'I will take up the defence of your reputation,' she said. 'You may leave it in my hands.' And with that she withdrew out of the library. "That's the end of chapter nineteen."

He closed the book, putting a marker in it methodically, as was his wont. Gabrielle thanked him. She smiled to herself, for it seemed to her that the words of Miss Grant with which he had recalled her from her abstraction had a curious and prophetic meaning for herself. She was thankful, for a moment, that she hadn't thoughtlessly given Arthur's reputation away to his comrades. She felt herself thrilled by a new and curious interest. She determined, as a part of her duty to his mother, to speak to Arthur himself about what she had observed.

She caught him in the passage just as the boys were going to bed, and drew him aside into the drawing-room. The room was quite dark.

"Arthur, I want to speak to you," she said.

He laughed. "What's the matter?"

"When we were playing cards to-night you cheated."

For a moment there was silence. Then he laughed again—not an uneasy, shameful laugh, but one of sheer amusement. It shocked her. At last he said:

"Did you see it? Then why didn't you make a fuss about it?"

She was thankful, at any rate, that he had not lied to her. That was what she had fearfully expected.

"I didn't want to give you away to the others."

"Why not? It wouldn't have been any news to them. They know that I cheat already. That's why they're up against me. But that doesn't worry me."

"I don't understand you. It seemed to me a horrible thing to do. Can't you see that?"

"No, I can't. Perhaps I'm different. When I play I play to win."

"But that's the whole point. If you don't stick to the rules of the game there's no credit in winning, is there?"

He was silent for a moment. Then, with an effort of the most courageous honesty, he said: "Well, it feels the same to me. I like winning—anyhow."

She hesitated for a moment.

"It makes it so that—so that we can't respect you," she said.

"Now I suppose you'll go and tell Dr. Considine. Just my luck."

"Indeed, and I shan't do anything of the sort. It's between us two," she replied.

He was silent.

"Well, it does no good talking about it," he said mournfully. "I'm made differently, that's all. Do you want anything else?"

She didn't, and he left her in the dark.

This small incident and the conversation that followed opened her eyes to the reality of the problem. She didn't indeed tell Considine what had happened, but she did talk to him once or twice about the history of Arthur Payne. He did not tell her much, for it was part of his plan that his wife should not be mixed up in the business of the school. These things, in his opinion, lay entirely outside a woman's province. Her place was in the drawing-room and her position that of a hostess or, providentially, that of a mother. For the present there were no signs of her fulfilling the latter.

In spite of Considine's discouragement her interest in Arthur was now fully aroused, and more eagerly for the very reason of the limits which her husband had set to her activities. Life at Lapton Manor to a person of Gabrielle's essential vitality was dull. The nature of the surrounding country with its near horizons and lack of physical breadth or freedom imprisoned her spirit. Even Roscarna in its decay had been more vital than this sad, smug Georgian manor-house set in its circle of low hills. Over there, in winter, there had been rough Atlantic weather, and a breath of ice from the snowy summits of Slieveannilaun or the mountains of Maamturk. Here, even in their more frequent sunshine, the air lay dead, ebbing like a sluggish river, from Dartmoor to the sea. In winter the county families went to sleep like dormice, so that no strange-calling conveyances passed the lodge-gates at Lapton, and the life of Gabrielle was like that of those sad roses that lingered on the south wall beneath her bedroom window in a state that was neither life nor death. If she had shared Considine's interest in his profession things might have been different. No doubt she would have thrown herself into it with enthusiasm; but her enthusiasm was of a very different nature from the steady flame that burned in Considine. No doubt he knew this, and felt that her sharing would be disturbing by its violence. In the ordinary course of events I suppose he expected that she would have another child, but as this interest was denied her, she was thrown more and more upon her own resources.

Her promise to Mrs. Payne gave her a reasonable excuse for her growing interest in Arthur. She had never returned to the card-playing incident; but as time went on a number of others equally distressing presented themselves. Having constituted herself his special protectress and the saviour of his reputation she tackled each of them with courage. In every case she found herself baffled by the fact that arguments which seemed to her unanswerable made no appeal to him, not because he wasn't anxious to see things with her eyes, but because they came within the area of a kind of blind-spot in his brain. She soon found that she couldn't appeal on moral grounds to an a-moral intelligence. She would have appealed on grounds material, but it seemed to be ironically decreed that material and moral grounds should be rarely at one. Sweet persuasion was equally useless. And indeed, how could she expect to succeed by her influence where maternal love had failed so signally? Even so, she would not own herself beaten. It was tantalising; for the more she saw of Arthur the better she liked him, and in these days she was seeing a good deal of him.

The opportunity arose from Arthur's trouble. He had told her the truth when he said his fellow-pupils at Lapton were already aware of his lack of honour in games. Nothing is less easily forgiven by boys, and when the others discovered that he cheated and lied, not so much by accident as on principle, they began to treat him as an outcast from their decent society. The Traceys went so far as to report his failing to Considine. An unpleasant contretemps, but one that Considine had expected. He explained to them that Payne was not entirely to blame, and that his constitution was not normal. He advised them to take the weakness for granted. Even when he did this he knew that such distinctions were unlikely to be acceptable to a boyish code of honour. On the other hand the special fees that Mrs. Payne was paying him were essential to the development of his plans. As a compromise he decided to keep Arthur apart from the others in their amusements in the most natural way he could devise. Practically for want of a better solution he handed him over to the care of Gabrielle.

Arthur resented this. He was fond of games and of sport. He liked winning and he liked killing; he thought it humiliating to his manly dignity to be relegated to Gabrielle's society. He wrote bitterly to his mother about it, using the contemptuous nickname that the boys had invented for Mrs. Considine.

"I think old Considine," he wrote, "must be thinking of turning me into a nursemaid. I'm always being told off to help Gaby in the garden or take her for drives in the pony-cart. Not much fun taking a woman shopping!"

But Gabrielle was glad of it. The new plan supplied her with the first prolonged companionship of a person of her own age—there were less than three years between them—that she had known. Little by little Arthur accepted it, and they became great friends.

It was a curious relation, for though it must have been simple on his side, on hers it was full of complication. To begin with his society was a great relief from her loneliness. Again, she had already, for want of another enthusiasm, conceived an acute interest in his curious temperament, and her eagerness to get to the bottom of it, and, if possible, to find a cure, was now fanned by something that resembled a maternal passion. They spent the greater part of his spare time together, and often, at hours when he would normally have been working with Considine, she would ask for him to take her driving into Totnes or Dartmouth, their two market towns. In the evenings they would walk out together in search of air along the lip of the basin in which Lapton Manor lay.

On one of these evening walks a strange thing happened. They had climbed the hills and had sat for a few minutes on the summit watching the sun go down behind the level ridges that lead inward from the Start. While they were sitting there in silence, Arthur suddenly slipped away over the brim of a little hollow full of bracken on the edge of the wood. A moment later Gabrielle heard him laughing, and walked over quietly to see what he was doing. She saw him crouched, quite unconscious of her presence, among the ferns at the bottom of the hollow. He had caught a baby rabbit, and now he was torturing the small terrified creature, its beady eyes set with fear, just as a cat plays with a mouse. He was watching it intently: letting it escape to the verge of freedom and then catching it and throwing it violently back. For a second it would lie motionless with terror and then make another feeble attempt at escape. She watched this display of animal cruelty with horror, and yet she could not speak, for she wanted to see what he would do next. At last the rabbit refused to keep up the heartless game any longer. It simply lay and trembled. Arthur prodded it with his foot, but it would not move. This appeared to incense him. He took a flying kick at the poor beast and killed it. It lay for a moment twitching, its muzzle covered in blood. A little thing no bigger than a kitten two months old——

Gabrielle ran to him flaming with anger. She picked up the mutilated rabbit and hugged it to her breast.

"Why did you do that? You beast, you devil!" she cried.

She could have flown at him in her anger. Arthur only laughed. He stood there laughing, staring straight at her with his wide honest eyes.

"It's dead. It's all right," he said.

Her fingers were all dabbled with the blood of the rabbit that twitched no longer. She could do nothing. She dropped the carcase with a pitiful gesture of despair and burst into bitter tears.

She sat sobbing on the edge of the hollow. She could not see him, but presently she heard his voice, curiously shaken with emotion, at her side.

"I say, Mrs. Considine," he said. "Don't—please don't—I simply can't stand it."

"Oh, get away—leave me alone," she sobbed. "I can't bear you to be near me. It was so little. So happy——"

He wouldn't go. He spoke again, and his voice was quite changed—she had never heard a note of feeling in it before. "I can't bear it. You—I can't bear that you should suffer. I swear I won't do a thing like that again—not if it hurts you. On my honour I won't."

"Yes, you will. I suppose you can't help it. It's awful. You haven't a soul. You aren't human."

His voice choked as he replied. "I swear it—I do really. I could do anything for you, Mrs. Considine. I feel that I could. For God's sake try me!"

She compelled herself, still sobbing, to look at him. She saw that his face was tortured, and his eyes full of tears. But she could say no more, and they walked home in silence.



XIV

This distressing picture troubled Gabrielle for several days, and yet, beneath her remembrance of anger and disgust, she could not help feeling a curious excitement when she reflected that, for the first time since she had known him, Arthur had shown her signs of pity and tenderness. For a little while they lived under its shadow though neither of them spoke of it again. Arthur, in particular, was awkward; but whether he were ashamed of his cruelty, or merely of the effect that it had produced on her, she could not say. Although she found it difficult to believe in the first explanation she was deeply touched, and perhaps a little flattered, by the possibility of the second. Certainly his attitude toward her had changed. In everything that he said or did, he now seemed pathetically anxious to please her, and even this was encouraging. She didn't tell Considine what had happened. She knew very well that he would consider the incident trivial and, in a few words, shatter her illusion of its significance. And this fear proved that she was not so very sure that it was significant herself.

The curious atmosphere that now developed between them revealed itself more particularly in the letters which they were both of them writing to Mrs. Payne at Overton. Arthur's had never been very fluent, but Gabrielle had found an outlet for herself in this correspondence. In his early letters from Lapton Arthur had rarely mentioned Gabrielle; whenever he had done so it had been half contemptuously, as though the feeling of repression which emanates from the best of schoolmasters had attached itself to the schoolmaster's wife. At the same time Gabrielle had been brief, but extremely natural. With the card-playing incident a new situation had developed. Arthur, as we have seen, had been inclined to turn up his nose at Gabrielle's society when it was thrust upon him by Considine, while Gabrielle had given signs of a more maternal care. In the later stages of this period Gabrielle, being taken as a matter of course, had practically dropped out of Arthur's letters. The episode of the rabbit changed all this, for while Arthur now began to expand in a naive enthusiasm, Gabrielle's attempts at writing about him fell altogether flat. Judging by her letters Mrs. Payne might reasonably have supposed that she had grown thoroughly sick of the boy.

The real cause of her reticence was not so easily fathomable. I suppose it was her instinctive method of withdrawing a subject that was secretly precious to her from the knowledge of the one person in the world who might reasonably assert a right to share it. If she had analysed it, no doubt she would have proved that her interest in Arthur was more intimate than she had ever confessed. But she didn't analyse it. Neither, for that matter, did Mrs. Payne. Looking backward, a year later, that good woman realised what a psychological howler she had made. At the time she was merely thankful that Arthur was happy in the society of a woman whom she liked and trusted—to whom, indeed, she had more or less confided him—and sorry that at the very moment when her influence might have counted, Gabrielle appeared to be losing interest in the boy. It cheered her to think that Arthur was expressing any admiration so human and, to be frank, so unlike himself. She was even more cheered when she received Considine's report on him at the beginning of the Christmas holidays. "There have been one or two unpleasant incidents," wrote the tactful Considine, "but during the latter part of the term I must say that your boy's conduct has been practically unexceptionable. I think it is only right to tell you that I have great hopes of him." At the same time Gabrielle was silent.

Of course Considine didn't really know as much about it as she did. He had seen the broad effects of Arthur's adoration—for that is what it was now becoming—but he knew nothing of the struggles that had gone to their making. During the latter part of the term his conduct had not been by any means "unexceptionable"; but it was part of Gabrielle's queer policy of secrecy to hide any lapse on Arthur's part from her husband. She tackled them alone, forcing herself, against her own compassionate instincts, to play upon Arthur's feelings. She had now discovered that where appeals to general morality, or even to reason, were bound to fail, the least sign of suffering on her part could reduce Arthur to a miserable and perfectly genuine repentance. Such was the end of all their struggles; and there were many; for she would not let the least sign of his old weakness pass. At times she felt that she was cruel, but she allowed herself to be harrowed, finding, perhaps, in the pain that she inflicted on both of them, something that was flattering both to her conscience and to her self-esteem.

During all this time there was nothing approaching intimacy between them. To him, however he might adore her, she was always Mrs. Considine. In all their relations they preserved the convention that she was a creature of another world and of another age. No doubt his childishness made the illusion easy to him. With her there must surely have been moments of emotion when she realised that the barrier was artificial. It is impossible to say how soon the first of these moments came.

Certainly when he returned to Overton for the holidays with Considine's encouraging report, she felt terribly lonely. For the last two months she had concerned herself so passionately with the discovery—one might almost say the creation—of his soul, that his departure left her not only with a physical blank, but with a spiritual anxiety. She wondered all the time what was happening to him; whether in her absence he was keeping it up or drifting into a state of tragic relapse. On the evening before he left she had made him promise to write to her, but his boyish letters were wholly unsatisfactory. She believed that he was telling her the truth in them, and yet he told her so little. She even wished that she had kept up the habit of writing to Mrs. Payne; for the least sidelight on the condition of affairs at Overton would have been grateful to her. She did write to Mrs. Payne, but destroyed the letter, feeling that a sudden revival of her custom when Arthur was no longer at Lapton would seem merely ridiculous.

The Christmas holidays were a dreary time for her. Deserted by all youth the Manor House slipped back into its ancient and melancholy peace. Winter descended on them. She had been told that the climate of South Devon resembled that of Connemara, but this was not the kind of winter that she had known before. Snow never fell, as it used to fall on her own mountains, turning Slieveannilaun into a great ghost, and bringing the distant peaks of the Twelve Pins incredibly nearer. Perhaps snow fell on Dartmoor; but from Lapton Dartmoor could not be seen. In those deep valleys it could only be felt as a reservoir of chilly moisture, or a barrier confining cold, dank air. Instead of snowing it rained incessantly. The soft lanes became impassable with mud, turning Lapton into a peninsula, if not an island.

At the New Year they went on a visit to Halberton House. During their stay there Lady Barbara conceived a sudden and violent passion for Gabrielle, that culminated in Gabrielle being taken solemnly to her cousin's virginal bedroom and hearing the story of an old unhappy love-affair. All the time that she listened to Lady Barbara's plaintive voice Gabrielle was wondering what had happened at Overton, and whether Arthur was keeping to the solemn undertaking that he had given her. She wondered if it were possible that regard for his mother's feelings might now be filling the place of her own influence; if Mrs. Payne were arrogantly taking to herself the credit for the miracle which Lapton had seen so laboriously begun. She hoped, knowing that it was wicked of her to do so, that this had not happened. She felt that the change in Arthur was hers and hers only. She found herself forced to confess that she was jealous of Mrs. Payne....

"And then," said Lady Barbara, "just when I was certain, positively certain that he cared for me—after that morning in church, you know—his mother broke her leg huntin' in Leicestershire. The wire came in with the mornin' letters, and the first thing I knew of his goin' was seein' the luggage cart with his hat-box in the drive. Then, poor dear, he met this widow at a dance at Belvoir. I begged mother to let me go and stay with the Pagets at Somerby, but she said it would be undignified. He was killed in the Chitral a year later. I felt I must tell you, dear, because I can't help feelin' a little envious of your happy marriage. Dr. Considine is such a man ... and I always feel it's so safe marryin' a clergyman."

The idea of envying her marriage with Considine was so ridiculous that Gabrielle couldn't repress an inexcusable smile, but Lady Barbara cut short her blushing apology. "I don't begrudge you your happiness, my dear," she said.

Seeing Lady Barbara sitting opposite to her with her thin arms sticking straight out of a camisole, and two plaits of hair pathetically trailing one on either side of her narrow forehead, Gabrielle was suddenly overwhelmed with the consciousness of her own youth—not only that, but her amazing difference in temperament from these people of her own blood. Retiring from her cousin's chaste kisses to her own room, she stood for a long while in front of her mirror, tinglingly aware of her freshness and beauty and vitality. Considine, emerging from his dressing-room, found her there.

"Vanity, vanity!" he said, taking her in his arms and kissing her. Gabrielle suddenly thought how glad she would be to hand him over to the admiring Lady Barbara. She remembered the chill kiss of her cousin, and then the kiss of Considine. Neither of them, she decided, was a real kiss.

The new term began on the twenty-fifth of January. Gabrielle had awaited it with a subdued excitement. When the day came, she compelled herself to appear more placid than usual. It was a sunny morning of the kind that often gives a feeling of spring to the Devon winter, a morning full of promise. Considine had suggested that she should drive into Totnes and do some shopping before meeting the train from the Midlands, but she would not do so. All morning she made herself busy in the house, and later in the day, hearing the wheels of the wagonette on the drive, she slipped out into the garden to visit a border where the crocus spears were pushing through the soil. She could not explain her own sudden shyness. She was tremulous, tremulous with life. There was a smell of spring in the air. Arthur came out to find her in the garden. His eyes glowed with the pleasure of seeing her again, but she would not look at him.

"Well," she said, "what happened?"

"Oh, it was all right," he said. "I think it was all right. I'm almost sure of it. I always thought of you, you see. Imagined what you'd think of me." He didn't say that he had considered what his mother would think. She was suddenly, jealously, thankful.

With his return she regained her content, feeling no longer the weight of winter. He spoke no more regretfully of his exclusion from the sports of the other pupils and they settled down once again into their happy routine of walks and drives. In a little while the crocuses burst into flame in the borders, and in the hedges the wild arums began to unfold.

One Friday afternoon in the middle of March she asked Considine to let Arthur drive her into Dartmouth. The day was so mild that they chose the high-road that skirts the edge of Start Bay. There was a feeling of holiday in the air, for the sea beneath them was of a pale and shimmering blue like a stone blazing with imprisoned light or a butterfly's wing. On the road they met a long procession of carriers' vans heaped high with shopping baskets, and the happy faces of country people stared at them from under the hoods. The road shone white, having been scoured with rain, and all the hedgerows smelt of green things growing, with now and then a waft of the white violet. The sky was so clear that they could see the smoke of many liners, hull down, making the Start. When they reached the crest of the hill above Dartmouth a man-of-war appeared, a three-funnelled cruiser, steaming fast towards the land. She was so fleet and strong that she seemed to share in the exhilaration of the day. They dropped down slowly into Dartmouth and lost sight of her.

Gabrielle had a great deal of shopping to do, and Arthur drove her from one shop to another, waiting outside in the pony-trap while she made her purchases. Then they had tea together in a restaurant on the quay. They had never been more happy together. When they came out of the tea-shop on to the pavement they found themselves entangled in a group of sailors, liberty-men who had been disembarked from the cruiser that now lay anchored in the mouth of the Dart. They came along the footpath laughing, pleased to be ashore. Arthur and Gabrielle stood aside to let them pass, and as they did so Gabrielle saw the name H.M.S. Pennant upon their cap-ribbons. She became suddenly pale and silent. The light had faded from the day. She begged Arthur to drive her home as quickly as he could.

Arthur was puzzled by her strangeness. He could not understand why she did not speak to him. They drove on in silence through the dusk. So they came to the point at which the coast road turns inward towards Lapton Huish, a lonely spot where the cliffs break away into low hills, and the highroad runs between a ridge of shingle on one side and on the other two reedy meres. The night was windless, and they heard no sound but a faint shivering of reed-beds, and the plash and withdrawal of languid waves lapping the miles of fine shingle with a faint hiss like that of grain falling on to a mound.

On the bridge that spanned the channel connecting the two meres Gabrielle asked him to stop. He did so, wondering, and she climbed out of the trap, and leaned upon the coping, looking out over the water. He couldn't think what to make of her. He did not know how dear is mystery to the heart of a woman. He stood by, awkwardly looking at her. At last she said slowly, "I hate the sea.... I hate it. But I love lake-water," which didn't lead much further. But he knew that she was for some reason unhappy, and found this difficult to bear. He came near to her, leaning over the bridge at her side.

"I wish you'd tell me what's the matter," he said. "It's all very well your helping me, but it's a bit one-sided if I can't do anything for you."

She gazed at his shadowy face in the darkness, and then gently put her hand on his. She felt a kind of shudder go through him as he clasped it.



XV

After that night it is difficult to believe that Gabrielle any longer deceived herself, though I do not suppose that Arthur realised the true meaning of their relation. The significant feature in it is that he was gradually and almost imperceptibly becoming a normal human being. Gabrielle had begun by developing in him a substitute for a conscience; for since he had begun to consider everything that he said or did in the light of its probable effect upon his idol, it had become a habit with him to follow a definite code of conduct, and the saying that habit is second nature finds an example in his extraordinary case.

It is fascinating, but I believe profitless, to speculate on the subtle hereditary influences that underlay their attraction for each other. One can imagine that their state presented an example of the way in which people of abnormal instincts tend to drift together: Arthur, the a-moral prodigy, and Gabrielle, the last offshoot of the decayed house of Hewish, daughter of the definitely degenerate Sir Jocelyn. But I do not think that there was anything abnormal or decadent in Gabrielle's composition. Her nature was gay and uncomplicated, in singular contrast to her involved and sombre fate. One is forced to the conclusion that the Payne miracle was the result of nothing more uncommon than the natural birth of a tender passion between two young people of opposite sexes, whom chance had isolated and thrown into each other's company. The specialist who had vaguely suggested to Mrs. Payne the hope that manhood might work a change in Arthur had been nearer the mark than he himself supposed, for though the physical state effected nothing in itself, its first consequence, the growth of an ideal love, became his soul's salvation.

Of all that happened during the Easter term we can know nothing, save that it was spring, that they were supremely happy, and that Considine was blind ... blind, that is, to everything in the case but the results of Arthur's infatuation. These, indeed, were so obvious that he could not very well miss them. The boy's essential childishness, the thing that had added an aspect of horror to his habits of stealth and cruelty, gradually disappeared. He began to grow up. I mean that his mind grew up, for he had already shown a premature physical development. Practically the space of a single term had changed him from a child into a man. Considine, seeing this, innocently flattered himself upon the admirable results of his educational system. A country life, with plenty of exercise in the open air, and an unconventional but logical type of literary education that was his own invention. Result: "Mens sana in corpore sano." Arthur was a show case, and seemed to make possible the acquisition of a long series of "difficult" pupils at enormous and suitable fees.

When once the boy got going, the rate of his mental development made it difficult for Considine to keep pace with him. His mind, that had once been slow, worked with a sort of feverish activity, as though he were subconsciously aware that he had whole years of leeway to make up. The other pupils, who had always taken Arthur's comparative dulness for granted, and looked down upon him for it, noticed the change, and found that if they were not careful he would outstrip them. At the same time they began to discover that he was a thoroughly good fellow and to wonder how on earth they had been so mistaken in him before. From being something of an outcast he now became a favourite, asserting, for the first time, the full advantage of his physical maturity.

Considine was quick to take advantage of the change. He had always been tempted by the idea of examination successes, and although he realised the disadvantage with which Arthur, in his renaissance, was starting, he saw no reason why the boy should not eventually do him credit in some public competition. There should be no difficulty for example, in getting him into Sandhurst ... or, perhaps, Woolwich, as his new aptitude for mathematics suggested. He wrote at length to Mrs. Payne, discussing these possibilities. This was his quiet and considered way of revealing to her his success.

Mrs. Payne, whose glimpses of the new Arthur in the Christmas holidays had buoyed her with hopes in which she dared not place too much faith, replied to his letter in a fever of excitement. Was it really possible to think of such a career? Was there now no fear that if Arthur went to Woolwich or Sandhurst something terrible might happen? Of course, seeing what he had done already, she was prepared to trust Dr. Considine's judgment in everything; but in any case, if the future that he suggested were remotely possible, she would very much rather that Arthur should not go into the army. One of their neighbours had lately been killed in the Boer War.

Her letter paved the way for Considine's triumph. He wrote and told her that he thought he could now safely say that there was nothing at all abnormal about her son. He did not wish to take undue credit for the revolutionary change in Arthur's disposition, but could not help feeling that the boy was a credit to the Lapton regime. Seeing that Arthur was her only son he could quite understand her objection to his adopting the hazardous calling of a soldier. As an alternative he now suggested the Civil Service. Arthur's money—if he might descend to such a practical consideration—would be extremely useful to him if he served under the Foreign Office. Of course he could not promise success, but under the new conditions he thought it worth while trying to prepare Arthur for one of the examinations. Mrs. Payne consented. She only hoped that Considine had not been deceived.

Arthur did not object to the process of cramming that he now underwent at Considine's hands. His newly-awakened thirst for knowledge was not easily quenched. Considine, taking his education as a serious proposition for the first time, naturally considered that the many hours that Arthur spent with Gabrielle were waste. He also felt that since he was now acceptable to them as a sportsman, Arthur should take his place again with the other boys. He had not calculated the effect of his decision on Gabrielle or on Arthur himself. That it could have any effect at all upon her had never entered his mind.

Gabrielle painfully decided that she would say nothing, but Arthur found himself torn between two interests. Even during the growth of his devotion to Gabrielle he had always felt a sneaking suspicion that his constant enjoyment of her society was a little derogatory to his manly dignity. He knew that his big limbs were made for more active pursuits than walking over a hillside at a woman's pace, or driving a pony-cart into Dartmouth. At the same time he saw that he could not now desert her without a feeling of shame in addition to that of love.

"What shall I do about it?" he said to her.

"You must do what you think right." The sentence would have had no meaning less than six months before.

"It isn't that exactly, I suppose I must do what Dr. Considine orders."

"Very well.... You must do what he orders."

"I shall never see you, Mrs. Considine!" She was still Mrs. Considine to him. For answer she only took his hand and smiled.

From that time he followed obediently his master's plans. Considine kept him busy, and the walks and drives that he had taken with Gabrielle almost ceased. At first, making a deliberate sacrifice, she had wondered if she would lose him; but she need never have feared this. The moments in which they met were stolen and therefore sweet. She still remained the confidante of all his emotions and thoughts, and since the time in which these confidences could be given to her was now so short, each moment of it burned with a new intensity. They met by calculated chances and in strange places; and their meetings were lovers' meetings, even if they never spoke of love.

If the holidays at Christmas had been a desolation to Gabrielle, her parting from Arthur next Easter was clouded by a sense of more positive want. It was the season of lovers, days of bright sunshine, evenings of a surpassing tenderness. She went to the station with him in the pony-cart alone. She sat like a statue in the trap while the train puffed its way slowly up the gradient and its noise died away in a rhythmical rumble. When she awoke to the fact that he had gone she felt a sudden impulse to do something desperate, if only she could think of anything desperate to do. She felt that she would like to shock Considine and the Halbertons and the whole county, to be, for one moment, outrageous and unrestrained. But she couldn't do anything of the kind; her wild spark of energy seemed so pathetically small and feeble against the vast inertia of that dreamy countryside. Even if she were to cry out at the top of her voice she couldn't assert her identity; those huge passive folds of green country wouldn't believe her. They wouldn't accept the fact that she was Gabrielle Hewish, now called Considine. To them she was just the wife of a country parson dawdling through the leafy lanes in a pony-trap. She lashed the pony into a canter, but felt no better for it. The animal settled down again into his shamble. No power on earth could make him keep on cantering over the hills of the South Hams, and he knew it.

Arrived at Lapton she handed over the pony to a groom and set off walking violently across country, hoping in this way to cool the heat of her blood. She felt that she would like to go on walking till she dropped, but as soon as her limbs began to tire she knew that this would not bring her content. She hurried back to the Manor a few minutes late for dinner. Considine, to whom unpunctuality was the eighth deadly sin, was pacing up and down the hall, his hands behind his back, with the impatience of an animal prowling in a cage.

"Ah, here you are at last!" he said.

They went in to dinner, but she could not eat. Considine's appetite was as regular as everything else in his time-table. He ate heartily and methodically. She found it difficult to sit still and watch him eating.

"What's the matter with you?" he said at last.

"I don't know. I'm restless to-day."

"Well, there's no reason why you shouldn't rest now that the house is empty again. The holidays come as a great relief in a place like this. And the Spring Term is always the most trying."

He watched her narrowly, then and for several days afterwards. When he became solicitous about her health she always knew that he was wondering if at last she was going to fulfil his desire for a child of his own. On these occasions he overwhelmed her with attentions.

Meanwhile Arthur, in the best of spirits, had arrived at Overton. Mrs. Payne awaited him in a state of tremulous emotion. Now, for the first time, she was to see her son made whole. Her elation was not without misgiving, for the news of the miracle was almost too good to be true; she couldn't help feeling that the Considines had judged him with a scrutiny more superficial than her own, and though it was not for her to dispute the intellectual blossoming that had raised such hopes in his master, she couldn't be sure about the deeper, moral change until she had seen for herself. Certainly his appearance on the station platform gave her a sudden thrill of pleasure. Her boy had become a man; his body had gained in solidity and balance, and his upper lip was fledged with a fair down. He took her in his arms and kissed her with a serious manliness that was new to her, and made her heart leap with pride. His voice, too, had deepened. It was soft and low and uncannily like his father's. Time after time she was struck by little tricks of gesture and expression that were familiar to her, but had never appeared in him before. He was indeed a stranger, yet a hundred times more lovable than the son she had known.

A couple of days convinced her that the change was not merely something added, but vital and elemental. He showed it in a multitude of small things—in his consideration for the servants, in his attentions to herself, in the serious interest that he showed in matters that had not touched him before, in affairs, in books, in newspaper politics. Even so she had been flattered too often by transient improvements to be convinced. Deliberately and fearfully she tested him, but never found him wanting. Then her joy and thankfulness were too deep for words.

And yet the position was not without its awkwardness. She knew that Arthur was kinder, more human, and—if that were possible to her—more lovable, but, in spite of these things, she could not help feeling that there was something in this new and delightful nature that was foreign to herself ... foreign, and even, subtly, hostile. It seemed to her that in some peculiar way he was on the defensive. Up to a certain point she could enter freely into his confidence, but after that point she knew in her heart that there was something that he denied her. Now, more than ever in her life, she wanted to feel that he was wholly hers; and now, if she were to confess the truth, he seemed less hers than he had ever been before. At times, indeed, when their intimacy should have been at its best, she felt that she had lost him altogether, and that his mind was hundreds of miles away from her, as indeed it was. She consoled herself by supposing that his life was now so crowded with new interests and dreams of future adventure that he could be forgiven if their wonder enthralled and overwhelmed him. It was indeed a wonderful thing if this son of hers, at the age of seventeen, should see life with the eyes of a child new-born into the world. She envied him this ecstasy, even though its real explanation was far simpler than that which she imagined. When he walked in silence with her through the fields, or sat dreaming under the cedar on the lawn when evening came, it is possible that Arthur had sight of the new heaven and new earth that she imagined, for his eyes were lover's eyes. But this she never guessed.



XVI

In the last week of the holidays, if only Mrs. Payne had been more acute, she might have surprised his secret. Walking the lowest of their meadows on the side of Bredon Hill, they came suddenly upon a southern slope already powdered with the flowers of cowslips. This cloth of gold was the chief glory of their spring, blooming mile on mile of meadowland, and drenching the air with a faint perfume. Mrs. Payne stooped to pick some, for the scent provoked so many memories, and to her it was one of the sensations that returned year by year with amazing freshness—that and the spice of pinks in early summer or the green odour of phlox. "Smell them, they smell like wine," she said, giving her bunch to Arthur.

"Mrs. Considine told me that there are no cowslips in their part of Devon," he said. And then, after a moment of hesitation, he went down on his knees and began to pick the flowers. The hue of their smooth stalks was pale as the first apple-leaves, springing straight and slender each above its leafy mat.

"Why are you picking so many? They're more beautiful as they are."

"If they haven't any I'd like to send her some?"

He went on picking cowslips till the light faded from the fields. Next morning he packed them carefully, and posted them, with a letter, to Lapton. She thought it very charming and thoughtful of him to send Mrs. Considine the flowers. It merely struck her as typical of his new nature, and she thought it rather shabby of Gabrielle, when, after three days of waiting, she had not acknowledged the gift. Altogether she felt that Mrs. Considine had been rather a broken reed as far as Arthur was concerned. In the beginning she had taken to her, and expected quite a lot of her. Arthur, too, seemed disturbed that she did not reply. Day after day he waited for a letter from Lapton with eagerness. There was no reason why he shouldn't have been anxious to know that his present had not gone astray. She had not seen the note that Arthur posted with his flowers.

With no more than the vaguest mistrust—for she still felt that in some way she had fallen short of full possession, Mrs. Payne saw him return to Lapton for the summer term. During the early weeks Arthur scarcely ever wrote to her, and when she protested mildly, his reply seemed to her evasive. It was a dutiful reply, and though she couldn't help admitting that in Arthur the recognition of any duty was a new thing, the suspicion that for some obscure reason she was losing him, persisted. She was not in the ordinary way a woman of acute intuitions, but her whole mind had been so wrapped up in that son of hers that she was sensitive to the smallest changes of tone, and she knew that while he was writing her letters his head had been full of other things. At the same time she had sense enough to see that with his recovery Arthur's life had become crowded with so many new interests that she couldn't reasonably expect the old degree of absorption in herself. This was the price of his recovery, and she determined to pay it without grudging.

She settled down into this state of patience and resignation. She even prepared to deny herself her usual privilege of a visit to Lapton in term-time, feeling that it would be unfair of her to interrupt the progress of Considine's remarkable system. In the meantime she kept in touch with Arthur through her jealous care of the things that he had left behind, in the arrangement of his books, in the mending of his clothes, and in the preparation of an upstairs room that he had begun to turn into a study for his holiday reading. On these inanimate traces of him she lavished a peculiar tenderness, for their presence had the effect of making her feel less lonely.

One day she took up to his new study a number of note-books that he had used during the Easter holidays. When he had sat out under the cedar in the evenings she had often noticed him writing with a pencil though she had never thought to enquire what he was doing. Now, with a chance curiosity, she happened to open one of these books and examine what he had written. She saw at once that they were verses, and laughed at the idea. But when she had read one or two of his poems she laughed no longer. She realised at once that they were love-poems, feeble and amateurish in their expression, but daringly sensual and passionate in their content. They made the good woman blush—her husband had never been so direct in his days of courtship—but to her blushes succeeded a moment of fierce maternal alarm. It was impossible, she thought, that anyone innocent of a violent sexual passion could have conceived the ideas that the verses contained. They were fully as physical, and nearly as direct, as the love-songs of Herrick. She was not only shocked, but frightened, for her long years of widowhood had isolated her from all feelings of the kind that Arthur expressed so glibly. She read the poems over again and again. She could not sleep at night for thinking of them. In the end she became convinced that the thing which she had feared most had come to pass; that even if the coming of manhood had brought to Arthur the birth of a moral sense in matters of ordinary social intercourse, the gain had been neutralised by the release of a new instinct that was powerful enough to wreck the rest. The boy was obviously and violently in love—not with any shadowy dreamed ideal, but actually with a woman of definite physical attributes. It was almost possible to reconstruct a picture from the poems. A skin of ivory, grey eyes, hair that was like night, red lips, pale hands, all rather commonplace, but, none the less, damningly definite.

It is curious that the image of Gabrielle never suggested itself to her. Perhaps it was the fact that Arthur, for some unaccountable reason, probably because he usually saw them in a half-light, had made her violet eyes—an unmistakable feature—grey. As the matter stood Mrs. Payne was convinced that he had become entangled, and intimately entangled, with some dangerous and designing woman. It was her plain duty to save him. The only thing that restrained her from immediate action was the fear that any big emotional disturbance might undo the work that Considine had already accomplished. She didn't in the least connect the passion with the reformation, and yet she wondered if interference with the one might somehow prejudice the other. It was a harrowing dilemma.

In the end, with her accustomed courage, she decided to face the risk. At any rate no harm need be done by her taking Considine into her confidence. She encouraged herself with a pathetic trust in his stability and wisdom in all matters that affected Arthur. Without even the warning of a telegram she made her decision, ordered the carriage for the station and set off for Lapton.

She arrived there late on a Saturday night to the astonishment of the Considines, who had disposed of the boys for the evening, and were sitting together in the library. Considine, who prided himself on never being surprised by an emergency, welcomed her as if there were nothing unusual in her visit, and Gabrielle, a little nervous, went off to see the housekeeper, and arrange about a room for the visitor. At the door Mrs. Payne stopped her. "If you don't mind," she said, "I should be glad if you wouldn't let Arthur know that I'm here."

Considine was quick to agree: "Certainly not, if you wish it."

Gabrielle left them and he prepared to hear her story. She was very agitated, and found it difficult to express herself. For a little time, in spite of Considine's encouragements, she beat about the bush. She felt that her revelation would amount to a criticism of Considine's management.

At last, realising that she was getting no further, she produced her documents and handed them to him.

Considine examined them slowly and judicially without a flicker of emotion. It seemed to Mrs. Payne a very solemn moment, full of awful possibilities. She waited breathlessly for his verdict.

"Well?" he said at last, putting the papers aside.

"Arthur wrote them."

"Yes.... I recognised his writing."

"He is in love with some woman."

"Presumably ... yes. But I'm not so sure of that."

"What do you mean?" She gasped at the prospect of relief.

He explained to her at length. It was a very common thing for boys of Arthur's age, he said, to write verse.

"Verses of that kind?"

Yes... even verses of that kind. To be perfectly candid he himself, when a boy in his teens, had done very much the same sort of thing. It was true perhaps that the verses which he had written had not been quite so ... perhaps frank was the best word. On the other hand his own development had followed more normal lines. He hadn't, in the manner of Arthur, burst suddenly into blossom. All boys wrote verses. Often they wrote verses of an amatory character, not particularly because they happened to be in love, but because the bulk of English lyrical poetry, to which they went for their models, was, regrettably, of an amatory character. At this stage in a boy's development, even in the development of the greatest poets (and Arthur, he noticed in passing, did not show any signs of amazing genius) the verses were usually imitative. It rather looked as if he had been reading Herrick, or possibly the Shakespeare sonnets ... the dark lady, you know. Seriously, he didn't think there was anything to worry about. He folded the papers and handed them back to her.

For once in a way Considine didn't satisfy her. There were other things, she said. Things that she hadn't attached any value to at the time when they happened, but which now seemed significant. When she came to think of it Arthur's whole behaviour during the holidays had been that of a youth who was in love. With all deference to Dr. Considine she felt that she couldn't pass the matter over. It was her plain duty to enquire into it, and find, if possible, a more obvious reason for this strange and sudden outburst.

Considine agreed that no harm could be done by a little quiet investigation. At the same time he couldn't possibly see what opportunities Arthur could have had for falling in love at Lapton.

"We're very isolated here," he said. "The Manor is a kingdom in itself. It seems to me that circumstances would force him to invent an ideal for the want of any living model."

She shook her head. There was no isolation, she said, into which love could not enter; and this, in the face of classical precedent, Considine was forced to admit. Could she, then, make any suggestions?

Mrs. Payne said, "Servants," and blushed.

Considine also blushed, but with irritation. The suggestion brought the matter uncomfortably near home.

"I think you can put that out of your mind," he said. "I'll admit that I did not consider this point when I engaged them, but I do not think you'll find any one peculiarly attractive among them."

"They're women," said Mrs. Payne obstinately.

It seemed to her that Considine's incredulity was forcing them both into a blind alley.

"If you don't mind," she said, "I think it would be better for me to talk the matter over with your wife. A woman, if you'll allow me to say so, is much more acutely sensitive to ... this kind of thing."

Again Considine blushed. The prospect of engaging Gabrielle in the matter was altogether against his principles. He had always made it a rule that her essential femininity should not be compromised by any contact with the business of the school. He did not even like her to take an intimate share in the management of the house. After all she was a Hewish and a cousin of the august Halbertons. That was why he had employed Mrs. Bemerton as housekeeper.

"I shall be obliged," he said, "if you don't mention a matter that may possibly become unsavoury, to Mrs. Considine. She knows nothing of the servants, and I prefer her to take no part in the affairs of my pupils."

Altogether the good woman felt that she had been snubbed for her pains. She had expected a great deal from Considine, and even more from Gabrielle. Still, if Considine objected to his wife being consulted, she was prepared to accept his decision. The only course that remained open to her was to make enquiries for herself, and determine, by observation, what women were possibly available for the disposal of Arthur's affections.

"Very well," she said with a sigh. "If you don't wish me to speak to your wife, of course I won't."

"If you'll pardon my saying so, I think you're unduly anxious. After all, the most obvious thing is to ask Arthur himself. Why not do that?"

She hesitated and then spoke the truth.

"I'm afraid he'd tell me a lie. I don't want him to do that ... now. I'd much rather find out for myself. I wish I could believe you. I do indeed."

She paused for a moment and then said, almost as if she were speaking to herself, "There's no place where there aren't opportunities. Farmer's daughters ... village girls. There are more women in the world than there are men."

He couldn't help smiling at the mathematical accuracy of her remark, but once more he shook his head.

"At any rate," she said, returning to the practical aspect of the case, "I suppose you've no objection to my staying here for a day or two, and keeping my eyes open. Failing anything else I will speak to Arthur about it."

"Please consider the house your own," said Considine, who had now recovered his usual politeness.

"Thank you," she said. "You're very kind. But you know how grateful I am to you already."

Mrs. Considine returned, and a little later showed her to her room. In the candle-light of the passage Mrs. Payne was assailed by an overwhelming desire to break her promise and disclose her troubles to Gabrielle. She felt that her quest was so lonely. Gabrielle seemed to her sympathetic and she knew that it would be a great relief to her to discuss the affair with another woman. As they paused at her bedroom door, her old attraction towards Mrs. Considine that had once culminated in an impulsive kiss took hold of her again. She wanted, for some obscure reason, to kiss Gabrielle once more. Perhaps there was something in the attraction of her opposite physical type that accounted for this impulse as well as for Arthur's infatuation. For the present she suppressed her inclination. After all Considine had acted fairly enough with her, and she felt that she could not fail him in a point of honour.

Alone in her room she read over Arthur's poems again. Now that she was so near to him they impressed her less with a sense of fear and anxiety than with one of pity and of love. He was her child, and therefore to be protected and caressed. She found it difficult not to leave her room in the night, and grope her way along the creaking corridors to the room in which she knew he was sleeping. She wanted to kiss him and hold him in her arms. She placed the poems on the table at her bedside and blew out the candle. It was unfortunate for her bewilderment that Arthur had not left in his notebook the rough copy of the verses that he had sent to Gabrielle with the box of cowslips, the verses to which she had not dared to reply.

Next morning at breakfast Arthur and his mother met. All through the holidays she had been indefinitely conscious of an awkwardness between them; now, with so much guilty knowledge in her mind, the relation became definitely embarrassing. She wondered if he felt it as deeply as she did. Certainly he showed no sign of any emotion but surprise at her visit.

"But if you came last night, why on earth didn't you come along to my room?" he said. "And why are you so mysterious? What's it all about?"

She put him off as well as she could. "I wanted to see you, that was all," she said. "I thought you would be pleased by the surprise," and then: "You don't seem very pleased."

"Of course I'm pleased," he said, blushing. "But I don't understand it."

Whatever he said she knew in her heart that she wasn't wanted. It was a bitter thing to realise, but it made her more than ever certain that there was a secret to be disclosed.

After breakfast the Sunday morning routine of a country house began. She and Arthur walked together over the fields to church. The whole country breathed a lazy atmosphere of early summer. Its beauty and its placidity mocked her. Before them went the Considines. He wore a long cassock that swept the grass, as they went, while Gabrielle walked in silence at his side. Never once in their journey did she look back. It struck Mrs. Payne for the first time how young she was, how very much younger and more supple than her husband. And yet they seemed to be happy.

The service was the usual slow ceremony of a village church, Considine moving with the dignity of his vestments from the lectern and the altar to the organ seat which he also occupied. Arthur, standing or kneeling at his mother's side, appeared to be properly engrossed in the service. Singing the psalms beside him she became aware how much of a man he was now, for his voice, that had been cracking for several years, had now sunk to a deep and sonorous bass.

It was not until Considine ascended the pulpit and began to preach, that Mrs. Payne became conscious of anything extraordinary. At first she was held by the sermon, which was unusually well constructed, but in the middle of it she became aware that Arthur was not listening. He sat straight in the pew beside her as though he were intent on the preacher, but all the time his eyes were wandering to the other side of the aisle. Mrs. Payne tried to follow their direction. Here, presumably, was a fairly representative collection of the female inhabitants of the village. Here she might expect to find the farmer's daughter, or, in the last emergency, the housemaid, on whom his affections were centred. She heard no more of Considine, only watching Arthur's eyes, and watching, she soon discovered that these were for Mrs. Considine and her alone. She could not deny the fact that Gabrielle, with her fine pale profile set against a pillar of grey sandstone, was a creature of amazing beauty. She herself was fascinated by this vision of refinement and grace to such a degree that she almost shared in Arthur's rapture.

For a little while she could not be sure of it, for this was the last possibility that had entered her mind: but at last it seemed that Gabrielle became conscious of the gaze that she could not see. Suddenly, without the least warning, she turned her head in Arthur's direction. Their eyes met. She blushed faintly, and, at the same moment, became aware of Mrs. Payne. The blush deepened, spreading into the ivory whiteness of her neck; and Mrs. Payne had no need to look at her any longer, for she knew.

Her mind leapt quickly to the whole situation. In the light of this evidence she recalled a hundred things that had not even puzzled her before. She saw the reason for the strange fate that had overtaken their correspondence, she divined the secret of Gabrielle's sudden reticence, and the break in Arthur's frank enthusiasms. She knew that she had made a triumphant discovery, but in her elation realised that it would be wiser to go gently. This was a secret that could not be blurted out without disaster. The situation needed careful handling.

Once in possession of certain knowledge it was no longer difficult for her to interpret Arthur's moods. In the afternoon when they sat out under the trees on the lawn, she stumbled on a strange corroboration. She had fallen into a doze in a lounge chair at his side, and when she awoke she saw that he was reading poetry. He seemed to be reading one poem over and over again, and a sudden curiosity made her ask what he was reading. "Tennyson," he said, and closed the book. But he had left a long grass for marker between the pages, and when they moved towards the house at tea-time she picked up the book and opened it. Her eyes fell upon a significant stanza from "Maud."

She came to the village church, And sat by a pillar alone; An angel watching an urn Wept over her, carved in stone: And once, but once, she lifted her eyes, And suddenly, sweetly, strangely blushed, To find they were met by my own ...

Mrs. Payne's heart beat faster as she read the verse. Later in the day, to test him, she asked him what he had been reading. She half expected him to tell her a lie, but, strangely enough, it was the truth that he gave her.

"What do you like about 'Maud'?" she said.

"I like it all," he replied. "It's the kind of thing that anyone might feel." He hesitated. "And there's one part of it in particular——"

She waited, with her heart in her mouth.

"What is that?" she said.

"Oh, right at the beginning. I don't suppose it would mean much to you. I can't remember it exactly, but it starts like this:

I hate the dreadful hollow behind the little wood, Its lips in the field above are dabbled with blood-red heath, The red-ribbed ledges drip with a silent horror of blood ...

I can't remember any more..."

"But why should that appeal to you?" she asked, disappointed.

"I don't know. It reminds me of something that happened to me once."

She did not feel that it would be profitable to press him further on this uninteresting point.



XVII

All that afternoon and evening Mrs. Payne watched them. The role of detective was unnatural to her, and once or twice she couldn't help feeling that it was unworthy, and that she herself was an ogress, they were so young and so unsuspicious. She had an impression not that they were deliberately hiding anything from her, but that the understanding between them somehow tacitly excluded her from their intimacy. She felt out of it at Lapton, hovering impotently on the edge of the magic circle that their passion had created. The strangest thing of all about this amazing relation of theirs was its air of innocence. She was so keenly aware of this, and felt herself so likely to fall a victim to the idea's persuasions, that she had to make an unusual effort, to remain awake and alive to her plain duty, and to the fact that this simple and natural love affair was a crime against society, a disaster that might wreck not only Considine's home, but all Arthur's future.

She could not make up her mind what to do, and this unsettled her, for in the ordinary way she was a woman of determination who acted first and afterwards considered the propriety of her actions. Her first impulse was to go straight to Considine and say, "I told you so." This course presented her with the opportunity of an easy triumph, and was in keeping with her downright traditions; but in this case she was not in the least anxious to make a personal score. She saw that if she told Considine she would be firing the train to an explosion that might end in nothing but useless wreckage. Considine, for instance, admittedly touchy on the subject of Gabrielle, might refuse to believe her and show her the door. Arthur would be forced to leave Lapton; and she thought too highly of Considine's influence on him to run the risk of a relapse. On the other hand Considine might believe her, and put the very worst construction on what she told him. She saw the possibility of Arthur's being landed in the Divorce Court, which was unthinkable. She abandoned the idea of approaching Considine at all.

The next course that suggested itself was that of tackling Arthur; but the atmosphere of mistrust, if not of actual hostility, that at present involved their relations made her think twice about this. She could not dare to treat Arthur as a normal person, for she knew that his hold on normality was recent and precarious, and feared that a violent or passionate scene might undo in a moment all the developments that had been accomplished in the last six months. Even if they escaped this catastrophe it was possible that she might offend him so deeply as to lose him.

There remained Gabrielle, and though she knew that she was old enough to speak to Gabrielle with the authority of a mother, she felt that this would be impossible at Lapton. It was a curious attitude that she found difficult to explain, but it seemed to her that to tackle Mrs. Considine in her husband's house was dangerous, that it would give to Gabrielle an unreasonable but inevitable advantage. At Lapton Mrs. Payne felt she was a stranger, insecure of her ground, and therefore in an inferior position; and this struck her more forcibly when she reflected that, though she was confident of the rightness of her conclusions, the actual evidence that she possessed was extremely small. She admitted to herself that it would be difficult to carry her point on the strength of looks and blushes, and was thankful that she had not been betrayed by her instincts into hasty action.

Lying sleepless on her bed that night with her eyes open in the dark she evolved a new plan that would not only give her the advantage of choosing the site of the coming struggle, but would eliminate the uncertain element of Considine and probably provide her with evidence to strengthen her charge. This change of plan involved a duplicity against which her straightforward nature rebelled, but with Arthur's future at stake she would have stopped at nothing. After breakfast on the Monday morning she went to Considine in his study, thanked him for his kind consideration, and confessed that she had been needlessly alarmed. Considine gracefully accepted this confession and the implied apology, assuring her once more that there was really nothing to worry about. Then, very carefully she made another suggestion. It was usual at Lapton for the pupils to go home for a long week-end at half term. She wondered if Mrs. Considine would like to come back to Overton with Arthur? The rest and change would do her good, and it would be interesting for Gabrielle, who had seen so little of England, to visit Cotswold. Mrs. Payne promised to take great care of her. She gave her invitation in a way that suggested that it was an attempt to make amends for her suspicions. It conveyed at the same time an implicit confidence and an anxiety to please.

Considine tumbled headlong into her trap. He thanked her for her invitation, saying that he had no objection, but that Gabrielle, of course, must decide for herself. His tone made it clear that such a visit must be regarded as a condescension. The Halbertons, he said, had been begging Gabrielle for a long time to spend a week with them, but she was devoted to Lapton.

"At any rate I may ask her?" said Mrs. Payne.

"Certainly, certainly—you'll find her in the garden."

Mrs. Payne was in some doubt as to what Gabrielle's answer would be.

She moved to the proposal obliquely, feeling like a conspirator, and one so unused to conspiracy that her manner was bound to betray her. They began by talking about the gardens at Overton, the beauty of Cotswold stone, the essential difference of her country from that in which Lapton lay.

"You can't know England," she said, "until you've seen the Vale of Evesham."

She didn't care twopence ha'penny for the Vale of Evesham—she was just talking for time. Gabrielle listened to her very quietly, and Mrs. Payne took her silence for evidence that she was playing her hand badly. This flustered her. She became conscious of the fact that nature had built her too roughly for diplomacy. Not daring to hedge any longer she blurted out her invitation, and Gabrielle, instantly delighted, accepted, transforming herself, in Mrs. Payne's mind from a subtle designing creature into something very like a victim. So, for one moment she appeared; but in the next Mrs. Payne felt nothing but exultation at the successful beginning of her plan.

"Arthur has told me that there are nightingales at Overton," said Gabrielle dreamily. "I wonder if I shall hear one? There are no nightingales in Ireland or in this part of England." And although Mrs. Payne could hardly accept an interest in ornithology for explanation of her readiness to come to Overton, she was quick to promise that nightingales should be in full song at the next weekend.

Thus having laid her plans, she resisted, though with difficulty, all her impulses to continue her search for evidence. It was hard to do so, for all through the evening Gabrielle and Arthur were together in her presence, and she found it impossible not to watch them out of the corner of her eye or strain her ears to catch what they were saying; but she realised that the least slip at this stage might ruin her chances of success, and devoted her attention or as much of it as she could muster, to Considine. Next morning, with a sense of successful strategy, she returned to Overton by an early train.

The rest of the week was for her a period of acute suspense. For Gabrielle and Arthur it was one of delightful anticipation. On Friday at midday Considine drove them to Totnes station, the scene of their last parting, and set them on their journey. They watched him standing serious on the platform as the train went out, and when they lost sight of his tall figure at a curve in the line, it seemed to them as though the last possible shadow had been lifted from them. In the first part of their journey a soft rain hid the shapes of the country through which they passed, so soft that they could keep the windows open, and yet so dense as to give them a feeling of delicious loneliness, for they could see nothing but the grassed embankments starred with primroses. All through the Devon valleys and over the turf moors of Somerset this weather held. It was not until they had changed at Bristol and crept under the escarpment of the lower Cotswolds that the air cleared.

At a junction below the southern end of Bredon they emerged in an air that this vast sheeting of fine moisture had washed into a state of brilliant clarity. The evening through which they drove to Overton was full of birdsong and sweet with the smell of young and tender green. There was not a breath of wind, but the sky was cool, and into it the old trees lifted their branches with an air of youth and vernal strength. When the road climbed, scattered woodlands stretched beneath them in clear and comely contours. A hovering kestrel hung poised like a spider swinging from a thread. She swooped, and her chestnut back was lit into flame. The great elms that gird the village of Overton received them. Arthur touched up the horse as they swung past the church and a row of cottages with long trim gardens.

Mrs. Payne, who was working on the herbaceous border in front of the house, heard the grating of the carriage wheels on the gravel of the drive. She took off her gardening gloves and came to meet them. Arthur jumped down from the carriage and kissed his mother. Gabrielle, also approaching her, put up her face to be kissed, and Mrs. Payne, who could not very well refuse her, felt that the kiss was a kind of betrayal. She wished, in her instinctive honesty, that it could have been avoided.

It was a bad beginning, and gave her a hint of the kind of emotional conflict that she had let herself in for when she assumed the role of detective. What made it a hundred times worse was the fact that she really liked kissing Gabrielle, for her kindly heart warmed to the girl again as it had warmed when first they met. "I'm sentimental," she thought, "for heaven's sake let us get it over!"

Gabrielle, however, was quite unconscious of the struggle that divided Mrs. Payne's breast. She was a child launched on a holiday with the friend of her choice in the most delightful season of the year. She didn't scent any hostility in the atmosphere of Overton; and this was strange in a person who moved through life by the aid of intuitions rather than reasons. She felt contented at Overton, just as she had felt contented at Roscarna. She was more at home there than she could ever have been at Lapton or Clonderriff; her mind was as sensitive to sky changes as the surface of a lonely lake. Mrs. Payne had given her an airy bedroom facing west, and while the maid unpacked her things Gabrielle stood at the window looking out over meadows, golden in the low sun. Beneath her lay the lawns, smooth and kempt and of a rich, an almost Irish green, on which the black shadows of cedar branches were spread. A tall hedge of privet divided the lawns from the vegetable garden in which a man was working methodically. She saw the pattern of paths and hedges from above as though they were lines in a picture. In the middle of the lawn stood a square of clipped yew trees, making a hollow chamber of the kind that formal gardeners call a yew-parlour, with a stone sundial in the middle of it. "What a jolly place for children to play in," she thought. A blackbird broke into a whistle in the privet hedge and brought her heart to her mouth. Could any nightingale sing sweeter?

"I think that is all, madam," said the maid demurely. Gabrielle smiled at her and thanked her, and the girl smiled back. Like everything else in Mrs. Payne's admirably managed house she was fresh and clean, homelier than the frigid servants at Halberton House, happier—that was the only word—than Gabrielle's own servants at Lapton. Yes, happier——

When she came downstairs Arthur was waiting for her.

"I thought you were never coming," he said. Their time was short and he was anxious to show her all the altars of his childhood. They met Mrs. Payne in the hall. She smiled at them with encouragement, for it was part of her settled plan to let them have their own way and so tempt them into a naturalness that might betray them. She, too, had the feeling that she was fighting against time.

Arthur was full of enthusiasms. They went together to the stables, where he introduced her to Hollis, the coachman standing in his shirtsleeves in a saddle-room that smelt of harness-polish. He stood in front of a cracked mirror brushing his hair, hissing softly, as though he were grooming a horse, and round his waist was a red-striped belt of the webbing out of which a horse's belly-band is made.

"Well, Mr. Arthur, you're looking up finely, sir," he said, touching his forelock. Even the stables exhaled the same atmosphere of pleasant leisure as the house.

"I want you to get a side-saddle ready for Brunette to-morrow, Hollis," said Arthur. "Mrs. Considine and I are going for a ride over the hill."

At the end of the stables they encountered a pair of golden retrievers. For a moment they stared at Arthur, and then, suddenly recognising him, made for him together, jumping up with their paws on his shoulders and licking him with their pale tongues.

"What beauties," Gabrielle cried.

"Yes, they come from Banbury," he said. "I'll get you a pup next term if you'd like one."

Their evening was crowded with such small wonders. "I can't show you half the things I want to," he said. "It's ridiculous that you should only be here for three days." He would have gone on for ever, and she had to warn him when the clock in the stables struck seven that they had only just time to dress for dinner. On the way upstairs he showed her his new study, with the bookshelves that he had bought in the last holidays.

"I do all my writing here," he said, and then suddenly but shyly emboldened: "it was here that I wrote to you when I sent you the cowslips."

He had never dared to mention the incident before.

"You didn't answer me," he went on. "Why didn't you answer me? I wish you'd tell me."

"Arthur—I couldn't—you know that I couldn't."

A panic seized her and she went blushing to her room.

She was still flushed with excitement or pleasure when she came down to dinner. Mrs. Payne, in a matronly dress of black, sat at the head of the table with Arthur and Gabrielle on either side of her facing each other. The arrangement struck her as a triumph of strategy. From this central position she could see them both and intercept any such glances as had passed between them in the church at Lapton. In this she was disappointed, for there was nothing to be seen in the behaviour of either but a transparent happiness. "They only want encouragement," she thought, and settled down deliberately to put them at their ease, a proceeding that was quite unnecessary for the last feeling that could have entered either of their minds was that of guilt.

So the evening passed, in the utmost propriety. No look, no sign, no symptom of unusual tenderness appeared. It even seemed that Gabrielle was particularly anxious to make the conversation general. "Oh, you're artful!" thought Mrs. Payne, "but I'll have you yet." They talked of Lapton, of Considine and of the Traceys. Only once did Mrs. Payne surprise a single suspicious circumstance.

"I showed Mrs. Considine the dogs, mother," he said. "She's fallen in love with Boris."

"Yes, his eyes are like amber," said Gabrielle.

"So I thought I'd like to write to Banbury to-morrow and get her a puppy."

"Certainly, dear," said Mrs. Payne suavely. Bedtime came. Gabrielle and Arthur shook hands in the most ordinary fashion. Mrs. Payne, seeing Gabrielle to her door and submitting, once again, to an uncomfortable kiss, felt that her triumphant plan had already shown itself to be a failure. She went along the passage to her own room with a sense of bewilderment and defeat. She could not sleep for thinking. She wondered, desperately, if when all other methods had failed, as she now expected they would, she could possibly approach their secret from another angle, laying aside her watchful inactivity and becoming in defiance of all her principles an "agent provocateuse." If it came to the worst she might be forced to do this, for very little time was left to her. If she remained static she would be powerless. Next day, she reflected, they had planned a ride over the flat top of Bredon Hill. She could not go with them; she could not even watch them; yet who knew what shames might be perpetrated in that secrecy as they rode through the green lanes of the larch plantations? Never was a better solitude made for lovers. Her imaginings left her tantalised and thwarted, for she was sure now, more than ever, that there was a secret to be surprised.

She lay there sleepless in the dark till the stable clock slowly struck twelve. Then she sighed to herself and decided that she must try to sleep.



XVIII

Lying thus, upon the verge of slumber, Mrs. Payne became aware of a sound of light steps in the corridor outside her room. She opened her eyes and lay with tense muscles listening. The sound was unmistakable, and the steps came from the direction of Arthur's room, the only one on that side of hers that was occupied. The steps came nearer. Passing her bedroom door they became tiptoe and cautious, as though the walker, whoever he might be, was anxious not to arouse her attention. The sound passed and grew fainter down the length of the corridor, and she knew then that the very worst had happened, for Gabrielle's room lay at the end of the passage. Many things she had dreaded, but not this last enormity.

She crept out of bed, neglecting in her anxiety to put on a dressing-gown, and went softly to the door. She wondered how she could open it without making a noise, and if, when she had opened it, she could hear at such a distance.

Very carefully with her hot hand she turned the door handle and opened a small chink that fortunately allowed her to look along the passage towards Gabrielle's room. Through a window halfway down the corridor moonlight cut across it, throwing on the floor the distorted shadow of an Etruscan vase. She remembered that Arthur's father had bought it in Italy on their honeymoon, yet, while this thought went through her mind, her ears were strained to listen. She could do no more, for the further end of the passage was plunged by this insulating flood of moonlight into inscrutable darkness.

It was so quiet that she felt that she had missed him; he had already entered her room; but while she considered the awful indignity of surprising him there, the sound of a light tapping on the door's panel relieved her. She thanked God that she was still in time.

The knock was repeated and evidently answered, for now she heard him speak in a whisper. He called her Mrs. Considine—it was ridiculous! "Are you awake?" she heard. "The nightingale—yes, the nightingale. We could go down into the garden under the trees. If you're game. How splendid of you! ... Yes, I'll wait below .... Outside, under your window."

Before Mrs. Payne could pull herself together she heard his steps returning. She closed the door fearfully. He came along the passage and stopped for a moment just outside her room. There was nothing between them but an oak door, so thin, she felt, that he must surely hear her anxious breath. She dared not breathe, but in a moment he passed by.

Why had he stopped outside her door? What curious filial instinct had made him think of her at that moment? Had he thought kindly, or only perhaps suspiciously, wondering if she were safely asleep? She couldn't tell. Her mind was too full of disturbing emotions to allow her to think. One thing emerged foremost from her confusion, a feeling of devout thankfulness that her first fears had not been justified, and as the dread of definite and paralysing defeat lifted from her mind, she realised with a sudden exultation that chance had given her the very opportunity for which she had been waiting and scheming. If she went carefully she might see them together, alone and unsuspecting, and know for certain by their behaviour how far matters had gone.

She dared not switch on the light or strike a match for fear that her windows might become conspicuous. Very gently she released one of the blinds, admitting the light of the luminous sky. She dressed hurriedly, catching sight of her figure in the long pier glass as she pulled on her stockings. For the moment it struck her as faintly ludicrous to see this middle-aged woman in a long white nightdress behaving like a creature in a detective story. It was extravagant. People of her age and figure and general sobriety didn't do this sort of thing in real life. But the seriousness of her mission recalled her, and while she had been considering the picturesque aspects of the case she found that she had actually, unconsciously dressed ... and only just in time, for now she heard the lighter step of Gabrielle in the passage.

The sound gave her a sudden flush of anger. She wanted, there and then, to open her door and ask Gabrielle where she was going. It was tantalising to let the thing go on and hold her hand. She clutched on to the foot of the bed to save herself from doing anything so rash. Gabrielle's steps passed, and the house was quiet again. The most difficult moment had come. "I hope to goodness none of the servants are awake," she thought...

Reaching the top of the staircase she heard them whispering in the hall. It seemed that they were going out brazenly by the front door, and since it seemed to her that to follow them closely would be dangerous she herself hastened round to the back staircase and let herself out of the house by a side door set in an angle of the building that sheltered her.

An eastward drift of cloud came over, hiding the moon, and she was glad of this, for the crude moonlight had put her to shame by its brilliance. She wondered to see the clouds moving so fast, for in the garden not a tree stirred but one aspen that made a sound as of gentle rain. She heard the grating of their feet on the drive, and then, by the sudden cessation of this sound, guessed that they had stepped on to the lawn. Arthur's low voice came to her clearly. "He's stopped singing, but I think he'll sing again," and from Gabrielle a whispered "Yes."

Mrs. Payne could scarcely be certain of the words she heard: she knew that she ought in some way to get nearer to them, but the expanse of dewy turf by which they were surrounded made it impossible for her to approach without being seen. Very cautiously she cut across to the left and into the shelter of the privet hedge, along which she stole until she reached their level.

They stood together in the middle of the lawn without speaking. At last Gabrielle shivered. Arthur noticed it quickly. "I hope you're not cold," he said.

"No, I'm not cold—only—only we're so exposed out here. If we could get a little more into the shadow I should feel more comfortable——"

"That's easily managed," he said laughing. "We can go over by the sundial. It's called a yew-parlour, I think. It might have been made for us."

So they passed into its shade. Mrs. Payne noticed eagerly that his hand was not on her arm. The yew hedge that now sheltered them concealed her also from their sight, and, greatly relieved, she crept along her cover of privet into the shadow of a mulberry tree where, by stooping a little, she could watch them unperceived.