At the Cross-Roads

Preface

. T HAVE called this story " At the Cross-Roads," ■*■ because in it I have tried to describe how first the man, and afterwards the woman, stood where two ways met, where each was bound to make that choice which is " Life's business." They are (at least so it seems to me) everlastingly together and yet everlastingly alone. Together, because it is impossible for either to choose good without blessing, or evil without cursing, the other ; alone, because choice is of necessity individual and lonely, and because we cannot take our neighbour's place, even though we may pay " shame for shame " and " sin for sin " and " love for love." F. F .M. CONTENTS part I

Chapter I. But You Alone

" For in my mynde, of all mankynde I love but you alone." The Nut Browne Mayde. IN a room in the top story of one of the houses in the Strand a woman was waiting for the man she loved. She had poked the fire into a blaze, and albeit she had not much money to spend, she had filled the place with flowers. Outside it was snowing, but this upper chamber was warm and light and sweet. The stairs were uncarpeted and dreary, but so soon as her guest should open the door he should feel the welcome that waited for him. For once Gillian was glad that the stone steps were so bare, for she would hear his footstep the sooner. She wandered restlessly about ; now putting a picture straight, now moving a chair, now pushing a table nearer to the window, and again moving it back again. She was not ordinarily a nervous person, but just now she found it impossible to be still.

The clock struck seven. She went up to the fireplace and looked at the time, as though she feared she had counted the strokes wrong. Yes, the hour had come. It was an hour she had looked forward to for seven years. The last moments of that long waiting were slipping by quickly, quickly. Surely she heard the step on the stairs ? Day Ht tbe Cross=1f.oaos 4 by day, month by month, the woman seemed to see those years that were passed roll out — all the hard-working days, all the weary months, since she had bidden her lover good bye and had told him she could wait. She had never quite lost courage before, but now her heart waxed faint. There is something awful in realisation after years of expectancy. Gillian had not guessed that it would be awful ; she was surprised to find herself trembling from head to foot.

She remembered that dying people are supposed to see their lives rise before them at the last. " What if I were to die of joy?" thought she; and then the door opened, and she saw him. The two stood face to face once more. The man in the doorway was her Jack, and yet not her Jack. For full half a minute they stood so, each looking for the other (known erstwhile) through the development of six years. Then the man made a quick step forward, and the woman held out her hands to him, with a cry like the cry of a frightened child, and at that his face reddened and his lip quivered. " Why, Gillian, Gillian, is it really you ? " said he. At the sound of his voice she clung to him, her head on his shoulder, and he put his arms round her and his lips to her hair, for her face was hidden. " My God ! " he cried ; " so you've actually waited.

And I'm not worth it now ! Oh, Gillian, I'm not good enough now ! " They had supper together later, and Gillian, having retired to bathe her eyes and recover her composure, presently returned with a fresh ribbon round her waist, and a bunch of violets at her throat. Gillian had a pretty figure, and the clothes which might have looked slightly worn and old on any one else never looked anything but just right on her. The way in which Bnt H>ou alone 5 she moved and made the tea, and even the way in which she ate, reminded the man of the adoration of his youth. How he had worshipped this girl six years ago ! But one can't put Time's clock back. There was the prison life, and all it had taken away of youth and hope between them. There was an ugly fact besides, which he never cared to think about over much.

He watched her with a curious, regretful look in his eyes, but she met his glance with one that was overflowing with love pure and simple. Gillian had often been accounted hard, and she was certainly far from perfect in her relations to her own family ; yet where Jack Cardew was concerned, I think that she knew how to give good measure, without stint, and running over. She was at her best to-night, and she was happy. To be loving and giving is the natural prerogative of all Mother Eve's daughters, I suppose, whether they be Friday's bairns or Saturday's. They are stinted of their birthright sometimes, poor souls, and Gillian at any rate had had arid seasons in her life ; seasons which had left deep traces on her. There was, however, this difference between the man and the woman. He, who by natural tempera ment had been the more impulsive of the two, now remem bered the past, and thought about the future ; but she, who had been noted for practical wisdom, who in the old days he had laughingly called " worldly-wise," flung all care from her, and revelled in this hour that brought him to her, drinking deep, deep of joy, to the forgetting of all else.

She waited on him with an evident delight that was purely womanly. She noted several things while she did so. The roughness of his hands, for example, of which the nails were broken ; the way in which sun and wind had tanned his face and neck, and even his hair (his hair had once been golden red, but it was duller than heretofore, and it had become white on the temples) ; also the rareness of his smile, and the curiously watchful expression of his eyes— eyes that had been so frank and often merry, but that had somehow acquired the look of one who lives amongst enemies. The changes she noticed sent momentary stabs of sympathy and pain through Gillian, but she was not critical where Jack was concerned, though on every one else her judgments were shrewd and swift. One must hold at arm's length in order to criticise — Gillian generally held people so — but he lay at her heart of hearts, too close for judgment.

Presently the bell rang again, and Gillian, going to the door, admitted a tall, thin old man, who followed her into the room awkwardly, and sat down opposite to Jack Cardew without speaking. His big, ugly mouth worked nervously, and he crossed and uncrossed his legs and drew his thick eyebrows together, looking earnestly the while at Gillian's visitor. He had been very fond of Cardew years ago ; he had obstinately believed in him, even in despite of judge and jury, but he was of an unready tongue ; moreover, he could not recognise the boy he had liked so well, in this rough stranger. Jack made no remark, but waited rather defiantly for whatever greeting Mr. Molyneux might choose to bestow on him. He had not, he told himself, expected any welcome from Gillian's relatives. He was certainly not going to make advances.

Jack had had a charming filial manner to the old man — once. " I am glad that you are a free man again," said Mr. Molyneux slowly, and held out his hand. Jack nodded curtly. He did not accept the overture, and his watchful blue eyes rested on his quondam friend with a scrutiny that the next moment changed to amuse ment. " Are you, sir ? Well, that's almost more than I expected," said he. Mr. Molyneux contorted his face and crossed his legs 3But 2s?ou alone 7 afresh, but before he was ready to speak Gillian took up the word. " Uncle Stephen has been good to me during all these years that you have been away." Her voice was a contralto, and very soft and full in tone. Jack laid down his knife and fork when she spoke. It was strange to hear those familiar tones again. " He is the only one among my relatives who has stood by me," she remarked.

" But I think that my step-father would have forgiven me for going my own way if only I had proved incapable. He can't quite swallow this small amount of success ! It's such a bad moral, you see." Jack glanced round the room while she spoke. Its shabbiness was partly hidden by the flowers and the firelight, but it struck him that the success must have been only comparative. " Do you mean to say that you are quite on your own hook, and that Mr. Clovis allows you nothing?" he asked. " Oh, he behaved very well," said Gillian, " though naturally he thought that I was mad. He hoped that I should be starved into a right way of thinking ; and if I had come home, he would, I am sure, have killed the fatted calf at a moment's notice. He was quite prepared to play the good father to my prodigal." " Why did not you let him do so ?

" Gillian coloured. " There are occasionally reasons for preferring husks," said she. " But I have no complaint against Mr. Cloves." "And your mother? " said the man. " Mammy has just put my little step-brother into velveteen knickerbockers. He is much prettier than I was at seven years old, and I think that he more than makes up for my shortcomings," said Gillian. She smiled, but there was a touch of unconscious sadness in her tone. The man remembered that Gillian's remarks had often been shrewd, but the sadness was new to him. No doubt she too had had a hard time of it. His ideas as to what he meant to say to her were undergoing a transformation. The two men were silent for a space. Mr. Molyneux had come to countenance his niece, but he did not think it necessary to talk. Jack had fallen into a habit of appearing stolidly impassive.

He had broadened since Gillian had last seen him ; she was sure that he must measure a good deal more across the chest. She felt half inclined to laugh at the way in which he sat composedly eating, while her uncle was so much more evidently touched by this reunion. She alone chattered, feeling all the while that it would take very little to make her cry. Gillian had a good deal of self-command as a rule, and was rather by way of despising emotional women ; but, as she remarked, " It isn't every day that one's dream of six years comes true." Jack Cardew pushed away his plate when she said that, and got up suddenly, and came round to where she was sitting, and put his hand on her shoulder. " Gillian, how soon will you marry me ? " Gillian looked up at him, at the face that time and sorrow and bitterness had written strange things on.

For a moment a mist swam before her eyes. "Just as soon as ever you like," she said simply. "We have waited long enough, Jack." Mr. Molyneux rose from his seat with a sigh. His long lean figure, his good, ugly face, were not without dignity, in spite of his grotesque awkwardness. " I hope that you are worth it, lad," he said. " You're sanguine if you hope as much as that," said the man. " No fellow in this world is worth what Gillian has given. Six years ! Good Lord, six years ! " But 13ou alone 9 " They are over and gone like a cloud," said Gillian ; but he shook his head. When Mr. Molyneux had presently left them alone together he drew his chair closer to Gillian. "They are over," he said, "but they have made another man of me. Can't you see that ? " He hesitated a moment, then jerked his head backwards with a decisive jerk, which it did Gillian's heart good to see, because it was a trick she remembered of old.

" I want to tell you about it — dear," he said. The " dear " came out shamefacedly and shyly, and Gillian laughed with the tears in her eyes. " You are out of practice — dear," she cried, with tender mockery. Her uncle might not recognise Jack in this new guise ; but as for her, she had found him again ; she would have known him anywhere. "After the first year or two I could not believe that you would really stick to me," he said. " Oh, of course I was sure of you at first. I was sure of everything to start with, you know — of my own innocence, and of the justice of Heaven, that was to come triumphantly to the rescue long before the sentence was up. Also of my courage, and my power of making people trust me. We were awfully courageous when we took leave of each other, weren't we ? I know I felt like all the martyrs rolled into one.

Well, I kept that up for a month or two, I really did ! Then I got a touch of sunstroke, and was sent to hospital for a bit. The prison chaplain came to see me and tried to convert me. I told him that I was as honest as himself. The fellow was a gentleman- — at least, so I fancied — and sickness makes one soft. I had a longing to pour out my story to some one. It seemed as if it would be a sort of of help. He heard me through to the end quite quietly, and then he waved his hand. " 'My good man, I've been chaplain here for three years,' he said, ' and I can assure you that I've never yet come across any one who considers that he has been justly convicted. You are all sure that you've been ill-used, you know, every one of you.' I can't explain how I felt, but that sickened me, Gillian. All at once my pluck went, like the wind out of a pricked bag.

I had stood the hardships, and the scanty food, and the plank bed, pretty well. I'd thought of you a good deal, night and morning, and I had had an idea that I was rather a fine fellow through it all, of whom you need not really be ashamed. I suppose I had seen it all in a sort of coloured light. That parson, confound him, let in the day ! " The certainty came to me then, like a new horror, that I was in for three years ; and that three years meant hundreds of days, and thousands of hours and millions of minutes, and that it made no practical odds that I was innocent. It had to be gone through just exactly in the same way as if I were guilty. I was a scoundrel among fellow-scoundrels, to all intents and purposes. A fellow dared give me the lie, and I couldn't cram it down his throat, and / could not make him believe me.

It gives one a turn to say a thing from one's heart, and find that one simply is not believed. It is as if you had run hard and banged your head against a blank wall." Gillian nodded comprehendingly. She was taking in this story with both heart and brain. She would need both, if she meant to cling to Jack still. " I am very glad that I have never liked parsons," she remarked ; " now I will hate them. Go on, Jack." " I was in a dead funk, and that is the truth," he said. " Of course I got well after a time, and had to begin work again. But it was not the work, though that was no trifle, it was the dead, hopeless grind of monotony that I believed would drive me mad. I don't want to make excuses it's But l_?ou alone 11 not worth while — I suppose, though, that I must have been rather off my head when I tried to escape."

He paused, and glanced sharply at her. " You heard about that unlucky attempt ? " " I heard. Of course I knew that you were not to blame." " The warder died. I lengthened my sentence by two years, as you know. It was rather a heavy price to pay for three minutes' enjoyment. I got a cut over the eye — the scar is there now — and luckily that finished me for the time. I did not know any more till I woke in the infirmary ward again, and heard the doctor say I was dying. I did not want to die then. It was queer, for I was quite willing to before ; I shouldn't have shirked it fighting, but somehow I could not bear to slip out of the world through that d d infirmary bed — not even though three years of hell was before me if I lived. Well, I told you that my youthful pluck, such as it was, had been knocked out of me ; but I got a second wind after that illness, and that lasted.

I gave up the Eternal Justice, and that sort of fable, and I had no more hopes of a reprieve, but I learnt a few dodges which made things rub less, and I — oh, well, I worked through, and came out of it sane and well, as you see. After all, I am only thirty-one now, and I may live long enough to have a pretty good time of it yet. There is nothing like starvation for giving one an appetite." Gillian looked straight at him, with an infinity of pity and understanding in her eyes. She, too, had been a-hungered though not quite in the sense he meant. She, too, knew what it was to grow bitter with a hope deferred. " Oh yes, I know," she murmured. " No, my dear, I hope you don't," said he, with an odd, unexpected touch of gentleness. " After I got my release I worked my way out to South Africa." " Oh, Jack !

But that was very obstinate of you, when I sent you the money for the passage." "It was wonderfully good of you, Gillian," he said gratefully. " I was awfully surprised. I could not have spent your present on first-class accommodation ! I really couldn't. I kept it, and it brought me luck. Yet if I had taken in the fact that it was money that you had earned, I " " Well, dear ? " " I should have sent it back to you," he said, reddening. " The Lord knows I am not much to boast of, but I have not fallen so low as to be willing to eat up what a woman has slaved for." "But it comforted me to work for you," she cried. " It was just the only comfort I had." And that was true enough. The fruit of her labour had been given gladly. Yet no one save the One who knows all secrets, ay, even the secrets of women's hearts, guessed how much it had cost Gillian to speed Jack on his way.

How she had longed to bid him come home to her first ! and yet had understood, in spite of that weary longing, that it must be better for the man's self-respect that he should go, and rid himself of the prison taint, before he should come to claim her. A more eager expression came into Cardew's face and he put his hand on Gillian's. " What I am now going to tell you is the most extraordinary part of the whole story, and if it had not happened I should not be here. Gill, I told you that your present brought me luck ! I bought shares in a gold mine with it, and to begin with they were a good speculation, and within the year my capital was doubled." " It was time that the luck changed," said Gillian ; but she drew back a little, and a shadow came over her joy. " The fellow who persuaded me to take the shares was But ll>ou alone 13 a rum sort of chap, but I've seen worse," said Jack.

" I went on an expedition up country with him. He had a wife up in the mountains, a big negress, and he had a whole swarm of children ! Most of them were as black as my boots, and some of them were brown, but one was as fair as you are ! " " This is an extraordinary story ! " Gill ejaculated softly. " The old chap was fond of the fair one — he was quite silly over him, and so was the negress. When the child got lost I thought both father and mother would go out of their minds ! I couldn't stand the row about it and so I — I went to look for the little fellow." " Did you find him ? " " I found his body," said Jack, frowning. " He must have fallen into a stream at the back of the hut, and he had been washed miles down between the mountains. I carried him home as best I could. It wasn't easy, but I knew that they would want to bury him.

The stream was quite shallow ; I climbed up its bed. The water was never above my waist. I was pretty sick though, before I got through with the job ! It was the toughest thing I've done ! " " It was good of you," said Gillian. " Were they grateful ? " " The mother howled. It was like a wild animal ! " said Jack. " And the father swore once — when he took it from me— afterwards he didn't say anything. I'd not like to see that again. It's queer that people should get set like that on a child." He relapsed into gloomy silence, forgetting the point of the narrative till Gillian reminded him of it with a question. " You said ' the luck changed,' but this is not a cheerful tale, is it, Jack ? " He laughed then. " Oh yes, it is, but I have left out the cheerful part. I was toiling up that stream with the poor little chap's body when— I hit upon diamonds.

It was by the veriest chance ! I wasn't hunting for them, I wasn't thinking of them; I couldn't believe in what I'd found. I just stuffed the specimens in my pocket to show Bransome (that's the name of the man I stayed with), but I forgot to show them, till I brought them out by chance one day. Bransome pounced on them with a yell! I think if I'd been any other chap I'd hardly have got out of that place alive, but he played the game squarely with me — and he told me what to do. He is my partner, and he manages the concern out there ! It's a pretty big concern. As far as money goes I'm very rich." " But if it had not happened you would not have come back," the woman repeated slowly. She was a woman who liked what money can buy, but at that moment she thought only of that which can neither be bought nor sold.

"You would never have come back. And during all these years I have believed that you were sure to come ! " " I wouldn't have come to you poor," he said doggedly. " I was in two minds about it, as it was. I am a disgraced man, and poverty and disgrace together are too strong a couple of devils for any woman to tackle ; but I — I did not forget you, Gillian." Neither of them spoke for a minute. Gillian sat staring into the fire, with compressed lips. Jack Cardew remained stolidly quiescent. He felt that he cut a poor figure beside this woman, whose faith fairly startled him. Yet he knew that according to his lights he would have been right not to come near her again, had this wonderful fortune not befallen him. " You see," he said awkwardly, " I used to be a gentle- But lou alone 15 man, and there are some things a man (even if he has been a convict) can't drag a woman into."

Gillian turned round at that, and drew her hand gently away from his. " Jack, I think I understand," she said. " And I shall never blame you, but answer me this honestly. Do you want me to be your wife or not ? If not, say so now, and go, for the sake of our — seven years of waiting." She wore a little turquoise ring on her left hand, and she put the fingers of her right hand over it while she spoke. " I am not going to boast about constancy," she said. " That's just a matter of temperament. I know that many women, who are infinitely better than I am, can love first one man, and then, if he dies or fails them, another. I know that I only care and only shall care about you. But that is because I am made in that way. I can't help it. I" — with a faint smile — " don't think I should have chosen such an inconvenient characteristic, if I had been allowed any say in the matter.

But one thing I can choose, and I will. I hate getting on stilts, you know, but I must say this strongly. I would rather be dead, and I loathe the thought of death, than married to you if you don't love me. I could not stand it. You owe me nothing else, but you owe me so much honesty, Jack." Then the defiant look on the man's face melted, and his manhood rose up. He caught her in his arms and pressed her close to him. " Before God, I am not such a cur as to lie to you," he cried. " I had come here meaning to say you had better for your own sake give me up, because I am not the man I was, and you won't like me when you know me — I can't say it now, for I love you — I swear I love you, Gillian, I am not a quarter good enough now, but at least I love you." " Then that is all I want," said Gillian.

Chapter II

"A PITY BEYOND ALL TELLING." "A pity beyond all telling Is hid in the heart of love." W. B. Yeats. IT is strange to realise in what different worlds the denizens of the same street live. The place, for example, where Gillian met her lover was lifted more than its actual five stories above the work-a-day life. It was hallowed for evermore for the woman who had wel comed love there. Gillian was almost sorry to bid it farewell ; she thought whimsically of the old Bible story of Jacob, who set up a pillar in the place where he had wrestled and prevailed. Not that she had much conscious religion, or that her pillar would have borne any grateful inscription. Gillian rather prided herself on being essentially of this world, though she had never scoffed at spirituality in others since she had counted Jane Ogland as her friend.

On the Sunday after Jack Cardew's return Lady Jane sat alone in her small, bare room, enjoying the luxury of solitude. She greatly liked to be alone, though in her busy life she reserved little time, as well as little of everything else, for herself. It was six o'clock in the evening. Jane had lit her lamp, and now sat quite still in an old-fashioned wooden armchair, that was furnished with linen-covered cushions. Jane always rested on Sunday. " The Imitation of Christ," 'a pits Beyono all selling" 17 that book that appeals to so many souls of all sects, lay on her knee ; she read it in the Latin edition, for the stateliness of the old language pleased her. Like her namesake of long ago she possessed scholarly tastes, though few people guessed as much. Lady Jane was a very small woman, with delicate, finely cut features and pencilled eyebrows.

She had been rather pretty when she was young, though some people had con sidered her too colourless ; now that she was middle-aged her beautiful soul had had time to impress its character unmistakably on her face. She wore white cambric frills in her sleeves and round her throat. They relieved the extreme severity of her black gown. Her hair, which was flaxen in hue, and very fine and soft, was parted in the middle and brushed plainly on either side of her white forehead. Despite the extreme simplicity of her attire, and the scantiness of her furniture, there was a certain quality of dainty freshness about her person, and of dis tinction about her room. Lady Jane was a very dignified lady, and the singularly muddy places she had walked in from her early girlhood had apparently left no stain on her.