Chapter IV…

Chapter IV

A little more than six months later, when a golden September lay over the land, Rosamund could scarcely believe that she had ever lived out of Welsley. Dion was still in South Africa, in good health and “without a scratch.” In his last letter home he had written that he had no idea how long the C.I.V.’s would be kept in South Africa. The war dragged on, and despite the English successes which had followed such bitter defeats no one could say when it would end. There was no immediate reason, therefore, for Rosamund to move back to London.

She dreaded that return. She loved Welsley and could not now imagine herself living anywhere else. Robin, too was a pronounced, even an enthusiastic, “Welsleyite,” and had practically forgotten “old London,” as he negligently called the greatest city in the world. They were very happy in Welsley. In fact, the Dean’s widow was the only rift in Rosamund’s lute, that lute which was so full of sweet and harmonious music.

Rosamund’s lease of the house in the Precincts, “Little Cloisters,” as it was deliciously named, had been for six months, from the 1st of March till the 1st of September. As Dion was not coming home yet, and as he wrote begging her to live on at Welsley if she preferred it to London, she was anxious to “renew” for another six months. The question whether Mrs. Duncan Browning would, or would not, renew really tormented Rosamund, and the uncertainty in which she was living, and the misery it caused her, showed her how much of her heart had been given to Welsley.

The Dean’s widow was capricious and swayed by fluctuations of health. She was “up and down,” whatever that betokened. At one moment she “saw the sun,”--her poetical way of expressing that she began to feel pretty well,--and thought she had had enough of the “frivolous existence one leads in an hotel”; at another a fit of sneezing,--“was not the early morning sneeze but the real thing,”--a pang of rheumatism, or a touch of bronchitis, made her fear for the damp of Welsley. She would and she would not, and Rosamund could not induce her to come to a decision, and suffered agonies at the thought of being turned out of Little Cloisters. When Dion came back, of course, a flitting from Welsley would have to be faced, but to be driven away without that imperative reason would indeed be gall and wormwood. There were days when Rosamund felt unchristian towards Mrs. Dean, upon whom she had never looked, but with whom she had exchanged a great many cordial letters.

In August, under the influence of a “heavy cold, which seems the worse because of the heat,” Mrs. Browning had agreed to let Rosamund stay on for another month, September; and now Rosamund was anxiously awaiting a reply to her almost impassioned appeal for a six months’ extension of her lease. Canon Wilton was again in residence in the Precincts, and one afternoon he called at Little Cloisters, after the three o’clock service, to inquire what was the result of this appeal. Beatrice was staying with her sister for a few days, and when the Canon was shown in she was alone in the drawing-room, having just come up from the garden, where she had been playing with Robin, whose chirping high voice was audible, floating up from below.

“Is your sister busy?” asked the Canon, after greeting Beatrice.

Beatrice smiled faintly.

“She’s in her den. What do you think she is doing?”

The Canon looked hard at her, and he too smiled.

“Not writing again to Mrs. Browning?”

Beatrice nodded, and sat gently down on the window-seat.

“Begging and praying for an extension.”

“I’ve never seen any one so in love with a place as your sister is with Welsley.”

He sat down near Beatrice.

“But it is attractive, isn’t it?” she said.

She turned her head slowly and looked out of the open window to the enclosed garden which was bathed in mellow sunshine. The sky above the gray Cathedral towers was a clear and delicate, not deep, blue. Above the mossy red wall of the garden appeared the ruined arches of the cloisters which gave to the house its name. Among them some doves were cooing. Up in the blue, about the pinnacles of the towers, the rooks were busily flying. Robin, in a little loose shirt, green knickerbockers, and a tiny soft white hat set well on the back of his head, was gardening just below the window with the intensity that belongs to the dawn. His bare brown legs moved rapidly, as he ran from place to place carrying earth, a plant, a bright red watering-pot. The gardener, a large young man, with whom Robin was evidently on the most friendly, and even intimate, terms, was working with him, and apparently under his close and constant supervision. A thrush with very bright eyes looked on from an adjacent elder bush. Upon the wall, near the end of the Bishop’s Palace, a black cat was sunning itself and lazily attending to its toilet.

“It’s the very place for Rosamund,” said Beatrice, after a pause, during which she drank in Welsley. “She seems to know and love every stick and stone in it.”

“And almost every man, woman and child,” said the Canon. “She began by captivating the Precincts,--not such an easy task either, for a bishop usually has not the taste of a dean, and minor canons think very lightly of the praises of an archdeacon,--and she has ended by captivating the whole city. Even the wives of the clergy sing her praises with one accord. It’s the greatest triumph in the history of the church.”

“You see she likes them and is thoroughly interested in all their little affairs.”

“Yes, it’s genuine sympathy. She makes Welsley her world, and so Welsley thinks the world of her.”

He looked across at Beatrice for a moment meditatively, and then said:

“And when her husband comes back?”

“Dion! Well, then, of course----”

She hesitated, and in the silence the drawing-room door opened and Rosamund came in, holding an open letter in her hand, knitting her brows, and looking very grave and intense. She greeted the Canon with her usual warm cordiality, but still looked grave and preoccupied.

“I’ve been writing to Mrs. Browning, about the house,” she said earnestly. “It is damp, isn’t it?”

“Damp?” said the Canon. “I’ve never noticed it. But then do you think the house is unwholesome?”

“Not for us. What I feel is, that for a bronchial person it might be.”

She paused, looking at her letter.

“I’ve put just what I feel here, in a letter to Mrs. Browning. I know the house is considered damp; by the Precincts, I mean. Mrs. Murry told me so, and Mrs. Tiling-Smith thinks the same. Even the Bishop--why are you smiling, Canon Wilton?”

But she began to smile too.

“What does the Bishop say about the danger to health of Little Cloisters?”

Her lips twitched, but she replied with firm sweetness:

“The Bishop says that all, or nearly all, old houses are apt to be damp in winter.”

“A weighty utterance! But I’m afraid Mrs. Browning--by the way, have you put the Bishop into your letter?”

“I had thought of reading it to you both, but now I shall not.”

She put the letter into an envelope, sealed it up with practical swiftness, rang the bell for Annie and sent it to the postbox round the corner.

“I put the Bishop in,” she added, with a mockery of defiance that was almost girlish, when Annie had gone out.

“That was a mistake,” said the Canon sonorously.

“Why?”

“Bishops never carry weight with the wives, or widows, of deans.”

“But why not?” asked Rosamund, with a touch of real anxiety.

“Because the wives of deans always think their husbands ought to be bishops instead of those who are bishops, and the widows of deans always consider that they ought to be the widows of bishops. They therefore very naturally feel that bishops are not entitled by merit to the positions they hold, and could be treated with a delicate disdain.”

“I never thought of that. I wonder if Annie----”

“Too late!” said the Canon. “You’ll have to turn out of Little Cloisters, I foresee that.”

Rosamund sat down, leaned towards him with her hands clasped tightly together, and, in her absolutely unself-conscious way, began to tell him and Beattie what she felt about Welsley, or something of what she felt. A good deal she could only have told to Father Robertson. When she had finished, Canon Wilton said, in his rather abrupt and blunt way:

“Well, but if your husband comes home unexpectedly? You can’t stay here then, can you?”

Beatrice, who was still on the window seat, leaned out, and began to speak to Robin below her in a quiet voice which could scarcely be heard within the room.

“But Dion sees no prospect of coming home yet.”

“I heard to-day from some one in London that the C.I.V. may be back before Christmas.”

“Dion doesn’t say so.”

“It mayn’t be true.”

“Dion writes that no one out there has any idea when the war will end.”

“Probably not. But the C.I.V. mayn’t be needed all through the war. Most of them are busy men who’ve given up a great deal out of sheer patriotism. Fine fellows! They’ve done admirable work, and the War Office may decide that they’ve done enough. Things out there have taken a great turn since Roberts and Kitchener went out. The C.I.V. may come marching home long before peace is declared.”

He spoke with a certain pressure, a certain intensity, and his eyes never left Rosamund’s face.

“I’m glad my Dion’s one of them,” she said. “And Robin will be glad, too, some day.”

She said nothing more about Mrs. Browning and Little Cloisters. But when Canon Wilton had gone she said to her sister:

“Beattie, does it ever strike you that Canon Wilton’s rather abrupt and unexpected sometimes in what he says?”

“He doesn’t beat about the bush,” replied Beatrice. “Do you mean that?”

“Perhaps I do. Now I’m going down to Robin. How strong he’s getting here! Hark at his voice! Can’t you hear even in his voice how much good Welsley had done him?”

Robin’s determined treble was audible as he piped out:

“Oh no, Fipper! Not by the Bish’s wall! Why, I say, the slugs always comes there. They do, weally! You come and see! Come quick! I’ll show----”

The voice faded in the direction of the Palace.

“I must go down and see if it’s true about the slugs,” exclaimed Rosamund.

And with beaming eyes she hastened out of the room.

Beatrice looked after her and sighed. Dion’s last letter from South Africa was lying on the writing-table close to her. Rosamund had already given it to her to read. Now she took it up and read it carefully again. The doves cooed in the cloisters; the bells chimed in the tower; the mellow sunshine--already the sunshine not of full summer, but of the dawning autumn, with its golden presage of days not golden, and of nights heavy with dews and laden with floating leaves,--came in through the lattice, and lay over her soft and wistful melancholy, as she read of hardship, and dust, and blood and death, told truthfully, but always cheerfully, as a soldier tells a thing to a woman he loves and wishes to be sincere with.

Dion was not in the peace. Dear Rosamund! Did she quite realize? And then Beattie pulled herself up. A disloyal thought surely leaves a stain on the mind through which it passes. Beattie did not want to have a stain on her mind. She cared for it as a delicately refined woman cares for her body, bathing it every day.

She put Dion’s letter down.

That evening Rosamund sang at a charity concert in the City Hall. Her music was already a legend in Welsley and the neighborhood. Mr. Dickinson, who always accompanied her singing, declared it emphatically to be “great.” The wife of the Bishop, Mrs. Mabberley, pronounced the verdict, “She sings with her soul rather than with her voice,” without intention of paying a left-handed compliment. The Cathedral Choir boys affirmed that “our altos are a couple of squeaks beside her.” Even Mrs. Dickinson, “the cold douche,” as she was named in the Precincts, had long ago “come round” about Mrs. Dion Leith, and had been heard to say of her, “She’s got more than a contralto, she’s got a heart, and I couldn’t say that of some women in high positions.” This was “aimed” at the Dean’s wife, Mrs. Jasper, who gave herself musical airs, and sometimes tried to “interfere with the Precentor’s arrangements,” which meant falling foul of “Henry.”

As Rosamund looked down upon the rows of friendly and familiar faces from the platform, as she heard the prolonged applause which greeted her before she sang, and the cries of “Encore!” which saluted her when she finished, she felt that she had given her heart irrevocably to Welsley, and the thought came to her, “How can I leave it?” This was cozy, and London could never be cozy. She could identify herself with the concentrated life here, without feeling it a burden upon her. For she was so much beloved that people even respected her privacy, and fell in with what she called “my absurd little ways.” In London, however many people you knew, you saw strangers all the time, strangers with hard, indifferent eyes and buttoned-up mouths. And one could never say of London “my London.”

When the concert was over she wound a veil about her pale yellow hair, wrapped a thin cloak round her shoulders, took up her music case and asked for Beattie. An eager boy with a smiling round face, one of the Cathedral Choristers, darted off to find Mrs. Daventry, the sister of “our Mrs. Leith”; Mr. Dickinson gently, but decisively, took the music case from Rosamund’s hand with an “I’ll carry that home for you”; a thin man, like an early primrose obliged by some inadvertence of spring to work for its living, sidled up and begged for the name of “your most beautiful and chaste second encore for our local paper, the ‘Welsley Whisperer’”; and Mrs. Dickinson in a pearl gray shawl, with an artificial pink camellia carelessly entangled in her marvelously smooth mouse-colored hair, appeared to tell Mrs. Leith authoritatively that “Madame Patey in her heyday never sang ‘O Rest in the Lord’ as we have heard it sung to-night.”

Then Rosamund, pleasantly surrounded by dear provincial enthusiasts, made her way to the door where Beattie, with more enthusiasts, was waiting for her; and they all came out into the narrow High Street, and found the September moon riding above their heads to give them a greeting nobly serene and beneficent, and they set out sans facon, many of them bare-headed, to walk home down tiny “Archbishop’s Lane” to the Precincts.

Rosamund walked with Mr. Dickinson on one side of her and the Dean of Welsley and Mrs. Jasper on the other; Canon Wilton, Beattie, the Archdeacon of Welsley and the Precentor were just in front; behind peacefully streamed minor canons and their wives, young sons and daughters of the Precincts, and various privileged persons who, though not of the hierarchy, possessed small houses within the sacred pale. Only the Bishop and his consort drove majestically home in “Harrington’s Fly.”

What a chatter of voices there was under the projecting eaves of the dear old house! What happy laughter was wafted towards the smiling moon! Mrs. Dickinson, presently “coming up with” Rosamund’s party, became absolutely “waggish” (the Dean’s expression), and made Rosamund laugh with that almost helpless spontaneity which is the greatest compliment to a joke. And then the gate in the ancient archway was opened, and they all passed into their great pleasaunce, and, with a sensation of joyous proprietorship, heard the gate shut and locked behind them, and saw the Cathedral lifting its towers to the moon. Laughter was hushed then, and some of the voices were silent; feet went more slowly along the edges of the velvety lawns; the spell of ancient things which are noble, and which tell of the noble ideals of humanity, fell upon them; their hearts within them were lifted up.

When the Dean bade good-night to Rosamund he said:

“Your music and you mean a great deal to Welsley.”

“Not half as much as Welsley means to me,” she replied with earnest sincerity.

“We are all looking forward to greeting your gallant, self-sacrificing husband presently, very soon I hope. Good-night to you. It has been”--he paused, looked at Rosamund and gently pressed her hand,--“a most fragrant evening.”

A most fragrant evening! When Beattie and Rosamund had eaten their sandwiches, and drunk their still lemonade and claret, and when Beattie had gone to bed, Rosamund slipped out alone into the dear walled garden, and paced up and down in the moonlight.

Yes, there was something fragrant here, something that infected the soul, something of old faiths and old holy aspirations, a murmur and a perfume of trust and love. There might be gossip, trickling jealousies in this little world, mean actions, even, perhaps, ugly desires and ugly fulfilments of desire. Rosamund scarcely noticed, or did not notice, these things. With her people were at their best. That night, when Beattie was going to bed, Rosamund had said to her:

“I can’t think why Mrs. Dickinson is called ‘the cold douche.’ I find her so warm-hearted and so amusing!”

And so it was with them all. Rosamund had the magic touch which drew the best out of every one in Welsley, because she was happy there, and sincerely loved the place.

“How can I leave Welsley?” she thought now, as she walked up and down in the garden, and heard presently the chiming of midnight and the voice of the watchman beyond the Dark Entry. God seemed very near to her in Welsley, God and the happiness of God. In Welsley she felt, or was beginning to feel, that she was almost able to combine two lives, the life she had grasped and the life she had let go. Here she was a mother and at moments she was almost a religious too. She played with her boy, she trained him, watched over his small body and his increasing soul; and she meditated between the enclosing walls, listening to bells and floating praises, to the Dresden Amen, and to the organ with its many voices all dedicated to the service of God. Often, when she walked alone in the garden, or sat alone in some hidden corner under the mossy walls, she felt like a nun who had given up the world forever, and had found the true life in God. In imagination, then, she lived the life of which she had dreamed as a girl before any man had brought her his love.

She could never, even in imagination, live that life truly, without effort, in London. Welsley had made her almost hate London. She did not know how she would be able to bear the return to it. Yet, if Canon Wilton were right in what he had said to her that afternoon, Dion might come back very soon, and therefore very soon she might have to leave Welsley.

No. 5 Little Market Street once more; vaporous Westminster leaning to the dark river!

Rosamund sighed deeply as she looked up again to the towers, and the moon, and turned to go into Little Cloisters. It was difficult to shut out such a night; it would be more difficult to give up the long meditations, the dreams that came in this sweet retirement sheltered by the house of God.

* * * * *

Two days later, at breakfast-time, Rosamund received the following letter, written on paper scented with “Wood violet”:

“HOTEL PALACE-BY-THE-SEA, BOURNEMOUTH, Thursday

“MY DEAR MRS. LEITH,--I have received your two--or is it three?--charming letters recently written, suggesting a renewal of the lease of Little Cloisters beyond September. At first I hesitated. The atmosphere of a Cathedral town naturally attracts me and recalls sweet memories of the past. On the other hand the life of a well-managed hotel, such as this is not without its agrements. Frivolous it may be (though not light); comfortable and restful it undoubtedly is. The against and the for in a nutshell as it were! Your last letter, in which you dwell on the dampness inevitable in old houses, and quote the Bishop’s opinion, would, I think, have left me undisturbed in mind--I have recently taken up the ‘new mind’ cult, which is, of course, not antagonistic to our cherished Anglican beliefs--had it not happened to coincide with more than a touch of bronchial asthma. The Bishop (quite between you and me!) though a very dear man and a very good Christian, is not a person of great intellect. My husband would never enter into controversy with him, as he said it was useless to strive in argument with a mind not sure of its bearings! An opinion of the Bishop’s would not, therefore, weigh much with me. But there is an element of truth in the contention as to the damp. Old houses are damp at times. Little Cloisters, placed as it is in the shadow of the Cathedral, doubtless suffers in some degree from this defect. My doctor here,--such a clever man!--though very reluctant to prevent me from returning home, confessed to-day that he thought my case needed careful watching by some one who knew. Now (between you and me), nobody knows in Welsley, and therefore, after weighing pros and cons, and undergoing an hour of mental treatment--merely the silent encouragement and purification of the will--by an expert here, I have decided to remain for the winter. I am willing, therefore, to extend your lease for another six months on the terms as before. Perhaps you will kindly visit my solicitor, Mr. Collingwood of Cattle Market Lane,--but you are sure to know his address!--who will arrange everything legally with you.--With my kindest regards and all good wishes, believe me, dear Mrs. Leith, always sincerely yours,

“IMOGENE DUNCAN BROWNING.”

It was Beattie’s last morning at Little Cloisters; she had settled to go back to De Lorne Gardens in the afternoon of that day. Rosamund read Mrs. Browning’s letter sitting opposite to her sister at the breakfast-table in the small, paneled dining-room. At the same time Beattie was reading a letter from Guy. As she finished it she looked up and said:

“Anything interesting?”

“What does Guy say?” replied Rosamund. “Oh, here’s a letter from godfather! Perhaps he’s coming down.”

Rather hastily she tore open another envelope.

Later on in the morning, when Beattie was doing mysterious things in the garden with Robin, Rosamund slipped out alone and made her way to Cattle Market Lane. She came back just before lunch, looking unusually preoccupied.

The day after Beattie had returned to London, a note from Rosamund told her that the lease of Little Cloisters had been renewed for another six months, till the end of March, 1901.

“And if old Dion comes back in the meanwhile, as I fully expect he will?” said Guy, when Beattie told him of Rosamund’s note.

“I suppose it is possible to sublet a house,” said Beattie, looking unusually inexpressive, Guy thought.

“They say at the Clubs the C.I.V. will be back before Christmas, Beattie,” said Guy.

“The Tenbys’ lease of Number 5 is up.”

“Yes, but do you think Dion can afford to run two houses?”

“Perhaps----” she stopped.

“I don’t believe Rosamund will ever be got out of Welsley,” said Guy. “And I’m pretty sure you agree with me.”

“I must go now,” said Beattie gently. “I’m going to Queen Anne’s Mansions to tell the dear mother all about my visit to Welsley.”

“When is she going there?”

“I don’t know. She’s very lazy about moving. She’s not been out of London since Dion sailed.”

“I think she’s the most delicate mother-in-law--I don’t mean physically--who has ever been born in the world.”

Beattie looked down, and in a moment went out of the room without saying anything more.

“Darling Beattie,” murmured Guy, looking after his wife. “How she bears her great disappointment.”

For Beattie’s sake far more than for his own he longed to have a child in his home, a child of hers and his. But that would never be. And so Beattie gave all the mother-love that was in her to Robin, but much of it secretly. Guy knew that, and believed he knew the secret of her reticence even with Robin. She loved Robin, as it were, from a distance; only his mother must love him cheek to cheek, lips to lips, heart to heart, and his father as men love the sons they think of as the bravery and strength of the future.

But even Guy did not know how much his wife loved Robin, how many buried hopes and dreams stirred in their graves when Robin threw himself impulsively into her arms and confidentially hung on her neck and informed her of the many important details of his life. No man knows all that a certain type of woman is able to feel about a child.

When Rosamund had arranged about the renewal of the lease, she tried to feel the joy which was evidently felt by all her Welsley friends--with one exception which, however, she either did not notice or did not seem to notice. They were frankly delighted and enthusiastic at the prospect of keeping her among them. She was very grateful for their affection, so eagerly shown, but somehow, although she had signed her name in a solicitor’s office, and her signature had been witnessed by a neat young man with a neat bald head, she did not feel quite at ease. She found herself looking at “my Welsley” with the anxiously loving eyes of one who gathers in dear details before it is too late for such garnering; she sat in the garden and listened to the beloved sounds from the Cathedral with strained attention, like one who sets memory at its mysterious task.

The Dean’s widow had yielded to the suggestion of inevitable dampness in old houses, but----!

On September 28, towards evening, when Rosamund was in the garden with Robin, Annie, the parlor-maid, came out holding a salver on which lay a telegram. Rosamund opened it and read:

“Coming home.--DION.”

“Any answer, ma’am?”

* * * * *

“Is there any answer, ma’am? Shall I tell the boy to wait?”

“What did you say, Annie?”

“Shall I tell the boy to wait, ma’am?”

“No, thank you, Annie. There’s no answer.”

Annie turned and recrossed the garden, looking careful, as if she were thinking of her cap, round which the airs were blowing.

Rosamund sat for a few minutes almost motionless, with the slip of paper lying in her lap; then the breeze came lightly, as if curious, and blew it away. Robin saw it and ran.

“I’ll catch it, mummie. You see! I’ll catch it!”

The little brown legs were amazingly swift, but the telegram was elusive because the breeze was naughty. When Robin ran up to his mother holding it out he was almost breathless.

“Here it is, mummie.”

His blue eyes and his voice held triumph.

“I said I would, and I did!”

Rosamund put her arm round him.

“Who do you think sent this?”

“I dunno.”

“Daddy sent it.”

Robin’s eyes became round.

“Daddy! What for?”

“To tell us he’s coming home.”

A deeply serious expression came to Robin’s face.

“Have I growed much?”

“Yes, a great deal.”

“Will daddy see it?”

“Yes, I’m sure he will directly he comes.”

Robin seemed relieved.

“Is daddy coming here?”

“Yes.”

“Is he goin’ to live here with us?”

“We shall see about all that when he comes.”

Annie, evidently still thinking about her cap, reappeared on the garden path.

“The Dean to see you, ma’am.”

Rosamund got up, gave Robin a long kiss on the freckles and said:

“Robin, I believe the Dean has come about Mr. Thrush.”

“Does he know Mr. Thrush?”

“Not yet. I’ll tell you something presently.”

And she went slowly into the house. Was a scheme of hers coming to fruition just when----? She tried to close her mind to an approaching thought.

Chapter V

On the 7th of October the C.I.V. sailed from South Africa for England, on the 19th of October they made St. Vincent; on the 23rd Dion again looked over the sea at the dreaming hills of Madeira. The sight of these hills made him realize the change brought about in him by the work he had done in South Africa. As he gazed at them he suddenly and sharply remembered the man who had gazed at them nine months before, a man who was gathering together determination, who was silently making preparations for progress, or for what he thought of as progress. Those hills then had seemed to be calling to him out of the mists of heat, and to himself he had seemed to be defying them, to be thrusting their voices from him. For were they not the hills of a land where the lotus bloomed, where a weariness bred of stagnant delights wrapped men in a garment of Nessus, steeped in a subtle poison which drew from them all their energies, which brought them not pain but an inertia more deadly to the soul than pain? Now they had no power over him. He did not need to defy them, because he had gained in strength. Ere they vanished from his eyes over the sea he remembered another Island rising out of waters that gleamed with gold. How far off now seemed to him that evening when he had looked on it as he traveled to Greece! How much he had left behind on the way of his life!

The experience of separation and of war had not aged him, but it had made him feel older. Nothing of the boy was left in him. He felt himself of manhood all compact. He had seen men die, had seen how they were able to die, how they met severe physical suffering; he had silently tried to prepare himself for death, keeping a cheerful countenance; he had known, like most brave men, the cold companionship of fear, and he had got rid of that companionship. Knowing death better, he knew life much better than when he had left England.

On the voyage out he had looked at the hills of Madeira with Worthington. Now Worthington was not with him; he had died of enteric at Pretoria in September. Dion was carrying back to England Worthington’s last written message to his people. He was carrying also another letter written by an English officer, whose body lay in the earth of Africa, to a woman at home. On the voyage Dion often thought of that dead man and of the living woman to whom he would presently give the letter. He had promised to deliver it personally.

At St. Vincent he had received a welcome by cable from Rosamund, and had sent a cable to her asking not to be met. He wished to meet her in her home at Welsley. She had written to him enthusiastic accounts of its peace and beauty. Her pen had been tipped with love of it. Their first meeting, their reunion, must take place there in the midst of that wonderful peace of green England which she loved so much. After the heat and the dust and the pain of South Africa that would surely be very good.

Their reunion!

Dion had escaped death. He had been allowed to return to Rosamund in splendid health, without a wound, though he had been in battle. He had a strong presentiment that he was allowed to return for some definite purpose. Could he not now be of far more use to his little son than if he had never volunteered for active service? Rosamund and he had looked up together at the columns of the Parthenon and had thought of the child who might come. Dion felt that he understood the Parthenon better now that he had looked death in the face, now that he had been ready to give up his life if it had been required of him. He even had a whimsical feeling--he smiled at it seriously to himself--that the Parthenon, if he again stood before it, would understand him better. He was not proud of himself for what he had done. But in the depths of him he often felt earnestly glad, almost thankful, that he had been able to do it. The doing of it had brought a new zest into life, new meanings, a new outlook. He seemed to feel life like something precious in his hand now; he had not felt it so before, even when he had won Rosamund and had been with her in Greece.

* * * * *

The hills of Madeira faded. Three days later there was a burial at sea in the early morning. A private, who had been ill with enteric, had died in the night. The body sank into the depths, the ship went on her way and ran into a stiff gale. Already England was rousing herself to welcome her returning sons, bruskly but lustily, in her way, which was not South Africa’s way. Dion loved that gale though it kept him awake all night.

Next morning they were off the Start, and heard the voices of the sirens bidding them good day.

* * * * *

On the last day of October, at about four o’clock in the afternoon, Rosamund was waiting for Dion. He was due by the express which, when up to time, reached Welsley Station at 3.55. She would naturally have been at the station to meet him if she had not received a telegram from him begging her to stay at home.

“Would much rather meet you first in Little Cloisters,--Dion,” were the last words of the telegram.

So Rosamund had stayed at home.

It was a peculiarly still autumn afternoon. A suggestion--it was scarcely more than that--of mist made the Precincts look delicately sad, but not to the eyes of Rosamund. She delighted in this season of tawny colors and of fluttering leaves, of nature’s wide-eyed and contemplative muteness. The beauty of autumn appealed to her because she possessed a happy spirit, and was not too imaginative. She had imagination, but it was not of the intensely sensitive and poetic kind which dies with the dying leaves, and in the mists loses all the hopes that were born with the birth of summer. The strong sanity which marked her, and which had always kept her in central paths, far away from the byways in which the neurotic, the decadent, the searchers after the so-called “new” things loved to tread, led her to welcome each season in is turn, and to rejoice in its special characteristics.

So she loved the cloistral feeling autumn brought with it to Welsley. Green summer seemed to open the doors, and one rejoiced in a golden freedom; tawny autumn seemed softly to close the doors, and one was happy in a sensation of being tenderly guarded, of being kept very safe in charge for the coming winter with its fires, and its cosy joys of the interior.

Another reason which made Rosamund care very much for the autumn was this: in the autumn the religious atmosphere which hung about the Precincts of Welsley seemed to her to become more definite, more touching, the ancient things more living and powerful in their message.

“Welsley always sends out influences,” she had once said to Father Robertson. “But in certain autumn days it speaks. I hear its voice in the autumn.”

She heard its voice now as she waited for Dion.

The lattice window which gave on to the garden was partly open; there was a fire in the wide, old-fashioned grate; vases holding chrysanthemums stood on the high wood mantelpiece and on the writing-table; the tea-table had been placed by Annie near the hearth.

Rosamund listened to the cloistral silence, and looked at two deep, old-fashioned arm-chairs which were drawn up by the tea-table.

Just how much had she missed Dion?

That question had suddenly sprung up in her mind as she looked at the two arm-chairs.

The first time she had been in Little Cloisters she had spoken to Canon Wilton of Dion, had wondered if he would come back from South Africa altered; and she had said that if she came to live in it Welsley might alter her. Canon Wilton had made no comment on her remark. She had scarcely noticed that at the time, perhaps had not consciously noticed it; but her subconscious mind had recorded the fact, and she recalled it now.

Welsley, she thought, had changed her a good deal. She was not a self-conscious woman as a rule, but to-day was not like other days, and she was not quite like herself on other days. Perhaps, for once, she was what women often call “strung up”; certainly she felt peculiarly alive--alive specially in the nerves of her body.

Those two arm-chairs were talking to her; they were telling her of the imminent renewal of the life closely companioned, watched over, protected, beloved. They were telling, and they were asking, too. She felt absurdly that it was they who were asking how much she had missed Dion.

It would be good to have him back, but she now suddenly realized, in a self-conscious way, that she had managed to be very happy without him. But then she had always looked forward to his eventual return. Suppose he had not come back?

She got up restlessly, went to the window and looked out into the garden. Robin was not there, nor was he in the house. Obedient to an impulse which she had not understood at the time, Rosamund had arranged a small, and rather odd, festivity for him which had taken him away from home, and would keep him out till five o’clock: he was having tea in a cake-shop near the top of Wesley High Street with his nurse and Mr. Thrush, who, not unexpectedly, had arrived in Welsley. The first meeting between his father and mother would not be complicated by his eager young presence.

So the garden was empty to-day. Not even the big young gardener was to be seen; he only came on four days in the week, and this was not one of them. As Rosamund looked down into the garden, she loved its loneliness, its misty, autumnal aspect. It was surely not her fault if she had a natural affection for solitude--not for the hideous solitude of a childless mother, but for the frequent privacy of a mother who was alone, but who knew that her child was near, playing perhaps, or gone for a little jaunt with his faithful nurse, or sleeping upstairs.

As she looked at the garden a faint creeping sense of something almost like fear came to her. Since Dion had been away she had surely altered, because she had had a new experience; she had, as it were, touched the confines of that life which she had deliberately renounced when she had married.

It seemed to her, as she stood there and remembered her long meditations in that enclosed and ancient garden, that in these months she had drawn much nearer to God, and--could it be because of that?--perhaps had receded a little from her husband.

The sense of uneasiness--she could not call it fear--deepened in her. Was the receding then implicit in the drawing near? She began to feel almost confused. She put up a hand to her face; her cheek was hot.

The clock in the room struck four; two minutes later the chimes sounded, and then Big John announced the hour.

Dion might arrive at any moment now. She turned away rather quickly from the window. She hated the unusual feeling of self-consciousness which had come to her.

At ten minutes past four the door bell rang. It must be he. She went to the drawing-room door, opened it and listened. She heard a man’s voice and a bump; then another bump, a creaking, a sort of scraping, and the voice once more saying, “I’ll manage, miss.”

It was Dion’s luggage. Harrington’s man explained that the gentleman had said he would walk to Little Cloisters.

Rosamund went back into the drawing-room and shut the door. Now that Dion’s luggage was actually in the house everything seemed curiously different. A period was definitely over; her loneliness with Robin in Little Cloisters was at an end. She sat down in one of the two arm-chairs by the tea-table, clasped her hands together and looked at the fire.

If she had held to her girlish idea? If she had become a “Sister”? But--she shook her head as she sat there alone--Robin! And then she sighed; she had not thought, “But--Dion!” She was almost angry with herself for being so introspective, so mentally observant of herself. All this was surely unnatural in her. Was she going to become morbid--she who had such a hatred of morbidity? She tried to force herself to feel that she had missed Dion tremendously, that his return would make things right in Little Cloisters.

But had they ever been wrong? And, besides, Little Cloisters would almost immediately be only a dear memory of the past.

Rosamund began almost to hate herself. Was she capable of any sort of treachery? Swiftly she began to dwell upon all the dear goodness of Dion, upon his love, his admiration, his perpetual thoughtfulness, his unselfishness, his straight purity, his chivalry, his unceasing devotion. He was a man to trust implicitly. That was enough. She trusted him and loved him. She thanked God that he was back in England. She had missed him more, much more than she had realized; she was quite sure of that now that she had recalled things. One happiness is apt to oust the acute memory of another. That had (quite naturally) happened in her case. It would indeed have been strange if, living in such a dear place as “My Welsley,” with Robin the precious one, she had been a miserable woman! And she had always known--as women know things they do not know--that Dion would come back after behaving nobly. And that was exactly what had happened.

She looked at the arm-chair opposite.

How splendid it would be to see dear, brave, good, faithful Dion sitting in it in a moment, safe after all his hardships and dangers, comfortable, able to rest at last in his own home.

For Little Cloisters would be his home even if only for a few days. And then----What about Mr. Thrush? What about--oh, so many things?

“I’ll find the way all right,” Dion had said at the station, after he had been assured that it was only ten minutes’ walk, “or so,” to Little Cloisters.

The little walk would be a preparation for the very great event. He only knew how great it was when he got out at the Welsley Station.

He had never seen Welsley before, though its fame had been familiar to him from childhood. Thousands of pilgrims had piously visited it, coming from afar; now yet another pilgrim had come from afar, sensitively eager to approach a shrine which held something desired by his soul.

That part of the city which immediately surrounded the station was not attractive, but very soon Dion came into a narrow street and was aware of an ancient flavor, wholly English, and only to be savored thoroughly by an English palate. In this street he began to taste England. He passed an old curiosity shop, black and white, with a projecting upper storey, lattice windows with tiny panes, a door of black oak upon which many people had carved their names. By the door stood a spinning-wheel. In the window were a tea service of spode and a collection of luster ware. There were also some Toby jugs.

Dion went in quickly and bought one for Robin. He carried it unwrapped in his hand as he walked on. One could do that here, in this intimate, cozy old town of dear England. He enjoyed the light mist, the moisture in the air. He had come to hate aridity and the acrid dryness of dust blown by hot winds across great spaces. The moisture caressed his skin, burnt almost to the color of copper by the African sun.

He came into the High Street. On its farther side, straight in front of him, the narrowest street he had ever seen, a rivulet of a street, with leaning houses which nearly formed an arcade, stretched to a wonderful gray gateway, immensely massive, with towers at its corners, and rows of shields above its beetling archway.

This must be the entrance to the Precincts.

In the tiny street he met a verger in mufti, an old bent man, with a chin-beard and knotty hands, English in every vein, in every sinew of his amazingly respectable and venerable body. This worthy he stopped and inquired of him the way to Little Cloisters.

“Where Mrs. Leith and her boy lives, sir?” mouthed the old man, with a kindly gaping smile.

“That’s it.”

“She’s a nice lady,” said the verger. “We think a lot of her here, especially we Cathedral folk.”

He went on to explain elaborately where Little Cloisters was, and to describe minutely two routes, by either of which it might be come at. It was evident that he was one of those who love to listen to themselves and who take a pride in words.

Dion decided for the route “round at the back” by Chantrey Lane, through the Green Court, leaving the Deanery on the left and the Bishop’s Palace on the right, and so by way of the Prior’s Gate and the ruins of the Infirmary through the Dark Entry to Little Cloisters.

“You can’t miss it. The name’s writ on the door in the wall, and a rare old wall it is,” said the venerable man.

Dion thanked him warmly and walked on, while the verger looked after him.

“I shouldn’t wonder if that’s Mrs. Leith’s husband home from the war,” he murmured. “Looks as if he’d been fighting, he does, and burnt pretty near to a cinder by something, the sun as like as not.”

And he walked on down the tiny street towards the muffin which awaited him at home, well pleased with his perspicuity, and making mental preparations for the astonishing of his wife with a tidbit of news.

Dion came into the Green Court, and immediately felt Welsley, felt it in the depths of him, and understood Rosamund’s love of it so often expressed in her letters. As he looked at the moist green lawn in the center, at the gray and brown houses which fronted it, at the Deanery garden full of the ruddy flowers of autumn behind the iron railings, at the immense Cathedral with its massive and yet almost tenderly graceful towers, a history in stone of the faithful work and the progress of men, he knew why Rosamund had come to live here. He stood still. In the misty air he heard the voices of the rooks. The door of a Canon’s house opened, and two clergymen, one of them in gaiters and a shovel hat, came out, and walked slowly away in earnest conversation. Bells sounded in one of the towers.

He understood. Here was a sort of essence of ecclesiasticism. It seemed to penetrate the whole atmosphere. Rosamund was at home in it.

He remembered his terrible thought that God had always stood between his wife and him, dividing them.

How would it be now?

Again he looked up at the great house of God, and he felt almost afraid. But he was not the man he had been when he said good-by to Rosamund; he had gained in force of character, and he knew it. Surely out there in South Africa, he had done what his mother had wanted him to do, he had laid hold of his best possibilities. At any rate, he had sincerely tried to do that. Why, then, should he be afraid--and of God?

He walked on quickly, and came to Little Cloisters by way of the Dark Entry.

It was very dark that day, for the autumn evening was already making its moist presence felt, and there was a breathing of cold from the old gray stones which looked like the fangs of Time.

Dion shook his broad shoulders in an irresistible shiver as he came out into the passage-way between Rosamund’s garden wall and the ruined cloisters, immediately beyond which rose the east end of the Cathedral. South Africa had evidently made him sensitive to the dampness and cold of England.

“Little Cloisters.” The white words showed on a tall green door let into the wall on his left; and, as the verger had said, it was a rare old wall. So here it actually was! He was at home. His heart thumped as he pulled at the bell, and unconsciously he gripped the Toby jug hard with his other hand.

Chapter VI

“Dion! Is it you at last?”

A warm voice called from above, and the blood rushed to his temples.

“Yes.”

It seemed to him that he took the old staircase in his stride, and he had a feeling almost such as a man has when he is going into action.

“Rose!”

He held her in his arms and kissed her.

“It’s--seemed a long time!”

He felt moisture springing to his eyes. The love he felt for her almost overwhelmed his self-control. Till this moment he had never known how great it was. All his deprivation was in that embrace.

“Years it’s seemed!” he said, letting her go with a little laugh, summoned up--he did not know how--to save him from too much emotion.

She gazed at him.

“Oh, Dion, how you have altered!”

“Have I?”

“Tremendously.”

How well he knew the kindly glance of her honest brown eyes; a thousand times he had called it up before him in South Africa. But this was not the glance so characteristic of her. In the firelit room her eyes looked puzzled, almost wide, with a sort of startled astonishment.

“You had a lot of the boy in you still when you went away. At least, I used to think so.”

“Haven’t I any left?”

“I can’t see any. No, I think you’ve come back all man. And how tremendously burnt you are.”

“Almost black, I suppose. But I’m so accustomed to it.”

“It’s right,” she said. “Your face tells the story of what you’ve done. Robin”--she paused, then slowly she said--“Robin’s got almost a new father.”

“Where is he? He’s sure to have altered more than I have.”

“Oh no. He’ll be in about five. I’ve sent him out to tea with some one you know.”

“With whom?”

“Mr. Thrush.”

“Mr. Thrush at Welsley?”

“Yes. I’ll explain all that presently. I thought I’d have you all to myself for half an hour, and then Robin should have his turn. Here comes Annie.”

When the two arm-chairs were occupied, Dion said:

“And you, Rosamund?”

“What about me?”

“Haven’t you altered?”

“If I have, probably you would know it and I shouldn’t.”

“Yes, I dare say that’s true. You aren’t conscious of it, then?”

But she was giving him his tea, and that took her mind away from his question, no doubt. He felt a change in her, but it was not almost fiercely marked like the change in him, on whom a Continent had written with its sun and its wind, and with its battlefields. The body of a man was graven by such a superscription. And no doubt even a child could read something of it. But the writing on Rosamund was much fainter, was far less easy to decipher; it was perhaps traced on the soul rather than on the body. The new legend of Dion was perhaps an assertion. But this story of Rosamund, what was it? She saw the man in Dion, lean, burnt, strong, ardent, desirous, full of suppressed emotion that was warmly and intensely human; he saw in her, as well as the mother, something that was perhaps almost pale, almost elusive, like the still figure and downbent face of a recluse seen in passing an open window.

She saw in Dion his actions; he saw in her her meditations. Perhaps that was it. All this time he had been living incessantly in the midst of men, never alone, nearly always busy, often fiercely active, marching, eating, sleeping in company. And all the time she had been here, in the midst of this cloistral silence, and perhaps often alone.

“You know everybody here, I suppose?” he asked, drinking his tea with relish, and eating the toast which seemed to him crisply English, but always faintly aware of that still figure and of that downbent face.

“Almost everybody. I’ve sung a great deal, and got to know them all partly through that. And they’re dear people most of them. They let one alone when they know one wants to be alone.”

“And I expect you can enjoy being alone here.”

“Yes,” she said simply. “At times. It would be difficult to feel lonely, in the miserable, dreadful way, I mean, in the Precincts. We are rather like a big family here, each one with his, or her, own private room in the big family house.”

“I know you’ve always loved a certain amount of solitude, Rose,” he said tenderly. “D’you remember that day in London when I burst in upon your solitude with Dante, and was actually jealous of the ‘Paradiso’?”

“Yes,” she said, smiling.

“But you forgave me, or I shouldn’t be here now.”

He gave her his cup for some more tea.

“You can’t imagine how absolutely wonderful it is to me to be here after what I’ve been through.”

He lay back in his chair, but he still looked tremendously alert, wiry, powerful even.

Dion was much more impressive than he had been when he went away. Rosamund felt a faint creeping of something that was almost like shyness in her as she looked at him.

“After Green Point Camp and Orange River--I shall never forget the dust-storm we had there!--and Springfontein and Kaffir River--oh, the heat there, Rose!--and Kaalfontein and all the rest of it. It was near Kaalfontein that we first came under fire. I shan’t forget that.”

He was silent for a moment. She looked at him across the tea-table. All that he knew and she did not know now made him seem rather strange to her. The uniting of two different, utterly different, experiences of life, was more tremendous, more full of meaning and of mystery, than the uniting of two bodies. This, then, was to be a second wedding-day for her and for Dion? All their letters, in which, of course, they had tried to tell each other something of their differing experiences, had really told very little, almost nothing. Dion’s glance told her more than all his letters, that and his color, and certain lines in his face, and the altered shapes of his hands, and his way of holding himself, and his way of speaking. Even his voice was different. He was an unconscious record of what he had been through out there; and much of it, she felt sure, he would never tell to her except unconsciously by being a different Dion from the Dion who had gone away.

“How little one can tell in letters,” she said. “Scarcely anything.”

“You made me feel Welsley in yours.”

“Did I? Why did you walk from the station?”

“I wanted to taste your home, to get into your atmosphere, if I could, before seeing you. Rose, love can make a man almost afraid at times.”

It seemed to her that his dark eyes burned with fires they had captured in South Africa. Sitting in the old room with its homely and ecclesiastical look, he had an oddly remote appearance, she thought, as if he belonged to a very different milieu. Always dark, he now looked almost gipsy-like; yet he had the unmistakable air of a soldier. But if there had ever been anything there was now nothing left of the business man in Dion.

“Won’t you find it very difficult to settle down again to the life in Austin Friars, Dion?” she said.

“Perhaps I should, but for one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“You and Robin at home when the drudgery is done.”

Rosamund saw Welsley receding from her into darkness, with its familiar faces and voices, its gray towers, its cloisters, its bells, the Dresden Amen, the secret garden, the dreams she had had in the garden.

“Number 5 is all ready to go into. It was lucky we only let it for six months,” she said quietly.

“Uncle Biron has given me a fortnight’s holiday, or rather gladly agreed to my taking it. Of course I’m my own master in a way, being a partner, but I want to consider him. He was awfully good about my going away. Mother’s looking well. She was at our Thanksgiving Service; Beattie and Guy too. I’ve had just a glimpse of godfather.”

They talked about family things till Robin came in from his festivity with Mr. Thrush, who was staying at Little Cloisters, but only till the following day.

That was a great moment, the moment of Robin’s arrival. Mr. Thrush did not appear with him, but, being a man of delicate perceptions despite his unfortunate appearance, retired discreetly to the servants’ hall, leaving his devoted adherent free for the “family reunion,” as he called it.

“Go up quietly, dear,” said the nurse to Robin, “and tap at the drawing-room door.”

“Shall I tap?” asked Robin earnestly.

He was looking unusually solemn, his lips were parted, and his eyes almost stared.

“Yes, dear. Tap prettily, like a young gentleman as you are, and when you hear ‘Come in!’----”

“I know then!” interrupted Robin, with an air of decision.

He walked rather slowly upstairs, lifting one brown leg after the other thoughtfully from step to step, till he was outside the drawing-room door. Inside he heard the noise of a man’s voice, which sounded to him very tremendous and important, the voice of a brave soldier.

“That’s Fa!” he thought, and he listened for a moment as to the voice of a god.

Then he doubled his small fist and gave a bang to the door. Some instinct told him not to follow nurse’s injunction, not to try to be pretty in his tapping. The voice of the soldier ceased inside, there was a brief sound of a woman’s voice, then came a strong “Come in!”

Robin opened the door, went straight up to the very dark and very thin man whom he saw sitting by the fire, and, staring at this man with intensity, lifted up his face, at the same time saying:

“‘Ullo, Fa!”

There was a dropped aitch for which nurse, who was very choice in her English, would undoubtedly have rebuked him had she been present. The dark man did not rebuke Robin, but caught him up and enfolded him in a hug that was powerful but not a bit rough. Robin was quite incapable of analyzing a hug, but he loved it as he would not have loved it if it had been rough, or if it had been merely gentle. A sense of great happiness and of great confidence flooded him. From that moment he adored his father as he had never adored him before. The new authority of his father’s love for him captured him. He knew nothing about it and he knew all about it, as is the way with children, those instinctive sparks fresh from the great furnace.

Long before dinner time Dion knew that he had won something beside the D.C.M. which he had won in South Africa, something that was wonderfully precious to him. He gave Robin the Toby jar and another gift.

He cared for his little son that night as he had never cared for him before. It was as if the sex in Robin spoke to the sex in him for the first time with a clear, unmistakable voice, saying, “We’re of the comradeship of the male sex, we’re of the brotherhood.” It was not even a child’s voice that spoke, though it spoke in a little child. Dion blessed South Africa that night, felt as if South Africa had given him his son.

That gift would surely be a weapon in his hands by means of which, or with the help of which, he would conquer the still unconquered mystery, Rosamund’s whole heart. South Africa had done much for Dion. Out there in that wonderful atmosphere he had seen very clearly, his vision had pierced great distances; he saw clearly still, in England. War, it seemed, was so terribly truthful that it swept a man clean of lies; Dion was swept clean of lies. He did not feel able any longer even to tell them occasionally to himself. He knew that Rosamund’s greeting to him, warm, sweet, sincere though it had been, had lacked something which he had found in Robin’s. But he felt that now he had got hold of Robin so instantly, and so completely, the conquest of the woman he had only won must be but a question of time. That was not pride in him but instinct, speaking with that voice which seems a stranger to the brain of man, but a friend to something else; something universal of which in every man a fragment is housed, or by which every man is mysteriously penetrated.

A fortnight’s holiday--and then?

On that first evening it had been assumed that as soon as Dion went back to business in Austin Friars, No. 5 Little Market Street would receive its old tenants again, be scented again with the lavender, made musical with Rosamund’s voice, made gay with the busy prattle and perpetual activities of Robin.

For two days thereafter no reference was made by either Rosamund or Dion to the question of moving. Dion gave himself up to Welsley, to holiday-making. With a flowing eagerness, not wholly free from undercurrents, Rosamund swept him sweetly through Welsley’s delights. She inoculated him with Welsley, or at any rate did her best to inoculate him, secretly praying with all her force that the wonderful preparation might “take.” Soon she believed that it was “taking.” It was evident that Dion was delighted with Welsley. On his very first day they went together to the afternoon service in the Cathedral, and when the anthem was given out it proved to be “The Wilderness.” Rosamund’s quick look at Dion told him that this was her sweet doing, and that she remembered their talk on the hill of Drouva. He listened to that anthem as he had never listened to an anthem before. After the service Canon Wilton, who, though no longer in residence as “three months’ Canon,” was still staying on at his house in the Precincts for a few days, came up to welcome him home. Then Mr. Dickinson appeared, full of that modesty which is greedy for compliments. Mrs. Dickinson, too, drifted up the nave in a casual way which scarcely concealed her curiosity about Mrs. Dion’s husband; when, later, Rosamund told Dion of her Precincts’ name, “the cold douche,” he could not see its applicability.

“I thought her an observant but quite a warm-hearted woman,” he said.

“She is warm-hearted; in fact she’s a dear, and I’m very fond of her,” said Rosamund.

“Every one here seems very fond of you,” he replied.

Indeed, he was struck by Welsley’s evident love of Rosamund. It was like a warm current flowing about her, and about him now, because he was her husband. He was greeted with cordial kindness by every one.

“It is jolly to be received like this,” he said to Rosamund. “It does a fellow good when he’s just come home. It makes him feel that there is indeed no place like England. But it’s all owing to you.”

But she protested.

“They all admire and respect you for what you’ve done,” she said. “You’ve brought the best introductions here, your own deeds. They speak for you.”

He shook his head, loving her perfectly sincere modesty.

“You may be a thousand things,” he told her, “but one thing you’ll never be--vain or conceited.”

The charm of her, which was compounded of beauty and goodness, mixed with an extraordinary hold upon, and joy in, the simple and healthy things of life, came upon him with a sort of glorious newness after his absence in South Africa. He loved other people’s love of her and the splendid reasons for it so apparent in her. But for Robin he might nevertheless have felt baffled and sad even in these moments dedicated to the joys of reunion, he might have felt acutely that the completeness and perfection of reunion depended upon the exact type of union it followed upon. Robin saved him from that. He hoped very much in Robin, who had suddenly given him a confidence in himself which he had never known till now. This was a glorious possession. It gave him force. People in Welsley were decidedly impressed by Mrs. Leith’s husband. Mrs. Dickinson remarked to her Henry over griddle cakes after the three o’clock service:

“I call Mr. Leith a very personable man. Without having Mrs. Leith’s wonderful charm--what man could have?--he makes a distinct impression. He has suppressed force, and that’s what women like in a man.”

Henry took another griddle cake, and wondered whether he was wise in looking so decided. Perhaps he ought to suppress his undoubted force; perhaps all his life, without knowing it, he had hovered on the verge of the blatant.

Canon Wilton also was struck by the change in Dion, and said something, but not just then all, of what he felt.

“You know the phrase, ‘I’m my own man again,’ Leith, don’t you?” he said, in his strong bass voice, looking steadily at Dion with his kindly stern eyes. (He always suggested to Dion a man who would be very stern with himself.)

“Yes,” said Dion. “Why?”

“I think South Africa’s made you your own man.”

Dion looked tremendously, but seriously, pleased.

“Do you? And what about the again?”

“Cut it out. I don’t think you’d ever been absolutely your own man before you went away.”

“I wonder if I am now,” Dion said, but without any weakness.

He had been through one war and had come out of it well; now he had come home to another. The one campaign had been but a stern preparation for the other perhaps. But Rosamund did not know that. Nevertheless, it seemed to him that already their relation to each other was slightly altered. He felt that she was more sensitive to him than formerly, more closely observant of what he was and what he did, more watchful of him with Robin, more anxious about his opinion on various matters.

For instance, there was the matter of Mr. Thrush.

Dion had not seen Mr. Thrush on the evening of his first day at Welsley. He had been kept so busy by Rosamund, had done and seen so much, that he had quite forgotten the ex-chemist. In the evening, however, before dinner, he suddenly remembered him.

“What’s become of Mr. Thrush?” he asked. “And, by the way, what is he doing down here? You never told me, Rose, and even Robin’s not said a word.”

“I asked him not to,” said Rosamund, with her half-shrewd, half-soft look. “The fact is----” She broke off, then continued, with her confidential air, “Dion, when you see Mr. Thrush I want you to tell me something truthfully. Will you?”

“I’ll try to. What is it?”

“I want you to look at his nose--”

“Rosamund!”

“No, really,” she pursued, with great earnestness. “And I want you to tell me whether you think, honestly think, it--better.”

“But why?”

“It’s very important for Mr. Thrush that it should look better. He’s down here to be seen.”

Her voice had become almost mysterious.

“To be seen? By whom? Is he on show in the town?”

“No--don’t laugh. It’s really important for his future. I must tell you something. He’s taken the modified pledge.”

Her look said, “There! what d’you think of that?”

“Modified!” said Dion, rather doubtfully.

“Never between meals--never.”

“At any rate that’s a step in the right direction.”

“Isn’t it? I took it with him.”

“The modified pledge?”

“Yes,” she said, with great seriousness.

“But you never----! To help him, of course.”

“Yes.”

“And has it made a difference to the nose?”

“I think it’s made a considerable difference. But I want your opinion.”

“I’ll give it you for what it’s worth. But who’s going to see Mr. Thrush?”

“The Dean.

“The Dean! Why on earth?”

“Almost directly there’s going to be a vacancy among the vergers, and the Dean has promised me faithfully that if Mr. Thrush seems suitable he shall have the post.”

“Mr. Thrush a verger! Mr. Thrush carry a poker before a bishop!”

“Not a poker, only a white wand. I’ve been making him practise here in the garden, and he does it quite admirably already.”

She spoke now with almost defiant emphasis. Dion loved her for the defiance and for its deliciously absurd reason.

“The Dean is away, but he’s coming back to-morrow, so I begin to feel rather anxious. Of course, he’ll see at once that Mr. Thrush is an educated man. I’m not afraid about that. It’s only--well, the little failing. It would mean so much for Mr. Thrush to get the post. He’ll be provided for for life. I’ve set my heart on it.”

Annie came in.

“Oh, Annie, is it Mr. Thrush?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Please ask him to come in.”

With a very casual air, as of one doing a thing for no particular reason and almost without thought, she lowered the wick of the lamp which illuminated the room.

“We don’t want it to flare,” she said, as she came away from it. “Oh, Mr. Thrush, here’s my husband back again!”

With a certain unostentatious dignity Mr. Thrush stepped into the room. He was most respectably dressed in a neat black suit, the coat of which looked rather like either a frock coat which was in course of diminishing gradually into what tailors call “a morning coat,” or a morning coat which was in course of expanding gently into a frock coat; a speckless collar with points appeared above a pair of dark worsted gloves, and a hat which resembled a square bowler half-way on the road to top hatdom.

Dion felt touched by his appearance and his gait, which seemed to hint at those rehearsals in the garden, and especially touched by the fact that he had bought a new hat.

“Welcome home, sir!” he said at once to Dion. “I’m sure the country is proud of you.”

He paid the compliment with so much sincerity that Dion did not feel embarrassed by it.

“Do sit down, Mr. Thrush,” said Rosamund, after hands had been cordially shaken. “No, not there!”--as he was about to sit full in the lamplight--“This chair will be more comfortable. Now I’ll leave you to have a little talk with my husband.”

With an inquiring look at Dion she went out of the room.

Before she came back Mr. Thrush had told Dion all his hopes and fears with regard to the Dean, and had dwelt on his overwhelming desire to become a verger. Quite unself-conscious in his simplicity he rose almost to dignity. He frankly confessed his “failing,” and alluded to the taking of the modified pledge.

“We took it together, sir, your kind lady and I, we both pledged ourselves never to touch a drop of liquor between meals whatever the occasion.”

“Quite right!” said Dion, with firmness, almost with bruskness.

“I’m glad you think so, sir. But a verger can’t be too careful. He’s held up as an example to the whole city by his position, walking so often in procession as he does before the eyes of all men. Even a chemist scarcely takes so much upon himself. In respect of the body he may, I’ll allow you,--for no verger has to do with prussic acid, iodine, cascara and all such-like,--but in respect of what I might all the uplifting of the soul not a doubt of it but that the verger comes far before any chemist. It’s a solemn thing to think of, and I hope, if so be as I’m elected, I shall be worthy of the position. I see Mr. Dean to-morrow, sir, at eleven o’clock. I trust I shall make a favorable impression. I lived just off Hanover Square for more years than some can remember, and that, I hope, with a Very Reverend will tell in my favor. None of them vergers here, though I’m sure they’re a splendid body of men,--any one who has seen them walking before his Lordship, the Bishop, the Canons and what not, as I did last Sunday morning, would say the same,--but none of the vergers here can say as much. I’ve made inquiry, but of course with all discretion. As to the duties, sir, I think I can fulfil them. The carrying of the wand I may say I am almost perfect in already. I’ve been at it in the garden with your kind good lady since I came. I found it a bit difficult at first, sir. There’s what you might call a knack to it, though from the congregation it looks simple enough. But there, what does a congregation know of the things a verger has to master any more than it does of what is required of a good chemist? Often and often when I was just off Hanover Square----”

He was still flowing on with imperturbable volubility when Rosamund came back and sent another, more inquiring, glance to Dion.

When Mr. Thrush had retired she at once said anxiously:

“Well?”

“He’s a nice old chap.”

“Yes, isn’t he? But what did you really think?”

“About the nose?”

“Yes.”

“The lamp was turned rather low, but I really believe the modified pledge has--”

“There! What did I say?” she interrupted triumphantly. “I knew you’d notice the difference. It’s really very much like yours or mine now, and I’m sure--”

But here Dion broke in decisively.

“No, Rosamund, I can’t let that pass. It’s not like yours yet. I say nothing about mine. But I honestly think it’s modified and I hope the Dean will pass it.”

“The Dean and I are great cronies!” she murmured doubtfully. “My only fear is that after he is a verger Mr. Thrush may--may lapse if I’m not----”

She stopped, looking at Dion, and again he thought that she was more sensitive to his opinion, to his wishes, than she had formerly been. Her slightly changed attitude made Dion gladly aware of change in himself. He meant more to Rosamund now than he had meant when he left England.

Chapter VII

Three days had slipped by. Dion had been accepted as one of the big Welsley family, had been made free of the Precincts. During those three days he had forgotten London, business, everything outside of Welsley. It had seemed to him that he had the right to forget, and he had exercised it. Robin had played a great part in those three days. His new adoration of his father was obvious to every one who saw them together. The soldier appealed to the little imagination. Robin’s ardor was concentrated for the moment in his pride of possession. He owned a father who--his own nurse had told him so--was not as other fathers, not as ordinary fathers such as stumped daily about the narrow streets of Welsley, rubicund and, many of them, protuberant in the region of the watch-chain. They were all very well; Robin had nothing against them; many of them were clergymen and commanded his respect by virtue of their office, their gaiters, the rosettes and cords that decorated their wide-winged hats. But they were not like “Fa.” They had not become lean, and muscular, and dark, and quick-limbed, and keen-eyed, and spry, in the severe service of their country. They had not--even the Archdeacon, Robin’s rather special pal, had not--ever killed any wicked men who did not like England, or gone into places where wicked men who did not like England might have killed them. Some of them did not know much about guns, did not seem to take any interest in guns. It was rather pitiable. Since his father had come back Robin had had an opportunity of sounding the Archdeacon on the subject of an advance in open order. The result had not been satisfactory. The Archdeacon, Robin thought, had taken the matter with a lightness, almost a levity, which one could not have looked for from a man in his position, and when questioned as to his methods of taking over had frankly said that he had none.

“I like him,” Robin said ruefully. “But he’ll never be a good scout, will he, Fa?”

To which Dion replied with discretion.

“There are plenty of good scouts, old boy, who would never make good archdeacons.”

“Is there?” said Robin. “Why not? I know what scouts does, but what does archdeacons does?”

And with that he had his father stumped. Dion had not been long enough at Welsley to dive into all its mysteries.

On the evening of the third day Dion told Rosamund that he must go to London on the following morning.

“I’ve got something I must do and I want to tell you about it,” he said. “You remember Mrs. Clarke?”

“Yes,” said Rosamund.

“It must be more than two years since I’ve seen her. She lives a great deal in Constantinople, you know. But she sometimes comes to London in the winter. It’s abominably cold in Constantinople in winter. There are perpetual winds from the Black Sea.”

“Yes, I know there are. Esme Darlington has told me about them.”

“Mrs. Clarke’s in London now.”

“Did you see her when you passed through?”

“No, but I want to see her to-morrow. Rose, I’m going to tell you something which nobody else must know. I was asked to keep it entirely to myself, but I refused. I was resolved to tell you, because I don’t believe in secrets between husband and wife--about their doings, I mean.” (Just then he had happened to think of Mrs. Clarke’s farewell telegram to him when he had sailed for South Africa.)

“I know how frank and sincere you always are, Dion,” she said gently.

“I try to be. You remember that party at Mrs. Chetwinde’s where you sang? You met Mrs. Clarke that night.”

“Of course I remember. We had quite an interesting talk.”

“She’s clever. Lord Brayfield was there, too, that night, a fair man.

“I saw him. He wasn’t introduced to me.”

“Brayfield was shot in the war. Did you know it?”

“No. I thought I had read everything. But I didn’t happen to see it.”

“And I didn’t mention it when I wrote. I thought I’d tell you if I came home. Brayfield, poor fellow, didn’t die immediately. He suffered a great deal, but he was able to write two or three letters--last messages--home. One of these messages was written to Mrs. Clarke. He gave it to me and made me promise to convey it to her personally, not to put it in the post.”

“Was Lord Brayfield in the C.I.V.?” asked Rosamund.

“Oh no. He was a captain in the 5th Lancers. We were brigaded with them for a bit and under fire at the same time. Brayfield happened to see me. He knew I was an acquaintance of Mrs. Clarke’s, and when he was shot he asked that I should be allowed to come to him. Permission was given. I went, and he asked me if I’d give Mrs. Clarke a letter from him when I got home. It seems none of his brother officers happened to know her. He might have given the letter to one of them. It would have been more natural. But”--Dion hesitated--“well, he wanted to say a word or two to some one who knew her, I suppose.”

Rosamund quite understood there were things Dion did not care to tell even to her. She did not want to hear them. She was not at all a curious woman.

“I’m glad you are able to take the letter,” she said.

And then she began to talk about something else. Mr. Thrush’s prospects with the Dean, which were even yet not quite decided.

By the quick train at nine o’clock Dion left Welsley next morning; he was in London by half-past ten. He had of course written to Mrs. Clarke asking if he could see her. She had given him an appointment for three o’clock at the flat she had taken for a few months in Park Side, Knightsbridge. Dion went first to the City, and after doing some business there, and lunching with his uncle at the Cheshire Cheese, got into a cab and drove to Knightsbridge.

Mrs. Clarke’s flat was on the first floor of a building which faced the street on one side and Hyde Park on the other. Dion rang at a large, very solid oak door. In two or three minutes the door was opened by an elderly maid, with high cheek-bones and long and narrow light gray eyes, who said, with a foreign accent, that Mrs. Clarke was at home. Afterwards Dion knew that this woman was a Russian and Mrs. Clarke’s own maid.

She showed Dion into a long curving hall in which a fire was burning. Here he left his hat and coat. While he was taking the coat off he had time to think, “What an original hall this is!” From it he got an impression of warmth and of a pleasant dimness. He had really no time to look carefully about, but a quick glance told him that there were interesting things in this hall, or at any rate interestingly combined. He was conscious of the stamp of originality.

The Russian maid showed him into a drawing-room and went away to tell “Madame.” She did not go out by the hall, but walked the whole length of the long narrow drawing-room, and passed through a small doorway at its farther end. Through this doorway there filtered into the drawing-room a curious blue light. All the windows of the drawing-room looked into Hyde Park, on to the damp grass, the leafless trees, the untenanted spaces of autumn.

Dion went to the fireplace, which faced the far doorway. There was not a sound in the room; not a sound came to it just then from without. He could scarcely believe he was in Knightsbridge. Not even a clock was ticking on the mantelpiece above the fire, in which ship logs were burning. The flames which came from them were of various shades of blue, like magical flames conjured up by a magician. He looked round. He had never seen a room like this before. It was a room to live in, to hear strange music in; it was not a reception-room. Not crowded with furniture it was not at all bare. Its “note” was not austere but quite the contrary. It was a room which quietly enticed. Dion was not one of those men who know all about women’s dresses, and combinations of color, and china, and furniture, but he was observant; as a rule he noticed what he saw. Fresh from South Africa, from a very hard life out of doors, he looked at this room and was almost startled by it. The refinement of it was excessive in his eyes and reminded him of something overbred, of certain Italian greyhounds, for instance. Strange blues and greens were dexterously combined through the room, in the carpet, the curtains, the blinds, the stuffs which covered the chairs, sofas, divans, cushions--blues and greens innumerable. He had never before seen so many differing shades of the two colors; he had not known that so many shades existed. In the china these colors were repeated. The door by which he had come in was of thick glass in a frame of deep blue wood and, by means of a mysterious light in the hall, was made mistily blue. All along the windows, lilies were growing, or seemed to be growing, in earth closely covered with green moss. There were dwarf trees, like minute yew trees, in green and blue china pots.

And always the ship logs in the fire gave out the magical blue flames.

Certainly the general effect of the room was not only luxuriously comfortable, but also strangely beautiful, though there was nothing in it which a lover of antiques would have given his eyes for. To Dion, fresh from South Africa, the room looked too comfortable, too ingeniously beautiful. It struck him as ultra modern, ahead of anything he had ever yet seen, and almost as evil. But certainly it enticed.

He heard the distant sound of a woman’s dress and saw Mrs. Clarke coming slowly in from the room beyond (another blue and green room perhaps), and he thought of Brayfield dying. He thrust a hand into the breast-pocket of his coat and brought out the dead man’s letter.

Mrs. Clarke came up to the fire and greeted him. She did not look a moment older than when he had seen her last at Claridge’s, or indeed than when he had first seen her standing under the statue of Echo in Mrs. Chetwinde’s drawing-room. The same feverish refinement still was with her, belonged to her; she looked as before, wasted as if by some obscure disease, haunted, almost distressed, and yet absolutely self-controlled, mistress of herself and unconscious of critical observation. Not even for a moment, seeing her thus again after a long interval of time, did Dion hesitate about her beauty. Undoubtedly she had beauty. The shape of her head was lovely, and her profile was like a delicate vision seen in water. The husky sound of her voice in her first words to him took him back to the Divorce Court.

“You haven’t changed,” she said, staring intently at him in her oddly impersonal way, which appraised and yet held something of inwardness.

“But people say I have changed very much.”

“People?”

“Well--my people.”

“I don’t call natural development change. I saw in you very plainly when we first met what you are now. You have got there. That’s all.”

Her lips were very pale. How strangely unshining her hair was.

“Yes, she looked punished!” he thought. “It’s that look of punishment which sets her quite apart from all other women.”

She glanced at the letter he was holding and sat down on a very broad green divan. There were many cushions upon it; she did not heap them behind her, but sat quite upright. She did not ask him to sit down. He would do as he liked. Absurd formalities of any kind did not enter into her scheme of life.

“How is Jimmy?” he asked.

“Brilliantly well. He’s been at Eton for a long time, doing dreadfully at work--he’s a born dunce--and splendidly at play. How he would appreciate you as you are now!”

She spoke with a gravity that was both careless and intense. He sat down near her. In his letter asking to see her he had not told her that he had a special object in writing to visit her. By her glance at Brayfield’s letter he knew that she had gathered it.

They talked of Jimmy for a few minutes; then Dion said:

“My regiment was brigaded with Lord Brayfield’s for a time in South Africa. I was in the action in which he was shot, poor chap. He saw me and remembered that I was a--a friend of yours. When he was dying he wanted to see me. I was sent for, and he gave me this letter for you. He asked me to give it to you myself if I came back.”

He bent down to her with the letter.

“Thank you,” she said, and she took it without looking at all surprised, and with her habitual composed gravity. “There are Turkish cigarettes in that ivory box,” she added, looking at a box on a table close by.

“Thank you.”

As Dion turned to get a cigarette he heard her tearing Brayfield’s envelope.

“Will you give me one?” said the husky voice.

Without saying anything he handed to her the box, and held a lighted match to her cigarette when it was between the pale lips. She smoked gently as she opened and read Brayfield’s letter. When she had finished it--evidently it was not a long letter--she put it back into the envelope, laid it down on the green divan and said:

“What do you think of this room? It was designed and arranged by Monsieur de Vaupre, a French friend of mine.”

“By a man!” said Dion, irrepressibly.

“Who hasn’t been in the South African War. Do you like it?”

“I don’t think I do, but I admire it a good deal.”

He was looking at the letter lying on the divan, and Brayfield was before him, tormented and dying. He had always disliked the look of Brayfield, but he had felt almost a sort of affection for him when he was dying. Foolishly perhaps, Dion wanted Mrs. Clarke to say something kind about Brayfield now.

“If you admire it, why don’t you like it?” she asked. “A person--I could understand; but a room!”

He looked at her and hesitated to acknowledge a feeling at which he knew something in her would smile; then he thought of Rosamund and of Little Cloisters and spoke out the truth.

“I think it’s an unwholesome-looking room. It looks to me as if it had been thought out and arranged by somebody with a beastly, though artistic, mind.”

“The inner room is worse,” she said.

But she did not offer to show it to him, nor did she disagree with his view. He even had the feeling that his blunt remark had pleased her.

He asked her about Constantinople. She lived there, she told him, all through the spring and autumn, and spent the hottest months on the Bosphorus.

“People are getting accustomed to my temerity,” she said. “Of course Esme Darlington is still in despair, and Lady Ermyntrude goes about spreading scandal. But it doesn’t seem to do much harm. She hasn’t any more influence over my husband. He won’t hear a word against me. Like a good dog, I suppose, he loves the hand which has beaten him.”

“You’ve got a will of iron, I believe,” said Dion.

She changed the subject.

“I don’t ask you to tell me about South Africa,” she said. “Because you told me the whole story as soon as I came into the room. But what are you going to do now? Settle down in the Church’s bosom at Welsley?”

There was no sarcasm in her voice.

“Oh--I’m going back to business in a few days.”

“You’ll run up and down, I suppose.”

“It’s too far, an hour and a half each way. I shall have to be in London.”

He spoke rather indecisively.

“I’m taking a fortnight’s holiday, and then we shall settle down.”

“I’ve been in Welsley,” said Mrs. Clarke. “It’s beautiful but, to me, stifling. It has an atmosphere which would soon dry up my mind. All the petals would curl up and go brown at the edges. I’m glad you’re not going to live there. But after South Africa you couldn’t.”

“I don’t know. I find it very attractive,” he said, instinctively on the defensive because of Rosamund, who had not been attacked. “The coziness and the peace of it are very delightful after all the--well, of course, it was a pretty stiff life in South Africa.”

Again he looked at Brayfield’s letter. He wanted to tell Mrs. Clarke about Brayfield, but it seemed she had no interest in the dead man. While he was thinking this she quietly put out her hand, took the letter, got up and dropped it into the fire among the blue flames from the ship logs.

“I seldom keep letters,” she said, “unless I have to answer them.”

She turned round.

“I’ve kept yours,” she said.

“The one I--it was awfully good of you to send me that telegram.”

“So Allah had you in His hand.”

“I don’t know why when so many much better fellows----” He broke off, and then he plunged into the matter of Brayfield. He could not go without telling her, though hearing, perhaps, would not interest her.

All the time he was speaking she remained standing by the fire, with her lovely little head slightly bending forward and her profile turned towards him. The emaciation of her figure almost startled him. She wore a black dress. It seemed to him a very simple dress. She could have told him that such simplicity only comes from a few very good dressmakers, and is only fully appreciated by a very few women.

Brayfield, though he was dying, had been very careful in what he had said to Dion. In his pain he had shown that he had good blood in him. He had not hinted even at any claim on Mrs. Clarke. But he had spoken of a friendship which had meant very much to him, and had asked Dion, if he ever had the opportunity, to tell Mrs. Clarke that when he was dying she was the woman he was thinking about. He had not spoken interestingly; he was not an interesting man; but he had spoken with sincerity, with genuine feeling.

“She’s a woman in a thousand,” he had said. “Tell her I thought so till the last. Tell her if she had been free I should have begged her to marry me.”

And he had added, after a pause:

“Not that she’d ever have done it. I’m pretty sure of that.”

When Dion had finished, still standing by the fire, Mrs. Clarke said:

“Thank you for remembering it all. It shows your good heart.”

“Oh--please!”

Why didn’t she think about Brayfield?

She turned round and fixed her distressed eyes on him.

“Which is best, to be charitable or to be truthful?” she said, without any vibration of excitement. “De Mortuis--it’s a kindly saying. A true Turk, one of the old Osmanlis, might have said it. If you hadn’t brought me that letter and the message I should probably never have mentioned Brayfield to you again. But as it is I am going to be truthful. I can say honestly peace to Brayfield’s ashes. His death was worthy. Courage he evidently had. But you mustn’t think that because he liked me I ever liked him. Don’t make a mistake. I’m not a nervous suspicious fool of a woman anxiously defending, or trying to defend, her honor--not attacked, by the way. If Lord Brayfield had ever been anything to me I should just be quiet, say nothing. But I didn’t like him. If I had liked him I shouldn’t have burnt his letter. And now”--to Dion’s great astonishment she made slowly the sign of the Cross--“requiescat in pace.”

After a long pause she added:

“Now come and see the other room. I’ll give you Turkish coffee there.”

Chapter VIII

It had been understood between Rosamund and Dion that he should spend that night in London. He had several things to see to after his long absence, had to visit his tailor, the dentist, the bootmaker, to look out some things in Little Market Street, to have an interview with his banker, et cetera. He would go back to Welsley on the following afternoon. In the evening of that day he dined in De Lorne Gardens with Beatrice and Guy Daventry and his mother, and again, as in Knightsbridge, something was said about the Welsley question. Dion gathered that Rosamund’s devotion to Welsley was no secret in “the family.” The speedy return to Little Market Street was assumed; nevertheless he was certain that his mother, his sister-in-law, and Guy were secretly wondering how Rosamund would be able to endure the departure from Welsley. Beatrice had welcomed him back very quietly, but he had felt more definitely than ever before the strong sympathy which existed between them.

“I quite love Beatrice,” he said to his mother in the jobbed brougham with the high stepping, but slow moving, horse which conveyed them to Queen Anne’s Mansions after the dinner.

“She is worth it,” said Mrs. Leith. “Beatrice says very little, but she means very much.”

“Yes. I wonder--I wonder how much of her meaning I thoroughly understand, mater.”

“Perhaps about five per cent of it, dee-ar,” observed Mrs. Leith in her sweetest voice.

And then she began to talk about Esme Darlington.

That night Dion stayed at Queen Anne’s Mansions, and slept in his old room.

In her room his mother lay awake because she wished to lie awake. In sleep she would have lost the precious sense of her boy’s nearness to her. So she counted the hours and she thanked God; and twice in the night she slipped out into the hall, with her ample dressing-gown folded about her, and she looked at her boy’s coat hanging on its hook, and she listened just outside his door. Once she felt certain she heard his quiet breathing, and then, shutting her eyes, for a moment she was again the girl mother with little Dion.

Little, little Dion! The soldier, burnt and hardened and made wholly a man by South Africa, was still that to his mother, more than ever that since he had been to the war.

That question of Welsley!

Going down in the train next day Dion thought about it a great deal. With his return the old longing, almost an old need it was, to give Rosamund whatever she wanted, or cared at all for, had come to him again. But something fought it, the new longing to dominate and the wish to give Rosamund chances. Besides, how could they possibly live on in Welsley? He could not spend from three to four hours every day in the train. He might get away from London on Fridays and stay at Welsley every week till Monday morning, but that would mean living alone in Little Market Street for four days in the week. If he seemed willing to do that, would Rosamund consent to it?

Another test! He remembered his test before the war.

Mrs. Clarke’s allusion to Welsley had left a rather strong impression upon him. He did not know whether he had a great respect for her, but he knew that he had a great respect for her mind. Like Beattie, but in a very different way, she meant a great deal. He no longer doubted that she liked him very much, though why he honestly did not know. When with her he felt strongly that he was not an interesting man. Dumeny was a beast, he felt sure, but he also felt sure that Dumeny was an interesting man.

Mrs. Clarke’s wild mind attracted something in him. Through her eyes he was able to see the tameness of Welsley, a dear tameness, safe, cozy, full of a very English charm and touched with ancient beauty, but still----! Would the petals of Rosamund ever curl up and go brown at the edges from living at Welsley? No, he could not imagine that ever happening. A dried-up mind she could never have.

He would not see Welsley through the eyes of Mrs. Clarke.

Nevertheless when he got out of the train at Welsley Station, and saw Robin’s pal, the Archdeacon, getting out too, and a couple of minor canons, who had come up for the evening papers or something, greeting him with an ecclesiastical heartiness mingled with just a whiff of professional deference, Mrs. Clarke’s verdict of “stifling” recurred to his mind.

Stamboul and Welsley--Mrs. Clarke and Rosamund!

The dual comparison made him at once see the truth. Stamboul and Welsley were beautiful; each possessed an enticing quality; but the one enticed by its grandiose mystery, by its sharp contrasts of marble stability and matchboard frailty, by its melancholy silences and spaces, by its obscure peace and its dangerous passion; the other by its delightful simplicity, its noble homeliness, its dignity and charm of an old faith and a smiling unworldliness, its harmonies of gray and of green, of stone and verdure, its serenity lifted skywards by many bells.

But at the heart of Stamboul the dust lay thick, and there was dew at the heart of Welsley.

Perhaps green Elis, with its sheep-bells, the eternal voices of its pine trees, the celestial benignity of its Hermes, was more to be desired than either Stamboul or Welsley. But for the moment Welsley was very desirable.

Dion gave his bag to an “outside porter,” and walked to the Precincts with the Archdeacon.

He found Rosamund uplifted and triumphant; Mr. Thrush had finally captivated the Dean, and had been given the “situation” which Rosamund had desired for him. Her joy was almost ebullient. She could talk of nothing else. Mr. Thrush was to be installed on the following Sunday.

“Installed?” said Dion. “Is the Archbishop coming down to conduct the ceremony?”

“No, no! What I mean is that Mr. Thrush will walk in the procession for the first time. Oh, I shall be so nervous! If only he carries the wand as I’ve taught him! I don’t know what Mr. Thrush would do without me. He seems to depend on me for everything now, poor old gentleman.”

“I’m afraid he’ll miss you dreadfully,” said Dion.

“Miss me? When?”

Before he could answer she said quickly:

“Oh, by the way, Dion, while you’ve been away I’ve done something for you.”

“What is it, Rose?”

She was looking gaily mysterious, and almost cunning, but in a delightful way.

“I don’t want you to be bored during your holiday.”

“Bored! Don’t you realize that this is an earthly Paradise for me? You and Robin and peace after South Africa.”

She looked very shrewd.

“That’s all very well, but a man, especially a soldier man, wants sport.”

She laid a strong and happy emphasis on the last word, and then she disclosed the secret. A brother of “the cold douche,” a gentleman farmer who had land some four miles from Welsley, and who was “a great friend” of Rosamund’s--she had met him three times at the organist’s house--hearing of Dion’s arrival, had written to say that he had some partridges which needed “keeping down.” He himself was “laid by” with a bad leg, but he would be very glad if Mr. Leith would “take his chance among the birds” any day, or days, he liked while at Welsley. The gentleman farmer could not offer much, just the ground, most of it stubble, and a decent lot of birds.

“Dear Mrs. Dickinson knew through me how fond of shooting you are. We owe it all to her,” said Rosamund, in conclusion. “I’ve written to thank him, and to say how glad you’ll be.”

“But you must come too,” he said. “You shot in Greece, you must shoot again here.”

“I don’t think I will here,” said Rosamund, confidentially and rather mysteriously.

“Why not?”

“Well, I don’t think the Dean would approve of it. And he’s been so bricky about Mr. Thrush that I shouldn’t like to hurt him.”

“I can’t go alone. I shall take Robin then.”

He spoke half-laughingly.

“Robin?”

“Yes, why not? I’m sure he’d love to go.”

“Of course he would. But how could his little legs walk over stubble? He’s not four years old yet.”

“Robin’s got to be Doric. He can’t begin too soon.”

She smiled, then looked at him seriously.

“Dion, do you know that you’ve come back much more Doric than you were when you went out?”

“Have I, Rose?”

“Much more.”

“Do you like me less because of that?”

She blushed faintly.

“No,” she said.

That faint blush made Dion’s heart bound, he scarcely knew why. But he only said soberly:

“I’m glad of that. And now about Robin. You’re right. He can’t walk over stubble with me, but why shouldn’t I stick him on a pony?”

“Oh--a pony! How he would love it!”

“Can’t I get hold of one?”

“But Job Crickendon’s got one!”

“Job Crick-- . . . ?”

“Mrs. Dickinson’s brother who’s lending you the partridges. Don’t say another word, Dion. I’ll arrange it all. Robin will be in the seventh heaven.”

“And you must come with us.”

Rosamund was about to speak quickly. Dion saw that. Her eyes shone; she opened her lips. But something, some sudden thought, stopped her. After a minute she said quietly:

“We’ll see.”

And she gave Dion a curious, tender look which he did not quite understand. Surely she was keeping some delicate secret from him, one of those dear secrets which perhaps will never be told, but which are sometimes happily guessed.

Dion could not help seeing that Rosamund eagerly wanted to attach him to Welsley. He felt that she had not honestly and fully faced the prospect of returning to live in London. Her plan--he saw it plainly; the partridge shooting was part of it--was to make Welsley so delightful to him that he would not want to give up the home at Little Cloisters. What was to be done? He disliked, he almost hated, the thought that his return would necessitate an unpleasant change in Rosamund’s life. Yet something within him told him that he ought to be firm. He was obliged to live in London, and therefore it was only natural and right that Rosamund and Robin should live in London too. After this long separation he ought not to have to face a semi-bachelor life; three days of the week at Little Cloisters and four days alone in Little Market Street. He must put Rosamund to the test. That faint blush, which he would not soon forget, made him hope that she would come out of the test triumphantly.

If she did, how splendid it would be. His heart yearned at the thought of a Rosamund submissive to his wish, unselfish out of the depth of--dared he think of it as a new growth of love within her, tending towards a great flowering which would bring a glory into two lives? But if she yielded at once to his wish, without a word of regret, if she took the speedy return to London quite simply as a matter of course, he would feel almost irresistibly inclined to take her in his arms and to say, “No, you shall stay on at Little Cloisters. We’ll manage somehow.” Perhaps he could stand three hours daily in the train. He could read the papers. A man must do that. As well do it in the train as in an arm-chair at home.

But at any rate he would put her to the test. On that he was resolved.

At dinner that night Rosamund told him she had already written to “dear, kind Job Crickendon” about the pony.

“You might shoot on Monday,” she said.

“Right you are. When we hear about the pony we’ll tell Robin.”

“Yes. Not till it’s all delightfully settled. Robin on horseback!”

Her eyes shone.

“I can see him already with a gun in his hand old enough to shoot with you,” she added. “We must bring him up to be a thorough little sportsman; like that Greek boy Dirmikis.”

They talked about Robin’s future till dinner was over. Dion loved their talk, but he could not help seeing that in Rosamund’s forecast town life held no place at all. In everything, or in almost everything, that she said the country held pride of place. There was not one word about Jenkins’s gymnasium, or the Open Air Club with its swimming facilities, or riding in the Park, or fencing at Bernardi’s. Rosamund seemed tacitly to assume that everything which was Doric was connected with country life.

On the following morning she hastened out “to buy riding gaiters for Robin.” She had his “size” with her.

Not a word had been said about Dion’s visit to Mrs. Clarke. Rosamund’s lack of all curiosity in regard to Mrs. Clarke and himself gave him the measure of her faith in him. Few women, he thought, would be able to trust a man so completely. And this trust was the more remarkable because he felt positive that Rosamund distrusted Mrs. Clarke. She had never said so, but he considered that by her conduct she had proved her distrust.

It was a great virtue in Rosamund, that power she had to trust where trust was deserved.

Dear, kind Job Crickendon wrote that Master Robin could ride his pony, Jane, and welcome. The letter arrived on Saturday. Rosamund read it aloud to Dion.

“The people about here are the dearest people I’ve ever come across,” she said. “So different from people in London.”

“Why, what’s the matter with people in London?” asked Dion.

“Oh, I don’t know; they’re more artificial. They think so much about clothes, and hats, and the way their hair’s done.”

“The men!”

“I was talking of the women.”

“But is Job Crickendon a woman?”

“Don’t be absurd, Dion. You know what I mean. The country brings out the best that is in people.”

“That’s a bad look out for me, who’ve lived nearly all my life in London.”

“You would be yourself anywhere. Now about Robin. I’ve got the gaiters. They’re not exactly riding gaiters--they don’t make them for such little boys--but they’ll do beautifully. But I don’t want to tell Robin till Monday morning. You see he’s got a very exciting day before him to-morrow, and I think to know about Monday on top of it might be almost too much for him.”

“But what excitement is there to-morrow?”

She looked at him reproachfully.

“Mr. Thrush!”

“Oh, of course. And is Robin coming to the Cathedral?”

“Yes, for once. It’s a terribly long service for a child, but Robin would break his heart if he didn’t see Mr. Thrush walk in the procession for the first time.”

“Then we won’t tell him till Monday morning. I’ll hire a dog-cart and we can all drive out together.”

Again she gave him the tender look, but she did not then explain what it meant.

That evening they dined with Canon Wilton, who had a surprise in store for them. Esme Darlington had come down to stay with him over Sunday, and to have a glimpse of his dear young friends in Little Cloisters.

The dinner was a delightful one. Mr. Darlington was benignly talkative and full of kindly gossip; Canon Wilton almost beamed upon his guests; after dinner Rosamund sang song after song while the three men listened and looked. She sang her very best for them, and when she was winding a lace shawl about her hair preparatory to the little walk home, Canon Wilton thanked her in a way that brought the blood to her cheeks.

“You’ve made me very happy to-night,” he said finally. And his strong bass voice was softer than usual.

“I’m glad.”

“Not only by your singing,” he added.

She looked at him inquiringly. His eyes had gone to Dion.

“Not only by that.”

And then he spoke almost in a murmur to her.

“He’s come back worth it,” he said. “Good night. God bless you both.”

The following day was made memorable by the “installation” of Mr. Thrush as a verger of Welsley Cathedral.

The Cathedral was not specially crowded for the occasion, but there was a very fair congregation when Rosamund, Dion and Robin (in a sailor suit with wide blue trousers) walked in together through the archway in the rood-screen. One of the old established vergers, a lordly person with a “presence” and the air of a high dignitary, met them as they stepped into the choir, and wanted to put them into stalls; but Rosamund begged for seats in a pew just beyond the lectern, facing the doorway by which the procession came into the choir.

“Robin would be swallowed up in a stall,” she whispered to Dion.

And they both looked down at the little chap tenderly, and met his blue eyes turned confidingly, yet almost anxiously too, up to them. He was wondering about all this whispering with the verger, and hoping that nothing had happened to Mr. Thrush.

They found perfect seats in a pew just beyond the deanery stalls. Far up in the distance above them one bell, the five minutes’ bell, was chiming. Its voice recalled to Rosamund the “ping-ping” of the bell of St. Mary’s Church which had welcomed her in the fog. How much had happened since then! Robin was nestling against her. He sat between her and his father, and was holding his father’s hand. By dividing Dion from her he united her with Dion. She thought of the mystery of the Trinity, and then of their mystery, the mystery of father, mother and child. To-day she felt very happy, and happy in an unusual way. In her happiness she know that, in a sort of under way, she had almost dreaded Dion’s return. She had been so peacefully content, so truly at rest and deeply serene in the life at Welsley with Robin. In her own heart she could not deny that she had loved having her Robin all to herself; and she had loved, too, the long hours of solitude during which, in day-dreams, she had lived the religious life. A great peace had enveloped those months at Welsley. In them she had mysteriously grown into a closer relation with her little son. She had often felt in those months that this mysterious nearness could never have become quite what it had become to her unless she had been left alone with Robin. It was their solitude which had enabled her to concentrate wholly on Robin, and it was surely this exclusive concentration on Robin which had drawn him so very close to her. All the springs of his love had flowed towards her.

She had been just a wee bit frightened about Dion’s return.

And that was why at this moment, when the five minutes’ bell was ringing, she felt so happy. For Dion’s return had not made any difference; or, if it had made a difference, she did not actively regret it. The child’s new adoration of his father had made her care more for Dion, and even more for Robin; for she felt that Robin was unconsciously loving in his father a strength and a nobility which were new in Dion, which had been born far away across the sea. War destroys, and all the time war is destroying it is creating. Robin was holding a little bit of what the South African War had created as he held his father’s hand. For are not the profound truths of the soul conveyed through all its temple?

“Happiness is a mystery,” thought Rosamund.

And then she silently thanked God that this mystery was within herself, and that she felt it in Robin and in Dion.

She looked down at her little son, and as she met his soft and yet ardent eyes,--full of innocent anxiety, and almost of awe, about Mr. Thrush,--she blessed the day when she had decided to marry Dion, when she had renounced certain dreams, when she had taken the advice of the man who was now her friend and had resolved to tread that path of life in which she could have a companion.

Her companion had given her another companion. In the old gray Cathedral, full of the silent voices of men who had prayed and been gathered to their rest long since, Rosamund looked down the way of happiness, and she could not see its end.

The five minutes’ bell stopped and Robin sat up very straight in the pew. The Bishop’s wife proceeded to her stall with a friend. Robin stared reverently, alert for the tribute to Mr. Thrush. Miss Piper glided in sideways, holding her head down as if she were searching for a dropped pin on the pavement. She, too, was an acquaintance of Robin’s, and he whispered to his mother:

“Miss Piper’s come to see Mr. Thrush.”

“Yes, darling.”

What a darling he was in his anxiety for his old friend! She looked at the freckles on the bridge of his little nose and longed to kiss them. This was without doubt the most wonderful day in Robin’s life so far. She looked ahead and saw how many wonderful days for Robin! And over his fair hair she glanced at Dion, and she felt Dion’s thought hand in hand with hers.

A long sigh came from the organ, and then Mr. Dickinson was at work preluding Mr. Thrush. Distant steps sounded on the pavement behind the choir screen coming from some hidden place at the east end of the Cathedral. The congregation stood up. All this, in Robin’s mind, was for Mr. Thrush. Still holding his father’s hand tightly he joined in the congregation’s movement. The solemnly pacing steps drew nearer. Robin felt very small, and the pew seemed very deep to him now that he was standing up. There was a fat red footstool by his left leg. He peeped at his father and whispered:

“May I, Fa?”

Dion bent down, took him under the arms and lifted him gently on to the footstool just as the vergers appeared with their wands, walking nobly at the head of the procession.

At Welsley the ordinary vergers did not march up the choir to the return stalls, but divided and formed up in two lines at the entrance, making a dignified avenue down which the choristers and the clergy passed with calm insouciance into the full view of the waiting congregation. Only two picked men, with wands of silver, preceded the dignitaries to their massive stalls. Mr. Thrush was--though not in Robin’s eyes--an ordinary verger. He would not therefore penetrate into the choir. But, mercifully, he with one other had been placed in the forefront of the procession. He led the way, and Robin and his parents had a full and satisfying view of him as the procession curved round and made for the screen. In his dark and flowing robe he came on majestical, holding his wand quite perfectly, and looking not merely self-possessed but--as Rosamund afterwards put it--“almost uplifted.”

Robin began to breathe hard as he gazed. From Mr. Thrush’s shoulders the robe swung with his lordly movements. He reached the entrance. It seemed as if nothing could prevent him from floating on, in all the pride and dignity of his new office, to the very steps of the Dean’s stall. But discipline held him. He stood aside; he came to rest with his wand before him; he let the procession pass by, and then, almost mystically, he evaporated with his brother vergers.

Rosamund sent a quick look to Dion, a look of subdued and yet bright triumph. Then she glanced down at Robin. She had been scarcely less excited, less strung up, than he. But she had seen the fruit of her rehearsals and now she was satisfied. Robin, she saw, was more than satisfied. His eyes were round with the glory of it all.

That was the happiest Sunday Dion had ever spent, and it was fated to close in a happiness welling up out of the very deeps of the heart.

Canon Wilton and Esme Darlington came in to tea, and Mr. Thrush was entertained at a sumptuous repast in the nursery “between the services.” Robin presided at it with anxious rapture, being now just a little in awe of his faithful old friend. His nurse, who approved of Mr. Thrush, and was much impressed by the fact that after two interviews with the Dean he had been appointed to a post in the Cathedral, sat down to it too; and Rosamund and Dion looked in to congratulate Mr. Thrush, and to tell him how delighted they were with his bearing in the procession and his delicately adroit manipulation of his wand. Mr. Thrush received their earnest congratulations with the quiet dignity of one who felt that they did not spring from exaggeration of sentiment. Like all great artists he knew when he had done well. But when Rosamund and Dion were about to retire, and to leave him with Robin and the nurse to the tea and well-buttered toast, he suddenly emerged into an emotion which did him credit.

“Madame!” He said to Rosamund, in a rather hoarse and tremulous voice.

“Now don’t trouble to get up again, dear Mr. Thrush. Yes, what is it?”

Mr. Thrush looked down steadily at the “round” which glistened on his plate. Something fell upon it.

“Oh, Mr. Thrush----!” began Robin, and paused in dismay, looking up at his mother.

“Madame,” said Mr. Thrush again, still looking at the “round,” “I haven’t felt as I do now since I stood behind my counter just off Hanover Square, respected. Yes,” he said, and his old voice quavered upwards, gaining in strength, “respected by all who knew me. She was with me then, and now she isn’t. But I feel--I feel--I’m respected again.”

Something else fell upon the toast.

“And it’s all your doing, madam. I--all I can say is that I--all I can say----” His voice failed.

Rosamund put her hand on his shoulder.

“There, Mr. Thrush, there! I know, I know just how it is.”

“Madame,” said Mr. Thrush, with quavering emphasis, “one can depend upon you, a man can depend upon you. What you undertake you carry through, even if it’s only the putting on his feet of--of--I never thought to be a verger, never. I never could have looked up to such a thing but for you. But Mr. Dean he said to me, ‘Mr. Thrush, when Mrs. Leith speaks up for a man, even an archbishop has to listen.’”

“Thank you, Mr. Thrush. Robin, give Mr. Thrush the brown sugar. He always likes brown sugar in his tea.”

“It’s more nourishing, madam,” said Mr. Thrush, with a sudden change from emotion to quiet self-confidence. “It does more work for the stomach. A chemist knows.”

“Dear old man!” said Rosamund, when she and Dion were outside in the passage. “To say all that before nurse--it was truly generous.”

And she frankly wiped her eyes. A moment later she added:

“I pray he doesn’t fall back into his little failing!”

She looked at Dion interrogatively. He looked at her, understanding, he believed, the inquiry in her eyes. Before he could say anything the kind and careful voice of Mr. Darlington was heard below, asking:

“Is Mrs. Dion Leith at home?”

Mr. Darlington was delighted with Little Cloisters. He said it had a “flavor which was quite unique,” and was so enthusiastic that Rosamund became almost excited. Dion saw that she counted Mr. Darlington as an ally. When Mr. Darlington’s praises sounded she could not refrain from glancing at her husband, and when at length their guests got up to go “with great reluctance,” she begged them to come and dine on the following night.

Mr. Darlington raised his ragged eyebrows and looked at Canon Wilton.

“I’m by way of going back to town to-morrow afternoon,” he began tentatively.

“Stay another night and let us accept,” said Canon Wilton heartily.

“But I’m dining with dear Lavinia Berkhamstead, one of my oldest friends. It’s not a set dinner, but I should hardly like--”

“For once!” pleaded Rosamund.

Mr. Darlington wavered. He looked round the room and then at Rosamund and Dion.

“It’s most attractive here,” he murmured, “and Lady Berkhamstead lives in the Cromwell Road, at the far end. I wonder--”

“It’s settled!” Rosamund exclaimed. “Dinner at half-past seven. We keep early hours here, and Dion goes shooting to-morrow with Robin and may get sleepy towards ten o’clock.”

After explanations about Robin, Mr. Darlington gracefully yielded. He would wire to dear Lavinia Berkhamstead and explain matters.

As he and Canon Wilton walked back to the Canon’s house he said;

“What dear people those are!”

“Yes, indeed,” said the Canon.

“Happiness has brought out the very best in them both. Leith is a fine young fellow, and she, of course, is unique, a piece of radiance, as her beautiful mother was. It does one good to see such a happy household.”

He gently glowed, and presently added:

“You and I, dear Canon, have missed something.”

After a moment the Canon’s strong voice came gravely out of the winter darkness:

“You think great happiness the noblest education?”

Mr. Darlington began to pull his beard.

“You mean, my dear Wilton----?”

“Do you think the education of happiness is the education most likely to bring out the greatest possibilities of the soul?”

This was the sort of very definite question that Mr. Darlington preferred to get away from if possible, and he was just preparing to “hedge,” when, fortunately, they ran into the Dean, and the conversation deviated to a discussion concerning the effect the pursuit of scientific research was likely to have upon religious belief.

After supper that evening--supper instead of dinner on Sundays was the general rule in Welsley--Dion lit his pipe. It had been a very happy day. He wished the happiness to last till sleep came to Rosamund and to him; nevertheless he was resolved to take a risk, and to take it now before they went to bed, while they still had two quiet hours before them. He looked at Rosamund and reluctance surged up in him, but he beat it back. Something told him that he had been allowed to come back from South Africa in order that he might build firm foundations. The perfect family life must be set upon rock. He meant to get through to the rock if possible. Rosamund and he were beginning again. Now surely was the day of salvation if he played the man, the man instead of merely the lover.

“This has been one of the happiest days of my life,” he said.

He was standing by the fire. Rosamund was sitting on a low chair doing some embroidery. Gold thread gleamed against a rough cream-colored ground in her capable hands.

“I’m so thankful you like Welsley,” she said.

“Won’t you hate leaving Welsley?” he asked.

Rosamund went on quietly working for a moment. Perhaps she bent a little lower over the embroidery.

“I’ve made a great many friends here,” she said at length, “and----”

She paused.

“Yes--do tell me, Rose.”

“There’s something here that I care for very much.”

“Is it the atmosphere of religion? There’s a great deal here that suggests the religious life.”

“Yes; it’s what I care for.”

“I was almost afraid of meeting you here when I came back, Rose. I remembered what you had once told me, that you had had a great longing to enter the religious life. I was half afraid that, living here all alone with Robin, you might have become--I don’t know exactly how to put it--become cloistral. I didn’t want to find you a sort of nun when I came back.”

He spoke with a gentle lightness.

“It might have been so, mightn’t it?”

She remembered her dreams in the walled-in garden almost guiltily.

“No,” she said steadily--and as she spoke she felt as if she were firmly putting those dreams behind her forever. “Motherhood changes a woman more than men can ever know.”

“I--I know it’s all right. Then you won’t hate me for taking you both back to Little Market Street in a few days?”

He saw the color deepen in her face. For an instant she went on working. Then she put the work down, sat back in the low chair, and looked up at him.

“No, of course we must go back. And I was very happy in Little Market Street.”

And then quickly, before he could say anything, she began to recall the pleasant details of their life in Westminster, dwelling upon every household joy, and everything that though “Londony” had been delightful. Having conquered, with an effort which had cost her more than even Dion knew, a terrible reluctance she gave herself to her own generous impulse with enthusiasm. Rosamund could not do things by halves. She might obstinately refrain from treading a path, but if once she had set her feet on it she hurried eagerly along it. Something to-night had made her decide on treading the path of unselfishness, of generosity. When Dion lit his pipe she had not known she was going to tread it. It seemed to her almost as if she had found herself upon the path without knowing how she had got there. Now without hesitation she went forward.

“It was delightful in Westminster,” she concluded, “and it will be delightful there again.”

“And all your friends here? And Mr. Thrush?”

“I don’t know what Mr. Thrush will do,” she said, with a change to deep gravity.

The two lines showed in her pure forehead.

“I’m so afraid that without me he will fall back. But perhaps I can run down now and then just for the day to keep him up to his promise, poor dear old man.”

“And your friends?”

“Oh, well--of course I shall miss them. But I suppose there is always something to miss. There must be a crumpled rose leaf. I am far more fortunate than almost any woman I know.”

Dion put down his pipe.

“I simply can’t do it,” he said.

“What?”

“Take you away from here. It seems your right place. You love it; Robin loves it. What’s to be done? Shall I run up and down?”

“You can’t. It’s too far.”

“I have to read the papers somewhere. Why not in the train?”

“Three hours or more! It’s impossible. If only Welsley were nearer London! But, then, it wouldn’t be Welsley.”

“Now I know you’ll go I can’t take you away.”

“Did you--what did you think I should do?”

“How could I tell?”

He sat down and took her hands.

“Rose, you’ve made this the happiest day of my life.”

“Do you mean because----?”

She stopped. Her face became very grave, almost severe. She looked at him, but he felt that she was really looking inward upon herself. When at last he let go her hands she said:

“Dion, you are very different from what you were when you went to the war. If I seem different, too, it’s because of that, I think.”

“War changes women, perhaps, as well as men,” he said tenderly.

They sat by the fire in the quiet old room and talked of the future and of all the stages of Robin: as schoolboy, as youth, as budding undergraduate, as man.

“Perhaps he’ll be a soldier-man as his father has been,” said Rosamund.

“Do you wish it?”

She looked at him steadily for a moment. Then she said:

“Yes, if it helps him as I think it has helped you. I expect when men go to fight for their country they go, perhaps without knowing it, to fight just for themselves.”

“I believe everything we do for others, without any thought of ourselves, we do for ourselves,” he said, very seriously.

“Altruism! But then I ought to live in London for you, and you in Welsley for me.”

They both laughed. Nothing had been absolutely decided; and yet it seemed as if through that laughter a decision had been reached about everything really important.

Chapter IX

A dogcart from Harrington’s had been ordered to be “round” the next day at noon. Dion had decided against a long day’s shooting on Robin’s account. He must not tire the little chap. In truth it would be impossible to take the shooting seriously, with Robin there all the time, clinging on to Jane and having to be looked after.

“It’s going to be Robin’s day,” Dion said the next morning. “When are you going to tell him?”

“Directly after breakfast. By the way, Dion,”--she spoke carelessly, and was opening a letter while she spoke,--“I’m not coming.”

“Oh, but you must!”

“No; I’ll stay quietly here. I have lots of things to do.”

“But Robin’s first day as a sportsman!”

“He isn’t going to shoot,” she said with a mother’s smile.

“Why won’t you come? You’ve got some very special reason.”

“Perhaps I have, but I’m not going to tell it. Women aren’t wanted everywhere. Sometimes a couple of men like to be alone.”

“Robin’s a man now?”

“Yes, a little man. I do hope the gaiters will fit him. I haven’t dared to try them on yet. And I’ve got him the dearest little whip you ever saw.”

“Jane will have to look to her paces. I’m sorry you’re not coming, Rose.”

But he did not try to persuade her. He believed that she had a very sweet reason behind her abstention. She had had Robin all to herself for many months; perhaps she thought the father ought to have his turn now, perhaps to-day she was handing over her little son to his father for the education which always comes from a man. Her sudden unselfishness--Dion believed it was that--touched him to the heart. But it made him long to do something, many things, for her.

“I’m determined that you and Welsley shan’t part from each other forever,” he said. “We’ll hit on some compromise. This house is on our hands, anyhow, till the spring.”

“Perhaps we could sublet it,” said Rosamund, trying to speak with brisk cheerfulness.

“We’ll talk it over again to-night.”

“And now for Robin’s gaiters!”

They fitted perfectly; “miraculously” was Rosamund’s word for the way they fitted.

“His legs might a-been poured into them almost, a-dear,” was nurse’s admirably descriptive comment on the general effect produced.

Robin looked at his legs with deep solemnity. When the great project for this day of days had been broken to him he had fallen upon awe. His prattling ardors had subsided, stilled by a greater joy than any that had called them forth in his complex past of a child. Now he gazed at his legs, which were stretched out at right angles to his body on a nursery chair, as if they were not his. Then he looked up at his mother, his father, nurse; then once more down at his legs. His eyes were inquiring. They seemed to say, “Can it be?”

“Bless him! He can’t hardly believe in it!” muttered nurse. “And no wonder.”

A small sigh came from Robin. To his father and mother it came like the whisper of happiness, that good fairy which men cannot quite get rid of, try as they may. Two small hands went down to the little gaiters and felt them carefully. Then Robin looked up again, this time at his father, and smiled. Instinctively he connected his father with these wonderful appurtenances, although his mother had bought them and put them on him. With that smile he gave the day to his father, and Dion took it with just a glance at Rosamund--a glance which deprecated and which accepted.

When the dogcart was announced by Annie, with beaming eyes, Dion got his gun, Robin received his whip,--a miniature hunting-crop with a horn handle,--his cap was pulled down firmly on his head by Rosamund, and they set forth to the Green Court. Here they found Harrington’s most fiery horse harnessed to quite a sporting dogcart and doing his very best to champ his bit. From the ground Robin looked up at him with solemn eyes. The occasion was almost too great. His father with a gun, his own legs in gaiters, the whip which he felt in his hand, the packet of sandwiches thrust tenderly by nurse into the pocket of his little covert coat, and now this glorious animal and this high and unusual carriage gleaming with light-colored wood between its immense wheels! There was almost too much of meaning, too much of suggestion in it all. No words came to him. He could only feel and gaze.

A stableman with hard lips stood sentinel in front of the fiery horse, and put up a red forefinger on the right side of his temple to give them greeting.

“I’ll get in first,” said Dion to Rosamund, “and then you can hand me up Robin.”

He put in his gun and took the reins, while Robin instinctively extended his arms so that his mother could take hold of him under them.

“Up we go!” cried Dion.

And he mounted lightly to the high seat.

“Now, Robin!”

Rosamund took hold of Robin, whose short arms were still solemnly outstretched. She was about to lift him into the cart, but, overcome by an irresistible impulse, she paused, put one arm under the little legs in the gaiters, drew him to her and pressed her lips on the freckled bridge of his tiny nose.

“You darling!” she whispered, so that only he could hear. “I love you in your gaiters better than I ever loved you before.” Then she handed him up to his father as if he were a dear little parcel.

“That’s it,” said Dion. “Put your arm round here, boy. Hold on tight! Let him go!”

The hard-lipped man stood to one side and the horse--well, moved. Robin gazed down at his mother with the faint hint of an almost shy smile, Dion saluted her with his whip, and the glorious day was fairly begun. Traveling with a sort of rakish deliberation the dogcart skirted the velvet lawn of the Green Court and disappeared from sight beneath the ancient archway.

Rosamund sighed as she turned to walk back to Little Cloisters. She had made a real sacrifice that day in giving up Robin to his father and staying at home. Secretly she had longed to go with her “men-folk” upon the great expedition, to be present at Robin’s initiation into the Doric life. But something very dear in Dion had prompted her to be unselfish. Dion was certainly much more impressive to her since his return from the war. Even the dear things in him meant more. There seemed to be more muscle in them than there had been when he went away.

“Even our virtues can be weak or strong, I suppose,” Rosamund thought, as she turned into the walled garden which she loved so much, and there followed the thought:

“I wonder which mine are.”

She meant to spend that day in saying good-by to Welsley. Dion had said they would talk things over again that night; probably he would be ready to fall in with any desire of hers, but she felt almost sure that she would not tell him how much she wished to stay on at Little Cloisters.

An obscure feeling had come to her that perhaps it was not quite safe for her to remain any longer here in the arms of the Precincts. Looking backward to that which has been deliberately renounced is surely an act of weakness.

Even the imaginative effort to live a life that has been put aside is a feeble concession to an inclination at least partially morbid. Rosamund was in fact a mother, and yet here in Welsley, she had, as it were, sometimes played at being one of those “Sisters” who are content to be brides of heaven and mothers of the poor. For her own sake it was doubtless best to renounce Welsley at once. The new meaning of Dion would help her to do that bravely. He had often been unselfish for her; she would try to counter his unselfishness with hers.

When she was in the house again she had a colloquy with the cook about the dinner for that evening. As Esme Darlington had given up an engagement in London to come to Little Cloisters, her dinner must be something special. She told the cook so in her cordial, almost confidential, way, and they “put their heads together” and devised a menu full of attractions. That done she had the day to herself. Dion and Robin would come home some time in the afternoon, and they were all going to have tea together up in the nursery. It might be at half-past four, it might be at half-past five. Till then she was free.

For a moment she thought of going to see some of her friends, of telling Mrs. Dickinson and other adherents of hers that her days in Welsley were numbered. But a reluctance seized her. She felt a desire to be alone. What if instead of saying good-by to Welsley, she said good-by to her dreams in Welsley? She summoned Annie and told her not to let any one in.

“I’m going to spend a quiet day, Annie,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am,” said Annie, with an air of intelligent comprehension.

“Though what else any one ever does in old Welsley I’m sure I couldn’t say,” she afterwards remarked to the cook.

“You’re a cockney at ‘eart, Annie,” repeated that functionary. “The country says nothing to you. You want the parks, that’s what you want.”

“Well, I was brought up in ‘em, as you may say,” said Annie, whose father had been a park-keeper, and whose mother and grandmother were natives of Westbourne Grove.

By a quiet day Rosamund meant a day lived through in absolute solitude, a day of meditation in the cloistered garden. She would not have any lunch. Then she would have a better appetite for the nursery tea at which Robin would relate to her all the doings of the greatest day of his life. Precious, precious Robin!

She went down into the garden.

It was a mistily bright day of November. The sun shone through a delicate veil. The air was cold but not sharp. Neither autumn nor winter ruled. It seemed like a day which had slipped into an interstice between two seasons, a day that was somehow rare and exceptional, holding a faint stillness that was strange. There was in it something of the far away. If a fairy day can be cold, it was like a fairy day. On such a day one treads lightly and softly and at moments feels almost as if out of the body.

Lightly and softly Rosamund went to and fro between the high and mossy walls of the garden, keeping to the straight paths. When the bells chimed in the tower of the Cathedral they sounded much farther away than usual; the song of the thrush somewhere in the elder bush near the garden door was curiously remote; the caw-caw of the rooks dropped down as if from an immeasurable distance. Through the mist the sunshine filtered, lightly pale and pure, a sensitive sunshine which would surely not stay very long in Rosamund’s garden.

A sort of thin stillness had fallen upon the world.

And so another chapter of life was closing, the happy chapter of Welsley!

Something of sadness accompanied Rosamund along the straight paths, the delicate melancholy which attends the farewells of one who has regret but who has hope.

With the new Dion and with the old Robin, the Robin blessedly unchanged, she could not be really unhappy. Yet it was sad to give up the dear garden and all the dreams which belonged to it. Far down in her--she knew it--there was certainly a recluse. She could see the black figure, the sheltered face, the eyes looking down, the praying hands. It would have been very natural to her long ago to seek God in the way of the recluse. But not now!

Hermes and the child came before her. In the stillness of Welsley it was as if she heard the green stillness of Elis. She was quite alone in that inner room where stood the messenger with the wings on his sandals. Dion had stayed outside. He had been unselfish that day as to-day she had been unselfish. For she had wanted to go with the little gaiters. She could see the smiling look of eternity upon the face of the messenger. He had no fear for the child. He had mounted on winged feet to the region where no fear is. How his benign and eternal calm had sunk into Rosamund’s soul that day in Elis. Far off she had seen through the frame of the Museum doorway a bit of the valley in which the Hermes had dwelt, and stretching across it a branch of wild olive. She had looked at it and had thought of the victor’s Crown, a crown which had even been won by a boy at the games.

Already then a fore-knowledge of Robin had been in her.

She had gazed at the branch and loved it. Certainly she had been dreaming, as she had afterwards told Dion, and in her dream had been Hermes and the child, and surely another child for whose future the messenger would not fear. The branch of wild olive had, perhaps, entered into the dream. Into a crown she had wound it to set upon the little fair head. And that was why she had suffered, had really suffered, when a cruel hand had come into Elis and had torn down the wild olive branch. Dion’s hand!

That action had been like a murder. She remembered even now her feeling of anger and distress. She had been startled. She had been ruthlessly torn away from the exquisite calm in which, with the Hermes, she had been celestially dreaming. Dion had torn her away, Dion who loved her so much.

Why had he done it? Even now she did not know.

He had taken her out of that dream, and now he was going to take her away from Welsley.

The misty brightness was already fading from the garden; the song of the thrush was no longer audible: he had flown away from the elder bush and from Rosamund. The coldness and silence of the day seemed to deepen about her. Welsley was fading out of her life. She felt that. She was going to begin again. But as she had carried Elis with her when she left it, and the dear tombs and temples of Greece, when she had bidden good-by to the bare and beautiful land whose winds and whose waters are not as the winds and the waters of any other region, so she would carry away with her Welsley, this garden with its seclusion, its old religious atmosphere, the music of the chimes, even the thrush’s song from the elder bush. “Farewell!” She must say that. But she had her precious possession. Another page of the book of life would be turned. That was all.

That was all? She sighed. A painful sense of the impermanence of the things of this world came suddenly upon her. Like running water life was slipping by; its joys, the shining bubbles poised upon the surface, drifted into the distance and--how quickly!--were out of reach.

Perhaps the great attraction, the lure of the religious life, was the sense felt by those who led it of having a close grip upon that which was permanent. The joys of the world--even the natural, healthy, allowed joys--were shut out, but there was the great compensation, companionship with that to which no “farewell” would ever have to be said, with that to which death only brought the human being nearer.

Rosamund stopped in her walk, and looked up at the great Cathedral which towered above the wall of the garden. She had been pacing to and fro for a long time. She did not feel tired, but she was beset by an unaccustomed sensation of weariness, mental and spiritual rather than physical.

After a minute she went into the house, found a rug and a book, came back into the garden, and sat down on a bench in a corner hidden from observation. This bench was close to the wall which divided the garden from the “Dark Entry.” It was separated from the lawn and the view of the house by a belt of shrubs. Rosamund was fond of this nook and had very often sat in it, sometimes alone, sometimes with Robin. She had told the maids never to look for her there; if any visitor came and she was not seen in that part of the garden which was commanded by the windows of the house, they were to conclude that she was “out.” Here, then, she was quite safe, and could turn the last page of the chapter of Welsley in her book of life.

She wrapped herself up in the big and heavy rug. The sun was gone, the mist had become slightly more dense, the air was colder.

Presently Dion and Robin would come back; there would be tea in the warm old-fashioned nursery, gay talk, the telling of wonderful deeds.

If only Robin did not fall off Jane! But Dion would take care of that. Dion certainly loved Robin very much. The bond between father and son had evidently been strengthened by the intervention of the war, which had broken off their intercourse for a time, and given Robin a father changed by contact with hard realities.

For a few minutes in imagination Rosamund followed the two figures over the stubble, the thin strong walking figure, and the little darling figure on pony back. Would Robin quite forget her in the midst of his proud and triumphant joy? She wondered. Even if he did, she would not really mind. She wanted him to be very happy indeed without her--just for a short time: that he could not be happy without her for long she knew very well.

Oddly, her sensation of weariness persisted. She recognized it now as wholly unphysical. She was certainly feeling what people call “depressed.” No doubt this unusual depression--for she had been born with a singularly cheerful spirit--was caused by the resolution she had taken to give up Welsley. Perhaps Welsley meant more to her even than she had supposed. But it was absurd--wasn’t it?--to be so dominated by places. People, certain people, might mean everything in the life of a woman; many women lived, really lived, only in and through their lovers, their husbands, their children; but what woman lived in and through the life of the place? She had only to compare mentally the loss of Welsley with--say--the loss of Dion, the new Dion, to realize how little Welsley really meant to her. Certainly she loved it as a place, but probably a woman can only love a place with a bit of her.

And yet to-day, she certainly felt depressed. Even the thought of the nursery tea did not drive the depression from her.

She opened the book she had brought from the house. It was a volume of Browning’s poems. She had opened it at hap-hazard, and now her eyes rested on these words, words loved almost above all others by one of the greatest souls that ever spent itself for England:

“I go to prove my soul! I see my way as birds their trackless way I shall arrive! What time, what circuit first I ask not; but unless God send His Hail Or blinding fire-balls, sleet, or stifling snow, In some time, His good time!--I shall arrive: He guides me and the bird. In His good time!”

She read the lines three--four times. Then she laid the book down on her knees and sat very still. Consciously she tried to withdraw herself, to pass into meditation carrying the poem with her.

“I see my way as birds their trackless way--I shall arrive!”

Rosmund was gazing downward at a coping of worn brick on which she had set her feet, but she did not see it now. She saw migratory birds traveling steadily through a vast expanse of gray sky; birds that were going, at the appointed time, to some far-distant place, in search of a golden climate, in search of the sun. Inevitably they would come into the golden climate, inevitably they would find the sun which they needed. Like them she was traveling through a vast gray expanse, the life of the world. Robin and Dion were with her. They were seeking the sun which they needed. Surely, like the birds, they would find the sun at last. She had thought to seek her way deliberately. When she was quite a girl it had seemed to her that the human being had the power, and was therefore almost under the obligation, to find the way to God for herself. When she had contemplated entering the religious life the thought at the back of her mind had perhaps been something like this: “I’ll conquer the love and the mercy of God by my own exertions; I’ll find the way to God by my own ingenuity and determination in searching it out.” Possibly she had never quite simply and humbly said in her soul, with Newman, “Be Thou my Guide.” Now, as she sat in the garden, with the image of the migratory birds in her mind, she thought, “The birds do that. They give themselves to the sky, and God does the rest. He knows the way by which each human soul can best go back to that from which once it issued forth.” Perhaps as a Sister, leading the hidden secluded life, she could not have found the way; perhaps she had to find it in the world, through Dion with whom she had united herself, or through Robin to whom she had given birth.

Through Robin! Yes, surely that was her way to God. “A little child shall lead them.” The words started up in her mind without their context, and she realized that, though people believe it is the mother who teaches the child, nevertheless the mother learns the greatest truths from the child. Who living on the earth could keep her from sin as surely as her Robin? How could she be evil when Robin looked to her as the embodiment of goodness. What would she not do, what would she not give up, to increase Robin’s love for her, to give him more reason for regarding her with innocent confidence and simple reverence?

Yes, Robin was surely her way to God.

And now, withdrawn into the very depths of meditation, and hearing no longer the distant voices of the rooks as they wheeled about the elm-tops near Canon Wilton’s house, she went onwards down the way chosen for her by God, the “Robin-way.”

Now Robin was a young child, and naturally looked up to her as a kind of Providence. Presently he would be a lad; inevitably he would reach the age when the growing mind becomes critical. Young animals gnaw hard things to test the strength of their teeth; so do young growing minds gnaw the bones that come in their way. Even the mother comes in for much secret criticism from the son who loves her. Rosamund’s time for being criticized by Robin would come in the course of the years. She must try to get ready against that time; she must try to be worthy of Robin’s love when he was able to be critical. And so onwards down the way across the gray expanse, guided, like the birds!

Rosamund saw herself now as the mother of a tall son, hardened a little by public-school life, a cricketer, a rower, a swimmer; perhaps intellectual too, the winner of a scholarship. There were so many hearts and minds that the mother of a son must learn to keep, to companion, to influence, to go forward with: the heart and the mind of the child, the schoolboy, the undergraduate, the young man out in the world taking up his life-task--a soldier perhaps, or a man of learning, a pioneer, a carver of new ways for the crowd following behind.

It was a tremendous thing to be a mother; it was a difficult way to God. But it was the most beautiful way of all the ways, and Rosamund was very thankful that she had been guided to take it. Robin, she knew, had taught her already very much, but how little compared with all that he was destined to teach her in the future! Even when her hair was white no doubt she would still be learning from him, would still be trying to lift herself a little higher lest he should ever have to look downward to see her.

For a long time she meditated on these things, for a very long while. The sun never came back to the garden as she dreamed of the sun which the birds were seeking, of the sun which she and Dion and Robin were seeking; the afternoon hours passed on in a gray procession; the chimes sounded many times, but she did not hear them. She had forgotten Welsley in remembering how small a part Welsley must play in her mother-life, in remembering how very small were the birds in the immense expanse of the sky.

In Meditation she had entered into Vastness.

The sound of the organ in the Cathedral recalled her. It was four o’clock. The afternoon service was just beginning. She sat still and listened. It was growing dark now, but she had no wish to move. Probably in half an hour Robin and Dion would come back from the shooting. From to-day she would think of Robin in a different way. He would be even dearer to her, even more sacred, her little teacher. What did it matter where she lived if her little teacher was with her. The sting had gone out of her unselfishness; she was glad she had been able to be unselfish, to put Dion before herself.

The organ ceased. They were praying now in the Cathedral. Presently she heard them singing the psalms faintly. The voices of the boys came to her with a sort of vague sweetness through the gathering darkness and the mist. They died away; the Magnificat followed, then silence, then the Nunc Dimittis, then another silence, presently the anthem. Finally she heard the organ alone in a Fugue of Bach.

The quarter to five chimed in the tower. Dion and Robin were a little late.

She got up, and carried the rug into the house.

“Annie!” she called.

Annie came.

“When Mr. Leith and Robin come back,--they’ll be here directly,--will you ask them to give me a call? I shall be in the garden.”

“Very well, ma’am.”

Again Rosamund paced up and down the paths. Now she was very conscious of herself and of her surroundings. The long night of early winter was falling upon Welsley. Five o’clock struck, a quarter-past five, then the half-hour. She stood still on the path, beginning to wonder. How late they were! Robin would surely be very tired. It would be too much for him. Directly he had had his tea he must be put to bed. Or perhaps it would be best to put him to bed at once. He would be disappointed, but they could easily have tea in the night nursery. She smiled, conjuring up a picture of Robin under the bedclothes being fed pieces of cake. He would enjoy that. And she would hold his cup for him while he drank, so that the bed might be safe. Meals in bed are often dangerous to the bed. How delightful were all the little absurd things she did for Robin!

When the chimes told her that it was a quarter to six she began to feel puzzled, and just the least little bit anxious. It had been quite dark for a little while now. Job Crickendon’s farm was only about four miles from Welsley. Harrington’s horse might not be an exceptionally fast-goer, but surely he could cover six miles in an hour. Dion and Robin could get back in forty minutes at the most. They must have stayed on at Job Crickendon’s till past five o’clock. Could they have had tea there? No, she was sure they would not have done that, when they knew she was waiting for them, was looking forward eagerly to tea in the nursery.

When six o’clock struck and they had not returned she felt really uneasy, although she was not at all a nervous mother, and seldom, or never, worried about her little son. She could not doubt any longer that something unexpected had occurred. They were dining at half-past seven that night. In an hour’s time at the latest she and Dion would have to dress. The hopes she had set on the family tea were vanishing. In her uneasiness she began to feel almost absurdly disappointed about the tea. She was hungry, too; she had had no lunch just because of the tea. It was to be a sort of family revel, and she had wished to enjoy it in every way, to make of it a real meal. Her abstention from lunch now seemed to her almost pitiful. Disappointment became acute in her. Yet even now her uneasiness, though definite, was not strong. If it had been she would not have been able to feel so disappointed, even so sorry for herself. She had given up the day to Dion. The nursery tea was to have been her little reward. Now she would be deprived of it. For a moment she felt hurt, almost the least bit angry.

As the words formed themselves in her mind she heard the quarter-past six chime out in the tower. She stood still on the path. What had happened? Perhaps Robin had fallen off Jane and hurt himself, or perhaps there had been an accident when they were driving home. Harrington’s horse was probably a crock. He might have fallen down. The dogcart was a high one----

She pulled herself up. She had always secretly rather despised the typical “anxious mother,” had always thought that the love which shows itself in perpetual fear was a silly, poor sort of affection. Even when Robin, as a baby, had once been seriously ill, at the time of the Clarke divorce case, she had been calm, had shown complete self-control. She had even surprised people by her fearlessness and quiet determination.

They did not know how she had prayed, and almost agonized in secret. She had drawn the calm at which they had wondered from prayer. She had asked God to let Robin get well, and she had felt that her prayer had been heard, and that God would grant her the life of her child.

Perhaps she had exaggerated to herself the danger he was in. But he was ill--for a short time he was very ill, and a baby’s hold on life is but frail.

Now she remembered her self-control during Robin’s illness, and resolutely she banished her anxiety. There was no doubt some perfectly simple explanation which presently would account to her for their not coming at the tea hour.

“Ma’am!” cried a respectable voice. “Ma-a-am!”

“What is it, Nurse. They haven’t come back?”

Nurse was coming down the path gingerly, with a shawl over her cap.

“No, ma’am. Whatever can have happened? Something’s a-happened, that’s certain.”

“Nonsense, Nurse!”

“But whatever should keep them out till late into the night, ma’am?”

“It’s only a little after six. It isn’t night at all.”

“But the tea, ma’am! And Master Robin’s so regular in his habits. He’ll be fair famished, ma’am, that he will. I----Well, ma’am, if I may say it, I really don’t hold with all this shooting, and sport, and what not for such young children.”

“It’s only just for once, Nurse. Go in now. You’ll catch cold.”

“But yourself, ma’am?”

“I’m quite warm. I’d rather stay out.”

Nurse stared anxiously for a moment, then turned away and went gingerly back to the house. Her white shawl faded against the background of darkness. With its fading Rosamund entered into--not exactly darkness, but into deep shadows. She supposed that nurse’s fear had communicated itself to her; she had caught the infection of fear from nurse. But when was nurse not afraid? She was an excellent woman and absolutely devoted to Robin, but she was not a Spartan. She leaped at sight of a mouse, and imagined diseases to be for ever floating Robinwards on all the breezes. Rosamund had strictly forbidden her ever to talk nonsense about illness to Robin, and she had obeyed. But that was her one fault; she had a timorous nature.

Rosamund wished nurse had not come out into the garden to infect her with foolish fear.

Nurse’s invitation to her to come into the house had made her suddenly know that to be shut in would be intolerable to her. Why was that? She now knew that lately, while she had been walking in the garden, she had been straining her ears to hear the sound of wheels in the Green Court. She knew she would be able to hear them in the garden. In the house that would be impossible. Therefore she could not go into the house till Robin came back.

All her fear was for Robin. He was so young, so tiny. Perhaps she ought not to have allowed him to go. Perhaps nurse was right, and such an expedition ought to have been ruled out as soon as it was suggested. Perhaps Dion and she had been altogether too Doric. She began to think so. But then she thought: “Robin’s with his father. What harm could come to him with his father, and such a competent father too?” That thought of Dion’s strength, coolness, competency reassured her; she dwelt on it. Of course with Dion Robin must be all right.

Presently, leaving the path in front of the house, she went again to the seat hidden away behind the shrubs against the wall which separated the garden from the Dark Entry. This dark entry was an arched corridor of stone which led directly from the Green Court to the passage-way on which the main door of the garden opened. It was paved with worn slabs of stone upon which the feet of any one passing rang with a mournful and hollow sound. A tiny path skirted the garden wall, running between the hidden seat and the small belt of shrubs which shut out a view of the house. Just before she turned into this path Rosamund looked back at the old house, and saw a lamp gleaming in the lattice window of the nursery. She did not sit down on the seat. She had thought to do that and to listen. But the mist had made the wood very wet, and she had left the rug in the house. If she walked softly up and down the little path she would be sure to hear the hoofs of Harrington’s horse, the wheels of the dogcart directly the wanderers drove into the Green Court. There they would get down, and would walk home through the Dark Entry. She intended to call out to them when she heard their footsteps ringing on the old stones. That would surprise them. She tried to enjoy the thought of their surprise when they heard her voice coming out of the darkness. How Robin would jump at the sound of mummy!

She stood just in front of the seat for two or three minutes, listening intently in the misty darkness. She heard nothing except for a moment a rustling which sounded like a bird moving in ivy. Then she began to walk softly up and down passing and repassing the seat. When she came up to the seat for the fourth time in her walk, an ugly memory--she knew not why--rose in her mind like a weed in a pool; it was the memory of a story which she had long ago read and disliked. She had read it, she remembered, in a railway train on a long journey. She had had a book, something interesting and beautiful, with her, but she had finished it. A passenger, who had got out of the carriage, had left behind him a paper-covered volume of short stories. She had taken it up and had read the first story, which now, after an interval of years, recurred to her mind.

There was in the story a very commonplace business man, middle-aged, quite unromantic and heavy, the sort of man who does not know what “nerves” means, who thinks suggestion “damned nonsense,” and psychical research, occultism, and so forth, absurdities fit only to take up the time of “a pack of silly women.” This worthy person lived in the suburbs of London in a semi-detached villa with a long piece of garden at the back. On the other side of the fairly high garden wall was the garden of his next-door neighbor, another business man of the usual suburban type. Both men were busy gardeners in their spare time. Number one had conceived the happy idea of putting up a tea-house in the angle of the wall at the bottom of his lawn. Number two, having heard of this achievement, and not wishing to be outdone, put up a very similar tea-house in the corresponding angle on his side of the wall. The two tea-houses stood therefore back to back with nothing but the wall between them. Now, one warm summer evening Mr. Jenkins-Smith--Rosamund could remember his name, though she had not thought of him for years--had been busy watering his flowers and mowing his lawn. He had worked really hard, and when the evening began to close in he thought he would go into the tea-house and have a rest. On each side of the curly-legged tea-table of unpolished wood stood a wicker arm-chair. Into one of these chairs Mr. Jenkins-Smith sank with a sigh of content. Then he lighted his pipe, stretched out his short legs, and, gazing at his beautifully trimmed garden, prepared to enjoy a delicious hour of well-earned repose. Things were going well with him; money was easy; his health was good; when he sat down in the wicker chair and put his pipe into his mouth he was, perhaps, as happy a man as you could find in all Surbiton.

But presently, in fact very soon, he became conscious of a disagreeable feeling. A curious depression began to come upon him. He smoked steadily, he gazed out at his garden green with turf and gay with flowers, but his interest and pleasure in it were gone from him. He wondered why. Presently he turned his head and looked over his shoulder. What he was looking for he did not know; simply he felt obliged to do what he did. He saw, of course, nothing but the curved wooden back of the tea-house. He listened, he strained his ears, but he heard nothing except the faint “ting-ting” of a tram-bell, and voices of some children playing in a distant garden. His pipe had gone out. As he lit a match and held it to his pipe bowl he saw that his hand was shaking. Whatever had come to him? He was no drinker; he had always been a temperate man, proud of his clear eyes and steady limbs, yet now he was shaking like a drunkard. Perspiration burst out upon his forehead. He was seized by an intense desire to get away from the tea-house, to get out into the open, and he half rose from his chair, holding on to the arms and dropping his pipe on the wooden floor. The tiny noise it made set his nerves in a turmoil. He was afraid. But of what? He took his hands from the chair and sat back, angry with himself, almost ashamed. That he should feel afraid, here in his own garden, in his own cozy tea-house! It was absurd, monstrous; it was like a sort of madness come upon him. But he was determined not to give way to such nonsense. Just because he was longing to go out of the tea-house he would remain in it. Let the darkness come; he did not mind it; he was going to smoke his pipe.

Again he stared over his shoulder, and the sweat ran down his face. Had not he heard something in the tea-house of his neighbor on the other side of the wall? It seemed to him that he had rather felt a sound than actually heard it. Nausea came upon him. He got up trembling. But still he was ashamed of himself, and he would not go out of the tea-house. Instead he went behind the table, stood close to the wooden wall, put his ear to it and listened intently. He heard nothing; but when he was standing against the wall his horror and fear increased until he could no longer combat them. He turned sharply, knocked over a chair, and hurried out into the garden. There for a moment he stood still. Under the sky he felt better, but not himself; he did not feel himself at all. After a pause for consideration he put on his jacket,--he had been gardening in his shirt-sleeves,--went into his house, out into the road, and then up to the door of his neighbor. There he rang the bell and knocked. A maid came. “Is your master in?” he asked. “Yes, sir, he’s sitting in the summer-house at the end of the garden.” “How long’s he been there?” “About half an hour, sir, as near as I can reckon.” “Could I see him?” “Certainly, sir.” “Perhaps you’d--perhaps you’d show me to the summer-house.” “Yes, sir.”

Mr. Jenkins-Smith and the maid went to the end of the garden, and there, in the summer-house, they found the corpse of a suicide hanging from a beam in the roof.

This was the ugly story which had come into Rosamund’s mind as she stood by the seat close to the garden wall. On the other side of Mr. Jenkins-Smith’s wall had been the summer-house of his neighbor; on the other side of her wall there was the Dark Entry. She stood considering this fact and thinking of the man’s terror in his garden. He had been subject surely to an emanation. A mysterious message had been sent to him by the corpse which dangled from the beam on the other side of the wall.

She went nearer to the wall of the garden and listened attentively. Had she not heard a sound in the Dark Entry? It seemed to her that some one had come into the stone corridor while she had been walking up and down on the path, and was now standing there motionless. But how very unlikely it was that any one would do such a thing! It must be quite black there now, and very cold on the stone pavement, between the stone walls, under the roof of stone. Of course no one was there.

Nevertheless she went on listening with a sort of painful attention. And distress came upon her. It began in a sort of physical malaise out of which a mental dread, such as she had never yet experienced, was born. She felt now quite certain that some one was standing still in the Dark Entry, very close to her, but separated from her by two walls of brick and stone; and something of this unseen person, of his attention, or his anger, or his terror, or his criminal intent, in any case something tremendously powerful, pierced the walls and came upon her and enveloped her. She opened her lips, not knowing what she was going to say, and from them came the cry:

“Dion!”

Silence followed her cry.

“Dion! Dion!” she called again.

Immediately after the third cry she heard a slow step on the stones of the Dark Entry, passing close to her but muffled by the intervening walls. It went on very slowly indeed; it was a dragging footfall; the sound of it presently died away.

Then she sat down on the bench close to the wall. She still felt distressed, even afraid. Whoever it was--that loiterer in the Dark Entry--he had left the corridor by the archway near Little Cloisters; he had not gone into the Green Court.

She sat waiting in the darkness.

* * * * *

That afternoon, while Rosamund was in the garden, Mr. Esme Darlington was paying a little visit to his old friend and crony, the Dean of Welsley. He had known the Dean--well, almost ever since he could remember, and the Dean’s wife ever since she had married the Dean. His delay in returning to town, caused by Rosamund’s attractive invitation, enabled him to spend an hour at the Deanery, where he had tea in the great drawing-room on the first floor, which looked out on the Green Court. So pleasant were the Dean and his wife, so serenely flowed the conversation, that the hour lengthened out into two hours, and the Cathedral chimes announced that it was a quarter to seven before Mr. Darlington uncrumpled his length to go. Even then Mrs. Dean begged him to stay on a little longer.

“It’s such a treat to hear all the interesting gossip of London,” she said, almost wistfully. “When Dickie”--Dickie was the Dean,--“when Dickie was at St. Peter’s, Eaton Square, we knew everything that was going on, but here in Welsley--well, I often feel rather rusty.”

Mr. Darlington paid the appropriate compliment, not in a banal way, and then mentioned that at half-past seven he was dining in Little Cloisters.

“That delightful creature Mrs. Dion Leith!” exclaimed Mrs. Dean. “Dickie’s hopelessly in her toils.”

“My dear!” began the Dean, in pleased protestation.

But she interrupted him.

“I assure you,” she went on to Mr. Darlington, “he is always making excuses to see her. She has even influenced him to appoint a new verger, a most extraordinary old person, called Thrush, with a nose!”

Mr. Darlington cocked an interrogative eyebrow.

“My darling!” said the Dean. “He’s a good old man, very deserving, and has recently taken the pledge.”

“He’s a modified teetotaler!” said his wife to Mr. Darlington, patting her husband’s arm. “You see what Dickie’s coming to. If it goes on he will soon be a modified Dean.”

It was past seven when they finished talking about Rosamund and Dion, when Mr. Darlington at length tore himself delicately away from their delightful company, and, warmly wrapped in an overcoat lined with unostentatious sable, set out on the short walk to Canon Wilton’s house. To reach the Canon’s house he had to pass through the Dark Entry and skirt the garden wall of Little Cloisters.

Now, as he came out of the Dark Entry and stepped into the passage-way, which led by the wall and the old house into the great open space of green lawns and elm trees round which the dwellings of the canons showed their lighted windows to the darkness of the November evening, he was stopped by a terrible sound. It came to him from the garden of Little Cloisters. It was short, sharp and piercing, so piercing that for an instant he felt as if literally it had torn the flesh of his body. He had never before heard any sound at all like it; but, when he was able to think, he thought, he felt almost certain, that it had come from an animal. He shuddered. Always temperamentally averse from any fierce demonstrations of feeling, always instinctively restrained, careful and intelligently conventional, he was painfully startled and moved by this terrible outcry which could only have been caused by intense agony. As he believed that the cry had come from an animal, he naturally supposed that the agony which had caused it was physical. He was a very humane man, and as soon as he had mastered the feeling of cold horror which had for a moment held him rigid, he hastened on to the door of Little Cloisters and pulled the bell. After a pause which seemed to him long the door was opened by Annie, Rosamund’s parlor-maid. She presented to Mr. Darlington’s peering gaze a face full of ignorance and fear.

“What is the matter?” he asked, in a hesitating voice.

“Sir?” said Annie.

“What has happened in the garden?”

“Nothing, sir, that I know of. I have been in the house.” She paused, then added, with a sort of timorous defiance: “I’m not one as would listen, sir.”

“Then you didn’t hear it?”

“Hear what, sir?”

Her question struck upon Mr. Darlington’s native conventionality, and made him conscious of the fact that, perhaps almost indiscreetly, he was bandying words with a maid-servant. He put up one hand to his beard, pulled at it, and then said, almost in his usual voice:

“Is Mrs. Leith in?”

“She’s in the garden, sir.”

“In the garden?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Is--is Mr. Leith at home?”

“He’s just come home, sir, and gone to Mrs. Leith in the garden.”

Mr. Darlington stood for a moment pulling his beard and raising and lowering his eyebrows. Then he said doubtfully:

“Thank you. I won’t disturb them now. I shall be here with Canon Wilton at half-past seven.”

Annie stood staring at him in silence.

“They--Mr. and Mrs. Leith expect us, I believe?” added Mr. Darlington.

“They haven’t said anything to the contrary, sir.”

“No?”

Slowly Mr. Darlington turned away, slowly he disappeared into the darkness; his head was bent, and he looked older than usual. Annie gazed after him. Once she opened her lips as if she were going to call him back, but no sound came from them.

“Annie! Annie!” cried a voice in the house behind her.

She turned sharply and confronted Robin’s nurse.

“Where’s Master Robin?” said the nurse, almost fiercely.

“I don’t know. He hasn’t come back with master.”

“I’m going into the garden,” said the nurse.

“For God’s sake, don’t!” said Annie.

“Why not?” asked the nurse.

Suddenly Annie began to cry. The nurse pulled her in and shut the door of the house.

Chapter X

Rosamund did not know how long she sat in the garden after she had heard the footfall in the Dark Entry. Perhaps five minutes, perhaps many more had slipped by before she was aware of feeling cold. A chill had gone through her mind when she heard the footfall; now her body was chilled. She shivered and got up. She must go into the house.

It was now very dark. The path was a pale grayish blur at her feet. On her left the shrubs which concealed the house from her showed as a heavy morose blackness against the softer and more mysterious blackness of the night. The dampness which rose in the garden was like the dreary whispering of sad earth voices.

She shivered again.

Then she heard a faltering step on the path beyond the shrubs. It was certainly Dion’s step. At last they had come back!

With a movement of her shoulders she tried to throw off her depression, as if it were something heavy resting upon her, something which a physical effort could get rid of. Then she called out in a brisk and cheerful voice:

“Dion, I’m here. How late you are! What have you shot?”

It was too late now for the nursery tea, but they had come back and all was well.

“Dion!”

The step had stopped on the path and no voice answered her. Nevertheless she was certain that it was Dion who had come into the garden. Perhaps Robin was with him, perhaps they were going to give her a surprise. She waited for an instant. Something within her was hesitating. She conquered it, not without an effort, and went round the angle of the path. Beyond the shrubs, but not far from them, a man was standing. It was Dion. He was alone. It was so dark that Rosamund could not see him clearly, but she noticed at once that the outline of his figure looked strange. His body seemed to be all awry as if he were standing in an unnatural position. She stopped and stared at this body.

“Is anything wrong, Dion?” she asked. “What’s the matter? Why do you stand like that?”

After her last quick question she heard a long-drawn quivering breath.

“Where’s Robin?” she said sharply.

He did not answer. She meant to go up to him; but she did not move.

“Why are you so late? Where’s Robin?” he repeated.

“Rosamund--”

“Don’t move! Stand there, and tell me what it is.”

“Haven’t I--always tried to make you happy?”

The words came from the body before her, but she did not know the voice. It was Dion’s voice, of course. It must be that. But she had never heard it before.

“Don’t come nearer to me. What have you done?”

“Robin--I have--I have--Robin--my gun----”

The voice failed in the darkness. Rosamund shut her eyes. She had seen an angry hand tear down a branch of wild olive. Suddenly she knew. It seemed to her that ever since that day long ago in Elis some part of her had always prophetically known that Dion was fated to bring terror and ruin into her life. This was not true, but now she felt it to be true.

“You’ve killed Robin,” she said, quietly and coldly.

Her brain and heart seemed to stand still, like things staring into an immense voice. They had come to the end of their road.

“You’ve killed Robin,” she said again.

“Rosamund----”

The body in front of her moved to come towards her. Then she uttered the fearful cry which was heard by Mr. Darlington on his way home from the Deanery, and she fled from the body which had slain Robin.

That purely instinctive action was the beginning of Dion’s punishment. A cry, the movement of a body, and everything which meant life to him, everything for which he had lived, was gone. But he followed Rosamund with a sort of blind obstinacy, driven as she was by instinct. Dimly he knew that he was a man who only merited compassion, all the compassion of the world. He had no horror of himself, but only a horror of that Fate to which mortals have to submit and which had overtaken him in a shining moment of happiness. The gun accident of which his little son had been the victim presented itself to his erring mind as a terrific stroke from above, or from beyond, falling equally upon father and child. He was not responsible for it. The start of a frightened pony, its sudden attempt to bolt, the pulling of a rein which had brought the animal against him just as he was lifting his gun to fire at a rising bird--what were those things? Only the clumsy machinery used by implacable Fate to bring about that which had been willed somewhere, far off in the dark and the distance.

He must tell Rosamund, he must tell Rosamund.

* * * * *

Annie and the nurse came out to the edge of the broad path which ran along the front of the house and peered into the darkness. Annie was crying and holding on to the nurse, whose almost fierce determination faded as she confronted the mystery of the night which hid her master and mistress.

“H’sh, Annie,” she whispered. “Where can they be? Listen, I tell you!”

Annie strove to choke down her sobs.

“I can hear--some one,” whispered the nurse, after a moment. “Don’t you. Listen, I tell you! Right over by the wall near the Bishop’s!”

The sound of steps indeed came to them through the darkness. Annie broke away from the nurse.

“I’m frightened! I’m frightened! I don’t know what’s come to them,” she whispered through her teeth, resisting the impulse to cry out. “Come in, Nurse, for God’s sake!”

She shrank into the house. The nurse stood where she was for a moment, but when she heard the steps a little nearer to her she, too, was overcome by fear and followed Annie trembling, shutting the door behind her.

Exactly at half-past seven Mr. Darlington and Canon Wilton were outside the door of Little Cloisters and Mr. Darlington pulled the bell. Always the most discreet of men, he had not mentioned to his host the terrible cry he had heard in the Leiths’ garden, or his short colloquy with Annie. He was seriously disturbed in mind, but, being a trained man of the world and one who prided himself upon his powers of self-control, he had concealed this unpleasant fact from the Canon, and had talked quite agreeably during their little walk between the two houses. The sound of that dreadful cry still seemed to shudder through his flesh, but it was not for him to pry into the private lives of others, even of those whom he knew intimately, and had a great regard for. He hoped all was well with his dear young friends, There might be some quite simple explanation of that cry. He fervently hoped there was. In any case it was not for him to ask questions, or to--

“They’re a long while answering the bell,” said Canon Wilton, in his strong, earnest voice. “Hadn’t you better give it another tug, Darlington?”

Mr. Darlington started.

“H’m--ha!”

He raised his hand and pulled the bell a second time.

“That’s better,” said the Canon, as he heard inside the house a long tinkle. “Annie’s bound to come now. As a rule she’s very quick in answering the door. Among her many virtues, Mrs. Leith counts that of being a first-rate housewife. She trains her maids well.”

“Does she?” murmured Mr. Darlington abstractedly, bending forward till he seemed almost to be listening at the door. “Does she? I hear some one coming. H’m!”

He straightened himself. The door opened and Annie appeared. When she saw the two men she drew back quickly to let them pass in. Canon Wilton said kindly: “Good evening, Annie.”

“Oh, sir,” said Annie, and began to cry audibly.

“What’s the matter?” asked the Canon, surprised.

They were now in the little oak paneled hall, and by the light of the lamp they could see the tears running down the flushed face of the maid. “Is anything wrong?” said the Canon.

“Oh, sir, I’m so glad you’ve come! Oh, we don’t know what it is!”

At this moment Robin’s nurse showed herself on the staircase.

“For God’s sake, sir,” she said, with trembling lips, “do go into the garden!”

“Why?” said Canon Wilton, in a loud, firm voice.

“Mr. and Mrs. Leith are both there, sir. They’ve been there this long time. Mr. Leith he’s come back from the shooting without Master Robin. Oh, there’s something wrong, sir, there’s something wrong!”

“Stay here for a moment, Darlington,” said the Canon, with a sudden, almost fiery, decision. “I’ll go at once and see what’s the matter.”

But Mr. Darlington laid a bony hand on his friend’s arm.

“I’ll come with you, Wilton. I’m--I’m afraid it’s something very bad.”

He lowered his voice almost to a whisper in saying the last words.

The Canon formed “Why?” with his lips.

“Just now, as I was passing the garden here coming back from the Deanery, I heard a most dreadful cry. I thought at the time that it came from an animal, but--now----”

The Canon stared at him almost sternly.

“We’d better not waste time,” he said. “I wish you’d gone in then.”

And he turned bruskly. He had opened the door, and was about to step on to the broad path which divided the front of the house from the lawn, when he heard steps approaching swiftly on the gravel.

“Some one coming!” he said. “Stop where you are, Darlington. I believe its . . .”

Before he could finish his sentence Rosamund came upon him out of the darkness. Her face was distorted, so distorted that he scarcely recognized it. It seemed to have shrunk and sharpened, and it had the look of fierceness which is characteristic of the faces of starving people. She put out both her hands as she came up to him, pushed him with violence into the house, and followed him.

“Lock the door!” she whispered. “Lock it! Lock it!”

“But----”

Her voice rose. She seemed savage with fear.

“Lock it, I tell you!”

A long arm shot out and a bony hand turned the key in the door.

“It’s the only thing to be done for the moment,” said Mr. Darlington to the Canon. “She’s mad with fear.”

Both the maids had disappeared, terrified by the face of their mistress. Rosamund caught hold of the stair-rail and began to hurry upstairs, but Mr. Darlington followed her and seized her by the arm.

“Rosamund! Rosamund! What is it?”

She turned.

“I’m going to find Robin. That man’s killed Robin! Keep him out! Keep him away from me!”

A dreadful surreptitious expression made her face hideous. She leaned forward, nodding her head, and whispered in Mr. Darlington’s ear:

“You keep him away from me while I find Robin. He’s killed Robin!”

Her whole body began to shake. Mr. Darlington put one arm round her.

“But, Rosamund----”

Below, the handle of the door leading to the garden was turned, the door was shaken, and there came a knocking on the wood.

Then Mr. Darlington heard again the cry which had come to him that evening as he passed the garden of Little Cloisters. His arm dropped.

Rosamund went frantically up the stairs and disappeared on the dark landing above.

Chapter I

In June of the following year two young Englishmen, who were making a swift tour of the near East, were sitting one evening in a public garden at Pera. The west wind, which had been blowing all day, had gone down with the coming of night. The air was deliciously warm, but not sultry. The travelers had dined well, but not too well, and were ready to be happy, and to see in others the reflection of their own contented holiday mood. It was delightful to be “on the loose,” without responsibilities, and with a visit to Brusa to look forward to in the immediate future. They sat under the stars, sipped their coffee, listened to the absurd music played by a fifth-rate band in a garishly-lighted kiosk, and watched with interest the coming and going of the crowd of Turks and Perotes, with whom mingled from time to time foreign sailors from ships lying off the entrance to the Golden Horn and a few tourists from the hotels of Pera. Just behind them sat their guide, a thin and eager Levantine, half-Greek and half-Armenian, who, for some inscrutable reason, declared that his name was John.

There was little romance in this garden set in the midst of the noisy European quarter of Constantinople. The music was vulgar; Greek waiters with dissipated faces ran to and fro carrying syrups and liqueurs; corpulent Turks sat heavily over glasses of lager beer; overdressed young men of enigmatic appearance, with oily thick hair, shifty eyes, and hands covered with cheap rings, swaggered about smoking cigarettes and talking in loud, ostentatious voices. Some women were there, fat and garish for the most part, liberally powdered and painted, and crowned with hats at which Paris would have stared almost in fear. There were also children, dark, even swarthy, with bold eyes, shrill voices, immodest bearing, who looked as if they had long since received the ugly freedom of the streets, and learned lessons no children ought to know.

Presently the band stopped playing and there was a general movement of the crowd. People got up from the little tables and began to disperse. “John” leaned forward to his employers, and in a quick and rattling voice informed them that a “fust-rate” variety entertainment was about to take place in another part of the garden. Would they come to see it? There would be beautiful women, very fine girls such as can only be gazed on in Constantinople, taking part in the “show.”

The young men agreed to “have a look at it,” and followed John to a place where many round tables and chairs were set out before a ramshackle wooden barrack of a theatre, under the shade of some pepper trees, through whose tresses the stars peeped at a throng and a performance which must surely have surprised them.

The band, or a portion of it, was again at work, playing an inane melody, and upon the small stage two remarkably well-developed and aquiline-featured women of mature age, dressed as very young children in white socks, short skirts which displayed frilled drawers, and muslin bonnets adorned with floating blue and pink ribbons, swayed to and fro and joined their cracked voices in a duet, the French words of which seemed to exhale a sort of fade obscenity. While they swayed and jigged heavily, showing their muscular legs to the staring audience, they gazed eagerly about, seeking an admiration from which they might draw profit when their infantile task was over. Presently they retired, running skittishly, taking small leaps into the air, and aimlessly blowing kisses to the night.

“Very fine girls!” murmured John to his young patrons. “They make much money in Pera.”

One of the young men shrugged his shoulders with a smile.

“Get us two Turkish coffees, John!” he said. Then he turned to his companion. “I say, Ellis, have you noticed an English feller--at least I take him to be English--who’s sitting over there close to the stage, sideways to us?”

“No; where is he?” asked his companion.

“You see that old Turk with the double chin?”

“Rather.”

“Just beyond him, sitting with a guide who’s evidently Greek.”

“I’ve got him.”

“Watch him. I never saw such a face.”

A blowzy young woman, in orange color and green, with short tinsel-covered skirts, bounded wearily on to the stage, smiling, and began to sing:

“Je suis une boite de surprises! O la la! O la la! Je suis une boite de surprises.”

Ellis looked across at the man to whom his attention had been drawn. This man was seated by a little table on which were a siphon, a bottle of iced water, and a tall tumbler nearly half-full of a yellow liquid. He was smoking a large dark-colored cigar which he now and then took from his mouth with a hand that was very thin and very brown. His face was dark and browned by the sun, but looked startlingly haggard, as if it were pale or even yellowish under the sunburn. About the eyes there were large wrinkles, spraying downwards over the cheek bones and invading the cheeks. He wore a mustache, and was well-dressed in a tweed suit. But his low collar was not very fresh, and his tie was arranged in a slovenly fashion and let his collar stud be seen. He sat with his legs crossed, staring at the grimacing woman on the stage with a sort of horribly icy intentness. The expression about his lips and eyes was more than bitter; it showed a frozen fierceness.

On the other side of the table was seated a lean, meager guide, obviously one of those Greeks who haunt the quays of Constantinople on the look out for arriving travelers. Now and then this Greek leaned forward and, with a sort of servile and anxious intelligence, spoke to his companion. He received no reply. The other man went on smoking and staring at the boite de surprises as if he were alone. And somehow he seemed actually to be alone, encompassed by a frightful solitude.

“A tragic face, isn’t it?” said the man who had first spoken.

“By Jove it is!” returned the officer. “I wonder that woman can go on singing so close to it.”

“Probably she hasn’t seen him. How many years do you give him?”

“Thirty-eight or forty.”

“He isn’t out for pleasure, that’s certain.”

“Pleasure! One would suppose he’d been keeping house with Medusa and--the deuce, she’s seen him!”

At this moment the singer looked towards the stranger, quavered, faltered, nearly broke down, then, as if with an effort, raised her voice more shrilly and defiantly, exaggerated her meaningless gestures and looked away. A moment later she finished her song and turned to strut off the stage. As she did so she shot a sort of fascinated glance at the dark man. He took his cigar from his mouth and puffed the smoke towards her, probably without knowing that he did so. With a startled jerk she bounded into the wings.

At this moment John returned with two cups of coffee.

“You know everything, John. Tell us who that man over there is,” said Ellis, indicating the stranger.

John sent a devouring glance past the old Turk’s double chin, a glance which, as it were, swallowed at one gulp the dark man, his guide, the siphon, the water-bottle and the glass partially full of the yellow liquid.

“I dunno him. He is noo.”

“Is he English?”

“Sure!” returned John, almost with a sound of contempt.

He never made a mistake about any man’s nationality, could even tell a Spanish Jew from a Portuguese Jew on a dark night at ten yards’ distance.

“I tell you who he is later. I know the guide, a damned fool and a rogue of a Greek that has been in prison. He robs all his people what take him.”

“You needn’t bother,” said Ellis curtly.

“Of course not. Shut up, John, and don’t run down your brothers in crime.”

“That man my brother!”

John upraised two filthy ringed hands.

“That dirty skunk my brother! That son of--”

“That’ll do, John! Be quiet.”

“To-morrow I till you all about the gentleman. Here is another fine girl! I know her very well.”

A languid lady, with a face painted as white as a wall, large scarlet lips, eyes ringed with bluish black, and a gleaming and trailing black gown which clung closely to her long and snake-like body, writhed on to the stage, looking carefully sinister.

The dark man swallowed his drink, got up and made his way to the exit from the garden. He passed close to the two young men, followed by his Greek, at whom John cast a glance of scowling contempt, mingled, however, with very definite inquiry.

“By Jove! He’s almost spoilt my evening,” said Ellis. “But we made a mistake, Vernon. He isn’t anything like forty.”

“No; more like thirty under a cloud.”

“By the look of things I should guess there are plenty of people under a cloud in Pera. But that English feller stands out even here. This girl is certainly a first-class wriggler, if she’s nothing else.”

They did not mention the stranger again that night. But John had not forgotten him, and when he arrived at their hotel next day he at once opened his capacious mouth and let out the following information:

“The gentleman’s name is Denton, his other name is Mervyn, he is three days in Constantinople, he lives in Hughes’s Hotel in Pera, a very poor house where chic people they never goes, he is out all day and always walkin’, he will not take a carriage, and he is never tired, Nicholas Gounaris--the Greek guide--he is droppin’ but the gentleman he does not mind, he only sayin’ if you cannot walk find me another guide what can, every night he is out, too, and he is goin’ to Stamboul when it is dark, he is afraid of nothin’ and goin’ where travelers they never go, one night Gounaris he had to show the traveler--”

But at this point Ellis shut John up.

“That’ll do,” he observed. “You’re a diligent rascal, John. One must say that. But we aren’t a couple of spies, and we don’t want to hear any more about that feller.”

And John, without bearing any malice, went off to complete his arrangements for the journey to Brusa.

Two days later, Mrs. Clarke, who was at Buyukderer in a villa she had taken for the summer months, but who had come into Constantinople to do some shopping, saw “Mervyn Denton” in a side street close to the British Embassy. Those distressed eyes of hers were very observant. There were many people in the street, and “Denton,” who was alone, was several yards away from her, and was walking with his back towards her; but she immediately recognized him, quickened her steps till she was close to him, and then said:

“Dion Leith!”

Dion heard the husky voice and turned round. He did not say anything, but he took off the soft hat he was wearing. Mrs. Clarke stared at him with the unself-conscious directness which was characteristic of her. She saw Dion for the first time since the tragedy which had changed his life, but she had written to him more than once. Her last letter had come from Buyukderer. He had answered it, but he had not told her where he was, had not even hinted to her that he might come to Constantinople. Nevertheless, she did not now show any surprise. She just looked at him steadily, absorbed all the change in him swiftly, and addressed herself to the new man who stood there before her.

“Come with me to the Hotel de Paris. I’m spending the night there, and go back to-morrow to Buyukderer. I had something to do in town.”

She had not given him her hand, and he did not attempt to take it. He put on his hat, turned and walked at her side. Neither of them spoke a word until they had come into the uproar of the Grande Rue, which surrounded them with a hideous privacy. Then Mrs. Clarke said;

“Where are you staying?”

“At Hughes’s Hotel.”

“I never heard of it.”

“It’s in Brusa Street. It’s cheap.”

“And horrible,” she thought.

But she did not say so.

“I have only been here three days,” Dion added.

“Do you remember that I once said to you I knew you would come back to Constantinople?”

For a moment his face was distorted. When she saw that she looked away gravely, at the glittering shops and at the Perotes who were passing by with the slow and lounging walk which they affect in the Grande Rue. Presently she heard him say:

“You were right. It was all arranged. It was all planned out. Even then I believe I knew it would be so, that I should come back here.”

“Why have you come?”

“I don’t know,” he answered, and his voice, which had been hard and fierce, became suddenly dull.

“He really believes that,” she thought.

“Here is the hotel,” she said. “I’m all alone. Jimmy has been out, but has had to go back to Eton. I wish you had seen him.”

“Oh no!” said Dion, almost passionately.

They went up in a lift, worked by a Montenegrin boy with a big round forehead, to her sitting-room on the second floor. It was large, bare and clean, with white walls and awnings at the windows. She rang the bell. A Corsican waiter came and she ordered tea. The roar of the street noises penetrated into the shadowy room through the open windows, and came to Dion like heat. He remembered the silence of Claridge’s. Suddenly his head began to swim. It seemed to him that his life, all of it that he had lived till that moment, was spinning round him, and that, as it spun, it gave out a deafening noise and glittered. He sat down on a chair which was close to a small table, laid his arms on the table, and hid his face against them. Still the deafening noise continued. The sum of it was surely made up of the uproar of the Grand Rue with the uproar of his spinning life added to it. He saw yellow balls ringed with pale blue rapidly receding from his shut eyes.

Mrs. Clarke looked at him for a moment; then she went into the adjoining bedroom and shut the door behind her. She did not come back till the waiter knocked and told her that tea was ready. Then she opened the door. She had taken off her hat and gloves, and looked very white and cool, and very composed.

Dion was standing near the windows. The waiter, who had enormously thick mustaches, and who evidently shaved in the evening instead of in the morning, was going out at the farther door. He shut it rather loudly.

“Every one makes a noise in Pera. It’s de rigueur,” said Mrs. Clarke, coming to the tea-table.

“Do you know,” said Dion, “I used to think you looked punished?”

“Punished--I!”

There was a sudden defiance in her voice which he had never heard in it before. He came up to the table.

“Yes. In London I used to think you had a punished look and even a haunted look. Wasn’t that ridiculous? I didn’t know then what it meant to be punished, or to be haunted. I hadn’t enough imagination to know, not nearly enough. But some one or something’s seen to it that I shall know all about punishment and haunting. So I shall never be absurd about you again.”

After a pause she said:

“I wonder why you thought that about me?”

“I don’t know. It just came into my head.”

“Well, sit down and let us have our tea.”

Dion sat down mechanically, and Mrs. Clarke poured out the tea.

“I wish it was Buyukderer,” she said.

“Oh, I like the uproar.”

“No, you don’t--you don’t. Pera is spurious, and all its voices are spurious voices. To-morrow morning, before I go back, you and I will go to Eyub.”

“To the dust and the silence and the cypresses--O God!” said Dion.

He got up from his chair. He was beginning to tremble. Was it coming upon him at last then, the utter breakdown which through all these months he had--somehow--kept at a distance? Determined not to shake, he exerted his will violently, till he felt as if he were with dreadful difficulty holding, keeping together, a multitude of living, struggling things, which were trying to get away out of his grasp. And these living things were the multitudinous parts of the whole which was himself.

All that now was had been foreshadowed. There had been writing on the wall.

“I am grateful to you for several things. I’m not going to give you the list now. Some day, perhaps, I shall tell you what they are . . . among the cypresses of Eyub.”

She had said that to him in London, and her voice had been fatalistic as she spoke; and in the street that same day, on his way home, the voice of the boy crying the last horror had sounded to him like a voice from the sea, a strange and sad cry lifted up between Europe and Asia. And now----

“How did you know?” he said. “How did you know that we should be here together some day?”

“Sit down. You must sit down.”

She put her languid and imperative hand on his wrist, and he sat down. He took her hand and put it against his forehead for a moment. But that was no use. For her hand seemed to add fever to his fever.

“I have seen you standing amongst graves in the shadow of cypress trees,” he said. “In England I saw you like that. But--how did you know?”

“Drink your tea. Don’t hurry. We’ve got such a long time.”

“I have. I have all the days and nights--every hour of them--at my own disposal. I’m the freest man on earth, I suppose. No work, no ties.”

“You’ve given up everything?”

“Oh, of course. That is, the things that were still left to me to give up. They didn’t mean much.”

“Eat something,” she said, in a casual voice, pushing a plate of delicious little cakes towards him.

“Thank you.”

He took one and ate. He regained self-control, but he knew that at any moment, if anything unusual happened, or if he dared to think, or to talk, seriously about the horror of his life, he would probably go down with a crash into an abyss in which all of his manhood, every scrap of his personal dignity, would be utterly lost. And still almost blindly he held on to certain things in the blackness which encompassed him. He still wished to play the man, and though in bitterness he had tried sometimes to sink down in degradation, his body--or so it had seemed to him--had resisted the will of the injured soul, which had said to it, “Go down into the dirt; seek satisfaction there. Your sanity and your purity of life have availed you nothing. From them you have had no reward. Then seek the rewards of the other life. Thousands of men enjoy them. Join that crowd, and put all the anemic absurdities of so-called goodness behind you.”

He had almost come to hate the state he conceived of as goodness; yet the other thing, its opposite, evil, he instinctively rebelled against and even almost feared. The habit of a life-time was not to be broken in a day, or even in many days. Often he had thought of himself as walking in nothingness, because he rejected evil.

Goodness had ruthlessly cast him out; and so far he had made no other friend, had taken no other comrade to his bruised and bleeding heart.

Mrs. Clarke began to talk to him quietly. She talked abut herself, and he knew that she did this not because of egoism, but because delicately she wished to give him a full opportunity for recovery. She had seen just where he was, and she had understood his recoil from the abyss. Now she wished, perhaps, to help him to draw back farther from it, to draw back so far that he would no longer see it or be aware of it.

So she talked of herself, of her life at Buyukderer in the summer, and in Pera in the autumn and spring.

“I don’t go out to Buyukderer till the middle of May,” she said, “and I come back into town at the end of September.”

“You manage to stand Pera for some months every year?” said Dion, listening at first with difficulty, and because he was making a determined effort.

“Yes. An Englishwoman--even a woman like me--can’t live in Stamboul. And Pera, odious as it is, is in Constantinople, in the city which has a spell, though you mayn’t feel it yet.”

She was silent for a moment, and they heard the roar from the Grande Rue, that street which is surely the noisiest in all Europe. Hearing it, Dion thought of the silence of the Precincts at Welsley. That sweet silence had cast him out. Hell must be full of roaring noises and of intense activities. Then Mrs. Clarke went on talking. There was something very feminine and gently enticing in her voice, which resembled no other voice ever heard by Dion. He felt kindness at the back of her talk, the wish to alleviate his misery if only for a moment, to do what she could for him. She could do nothing, of course. Nevertheless he began to feel grateful to her. She was surely unlike other women, incapable of bearing a grudge. For he had not been very “nice” to her in the days when he was happy and she was in difficulties. At this moment he vaguely exaggerated his lack of “niceness,” and perhaps also her pardoning temperament. In truth, he was desperately in need of a touch from the magic wand of sympathy. Believing, or even perhaps knowing, that to the incurably wounded man palliatives are of no lasting avail, he had deliberately fled from them, and gone among those who had no reason to bother about him. But now he was grateful.

“Go on talking,” he said once, when she stopped speaking. And she continued talking about her life. She said nothing more about Jimmy.

The Corsican waiter came and took away the tea things noisily. Her spell was broken. For a moment Dion felt dazed.

He got up.

“I ought to go,” he said.

“Must you?”

“Must!--Oh no! My time is my own, and always will be, I suppose.”

“You have thrown up everything?”

“What else could I do? The man who killed his own son! How could I stay in London, go among business men who knew me, talk about investments to clients? Suppose you had killed Jimmy!”

There was a long silence. Then he said:

“I’ve given up my name. I call myself Mervyn Denton. I saw the name in a novel I opened on a railway bookstall.”

She got up and came near to him quietly.

“This is all wrong,” she said.

“What is?”

“All you are doing, the way you are taking it all.”

“What other way is there of taking such a thing?”

“Will you come with me to Eyub to-morrow?”

“It was written long ago that I am to go there with you. I’m quite sure of that.”

“I’ll tell you what I mean there to-morrow.”

She looked towards the window.

“It’s like the roar of hell,” he said.

And he went away.

That night Mrs. Clarke dined alone downstairs in the restaurant. The cooking at the Hotel de Paris was famous, and attracted many men from the Embassies. Presently Cyril Vane, one of the secretaries at the British Embassy, came in to dine. He had with him a young Turkish gentleman, who was called away by an agent from the Palace in the middle of dinner. Vane, thus left alone, presently got up and came to Mrs. Clarke’s table.

“May I sit down and talk to you for a little?” he said, with a manner that testified to their intimacy. “My guest has deserted me.”

“Yes, do. Tell the waiter to bring the rest of your dinner here.”

“But I have finished.”

“Light your cigar then.”

“If you don’t mind.”

They talked for a few minutes about the things of every day and the little world they both lived in on the Bosporus; then Mrs. Clarke said:

“I met a friend from England unexpectedly to-day.”

“Did you?”

“A man called Dion Leith.”

“Dion Leith?” repeated Vane.

He looked at her earnestly.

“Now wait a moment!”

His large, cool blue eyes became meditative.

“It’s on the edge of my mind who that is, and yet I can’t remember. I don’t know him, but I’m sure I know of him.”

“He fought in the South African War.”

Suddenly Vane leaned forward. He was frowning.

“I’ve got it! He fought, came back with the D.C.M., and only a few days afterwards killed his only child, a son, out shooting. I remember the whole thing now, the inquest at which he was entirely exonerated and the rumors about his wife. She’s a beautiful woman, they say.”

“Very beautiful.”

“She took it very badly, didn’t she?”

“What do you mean by very badly?”

“Didn’t she bear very hard on him?”

“She couldn’t endure to see him, or to have him near her. Is that very wonderful?”

“You stand up for her then?”

“She was first and foremost a mother.”

“Do you know,” Vane said rather dryly, “you are the only woman I never hear speak against other women. But when the whole thing was an accident?”

“We can’t always be quite fair, or quite reasonable, when a terrible shock comes to us.”

“It’s a problem, a terrible problem of the affections,” Vane said. “Had she loved her husband? Do you know?”

“I know that he loved her very much,” said Mrs. Clarke. “He is here under an assumed name.”

Vane looked openly surprised and even, for a moment, rather disdainful.

“But then----” He paused.

“Why did I give him away?”

“Well--yes.”

“Because I wish to force him to face things fully and squarely. It’s his only chance.”

“Won’t he be angry?”

“But I don’t mind that.”

“You’ve had a reason in telling me,” said Vane quietly. “What is it?”

“Come up to my sitting-room. We’ll have coffee there.”

“Willingly. I feel your spell even when you’re weaving it for another man’s sake.”

Mrs. Clarke did not reject the compliment. She only looked at Vane, and said:

“Come.”