"Have you been ill—out there?"—her hand fluttered vaguely in an easterly direction. Craven looked up in surprise.

"No," he said shortly, "I never am ill."

Miss Craven's nod as she rose from the table might have been taken for assent. It was in reality satisfaction at her own perspicacity. She had not supposed for one moment that he had been ill but in no other way could she express what she wanted to know. It was in itself an innocuous and natural remark, but the sudden gloom that fell on him warned her that her ingenuity was, perhaps, not so great as she imagined.

"Triple idiot!" she reflected wrathfully, as she poured out coffee, "you had better have held your tongue," and she set herself to charm away the shadow from his face and dispel any suspicion he might have formed of her desire to probe into his affairs. She had an uncommon personality and could talk cleverly and well when she chose. And today she did choose, exerting all her wit to combat the taciturn fit that emphasized so forcibly the change in him. But though he listened with apparent attention his mind was very obviously elsewhere, and he sat staring into the fire, mechanically flicking ash from his cigarette. Conversation languished and at length Miss Craven gave it up, with a wry face, and sat also silent, drumming with her fingers on the arm of the chair. Her thoughts, in quest of his, wandered far away until the sudden ringing of the telephone beside her made her jump violently.

She answered the call, then handed the receiver to Craven.

"Your heathen," she remarked dryly.

Though the least insular of women she had never grown accustomed to the Japanese valet. He turned from the telephone with a look of mingled embarrassment and relief.

"I sent a message to the convent this morning. Yoshio has just given me the answer. The Mother Superior will see me this afternoon." He endeavoured to make his voice indifferent, pulling down his waistcoat and picking a minute thread from off his coat sleeve. Miss Craven's mouth twitched at the evident signs of nervousness while she glanced at him narrowly. Prompt action in the matter of an uncongenial duty had not hitherto been a conspicuous trait in his character.

"You are certainly not letting the grass grow under your feet."

He jerked his head impatiently.

"Waiting will not make the job more pleasant," he shrugged. "I will see the child at once and arrange for her removal as soon as possible."

Miss Craven eyed him from head to foot with a grim smile that changed to a whole-hearted laugh of amusement.

"It's a pity you have so much money, Barry, you would make your fortune as a model. You are too criminally good looking to go fluttering into convents."

A ghost of the old smile flickered in his eyes.

"Come and chaperon me, Aunt Caro."

She shook her head laughingly.

"Thank you—no. There are limits. I draw the line at convents. Go and get it over, and if the child is presentable you can bring her back to tea. I gather that Mary is anticipating a complete failure on our part to sustain the situation and is prepared to deputise. She has already ransacked Au Paradis Des Enfants for suitable bribes wherewith to beguile her infantile affection. I understand that there was a lively scene over the purchase of a doll, the cost of which—clad only in its birthday dress—was reported to me as 'a fair affront.' Even after all these years Mary jibs at Continental prices. It is her way of keeping up the prestige of the British Empire, bless her. An overcharge, in her opinion, is a deliberate twist of the lion's tail."

In the taxi he looked through the correspondence he had received that morning for the lawyer's letter that would establish his claim to John Locke's child. Then he leaned back and lit a cigarette. He had an absurd feeling of nervousness and cursed Locke a dozen times before he reached the convent. He was embarrassed with the awkward situation in which he found himself—just how awkward he seemed only now fully to appreciate. The more he thought of it, the less he liked it. The coming interview with the Mother Superior was not the least of his troubles. The promise of the morning had not been maintained, overhead the sky was leaden, and a high wind drove rain in sharp splashes against the glass of the cab. The pavements were running with water and the leafless trees in the avenues swayed and creaked dismally. The appearance of the streets was chill and depressing. Craven shivered. He thought of the warmth and sunshine that he had left in Japan. The dreariness of the present outlook contrasted sufficiently with the gay smiling landscape, the riotous wealth of colour, and the scent-laden air of the land of his recollections. A feeling almost of nostalgia came to him. But with the thought came also a vision—a little still body lying on silken cushions; a small pale face with fast shut eyes, the long lashes a dusky fringe against the ice-cold cheek. The vision was terribly distinct, horribly real—not a recollection only, as on the morning that he had found her dead—and he waited, with the sweat pouring down his face, for the closed eyes to open and reveal the agony he had read in them that night, when he had torn her clinging hands away and left her. The faint aroma of the perfume she had used was in his nostrils, choking him. The slender limbs seemed to pulsate into life, the little breasts to stir perceptibly, the parted lips to tremble. He could not define the actual moment of the change but, as he bent forward, with hands close gripped, all at once he found himself looking straight into the tortured grey eyes—for a second only. Then the vision faded, and he was leaning back in the cab wiping the moisture from his forehead. God, would it never leave him! It haunted him. In the big bungalow on the Bluff; rising from the sea as he leaned on the steamer rail; during the long nights on the ship as he lay sleepless in the narrow brass cot; last night in the crowded railway carriage—then it had been so vivid that he had held his breath and glanced around stealthily with hunted eyes at his fellow passengers looking for the horrified faces that would tell him that they also saw what he could see. He never knew how long it lasted, minutes or seconds, holding him rigid until it passed to leave him bathed in perspiration. Environment seemed to make no difference. It came as readily in a crowd as when he was alone. He lived in perpetual dread of betraying his obsession. Once only it had happened—in the bungalow, the night before he left Japan, and his involuntary cry had brought the watchful valet. And as he crossed the room Craven had distinctly seen him pass through the little recumbent figure and, with blazing eyes, had dragged him roughly to one side, pointing and muttering incoherently. And Yoshio had seemed to understand. Sceptical as he was about the supernatural, at first Craven's doubt had been rudely shaken; but with the steadying of his nerves had come the conviction that the vision was inward, though at the moment so real that often his confidence momentarily wavered, as last night in the train. It came with no kind of regularity, no warning that might prepare him. And recurrence brought no mitigation, no familiarising that could temper the acute horror it inspired. To what pitch of actuality might it attain? To what lengths might it drive him? He dragged his thoughts up sharply. To dwell on it was fatal, that way lay insanity. He set his teeth and forced himself to think of other things. There was ample material. There was primarily the salvage of a wasted life. During the last few weeks he had been forced to a self-examination that had been drastically thorough. The verdict had been an adverse one. Personal criticism, once aroused, went far. The purposeless life that he had led seemed now an insult to his manhood. It had been in his power to do so much—he had actually done disastrously little. He had loafed through life without a thought beyond the passing interest of the moment. And even in the greater interests of his life, travel and big game, he had failed to exert himself beyond a mediocre level. He had travelled far and shot a rare beast or two, but so had many another—and with greater difficulties to contend with than he who had never wrestled with the disadvantages of inferior equipment and inadequate attendance. Muscularly and constitutionally stronger than the average, physically he could have done anything. And he had done nothing—nothing that others had not done as well or even better. It was sufficiently humiliating. And the outcome of his reflections had been a keen desire for work, hard absorbing work, with the hope that bodily fatigue might in some measure afford mental alleviation. It did not even need finding. With a certain shame he admitted the fact. It had waited for him any time these last ten years in his own home. The responsibility of great possessions was his. And he had shirked. He had evaded the duty he owed to a trust he had inherited. It was a new view of his position that recent thought had awakened. It was still not too late. He would go back like the prodigal—not to eat the fatted calf, but to sit at the feet of Peters and learn from him the secret of successful estate management.

For thirty years Peter Peters had ruled the Craven properties, and they were all his life. For the last ten years he had never ceased urging his employer to assume the reins of government himself. His entreaties, protestations and threats of resignation had been unheeded. Craven felt sure that he would never relinquish his post, he had grown into the soil and was as firmly fixed as the Towers itself. He was an institution in the county, a personality on the bench. He ruled his own domains with a kindly but absolute autocracy which succeeded perfectly on the Craven estates and was the envy of other agents, who had not his ability to do likewise. Well born, original and fearless he was popular in castle and in cottage, and his advice was respected by all. He neither sought nor abused a confidence, and in consequence was the depository of most of the secrets of the countryside. To his sympathetic ears came both grave offences and minor indiscretions, as to a kindly safety-valve who advised and helped—and was subsequently silent. His exoneration was considered final. "I confessed to Peter" became a recognised formula, instituted by a giddy young Marchioness at the north end of the county, whose cousin he was. And there, invariably, the matter ended. And for Craven it was the one bright spot in the darkness before him. Life was going to be hell—but there would always be Peter.

At the Convent gates the taxi skidded badly at the suddenly applied brakes, and then backed jerkily into position. Craven felt an overwhelming inclination to take to his heels. The portress who admitted him had evidently received orders, for she silently conducted him to a waiting room and left him alone. It was sparsely furnished but had on the walls some fine old rosewood panelling. The narrow heavily leaded windows overlooked a paved quadrangle, glistening with moisture. For a few moments the rain had ceased but drops still pattered sharply on to the flagstones from the branches of two large chestnut trees. The outlook was melancholy and he turned from the window, shivering. But the chill austere room was hardly more inspiring. The atmosphere was strange to him. It was a world apart from anything that had ever touched him. He marvelled suddenly at the countless lives living out their allotted span in the confined area of these and similar walls. Surely all could not submit willingly to such a crushing captivity? Some must agonize and spend their strength unavailingly, like birds beating their wings against the bars of a cage for freedom. To the man who had roamed through all the continents of the world this forced inactivity seemed appalling—stultifying. The hampering of personal freedom, the forcing of independent minds into one narrow prescribed channel that admitted of no individual expansion, the waste of material and the fettering of intellects, that were heaven-sent gifts to be put out to usury and not shrouded away in a napkin, revolted him. The conventual system was to him a survival of medievalism, a relic of the dark ages; the last refuge of the shirkers of the world. The communities themselves, if he had thought of them at all, had been regarded as a whole. He had never troubled to consider them as composed of single individuals. Today he thought of them as separate human beings and his intolerance increased. An indefinite distaste never seriously considered seemed, during the few moments in the bare waiting room, to have grown suddenly into active dislike. He was wholly out of sympathy with his surroundings, impatient of the necessity that brought him into contact with what he would have chosen to avoid. He looked about with eyes grown hard and contemptuous. The very building seemed to be the embodiment of retrogression and blind superstition. He was filled with antagonism. His face was grim and his figure drawn up stiffly to its full height when the door opened to admit the Mother Superior. For a moment she hesitated, a faint look of surprise coming into her face. And no antagonism, however intolerant, could have braved her gentle dignity. "It is—Monsieur Craven?" she asked, a perceptible interrogation in her soft voice.

She took the letters he gave her and read them carefully—pausing once or twice as if searching for the correct translation of a word—then handed them back to him in silence. She looked at him again, frankly, with no attempt to disguise her scrutiny, and the perplexity in her eyes grew greater. One small white hand slid to the crucifix hanging on her breast, as if seeking aid from the familiar symbol, and Craven saw that her fingers were trembling. A faint flush rose in her face.

"Monsieur is perhaps married, or—happily—he has a mother?" she asked at last, and the flush deepened as she looked up at the big man standing before her. She made a little gesture of embarrassment but her eyes did not waver. They would not, he thought with sudden intuition. For he realised that it was one of his own order who confronted him. It was not what he had anticipated. The Mother Superior's low voice continuing in gentle explanation broke into his thoughts.

"Monsieur will forgive that I catechise him thus but I had expected one—much older." Her distress was obvious. And Craven divined that as a prospective guardian he fell short of expectation. And yet, his lack of years was apparently to her the only drawback. His lack of years—Good God, and he felt so old! His youth was a disadvantage that counted for nothing in the present instance. If she could know the truth, if the anxious gaze that was fixed so intently on him could look into his heart with understanding, he knew that she would shrink from him as from a vile contamination.

He conceived the horror dawning in her eyes, the loathing in her attitude, and seemed to hear her passionate protest against his claim to the child who had been sheltered in the safety of the community that he had despised. The safety of the community—that had not before occurred to him. For the first time he considered it a refuge to those who there sought sanctuary and who were safeguarded from such as—he. He winced, but did not spare himself. The sin had been only his. The child who had died for love of him had been as innocent of sin as the birds who loved and mated among the pine trees in her Garden of Enchantment. She had had no will but his. Arrogantly he had taken her and she had submitted—was he not her lord? Before his shadow fell across her path no blameless soul within these old convent walls had been more pure and stainless than the soul of O Hara San. It was the sins of such as he that drove women to this shelter that offered refuge and consolation, to escape from such as he they voluntarily immured themselves; surrendering the purpose of their being, seeking in bodily denial the salvation of their souls.

The room had grown very dark. A sudden glare of light made Craven realise that a question asked was still unanswered. He had not, in his abstraction, been aware of any movement. Now he saw the Mother Superior walking leisurely back from the electric switch by the door, and guessed from her placid face that the interval had been momentary and had passed unnoticed. Some answer was required now. He pulled himself together.

"I am not married," his voice was strained, "and I have no mother. But my aunt—Miss Craven—the sculptor—" he paused enquiringly and she smiled reassurance.

"Miss Craven's beautiful work is known to me," she said with ready tact that put him more at ease.

"My aunt has, most kindly, promised to—to co-operate," he finished lamely.

The anxiety faded from the Mother Superior's face and she sat down with an air of relief, motioning Craven to a chair. But with a curt bow he remained standing. He had no wish to prolong the interview beyond what courtesy and business demanded. He listened with a variety of feelings while the Nun spoke. Her earnestness he could not fail to perceive, but it required a decided effort to concentrate, and follow her soft well modulated voice.

She spoke slowly, with feeling that broke at times the tone she strove to make dispassionate.

"I am glad for Gillian's sake that at last, after all these years, there has come one who will be concerned with her future. She has no vocation for the conventual life and—I was beginning to become anxious. For ourselves, we shall miss her more than it is possible to say. She had been with us so long, she has become very dear to us. I have dreaded that her father would one day claim her. She has been spared that contamination—God forgive me that I should speak so." For a moment she was silent, her eyes bent on her hands lying loosely clasped in her lap.

"Gillian is not altogether friendless," she resumed, "she will go to you with a little more knowledge of the world than can be gained within these old walls." She glanced round the panelled room with half-sad affection. "She is popular and has spent vacations in the homes of some of her fellow pupils. She has a very decided personality, and a facility for attracting affection. She is sensitive and proud—passionate even at times. She can be led but not driven. I tell you all this, Monsieur, not censoriously but that it may help you in dealing with a character that is extraordinarily complex, with a nature that both demands and repels affection, that longs for and yet scorns sympathy." She looked at Craven anxiously. His complete attention was claimed at last. A new conception of his unknown ward was forcing itself upon him, so that any humour there might have been in the situation died suddenly and the difficulties of the undertaking soared. The Mother Superior smothered a sigh. His attitude was baffling, his expression inscrutable. Had her words touched him, had she said what was best for the welfare of the girl who was so dear to her, and whose departure she felt so keenly? How would she fare at this man's hands? What lay behind his stern face and sombre tragic eyes? Her lips moved in silent prayer, but when she spoke her voice was serene as before.

"There is yet another thing that I must speak of. Gillian has an unusual gift." A sentence in Locke's letter flashed into Craven's mind.

"She doesn't dance?" he asked, in some dismay.

"Dance, Monsieur—in a convent?" Then she pitied his hot confusion and smiled faintly.

"Is dancing so unusual—in the world? No, Gillian sketches—portraits. Her talent is real. She does not merely draw a faithful likeness, her studies are revelations of soul. I do not think she knows herself how her effects are obtained, they grow almost unconsciously, but they result always in the same strange delineation of character. It was so impossible to ignore this exceptional gift that we procured for her the best teacher in Paris, and continued her lessons even after—" She stopped abruptly and Craven finished the broken sentence.

"Even after the fees ceased," he said dryly. "For how many years has my ward lived on your charity, Reverend Mother?"

She raised a protesting hand.

"Ah—charity. It is hardly the word—" she fenced.

He took out a cheque book.

"How much is owing, for everything?" he said bluntly.

She sought for a book in a bureau standing against the rosewood panelling and, scanning it, gave a sum with evident reluctance.

"Gillian has never been told, but it is ten years since Monsieur Locke paid anything." There was diffidence in her voice. "In an institution of this kind we are compelled to be businesslike. It is rare that we can afford to make an exception, though the temptation is often great. The head and the heart—voyez, vous, Monsieur—they pull in contrary directions." And she slipped the book back into a pigeon-hole as if the touch of it was distasteful. She glanced perfunctorily at the cheque he handed to her, then closer, and the colour rose again to her sensitive face.

"But Monsieur has written treble the amount," she murmured.

"Will you accept the balance," he said hurriedly, "in the name of my ward, for any purpose that you may think fit? There is one stipulation only—I do not wish her to know that there has been any monetary transaction between us." His voice was almost curt, and the Nun found herself unable to question a condition which, though manifestly generous, she deemed quixotic. She could only bend to his decision with mingled thankfulness and apprehension. Despite the problem of the girl's future she had it in her heart to wish that this singular claimant had never presented himself. His liberality was obvious but—. She locked the slip of paper away in the bureau with a feeling of vague uneasiness. But for good or ill the matter was out of her hands. She had said all that she could say. The rest lay with God.

"I do accept it," she said, "with all gratitude. It will enable us to carry out a scheme that has long been our hope. Your generosity will more than pave the way. I will send Gillian to you now."

She left him, more embarrassed than he had been at first, more than ever dreading the task before him. He waited with a nervous impatience that irritated himself.

Turning to the window he looked out into the dusk. The old trees in the courtyard were almost indistinguishable. The rain dripped again steadily, splashing the creeper that framed the casement. A few lights showing dimly in the windows on the opposite side of the quadrangle served only to intensify the gloom. The time dragged. Fretfully he drummed with his fingers on the leaded panes, his ears alert for any sound beyond the closed door. The echo of a distant organ stole into the room and the soft solemn notes harmonised with the melancholy pattering of the raindrops and the gusts of wind that moaned fitfully around the house.

In a sudden revulsion of feeling the life he had mapped out for himself seemed horrible beyond thought. He could not bear it. It would be tying his hands and burdening himself with a responsibility that would curtail his freedom and hamper him beyond endurance. A great restlessness, a longing to escape from the irksome tie, came to him. Solitude and open spaces; unpeopled nature; wild desert wastes—he craved for them. The want was like a physical ache. The desert—he drew his breath in sharply—the hot shifting sand whispering under foot, the fierce noontide sun blazing out of a brilliant sky, the charm of it! The fascination of its false smiling surface, its treacherous beauty luring to hidden perils called to him imperatively. The curse of Ishmael that was his heritage was driving him as it had driven him many times before. He was in the grip of one of the revolts against restraint and civilisation that periodically attacked him. The wander-hunger was in his blood—for generations it had sent numberless ancestors into the lonely places of the world, and against it ties of home were powerless. In early days to the romantic glamour of the newly discovered Americas, later to the silence of the frozen seas and to the mysterious depth of unexplored lands the Cravens had paid a heavy toll. A Craven had penetrated into the tangled gloom of the Amazon forests, and had never returned. In the previous century two Cravens had succumbed to the fascination of the North West Passage, another had vanished in Central Asia. Barry's grandfather had perished in a dust storm in the Sahara. And it was to the North African desert that his own thoughts turned most longingly. Japan had satisfied him for a time—but only for a time. Western civilisation had there obtruded too glaringly, and he had admitted frankly to himself that it was not Japan but O Hara San that kept him in Yokohama. The dark courtyard and the faintly lighted windows faded. He saw instead a tiny well-remembered oasis in Southern Algeria, heard the ceaseless chatter of Arabs, the shrill squeal of a stallion, the peevish grunt of a camel, and, rising above all other sounds, the whine of the tackling above the well. And the smell—the cloying smell that goes with camel caravans, it was pungent! He flung up his head inhaling deeply, then realised that the scent that filled the room was not the acrid smell of the desert but the penetrating odour of incense filtering in through the opened door. It shut and he turned reluctantly.

He saw at first only a pair of great brown eyes, staring almost defiantly, set in a small pale face, that looked paler by contrast with the frame of dark brown hair. Then his gaze travelled slowly over the slender black-clad figure silhouetted against the polished panels. His fear was substantiated. Not a child who could be relegated to nurses and governesses, but a girl in the dawn of womanhood. Passionately he cursed John Locke.

He felt a fool, idiotically tongue-tied. He had been prepared to adopt a suitably paternal attitude towards the small child he had expected. A paternal attitude in connection with this self-possessed young woman was impossible, in fact ludicrous. For the moment he seemed unable to cope with the situation. It was the girl who spoke first. She came forward slowly, across the long narrow room.

"I am Gillian Locke, Monsieur."



CHAPTER IV

On the cushioned window seat in her bedroom at Craven Towers Gillian Locke sat with her arms wrapped round her knees waiting for the summons to dinner. With Miss Craven and her guardian she had left London that morning, arriving at the Towers in the afternoon, and she was tired and excited with the events of the day. She leant back against the panelled embrasure, her mind dwelling on the last three crowded months they had spent in Paris and London waiting until the house was redecorated and ready to receive them. It had been for her a wonderful experience. The novelty, the strangeness of it, left her breathless with the feeling that years, not weeks, had rushed by. Already in the realisation of the new life the convent days seemed long ago, the convent itself to have receded into a far off past. And yet there were times when she wondered whether she was dreaming, whether waking would be inevitable and she would find herself once more in the old dormitory to pray passionately that she might dream again. And until tonight there had scarcely been time even to think, her days had been full, at night she had gone to bed to sleep in happy dreamlessness. The hotel bedrooms with their litter of trunks suggesting imminent flight had held no restfulness. To Gillian the transitory sensation had strained already over-excited nerves and heightened the dreamlike feeling that made everything seem unreal. But here, the visible evidences of travel removed, the deep silence of a large country house penetrating her mind and conducing to peace, she could think at last. The surroundings were helpful. There was about the room an air of permanence which the hotel bedrooms had never given, an atmosphere of abiding quiet that soothed her. She was sensitive of an influence that was wholly new to her and very sweet, that brought with it a feeling of laughter and tears strangely mingled, that made the room appear as no other room had ever done. It Was her room, and it had welcomed her. It was like a big friendly silent person offering mute reception, radiating repose. In a few hours the room had become intimate, dear to her. She laughed happily—then checked at a guilty feeling of treason against the grey old walls in Paris that had so long sheltered her. She was not ungrateful, all her life she would remember with gratitude the love and care she had received. But the convent had been prison. Since her father had left her there, a tiny child, she had inwardly rebelled; the life was abhorrent to her, the restraint unbearable. With childish pride she had hidden her feelings, living through a period of acute misery with no hint to those about her of what she suffered. And the habit of suppression acquired in childhood had grown with her own development. As the years passed the limitations of the convent became more perceptible. She felt its cramping influence to the full, as if the walls were closing in to suffocate her, to bury her alive before she had ever known a fuller freer life. She had longed for expansion—ideas she could not formulate, desires she could not express, crowded, jostled in her brain. She wanted a wider outlook on life than the narrow convent windows offered. Brief excursions into the world to the homes of her friends had filled her with a yearning for freedom and for independence, for a greater range of thought and action. Her artistic studies had served to foster an unrest she struggled against bravely and to conceal which she became daily more self-contained. Her reserve was like a barrier about her. She was sweet and gentle to all around her, but a little aloof and very silent. To the other girls she had been a heroine of romance, puzzling mystery surrounded her; to the Nuns an enigma. The Mother Superior, alone, had arrived at a partial understanding, more than that even she could not accomplish. Gillian loved her, but her reserve was stronger than her love. Sitting now in the dainty English bedroom, revelling in the warm beauty of the exquisite landscape that, mellowed in the evening light, lay spread out beneath her eyes, Gillian thought a little sadly of her parting with the Reverend Mother. She had tried to hide the happiness that the strange feeling of freedom gave her, to smother any look or word that might wound the gentle sensibility of the frail robed woman whose eyes were sad at the approaching separation. Her conscience smote her that her own heart held no sadness. She had said very little, nothing of the new life that lay ahead of her. She hid her hopes of the future as jealously as she had hidden her longings in the past, and she had left the convent as silently as she had lived in it. She had driven back to the hotel with a sense of relief predominating that it was all over, breathing deeply with a sigh of relaxed tension. It seemed to her then as if she had learned to breathe only within the last few days, as if the air itself was lighter, more exhilarating.

From the convent her mind went back to earlier days. She thought of her father, the handsome dissolute man, whose image had grown dim with years. As a tiny child she had loved him passionately, the central figure of her chequered and wandering little life—father and mother in one, playmate and hero. Her recollection seemed to be of constant travelling; of long hours spent in railway trains; of arrivals at strange places in the dark night; of departures in the early dawn, half awake—but always happy so long as the familiar arms held her weary little body and there was the shabby old coat on which to pillow her brown curls. A jumbled remembrance of towns and country villages; of kind unknown women who looked compassionate and murmured over her in a dozen different languages. It had all been a medley of impressions and experiences—everything transient, nothing lasting, but the big untidy man who was her all. And then the convent. For a few years John Locke had reappeared at irregular intervals, and on the memory of those brief visits she had lived until he came again. Then he had ceased to come and his letters, grown short and few, full of vague promises—unsatisfying—meagre, had stopped abruptly. At first she had refused to admit to herself that he had forgotten, that she could mean so little to him, that he would deliberately put her out of his life. She had waited, excusing, trusting, until, heart-sick with deferred hope, she had come to think of him as dead. She was old enough then to realise her position and in spite of the love and consideration surrounding her she had learned misery. Her popularity even was a source of torment, for in the happy homes of her friends she had felt more cruelly her own destitute loneliness.

When the lawyer's letter had come enclosing a few scrawled lines written by her dying father she had felt that life could hold no more bitterness. She had worshipped him—and he had abandoned her callously. She was bone of his bone and he had made no effort even for his own flesh. He had thrown her a burden on the convent that sheltered her so willingly only for want of will power to conquer the weakness that had devitalised brain and body. The thought crushed her. As she read his confession, full of tardy remorse, her proud heart had been sick with humiliation. She groped blindly through a sea of despair, her faith broken, her trust gone. She hid her sorrow and her shame, fulfilling her usual tasks, following the ordinary routine—a little more silent, a little more reserved—her eyes alone betraying the storm that was overwhelming her. She had loved him so dearly—that was the sting. She had guarded her memory of him so tenderly, weaving a thousand extravagant tales about him, pinnacling him above all men, her hero, her knight, her preux chevalier. And now she realised that her memory was no memory, that she had built up a fantastic figure of romance whose origin rested on nothing tangible, whose elevation had been so lofty that his overthrow was demolition. Her god had feet of clay. Her superman was nothing. All that she had ever had, memory that was delusion, was taken from her. Woken abruptly to the brutal truth she felt that she had nothing left to cling to—a loneliness far greater than she had known before. Then gradually her own honesty compelled her to admit her fantasy. The dream man she had evolved had been of her own making, the virtues with which she had endowed him bred of her own imagination. Of the real man she knew nothing, and for the real man there dawned slowly—though love for him had died—pity. It came to her, passionately endeavouring to understand, that in the sheltered life she led she had no knowledge of the temptations that beset a man outside in the great world. Dimly she realised that some win out—and some go under. He had failed. And it seemed to her that on her had fallen his debt. She must take the place he had forfeited in the universe, she must succeed where he had failed. Her strength must rise out of his weakness. His honour was hers to re-establish, given the opportunity. And the opportunity had been given. She had waited for the coming of her unknown guardian with a feeling of dull revolt against the degradation of being handed over inexorably to the disposal and charity of a stranger. Though she had not been told she had guessed, years ago, that money for her maintenance was wanting. The kindly deception of the Mother Superior had been ineffectual. Gillian knew she was a pauper. The charity of the convent school had been hard to bear. The charity of a stranger would be harder. She writhed with the humiliation of it. She was nineteen—for two years she must go and be and endure at the whim of an unknown. And what would he be like, this man into whose hands her father had thrust her! What choice would John Locke be capable of making—what love had he shown during these last years that he should choose carefully and well? From among what class of man, of the society into which he had sunk, would he select one to give his daughter? He had written of "my old friend, Barry Craven." The name conveyed nothing—the adjective admitted of two interpretations. Which? Day and night she was haunted with visions of old men—recollections of faces seen when driving with her friends or visiting their homes; old men who had interested her, old men from whom she had instinctively shrunk. What type of man was it that was coming for her? There were times when her courage deserted her and the constantly recurring question made her nearly mad with fear. She was like a wild creature caught in a trap, listening to the feet of the keeper nearing—nearing. She had longed for the time when she could leave the Convent, she clung to it now with dread at the thought of the future. The London lawyer had written that Mr. Craven was returning from Japan to assume his guardianship, and she had traced his route with growing fear as the days slipped by—the keeper's tread coming closer and closer. She had masked the terror the thought of him inspired, preserving an outward apathy that seemed to imply complete indifference. And in the end he had come sooner than she expected, for they thought he would go first to London. One morning she had learned he was in Paris, that very afternoon she would know her fate. The day had been interminable. During his interview with the Mother Superior she had paced the room where she was waiting as it seemed for hours, her nerves at breaking point. When the Reverend Mother came back she could have shrieked aloud and her desperate eyes failed to interpret the expression on the Nun's face; she tried to speak, a husky whisper that died away inarticulately. Faintly she heard the gentle words of encouragement and with an effort of pride she walked quickly to the door of the visitors' room. There she paused, irresolute, and the low peaceful roll of the organ echoing from the distant chapel seemed to mock her. So often it had comforted, giving courage to go forward—today its very peacefulness jarred; nerve-racked she was out of tune with the atmosphere of calm tranquillity about her. She felt alien—that more than ever she stood alone. Then pride flamed afresh. With head held high and lips compressed she went in. As he turned from the window it was his great height and broad shoulders that struck her first—men of his physique were rare in France—and, in the thought of a moment, the well cut conventional morning coat had seemed absurd, and mentally she had clothed his long limbs in damascened steel. Then she had seen that he was young, how young she could not guess, but younger far than she had imagined. As their eyes met the sombre tragedy in his had hurt her. She divined a sorrow before which her own paled to nothingness and quick pity killed fear. The sadness of his face lifted her suddenly into full realisation of her womanhood. Compassion rose above self. Instinctively she knew that the interview that was to her so momentous was to him only an embarrassing interlude. Shyness remained but the terror she had felt gave place to a feeling she had not then understood. As quickly as possible he had taken her to the hotel, leaving to his aunt all explanations that seemed necessary. And since then he had remained consistently in the background, delegating his authority to Miss Craven. But from the first his proximity had troubled her—she was always conscious of his presence. Hypersensitive from her convent upbringing she knew intuitively when he entered a room or left it. Men were to her an unknown quantity; the few she had met—brothers and cousins of school friends—had been viewed from a different standpoint. Hedged about with rigid French convention there had been no chance of acquaintance ripening into friendship—she had been merely a schoolgirl among other girls, touching only the fringe of the most youthful of the masculine element in the houses where she had stayed. She had been unprepared for the change to the daily contact with a man like Barry Craven. It would take time to accustom herself, to become used to the continual masculine presence.

Miss Craven, to her nephew's relief, had taken the shy pale-faced girl to her eccentric heart with a suddenness and enthusiasm that had surprised herself.

And Gillian's reserve and pride had been unable to withstand the whirlwind little lady. Miss Craven's personality took a strong hold on her; she loved the woman, she admired the artist, and she was quick to recognise the real feeling and deep kindness that lay under brusque manner and quizzical speeches. She had good reason. She glanced now round the big room. Everywhere were evidences of lavish generosity, showered on her regardless of protest. Gillian's eyes filled slowly with tears. It was all a fairy story, too wonderful almost to be true. Why were they so good to her—how would she ever be able to repay the kindness lavished on her? Her thoughts were interrupted by the latest gift that rose out of his basket with a sleepy yawn and stretching luxuriously came and laid his head on her knee, looking up at her with sad brown eyes. She had always loved animals, the possession of some dog had been an ardent desire, and she hugged the big black poodle now with a little sob.

"Mouston, you pampered person, have you ever been lonely? Can you imagine what it is like to be made to feel that you belong to somebody again?" She rubbed her cheek against his satiny head, crooning over him, the dog thrilling to her touch with jerking limbs and sharp half-stifled whines. It was her first experience of ownership, of responsibility for a living creature that was dependent on her and for which she was answerable. And it was likely to prove an arduous responsibility. He was single-minded and jealous in his allegiance; Miss Craven he tolerated indifferently, of Craven he was openly suspicious. He followed Gillian like a shadow and moped in her absence, yielding to Yoshio, who had charge of him on such occasions, a resigned obedience he gave to no other member of the household. Through Mouston Gillian and Yoshio had become acquainted.

Mouston's affection this evening became over-enthusiastic and threatening to fragile silks and laces. Gillian kissed the top of his head, shook solemnly an insistent paw, and put him on one side. She moved to the dressing table and inspected herself critically in the big mirror. She looked with grave amusement. Was that Gillian Locke? She wondered did a butterfly feel more incongruous when it shed its dull grub skin. For so many years she had worn the sombre garb of the convent schoolgirl, the change was still new enough to delight and the natural woman within her responded to the fascination of pretty clothing. The dark draperies of the convent had palled, she had craved colour with an almost starved longing.

The general reflection in the long glass satisfied, a more detailed personal survey raised serious doubts. She had never recognised the grace of her slender figure, the uncommon beauty of her pale oval face—other types had appealed more, other colouring attracted. She had studied her face often, disapprovingly. Once or twice, lacking a model, she had essayed to reproduce her own features. She had failed utterly. The faithful portraiture she achieved for others was wanting. She was unable to express in her own likeness the almost startling exposition of character that distinguished her ordinary work. She had been her own limitation. Her failure had puzzled her, causing a searching mental inquiry. She had no knowledge herself of how her special gift took form, the work grew involuntarily under her hand. She was aware of no definite impression received, no attempt at soul analysis. Vaguely she supposed that in some subtle mysterious way the character of her sitter communicated itself, influencing her; in fact her best work had often had the least care bestowed upon it. Did her inability to transfer to canvas a living copy of her own face argue that she herself was without character—had she failed because there was in truth nothing to delineate? Or was it because she sought to see something unreal—sought to control a purely inherent impulse? It was a problem she had never solved.

She looked now at the mirrored figure with her usual disapproval, great brown eyes scowling back at her from the glass, then made a little obliterating movement with her hand and shook her head. Appearance had never mattered before, but now she wanted so much to please—to be a credit to the interest shown, to repay the time and money spent upon her. Her eyes grew wistful as she leant nearer to see if there were any tell-tale traces of tears, then danced with sudden amusement as she picked up a powder puff and dabbed tentatively.

"Oh, Gillian Locke, what would the Reverend Mother say!" she murmured, and laughed.

The poodle, jealous for attention, leaped on to a chair beside her, his paws on the plate glass slab scattering brushes and bottles, and still laughing she smothered his damp eager nose with powder until he sneezed disgusted protest.

With a conciliatory caress she left him to disarrange the dressing table further, and went back to the window. Beneath her lawns extended to a wide terrace, stone balustraded, from the centre of which a long flight of steps led down to a formal rose garden sheltered by a high yew hedge and backed by a little copse beyond which the heavily timbered park stretched indefinitely in the evening light. The sense of space fascinated her. She had always longed for unimpeded views, for the stillness of the country. On the smooth shaven lawns great trees were set like sentinels about the house; fancifully she thought of them as living vigilant keepers maintaining for centuries a perpetual guard—and smiled at her childish imagination. Her pleasure in the prospect deepened. Already the charm of the Towers had taken hold of her, from the first moment she had loved it. Throughout the long railway journey and during the five mile drive from the station, she had anticipated, and the actuality had outstripped her anticipation. The beauty of the park, the herds of grazing deer, had delighted her; the old grey house itself had stayed her spellbound. She had not imagined anything half so lovely, so impressively enduring. She had seen nothing to compare with its fine proportions, with the luxury of its setting. It differed utterly from the French Chateaux where she had visited; there toil obtruded, vineyards and rich fields of crops clustered close to the very walls of the seigneur's dwellings, a source of wealth simply displayed; here similar activities were banished to unseen regions, and scrupulously kept avenues, close cut lawns and immaculate flower-beds formed evidence of constant labour whose results charmed the eye but were materially profitless. The formal grandeur appealed to her. She was not altogether alien, she reflected, with a curious smile—despite his subsequent downfall John Locke had sprung from just such stock as the owner of this wonderful house. A sudden panic of lateness interrupted her pleasure and she turned from the window, calling to the dog. Her suite opened on to a circular gallery—from which bedrooms opened—running round the central portion of the house and overlooking the big square hall which was lit from above by a lofty glazed dome; eastward and westward stretched long rambling wings, a story higher than the main block, crowned with the turrets that gave the house its name.

A low murmur of men's voices came from below, and leaning over the balustrade she saw Craven and his agent standing talking before the empty fireplace. Sudden shyness overcame her; her guardian was still formidable, Peters she had seen for the first time only a few hours ago when he had met them at the station—a short broad-shouldered man inclining to stoutness, with thick grey hair and close-pointed beard. To go down deliberately to them seemed impossible. But while she hesitated in an agony of self-consciousness Mouston precipitated the inevitable by dashing on ahead down, the stairs and plunging into the bearskin hearthrug, ploughing the thick fur with his muzzle and sneezing wildly. The sense of responsibility outweighed shyness and she hurried after him, but Peters anticipated her and already had the dog's unwilling head firmly between his hands.

"What on earth has he got on his nose, Miss Locke?" he asked, in a tone of wonder, but the keen blue eyes looking at her from under bushy grey eyebrows were twinkling and her shyness was not proof against his friendliness.

She dropped to her knees and flicked the offended organ with a scrap of lace and lawn.

"Powder," she said gravely.

"You can have no idea," she added, looking up suddenly, "how delightful it is to powder your nose when you have been brought up in a convent. The Nuns consider it the height of depravity," and she laughed, a ringing girlish outburst of amusement that Craven had never yet heard. He looked at her as she knelt on the rug soothing the poodle's outraged feelings and smiling at Peters who was offering his own more adequate handkerchief. That laugh was a revelation—in spite of her self-possession, of her reserve, she was in reality only a girl, hardly more than a child, but influenced by her quiet gravity he had forgotten the fact.

As he watched her a slight frown gathered on his face. It seemed that Peters, in a few hours, had penetrated the barrier outside which he, after months, still remained. With him she was always shyly silent. On the few rare occasions in Paris and in London when he had found himself alone with her she had shrunk into herself and avoided addressing him; and he had wondered, irritably, how much was natural diffidence and how much due to convent training. But he had made no effort at further understanding, for the past was always present dominating inclinations and impulses—perpetual memory, jogging at his elbow. There were days when the only relief was physical exhaustion and he disappeared for hours to fight his devils in solitude. And in any case he was not wanted, it was better in every way for him to efface himself. There was nothing for him to do—thanks to the improvidence of John Locke no business connected with the trust. Miss Craven had taken complete possession of Gillian and he held aloof, not attempting to establish more intimate relations with his ward. But tonight, with a fine inconsistency, it piqued him that she should respond so readily to Peters. He knew he was a fool—it mattered not one particle to him—Peters' magnetism was proverbial—but, illogically, the frown persisted.

As if conscious of his scrutiny Gillian turned and met his searching gaze. The colour flooded her face and she pushed the dog aside and rose hastily to her feet. Shyness supervened again and she was thankful for the arrival of Miss Craven, who was breathless and apologetic.

"Late as usual! I shall be late when the last trump sounds. But this time it was really not my fault. Mrs. Appleyard descended upon me!—our old housekeeper, Gillian—and her tongue has wagged for a solid hour by the clock. I am now au fait with everything that has happened at the Towers since I was here last—do your ears burn, Peter?—metaphorically she has dragged me at her heels from garrets to cellars and back to the garrets again. She is pathetically pleased to have the house open once more."

Still talking she led the way to the dining room. It was an immense room, panelled like most of the house, the table an oasis on a desert of Persian carpet, a huge fireplace predominating, and some of the more valuable family portraits on the walls.

As Miss Craven entered she looked instinctively for the portrait of her brother, which since his death had hung—following a family custom—in a panel over the high carved mantelpiece. But it had been removed and for it had been substituted a beautiful painting of Barry's mother. She stopped abruptly in the middle of a sentence. "An innovation?" she murmured to her nephew, with her shrewd eyes on his face.

"A reparation," he answered shortly, as he moved to his chair. And his tone made any further comment impossible. She sat down thoughtfully and began her soup in silence, vaguely disturbed at the departure from a precedent that had held for generations. Unconventional and ultra-modern as she was she still clung to the traditions of her family, and from time immemorial the portrait of the last reigning Craven had hung over the fireplace in the big dining room waiting to give place to its successor. It all seemed bound up somehow with the terrible change that had taken place in him since his return from Japan—a change she was beginning more and more to connect with the man whose portrait had been banished, as though unworthy, from its prominence. Unworthy indeed—but how did Barry know? What had he learned in the country that had had such a fatal attraction for his father? The old shameful story she had thought buried for ever seemed rising like a horrible phantom from the grave where it had lain so long hidden.

With a little shudder she turned resolutely from the painful thoughts that came crowding in upon her and entered into animated conversation with Peters.

Gillian, content to be unnoticed, looked about her with appreciative interest; the big room, its sombre, rather formal furniture and fine pictures, appealed to her. The arrangements were in perfect harmony, nothing clashed or jarred, electric lighting was carefully hidden and only wax candles burnt in heavy silver candlesticks on the table.

The fascination of the old house was growing every moment more insistent, like a spell laid on her. She gave herself up to it, to the odd happiness it inspired. She felt it curiously familiar. A strange feeling came to her—it was as if from childhood she had been journeying and now come home. An absurd thought, but she loved it. She had never had a home, but for the next two years she could pretend. To pretend was easy. All her life she had lived in a land of dreams, tenanted with shadowy inhabitants of her own imagining—puppets who moved obedient to her will through all the devious paths of make-believe; a spirit world where she ranged free of the narrow walls that restricted her liberty. It had been easy to pretend in the convent—how much easier here in the solid embodiment of a dream castle and stimulated by the real human affection for which her heart had starved. The love she had hitherto known had been unsatisfying, too impersonal, too restrained, too interwoven with mystical devotion. Mass Craven's affection was of a hardier, more practical nature. Blunt candour and sincerity personified, she did not attempt to disguise her attachment. She had been attracted, had approved, and had finally co-opted Gillian into the family. She had, moreover, great faith in her own judgment. And to justify that faith Gillian would have gone through fire and water.

She looked gratefully at the solid little figure sitting at the foot of the table and a gleam of amusement chased the seriousness from her eyes. Miss Craven was in the throes of a heated discussion with Peters which involved elaborate diagrams traced on the smooth cloth with a salt spoon, and as Gillian watched she completed her design with a fine flourish and leant back triumphant in her chair, rumpling her hair fantastically. But the agent, unconvinced, fell upon her mercilessly and in a moment she was bent forward again in vigorous protest, drumming impatiently on the table with her fingers as he laughingly altered her drawing. They were the best of friends and wrangled continually. To Gillian it was all so fresh, so novel. Then her attention veered. Throughout dinner Craven had been silent. When once started on a discussion his aunt and Peters tore the controversy amicably to tatters in complete absorption. He had not joined in the argument. As always Gillian was too shy to address him of her own accord, but she was acutely conscious of his nearness. She deprecated her own attitude, yet silence was better than the banal platitudes which were all she had to offer. Her range was so restricted, his—who had travelled the world over—must be so great. With the exception of one subject her knowledge was negligible. But he too was an artist—hopeless to attempt that topic, she concluded with swift contempt for her own limitations; to offer the opinions of a convent-bred amateur to one who had studied in famous Paris ateliers and was acquainted with the art of many countries would be an impertinence. But yet she knew that sometime she must break through the wall that her own diffidence had built up; in the intimacy of country house life the continuance of such an attitude would be both impossible and ridiculous. Contritely she acknowledged that the tension between them was largely her own fault, a disability due to training. But she could not go through life sheltering behind that wholly inadequate plea. If there was anything in her at all she must rise above the conventions in which she had been reared; she had done with the narrowness of the past, now she must think broadly, expansively, in all things—even in the trivial matter of social intercourse. A saving sense of humour sent a laugh bubbling into her throat which nearly escaped. It was such a little thing, but she had magnified it so greatly. What, after all, did it amount to—the awkwardness of a schoolgirl very properly ignored by a guardian who could not be other than bored with her society. Tant pis! She could at least try to be polite. She turned with the heroic intention of breaking the ice and plunging into conversation, banal though it might be. But her eyes did not arrive at his face, they were caught and held by his hand, lying on the white cloth, turning and twisting an empty wine-glass between long strong fingers. Hands fascinated her. They were indicative of character, testimonies of individual peculiarities. She was sensitive to the impression they conveyed. With the limited material available she had studied them—nuns' hands, priests' hands, hands of the various inmates of the houses where she had stayed, and the hands of the man who had taught her. From him she had learned more than the mere rudiments of her art; under his tuition a crude interest had developed into a definite study, and as she sat looking at Barry Craven's hand a sentence from one of his lectures recurred to her—"there are in some hands, particularly in the case of men, characteristics denoting certain passions and attributes that jump to the eye as forcibly as if they were expressions of face."

Engaged in present study she forgot her original purpose, noting the salient points of a fresh type, enumerating details that formed the composite whole. A strong hand that could in its strength be merciless—could it equally in its strength be merciful? The strange thought came unexpectedly as she watched the thin stem of the wineglass turning rapidly and then more slowly until, with a little tinkle, it snapped as the hand clenched suddenly, the knuckles showing white through the tanned skin. Gillian drew a quick breath. Had she been the cause of the mishap—had she stared noticeably, and he been angry at an impertinence? Her cheeks burned and in a misery of shyness she forced her eyes to his face. Her contrition was needless. Heedless of her he was looking at the splintered glass between his fingers with a faint expression of surprise, as if his wandering thoughts were but half recalled by the accident. For a moment he stared at the shattered pieces—then laid them down indifferently.

Gillian smothered an hysterical inclination to laugh. He was so totally negligent of her presence that even this little incident had failed to make him sensible of her scrutiny. Immersed in his thoughts he was very obviously miles away from Craven Towers and the vicinity of a troublesome ward. And suddenly it hurt. She was nothing to him but a shy gauche girl whose very existence was an embarrassment. The determination so bravely formed died before his cold detachment. More than ever was speech impossible.

She shrugged faintly with a little pout. So, confident of his preoccupation, she continued to study him. Had the homecoming intensified the sadness of his eyes and deepened the lines about his mouth?—were memories of the mother he had adored sharpening tonight the look of suffering on his face? Or was her imagination, over-excited, exaggerating what she saw and fancying a great sorrow where there was only boredom? She pondered, and had almost concluded that the latter was the saner explanation when—watching—she saw a sudden spasm cross his face of such agony that she caught her lip fiercely between her teeth to stifle an exclamation. In the fleeting expression of a moment she had seen the revelation of a soul in torment. She looked away hastily, feeling dismayed at having trespassed. She had discovered a secret wound. She sat tense, and a quick fear came lest the others might have also seen. She glanced at them furtively. But the argument was still unsettled, the tablecloth between them scored and creased with conflicting sketches. She drew a sharp little sigh of relief. Only she had noticed, and she did not matter. For a few moments her thoughts ran riot until she pulled them up frowningly. It was no business of hers—she had no right even to speculate on his affairs. Angry with herself she turned for distraction to the portraits on the walls—they at least would offer no disturbing problem. But her determination to keep her thoughts from her guardian met with a check at the outset for she found herself staring at Barry Craven as she had visualised him in that first moment of meeting—steel-clad. It was the picture of a young man, dressed in the style of the Elizabethan period, wearing a light inlaid cuirass and leaning negligently against a stone balustrade, a hooded falcon on his wrist. The resemblance to the owner of Craven Towers was remarkable—the same build, the same haughty carriage of the head, the same features and colouring; the mouth only of the painted gallant differed, for the lips were not set sternly but curved in a singularly winning smile. The portrait had recently been cleaned and the colours stood out freshly. The pose of the figure was curiously unrestrained for the period, a suggestion of energy—barely concealed by the indolent attitude—broke through the conventional treatment of the time, as if the painter had responded to an influence that had overcome tradition. The whole body seemed to pulsate with life. Gillian looked at it entranced; instinctively her eyes sought the pictured hands. The one that held the falcon was covered with an embroidered leather glove, but the other was bare, holding a set of jesses. And even the hands were similar, the characteristics faithfully transmitted. Peters' voice startled her. "You are looking at the first Barry Craven, Miss Locke. It is a wonderful picture. The resemblance is extraordinary, is it not?"

She looked up and met the agent's magnetic smile across the table.

"It is—extraordinary," she said slowly; "it might be a costume portrait of Mr. Craven, except that in treatment the picture is so different from a modern painting."

Peters laughed.

"The professional eye, Miss Locke! But I am glad that you admit the likeness. I should have quarrelled horribly with you if you had failed to see it. The young man in the picture," he went on, warming to the subject as he saw the girl's interest, "was one of the most romantic personages of his time. He lived in the reign of Elizabeth and was poet, sculptor, and musician—there are two volumes of his verse in the library and the marble Hermes in the hall is his work. When he was seventeen he left the Towers to go to court. He seems to have been universally beloved, judging from various letters that have come down to us. He was a close friend of Sir Philip Sidney and one of Spenser's numerous patrons. A special favourite with Elizabeth—in fact her partiality seems to have been a source of some embarrassment, according to entries in his private journal. She knighted him for no particular reason that has ever transpired, indeed it seems to have been a matter of surprise to himself, for he records it in his journal thus:

"'—dubbed knight this day by Gloriana. God He knoweth why, but not I.' He was an idealist and visionary, with the power of putting his thoughts into words—his love poems are the most beautiful I have ever read, but they are quite impersonal. There is no evidence that his love was ever given to any 'faire ladye.' No woman's name was ever connected with his, and from his detached attitude towards the tender passion he earned, in a fantastical court, the euphuistic appellation of L'amant d' Amour. Quite suddenly, after ten years in the queen's household, he fitted out an expedition to America. He gave no reason. Distaste for the artificial existence prevailing at Court, sorrow at the death of his friend Sidney, or a wander-hunger fed on the tales brought home by the numerous merchant adventurers may have been the cause of this surprising step. His decision provoked dismay among his friends and brought a furious tirade from Elizabeth who commanded him to remain near her. But in spite of royal oaths and entreaties—more of the former than the latter—he sailed to Virginia on a land expedition. Two letters came from him during the next few years, but after that—silence. His fate is not known. He was the first of many Cravens to vanish into oblivion searching for new lands." The pleasant voice hesitated and dropped to a lower, more serious note. And Gillian was puzzled at the sudden anxiety that clouded the agent's smiling blue eyes. She had listened with eager interest. It was history brought close and made alive in its intimate connection with the house. The dream castle was more wonderful even than she had thought. She smiled her thanks at Peters, and drew a long breath.

"I like that," and looking at the picture again, "the Lover of Love!" she repeated softly; "it's a very beautiful idea."

"A very unsatisfactory one for any poor soul who may have been fool enough to lose her heart to him." Miss Craven's voice was caustic.

"I have often wondered if any demoiselle 'pined in a green and yellow melancholy for his sake,' she added, rising from the table.

"Reason enough, if he knew of it, for going to Virginia," said Craven, with a hard laugh. "The family traditions have never tended to undue consideration of the weaker sex."

"Barry, you are horrible!"

"Possibly, my dear aunt, but correct," he replied coolly, crossing the room to open the door. "Even Peter, who has the family history at his fingers' ends, cannot deny it." His voice was provocative but Peters, beyond a mildly sarcastic "—thank you for the 'even,' Barry—" refused to be drawn.

Her nephew's words would formerly have aroused a storm of indignant protest from Miss Craven, touched in a tender spot. But now some intuition warned her to silence. She put her arm through Gillian's and left the room without attempting to expostulate.

In the drawing room she sat down to a patience table, lit a cigarette, rumpled her hair, and laid out the cards frowningly. More than ever was she convinced that in the two years he had been away some serious disaster had occurred. His whole character appeared to have undergone a change. He was totally different. The old Barry had been neither hard nor cynical, the new Barry was both. In the last few weeks she had had ample opportunity for judging. She perceived that a heavy shadow lay upon him darkening his home-coming—she had pictured it so very differently, and she sighed over the futility of anticipation. His happiness meant to her so much that she raged at her inability to help him. Until he spoke she could do nothing. And she knew that he would never speak. The nightly occupation lost its usual zest, so she shuffled the cards absently and began a fresh game.

Gillian was on the hearthrug, Houston's head in her lap. She leant against Miss Craven's chair, dreaming as she had dreamt in the old convent until the sudden lifting of the dog's head under her hands made her aware of Peters standing beside her. He looked down silently on the card table for a few moments, pointed with a nicotine-stained finger to a move Miss Craven had missed and then wandered across the room and sat down at the piano. For a while his hands moved silently over the keys, then he began to play, and his playing was exquisite. Gillian sat and marvelled. Peters and music had seemed widely apart. He had appeared so essentially a sportsman; in spite of the literary tendency that his sympathetic account of the Elizabethan Barry Craven had suggested she had associated him with rougher, more physical pursuits. He was obviously an out-door man; a gun seemed a more natural complement to his hands than the sensitive keys of a piano, his thick rather clumsy fingers manifestly incompatible with the delicate touch that was filling the room with wonderful harmony. It was a check to her cherished theory which she acknowledged reluctantly. But she forgot to theorise in the sheer joy of listening.

"Why did he not make music a career?" she whispered, under cover of some crashing chords. Miss Craven smiled at her eager face.

"Can you see Peter kow-towing to concert directors, and grimacing at an audience?" she replied, rescuing a king from her rubbish heap.

With an answering smile Gillian subsided into her former position. Music moved her deeply and her highly strung artistic temperament was responding to the beauty of Peters' playing. It was a Russian folk song, plaintive and simple, with a curious minor refrain like the sigh of an aching heart—wild sad harmony with pain in it that gripped the throat. Swayed by the sorrow-haunted music a wave of foreboding came over her, a strange indefinite fear that was formless but that weighed on her like a crushing burden. The happiness of the last few weeks seemed suddenly swamped in the recollection of the misery rampant in the world. Who, if their inmost hearts were known, were truly happy? And her thoughts, becoming more personal, flitted back over the desolate days of her own sad girlhood and then drifted to the tragedy of her father. Then, with a forward leap that brought her suddenly to the present, she thought of the sorrow she had seen on Craven's face in that breathless moment at dinner time. Was there only sadness in the world? The brooding brown eyes grew misty. A passionate prayer welled up in her heart that complete happiness might touch her once, if only for a moment.

Then the music changed and with it the girl's mood. She gave her head a little backward jerk and blinked the moisture from her eyes angrily. What was the matter with her? Surely she was the most ungrateful girl in the universe. If there was sorrow in the world for her then it must be of her own making. She had been shown almost unbelievable kindness, nothing had been omitted to make her happy. The contrast of her life only a few weeks ago and now was immeasurable. What more did she want? Was she so selfish that she could even think of the unhappiness that was over? Shame filled her, and she raised her eyes to the woman beside her with a sudden rush of gratitude and love. But Miss Craven, interested at last in her game, was blind to her surroundings, and with a little smile Gillian turned her attention to the silent occupant of the chair near her. Craven had come into the room a few minutes before. He was leaning back listlessly, one hand shading his face, a neglected cigarette dangling from the other. She looked at him long and earnestly, wondering, as she always wondered, what association there had been between him and such a man as her father—what had induced him to take upon himself the burden that had been laid upon him. And her cheeks grew hot again at the thought of the encumbrance she was to him. It was preposterous that he should be so saddled!

She stifled a sigh and her eyes grew dreamy as she fell to thinking of the future that lay before her. And as she planned with eager confidence her hand moved soothingly over the dog's head in measure to the languorous waltz that Peters was playing.

After a sudden unexpected chord the player rose from the piano and joined the circle at the other end of the room. Miss Craven was shuffling vigorously. "Thank you, Peter," she said, with a smiling nod, "it's like old times to hear you play again. Gillian thinks you have missed your vocation, she would like to see you at the Queen's Hall."

Peters laughed at the girl's blushing protest and sat down near the card table. Miss Craven paused in a deal to light a fresh cigarette.

"What's the news in the county?" she asked, adding for Gillian's benefit: "He's a walking chronicle, my dear."

Peters laughed. "Nothing startling, dear lady. We have been a singularly well-behaved community of late. Old Lacy of Holmwood is dead, Bill Lacy reigns in his stead and is busy cutting down oaks to pay for youthful indiscretions—none of 'em very fierce when all's said and done. The Hamer-Banisters have gone under at last—more's the pity—and Hamer is let to some wealthy Australians who are possessed apparently of unlimited cash, a most curious phraseology, and an assurance which is beautiful to behold. They had good introductions and Alex has taken them up enthusiastically—there are kindred tastes."

"Horses, I presume. How are the Horringfords?"

"Much as usual," replied Peters. "Horringford is absorbed in things Egyptian, and Alex is on the warpath again," he added darkly.

Miss Craven grinned.

"What is it this time?"

Peters' eyebrows twitched quaintly.

"Socialism!" he chuckled, "a brand new, highly original conception of that very elastic term. I asked Alex to explain the principles of this particular organization and she was very voluble and rather cryptic. It appears to embrace the rights of man, the elevation of the masses, the relations between landlord and tenant, the psychological deterioration of the idle rich—"

"Alex and psychology—good heavens!" interposed Miss Craven, her hands at her hair, "and the amelioration of the downtrodden poor," continued Peters. "It doesn't sound very original, but I'm told that the propaganda is novel in the extreme. Alex is hard at work among their own people," he concluded, leaning back in his chair with a laugh.

"But—the downtrodden poor! I thought Horringford was a model landlord and his estates an example to the kingdom."

"Precisely. That's the humour of it. But a little detail like that wouldn't deter Alex. It will be an interest for the summer, she's always rather at a loose end when there's no hunting. She had taken up this socialistic business very thoroughly, organizing meetings and lectures. A completely new scheme for the upbringing of children seems to be a special sideline of the campaign. I'm rather vague there—I know I made Alex very angry by telling her that it reminded me of intensive market gardening. That Alex has no children of her own presents no difficulty to her—she is full of the most beautiful theories. But theories don't seem to go down very well with the village women. She was routed the other day by the mother of a family who told her bluntly to her face she didn't know what she was talking about—which was doubtless perfectly true. But the manner of telling seems to have been disagreeable and Alex was very annoyed and complained to Thomson, the new agent. He, poor chap, was between the devil and the deep sea, for the tenants had also been complaining that they were being interfered with. So he had to go to Horringford and there was a royal row. The upshot of it was that Alex rang me up on the 'phone this morning to tell me that Horringford was behaving like a bear, that he was so wrapped up in his musty mummies that he hadn't a spark of philanthropy in him, and that she was coming over to lunch tomorrow to tell me all about it—she's delighted to hear that the house is open again, and will come on to you for tea, when you will doubtless get a second edition of her woes. Half-an-hour later Horringford rang me up to say that Alex had been particularly tiresome over some new crank which had set everybody by the ears, that Thomson was sending in a resignation daily, altogether there was the deuce to pay, and would I use my influence and talk sense to her. It appears he is working at high pressure to finish a monograph on one of the Pharaohs and was considerably ruffled at being interrupted."

"If he cared a little less for the Pharaohs and a little more for Alex—" suggested Miss Craven, blowing smoke rings thoughtfully. Peters shook his head.

"He did care—that's the pity of it," he said slowly, "but what can you expect?—you know how it was. Alex was a child married when she should have been in the schoolroom, without a voice in the matter. Horringford was nearly twenty years her senior, always reserved and absorbed in his Egyptian researches. Alex hadn't an idea in the world outside the stables. Horringford bored her infinitely, and with Alex-like honesty she did not hesitate to tell him so. They hadn't a thought in common. She couldn't see the sterling worth of the man, so they drifted apart and Horringford retired more than ever into his shell."

"And what do you propose to do, Peter?" Craven's sudden question was startling, for he had not appeared to be listening to the conversation.

Peters lit a cigarette and smoked for a few moments before answering. "I shall listen to all Alex has to say," he said at last, "then I shall tell her a few things I think she ought to know, and I shall persuade her to ask Horringford to take her with him to Egypt next winter."

"Why?"

"Because Horringford in Egypt and Horringford in England are two very different people. I know—because I have seen. It's an idea, it may work. Anyhow it's worth trying."

"But suppose her ladyship does not succumb to your persuasive tongue?"

"She will—before I've done with her," replied Peters grimly, and then he laughed. "I guessed from what she said this morning that she was a little frightened at the hornet's nest she had raised. I imagine she won't be sorry to run away for a while and let things settle down. She can ease off gently in the meantime and give Egypt as an excuse for finally withdrawing."

"You think Alex is more to blame than Horringford?" said Miss Craven, with a note of challenge in her voice.

Peters shrugged. "I blame them both. But above all I blame the system that has been responsible for the trouble."

"You mean that Alex should have been allowed to choose her own husband? She was such a child—"

"And Horringford was such a devil of a good match," interposed Craven cynically, moving from his chair to the padded fireguard. Gillian was sitting on the arm of Miss Craven's chair, sorting the patience cards into a leather case. She looked up quickly. "I thought that in England all girls choose their own husbands, that they marry to please themselves, I mean," she said in a puzzled voice.

"Theoretically they do, my dear," replied Miss Craven, "in practice numbers do not. The generality of girls settle their own futures and choose their own husbands. But there are still many old-fashioned people who arrogate to themselves the right of settling their daughters' lives, who have so trained them that resistance to family wishes becomes almost an impossibility. A good suitor presents himself, parental pressure is brought to bear—and the deed is done. Witness the case of Alex. In a few years she probably would have chosen for herself, wisely. As it was, marriage had never entered her head."

"She couldn't have chosen a better man," said Peters warmly, "if he had only been content to wait a year or two—"

"Alex would probably have eloped with a groom or a circus rider before she reached years of discretion!" laughed Miss Craven. "But it's a difficult question, the problem of husband choosing," she went on thoughtfully. "Being a bachelor I can discuss it with perfect equanimity. But if in a moment of madness I had married and acquired a houseful of daughters, I should have nervous prostration every time a strange man showed his nose inside the door."

"You don't set us on a very high plane, dear lady," said Peters reproachfully.

"My good soul, I set you on no plane at all—know too much about you!" she smiled. Peters laughed. "What's your opinion, Barry?"

Since his one interruption Craven had been silent, as if the discussion had ceased to interest him. He did not answer Peters' question for some time and when at last he spoke his voice was curiously strained. "I don't think my opinion counts for very much, but it seems to me that the woman takes a big risk either way. A man never knows what kind of a blackguard he may prove in circumstances that may arise."

An awkward pause followed. Miss Craven kept her eyes fixed on the card table with a feeling of nervous apprehension that was new to her. Her nephew's words and the bitterness of his tone seemed fraught with hidden meaning, and she racked her brains to find a topic that would lessen the tension that seemed to have fallen on the room. But Peters broke the silence before it became noticeable. "The one person present whom it most nearly concerns has not given us her view. What do you say, Miss Locke?"

Gillian flushed faintly. It was still difficult to join in a general conversation, to remember that she might at any moment be called upon to put forward ideas of her own.

"I am afraid I am prejudiced. I was brought up in a convent—in France," she said hesitatingly. "Then you hold with the French custom of arranged marriages?" suggested Peters. Her dark eyes looked seriously into his. "I think it is—safer," she said slowly.

"And consequently, happier?" The colour deepened in her face. "Oh, I don't know. I do not understand English ways. I can speak only of France. We talked of it in the convent—naturally, since it was forbidden, que voulez vous?" she smiled. "Some of my friends were married. Their parents arranged the marriages. It seems that—" she stammered and went on hurriedly—"that there is much to be considered in choosing a husband, much that—girls do not understand, that only older people know. So it is perhaps better that they should arrange a matter which is so serious and so—so lasting. They must know more than we do," she added quietly.

"And are your friends happy?" asked Miss Craven bluntly.

"They are content."

Miss Craven snorted. "Content!" she said scornfully. "Marriage should bring more than contentment. It's a meagre basis on which to found a life partnership."

A shadow flitted across the girl's face.

"I had a friend who married for love," she said slowly. "She belonged to the old noblesse, and her family wished her to make a great marriage. But she loved an artist and married him in spite of all opposition. For six months she was the happiest girl in France—then she found out that her husband was unfaithful. Does it shock you that I speak of it—we all knew in the convent. She went to Capri soon afterwards, to a villa her father had given her, and one morning she went out to swim—it was a daily habit, she could do anything in the water. But that morning she swam out to sea—and she did not come back." The low voice sank almost to a whisper. Miss Craven looked up incredulously. "Do you mean she deliberately drowned herself?" Gillian made a little gesture of evasion. "She was very unhappy," she said softly. And in the silence that followed her troubled gaze turned almost unconsciously to her guardian. He had risen and was standing with his hands in his pockets staring straight in front of him, rigidly still. His attitude suggested complete detachment from those about him, as if his spirit was ranging far afield leaving the big frame empty, impenetrable as a figure of stone. She was sensitive to his lack of interest. She regretted having expressed opinions that she feared were immature and valueless. A quick sigh escaped her, and Miss Craven, misunderstanding, patted her shoulder gently. "It's a very sad little story, my dear."

"And one that serves to confirm your opinion that a girl does well to accept the husband who is chosen for her, Miss Locke?" asked Peters abruptly, as he glanced at his watch and rose to his feet.

Gillian joined in the general move.

"I think it is—safer," she said, as she had said before, and stooped to rouse the sleeping poodle.



CHAPTER V

Miss Craven was sitting alone in the library at the Towers. She had been reading, but the book had failed to hold her attention and lay unheeded on her lap while she was plunged in a profound reverie.

She sat very still, her usually serene face clouded, and once or twice a heavy sigh escaped her.

The short November day was drawing in and though still early afternoon it was already growing dark. The declining light was more noticeable in the library than elsewhere in the house—a sombre room once the morning sun had passed; long and narrow and panelled in oak to a height of about twelve feet, above which ran a gallery reached by a hammered iron stairway, it housed a collection of calf and vellum bound books which clothed the walls from the floor of the gallery to within a few feet of the lofty ceiling. On the fourth side of the room, whither the gallery did not extend, three tall narrow windows overlooked the drive. The furniture was scanty and severely Jacobean, having for more than two hundred years remained practically intact; a ponderous writing table, a couple of long low cabinets, and half a dozen cavernous armchairs recushioned to suit modern requirements of ease. Some fine old bronzes stood against the panelled walls. There was about the room a settled peacefulness. The old furniture had a stately air of permanence. The polished panels, and, above, the orderly ranks of ancient books suggested durability; they remained—while generations of men came and passed, transient figures reflected in the shining oak, handling for a few brief years the printed treasures that would still be read centuries after they had returned to their dust.

The spirit of the house seemed embodied in this big silent room that was spacious and yet intimate, formal and yet friendly.

It was Miss Craven's favourite retreat. The atmosphere was sympathetic. Here she seemed more particularly in touch with the subtle influence of family that seemed to pervade the whole house. In most of the rooms it was perceptible, but in the library it was forceful.

The house and the family—they were bound up inseparably.

For hundreds of years, in an unbroken line, from father to son ... from father to son.... Miss Craven sat bolt upright to the sound of an unmistakable sob. She looked with amazement at two tears blistering the page of the open book on her knee. She had not knowingly cried since childhood. It was a good thing that she was alone she thought, with a startled glance round the empty room. She would have to keep a firmer hold over herself than that. She laughed a little shakily, choked, blew her nose vigorously, and walked to the middle window. Outside was stark November. The wind swept round the house in fierce gusts before which the big bare-branched trees in the park swayed and bowed, and trains of late fallen leaves caught in a whirlwind eddied skyward to scatter widely down again.

Rain lashed the window panes. Yet even when storm-tossed the scene had its own peculiar charm. At all seasons it was lovely.

Miss Craven looked at the massive trees, beautiful in their clean nakedness, and wondered how often she would see them bud again. Frowning, she smothered a rising sigh and pressing closer to the window peered out more attentively. Eastward and westward stretched long avenues that curved and receded soon from sight. The gravelled space before the house was wide; from it two shorter avenues encircling a large oval paddock led to the stables, built at some distance facing the house, but hidden by a belt of firs.

For some time Miss Craven watched, but only a game-keeper passed, a drenched setter at his heels, and with a little shiver she turned back to the room. She moved about restlessly, lifting books to lay them down immediately, ransacking the cabinets for prints that at a second glance failed to interest, and examining the bronzes that she had known from childhood with lengthy intentness as if she saw them now for the first time.

A footman came and silently replenished the fire. Her thoughts, interrupted, swung into a new channel. She sat down at the writing table and drawing toward her a sheet of paper slowly wrote the date. Beyond that she did not get. The ink dried on the pen as she stared at the blank sheet, unable to express as she wished the letter she had intended to write.

She laid the silver holder down at last with a hopeless gesture and her eyes turned to a bronze figure that served as a paper weight. It was a piece of her own work and she handled it lovingly with a curiously sad smile until a second hard sob broke from her and pushing it away she covered her face with her hands.

"Not for myself, God knows it's not for myself," she whispered, as if in extenuation. And mastering herself with an effort she made a second attempt to write but at the end of half a dozen words rose impatiently, crumpled the paper in her hand and walking to the fireplace threw it among the blazing logs.

She watched it curl and discolour, the writing blackly distinct, and crumble into ashes. Then from force of habit she searched for a cigarette in a box on the mantelpiece, but as she lit it a sudden thought arrested her and after a moment's hesitation the cigarette followed the half—written letter into the fire.

With an impatient shrug she went back to an arm chair and again tried to read, but though her eyes mechanically followed the words on the printed page she did not notice what she was reading and laying the book down she gave up all further endeavour to distract her wandering thoughts. They were not pleasant and when, a little later, the door opened she turned her head expectantly with a sigh of relief. Peters came in briskly.

"I've come to inquire," he said laughing, "the family pew held me in solitary state this morning. Time was when I never minded, but this last year has spoiled me. I was booked for lunch but I came as soon as I could. Nobody ill, I hope?"

Miss Craven looked at him for a moment before answering as he stood with his back to the fire, his hands clasped behind him, his face ruddy with the wind and rain, his keen blue eyes on hers, reliable, unchanging. It was a curious chance that had brought him—just at that moment. The temptation to make an unusual confidence rose strongly. She had known him and trusted him for more years than she cared to remember. How much to say? Indecision held her.

"You are always thoughtful, Peter," she temporised. "I am afraid there is no excuse," with a little smile; "Barry rode off somewhere quite early this morning and Gillian went yesterday to the Horringfords. I expect her back to-day in time for tea. For myself, I had gout or rheumatism or the black dog on my back, I forget which! Anyhow, I stayed at home." She laughed and pointed to the cigarettes. He took one, tapping it on his thumbnail.

"You were alone. Why didn't you 'phone? I should have been glad to escape the Australians. They are enormously kind, but somewhat—er— overwhelming," he added with a quick laugh.

"My dear man, be thankful I never thought of it. I've been like a bear with a sore head all day." She looked past him into the fire, and struck by a new note in her voice he refrained from comment, smoking slowly and luxuriating in the warmth after a cold wet drive in an open motor. He never used a closed car. But some words she had used struck him. "Barry is riding—?" with a glance at the storm raging outside.