Presently Chide, who had now taken the part of general adviser to Diana, which had once been filled by Marsham, strolled off with her to look at a greenhouse in need of repairs. Mrs. Colwood was called in by some household matter. Ferrier was left alone.

As usual, he had a book in his pocket. This time it was a volume of selected essays, ranging from Bacon to Carlyle. He began lazily to turn the pages, smiling to himself the while at the paradoxes of life. Here, for an hour, he sat under the limes, drunk with summer breezes and scents, toying with a book, as though he were some "indolent irresponsible reviewer"—some college fellow in vacation—some wooer of an idle muse. Yet dusk that evening would find him once more in the Babel of London. And before him lay the most strenuous, and, as he hoped, the most fruitful passage of his political life. Broadstone, too, was an old man; the Premiership itself could not be far away.

As for Lord Philip—Ferrier's thoughts ran upon that gentleman with a good-humor which was not without malice. He had played his cards extremely well, but the trumps in his hand had not been quite strong enough. Well, he was young; plenty of time yet for Cabinet office. That he would be a thorn in the side of the new Ministry went without saying. Ferrier felt no particular dismay at the prospect, and amused himself with speculations on the letters which had probably passed that very day between Broadstone and the "iratus Achilles" in Northamptonshire.

And from Lord Philip, Ferrier's thoughts—shrewdly indulgent—strayed to the other conspirators, and to Oliver Marsham in particular, their spokesman and intermediary. Suddenly a great softness invaded him toward Oliver and his mother. After all, had he not been hard with the boy, to leave him to his fight without a word of help? Oliver's ways were irritating; he had more than one of the intriguer's gifts; and several times during the preceding weeks Ferrier's mind had recurred with disquiet to the letters in his hands. But, after all, things had worked out better than could possibly have been expected. The Herald, in particular, had done splendid service, to himself personally, and to the moderates in general. Now was the time for amnesty and reconciliation all round. Ferrier's mind ran busily on schemes of the kind. As to Oliver, he had already spoken to Broadstone about him, and would speak again that night. Certainly he must have something—Junior Lordship at least. And if he were opposed on re-election, why, he should be helped—roundly helped. Ferrier already saw himself at Tallyn once more, with Lady Lucy's frail hand in one of his, the other perhaps on Oliver's shoulder. After all, where was he happy—or nearly happy—but with them?

* * * * *

His eyes returned to his book. With a mild amusement he saw that it had opened of itself at an essay, by Abraham Cowley, on "Greatness" and its penalties: "Out of these inconveniences arises naturally one more, which is, that no greatness can be satisfied or contented with itself; still, if it could mount up a little higher, it would be happy; if it could not gain that point, it would obtain all its desires; but yet at last, when it is got up to the very top of the peak of Teneriffe, it is in very great danger of breaking its neck downward, but in no possibility of ascending upward—into the seat of tranquillity about the moon."

The new Secretary of State threw himself back in his garden chair, his hands behind his head. Cowley wrote well; but the old fellow did not, after all, know much about it, in spite of his boasted experiences at that sham and musty court of St.-Germain's. Is it true that men who have climbed high are always thirsty to climb higher? No! "What is my feeling now? Simply a sense of opportunity. A man may be glad to have the chance of leaving his mark on England."

Thoughts rose in him which were not those of a pessimist—thoughts, however, which the wise man will express as little as possible, since talk profanes them. The concluding words of Peel's great Corn Law speech ran through his memory, and thrilled it. He was accused of indifference to the lot of the poor. It was not true. It never had been true.

"Hullo! who comes?"

Mrs. Colwood was running over the lawn, bringing apparently a letter, and a newspaper.

She came up, a little breathless.

"This letter has just come for you, Mr. Ferrier, by special messenger. And Miss Mallory asked me to bring you the newspaper."

Ferrier took the letter, which was bulky and addressed in the Premier's handwriting.

"Kindly ask the messenger to wait. I will come and speak to him."

He opened the letter and read it. Then, having put it deliberately in his pocket, he sat bending forward, staring at the grass. The newspaper caught his eye. It was the Herald of that morning. He raised it from the ground, read the first leading article, and then a column "from a correspondent" on which the article was based.

As he came to the end of it a strange premonition took possession of him. He was still himself, but it seemed to him that the roar of some approaching cataract was in his ears. He mastered himself with difficulty, took a pencil from his pocket, and drew a wavering line beside a passage in the article contributed by the Herald's correspondent. The newspaper slid from his knee to the ground.

Then, with a groping hand, he sought again for Broadstone's letter, drew it out of its envelope, and, with a mist before his eyes, felt for the last page which, he seemed to remember, was blank. On this he traced, with difficulty, a few lines, replaced the whole letter in the torn envelope and wrote an address upon it—uncertainly crossing out his own name.

Then, suddenly, he fell back. The letter followed the newspaper to the ground. Deadly weakness was creeping upon him, but as yet the brain was clear. Only his will struggled no more; everything had given way, but with the sense of utter catastrophe there mingled neither pain nor bitterness. Some of the Latin verse scattered over the essay he had been reading ran vaguely through his mind—then phrases from his last talk with the Prime Minister—then remembrances of the night at Assisi—and the face of the poet—

A piercing cry rang out close beside him—Diana's cry. His life made a last rally, and his eyes opened. They closed again, and he heard no more.

Sir James Chide stooped over Diana.

"Run for help!—brandy!—a doctor! I'll stay with him. Run!"

Diana ran. She met Mrs. Colwood hurrying, and sent her for brandy. She herself sped on blindly toward the village.

A few yards beyond the Beechcote gate she was overtaken by a carriage. There was an exclamation, the carriage pulled up sharp, and a man leaped from it.

"Miss Mallory!—what is the matter?"

She looked up, saw Oliver Marsham, and, in the carriage behind him, Lady Lucy, sitting stiff and pale, with astonished eyes.

"Mr. Ferrier is ill—very ill! Please go for the doctor! He is here—at my house."

The figure in the carriage rose hurriedly. Lady Lucy was beside her.

"What is the matter?" She laid an imperious hand on the girl's arm.

"I think—he is dying," said Diana, gasping. "Oh, come!—come back at once!"

Marsham was already in the carriage. The horse galloped forward. Diana and Lady Lucy ran toward the house.

"In the garden," said Diana, breathlessly; and, taking Lady Lucy's hand, she guided her.

Beside the dying man stood Sir James Chide, Muriel Colwood, and the old butler. Sir James looked up, started at the sight of Lady Lucy, and went to meet her.

"You are just in time," he said, tenderly; "but he is going fast. We have done all we could."

Ferrier was now lying on the grass, his head supported. Lady Lucy sank beside him.

"John!" she called, in a voice of anguish—"John—dear, dear friend!"

But the dying man made no sign. And as she lifted his hand to her lips—the love she had shown him so grudgingly in life speaking now undisguised through her tears and her despair—Sir James watched the gentle passage of the last breaths, and knew that all was done—the play over and the lights out.



CHAPTER XIX

A sad hurrying and murmuring filled the old rooms and passages of Beechcote. The village doctor had arrived, and under his direction the body of John Ferrier had been removed from the garden to the library of the house. There, amid Diana's books and pictures, Ferrier lay, shut-eyed and serene, that touch of the ugly and the ponderous which in life had mingled with the power and humanity of his aspect entirely lost and drowned in the dignity of death.

Chide and the doctor were in low-voiced consultation at one end of the room; Lady Lucy sat beside the body, her face buried in her hands; Marsham stood behind her.

Brown, the butler, noiselessly entered the room, and approached Chide.

"Please sir, Lord Broadstone's messenger is here. He thinks you might wish him to take back a letter to his lordship."

Chide turned abruptly.

"Lord Broadstone's messenger?"

"He brought a letter for Mr. Ferrier, sir, half an hour ago."

Chide's face changed.

"Where is the letter?" He turned to the doctor, who shook his head.

"I saw nothing when we brought him in."

Marsham, who had overheard the conversation, came forward.

"Perhaps on the grass—"

Chide—pale, with drawn brows—looked at him a moment in silence.

Marsham hurried to the garden and to the spot under the yews, where the death had taken place. Round the garden chairs were signs of trampling feet—the feet of the gardeners who had carried the body. A medley of books, opened letters, and working-materials lay on the grass. Marsham looked through them; they all belonged to Diana or Mrs. Colwood. Then he noticed a cushion which had fallen beside the chair, and a corner of newspaper peeping from below it. He lifted it up.

Below lay Broadstone's open letter, in its envelope, addressed first in the Premier's well-known handwriting to "The Right Honble. John Ferrier, M.P."—and, secondly, in wavering pencil, to "Lady Lucy Marsham, Tallyn Hall."

Marsham turned the letter over, while thoughts hurried through his brain. Evidently Ferrier had had time to read it. Why that address to his mother?—and in that painful hand—written, it seemed, with the weakness of death already upon him?

The newspaper? Ah!—the Herald!—lying as though, after reading it, Ferrier had thrown it down and let the letter drop upon it, from a hand that had ceased to obey him. As Marsham saw it the color rushed into his cheeks. He stooped and raised it. Suddenly he noticed on the margin of the paper a pencilled line, faint and wavering, like the words written on the envelope. It ran beside a passage in the article "from a correspondent," and as he looked at it consciousness and pulse paused in dismay. There, under his eye, in that dim mark, was the last word and sign of John Ferrier.

He was still staring at it when a sound disturbed him. Lady Lucy came to him, feebly, across the grass. Marsham dropped the newspaper, retaining Broadstone's letter.

"Sir James wished me to leave him a little," she said, brokenly. "The ambulance will be here directly. They will take him to Lytchett. I thought it should have been Tallyn. But Sir James decided it."

"Mother!"—Marsham moved toward her, reluctantly—"here is a letter—no doubt of importance. And—it is addressed to you."

Lady Lucy gave a little cry. She looked at the pencilled address, with quivering lips; then she opened the envelope, and on the back of the closely written letter she saw at once Ferrier's last words to her.

Marsham, moved by a son's natural impulse, stooped and kissed her hair. He drew a chair forward, and she sank into it with the letter. While she was reading it he raised the Herald again, unobserved, folded it up hurriedly, and put it in his pocket; then walked away a few steps, that he might leave his mother to her grief. Presently Lady Lucy called him.

"Oliver!" The voice was strong. He went back to her and she received him with sparkling eyes, her hand on Broadstone's letter.

"Oliver, this is what killed him! Lord Broadstone must bear the responsibility."

And hurriedly, incoherently, she explained that the letter from Lord Broadstone was an urgent appeal to Ferrier's patriotism and to his personal friendship for the writer; begging him for the sake of party unity, and for the sake of the country, to allow the Prime Minister to cancel the agreement of the day before; to accept a peerage and the War Office in lieu of the Exchequer and the leadership of the House. The Premier gave a full account of the insurmountable difficulties in the way of the completion of the Government, which had disclosed themselves during the course of the afternoon and evening following his interview with Ferrier. Refusals of the most unexpected kind, from the most unlikely quarters; letters and visits of protest from persons impossible to ignore—most of them, no doubt, engineered by Lord Philip; "finally the newspapers of this morning—especially the article in the Herald, which you will have seen before this reaches you—all these, taken together, convince me that if I cannot persuade you to see the matter in the same light as I do—and I know well that, whether you accept or refuse, you will put the public advantage first—I must at once inform her Majesty that my attempt to construct a Government has broken down."

Marsham followed her version of the letter as well as he could; and as she turned the last page, he too perceived the pencilled writing, which was not Broadstone's. This she did not offer to communicate; indeed, she covered it at once with her hand.

"Yes, I suppose it was the shock," he said, in a low voice. "But it was not Broadstone's fault. It was no one's fault."

Lady Lucy flushed and looked up.

"That man Barrington!" she said, vehemently. "Oh, if I had never had him in my house!"

Oliver made no reply. He sat beside her, staring at the grass. Suddenly Lady Lucy touched him on the knee.

"Oliver!"—her voice was gasping and difficult—"Oliver!—you had nothing to do with that?"

"With what, mother?"

"With the Herald article. I read it this morning. But I laughed at it! John's letter arrived at the same moment—so happy, so full of plans—"

"Mother!—you don't imagine that a man in Ferrier's position can be upset by an article in a newspaper?"

"I don't know—the Herald was so important—I have heard John say so. Oliver!"—her face worked painfully—"I know you talked with that man that night. You didn't—"

"I didn't say anything of which I am ashamed," he said, sharply, raising his head.

His mother looked at him in silence. Their eyes met in a flash of strange antagonism—as though each accused the other.

A sound behind them made Lady Lucy turn round. Brown was coming over the grass.

"A telegram, sir, for you. Your coachman stopped the boy and sent him here."

Marsham opened it hastily. As he read it his gray and haggard face flushed again heavily.

"Awful news just reached me. Deepest sympathy with you and yours. Should be grateful if I might see you to-day.

"BROADSTONE."

He handed it to his mother, but Lady Lucy scarcely took in the sense of it. When he left her to write his answer, she sat on in the July sun which had now reached the chairs, mechanically drawing her large country hat forward to shield her from its glare—a forlorn figure, with staring absent eyes; every detail of her sharp slenderness, her blanched and quivering face, the elegance of her black dress, the diamond fastening the black lace hat-strings tied under her pointed chin—set in the full and searching illumination of mid-day. It showed her an old woman—left alone.

Her whole being rebelled against what had happened to her. Life without John's letters, John's homage, John's sympathy—how was it to be endured? Disguises that shrouded her habitual feelings and instincts even from herself dropped away. That Oliver was left to her did not make up to her in the least for John's death.

The smart that held her in its grip was a new experience. She had never felt it at the death of the imperious husband, to whom she had been, nevertheless, decorously attached. Her thoughts clung to those last broken words under her hand, trying to wring from them something that might content and comfort her remorse:

"DEAR LUCY,—I feel ill—it may be nothing—Chide and you may read this letter. Broadstone couldn't help it. Tell him so. Bless you—Tell Oliver—Yours, J.F."

The greater part of the letter was all but illegible even by her—but the "bless you" and the "J.F." were more firmly written than the rest, as though the failing hand had made a last effort.

Her spiritual vanity was hungry and miserable. Surely, though she would not be his wife, she had been John's best friend!—his good angel. Her heart clamored for some warmer, gratefuller word—that might justify her to herself. And, instead, she realized for the first time the desert she had herself created, the loneliness she had herself imposed. And with prophetic terror she saw in front of her the daily self-reproach that her self-esteem might not be able to kill.

"Tell Oliver—"

Did it mean "if I die, tell Oliver"? But John never said anything futile or superfluous in his life. Was it not rather the beginning of some last word to Oliver that he could not finish? Oh, if her son had indeed contributed to his death!

She shivered under the thought; hurrying recollections of Mr. Barrington's visit, of the Herald article of that morning, of Oliver's speeches and doings during the preceding month, rushing through her mind. She had already expressed her indignation about the Herald article to Oliver that morning, on the drive which had been so tragically interrupted.

"Dear Lady Lucy!"

She looked up. Sir James Chide stood beside her.

The first thing he did was to draw her to her feet, and then to move her chair into the shade.

"You have lost more than any of us," he said, as she sank back into it, and, holding out his hand, he took hers into his warm compassionate clasp. He had never thought that she behaved well to Ferrier, and he knew that she had behaved vilely to Diana; but his heart melted within him at the sight of a woman—and a gray-haired woman—in grief.

"I hear you found Broadstone's letter?" He glanced at it on her lap. "I too have heard from him. The messenger, as soon as he knew I was here, produced a letter for me that he was to have taken on to Lytchett. It is a nice letter—a very nice letter, as far as that goes. Broadstone wanted me to use my influence—with John—described his difficulties—"

Chide's hand suddenly clinched on his knee.

"—If I could only get at that creature, Lord Philip!"

"You think it was the shock—killed him?" The hard slow tears had begun again to drop upon her dress.

"Oh! he has been an ill man since May," said Chide, evasively. "No doubt there has been heart mischief—unsuspected—for a long time. The doctors will know—presently. Poor Broadstone!—it will nearly kill him too."

She held out the letter to him.

"You are to read it;" and then, in broken tones, pointing: "look! he said so."

He started as he saw the writing on the back, and again his hand pressed hers kindly.

"He felt ill," she said, brokenly; "he foresaw it. Those are his last words—his precious last words."

She hid her face. As Chide gave it back to her, his brow and lip had settled into the look which made him so formidable in court. He looked round him abruptly.

"Where is the Herald? I hear Mrs. Colwood brought it out."

He searched the grass in vain, and the chairs. Lady Lucy was silent. Presently she rose feebly.

"When—when will they take him away?"

"Directly. The ambulance is coming—I shall go with him. Take my arm." She leaned on him heavily, and as they approached the house they saw two figures step out of it—Marsham and Diana.

Diana came quickly, in her light white dress. Her eyes were red, but she was quite composed. Chide looked at her with tenderness. In the two hours which had passed since the tragedy she had been the help and the support of everybody, writing, giving directions, making arrangements, under his own guidance, while keeping herself entirely in the background. No parade of grief, no interference with himself or the doctors; but once, as he sat by the body in the darkened room, he was conscious of her coming in, of her kneeling for a little while at the dead man's side, of her soft, stifled weeping. He had not said a word to her, nor she to him. They understood each other.

And now she came, with this wistful face, to Lady Lucy. She stood between that lady and Marsham, in her own garden, without, as it seemed to Sir James, a thought of herself. As for him, in the midst of his own sharp grief, he could not help looking covertly from one to the other, remembering that February scene in Lady Lucy's drawing-room. And presently he was sure that Lady Lucy too remembered it. Diana timidly begged that she would take some food—some milk or wine—before her drive home. It was three hours—incredible as it seemed—since she had called to them in the road. Lady Lucy, looking at her, and evidently but half conscious—at first—of what was said, suddenly colored, and refused—courteously but decidedly.

"Thank you. I want nothing. I shall soon be home. Oliver!"

"I go to Lytchett with Sir James, mother. Miss Mallory begs that you will let Mrs. Colwood take you home."

"It is very kind, but I prefer to go alone. Is my carriage there?"

She spoke like the stately shadow of her normal self. The carriage was waiting. Lady Lucy approached Sir James, who was standing apart, and murmured something in his ear, to the effect that she would come to Lytchett that evening, and would bring flowers. "Let mine be the first," she said, inaudibly to the rest. Sir James assented. Such observances, he supposed, count for a great deal with women; especially with those who are conscious of having trifled a little with the weightier matters of the law.

Then Lady Lucy took her leave; Marsham saw her to her carriage. The two left behind watched the receding figures—the mother, bent and tottering, clinging to her son.

"She is terribly shaken," said Sir James; "but she will never give way."

Diana did not reply, and as he glanced at her, he saw that she was struggling for self-control, her eyes on the ground.

"And that woman might have had her for daughter!" he said to himself, divining in her the rebuff of some deep and tender instinct.

Marsham came back.

"The ambulance is just arriving."

Sir James nodded, and turned toward the house. Marsham detained him, dropping his voice.

"Let me go with him, and you take my fly."

Sir James frowned.

"That is all settled," he said, peremptorily. Then he looked at Diana. "I will see to everything in-doors. Will you take Miss Mallory into the garden?"

Diana submitted; though, for the first time, her face reddened faintly. She understood that Sir James wished her to be out of sight and hearing while they moved the dead.

That was a strange walk together for these two! Side by side, almost in silence, they followed the garden path which had taken them to the downs, on a certain February evening. The thought of it hovered, a ghost unlaid, in both their minds. Instinctively, Marsham guided her by this path, that they might avoid that spot on the farther lawn, where the scattered chairs, the trampled books and papers still showed where Death and Sleep had descended. Yet, as they passed it from a distance he saw the natural shudder run through her; and, by association, there flashed through him intolerably the memory of that moment of divine abandonment in their last interview, when he had comforted her, and she had clung to him. And now, how near she was to him—and yet how infinitely remote! She walked beside him, her step faltering now and then, her head thrown back, as though she craved for air and coolness on her brow and tear-stained eyes. He could not flatter himself that his presence disturbed her, that she was thinking at all about him. As for him, his mind, held as it still was in the grip of catastrophe, and stunned by new compunctions, was still susceptible from time to time of the most discordant and agitating recollections—memories glancing, lightning-quick, through the mind, unsummoned and shattering. Her face in the moonlight, her voice in the great words of her promise—"all that a woman can!"—that wretched evening in the House of Commons when he had finally deserted her—a certain passage with Alicia, in the Tallyn woods—these images quivered, as it were, through nerve and vein, disabling and silencing him.

But presently, to his astonishment, Diana began to talk, in her natural voice, without a trace of preoccupation or embarrassment. She poured out her latest recollections of Ferrier. She spoke, brushing away her tears sometimes, of his visit in the morning, and his talk as he lay beside them on the grass—his recent letters to her—her remembrance of him in Italy.

Marsham listened in silence. What she said was new to him, and often bitter. He had known nothing of this intimate relation which had sprung up so rapidly between her and Ferrier. While he acknowledged its beauty and delicacy, the very thought of it, even at this moment, filled him with an irritable jealousy. The new bond had arisen out of the wreck of those he had himself broken; Ferrier had turned to her, and she to Ferrier, just as he, by his own acts, had lost them both; it might be right and natural; he winced under it—in a sense, resented it—none the less.

And all the time he never ceased to be conscious of the newspaper in his breast-pocket, and of that faint pencilled line that seemed to burn against his heart.

Would she shrink from him, finally and irrevocably, if she knew it? Once or twice he looked at her curiously, wondering at the power that women have of filling and softening a situation. Her broken talk of Ferrier was the only possible talk that could have arisen between them at that moment without awkwardness, without risk. To that last ground of friendship she could still admit him, and a wounded self-love suggested that she chose it for his sake as well as Ferrier's.

Of course, she had seen him with Alicia, and must have drawn her conclusions. Four months after the breach with her!—and such a breach! As he walked beside her through the radiant scented garden, with its massed roses and delphiniums, its tangle of poppy and lupin, he suddenly beheld himself as a kind of outcast—distrusted and disliked by an old friend like Chide, separated forever from the good opinion of this girl whom he had loved, suspected even by his mother, and finally crushed by this unexpected tragedy, and by the shock of Barrington's unpardonable behavior.

Then his whole being reacted in a fierce protesting irritation. He had been the victim of circumstance as much as she. His will hardened to a passionate self-defence; he flung off, he held at bay, an anguish that must and should be conquered. He had to live his life. He would live it.

They passed into the orchard, where, amid the old trees, covered with tiny green apples, some climbing roses were running at will, hanging their trails of blossom, crimson and pale pink, from branch to branch. Linnets and blackbirds made a pleasant chatter; the grass beneath the trees was rich and soft, and through their tops, one saw white clouds hovering in a blazing blue.

Diana turned suddenly toward the house.

"I think we may go back now," she said, and her hand contracted and her lip, as though she realized that her dear dead friend had left her roof forever.

They hurried back, but there was still time for conversation.

"You knew him, of course, from a child?" she said to him, glancing at him with timid interrogation.

In reply he forced himself to play that part of Ferrier's intimate—almost son—which, indeed, she had given him, by implication, throughout her own talk. In this she had shown a tact, a kindness for which he owed her gratitude. She must have heard the charges brought against him by the Ferrier party during the election, yet, noble creature that she was, she had not believed them. He could have thanked her aloud, till he remembered that marked newspaper in his pocket.

Once a straggling rose branch caught in her dress. He stooped to free it. Then for the first time he saw her shrink. The instinctive service had made them man and woman again—not mind and mind; and he perceived, with a miserable throb, that she could not be so unconscious of his identity, his presence, their past, as she had seemed to be.

She had lost—he realized it—the bloom of first youth. How thin was the hand which gathered up her dress!—the hand once covered with his kisses. Yet she seemed to him lovelier than ever, and he divined her more woman than ever, more instinct with feeling, life, and passion.

* * * * *

Sir James's messenger met them half-way. At the door the ambulance waited.

Chide, bareheaded, and a group of doctors, gardeners, and police stood beside it.

"I follow you," said Marsham to Sir James. "There is a great deal to do."

Chide assented coldly. "I have written to Broadstone, and I have sent a preliminary statement to the papers."

"I can take anything you want to town," said Marsham, hastily. "I must go up this evening."

He handed Broadstone's telegram to Sir James.

Chide read it and returned it in silence. Then he entered the ambulance, taking his seat beside the shrouded form within. Slowly it drove away, mounted police accompanying it. It took a back way from Beechcote, thus avoiding the crowd, which on the village side had gathered round the gates.

Diana, on the steps, saw it go, following it with her eyes; standing very white and still. Then Marsham lifted his hat to her, conscious through every nerve of the curiosity among the little group of people standing by. Suddenly, he thought, she too divined it. For she looked round her, bowed to him slightly, and disappeared with Mrs. Colwood.

* * * * *

He spent two or three hours at Lytchett, making the first arrangements for the funeral, with Sir James. It was to be at Tallyn, and the burial in the churchyard of the old Tallyn church. Sir James gave a slow and grudging assent to this; but in the end he did assent, after the relations between him and Marsham had become still more strained.

Further statements were drawn up for the newspapers. As the afternoon wore on the grounds and hall of Lytchett betrayed the presence of a number of reporters, hurriedly sent thither by the chief London and provincial papers. By now the news had travelled through England.

Marsham worked hard, saving Sir James all he could. Another messenger arrived from Lord Broadstone, with a pathetic letter for Sir James. Chide's face darkened over it. "Broadstone must bear up," he said to Marsham, as they stood together in Chide's sanctum. "It was not his fault, and he has the country to think of. You tell him so. Now, are you off?"

Marsham replied that his fly had been announced.

"What'll they offer you?" said Chide, abruptly.

"Offer me? It doesn't much matter, does it?—on a day like this?" Marsham's tone was equally curt. Then he added: "I shall be here again to-morrow."

Chide acquiesced. When Marsham had driven off, and as the sound of the wheels died away, Chide uttered a fierce inarticulate sound. His hot Irish heart swelled within him. He walked hurriedly to and fro, his hands in his pockets.

"John!—John!" he groaned. "They'll be dancing and triumphing on your grave to-night, John; and that fellow you were a father to—like the rest. But they shall do it without me, John—they shall do it without me!"

And he thought, with a grim satisfaction, of the note he had just confided to the Premier's second messenger refusing the offer of the Attorney-Generalship. He was sorry for Broadstone; he had done his best to comfort him; but he would serve in no Government with John's supplanters.

* * * * *

Meanwhile Marsham was speeding up to town. At every way-side station, under the evening light, he saw the long lines of placards: "Sudden death of Mr. Ferrier. Effect on the new Ministry." Every paper he bought was full of comments and hasty biographies. There was more than a conventional note of loss in them. Ferrier was not widely popular, in the sense in which many English statesmen have been popular, but there was something in his personality that had long since won the affection and respect of all that public, in all classes, which really observes and directs English affairs. He was sincerely mourned, and he would be practically missed.

But the immediate effect would be the triumph of the Cave, a new direction given to current politics. That no one doubted.

Marsham was lost in tumultuous thought. The truth was that the two articles in the Herald of that morning, which had arrived at Tallyn by nine o'clock, had struck him with nothing less than consternation.

Ever since his interview with Barrington, he had persuaded himself that in it he had laid the foundations of party reunion; and he had since been eagerly scanning the signs of slow change in the attitude of the party paper, combined—as they had been up to this very day—with an unbroken personal loyalty to Ferrier. But the article of this morning had shown a complete—and in Oliver's opinion, as he read it at the breakfast-table—an extravagant volte-face. It amounted to nothing less than a vehement appeal to the new Prime Minister to intrust the leadership of the House of Commons, at so critical a moment, to a man more truly in sympathy with the forward policy of the party.

"We have hoped against hope," said the Herald; "we have supported Mr. Ferrier against all opposition; but a careful reconsideration and analysis of his latest speeches—taken together with our general knowledge public and private, of the political situation—have convinced us, sorely against our will, that while Mr. Ferrier must, of course, hold one of the most important offices in the new Cabinet, his leadership of the Commons—in view of the two great measures to which the party is practically pledged—could only bring calamity. He will not oppose them; that, of course, we know; but is it possible that he can fight them through with success? We appeal to his patriotism, which has never yet failed him or us. If he will only accept the peerage he has so amply earned, together with either the War Office or the Admiralty, and represent the Government in the Lords, where it is sorely in need of strength, all will be well. The leadership of the Commons must necessarily fall to that section of the party which, through Lord Philip's astonishing campaign, has risen so rapidly in public favor. Lord Philip himself, indeed, is no more acceptable to the moderates than Mr. Ferrier to the Left Wing. Heat of personal feeling alone would prevent his filling the part successfully. But two or three men are named, under whom Lord Philip would be content to serve, while the moderates would have nothing to say against them."

This was damaging enough. But far more serious was the "communicated" article on the next page—"from a correspondent"—on which the "leader" was based.

Marsham saw at once that the "correspondent" was really Barrington himself, and that the article was wholly derived from the conversation which had taken place at Tallyn, and from the portions of Ferrier's letters, which Marsham had read or summarized for the journalist's benefit.

The passage in particular which Ferrier's dying hand had marked—he recalled the gleam in Barrington's black eyes as he had listened to it, the instinctive movement in his powerful hand, as though to pounce, vulturelike, on the letter—and his own qualm of anxiety—his sudden sense of having gone too far—his insistence on discretion.

Discretion indeed! The whole thing was monstrous treachery. He had warned the man that these few sentences were not to be taken literally—that they were, in fact, Ferrier's caricature of himself and his true opinion. "You press on me a particular measure," they said, in effect, "you expect the millennium from it. Well, I'll tell you what you'll really get by it!"—and then a forecast of the future, after the great Bill was passed, in Ferrier's most biting vein.

The passage in the Herald was given as a paraphrase, or, rather, as a kind of reductio ad absurdum of one of Ferrier's last speeches in the House. It was, in truth, a literal quotation from one of the letters. Barrington had an excellent memory. He had omitted nothing. The stolen sentences made the point, the damning point, of the article. They were not exactly quoted as Ferrier's, but they claimed to express Ferrier more closely than he had yet expressed himself. "We have excellent reason to believe that this is, in truth, the attitude of Mr. Ferrier." How, then, could a man of so cold and sceptical a temper continue to lead the young reformers of the party? The Herald, with infinite regret, made its bow to its old leader, and went over bag and baggage to the camp of Lord Philip, who, Marsham could not doubt, had been in close consultation with the editor through the whole business.

Again and again, as the train sped on, did Marsham go back over the fatal interview which had led to these results. His mind, full of an agony of remorse he could not still, was full also of storm and fury against Barrington. Never had a journalist made a more shameful use of a trust reposed in him.

With torturing clearness, imagination built up the scene in the garden: the arrival of Broadstone's letter; the hand of the stricken man groping for the newspaper; the effort of those pencilled lines; and, finally, that wavering mark, John Ferrier's last word on earth.

If it had, indeed, been meant for him, Oliver—well, he had received it; the dead man had reached out and touched him; he felt the brand upon him; and it was a secret forever between Ferrier and himself.

The train was nearing St. Pancras. Marsham roused himself with an effort. After all, what fault was it of his—this tragic coincidence of a tragic day? If Ferrier had lived, all could have been explained; or if not all, most. And because Ferrier had died of a sudden ailment, common among men worn out with high responsibilities, was a man to go on reproaching himself eternally for another man's vile behavior—for the results of an indiscretion committed with no ill-intent whatever? With miserable self-control, Oliver turned his mind to his approaching interview with the Prime Minister. Up to the morning of this awful day he had been hanging on the Cabinet news from hour to hour. The most important posts would, of course be filled first. Afterward would come the minor appointments—and then!

* * * * *

Marsham found the Premier much shaken. He was an old man; he had been a warm personal friend of Ferrier's; and the blow had hit him hard.

Evidently for a few hours he had been determined to resign; but strong influences had been brought to bear, and he had wearily resumed his task.

Reluctantly, Marsham told the story. Poor Lord Broadstone could not escape from the connection between the arrival of his letter and the seizure which had killed his old comrade. He sat bowed beneath it for a while; then, with a fortitude and a self-control which never fails men of his type in times of public stress and difficulty, he roused himself to discuss the political situation which had arisen—so far, at least, as was necessary and fitting in the case of a man not in the inner circle.

As the two men sat talking the messenger arrived from Beechcote with Sir James Chide's letter. From the Premier's expression as he laid it down Marsham divined that it contained Chide's refusal to join the Government. Lord Broadstone got up and began to move to and fro, wrapped in a cloud of thought. He seemed to forget Marsham's presence, and Marsham made a movement to go. As he did so Lord Broadstone looked up and came toward him.

"I am much obliged to you for having come so promptly," he said, with melancholy courtesy. "I thought we should have met soon—on an occasion—more agreeable to us both. As you are here, forgive me if I talk business. This rough-and-tumble world has to be carried on, and if it suits you, I shall be happy to recommend your appointment to her Majesty—as a Junior Lord of the Treasury—carrying with it, as of course you understand, the office of Second Whip."

Ten minutes later Marsham left the Prime Minister's house. As he walked back to St. Pancras, he was conscious of yet another smart added to the rest. If anything were offered to him, he had certainly hoped for something more considerable.

It looked as though while the Ferrier influence had ignored him, the Darcy influence had not troubled itself to do much for him. That he had claims could not be denied. So this very meagre bone had been flung him. But if he had refused it, he would have got nothing else.

The appointment would involve re-election. All that infernal business to go through again!—probably in the very midst of disturbances in the mining district. The news from the collieries was as bad as it could be.

* * * * *

He reached home very late—close on midnight. His mother had gone to bed, ill and worn out, and was not to be disturbed. Isabel Fotheringham and Alicia awaited him in the drawing-room.

Mrs. Fotheringham had arrived in the course of the evening. She herself was peevish with fatigue, incurred in canvassing for two of Lord Philip's most headlong supporters. Personally, she had broken with John Ferrier some weeks before the election; but the fact had made more impression on her own mind than on his.

"Well, Oliver, this is a shocking thing! However, of course, Ferrier had been unhealthy for a long time; any one could see that. It was really better it should end so."

"You take it calmly!" he said, scandalized by her manner and tone.

"I am sorry, of course. But Ferrier had outlived himself. The people I have been working among felt him merely in the way. But, of course, I am sorry mamma is dreadfully upset. That one must expect. Well, now then—you have seen Broadstone?"

She rose to question him, the political passion in her veins asserting itself against her weariness. She was still in her travelling dress. From her small, haggard face the reddish hair was drawn tightly back; the spectacled eyes, the dry lips, expressed a woman whose life had hardened to dusty uses. Her mere aspect chilled and repelled her brother, and he answered her questions shortly.

"Broadstone has treated you shabbily!" she remarked, with decision; "but I suppose you will have to put up with it. And this terrible thing that has happened to-day may tell against you when it comes to the election. Ferrier will be looked upon as a martyr, and we shall suffer."

Oliver turned his eyes for relief to Alicia. She, in a soft black dress, with many slender chains, studded with beautiful turquoises, about her white neck, rested and cheered his sight. The black was for sympathy with the family sorrow; the turquoises were there because he specially admired them; he understood them both. The night was hot, and without teasing him with questions she had brought him a glass of iced lemonade, touching him caressingly on the arm while he drank it.

"Poor Mr. Ferrier! It was terribly, terribly sad!" Her voice was subtly tuned and pitched. It made no fresh claim on emotion, of which, in his mental and moral exhaustion, he had none to give; but it more than met the decencies of the situation, which Isabel had flouted.

"So there will be another election?" she said, presently, still standing in front of him, erect and provocative, her eyes fixed on his.

"Yes; but I sha'n't be such a brute as to bother you with it this time."

"I shall decide that for myself," she said, lightly. Then—after a pause: "So Lord Philip has won!—all along the line! I should like to know that man!"

"You do know him."

"Oh, just to pass the time of day. That's nothing. But I am to meet him at the Treshams' next week." Her eyes sparkled a little. Marsham glanced at his sister, who was gathering up some small possessions at the end of the room.

"Don't try and make a fool of him!" he said, in a low voice. "He's not your sort."

"Isn't he?" She laughed. "I suppose he's one of the biggest men in England now. And somebody told me the other day that, after losing two or three fortunes, he had just got another."

Marsham nodded.

"Altogether, an excellent parti."

Alicia's infectious laugh broke out. She sat down beside him, with her hands round her knees.

"You look miles better than when you came in. But I think—you'd better go to bed."

* * * * *

As Marsham, in undressing, flung his coat upon a chair, the copy of the Herald which he had momentarily forgotten fell out of the inner pocket. He raised it—irresolute. Should he tear it up, and throw the fragments away?

No. He could not bring himself to do it. It was as though Ferrier, lying still and cold at Lytchett, would know of it—as though the act would do some roughness to the dead.

He went into his sitting-room, found an empty drawer in his writing-table, thrust in the newspaper, and closed the drawer.



CHAPTER XX

"I regard this second appeal to West Brookshire as an insult!" said the Vicar of Beechcote, hotly. "If Mr. Marsham must needs accept an office that involved re-election he might have gone elsewhere. I see there is already a vacancy by death—and a Liberal seat, too—in Sussex. We told him pretty plainly what we thought of him last time."

"And now I suppose you will turn him out?" asked the doctor, lazily. In the beatitude induced by a completed article and an afternoon smoke, he was for the moment incapable of taking a tragic view either of Marsham's shortcomings or his prospects.

"Certainly, we shall turn him out."

"Ah!—a Labor candidate?" said the doctor, showing a little more energy.

Whereupon the Vicar, with as strong a relish for the primeur of an important piece of news as any secular fighter, described a meeting held the night before in one of the mining villages, at which he had been a speaker. The meeting had decided to run a miners' candidate; expenses had been guaranteed; and the resolution passed meant, according to Lavery, that Marsham would be badly beaten, and that Colonel Simpson, his Conservative opponent, would be handsomely presented with a seat in Parliament, to which his own personal merits had no claim whatever.

"But that we put up with," said the Vicar, grimly. "The joy of turning out Marsham is compensation."

The doctor turned an observant eye on his companion's clerical coat.

"Shall we hear these sentiments next Sunday from the pulpit?" he asked, mildly.

The Vicar had the grace to blush slightly.

"I say, no doubt, more than I should say," he admitted. Then he rose, buttoning his long coat down his long body deliberately, as though by the action he tried to restrain the surge within; but it overflowed all the same. "I know now," he said, with a kindling eye, holding out a gaunt hand in farewell, "what our Lord meant by sending, not peace—but a sword!"

"So, no doubt, did Torquemada!" replied the doctor, surveying him.

The Vicar rose to the challenge.

"I will be no party to the usual ignorant abuse of the Inquisition," he said, firmly. "We live in days of license, and have no right to sit in judgment on our forefathers."

"Your forefathers," corrected the doctor. "Mine burned."

The Vicar first laughed; then grew serious. "Well, I'll allow you two opinions on the Inquisition, but not—" he lifted a gesticulating hand—"not two opinions on mines which are death-traps for lack of a little money to make them safe—not on the kind of tyranny which says to a man: 'Strike if you like, and take a week's notice at the same time to give up your cottage, which belongs to the colliery'—or, 'Make a fuss about allotments if you dare, and see how long you keep your berth in my employment: we don't want any agitators here'—or maintains, against all remonstrance, a brutal manager in office, whose rule crushes out a man's self-respect, and embitters his soul!"

"You charge all these things against Marsham?"

"He—or, rather, his mother—has a large holding in collieries against which I charge them."

"H'm. Lady Lucy isn't standing for West Brookshire."

"No matter. The son's teeth are set on edge. Marsham has been appealed to, and has done nothing—attempted nothing. He makes eloquent Liberal speeches, and himself spends money got by grinding the poor!"

"You make him out a greater fool than I believe him," said the doctor. "He has probably attempted a great deal, and finds his power limited. Moreover, he has been eight years member here, and these charges are quite new."

"Because the spirit abroad is new!" cried the Vicar. "Men will no longer bear what their fathers bore. The old excuses, the old pleas, serve no longer. I tell you the poor are tired of their patience! The Kingdom of Heaven, in its earthly aspect, is not to be got that way—no! 'The violent take it by force!' And as to your remark about Marsham, half the champions of democracy in this country are in the same box: prating about liberty and equality abroad; grinding their servants and underpaying their laborers at home. I know scores of them; and how any of them keep a straight face at a public meeting I never could understand. There is a French proverb that exactly expresses them—"

"I know," murmured the doctor, "I know. 'Joie de rue, douleur de maison.' Well, and so, to upset Marsham, you are going to let the Tories in, eh?—with all the old tyrannies and briberies on their shoulders?—naked and unashamed. Hullo!"—he looked round him—"don't tell Patricia I said so—or Hugh."

"There is no room for a middle party," was the Vicar's fierce reply. "Socialists on the one side, Tories on the other!—that'll be the Armageddon of the future."

The doctor, declining to be drawn, nodded placidly through the clouds of smoke that enwrapped him. The Vicar hurried away, accompanied, however, furtively to the door, even to the gate of the drive, by Mrs. Roughsedge, who had questions to ask.

She came back presently with a thoughtful countenance.

"I asked him what he thought I ought to do about those tales I told you of."

"Why don't you settle for yourself?" cried the doctor, testily. "That is the way you women flatter the pride of these priests!"

"Not at all. You make him talk nonsense; I find him a fount of wisdom."

"I admit he knows some moral theology," said Roughsedge, thoughtfully. "He has thought a good deal about 'sins' and 'sin.' Well, what was his view about these particular 'sinners'?"

"He thinks Diana ought to know."

"She can't do any good, and it will keep her awake at nights. I object altogether."

However, Mrs. Roughsedge, having first dropped a pacifying kiss on her husband's gray hair, went up-stairs to put on her things, declaring that she was going there and then to Beechcote.

The doctor was left to ponder over the gossip in question, and what Diana could possibly do to meet it. Poor child!—was she never to be free from scandal and publicity?

As to the couple of people involved—Fred Birch and that odious young woman Miss Fanny Merton—he did not care in the least what happened to them. And he could not see, for the life of him, why Diana should care either. But of course she would. In her ridiculous way, she would think she had some kind of responsibility, just because the girl's mother and her mother happened to have been brought up in the same nursery.

"A plague on Socialist vicars, and a plague on dear good women!" thought the doctor, knocking out his pipe. "What with philanthropy and this delicate altruism that takes the life out of women, the world becomes a kind of impenetrable jungle, in which everybody's business is intertwined with everybody else's, and there is nobody left with primitive brutality enough to hew a way through! And those of us that might lead a decent life on this ill-arranged planet are all crippled and hamstrung by what we call unselfishness." The doctor vigorously replenished his pipe. "I vow I will go to Greece next spring, and leave Patricia behind!"

Meanwhile, Mrs. Roughsedge walked to Beechcote—in meditation. The facts she pondered were these, to put them as shortly as possible. Fred Birch was fast becoming the mauvais sujet of the district. His practice was said to be gone, his money affairs were in a desperate condition, and his mother and sister had already taken refuge with relations. He had had recourse to the time-honored expedients of his type: betting on horses and on stocks with other people's money. It was said that he had kept on the safe side of the law; but one or two incidents in his career had emerged to light quite recently, which had led all the scrupulous in Dunscombe to close their doors upon him; and as he had no means of bribing the unscrupulous, he had now become a mere object-lesson for babes as to the advantages of honesty.

At the same time Miss Fanny Merton, first introduced to Brookshire by Brookshire's favorite, Diana Mallory, was constantly to be seen in the black sheep's company. They had been observed together, both in London and the country—at race-meetings and theatres; and a brawl in the Dunscombe refreshment-room, late at night, in which Birch had been involved, brought out the scandalous fact that Miss Merton was in his company. Birch was certainly not sober, and it was said by the police that Miss Merton also had had more port wine than was good for her.

All this Brookshire knew, and none of it did Diana know. Since her return she and Mrs. Colwood had lived so quietly within their own borders that the talk of the neighborhood rarely reached her, and those persons who came in contact with her were far too deeply touched by the signs of suffering in the girl's face and manner to breathe a word that might cause her fresh pain. Brookshire knew, through one or other of the mysterious channels by which such news travels, that the two cousins were uncongenial; that it was Fanny Merton who had revealed to Diana her mother's history, and in an abrupt, unfeeling way; and that the two girls were not now in communication. Fanny had been boarding with friends in Bloomsbury, and was supposed to be returning to her family in Barbadoes in the autumn.

The affair at the refreshment-room was to be heard of at Petty Sessions, and would, therefore, get into the local papers. Mrs. Roughsedge felt there was nothing for it; Diana must be told. But she hated her task.

On reaching Beechcote she noticed a fly at the door, and paused a moment to consider whether her visit might not be inopportune. It was a beautiful day, and Diana and Mrs. Colwood were probably to be found in some corner of the garden. Mrs. Roughsedge walked round the side of the house to reconnoitre.

As she reached the beautiful old terrace at the back of the house, on which the drawing-room opened, suddenly a figure came flying through the drawing-room window—the figure of a girl in a tumbled muslin dress, with a large hat, and a profusion of feathers and streamers fluttering about her. In her descent upon the terrace she dropped her gloves; stooping to pick them up, she dropped her boa; in her struggle to recapture that, she trod on and tore her dress.

"Damn!" said the young lady, furiously.

And at the voice, the word, the figure, Mrs. Roughsedge stood arrested and open-mouthed, her old woman's bonnet slipping back a little on her gray curls.

The young woman was Fanny Merton. She had evidently just arrived, and was in search of Diana. Mrs. Roughsedge thought a moment, and then turned and sadly walked home again. No good interfering now! Poor Diana would have to tackle the situation for herself.

* * * * *

Diana and Mrs. Colwood were on the lawn, surreptitiously at work on clothes for the child in the spinal jacket, who was soon going away to a convalescent home, and had to be rigged out. The grass was strewn with pieces of printed cotton and flannel, with books and work-baskets. But they were not sitting where Ferrier had looked his last upon the world three weeks before. There, under the tall limes, across the lawn, on that sad and sacred spot, Diana meant in the autumn to plant a group of cypresses (the tree of mourning) "for remembrance."

"Fanny!" cried Diana, in amazement, rising from her chair.

At her cousin's voice, Fanny halted, a few yards away.

"Well," she said, defiantly, "of course I know you didn't expect to see me!"

Diana had grown very pale. Muriel saw a shiver run through her—the shiver of the victim brought once more into the presence of the torturer.

"I thought you were in London," she stammered, moving forward and holding out her hand mechanically. "Please come and sit down." She cleared a chair of the miscellaneous needlework upon it.

"I want to speak to you very particularly," said Fanny. "And it's private!" She looked at Mrs. Colwood, with whom she had exchanged a frosty greeting. Diana made a little imploring sign, and Muriel—unwillingly—moved away toward the house.

"Well, I don't suppose you want to have anything to do with me," said Fanny, after a moment, in a sulky voice. "But, after all, you're mother's niece. I'm in a pretty tight fix, and it mightn't be very pleasant for you if things came to the worst."

She had thrown off her hat, and was patting and pulling the numerous puffs and bandeaux, in which her hair was arranged, with a nervous hand. Diana was aghast at her appearance. The dirty finery of her dress had sunk many degrees in the scale of decency and refinement since February. Her staring brunette color had grown patchy and unhealthy, her eyes had a furtive audacity, her lips a coarseness, which might have been always there; but in the winter, youth and high spirits had to some extent disguised them.

"Aren't you soon going home?" asked Diana, looking at her with a troubled brow.

"No, I'm—I'm engaged. I thought you might have known that!" The girl turned fiercely upon her.

"No—I hadn't heard—"

"Well, I don't know where you live all your time!" said Fanny, impatiently. "There's heaps of people at Dunscombe know that I've been engaged to Fred Birch for three months. I wasn't going to write to you, of course, because I—well!—I knew you thought I'd been rough on you—about that—you know."

"Fred Birch!" Diana's voice was faltering and amazed.

Fanny twisted her hat in her hands.

"He's all right," she said, angrily, "if his business hadn't been ruined by a lot of nasty crawling tale-tellers. If people'd only mind their own business! However, there it is—he's ruined—he hasn't got a penny piece—and, of course, he can't marry me, if—well, if somebody don't help us out."

Diana's face changed.

"Do you mean that I should help you out?"

"Well, there's no one else!" said Fanny, still, as it seemed, defying something or some one.

"I gave you—a thousand pounds."

"You gave it mother I I got precious little of it. I've had to borrow, lately, from people in the boarding-house. And I can't get any more—there! I'm just broke—stony."

She was still looking straight before her, but her lip trembled.

Diana bent forward impetuously.

"Fanny!" she said, laying her hand on her cousin's, "do go home!"

Fanny's lip continued to tremble.

"I tell you I'm engaged," she repeated, in a muffled voice.

"Don't marry him!" cried Diana, imploringly. "He's not—he's not a good man."

"What do you know about it? He's well enough, though I dare say he's not your sort. He'd be all right if somebody would just lend a hand—help him with the debts, and put him on his feet again. He suits me, anyway. I'm not so thin-skinned."

Diana stiffened. Fanny's manner—as of old—was almost incredible, considered as the manner of one in difficulties asking for help. The sneering insolence of it inevitably provoked the person addressed.

"Have you told Aunt Bertha?" she said, coldly—"asked her consent?"

"Mother? Oh, I've told her I'm engaged. She knows very well that I manage my own business."

Diana withdrew her chair a little.

"When are you going to be married? Are you still with those friends?"

Fanny laughed.

"Oh, Lord, no! I fell out with them long ago. They were a wretched lot! But I found a girl I knew, and we set up together. I've been in a blouse-shop earning thirty shillings a week—there! And if I hadn't, I'd have starved!"

Fanny raised her head. Their eyes met: Fanny's full of mingled bravado and misery; Diana's suddenly stricken with deep and remorseful distress.

"Fanny, I told you to write to me if there was anything wrong! Why didn't you?"

"You hated me!" said Fanny, sullenly.

"I didn't!" cried Diana, the tears rising to her eyes. "But—you hurt me so!" Then again she bent forward, laying her hand on her cousin's, speaking fast and low. "Fanny, I'm very sorry!—if I'd known you were in trouble I'd have come or written—I thought you were with friends, and I knew the money had been paid. But, Fanny, I implore you!—give up Mr. Birch! Nobody speaks well of him! You'll be miserable!—you must be!"

"Too late to think of that!" said Fanny, doggedly.

Diana looked up in sudden terror. Fanny tried to brazen it out. But all the patchy color left her cheeks, and, dropping her head on her hands, she began to sob. Yet even the sobs were angry.

"I can go and drown myself!" she said, passionately, "and I suppose I'd better. Nobody cares whether I do or not! He's made a fool of me—I don't suppose mother'll take me home again. And if he doesn't marry me, I'll kill myself somehow—it don't matter how—before—I've got to!"

Diana had dropped on her knees beside her visitor. Unconsciously—pitifully—she breathed her cousin's name. Fanny looked up. She wrenched herself violently away.

"Oh, it's all very well!—but we can't all be such saints as you. It'd be all right if he married me directly—directly," she repeated, hurriedly.

Diana knelt still immovable. In her face was that agonized shock and recoil with which the young and pure, the tenderly cherished and guarded, receive the first withdrawal of the veil which hides from them the more brutal facts of life. But, as she knelt there, gazing at Fanny, another expression stole upon and effaced the first. Taking shape and body, as it were, from the experience of the moment, there rose into sight the new soul developed in her by this tragic year. Not for her—not for Juliet Sparling's daughter—the plea of cloistered innocence! By a sharp transition her youth had passed from the Chamber of Maiden Thought into the darkened Chamber of Experience. She had steeped her heart in the waters of sin and suffering; she put from her in an instant the mere maiden panic which had drawn her to her knees.

"Fanny, I'll help you!" she said, in a low voice, putting her arms round her cousin. "Don't cry—I'll help you."

Fanny raised her head. In Diana's face there was something which, for the first time, roused in the other a nascent sense of shame. The color came rushing into her cheeks; her eyes wavered painfully.

"You must come and stay here," said Diana, almost in a whisper. "And where is Mr. Birch? I must see him."

She rose as she spoke; her voice had a decision, a sternness, that Fanny for once did not resent. But she shook her head despairingly.

"I can't get at him. He sends my letters back. He'll not marry me unless he's paid to."

"When did you see him last?"

Gradually the whole story emerged. The man had behaved as the coarse and natural man face to face with temptation and opportunity is likely to behave. The girl had been the victim first and foremost of her own incredible folly. And Diana could not escape the idea that on Birch's side there had not been wanting from the first an element of sinister calculation. If her relations objected to the situation, it could, of course, be made worth his while to change it. All his recent sayings and doings, as Fanny reported them, clearly bore this interpretation.

As Diana sat, dismally pondering, an idea flashed upon her. Sir James Chide was to dine at Beechcote that night. He was expected early, would take in Beechcote, indeed, on his way from the train to Lytchett. Who else should advise her if not he? In a hundred ways, practical and tender, he had made her understand that, for her mother's sake and her own, she was to him as a daughter.

She mentioned him to Fanny.

"Of course"—she hurried over the words—"we need only say that you have been engaged. We must consult him, I suppose, about—about breach of promise of marriage."

The odious, hearsay phrase came out with difficulty. But Fanny's eyes glistened at the name of the great lawyer.

Her feelings toward the man who had betrayed her were clearly a medley of passion and of hatred. She loved him as she was able to love; and she wished, at the same time, to coerce and be revenged on him. The momentary sense of shame had altogether passed. It was Diana who, with burning cheeks, stipulated that while Fanny must not return to town, but must stay at Beechcote till matters were arranged, she should not appear during Sir James's visit; and it was Fanny who said, with vindictive triumph, as Diana left her in her room; "Sir James'll know well enough what sort of damages I could get!"

* * * * *

After dinner Diana and Sir James walked up and down the lime-walk in the August moonlight. His affection, as soon as he saw her, had been conscious of yet another strain upon her, but till she began to talk to him tete-a-tete he got no clew to it; and even then what he guessed had very little to do with what she said. She told her cousin's story so far as she meant to tell it with complete self-possession. Her cousin was in love with this wretched man, and had got herself terribly talked about. She could not be persuaded to give him up, while he could only be induced to marry her by the prospect of money. Could Sir James see him and find out how much would content him, and whether any decent employment could be found for him?

Sir James held his peace, except for the "Yeses" and "Noes" that Diana's conversation demanded. He would certainly interview the young man; he was very sorry for her anxieties; he would see what could be done.

Meanwhile, he never communicated to her that he had travelled down to Beechcote in the same carriage with Lady Felton, the county gossip, and that in addition to other matters—of which more anon—the refreshment-room story had been discussed between them, with additions and ramifications leading to very definite conclusions in any rational mind as to the nature of the bond between Diana's cousin and the young Dunscombe solicitor. Lady Felton had expressed her concern for Miss Mallory. "Poor thing!—do you think she knows? Why on earth did she ever ask him to Beechcote! Alicia Drake told me she saw him there."

These things Sir James did not disclose. He played Diana's game with perfect discretion. He guessed, even that Fanny was in the house, but he said not a word. No need at all to question the young woman. If in such a case he could not get round a rascally solicitor, what could he do?—and what was the good of being the leader of the criminal Bar?

Only when Diana, at the end of their walk, shyly remarked that money was not to stand in the way; that she had plenty; that Beechcote was no doubt too expensive for her, but that the tenancy was only a yearly one, and she had but to give notice at Michaelmas, which she thought of doing—only then did Sir James allow himself a laugh.

"You think I am going to let this business turn you out of Beechcote—eh?—you preposterous little angel!"

"Not this business," stammered Diana; "but I am really living at too great a rate."

Sir James grinned, patted her ironically on the shoulder, told her to be a good girl, and departed.

* * * * *

Fanny stayed for a week at Beechcote, and at the end of that time Diana and Mrs. Colwood accompanied her on a Saturday to town, and she was married, to a sheepish and sulky bridegroom, by special license, at a Marylebone church—Sir James Chide, in the background, looking on. They departed for a three days' holiday to Brighton, and on the fourth day they were due to sail by a West Indian steamer for Barbadoes, where Sir James had procured for Mr. Frederick Birch a post in the office of a large sugar estate, in which an old friend of Chide's had an interest. Fanny showed no rapture in the prospect of thus returning to the bosom of her family. But there was no help for it.

By what means the transformation scene had been effected it would be waste of time to inquire. Much to Diana's chagrin, Sir James entirely declined to allow her to aid in it financially, except so far as equipping her cousin with clothes went, and providing her with a small sum for her wedding journey. Personally, he considered that the week during which Fanny stayed at Beechcote was as much as Diana could be expected to contribute, and that she had indeed paid the lion's share.

Yet that week—if he had known—was full of strange comfort to Diana. Often Muriel, watching her, would escape to her own room to hide her tears. Fanny's second visit was not as her first. The first had seen the outraging and repelling of the nobler nature by the ignoble. Diana had frankly not been able to endure her cousin. There was not a trace of that now. Her father's papers had told her abundantly how flimsy, how nearly fraudulent, was the financial claim which Fanny and her belongings had set up. The thousand pounds had been got practically on false pretences, and Diana knew it now, in every detail. Yet neither toward that, nor toward Fanny's other and worse lapses, did she show any bitterness, any spirit of mere disgust and reprobation. The last vestige of that just, instinctive pharisaism which clothes an unstained youth had dropped from her. As the heir of her mother's fate, she had gone down into the dark sea of human wrong and misery, and she had emerged transformed, more akin by far to the wretched and the unhappy than to the prosperous and the untempted, so that, through all repulsion and shock, she took Fanny now as she found her—bearing with her—accepting her—loving her, as far as she could. At the last even that stubborn nature was touched. When Diana kissed her after the wedding, with a few tremulous good wishes, Fanny's gulp was not all excitement. Yet it must still be recorded that on the wedding-day Fanny was in the highest spirits, only marred by some annoyance that she had let Diana persuade her out of a white satin wedding-dress.



* * * * *

Diana's preoccupation with this matter carried her through the first week of Marsham's second campaign, and deadened so far the painful effect of the contest now once more thundering through the division. For it was even a more odious battle than the first had been. In the first place, the moderate Liberals held a meeting very early in the struggle, with Sir William Felton in the chair, to protest against the lukewarm support which Marsham had given to the late leader of the Opposition, to express their lamentation for Ferrier, and their distrust of Lord Philip; and to decide upon a policy.

At the meeting a heated speech was made by a gray-haired squire, an old friend and Oxford contemporary of John Ferrier's, who declared that he had it on excellent authority that the communicated article in the Herald, which had appeared on the morning of Ferrier's sudden death, had been written by Oliver Marsham.

This statement was reported in the newspapers of the following morning, and was at once denied by Marsham himself, in a brief letter to the Times.

It was this letter which Lady Felton discussed hotly with Sir James Chide on the day when Fanny Merton's misdemeanors also came up for judgment.

"He says he didn't write it. Sir William declares—a mere quibble! He has it from several people that Barrington was at Tallyn two days before the article appeared, and that he spoke to one or two friends next day of an 'important' conversation with Marsham, and of the first-hand information he had got from it. Nobody was so likely as Oliver to have that intimate knowledge of poor Mr. Ferrier's intentions and views. William believes that he gave Barrington all the information in the article, and wrote nothing himself, in order that he might be able to deny it."

Sir James met these remarks with an impenetrable face. He neither defended Marsham, nor did he join in Lady Felton's denunciations. But that good lady, who though voluble was shrewd, told her husband afterward that she was certain Sir James believed Marsham to be responsible for the Herald article.

A week later the subject was renewed at a very heated and disorderly meeting at Dunscombe. A bookseller's assistant, well known as one of the leading Socialists of the division, got up and in a suave mincing voice accused Marsham of having—not written, but—"communicated" the Herald article, and so dealt a treacherous blow at his old friend and Parliamentary leader—a blow which had no doubt contributed to the situation culminating in Mr. Ferrier's tragic death.

Marsham, very pale, sprang up at once, denied the charge, and fiercely attacked the man who had made it. But there was something so venomous in the manner of his denial, so undignified in the personalities with which it was accompanied, that the meeting suddenly took offence. The attack, instead of dying down, was renewed. Speaker after speaker got up and heckled the candidate. Was Mr. Marsham aware that the editor of the Herald had been staying at Tallyn two days before the article appeared? Was he also aware that his name had been freely mentioned, in the Herald office, in connection with the article?

Marsham in vain endeavored to regain sang-froid and composure under these attacks. He haughtily repeated his denial, and refused to answer any more questions on the subject.

The local Tory paper rushed into the fray, and had presently collected a good deal of what it was pleased to call evidence on the matter, mainly gathered from London reporters. The matter began to look serious. Marsham appealed to Barrington to contradict the rumor publicly, as "absurd and untrue." But, unfortunately, Barrington, who was a man of quick and gusty temper, had been nettled by an incautious expression of Marsham's with regard to the famous article in his Dunscombe speech—"if I had had any intention whatever of dealing a dishonorable blow at my old friend and leader, I could have done it a good deal more effectively, I can assure you; I should not have put what I had to say in a form so confused and contradictory."

This—together with the general denial—happened to reach Barrington, and it rankled. When, therefore, Marsham appealed to him, he brusquely replied:

"DEAR MR. MARSHAM,—You know best what share you had in the Herald article. You certainly did not write it. But to my mind it very faithfully reproduced the gist of our conversation on a memorable evening. And, moreover, I believe and still believe that you intended the reproduction. Believe me, Yours faithfully, ERNEST BARRINGTON."

To this Marsham returned a stiff answer, giving his own account of what had taken place, and regretting that even a keen journalist should have thought it consistent with his honor to make such injurious and unfair use of "my honest attempt to play the peacemaker" between the different factions of the party.

To this letter Barrington made no reply. Marsham, sore and weary, yet strung by now to an obstinacy and a fighting passion which gave a new and remarkable energy to his personality, threw himself fresh into a hopeless battle. For a time, indeed, the tide appeared to turn. He had been through two Parliaments a popular and successful member; less popular, no doubt, in the second than in the first, as the selfish and bitter strains in his character became more apparent. Still he had always commanded a strong personal following, especially among the younger men of the towns and villages, who admired his lithe and handsome presence, and appreciated his reputation as a sportsman and volunteer. Lady Lucy's subscriptions, too, were an element in the matter not to be despised.

A rally began in the Liberal host, which had felt itself already beaten. Marsham's meetings improved, the Herald article was apparently forgotten.

The anxiety now lay chiefly in the mining villages, where nothing seemed to affect the hostile attitude of the inhabitants. A long series of causes had led up to it, to be summed up perhaps in one—the harsh and domineering temper of the man who had for years managed the three Tallyn collieries, and who held Lady Lucy and her co-shareholders in the hollow of his hand. Lady Lucy, whose curious obstinacy had been roused, would not dismiss him, and nothing less than his summary dismissal would have appeased the dull hatred of six hundred miners.

Marsham had indeed attempted to put through a number of minor reforms, but the effect on the temper of the district had been, in the end, little or nothing. The colliers, who had once fervently supported him, thought of him now, either as a fine gentleman profiting pecuniarily by the ill deeds of a tyrant, or as sheltering behind his mother's skirts; the Socialist Vicar of Beechcote thundered against him; and for some time every meeting of his in the colliery villages was broken up. But in the more hopeful days of the last week, when the canvassing returns, together with Marsham's astonishing energy and brilliant speaking, had revived the failing heart of the party, it was resolved to hold a final meeting, on the night before the poll, at Hartingfield-on-the-Wold, the largest of the mining villages.

* * * * *

Marsham left Dunscombe for Hartingfield about six o'clock on an August evening, driving the coach, with its superb team of horses, which had become by now so familiar an object in the division. He was to return in time to make the final speech in the concluding Liberal meeting of the campaign, which was to be held that night, with the help of some half-dozen other members of Parliament, in the Dunscombe Corn Exchange.

A body of his supporters, gathered in the market-place, cheered him madly as the coach set off. Marsham stopped the horses for a minute outside the office of the local paper. The weekly issue came out that afternoon. It was handed up to him, and the coach rattled on.

McEwart, who was sitting beside him, opened it, and presently gave a low involuntary whistle of dismay. Marsham looked round.

"What's the matter?"

McEwart would have gladly flung the paper away. But looking round him he saw that several other persons on the top of the coach had copies, and that whispering consternation had begun.

He saw nothing for it but to hand the paper to Marsham. "This is playing it pretty low down!" he said, pointing to an item in large letters on the first page.

Marsham handed the reins to the groom beside him and took the paper. He saw, printed in full, Barrington's curt letter to himself on the subject of the Herald article, and below it the jubilant and scathing comments of the Tory editor.

He read both carefully, and gave the paper back to McEwart. "That decides the election," he said, calmly. McEwart's face assented.

* * * * *

Marsham, however, never showed greater pluck than at the Hartingfield meeting. It was a rowdy and disgraceful business, in which from beginning to end he scarcely got a hearing for more than three sentences at a time. A shouting mob of angry men, animated by passions much more than political, held him at bay. But on this occasion he never once lost his temper; he caught the questions and insults hurled at him, and threw them back with unfailing skill; and every now and then, at some lull in the storm, he made himself heard, and to good purpose. His courage and coolness propitiated some and exasperated others.

A group of very rough fellows pursued him, shouting and yelling, as he left the school-room where the meeting was held.

"Take care!" said McEwart, hurrying him along. "They are beginning with stones, and I see no police about."

The little party of visitors made for the coach, protected by some of the villagers. But in the dusk the stones came flying fast and freely. Just as Marsham was climbing into his seat he was struck. McEwart saw him waver, and heard a muttered exclamation.

"You're hurt!" he said, supporting him. "Let the groom drive."

Marsham pushed him away.

"It's nothing." He gathered up the reins, the grooms who had been holding the horses' heads clambered into their places, a touch of the whip, and the coach was off, almost at a gallop, pursued by a shower of missiles.

After a mile at full speed Marsham pulled in the horses, and handed the reins to the groom. As he did so a low groan escaped him.

"You are hurt!" exclaimed McEwart. "Where did they hit you?"

Marsham shook his head.

"Better not talk," he said, in a whisper, "Drive home."

An hour afterward, it was announced to the crowded gathering in the Dunscombe Corn Exchange that Mr. Marsham had been hurt by a stone at Hartingfield, and could not address the meeting. The message was received with derision rather than sympathy. It was universally believed that the injury was a mere excuse, and that the publication of that most damning letter, on the very eve of the poll, was the sole and only cause why the Junior Lord of the Treasury failed on this occasion to meet the serried rows of his excited countrymen, waiting for him in the packed and stifling hall.

It was the Vicar who took the news to Beechcote. As in the case of Diana herself, the misfortune of the enemy instantly transformed a roaring lion into a sucking dove. Some instinct told him that she must hear it gently. He therefore invented an errand, saw Muriel Colwood, and left the tale with her—both of the blow and the letter.

Muriel, trembling inwardly, broke it as lightly and casually as she could. An injury to the spine—so it was reported. No doubt rest and treatment would soon amend it. A London surgeon had been sent for. Meanwhile the election was said to be lost. Muriel reluctantly produced the letter in the West Brookshire Gazette, knowing that in the natural course of things Diana must see it on the morrow.

Diana sat bowed over the letter and the news, and presently lifted up a white face, kissed Muriel, who was hovering round her, and begged to be left alone.

She went to her room. The windows were wide open to the woods, and the golden August moon shone above the down in its bare full majesty. Most of the night she sat crouched beside the window, her head resting on the ledge. Her whole nature hungered—and hungered—for Oliver. As she lifted her eyes, she saw the little dim path on the hill-side; she felt his arms round about her, his warm life against hers. Nothing that he had done, nothing that he could do, had torn him, or would ever tear him, from her heart. And now he was wounded—defeated—perhaps disgraced; and she could not help him, could not comfort him.

She supposed Alicia Drake was with him. For the first time a torment of fierce jealousy ran through her nature, like fire through a forest glade, burning up its sweetness.



CHAPTER XXI

"What time is the carriage ordered for Mr. Nixon?" asked Marsham of his servant.

"Her ladyship, sir, told me to tell the stables four-twenty at Dunscombe."

"Let me hear directly the carriage arrives. And, Richard, go and see if the Dunscombe paper is come, and bring it up."

The footman disappeared. As soon as the door was shut Marsham sank back into his cushions with a stifled groan. He was lying on a sofa in his own sitting-room. A fire burned in the grate, and Marsham's limbs were covered with a rug. Yet it was only the first week of September, and the afternoon was warm and sunny. The neuralgic pain, however, from which he had suffered day and night since the attack upon him made him susceptible to the slightest breath of chill.

The footman returned with the newspaper.

"Is her ladyship at home?"

"I think not, sir. I saw her ladyship go out a little while ago with Miss Drake. Is there anything else I can get for you?"

"Make up the fire, please. Put the cigarettes here, and don't come till I ring."

Marsham, left alone, lit a cigarette, and fell hungrily upon the paper, his forehead and lips still drawn with pain. The paper contained an account of the stone-throwing at Hartingfield, and of the injury to himself; a full record of the last five or six days of the election, and of the proceedings at the declaration of the poll; a report, moreover, of the "chivalrous and sympathetic references" made by the newly elected Conservative member to the "dastardly attack" upon his rival, which the "whole of West Brookshire condemns and deplores."

The leading article "condemned" and "deplored," at considerable length and in good set terms, through two paragraphs. In the third it "could not disguise—from itself or its readers"—that Mr. Marsham's defeat by so large a majority had been a strong probability from the first, and had been made a certainty by the appearance on the eve of the poll of "the Barrington letter." "No doubt, some day, Mr. Marsham will give his old friends and former constituents in this division the explanations in regard to this letter—taken in connection with his own repeated statements at meetings and in the press—which his personal honor and their long fidelity seem to demand. Meanwhile we can only express to our old member our best wishes both for his speedy recovery from the effects of a cowardly and disgraceful attack, and for the restoration of a political position which only a few months ago seemed so strong and so full of promise."

Marsham put down the paper. He could see the whipper-snapper of an editor writing the lines, with a wary eye both to the past and future of the Marsham influence in the division. The self-made, shrewd little man had been Oliver's political slave and henchman through two Parliaments; and he had no doubt reflected that neither the Tallyn estates, nor the Marsham wealth had been wiped out by the hostile majority of last Saturday. At the same time, the state of feeling in the division was too strong; the paper which depended entirely on local support could not risk its very existence by countering it.

Marsham's keen brain spared him nothing. His analysis of his own situation, made at leisure during the week which had elapsed since the election, had been as pitiless and as acute as that of any opponent could have been. He knew exactly what he had lost, and why.

A majority of twelve hundred against him, in a constituency where, up to the dissolution, he had commanded a majority—for him—of fifteen hundred. And that at a general election, when his party was sweeping the country!

He had, of course, resigned his office, and had received a few civil and sympathetic words from the Premier—words which but for his physical injury, so the recipient of them suspected, might have been a good deal less civil and less sympathetic. No effort had been made to delay the decision. For a Cabinet Minister, defeated at a bye-election, a seat must be found. For a Junior Lord and a Second Whip nobody will put themselves out.

He was, therefore, out of Parliament and out of office; estranged from multitudes of old friends; his name besmirched by some of the most damaging accusations that can be brought against a man's heart and honor.

He moved irritably among his cushions, trying to arrange them more comfortably. This infernal pain! It was to be hoped Nixon would be able to do more for it than that ass, the Dunscombe doctor. Marsham thought, with resentment, of all his futile drugs and expedients. According to the Dunscombe man, the stone had done no vital injury, but had badly bruised one of the lower vertebrae, and jarred the nerves of the spine generally. Local rest, various applications, and nerve—soothing drugs—all these had been freely used, and with no result. The pain had been steadily growing worse, and in the last twenty-four hours certain symptoms had appeared, which, when he first noticed them, had roused in Marsham a gust of secret terror; and Nixon, a famous specialist in nerve and spinal disease, had been summoned forthwith.

To distract his thoughts, Marsham took up the paper again.

What was wrong with the light? He looked at the clock, and read it with some difficulty. Close on four only, and the September sun was shining brightly outside. It was his eyes, he supposed, that were not quite normal Very likely. A nervous shock must, of course, show itself in a variety of ways. At any rate, he found reading difficult, and the paper slid away.

The pain, however, would not let him doze. He looked helplessly round the room, feeling depressed and wretched. Why were his mother and Alicia out so long? They neglected and forgot him. Yet he could not but remember that they had both devoted themselves to him in the morning, had read to him and written for him, and he had not been a very grateful patient. He recalled, with bitterness, the look of smiling relief with which Alicia had sprung up at the sound of the luncheon-bell, dropping the book from which she had been reading aloud, and the little song he had heard her humming in the corridor as she passed his door on her way down-stairs.