Chapter XIII: Part 13

He hesitated, blushing like a girl, but on the morrow he came and found her friendly, genial, the "good sort": a role she could sustain to perfection. Mark, on the other hand, felt himself to be dull and irritable. Even the all-absorbing _Fenella_ failed to quicken his wits or pulses. He answered absently some suggestions in regard to the fourth act, staring at the speaker's eyes, as if trying to read their message instead of that of the lips.

"Why do you look at me like that?" she asked in a tone absolutely free from sentiment.

"I am trying to find the real Sybil."

"Sybils are mysteries," she said lightly. "Besides you come here to talk about the play--_hein_? not about me."

"I come here to talk about the play," he answered slowly, "but I go away to think about you."

"And the thoughts are not always pleasant ones?"

"Not always."

"You are truthful."

"Am I?"

"Most men are such liars. Gonzales, for example--ah, well, we won't talk of him. But the others--oh, the humbugs!"

In fluent, even tones, she began to speak of the men she knew intimately, the higher Bohemians of art and literature. It was impossible not to be amused by her sketches.

"This is caricature," said Mark.

"Studies from life."

"I'm glad I don't know those--gentlemen."

"You are a man of limitations; and you see others not as they are but as you would like them to be. That is why your books do not sell. Your characters are strongly drawn, but their strength is a reproach and an exasperation to readers of weaker clay. In books, as in real life, we like to meet people no better and perhaps worse than ourselves. You are handicapped by ideals, which bankrupt your ideas...."

On this theme she spoke volubly for some minutes. Mark listened, amazed at her perceptions, at her grasp of life as it is lived in London, at her audacity in dealing with problems.

"You look astonished," she concluded, "but nowadays revolt is a synonym of intelligence. As for me I revolt against stupid traditions and conventions. They are to me like those hideous horse-hair sofas and chairs upon which our grandfathers sat so stiffly. What? Good wear in them? I dare say they served their purpose, but now they are banished to obscure lodging-houses."

Mark repeated some of her phrases to Tommy Greatorex.

"She's as clever as she can stick," Tommy admitted, "but it's surface cleverness, like surface water, tricklings from a thousand sources more or less polluted. She's interested in you because you are different from--the others. Of course you're not interested in her--apart from her profession, I mean. I sent you to her because I knew you would be proof against her sorceries--the witch. Hullo!"

Mark was scarlet.

"I say--you're not interested, are you? She's a wrong 'un. I warned you."

"She has good in her."

Greatorex laughed.

"Good? A needle in a haystack. Seriously, Mark, you mustn't burn your fingers. Lord! I was so sure of you. I foresaw that you would excite her curiosity and interest; I knew that she would like you, as I said, better than your play. In a word I pulled the strings, but I thought I should make her dance, not you."

"She has been very kind to me."

"What have you been to her? Tell me to mind my own business, if you like. It's not worth minding, but that doesn't matter."

"I am going to ask Mrs. Perowne to marry me," Mark replied slowly.

"Phew-w-w!"

Instantly, Mark took his hat and marched out of the room. Tommy bit his nails till it occurred to him to light a pipe. Then he tried to continue his work, a special article, but he found it impossible to write a line. Mark's face and eyes disturbed him. Finally, he flung down his pen in a rage.

"I thought I knew him," he muttered, "I thought I knew him. This is the bottomless pit, and I led him blindfold to the edge of it."

Suddenly he bethought himself of Pynsent. Pynsent knew Mrs. Perowne, had painted her portrait--a revelation of character in colour. Accordingly he wired to Pynsent, asking him to dine at a small restaurant in Baker Street, and mentioning that a subject of importance was to be discussed. Pynsent wired back an acceptance for the same evening, and the men met at eight o'clock. They sat down to sharpen their appetites upon some excellent salted fillets of herring. Not till the _marmite_ was swallowed did Greatorex give his perplexity words. Then he said abruptly--

"You painted Mrs. Perowne?"

"You bet I did--inside and out."

"Did she make love to you?"

"N-n-no," Pynsent replied, not quite readily.

"Why not be frank? I can hold my tongue."

"I think," Pynsent admitted cautiously, "that she expected me to make love to her, but I didn't. I took a dislike to the woman. And it came out in the picture. Unpleasant things were said about it at the time, but she liked it. She told me I had succeeded. And--Great Scott!--so I had."

"She has captivated and is captivated by Mark Samphire. He is going to marry her."

"What?"

"It is partly my fault, but I was so sure of--him." He told the story at length. "And now what are we to do?"

"Mark--Mark!" Pynsent kept repeating stupidly. "It is incredible. Mark Samphire--and Sybil Perowne!"

"She has never denied herself anything."

"She'll suck every ounce of good blood from his body. It would be kindness to knock him on the head."

"It would be pleasure to knock her on the head," said Tommy gloomily.

"We can do nothing," said Pynsent, at length, as he lit one of his Caporal cigarettes, which he smoked between the courses. "There was Maiden. When I studied at the Beaux Arts, Maiden was the coming man. By Jove! he had come. I remember his big picture in the Salon of '79. Crowds stood in front of it, jabbering like monkeys. It was great, great. And France bought it. It hangs in the Luxembourg to-day. Well, Maiden had a model, a queer little devil of a girl with huge black eyes whom he stuck into all his pictures. He bought her from her mother out of a slum, the Rue du Haut-Pave, close to the cabaret du Soleil d'Or, and she followed him about like a spaniel, all over Normandy and Brittany. We wondered what would happen when the child became a woman. Gad! we might have guessed for a year and a day and never hit the truth. Maiden married her! He, the wit, the scholar, the gentleman, married that guttersnipe. And he hasn't painted a picture for fifteen years! I tell you, Tommy, that it's impossible to predict what any man will do when he comes in contact with the wrong woman."

"Or with the right one," said Greatorex, frowning.

They drank their coffee, and by mutual consent went to the Miraflores Music Hall, feeling that anything which might distract their thoughts from Mark would prove a relief. The place was crowded as usual, and Pynsent, pulling out a pencil, began to draw heads upon a piece of paper placed in his hat, while Tommy watched his facile fingers, much amused by the remarks which punctuated every line.

"People must relax," the painter was saying. "These places would be empty if we lived normal lives. A self-respecting savage would be bored to death here."

"True," said Tommy. "If you want to find sense nowadays you must hunt for it in the South Pacific, in the islands which Captain Cook and Mr. Thomas Cook did not find. Hullo, there's Jim Corrance."

"Why not tell him," said Pynsent quickly. "He's Mark's oldest friend; he'd do anything for Mark; and he's a practical sort of chap, too."

Jim joined them with alacrity, obviously glad to see Pynsent, who, of late, had dropped out of his file. The three secured a table in the corner of the foyer, where they could talk without fear of being overheard, for the noise--the shrill laughter of the women, the deep notes of the men, the blare of the band--was deafening. Jim, however, not knowing Mrs. Perowne, save by reputation, was unable to realise the gravity of the situation.

"Aren't you fellows making a mountain of a molehill?" he asked. "And, besides, what can old Mark offer Sybil Perowne?"

"A new sensation," said Tommy grimly. His face impressed Corrance. Pynsent nodded gloomily.

"There's David Ross," said Jim.

"The Bishop of Poplar?"

"At one time Mark and he were hand-in-glove. He used to be a wonder-worker."

"Oh, he is still," said Greatorex. "I thought we should get something out of you, Corrance."

"But a parson----" began Pynsent doubtfully.

"He was the amateur middleweight champion before he took Orders," said Corrance, "and it's the pugilist in him, not the parson, which has made him the man he is. He'll tackle Mark, never fear. He tackles me--periodically, but all the same, if this thing is serious he will accomplish nothing."

"That is what I say," Pynsent added.

But Tommy, the smallest and weakest of the three, doggedly persisted. Finally he persuaded Corrance to seek out the Bishop of Poplar. Having extracted a promise to this effect, he took leave of the others, for his article, due on the morrow, had to be finished that night. Pynsent and Corrance remained together. As the little man plunged into the crowd, Pynsent said: "Tommy Greatorex would cut off his right hand for Mark, but I've heard men call him selfish and self-centred."

Corrance at once began to analyse this indisputable fact, sticking out his chin, and talking with an aggressive frankness which much amused the painter, who said presently:

"We may as well admit, Jim, that we're cold-blooded, you and I----"

"For the sake of argument--yes. Go on!"

"Partly because of that we've succeeded. I can't see myself, or you, my boy, chucking our work to help others, although after the work was done we might write a cheque--eh?"

"You had better have another whisky and potass."

"Thanks. I will."

They watched the Miraflores ballet from a couple of balcony stalls. Fabulous sums had been spent upon the costumes of the dancers, who represented flowers and butterflies. Pynsent became absorbed in the spectacle of light and colour and movement. Now and again he jogged Corrance with his elbow, calling his attention to this effect and that, muttering inarticulate exclamations. The lights in the theatre were turned low, so that the stage, a blaze of golden splendour, attracted all eyes. Then, suddenly, like a sun in eclipse, the stage itself was obscured. One saw luminous shadows through which floated spirits of the air, mysterious winged beings; the butterflies seeking the flowers at the approach of night. Impenetrable darkness succeeded as the band stopped playing. In the foyer, men and women crowded together craned their heads in one direction, awaiting the supreme moment. It came. Out of the darkness glided a dazzling creature, veiled in what seemed to be a tissue of diamonds. From her alone emanated light, a myriad sparkles. She advanced slowly with white, outstretched arms, a smile upon her face. At the edge of the stage she poised herself for flight. Not a sound broke the silence, but one felt the throb and thrill of a thousand hearts. Then a faint strain of music suffused the air, as the creature took wing. She soared upward and forward, following the curve of an ellipse. Thus soaring, she scattered flowers which fell everywhere, filling the house with perfume. In the dome of the building she vanished. A sigh of pleasure escaped the lips of the spectators. The vision reappeared, gliding forward as before out of obscurity. Once more, for the last time, she soared upward and vanished.

"Let us go," said Pynsent. "That was the immortal spirit of Love. And she vanished--no wonder--in this temple of----" He shut his lips, for his neighbours were staring at him.

Corrance rose, muttering: "The expenses must be stupendous; but Miraflores shares are at 219. I bought a nice little block at 127 eighteen months ago."

"Shut up, you miserable materialist!"

"I can't afford to be anything else--nor can Mark, poor devil!"

"I beg your pardon," said Pynsent hurriedly.

They pushed their way through the crowd, pausing at the top of the broad stairs which led to the street below. The atmosphere, charged with odours of musk and patchouli and reeking of strong cigars, was overpoweringly oppressive. But on almost every face, pale beneath the glare of the electric light, flamed a curious satisfaction, curious because with rare exceptions it was artificial. The exception may be mentioned. A thick-set man, remarkable by reason of his white hair and pink smooth face, stood at the entrance, bowing and beaming. The habitues knew him, and nodded carelessly as they passed by. Some exchanged a few words. The man seemed to be counting: reckoning the numbers present, computing gains.

"That's old Harry," said Corrance to the painter. "He runs this place. Hullo, Harry, how are you? Big house to-night."

"Big house every night," said Harry complacently. "You know that, Mr. Corrance. It's prime--prime. I never get tired of watching it."

He rubbed his plump white hands together, beaming like an aged cherub.

"Holy Moses!" exclaimed Pynsent. "You never get tired of watching--this?" He indicated the promenade in a derisive gesture.

"Never," said Harry, opening his blue eyes in childish astonishment at such a question. "Why this is my show. I planned it. I stand here every night."

"It's meat and drink, old chap, isn't it?" said Corrance.

"I've got just where I wanted to be," Harry said solemnly. "The boys call me king of the music-halls."

"Good-night, your majesty," said Corrance, beginning to descend the stairs. "There's one that's happy and content," he added, as Pynsent and he strolled down the corridor.

"We're saprophytes," burst out Pynsent.

"I don't know what that means," said Jim, "but it sounds something nasty."

*CHAPTER XL*

*"COME!"*

True to his promise, Corrance sought out the Bishop of Poplar, and delivered himself of his message. David Ross nodded, but his fine eyes were troubled.

"What's happened to Mark?" said Corrance irritably. "D----n it all--I beg your pardon, David, but Mark would make you swear, bishop though you are."

"I'll see him," said David; "but I--I don't know--I fear----" He broke off abruptly. Then his eyes flashed. "What's happened to Mark?

"As for me," said Jim, "I can see, but Mark, the blind fool, wants a nurse or a keeper. He's half child, half lunatic. I'll go now. You're up to your nose in work, and so am I. I suppose you want money, you shameless beggar?"

"All I can get and all I can't get."

"I shall have to send you a cheque," Jim growled. "I tell everybody you're the dearest friend I've got. Good-bye."

He retreated hastily, fearing a lecture. David returned to an enormous correspondence with which his secretary was endeavouring to cope. The poor man nearly burst into tears when his chief told him that he might be absent for several hours. David put on his hat, deaf to a score of protests.

"I'm going fishing," he said, "and, confound it! I've no bait."

Corrance had told him that Mark lunched at the Scribblers. To that club the Bishop took his way. There he learned that Mark was writing in the silence room. David walked in, unannounced, holding out his hand, which Mark refused to take.

"You went to Betty," he said fiercely.

"No."

"She failed me."

"Yes; she failed you, thank God."

"What brings you here?"

"You know perfectly well."

"But this is intolerable, this interference! Will you understand, Ross, that I insist upon your leaving me alone?"

"That is impossible, Mark. Why, I want you to come and stay with me for a month."

"I wonder they ordained you a bishop," said Mark. "I thought they made a point of choosing men of--tact."

"I've any amount of tact," said David cheerfully. "Mark, you're a madman, and in your soul you know it."

"Tommy Greatorex sent you on this fool's errand?"

"Yes; Greatorex and Jim and Pynsent. Your friends love you well, Mark. Have you no love for them?"

"I'll tell you something, Ross; it may save you time and trouble. The love I had for you fellows is dead--dead." Then, as a gesture of dismay escaped the Bishop, Mark added: "I cannot love anybody. If it could come back, if--but it won't. That's why I've kept away from most of you. You--you all bore me. Oh, it's my fault, I know. I've become a one-idea'd man. I can think of nothing but my play and the woman who is going to produce it, to give it life. She's become part of it, do you understand, part of me--me. I can't lie to you; but I'd like you to try to realise that the Mark Samphire you once knew is dead. Who killed Cock Robin?" he laughed. "I can't answer that question."

"You mean you won't," said the Bishop steadily. "Well, I believe in the resurrection of the dead. You will come to life again, Mark Samphire, but not at my touch."

He moved towards the door.

"David!"

The familiar name thrilled upon the air. It was Mark, the old Mark, speaking. In an instant the hands of the two friends were locked.

"I can't let you go like that," said Mark. "For all you have done and would do, I--thank you."

A few days passed without incident. Spring was abroad in the fields and woods, hailed by twittering birds and white blossoms. Mark felt her caress, and was sensible of that amazing calm which succeeds and precedes any strenuous effort. He let himself drift with the current, lulled almost to sleep by the lilt of the stream which bore him to the troubled waters beyond his ken.

Someone has said that a fine quality in a human being may become the source of disaster as well as triumph. One might go further, and add that a fine quality denied its triumph, may be wrecked in disaster. That love for others with which Mark had been endowed would have increased and multiplied in marriage. The man had the best qualities or a husband and father. He apprehended this with his reason, even as Betty apprehended it intuitively. But such manifest destiny had been denied him, as in like manner it was denied to his friend David Ross. But David had been given his triumph. His power of loving, purged from the taint of selfish emotion, had expanded enormously, incredibly, suffusing itself, divinely fluid, over vast areas, transmuting everything it touched, producing and reproducing with inexhaustible energy and fertility. Mark's love might have flowed into as many and diverse channels had it not been dammed by its bastard brother passion--hate.

Now, standing (as Greatorex had put it) on the brink of the bottomless pit, he was conscious that not only was love, the higher love, dead, but that hate also was moribund. He could think of Archibald as of one at an immeasurable distance--a shadowy figure, a blur upon the horizon. And since his meeting with Betty in Pynsent's studio, she also had faded, and become _unreal_, a phantom of the past, flitting from him into impenetrable shades.

This feeling of remoteness from the persons whose lives had been so interwoven with his own underwent a crucial test that same afternoon. In the _Globe_ Mark read that the see of Parham had been offered to and accepted by Archibald Samphire. His brother had reached the apex of his ambitions; he was the bishop-designate of a famous diocese in the North of England! Lower down, in the same column, was another paragraph--

"Mrs. Perowne is leaving London for the Continent. The famous actress, we are given to understand, has accepted a play by one of our rising novelists, a play which those who have read it declare to be quite out of the common."

Mark recognised the finger of Tommy in this, as well as the long arm of coincidence. Upon the page opposite the column of personal paragraphs was a sketch of his brother's life and labours. Mark laughed. The Bishop of Parham. A spiritual peer! And what a leg for a gaiter! He laughed again, reflecting that other paragraphs might be printed concerning a famous actress and a rising novelist. My lord would read them with horror.

Next day the _Times_ had a long leader about the Chrysostom of Chelsea. The late Bishop of Parham, an old infirm man, had distinguished himself as scholar, and then extinguished himself as prelate, lacking those powers of organisation which do not, perhaps, lend themselves to biblical exegesis and the Higher Criticism. His diocese--of great extent--had of late years increased enormously in population. The discovery of coal and a certain kind of clay had brought about an upheaval: the pastoral industries, which supported a few farmers and shepherds, still flourished, but side by side with colossal commercial enterprises. Towns, black with the smoke from a thousand factories, had sprung up like mushrooms upon turf that had never known a plough; railroads ravaged the face of the landscape with indelible lines; half a dozen fishing villages bade fair to become seaports of importance. With these new and complex conditions, the aged scholar had tried in vain to cope. Upon his death, at an advanced age, it was felt at headquarters that a young man must be selected to grapple with them: an athlete of tried physical strength, an abstainer (for the statistics in regard to drunkenness were appalling), an organiser, and above all things an eloquent preacher. For such a task no better nor abler man than Archibald Samphire could be found in the kingdom. The Prime Minister had made a wise selection, which the Dean and Chapter of Parham would, doubtless, approve and confirm. _And so forth_....

Mark bought other journals and read what was written about Parham and its bishop-designate. In each a few lines were accorded to the wife, who, by happy chance, was descended from the most ancient and distinguished of the border families. One paper contained the following:--

"Our readers will learn with deep sympathy and regret that the health of the future _chatelaine_ of Parham Castle is causing her husband and many friends grave anxiety."

Mark sprang to his feet with an exclamation. Betty--ill! In an instant he felt his blood circulating violently, stinging him to wild and over-powering excitement. The bishop-designate of Parham remained an attenuated shade; his wife was clothed with palpable flesh and blood. Ill? She? Incredible!

He despatched a telegram to Dibdin, the butler, and waited for the answer, pacing up and down the Finchley Road, regardless of a shower which wetted him to the skin. While he waited, one of the telegraph boys who knew him came up with a despatch. Mark tore open the envelope. The telegram was from Sybil Perowne. She had reached Paris and was going to Fontainebleau. Mark stared stupidly at the message. Then he murmured between his teeth: "I wish she was going to Jericho."

The actress had become as remote as Betty had been a few hours before. Between Sybil Perowne and him stretched the long years of youth and childhood, never to be forgotten--the years which belonged to Betty. He went back to meet Betty in a thousand familiar places; she ran to meet him, her eyes radiant with pleasure, her lips parted in joyous acclamation.

An hour later Dibdin's answer came--

"Very ill indeed. Typhoid."

Mark went to Chelsea in the first hansom he saw. At his brother's house carriages were coming and going upon the straw which had been laid down. Dibdin gave details. His mistress had complained of headache and general _malaise_ for some ten days, but had refused persistently to see her doctor. Finally, she had taken to her bed, ravaged by fever. She had eaten some oysters sent as a present to the preacher by an ardent admirer. Archibald also had eaten the oysters, but with impunity.

"Lady Randolph is upstairs, and master is in the library," said Dibdin. "Won't you see him, Mr. Mark?"

Mark hesitated.

"Yes," he said nervously, "I will. Show me in, Dibdin."

Archibald, who was writing at his desk, rose to receive him. As the door closed behind Dibdin, the eyes of the brothers met.

"If she asks for me, you will send?" said Mark, moving a step nearer.

"Go," Archibald replied, trembling and turning aside his eyes.

"Not till I have your promise. She may not ask, but if she does, by Heaven! you must, you shall send. Swear it!"

"Go, go!"

But Mark advanced, omnipotent by virtue of the passion within him.

Archibald retreated. Did he fear violence? Or did he read in his brother's eyes a power of will against which he was helpless. Pale, shaken as by a palsy, he stammered out: "I w-w-will s-s-send."

"Swear it!"

"I swear it."

Mark went back into the hall. Dibdin mentioned, with a pride which at any other time would have tickled Mark's humour, that everybody in London wanted the latest news. He and George, the footman, were almost worn out answering inquiries. Princes of the blood, the House of Peers, the House of Commons, Royal Academicians, county families, had learned with infinite regret of Mrs. Samphire s dangerous illness. Mark listened with eager ears. And what did Dibdin himself think? Dibdin, like all of his class, was lamentably pessimistic. "In the hall, we entertain no hope, no hope," Dibdin murmured. "And to think of that beautiful castle at Parham without the mistress is breaking our hearts in two, sir."

A terrible ten days passed. At the beginning of the first week Mark received a letter from Mrs. Perowne. Between the lines of it an even more distracted vision than Mark's might have caught a glimpse of the Fury. Mark read it, wondering what charm he had perceived in her, and thankful that no links stronger than words bound him to the witch. He had asked no questions concerning Mrs. Perowne's past; and she had asked none concerning his. The postscript to her letter was very imperative: "Come to the woman you love, if you are alive." He replied simply: "The woman I loved as a boy and a man, the woman I love still, is dying. Think what you please of me, and forget me as soon as possible." By return of post came his play with a brutal line across the title page: "Take this to her; I have no use for it." Mark tossed the typescript into a drawer with a laugh. _Fenella_, the graven image of success which he had set up and worshipped, had become a thing of absolutely no importance. But he remembered the Chow and the spirits of ammonia. His dear love, who lay dying, had saved him from--what?

Meantime, his friends sought him out, but he sent away David, and Tommy Greatorex and Pynsent. Jim Corrance, however, refused to leave him, although Mark ignored his presence for twenty-four hours. Then, very gradually, he thawed into speech with his old friend. Together they awaited the bulletins. The disease was running its slow, tortuous course. One telegram spelt hope in capital letters; another--despair: each rose and fell with Betty's temperature. Mark's self-control distressed poor Jim unspeakably. His face, which had lost the expression of youth, always so captivating, wore an iron mask of impassivity. And yet Jim knew that the intermittences of Betty's fever imposed themselves on Mark.

We are told that Chinese malefactors condemned to die by the abominable torment of _Ling_--the death from a thousand cuts--only suffer up to a certain point. Then insensibility dulls the knives of the executioners.

Jim was asking himself the question: "Will Mark cease to feel?" when a telegram from Archibald reached Hampstead, containing one word, "_Come_."

*CHAPTER XLI*

*THE POWER BEHIND THE THRONE*

Lady Randolph was awaiting Mark in the pretty drawing-room overlooking the river.

"Nothing can save her," she whispered. "She is alive because she could not die without seeing you. What is left is yours. You understand. Archibald has been generous."

"Archibald has his son," Mark said hoarsely.

"She was not herself till last night, when the fever burnt itself out. But, Mark, always, always she raved of you. Husband and child were never mentioned. It was terrible for him--poor fellow--terrible!"

Mark followed her upstairs.

Betty lay in bed, the light from the windows, which were opened wide, streaming upon her emaciated face. A clean, sweet perfume of violets filled the air, and whatever might have indicated a long and terrible illness had been removed.

She met his glance with a strange smile, as he stumbled forward, falling on his knees at the bedside, saying nothing, but kissing the hand lying limp upon the coverlet. Betty spoke first:

"Mark, Mark, Archie has forgiven you."

Mark said nothing. His brother's forgiveness came upon him at this moment as a meaningless blow on the cheek. What did he care for Archie's forgiveness? But he understood instantly what it meant to Betty. It explained the smile with which she greeted him. The question in her eyes slowly burnt its way to his heart.

"And he has been so good to me, so--good," she faltered.

"Yes, yes," he said hastily. Should he lie to her as she lay dying? Should he swear, if need be, that he, too, was purged of hate and envy? Why not, if such empty words had any virtue in them for her? But the lie could not leave his lips. A minute or two passed in silence. Then she whispered: "You will not leave me, Mark?"

Again he kissed her fingers.

"I shall not leave you, dear, dear Betty."

"Ah, but I must leave you. And I'm afraid."

"If I could go too----Shall I? Would it make it easier?"

The life raging in him communicated itself to her. A faint colour flowed into her cheeks, her eyes sparkled.

"You would do that?"

"Gladly."

"I knew you would say it. But I am not afraid for myself. I am--afraid--for--you. And if--if you went with me, we should part on the other side."

The words dropped one by one from her pallid lips, slowly, faintly, yet with indescribable emphasis.

"You must--wait," she whispered. "Promise me that you will wait. Quick!"

He obeyed, awestruck, for she had closed her eyes, and he feared she was gone. After a pause she spoke of his sermon: "It is here--under--my--pillow. Will you read the last two pages to me?"

He consented reluctantly, obedient to some spiritual authority. At the sound of his broken, troubled voice, harsh, but vibrant with that strange arresting quality which always had thrilled her, she smiled and sighed. Mark read the manuscript, unable to recognise it as his own. But reading on, he leaped the years which had passed. The sermon closed with a passage of great beauty and power. When he finished, he said wonderingly: "Did I write that?"

Betty whispered: "You know now why I couldn't come."

Mark remembered his own aphorism: that the best work of men is greater than themselves. And, if so, the conclusion followed inevitably: this sermon, infinitely greater than himself, must have been inspired not from within, but from without--by the Infinite!

"It is getting very dark," said Betty.

"Yes," he replied.

The sun had not reached its zenith, but it was dark indeed for the speaker. Betty's breath came and went with difficulty, as the heart and lungs slowly failed. Mark raised her head. Her fingers felt for his hand. He perceived that she was making a sign on the back of it. At first he thought it was a caress, but the fingers traced the same sign again and again--a cross.

He wished to speak of love, but the dreadful lump filled his throat--strangling him. She was dying, slipping from his grasp. If he could have believed that a meeting was possible elsewhere, still the doleful certainty possessed him that the flesh-and-blood woman was departing for ever. Revolt raged within him, while her finger traced the symbol of the faith he had abjured, the symbol of the love which vanquishes hate and death.

Suddenly the finger stopped.

As suddenly, something seemed to break in Mark's heart.

"Betty," he cried, "Betty--do you hear me? I am glad you didn't come. I shall live to thank God you didn't come."

She opened her eyes, and for the last time he noted that curious intensity of interrogation by which the full orb of the irid was revealed. He saw that she could not speak; he knew with conviction that no speech was necessary. Her lips parted in a faint smile, as if the last flickering doubt were escaping. Then, with a little shiver, with a sigh of contentment, her lids fell....

Outside the nurse and Lady Randolph waited, listening. In the library below sat Archibald Samphire and David Ross. Presently Lady Randolph went downstairs.

"The doors are locked," she faltered. "And there isn't a sound. I fear--I fear----"

The others understood instantly.

"Oh, my God--not that!" exclaimed Archibald.

He ran upstairs. At Betty's door he paused, inclining his ear. The silence within the room chilled him to the marrow. He called Mark by name, at first in a whisper, then louder, at the last his voice rang through the house.

"We must break in," he said.

At the first glance it seemed certain that both Mark and Betty lay dead on the bed. Even the trained eye of the nurse was deceived. But after a stimulant had been administered, Mark recovered semi-consciousness. When he opened his eyes he began to speak in his natural voice; then he laughed--gaily, youthfully.

"That's it, Betty--capital! Pop it over his head! Good! Ha--ha! old Archie, that did you. I say, I am thirsty...."

He imagined that he was at Pitt Hall playing lawn tennis.

Brain fever set in within twenty-four hours. During his delirium he called impatiently for his brother, who came trembling. Mark saw only the boy.

"Why have you stayed away so long?" he asked. "You're not going to leave me, old chap?"

"No, no," stammered Archibald.

"I say, it is jolly seeing you again."

He stretched out his lean, shrunken hand, which Archibald took. Presently Mark's vagabond wits wandered to Lord's Cricket Ground.

"Well played!" he screamed. "A boundary hit, by Jove! That's my brother, you know, old Archie. Isn't he splendid? Isn't he a slogger? There he goes again. What a smite! Well played, Samphire major! Well played, sir--_well played_!"

The tears fell down Archibald's cheeks.

"He's been going on like that all night," whispered the nurse; then she added gently, "He seems to have a wonderful love for you, sir." She was another nurse, just called in, still ignorant of such gossip as circulated in the servants' quarters. Constrained to listen to hideous raving, to heartrending revelations, this delirium of love touched her to the core. She knew that the famous preacher's wife lay dead in the next room, and being a tender-hearted woman, strove to comfort him.

"I hear so much that is so shocking," she whispered. "Only the other day I was nursing a gentleman who cursed his brother, who--died cursing him! And after that, _this_---- It must be a comfort to you...."

For a fortnight the fever raged. During long hours each day the brothers were together, united by the mocking fiend of delirium. And during those hours Mark lived again his youth. Nothing seemed to be forgotten. But delirium achieved more than reproduction--revelation. Mark, like all healthy boys, had concealed his love for his brother. Of the nature and extent of that love the elder had formed no conception--till now, when its steady stream poured down in flood.

After the first shock of seeing his brother's senseless body, Archibald told himself (and had said as much to David Ross) that it would be well if Mark departed in peace out of a world wherein he had suffered cruelly. But David Ross shook his head.

"He will not die," he said, with conviction, albeit the two doctors in attendance held the contrary opinion.

And then, gradually, Archibald came to regard his brother's ravings as the shadows of an inestimable substance. Computing his gains, he discovered with poignant consternation, that his losses far outweighed them. His name was in men's mouths; he held power, wealth, health in the hollow of his hand. But was there one fellow-creature who truly loved him? Day after day, Mark's innumerable friends came to the door: Pynsent, confessing that he was unable to work from anxiety; Jim Corrance, haggard with sleeplessness; Greatorex, who seemed to spend his time on the doormat; Albert and Mary Batley. And besides these, humbler friends: waifs and strays, reclaimed drunkards, factory girls, who had read in the papers that the man who had been kind to them lay dying.

Always Archibald had obtained what he desired; but it never occurred to him that he desired mean things, or rather that the things so desired were mean in comparison with other things which he had ignored. None the less, the habit of seeking strenuously what he coveted remained. He realised, inexorably, that he coveted his brother's love. And if Mark died, that love once given so freely, then changed into hate, and at last given back in awful mockery, would perish with him.

It is possible, of course, that David Ross cleared his vision. He told David the little which David did not know. In a moment of profound humiliation he professed himself willing to resign his see. David indicated other penance, not alien to Christian sense. In and around Parham, he pointed out, a transgressor might bow the neck beneath the yoke of a labour harder than any to be found even in convict establishments. That Archibald should question his fitness for the task assigned him convinced David of the magnitude of the change within him.

Upon the day, however, when the doctors agreed that the crisis of the disease was approaching, Archibald's misery reached its culminating point. Returning life meant sanity. Mark would awake from a sleep which had lasted forty-eight hours to the realisation of the past, or he would sink into the coma and collapse which precede dissolution.

After some discussion it was agreed that Mark's eyes, when they opened, should rest on a face dear and familiar to him, yet dissociated from the events which had succeeded Betty's marriage. Mrs. Corrance had come to town; she had helped to nurse Mark; she was staying in the house and could be summoned at any moment. Accordingly, when at length Mark Samphire returned from his wanderings, the first person he saw was his old friend, as she sat sewing at the foot of his bed. She smiled serenely, waiting for him to speak. None the less, he kept silence so long that her hand began to tremble. She was sure that he was conscious and that he must be thinking of Betty.

"Have I been ill?" he asked gravely.

She rose at once, bent over him, touched his hand, and murmured: "Very ill. Brain fever. Keep quiet."

She laid the tips of her fingers upon his eyelids, gently pressing them down. He let them fall, and asked no more questions. But later, after he had taken some food, he said with a smile: "Betty told me that I must wait."

Within twenty-four hours word went forth from those in authority that he would live; but to Archibald's recurrent question, one answer alone was possible. Mark had not spoken his brother's name. Archibald's anxiety became hourly more poignant. If a glimpse of love had been vouchsafed him, in order that he might realise that it lay for ever beyond his reach, then of all men he would reckon himself the most unhappy.

Mark did not break silence, when he learned that he was in his brother's house. David was allowed to visit him, but the bishop spoke only of the waifs from the slums around the mission, who had not forgotten an old friend.

"But Bagshot killed his wife," said Mark.

David changed the subject. When he said good-bye, Mark said curtly: "I've been a beast to you, Davie. Is it all right?"

Ross repeated Mark's words to Archibald, who was waiting in the passage: "I think it is all right," said he. Then he added, pressing the other's hand: "He is asking for pardon."

That night the nurse who had come to him first, and who had tended him so skilfully, sat alone with him. Her perceptions had warned her that she was in a house where tragedy had been enacted. She knew that her patient had been found, stricken down upon the death-bed of his brother's wife, that the husband had held aloof at that most solemn hour.

Presently, as she was giving Mark some broth, he asked if he had raved in his delirium. Other questions followed. He learned of Archibald's presence at his bedside, of his ministrations. Incredulity melted into astonishment and then into an expression which the nurse could not define.

"You were never easy for a moment," she concluded, "unless your brother was with you."

"And he----?"

"It gave him real comfort to wait on you, poor gentleman!"

"Thank you," said Mark. "Good night, nurse!"

Next morning he asked for a mirror, exclaiming, when he saw his face: "What a scarecrow!" Later, he begged the doctor to allow him to send for a barber. For some years he had worn a beard, which, however closely clipped, had greatly altered him. When the man came, Mark ordered him to shave all hair from his face. This done, he called again for the mirror.

"Do you see much change?" he asked the nurse.

"I hardly recognise you."

"Others will r-recognise me," he said.

With his back to the light he looked the Mark who had ascended the pulpit at King's Charteris. His face was thin, pale, and hollow-cheeked. The fever had taken from him the flesh and colour which life in the open air had given him. Presently David Ross called and was admitted.

"Mark!"

He stood upon the threshold, staring. Mark smiled.

"Will you do me a favour?" he said, as the nurse slipped from the room. "I have not seen," he paused for a moment, nervously, "m-m-my b-b-brother yet. Will you ask him to c-c-come to me?"

A year later Pynsent wrote to Jim Corrance from Parham Castle.

"Parham has gained far more than Literature has lost. Here, Mark is the power behind the throne. _A propos_, I have painted Archibald on his throne in the sanctuary of Parham Cathedral. Everything, however, is subordinated to the face, upon which a ray of light falls obliquely. The expression you will hardly recognise, till you come here. When it was done, Archibald stared at it for many minutes. Then he said in his rather heavy way: 'It's a portrait; you have looked beneath these.' He indicated the robes. _The man looks years older_. But Mark has got back his youthful appearance, his high spirits, his keenness, his power of getting enjoyment out of what most of us would consider tedious and disagreeable. As his brother's secretary and confidential adviser, he knows that he has found himself. Archibald reaps all the honour and glory: and the sheaves are heavy. If praise, as Keble says, be our penance here, the Bishop of Parham will wear a hair shirt till he dies. He tells everybody, with pathetic earnestness, that his brother is the senior partner in the firm--and, of course, nobody believes him. Mark sticks to his red tie, and hunts once a week with Kirtling's hounds. He stammers worse than ever when he gets excited. It may seem amazing to you--it is certainly amazing to me--but Mark has the look of a happy, healthy man; and his nephew, so curiously like Betty, adores him."

Jim showed this letter to his mother.

"All the same," he remarked; "Mark ought to have married Betty. I am sure of that."

Mrs. Corrance laid down her embroidery. She and Jim were keeping house together: it being agreed that the winter should be spent in town and the summer in the country.

"I am not sure," she answered slowly. "I used to pray that Betty would marry you, but how many have profited by my 'losing of my prayers'? David Ross might make a guess."

Jim flushed. Only his mother knew that he had contributed large sums of money and much time to the Bishop of Poplar's East End enterprises.

"My dear son," Mrs. Corrance touched his hand with her delicate fingers, "try to believe that Betty died in order that the three men who loved her might live."

THE END

PLYMOUTH
WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON
PRINTERS