Chapter XXXVI…

Chapter XXXVI

When Dan came to see her the next morning, he found her in a mixed mood. Half-a-dozen times during the night she had declined to marry him in a painful scene, but just as often her imagination would run on into the unknown life she would have to lead with him. She saw herself in white satin and lace and pearls, a slender figure at the head of a long dining-table, interesting to everybody, and Dan was at the foot, looking quite distinguished in evening dress, with his glossy black hair and wonderful clear skin. She had gathered the nicest people in the neighbourhood about her, and on her right there was a shadowy person, a man of mark, and knightly, who delighted in her conversation.

When she came downstairs to receive Dan she was coughing, and he showed his devotion by being greatly concerned about her health. He said she must have port wine and a tonic, and be out in the air as much as possible, and suggested that they should go for a walk at once as it was a lovely day, though still wet under foot.

"I would not ask you to walk if I had a carriage to offer you," he said, "for I hate to see a delicate lady on foot in the mud. But you shall have your carriage yet, please God, all in good time!"

"Where shall we go?" said Beth when they left the house.

"Oh, anywhere," he answered. "Take me to one of your own favourite haunts."

She thought of the Fairholm cliffs for a moment, but felt that they were sacred to many recollections with which she would not care to associate this new experience. "I'll show you the chalybeate spring," she said.

They turned out of Orchard Street, and went down the hill to the Beck, a broad, clear, shallow rivulet, that came round a sharp green curve between high banks, well wooded with old trees, all in their heavy, dark-green, summer foliage. As they crossed the rustic wooden bridge Beth paused a little to look up at the trees and love them, and down into the clear water at the scarlet sticklebacks heading up stream. Her companion looked at her in surprise when she stopped, and then followed the direction of her eyes. All he saw, however, was a shallow stream, a green bank, and some trees.

"This is not very interesting," he observed.

Beth made no reply, but led the way up the hill on the other side, and, to the right, passed a row of cottages with long gardens at the back running down to the brow of the bank that overhung the Beck. In most of these cottages she was an object of suspicion because of her uncanny words and ways, and she knew it, and the thought of it was a grief to her. She wanted the people to like her as she would have liked them had they let her. The wish to win them fired her imagination. She looked on ahead into futurity, and was a beautiful lady, driving a pair of ponies down a wooded lane, with a carriage full of good things for the cottagers, and they all loved her, and were very glad to see her.

"What are you thinking about?" Dan asked.

"How nice it would be to be rich," she replied.

"But you will be well off when you're twenty-one, I am told."

"I suppose there's a chance of it," she answered dreamily.

(The ponies had arrived at the village by this time, and she was looking up at an old grey church with a red roof.)

"Do you know what your aunt's income was?" he asked.

"Seven or eight hundred a year," she answered absently.

(The sexton's little house stood by the gate leading into the churchyard. His wife came out when the carriage stopped, wiping soap-suds from her bare arms with her apron. Beth leaned forward and held out her hand to her, and the woman smiled a cordial welcome. She had a round flat face and fair hair. Then Beth handed her a mysterious package from the carriage, which she received half in delight and half in inquiry.)

But Beth's imagination stopped there, for she perceived that she had passed the gate of the garden in which was the chalybeate spring. There was a cottage in the garden, and Beth turned back, and went up to the door, where a woman was standing holding a plump child, whose little fat thigh, indented by the pressure, bulged over her bare arm.

"May we have a drink, please?" Beth asked.

"Yes, and welcome," the woman answered. "I'll fetch you a glass."

"Let me hold the baby," said Beth.

The woman smiled, and handed him to her. Beth took him awkwardly, and squeezed him up in her arms as a child holds a kitten.

"Isn't he nice?" she said.

"That's a matter of taste," Dan answered. "I don't like 'em fat-bottomed myself."

Beth froze at the expression. When the woman returned, she handed the child back to her carefully, but without a smile, took the glass, and went down to the spring by a narrow winding path which took them out of sight of the cottage directly. Here it was old trees again, and green banks, with the Beck below. When they were under the trees Beth looked up at a big elm, and her companion noticed her lips move.

"What are you saying to yourself?" he asked.

"Nothing to myself," she answered. "I'm saying, 'Oh, tree, give me of thy strength!' the Eastern invocation."

He laughed, and wanted to know what rot that was; and again Beth was jarred.

"You'll have no luck if you don't respect the big trees," she said.

"Oh, by Jove, if we wait for the big trees to make our luck, we shan't have much!" he rejoined, picking up a pebble and firing it into the Beck below.

They were on a narrow path now, about half-way down the bank, and here, in a hollow, the chalybeate spring bubbled out, and was gathered by a wooden spout into a slender stream, which fell on the ground, where, in the course of time, it had made a basin for itself that was always partly full. The water was icy cold, and somewhat the colour of light on steel. Beth held the glass to the spout, rinsed it first, then filled it, and offered it to Dan, but he dryly declined to take it "Not for me, thank you," he said; "I never touch any medicinal beastliness."

For the third time Beth was jarred. She threw the water on the ground, refilled the glass, and drank. Dan saw he had made a mistake.

"I'll change my mind and have some too," he said, anxious to mollify her.

Beth filled the glass again, and handed it to him in silence, but no after-thought could atone for the discourtesy of his first refusal, and she looked in another direction, not even troubling herself to see whether he tried the water or not.

There was a rustic seat in the hollow of the bank, and he suggested that they should sit there a while before they returned. Beth acquiesced; and soon the sputter of the little spring bubbling into its basin, the chitter of birds in the branches above, the sunbeams filtering from behind through the leaves, the glint of the Beck below slipping between its banks, soundless, to the sea, enthralled her.

"Isn't this lovely?" she ejaculated.

"Yes, it's very jolly--with you," he said.

"You wouldn't like it so well without me?" Beth asked.

"No, I should think not," he rejoined. "And you wouldn't like it as well without me, I hope."

"No," Beth responded. "It makes it nicer having some one to share it."

"Now that's not quite kind," he answered in an injured tone. "Some one is any one; and I shouldn't be satisfied with anybody but you."

"Well, but I am satisfied with you," Beth answered dispassionately.

He took her hand, laid it in his own palm, and looked at it. It was a child's hand as yet, delicately pink and white.

"What a pretty thing!" he said. "Oh, you smile at that." He reached up to put a lock of her brown hair back from her cheek, and then he put his arm round her.

Next day he was obliged to go away--Beth never thought of inquiring why or wherefore; but she heard her mother and Lady Benyon talking about the very eligible appointment he was hoping to get. He took an affectionate leave of her. When he had gone she went off to the sands, and was surprised to find how glad she was to be alone again. The tide was far out, and there were miles and miles of the hard buff sand, a great, open space, not empty to Beth, but teeming with thought and full of feeling. Some distance on in front of her there was a solitary figure, a man walking with bent head and hands folded behind him, holding a stick--Count Gustav Bartahlinsky's favourite attitude when deep in meditation. Beth hurried on, and soon overtook him.

"Would you rather be alone, Count Gustav?" she said.

He turned to look at her, then smiled, and they walked on together.

"So they are going to marry you off," he said abruptly.

"Yes," Beth answered laconically.

"Do you wish to be married?"

"No, I do not."

"Then why do you consent?"

"Because I'm weak; I can't help it," she said.

"Nonsense!"

"I can't," she repeated. "I'm firm enough about some things, but in this I vacillate. When I am alone I know I am making a mistake, but when I am with other people who think differently, my objection vanishes."

"What is your objection?" he asked.

"That is the difficulty," she said. "I can't define it. Do you know Dr. Dan?"

"I can't say I know him," he answered. "I have met him and talked to him. He expresses the most unexceptional opinions; but it is premature to respect a man for the opinions he expresses--wait and see what he does. Words and acts don't necessarily agree. Sometimes, however, a chance remark which has very little significance for the person who makes it, is like an aperture that lets in light on the whole character." He cogitated a little, then added, "Don't let them hurry you. Take time to know your man, and if you are not satisfied yourself, if there is anything that jars upon you, never mind what other people think, have nothing to do with him."

When Beth went home, she found her mother sitting by the drawing-room window placidly knitting and looking out. "I am afraid I am very late," Beth said. "I have been on the sands with Count Gustav."

"Ah, that was nice, I should think," Mrs. Caldwell observed graciously. "And what were you talking about?"

"Being married, principally," Beth answered.

Mrs. Caldwell beamed above her knitting. "And what did he say?"

"He strongly advised me not to marry if I didn't want to."

Mrs. Caldwell changed countenance. "Did he indeed?" she observed with a sniff. Then she reflected. "And what had you been saying to draw such a remark from him?"

"I said I didn't want to be married," Beth blurted out with an effort.

"How could you tell Count Gustav such a story, Beth?" Mrs. Caldwell asked, shaking her head reproachfully.

"It was no story, mamma."

"Nonsense, Beth," her mother rejoined. "It is nothing but perverseness that makes you say such things. You feel more interesting, I believe, when you are in opposition. If I had refused to allow you to be married, you would have been ready to run away. I know girls! They all want to be married, and they all pretend they don't. Why, when I was a girl I thought of nothing else; but I didn't talk about it."

"Perhaps you had nothing else to think about," Beth ventured.

"And what have you to think about, pray?"

Beth clasped her hands, and her grey eyes dilated.

"Beth, don't look like that," her mother remonstrated. "You are always acting, and it is such a pity--as you will find when you go out into the world, I am afraid, and people avoid you."

"I didn't know I was doing anything peculiar," Beth said; "and how am I to help it if I don't know?"

"Just help it by only doing as you are told until you are able to judge for yourself. Look at the silly way you have been talking this afternoon! What must Count Gustav have thought of you? Never be so silly again. You must be married now, you know. When a girl lets a man kiss her, she has to marry him."

Beth had been watching her mother's fingers as she knitted until she was half mesmerised by the bright glint of the needles; but now she woke up and burst out laughing. "If that be the case," she said, "he is not the only one that I shall have to marry."

Mrs. Caldwell's hands dropped on her lap, and she looked up at Beth in dismay. "What do you mean?" she said.

"Just that," Beth answered.

"Do you mean to tell me you have allowed men to kiss you?" Mrs. Caldwell cried.

Beth looked up as if trying to keep her countenance.

"You wicked girl, how dare you?"

"Well, mamma, if it were wicked, why didn't you warn me?" Beth said. "How was I to know?"

"Your womanly instincts ought to have taught you better."

Unfortunately for this theory, all Beth's womanly instincts set in the opposite direction. Her father's ardent temperament warred in her with Aunt Victoria's Puritan principles, and there was no telling as yet which would prevail.

Beth made no reply to that last assertion of her mother's, but remained half sitting on the table, with her feet stretched out in front of her, and her hands supporting her on either side, which brought her shoulders up to her ears. It was a most inelegant attitude, and peculiarly exasperating to Mrs. Caldwell.

"Oh, you wicked--you bad--you abandoned girl!" she exclaimed, losing her temper altogether. "My heart is broken with you. Go to your room, and stay there. I feel as if I could never endure the sight of you again."

Beth gathered herself together slowly, and strolled away with an air of indifference; but as soon as she found herself alone in her own room with the door shut, she dropped on her knees and lifted her clasped hands to heaven in an agony of remorse for having tormented her mother, and in despair about that wretched engagement. "O Lord, what am I to do?" she said; "what am I to do?" If she could make up her mind once for all either way, she would be satisfied; it was this miserable state of indecision that was unendurable.

Presently in the room below, she thought she heard her mother sob aloud. She listened, breathless. Her mother was sobbing. Beth jumped up and opened her door. What should she do? Her unhappy mother--heart-broken, indeed. What a life hers was--a life of hard privation, of suffering most patiently borne, of the utmost self-denial for her children's sake, of loss, of loneliness, of bitter disappointment! First her husband taken, then her dearest child; her ungrateful boys not over-kind to her; and now this last blow dealt her by Beth, just when the prospect of getting her well married was bringing a gleam of happiness into her mother's life. The piteous sobs continued. Beth stole downstairs, bent on atoning in her own person by any sacrifice for all the sorrows, no matter by whom occasioned, which she felt were culminating in this final outburst of grief. She found her mother standing beside the high old-fashioned mantelpiece, leaning her poor head against it.

"Mamma," Beth cried, "do forgive me. I never meant to--I never meant to hurt you so. I will do anything to please you. I was only teasing you about kissing men. I haven't been in the habit of kissing any one. And of course I'll marry Dan as soon as you like. And we'll all be happy--there!"

Mrs. Caldwell held out her arms, and Beth sprang into them, and hugged her tight and burst into tears.

Chapter XXXVII

That autumn Beth was married to Daniel Maclure, M.D., &c., &c. At the time of her marriage she hardly knew what his full name was. She had always heard him called "the doctor" or "Dr. Dan," and had never thought of him as anything else, nor did she know anything else about him--his past, his family, or his prospects, which, considering her age, is not surprising; but what did surprise her in after years, when she discovered it, was to find that her friends who made the match knew no more about him than she did. He had scraped acquaintance with her brother Jim in a public billiard-room in Rainharbour, and been introduced by him to the other members of her family, who, because his address was good and his appearance attractive, had taken it for granted that everything else concerning him was equally satisfactory.

Beth decided to keep her surname for her father's sake, and also because she could not see why she should lose her identity because she had married. Everybody said it was absurd of her; but she was determined, and from the time of her marriage she signed herself Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure.

Dan confided to Mrs. Caldwell that he was troubled by some few small debts which he was most anxious to pay in order that he might start his married life clear, and the poor lady generously reduced her slender income by selling some shares to raise the money for him. When he accepted it, his eyes filled with tears, as was usual with him in moments of emotion.

"O mamma!" Beth exclaimed when she heard of the sacrifice, "how could you? I do not deserve such generosity, for I have never been any comfort to you; and I shall always be miserable about it, thinking how badly you want the money."

"There will be one mouth less to feed when you have gone, you know, Beth," Mrs. Caldwell answered bravely, "and I shall be the happier for thinking that you start clear. Debt crushed us our whole married life. I shall be the easier if I know you haven't that burden to bear. Besides, Dan will repay me as soon as he can. He is a thoroughly good fellow."

"You shall be repaid, mamma, in more ways than one, if I live," Beth vowed.

Uncle James Patten doled out a five-pound-note to Beth by way of a wedding present from the long rent-roll her mother should have inherited.

"This is to help with your trousseau, but do not be extravagant," he said in his pleasant way. "As the wife of a professional man, you will descend from my class to the class below, the middle class, and you should dress according to your station. But you are doing as well as we could expect you to do, considering your character and conduct. Some doubted if you would ever receive an offer of marriage, or have the sense to accept it if one were made you; but I always said you would have the doctor if he would have you."

Beth's impulse was to throw the note at him, but she restrained herself on her brother Jim's account. It was suspected that Uncle James was only waiting for a plausible excuse to disinherit Jim; and he found it the next time Jim stayed at Fairholm. They were in the drawing-room together one day, and a maid was mending the fire. Uncle James was sitting at a writing-table with a mirror in front of him, and he declared that in that mirror he distinctly saw his nephew chuck the maid-servant under the chin, which was conduct such as Mr. James Patten could not be expected to tolerate in his heir; so he altered his will, and after that all communication ceased between the two families, except such as Aunt Grace Mary managed to keep up surreptitiously.

Aunt Grace Mary was very generous to Beth, and so also was old Lady Benyon. Had it not been for these two, Beth would have left home ill-provided for. Thanks to them, however, she was spared that humiliation, and went with an ample outfit.

In the days preceding her marriage, Beth sometimes thought of Charlotte, and of the long fiction of that wonderful time when they were friends. Her busy brain had created many another story since then, but none that had the fascination of that first sustained effort. Hector's mysterious establishment on the other side of the headland, the troubles in Spain, the wicked machinations of their enemies, the Secret Service of Humanity, the horses, yacht, and useful doctor--who had not held a high place in their estimation, being merely looked upon as a trustworthy tool of Hector's; yet it was he whom Beth was to marry. She wondered what Charlotte would think of her when she heard it, and of Hector and the whole story; but she never knew, for Charlotte was at school in France during this period, and never came into Beth's life again.

During the early days of her married life a sort of content settled upon Beth; a happy sense of well-being, of rest and satisfaction, came to her, and that strange vague yearning ache, the presence of which made all things incomplete, was laid. The atmosphere in which she now lived was sensuous, not spiritual, and although she was unaware of this, she felt its influence. Dan made much of her, and she liked that; but the vision and the dream had ceased. Her intellectual activity was stimulated, however, and it was not long before she began to think for herself more clearly and connectedly than she had ever done before.

They spent the first few weeks in London in a whirl of excitement, living at sumptuous restaurants, and going to places of amusement every night, where Beth would sit entranced with music, singing, dancing, and acting, never taking her eyes from the stage, and yearning in her enthusiasm to do the same things herself--not doubting but that she could either, so perfectly had she the power to identify herself with the performers, and realise, as from within, what their sensations must be.

When she had been in London as a girl at school, she had seen nothing but the bright side of life, the wholesome, happy, young side. A poor beggar to be helped, or a glimpse in the street of a sorrowful face that saddened her for a moment, was the worst she knew of the great wicked city; but now, with Dan for a companion, the realities of vice and crime were brought home to her; she learnt to read signs of depravity in the faces of men and women, and to associate certain places with evil-doers as their especial haunts. Her husband's interest in the subject was inexhaustible; he seemed to think of little else. He would point out people in places of public amusement, and describe in detail the loathsome lives they led. Every well-dressed woman he saw he suspected. He would pick out one because she had yellow hair, and another because her two little children were precocious and pretty, and declare them to be "kept women." That a handsome woman could be anything but vicious had apparently never occurred to him. He was very high-minded on the subject of sin if the sinner were a woman, and thought no degradation sufficient for her. In speaking of such women he used epithets from which Beth recoiled. She allowed them to pass, however, in consideration of the moral exasperation that inspired them, and the personal rectitude his attitude implied. The subject had a horrible kind of fascination for her; she hated it, yet she could not help listening, although her heart ached and her soul sickened. She listened in silence, however, neither questioning nor discussing, but simply attending; collecting material for which she had no use at the moment, and storing it without design--material which she would find herself forced to turn to account eventually, but in what way and to what purpose there was no knowing as yet.

They were to live at Slane, an inland town near Morningquest, where modern manufactures had competed successfully with ancient agricultural interests, and altered the attitude of the landed gentry towards trade, and towards the townspeople, beguiling them to be less exclusive because there was money in the town, self-interest weighing with them all at once in regard to the neighbours whom Christian precept had vainly urged them to recognise.

Dr. Maclure had taken an old-fashioned house in a somewhat solitary position on the outskirts of Slane, but near enough to the town to secure paying patients, as he hoped, while far enough out of it to invite county callers. It stood just on the highroad, from which it was only divided by a few evergreen shrubs and an iron railing; but it was picturesque, nevertheless, with creepers--magnolia, wisteria, and ivy--clustering on the dark red bricks. At the back there was a good garden, and in front, across the road, were green meadows with hedgerows--a tangle of holly, hawthorn, and bramble--and old trees, surviving giants of a forest long uprooted and forgotten. It was a rich and placid scene, infinitely soothing to one fresh from the turmoil of the city, and weary of the tireless motion, the incessant sound and tumult of the sea. When Beth looked out upon the meadows first, she sighed and said to herself, "Surely, surely one should be happy here!"

The house was inconveniently arranged inside, and had less accommodation than its outside pretensions promised; but Beth was delighted with it all, and took possession of her keys with pride. She was determined to be a good manager, and make her housekeeping money go a long way. Her dream was to save out of it, and have something over to surprise Dan with when the bills were paid. To her chagrin, however, she found that she was not to have any housekeeping money at all.

"You are too young to have the care of managing money," said Dan. "Just give the orders, and I'll see about paying the bills."

But the system did not answer. Beth had no idea what she ought to be spending, and either the bills were too high or the diet was too low, and Dan grumbled perpetually. If the housekeeping were at all frugal, he was anything but cheery during meals; but if she ordered him all he wanted, there were sure to be scenes on the day of reckoning. He blamed her bad management, and she said nothing; but she knew she could have managed on any reasonable sum to which he might have limited her. She had too much self-respect to ask for money, however, if he did not choose to give it to her.

It surprised her to find that what he had to eat was a matter of great importance to him. He fairly gloated over things he liked, and in order to indulge him, and keep the bills down besides, she went without herself; and he never noticed her self-denial. He was apt to take too much of his favourite dishes, and was constantly regretting it. "I wish I had not eaten so much of that cursed vol au vent; it never agrees with me," he would say; but he would eat as much as ever next time. Beth could not help observing such traits. She did not set them down to his personal discredit, however, but to the discredit of his sex at large. She had always heard that men were self-indulgent, and Dan was a man; that was the nearest she came to blaming him at first. Being her husband had made a difference in her feeling for him; before their marriage she was not so tolerant.

Her housekeeping duties by no means filled her day. An hour or so in the morning was all they occupied at most, and the time must have hung heavy on her hands had she had no other pursuit to beguile her. Fortunately she had no intention of allowing her plans for the improvement of her mind to lapse simply because she had married. On the contrary, she felt the defects of her education more keenly than ever, and expected Dan to sympathise with her in her efforts to remedy them. He came in one day soon after they were settled, and found her sitting at the end of the dining-room table with her back to the window and a number of books spread out about her.

"This looks learned," he said. "What are you doing?"

"I am looking for something to study," she answered. "What writers have helped you most?"

"Helped me most!--how do you mean?"

"Well, helped you to be upright, you know, to make good resolutions and keep straight."

"Thank you," he said; "I have not felt the need of good resolutions, and this is the first hint I have had that I require any. If you will inquire among my friends, I fancy you will find that I have the credit of going pretty straight as it is."

"O Dan!" Beth exclaimed, "you quite misunderstand me. I never meant to insinuate that you are not straight. I was only thinking of the way in which we all fall short of our ideals."

"Ideals be hanged!" said Dan. "If a man does his duty, that's ideal enough, isn't it?"

"I should think so," Beth said pacifically.

Dan went to the mantelpiece, and stood there, studying himself with interest in the glass. "A lady told me the other day I looked like a military man," he said, smoothing his glossy black hair and twisting the ends of his long moustache.

"Well, I think you look much more military than medical," Beth replied, considering him.

"I'm glad of that," he said, smiling at himself complacently.

"Are you?" Beth exclaimed in surprise. "Why? A medical man has a finer career than a military man, and should have a finer presence if ability, purpose, and character count for anything towards appearance. Personally I think I should wish to look like what I am, if I could choose."

"So you do," he rejoined, adjusting his hat with precision as he spoke, and craning his neck to see himself sideways in the glass. "You look like a silly little idiot. But never mind. That's all a girl need be if she's pretty; and if she isn't pretty, she's of no account, so it doesn't matter what she is."

When he had gone, Beth sat for a long time thinking; but she did no more reading that day, nor did she ever again consult Dan about the choice of books, or expect him to sympathise with her in her work.

For the first few months of her married life, she had no pocket-money at all. Aunt Grace Mary slipped two sovereigns into her hand when they parted, but these Beth kept, she hardly knew why, as she had her half-year's dividend to look forward to. About the time that her money was due, Dan began to talk incessantly of money difficulties. Bills were pressing, and he did not know where on earth to look for a five-pound-note. He did not think Beth too young to be worried morning, noon, and night on the subject, although she took it very seriously. One morning after he had made her look anxious, he suddenly remembered a letter he had for her, and handed it to her. It was from her lawyer, and contained a cheque for twenty-five pounds, the long-looked-forward-to pocket money.

"Will this be of any use to you?" Beth asked, handing him the cheque.

His countenance cleared. "Of use to me? I should think it would!" he exclaimed. "It will just make all the difference. You must sign it, though."

When she had signed it, he put it in his pocket-book, and his spirits went up to the cheery point. He adjusted his hat at the glass over the dining-room mantelpiece, lit a shilling cigar, and went off to his hospital jauntily. Beth was glad to have relieved him of his anxiety. She half hoped he might give her something out of the cheque, if it were only a pound or two, she wanted some little things so badly; but he never offered her a penny. She thought of Aunt Grace Mary's two sovereigns, but the dread of having nothing in case of an emergency kept her from spending them.

There was one thing Dan did which Beth resented. He opened her letters.

"Husband and wife are one," he said. "They should have no secrets from each other. I should like you to open my letters, too, but they contain professional secrets, you see, and that wouldn't do."

He spoke in what he called his cheery way, but Beth had begun to feel that there was another word which would express his manner better, and now it occurred to her.

"You have no right to open my letters," she said; "and being facetious on the subject does not give you any."

"But if I chose to?" he asked.

"It will be a breach of good taste and good feeling," she answered.

No more was said on the subject, and Dan did not open her letters for a little, but then he began again. He had always some excuse, however--either he hadn't looked at the address, or he had been impatient to see if there were any message for himself, and so on; but Beth was not mollified although she said nothing, and her annoyance made her secretive. She would watch for the postman, and take the letters from him herself, and conceal her own, so that Dan might not even know that she had received any.

She had a difficulty with him about another matter too. His lover-like caresses while they were engaged had not been distasteful to her; but after their marriage he kept up an incessant billing and cooing, and of a coarser kind, which soon satiated her. She was a nicely balanced creature, with many interests in life, and love could be but one among the number in any case; but Dan almost seemed to expect it to be the only one.

"Oh dear! must I be embraced again?" she exclaimed one day, with quite comical dismay on being interrupted in the middle of a book that was interesting her at the moment.

Dan looked disconcerted. In his cheerful masculine egotism it had not occurred to him that Beth might find incessant demonstrations of affection monotonous. He would smile at pictures of the waning of the honeymoon, where the husband returns to his book and his dog, and the wife sits apart sad and neglected; it was inevitable that the man should tire, he had other things to think of; but that the wife should be the first to be bored was incredible, and worse: it was unwomanly.

Dan went to the mantelpiece, and stood looking down into the fire, and his grey-green eyes became suffused.

"Have I hurt you, Dan?" Beth exclaimed, jumping up and going to him.

"Hurt me!" he said, taking out his pocket-handkerchief, "that is not the word for it. You have made me very unhappy."

"Oh!" said Beth, her own inclinations disregarded at once, "I am sorry!"

But he had satiated her once for all, and she never recovered any zest for his caresses. She found no charm or freshness in them, especially after she perceived that they were for his own gratification, irrespective of hers. The privileges of love are not to be wrested from us with impunity. Habits of dutiful submission destroy the power to respond, and all that they leave to survive of the warm reality of love at last is a cold pretence. By degrees, as Beth felt forced to be dutiful, she ceased to be affectionate.

Although Dan dressed to go out with scrupulous care, he took no trouble to make himself nice in the house. Care in dress was not in him a necessary part and expression of a refined nature, but an attempt to win consideration. He never dressed for dinner when they were alone together. It was a trouble rather than a refreshment to him to get rid of the dust of the day and the associations of his walking-dress. This was a twofold disappointment to Beth. She had expected him to have the common politeness to dress for her benefit, and she was not pleased to find that the punctiliousness he displayed in the matter on occasion was merely veneer. It was a defect of breeding that struck her unpleasantly. They had been poor enough at home, but Beth had been accustomed all her life to have delicate china about her, and pictures and books, to walk on soft carpets and sit in easy-chairs; possessions of a superior class which, in her case, were symbols bespeaking refinement of taste and habits from which her soul had derived satisfaction even while her poor little fragile body starved. She dressed regularly and daintily herself, and Dan at the bottom of the table in his morning coat was an offence to her. She said nothing at first, however, so his manners still further deteriorated, until one night, after she had gone to her room, he walked in with his hat on, smoking a cigar. It was this last discourtesy that roused her to rebel.

"This is my bedroom," she said significantly.

"I know," he answered.

"You know--yet you keep your hat on, and you are smoking," she proceeded.

"Why," he rejoined, "and if I do, what then? I know ladies who let their husbands smoke in bed."

"Probably," she said. "I have heard of more singularly coarse things than that even. But I am accustomed to pure air in my room, and I must have it."

"And suppose I should choose to stay here and smoke?" he said.

"Of course I could not prevent you," she answered; "but I should go and sleep in another room."

"H'm," he grunted. "You're mighty particular."

But he went away all the same, and did not appear there again either with his hat on or smoking a cigar.

Beth suffered miserably from the want of proper privacy in her life. She had none whatever now. It had been her habit to read and reflect when she went to bed, to prepare for a tranquil night by setting aside the troubles of the day, and purifying her mind systematically even as she washed her body; but all that was impossible if her husband were at home. He would break in upon her reading with idle gossip, fidget about the room when she wished to meditate, and leave her no decent time of privacy for anything. He had his own dressing-room, where he was secure from interruption, but never had the delicacy to comprehend that his presence could be any inconvenience to Beth. And it was worse than an inconvenience. It was a positive hardship--never to be sure of a moment alone.

One afternoon, when she had locked herself in her bedroom, he came and turned the handle of the door noisily.

"Open the door," he said.

"Do you want anything?" she asked.

"Open the door," he repeated.

She obeyed, and he came in, and glanced round suspiciously.

"What were you doing?" he asked.

"Oh," she exclaimed, "this is intolerable!"

"What is intolerable?" he demanded.

"This intrusion," she replied. "I want to be alone for a little; can't you understand that?"

"No, I cannot understand a wife locking her husband out of her room, and what's more, you've no business to do it. I've a legal right to come here whenever I choose."

Then Beth began to realise what the law of man was with regard to her person.

"I never intrude upon you when you shut yourself up," she remonstrated.

"Oh, that is different," he answered arrogantly. "I may have brainwork to do, or something important to think about There is no comparison."

Beth went to her dressing-table, sat down in front of it, folded her hands, and waited doggedly.

He looked at her for a little; then he said, "I don't understand your treatment of me at all, Beth. But there's no understanding women." He spoke as if it were the women's fault, and to their discredit, that he couldn't understand them.

Beth made no answer, and he finally took himself off, slamming the door after him.

"Thank goodness!" Beth exclaimed. "One would think he had bought me."

Then she sat wondering what she should do. She must have some corner where she would be safe from intrusion. He had his consulting-room, a room called his laboratory, a surgery, and a dressing-room, where no one would dream of following him if he shut the door; she had literally not a corner. She left her bedroom, and walked through the other rooms on the same floor as she considered the matter; then she went up to the next floor, where the servants slept. Above that again there was an attic used as a box-room, and she went up there too. It was a barn of a place, supported by pillars, and extending apparently over the whole of the storey below. The roof sloped to the floor on either side, and the whole place was but ill-lighted by two small windows looking to the north. Dr. Maclure had taken over the house as it stood, furniture and all, from the last occupants, by whom this great attic had evidently been used as a lumber-room. There were various pieces of furniture in it--tables, chairs, and drawers, some broken, some in fair condition. At the farther end, opposite to the door, there was a pile of packing-cases and travelling-trunks. Beth had always thought that they stood up against the wall, but on going over to them now, she discovered that there was a space behind. The pile was too high for her to see over it, but by going down on her hands and knees where the sloping roof was too low for her to stoop, she found she could creep round it. It was the kind of thing a child would have done, but what was Beth but a child? On the other side of the pile it was almost dark. She could see something, however, when she stood up, which looked like a mark on the whitewash, and on running her hand over it she discovered it to be a narrow door flush with the wall. There was no handle or latch to it, but there was a key which had rusted in the keyhole and was not to be turned. The door was not locked, however, and Beth pushed it open, and found herself in a charming little room with a fireplace at one end of it, and opposite, at the other end, a large bow window. Beth was puzzled to understand how there came to be a room there at all. Then she recollected a sort of tower there was at the side of the house, which formed a deep embrasure in the drawing-room, a dressing-room to the visitor's room, and a bath-room on the floor above. The window looked out on the garden at the back of the house. A light iron balcony ran round it, the rail of which was so thickly covered with ivy that very little of the window was visible from below. Beth had noticed it, however, only she thought it was a dummy, and so also did Dan. The little room looked bright and cosy with the afternoon sun streaming in. It seemed to have been occupied at one time by some person of fastidious taste, judging by what furniture remained--a square Chippendale table with slender legs, two high-backed chairs covered with old-fashioned tapestry, and a huge mahogany bookcase of the same period, with glass doors above and cupboards below. The high white mantelpiece, adorned with vases and festoons of flowers, was of Adam's design, and so also was the dado and the cornice. The walls were painted a pale warm pink. A high brass fender, pierced, surrounded the fireplace, and there were a poker, tongs, and shovel to match, and a small brass scuttle still full of coals. There were ashes in the grate, too, as if the room had only lately been occupied. The boards were bare, but white and well-fitting, and in one corner of the room there was a piece of carpet rolled up.

Beth dropped on to one of the dusty chairs, and looked round. Everything about her was curiously familiar, and her first impression was that she had been there before. On the other hand, she could hardly believe in the reality of what she saw, she thought she must be dreaming, for here was exactly what she had been pining for most in the whole wide world of late, a secret spot, sacred to herself, where she would be safe from intrusion.

She went downstairs for some oil for the lock, and patiently worked at it until at last she succeeded in turning the key. Then, as it was too late to do anything more that day, she locked the door, and carried the key off in her pocket triumphantly.

Half the night she lay awake thinking of her secret chamber; and as soon as Dan had gone out next morning, and she had done her housekeeping, she stole upstairs with duster and brush, and began to set it in order. All her treasures were contained in some old trunks of Aunt Victoria's which were in the attic, but had not been unpacked because she had no place to put the things. Dan had seen some of these treasures at Rainharbour, and considered them old rubbish, and, not thinking it likely that there would be anything else in the boxes, he had taken no further interest in them. He would have liked to have left them behind altogether, and even tried to laugh Beth out of what he called her sentimental attachment to odds and ends; but as most of the things had belonged to Aunt Victoria, she took his ridicule so ill that he wisely let the subject drop. He had been somewhat hasty in his estimation of the value of the contents of the boxes, however, for there were some handsome curios, a few miniatures and pictures of great artistic merit, some rare editions of books, besides laces, jewels, brocades, and other stuffs in them.

When Beth had swept and dusted, she put down the carpet. Then she began to unpack. Among the first things she found were the old French books, a quarto Bible with the Apocrypha in it, Shakespeare in several volumes, and her school-books and note-books; some ornaments, some beautiful old curtains, and a large deep rug, like a Turkey carpet, in crimson and green and purple and gold, worked by Aunt Victoria. This she spread before the fireplace. The doorway she covered with a curtain, and two more she hung on either side of the window, so that they could not be seen from below. Her books of reference, desk, note-books, and writing materials she put on the table, arranged the ornaments on the mantelpiece, and hung the miniatures and pictures on the walls. Then she sat down and looked about her, well pleased with the whole effect. "Now," she exclaimed, "I am at home, thank God! I shall be able to study, to read and write, think and pray at last, undisturbed."

Chapter XXXVIII

As Dan sympathised with none of Beth's tastes or interests, and seemed to have none of his own with which she could sympathise, their stock of conversation was soon exhausted, and there was nothing like companionship in their intercourse. If Beth had had no resources in herself, she would have had but a sorry time of it in those days, especially as she received no kindness from any one in Slane. Some of the other medical men's wives called when she first arrived, and she returned their calls punctually, but their courtesy went no farther. Mrs. Carne, the wife of the leading medical practitioner, asked her to lunch, and Mrs. Jeffreys, a surgeon's wife, asked her to afternoon tea; but as these invitations did not include her husband, she refused them. She invited these ladies and their husbands in return, however, but they both pleaded previous engagements.

After the Maclures had been some little time at Slane, Lady Benyon bethought her of an old friend of hers, one Lady Beg, who lived in the neighbourhood, and asked her to call upon Beth, which she did forthwith, for she was one of those delightful old ladies who like nothing better than to be doing a kindness. She came immediately, bringing an invitation to lunch on the following Sunday, already written in case she should find no one at home.

Dan was delighted, "We shall meet nothing but county people there," he said, "and that's the proper set for us. They always do the right thing, you see. They're the only people worth knowing."

"But Beg is miles away from here," Beth said; "how shall we go?"

"We'll go in the dogcart, of course," Dan answered.

He had set up a dogcart on their arrival, but this was the first time he had proposed to take Beth out in it.

As they drove along on Sunday morning in the bright sunshine, Dan's spirits overflowed in a characteristic way at the prospect of meeting "somebody decent," as he expressed it, and he made remarks about the faces and figures of all the women they passed on the road, criticising them as if they were cattle to be sold at so much a point.

"That little girl there," he said of one, whom he beamed upon and ogled as they passed, "reminds me of a fair-haired little devil I picked up one night in Paris. Gad! she was a bad un! up to more tricks than any other I ever knew. She used to--" (here followed a description of some of her peculiar practices).

"I wish you would not tell me these things," Beth remonstrated.

But he only laughed. "You know you're amused," he said. "It's just your conventional affectation that makes you pretend to object. That's the way women drive their husbands elsewhere for amusement; they won't take a proper intelligent interest in life, so there's nothing to talk to them about. I agree with the advanced party. They're always preaching that women should know the world. Women who do know the world have no nonsense about them, and are a jolly sight better company than your starched Puritans who pretend to know nothing. It's the most interesting side of life after all, and the most instructive; and I wonder at your want of intelligence, Beth. You shouldn't be afraid to know the natural history of humanity."

"Nor am I," Beth answered quietly; "nor the natural--or unnatural--depravity either, which is what you really mean, I believe. But knowing it, and delighting in it as a subject of conversation, are two very different things. Jesting about that side of life affects me like mud on a clean coat. I resent being splashed with it, and try to get rid of it, but unfortunately it sticks and stains."

"Oh, you're quite right," Dan answered unctuously. "It's just shocking the stories that are told--" and for the rest of the way he discoursed about morals, illustrating his meaning as he proceeded with anecdotes of the choicest description.

When they arrived at Beg House, they found the company more mixed than Dan had anticipated. Dr. and Mrs. Carne were there, Mr. and Mrs. Jeffreys, and Mr., Mrs., and Miss Petterick. Mr. Petterick was a solicitor of bumptious manners and doubtful reputation, whom the whole county hated, but tolerated because of his wealth and shrewdness, either of which they liked to be in a position to draw upon if necessary. But besides these townspeople, there were Sir George and Lady Galbraith, Mr. and Mrs. Kilroy of Ilverthorpe, and Mrs. Orton Beg, a widowed daughter-in-law of Lady Beg's.

Dr. Maclure immediately made up to Sir George Galbraith, who was also a medical man, and of great repute in his own line. He was a county magnate besides, and a man of wealth and importance by reason of a baronetcy somewhat unexpectedly inherited, and a beautiful country-seat. He continued to practise, however, for love of his profession, but used it as a means of doing good rather than as a source of income. In appearance he was a tall, rather awkward man, with a fine head and a strong, plain face. He spoke in that deliberate Scotch way which has a ring of sincerity in it and inspires confidence, and the contrast between his manner and Dan's struck Beth unpleasantly. She wished Dan would be less effusive; it was almost as if he were cringing; and she thought he should have waited for Sir George Galbraith, who was the older man, to have made the first advance.

Beth herself was at her ease as soon as she came among these people. It was the social atmosphere to which she had been accustomed. Mrs. Carne, Mrs. Jeffreys, and Mrs. Petterick were on their best behaviour, but Beth had only to be natural. The county people were all nice to her, and the other town ladies, who had hitherto slighted her, looked on and wondered to see her so well received. At luncheon, as there were not gentlemen enough to go round, she sat between Sir George Galbraith and Mrs. Orton Beg. Mrs. Kilroy sat opposite. Sir George had known Mrs. Kilroy all her life. It was he, in fact, who nicknamed her and her brother "The Heavenly Twins" in the days when, as children, they used to be the delight of their grandfather, the old Duke of Morningquest, and the terror of their parents, Mr. and Lady Adeline Hamilton-Wells.

As soon as they were seated, Mrs. Kilroy attacked Sir George on some subject which they had previously discussed, and there ensued a little playful war of words.

"Oh, you're just a phrase-maker," Mrs. Kilroy exclaimed at last, finding herself worsted; "and phrases prove nothing."

"What is a phrase-maker?" he asked with a twinkle.

"Why, a phrase-maker is a person who recklessly launches a saying, winged by wit, and of superior brevity and distinctness, but not necessarily true--a saying which flies direct to the mind, and, being of a cutting nature, carves an indelible impression there," said Mrs. Kilroy--"an impression which numbs the intellect and prevents us reasoning for ourselves. Opinion is formed for the most part of phrases, not of knowledge and observation. The things people say smartly are quoted, not because they are true, but because they are smart. A lie well put will carry conviction to the average mind more surely than a good reason if ill-expressed, because most people have an aesthetic sense that is satisfied by a happy play upon words, but few have reason enough to discriminate when the brilliant ingenuity of the phrase-maker is pitted against a plain statement of the bald truth."

"As, for instance?" asked Sir George.

"Man's love is of his life a thing apart, 'Tis woman's whole existence,"

Mrs. Kilroy responded glibly. "That is quoted everywhere, and I have never heard it questioned, yet it is a flagrant case of confounding smartness with accuracy. Love of the kind that Byron meant is quite as much a thing apart from woman's life as from man's; more men, in fact, make the pursuit of it their whole existence than women do."

"You are right," said Sir George thoughtfully. "Love is certainly not a modern woman's whole existence, and she never dies of it. She feels it strongly, but it does not swamp her. In a bad attack, she may go to bed young one night and rise next day with grey hairs in her head, and write a book about it; but then she recovers: and I think you are right about phrases, too. 'Syllables govern the world,' John Selden said; but 'phrases' would have been the better word. Phrases are the keynotes to life; they set the tune to which men insensibly shape their course, and so rule us for good and ill. This is a time of talk, and formidable is the force of phrases. Catch-words are creative; they do not prove that a thing is--they cause it to be."

"Then an unscrupulous phrase-maker may be a danger to the community," Beth observed.

"Yes," said Sir George; "but on the other hand, one who is scrupulous would be a philanthropist of extraordinary power."

"Now, isn't that like his craft and subtlety, Evadne?" said Mrs. Kilroy to Lady Galbraith. "He has been gradually working up to that in order to make Mrs. Maclure suppose I intended to pay him a compliment when I called him a phrase-maker."

"You are taking a mean advantage of an honest attempt on my part to arrive at the truth," said Sir George.

"I believe you blundered into that without seeing in the least where you were going," Beth observed naively.

Everybody smiled, except Dan, who told her on the way home she had made a great mistake to say such a thing, and she must be careful in future, or she would give offence and make enemies for him.

"No fear with people like that," said Beth. "They all understood me."

"Which is as much as to say that your husband does not," said Dan, assuming his hurt expression. "Very well. Go your own way. But you'll be sorry for it."

"What a delightful person Mrs. Orton Beg is," Beth observed, to make a diversion; "and so nice-looking too!"

"You are easily pleased! Why, she's forty if she's a day!" Dan ejaculated, speaking as if that were to her discredit, and must deprive her of any consideration from him.

The next excitement was a military ball. Dan determined to go, and Beth was ready enough; she had never been to a ball.

"But how about a dress?" she said. "There has been such a sudden change in the fashion since mine were made, I'm afraid I have nothing that will do."

"Then get a new one," Dan said.

"What! and add to the bills?" Beth objected.

"Oh, bother the bills!" he answered in the tone he called cheery. "I've had them coming in all my life and I'm still here. Get a thing when you want it, and pay for it when you can--that's my motto. Why, my tailor's bill alone is up in the hundreds.

"But that was the bill mamma gave you the money to settle," Beth exclaimed.

"I know," he answered casually. "I got the money out of her for that, but I had to spend it on your amusement in town, my dear."

"Oh!" Beth ejaculated--"how could you?"

"How could I?" he answered coolly. "Well, I couldn't of course if I hadn't been clever; but I can always get anything I like out of old ladies. They dote on me. You've only got to amuse them, you know, and pour in a little sentiment on occasion. Let them understand you've been rather a naughty man, but you know what's right--that always fetches them. Your mother would have sold out all she had to help me when she found I meant to repent and settle. But of course I wouldn't take anything that was not absolutely necessary," he added magnanimously.

Beth compressed her lips and frowned. "Do you mean to say you obtained money from a poor woman like my mother for a special purpose which she approved, and spent that money on something else?" she asked.

Dan changed countenance. "I got the money from your mother to pay my tailor's bill; but the circumstance of your spending more money in town than I could afford compelled me to use it for another purpose," he answered in rather a blustering tone.

"I spent no money in town," Beth said.

"I had to spend it on you then," he rejoined, "and a nice lament you would have made if I hadn't! But it's all the same. Husband and wife are one; and I maintain that the money was given to me to pay a just debt, and I paid a just debt with it. Now, what have you to say against that to the disparagement of your husband?"

He looked Beth straight in the face as he spoke, as if the nature of the transaction would be changed by staring her out of countenance, and she returned his gaze unflinchingly; but not another word would she say on the subject. There is a sad majority of wives whose attitude towards their husbands must be one of contemptuous toleration--toleration of their past depravity and of their present deceits, whatever form they may take. Such a wife looks upon her husband as a hopeless incurable, because she knows that he has not the sense, even if he had the strength of character, to mend his moral defects. Beth fully realised her husband's turpitude with regard to the money, and also realised the futility of trying to make him see his own conduct in the matter in any light not flattering to himself, and she was deeply pained. She had taken it for granted that Dan would pay interest on the money, but had not troubled herself to find out if he were doing so, as she now thought that she ought to have done, for clearly she should have paid it herself if he did not. True, she never had any money; but that was no excuse, for there were honest ways of making money, and make it she would. She was on her way upstairs to her secret chamber to think the matter out undisturbed when she came to this determination; and as soon as she had shut herself in, she sank upon her knees, and vowed to God solemnly to pay back every farthing, and the interest in full, if she had to work her fingers to the bone. Curiously enough, it was with her fingers she first thought of working, not with her brain. She had seen an advertisement in a daily paper of several depots for the sale of "ladies' work" in London and other places, and she determined at once to try that method of making money. Work of all kinds came easily to her, and happily she still had her two sovereigns, which would be enough to lay in a stock of materials to begin with. Her pin-money Dan regularly appropriated as soon as it arrived, with the facetious remark that it would just pay for her keep; and so far Beth had let him have it without a murmur, yielding in that as in all else, however much against her own inclinations, for gentleness, and also with a vague notion of making up to him in some sort for his own shortcomings, which she could not help fancying must be as great a trouble to him as they were to her. She had grown to have a very real affection for Dan, as indeed she would have had for any one who was passably kind to her; but her estimate of his character, as she gradually became acquainted with it, was never influenced by her affection, except in so far as she pitied him for traits which would have made her despise another man.

Since her marriage she had given up her free, wild, wandering habits. She would go into the town to order things at the shops in the morning, and take a solitary walk out into the country in the afternoon perhaps, but without any keen enjoyment. Her natural zest for the woods and fields was suspended. She had lost touch with nature. Instead of looking about her observantly, as had been her wont, she walked now, as a rule, with her eyes fixed on the ground, thinking deeply. She was losing vitality too; her gait was less buoyant, and she was becoming subject to aches and pains she had never felt before. Dan said they were neuralgic, and showed that she wanted a tonic, but troubled himself no more about them. He always seemed to think she should be satisfied when he found a name for her complaint. She had also become much thinner, which made her figure childishly young; but in the face she looked old for her age--five-and-twenty at least--although she was not yet eighteen.

There was one particularly strong and happy point in Beth's character: she wasted little or no time in repining for the thing that was done. All her thought was how to remedy the evil and make amends; so now, when she had recovered from the first shock of her husband's revelation, she put the thought of it aside, pulled herself together quickly, and found relief in setting to work with a will. The exertion alone was inspiriting, and re-aroused the faculty which had been dormant in her of late. She went at once to get materials for her work, and stepped out more briskly than she had done for many a day. She perceived that the morning air was fresh and sweet, and she inhaled deep draughts of it, and rejoiced in the sunshine. Just opposite their house, across the road, on the other side of a wooden paling, the park-like meadow was intensely green; old horse-chestnuts dotted about it made refreshing intervals of shade; in the hedgerows the tall elms stood out clear against the sky, and the gnarled oaks cast fantastic shadows on the grass; while beyond it, at the farther side of the meadow by the brook, the row of Canadian poplars which bordered it kept up a continuous whispering, as was their wont, even on the stillest days. When Beth first heard them, they spoke a language to her which she comprehended but could not translate; but the immediate effect of her life with Dan had been to deaden her perception, so that she could not comprehend. Then the whispering became a mere rustle of leaves, appealing to nothing but her sense of hearing, and her delight in their murmur lapsed when its significance was lost to her spirit.

But that morning Nature spoke to her again and her eyes were opened. She saw the grey-green poplars, the gnarled oaks, the dark crests of the elms upraised against the radiant blue of the sky, and felt a thrill like triumph as she watched the great masses of cloud, dazzlingly white, floating in infinite space majestically. The life about her, too--the twittering of birds in the hedgerows; an Alderney cow with its calf in the fields; a young colt careering wildly, startled by a passing train; a big dog that saluted her with friendly nose as he trotted by--all these said something to her which made her feel that, let what might happen, it was good to be alive.

On her way into town she thought out a piece of work, something more original and effective than the things usually sold in fancy-work shops, which did not often please her. When she had bought all the materials that she required, there was very little of her two pounds left, but she returned in high spirits, carrying the rather large parcel herself, lest, if it were sent, it should arrive when Dan was at home and excite his curiosity. He always appeared if he heard the door-bell ring, and insisted on knowing who or what had come, an inquisitive trick that irritated Beth into baffling him whenever she could.

She carried her precious packet up to her secret chamber, and set to work at once. Dan, when he came in to lunch, was surprised to find her unusually cheerful. After the temper she had displayed at breakfast, he had expected to have anything but a pleasant time of it for a little. Seeing her in good spirits put him also into a genial mood, and he began at once to talk about himself--his favourite topic.

"Well, I've had a rattling hard day," he observed. "You'd be surprised at the amount I've done in the time. I don't believe any other man here could have done it. I was at that confounded hospital a couple of hours, and after that I had a round! People are beginning to send for me now as the last from school. They think I'm up to the latest dodges. The old men won't like it! I had to go out to the Pettericks to see that girl Bertha again. Their family doctor could make nothing of her case, but it's simple enough. The girl's hysterical, that's what she is; and I know what I'd like to prescribe for her, and that's a husband. Hee-hee! Soon cure her hysterics! As to the old girl, her mother, she's got"--then followed a minute description of her ailments, told in the baldest language. Of two words Dan always chose the coarsest in talking to Beth, now that they were married, which had made her writhe at first; but when she had remonstrated, he assumed an injured air, after which she silently endured the infliction for fear of wounding him. And it was the same with regard to his patients. The first time he described the ailment of a lady patient, and made gross comments about her, Beth had exclaimed--

"O Dan! what would she think of you if she knew you had told me? Surely it is a breach of confidence!"

"Well," he exclaimed, trying to wither her with a look, "you have a nice opinion of your husband! Is it possible that I cannot speak to my own wife without bringing such an accusation upon myself! Well, well! And I'm slaving for you morning, noon, and night, to keep you in some sort of decency and comfort; and when I come home, and do my best to be cheery and amuse you, instead of being morose after the strain of the day, as most men are, all the thanks I get is a speech like that! O holy matrimony!"

"I did not mean to annoy you, Dan; I'm sorry," Beth protested.

"So you should be!" he said; "so you should be! It's mighty hard for me to feel that my own wife hasn't confidence enough in me to be sure that I should never say a word either to her or anybody else about any of my patients to which they'd object."

"People feel differently on the subject, perhaps," Beth ventured. "I only know that if I had a doctor who talked to his wife about my complaints, I should"--despise him, was what she was going to say, but she changed the phrase--"I should not like it. But you should know what your own patients feel about it better than I do."

Even as she spoke, however, her mother's remark of long ago about a "talking doctor" recurred to her, and she felt lowered in her own estimation by the kind of concession she was making to him. The tragedy of such a marriage consists in the effect of the man's mind upon the woman's, shut up with him in the closest intimacy day and night, and all the time imbibing his poisoned thoughts. Beth's womanly grace pleaded with her continually not to hurt her husband since he meant no offence, not to damp his spirits even when they took a form so distasteful to her. To check him was to offend him and provoke a scene for nothing, since his taste was not to be improved; and she would have to have checked him perpetually, and made a mere nag of herself; for to talk in this way to her, to tell her objectionable stories, and harp on depravity of all kinds, was his one idea of pleasurable conversation. It was seldom, therefore, that she remonstrated--especially in those early days when she had not as yet perceived that by tacitly acquiescing she was lending herself to inevitable corruption.

Just at that time, too, she did not trouble herself much about anything. She was entirely absorbed in her new object in life--to get the work done, to make the money, to pay her mother with interest; there was continual exaltation of spirit in the endeavour. Every moment that she could safely secure, she spent in her secret chamber, hard at work. Her outlook was on the sky above, for ever changing; on the gay garden below, whence light airs wafted the fragrance of flowers from time to time, to her delight; and on a gentle green ascent, covered and crowned with trees, which shut out the world beyond. Here there was a colony of rooks, where the birds were busy all day long sometimes, and from which they were sometimes absent from early morning till sundown, when they came back cawing by ones and twos and threes, a long straggling procession of them, their dark iridescent forms with broad black wings outspread, distinct and decorative, against the happy blue. Beth loved the birds, and even as she worked she watched them, their housekeepings and comings and goings; and heard their talk; and often as she worked she looked out at the fair prospect and up at the sky hopefully, and vowed again to accomplish one act of justice at all events. She stopped her regular studies at this time, because she conceived them to be for her own mere personal benefit, while the task which she had set herself was for a better purpose. But, although she did not study as had been her wont, while she sewed she occupied her mind in a way that was much more beneficial to it than the purposeless acquisition of facts, the solving of mathematical problems, or conning of parts of speech. Beside her was always an open book, it might be a passage of Scripture, a scene from Shakespeare, a poem or paragraph rich in the wisdom and beauty of some great mind; and as she sewed she dwelt upon it, repeating it to herself until she was word-perfect in it, then making it even more her own by earnest contemplation. These passages became the texts of many observations; and in them was also the light which showed her life as it is, and as it should be lived. In meditating upon them she taught herself to meditate; and in following up the clues they gave her in the endeavour to discriminate and to judge fairly, by slow degrees she acquired the precious habit of clear thought. This lifted her at once above herself as she had been; and what she had lost of insight and spiritual perception since her marriage, she began to recover in another and more perfect form. Wholesome consideration of the realities of life now took the place of fanciful dreams. Her mind, wonderfully fertilised, teemed again--not with vain imaginings, however, as heretofore, but with something more substantial. Purposeful thought was where the mere froth of sensuous seeing had been; and it was thought that now clamoured for expression instead of the verses and stories--fireworks of the brain, pleasant, transient, futile distractions with nothing more nourishing in them than the interest and entertainment of the moment--which had occupied her chiefly from of old. It was natural to Beth to be open, to discuss all that concerned herself with her friends; but having no one to talk to now, she began on a sudden to record her thoughts and impressions in writing; and having once begun, she entered upon a new phase of existence altogether. She had discovered a recreation which was more absorbing than anything she had ever tried before; for her early scribbling had been of another kind, not nearly so entrancing. Then it had been the idle gossip of life, and the mere pictorial art of word-painting, an ingenious exercise, that had occupied her; now it was the more soul-stirring themes in the region of philosophy and ethics which she pursued, and scenes and phases of life interested her only as the raw material from which a goodly moral might be extracted. Art for art's sake she despised, but in art for man's sake she already discovered noble possibilities. But her very delight in her new pursuit made her think it right to limit her indulgence in it. Duty she conceived to be a painful effort necessarily, but writing was a pleasure; she therefore attended first conscientiously to her embroidery, and any other task she thought it right to perform, although her eager impatience to get back to her desk made each in turn a toil to her. Like many another earnest person, she mistook the things of no importance for things that matter because the doing of them cost her much; and it was the intellectual exercise, the delicate fancy work of her brain, a matter of enormous consequence, that she neglected. Not knowing that "If a man love the labour of any trade, apart from any question of success or fame, the gods have called him," she made the fitting of herself for the work of her life her last exercise at the tired end of the day. She rose early and went to bed late in order to gain a little more time to write, but never suspected that her delight in the effort to find expression for what was in her mind of itself proclaimed her one of the elect.

When she had finished her embroidery, she despatched it secretly to the depot in London; but then she found that she would have to pay a small subscription before she could have it sold there, and she had no money. She wrote boldly to the secretary and told her so, and asked if the subscription could not be paid out of the price she got for her work. The secretary replied that it was contrary to the rules, but the committee thought that such an artistically beautiful design as hers was sure to be snapped up directly, and they had therefore decided to make an exception in her case.

While these letters were going backwards and forwards, Beth suffered agonies of anxiety lest Dan should pounce upon them and discover her secret; but he happened to be out always at post-time just then, so she managed to secure them safely.

As she had no money, she could not buy any more materials for embroidery, so she was obliged to take a holiday, the greater part of which she spent in writing. She was deeply engrossed by thoughts on progress, which had been suggested by a passage in one of Emerson's essays: "All conservatives are such from natural defects. They have been effeminated by position or nature, born halt and blind, through luxury of their parents, and can only, like invalids, act on the defensive." Even in her own little life Beth had seen so much of the ill effects of conservatism in the class to which she belonged, and had suffered so much from it herself already, that the subject appealed to her strongly, and she pursued it with enthusiasm--more from the social than the political point of view, however. But, unfortunately, in all too short a time, her holiday came to an end. Her beautiful embroidery had sold for six guineas, and she found herself with the money for more materials, and three pounds in hand besides, clear profit, towards the debt. She had also received an order from the depot for another piece of work at the same price, which caused her considerable elation, and set her to work again with a will; and it was only when she could no longer ply her needle that she allowed herself to take up her pen.

Chapter XXXIX

Beth had no more zest for the ball after that conversation with Daniel about the money her mother had given him. She felt obliged to go to it because he insisted that it was necessary for the wives of professional men to show themselves on public occasions; but she would not get a new dress. She had never worn her white silk trimmed with myrtle, and when she came to look at it again, she decided that it was not so much out of the fashion after all, and, at any rate, it must do.

When she came down to dinner dressed in it on the night of the ball, she looked very winsome, and smiled up at Dan in shy expectation of a word of approval; but none came. In the early days of their acquaintance he had remarked that she was much more easily depressed than elated about herself, and would be the better of a little more confidence--not to say conceit; but since their marriage he had never given her the slightest sympathy or encouragement to cure her of her diffidence. If anything were amiss in her dress or appearance, he told her of it in the offensive manner of an ill-conditioned under-bred man, generally speaking when they were out of doors, or in some house where she could do nothing to put herself right, as if it were some satisfaction to him to make her feel ill at ease; and if she were complimented by any one else about anything, he had usually something derogatory to say on the subject afterwards. Now, when he had inspected her, he sat down to table without a word.

"Is there anything wrong?" Beth asked anxiously.

"No," he answered. "That stuff on your sleeves might have been fresher, that's all."

"This will be my first ball," Beth ventured, breaking a long silence.

"Well, don't go and tell everybody," he rejoined. "They'll think you want to make yourself interesting, and it's nothing to boast about. Just lay yourself out to be agreeable to people who will further your husband's interests, for once."

"But am I not always agreeable?" Beth exclaimed, much mortified.

"It doesn't appear so," he answered drily. "At any rate, you don't seem to go down here."

"How do you mean?" Beth asked.

"Why, the ladies in the place all seem to shun you, for some reason or other; not one of them ever comes near you in a friendly way."

"They were all very nice to me the other day at Beg," Beth protested, her heart sinking at this recurrence of the old reproach; for to be shunned, or in any way set apart, seemed even more dreadful to her now than it had done when she was a child.

"See that they keep it up then," he answered grimly.

"If it depends upon me, they will," said Beth, setting her sensitive mouth in a hard determined line that added ten years to her age and did not improve her beauty. And it was with a sad heart, and sorely dissatisfied with herself, that she drove to her first ball.

When they entered the ball-room, however, and Dan beamed about him on every one in his "thoroughly good fellow" way, her spirits rose. The decorations, the handsome uniforms, the brilliant dresses and jewels, the flowers and foliage plants, and, above all, the bright dance-music and festive faces, delighted her, and she gazed about her with lips just parted in a little smile, wondering to find it all so gay.

A young military man was brought up to her and introduced by one of the stewards before she had been five minutes in the room. He asked for the pleasure of a dance; but, alas! thanks to the scheme of education at the Royal Service School for Officers' Daughters having been designed by the authorities to fit the girls for the next world only, Beth could not dance. She had had some lessons at Miss Blackburne's, but not enough to give her confidence, so she was obliged to decline. Another and another would-be partner, and some quite important people, as Dan said, offered, but in vain; and he looked furious.

"Well," he exclaimed, "this is nice for me!"

"I am sorry," Beth answered nervously. She was beginning to have a painful conviction that a man had to depend almost entirely on his wife for his success in life, and the responsibility made her quail.

"I shall have to go and do my duty, at any rate," he proceeded. "I must leave you alone."

"Yes, do," said Beth. "Mrs. Kilroy and Mrs. Orton Beg have just come in; I will go and join them." She naturally expected Dan to escort her, and he probably would have done so had he waited to hear what she was saying; but his marital manners were such that he had taken himself off while she was speaking, and left her to fend for herself. She was too glad, however, to see her charming new acquaintances, who had been so kindly, to care much, and she crossed the room to them, smiling confidently. As she approached, she saw that they recognised her and said something to each other. When she came close, they both bowed coldly, and turned their heads in the opposite direction.

Beth stopped short and her heart stood still. The slight was unmistakable; but what had she done? She looked about her as if for an explanation, and saw Lady Beg close beside her, talking to Mrs. Carne.

"Ah, how do you do? Nice ball, isn't it?" Lady Beg observed, but without shaking hands.

"How do you do?" said Mrs. Carne, and then they resumed their conversation, taking no further notice of Beth, who would probably have turned and fled from the dreadful place incontinently, if Mrs. Petterick had not come up at that moment and spoken to her as one human being to another, seizing upon Beth as Beth might have seized upon her, in despair; for Mrs. Petterick had also been having her share of snubs. Oh, those Christians! how they do love one another! how tender they are to one another's feelings! how careful to make the best of one another! how gentle, good, and kind, and true! How singular it is that when the wicked unbeliever comes to live amongst them, and sees them as they are, he is not immediately moved by admiration to adopt their religion in order that he also may acquire the noble attributes so conspicuously displayed by them!

"You're not dancing, my dear," Mrs. Petterick said. "Come along and sit with me on that couch against the wall yonder. We shall see all that's going on from there."

Beth was only too thankful to go. A waltz was being played, and Dan passed them, dancing with Bertha Petterick. They glided over the floor together with the gentle voluptuous swing, dreamy eyes, and smiling lips of two perfect dancers, conscious of nothing but the sensuous delight of interwoven paces and clasping arms.

"My! but they do step well together, him and Bertha!" Mrs. Petterick exclaimed. "He's a handsome man, your husband, and a gay one--flirting about with all the ladies! I wonder you're not jealous!"

"Jealous!" Beth answered, smiling. "Not I, indeed! Jealousy is a want of faith in one's self."

"Well, my dear, if you always looked as well as you do just now, you need not want confidence in yourself," Mrs. Petterick observed. "But what would you do if your husband gave you cause for jealousy?"

"Despise him," Beth answered promptly.

Mrs. Petterick looked as if she could make nothing of this answer. Then she became uneasy. The music had stopped, but Bertha had not returned to her. "I must go and look after my daughter," she said, rising from her comfortable seat with a sigh. "Gels are a nuisance. You've got to keep your eye on them all the time, or you never know what they're up to."

Beth stayed where she was, and soon began to feel uncomfortable. People stared coldly at her as they passed, and she could not help fancying herself the subject of unpleasant remark because she was alone. She prayed hard that some one would come and speak to her. Dan had disappeared. After a time she recognised Sir George Galbraith among the groups of people at the opposite side of the room. He was receiving that attention from every one which is so generously conferred on a man or woman of consequence, whose acquaintance adds to people's own importance, and to whom it is therefore well to be seen speaking; but although his manner was courteously attentive he looked round as if anxious to make his escape, and finally, to Beth's intense relief, he recognised her, and, leaving the group about him unceremoniously, came across the room to speak to her.

"Would it be fair to ask you to sit out a dance with me?" he said. "I do not dance."

"I would rather sit out a dance with you than dance it with any one else I know here," she answered naively; "but, as it happens, I do not dance either."

"Indeed! How is that? I should have thought you would like dancing."

"So I should, I am sure, if I could," she replied. "But I can't dance at all. They would not let me learn dancing at one school where I was, and I was not long enough at the other to learn properly."

"Now, that is a pity," he said, considering Beth, his professional eye having been struck by her thinness and languor. "But have some lessons. Dancing in moderation is capital exercise, and it exhilarates; and anything that exhilarates increases one's vitality. Why don't you make your husband teach you? He seems to know all about it."

"Yes," Beth answered, smiling; "but I shouldn't think teaching me is at all in his line. Why don't you dance yourself?"

"Oh, I am far too clumsy," he said good-naturedly. "My wife says if I could even learn to move about a room without getting in the way and upsetting things, it would be something."

"Is she here to-night?" Beth asked.

"No, she was not feeling up to it," he answered. "She tired herself in the garden this afternoon, helping me to bud roses."

"Oh, can you bud roses?" Beth exclaimed. "I should so like to know how it is done."

"I'll show you with pleasure."

"Will you really?" said Beth. "How kind of you."

"Not at all. Let me see, when will you be at home? We mustn't lose any time, or it will be too late in the year."

"I'm pretty nearly always at home," Beth said.

"Then if I came to-morrow morning would that be convenient?"

"Quite; and I hope you will stay lunch," Beth answered.

Dan returned to the ball-room just then, and, on seeing who was with her, he immediately joined them; but Sir George only stayed long enough to exchange greetings politely.

"You seem to get on very well with Galbraith," Dan observed.

"Don't you like him?" Beth asked in surprise, detecting a note of enmity in his voice.

"I haven't had much chance," he said bitterly. "He doesn't play the agreeable to me as he does to you."

Beth missed the drift of this remark in considering the expression "play the agreeable," which was unpleasantly suggestive to her of under-bred gentility.

"You will be able to give him an opportunity to-morrow then," she said, "if you are in at lunch-time, for he is coming to show me how to bud roses, and I have asked him to stay."

"Have you, indeed?" Dan exclaimed, obviously displeased, but why or wherefore Beth could not conceive. "I hope to goodness there's something to eat in the house," he added upon reflection, fussily.

"There is as much as there always is," Beth placidly rejoined.

"Well, that's not enough then. Just think what a man like that has on his own table!"

"A man like that won't expect our table to be like his."

"You'd better make it appear so for once then, or you'll be having our hospitality criticised as I heard the Barrack fellows criticise Mrs. Jeffery's the other day. A couple of them called about lunch-time, and she asked them to stay, and they said there was nothing but beer and sherry, and the fragments of a previous feast, and they were blessed if they'd go near the old trout again."

"An elegant expression!" said Beth. "It gives the measure of the mind it comes from. Please don't introduce the person who uses it to me. But as to Sir George Galbraith, you need not be afraid that he will accept hospitality and criticise it in that spirit. He will neither grumble at a cutlet, nor describe his hostess by a vulgar epithet after eating it."

She shut her mouth hard after speaking. Disillusion is a great enlightener; our insight is never so clear as when it is turned on the character of a person in whom we used to believe; and as Dan gradually revealed himself to Beth, trait by trait, a kind of distaste seized upon her, a want of respect, which found involuntary expression in trenchant comments upon his observations and in smart retorts. She did not seek sympathy from him now for the way in which she had been slighted at the ball, knowing perfectly well that he was more likely to blame her than anybody else. He had, in fact, by this time, so far as any confidence she might have reposed in him was concerned, dropped out of her life completely, and left her as friendless and as much alone as she would have been with the veriest stranger.

That night when she went home she felt world-worn and weary, but next morning, out in the garden with Sir George Galbraith budding roses, she became young again. Before they had been together half-an-hour she was chatting to him with girlish confidence, telling him about her attempts to cultivate her mind, her reading and writing, to all of which he listened without any of that condescension in his manner which Dan displayed when perchance he was in a good-humour and Beth had ventured to expand. Sir George was genuinely interested.

Dan came in punctually to lunch, for a wonder. He glanced at Beth's animated face sharply when he entered, but took no further notice of her. He was one of those husbands who have two manners, a coarse one for their families, and another, much more polished, which they assume when it is politic to be refined. But Dan's best behaviour sat ill upon him, because it was lacking in sincerity, and Beth suffered all through lunch because of the obsequious pose he thought it proper to assume towards his distinguished guest.

After lunch, when Sir George had gone, he took up his favourite position before the mirror over the chimney-piece, and stood there for a little, looking at himself and caressing his moustache.

"You talk a great deal too much, Beth," he said at last.

"Do you think so?" she rejoined.

"Yes, I do," he assured her. "Of course Galbraith had to be polite and affect to listen, but I could see that he was bored by your chatter. He naturally wanted to talk to me about things that interest men."

"Then why on earth didn't he talk to you?" Beth asked.

"How could he when you monopolised the conversation?"

"It was he who kept me talking," she protested.

"Oh yes; I notice you are very animated when anything in the shape of a man comes in," Dan sneered.

Beth got up and left the room, less affected by the insinuation, however, than by the vulgar expression of it.

The following week Sir George came in one morning with some cuttings, and stayed a while in the garden with Beth, showing her how to set them; but he would not wait for lunch. Dan showed considerable annoyance when he heard of the visit.

"He should come when I am at home," he said. "It is damned bad taste his coming when you are alone."

The next time Sir George came Dan happened to be in, to Beth's relief. She had brought her writing down that day, and was working at it on the dining-room table, not expecting Dan till much later. He was in a genial mood, for a wonder.

"What on earth are you scribbling about there?" he asked.

"Just something I was thinking about," Beth answered evasively.

"Going in for authorship, eh?"

"Why not?" said Beth.

Dan laughed. "You are not at all ambitious," he remarked; then added patronisingly, "A little of that kind of thing will do you no harm, of course; but, my dear child, your head wouldn't contain a book, and if you were just a little cleverer you would know that yourself."

Beth bit the end of her pencil and looked at him dispassionately, and it was at this moment that Sir George Galbraith was announced.

Dan received him with effusion as usual; and also, as usual, Sir George responded with all conventional politeness, but the greeting over, he turned his attention to Beth. He had brought her a packet of books.

"This looks like work in earnest," he said, glancing at the table. "I see you have a good deal of something done. Is it nearly finished?"

"All but," Beth rejoined.

"What are you going to do with it?"

Beth looked at him, and then at her manuscript vaguely. "I don't know," she said. "What can I do with it?"

"Publish it, if it is good," he answered.

"But how am I to know?" Beth asked eagerly. "Do you think it possible I could do anything fit to publish?"

Before he could reply, Dan chimed in. "I've just been telling her," he said, "that little heads like hers can't contain books. It's all very well to scribble a little for pastime, and all that, but she mustn't seriously imagine she can do that sort of work. She'll only do herself harm. Literature is men's work."

"Yet how many women have written, and written well, too," Beth observed.

"Oh yes, of course--exceptional women."

"And why mayn't I be an exceptional woman?" Beth asked, smiling.

"Coarse and masculine!" Dan exclaimed. "No, thank you. We don't want you to be one of that kind--do we, Galbraith?"

"There is not the slightest fear," Sir George answered dryly. "Besides, I don't think any class of women workers--not even the pit-brow women--are necessarily coarse and masculine. And I differ from you, too, with regard to that head," he added, fixing his keen, kindly eyes deliberately on Beth's cranium till she laughed to cover her embarrassment, and put up both hands to feel it. "I should say there was good promise both of sense and capacity in the size and balance of it--not to mention anything else."

"Well, you ought to know if anybody does," said Dan with a facetious sort of affectation of agreement, which left no doubt of his insincerity.

"I wish," Sir George continued, addressing Beth, "you would let me show some of your work to a lady, a friend of mine, whose opinion is well worth having."

"I would rather have yours," Beth jerked out.

"Oh, mine is no good," he rejoined. "But if you will let me read what you give me to show my lady, I should be greatly interested. We were talking about style in prose the other day, and I have ventured to bring you these books--some of our own stylists, and some modern Frenchmen. You read French, I know."

"There is nothing like the French," Dan chimed in. "We have no literature at all now. Look at their work compared to ours, how short, crisp, and incisive it is! How true to life! A Frenchman will give you more real life in a hundred pages than our men do in all their interminable volumes."

"More sexuality, you mean, I suppose," said Galbraith, "Personally I find them monotonous, and barren of happy phrases to enrich the mind, of noble sentiments to expand the heart, of great thoughts to help the soul; without balance, with little of the redeeming side of life, and less aspiration towards it. If France is to be judged by the tendency of its literature and art at present, one would suppose it to be dominated and doomed to destruction by a gang of lascivious authors and artists who are sapping the manhood of the country and degrading the womanhood by idealising self-indulgence and mean intrigue. The man or woman who lives low, or even thinks low, in that sense of the word, will tend always to descend still lower in times of trial. Moral probity is the backbone of our courage; without it we have nothing to support us when a call is made upon our strength."[1]

[1] The truth of this assertion was lately proved in a terrible manner at the burning of the Charity Bazaar in the Rue Jean Goujon, when the nerves of the luxurious gentlemen present, debilitated by close intimacy with the haute cocotterie in and out of society, betrayed them, and they displayed the white feather of vice by fighting their own way out, not only leaving the ladies to their fate, but actually beating them back with their sticks and trampling on them in their frantic efforts to save themselves, as many a bruised white arm or shoulder afterwards testified. There was scarcely a man burnt on the occasion, husbands, lovers, and fathers escaped, leaving all the heroic deeds to be done by some few devoted men-servants, some workmen who happened to be passing, a stray Englishman or American, and mothers who perished in attempting to rescue their children.

"I can't stand English authors myself," was Dan's reply. "They're so devilish long-winded, don't you know."

"Poverty of mind accounts for the shortness of the book as a rule," said Galbraith. "I like a long book myself when it is rich in thought. The characters become companions then, and I miss them when we are forced to part."

Beth nodded assent to this. She had been turning over the books that Galbraith had brought her, with the tender touch of a true book-lover and that evident interest and pleasure which goes far beyond thanks. Mere formal thanks she forgot to express, but she had brightened up in the most wonderful way since Galbraith appeared, and was all smiles when he took his leave.

Not so Dan, however; but Beth was too absorbed in the books to notice that.

"How kind he is!" she exclaimed. "Dan, won't it be delightful if I really can write? I might make a career for myself."

"Rot!" said Dan.

"Sir George differs from you," Beth rejoined.

"I say that's all rot. What does he know about it? I tell you you're a silly fool, and your head wouldn't contain a book. I ought to know!"

"Doctors differ again, then, it seems," Beth said. "But in this case the patient is going to decide for herself. What is the use of opinion in such matters? One must experiment. I'm going to write, and if at first I don't succeed--I shall persevere."

"Oh, of course!" Dan sneered. "You'll take anybody's advice but your husband's. However, go your own way, as I know you will. Only, I warn you, you'll regret it."

Beth was dipping into one of the books, and took no notice of this. Dan's ill-humour augmented.

"Did you know the fellow was coming to-day?" he asked.

"No--if by fellow you mean Sir George Galbraith," she answered casually, still intent on the book.

"You know well enough who I mean, and that's just a nag," he retorted. "And it looks uncommonly as if you did expect him, and had set all that rubbish of writing out to make a display."

Beth bit the end of her pencil, and looked at Dan contemptuously.

"I dare say he'd like to get hold of you to make a tool of you," he pursued. "He's in with Lord Dawne and the whole of that advanced woman's party at Morne, who are always interfering with everything."

"How?" Beth asked.

"By poking their noses into things that don't concern them," he asseverated, "things they wouldn't know anything about if they weren't damned nasty-minded. There's that fanatical Lady Fulda Guthrie, and Mrs. Orton Beg, and Mrs. Kilroy, besides Madam Ideala--they're all busybodies, and if they succeed in what they're at just now, by Jove, they'll ruin me! I'll have my revenge, though, if they do! I'll attack your distinguished friend. He has established himself as a humanitarian, and travels on that reputation; but he has an hospital of his own, where I have no doubt some pretty games are played in the way of experiments which the public don't suspect. I know the kind of thing! Patients mustn't ask questions! The good doctor will do his best for them--trust him! He'll try nothing that he doesn't know to be for their good; and when they're under chloroform he'll take no unfair advantage in the way of cutting a little more for his own private information than they've consented to. Oh, I know! Galbraith seems to be by way of slighting me, but I'll show him up if it comes to that--and, at any rate, I'm on the way to discoveries myself, and I bet I'll teach him some things in his profession yet that will make him sit up--things he doesn't suspect, clever and all as he is."

Beth knew nothing of the things to which Dan alluded, and therefore missed the drift of this tirade; but the whole tone of it was so offensive to her that she gathered up her books and papers and left the room. Silence and flight were her weapons of defence in those days.

Chapter XL

There was a gap of six months between that last visit of Sir George Galbraith's and the next, and in the interval Beth had worked hard, reading and re-reading the books he had lent her, writing, and perhaps most important of all, reflecting, as she sat in her secret chamber, busy with the beautiful embroideries which were to pay off that dreadful debt. She had made seven pounds by this time, and Aunt Grace Mary had sent her five for a present surreptitiously, advising her to keep it herself and say nothing about it--Aunt Grace Mary knew what husbands were. Beth smiled as she read the letter. She, too, was beginning to know what husbands are--husbands of the Uncle James kind. She added the five pounds to her secret hoard, and thanked goodness that the sum was mounting up, little by little.

But she wished Sir George would return. He was a busy man, and lived at the other side of the county, so that she could not expect him to come to Slane on her account; but surely something more important would bring him eventually, and then she might hope to see him. She knew he would not desert her. And she had some manuscript ready to confide to him now if he should repeat his offer; but she was too diffident to send it to him except at his special request.

She was all energy now that the possibility of making a career for herself had been presented to her, but it was the quietly restrained energy of a strong nature. She never supposed that she could practise a profession without learning it, and she was prepared to serve a long apprenticeship to letters if necessary. She meant to write and write and write until she acquired power of expression. About what she should have to express she never troubled herself. It was the need to express what was in her that had set her to work. She would never have to sit at a writing-table with a pen in her hand waiting for ideas to come. She had discovered by accident that she could have books in plenty, and of the kind she required, from the Free Library at Slane. Dan never troubled himself to consult her taste in books, but he was in the habit of bringing home three-volume novels for himself from the library, a form of literature he greatly enjoyed in spite of his strictures. He made Beth read them aloud to him in the evening, one after the other--an endless succession--while he smoked, and drank whiskies-and-sodas. He brought them home himself at first, but soon found it a trouble to go for them, and so sent her; and then it was she discovered that there were other books in the library. The librarian, an educated and intelligent man, helped her often in the choice of books. They had long talks together, during which he made many suggestions, and gave Beth many a hint and piece of information that was of value to her. He was her only congenial friend in Slane, and her long conversations with him often took her out of herself and raised her spirits. He little suspected what a help he was to the lonely little soul. For the most part she took less interest in the books themselves than in the people who wrote them; biographies, autobiographies, and any scrap of anecdote about authors and their methods she eagerly devoured. Life as they had lived it, not as they had observed and imagined it, seemed all-important to her; and as she read and thought, sitting alone in the charmed solitude of her secret chamber, her self-respect grew. Her mind, which had run riot, fancy-fed with languorous dreams in the days when it was unoccupied and undisciplined, came steadily more and more under control, and grew gradually stronger as she exercised it. She ceased to rage and worry about her domestic difficulties, ceased to expect her husband to add to her happiness in any way, ceased to sorrow for the slights and neglects that had so wounded and perplexed her during the first year of her life in Slane; and learnt by degrees to possess her soul in dignified silence so long as silence was best, feeling in herself that something which should bring her up out of all this and set her apart eventually in another sphere, among the elect--feeling this through her further faculty to her comfort, although unable as yet to give it any sort of definite expression. As she read of those who had gone before, she felt a strange kindred with them; she entered into their sorrows, understood their difficulties, was uplifted by their aspirations, and gloried in their successes. Their greatness never disheartened her; on the contrary, she was at home with them in all their experiences, and at her ease as she never was with the petty people about her. It delighted her when she found in them some small trait or habit which she herself had already developed or contracted, such as she found in the early part of George Sand's Histoire de ma Vie, and in the lives of the Brontes. Under the influence of nourishing books, her mind, sustained and stimulated, became nervously active. It had a trick of flashing off from the subject she was studying to something wholly irrelevant. She would begin Emerson's essay on Fate or Beauty with enthusiasm, and presently, with her eyes still following the lines, her thoughts would be busy forming a code of literary principles for herself. In those days her mind was continually under the influence of any author she cared about, particularly if his style were mannered. Involuntarily, while she was reading Macaulay, for instance, her own thoughts took a dogmatic turn, and jerked along in short, sharp sentences. She caught the peculiarities of De Quincey too, of Carlyle, and also some of the simple dignity of Ruskin, which was not so easy; and she had written things after the manner of each of these authors before she perceived the effect they were having upon her. But it was unfortunate for her that her attention had been turned from the matter which she had to express to the manner in which she should express it. From the time she began to think of the style and diction of prose as something to be separately acquired, the spontaneous flow of her thoughts was checked and hampered, and she expended herself in fashioning her tools, as it were, instead of using her tools to fashion her work. When, in her reading, she came under the influence of academic minds, she lost all natural freshness, and succeeded in being artificial. Her English became turgid with Latinities. She took phrases which had flowed from her pen, and were telling in their simple eloquence, and toiled at them, turning and twisting them until she had laboured all the life out of them; and then, mistaking effort for power, and having wearied herself, she was satisfied. Being too diffident to suspect that she had any natural faculty, she conceived that the more trouble she gave herself the better must be the result; and consequently she did nothing worth the doing except as an exercise of ingenuity. She was serving her apprenticeship, however--making her mistakes.

It was late in the autumn before she saw her good friend Sir George Galbraith again. He came on a bright, clear, frosty morning, and found her out in the garden, pacing up and down briskly, and looking greatly exhilarated by the freshness. When she saw him coming towards her, she uttered a little joyful exclamation, and hurried forward to meet him.

"I have been longing to see you," she said in her unaffected way; "but I know what the distance is, and how fully your time is occupied. It is very good of you to come at all."

"Only the time and distance have prevented me coming sooner," he rejoined. "But, tell me, how have you been getting on? And have you thought any more of making a career for yourself?"

"I have thought of nothing else," Beth answered brightly; "and I wonder I ever thought of anything else, for the idea has been in me, I believe, all my life. I must have discussed it, too, at a very early age, for I have remembered lately that I was once advised by an old aunt of mine, the best and dearest friend I ever had, to write only that which is--or aims at being--soul-sustaining."

He nodded his head approvingly. "From such seed a good crop should come," he said. "But what line shall you take?"

"I don't know."

"Not novels then, for certain?"

"Nothing for certain--whatever comes and calls for expression."

They were pacing up and down together, and there was a pause.

"Did you expect I should try to write novels, and do you think I ought?" Beth asked at last.

"I think I did expect it," he answered; "but as to whether you ought or ought not, that is for you to decide. There is much to be said against novel reading and writing. I think it was De Quincey who said that novels are the opium of the West; and I have myself observed that novel-reading is one of those bad habits that grow upon people until they are enslaved by it, demoralised by it; and if that is the case with the reader, what must the writer suffer?"

Beth bent her brows upon this. "But that is only one side of it, is it not?" she asked after a moment's reflection. "I notice in all things a curious duality, a right side and a wrong side. Confusion is the wrong side of order, misery of happiness, falsehood of truth, evil of good; and it seems to me that novel-reading, which can be a vice, I know, may also be made a virtue. It depends on the writer."

"And on the taste of the reader," he suggested. "But I believe the taste of the intelligent 'general reader' is much better than one supposes. The mind craves for nourishment; and the extraordinary success of books in which any attempt, however imperfect, is made to provide food for thought, as distinguished from those which merely offer matter to distract the attention, bears witness, it seems to me, to the involuntary effort which is always in progress to procure it. I believe myself that good fiction may do more to improve the mind, enlarge the sympathies, and develop the judgment than any other form of literature--partly because it looks into the hidden springs of action, and makes all that is obscure in the way of impulse and motive clear to us. Biography, for instance, merely skims the surface of life, as a rule; and in history, where man is a puppet moved by events, there can be very little human nature."

"I wonder if you read many novels," said Beth. "I have to read them aloud to my husband until I am satiated. And I am determined, if I ever do try to write one, to avoid all that is conventional. I never will have a faultlessly beautiful heroine, for instance. I am sick of that creature. When I come to her, especially if she has golden hair yards long, a faultless complexion, and eyes of extraordinary dimensions, I feel inclined to groan and shut the book. I have met her so often in the weary ways of fiction! I know every variety of her so well! She consists of nothing but superlatives, and is as conventional as the torso of an Egyptian statue, with her everlasting physical perfection. I think her as repulsive as a barber's block. I confess that a woman who has golden hair and manages to look like a lady, or to be like one even in a book, is a wonder, considering all that is associated with golden hair in our day; but I should avoid the abnormal as much as the conventional. I would not write plotty-plotty books either, nor make a pivot of the everlasting love-story, which seems to me to show such a want of balance in an author, such an absence of any true sense of proportion, as if there was nothing else of interest in life but our sexual relations. But, oh!" she broke off, "how I do appreciate what the difficulty of selection must be! In writing a life, if one could present all sides of it, and not merely one phase--the good and the bad of it, the joys and the sorrows, the moments of strength and of weakness, of wisdom and of folly, of misery and of pure delight--what a picture!"

"Yes; and how utterly beyond the average reader, who never understands complexity," he answered. "But I think it a good sign for your chances of success that you should have complained of the difficulty of selection in the matter of material rather than bemoan your want of experience of life. Most young aspirants to literary fame grumble that they are handicapped for want of experience. They are seldom content with the material they have at hand--the life they know. They want to go and live in London, where they seem to think that every one worth knowing is to be found."

"That isn't my feeling at all," said Beth. "The best people may be met in London, but I don't believe that they are at their best. The friction of the crowd rubs out their individuality. In a crowd I feel mentally as if I were in a maze of telegraph wires. The thoughts of so many people streaming out in all directions about me entangle and bewilder me."

"You do not seem to like anything exceptional."

"No, I do not," said Beth. "I like the normal--the everyday. Great events are not the most significant, nor are great people the most typical. It is the little things that make life livable. The person who comes and talks clever is not the person we love, nor the person who interests us most. Those we love sympathise with us in the ordinary everyday incidents of our lives, and discuss them with us, merely touching, if at all, on the thoughts they engender. I don't want to know what people think as a rule; I want to know what they have experienced. People who talk facts, I like; people who talk theories, I fly from. And I think upon the whole that I shall always like the kind people better than the clever ones. I believe we owe more to them, too, and learn more from them--more human nature, which after all is what we want to know."

"But the clever people are kind also sometimes," said Sir George.

"When they are, of course it is perfect," Beth answered. "But judging the clever ones of to-day by what they write, I cannot often think them so. The works of our smartest modern writers, particularly the French, satiate me with their cleverness; but they are vain, hollow, cynical, dyspeptic; they appeal to the head, but the heart goes empty away. Few of them know or show the one thing needful--that happiness is the end of life; and that by trying to live rightly we help each other to happiness. That is the one thing well worth understanding in this world; but that, with all their ingenuity, they are not intelligent enough to see."

"You are an optimist, I perceive," Sir George said, smiling, "and I entirely agree with you. So long as we understand that happiness is the end of life, and that the best way to secure it for ourselves is by helping others to attain to it, we are travelling in the right direction. By happiness I do not mean excitement, of course, nor the pleasure we owe to others altogether; but that quiet content in ourselves, that large toleration and love which should overflow from us continually, and make the fact of our existence a source of joy and strength to all who know us."

They walked up and down a little in silence, then Sir George asked her what she thought of some of the specimens of style and art in literature he had lent her to study.

"I don't know yet," Beth said. "My mind is in a state of chaos on the subject. I seem to reject 'style' and 'art.' I ask for something more or something else, and am never satisfied. But tell me what you think of the stylists."

"I think them brilliant," he rejoined, "but their work is as the photograph is to the painting, the lifeless accuracy of the machine to the nervous fascinating faultiness of the human hand. No, I don't care for the writers who are specially praised for their style. I find their productions cold and bald as a rule. I want something warmer--more full-blooded. Most of the stylists write as if they began by acquiring a style and then had to sit and wait for a subject. I believe style is the enemy of matter. You compress all the blood out of your subject when you make it conform to a studied style, instead of letting your style form itself out of the necessity for expression. This is rank heresy, I know, and I should not have ventured on it a few years ago; but now, I say, give me a style that is the natural outcome of your subject, your mind, your character, not an artificial but a natural product; and even though it be as full of faults as human nature is, faults of every kind, so long as there is no fault of the heart in it, that being the one unpardonable fault in an author--if you have put your own individuality into your work--I'll answer for it that you will arrive sooner and be read longer than the most admired stylist of the day. Be prepared to sacrifice form to accuracy, to avoid the brilliant and the marvellous for the simple and direct. What matters it how the effect is got so that it comes honestly? But of course it will be said that this, that, and the other person did not get their effects so; they will compare you to the greatest to humiliate you."

"Oh, that would be nothing to me so that I produced my own effects," Beth broke in. "That is just where I am at present. I mean to be myself. But please do not think that I have too much assurance. If I go wrong, I hope I shall find it out in time; and I shall certainly be the first to acknowledge it. I do not want to prove myself right; I want to arrive at the truth."

"Then you will arrive," he assured her. "But above everything, mind that you are not misled by the cant of art if you have anything special to say. If a writer would be of use in his day, and not merely an amuser of the multitude, he must learn that right thinking, right feeling, and knowledge are more important than art. When you address the blockhead majority, you must not only give them your text, you must tell them also what to think of it, otherwise there will be fine misinterpretation. You may be sure of the heart of the multitude if you can touch it; but its head, in the present state of its development, is an imperfect machine, manoeuvred for the most part by foolishness. People can see life for themselves, but they cannot always see the meaning of it, the why and wherefore, whence things come and whither they are tending, so that the lessons of life are lost--or would be but for the efforts of the modern novelist."

Beth reflected a little, then she said: "I am glad you think me an optimist. It seems to me that healthy human nature revolts from pessimism. The work that lasts is the work that cheers. Give us something with hope in it--something that appeals to the best part of us--something which, while we read, puts us in touch with fine ideals, and makes us feel better than we are."

"That is it precisely," said he. "The school of art-and-style books wearies us because there is no aspiration in it, nothing but a deadly dull artistic presentment of hopeless levels of life. It is all cold polish, as I said before, with never a word to warm the heart or stir the better nature."

"That is what I have felt," said Beth; "and I would rather have written a simple story, full of the faults of my youth and ignorance, but with some one passage in it that would put heart and hope into some one person, than all that brilliant barren stuff. And I'm going to write for women, not for men. I don't care about amusing men. Let them see to their own amusements, they think of nothing else. Men entertain each other with intellectual ingenuities and Art and Style, while women are busy with the great problems of life, and are striving might and main to make it beautiful."

"Now that is young in the opprobrious sense of the word," said Sir George. "It is only when we are extremely young that we indulge in such sweeping generalisations."

Beth blushed. "I am always afraid my judgment will be warped by my own narrow personal experience,--I must guard against that!" she exclaimed, conscious that she had had her husband in her mind when she spoke.

Sir George nodded his head approvingly, and looked at his watch. "I must go," he said, "but I hope there will not be such a long interval before I come again. My wife is sorry that she has not been able to call. She is not equal to such a long drive. But she desired me to explain and apologise; and she has sent you some flowers and fruit which she begs you will accept. Have you some of your work ready for me this time? I have asked my friend Ideala to give you her opinion, which is really worth having, and she says she will with pleasure. You must know her. I am sure you would like her extremely."

"But would she like me?" slipped from Beth unawares.

"Now, that is young again," he said, with his kindly smile-indulgent.

"It is the outcome of sad experience," Beth rejoined with a sigh. "No woman I have met here so far has shown any inclination to cultivate my acquaintance. I think I am being punished for some unknown crime."

Sir George became thoughtful, but said nothing.

As they approached the house, Beth saw Dan peeping at them from behind the curtain of an upstairs window. The hall-table was covered with the fruit and flowers Sir George had brought. Beth sent a servant for Dan. The girl came back and said that the doctor was not in.

"Nonsense!" said Beth. "I saw him at one of the windows just now. If you will excuse me, Sir George, I will find him myself."

She called him as she ran upstairs, and Dan made his appearance, looking none too well pleased.

He went down to Sir George, and Beth ran on up to her secret chamber for her manuscripts and the books Sir George had lent her, which had been waiting ready packed for many a day.

* * * * *

When he had gone, Beth danced round the dining-room, clapping her hands.

"I can't contain myself," she exclaimed. "I do feel encouraged, strengthened, uplifted."

She caught a glimpse of Dan's face, and stopped short.

"What's the matter?" she said.

"The matter is that I'll have no more of this," he answered in a brutal tone.

"No more of what?" Beth demanded.

"No more of this man's philandering after you," he retorted.

"I don't understand you," Beth gasped.

"Oh, you're mighty innocent," he sneered. "You'll be telling me next that he comes to see me, lends me books, walks up and down by the hour together with me, brings me fruit and flowers! You think I'm blind, I suppose! You're a nice person! and so particular too! and so fastidious in your conversation! Oh, trust a prude! But I tell you," he bawled, coming up close to her, and shaking his fist in her face, "I tell you I won't have it. Now, do you understand that?"

Beth did not wince, but oh, what a drop it was from the heights she had just left to this low level! "Be good enough to explain your meaning precisely," she said quietly. "I understand that you are bringing some accusation against me. It is no use blustering and shaking your fist in my face. I am not to be frightened. Just explain yourself. And I advise you to weigh your words, for you shall answer to me in public for any insult you may offer me in private."

Dr. Maclure was sobered by this unexpected flash of spirit. They had been married nearly three years by this time, and Beth's habitual docility had deceived him. Hitherto men have been able to insult their wives in private with impunity when so minded, and Dan was staggered for a moment to find himself face to face with a mere girl who boldly refused to suffer the indignity. He was not prepared for such a display of self-respect.

"You're very high and mighty!" he jeered at last.

"I am very determined," Beth rejoined, and set her lips.

He tried to subdue her by staring her out of countenance; but Beth scornfully returned his gaze. Then suddenly she stamped her foot, and brought her clenched fist down on the dining-room table, beside which she was standing. "Come, come, sir," she said, "we've had enough of this theatrical posing. You are wasting my time, explain yourself."

He took a turn up and down the room.

"Look here, Beth," he began, lowering his tone, "you cannot pretend that Galbraith comes to see me."

"Why should I?" she asked.

"Well, it isn't right that he should come to see you, and I won't have it," he reiterated.

"Do you mean that I am not to have any friends of my own?" she demanded.

"He is not to be one of your friends," Dan answered doggedly.

"And what explanation am I to give him, please?" she asked politely.

"I won't have you giving him any explanation."

"My dear Dan," she rejoined, "when you speak in that way, you show an utter want of knowledge of my character. If I will not allow you to insult me, and bully me, and bluster at me, it is not likely that I will allow you to insult my friends. If Sir George Galbraith's visits are to stop, I shall tell him the reason exactly. He at least is a gentleman."

"That is as much as to say that I am not," Dan blustered.

"You certainly are not behaving like one now," Beth coolly rejoined. "But there! You have my ultimatum. I am not going to waste any more time in vulgar scenes with you."

"Ultimatum, indeed!" he jeered. "Well, you are, you know! You'll write and explain to him, will you, that your husband's jealous of him? That shows the terms you are on!"

"It is jealousy then, is it?" said Beth. "Thank you. Now I understand you."

Dan's evil mood took another turn. His anger changed to self-pity. "Oh dear! oh dear! what am I to do with you?" he exclaimed. "And after all I've done for you--to treat me like this." He took out his pocket-handkerchief and wiped away the tears which any mention of his own goodness and the treatment he received from others always brought to his eyes.

Beth watched him contemptuously, yet her heart smote her. He was a poor creature, but for that very reason, and because she was strong, surely she should be gentle with him.

"Look here, Dan," she said. "I have never knowingly done you any wrong in thought, or word, or deed; all you have said to me to-day has been ridiculously wrong-headed; but never mind. Stop crying, do, and don't let us have any more idiotic jealousy. Why, it was Lady Galbraith who sent me the flowers and fruit, with a kind message of apology because she has not been able to call. Why should not she be jealous?"

"Oh, she's a fool!" Dan rejoined, recovering himself. "She leads him the life of a dog with her fears and fancies, and she won't take any part in his philanthropic work, though he wishes it. She's a pretty pill!"

The servant came in at this moment to lay the table for lunch, and Dan went to the looking-glass with the inconsequence of a child, and forgot his grievance in the contemplation of his own beloved image and in abusing Lady Galbraith. Abusing somebody was mental relaxation of the most agreeable kind to him. Feeling that he had gone too far, he was gracious to Beth during lunch, and just before he went out he kissed her, and said, "We won't mention that fellow again, Beth. I don't believe you'd do anything dishonourable."

"I should think not!" said Beth.

When he had gone, she returned to her secret chamber, the one little corner sacred to herself, to her purest, noblest thoughts, her highest aspirations; and as she looked round, it seemed as if ages had passed since she last entered it, full of happiness and hope. It was as if she had been innocent then, and was now corrupted. Her self-control did not give way, but she could do nothing, and just sat there, wan with horror; and as she sat, every now and then she shivered from head to foot. She had known of course in a general way that such things did happen, that married women did give their husbands cause for jealousy; but to her mind they were a kind of married women who lived in another sphere where she was not likely to encounter them. She had never expected to be brought near such an enormity, let alone to have it brought home to herself in a horrible accusation; and the effect of it was a shock to her nervous system--one of those stunning blows which are scarcely felt at first, but are agonising in their after effects. When the reaction set in, Beth's disgust was so great it took a physical form, and ended by making her violently sick. It was days before she quite recovered, and in one sense of the word she was never the same again.

Chapter XLI

Dan said no more about Sir George Galbraith; and indeed he had no excuse, for Sir George did not come again. There were other men, however, who came to the house, Dan's own friends; and now that Beth's eyes were opened, she perceived that he watched them all suspiciously if they paid her any attention; and if she showed the slightest pleasure in the conversation of any of them, he would be sure to make some sneering remark about it afterwards. Dan was so radically vicious that the notion of any one being virtuous except under compulsion was incomprehensible to him.

"Your spirits seem to go up when Mr. Vanrickards is here," he observed one day.

"Thank you for warning me," Beth answered, descending to his level in spite of herself. "I will be properly depressed the next time he comes."

But although she could keep him in check so that he dared not say all that he had in his mind, she understood him; and the worst of it was that his coarse and brutal jealousy accustomed her to the suspicion, and made her contemplate the possibility of such a lapse as he had in his mind. She began to believe that he would not have tormented himself so if husbands did not ordinarily have good reason to be jealous of their wives. She concluded that such treachery of man to man as he dreaded must be normal. And then also she realised that it was thought possible for a married woman to fall in love, and even wondered at last if that would ever be her own case. Dan had, in fact, destroyed his own best safeguard. If a man would keep his wife from evil, he should not teach her to suspect herself--neither should he familiarise her with ideas of vice. Since their marriage Dan's whole conversation, and the depravity of his tastes and habits, had tended towards the brutalisation of Beth. Married life for her was one long initiation into the ways of the vicious.

Dr. Maclure's sordid jealousy made him the laughing-stock of the place, though he never suspected it. His conceit was too great to let him suppose that any sentiment of his could provoke ridicule. It became matter for common gossip, however, and from that time forward gentlemen ceased to visit the house. Men of a certain kind came still, men who were bound to Dan by kindred tastes, but not such as he cared to introduce to Beth. These boon companions generally came in the evening, and were entertained in the dining-room, where they spent the night together, smoking, drinking, and talking after the manner of their kind. Beth could not use her secret chamber after dark for fear of the light being seen, so she stayed in the drawing-room alone till she went to bed. She found those evenings interminable, and the nights more trying still. She could not read or write because of the noise in the dining-room, and had to fall back on her sewing for occupation; but sewing left her mind open to any obsession, and only too often, with the gross laughter from the next room, scraps of the lewd topics her husband delighted in came to her recollection. When Dan discoursed about such things he was at the high-water mark of pleasure, his countenance glowed, and enjoyment of the subject was expressed in all his person. Beth's better nature revolted, but alas! she had become so familiar with such subjects by this time that, although she loathed them, she could not banish them. Life from her husband's point of view was a torment to her, yet under the pressure of his immediate influence it was forced upon her attention more and more--from his point of view.

When she went to bed on his festive nights she suffered from the dread of being disturbed. If her husband were called out at night professionally, it was a pleasure to her to lie awake so that she might be ready to rise the moment he returned, and get him anything he wanted. On those occasions she always had a tray ready for him, with soup to be heated, or coffee to be made over a spirit-lamp, and any little dainty she thought would refresh him. She was fully in sympathy with him in his work, and would have spared herself no fatigue to make it easier for him, but she despised him for his vices, and refused to sacrifice herself in order to make them pleasanter for him. When he stayed up smoking and drinking half the night she resented the loss of sleep entailed upon her, which meant less energy for her own work the next day. The dread of being disturbed made her restless, and the futility of it under the circumstances exasperated her. She suffered, too, more than can be mentioned, from the smell of alcohol and tobacco, of which he reeked, and from which he took no trouble to purify himself. Often and often, when she had tossed herself into a fever on these dreadful nights, she craved for long hours, with infinite yearning, to be safe from disturbance, in purity and peace; and thought how happily, how serenely she would have slept until the morning, and how strong and fresh she would have arisen for another day's work had she been left alone. Only once, however, did she complain. Dan was going out in a particularly cheerful mood that night.

"Shall you be late?" she asked.

"Yes, probably. Why?"

"I was thinking, if you wouldn't mind, I would have a bed made up for you in the spare room. I only sleep in snatches when you are out and I am expecting you. Every sound rouses me. I think it is the door opening. And then when you do come it disturbs me, and I do not sleep again. If you don't mind I should prefer to be alone--on your late nights--your late festive nights."

Dr. Maclure stood looking gloomily into the fireplace.

"Have I annoyed you, Dan?" Beth asked at last.

He walked to the door, stood a moment with his back to her, then turned and looked at her. "Annoyed is not the word," he said. "You have wounded me deeply."

He opened the door as he spoke, and went out. When he had gone Beth sat and suffered. She could not bear to hurt him, she was not yet sufficiently brutalised for that; so she said no more on the subject, but patiently endured the long lonely night watches, and the after companionship which had in it all that is most trying and offensive to a refined and delicate woman.

* * * * *

After that first display of jealousy Beth discovered that her husband pried upon her continually. He was very high and mighty on the subject of women spying upon men, but there seemed no meanness he would not compass in order to spy upon a woman. He had duplicate keys to her drawers and boxes, and rummaged through all her possessions when she went out. One day she came upon him standing before her wardrobe, feeling in the pockets of her dresses, and on another occasion she discovered him unawares in her bedroom, picking little scraps of paper out of the slop-pail and piecing them together to see what she had been writing. To Beth, accustomed to the simple, honourable principles of her parents, and to the confidence with which her mother had left her letters lying about, because she knew that not one of her children would dream of looking at them, Dan's turpitude was revolting. On those occasions when she caught him, he did not hear her enter the room, and she made her escape without disturbing him, and stole up to her secret chamber, and sat there, suffering from one of those attacks of nausea and shivering which came upon her in moments of deep disgust.

After that she had an attack of illness which kept her in bed for a week; but even then, feverish and suffering as she was, and yearning for the coolness and liberty of a room to herself, she dared not suggest such a thing for fear of a scene.

While she was still in bed Dan brought her some letters one morning. He made no remark when he gave them to her, but he had opened them as usual, and stood watching her curiously while she read them. The first she looked at was from her sister Bernadine, and had a black border round it; but she took it out of its envelope unsuspiciously, and read the words that were uppermost, "Mamma died this morning." In a moment it flashed upon her that Dan had read the letter, and was waiting now to see the effect of the shock upon her. She immediately, but involuntarily, set herself to baffle his cruel curiosity. With a calm, illegible face she read the letter from beginning to end, folded it, and put it back in its envelope deliberately, then took up another which had also been opened.

But suppressed feeling finds vent in some form or other, and Beth showed temper now instead of showing grief. "I wish you would not open my letters," she said irritably. "All the freshness of them is gone for me when you open them without my permission and read them first. Besides, it is an insult to my correspondents. What they say to me is intended for me, and not for you."

"I have a perfect right to open your letters," he retorted.

"I should like to see the Scripture that gives you the right, and I should advise you to waive it if you do not wish me to assume the right to open yours. Your petty prying keeps me in a continual state of irritation. I shall be lowered to retaliate sooner or later. So stop it, please, once and for all."

"My petty prying, indeed!" he exclaimed. "Well, that is a nice thing to say to your husband! Why, even when I do open your letters, which is not often, I never read them without your permission."

"Indeed," said Beth, who had ceased to be stunned by falsehoods. "Then be good enough not even to open them in future."

Dan tried to express injury and indignation in a long, hard look; but Beth was reading another letter, and took no further notice of him.

He hung about a little watching her.

"Any news," he ventured at last, with an imperfect assumption of indifference.

"You know quite well what my news is," she answered bluntly, "and I am not going to discuss it with you. I wish you would leave me alone."

"Well, you're a nice pill!" said Dan, discomfited.

Beth looked up at him. "What are you doing with your hat on in my bedroom?" she asked sharply. "I thought I had made you understand that you must treat me with respect, even if I am your wife."

Dan uttered a coarse oath, and left the room, banging the door after him.

"Thank Heaven--at last!" Beth ejaculated. She had been too anxious to get rid of him to scruple about the means, but when he had gone a reaction set in, and she lay back on her pillows, flushed, excited, furious with him, disgusted with herself. She felt she was falling away from all her ideals. "As the husband is the wife is"--the words flashed through her mind, but she would not believe it inevitable. But even if she should degenerate, her own nature was too large, too strong, too generous to cast the blame on any one but herself. "No!" she exclaimed. "We are what we allow ourselves to be."

Swift following upon that thought came the recollection of a bad fall she had had when she was a little child in Ireland, and the way her mother had picked her up, and cuddled her, and comforted her. Beth burst into a paroxysm of tears. She had understood her mother better than her mother had understood her, had felt for her privations, had admired and imitated her patient endurance; and now to think that it was too late, to think that she had gone, and it would never be in Beth's power to brighten her life or lessen the hardship of it! That was all she thought of. Every week since her marriage she had sent her mother a long, cheerful, amusing letter, full of pleasant details--an exercise in that form of composition; but with never a hint of her troubles; and Mrs. Caldwell died under the happy delusion that it was well with Beth. She never suspected that she had married Beth to a low-born man--not low-born in the sense of being a tradesman's son, for a tradesman's son may be an honest and upright gentleman, just as a peer's son may be a cheat and a snob; but low-born in that he came of parents who were capable of fraud and deceit in social relations, and had taught him no scheme of life in which honour played a conspicuous part. Beth had done her best for her mother, but there was no one now to remind her of this for her comfort, poor miserable girl. Her courageous toil had gone for nothing--her mother would never even know of it; and it seemed to her in that moment of deep disheartenment as if everything she tried was to be equally ineffectual.

Hours later, Minna the housemaid found Beth sitting up in bed, sobbing hopelessly; and got her tea, and stayed with her, making her put some restraint upon herself by the mere fact of her presence; and presently Beth, in her human way, began to talk about her mother to the girl, which relieved her. Mrs. Caldwell had only been ill a few days, and not seriously, as it was supposed; the end had come quite suddenly, so that Beth had never been warned.

Dan did not come in till next morning, which was a great relief to her. She meant to speak about the news to him when he appeared, but somehow, the moment she saw him, her heart hardened, and she could not bring herself to utter a word on the subject. The position was awkward for him; but he got out of it adroitly by pretending he had seen an announcement of the death in the paper.

"I suppose I ought to go to the funeral," he said. "There is doubtless a will."

"Doubtless," said Beth, "but you will not benefit by it, if that is what you are thinking of. Mamma considered that I was provided for, and therefore she left the little she had to Bernadine. She told me herself, because she wanted me to understand her reason for making such a difference between us; and I think she was quite right. She may have left me two or three hundred pounds, but it will not be more than that."

"But even that will be something towards the bills," said Dan, his countenance, which had dropped considerably, clearing again.

Beth looked at him with a set countenance, but said no more. She had begun to observe that the bills only became pressing when her allowance was due.

Chapter XLII

Some one in Slane gave Sir George Galbraith a hint of Dan's coarse jealousy, and he had judged it better for Beth that he should not call again; but his interest in her and his desire to help her increased if anything. He had read her manuscript carefully himself, and obtained Ideala's opinion of it also; but Beth had not done her best by any means in the one she had given him. She had written it for the purpose, for one thing, which was fatal, for her style had stiffened with anxiety to do her best, and her ideas, instead of flowing spontaneously, had been forced and formal, as her manner was when she was shy. It is one thing to have a fine theory of art and high principles (and an excellent thing, too), but it is quite another to put them into effect, especially when you're in a hurry to arrive. Hurry misplaced is hindrance. If Beth had given Sir George some one of the little things which she had written in sheer exuberance of thought and feeling, without hampering hopes of doing anything with them, he would have been very differently impressed; but, even as it was, what she had given him was as full of promise as it was full of faults, and he was convinced that he had not been mistaken in her, especially when he found that Ideala thought even better of her prospects than he did. Ideala, who was an impulsive and generous woman, wrote warmly on the subject, and Sir George sent her letter to Beth with a few lines of kindly expressed encouragement from himself. He returned her manuscript; but when Beth saw it again, she was greatly dissatisfied. The faults her friends had pointed out to her she plainly perceived, and more also; but she could not see the merits. Praise only made her the more fastidious about her work; but in that way it helped her.

Sir George's kindness did not stop at criticism however. He was cut off from her himself, and could expect no help from his wife, whose nervous system had suffered so much from the shock of unhappy circumstances in her youth that she could not now bear even to hear of, let alone to be brought in contact with, any form of sorrow or suffering; but there were other ladies--Mrs. Kilroy of Ilverthorpe, for instance. Sir George had known her all her life, and went specially to ask her as a favour to countenance Beth.

"I want you to be kind to Mrs. Maclure, Angelica," he said. "She's far too good for that plausible bounder of a barber's block she's married."

"Then why did she marry him?" Angelica interrupted, in her vivacious way.

"Pitchforked into it at the suggestion of her friends in her infancy, I should say, reasoning by induction," he answered. "That's generally the explanation in these cases. But, at any rate, she's not going to be happy with him. And she's a charming little creature, very sweet and docile naturally, and with unusual ability, or I'm much mistaken, and plenty of spirit, too, when she's roused, I should anticipate. But at present, in her childish ignorance, she's yielding where she should resist, and she'll be brutalised if no one comes to the rescue. I don't trust that man Maclure. A man who speaks flippantly of things that should be respected is not a man who will be scrupulous when his own interests are concerned; and such a man has it in his power to make the life of a girl a hell upon earth in ways which she will not complain of, if she has no knowledge to use in self-defence; and girls seldom have."

"As I have learnt, alas! from bitter experience in my work amongst the victims of holy matrimony," Angelica interposed bitterly. "Oh, how sickening it all is! Sometimes I envy Evadne in that she is able to refuse to know."

Sir George was silent for a little, then he said, "This is likely to be a more than usually pathetic case, because of the girl's unusual character and promise, and also because her brain is too delicately poised to stand the kind of shocks and jars that threaten her. You will take pity on her, Angelica?"

Mrs. Kilroy shrugged her shoulders. "How can I countenance a woman who acquiesces in such a position as her husband holds, and actually lives on his degrading work?"

"I don't believe she knows anything about it," he rejoined.

"If I were sure of that," said Angelica, meditating.

"It is easy enough to make sure," he suggested.

* * * * *

Mrs. Carne, wife of the leading medical man in Slane, conceived it to be her duty to patronise Beth to the extent of an occasional formal call, as she was the wife of a junior practitioner; and Beth duly returned these calls, because she was determined not to make enemies for Dan by showing any resentment for the slights she had suffered in Slane.

Feeling depressed indoors one dreary afternoon, she set off, alone as usual, to pay one of these visits. She rather hoped perhaps to find some sort of satisfaction by way of reward for the brave discharge of an uncongenial duty.

On the way into town, Dan passed her in his dogcart with a casual nod, bespattering her with mud. "You'll have your carriage soon, please God! and never have to walk. I hate to see a delicate woman on foot in the mud." Beth remembered the words so well, and Dan's pious intonation as he uttered them, and she laughed. She had a special little laugh for exhibitions of this kind of divergence between Dan's precepts and his practices. But even as she laughed her face contracted as with a sudden spasm of pain, and she ejaculated--"But I shall succeed!"

Mrs. Carne was at home, and Beth was shown into the drawing-room, where she found several other lady visitors--Mrs. Kilroy, Mrs. Orton Beg, Lady Fulda Guthrie, and Ideala. The last two she had not met before.

"Where will you sit?" said Mrs. Carne, who was an effusive little person. "What a day! You were brave to come out, though perhaps it will do you good. My husband says go out in all weathers and battle with the breeze; there's nothing like exercise."

"Battling with the breeze and an umbrella on a wet day is not exercise, it is exasperation," Beth answered, and at the sound of her peculiarly low, clear, cultivated voice, the conversation stopped suddenly, and every one in the room looked at her. She seemed unaware of the attention. In fact, she ignored every one present except her hostess. This was her habitual manner now, assumed to save herself from slights. When she entered, Mrs. Kilroy had half risen from her seat, and endeavoured to attract her attention; but Beth passed her by, deliberately chose a seat, and sat down. Her demeanour, so apparently cold and self-contained, was calculated to command respect, but it cost Beth a great deal to maintain it. She felt she was alone in an unfriendly atmosphere--a poor little thing, shabbily dressed in home-made mourning, and despised for she knew not what offence; and she suffered horribly. She had grown very fragile by this time, and looked almost childishly young. Her eyes were unnaturally large and wistful, her mouth drooped at the corners, and the whole expression of her face was pathetic. Mrs. Kilroy looked at her seriously, and thought to herself, "That girl is suffering."

Mrs. Carne offered Beth tea, but she refused it. She could not accept such inhuman hospitality. She had come to do her duty, not to force a welcome. She glanced at the clock. Five minutes more, and she might go. The conversation buzzed on about her. She was sitting next to a strange lady, a serene and dignified woman, dressed in black velvet and sable. Beth glanced at her the first time with indifference, but looked again with interest. Mrs. Carne bustled up and spoke to the lady in her effusive way.

"You are better, I hope," she said, as she handed her some tea. "It really is sweet to see you looking so much yourself again."

"Oh yes, I am quite well again now, thanks to your good husband," the lady answered. "But he has given me so many tonics and things lately, I always seem to be shaking bottles. I am quite set in that attitude. Everything I touch I shake. I found myself shaking my watch instead of winding it up the other day."

"Ah, then, you are quite yourself again, I see," Mrs. Carne said archly. "But why didn't you come to the Wilmingtons' last night?"

"Oh, you know I never go to those functions if I can help it," the lady answered, her gentle rather drawling voice lending a charm to the words quite apart from their meaning. "I cannot stand the kind of conversation to which one is reduced on such occasions--if you can call that conversation which is but the cackle of geese, each repeating the utterances of the other. When the Lord loves a woman, I think He takes her out of society by some means or other, and keeps her out of it for her good."

Beth knew that if she had said such a thing, Mrs. Carne would have received it with a stony stare, but now she simpered. "That is so like you!" she gushed. "But the Wilmingtons were dreadfully disappointed."

"They will get over it," the lady answered, glancing round indifferently.

"How are you getting on with your new book, Ideala?" Mrs. Kilroy asked her across the room. Beth instantly froze to attention. This was her friend, then, Sir George's Ideala.

"I have not got into the swing of it yet," Ideala answered. "It is all dot-and-go-one--a uniform ruggedness which is not true either to life or mind. Our ways in the world are stony enough at times, but they are not all stones. There are smooth stretches along which we gallop, and sheltered grassy spaces where we rest."

"What I love about your work is the style," said Mrs. Carne.

"Do you?" Ideala rejoined, somewhat dryly as it seemed to Beth. "But what is style?"

"I am so bad at definitions," said Mrs. Carne, "but I feel it, you know."

"As if it were a thing in itself to be adopted or acquired?" Ideala asked.

"Yes, quite so," said Mrs. Carne in a tone of relief--as of one who has acquitted herself better than she expected and is satisfied.

"I am sure it is not," Beth burst out, forgetting herself and her slights all at once in the interest of the subject. "I have been reading the lives of authors lately, together with their works, and it seems to me, in the case of all who had genius, that their style was the outcome of their characters--their principles--the view they took of the subject--that is, if they were natural and powerful writers. Only the second-rate people have a manufactured style, and force their subject to adapt itself to it--the kind of people whose style is mentioned quite apart from their matter. In the great ones the style is the outcome of the subject. Each emotion has its own form of expression. The language of passion is intense; of pleasure jocund, easy, abundant; of content calm, of happiness strong but restrained; of love warm, tender. The language of artificial feeling is artificial; there is no mistaking insincerity when a writer is not sincere, and the language of true feeling is equally unmistakable. It is simple, easy, unaffected; and it is the same in all ages. The artificial styles of yesterday go out of fashion with the dresses their authors wear, and become an offence to our taste; but Shakespeare's periods appeal to every generation. He wrote from the heart as well as the head, and triumphed in the grace of nature."

Beth stopped short and coloured crimson, finding that every one in the room was listening to her.

Mrs. Carne stood while she was speaking with a cup of tea in her hand, and tried to catch Ideala's eye in order to signal with raised eyebrows her contempt for Beth's opinion; but Ideala was listening with approval.

"That is exactly what I think," she exclaimed, "only I could not have expressed it so. You write yourself doubtless?"

But Beth had become confused, and only gazed at her by way of reply. She felt she had done the wrong thing to speak out like that in such surroundings, and she regretted every word, and burned with vexation. Then suddenly in herself, as before, something seemed to say, or rather to flash forth the exclamation for her comfort: "I shall succeed! I shall succeed!"

She drew herself up and looked round on them all with a look that transformed her. Such an assurance in herself was not to be doubted. The day would come when they would be glad enough to see her, when she too would be heard with respect and quoted. She, the least considered, she in her shabby gloves, neglected, slighted, despised, alone, she would arrive, would have done something--more than them all!

She arose with her eyes fixed on futurity, and was half-way home before she came to and found herself tearing along through the rain with her head forward and her hands clasped across her chest, urged to energy by the cry in her heart, "I shall succeed! I shall succeed!"

"Who was that?" said Ideala in a startled voice when Beth jumped up and left the room.

"The wife of that Dr. Maclure, you know," Mrs. Carne replied. "Her manners seem somewhat abrupt. She forgot to say good-bye. I did not know she was by way of being clever."

"By way of being clever!" Ideala ejaculated. "I wish I had known who she was. Why didn't you introduce her? By way of being clever, indeed! Why, she is just what I have missed being with all my cleverness, or I am much mistaken, and that is a genius. And what is more important to us, I suspect she is the genius for whom we are waiting. Why, why didn't you name her? It is the old story. She came unto her own, and her own received her not."

"I--I never dreamt you would care to know her--her position, you know," Mrs. Carne stammered disconcerted.

"Her position! What is her position to me?" Ideala exclaimed. "It is the girl herself I think of. Besides, I daresay she doesn't even know what her position is!"

"That is what Sir George says, and he knows her well," Mrs. Kilroy interposed.

"But I never suspected that she was in the least interesting," Mrs. Carne protested; "and I'm sure she doesn't look attractive--such an expression!"

"You are to blame for that, all of you," Ideala rejoined, with something in her gentle way of speaking which had the effect of strength and vehemence. "I know how it has been. She is sensitive, and you have made her feel there is something wrong. You have treated her so that she expects no kindness from you, and so, from diffidence and restraint of tenderness, her face has set hard into coldness. But that is only a mask. How you treat each other, you women! And you are as wanting in discernment, too, as you are in kindness and sympathy. She has had to put on that mask of coldness to hide what you make her suffer, and it will take long loving to melt it now, and make her look human again. You misinterpret her silence too. How can you expect her to be interesting if you take no interest in her? But look at her eyes? Any one with the least kindly discernment might have seen the love and living interest there! If she had been in a good position, everybody would have found her as singularly interesting as she, without caring a rap for our position, has found us. She sees through us all with those eyes of hers--ay, and beyond! She sees what we have never seen, and never shall in this incarnation; hers are the vision and the dream that are denied to us. Were she to come forward as a leader to-morrow, I would follow her humbly and do as she told me.... I read some of her writings the other day, but I thought they were the work of a mature woman. Had I known she was such a child I should have wondered!"

"Dear me! does she really write?" said Mrs. Carne. "Well, you surprise me! I should never have dreamt that she had anything in her!"

"You make me feel ashamed of myself, Ideala," said Mrs. Kilroy with contrition. "I ought to have known. But I could think of nothing, see nothing in her but that horrible business. I shall certainly do my best now, however, when we return from town, to cultivate her acquaintance, if she will let me."

"Let you!" Mrs. Carne ejaculated with her insinuating smile. "I should think she would be flattered."

"I am not so sure of that," said Ideala.

"Neither am I," said Mrs. Kilroy. "I only wish I were. But she ignored us all rather pointedly when she came in."

"To save herself from being ignored, I suppose," said Ideala bitterly. "The girl is self-respecting."

"I confess I liked her the first time I saw her," said Mrs. Orton Beg; "but afterwards, when I heard what her husband was, I felt forced to ignore her. How can you countenance her if she approves?"

"It was a mistake to take her approval for granted," said Mrs. Kilroy. "Ideala would have inquired."

"Yes," said Ideala. "I take nothing for granted. If I hear anything nice, I believe it; but if I hear anything objectionable about any one, I either inquire about it or refuse to believe it point-blank. And in a case like this, I should be doubly particular, for, in one of its many moods, genius is a young child that gazes hard and sees nothing."

"And you really think the little woman is a genius, and will be a great writer some day?" Mrs. Carne asked with exaggerated deference to Ideala's opinion.

"I don't know about being a writer," said Ideala. "Genius is versatile. There are many ways in which she might succeed. It depends on herself--on the way she is finally impelled to choose. But great she will be in something--if she lives."

"Let us hope that she will be a great benefactor of her own sex then, and do great good," said the gentle Lady Fulda.

"Amen!" Ideala ejaculated fervently.

Mrs. Carne tried to put off her agreeable society smile and put on her Sunday-in-church expression, but was not in time. When we only assume an attitude once a week, be it mental or physical, we do not fall into it readily on a sudden.

"Not that working for women as a career is what I should wish her for her own comfort," said Ideala after a pause. "Women who work for women in the present period of our progress--I mean the women who bring about the changes which benefit their sex--must resign themselves to martyrdom. Only the martyr spirit will carry them through. Men will often help and respect them, but other women, especially the workers with methods of their own, will make their lives a burden to them with pin-pricks of criticism, and every petty hindrance they can put in their way. There is little union between women workers, and less tolerance. Each leader thinks her own idea the only good one, and disapproves of every other. They seldom see that many must be working in many ways to complete the work. And as to the bulk of women, those who will benefit by our devotion, they bespatter us with mud, stone us, slander us, calumniate us; and even in the very act of taking advantage of the changes we have brought about, ignore us, slight us, push us under, and step up on our bodies to secure the benefits which our endeavours have made it possible for them to enjoy. I know! I have worked for women these many years, and could I show you my heart, you would find it covered with scars--the scars of the wounds with which they reward me."

* * * * *

When Beth got in that day, she found Dan standing in the hall, examining a letter addressed to herself. She took it out of his hand without ceremony, and tore it open. "Hurrah!" she exclaimed, "it's accepted."

"What's accepted?" he asked.

"An article I sent to Sunshine. And the editor says he would like to see some more of my work," Beth rejoined, almost dancing with delight.

"I don't suppose that will put much in your pocket," Dan observed. "He wouldn't praise you if he meant to pay you."

"But he has sent me a cheque for thirty shillings," said Beth.

Dan's expression changed. "Then you may be sure it's worth double," he said. "But you might get some nice notepaper for me out of it, and have it stamped with my crest, like a good girl. It's necessary in my profession, and I've finished the last you got."

Beth laughed as she had laughed--that same peculiar mirthless little laugh--when he drove past her and splashed her with mud on the road. "It never seems to occur to you that I may have some little wants of my own, Dan," she said; "you are a perfect horseleech's daughter."

Dan gazed at her blankly. He never seemed to understand any such allusion. "You've got a grievance, have you?" he snarled. "Do I ever prevent you getting anything you like?"

Beth shrugged her shoulders by way of answer, and went into the dining-room. He followed her, bent on making a scene; and she, perceiving this, set herself down on a chair and folded her hands.

He took a turn up and down the room. "And this is my fine marriage into a county family, which was to have done so much for me!" he ejaculated at last. "But I might have known better, considering the hole I took you out of. You've soon forgotten all I've done for you."

Beth smiled enigmatically.

"Oh yes! it's a laughing matter," he proceeded. "I've just ruined myself by marrying you; that's what I've done. Not a soul in the place will come to the house because of you. Nobody could ever stand you but me; and what have I got by it? Not a halfpenny! It was just a swindle, the whole business."

"Be careful!" Beth flashed forth. "If you make such assertions you must prove them. The day is past when a man might insult his wife with impunity. I have already told you I won't stand it. It would neither be good for you nor for me if I did."

"It was a swindle," he bawled. "Where are the seven or eight hundred a year I married you for?"

Beth looked at him a moment, then burst out laughing. "Dear Dan," she said, offering him the cheque, "you shall have the thirty shillings all to yourself. You deserve it for telling the truth for once. I consider I have had the best of the bargain, though. Thirty shillings is cheap for such valuable information."

"Oh, damn you!" said Dan, leaving the room and banging the door after him.

Beth signed the cheque and left it lying on his writing-table. She never saw it again.

Then she went up to her secret chamber, and spent long hours--sobbing, sobbing, sobbing, as if the marks of her married life on her character could be washed away with tears.

Chapter XLIII

Beth had made fifty pounds in eighteen months by her beautiful embroideries; but after her mother's death she did no more for sale, neither did she spend the money. She had suffered so many humiliations for want of money, it made her feel safer to have some by her. She gave herself up to study at this time, and wrote a great deal. It was winter now, and she was often driven down from her secret chamber to the dining-room by the cold. When Dan came in and found her at work, he would sniff contemptuously or facetiously, according to his mood at the moment. "Wasting paper as usual, eh? Better be sewing on my buttons," was his invariable remark. Not that his buttons were ever off, or that Beth ever sewed them on either. She was too good an organiser to do other people's work for them.

She made no reply to Dan's sallies. With him her mind was in a state of solitary confinement always--not a good thing for her health, but better on the whole than any attempt to discuss her ideas with him, or to talk to him about anything, indeed, but himself.

Beth fared well that winter, however--fared well in herself, that is. She had some glorious moments, revelling in the joy of creation. There is a mental analogy to all physical processes. Fertility in life comes of love; and in art the fervour of production is also accompanied by a rapture and preceded by a passion of its own. When Beth was in a good mood for work, it was like love--love without the lover; she felt all the joy of love, with none of the disturbance. When the idea of publication was first presented to her, it robbed her of this joy. As she wrote, she thought more of what she might gain than of what she was doing. Visions of success possessed her, and the ideas upon which her attention should have been fully concentrated were thinned by anticipations; and during that period her work was indifferent. Later, however, she worked again for work's sake, loving it; and then she advanced. She saw little of Dan in those days, and thought less; but when they met, she was, as usual, gentle and tolerant, patiently enduring his "cheeriness," and entering into no quarrel unless he forced one upon her.

One bright frosty morning he came in rather earlier than usual and found her writing in the dining-room.

"Well, I've had a rattling good ride this morning," he began, plunging into his favourite topic as usual without any pretence of interest in her or in her pursuits. "Nothing like riding for improving the circulation! I wish to goodness I could keep another horse. It would add to my income in the long run. But I'm so cursedly handicapped by those bills. They keep me awake at night thinking of them."

Beth sucked the end of her pencil and looked out of the window, wondering inwardly why he never tried to pay them.

"I calculate that they come to just three hundred pounds," he proceeded, looking keenly at Beth as he spoke; but she remained unmoved. "Don't you think," he ventured, "it would be a good thing to expend that three hundred pounds your mother left you on the debts? I know I could make money if I once got my head above water."

"That three hundred brings me in fifteen pounds a year," said Beth. "It is well invested, and I promised my mother not to touch any of my little capital. There is the interest, however, it arrived this morning. You can have that if you like."

"Well, that would be a crumb of comfort, at all events," he said, pouncing on the lawyer's letter, which was lying beside Beth on the table, and gloating on the cheque. "But don't you think, now that you have the interest, it would be a good time to sell and get the principal? Of course your mother was right and wise to advise you not to part with your capital; but this wouldn't be parting with it, because I should pay you back in time, you know. It would only be a loan, and I'd give you the interest on it regularly too; just think what a relief it would be to me to get those bills paid!" He ran his fingers up through his hair as he spoke, and gazed at himself in the glass tragically.

"Any news?" said Beth, after a little pause.

Dan, baffled, turned and began to walk up and down the room. "No, there never is any news in this confounded hole," he answered, venting his irritation on the place. "Oh, by the way, though, I am forgetting. I was at the Pettericks' to-day. That girl Bertha is not getting on as I should like."

"The hysterical one?" said Beth.

"Ye--yes," he answered, hesitating. "The one who threatened to be hysterical at one time. But that's all gone off. Now she's just weak, and she should have electricity; but I can't be going there every day to apply it--takes too much time: so I suggested to her people that she should come here for a while, as a paying patient, you know."

"And is she coming?" Beth said, rather in dismay.

"Yes, to-morrow," he replied. "I said you'd be delighted; but you must write and say so yourself, just for politeness' sake. It will be a good thing for you too, you know. You are too much alone, and she'll be a companion for you. She's not half a bad girl."

"Shall I be obliged to give her much of my time?" Beth asked lugubriously.

"Oh dear, no! She'll look after herself," Dr. Maclure cheerfully assured her. "I'll hire a piano for her. Must launch out a little on these occasions, you know. It's setting a sprat to catch a whale."

The piano arrived that afternoon. Beth wished Dan had let her choose it; but a piano of any kind was a delight. She had not had one since her marriage. Dan had said at first that a piano was a luxury which they must not think of when they could not afford the necessaries; and a luxury he had considered it ever since.

Bertha Petterick was not the kind of person that Beth would have chosen for a companion, and she dreaded her coming; but before Bertha had been in the house a week she had so enlivened it that Beth wondered she had ever objected to her. Bertha fawned upon Beth from the first, and was by way of looking up to her, and admiring her intellect. She was four or five years older than Beth, but gave herself no airs on that account. She was a dark girl, good looking in a common kind of way, with a masculine stride in her walk, a deep mannish voice; and not at all intellectual, but very practical: what some people consider a fine girl and others a coarse one, according to their taste. She was a good shot, could make a dress, cook a dinner, ride to hounds, and play any game; and she was what is called good-natured, that is to say, ready to do for any one anything that could be done on the spur of the moment. Things she might promise to do, or things requiring thought, she did not trouble herself about; but she would finish a pretty piece of work for Beth, gather flowers or buy them and do the table decorations, and keep things tidy in the sitting-rooms. She played and sang well, and was ready to do both at any time if she were asked, which was a joy to Beth; and her bright chatter kept Dan in a good humour, which was a relief. She had plenty of money, and spent it lavishly. Every time she went out she bought Beth something, a piece of music she had mentioned, a book she longed for, materials for work, besides flowers and fruit and sweets in unlimited quantities. Beth remonstrated, but Bertha begged Beth not to deprive her of the one pleasure she had in life just then, the pleasure of pleasing Beth, and of acknowledging what she never could repay but dearly appreciated--Beth's sisterly sympathy, her consistent kindness! Such sayings were tinged with sadness, which made Beth suspect that Bertha had some secret sorrow; but if so, it was most carefully concealed, for there was not a trace of it in her habitual manner. She showed no physical delicacy either; but then, as she said herself, she was picking up in such a wonderful way under the treatment, she really began to feel that there was very little the matter with her.

Dan managed to be at home a great deal to look after his patient, and was most attentive to her. He hired a brougham three times a week to do his rounds in, that she might accompany him, and so get the air without fatigue or risk of cold; and he would have her to sit with him in the dining-room when he was smoking, and rolled cigarettes for her; or would spend the evening with her in the drawing-room, listening to her playing and singing, or playing bezique with her, and seemingly well content, although in private he sometimes said to Beth it was all a beastly bore, but he must go through with it as a duty since he had undertaken it, it being his way to do a thing thoroughly if he did it at all.

"Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might," he added piously. "If a thing's worth doing at all, it's worth doing well, I always think."

That was his formula for the time being, but Beth judged him by his demeanour, which was gay, and not by his professions, and did not pity him. She was in excellent spirits herself, for her writing was going well; and it varied the monotony pleasantly for her to have Bertha to talk to, and walk, play, or sew with, after her work. Bertha's demonstrations of affection, too, were grateful to Beth, who had had so little love either bestowed upon her or required of her.

Bertha had been in the house three months, when one day her mother called, and found Beth alone, Dan and Bertha having gone for a drive together. Mrs. Petterick had just returned from abroad, where the whole family had been living most of the time that Bertha had been with the Maclures.

"Really," Mrs. Petterick said, "I don't know how to thank you for your kindness to my girl. She's quite a different person I can see by her letters, thanks to the good doctor. Before he took her in hand she was quite hysterical, and had to lie down two or three times a day, because she said she had no strength for anything. But really three months is an abuse of hospitality; and I think she should be coming home now."

"Oh no, do let her stay a little longer if you can spare her," Beth pleaded. "It is so nice to have her here."

"Well, it is good of you to say so," said Mrs. Petterick, "but it must be a great expense to you. We weren't well off ourselves at one time. Mr. Petterick's a self-made man, and I know that every additional mouth makes a difference. But, however, you being proud, I won't offend you by offering money in exchange for kindness, which can't be repaid, but shan't be forgotten."

When Mrs. Petterick had gone, Beth sat awhile staring into the fire. She was somewhat stunned, for Dan had assured her that Bertha was a paying patient, and that, it seemed, had been a gratuitous lie. She was roused at last by Minna, the parlour-maid. "Please, ma'am, a lady wishes to see you," Minna said.

"Show her in," Beth answered listlessly. But the next moment she stiffened with astonishment, for the lady who entered was Mrs. Kilroy of Ilverthorpe.

"I am afraid I have taken you by surprise," Mrs. Kilroy began rather nervously.

"Will you sit down?" Beth said coldly. "You cannot wonder if I am surprised to see you. This is the first visit you have paid me, although we met directly after I came to Slane some years ago. You were kind and cordial on that occasion, but the next time I saw you--at that ball--you slighted me; and after that you shunned me until I met you the other day at Mrs. Carne's, and then you seemed inclined to take me up again. I do not understand such caprices, and I do not like them."

"It was not caprice," Mrs. Kilroy assured her. "I liked you very much the first time we met, and I should have called immediately; but when I asked for your address, I was told that your husband was in charge of the Lock Hospital----"

"Yes, the hospital for the diseases of women," Beth said. "But what difference does that make?"

"It made me jump to the hasty conclusion that you approved of the degradation of your own sex," said Angelica.

"The degradation of my own sex!" said Beth bewildered. "What is a Lock Hospital?"

Angelica explained the whole horrible apparatus for the special degradation of women.

"Now perhaps you will understand what we felt about you," Angelica concluded--"we who are loyal to our own sex, and have a sense of justice--when we thought you were content to live on the means your husband makes in such a shameful way."

An extraordinary look of relief came into Beth's face. "Then it was not my fault--not because I was horrid," she exclaimed. All the slights were as nothing the moment she gathered that she had not deserved them. Angelica stared at her. But it was not in Beth's nature to think long about herself; only the full force of what she had just heard as it concerned others did not come to her for some seconds. When it did, she was overcome. "How could you suppose that I knew?" she gasped at last. "This is the first hint I have had of the loathsome business. My husband talks to me about--many things that he had better not have mentioned--but about this he has never said a word."

"Then he must have suspected that you would disapprove," said Mrs. Kilroy.

"Disapprove!" Beth ejaculated. "The whole thing makes me sick. I ought to have been told before I married him. I never would have spoken to a man in such a position had I known. You did well to avoid me."

"No," said Angelica. "I did ill, and I feel humiliated for my own want of penetration--for my hasty conclusion. It was Sir George Galbraith who first made me suspect that you knew nothing about it, and I would have come at once to make sure, but we were just leaving the neighbourhood, and we only returned yesterday. Ideala did not believe that you knew it either, and she rated us all for the way we had treated you. She has been in America ever since she met you at Mrs. Carne's, but she is coming home next week, and has written to entreat me to ask you to meet her. Will you? Will you come and stay with me? Do! and talk this over with us. I can see that it has been a great shock to you."

"I cannot answer you now," said Beth, "I must think--I must think what I had better do."

"Yes, think it over," said Angelica, "then write and tell me when you will come. Only do come. You will find yourself among friends--congenial friends, I venture to prophesy."

When Mrs. Kilroy had gone, Beth went to her bedroom, and waited there for Dan. It was the only place where she could be sure of seeing him alone. He dressed for dinner now that Miss Petterick was with them.

Dan came in whistling hilariously. He stopped short when he saw Beth's face.

"What's up?" he asked.

"Mrs. Kilroy has been here."

"I hope you thanked her for nothing!"

"I'm afraid I forgot to thank her at all," Beth said, "although she has put me under an obligation to her."

"May I ask what the obligation is?"

"She told me frankly why no decent woman will associate with us. It is not my fault after all, it seems, but yours--you and your Lock Hospital. It is against the Anglo-Saxon spirit to admit panders into society."

"Oh, she told you about that, did she, the meddling busybody!" he answered coolly. "I was afraid they would, some of them, damn them! and I knew you would go into hysterics. She didn't tell you the necessity for it, I suppose, nor the good it is doing; but I will; so just listen to me, then you'll see perhaps that I know more about it than these canting sentimentalists."

Beth, sitting in judgment on him, set her mouth and listened in silence until he stopped. In his own defence he gave her many revolting details couched in the coarsest language.

"But then, in the name of justice," she exclaimed, "what means do you take to protect those poor unfortunate women from disease? What do you do to the men who spread it? What becomes of diseased men?"

"Oh, they marry, I suppose. Anyhow, that is not my business. Doctors can't be expected to preach morals. Sanitation is our business."

"But aren't morals closely connected with sanitation?" Beth said. "And why, if sanitation is your business, do you take no radical measures with regard to this horrible disease? Why do you not have it reported, never mind who gets it, as scarlet fever, smallpox, and other diseases--all less disastrous to the general health of the community--are reported?"

Dan shrugged his shoulders. "It's a deuced awkward thing for a man to be suspected of disease. It's a stigma, and might spoil his prospects. Women are so cursedly prying nowadays. They've got wind of its being incurable, and many a one won't marry a man if a suspicion of it attaches to him."

"I see," said Beth. "The principles of the medical profession with regard to sanitation when women are in question seem to be peculiar. I wish to Heaven I had known them sooner." She hid her face in her hands, and suddenly burst into tears.

Dan scowled. "Well, this is nice!" he exclaimed. "I have had a devilish hard day's work, and come in cheery, as usual, to do my best to make things pleasant for you, and this is the reception I get! You're a nice pill, indeed!" He went off muttering into his dressing-room and slammed the door.

When he appeared in the drawing-room, he found Beth and Bertha chatting together as usual, and as, during the rest of the evening, he could detect no difference in Beth's manner, he congratulated himself that she was going to accept the position as inevitable, and say no more about it. It was not Beth's way to return to a disagreeable subject once it had been discussed, unless she meant to do something in the matter, and Dan conceived that there was nothing to be done in this instance. He considered that he was not the sort of man it was safe for women to interfere with, and he guessed she knew it!

He was mistaken, however, when he supposed that she had let the subject drop, and was going to resign herself to an invidious position. She was merely letting it lapse until she understood it. It was all as new to her as it was horrifying, and she required time to study both sides of the question. Her own sense of justice was too acute to let her accept at once the accusation that so-called civilised men, who boast of their chivalrous protection of the "weaker sex," had imposed upon women a special public degradation, while the most abandoned and culpable of their own sex were not only allowed to go unpunished, but to spread vice and disease where they listed. The iniquitous injustice and cruelty of it all made her sick and sorry for men, and reluctant to believe it.

* * * * *

A few days after Mrs. Kilroy's visit, Mrs. Carne called on Beth. Mrs. Carne always followed the county people. To her they were a sacred set. Her faith in all they did was touching and sincere. The stupidest remark of the stupidest county lady impressed her more than the most brilliant wit of a professional man's wife. When she stayed at a country-house, whatever the tone of it, she felt like a shriven saint, so uplifted was she by reverence for rank. On finding, therefore, that some of the most influential ladies in the county were diffidently anxious to win Beth into their set, rather than prepared to admit her with confident patronage, as Mrs. Carne would have expected, it was natural that she should revise her own opinion of Beth, and also seek to cultivate her acquaintance.

She called in the morning by way of being friendly; but Beth, who was hard at work at the time, did not feel grateful for the attention. Minna showed Mrs. Carne straight into the dining-room, where Beth usually worked now that Bertha was on the premises. Bertha happened to be out that morning, and Mrs. Carne surprised Beth sitting alone at a table covered with books and papers.

"And so the little woman is going to be a great one!" Mrs. Carne exclaimed playfully. "Well, I was surprised to hear it! I know I am not flattering to my own discernment when I say so; but there! I should never have supposed you were a genius. You are such a quiet little mouse, you know, you don't give yourself away much, if you will excuse the expression! I always say what I think."

"I hope you will not call me a genius again, Mrs. Carne," Beth said stiffly. "All exaggeration is distasteful to me."

"And to me, too, my dear child," Mrs. Carne hastened to assure her blandly. "But I always say what I think, you know."

Beth fixed her eyes on the clock absently.

When Dan came in to lunch that day, he seemed pleased to hear that Mrs. Carne had been.

"What had she to say for herself?" he asked.

"She said 'I always say what I think,'" Beth replied; "until it struck me that 'I always say what I think' is a person who only thinks disagreeable things."

"Well, I like her," said Dan; "and I always get on with her. If she's going to show up friendly at last, I hope you won't snub her. We can't afford to make enemies, according to your own account," he concluded significantly. "What do you think of her, Miss Petterick?" he added, by way of giving a pleasanter turn to the conversation. He and his patient always addressed each other with much formality. Beth asked him once in private why he was so stiff with Bertha, and he explained that he thought it wiser, as a medical man, not to be at all familiar; formality helped to keep up his authority.

"I have had no opportunity of thinking anything about her," Bertha rejoined. "She has never spoken to me. I have heard her speak, though, and like her voice. It's so cooing. She makes me think of a dove."

"And I shouldn't be surprised to find," said Beth, with cruel insight, "that, like the dove, she conceals a villainous disposition and murderous proclivities by charms of manner and a winning voice. What are you going to do this afternoon, Bertha?"

Bertha glanced at Dan. "I am going to read 'The Moonstone' out in the garden the whole afternoon," she replied.

"Then you won't mind if I disappear till tea-time?" said Beth. "I want to do some work upstairs."

"No, I would rather be alone," Bertha answered frankly. "That book's entrancing."

"I shall go round on foot this afternoon, for exercise," Dan announced as he left the room.

Beth saw Bertha settled on a seat in the garden, and then retired to her secret chamber. She had not yet come to any conclusion with regard to Mrs. Kilroy's invitation, and she felt it was time she decided. She took her sewing, her accustomed aid to thought, and sat down on a high chair near the window. She always sat on a high chair, that she might not be enervated by lolling; that was one of her patient methods of self-discipline; and while she meditated, she did quantities of work for herself, making, mending, remodelling, that she might get all the wear possible out of her clothes, and not add a penny she could help to those terrible debts, the thought of which had weighed on her youth, and threatened to crush all the spirit out of her ever since her marriage. Dan had never considered her too young to be worried.

From where she sat she could see Bertha on a seat just below, with "The Moonstone" on her lap, but Bertha could not see her because of the curtain of creepers that covered the iron rail which formed a little balcony round the window. Besides, it was supposed that that was a blank window. It was the only one on that side of the house, too, and Bertha had settled herself in that secluded corner of the garden precisely because she thought she could not be overlooked.

Beth glanced at her from time to time mechanically, but without thinking of her. It struck her at last, however, that Bertha had never opened her book, which seemed odd after the special point she had made of being left alone to read it undisturbed. Then Beth noticed that she seemed to be on the look-out, as if she were expecting something or somebody; and presently Dan appeared, walking quickly and with a furtive air, as if he were afraid of being seen. Bertha flushed crimson and became all smiles as soon as she saw him. Beth's work dropped on her lap, she clasped her hands on it, her own face flushed, and her breath became laboured. Dan, after carefully satisfying himself that there was nobody about, sat down beside Bertha, put his arm round her waist, and kissed her. She giggled, and made a feeble feint of protesting. Then he took a jewel-case from his pocket, opened it, and held it out to her admiring gaze. It contained a handsome gold bracelet, which he presently clasped on her arm. She expressed her gratitude by lifting up her face to be kissed. Then he put his arm round her again, and she sat with her head on his shoulder, and they began to talk; but the conversation was interrupted by frequent kisses.

Beth had seen enough. She turned her back to the window, and sat quite still with her hands clasped before her. It was her first experience of that parasite, the girl who fastens herself on a married woman, accepts all that she can get from her in the way of hospitality and kindness, and treacherously repays her by taking her husband for a lover. Beth pitied Bertha, but with royal contempt. It all seemed so sordid and despicable. Jealous she was not. "Jealousy is a want of faith in one's self," she had said to Bertha's mother once, and now, in the face of this provocation, she was of the same mind. She had no words to express her scorn for a man who is false to his obligations, nor for the petty frauds and deceits which had made the position of those two tenable. As for Dan, he was beneath contempt; but--"I shall succeed!" The words sprang to her lips triumphantly. "Let him wallow with his own kind in congenial mire as much as he likes. No wonder he suspects me! But I--I shall succeed!"

Meanwhile down in the garden Dan was gurgling to Bertha: "What should I do without you, darling? Life wasn't worth having till I knew you. I won't say a word against Beth. She has her good points, as you know, and I believe she means well; but she's spoilt my life, and my career too. I'm one that requires a lot of sympathy; but she never shows me any. She thinks of nobody but herself. Her own mother always said so. And after all I've done for her too! If only you knew! But of course I can't blow my own trumpet. They're all alike in that family, though. Her mother used to keep me playing cards till I was ruined. And Beth has no gratitude, and you can't trust her. She comes of a lying lot, and I'm of the same mind as my old father, who used to say he'd rather have a thief any day than a liar. You can watch a thief, but you can't watch a liar."

"Still, Dan," Bertha murmured, "I somehow think you ought to stick to her."

"So I would," said Dan. "No one can accuse me of not sticking to my duty. I'm an honourable man. It was she who cast me off. I'm nothing to her. And I should have been broken-hearted but for you, Bertha, I should indeed." Dan's fine eyes filled with tears, which Bertha tenderly wiped away.

"Of course it makes a great difference her having cast you off," Bertha conceded, after a little interlude.

"It makes all the difference," Dan rejoined. "She set me at liberty, and you are free too; so who have we to consider but ourselves? I admire a woman who has the pluck to be free!" he added enthusiastically.

"Then why don't you encourage Beth more to go her own way?" Bertha reasonably demanded. "She's always yearning for a career."

Dan hesitated. "Because I've been a fool, I think," he said at last. "I'll encourage her now, though. It would be a great blessing to us if she could get started as a writer. I see that now. She'd think of nothing else. And it would be a blessing to her too," he added feelingly.

"That's what I like about you, Dan," Bertha observed. "You always make every allowance for her, and consider her interests, although she has treated you badly."

Dan pressed her hand to his lips. "I'll do what I can for her, you may be sure," he said, quite melted by his own magnanimity. "I wish I could do more. But she's been extravagant, and my means are dreadfully crippled."

"Then why do you buy me such handsome presents, you naughty man?" Bertha playfully demanded, holding up her arm with the bracelet on it.

"I must have a holiday sometimes," he rejoined. "Besides, I happen to be expecting a handsome cheque, an unusual occurrence, by any post now."

Beth's dividends were due that day.

Just as dinner was announced, Beth swept into the drawing-room in the best evening dress she had, a diaphonous black, set off by turquoise velvet, a combination which threw the beautiful milk-white of her skin into delicate relief. There was a faint flush on her face; on her forehead and neck the tendrils of her soft brown hair seemed to have taken on an extra crispness of curl, and her eyes were sparkling. She had never looked better. Bertha Petterick, in her common handsomeness, was as a barmaid accustomed to beer beside a gentlewoman of exceptional refinement. She wore the showy bracelet Dan had given her that afternoon, and it shone conspicuous in its tawdry newness on her arm; her dress was tasteless too, and badly put on, and altogether she contrasted unfavourably with Beth, and Dan observed it.

"Are you expecting any one in particular to-night?" he asked.

"No," Beth answered smiling. "I dressed for my own benefit. Nothing moves me to self-satisfaction like a nice dress. I have not enjoyed the pleasure much since I married. But I am going to begin now, and have a good time."

She turned as she spoke and led the way to the dining-room alone. Dr. Maclure absently offered his arm to Miss Petterick. He was puzzled to know what this sudden fit of self-assertion, combined with an unaccountable burst of high spirits on Beth's part, might portend. To conceal a certain uneasiness, he became extra facetious, not to say coarse. There was a public ball coming off in a few days, and he persisted in speaking of it as "The Dairy Show."

"Don't you begin to feel excited about it? I do!" Miss Petterick said to Beth. "I wish it were to-night."

"I am indifferent," Beth answered blandly, "because I am not going."

"Not going!" Dan exclaimed. "Then who's to chaperon me?"

"I should scarcely suppose," Beth answered, looking at him meditatively, "that you are in the stage of innocence which makes a chaperon necessary. Bertha, how you are loving that new bracelet! You've done nothing but fidget with it ever since we sat down."

"Ah!" Bertha answered archly, "you want to know where I got it, Madam Curious! Well, I'll tell you. It was sent me only to-day--by my young man!"

Dan looked at his plate complacently, but presently Beth saw a glance of intelligence flash between them--a glance such as she had often seen them exchange before, but had not understood; and she was thankful that she had not!--thankful that she had been able to live so long with Dr. Maclure without entertaining a single suspicion, without thinking one low thought about him. It was a hopeful triumph of cultivated nice-mindedness over the most evil communications.

When they were at dessert, the postman's knock resounded sharply. Dr. Maclure, who had been anxiously listening for it, and was peeling a pear for Miss Petterick at the moment, waited with the pear and the knife upheld in his hands, watching the door till the servant entered. She brought a letter on a salver, and was taking it to her master, when Beth said authoritatively, "That letter is for me, Minna; bring it here."

The girl obeyed.

Dan put down the knife and the pear. "What's yours is mine, I thought," he observed, with a sorry affectation of cheeriness.

"Not on this occasion," Beth answered quietly, taking up the letter and opening it as she spoke. "This happens to be peculiarly my own."

"Why, it's a cheque," he rejoined, with an affectation of surprise. "What luck! I haven't been able to sleep for nights thinking of the butcher's bill."

"For shame!" Beth said, bantering--"talking about bills before your guest! But since you introduced the subject I may add that the butcher must wait. I want this myself. I am going to stay with Mrs. Kilroy at Ilverthorpe on Wednesday, and it will just cover my expenses."

"This is the first I have heard of the visit," Dan ejaculated.

"I only decided to go this afternoon," Beth replied.

"You decided without consulting me? Well--I'm damned if you shall go; I shall not allow it."

"The word 'allow' is obsolete in the matrimonial dictionary, friend Daniel," Beth rejoined good-humouredly.

"But you are bound to obey me."

"And I'm ready to obey you when you endow me with all your worldly goods," she said; then, suddenly dropping her bantering tone, she spoke decidedly: "I am going to stay with Mrs. Kilroy on Wednesday, understand that at once, and do not let us have any vulgar dispute about it."

"But you can't leave Miss Petterick here alone with me!" he remonstrated.

"No, but she can go home," Beth answered coolly. "Her mother wants her, you know, and I have written to tell her to expect her to-morrow. Now, if you please, we will end the discussion."

She put the letter in her pocket, and began to crack nuts and eat them. But Dan could not keep away from the subject. "Gad!" he ejaculated, "I thought they'd get hold of you, that lot, and flatter you, and make a convenience of you--that's what they do! I know them! They think you're clever--how easy it is to be mistaken! But you'll see for yourself in time, and then you'll believe me--when it's too late. For then you'll have got your name mixed up with them, and you'll not get over that, I can tell you--they are well known for a nice lot. Your Mrs. Kilroy was notorious before she married. She was Angelica Hamilton-Wells, and she and her brother were called the Heavenly Twins. They are grandchildren of that blackguard old Duke of Morningquest. Nobody ever speaks of any of the family with the slightest respect. It's well known that Miss Hamilton-Wells asked old Kilroy to marry her, and when a girl has to do that, you may guess what she is! But they are all besmirched, that lot," Dan concluded with his most high-minded manner on.

"I never believe anything I hear against anybody," said Beth, unconsciously quoting Ideala; "so please spare me the recital of all invidious stories."

"You'll only believe what suits yourself, I know," he said. "And I've no doubt you'll enjoy yourself. Galbraith will be there, and Mr. Theodore Hamilton-Wells, the fair-haired 'Diavolo,' who will suit your book exactly, I should think."

"I beg your pardon?" said Beth politely.

Dan poured himself out another glass of wine, and said no more.

He and Bertha managed to have a moment's conversation together before they retired that night.

"What does it mean?" Bertha anxiously demanded. "Does she suspect anything?"

"God knows!" Dan said piously, then added, after a moment's consideration, "How the devil can she? We've played our cards too well for that! No, she's just bent on making mischief; that's the kind of pill she is. If she keeps that money it will be downright robbery. But now you see what I have to put up with, and you can judge for yourself if I deserve it."

When he went to Beth, however, he assumed a very different tone. He entered the room with an air of deep dejection, and found her sitting beside her dressing-table in a white wrapper, reading quietly. She smiled when she saw his pose. It was what she had expected.

"I can't do without that money, Beth, on my word," he began plaintively. "I've been reckoning on it. I wouldn't take it from you, God knows, if I could help it; but I'm sore pressed." He took out his handkerchief and wiped his eyes, imagining that he still had to deal with the gentle sensitive girl, upon whom he had imposed so long and so successfully.

Beth watched him a moment with contempt, and then she laughed.

"It is no use, friend Daniel," she said in her neat, incisive, straightforward way. "I am not going to take you seriously any more. I am neither to be melted by your convenient tears, nor dismayed by your bogey bills. I have never seen any of those bills, by the way; the next time you mention them, please produce them. Let us be business-like. And in the meantime, just understand, once for all, like a good man, that I am not going to be domineered over by you as if I were a common degraded wife with every spark of spirit and self-respect crushed out of me by one brutal exaction or another. I shall do my duty--do my best to meet your reasonable wishes; but I will submit to no ordering and no sort of exaction." She rose and faced him. "And as we are coming to an understanding," she pursued, "just explain. Why did you tell me that Miss Petterick was to be a paying patient?"

"I never told you anything of the kind," said Dan, losing his head, and lying stupidly in his astonishment.

Beth shrugged her shoulders. "It is your own business," she rejoined--"at least it is you who will have to pay for her entertainment."

She returned to her book as she spoke, and continued to read with apparent calmness.

Now that she had taken up her position, she found herself quite strong enough to hold it against any Dan Maclure or Bertha Petterick. But Beth was being forced into an ugly and vulgar phase, and she knew and resented it, and was filled with dismay. She was taking on something of the colour of her surroundings involuntarily, inevitably, as certain insects do, in self-defence. She had spoken to Dan in his own tone in order to make him understand her; but was it necessary? Surely if she had resisted the impulse to try that weapon, she might have found another as effective, the use of which would not have compromised her gentlehood and lessened her self-esteem. Her dissatisfaction with herself for the part she had played was a cruel ache, and she thanked Heaven for the chance which would mercifully remove her from that evil atmosphere for a while, and prayed for time to reflect, for strength to be her better self. She was angry with herself, and grieved because she had fought Dan with his own weapons, and it did not occur to her for her comfort that she had only done so because he was invulnerable to that which she would naturally have used--earnest, reasonable, calm discussion--and that fight him she must with something, somehow, or sink for ever down to the degraded level required of their wives by husbands of his way of thinking.