"Yes, of course, it is rather hard to draw the line," said Maud, "and I think it is a pity to be solemn about it; but it seems to me so simple in this case. You can do the work—they want you back—there is no reason why you should not go back."

"Perhaps it is mere laziness," said Howard, "but I feel as if I wanted a different sort of life now, a quieter life; and yet I know that there is a snare about that. I rather mistrust the people who say they must get time to think out things. It's like the old definition of metaphysics—the science of muddling oneself systematically. I don't think one can act by reason; one must act by instinct, and reason just prevents one's making a fool of oneself."

"I believe the time for the other life will come quite naturally later," said Maud. "At your age, you have got to do things. Of course it's the same with women in a way, but marriage is their obvious career, and the pity is that there don't seem enough husbands to go round. I can sit in my corner and placidly survey the overstocked market now!"

Howard got up and leaned against the chimneypiece, surveying his wife with delight. "Ah, child," he said, "I was lucky to come in when I did. I shiver at the thought that if I had arrived a little later there would have been 'no talk of thee and me' as Omar says. You would have been a devoted wife, and I should have been a hopeless bachelor!"

"It's unthinkable," said Maud, "it's horrible even to speculate about such things—a mere question of proximity! Well, it can't be mended now; and the result is that I not only drive you back to work, but you have to carry me back as well, like Sindbad and the old man of the sea."

"Yes, it's just like that!" said Howard.

He made several attempts, with Mr. Sandys and with his aunt—even with Miss Merry—to get encouragement for his plan; but he could obtain no sympathy.

"I'm sick of the very word 'ideal,'" he said to Maud. "I feel like a waiter handing about tumblers on a tray, pressing people to have ideals—at least that is what I seem to be supposed to be doing. I haven't any ideals myself—the only thing I demand and practise is civility."

"Yes, I don't think you need bother about ideals," said Maud, "it's wonderful the depressing power of words; there are such a lot of fine and obvious things in the world, perfectly distinct, absolutely necessary, and yet the moment they become professional, they deprive one of all spirit and hope—Jane has that effect on me, I am afraid. I am sure she is a fine creature, but her view always makes me feel uncomfortable—now Cousin Anne takes all the things one needs for granted, and isn't above making fun of them; and then they suddenly appear wholesome and sensible. She is quite clear on the point; now if SHE wanted you to stay, it would be different."

"Very well, so be it!" said Howard; "I feel I am caught in feminine toils. I am like a child being taught to walk—every step applauded, handed on from embrace to embrace. I yield! I will take my beautiful mind back to Cambridge, I will go on moulding character, I will go on suggesting high motives. But the responsibility is yours, and if you turn me into a prig, it will not be my fault."

"Ah, I will take the responsibility for that," said Maud, "and, by the way, hadn't we better begin to look out for a house? I can't live in College, I believe, not even if I were to become a bedmaker?"

"Yes," said Howard, "a high-minded house of roughcast and tile, with plenty of white paint inside, Chippendale chairs, Watts engravings. I have come to that—it's inevitable, it just expresses the situation; but I mustn't go on like this—it isn't funny, this academic irony—it's dreadfully professional. I will be sensible, and write to an agent for a list. It had better just be 'a house' with nothing distinctive; because this will be our home, I hope, and that the official residence. And now, Maud, I won't be tiresome any more; we can't waste time in talking about these things. I haven't done with making love to you yet, and I doubt if I ever shall!"



XXXIII

ANXIETY

The months moved slowly on, a time full of deepening strain and anxiety to Howard. Maud herself seemed serene enough at first, full of hope; she began to be more dependent on him; and Howard perceived two things which gave him some solace; in the first place he found that, sharp as the tension of anxiety in his mind often was, he did not realise it as a burden of which he would be merely glad to be rid. He had an instinctive dislike of all painful straining things—of responsibilities, disagreeable duties, things that disturbed his tranquillity; but this anxiety did not come to him in that light at all; he longed that it should be over, but it was not a thing which he desired to banish from his mind; it was all bound up with love and happy anticipation; and next he learned the joy of doing things that would otherwise be troublesome for the sake of love, and found them all transmuted, not into seemly courtesies, but into sharp and urgent pleasures. To be of use to Maud, to entertain her, to disguise his anxieties, to compel himself to talk easily and lightly—all this filled his soul with delight, especially when he found as the months went on that Maud began to look to him as a matter of course; and though Howard had been used to say that being read aloud to was the only occupation in the world that was worse than reading aloud, he found that there was no greater pleasure than in reading to Maud day by day, in finding books that she cared for.

"If only I could spare you some of this," he said to her one day, "that's the awful thing, not to be able to share the pain of anyone whom one loves. I feel I could hold my hand in the fire with a smile, if only I knew that it was saving you something!"

"Ah, dearest, I know," said Maud, "but you mustn't think of it like that; it INTERESTS me in a curious way—I can't explain—I don't feel helpless; I feel as if I were doing something worth the trouble!"

At last the time drew near; it was hot, silent, airless weather; the sun lay fiercely in the little valley, day by day; one morning they were sitting together and Maud suddenly said to him, "Dearest, one thing I want to say; if I seem to be afraid, I am NOT afraid: will you remember that? I want to walk every step of the way; I mean to do it, I wish to do it; I am not afraid in my heart of hearts of anything—pain, or even worse; and you must remember that, even if I do not seem to remember!"

"Yes," said Howard, "I will remember that; and indeed I know it; you even take away my own fears when you speak so; love takes hands beneath it all."

But on the following morning—Maud had a restless and suffering night—Mrs. Graves came in upon Howard as he tried to read, to tell him that there was great anxiety, Maud had had a sudden attack of pain; it had passed off, but they were not reassured. "The doctor will be here presently," she said. Howard rose dry-lipped and haggard. "She sends you her dearest love," she said, "but she would rather be alone; she doesn't wish you to see her thus; she is absolutely brave, and that is the best thing; and I am not afraid myself," she added: "we must just wait—everything is in her favour; but I know how you feel and how you must feel; just clasp the anxiety close, look in its face; it's a blessed thing, though you can't see it as I do—blessed, I mean, that one CAN feel so."

But the fear thickened after this. A carriage drew up, and Howard saw two doctors descend, carrying bags in their hands. His heart sickened within him, yet he was helped by seeing their unembarrassed and cheerful air, the nod that one of them, a big, fresh-faced man, gave to the coachman, the look he cast round the beautiful old house. People could think of such things, Howard saw, in a moment like that. He went down and met them in the hall, and had that strange sense of unreality in moments of crisis, when one hears one's own voice saying courteous things, without any volition of one's own. The big doctor looked at him kindly. "It is all quite simple and straightforward!" he said. "You must not let yourself be anxious; these times pass by and one wonders afterwards how one could have been so much afraid."

But the hours brought no relief; the doctors stayed long in the house; something had occurred, Howard knew not what, did not dare to conjecture. The silence, the beauty of the whole scene, was insupportably horrible to him. He walked up and down in the afternoon, gazing at Maud's windows—once a nurse came to the window and opened it a little. He went back at last into the house; the doctors were there, talking in low tones to Mrs. Graves. "I will be back first thing in the morning," said one; the worst, then, had not happened. But as he appeared a look of inquiry passed between them and Mrs. Graves. She beckoned to him.

"She is very ill," she said; "it is over, and she has survived; but the child is dead."

Howard stood blankly staring at the group. "I don't understand," he said; "the child is dead—yes, but what about Maud?"

The doctor came up to him. "It was sudden," he said; "she had an attack—we had anticipated it—the child was born dead; but there is every reason to believe that she will recover; it has been a great shock, but she is young and strong, and she is full of pluck—you need not be anxious at present; there is no imminent danger." Then he added, "Mr. Kennedy, get some rest yourself; she may need you, and you must not be useless: I tell you, the first danger is over and will not recur; you must just force yourself to eat—try to sleep."

"Sleep?" said Howard with a wan smile, "yes, if you could tell me how to do that!"

The doctors departed; Howard went off with Mrs. Graves. She made him sit down, she told him a few details; then she said, "Dearest boy, it's no use wasting words or pity just now—you know what I feel; I would tell you plainly if I feared the worst. I do NOT fear it, and now let me exercise my art on you, for I am sure I can help you a little. One must not play with these things, but this is in earnest."

She came and sate down beside him, and stroked his hair, his brow; she said, "Just try, if you can, to cast everything out of your mind; relax your limbs, be entirely passive; and don't listen to what I say—just let your mind float free." Presently she began to speak in a low voice to him; he hardly heeded what she said, for a strange drowsiness settled down upon him like the in-flowing of some oblivious tide, and he knew no more.

A couple of hours later he awoke from a deep sleep, with a sense of sweet visions and experiences—he looked round. Mrs. Graves sate beside him smiling, but the horror suddenly darted back into his mind with a spasm of fear, as if he had been bitten by a poisonous serpent.

"What has been happening?" he said.

"Ah," said Mrs. Graves quietly, "you have been asleep. I have some power in these things, which I don't use except in times of need—some day I will tell you more; I found it out by accident, but I have used it both for myself and others. It's just a natural force, of which many people are suspicious, because it doesn't seem normal; but don't be afraid, dear boy—all goes well; she is sleeping quietly, and she knows what has happened."

"Thank you," said Howard; "yes, I am better; but I could almost wish I had not slept—I feel the pain of it more. I don't feel just now as if anything in the world could make up for this—as if anything could make it seem just to endure such misery. What has one done to deserve it?"

"What indeed?" said Mrs. Graves, "because the time will come when you will ask that in a different sense. Don't you see, dear boy, that even this is life's fulness? One mustn't be afraid of suffering—what one must be afraid of is NOT suffering; it's the measure of love—you would not part with your love if that would free you from suffering?"

"No," said Howard slowly, "I would not—you are right. I can see that. One brings the other; but I cannot see the need of it."

"That is only because one does not realise how much lies ahead," said Mrs. Graves. "Be content that you know at least how much you love—there's no knowledge like that!"



XXXIV

THE DREAM-CHILD

For some days Howard was in an intolerable agony of mind about Maud; she lay in a sort of stupor of weakness and weariness, recognising no one, hardly speaking, just alive, indifferent to everything. They could not let him be with her, they would allow no one to speak to her. The shock had been too great, and the frail life seemed flickering to its close: once or twice he was just allowed to see her; she lay like a tired child, her head on her hand, lost in incommunicable dreams. Howard dared not leave the house, and the tension of his nerves became so acute that the least thing—a servant entering the room, or anyone coming out to speak with him as he paced up and down the garden—caused him an insupportable horror; had they come to summon him to see the end? The frightful thing was the silence, the blank silence of the one he loved best. If she had moaned or wept or complained, he could have borne it better; but she seemed entirely withdrawn from him. Even when a little strength returned, they feared for her reason. She seemed unaware of where she was, of what had happened, of all about her. The night was the worst time of all. Howard, utterly wearied out, would go to bed, and sink into sleep, sleep so profound that it seemed like descending into some deep and oblivious tide; then a current of misery would mingle with his dreams, a sense of unutterable depression; and then he would suddenly wake in the grip of fear, formless and bodiless fear. The smallest sound in the house, the creaking of a door, a footfall, would set his heart beating with fierce hammer strokes. He would light his candles, wander restlessly about, gaze out from his window into the blackness of the garden, where the trees outlined themselves against the dark sky, pierced with stars; or he would try to read, but wholly in vain. No thought, no imagination seemed to have any meaning for him, in the presence of that raging dread. Had he, he wondered, come in sight of the ultimate truth of life? The pain he suffered seemed to him the strongest thing in the world, stronger than love, stronger than death. The thick tides of the night swept past him thus, till the light began to outline the window crannies; and then there was a new day to face, with failing brain and shattered strength.

The only comfort he received was in the presence of his aunt. She alone seemed strong, almost serene, till he wondered if she was not hard. She did not encourage him to speak of his fears: she talked quietly about ordinary things, not demanding an answer; she saw the doctors, whom Howard could not bear to see, and told him their report. The fear changed its character as the days went on; Maud would live, they thought; but to what extent she would regain her strength they could not say, while her mental powers seemed in abeyance.

Mr. Sandys often looked in, but he seemed at first helpless in Howard's presence. Howard used to bestir himself to talk to him, with a sickening sense of unreality. Mr. Sandys took a very optimistic view of Maud's case; he assured Howard that he had seen the same thing a dozen times; she had great reserves of strength, he believed; it was but nature insisting upon rest and quiet. His talk became a sort of relief to Howard, because he refused to admit any possibility of ultimate disaster. No tragedy could keep Mr. Sandys silent; and Howard began to be aware that the Vicar must have thought out a series of topics to talk to him about, and even prepared the line of conversation beforehand. Jack had been sent for at the crisis, but when the imminent danger lessened, Howard suggested that he should go back to Cambridge, in which Jack gratefully acquiesced.

One day Mrs. Graves came suddenly in upon Howard, as he sate drearily trying to write some letters, and said, "There is a great improvement this morning. I went in to see her, and she has come back to herself; she mentioned your name, and the doctor says you can see her for a few minutes; she must not talk, but she is herself. You may just come and sit by her for a few minutes; it will be best to come at once."

Howard got up, and was seized by a sudden giddiness. He grasped his chair, and was aware that Mrs. Graves was looking at him anxiously.

"Can you manage it, dear boy?" she said. "You have had a great strain."

"Manage it?" said Howard, "why, it's new life. I shall be all right in a moment. Does she know what has happened?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Graves, "she knows all—it is you she is anxious about—she isn't thinking of herself at all."

Howard followed his aunt out of the room, feeling suddenly alert and strong. They entered the room; as they did so, Maud turned and looked at him—the faintest tinge of colour had returned to her face; she held out her hands to him, and let them fall again. Howard stepped quickly to the side of the bed, dropped on his knees, and took his wife in his arms. She nestled close to him for a moment, and then looked at him with a smile—then speaking in a very low voice, almost a whisper, she said:

"Yes, I know—you will help me, dearest; yes, I have come back to you—I have been wandering far away, with the child—you know—he wanted me, I think; but I have left him somewhere, safe, and I am sent back—I didn't think I could come back, but I had to choose; I have chosen . . ." her voice died away, and she looked long and anxiously at him. "You are not well," she said; "it is my fault."

"Ah, you must not talk, darling," said Howard; "we will talk later on; just let me be sure that you won't leave me—that is enough, that's all I want, just we two together again, and the dear child, ours for ever."

"The dear child," said Maud, "that is right—he is ours, beloved. I will tell you about him."

"Not now," said Howard, "not now."

Maud gave him a nod, in her old way, just the ghost of a nod; and then just put her face beside his own, and lay in silence, till he was called away. Then she kissed his hand as he bent over her, and said, "Don't be afraid, dearest—I am coming back—it is like a great staircase, with light at the top. I went just to the edge—it's full of sweet sound there, and now I am coming down again. Those are my dreams," she added; "I am not out of my dreams yet."

Howard went out, waving his hand; he found Mrs. Graves beside him.

"Yes," she said, "I have no more fear."

Howard was suddenly seized with faintness, uncontrollable dizziness. Mrs. Graves took him to the library, and made him sit down, but his weakness continued in spite of himself.

"I really am ashamed of myself," he said, "for this dreadful exhibition."

"Exhibition!" said Mrs. Graves, "it's the best thing that can happen. I must tell you that I have been even more anxious about you than Maud, because you either couldn't or wouldn't break down—those are the people who are in danger at a time like this! Why the sight of you has half killed me, dear boy! If you had ever said you were miserable, or been rude or irritable, or forgotten yourself for a moment, I should have been happier. It's very chivalrous and considerate, of course; though you will say that you didn't think of that; but it's hardly human—and now at last I see you are flesh and blood again."

"Well, I am not sure that it isn't what I thought about you," said Howard.

"Ah," said Mrs. Graves, "I am an old woman; and I don't think death is so terrible to me. Life is interesting enough, but I should often be glad to get away; there is something beyond that is a good deal easier and more beautiful. But I don't expect you to feel that."

"You think she will get well?" said Howard faintly.

"Yes, she will get well, and soon," said Mrs. Graves. "She has been resting in her own natural way. The poor dearest baby—you don't know, you can't know, what that means to Maud and even to me; you will have to be very good to her for a long time yet; you won't understand her sorrow—she won't expect you to; but you mustn't fail her; and you must do as you are bid. This afternoon you must just go out for a walk, and you must SLEEP, dear; that's what you want; you don't know what a spectre you are; and you must just get well as quick as you can, for Maud's sake and mine."

That afternoon there fell on Howard after his walk—though the world was sweet to him and dear again, he was amazed to find how weak he was—an unutterable drowsiness against which he could hardly fight. The delicious weariness came on him like a summer air; he stumbled to bed that night, and oh, the wonder of waking in a new world, the incredible happiness that greeted him, happiness that merged again in a strange and serene torpor of the senses, every sight and sound striking sharp and beautiful on his eye and ear.

For some days he was only allowed to see Maud for little lengthening periods; they said little, but just sate in silence with a few whispered words. Maud recovered fast, and was each day a little stronger.

One evening, as he sate with her, she said, "I want to tell you now what has been happening to me, dearest. You must hear it all. You must not grieve yourself about the little child, because you cannot have known it as I did—but you must let me grieve a little . . . you will see when I tell you. I won't go back too far. There was all the pain first—I hope I did not behave very badly, but I was beside myself with pain, and then I went off . . . you know . . . I don't remember anything of that . . . and then I came back again, feeling that something very strange had happened to me, and I was full of joy; and then I saw that something was wrong, and it came over me what had happened. The strange thing is that though I was so weak—I could hardly think and I could not speak—yet I never felt more clear or strong in mind—no, not in mind either, but in myself. It seems so strange that I have never even SEEN our child, not with my eyes, though that matters little. But then when I understood, I did indeed fail utterly; you seemed to me so far away; I felt somehow that you were thinking only about me, and I could simply think of nothing but the child—my own child, gone from me in a moment. I simply prayed with all my soul to die and have done with everything, and then there was a strange whirl in the air like a great wind, and loud confused noises, and I fell away out of life, and thought it was death. And then I awoke again, but it was not here—it was in a strange wide place—a sort of twilight, and there were hills and trees. I stood up, and suddenly felt a hand in my own, and there was a little child beside me, looking up at me. I can't tell you what happened next—it is rather dim to me, but I sate, or walked, or wandered, carrying the child—and it TALKED to me; yes, it talked in a little clear voice, though I can't remember anything it said; but I felt somehow as if it was telling me what might have been, and that I was getting to KNOW it somehow—does that seem strange? It seems like months and years that I was with it; and I feel now that I not only love it, but know it, all its thoughts, all its desires, all its faults—it had FAULTS, dearest; think of that—faults such as I have, and other faults as well. It was not quite content, but it was not unhappy; but it wasn't a dream-child at all, not like a little angel, but a perfectly real child. It laughed sometimes, and I can hear its little laughter now; it found fault with me, it wanted to go on—it cried sometimes, and nothing would please it; but it loved me and wanted to be with me; and I told it about you, and it not only listened, but asked me many times over to tell it more, about you, about me, about this place—I think it had other things in its mind, recollections, I thought, which it tried to tell me; so it went on. Once or twice I found myself here in bed—but I thought I was dying, and only wanted to lose myself and get back to the child—and then it all came to an end. There was a great staircase up which we went together; there was cloud at the top, but it seemed to me that there was life and movement behind it; there was no shadow behind the cloud, but light . . . and there was sound, musical sound. I went up with the child's hand clasped close in my own, but at the top he disengaged himself, and went in without a word to me or a sign, not as if he were leaving me, but as if his real life, and mine too, were within—just as a child would run into its home, if you came back with it from a walk, and as if it knew you were following, and there was no need of good-byes. I did not feel any sorrow at all then, either for the child or myself—I simply turned round and came down . . . and then I was back in my room again . . . and then it was you that I wanted."

"That's all very wonderful," said Howard, musing, "wonderful and beautiful. . . . I wish I had seen that!"

"Yes, but you didn't need it," said Maud; "one sees what one needs, I think. And I want to add something, dearest, which you must believe. I don't want to revert to this, or to speak of it again—I don't mean to dwell upon it; it is just enough for me. One mustn't press these things too closely, nor want other people to share them or believe them. That is the mistake one makes, that one thinks that other people ought to find one's own feelings and fancies and experiences as real as one finds them oneself. I don't even want to know what you think about it—I don't want you to say you believe in it, or to think about it at all. I couldn't help telling you about it, because it seems as real to me as anything that ever happened in my life; but I don't want you to have to pretend, or to accept it in order to please me. It is just my own experience; I was ill, unconscious, delirious, anything you please; but it is just a blessed fact for me, for all that, a gift from God. Do you really trust me when I say this, dearest? I don't claim a word from you about it, but it will make all the difference to me. I can go on now. I don't want to die, I don't want to follow—I only want you to feel, or to learn to feel, that the child is a real child, our very own, as much a part of our family as Jack or Cousin Anne; and I don't even want you to SAY that. I want all to be as before; the only difference is that I now don't feel as if I was CHOOSING. It isn't a case of leaving him or leaving you. I have you both—and I think you wanted me most; and I haven't a wish or a desire in my heart but to be with you."

"Yes, dearest," said Howard, "I understand. It is perfect to be trusted so. I won't say anything now about it. I could not say anything. But you have put something into my heart which will spring up and blossom. Just now there isn't room for anything in my mind but the fact that you are given back to me; that's all I can hold; but it won't be all. I am glad you told me this, and utterly thankful that it is so. That you should be here, given back to me, that must be enough now. I can't count up my gains; but if you had come back, leaving your heart elsewhere, how could I have borne that?"



XXXV

THE POWER OF LOVE

It was a few days later that Howard found himself sitting alone one evening after dinner, with his aunt.

"There is something that I want to talk to you about," he said. "No doubt Maud has told you all about her strange experience? She has described it to me, and I don't know what to say or think. She was wonderfully fine about it. She said she would not mention it again, and she did not desire me to talk about it—or even believe it! And I don't know what to do. It isn't the sort of thing that I believe in, though I think it beautiful, just because it was Maud who felt it. But I can't say what I really believe about it, without seeming unsympathetic and even rough; and yet I don't like there being anything which means so much to her, which doesn't mean much to me."

"Yes," said Mrs. Graves, "I foresaw that difficulty, but I think Maud did right to tell you."

"Of course, of course," said Howard, "but I mean much more than that. Is there something really THERE, open to all, possible to all, from which I am shut out by what the Bible calls my hardness of heart? Do you really think yourself that a living spirit drew near and made itself known to Maud thus? or is it a beautiful dream, a sort of subjective attempt at finding comfort, an instinctive effort of the mind towards saving itself from sorrow?"

"Ah," said Mrs. Graves, "who shall say? Of course I do not see any real objection to the former, when I think of all the love and the emotion that went to the calling of the little spirit from the deeps of life; but then I am a woman, and an old woman. If I were a man of your age who had lived an intellectual life, I should feel very much as you do."

"But if you believe it," said Howard, "can you give me reasons why you believe it? I am not unreasonable at all. I hate the attitude of mind of denying the truth of the experience of others, just because one has not felt it oneself. Here, it seems to me, there are two explanations, and my scepticism inclines to what is, I suppose, the materialistic one. I am very suspicious of experiences which one is told to take on trust, and which can't be intellectually expressed. It's the sort of theory that the clergy fall back upon, what they call spiritual truth, which seems to me merely unchecked, unverifiable experience. I don't, to take a crude instance, believe in statues that wink; and yet the tendency of the priest is to say that it is a matter of childlike faith; yet to me credulity appears to be one of the worst of sins. It is incredulity which has disposed of superstition."

"Yes," said Mrs. Graves. "I fully agree with you about that; and there is a great deal of very objectionable nonsense which goes by the name of mysticism, which is merely emotion divorced from commonsense."

"Yes," said Howard, "and if I may speak quite frankly, I do very much respect your own judgment and your convictions. It seems to me that you have a very sceptical turn of mind, which has acted as a solvent upon a whole host of stupid and conventional beliefs. I don't think you take things for granted, and it always seems to me that you have got rid of a great many foolish traditions which ordinary people accept—and it's a fine attitude."

"I'm not too old to be insensible to a compliment," said Mrs. Graves, smiling. "What you are surprised at is to find that I have any beliefs left, I suppose? And I expect you are inclined to think that I have done the feminine thing ultimately, and compromised, so as to retain just the comfortable part of the affair."

"No," said Howard, "I don't. I am much more inclined to think that there is something which is hidden from me; and I want you to explain it, if you can and will."

"Well, I will try," said Mrs. Graves. "Let me think." She sate silent for a little, and then she said: "I think that as I get older, I recognise more and more the division between the rational part of the mind and the instinctive part of the mind. I find more and more that my deepest convictions are not rational—at least not arrived at by reason—only formulated by it. I think that reason ought to be able to formulate convictions; but they are there, whether expressed or not. Most women don't bring the reason to bear at all, and the result is that they hold a mass of beliefs, some simply inherited, some mere phrases which they don't understand, and some real convictions. A great deal of the muddle comes from the feminine weariness of logic, and a great deal, too, from the fact that they never learn how to use words—words are the things that divide people! But I believe more and more, by experience, in the SOUL. I do not believe that the soul begins with birth or ends with death. Now I have no sort of doubt in my own mind that the soul of your child was a living thing, a spirit which has lived before, and will live again. Souls, I believe, come to the brink of life, out of some unknown place, and by choice or impelled by some need for experience, take shape. I don't know how or why this is—I only believe that it is so. If your child had lived, you would have become aware of its soul; you would have found it to have perfectly distinct qualities and desires and views of its own, not learnt from you, and which you could not affect or change. All those qualities are in it from the time of birth—but it takes a soul some time to learn the use of the body. But the connection between the soul and the father and mother who give it a body is a real one; I don't profess to know what it is, or why it is that some parents have congenial children and some quite uncongenial ones—that is only one of the many mysteries which beset us. Holding all this, it does not seem to me on the face of it impossible that the soul of the child should have been brought into contact with Maud's soul; though of course the whole affair is quite capable of a scientific and material explanation. But I have seen too many strange things in my life to make me accept the scientific explanation as conclusive. I have known men and women who, after a bereavement, have had an intense consciousness of the presence of the beloved spirit with them and near them. I have experienced it myself; and it seems to me as impossible to explain as a sense of beauty. If one feels a particular thing to be beautiful, one can't give good reasons for one's emotion to a person who does not think the same thing beautiful; but it appears to me that the duty of explaining it away lies on the one who does NOT feel it. One can't say that beauty is a purely subjective thing, because when two people think a thing beautiful, they understand each other perfectly. Do I make myself clear at all, or is that merely a bit of feminine logic?"

"No, indeed," said Howard slowly, "I think it is a good case. The very last thing I would do is to claim to be fully equipped for the understanding of all mysteries. My difficulty is that while there are two explanations of a thing—a transcendental one and a material one—I hanker after the material one. But it isn't because I want to disbelieve the transcendental one. It is because I want to believe it so much, that I feel that I must exclude all possibility of its being anything else."

"Yes," said Mrs. Graves, "and I think you are perfectly right; one must follow one's conscience in this. I don't want you to swallow it whole at all. I want you, and I am sure that Maud wants you, just to wait and see. Don't begin by denying the possibility of its being a transcendental thing. Just hold the facts in your mind, and as life goes on, see if your experience confirms it, and until it does, do not pretend that it does. I don't claim to be omniscient. Something quite definite, of course, lies behind the mystery of life, and whatever it is, is not affected by what you or I believe about it. I may be wholly and entirely mistaken, and it may be that life is only a chemical phenomenon; but I have kept my eyes open, and my heart open; and I am as sure as I can be that there is something very much bigger behind it than that. I myself believe that each being is an immortal spirit, hampered by contact with mortal laws, and I believe that consciousness and emotion are something superior even to chemistry. But to use emotion to silence people would be entirely repugnant to me, and equally to Maud. She isn't the sort of woman who would be content if you only just said you believed her. She would hate that!"

"Well," said Howard, smiling, "you are two very wonderful women, and that's the truth. I am not surprised at YOUR wisdom—it IS wisdom—because you have lived very bravely and loved many people; but it's amazing to me to find such courage and understanding in a girl. Of course you have helped her—but I don't think you could have produced such thoughts in her unless they had been there to start with."

"That's exactly what I have tried to say," said Mrs. Graves. "Where did Maud's fine mixture of feeling and commonsense come from? Her mother was a woman of some perception, but after all she married Frank, and Frank with all his virtue isn't a very mature spirit!"

"Ah," said Howard, "my marriage has done everything for me! What a blind, complacent, petty ass I was—and am too, though I at least perceive it! I see myself as an elderly donkey, braying and capering about in a paddock—and someone leans over the fence, and all is changed. I ought not to think lightly of mysteries, when all this astonishing conspiracy has taken place round me, to give me a home and a wife and a whole range of new emotions—how Maud came to care for me is still the deepest wonder of all—a loveless prig like me!"

"I won't be understood to subscribe to all that," said Mrs. Graves, laughing, "though I see your point of view; but there's something deeper even than that, dear Howard. You care for me, you care for Maud; but it's the power of caring that matters more than the power of caring for particular people. Does that seem a very hard saying? You see I do not believe—what do you say to this—in memory lasting. You and I love each other here and now; when I die, I do not feel sure that I shall have any recollection of you or Maud or my own dear husband—how horrible that would sound to many men and nearly all women—but I have learned how to love, and you have learned how to love, and we shall find other souls to draw near to as the ages go on; and so I look forward to death calmly enough, because whatever I am I shall have souls to love, and I shall find souls to love me."

"No," said Howard, "I can't believe that! I can't believe in any life here or hereafter apart from Maud. It is strange that I should be the sentimentalist now, and you the stern sceptic. The thought to me is infinitely dreary—even atrocious."

"I am not surprised," said Mrs. Graves, "but that's the last sacrifice. That is what losing oneself means; to believe in love itself, and not in the particular souls we love; to believe in beauty, not in beautiful things. I have learned that! I do not say it in any complacency or superiority—you must believe me; but it is the last and hardest thing that I have learned. I do not say that it does not hurt—one suffers terribly in losing one's dear self, in parting from other selves that are even more dear. But would one send away the souls one loves best into a loveless paradise? Can one bear to think of them as hankering for oneself, and lost in regret? No, not for a moment! They pass on to new life and love; we cannot ourselves always do it in this life—the flesh is weak and dear; and age passes over us, and takes away the close embrace and the sweet desire. But it is the awakening of the soul to love that matters; and it has been to me one of the sweetest experiences of my life to see you and Maud awaken to love. But you will not stay there—nothing is ultimate, not the dearest and largest relations of life. One climbs from selfishness to liking, and from liking to passion, and from passion to love itself."

"No," said Howard, "I cannot rise to that yet; I see, I dimly feel, that you are far above me in this; but I cannot let Maud go. She is mine, and I am hers."

Mrs. Graves smiled and said, "Well, we will leave it at that. Kiss me, dearest boy; I don't love you less because I feel as I do—perhaps even more, indeed."



XXXVI

THE TRUTH

It was a sunny day of winter with a sharp breeze blowing, just after the birth of the New Year, that Howard and Maud left Windlow for Cambridge. The weeks previous had been much clouded for Howard by doubts and anxieties and a multiplicity of small business. Furnishing even an official house for a life of graceful simplicity involved intolerable lists, bills, letters, catalogues of things which it seemed inconceivable that anyone should need. The very number and variety of brushes required seemed to Howard an outrage on the love of cheap beauty, so epigrammatically praised by Thucydides; he said with a groan to Maud that it was indeed true that the Nineteenth Century would stand out to all time as the period of the world's history in which more useless things had been made than at any epoch before!

But this morning, for some blessed reason, all his vexations seemed to slip off from him. They were to start in the afternoon; but at about eleven Maud in cloak and furred stole stepped into the library and demanded a little walk. Howard looked approvingly, admiringly, adoringly at his wife. She had regained a look of health and lightness more marked than he had ever before seen in her. Her illness had proved a rest, in spite of all the trouble she had passed through. Some new beauty, the beauty of experience, had passed into her face without making havoc of the youthful contours and the girlish freshness, and the beautiful line of her cheek outlined upon the dark fur, with the wide-open eye above it, came upon Howard with an almost tormenting sense of loveliness, like a chord of far-off music. He flung down his pen, and took his wife in his arms for an instant. "Yes," he said in answer to her look, "it's all right, darling—I can manage anything with you near me, looking like that—that's all I want!"

They went out into the garden with its frost-crisped grass and leafless shrubberies, with the high-standing down behind. "How it blows!" said Howard:

"''Twould blow like this through holt and hanger When Uricon the city stood: 'Tis the old wind, in the old anger, But then it threshed another wood!'

How beautiful that is—'the old wind, in the old anger!'—but it isn't true, for all that. If one thing changes, everything changes; and the wind has got to march on, like you and me: there's nothing pathetic about it. The weak thing is to want to stay as we are!"

"Oh yes," said Maud; "one wastes pity. I was inclined myself to be pathetic about it all yesterday, when I went up home and looked into my little old room. The furniture and books and pictures seemed to me to reproach me with having deserted them; but, oh dear, what a fantastic, foolish, anxious little wretch I was, with all my plans for uplifting everyone! You don't know, dearest, you can't know, out of what a stagnant little pool you fished me up!"

"And yet I feel," said Howard, "as if it was you who had saved me from a sort of death—what a charming picture! two people who can't swim saving each other from drowning."

"Well, that's the way that things are done!" said Maud decisively.

They left the garden, and betook themselves to the pool; the waters welled up, green and cold, from the depth, and hurried away down their bare channel.

"This is the scene of my life," said Howard; "I WILL be sentimental about this! This is where my ghost will walk, if anywhere; good heavens, to think that it was not three years ago that I came here first, and thought in a solemn way that it was going to have a strange significance for me. 'Significance,' that is the mischief! But it is all very well, now that every minute is full of happiness, to laugh at the old fears—they were very real at the time,—'the old wind, in the old anger'—one can't sit and dream, though it's pleasant, it's pleasant."

"It was the only time in my life," said Maud, "when I was ever brave! Why isn't one braver? It is agreeable at the time, and it is almost overpaid!"

"It is like what a doctor told me once," said Howard, "that he had never in his life seen a patient go to the operating table other than calm and brave. Face to face with things one is all right; and yet one never learns not to waste time in dreading them."

They went on in silence up the valley, Maud walking beside him with all her old lightness. Howard thought he had never seen anything more beautiful. They were out of the wind now, but could hear it hiss in the grasses above them.

"What about Cambridge?" said Maud. "I think it will be rather fun. I haven't wanted to go; but do you know, if someone came to me and said I might just unpack everything, I should be dreadfully disappointed!"

"I believe I should be too," said Howard. "My only fear is that I shall not be interested—I shall be always wanting to get back to you—and yet how inexplicable that used to seem to me, that Dons who married should really prefer to steal back home, instead of living the free and joyous life of the sympathetic and bachelor; and even now it seems difficult to suppose that other men can feel as I do about THEIR wives."

"Like the boy in Punch," said Maud, "who couldn't believe that the two earwigs could care about each other."

A faint music of bells came to them on the wind. "Hark!" said Howard; "the Sherborne chime! Do you remember when we first heard that? It gave me a delightful sense of other people being busy when I was unoccupied. To-day it seems as if it was warning me that I have got to be busy."

They turned at last and retraced their steps. Presently Howard said, "There's just one more thing, child, I want to say. I haven't ever spoken to you since about the vision—whatever it was—which you described to me—the child and you. But I took you at your word!"

"Yes," said Maud, "I have always been glad that you did that!"

"But I have wanted to speak," said Howard, "simply because I did not want you to think that it wasn't in my mind—that I had cast it all lightly away. I haven't tried to force myself into any belief about it—it's a mystery—but it has grown into my mind somehow, and become real; and I do feel more and more that there is something very true and great about it, linking us with a life beyond. It does seem to me life, and not silence; love, and not emptiness. It has not come in between us, as I feared it might—or rather it HAS come in between us, and seems to be holding both our hands. I don't say that my reason tells me this—but something has outrun my reason, and something stronger and better than reason. It is near and dear: and, dearest, you will believe me when I say that this isn't said to please you or to woo you—I wouldn't do that! I am not in sight of the reality yet, as you have been; but it IS a reality, and not a sweet dream."

Maud looked at him, her eyes brimming with sudden tears. "Ah, my beloved," she said, "that is all and more than I had hoped. Let it just stay there! I am not foolish about it, and indeed the further away that it gets, the less I am sure what happened. I shall not want you to speak of it: it isn't that it is too sacred—nothing is too sacred—but it is just a fact I can't reckon with, like the fact of one's own birth and death. All I just hoped was that you might not think it only a girl's fancy; but indeed I should not have cared if you HAD thought that. The TRUTH—that is what matters; and nothing that you or I or anyone, in any passion of love or sorrow, can believe about the truth, can alter it; the only thing is to try to see it all clearly, not to give false reasons, not to let one's imagination go."

"Yes, yes," said Howard, "that's the secret of love and life and everything; and yet it seems a hard thing to believe; because if it were not for your illusions about me, for instance—if you could really see me as I am—you couldn't feel as you do; one comes back to trusting one's heart after all—that is the only power we have of reading the writing on the wall. And yet that is not all; it IS possible to read it, to spell it out; but it is the interpretation that one needs, and for that one must trust love, and love only."

They went back to the house in a happy silence; but Maud slipped out again, and went to the little churchyard. There behind the chancel, in a corner of the buttress, was a little mound. Maud laid a single white flower upon it. "No," she said softly, as if speaking in the ear of a child, "no, my darling, I am not making any mistake. I don't think of you as sleeping here, though I love the place where the little limbs are laid. You are awake, alive, about your business, I don't doubt. I'd have loved you, guarded you, helped you along; but you have made love live for me, and that, and hope, are enough now for us both! I don't claim you, sweet; I don't even ask you to remember and understand."



THE END