isn't he?"

"He ought to be, but he isn't. That son of his has bin eating him up, slow an' fast, for th' last ten years. The turnover of his trade is big enough, but the whole management of it has gone end-ways. From a man working with capital he's come down to a man financing things from hand to mouth. What's left to him now is strictly speaking his stock, his wagons, his horses, his lease, his household belongings—and whatever should be put down for the good-will."

Then, continuing his purely businesslike exposition, he explained that he would have to make two engagements, one to his wife and one to Mr. Bates. All material property would be charged with Mavis' loan, and the value of the good-will would be repaid how and when he could repay it. Mr. Bates was content to risk that part of the bargain on his faith in Dale's personal integrity.

"Don't say any more," cried Mavis. "I'm not understanding it, but I know it's all right. Do let's get it settled before Mr. Bates alters his mind."

"It must be done formally, Mavis, through your lawyers. Mr. Cleaver is capable and trustworthy. It's to be a regular mortgage, properly tied up; and he must approve—"

"I don't care whether he approves or doesn't. I approve."

"Then I thank you," said Dale, gravely, "for the way you've met me, and I assure you I appreciate it. As to the trade itself, I b'lieve I shan't go wrong. It's not so new to me as people might suppose. I'm well aware of its principles; and, moreover, one trade's precious like another—and a man's faculties are bound to tell, no matter how you apply them."

Mavis was overjoyed. When she sang to herself now while dressing of a morning the notes poured out loud and full, even when there was scarce a puff of breath behind them. She felt so proud and happy to think that fate had given her the power to help William, and that he had consented to avail himself of the power. Once more he had begun to lean on her. As in the past, so in the future, he would derive support from his poor little misunderstood, but always well-meaning Mavis.



XII

By the end of September everything was arranged. Dale had ceased to be postmaster of Rodchurch; the purchase of the business had been completed; and Mr. Bates had moved out of Vine-Pits to a cottage near Otterford Mill, leaving behind him the bulk of his furniture as the property of the incomers. Thus the Dales would have no difficulty in furnishing the comparatively large house that henceforth was to be their home.

For the last two days they had been living chaotically in rooms stripped to a woeful bareness; this morning Mary had gone along the Hadleigh Road with a wagon full of bedsteads, bedding, and household utensils; and now, late in the afternoon, the wagon stood at the post office door again, packed this time with a final load consisting of those treasures which had been held back for transit under their owners' charge.

Mavis had already climbed up, and was settling herself on a high valley of rolled carpets between two mountain ranges formed by the piano and the parlor bookcases. With anxious eyes she looked at minor chains of packing-cases that contained the best china, the mantel ornaments, the hand-painted pictures. Inside a basket on her knees their cat was mewing disconsolately, despite well-buttered paws. The two big horses, one in front of the other, continuously tinkled the metal disks on their forehead bands; Mr. Allen and other neighbors came out of their shops; Miss Yorke and the clerks from the office filled the pavement; children gathered about the wagon staring silently, and Miss Waddy on the opposite pavement waved her handkerchief and said "Oh, dear! oh, dear!"

"Good luck!"

"Thank you, thank you kindly." Dale moved about briskly, shaking hands with every one. Already he had abandoned all trace of his ancient official costume. In cord breeches and leather gaiters, his straw hat on the back of his head, he looked thoroughly farmer-like, and he seemed to have assumed the jovial independent manner as well as the clothes appropriate to the man who has no other master but the winds and the weather.

"So long, Mr. Allen. Put in a good word for me at the Kennels."

"I will so, Mr. Dale."

"Good-by, Mr. Silcox. Hope you'll honor us with a call whenever you're passing. And if you can, give me a lift in the Courier. I may say it's my intention to patronize their advertisement columns regular, soon's ever I begin to feel my feet under me."

"See Rodchurch Gossip next issue," said Mr. Silcox significantly.

"Thanks. You're a trump."

"Good-by, Miss Yorke." And he laughed. "'Pon my soul, I'm surprised it's still Miss Yorke; but it'll be Mrs. before long, I warrant."

"Oh, Mr. Dale!"

"There, so long," and he shook Miss Yorke's hand warmly. "And take my excuse if I bin a bit of a slave-driver now and then. I didn't mean it."

"We've no complaints," said one of the clerks. "Good luck, sir!"

Then Dale told his carter to make a start of it, and the wagon creaked, jolted, slowly lumbered away.

Though they moved at a foot pace, it was not easy traveling in the wagon; the china boxes bumped and rattled, the piano swayed so much that all its strings vibrated, and the cat leaped frantically in the basket; but Mavis felt no inconvenience. She was full of hope. For more than a mile Dale walked beside the shaft horse, echoing the "Coom in then" and "Oot thar" of the man with the leader, and the sound of the voices, the plod of the iron shoes, and the bell-like tinkle of the harness were all pleasant to hear. The whole thing seemed to her picturesque and interesting, like a small episode in the Old Testament, and imaginary words offered themselves as suitable to describe it. "Therefore that day her husband gathered all that was theirs, and set her behind his horses and they journeyed into another place."

She smiled at her cleverness in inventing such good Bible language, and then the thought came to her mind that they were going into the promised land. Once she turned her head to get a last glimpse of the church tower, and perhaps be able to pick out the roof of the post office among the other roofs, but the high mass of furniture shut out all the view. Only the sky was visible, with the sun quite low, and so bright that it was almost blinding. And she thought that this chance of the hour being late and the sun being nearly down was a lucky omen. Straight ahead of them the road was sunlit, and the long slanting sunbeams appeared to hurry on before them as if to light up and glorify the land of promise. "If," she said to herself, "we get there before it has dipped and I catch the sunshine on the ricks, I shall know we are going to be happy."

Then all at once she saw Dale's straw hat and face rise above the fore boards of the wagon. He had swung himself on the shaft to see how she was getting on.

"All right, old lady?"

"Yes—lovely."

The tone of his voice had made her heart bound. It was the dear old voice, speaking to her just as he used to speak before their bad time began.

"We'll be there sooner than you know where you are. I think I'll rest my bones a bit."

Then he got into the wagon, and carefully clambering over impediments came toward her. For a moment as he stood over her the sunlight was on his face, and she, looking up at him, thought that he was not only a fine but quite a beautiful man. The light seemed to soften and yet ennoble his features, and his eyes, unblinking in the glare, were blue and clear as water. When he sat down close to her little nest she pushed the basket away from her, and raising her hand laid it on his knees. To her delight he put his hand on hers, and left it there. He was in shadow now, showing a dark profile, and again she admired him—her strong, big, handsome man, her man that she was pining for.

"Will," she said tremulously, "don't move, but just look behind you, and tell me all you see."

"I don't see anything, Mav, unless I heft meself up again."

"No, sit as you are. It just bears out what you said. We're never more to look back. We're only to look forward. Will?"

He had taken his hand away, and turned the back of his head toward her.

"Will," she repeated; but he did not answer. "Will, my dear one, this is going to be a fresh start, isn't it? Like a new beginning for us."

"Yes," he said, very seriously, "that's what I build on its being. Take it so. You and I are beginning life again in our new home."

"Bless you for saying it. The one thing I wished to hear."

"Yes, we must help each other. I'll do—I mean to do. But, maybe, it'll be more 'v o' fight than I'm reckoning, and there's a many ways that you can make the fight easier—beyond the one great thing you've done a'ready."

"I will, dear. I will."

Then they were silent. The carter cracked his whip, shouted to his team, and whistled; and the horses, neither frightened by the whip nor excited by the whistling, drew the big wagon at exactly the same steady pace.

And Mavis felt as if her throat had suddenly enlarged itself and become too big for her collar, while her whole breast was swelling and hardening until it seemed so rigidly immense that it would burst all her garments; it was as if her whole being, together with all the thoughts or memories that it contained felt the expansion of some force that had been long gathering and now swiftly was released. In all her life she had experienced no such sensations hitherto. She who had been passive under the desires of others now felt desire active in herself. It was not only that she wanted pardon, kindness, companionship, the things that she had been so systematically deprived of; she wanted the man himself, the partner, and the mate to whom nature had given her a right.

Abruptly she changed her position, scrambling forward close against him, and put up both her hands to his shoulders.

"Will, stoop your head. I want to whisper something."

Then, as soon as he bent toward her, she clasped her hands behind his neck and tried to drag him down in a kiss.

"What yer doin'? Let me be."

"No, I won't. I won't." She was holding him with all her strength, pulling herself up since she could not pull him down. "Be nice to me." And as he recoiled she thrust forward her upturned face, the cheeks hard and white, the eyes burning, the mouth not quite closing even while she spoke. "I won't let you go, till you've kissed me and made it up for good an' all."

She was acting now as instinctively as any wild animal of the woods. What had started in the zone of voluntary impulse had now passed into the ruling power of reflexes; every nerve of her body seemed to be thinking for itself, guiding her, and compelling her to struggle for the desired end. All this nonsense of high-falutin' morality must be swept aside; if he loved her still, he must admit that he loved her; it must be love or hate, but no more sham and pretense, no more of these half measures that made her a wife when people were looking, and an enemy, a culprit in disgrace, or a sexless business associate, when they two were alone behind drawn blinds.

"Mav, you're shaming me. 'A' done. 'Aarve you tekken leave o' yer senses?"

She felt him shiver as he resisted her; then in another moment he gripped her round the waist as brutally and violently as if he intended to pitch her out of the wagon, held her to him so fiercely that he crushed all the breath from her lungs, and gave her a long passionate mouth-to-mouth kiss. And it seemed to her that the strength and brutality of the embrace formed the one supreme gratification that she had been burning to obtain; she wanted to give herself to him as she had never done before, and if he crushed her and broke her and killed her in their joint rapture, she would drink death greedily as something inevitable to all those who empty the deep goblet of love.

"There!" He took his lips away, and she sank back gasping. "You've 'ad yer way wi' me;" and he heaved a sigh that was as loud as a groan. "Oh, Mav, my girl, gi' me yer kisses—kiss me all night and all day—if on'y you make me forget."

Her hat had tumbled off in the struggle, a mesh of brown hair was dangling over her shoulder, and she was still too much out of breath to speak. The wagon rolled heavily forward along the flat road, and the carter cracked his whip continuously to tell the horses they were nearly home. Presently Mavis got up, perched herself beside her husband, and whispered to him jerkily.

"You've nothing to forget, dear. No looking back. But, oh, my darling, I'm going to be more than I ever was to you. I feel it. I know it—an' we'll be happy, happy, happy, so long as we live."

She pressed her face against the sleeve of his jacket, and stroked his knee with as much luxurious pleasure as if the rough cord breeches had been made of the softest satin velvet.

"See. Look straight ahead," and she raised her hand and pointed.

Vine-Pits Farm was in sight. The stone house, the barns, the straw ricks, and the fruit trees all seeming to have clustered close together, to form a compact little kingdom of hope and joy.

"Look, dear. How pretty—see the sunlight on the roofs and on the ricks. That's luck. All the straw is changing into gold. My old Will is going to make heaps of golden sovereigns as big as any rick."

"Woo then. A-oo then." The carter stopped the horses outside the garden entrance. "Will the missis get down here at th' front door, or be us to go on into yaard?"

Mrs. Dale got down here, took the cat-basket from her husband, and went gaily up the path to the open front door.

"Don't let th' cat loose," Dale called after her warningly, "or she'll be back to Rodchurch like a streak o' greased lightning. She'll need acclim'tyzing all to-morrow."

Mavis ran through the house to the kitchen, where Mary and a courtesying old woman received her. Then she scampered from room to room, uttering little cries of contentment. Often as she had seen and admired the house during the last few weeks, it had never seemed so perfectly delightful as it did to-day: with its low-ceiled cozy little rooms at the back, its high and imposing rooms in front, its broad staircase and square landing, it would be quite a little palace when all had been set to rights.

Coming hurrying back to the hall, she saw her husband in the porch, a splendid dark figure with the last rays of yellow sunlight behind him. He paused bare-headed on the threshold, obviously not aware of her presence, and she was about to speak to him when he startled her by dropping on his knees and praying aloud.

"O merciful Powers, give me grace and strength to lead a healthy fearless life in this house."



XIII

The Dales were beginning to prosper now, but their first winter had been an anxious, difficult time.

Dale had made a common mistake in his calculations, and experience soon taught him that what is known as good-will, the most delicate and sensitive of all trade-values, can not by a mere stroke of the pen be transferred from one person to another. Solid customers turned truant; the business went down with terrifying velocity; and old Bates, who loyally came day after day to advise and assist, spoke with sincere regret. "William, I never foretold this. I must see what can be done. I'll leave no stone unturned." And he trotted about, touting for his successor, tramping long miles to beg for a continuance of favors that had unexpectedly ceased, but usually returning sadly to confess that his efforts had again been fruitless. They were gloomy evening hours, when the old and the young man sat together in the office by the roadway; and at night Mavis used to hear her sleeping husband moan and groan so piteously that she sometimes felt compelled to wake him.

"What is it?" Awakened thus, he would spring up with a hoarse cry, and be almost out of the bed before she was able to restrain him.

"It's nothing, dear. Only you were in one of your bad dreams, and I simply couldn't let you go on being tormented."

"That's right," he used to mutter sleepily. "I don't want to dream. I've enough that's real."

"Don't you worry, dear old boy. You're going to pull through grand—in the end. I know you are. Besides, if not—then we'll try something else."

She always murmured such consolatory phrases until he fell asleep once more.

The fact was that Bates had been respected by the well-to-do and loved by the humble; and Dale, out here, remained an unknown quantity. Anything of his fame as postmaster that had traveled along these two miles from Rodchurch did not help him. He was not liked. He felt it in the air, a dull inactive hostility, when talking to gentlefolks' coachmen or giving orders to his own servants. The coachmen could take no pleasure in patronizing him, nor the men in working for him. Mr. Bates advised him once or twice to cultivate a gentler and more ingratiating method of dealing with the people in his employ.

"Perhaps, William, I'm to blame for having spoilt 'em a bit;—but it'd be good policy for you to take them as you find them, and get them bound to you before you begin drilling 'em. A soft word now and then, William—you don't know how far it goes sometimes."

"What I complain of is this," said Dale; "they don't show any spirit. Every stroke o' bad luck I've had—every chance where they might step in with common sense, or extra care, or a spark of invention to save a situation for me—it's just as if they were a row o' turnips."

And the strokes of bad luck were so many and so heavy. The elements seemed to be making war against him—such wet days as made it impossible to deliver hay without damage to it, and an accusation from somebody's stables that the last lot was poisoned; then frost, and two horses seriously injured on the ice-clothed roads; then February gales, wrecking the barn roofs, entailing costly repairs; then floods; and last of all rats. The unusual amount of land water had driven them to new haunts, and Dale's granaries were suddenly invaded. "Oh, William," said Mr. Bates, horror-stricken, "beware of rats. They are the worst foe. One rat will mess up a mountain of grain."

About the time of the vernal equinox there came a tempest in comparison with which all previous wind and rain were but a whispering and a sprinkling. Every door was being rattled as if by giant hands, the glass sang in the latticed windows, and the whole house seemed swaying, when Mary told her mistress that something had gone wrong with the big straw stack and that the master was attempting to climb to the top of it on the long ladder.

Mavis instantly pulled up her skirt in true country fashion to make a cloak, and told Mary to help her open the kitchen door.

"You bide where you be, Mrs. Dale," said the old charwoman. "You ben't goin' to be no use of any kind out there, and you may bring yourself to a misfortune."

But Mavis insisted on struggling through the doorway, into the rude embrace of the weather. Great branches of the walnut tree were waving wildly, while little twigs and buds flew from apple trees like dust; the rain, not in drops but as it seemed in solid packets, struck her face and shoulders with such force that she could scarcely stand against it; a shallow wooden tub came bounding to her along the flagged path and passed like a sheet of brown paper; and just as she got to the corner of the buildings from which she could obtain a view of the rick-yard, thirty feet of pale fencing lay down upon the beehives and the rhubarb bed without a sound that was even faintly audible above the racket of the storm.

But she had no eyes for anything except her husband, and no other thought than of the horrible peril in which he was placing himself. Four men clung to the bottom of the ladder, and yet, with Dale's weight half-way up to help them, could not for a moment keep it steady. On top of the rick one of the tarpaulin sheets had broken loose; the cruel wind was tearing beneath it, wrenching out pegs and cordage, snatching at thatch-hackle, and making the stout ropes that should have held the sheet hiss and dart like serpents.

It seemed to her that the rick was as high as Mont Blanc, and that even on a placid summer day no one but a lunatic would want to scale it. Then she screamed, and went rushing forward.

Dale, in the act of clambering from the top rung of the ladder, had been blown off, and was hanging to a rope over the edge of the stack. With extreme difficulty the men moved the ladder, and he succeeded in getting on it again.

"Gi't up, sir. 'Tis mortally impossible." As well as Mavis, every one of them shouted an entreaty that he would come down.

Probably he did not hear them, and certainly he did not obey them. He went up, not down. Then for half an hour he fought like a madman with the flapping sheet, and finally conquered it.

Mavis, as she stared upward, saw the gray clouds driving so fast over the crest of the stack that they made it seem as if the whole yard was drifting away in the opposite direction; while her man, a poor little black insect painfully crawling here and there, desperately writhed as new billows surged up beneath him, labored at the rope, seemed to use feet, hands, and teeth in his frantic efforts against the overwhelming power that was opposed to him. She felt dazed and giddy, sick with fear, and yet glowing with admiration in the midst of her agonized anxiety.

To the men it was a wonderful and exciting sight that had altogether stirred them from their usual turnip-like lethargy. When the master came down, all shaking and bleeding, they bellowed hearty compliments in his ear.

"Now," said the old charwoman, when Mr. and Mrs. Dale returned to the kitchen, "you've a 'aad a nice skimmle-skammle of it, sir, an' you best back me up to send the missis to her bed, and bide there warm, and never budge. I means it," she added, with authority. "You ben't to put yourself in a caddle, Mrs. Dale, an' I know what I be talkin' of."

After this the men appeared to work better for Dale; perhaps still somewhat sulkily whenever he pressed them, continuing to be more or less afraid of him, but not so keenly regretting the loss of their white-haired old master.

The storm had brought back the floods, and they were now worse than anything that anybody remembered having ever seen. The feeding sources of the Rod River had broken all bounds; the lower parts of Hadleigh Wood had become a quagmire; and the volume of water passing under the road bridge was so great that many people thought this ancient structure to be in danger of collapsing. Over at Otterford Mill, the stream swept like a torrent through a chain of wide lakes; Mr. Bates' cottage was cut off from the highroad, and the meadows behind the neighboring Foxhound Kennels were deep under water.

In these days Dale took to riding as the easiest means of getting about; and one afternoon when he had gone splashing across to see Mr. Bates, thence to pay a visit of polite canvass at the Kennels, and was now returning homeward by the lanes, he heard a dismal chorus of cries in the Mill meads.

Forcing his clumsy horse through a gap in the hedge, he galloped along the sodden field tracks to the shifting scene of commotion. Three or four idle louts, a couple of children, and a farm-laborer were running by the swollen margin of the mill-stream, yelling forlornly, pointing at an object that showed itself now and again in the swirling center of the current. Plainly, somebody had chosen this most unpropitious season for an accidental bath, and his companions were sympathetically watching him drown, while not daring, not dreaming of, any foolhardy attempt at a rescue.

"'Tis Veale, sir. A'bram Veale, sir. Theer!" And all the cries came loud and hearty. "Theer he goes ag'in. I see 'un come up and go under. Oo, oo! Ain't 'un trav'lin'!"

"Catch th' 'orse!" shouted Dale; and next moment it was a double entertainment that offered itself to hurrying spectators.

The water, charged with sediment from all the rich earth it had scoured over, was thick as soup; its brown wavelets broke in slimy froth, and its deepest swiftest course had a color of darkly shining lead beneath the pale gleams of March sunshine. In this leaden glitter the two men were swept away, seeming to be locked in each other's arms, their heads very rarely out of the water, their backs visible frequently; until at a boundary fence they vanished from the sight of attentive pursuers who could pursue no further; and seemed in the final glimpse as small and black as two otters fiercely fighting.