The way in which these two guessed each other's thoughts was phenomenal. Gwen knew all about it. "Come, mamma!" said she. "You know the Bart would not have liked it half so much if I had been a dowdy."

"I cannot pretend to have thought upon the subject." If her ladyship threw a greater severity into her manner than the occasion seemed to call for, it was not merely because she disapproved of her beautiful daughter's want of retenue, or questionable style, or doubtful taste, or defective breeding. You must bear all the circumstances in mind as they presented themselves to her. Conceive what the "nice old Bart" had been to her over five-and-twenty years ago, when she herself was a dazzling young beauty of another generation! Think how strange it must have been, to hear the audacities of this new creature, undreamed of then, spoken so placidly through an amused smile, as she watched the firelight serenely from the arm-chair she had subsided on—an anchorage "three words" would never have warranted, even the most unbridled polysyllables. "Do you not think"—her dignified mamma continued—"you had better be getting ready for dinner? You are always longer than me."

"I'm going directly. Lutwyche is never ready. I suppose I ought to go, though.... You are not asking after my old lady, and I think you might."

"Oh yes," said her ladyship negligently. "I haven't seen you since you didn't go to church with me. How is your old lady?"

"You don't care, so it doesn't matter. How was Dr. Tuxford Somers?"

"My dear—don't be nonsensical! How can you expect me to gush over about an old person I have not so much as seen?" She added as an afterthought:—"However worthy she may be!"

"You could have seen her quite well, when she was here. Papa did. Besides, one can show a human interest, without gushing over."

"My dear, I hope I am never wanting in human interest. How is Mrs.... Mrs....?"

"Mrs. Prichard?"

"Yes—how is she? Is she coming back here?"

"Is it likely? Besides, she can't be moved."

"Oh—it's as bad as that!"

"My dear mamma, haven't I told you fifty times?" This was not exactly the case; but it passed, in conversation. "The darling old thing was all but killed by being told...."

"By being told?... Oh yes, I remember! They were sisters, in Van Diemen's Land.... But she's better again now?"

"Yes—better. Oh, here's Starfield, and there's papa in his room. I can hear him. I must go."

At dinner that evening nobody was in any way new or remarkable, unless indeed Sir Spencer and Lady Derrick, who had been in Canada, counted. There was one guest, not new, but of interest to Gwen. Do you happen to remember General Rawnsley, who was at the Towers in July, when Adrian had his gunshot accident? It was he who was nearly killed by a Mahratta, at Assaye, when he was a young lieutenant. Gwen had issued orders that he should take her in to dinner, when she heard on her arrival that he had accepted her mother's invitation for Christmas.

Consider dinner despatched—the word is suitable, for an approach to haste was countenanced or tolerated, in consideration of the household's festivity elsewhere—and so much talking going on that the old General could say to Gwen without fear of being overheard:—"Now tell me some more about your fellow.... Adrian, isn't he?... He is your fellow, isn't he?—no compliments necessary?"

"He's my fellow, General, to you and all my dear friends. You saw him in July, I think?"

"Just saw him—just saw him! Hardly spoke to him—only a word or two. Your father took me in to see him, because I was in love with his great-grandmother, once upon a time."

"His great-grandmother, General? You must mean his grandmother."

"Not a bit of it, my dear! It's all quite right. I was a boy of eighteen. I'm eighty-four. Sixty-six years ago. If Mary Tracy was alive now, she'd make up to eighty-six. Nothing out of the way in that. She was a girl of twenty then."

"Was it serious, General?"

"God bless me, my dear, serious? I should rather think it was! Why—we ran away together, and went capering over the country looking for a parson to marry us! Serious? Rather! At least, it might have been."

"Oh, General, do tell me what came of it. Did you find the parson?"

"That was just it. We found the Rector of Threckingham—it was in Lincolnshire—and he promised to marry us in a week if he could find someone to give the bride away. He took possession of the young lady. Then a day or two after down comes Sir Marmaduke and Lady Tracy, black in the face with rage, and we were torn asunder, threatening suicide as soon as there was a chance. I was such a jolly innocent boy that I never suspected the Rector of treachery. Never guessed it at all! He told me thirty years after—a little more. Saw him when the Allied Sovereigns were in London—before Waterloo."

"And that young thing was Adrian's great-grandmother!" said Gwen. Then she felt bound in honour to add:—"She was old enough to know better."

"She didn't," said the General. "What's so mighty funny to me now is to think that all that happened about the time of the Revolution in Paris. Rather before."

Gwen's imagination felt the vertigo of such a rough grapple with the Past. These things make brains reel. "When my old twins were two little girls in lilac frocks," said she.

"Your what?" Perhaps it was no wonder—so Gwen said afterwards—that the General was a little taken aback. She would have been so very old to have had twins before the French Revolution. She was able to assign a reasonable meaning to her words, and the old boy became deeply interested in the story of the sisters. So much so that when the ladies rose to go, she said calmly to her mother:—"I'm not coming this time. You can all go, and I'll come when we have to start the dancing. I want to talk to General Rawnsley." And the Countess had to surrender, with an implication that it was the only course open in dealing with a lunatic. She could, however, palliate the position by a reference to the abnormal circumstances. "We are quite in a state of chaos to-day," said she to her chief lady-guest. And then to the Earl:—"Don't be more than five minutes.... Well!—no longer than you can help."

The moment the last lady had been carefully shut out by the young gentleman nearest the door, Gwen drove a nail in up to the head, more suo. Suppose General Rawnsley had lost a twin brother fifty years ago, and she, Gwen, had come to him and told him it had all been a mistake, and the brother was still living! What would that feel like? What would he have done?

"Asked for it all over again," said the General, after consideration. "Should have liked being told, you see! Shouldn't have cared so very much about the brother."

"No—do be serious! Try to think what it would have felt like. To oblige me!"

The General tried. But without much success. For he only shook his head over an undisclosed result. He could, however, be serious. "I suppose," said he, "the twinnery—twinship—whatever you call it...."

"Isn't de rigueur?" Gwen struck in. "Of course it isn't! Any real fraternity would do as well. Now try!"

"That makes a difference. But I'm still in a fix. Your old ladies were grown up when one went off—and then she wrote letters?..."

"Can't you manage a grown-up brother?"

"Nothing over fourteen. Poor Phil was fourteen when he was drowned. Under the ice on the Serpentine. He had just been licking me for boning a strap of his skate. I was doing the best way I could without it ... to get mine on, you see ... when I heard a stop in the grinding noise—what goes on all day, you know—and a sort of clicky slooshing, and I looked up, and there were a hundred people under the ice, all at once. There was a f'ler who couldn't stop or turn, and I saw him follow the rest of 'em under. Bad sort of job altogether!" The General seemed to be enjoying his port, all the same.

Said Gwen:—"But he used to lick you, so you couldn't love him."

"Couldn't I? I was awfully fond of Phil. So was he of me. I expect Cain was very fond of Abel. They loved each other like brothers. Not like other people!"

"But Phil isn't a fair instance. Can't you do any better than Phil? Never mind Cain and Abel."

"H'm—no, I can't! Phil's not a bad instance. It's longer ago—but the same thing in principle. If I were to hear that Phil was really resuscitated, and some other boy was buried by mistake for him, I should ... I should...." The General hung fire.

"What should you do? That's what I want to know.... Come now, confess—it's not so easy to say, after all!"

"No—it's not easy. But it would depend on the way how. If it was like the Day of Judgement, and he rose from the grave, as we are taught in the Bible, just the same as he was buried.... Well—you know—it wouldn't be fair play! I should know him, though I expect I should think him jolly small."

"But he wouldn't know you?"

"No. He would be saying to himself, who the dooce is this superannuated old cock? And it would be no use my saying I was his little brother, or he was my big one."

"But suppose it wasn't like the Day of Judgement at all, but real, like my old ladies. Suppose he was another superannuated old cock! My old ladies are superannuated old hens, I suppose."

"I suppose so. But I understand from what you tell me that they have come to know one another again. They talk together and recall old times? Isn't that so?"

"Oh dear yes, and each knows the other quite well by now. Only I believe they are still quite bewildered about what has happened."

"Then I suppose it would be the same with me and my redivivus brother—on the superannuated-old-cock theory, not the Day of Judgement one."

"Yes—but I want you not to draw inferences from them, but to say what you would feel ... of yourself ... out of your own head."

The General wanted time to think. The question required thought, and he was taking it seriously. The Earl, seeing him thinking, and Gwen waiting for the outcome, came round from his end of the table, and took the seat the Countess had vacated. He ought to have been there before, but it seemed as though Gwen's escapade had thrown all formalities out of gear. He was just in time for the General's conclusion:—"Give it up! Heaven only knows what I should do! Or anyone else!"

Gwen restated the problem, for her father's benefit. "I am with you, General," said he. "I cannot speculate on what I should do. I am inclined to think that the twinship has had something to do with the comparative rapidity of the ... recohesion...."

"Very good word, papa! Quite suits the case."

"... recohesion of these two old ladies. When we consider how very early in life they took their meals together...." The General murmured sotto voce:—"Before they were born." "... we must admit that their case is absolutely exceptional—absolutely!"

"You mean," said Gwen, "that if they had not been twins they would not have swallowed each other down, as they have done."

"Exactly," said the Earl.

"And yet," Gwen continued, "they never remember things as they happened. In fact, they are still in a sort of fog about what has happened. But they are quite sure they are Maisie and Phoebe. I do think, though, there is only one thing about Maisie's Australian life that Granny Marrable believes, and that is the devil that got possession of the convict husband.... Why does she? Because devils are in the Bible, of course." Here the devil story was retold for the benefit of the General, who did not know it.

The Earl did, so he did not listen. He employed himself thinking over practicable answers to the question before the house, and was just in time to avert a polemic about the authenticity of the Bible, a subject on which the General held strong views. "What helps me to an idea of a possible attitude of mind before a resurrection of this sort," he said, "is what sometimes happens when you wake up from a dream years long, a dream as long as a lifetime. Just the first moment of all, you can hardly believe yourself free of the horrid entanglement you had got involved in...."

"I know," said Gwen. "The other night I dreamed I was going to be married to a young gentleman I had known from childhood. Only he was a kettle-holder with a parrot on it."

"Didn't I object?" said the Earl.

"You were upstairs. Don't ask explanations. That was all there was in the dream. You were upstairs. And the dream had been all my life. Don't fidget about particulars."

"I won't. That's the sort of dream I mean. It seems all perfectly right and sound until your waking life comes back, and then vanishes. You only regret your friends in the dream for a few seconds, and then—they are nobody!"

"Don't quite see the parallel, yet. These old ladies haven't waked from a dream, that I see." Thus the General, and Gwen told him he was a military martinet, and lacking in insight.

Her father continued:—"Each of them has dreamed the other was dead, for half a century. Now they are awake. But I suspect, from what Gwen says, that the discovery of the dream has thrown a doubt on all the rest of the fifty years."

"That's it," said Gwen. "If the whole story of the two deaths is false, why should Van Diemen's Land be true? Why should the convict and the forgery be true?"

"Husbands and families are hard nuts to crack," said the General. "Can't be forgotten or disbelieved in, try 'em any side up!"

At this point a remonstrance from the drawing-room at the delay of the appearance of the males caused a stampede and ended the discussion. Gwen rejoined her own sex unabashed, and the company adjourned to the scene of the household festivity. It is not certain that the presence of his lordship and his Countess, and the remainder of the party in esse at the Towers really added to the hilarity of the occasion. But it was an ancient usage, and the sky might have fallen if it had been rashly discontinued. The compromise in use at this date under which the magnates, after walking through a quadrille, melted away imperceptibly to their normal quarters, was no doubt the result of a belief on their part that the household would begin to enjoy itself as soon as formalities had been complied with, and it was left to do so at its own free-will and pleasure. Nevertheless, a hint at abolition would have been blasphemy, and however eager the rank and file of the establishment may have been for the disappearance of the bigwigs, not one of them—and still more not one of their many invited neighbours—ever breathed a hint of it to another.

Shortly after ten Gwen and some of the younger members of the party wound up a fairly successful attempt to make the materials at their disposal dance the Lancers, and got away without advertising their departure. It was a great satisfaction to overhear the outbreak of unchecked roystering that followed. Said Gwen to Miss Dickenson and Mr. Pellew, who had entered into the spirit of the thing and co-operated with her efforts to the last:—"They will be at bear-garden point in half an hour. Poor respectable Masham!" To which Aunt Constance replied:—"I suppose they won't go on into Sunday?" The answer was:—"Oh no—not till Sunday! But Sunday is a day, after all, not a night." Mr. Pellew said:—"Sunrise at eight," and Gwen said:—"I think Masham will make it Sunday about two o'clock. We shan't have breakfast till eleven. You'll see!"

They were in the great gallery with the Van Dycks when Gwen stopped, as one stops who thinks suddenly of an omission, and said, as to herself, more than to her hearers:—"I wonder whether she meant me."

"Whether who meant you?" said both, sharing the question.

"Nothing.... Very likely I was mistaken.... No—it was this. You saw that rather piquante, dry young woman? You know which I mean?"

"Danced with that good-looking young groom?..."

"Yes—my Tom—Tom Kettering. It was what I heard her say to Lutwyche ... some time ago.... 'Remember she's not to have it till to-morrow morning.' It just crossed my mind, did she mean me? I dare say it was nothing."

"I heard that. It was a letter." Mr. Pellew said this.

"Had you any impression about it?"

"I thought it was some joke among the servants."

Gwen was disquieted, evidently. "I wish I hadn't heard it," said she, "if it isn't to be delivered till to-morrow. That young woman is Dr. Nash's housekeeper—Dr. Nash at Chorlton." She was speaking to ears that had heard all about the twin sisters. She interrupted any answer that meant to follow "Oh!" and "H'm!" by saying abruptly:—"I must see Lutwyche and find out."

They turned with her, and retraced their steps, remarking that no doubt it was nothing, but these things made one uncomfortable. Much better to find out, and know!

A casual just entering to rejoin the revels stood aside to allow them to pass, but was captured and utilised. "Go in and tell Miss Lutwyche I want to speak to her out here." Gwen knew all about local class distinctions, and was aware her maid would not be "Lutwyche" to a village baker's daughter. The girl, awed into some qualification of mere assent, which might have been presumptuous, said:—"Yes, my lady, if you please."

Lutwyche was captured and came out. "What was it I was not to have till to-morrow morning, Lutwyche? You know quite well what I mean. What was the letter?"

The waiting-woman had a blank stare in preparation, to prevaricate with, but had to give up using it. "Oh yes—there was a note," she said. "It was only a note. Mrs. Lamprey brought it from Dr. Nash. He wished your ladyship to have it to-morrow."

"I will have it at once, thank you! Have you got it there? Just get it, and bring it to me at once."

"I hope your ladyship does not blame me. I was only obeying orders."

"Get it, please, and don't talk." Her ladyship was rather incensed with the young woman, but not for obeying orders. It was because of the attempt to minimise the letter. It was just like Lutwyche. Nothing would make that woman really truthful!

Lutwyche caught up the party, which had not stopped for the finding of the letter, at the drawing-room door. Gwen opened it as she entered the room, saying, to anyone within hearing:—"Excuse my reading this." She dropped on a sofa at hand, close to a chandelier rich with wax lights in the lampless drawing-room. Percy Pellew and his fiancee stood waiting to share the letter's contents, if permitted.

The world, engaged with its own affairs, took no notice. The Earl and the General were listening to tales of Canada from Sir Spencer Derrick. The Countess was pretending to listen to other versions of the same tales from that gentleman's wife. The others were talking about the war, or Louis Napoleon, or Florence Nightingale, or hoping the frost would continue, because nothing was more odious than a thaw in the country. One guest became very unpopular by maintaining that a thaw had already set in, alleging infallible instincts needing no confirmation from thermometers.

The Countess had said, speaking at her daughter across the room:—"I hope we are going to have some music;" and the Colonel had said:—"Ah, give us a song, Gwen;" without eliciting any notice from their beautiful hearer, before anyone but Miss Dickenson and Mr. Pellew noticed the effect this letter was producing. Then the Earl, glancing at the reader's face, saw, even from where he sat, how white it had become, and how tense was its expression. He caught Mr. Pellew's attention. "Do you know what it is, Percy?" said he. Mr. Pellew crossed the room quickly, to reply under his breath:—"I am afraid it is some bad news of her old lady at Chorlton.... Oh no—not that"—for the Earl had made the syllable dead with his lips, inaudibly—"but an alarm of some sort. The doctor's housekeeper there brought the letter."

The Earl left Mr. Pellew, reiterating what he had said to the General, and went over to his daughter. "Let me have it to see," said he, and took the letter from her. He read little scraps, half-aloud, "'Was much better all yesterday, but improvement has not continued.' ... 'Am taking advantage of my housekeeper's visit to the Towers to send this.' ... 'Not to have it till to-morrow.' ... How was that?" Gwen explained briefly, and he said:—"Looks as if the doctor took it for granted you would come at once."

"Yes," said Gwen, "on receipt of the letter."

The Countess said, as one whose patience is sorely and undeservedly tried:—"What is it all about? I suppose we are to know." The war and Louis Napoleon and Florence Nightingale lulled, and each asked his neighbour what it was, and was answered:—"Don't know." The Colonel, a man of the fewest possible words, said to the General:—"Rum! Not young Torrens, I suppose?" And the General replied:—"No, no! Old lady of eighty." Which the Colonel seemed to think was all right, and didn't matter.

"I think, if I were you, I should see the woman who brought it," said the Earl, after reading the letter twice; once quickly and once slowly. Gwen answered:—"Yes, I think so,"—and left the room abruptly. Her father took the letter, which he had retained, to show to her mother, who read it once and handed it back to him. "I cannot advise," said she, speaking a little from Olympus. She came down the mountain, however, to say:—"See that she doesn't do anything mad. You have some influence with her," and left the case—one of dementia—to her husband.

"I think," said he, "if you will excuse me, my dear, I will speak to this woman myself."

Her ladyship demurred. "Isn't it almost making the matter of too much importance?" said she, looking at her finger-diamonds as though to protest against any idea that she was giving her mind to the case of dementia.

"I think not, my dear," said the Earl, meekly but firmly, and followed his daughter out of the room.

* * * * *

Very late that night, or rather very early next day, in the smoking-room to which such males as it pleased to do so retired for a last cigar, sundry of the younger members of the vanishing shooting-party, and one or two unexplained nondescripts, came to the knowledge of a fact that made one of them say—"Hookey!"; another—"Crikey!"; and a third and fourth that they were blowed. All considered, more or less, that Mr. Norbury, their informant, who had come to see the lights out, didn't mean to say what he had said. He, however, adhered to his statement, which was that Lady Gwendolen had had alarming news about an old lady whom she was much interested in, and had been driven away in the closed brougham by Tom Kettering to Chorlton, more than two hours ago. "I thought it looked queer, when she didn't come back," said one of the gentlemen who was blowed.



CHAPTER XXVI

HOW GWEN AND MRS. LAMPREY RODE TO STRIDES COTTAGE, AND FOUND DR. NASH THERE. OF A LETTER FROM MAISIE'S SON, AND HOW IT HAD THROWN HER BACK. AN ANXIOUS NIGHT WATCH. IMAGINATIONS OF SAPPS COURT. PETER JACKSON'S NAMESAKE. HOW GWEN DREAMED OF DOLLY ON GENERAL RAWNSLEY'S KNEE, AND WAS WAKED BY A SCREAM. READ ME ALOUD WHAT MY SON SAYS! WHAT IS CALLED SNEERING. A MAG. A FLIMSY. HOW GWEN WAS GOT TO BED, HALF ASLEEP. OLD MAISIE'S WILL. NOT UPSTAIRS OUT OF A CARRIAGE, DOWNSTAIRS INTO A CARRIAGE. TWO STEPS BACK AND ONE FORWARD. BEFORE THAT CLOCK STRIKES. THEIR DAUGHTER

Whoever detected a thaw outside the house, by instinct at work within, was an accurate weather-gauge. A wet, despairing moon was watching a soaking world from a misty heaven; and chilly avalanches of undisguised slush, that had been snow when the sun went down, were slipping on acclivities and roofs, and clinging in vain to overhanging boughs, to vanish utterly in pools and gutters and increasing rivulets. The carriage-lamps of Gwen's conveyance, a closed brougham her father had made a sine qua non of her departure, shone on a highway that had seen little traffic since the thaw set in, and that still had on it a memory of fallen snow, and on either side of it the yielding shroud that had made the land so white and would soon leave it so black. Never mind!—the road was a better road, for all that it was heavier. No risk now of a stumble on the ice, with the contingencies of a broken knee for the horse, and an hour's tramp for its quorum!

The yew-tree in the little churchyard at Chorlton had still some coagulum of thaw-frost on it when the brougham plashed past the closed lichgate, and left its ingrained melancholy to make the most of its loneliness. Strides Cottage was just on ahead—five minutes at the most, even on such a road. "They will be sure to be up, I suppose—one of them at least," said Gwen to the woman in the carriage with her. It was Mrs. Lamprey, whom Tom Kettering was to have driven back in any case, but not in the brougham. Gwen had overruled her attempt to ride on the box, and was sorry when she had done so. For she could not say afterwards:—"I'm sure you would rather be up there, with Tom."

"I doubt they'll have gone to bed, my lady, either of them. Nor yet I won't be quite sure we shan't find the doctor there." Thus Mrs. Lamprey, making Gwen's heart sink. For what but very critical circumstances could have kept Dr. Nash at the Cottage till past one in the morning? But then, these circumstances must be recent. Else he could never have wished the letter kept back till to-morrow. She said something to this effect to her companion, who replied:—"No doubt your ladyship knows!"

There was a light in the front-room, and someone was moving about. The arrival of the carriage caused the dog to bark, once but not more, as though for recognition or warning; not as a dog who resented it—merely as a janitor, officially. The doorbell, in response to a temperate pull, grated on the silence of the night, overdoing its duty and suggesting that the puller's want of restraint was to blame. Then came a footstep, but no noise of bolt or bar withdrawn. Then Ruth Thrale's voice, wondering who this could be. And then her surprise when she saw her visitor, whose words to her were:—"I thought it best to come at once!"

"Oh, but she is better! Indeed we think she is better. Dr. Nash was to write and tell you, so you should know—not to hurry to come too soon." Thus Ruth, much distressed at this result of the doctor's despatch.

"Never mind me! You are sure she is better? Is that Dr. Nash's voice?" Yes—it was. He had been there since eleven, and was just going.

Ruth went in to tell Granny Marrable it was her ladyship, as Dr. Nash came out. "I'm to blame, Lady Gwendolen," said he. "I'm to blame for being in too great a hurry. It was a blunder. But I can't pretend to be sorry I made it—that's the truth!"

"You mean that she isn't out of the wood?"

"That kind of thing. She isn't."

"Oh dear!" Gwen sank into a chair, looking white. Hope had flared up, to be damped down. How often the stokers—nurses or doctors—have to pile wet ashes on a too eager blaze! How seldom they dare to add fresh fuel!

"I will tell you," said the doctor. "She was very much better all Friday, taking some nourishment. And there is no doubt the champagne did her good—just a spoonful at a time, you know, not more. She isn't halfway through the bottle yet. I thought she was on her way to pull through, triumphantly. Then something upset her."

"Well, but—what?" For the doctor had paused at some obstacle, unexplained.

"That I can't tell you. You must ask Granny Marrable about that. Not her daughter—niece—whatever she is. Don't say anything to her. She is not to know."

Granny Marrable was audible in the passage without. "Can't you tell me what sort of thing?" said Gwen, under her voice.

"It was in a letter that came to her from Snaps—Sapps Court. The Granny wouldn't tell me what was in it, and begged I would say nothing of it to Widow Thrale. But the old soul was badly upset by it, shaking all over and asking for you...."

"Was she asking for me? Then I'm so glad you sent for me. I would not have been away on any account."

"It had nothing to do with my writing. I should have written for you to come to-morrow anyhow.... Here comes Granny Marrable." They had been talking alone, as Mrs. Lamprey had gone outside to speak to Tom.

"Still asleep, Granny?" said the doctor. Yes—she was, said the old lady; nicely asleep. "Then I'll be off, as it's late." Gwen suggested that Tom might drive him home, with Mrs. Lamprey, and call back for instructions.

Said Granny Marrable then, not as one under any new stress:—"My lady, God bless you for coming, though I would have been glad it had been daylight. To think of your ladyship out in the cold and damp, for our sakes!"

"Never mind me, Granny! I'll go to bed to-morrow night. Now tell me about this letter.... Is Ruth safe in there?" Yes, she was; and would stay there by her dear mother. Gwen continued: —"Dr. Nash has just told me there was some letter. But he did not know what was in it."

"He was not to know. But you were, my lady. This is it. Can you see with the candle?"

Gwen took the letter, and turned to the signature before reading it. It was from "Ralph Thornton Daverill, alias Rix," which she read quite easily, for the handwriting was educated enough, and clear. "I see no date," said she. "Why did Dr. Nash say it had come from Sapps Court?"

"Because, my lady, he saw the envelope. Perhaps your ladyship knows of 'Aunt Maria.' She is little Dave's aunt, in London."

"Oh yes—I know 'Aunt M'riar.' I know her, herself. Why does she write her name on a letter from this man?"

"I do not know. There is all we know, in the letter, as you have it."

"Whom do you suppose Ralph Thornton Daverill to be, Granny?"

"I know, unhappily. He is her son."

"The son.... Oh yes—I knew of him. She has told me of him. Besides, I knew her name was Daverill, from the letters." Granny Marrable was going on to say something, but Gwen stopped her, saying:—"First let me read this." Then the Granny was silent, while the young lady read, half aloud and half to herself, this following letter:—

"MOTHER—You will be surprised to get this letter from me. Are you sorry I am not dead? Can't say I'm glad. I have been His Majesty's guest for one long spell, and Her Majesty's for another, since you saw the last of me. I'm none so sure I wasn't better off then, but I couldn't trust H.M.'s hospitality again. It might run to a rope's end. Dodging blood-hounds is my lay now, and I lead the life of a cat in hell. But I'm proud—proud I am. You read the newspaper scrap I send along with this, and you'll be proud of your son. I'm a chip of the old block, and when my Newgate-frisk comes, I'll die game. Do you long to see your loving son? If you don't, send him a quid or two—or put it at a fiver. Just for to enable him to lead an honest life, which is my ambition. You can come to a fiver. Or would you rather have your loving son come and ask for it? How would you like it, if you were an honest man without a mag in his pocket, and screwpulls of conscience? You send on a flimsy to M'riar. She'll see I get it. I'll come for more when I want it—you be easy. So no more at present from your dutiful son:—

RALPH THORNTON DAVERILL, alias RIX."

"P.S.—You can do it—or ask a kind friend to help."

"What a perfectly intolerable letter!" said Gwen. "What does he mean by a newspaper scrap?... Oh, is that it?" She took from the old lady a printed cutting, and read it aloud. "Fancy his being that man," said she. "It made quite a talk last winter—was in all the papers." It was the paragraph Uncle Mo had come upon in the Star.

"I have seen that man," said Granny Marrable. And so sharp was Gwen in linking up clues, that she exclaimed at once:—"What—the madman? Dr. Nash told me of him. Didn't he come to hunt her up?"

"That was it, my lady. And he was all but caught. But I have never spoken of my meeting him, and she has barely spoken of him, till this letter came yesterday. And then we could speak of him together. But not Ruth. She was to know nothing. She was not here, by good luck, just the moment that it came."

"And my dear old Mrs. Picture? Oh, Granny—what a letter for her to get!"

"Indeed, my lady, she was very badly shaken by it. I would have been glad if I might have read it myself first, to tell her of it gently." Granny Marrable was entirely mistaken. "Break it gently," sounds so well! What is it worth in practice?

"Could she understand the letter. I couldn't, at first."

"She understood it better than I did. But it set her in a trembling, and then she got lost-like, and we thought it best to go for Dr. Nash.... No—Ruth never knew anything of the letter, not a word. And her mother said never a word to her. For he was her brother."

"I cannot understand some things in the letter now, but I see he is thoroughly vile. One thing is good, though! What he wants is money."

"Will that...?"

"Keep him quiet and out of the way? Yes—of course it will. Let me take the letter to show to my father. He will know what to do." She knew that her father's first thought might be to use the clue to catch the man, but she also knew he would not act upon it if his doing so was likely to shorten the span of life still left to old Maisie. "What was he like?" said she to Granny Marrable.

"Some might call him good-looking," was the cautious answer.

"You think I shouldn't, evidently?" Evidently.

"It is not the face itself. It is in the shape of it. A twist. I took him for mad, but he is not."

"How came you to know him for your sister's son?"

"Ah, my lady, how could I? For Maisie was still dead then, for me. I could know he was Mrs. Prichard's son, for he said so."

"I see. It was before. But you talk about him to her now?"

"She cannot talk of much else, when Ruth is away. She will talk of him to you, when she wakes.... Hush—I think Ruth is coming!" Gwen slipped the letter in her pocket, to be out of the way.

No change in her mother—that was Ruth's report. She had not stirred in her sleep. You could hardly hear her breathe. This was to show that you could hear her breathe, by listening. It covered any possible alarm about the nature of so moveless a sleep, without granting discussion of the point.

Gwen had told Tom Kettering to return shortly, but only for orders. Her own mind was quite made up—not to leave the old lady until alarms had died down. If the clouds cleared, she would think about it. Tom must drive back at once to the Towers; and if anyone was still out of bed whose concern it was to know, he might explain that she was not coming back at present. Or stop a minute!—she would write a short line to her father. Ruth and Granny Marrable lodged a formal protest. But how glad they were to have her there, on any terms!

She had really come prepared to stay the night; but until she could hear how the land lay had not disclosed her valise. Tom, returning for orders, deposited it in the front-room, and departed, leaving it to be carefully examined by the dog, who could not disguise his interest in leather.

The only obstacle to an arrangement for one of the three to be always close at hand when the sleeper waked was the usual one. In such cases everyone wants to be the sentinel on the first watch, and not on any account to sleep. A dictator is needed, and Gwen assumed the office. Her will was not to be disputed. She told Granny Marrable and Ruth to go to bed or at least to go and lie down, and she would call one of them if it was necessary. They looked at each other and obeyed. She herself could lie down and sleep, if she chose, on the big bed beside the old lady, and she might choose. The end would be gained. There would then be no fear of old Maisie awakening alone in the dark, a prey to horrible memories and apprehensions, this last one worst of all—this nightmare son with his hideous gaol-bird past and his veiled threats for the future. That was more important than the meat-jelly, beef-tea, stimulants, what not? They would probably be refused. Still they were to be reckoned with, and Ruth was within call to supply them.

In the darkness and the silence of the night, a solitary, discouraged candle in a shade protesting feebly against the one, and every chance sound that day would have ignored emphasizing the other, the stillness of the figure on the bed became a mystery and an oppression. How Gwen would have welcomed a recurrence of the faintest breath, to keep alive her confidence that this was only sleep—sleep to be welcomed as the surest herald of life and strength! How she longed to touch the blue-veined wrist upon the coverlid, but once, just for a certainty of a beating pulse, however faint! She dared not, even when a heavy avalanche of melted snow from the eaves without, that made her start, left the sleeper undisturbed; even when a sudden faggot in the fireplace, responsive to the snowfall, broke and fell into the smouldering red below, and crackled into flame without awakening her. For Gwen knew the shrewd powers of a finger-touch to rouse the deepest sleeper. But she was grateful for that illumination, for it showed her a silver thread of hair near enough to the nostril to be stirred to and fro by the breath that went and came. And by its light the delicate transparency of the wrist showed the regular pulsation of the heart. All was well.

She had plenty to occupy her thoughts. She could sit and think of the strangeness of her own life, and its extraordinary inequalities. What could clash more discordantly than this moment and a memory of a month ago that rushed into her mind for no apparent reason but to make a parade of its own incongruity. Do you remember that brilliant dress of Madame Pontet that she tried on at Park Lane, with "the usual tight armhole"? That dress had figured as a notable achievement of the modiste's art, worthy of its wearer's surpassing beauty, in a dazzling crowd of Stars and Garters and flashing diamonds, and loveliness that was old enough for Society, and valour that was too old for the field of battle; and much of the wit of the time and a little of the learning, trappings of well-mounted dramatis personae on the World's stage. That dress and its contents had made many a woman jealous, and been tenacious of many a man's memory, young and old, for weeks after. Here was the wearer, watching in the night beside a convict's relict, a worse convict's mother, a waif and stray picked up in a London Court off Tottenham Court Road! And the heart of the watcher was praying for only one little act of grace in Destiny, to grant a short span yet of life, were it no more than a year, to this frail survivor of a long and cruel separation from one whose youth had been another self to her own.

And as for that other affair, what did she really recollect of it? Well—she could remember that tight armhole, certainly, and was far from sure she should ever forget it.

The chance that had brought the sisters back to each other was so strange that the story of their deception and the loss of every clue to its remedy seemed credible by comparison—a negligible improbability. Would they necessarily have recognised one another at all if that letter had not come into the hands of her father? She herself would never have dared to open it; or, if she had, would she have understood its contents? Without that letter, what would the course of events have been? Go back and think of it! Imagine old Mrs. Picture in charge of Widow Thrale, groundedly suspected of lunacy, miserable under the fear that the suspicion might be true—for who can gauge his own sanity? Imagine Granny Marrable, kept away at Denby by her daughter, that her old age should not be afflicted by a lunatic. Imagine the longing of Sapps Court to have Mrs. Picture back, and the chair with cushions, in the top garret, that yawned for her. Imagine these, and remember that probably old Maisie, to seem sane at any cost, would have gone on indefinitely keeping silence about her own past life, whatever temptation she may have been under to speak again of the mill-model, invisible in its carpet-roll above the fireplace. Remember that what Dr. Nash elicited from her, as an interesting case of dementia, was not necessarily repeated to Mrs. Thrale, and would have been a dead letter in the columns of the Lancet later on. Certainly the chances of an eclaircissement were at a minimum when Gwen returned from London, her own newly acquired knowledge of its materials apart. But then, how about the poor crazy old soul's daughter's new-born love for her unrecognised mother, and her mysteriously heart-whole return for it?

That might have brought the end about. But to Gwen it seemed speculative and uncertain, and to point to no more than a possible return to London of the mother, accompanied by her unknown and unknowing daughter. A curious vision flashed across her mind of Ruth Thrale, entertained at Sapps by old Mrs. Picture; and there, by the window, the table with the new leg; and, in the drawer of it ... what? A letter written five-and-forty years ago, that had changed the lives of both! Gwen's imagination restored the unread letter to its place, with rigid honesty. But—how strange!

Then her imagination came downstairs, and glanced in on the way at the room where the mysterious fireman, who came from the sky, had deposited the half-insensible old lady, after the cataclysm. It was Uncle Mo's room, on the safe side of the house; and the walls were enriched with prints of heroes of the Ring in old time; Figg and Broughton, Belcher and Bendigo, sparring for ever in close-fitting pants by themselves on a very fine day. She recalled how the unmoved fireman, departing, had shown a human interest in one of these, remarking that it was a namesake of his. Suppose that fireman had not been at hand, how would old Maisie have been got downstairs? Suppose that she herself had been flattened under the ruins, would all things now have been quite otherwise? See how much had turned on that visit to Cavendish Square! No—a hundred things had happened, the absence of any one of which might have changed the current of events, and left old Maisie to end her days undeceived; and perhaps the whole tale of her lonely life and poverty to come to light afterwards, and cast a gloom without a chance of solace over the last hours of her surviving twin....

Was that the movement of a long-drawn breath, the precursor of an unspoken farewell to the land of dreams? Scarcely! Nothing but a fancy, this time, bred of watching too closely in the silence! Wait for the clear signs of awakening, sure to come, in time!

It was so still, Gwen could hear the swift tick-tick-tick in the watch-pocket at the bed's head; and, when she listened to it, her consciousness that the big clock in the kitchen was at odds with the hearth-cricket, rebuking his speed solemnly, grew less and less. For the sound we look to hear comes out of the silence, when no other sound has in it the force to speak on its own behalf. Two closed doors made the kitchen-chorus dim. The new faggot had said its say, and given in to mere red heat, with a stray flicker at the end. Drip and trickle were without, and now and then a plash that said:—"Keep in doors, because of me!" Gwen closed her eyes, as, since she was so wakeful, she could do so with perfect safety; and listened to that industrious little watch.

It had become Dolly reciting the days of the week, before she knew her vigilance was in danger. Gwen was certainly not asleep long, because Dolly had only got to the second Tundy, when a scream awoke her, close at hand to where Dolly was seated on General Rawnsley's knee. But it was quick work, to think out where she was, and to throw her arms round the frail, trembling form that was starting up from some terror of dreamland unexplained, on the bed beside her.

"What is it, dear, what is it? Don't be frightened. See, I'm Gwen! I brought you here, you know. There—there! Now it's all right." She spoke as one speaks to a frightened child.

Old Maisie was trembling all over, and did not know where she was, at first. "Don't let him come—don't let him come!" was what she kept saying, over and over again. This passed off, and she knew Gwen, but was far from clear about time and place. Questioned as to who it was that was not to come, she had forgotten, but was aware she had been asleep and dreaming. "Did I make a great noise and shout out?" said she.

Ruth Thrale appeared, waked by the cry. It had not added to her uneasiness. "She was like this, all yesterday," said she. "All on the jar. Dr. Nash hopes it will pass off." Ruth, of course, knew nothing of the coming of the son's letter, and regarded her mother's state as only a fluctuation. She had a quiet self-command that refused to be panic-struck. In fact, she had held back from coming, long enough to make sure that Granny Marrable had slept through the scream. That was all right. Gwen urged her to go back to bed, and prevailed over her by adopting a positive tone. She agreed to go when she had made "her mother" swallow something to sustain life. Gwen asked if the champagne had continued in favour. "She doesn't fancy it alone," said Ruth. "But I put it in milk, and she takes it down without knowing it." Probably nurses are the most fraudulent people in the world.

Old Maisie kept silence resolutely about the letter until Ruth had gone back; which she only did unwillingly, as concession to a force majeure. Then the old lady said:—"Is she gone? I would not have her see her brother's letter. But I would be glad you should see it, my dear." She was exploring feebly under her pillow and bolster, to find it. Gwen understood. "It's not there," said she. "I have it here. Granny Marrable got at it to show to me." She hoped the old lady was not going to insist on having that letter re-read. It made the foulness of the criminal world, unknown to her except as material for the legitimate drama, a horrible reality, and bred misgivings that the things in the newspapers were really true.

Old Maisie disappointed her. "Read me aloud what my son says," said she. Then Gwen understood what Granny Marrable had meant when she said that, of the two, her sister had understood it the better. For as she uttered the letter's repulsive expressions, reluctantly enough, a side-glance showed her old Maisie's listening face and closed eyes, nowise disturbed at her son's rather telling description of his hunted life. At the reference to the "newspaper scrap" she said:—"Yes, Phoebe read me that with her glasses. He got away." Gwen felt that that strange past life, in a land where almost every settler had the prison taint on him, had left old Maisie abler to endure the flavour of the gaol-bird's speech about himself. It was as though an Angel who had been in Hell might know all its ways, and yet remain unsullied by the knowledge.

But at the words:—"Do you long to see your loving son?" she moved and spoke uneasily. "What does he mean? Oh, what does he mean? Was it all his devil?" She seemed ill able to find words for her meaning, but Gwen took it that she was trying to express some hint of a better self in this son, perhaps latent behind the evil spirit that possessed him.

Her comment was:—"Oh dear no! What he means is that he will come and frighten you to death if you don't send him money. It is only a threat to get money. Dear Mrs. Picture, don't you fret about him. Leave him to me and my father.... What does he mean by a quid? A hundred pounds, I suppose? And a fiver, five hundred?... is that it?"

"Oh no—he would never ask me for all that money! A quid is a guinea—only there are no guineas now. He means a five-pound-note by a fiver." Her voice died from weakness. The "Please go on!" that followed, was barely audible.

Gwen read on:—"'Just for to enable him to lead an honest life.' Dear Mrs. Picture, I must tell you I think this is what is called sneering. You know what that means? He is not in earnest."

"Oh yes—I know. I am afraid you are right. But is it himself?" That idea of the devil again!

Gwen evaded the devil. "We must hope not," said she. She went on, learning by the way what a "mag" was, and a "flimsy." She paused on Aunt M'riar. Why was "M'riar" to act as this man's agent? She wished Thothmes was there, with his legal acumen. But old Maisie might be able to tell something. She questioned her gently. How did she suppose Aunt Maria came to know anything of her son? She had to wait for the answer.

It came in time. "Not Aunt M'riar. Someone else."

"No—Aunt Maria. She wrote her name on the envelope; to show where it came from, I suppose." The perplexity suggested silenced old Maisie. Gwen compared the handwritings of the letter and direction. They were the same—a man's hand, clearly. "From Aunt Maria" was in a woman's hand. Gwen did not attempt to clear up the mystery. She was too anxious about the old lady, and, indeed, was feeling the strain of this irregular night. For, strong as she was, she was human.

Her anxiety kept the irresistible powers of Sleep at bay for a while; and then, when it was clear that old Maisie was slumbering again, with evil dreams in abeyance, she surrendered at discretion. All the world became dim, and when the clock struck four, ten seconds later, she did not hear the last stroke.

* * * * *

When Gwen awoke six hours after, she had the haziest recollections of the night. How it had come about that she found herself in another room, warmly covered up, and pillowed on luxury itself, with a smell of lavender in it that alone was bliss, she could infer from Ruth Thrale's report. This went to show that when Ruth and Granny Marrable came into the room at about six, they found her ladyship undisguisedly asleep beside old Maisie; and when she half woke, persuaded her away to more comfortable quarters. She had no distinct memory of details, but found them easy of belief, told by eyewitnesses.

How was the dear old soul herself? Had she slept sound, or been roused again by nightmares? Well—she had certainly done better than on the previous afternoon and evening, after the receipt of that letter. Thus Granny Marrable, in conference with her ladyship at the isolated breakfast of the latter. Ruth, to whom the contents of the letter were still unknown, was keeping guard by her mother.

"We put it all down to your ladyship," said the Granny, with grave truthfulness—not a trace of flattery. "She can never tire of telling the good it does her to see you." This was the nearest she could go, without personality, to a hint at the effect the sheer beauty of her hearer had on the common object of their anxiety.

Gwen knew perfectly well what she meant. She was used to this sort of thing. "She likes my hair," said she, to lubricate the talk; and gave the mass of unparalleled gold an illustrative shake. Then, to steer the ship into less perilous, more impersonal waters:—"I must have another of those delightful little hot rolls, if I die for it. Mr. Torrens's mother—him I brought here, you know; he's got a mother—says new bread at breakfast is sudden death. I don't care!"

The Granny was fain to soften any implied doubt of a County Magnate's infallibility, even when uttered by one still greater. "A many," said she, "do not find them unwholesome." This left the question pleasantly open. But she was at a loss to express something she wanted to say. It is difficult to tell your guest, however surpassingly beautiful, that she has been mistaken for an Angel, even when the mistake has been made by failing powers or delirium, or both together. Yet that was what Granny Marrable's perfect truthfulness and literal thought were hanging fire over. Old Maisie had said to her, in speech as passionate as her weakness allowed:—"Phoebe, dearest Phoebe, my lady is God's Angel, come from Heaven to drive the fiend out of the heart of my poor son." And Phoebe, to whom everything like concealment was hateful, wanted sorely to repeat to her ladyship the conversation which ended in this climax. Otherwise, how could the young lady come to know what was passing in Maisie's mind?

She approached the subject with caution. "My dear sister's mind," said she, "has been greatly tried. So we must think the less of exciting fancies. But I would not say her nay in anything she would have me think."

Gwen's attention was caught. "What sort of things?" said she. "Yes—some more coffee, please, and a great deal of sugar!"

"Strange, odd things. Stories, about Van Diemen's Land."

Gwen had a clue, from her tone. "Has she been telling you about the witch-doctor, and the devil, and the scorpion, and the little beast?"

"They were in her story. It made my flesh creep to hear so outlandish a tale. And she told your ladyship?"

"Oh dear yes! She has told me all about it! And not only me, but Mr. Torrens. The old darling! Did she tell you of the little polecat beast the doctor ate, who was called a devil, and how he possessed the doctor—no getting rid of him?"

"She told me something like that."

"And what did you say to her?"

"I said that Our Lord cast out devils that possessed the swine, and had He cast them again out of the swine, they might have possessed Christians. For I thought, to please Maisie, I might be forgiven such speech."

"Why not? That was all right." Gwen could not understand why Scripture should be inadmissible, or prohibited.

Granny Marrable seemed to think it might be the latter. "I would not be thought," she said, "to compare what we are taught in the Bible with ... with things. Our Lord was in Galilee, and we are taught what came to pass. This was in The Colonies, where any one of us might be, to-day or to-morrow."

Gwen appreciated the distinction. It would clearly be irreverent to mention a nowadays-devil, close at hand, in the same breath as the remoter Gadarenes. She said nothing about Galilee being there still, with perhaps the identical breed of swine, and even madmen. The Granny's inner vision of Scripture history was unsullied by realisms—a true history, of course, but clear of vulgar actualities. Still, something was on her mind that she was bound to speak about to her ladyship, and she was forced to use the Gospel account of an incident "we were taught" to believe no longer possible, as a means of communicating to Gwen what she herself held to be no more than a feverish dream of her sister's weakness. Gwen detected in her tone its protest against the confusion of vulgar occurrences, in all their coarse authenticity, with the events of Holy Writ, and forthwith launched out in an attempt to find the underlying cause of it. "Did the old darling," said she, "tell you how Rookaroo, or whatever his name was, passed his devil on to her husband and son?"

"I think, my lady, she has that idea."

"It seems to me a very reasonable idea," said Gwen. "Once you have a devil at all, why not? And it was to be like the madman in the tombs in the land of the Gadarenes! Poor old darling Mrs. Picture!"

Old Phoebe felt very uncomfortable, for Gwen was not taking the devil seriously. Although scarcely prepared to have Scripture used to substantiate a vulgar Colonial sample, the old lady was even less ready to have such a one doubted, if the doubt was to recoil on his prototype. "Maisie is of the mind to fancy this evil spirit might even now be driven from her son's heart, and bring him to repentance. But I told her a many things might be, in the days of our blessed Lord, in the Holy Land, that were forbidden now. It was just his own wickedness, I told her, and no devil to be cast out. But she was so bent on the idea, that I could not find it in me to say this man might not repent and turn to Godliness yet, by your ladyship's influence, or Parson Dunage's." This introduction of the incumbent of Chorlton was an afterthought. The fact is, Granny Marrable was endeavouring to suggest a rationalistic interpretation of her sister's undisguised mysticism; fever-bred, no doubt, but scarcely to be condemned as delusion outright without impugning devils, who are standard institutions. Good influences, brought to bear on perverted human hearts, are quite correct and modern.

Granny Marrable's words left Gwen unsuspicious that powers of exorcism had been imputed to her. The ascription of them might be—certainly was—nothing but an outcome of the overstrain and tension of the last few days, but the repetition of it in cold blood to its subject might have been taken to mean that it was a symptom of insanity. Gwen did not press her to tell more, as Dr. Nash made his appearance. The frequency of his visits was a source of uneasiness to her. She would have liked to hear him say there was now no need for him to come again till he was sent for.

"Any fresh developments?" said he, as Granny Marrable left the room to herald his arrival. He heard Gwen's account of her own experience in the night, and seemed disquieted. "I wish," said he abruptly, "that people would keep their letters to themselves. I am not to be told what was in the letter, I understand?" For Gwen had skipped the contents of it, merely saying that Mrs. Picture had asked to hear her letter read through again.

Then Widow Thrale came in, saying her mother was ready to see the doctor. Mother was with her mother, she said. The doctor departed into the bedroom.

"How long has your mother been awake?" asked Gwen under no drawback about the designation.

"Quite half an hour. I told her your ladyship was having a little breakfast. She always asks for you."

"I heard that she was talking, through the door. What has she been talking about?"

Ruth's memory went back conscientiously, for a starting-point. "About her annuity," she said, "first. Then about the young children—little Dave and Dolly. That's mother's little Dave, only it's all so strange to think of. And then she talked about the accident."

"What about her annuity? I'm curious about that. I wonder who sends it to her?"

"She says it comes from the Office, because they know her address. She says Susan Burr took them the new address, when they left Skillick's. She says she writes her name on the back...."

"It's a cheque, I suppose?"

"Your ladyship would know. Susan Burr takes it to the Bank and brings back the money." Ruth hesitated over saying:—"I would be happier my mother should not fret so about herself ... she was for making her will, and I told her there would be time for that."

"Oh yes—plenty!" Gwen thought to herself that old Mrs. Picture's testamentary arrangements were of less importance than tranquillity, as matters stood at present. "What did she say of Dave and Dolly?"

"She was put about to think how they would be told, if she died."

"How would they be told?... I can't think." Gwen asked herself the question, and parried it.

Ruth Thrale escaped in a commonplace. The dear children would have to be told, but they would not grieve for long. Children didn't.

Gwen hoped she was right—always a good thing to do. But what had her mother said about the accident? Oh—the accident! Well—she remembered very little of it. She did not know why she should have become half unconscious. The last thing she could be clear about was that Dave was shouting for joy, and Dolly frightened and crying. Then a gentleman carried her upstairs out of a carriage.

"No!" said Gwen. "Carried her downstairs into a carriage.... Oh no!—I know what she meant. It was my cousin Percy, not the fireman."

At this point Dr. Nash returned from the bedroom. Gwen began hoping that he had found his patient really better, but something stopped her speech, and she said:—"Oh!" Ruth Thrale was outside the room by then, far enough to miss the disappointment in her voice.

Dr. Nash glanced round to make sure she was out of hearing, and closed the door. "I don't like to say much, either way," said he.

Gwen turned pale. "You need not be afraid to tell me," she said.

"I see you know what I mean," said he, reading into her thoughts. "Miracle apart, one knows what to expect. I don't believe in any miracle, though certainly she has everything in her favour for it, in one sense."

"Meaning?" said Gwen interrogatively.

"Meaning that she has absolutely nothing the matter with her. If she has any active disorder, all I can say is it has baffled me to find it out."

"But, then, why?..."

"Why be frightened? Listen, and I'll tell you.... We gain nothing, you know, by not looking the facts in the face."

"I know. Go on." Gwen sat down, and waited. Some faces lose under stress of emotion. It was a peculiarity of this young lady's that every fresh tension added to the surpassing beauty of hers.

"I want you," said the doctor, speaking in a dry, businesslike way—"I want you to go back to when you brought her down here from London. Think of her then."

"I am thinking of her. I can remember her then, perfectly." And Gwen, thinking of that journey, saw her old companion plainly enough. A very old delicate woman, in need of consideration and care. No bedridden invalid! "When did the change show itself?" The doctor took the image in her mind for granted, successfully.

Then Gwen cast about to find an answer. "I think it must have been ..." said she, and stopped.

"When did you see it?"

"When I came back, first. After I told her, still more."

"After that?"

"I thought she was improving, every day."

"I thought you thought so."

"And you mean that it was a mistake. Oh dear!"

The doctor shook his head, slowly and sadly. "Yesterday, at this time," said he, "she could sit up in bed. With an exertion, you know! To-day she can't do it at all." Both remained silent, and seemed to accept a conclusion that did not need words. Then the doctor resumed, speaking very quietly:—"It is always like this. Two steps back and one forward—two steps back and one forward. We see the one step on because we want to. We don't want to see what's unwelcome. So we don't discount the losses."

Then Gwen, with that quiet resolution which he had known to be part of her character, or he would scarcely have been so explicit, said:—"What will she die of?"

"Old age, accelerated by mental perturbation."

"Can you at all guess when?"

"If she had any definite malady, I could guess better. She may linger on for weeks. It won't go to months, in any case. Or she may pop off before that clock strikes."

"Shall we tell them?"

"I say no. No. They will probably have her the longer for not knowing. And, mind you, she is keeping her faculties. She's wonderfully bright, and is suffering absolutely nothing."

"You are sure of that?"

"Absolutely sure. Go in and talk to her now. You'll find her quite herself, but for a little fancifulness at times. It really is no more than that.... By-the-by!..."

"What?"

"Do you know what was in the letter that upset her so? The old Granny did not say what was in it, and charged me to say nothing to her daughter." The doctor had all but said:—"To their daughter!"

"I know what was in the letter." Gwen paused a moment to consider how much she should tell, and then took the doctor into her confidence; not exhaustively, but sufficiently. "You are supposed to know nothing about it," said she. "But I don't think it much matters, so long as Ruth—Widow Thrale—does not know. That is her mother's wish. I don't suppose she really minds, about you."

"All I can say is, I wish to God this infernal scoundrel's devil would fly away with him. Good-morning. I shall be round again about six o'clock."



CHAPTER XXVII

HOW SPARROWS GORMANDISE. DAVE'S CISTERN. DOLLY AND JONES'S BULL. THE LETTER HAD DONE IT. HOW TOM KETTERING DROVE WIDOW THRALE TO DENBY'S FARM, AND MAISIE WOKE UP. HOW DAVE ATE TOO MANY MULBERRIES. OLD JASPER. OLD GOSSET AND CULLODEN. HIS TOES. HOW MAISIE ASKED TO SEE THE OLD MODEL AGAIN, AND HAD IT OUT BESIDE THE BED. DID IT GO ROUND, OR WAS DAVE MISTAKEN? THE GLASS WATER, AND HOW MAISIE HAD BROKEN A PIECE OFF, SEVENTY YEARS AGO. HOW A RATCHET-SPRING STRUCK WORK. WAS IT TOBY OR TOFT? BARNABY. BRAINTREE. ST. PAUL'S. BARNABY'S CO-RESPONDENCE. OLD CHIPSTONE. HOW PHOEBE NEARLY LOST HER EYE. OLD MARTHA PRICHARD. A REVERIE OF GWEN'S, ENDING IN LAZARUS. MAISIE'S PURSE

Has it ever been your lot—you who read this—to be told that Life is ebbing, slowly, slowly, every clock-tick telling on the hours that are left before the end—the end of all that has made your fellow in the flesh more than an image and a name? In so many hours, so many minutes, that image as it was will be vanishing, that name will be a memory. All that made either of them ours to love or hate, to be thought of as friend or foe, will have ceased for all time—for all the time we anticipate; more, or less as may be, than Oblivion's period, named in her pact with Destiny. In so many hours, so many minutes, that unseen mystery, the thing we call our friend's, our foe's, own self will make no sign to show that this is he. And we shall determine that he is no more, or agree that he has departed, much as we have been taught to think, but little as we have learned to know.

If you yourself have outlived other lives, and yet borne the foreknowledge of Death unmoved, you will not understand why Gwen's heart within her, when she heard Dr. Nash's words and took their meaning, should be likened to a great stifled sob, nor why she had to summon all her powers afield to bear arms against her tears. They came at her call, and fought so well that the enemy had fled before she had to show dry eyes, and speak with normal voice, to Ruth Thrale, who came in to say that her mother was asking for her ladyship. Come what might, she must keep her gloomy knowledge from Ruth.

"What a fuss about old me!" says the voice from the pillow, speaking low, but with happy contentment. "Would not anyone think I was dying?"

Now, if only Dr. Nash would have kept those prophecies to himself, Gwen would have thought her better. She could have discounted the weakness, or laid it down to imperfect nourishment. She could not trust herself to much speech, saying only:—"We shall have you walking about soon, and what will the doctor say then?"

She looked across at the old sister, grave and silent, whom she had supposed unoppressed, so far, by medical verdicts. But the invitation of a smile she achieved, mechanically, to help towards incredulity of Death, only met a half-response. "Indeed, my lady," said Granny Marrable, "we shall have some time to wait for that, if she will still eat nothing. A sparrow could not live upon the little food she takes."

What was old Maisie saying? She could live on less than a sparrow's food—that was the upshot. The sparrow was a greedy little bird, and she had seen him gormandise in Sapps Court. "My darling Dave and Dolly," she said, "would feed them, on the leads at the back, out of my bedroom window, where the cistern is." Gwen perceived the source of a misapprehension of Dave's.

"He's to come here," said she. "Him and Dolly. And then they can feed the cocks and hens."

"When I'm up," said old Maisie. She had no misgivings.

"When you're up."

"And Dave may go and see Farmer Jones's Bull?"

"And Dave may go and see Farmer Jones's Bull."

"But not Dolly, because she would be frightened."

"Not Dolly, then. Dolly is small, to see Bulls." Old Maisie closed her eyes upon this, and enjoyed the thought of Dave's rapture at that appalling Bull.

Granny Marrable indicated by two glances, one at Gwen, the other at the white face on the pillow, that her sister might sleep, given silence. Gwen watched for the slackening of the hand that held hers, to get gently free. Old Phoebe did the same, and drew the bed-curtain noiselessly, to hide the window-light. Both stole away, leaving what might have been an alabaster image, scarcely breathing, on the bed.

"It is the letter that has done it. Oh, how unfortunate!" So Gwen spoke, to the Granny, in the kitchen: for Ruth, though attending to the Sunday dinner, was for the moment absent. So the letter could be referred to.

"I fear what your ladyship says is true."

"But at least we know what it is that has done it. That is something." Granny Marrable seemed slow to understand. "I mean, if it had not been for the letter, she certainly need not have been any worse than she was last Sunday. She was getting on so well, Ruth said, on Friday, after the champagne. Oh dear!"

"It will be as God wills, my lady. If my dear sister is again to be taken from me...."

"Oh, Granny, do not let us talk like that!" But Gwen could put little heart into her protest. The doctor had taken all the wind out of her sails.

Old Phoebe let the interruption pass. "If Maisie dies ..." said she, and stopped.

"If Maisie dies...?" said Gwen, and waited.

The answer came, but not at once. "It is the second time."

"I don't think I quite understand, Granny," said Gwen gently. Which was meant, that this made it easier to bear, or harder?

"I am slow to speak what I think, my lady. I would like to find words to say it.... I lost Maisie forty-five—yes!—forty-six years ago, and the grief of her loss is with me still. Had she died here, near at hand, so I might have known where they laid her, I would have kept fresh flowers on her grave till now. But she was dead, far away across the sea. I am too old now for what has come of it. But I can see what-like it all is. Maisie is with me again, from the tomb—for a little while, and then to go. She will go first, and I shall soon follow; it cannot be long. No—it cannot be long! The light will come. And God be praised for His goodness! We shall lie in one grave, Maisie and I. We shall not be parted in Death." These last words Gwen accepted as conventional. She listened, somewhat as in a dream, to Granny Marrable's voice, going quietly on, with no very audible undertone of pain in it:—"It is not of myself I am thinking, but my child. She has found her mother, and loved her, before she knew it was herself, risen from the grave.... Oh no—no—no, my lady, I know it all well. My head is right. Maisie has been at hand these long years past, all unknown to me—oh, how cruelly unknown!" Here her words broke a little, with audible pain. "Her coming to us has been a resurrection from the tomb. It is little to me now, I am so near the end. But my heart goes out to my child, who will lose her mother.... Hush, she is coming back!"

The thought in Gwen's heart was:—"Pity me too, Granny, for I too—I, with all the wealth of the world at my feet!—shall feel a heartstring snap when this frail old waif and stray, so strangely found by me in a London slum, so strangely brought back by me into your life again, has passed away into the unknown." For she had scarcely been alive till now to the whole of her mysterious affection for dear old Mrs. Picture.

Ruth Thrale came back, and the day went on. Old Maisie remained asleep, sleeping as the effigy sleeps upon a tomb, but always with regular breath, barely sensible, and the same slow pulse. Now and again it might have seemed that breath had ceased. But it was not so. If the powers of life were on the wane, it was very slowly.

* * * * *

Tom Kettering returned at the appointed time, to a minute, and took no notice of his own arrival beyond socketing his whip in its stall, in token of its abdication. He had been told to come and wait, and he proceeded to wait, sine die. Gwen interrupted him in this employment, by coming out to tell him that she was stopping on, and that he was to go back to the Towers and say so. He looked so depressed at this that she bethought her of a compensation. She knew that Ruth Thrale had cause for anxiety about her own daughter; and, so far as could be seen, her immediate presence was not necessary, for no change appeared imminent. So she persuaded, or half-commanded, Ruth to be driven over to Denby's Farm by Tom Kettering, to remain there two or three hours, and be brought back by him or otherwise, as might be convenient. Her son-in-law might drive her back, and Tom might return to the Towers. It would make her mind easier to see Maisie junior, and get a forecast of probabilities at the farm. Ruth was not hard to prevail upon to do this, and was driven away by Tom over slushy roads, through the irresolute Winter's unseasonable Christmas Eve, after delegating some of her functions to Elizabeth-next-door.

Old Maisie still remained asleep, and almost motionless. With some help from Elizabeth-next-door the perfunctory midday meal had been served, very little more than looked at, and cleared away; then the motionless figure on the bed stirred visibly, breathed almost audibly. At this time of the day vitality is at its best, with most of us. Gwen, standing by the bedside, saw the lips move, and, bending forward, heard speech.

When she said, a moment after:—"I think I must have been asleep. I'm awake now,"—she uttered the words much as Gwen had always heard her speak. Yet another moment, and she said:—"I was dreaming, Phoebe dear, dreaming of our mill. And I was asking for you in my dream. Because Dave was up in our mulberry-tree, and wouldn't come down." She showed how perfectly clear her head was, by saying to Gwen:—"My dear, if I could have kept asleep, I would have seen Phoebe young again. You would never think how young she was then."

Gwen felt that she was nowise bound to dwell on the futility of dreams, and said, as she caressed the old hand's weak hold on her own:—"Was Dave eating too many mulberries in that tree?"

Old Maisie smiled happily at the thought of Dave. "His hands were quite purple with the juice," she said. "But he wouldn't come down, and went on eating the mulberries. It was the tree by itself behind the house, near the big hole where the sunflowers grew."

Granny Marrable's memory spanned the chasm—seventy years or so! "The biggest mulberry," she said, "was Old Jasper, in the front garden, near the wall.... It was always called Old Jasper." This replied to a look of Gwen's. Why should a mulberry-tree be called Old Jasper? Well—why should anything be called anything?

"I can smell the honeysuckle," said old Mrs. Picture. And her face looked quite serene and happy. "But the pigeons used to get all the mulberries on that tree, because they were close by."

"It stood by itself," said Granny Marrable. "And all the fruit-trees were in the orchard. So old Gosset with the wooden leg was always on that side with his clapper, never out in front."

"Old Gosset—who lost his leg at the battle of Culloden! I remember him so well. He said he could feel his toes all the same as if they was ten. He said it broke his heart to see the many cherries the birds got, for all the noise he made. He said they got bold, when they found he had a wooden leg...." She paused, hesitating, and then asked for Ruth.

Gwen told her how Ruth had gone to her own daughter, who was married, and how a second grandchild was overdue. In telling this, she feared she might not be understood. So she was pleased to hear old Mrs. Picture say quite clearly:—"Oh, but I know. A long while ago—my child—my Ruth—when she was Widow Thrale ... told me all that...."

"Yes, yes!" Gwen struck in. "I know. When you were here at the cottage, before ..." she hesitated.

"Yes, before," said old Mrs. Picture. "When she showed me our old model, and did not know. That was the time she thought me mad. Phoebe—I want you ... I want you...." Her voice was getting weaker; as it would do, after much talking.

"What?—I wonder!" said Granny Marrable, and waited.

Gwen guessed. "You want to see the old model again? Is that it?" Yes, she did. That was a good guess.

"Maisie dearest, I will fetch you the model to the bedside, and light candles, so you shall see it. Only you will eat something first—to please me—to please my lady—will you not? Then you may be able to sit up, you know, and look at it." Granny Marrable jumped at the opportunity to get some food—ever so little—down her sister's throat. She had not given up hope of her reviving, if only for a while. Bear in mind that she was still in the dark about the doctor's real opinion.

The attempt at refection had a poor show of success, its only triumph worth mentioning being the exhibition of a driblet of champagne in milk. Almost before the patient had swallowed it, she had fallen back on her pillow in a drowsy half-sleep, with what seemed an increased colour, to eyes that were on the watch for it. She remained so until after the doctor's visit at six o'clock.

The doctor admitted that she had picked up a very little, and when she awoke would probably have another spell of brightness. But.... Speaking with Gwen alone on his way out, he ended on this monosyllable.

"What does that 'but' mean, doctor?"

"Means that you mustn't expect too much. I suppose you know that the mildest stimulant means reaction."

"I don't know that I ever thought about it, but I'll take your word for it."

"Well—you may. And you may take my word for this. When the vital powers are near their end—without disease, you know, without disease...."

"I know. She has nothing the matter with her."

"You can intensify vitality for a moment. But the reaction will come, and must hasten the end. You might halve the outstanding time of Life by doubling the vitality. If you employ any artificial stimulant, you only use up the heart-beats that are left. The upshot of it is—don't go beyond a tablespoonful twice a day with that liquor."

"I don't suppose she has had so much."

"Well—don't go beyond it. There is always the possibility—the bare possibility, even at eighty—of a definite revival. But...."

"But, again, doctor!"

"But again! Let it stop at that. I shall do no better by saying more. If I foresaw ... anything—within the next twelve hours, I would stay on to see your ladyship through. But there is nothing to go by. Quite impossible to predict!"

"Why do you say 'to see me through'? Why not her sister and daughter?"

"Because they are her sister and daughter. It's all in their day's work. Good-night, Lady Gwendolen." Gwen watched the doctor's gig down the road into the darkness, and saw that a man riding stopped him, as though to give a message. After which she thought he whipped up his pony, which also felt the influence of the rider's cob alongside, and threw off its usual apathy.

* * * * *

Old Maisie must have waked up just as the doctor departed, for there were voices in the bedroom, and Granny Marrable was coming out. The old lady had an end in view. She was bent on getting down the mill-model from over the fireplace. "My dear sister has a great fancy to see it once more," she said. "And I would be loth to say nay to her." Gwen said:—"Anything to keep her mind off that brute of a son!" And then between them they got the model down, and unwrapped the cloth from it. Elizabeth-next-door, coming in at this moment, left Gwen free to go back to old Maisie in the bedroom, who seemed roused to expectation. The doctor was clearly wrong, and all was going to be well. Mrs. Picture was not quite herself again, perhaps; but was mending.

"My dear, I am giving a world of trouble," she said. "But Phoebe is so kind, to take every little word I say."

"She likes doing it, Mrs. Picture dear. We've got down the mill to show you, and she will get it in here by the bed, so that you shall see without getting up. Elizabeth from next door is there to help her." So the mill-model, that had so much to answer for, was got out from behind its glass, and placed on the little table beside the bed.

Old Maisie's voice had rallied so much that surely her power of movement should have done so too. But no!—she could not raise herself in bed. It was an easy task to place her to the best advantage, but the sense of her helplessness was painful to Gwen, who raised her like a child with scarcely an effort, while Granny Marrable multiplied pillows to support her. The slightest attempt on her part towards movement would have been reassuring, but none came.

"I wonder now," she said vaguely. "Was it only Dave?"

"What about Dave, dear? What did Dave say?"

"Was it Dave who said it went round? I had the thought it went round. Which was it?"

"I showed it to Dave," said Granny Marrable, "and then it went, the same as new. I could try it again, only then I must take out the glass water, and put in real. And wind it up."

Old Mrs. Picture almost laughed, and the pleasure in her voice was good to hear. "Why, now I have it all back!" she said. "And there is father! Oh, Phoebe, do you remember how angry father was with me for breaking a piece off the glass water?"

Granny Marrable was looking for something, in the penetralia of the model. "Oh, I know," said she. "It's in behind the glass water.... I was looking for the piece.... I'll take the glass water out." She did so, and its missing fraction was found, stowed away behind the main cataract, a portion of which appeared to have stopped dead in mid-air.

"Oh, Phoebe darling," said old Maisie, "we can have it mended."

"Of course we can," said Gwen. "Do let us make it go round. I want to make it go round, too." Her heart was rejoicing at what seemed so like revival.

Granny Marrable poured water into what stood for "the sleepy pool above the dam," and found the key to wind up the clockwork. "I remember," said old Maisie, "the water first, and then the key!" Her face was as happy as Dave's had been, watching it.

But alas for the uncertainty of all things human!—machinery particularly. The key ran back as fast as it was wound up, and the water slept on above the dam. What a disappointment! "Oh dear," said Gwen, "it's gone wrong. Couldn't we find a man in the village who could set it right, though it is Sunday?" No—certainly not at eight o'clock in the evening.

"I fear, my lady," said Granny Marrable, "that it was injured when the little boy Toby aimed a chestnut at it. And had I known of the damage done, I should have allowed him no sugar in his tea. But it may have been Toft, when he repaired the glass, for indeed he is little better than a heathen." She examined it and tried the key again. It was hopeless.

"Never mind, Phoebe dearest! I would have loved to see the millwheel turn again, as it did in the old days. Now we must wait for it to be put to rights. I shall see it one day." If she felt that she was sinking, she did not show it. She went on speaking at intervals. "Let me lie here and look at it.... Yes, put the candle near.... That was the deep hole, below the wheel, where the fish leapt.... Father would not allow us near it, for the danger.... There were steps up, and so many nettles.... Then above we got to the big pool where the alders were ... where the herons came...." A pause; then:—"Phoebe dearest!..."

"What, darling?"

"I was not mad.... You were not here, or you would have known me.... Would you not?"

"I would have known you, Maisie dearest—I would have known you, in time. Not at the first. But when I came to think of it, would I have dared to say the word?"

Gwen remembered this answer of old Phoebe's later, and saw its reasonableness. She only saw the practical side at the moment. "Why, Granny," she said—"if it hadn't been the mill, it would have been something else."

"But I was not mad," Maisie continued. "Only I must have frightened my Ruth.... I went up there once, Phoebe. Barnaby took me up one day...."

"Up where, Mrs. Picture dear?" Gwen left the old right hand free to show her meaning, but it fell back after a languid effort. The strength was near zero, though no one would have guessed it from the voice.

"Up there—in the roof—where the trap comes out.... Phoebe would not come, because of the dust.... It was so hot too.... Barnaby pulled up a flour-sack, to show me, and would have let me out on the trap, only I was frightened, it was so high! I could see all the way over to Braintree.... And Barnaby said on a clear day you could see St. Paul's.... I liked Barnaby—I disliked old Muggeridge.... Do you know, Phoebe dear, I used to think Barnaby's wife was old Muggeridge's sister, because her name had been Muggeridge?"

Old Phoebe threw light on the affair. Barnaby's wife was young Mrs. Muggeridge, who had exchanged into another regiment—was not really Barnaby's wife! that is to say, not his legal wife.

"But there now!" said old Phoebe, when she had ended this, "if that was not the very first of it all with me, when Dr. Nash he set me a-thinking, by telling of Muggeridge! For how would I ever have said a word of that old sinner to our little Dave?"

Old Maisie's attention was still on the mill-model. "You would not come up into the corn-loft, Phoebe," said she, "because of all the white dust. It was on everything, up there. When I went up with Barnaby the mill was not going, because the stones were out for old Chipstone to dress their faces. His real name was not Chipstone, but Chepstow. He could do two stones in one day, he worked so quick. So both were got out when he came, and the mill was stopped. Oh, Phoebe, do you remember when a chip flew in your eye, you were so bad?"

"Now, to think of that!" said Granny Marrable. "And me clean forgot it all these years! Old Chipstone, with glasses to shelter his eyesight; like blinkers on a horse. 'Tis all come back to me now, like last week. And I might have been a one-eyed girl all my days, the doctor said, only the chip just came a little out of true. To think that all these years I have forgotten it, and never thanked God once!"

"'Tis the sight of the mill brings it all back," said old Maisie. "I mind it so well, and the guy you looked, dear Phoebe, with a bandage to keep out the light. It was wolfsbane did it good, beat up in water quite fine."

"Be sure. Only 'twas none of Dr. Adlam's remedies, I lay.... Wasn't it Martha's—our old Martha?... There, now!—I've let go her name.... 'Twas on the tip of my tongue to say it...."

Old Maisie's voice was getting faint as she said:—"Old Martha Prichard ... the name I go by now, Phoebe darling.... I took it to ... to keep a memory...."

She was speaking in such a dying voice that Gwen struck in to put an end to her exerting it. "I see what you mean," she said. "You mean you took the name to bring back old times. Now be quiet and rest, dear! You are talking more than is good for you. Indeed you are!"

Thereon Granny Marrable, though she had never felt clear about the reason of this change of name, and now thought she saw enlightenment ahead, followed in compliance with what she conceived to be Lady Gwendolen's wishes. "Now you rest quiet, Maisie dearest, as her ladyship says. What would Dr. Nash think of such a talking?"

Ruth might not be back till very late, and as she had not reappeared it might be taken for granted she had stayed to sup with her daughter. Gwen suggested rather timidly—for it was going outside her beat—that the grandchild might have chosen its birthday. The Granny said, with a curious certainty, that there was no likelihood of that for a day or two yet, and went to summon Elizabeth from next door, to help with their own supper. She herself was rather old and slow, she said, in matters of house-service.

* * * * *

Gwen was not sorry to be left for a while to her own reflections before the smouldering red log on the kitchen fire.

The great bulldog from the lobby without, as though his courtesy could not tolerate such a distinguished guest being left alone, paid her a visit in her hostess's absence. He showed his consciousness of her identity by licking her hand at once. He would have smelt a stranger carefully all round before bestowing such an honour. Gwen addressed a few words to him of appreciation, and expressed her confidence in his integrity. He seemed pleased, and discovered a suitable attitude at her feet, after consideration of several. He looked up from his forepaws, on which his chin rested, with an expression that might have meant anything respectful, from civility to adoration. The cat, with her usual hypocrisy, came outside her fender to profess that she had been on Gwen's side all along, whatever the issue. Her method of explaining this was the sort that trips you up—that curls round your ankles and purrs. The cricket was too preoccupied to enter into the affairs of fussy, uncontinuous mortals, and the kettle was cool and detached, but ready to act when called on. The steady purpose of the clock, from which nothing but its own key could turn it, was to strike nine next, and the cloth was laid for supper. Supper was ready for incarnation, somewhere, and smelt of something that would have appealed to Dave, but had no charm for Gwen.

For she was sick at heart, and the moment that a pause left her free to admit it, heavy-eyed from an outcrop of head-oppression on the lids. It might have come away in tears, but her tissues grudged an outlet. She saw no balm in Gilead, but she could sit on a little in the silence, for rest. She could hear the voices of the two old sisters through the doors, and knew that Mrs. Picture was again awake, and talking. That was well!—leave them to each other, for all the time that might still be theirs, this side the grave.

What a whirl of strange unprecedented excitements had been hers since ... since when? Thought stopped to ask the question. Could she name the beginning of it all? Yes, plainly enough. It all began, for her, at the end of that long rainy day in July, when the sunset flamed upon the Towers, and she saw a trespasser in the Park, with a dog. She could feel again the unscrupulous paws of Achilles on her bosom, could hear his master's indignant voice calling him off, and then could see those beautiful dark eyes fixed on what their owner could not dream was his for ever, but which those eyes might never see again. She could watch the retiring figure, striding away through the bracken, and wonder that she should have stood there without a thought of the future. Why could she not have seized him and held him in her arms, and baffled all the cruelty of Fate? For was he not, even then, hers—hers—hers beyond a doubt? Could she not see now that her heart had said "I love you" even as he looked up from that peccant dog-collar, the source of all the mischief?

That was what began it. It was that which led her to stay with her cousin in Cavendish Square, and to a certain impatience with conventional "social duties," making her welcome as a change in excitements an excursion or two into unexplored regions, of which Sapps Court was to be the introductory sample. It was that which had brought into her life this sweet old woman with the glorious hair. No wonder she loved her! She never thought of her engrossing affection as strange or to be wondered at. That it should have been bestowed on the twin sister of an old villager in her father's little kingdom in Rocestershire was where the miracle came in.

And such a strange story as the one she had disinterred and brought to a climax! And then, when all might have gone so well—when a very few years of peace might have done so much to heal the lifelong wounds of the two souls so cruelly wrenched apart half a century ago, that the frail earthly tenement of the one should be too dilapidated to give its tenant shelter! So small an extension of the lease of life would have made such a difference.

But if it was hard for her to bear, what would it be to the survivor, the old sister who had borne so bravely and well what seemed to Gwen almost harder to endure than a loss; a resurrection from the tomb, or its equivalent? She had often shuddered to think what the family of Lazarus must have felt; and found no ease from the reflection that they were in the Bible and it was quite a different thing. They did not know they were in the Bible.

She helped the parallel a little farther, while the cricket chirped unmoved. Suppose that Lazarus had died again in earnest from the shock—and suppose, too, please, that he was deeply beloved, which may not have been the case! How would the wife, mother, sisters, who had said one farewell to him, have borne to see him die a second time? Of course, Gwen was alive to the fact that it would be bad religious form to suggest that this contingency was not covered by some special arrangement. But put it as an hypothesis, like the lady she had ascribed Adrian's ring to!