"That's exactly what I said, my dear," said she. She permitted herself the little endearment now and then with an ironical inflection, as one fearful of being robbed might show a diamond pretending that it was paste.

"You think He made it for a joke?"

"If He did it's a joke in the worst possible taste," said she, "but I see your point of view. There can't be so very much wrong with a world that has Her in it,—and you—and possibilities."

"Do you know," he said slowly, "I'm not at all sure that—Do you remember the chap in Jane Eyre?—he knew quite well that that Rosamund girl wouldn't make him the wife he wanted. Yet he wanted nothing else. I don't want anything but her; and it doesn't make a scrap of difference that I know exactly what sort of fool I am."

"A knowledge of anatomy doesn't keep a broken bone from hurting," said she, "and all even you know about love won't keep off the heartache. I could have told you that long ago."

"I know I'm a fool," he said, "but I can't help it. Sometimes I think I wouldn't help it if I could."

"I know," she said, and something in her voice touched the trained sensibilities of the Amorist. He stooped to kiss the hand that teased the topazes.

"Dear Jasmine Lady," he said, "my optimism doesn't keep its colour long, does it? Give me some tea, won't you? There's nothing so wearing as emotion."

She gave him tea.

"It's a sort of judgment on you, though," was what she gave him with his first cup: "you've dealt out this very thing to so many women,—and now it's come home to roost."

"I didn't know what a fearful wildfowl it was," he answered smiling. "I swear I didn't. I begin to think I never knew anything at all before."

"And yet they say Love's blind."

"And so he is! That's just it. My exotic flower of optimism withers at your feet. It's all exactly the muddle you say it is. Pray Heaven for a clear way out! Meantime thank whatever gods may be—I've got you."

"Monsieur's confidante is always at his distinguished service," she said. And thus sealed the fountain of confidences for that day.

But it broke forth again and again in the days that came after. For now he saw her almost every day. And for her, to be with him, to know that she had of him more of everything, save the heart, than any other woman, spelled something wonderfully like happiness. More like it than she had the art to spell in any other letters.

Vernon still went twice a week to the sketch-club. To have stayed away would have been to confess, to the whole alert and interested class, that he had only gone there for the sake of Betty.

Those afternoons were seasons of salutary torture.

He tried very hard to work, but, though he still remembered how a paint brush should be handled, there seemed no good reason for using one. He had always found his planned and cultivated emotions strongly useful in forwarding his work. This undesired unrest mocked at work, and at all the things that had made up the solid fabric of one's days. The ways of love—he had called it love; it was a name like another—had merely been a sort of dram-drinking. Such love was the intoxicant necessary to transfigure life to the point where all things, even work, look beautiful. Now he tasted the real draught. It flooded his veins like fire and stung like poison. And it made work, and all things else, look mean and poor and unimportant.

"I want you—I want you—I want you," said Vernon to the vision with the pretty kitten face, and the large gray eyes. "I want you more than everything in the world," he said, "everything in the world put together. Oh, come back to me—dear, dear, dear."

He was haunted without cease by the little poem he had written when he was training himself to be in love with Betty:

"I love you to my heart's hid core: Those other loves? How should one learn From marshlights how the great fires burn? Ah, no—I never loved before!"

"Prophetic, I suppose," he said, "though God knows I never meant it. Any fool of a prophet must hit the bull's eye at least once in a life. But there was a curious unanimity of prophecy about this. The aunt warned me; that Conway woman warned me; the Jasmine Lady warned me. And now it's happened," he told himself. "And I who thought I knew all about everything!"

Miss Conway's name, moving through his thoughts, left the trail of a new hope.

Next day he breakfasted at Montmartre.

The neatest little Cremerie; white paint, green walls stenciled with fat white geraniums. On each small table a vase of green Bruges ware or Breton pottery holding not a crushed crowded bouquet, but one single flower—a pink tulip, a pink carnation, a pink rose. On the desk from behind which the Proprietress ruled her staff, enormous pink peonies in a tall pot of Grez de Flandre.

Behind the desk Paula Conway, incredibly neat and business-like, her black hair severely braided, her plain black gown fitting a figure grown lean as any grey-hound's, her lace collar a marvel of fine laundry work.

Dapper-waisted waitresses in black, with white aprons, served the customers. Vernon was served by Madame herself. The clientele formed its own opinion of the cause of this, her only such condescension.

"Well, and how's trade?" he asked over his asparagus.

"Trade's beautiful," Paula answered, with the frank smile that Betty had seen, only once or twice, and had loved very much: "if trade will only go on behaving like this for another six weeks my cruel creditor will be paid every penny of the money that launched me."

Her eyes dwelt on him with candid affection.

"Your cruel creditor's not in any hurry," he said. "By the way, I suppose you've not heard anything of Miss Desmond?"

"How could I? You know you made me write that she wasn't to write."

"I didn't make you write anything."

"You approved. But anyway she hasn't my address. Why?"

"She's gone away: and she also has left no address."

"You don't think?—Oh, no—nothing could have happened to her!"

"No, no," he hastened to say. "I expect her father sent for her, or fetched her."

"The best thing too," said Paula. "I always wondered he let her come."

"Yes,"—Vernon remembered how little Paula knew.

"Oh, yes, she's probably gone home."

"Look here," said Miss Conway very earnestly; "there wasn't any love business between you and her, was there?"

"No," he answered strongly.

"I was always afraid of that. Do you know—if you don't mind, when I've really paid my cruel creditor everything, I should like to write and tell her what he's done for me. I should like her to know that she really did save me—and how. Because if it hadn't been for her you'd never have thought of helping me. Do you think I might?"

"It could do no harm," said Vernon after a silent moment. "You'd really like her to know you're all right. You are all right?"

"I'm right; as I never thought I could be ever again."

"Well, you needn't exaggerate the little services of your cruel creditor. Come to think of it, you needn't name him. Just say it was a man you knew."

But when Paula came to write the letter that was not just what she said.



Book 4.—The Other Man



CHAPTER XXI.

THE FLIGHT.

The full sunlight streamed into the room when Betty, her packing done, drew back the curtain. She looked out on the glazed roof of the laundry, the lead roof of the office, the blank wall of the new grocery establishment in the Rue de Rennes. Only a little blue sky shewed at the end of the lane, between roofs, by which the sun came in. Not a tree, not an inch of grass, in sight; only, in her room, half a dozen roses that Temple had left for her, and the white marguerite plant—tall, sturdy, a little tree almost—that Vernon had sent in from the florist's next door but two. Everything was packed. She would say good-bye to Madame Bianchi; and she would go, and leave no address, as she had promised last night.

"Why did you promise?" she asked herself. And herself replied:

"Don't you bother. We'll talk about all that when we've got away from Paris. He was quite right. You can't think here."

"You'd better tell the cabman some other station. That cat of a concierge is sure to be listening."

"Ah, right. I don't want to give him any chance of finding me, even if he did say he wanted to marry me."

A fleet lovely picture of herself in bridal smart travelling clothes arriving at the Rectory on Vernon's arm:

"Aren't you sorry you misjudged him so, Father?" Gentle accents refraining from reproach. A very pretty picture. Yes. Dismissed.

Now the carriage swaying under the mound of Betty's luggage starts for the Gare du Nord. In the Rue Notre Dame des Champs Betty opens her mouth to say, "Gare de Lyons." No: this is his street. Better cross it as quickly as may be. At the Church of St. Germain—yes.

The coachman smiles at the new order: like the concierge he scents an intrigue, whips up his horse, and swings round to the left along the prettiest of all the boulevards, between the full-leafed trees. Past Thirion's. Ah!

That thought, or pang, or nausea—Betty doesn't quite know what it is—keeps her eyes from the streets till the carriage is crossing the river. Why—there is Notre Dame! It ought to be miles away. Suppose Vernon should have been leaning out of his window when she passed across the street, seen her, divined her destination, followed her in the fleetest carriage accessible? The vision of a meeting at the station:

"Why are you going away? What have I done?" The secret of this, her great renunciation—the whole life's sacrifice to that life's idol—honor, wrung from her. A hand that would hold hers—under pretence of taking her bundle of rugs to carry.—She wished the outermost rug were less shabby! Vernon's voice.

"But I can't let you go. Why ruin two lives—nay, three? For it is you only that I—"

Dismissed.

It is very hot. Paris is the hottest place in the world. Betty is glad she brought lavender water in her bag. Wishes she had put on her other hat. This brown one is hot; and besides, if Vernon were to be at the station. Interval. Dismissed.

Betty has never before made a railway journey alone. This gives one a forlorn feeling. Suppose she has to pay excess on her luggage, or to wrangle about contraband? She has heard all about the Octroi. Is lavender water smuggling? And what can they do to you for it? Vernon would know all these things. And if he were going into the country he would be wearing that almost-white rough suit of his and the Panama hat. A rose—Madame Abel de Chatenay—would go well with that coat. Why didn't brides consult their bridegrooms before they bought their trousseaux? You should get your gowns to rhyme with your husband's suits. A dream of a dress that would be, with all the shades of Madame Abel cunningly blended. A honeymoon lasts at least a month. The roses would all be out at Long Barton by the time they walked up that moss-grown drive, and stood at the Rectory door, and she murmured in the ear of the Reverend Cecil: "Aren't you sorry you—"

Dismissed. And perforce, for the station was reached.

Betty, even in the brown hat, attracted the most attractive of the porters—also, of course, the most attractable. He thought he spoke English, and though this was not so, yet the friendly blink of his Breton-blue eyes and his encouraging smile gave to his:

"Bourron? Mais oui—dix heures vingt. Par ici, Meess. Je m'occuperai de vous. Et des bagages aussi—all right," quite the ring of one's mother tongue.

He made everything easy for Betty, found her a carriage without company ("I can cry here if I like," said the Betty that Betty liked least), arranged her small packages neatly in the rack, took her 50 centime piece as though it had been a priceless personal souvenir, and ran half the length of the platform to get a rose from another porter's button-hole. He handed it to her through the carriage window.

"Pour egayer le voyage de Meess. All right!" he smiled, and was gone.

She settled herself in the far corner, and took off her hat. The carriage was hot as any kitchen. With her teeth she drew the cork of the lavender water bottle, and with her handkerchief dabbed the perfume on forehead and ears.

"Ah, Mademoiselle—De grace!"—the voice came through the open window beside her. A train full of young soldiers was beside her train, and in the window opposite hers three boys' faces crowded to look at her. Three hands held out three handkerchiefs—not very white certainly, but—

Betty smiling reached out the bottle and poured lavender water on each outheld handkerchief.

"Ah, le bon souvenir!" said one.

"We shall think of the beauty of an angel of Mademoiselle every time we smell the perfume so delicious," said the second.

"And longer than that—oh, longer than that by all a life!" cried the third.

The train started. The honest, smiling boy faces disappeared. Instinctively she put her head out of the window to look back at them. All three threw kisses at her.

"I ought to be offended," said Betty, and instantly kissed her hand in return.

"How nice French people are!" she said as she sank back on the hot cushions.

And now there was leisure to think—real thoughts, not those broken, harassing dreamings that had buzzed about her between 57 Boulevard Montparnasse and the station. Also, as some one had suggested, one could cry.

She leaned back, eyes shut. Her next thought was:

"I have been to sleep."

She had. The train was moving out of a station labelled Fontainebleau.

"And oh, the trees!" said Betty, "the green thick trees! And the sky. You can see the sky."

Through the carriage window she drank delight from the far grandeur of green distances, the intimate beauty of green rides, green vistas, as a thirsty carter drinks beer from the cool lip of his can—a thirsty lover madness from the warm lips of his mistress.

"Oh, how good! How green and good!" she told herself over and over again till the words made a song with the rhythm of the blundering train and the humming metals.

"Bourron!"

Her station. Little, quiet, sunlit, like the station at Long Barton; a flaming broom bush and the white of May and acacia blossom beyond prim palings; no platform—a long leap to the dusty earth. The train went on, and Betty and her boxes seemed dropped suddenly at the world's end.

The air was fresh and still. A chestnut tree reared its white blossoms like the candles on a Christmas tree for giant children. The white dust of the platform sparkled like diamond dust. May trees and laburnums shone like silver and gold. And the sun was warm and the tree-shadows black on the grass. And Betty loved it all.

"Oh!" she said suddenly, "it's a year ago to-day since I met him—in the warren."

A shadow caressed and stung her. She would have liked it to wear the mask of love foregone—to have breathed plaintively of hopes defeated and a broken heart. Instead it shewed the candid face of a real homesickness, and it spoke with convincing and abominably aggravating plainness—of Long Barton.

The little hooded diligence was waiting in the hot white dust outside the station.

"But yes.—It is I who transport all the guests of Madame Chevillon," said the smiling brown-haired bonnetless woman who held the reins.

Betty climbed up beside her.

Along a straight road that tall ranks of trees guarded but did not shade, through the patchwork neatness of the little culture that makes the deep difference between peasant France and pastoral England, down a steep hill into a little white town, where vines grew out of the very street to cling against the faces of the houses and wistaria hung its mauve pendants from every arch and lintel.

The Hotel Chevillon is a white-faced house, with little unintelligent eyes of windows, burnt blind, it seems, in the sun—neat with the neatness of Provincial France.

Out shuffled an old peasant woman in short skirt, heavy shoes and big apron, her arms bared to the elbow, a saucepan in one hand, a ladle in the other. She beamed at Betty.

"I wish to see Madame Chevillon."

"You see her, ma belle et bonne," chuckled the old woman. "It is me, Madame Chevillon. You will rooms, is it not? You are artist? All who come to the Hotel are artist. Rooms? Marie shall show you the rooms, at the instant even. All the rooms—except one—that is the room of the English Artist—all that there is of most amiable, but quite mad. He wears no hat, and his brain boils in the sun. Mademoiselle can chat with him: it will prevent that she bores herself here in the Forest."

Betty disliked the picture.

"I think perhaps," she said, translating mentally as she spoke, "that I should do better to go to another hotel, if there is only one man here and he is—"

She saw days made tiresome by the dodging of a lunatic—nights made tremulous by a lunatic's yelling soliloquies.

"Ah," said Madame Chevillon comfortably, "I thought Mademoiselle was artist; and for the artists and the Spaniards the convenances exist not. But Mademoiselle is also English. They eat the convenances every day with the soup.—See then, my cherished. The English man, he is not a dangerous fool, only a beast of the good God; he has the atelier and the room at the end of the corridor. But there is, besides the Hotel, the Garden Pavilion, un appartement of two rooms, exquisite, on the first, and the garden room that opens big upon the terrace. It is there that Mademoiselle will be well!"

Betty thought so too, when she had seen the "rooms exquisite on the first"—neat, bare, well-scrubbed rooms with red-tiled floors, scanty rugs and Frenchly varnished furniture—the garden room too, with big open hearth and no furniture but wicker chairs and tables.

"Mademoiselle can eat all alone on the terrace. The English mad shall not approach. I will charge myself with that. Mademoiselle may repose herself here as on the bosom of the mother of Mademoiselle."

Betty had her dejeuner on the little stone terrace with rickety rustic railings. Below lay the garden, thick with trees.

Away among the trees to the left an arbour. She saw through the leaves the milk-white gleam of flannels, heard the chink of china and cutlery. There, no doubt, the mad Englishman was even now breakfasting. There was the width of the garden between them. She sat still till the flannel gleam had gone away among the trees. Then she went out and explored the little town. She bought a blue packet of cigarettes. Miss Voscoe had often tried to persuade her to smoke. Most of the girls did. Betty had not wanted to do it any more for that. She had had a feeling that Vernon would not like her to smoke.

And in Paris one had to be careful. But now—

"I am absolutely my own master," she said. "I am staying by myself at a hotel, exactly like a man. I shall feel more at home if I smoke. And besides, no one can see me. It's just for me. And it shows I don't care what he likes."

Lying in a long chair reading one of her Tauchnitz books and smoking, Betty felt very manly indeed.

The long afternoon wore on. The trees of the garden crowded round Betty with soft whispers in a language not known of the trees on the boulevards.

"I am very very unhappy," said Betty with a deep sigh of delight.

She went in, unpacked, arranged everything neatly. She always arranged everything neatly, but nothing ever would stay arranged. She wrote to her father, explaining that Madame Gautier had brought her and the other girls to Grez for the summer, and she gave as her address:

Chez Madame Chevillon, Pavilion du Jardin, Grez.

"I shall be very very unhappy to-morrow," said Betty that night, laying her face against the coarse cool linen of her pillow; "to-day I have been stunned—-I haven't been able to feel anything. But to-morrow."

To-morrow, she knew, would be golden and green even as to-day. But she should not care. She did not want to be happy. How could she be happy now that she had of her own free will put away the love of her life? She called and beckoned to all the thoughts that the green world shut out, and they came at her call, fluttering black wings to hide the sights and sounds of field and wood and green garden, and making their nest in her heart.

"Yes," she said, turning the hot rough pillow, "now it begins to hurt again. I knew it would."

It hurt more than she had meant it to hurt, when she beckoned those black-winged thoughts. It hurt so much that she could not sleep. She got up and leaned from the window.

She wondered where Vernon was. It was quite early. Not eleven. Lady St. Craye had called that quite early.

"He's with her, of course," said Betty, "sitting at her feet, no doubt, and looking up at her hateful eyes, and holding her horrid hand, and forgetting that he ever knew a girl named Me."

Betty dressed and went out.

She crossed the garden. It was very dark among the trees. It would be lighter in the road.

The big yard door was ajar. She pushed it softly. It creaked and let her through into the silent street. There were no lights in the hotel, no lights in any of the houses.

She stood a moment, hesitating. A door creaked inside the hotel. She took the road to the river.

"I wonder if people ever do drown themselves for love," said Betty: "he'd be sorry then."



CHAPTER XXII.

THE LUNATIC.

The night kept its promise. Betty, slipping from the sleeping house into the quiet darkness, seemed to slip into a poppy-fringed pool of oblivion. The night laid fresh, cold hands on her tired eyes, and shut out many things. She paused for a minute on the bridge to listen to the restful restless whisper of the water against the rough stone.

Her eyes growing used to the darkness discerned the white ribbon of road unrolling before her. The trees were growing thicker. This must be the forest. Certainly it was the forest.

"How dark it is," she said, "how dear and dark! And how still! I suppose the trams are running just the same along the Boulevard Montparnasse,—and all the lights and people, and the noise. And I've been there all these months—and all the time this was here—this!"

Paris was going on—all that muddle and maze of worried people. And she was out of it all; here, alone.

Alone? A quick terror struck at the heart of her content. An abrupt horrible certainty froze her—the certainty that she was not alone. There was some living thing besides herself in the forest, quite near her—something other than the deer and the squirrels and the quiet dainty woodland people. She felt it in every fibre long before she heard that faint light sound that was not one of the forest noises. She stood still and listened.

She had never been frightened of the dark—of the outdoor dark. At Long Barton she had never been afraid even to go past the church-yard in the dark night—the free night that had never held any terrors, only dreams.

But now: she quickened her pace, and—yes—footsteps came on behind her. And in front the long straight ribbon of the road unwound, gray now in the shadow. There seemed to be no road turning to right or left. She could not go on forever. She would have to turn, sometime—if not now, yet sometime—in this black darkness, and then she would meet this thing that trod so softly, so stealthily behind her.

Before she knew that she had ceased to walk, she was crouched in the black between two bushes. She had leapt as the deer leaps, and crouched, still as any deer.

Her dark blue linen gown was one with the forest shadows. She breathed noiselessly—her eyes were turned to the gray ribbon of road that had been behind her. She had heard. Now she would see.

She did see—something white and tall and straight. Oh, the relief of the tallness and straightness and whiteness! She had thought of something dwarfed and clumsy—dark, misshapen, slouching beast-like on two shapeless feet. Why were people afraid of tall white ghosts?

It passed. It was a man—in a white suit. Just an ordinary man. No, not ordinary. The ordinary man in France does not wear white. Nor in England, except for boating and tennis and—

Flannels. Yes. The lunatic who boiled his brains in the sun!

Betty's terror changed colour as the wave changes from green to white, but it lost not even so much of its force as the wave loses by the change. It held her moveless till the soft step of the tennis shoes died away. Then softly and hardly moving at all, moving so little that not a leaf of those friendly bushes rustled, she slipped off her shoes: took them in her hand, made one leap through the crackling, protesting undergrowth and fled back along the road, fleet as a greyhound.

She ran and she walked, very fast, and then she ran again and never once did she pause to look or listen. If the lunatic caught her—well, he would catch her, but it should not be her fault if he did.

The trees were thinner. Ahead she saw glimpses of a world that looked quite light, the bridge ahead. With one last spurt she ran across it, tore up the little bit of street, slipped through the door, and between the garden trees to her pavilion.

She looked very carefully in every corner—all was still and empty. She locked the door, and fell face downward on her bed.

Vernon in his studio was "thinking things over" after the advice of Miss Voscoe in much the same attitude.

"Oh," said Betty, "I will never go out at night again! And I will leave this horrible, horrible place the very first thing to-morrow morning!"

But to-morrow morning touched the night's events with new colours from its shining palette.

"After all, even a lunatic has a right to walk out in the forest if it wants to," she told herself, "and it didn't know I was there, I expect, really. But I think I'll go and stay at some other hotel."

She asked, when her "complete coffee" came to her, what the mad gentleman did all day.

"He is not so stupid as Mademoiselle supposes," said Marie. "All the artists are insane, and he, he is only a little more insane than the others. He is not a real mad, all the same, see you. To-day he makes drawings at Montigny."

"Which way is Montigny?" asked Betty. And, learning, strolled, when her coffee was finished, by what looked like the other way.

It took her to the river.

"It's like the Medway," said Betty, stooping to the fat cowslips at her feet, "only prettier; and I never saw any cowslips here—You dears!"

Betty would not look at her sorrow in this gay, glad world. But she knew at last what her sorrow's name was. She saw now that it was love that had stood all the winter between her and Vernon, holding a hand of each. In her blindness she had called it friendship,—but now she knew its real, royal name.

She felt that her heart was broken. Even the fact that her grief was a thing to be indulged or denied at will brought her no doubts. She had always wanted to be brave and noble. Well, now she was being both.

A turn of the river brought to sight a wide reach dotted with green islands, each a tiny forest of willow saplings and young alders.

There was a boat moored under an aspen, a great clumsy boat, but it had sculls in it. It would be pleasant to go out to the islands.

She got into the boat, loosened the heavy rattling chain and flung it in board, took up the sculls and began to pull. It was easy work.

"I didn't know I was such a good oar," said Betty as the boat crept swiftly down the river.

As she stepped into the boat, she noticed the long river reeds straining down stream like the green hair of hidden water-nixies.

She would land at the big island—the boat steered easily and lightly enough for all its size—but before she could ship her oars and grasp at a willow root she shot past the island.

Then she remembered the streaming green weeds.

"Why, there must be a frightful current!" she said. What could make the river run at this pace—a weir—or a waterfall?

She turned the boat's nose up stream and pulled. Ah, this was work! Then her eyes, fixed in the exertion of pulling, found that they saw no moving banks, but just one picture: a willow, a clump of irises, three poplars in the distance—and the foreground of the picture did not move. All her pulling only sufficed to keep the boat from going with the stream. And now, as the effort relaxed a little it did not even do this. The foreground did move—the wrong way. The boat was slipping slowly down stream. She turned and made for the bank, but the stream caught her broadside on, whirled the boat round and swept it calmly and gently down—towards the weir—or the waterfall.

Betty pulled two strong strokes, driving the boat's nose straight for the nearest island, shipped the sculls with a jerk, stumbled forward and caught at an alder stump. She flung the chain round it and made fast. The boat's stern swung round—it was thrust in under the bank and held there close; the chain clicked loudly as it stretched taut.

"Well!" said Betty. The island was between her and the riverside path. No one would be able to see her. She must listen and call out when she heard anyone pass. Then they would get another boat and come and fetch her away. She would not tempt fate again alone in that boat. She was not going to be drowned in any silly French river.

She landed, pushed through the saplings, found a mossy willow stump and sat down to get her breath.

It was very hot on the island. It smelt damply of wet lily leaves and iris roots and mud. Flies buzzed and worried. The time was very long. And no one came by.

"I may have to spend the day here," she told herself. "It's not so safe in the boat, but it's not so fly-y either."

And still no one passed.

Suddenly the soft whistling of a tune came through the hot air. A tune she had learned in Paris.

"C'etait deux amants."

"Hi!" cried Betty in a voice that was not at all like her voice. "Help!—Au secours!" she added on second thoughts.

"Where are you?" came a voice. How alike all Englishmen's voices seemed—in a foreign land!

"Here—on the island! Send someone out with a boat, will you? I can't work my boat a bit."

Through the twittering leaves she saw something white waving. Next moment a big splash. She could see, through a little gap, a white blazer thrown down on the bank—a pair of sprawling brown boots; in the water a sleek wet round head, an arm in a blue shirt sleeve swimming a strong side stroke. It was the lunatic; of course it was. And she had called to him, and he was coming. She pushed back to the boat, leaped in, and was fumbling with the chain when she heard the splash and the crack of broken twigs that marked the lunatic's landing.

She would rather chance the weir or the waterfall than be alone on that island with a maniac. But the chain was stretched straight and stiff as a lance,—she could not untwist it. She was still struggling, with pink fingers bruised and rust-stained, when something heavy crashed through the saplings and a voice cried close to her:

"Drop it! What are you doing?"—and a hand fell on the chain.

Betty, at bay, raised her head. Lunatics, she knew, could be quelled by the calm gaze of the sane human eye.

She gave one look, and held out both hands with a joyous cry.

"Oh,—it's you! I am so glad! Where did you come from? Oh, how wet you are!"

Then she sat down on the thwart and said no more, because of the choking feeling in her throat that told her very exactly just how frightened she had been.

"You!" Temple was saying very slowly. "How on earth? Where are you staying? Where's your party?"

He was squeezing the water out of sleeves and trouser legs.

"I haven't got a party. I'm staying alone at a hotel—just like a man. I know you're frightfully shocked. You always are."

"Where are you staying?" he asked, drawing the chain in hand over hand, till a loose loop of it dipped in the water.

"Hotel Chevillon. How dripping you are!"

"Hotel Chevillon," he repeated. "Never! Then it was you!"

"What was me?"

"That I was sheep-dog to last night in the forest."

"Then it was you? And I thought it was the lunatic! Oh, if I'd only known! But why did you come after me—if you didn't know it was me?"

Temple blushed through the runnels of water that trickled from his hair.

"I—well, Madame told me there was an English girl staying at the hotel—and I heard some one go out—and I looked out of the window and I thought it was the girl, and I just—well, if anything had gone wrong—a drunken man, or anything—it was just as well there should be someone there, don't you know."

"That's very, very nice of you," said Betty. "But oh!"—She told him about the lunatic.

"Oh, that's me!" said Temple. "I recognise the portrait, especially about the hat."

He had loosened the chain and was pulling with strong even strokes across the river towards the bank where his coat lay.

"We'll land here if you don't mind."

"Can't you pull up to the place where I stole the boat?"

He laughed:

"The man's not living who could pull against this stream when the mill's going and the lower sluice gates are open. How glad I am that I—And how plucky and splendid of you not to lose your head, but just to hang on. It takes a lot of courage to wait, doesn't it?"

Betty thought it did.

"Let me carry your coat," said Betty as they landed. "You'll make it so wet."

He stood still a moment and looked at her.

"Now we're on terra cotta," he said, "let me remind you that we've not shaken hands. Oh, but it's good to see you again!"

* * * * *

"Look well, my child," said Madame Chevillon, "and when you see approach the Meess, warn me, that I may make the little omelette at the instant."

"Oh, la, la, madame!" cried Marie five minutes later. "Here it is that she comes, and the mad with her. He talks with her, in laughing. She carries his coat, and neither the one nor the other has any hat."

"I will make a double omelette," said Madame. "Give me still more of the eggs. The English are all mad—the one like the other; but even mads must eat, my child. Is it not?"



CHAPTER XXIII.

TEMPERATURES.

"It isn't as though she were the sort of girl who can't take care of herself," said Lady St. Craye to the Inward Monitor who was buzzing its indiscreet common-places in her ear. "I've really done her a good turn by sending her to Grez. No—it's not in the least compromising for a girl to stay at the same hotel. And besides, there are lots of amusing people there, I expect. She'll have a delightful time, and get to know that Temple boy really well. I'm sure he'd repay investigation. If I weren't a besotted fool I could have pursued those researches myself. But it's not what's worth having that one wants; it's—it's what one does want. Yes. That's all."

Paris was growing intolerable. But for—well, a thousand reasons—Lady St. Craye would already have left it. The pavements were red-hot. When one drove it was through an air like the breath from the open mouth of a furnace.

She kept much within doors, filled her rooms with roses, and lived with every window open. Her balcony, too, was full of flowers, and the striped sun-blinds beyond each open window kept the rooms in pleasant shadow.

"But suppose something happens to her—all alone there," said the Inward Monitor.

"Nothing will. She's not that sort of girl." Her headache had been growing worse these three days. The Inward Monitor might have had pity, remembering that—but no.

"You told Him that all girls were the same sort of girls," said the pitiless voice.

"I didn't mean in that way. I suppose you'd have liked me to write that anonymous letter and restore her to the bosom of her furious family? I've done the girl a good turn—for what she did for me. She's a good little thing—too good for him, even if I didn't happen to—And Temple's her ideal mate. I wonder if he's found it out yet? He must have by now: three weeks in the same hotel."

Temple, however, was not in the same hotel. The very day of the river rescue and the double omelette he had moved his traps a couple of miles down the river to Montigny.

A couple of miles is a good distance. Also a very little way, as you choose to take it.

"You know it was a mean trick," said the Inward Monitor. "Why not have let the girl go away where she could be alone—and get over it?"

"Oh, be quiet!" said Lady St. Craye. "I never knew myself so tiresome before. I think I must be going to be ill. My head feels like an ice in an omelette."

Vernon, strolling in much later, found her with eyes closed, leaning back among her flowers as she had lain all that long afternoon.

"How pale you look," he said. "You ought to get away from here."

"Yes," she said, "I suppose I ought. It would be easier for you if you hadn't the awful responsibility of bringing me roses every other day. What beauty-darlings these are!" She dipped her face in the fresh pure whiteness of the ones he had laid on her knee. Their faces felt cold, like the faces of dead people. She shivered.

"Heaven knows what I should do without you to—to bring my—my roses to," he said.

"Do you bring me anything else to-day?" she roused herself to ask. "Any news, for instance?"

"No," he said. "There isn't any news—there never will be. She's gone home—I'm certain of it. Next week I shall go over to England and propose for her formally to her step-father."

"A very proper course!"

It was odd that talking to some one else should make one's head throb like this. And it was so difficult to know what to say. Very odd. It had been much easier to talk to the Inward Monitor.

She made herself say: "And suppose she isn't there?" She thought she said it rather well.

"Well, then there's no harm done."

"He doesn't like you." She was glad she had remembered that.

"He didn't—but the one little word 'marriage,' simply spoken, is a magic spell for taming savage relatives. They'll eat out of your hand after that—at least so I'm told."

It was awful that he should decide to do this—heart-breaking. But it did not seem to be hurting her heart. That felt as though it wasn't there. Could one feel emotion in one's hands and feet? Hers were ice cold—but inside they tingled and glowed, like a worm of fire in a chrysalis of ice. What a silly simile.

"Must you go?" was what she found herself saying. "Suppose she isn't there at all? You'll simply be giving her away—all her secret—and he'll fetch her home."

That at least was quite clearly put.

"I'm certain she is at home," he said. "And I don't see why I am waiting till next week. I'll go to-morrow."

If you are pulling a rose to pieces it is very important to lay the petals in even rows on your lap, especially if the rose be white.

"Eustace," she said, suddenly feeling quite coherent, "I wish you wouldn't go away from Paris just now. I don't believe you'd find her. I have a feeling that she's not far away. I think that is quite sensible. I am not saying it because I—And—I feel very ill, Eustace. I think I am—Oh, I am going, to be ill, very ill, I think! Won't you wait a little? You'll have such years and years to be happy in. I don't want to be ill here in Paris with no one to care."

She was leaning forward, her hands on the arms of her chair, and for the first time that day, he saw her face plainly. He said: "I shall go out now, and wire for your sister."

"Not for worlds! I forbid it. She'd drive me mad. No—but my head's running round like a beetle on a pin. I think you'd better go now. But don't go to-morrow. I mean I think I'll go to sleep. I feel as if I'd tumbled off the Eiffel tower and been caught on a cloud—one side of it's cold and the other's blazing."

He took her hand, felt her pulse. Then he kissed the hand.

"My dear, tired Jasmine Lady," he said, "I'll send in a doctor. And don't worry. I won't go to-morrow. I'll write."

"Oh, very well," she said, "write then,—and it will all come out—about her being here alone. And she'll always hate you. I don't care what you do!"

"I suppose I can write a letter as though—as though I'd not seen her since Long Barton." He inwardly thanked her for that hint.

"A letter written from Paris? That's so likely, isn't it? But do what you like. I don't care what you do."

She was faintly, agreeably surprised to notice that she was speaking the truth. "It's rather pleasant, do you know," she went on dreamily, "when everything that matters suddenly goes flat, and you wonder what on earth you ever worried about. Why do people always talk about cold shivers? I think hot shivers are much more amusing. It's like a skylark singing up close to the sun, and doing the tremolo with its wings. I'm sorry you're going away, though."

"I'm not going away," he said. "I wouldn't leave you when you're ill for all the life's happinesses that ever were. Oh, why can't you cure me? I don't want to want her; I want to want you."

"I'm certain," said Lady St. Craye brightly, "that what you've just been saying's most awfully interesting, but I like to hear things said ever so many times. Then the seventh time you understand everything, and the coldness and the hotness turn into silver and gold and everything is quite beautiful, and I think I am not saying exactly what you expected.—Don't think I don't know that what I say sounds like nonsense. I know that quite well, only I can't stop talking. You know one is like that sometimes. It was like that the night you hit me."

"I? Hit you?"

He was kneeling by her low chair holding her hand, as she lay back talking quickly in low, even tones, her golden eyes shining wonderfully.

"No—you didn't call it hitting. But things aren't always what we call them, are they? You mustn't kiss me now, Eustace. I think I've got some horrid fever—I'm sure I have. Because of course nobody could be bewitched nowadays, and put into a body that feels thick and thin in the wrong places. And my head isn't too big to get through the door.—Of course I know it isn't. It would be funny if it were. I do love funny things.—So do you. I like to hear you laugh. I wish I could say something funny, so as to hear you laugh now."

She was holding his hand very tightly with one of hers. The other held the white roses. All her mind braced itself to a great exertion as the muscles do for a needed effort. She spoke very slowly.

"Listen, Eustace. I am going to be ill. Get a nurse and a doctor and go away. Perhaps it is catching. And if I fall through the floor," she added laughing, "it is so hard to stop!"

"Put your arms round my neck," he said, for she had risen and was swaying like a flame in the wind—the white rose leaves fell in showers.

"I don't think I want to, now," she said, astonished that it should be so.

"Oh, yes, you do!"—He spoke as one speaks to a child. "Put your arms round Eustace's neck,—your own Eustace that's so fond of you."

"Are you?" she said, and her arms fell across his shoulders.

"Of course I am," he said. "Hold tight."

He lifted her and carried her, not quite steadily, for carrying a full-grown woman is not the bagatelle novelists would have us believe it.

He opened her bedroom door, laid her on the white, lacy coverlet of her bed.

"Now," he said, "you are to lie quite still. You've been so good and dear and unselfish. You've always done everything I've asked, even difficult things. This is quite easy. Just lie and think about me till I come back."

He bent over the bed and kissed her gently.

"Ah!" she sighed. There was a flacon on the table by the bed. He expected it to be jasmine. It was lavender water; he drenched her hair and brow and hands.

"That's nice," said she. "I'm not really ill. I think it's nice to be ill. Quite still do you mean, like that?"

She folded her hands, the white roses still clasped. The white bed, the white dress, the white flowers. Horrible!

"Yes," he said firmly, "just like that. I shall be back in five minutes."

He was not gone three. He came back and—till the doctor came, summoned by the concierge—he sat by her, holding her hands, covering her with furs from the wardrobe when she shivered, bathing her wrists with perfumed water when she threw off the furs and spoke of the fire that burned in her secret heart of cold clouds.

When the doctor came he went out by that excellent Irishman's direction and telegraphed for a nurse.

Then he waited in the cool shaded sitting-room, among the flowers. This was where he had hit her—as she said. There on the divan she had cried, leaning her head against his sleeve. Here, half-way to the door, they had kissed each other. No, he would certainly not go to England while she was ill. He felt sufficiently like a murderer already. But he would write. He glanced at her writing-table.

A little pang pricked him, and drove him to the balcony.

"No," he said, "if we are to hit people, at least let us hit them fairly." But all the same he found himself playing with the word-puzzle whose solution was the absolutely right letter to Betty's father, asking her hand in marriage.

"Well," he asked the doctor who closed softly the door of the bedroom and came forward, "is it brain-fever?"

"Holy Ann, no! Brain fever's a fell disease invented by novelists—I never met it in all my experience. The doctors in novels have special advantages. No, it's influenza—pretty severe touch too. She ought to have been in bed days ago. She'll want careful looking after."

"I see," said Vernon. "Any danger?"

"There's always danger, Lord—Saint-Croix isn't it?"

"I have not the honour to be Lady St. Craye's husband," said Vernon equably. "I was merely calling, and she seemed so ill that I took upon myself to—"

"I see—I see. Well, if you don't mind taking on yourself to let her husband know? It's a nasty case. Temperature 104. Perhaps her husband 'ud be as well here as anywhere."

"He's dead," said Vernon.

"Oh!" said the doctor with careful absence of expression. "Get some woman to put her to bed and to stay with her till the nurse comes. She's in a very excitable state. Good afternoon. I'll look in after dinner."

When Vernon had won the concierge to the desired service, had seen the nurse installed, had dined, called for news of Lady St. Craye, learned that she was "toujours tres souffrante," he went home, pulled a table into the middle of his large, bare, hot studio, and sat down to write to the Reverend Cecil Underwood.

"I mean to do it," he told himself, "and it can't hurt her my doing it now instead of a month ahead, when she's well again. In fact, it's better for all of us to get it settled one way or another while she's not caring about anything."

So he wrote. And he wrote a great deal, though the letter that at last he signed was quite short:

My Dear Sir:

I have the honour to ask the hand of your daughter in marriage. When you asked me, most properly, my intentions, I told you that I was betrothed to another lady. This is not now the case. And I have found myself wholly unable to forget the impression made upon me last year by Miss Desmond. My income is about L1,700 a year, and increases yearly. I beg to apologise for anything which may have annoyed you in my conduct last year, and to assure you that my esteem and affection for Miss Desmond are lasting and profound, and that, should she do me the honour to accept my proposal, I shall devote my life's efforts to secure her happiness.

I am, my dear Sir, Your obedient servant,

Eustace Vernon.

"That ought to do the trick," he told himself. "Talk of old world courtesy and ceremonial! Anyhow, I shall know whether she's at Long Barton by the time it takes to get an answer. If it's two days, she's there. If it's longer she isn't. He'll send my letter on to her—unless he suppresses it. Your really pious people are so shockingly unscrupulous."

There is nothing so irretrievable as a posted letter. This came home to Vernon as the envelope dropped on the others in the box at the Cafe du Dome—came home to him rather forlornly.

Next morning he called with more roses for Lady St. Craye, pinky ones this time.

"Milady was toujours tres souffrante. It would be ten days, at the least, before Milady could receive, even a very old friend, like Monsieur."

The letter reached Long Barton between the Guardian and a catalogue of Some Rare Books. The Reverend Cecil read it four times. He was trying to be just. At first he thought he would write "No" and tell Betty years later. But the young man had seen the error of his ways. And L1,700 a year!—

The surprise visit with which the Reverend Cecil had always intended to charm his step-daughter suddenly found its date quite definitely fixed. This could not be written. He must go to the child and break it to her very gently, very tenderly—find out quite delicately and cleverly exactly what her real feelings were. Girls were so shy about those things.

Miss Julia Desmond had wired him from Suez that she would be in Paris next week—had astonishingly asked him to meet her there.

"Paris next Tuesday Gare St. Lazare 6:45. Come and see Betty via Dieppe," had been her odd message.

He had not meant to go—not next Tuesday. He was afraid of Miss Julia Desmond. He would rather have his Lizzie all to himself. But now—

He wrote a cablegram to Miss Julia Desmond: "Care Captain S.S. Urania, Brindisi: Will meet you in Paris." Then he thought that this might seem to the telegraph people not quite nice, so he changed it to: "Going to see Lizzie Tuesday."

The fates that had slept so long were indeed waking up and beginning to take notice of Betty. Destiny, like the most attractive of the porters at the Gare de Lyon, "s'occupait d'elle."



CHAPTER XXIV.

THE CONFESSIONAL.

The concierge sat at her window under the arch of the porte-cochere at 57 Boulevard Montparnasse. She sat gazing across its black shade to the sunny street. She was thinking. The last twenty-four hours had given food for thought.

The trams passed and repassed, people in carriages, people on foot—the usual crowd—not interesting.

But the open carriage suddenly drawn up at the other side of the broad pavement was interesting, very. For it contained the lady who had given the 100 francs, and had promised another fifty on the first of the month. She had never come with that fifty, and the concierge having given up all hope of seeing her again, had acted accordingly.

Lady St. Craye, pale as the laces of her sea-green cambric gown, came slowly up the cobble-paved way and halted at the window.

"Good morning, Madame," she said. "I bring you the little present."

The concierge was genuinely annoyed. Why had she not waited a little longer? Still, all was not yet lost.

"Come in, Madame," she said. "Madame has the air very fatigued."

"I have been very ill," said Lady St. Craye.

"If Madame will give herself the trouble to go round by the other door—" The concierge went round and met her visitor in the hall, and brought her into the closely furnished little room with the high wooden bed, the round table, the rack for letters, and the big lamp.

"Will Madame give herself the trouble to sit down? Would it be permitted to offer Madame something—a little glass of sugared water? No? I regret infinitely not having known that Madame was suffering. I should have acted otherwise."

"What have you done?" she asked quickly. "You haven't told anyone that I was here that night?"

"Do not believe it for an instant," said the woman reassuringly. "'No—after Madame's goodness I held myself wholly at the disposition of Madame. But when the day appointed passed itself without your visit, I said to myself: 'The little affaire has ceased to interest this lady; she is weary of it!' My grateful heart found itself free to acknowledge the kindness of others."

"Tell me exactly," said Lady St. Craye, "what you have done."

"It was but last week," the concierge went on, rearranging a stiff bouquet in exactly the manner of an embarrassed ingenue on the stage, "but only last week that I received a letter from Mademoiselle Desmond. She sent me her address."

She paused. Lady St. Craye laid the bank note on the table.

"Madame wants the address?"

"I have the address. I want to know whether you have given it to anyone else."

"No, Madame," said the concierge with simple pride, "when you have given a thing you have it not any longer."

"Well—pardon me—have you sold it?"

"For the same good reason, no, Madame."

"Take the note," said Lady St. Craye, "and tell me what you have done with the address."

"This gentleman, whom Madame did not wish to know that she had been here that night—"

"I didn't wish anyone to know!"

"Perfectly: this gentleman comes without ceasing to ask of me news of Mademoiselle Desmond. And always I have no news. But when Mademoiselle writes me: 'I am at the hotel such and such—send to me, I pray you, letters if there are any of them,'—then when Monsieur makes his eternal demand I reply: 'I have now the address of Mademoiselle,—not to give, but to send her letters. If Monsieur had the idea to cause to be expedited a little billet? I am all at the service of Monsieur.'"

"So he wrote to her. Have you sent on the letter?"

"Alas, yes!" replied the concierge with heartfelt regret. "I kept it during a week, hoping always to see Madame—but yesterday, even, I put it at the post. Otherwise.... I beg Madame to have the goodness to understand that I attach myself entirely to her interests. You may rely on me."

"It is useless," said Lady St. Craye; "the affair is ceasing to interest me."

"Do not say that. Wait only a little till you have heard. It is not only Monsieur that occupies himself with Mademoiselle. Last night arrives an aunt; also a father. They ask for Mademoiselle, are consternated when they learn of her departing. They run all Paris at the research of her. The father lodges at the Haute Loire. He is a priest it appears. Madame the aunt occupies the ancient apartment of Mademoiselle Desmond."

"An instant," said Lady St. Craye; "let me reflect."

The concierge ostentatiously went back to her flowers.

"You have not given them Miss Desmond's address?"

"Madame forgets," said the concierge, wounded virtue bristling in her voice, "that I was, for the moment, devoted to the interest of Monsieur. No. I am a loyal soul. I have told nothing. Only to despatch the letter. Behold all!"

"I will give myself the pleasure of offering you a little present next week," said Lady St. Craye; "it is only that you should say nothing—nothing—and send no more letters. And—the address?"

"Madame knows it—by what she says."

"Yes, but I want to know if the address you have is the same that I have. Hotel Chevillon, Grez sur Loing. Is it so?"

"It is exact. I thank you, Madame. Madame would do well to return chez elle and to repose herself a little. Madame is all pale."

"Is the aunt in Miss Desmond's rooms now?"

"Yes; she writes letters without end, and telegrams; and the priest-father he runs with them like a sad old black dog that has not the habit of towns."

"I shall go up and see her," said Lady St. Craye, "and I shall most likely give her the address. But do not give yourself anxiety. You will gain more by me than by any of the others. They are not rich. Me, I am, Heaven be praised."

She went out and along the courtyard. At the foot of the wide shallow stairs she paused and leaned on the dusty banisters.

"I feel as weak as any rat," she said, "but I must go through with it—I must."

She climbed the stairs, and stood outside the brown door. The nails that had held the little card "Miss E. Desmond" still stuck there, but only four corners of the card remained.

The door was not shut—it always shut unwillingly. She tapped.

"Come in," said a clear, pleasant voice. And she went in.

The room was not as she had seen it on the two occasions when it had been the battle ground where she and Betty fought for a man. Plaid travelling-rugs covered the divans. A gold-faced watch in a leather bracelet ticked on the table among scattered stationery. A lady in a short sensible dress rose from the table, and the room was scented with the smell of Hungarian cigarettes.

"I beg your pardon. I thought it was my brother-in-law. Did you call to see Miss Desmond? She is away for a short time."

"Yes," said Lady St. Craye. "I know. I wanted to see you. The concierge told me—"

"Oh, these concierges! They tell everything! It's what they were invented for, I believe. And you wanted—" She stopped, looked hard at the young woman and went on: "What you want is a good stiff brandy and soda. Here, where's the head of the pin?—I always think it such a pity bonnets went out. One could undo strings. That's it. Now, put your feet up. That's right, I'll be back in half a minute."

Lady St. Craye found herself lying at full length on Betty's divan, her feet covered with a Tussore driving-rug, her violet-wreathed hat on a table at some distance.

She closed her eyes. It was just as well. She could get back a little strength—she could try to arrange coherently what she meant to say. No: it was not unfair to the girl. She ought to be taken care of. And, besides, there was no such thing as "unfair." All was fair in—Well, she was righting for her life. All was fair when one was fighting for one's life—that was what she meant. Meantime, to lie quite still and draw long, even breaths—telling oneself at each breath: "I am quite well, I am quite strong—" seemed best.

There was a sound, a dull plop, the hiss and fizzle of a spurting syphon, then:

"Drink this: that's right. I've got you."

A strong arm round her shoulders—something buzzing and spitting in a glass under her nose.

"Drink it up, there's a good child."

She drank. A long breath.

"Now the rest." She was obedient.

"Now shut your eyes and don't bother. When you're better we'll talk."

Silence—save for the fierce scratching of a pen.

"I'm better," announced Lady St. Craye as the pen paused for the folding of the third letter.

The short skirted woman came and sat on the edge of the divan, very upright.

"Well then. You oughtn't to be out, you poor little thing."

The words brought the tears to the eyes of one weak with the self-pitying weakness of convalescence.

"I wanted—"

"Are you a friend of Betty's?"

"Yes—no—I don't know."

"A hated rival perhaps," said the elder woman cheerfully. "You didn't come to do her a good turn, anyhow, did you?"

"I—I don't know." Again this was all that would come.

"I do, though. Well, which of us is to begin? You see, child, the difficulty is that we neither of us know how much the other knows and we don't want to give ourselves away. It's so awkward to talk when it's like that."

"I think I know more than you do. I—you needn't think I want to hurt her. I should have liked her awfully, if it hadn't been—"

"If it hadn't been for the man. Yes, I see. Who was he?"

Lady St. Craye felt absolutely defenceless. Besides, what did it matter?"

"Mr. Vernon," she said.

"Ah, now we're getting to the horses! My dear child, don't look so guilty. You're not the first; you won't be the last—especially with eyes the colour his are. And so you hate Betty?"

"No, I don't. I should like to tell you all about it—all the truth."

"You can't," said Miss Desmond, "no woman can. But I'll give you credit for trying to, if you'll go straight ahead. But first of all—how long is it since you saw her?"

"Nearly a month."

"Well; she's disappeared. Her father and I got here last night. She's gone away and left no address. She was living with a Madame Gautier and—"

"Madame Gautier died last October," said Lady St. Craye—"the twenty-fifth."

"I had a letter from her brother—it got me in Bombay. But I couldn't believe it. And who has Betty been living with?"

"Look here," said Lady St. Craye. "I came to give the whole thing away, and hand her over to you. I know where she is. But now I don't want to. Her father's a brute, I know."

"Not he," said Miss Desmond; "he's only a man and a very, very silly one. I'll pledge you my word he'll never approach her, whatever she's done. It's not anything too awful for words, I'm certain. Come, tell me."

Lady St. Craye told Betty's secret at some length.

"Did she tell you this?"

"No."

"He did then?"

"Yes."

"Oh, men are darlings! The soul of honour—unsullied blades! My word! Do you mind if I smoke?"

She lighted a cigarette.

"I suppose I'm very dishonourable too," said Lady St. Craye.

"You? Oh no, you're only a woman!—And then?"

"Well, at last I asked her to go away, and she went."

"Well, that was decent of her, wasn't it?"

"Yes."

"And now you're going to tell me where she is and I'm to take her home and keep her out of his way. Is that it?"

"I don't know," said Lady St. Craye very truly, "why I came to you at all. Because it's all no good. He's written and proposed for her to her father—and if she cares—"

"Well, if she cares—and he cares—Do you really mean that you'd care to marry a man who's in love with another woman?"

"I'd marry him if he was in love with fifty other women."

"In that case," said Miss Desmond, "I should say you were the very wife for him."

"She isn't," said Lady St. Craye sitting up. "I feel like a silly school-girl talking to you like this. I think I'll go now. I'm not really so silly as I seem. I've been ill—influenza, you know—and I got so frightfully tired. And I don't think I'm so strong as I used to be. I've always thought I was strong enough to play any part I wanted to play. But—you've been very kind. I'll go—" She lay back.

"Don't be silly," said Miss Desmond briskly. "You are a school-girl compared with me, you know. I suppose you've been trying to play the role of the designing heroine—to part true lovers and so on, and then you found you couldn't."

"They're not true lovers," said Lady St. Craye eagerly; "that's just it. She'd never make him happy. She's too young and too innocent. And when she found out what a man like him is like, she'd break her heart. And he told me he'd be happier with me than he ever had been with her."

"Was that true, or—?"

"Oh, yes, it was true enough, though he said it. You've met him—he told me. But you don't know him."

"I know his kind though," said Miss Desmond. "And so you love him very much indeed, and you don't care for anything else,—and you think you understand him,—and you could forgive him everything? Then you may get him yet, if you care so very much—that is, if Betty doesn't."

"She doesn't. She thinks she does, but she doesn't. If only he hadn't written to her—"

"My dear," said Miss Desmond, "I was a fool myself once, about a man with eyes his colour. You can't tell me anything that I don't know. Does he know how much you care?"

"Yes."

"Ah, that's a pity—still—Well, is there anything else you want to tell me?"

"I don't want to tell anyone anything. Only—when she said she'd go away, I advised her where to go—and I told her of a quiet place—and Mr. Temple's there. He's the other man who admires her."

"I see. How Machiavelian of you!"—Miss Desmond touched the younger woman's hand with brusque gentleness—"And—?"

"And I didn't quite tell her the truth about Mr. Vernon and me," said Lady St. Craye, wallowing in the abject joys of the confessional. "And I am a beast and not fit to live. But," she added with the true penitent's instinct of self-defence, "I know it's only—oh, I don't know what—not love, with her. And it's my life."

"Yes. And what about him?"

"It's not love with him. At least it is—but she'd bore him. It's really his waking-up time. He's been playing the game just for counters all the while. Now he's learning to play with gold."

"And it'll stay learnt. I see," said Miss Desmond. "Look here, I like you. I know we shouldn't have said all we have if you weren't ill, and I weren't anxious. But I'm with you in one thing. I don't want him to marry Betty. She wouldn't understand an artist in emotion. Is this Temple straight?"

"As a yardstick."

"And as wooden? Well, that's better. I'm on your side. But—we've been talking without the veils on—tell me one thing. Are you sure you could get him if Betty were out of the way?"

"He kissed me once—since he's loved her," said Lady St. Craye, "and then I knew I could. He liked me better than he liked her—in all the other ways—before. I'm a shameless idiot; it's really only because I'm so feeble."

She rose and stood before the glass, putting on her hat.

"I do respect a woman who has the courage to speak the truth to another woman," said Miss Desmond. "I hope you'll get him—though it's not a very kind wish."

Lady St. Craye let herself go completely in a phrase whose memory stung and rankled for many a long day.

"Ah," she said, "even if he gets tired of me, I shall have got his children. You don't know what it is to want a child. Good-bye."

"Good-bye," said Miss Desmond. "No—of course I don't."



CHAPTER XXV.

THE FOREST.

Nothing lifts the heart like the sense of a great self-sacrifice nobly made. Betty was glad that she could feel so particularly noble. It was a great help.

"He was mine," she told herself; "he meant to be—And I have given him up to her. It hurts—yes—but I did the right thing."

She thought she hoped that he would soon forget her. And almost all that was Betty tried quite sincerely, snatching at every help, to forget him.

Sometimes the Betty that Betty did not want to be would, quite deliberately and of set purpose, take out the nest of hungry memories, look at them, play with them, and hand over her heart for them to feed on. But always when she had done this she felt, afterwards, a little sorry, a little ashamed. It was too like the diary at Long Barton.

Consciously or unconsciously one must make some concessions to every situation or every situation would be impossible. Temple was here—interested, pleased to see her, glad to talk to her. But he was not at all inclined to be in love with her: that had been only a silly fancy of hers—in Paris. He had made up his mind by now who it was that he cared for. And it wasn't Betty. Probably she hadn't even been one of the two he came to Grez to think about. He was only a good friend—and she wanted a good friend. If he were not just a good friend the situation would be impossible. And Betty chose that the situation should be possible. For it was pleasant. It was a shield and a shelter from all the thoughts that she wanted to hide from.

"If she thinks I'm going to break my heart about him, she's mistaken. And so's He. I must be miserable for a bit," said Betty bravely, "but I'll not be miserable forever, so he needn't think it. Of course, I shall never care for anyone ever again—unless he were to love me for years and years before he ever said a word, and then I might say I would try.—And try. But fall in love?—Never again! Oh, good gracious, there he is,—and I've not begun to get ready."

Temple was whistling Deux Amants very softly in the courtyard below. She put her head out of the window.

"I shan't be two minutes," she said, "You might get the basket from Madame; and my sketching things are on the terrace all ready strapped up."

The hoofs of the smart gray pony slipped and rattled on the cobble-stones of the hotel entry.

"Au revoir: amuse yourselves well, my children." Madame Chevillon stood, one hand on fat hip, the other shading old eyes that they might watch the progress of the cart up the blinding whiteness of the village street.

"To the forest, and yet again to the forest and to the forest always," she said, turning into the darkened billiard room. "Marie, beware, thou, of the forest. The good God created it express for the lovers,—but it is permitted to the devil to promenade himself there also."

"Those two there," said Marie—"it is very certain that they are in love?"

"How otherwise?" said Madame. "The good God made us women that the men should be in love with us—and afterwards, to take care of the children. There is no other use that a man has for a woman. Friendship? The Art?—Bah! When a man wants those he demands them of a man. Of a woman he demands but love, and one gives it to him—one gives it to him without question!"

The two who had departed for the forest drove on through the swimming, spinning heat, in silence.

It was not till they reached the little old well by Marlotte that Betty spoke.

"Don't let's work to-day, Mr. Temple," she said. "My hands are so hot I could never hold a brush. And your sketch is really finished, you know."

"What would you like to do?" asked Temple: "river?"

"Oh, no,—not now that we've started for the forest! Its feelings would be hurt if we turned back. I am sure it loves us to love it, although it is so big—Like God, you know."

"Yes: I'm sure it does. Do you really think God cares?"

"Of course," said Betty, "because everything would be so silly if He didn't, you know. I believe He likes us to love him, and what's more, I believe He likes us to love all the pretty things He's made—trees and rivers and sunsets and seas."

"And each other," said Temple, and flushed to the ears: "human beings, I mean, of course," he added hastily.

"Of course," said Betty, unconscious of the flush; "but religion tells you that—it doesn't tell you about the little things. It does say about herbs of the field and the floods clapping their hands and all that—but that's only His works praising Him, not us loving all His works. I think He's most awfully pleased when we love some little, nice, tiny thing that He never thought we'd notice."

"Did your father teach you to think like this?"

"Oh, dear no!" said Betty. "He doesn't like the little pretty things."

"It's odd," said Temple. "Look at those yellow roses all over that hideous villa."

"My step-father would only see the villa. Well, must we work to-day?"

"What would you like to do?"

"I should like to go to those big rocks—the Rochers des Demoiselles, aren't they?—and tie up the pony, and climb up, and sit in a black shadow and look out over the green tops of the trees. You see things when you're idle that you never see when you're working, even if you're trying to paint those very things."

So, by and by, the gray pony was unharnessed and tied to a tree in a cool, grassy place where he also could be happy, and the two others took the winding stony path.

A turn in the smooth-worn way brought them to a platform overhanging the precipice that fell a sheer thirty feet to the tops of the trees on the slope below. White, silvery sand carpeted the ledge, and on the sand the shadow of a leaning rock fell blue.

"Here" said Betty, and sank down. Her sketchbook scooped the sand with its cover. "Oh, I am hot!" She threw off her hat.

"You don't look it," said Temple, and pulled the big bottle of weak claret and water from the luncheon basket.

"Drink!" he said, offering the little glass when he had filled it.

Betty drank, in little sips.

"How extraordinarily nice it is to drink when you're thirsty," she said, "and how heavenly this shadow is."

A long silence. Temple filled and lighted a pipe. From a slope of dry grass a little below them came the dusty rattle of grasshoppers' talk.

"It is very good here," said Betty. "Oh, how glad I am I came away from Paris. Everything looks different here—I mean the things that look as if they mattered there don't matter here—and the things that didn't matter there—oh, here, they do!"

"Yes," said Temple, making little mounds of sand with the edge of his hand as he lay, "I never expected to have such days in this world as I've had here with you. We've grown to be very good friends here, haven't we?"

"We were very good friends in Paris," said Betty, remembering the letter that had announced his departure.

"But it wasn't the same," he persisted. "When did we talk in Paris as we've talked here?"

"I talked to you, even in Paris, more than I've ever talked to anyone else, all the same," said Betty.

"Thank you," he said; "that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me."

"It wasn't meant to be nice," said Betty; "it's true. Don't you know there are some people you never can talk to without wondering what they'll think of you, and whether you hadn't better have said something else? It's nothing to do with whether you like them or not," she went on, thinking of talks with Vernon, many talks—and in all of them she had been definitely and consciously on guard. "You may like people quite frightfully, and yet you can't talk to them."

"Yes," he said, "but you couldn't talk to a person you disliked, could you? Real talk, I mean?"

"Of course not," said Betty. "Do you know I'm dreadfully hungry!"

It was after lunch that Temple said:

"When are you going home, Miss Desmond?" She looked up, for his use of her name was rare.

"I don't know: some time," she answered absently. But the question ran through her mind like a needle drawing after it the thread on which were strung all the little longings for Long Barton—for the familiar fields and flowers, that had gathered there since she first saw the silver may and the golden broom at Bourron station. That was nearly a month ago. What a month it had been—the gleaming river, the neat intimate simplicity of the little culture, white roads, and roses and rocks, and more than all—trees, and trees and trees again.

And with all this—Temple. He lodged at Montigny, true. And she at Grez. But each day brought to her door the best companion in the world. He had never even asked how she came to be at Grez. After that first, "Where's your party?" he had guarded his lips. It had seemed so natural, and so extremely fortunate that he should be here. If she had been all alone she would have allowed herself to think too much of Vernon—of what might have been.

"I am going to England next week!" he said. Betty was shocked to perceive that this news hurt her. Well, why shouldn't it hurt her? She wasn't absolutely insensible to friendship, she supposed. And sensibility to friendship was nothing to be ashamed of. On the contrary.

"I shall miss you most awfully," said she with the air of one flaunting a flag.

"I wish you'd go home," he said. "Haven't you had enough of your experiment, or whatever it was, yet?"

"I thought you'd given up interfering," she said crossly. At least she meant to speak crossly.

"I thought I could say anything to you now without your—your not understanding."

"So you can." She was suddenly not cross again.

"Ah, no I can't," he said. "I want to say things to you that I can't say here. Won't you go home? Won't you let me come to see you there? Say I may. You will let me?"

If she said Yes—she refused to pursue that train of thought another inch. If she said No—then a sudden end—and forever an end—to this good companionship. "I wish I had never, never seen Him!" she told herself.

Then she found that she was speaking.

"The reason I was all alone in Paris," she was saying. The reason took a long time to expound.—The shadow withdrew itself and they had to shift the camp just when it came to the part about Betty's first meeting with Temple himself.

"And so," she said, "I've done what I meant to do—and I'm a hateful liar—and you'll never want to speak to me again."

She rooted up a fern and tore it into little ribbons.

"Why have you told me all this?" he said slowly.

"I don't know," said she.

"It is because you care, a little bit about—about my thinking well of you?"

"I can't care about that, or I shouldn't have told you, should I? Let's get back home. The pony's lost by this time, I expect."

"Is it because you don't want to have any—any secrets between us?"

"Not in the least," said Betty, chin in the air. "I shouldn't dream of telling you my secrets—or anyone else of course, I mean," she added politely.

He sighed. "Well," he said, "I wish you'd go home."

"Why don't you say you're disappointed in me, and that you despise me, and that you don't care about being friends any more, with a girl who's told lies and taken her aunt's money and done everything wrong you can think of? Let's go back. I don't want to stay here any more, with you being silently contemptuous as hard as ever you can. Why don't you say something?"

"I don't want to say the only thing I want to say. I don't want to say it here. Won't you go home and let me come and tell you at Long Barton?"

"You do think me horrid. Why don't you say so?"

"No. I don't."

"Then it's because you don't care what I am or what I do. I thought a man's friendship didn't mean much!" She crushed the fern into a rough ball and threw it over the edge of the rock.

"Oh, hang it all," said Temple. "Look here, Miss Desmond. I came away from Paris because I didn't know what was the matter with me. I didn't know who it was I really cared about. And before I'd been here one single day, I knew. And then I met you. And I haven't said a word, because you're here alone—and besides I wanted you to get used to talking to me and all that. And now you say I don't care. No, confound it all, it's too much! I wanted to ask you to marry me. And I'd have waited any length of time till there was a chance for me." He had almost turned his back on her, and leaning his chin on his elbow was looking out over the tree-tops far below. "And now you've gone and rushed me into asking you now, when I know there isn't the least chance for me,—and anyhow I ought to have held my tongue! And now it's all no good, and it's your fault. Why did you say I didn't care?"

"You knew it was coming," Betty told herself, "when he asked if he might come to Long Barton to see you. You knew it. You might have stopped it. And you didn't. And now what are you going to do?"

What she did was to lean back to reach another fern—to pluck and smooth its fronds.

"Are you very angry?" asked Temple forlornly.

"No," said Betty; "how could I be? But I wish you hadn't. It's spoiled everything."

"Do you think I don't know all that?"

"I wish I could," said Betty very sincerely, "but—"

"Of course," he said bitterly. "I knew that."

"He doesn't care about me," said Betty: "he's engaged to someone else."

"And you care very much?" He kept his face turned away.

"I don't know," said Betty; "sometimes I think I'm getting not to care at all."

"Then—look here: may I ask you again some time, and we'll go on just like we have been?"

"No," said Betty. "I'm going back to England at the end of the week. Besides, you aren't quite sure it's me you care for.—At least you weren't when you came away from Paris. How can you be sure you're sure now?"

He turned and looked at her.

"I beg your pardon," she said instantly. "I think I didn't understand. Let's go back now, shall we?"

"For Heaven's sake," he said, "don't let this break up everything! Don't avoid me in the little time that's left. I won't talk about it any more—I won't worry you—"

"Don't be silly," she said, and she smiled at him a little sadly; "you talk as though I didn't know you."



CHAPTER XXVI.

THE MIRACLE.

It seemed quite dark down in the forest—or rather, it seemed, after the full good light that lay upon the summit of the rocks, like the gray dream-twilight under the eyelids of one who dozes in face of a dying fire.

"Don't let's go straight back to Grez," said Betty when the pony was harnessed, "let's go on to Fontainebleau and have dinner and drive back by moonlight. Don't you think it would be fun? We've never done that."

"Thank you," he said. "You are good."

His eyes met hers in the green shadow, and she was satisfied because he had understood that this was her reply to his appeal to her "not to avoid him in the little time there was left."

Both were gay as they drove along the golden roads, gayer than ever they had been. The nearness of a volcano has never been a bar to gaiety. Dinner was a joyous feast, and when it was over, and the other guests had strolled out, Temple sang all the songs Betty liked best. Betty played for him. It was all very pleasant, and both pretended, quite beautifully, that they were the best of friends, and that it had never, never been a question of anything else. The pretence lasted through all the moonlight of the home drive—lasted indeed till the pony was trotting along the straight avenue that leads down into Grez. And even then it was not Temple who broke it. It was Betty, and she laid her hand on his arm.

"Look here," she said. "I've been thinking about it ever since you said it. And I'm not going to let it spoil anything. Only I don't want you to think I don't understand. And I'm most awfully proud that you should.... I am really. And I'd rather be liked by you than by anyone—"

"Almost," said Temple a little bitterly.

"I don't feel sure about that part of it—really. One feels and thinks such a lot of different things—and they all contradict everything else, till one doesn't know what anything means, or what it is one really—I can't explain. But I don't want you to think your having talked about it makes any difference. At least I don't mean that at all. What I mean is that of course I like you ever so much better now I know that you like me, and—oh, I don't want to—I don't want you to think it's all no good, because really and truly I don't know."

All this time she had kept her hand on his wrist.

Now he laid his other hand over it.

"Dear," he said, "that's all I want, and more than I hoped for now. I won't say another word about it—ever, if you'd rather not,—only if ever you feel that it is me, and not that other chap, then you'll tell me, won't you?"

"I'll tell you now," said Betty, "that I wish with all my heart it was you, and not the other."

When he had said goodnight at the deserted door of the courtyard Betty slipped through the trees to her pavilion. The garden seemed more crowded with trees than it had ever been. It was almost as though new trees from the forest had stolen in while she was at Fontainebleau, and joined the ranks of those that stood sentinel round the pavilion. There was a lamp in the garden room—as usual. Its light poured out and lay like a yellow carpet on the terrace, and lent to the foliage beyond that indescribable air of festivity, of light-heartedness that green leaves can always borrow from artificial light.

"I'll just see if there are any letters," she told herself. "There always might be: from Aunt Julia or Miss Voscoe or—someone."

She went along the little passage that led to the stairs. The door that opened from it into the garden room was narrowly ajar. A slice of light through the chink stood across the passage.

Oh!

There was someone in the room. Someone was speaking. She knew the voice. "She must be in soon," it said. It was her Aunt Julia's voice. She stopped dead. And there was silence in the room.

Oh! to be caught like this! In a trap. And just when she had decided to go home! She would not be caught. She would steal up to her room, get her money, leave enough on the table to pay her bill, and go. She could walk to Marlotte—and go off by train in the morning to Brittany—anywhere. She would not be dragged back like a prisoner to be all the rest of her life with a hateful old man who detested her. Aunt Julia thought she was very clever. Well, she would just find out that she wasn't. Who was she talking to? Not Madame, for she spoke in English. To some one from Paris? Who could have betrayed her? Only one person knew. Lady St. Craye. Well, Lady St. Craye should not betray her for nothing. She would not go to Brittany: she would go back to Paris. That woman should be taught what it costs to play the traitor.

All this in the quite small pause before her aunt's voice spoke again.

"Unless she's got wind of our coming and flown," it said.

"Our" coming? Who was the other?

Betty was eavesdropping then? How dishonourable! Well, it is. And she was.

"I hope to Heaven she's safe," said another voice. Oh—it was her step-father! He had come—Then he must know everything! She moved, quite without meaning to move; her knee touched the door and it creaked. Very very faintly, but it creaked. Would they hear? Had they heard? No—the aunt's voice again:

"The whole thing's inexplicable to me! I don't understand it. You let Betty go to Paris."

"By your advice."

"By my advice, but also because you wanted her to be happy."

"Yes—Heaven knows I wanted her to be happy." The old man's voice was sadder than Betty had ever heard it.

"So we found Madame Gautier for her—and when Madame Gautier dies, she doesn't write to you, or wire to you, to come and find her a new chaperone. Why?"

"I can't imagine why."

"Don't you think it may have been because she was afraid of you, thought you'd simply make her come back to Long Barton?"

"It would surely have been impossible for her to imagine that I should lessen the time which I had promised her, on account of an unfortunate accident. She knows the depth of my affection for her. No, no—depend upon it there must have been some other reason for the deceit. I almost fear to conjecture what the reason may have been. Do you think it possible that she has been seeing that man again?"

There was a sound as of a chair impatiently pushed back. Betty fled noiselessly to the stairs. No footstep followed the movement of the chair. She crept back.

"—when you do see her?" her aunt was asking, "I suppose you mean to heap reproaches on her, and take her home in disgrace?"

"I hope I shall have strength given me to do my duty," said the Reverend Cecil.

"Have you considered what your duty is?"

"It must be my duty to reprove, to show her her deceit in its full enormity."

"You'll enjoy that, won't you? It'll gratify your sense of power. You'll stand in the place of God to the child, and you'll be glad to see her humbled and ashamed."

"Because a thing is painful to me it is none the less my duty."

"Nor any the more," snapped Miss Desmond; "nor any the more! That's what you won't see. She knows you don't care about her, and that's why she kept away from you as long as she could."

"She can't know it. It isn't true."

"She thinks it is."

"Do you think so? Do you imagine I don't care for her? Have you been poisoning her mind and—"

"Oh, don't let's talk about poison!" said Miss Desmond. "If she's lost altogether it won't matter to you. You'll have done your duty."

"If she's lost I—if she were lost I should not care to be saved. I am aware that the thought is sinful. But I fear that it is so."

"Of course," said Miss Desmond. "She's not your child—why should you care? You never had a child."

"What have I done to you that you should try to torture me like this?" It was her step-father's voice, but Betty hardly knew it. "For pity's sake, woman, be quiet! Let me bear what I have to bear without your chatter."

"I'm sorry," said Miss Desmond very gently. "Forgive me if I didn't understand. And you do really care about her a little?"

"Care about her a little! She's the only living thing I do care for—or ever have cared for except one. Oh, it is like a woman to cast it up at me as a reproach that I have no child! Why have I no child? Because the woman whom Almighty God made for my child's mother was taken from me—in her youth—before she was mine. Her name was Lizzie. And my Lizzie, my little Lizzie that's lied and deceived us, she is my child—the one we should have had. She's my heart's blood. Do you think I want to scold her; do you think I want to humble her? Do you not perceive how my own heart will be torn? But it is my duty. I will not spare the rod. And she will understand as you never could. Oh, my little Lizzie!—Oh, pray God she is safe! If it please God to restore her safely to me, I will not yield to the wicked promptings of my own selfish affection. I will show her her sin, and we will pray for forgiveness together. Yes, I will not shrink, even if it break my heart—I will tell her—"

"I should tell her," said Miss Desmond, "just what you've told me."

The old man was walking up and down the room. Betty could hear every movement.

"It's been the struggle of my life not to spoil her—not to let my love for her lead me to neglect her eternal welfare—not to lessen her modesty by my praises—not to condone the sin because of my love for the sinner. My love has not been selfish.—It has been the struggle of my life not to let my affection be a snare to her."

"Then I must say," said Miss Desmond, "that you might have been better employed."

"Thank God I have done my duty! You don't understand. But my Lizzie will understand."

"Yes, she will understand," cried Betty, bursting open the door and standing between the two with cheeks that flamed. "I do understand, Father dear! Auntie, I don't understand you! You're cruel,—and it's not like you. Will you mind going away, please?"

The cruel aunt smiled, and moved towards the door. As she passed Betty she whispered: "I thought you were never going to come from behind that door. I couldn't have kept it up much longer."

Then she went out and closed the door firmly.

Betty went straight to her step-father and put her arms round his neck.

"You do forgive me—you will forgive me, won't you?" she said breathlessly.

He put an arm awkwardly round her.

"There's nothing you could do that I couldn't forgive," he said in a choked voice. "But it is my duty not to—"

She interrupted him by drawing back to look at him, but she kept his arm where it was, by her hand on his.

"Father," she said, "I've heard everything you've been saying. It's no use scolding me, because you can't possibly say anything that I haven't said to myself a thousand times. Sit down and let me tell you everything, every single thing! I did mean to come home this week, and tell you; I truly did. I wish I'd gone home before."

"Oh, Lizzie," said the old man, "how could you? How could you?"

"I didn't understand. I didn't know. I was a blind idiot. Oh, Father, you'll see how different I'll be now! Oh, if one of us had died—and I'd never known!"

"Known what, my child? Oh, thank God I have you safe! Known what?"

"Why, that you—how fond you are of me."

"You didn't know that?"

"I—I wasn't always sure," Betty hastened to say. A miracle had happened. She could read now in his eyes the appeal that she had always misread before. "But now I shall always be sure—always. And I'm going to be such a good daughter to you—you'll see—if you'll only forgive me. And you will forgive me. Oh, you don't know how I trust you now!"

"Didn't you always?"

"Not enough—not nearly enough. But I do now. Let me tell you—Don't let me ever be afraid of you—oh, don't let me!" She had pushed him gently into a chair and was half kneeling on the floor beside him.

"Have you ever been afraid of me?"

"Oh, I don't know; a little perhaps sometimes! You don't know how silly I am. But not now. You are glad to see me?"

"Lizzie," he said, "God knows how glad I am! But it's my duty to ask you at once whether you've done anything wrong."

"Everything wrong you can think of!" she answered enthusiastically, "only nothing really wicked, of course. I'll tell you all about it. And oh, do remember you can't think worse of me than I do! Oh, it's glorious not to be afraid!"

"Of me?" His tone pleaded again.

"No, no—of anything! Of being found out. I'm glad you've come for me. I'm glad I've got to tell you everything—I did mean to go home next week, but I'm glad it's like this. Because now I know how much you care, and I might never have found that out if I hadn't listened at the door like a mean, disgraceful cat. I ought to be miserable because I've done wrong—but I'm not. I can't be. I'm really most frightfully happy."

"Thank God you can say that," he said, timidly stroking her hair with the hand that she was not holding. "Now I'm not afraid of anything you may have to tell me, my child—my dear child."

* * * * *

To four persons the next day was one of the oddest in their lives.

Arriving early to take Betty to finish her sketch, the stricken Temple was greeted on the doorstep by a manly looking lady in gold-rimmed spectacles, short skirts, serviceable brown boots and a mushroom hat.

"I know who you are," said she; "you're Mr. Temple. I'm Betty Desmond's aunt. Would you like to take me on the river? Betty is busy this morning making the acquaintance of her step-father. She's taken him out in the little cart."

"I see," said Temple. "I shall be delighted to take you on the river."

"Nice young man. You don't ask questions. An excellent trait."

"An acquired characteristic, I assure you," said Temple, remembering his first meeting with Betty.

"Then you won't be able to transmit it to your children. That's a pity. However, since you don't ask I'll tell you. The old man has 'persistently concealed his real nature' from Betty. You'd think it was impossible, living in the same house all these years. Last night she found him out. She's as charmed with the discovery as a girl child with a doll that opens and shuts its eyes—or a young man with the nonentity he calls his ideal. Come along. She'll spend the morning playing with her new toy. Cheer up. You shall see her at dejeuner."

"I do not need cheering," said the young man. And I don't want you to tell me things you'd rather not. On the contrary—"

"You want me not to tell you the things I'd rather tell you?"

"No: I should like to tell you all about—"

"All about yourself. My dear young man, there is nothing I enjoy more; the passion for confidences is my only vice. It was really to indulge that that I asked you to come on the river with me."

"I thought," said Temple as they reached the landing stage, "that perhaps you had asked me to console me for not seeing your niece this morning."

"Thank you kindly," Miss Desmond stepped lightly into the boat. "I rather like compliments, especially when you're solidly built—like myself. Oh, yes, I'll steer; pull hard, bow, she's got no way on her yet, and the stream's strong just here under the bridge. I gather that you've been proposing to my niece."

"I didn't mean to," said Temple, pulling a racing stroke in his agitation.

"Gently, gently! The Diamond Sculls aren't at stake. She led you on, you mean?"

He rested on his oars a moment and laughed.

"What is there about you that makes me feel that I've known you all my life?"

"Possibly it's my enormous age. Or it may be that I nursed you when you were a baby. I have nursed one or two in my time, though I mayn't look it.—So Betty entrapped you into a proposal?"

"Are you trying to make me angry? It's a dangerous river. Can you swim."

"Like any porpoise. But of course I misunderstand people if they won't explain themselves. You needn't tremble like that. I'll be gentle with you."

"If I tremble it's with pleasure," said Temple.

"Come, moderate your transports, and unfold your tale. My ears are red, I know, but they are small, well-shaped and sympathetic."

"Well then," said Temple; and the tale began. By the time it was ended the boat was at a standstill on the little backwater below the pretties of the sluices.

There was a silence.

"Well?" said Temple.

"Well," said Miss Desmond, dipping her hand in the water—"what a stream this is, to be sure!—Well, your means are satisfactory and you seem to me to have behaved quite beautifully. I don't think I ever heard of such profoundly correct conduct."

"If I've made myself out a prig," said Temple, "I'm sorry. I could tell you lots of things."

"Please spare me! Why are people always so frightfully ashamed of having behaved like decent human beings? I esteem you immensely."

"I'd rather you liked me."

"Well, so I do. But I like lots of people I don't esteem. If I'd married anyone it would probably have been some one like that. But for Betty it's different. I shouldn't have needed to esteem my own husband. But I must esteem hers."

"I'll try not to deserve your esteem more than I'm obliged," said Temple, "but your liking—what can I do to deserve that—?"

"Go on as you've begun, my dear young man, and you'll be Aunt Julia's favourite nephew. No—don't blush. It's an acknowledgement of a tender speech that I always dispense with."

"Advise me," said he, red to the ears and hands. "She doesn't care for me, at present. What can I do?"

"What most of us have to do—when we want anything worth wanting. Wait. We're going home the day after to-morrow. If you turn up at Long Barton about the middle of September—you might come down for the Harvest Festival; it's the yearly excitement. That's what I should do."

"Must I wait so long as that?" he asked. "Why?"

"Let me whisper in your ear," said Miss Desmond, loud above the chatter of the weir. "Long Barton is very dull! Now let's go back."

"I don't want her to accept me because she's bored."

"No more do I. But one sees the proportions of things better when one's dull. And—yes. I esteem you; I like you. You are ingenuous, and innocuous.—No, really that was a yielding to the devil of alliteration. I mean you are a real good sort. The other man has the harmlessness of the serpent. As for me, I have the wisdom of the dove. You profit by it and come to Long Barton in September."