Chapter XIV: Book II (6)

Mary looked wise. “He told me to go away, once.”

“He did! Why were you to go then?”

“Because—oh, because he could see, I suppose, that I didn’t want to; and——”

“Well?”

“Because—I sometimes fancy—he didn’t want me to. At least, I think he didn’t. He said, ‘You had better go home. I’m a man, you know.’”

Polly opened her eyes wide. “That’s as plain as my nose. I should think so! So, of course——”

“Yes, of course I had to go.” She looked down at her toes, just as if Senhouse had been standing above her, bidding her go.

“I dream sometimes,” she said, “that he comes to me in the night, and looks at me—never speaks, but just looks. Not at me, you know, but through me—right through to the pillow. That’s enough. Then he turns and goes away, and I follow him out of door, into the warm dark—and he turns sharply upon me and is dreadfully angry. I’ve never known him angry; but dreams are like that. I see his face quite changed—wild and cold at once, and terribly stern. And I run away into the empty house, and wish that I were dead. No, no. I could never bear that—to seek him and be spurned. I would sooner never see him again.”

Polly was deeply moved, but practical. A girl must look ahead—far beyond dreams. “You had best not, Miss,” she said, “if that’s likely to be the way of it. Is he that sort—your hot-and-cold?”

“Oh, I don’t know—how can I tell? That has never been between us, save that once, when he told me to go away. He’s a wonderful talker about all sorts of things; he can make them all extraordinary. I feel, after listening to him, that I understand all life, all experience. Everything seems reasonable. But when it comes to—us—he won’t speak. I believe he can’t. And I understand him better when he doesn’t.”

“So would any one, I should think,” said Polly Merritt. “But how’s he going to look at you if he never sees you, and don’t know where you are?”

“Ah,” said Mary with far-sighted eyes, “I don’t know.”

“You might write to him, I suppose—and slip in your address, by accident like.”

Mary shook her head. “I couldn’t. Besides, he has no address. He just comes and goes—like the wind.”

“Has he no house of his own?”

“No. He lives in a tent—in a cart.”

“What! Like a gipsy? Oh, Miss!” This would never, never do.

But Mary admitted it, thoughtfully. “Yes. I think he might be a sort of gipsy.”

This, to Polly, was final. “I do think you’re better here, Miss Middleham, if you’ll excuse me.”

“Perhaps I am,” said Mary.

Polly had veered. “I’ll warrant the other gentleman would have a house to offer you.”

“Oh, yes, I suppose so. But——”

“Ah, that’s just it—that’s just it.”

Mary admitted it. “I suppose it is. But he says that he will never marry. He doesn’t believe in marriage.”

“Ho, indeed!” cried Polly. “Then pray what does he believe in?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure.”

Polly tossed her young head. “It wouldn’t take long for me to be sure.”

Then Mary showed her face, and her eyes shone clear. “I am sure of this, that if he called me I should follow him over the world, however he chose me to be. But I know he never will. He is unlike anybody else—he comes and goes like the wind.”

“Let him, for me,” said Polly, “’specially when he’s going.”

The summer waned and fainted; autumn mists crept about, and found her still in Exeter. Pupils came slowly, but she got one or two, and there was promise of more. The Vicar of the parish helped her. She taught in his Sunday school, did him some visiting, danced with his boys and sang with his girls. Through him she got an engagement in September, in a young ladies’ academy—to teach Italian two days a week. She got to know a few people. There was a gentlemanly young man called Bloxam, who escorted her home from choral evenings; then there was a curate—_quod semper, quod ubique_—who lent her books and professed himself ready to discuss them afterwards, by correspondence or otherwise.

These things faintly amused her; the simplicity of such devices, for instance, the little buildings-up of the little architects! She felt herself, ruefully, slipping back into the parochial, losing touch with her wide horizons. The tonic properties of freedom, which at first had been as delightful as the mere ease of it, were now staling by use. She began to find herself grow dull. The one fact upon which she could build was that she was again earning her living.

XVIII
ENTER A BIRD-CATCHER

October was in, mild and languorous; the trees dripped all day, the mist seemed unable to lift itself from the low-lying city. Mary grew restless and discontented. The usual things happened, but had ceased to entertain. Mr. Bloxam, after taking her for excursions by water, had one day proposed that she should take tea with his people, prosperous hucksters in the town. She agreed—to find out very soon that she was on exhibition, on approval, you might say. Mrs. Bloxam, the mother, addressed her particular inquiries, Mr. Bloxam, the father, gave her a carnation out of the conservatory. Shortly afterwards Mr. Bloxam, the son, made her another proposition, and was exceedingly surprised that she did not jump at it. Can such things be? he inquired, looking about. She had shaken her head at him very gently when she told him that really she couldn’t. It was charmingly done, with kindness, but complete finality. That he saw.

He told her that his heart was broken, that she saw before her a man beaten down. “It is dreadful,” he said. “My mother liked you so much. She is hard to please. I suppose you wouldn’t care to think it over?”

Again she shook her head. A Mr. Bloxam of Exeter! If he only knew, or could be made to know! “No, no,” she said. “I sha’n’t alter. But I hope we are not to be bad friends.”

Mr. Bloxam had bowed, and said, “I should be most happy”—and one sees what he meant. “My mother, you know, won’t like it. Naturally she is partial. She will say that you led me on.”

“Then she will say what is very untrue,” cried Mary, with flashing eyes, “and I hope you will tell her so. It is very hard if I may not have friends without being accused of ridiculous things.”

“Girls do them, you know,” said Mr. Bloxam dubiously. “I’ve met with several cases.”

“If you are likely to include this among them, I must ask you to let me go,” she said with spirit; “but perhaps you would like to give me some tea first.”

Mr. Bloxam, murmuring about the sacred rites of hospitality, assured her that he would; and they parted on good terms. He told her that he intended to travel; and indeed he did afterwards go to Weston-super-Mare for a month.

The unfortunate but absurd episode taught her to be circumspect with the literary curate. He, however, was of a more cautious temperament, and went away for his holiday with no more pronounced symptom than a promise to send her picture postcards from the Cathedral cities which he purposed visiting. “You may like to have these afterwards,” he darkly said, and then took himself away on a bicycle.

The year was come to a critical point for her. About this time Halfway House would be plodding its way to the West, its owner, loose-limbed and leisurely, smoking on the tilt. Almost any day now it might pass by Exeter, or through it; almost any day she might come plump upon it—and what was to happen to her then? Could she endure the year’s round, or know him by her Cornish sea, in her white cottage on the cliff, and stay here nursing her wound, feeling the throb and the ache? It seemed impossible—and yet women do such things. It was almost the worst of her plight that she knew she could do it. It was in her blood to do it. The poor were like that: dumb beasts.

And now the delicacy which she had felt at first, and which had kept her away from Land’s End, became a tyrant, as the temptations grew upon her. It prevented her riding afield by any road leading into Exeter from the East. She had a bicycle; more, she had a certain way of bringing him directly to her side. He had taught her. The _patteran_. But no! She couldn’t. So she worked on doggedly, with the fret and fever in her bones; and day by day October slipped into November; the days slipped off as the wet leaves fell.

Early in November, on a day of sunny weather, Polly Merritt announced a visitor, who followed her immediately into the room, his straw hat under his left arm, his right hand held out.

“A gentleman to see Miss Middleham, if you please,” says Polly Merritt, and Mary had sprung up, with her hand to her side.

“It’s the tall one, mother, not the windy one,” was explained in the kitchen, but Mrs. Merritt, sniffing, had declared they were all the same.

“I don’t know anything about that,” said Polly. “But this gentleman talks like asking and having, if you want my opinion.”

The riot in her breast was betrayed by her shining eyes and the quick flood of colour from neck to brows; but he played the man of the world so well that she was able to recover herself.

He made his excuses for breaking in upon her. He had been going through Exeter in any case. It was hardly to be resisted, she would allow. He owned that Horace Wing had given him the clue. “Poor Horace, you hurt him. It took two months’ hard talking in town and at least a month of surmise in Scotland before Horace could find strength enough to own up to the fact that he had met you, that you had bowed—and bolted. He mentioned it with tears in his eyes, as an extreme case. He had heard you book to Exeter—second single.” Then he looked at her and smiled. “But why Miss Middleham?”

“Why not?” she echoed him bravely. “I had to be somebody.”

“Weren’t you person enough?”

“Ah, yes, I was too much of a person, I was almost a personage. I was never happy in that disguise. My clothes never fitted me.”

“You should let other people judge of that. If you would like my opinion of your clothes, for instance——”

She shook her head, without speaking. He tried a more direct attack.

“You forgive me for coming?”

She suspected a tenderness. “Oh, it is very kind of you. I don’t have many visitors. I am glad to see you.”

“That’s good. May I see you again, then, while I can?”

She inquired: “Are you likely to be here long?”

A light hand was necessary now. “Oh, dear no—unfortunately. A day or two at the outside; time to buy cartridges. You remember the Ogmores? I am due at Wraybrook on the seventh. Pheasants. But until then——”

This was the fourth, you see. He would be horribly in the way. “I am occupied a good part of the day,” she told him. “I have pupils.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Really! Have you—” he flushed, and leaned forward. “Have you renounced your——?”

“Not in so many words,” she said. “I have simply dropped it. Nobody knows where I am.”

“You knew that I had formally renounced mine?”

She had not known that. There was an implication in it—which she had run here to avoid; and here it was. “Did you?” she said shortly. “I’m not surprised.”

“Of course not,” he agreed. “You could not expect me to do anything else. And you have done precisely the same. That, also, I took leave to expect.” He saw concern gather in her eyes, broke off abruptly, and plunged into gossip. “Does your late world interest you still? Do you want to hear the news? Palmer Lovell’s engagement, for instance? A princess of Italy, I give you my word—a Donna Teresa Scalchi, rather a beauty, and a great shrew. Palmer can bite a bit, too. That will end in tears. And Hertha de Speyne marries abroad. Morosov, an anarchist of sort. They can collect plants in Siberia—” he broke off again, remembering that others had collected plants in Siberia. Watching her, he saw that she remembered it, too. “Oh, and old Constantine and I have kissed; we are fast friends. Once more I write speeches, which he mangles. He’s to be at Wraybrook, waiting for me. He can’t bear me out of his sight—he’s like an elderly wife. Frightful nuisance, of course—but I hope you are pleased.”

She looked at him for a moment. “Of course I am pleased. I always wanted you to succeed.”

He rattled on. She had never seen him in such good spirits or manners. When he left her after an hour she was quite at her ease. He said that, if he might, he would come in the evening, and take her for a walk. It would do her good; and as for him she might have pity upon a fellow at a loose end, with nothing on earth to do but buy cartridges.

When he had gone she sat still, looking at her hands in her lap. Could she maintain herself for three days? Already she felt the fences closing in—she had felt them, as they moved, though never once had she been able to hold up her hand or say, Stop: that you may not assume. Tristram was master of implication, and her master there. Throughout his airy monologue he had taken her for granted—her and her origin, her humility, her subservience to his nod, her false position with Germain, her false position now. Why, his very amiability, his deference to her opinion, his tentative approach—what were these but implications of his passion for her, a passion so strong that it could bend his arrogant back, and show a Tristram Duplessis at the feet of a Mary Middleham? She writhed, she burned to feel these things, and to be powerless against such attack. And he was to come again this evening, and every day for three days he was to come—and no help for her, she must fall without a cry. Yes, without a cry; for she was cut off from her friend, by the very need she had of him. What was she to do? What could she do—but fall?

She struggled. At three o’clock in the afternoon she told Polly Merritt that if the gentleman called again he was to be told that Miss Middleham was not well and had gone to bed. Polly wondered, but obeyed. “Lovers’ tricks!” quoth Mrs. Merritt. “That’ll bring him to the scratch.” It did. He received the news at the door, with an impassive face—all but for his eyes, which, keen and coldly blue, pierced Polly’s sloe-blacks to the brain, and extracted what might be useful to him. “Many thanks, Miss Polly,” he had said presently. “You’re a good friend, I see. Look here, I’ll tell you what to do. I’ll bring some flowers round presently, and you shall put ’em in her room, and say nothing about it. Do you see?” Polly saw.

The next day was a busy one for her, and she saw nothing of Tristram until the evening. Then, to her dismay, she found him waiting for her outside the gates of Rosemount Academy, where her Italian lesson had been given. If she bit her lip, she blushed also; and if he remarked but one of these signals it was not her fault. Cavaliers had attended at those gates before—not for her only, but for her among others. Such a cavalier, however, so evidently of the great world, had never yet been looked upon by the young ladies of Rosemount.

“Oh,” cried Mary, startled, “who told you——?”

“Your amiable friend, Miss Polly, betrayed you. I hope you’ll forgive her.”

“I suppose I must. Probably you frightened her out of her wits.” But he swore that they were very good friends indeed. He thought that Miss Polly liked him, upon his word; and Mary could not deny that. Polly undoubtedly did.

His admirable behaviour inspired confidence; inquiries after her health, no reference to ambiguous exotics, no assumptions, no plans for evening walks. He went with her to her door, and left her there with a salute. But before she could get in, while she stood with her hand on the knocker, as if by an after-thought he came back to her from the gate. Jess had summoned him to Wraybrook, he said. He knew that there was something to tell her. Positively he must go the day after to-morrow. Now, was she free to-morrow?

She was; but she hesitated to say so. Well, then, would she give him a great pleasure? Would she come with him to Powderham—explore the park and the shore, have a picnic luncheon and all that sort of thing? Would she? As he stood down there below her, with flushed face and smiling, obsequious eyes, she thought that she really might trust herself, if not him. Polly, opening the door, was nodded to, and told that she need not wait. Polly needed no telling.

“Come, Mrs. Mary,” he urged her, “what do you say? Will you let me look after you for this once? Will you please to remember that never once since we have known each other—how many years?—have we had a whole day together? Extraordinary fact.”

“It’s quite true,” she reflected, “we never have. Once we very nearly did, though.”

“Twice,” he corrected her; but she could not admit that. Well, which was her instance?

It was long ago, when she had been at Misperton—had been some six months there. One Midsummer Day—surely he remembered! He had promised to take her to Glastonbury; the dog-cart was to meet them at Clewgate station——

“Ah, yes,” he cried—“And I called for you—and you were ready—in a brown holland frock——”

“Had I a brown holland? I remember that I was quite ready. And then a note came down from Mrs. James——”

“Beloved Mrs. James——”

“And you pretended to be angry——”

“Pretended! Oh, my dearest friend—I swore.”

“I know you did. And I——”

“You pretended to cry——”

“No, no, there was no pretence. I did cry.”

“Mary,” he said, “why did you cry?”

She recovered herself. “Because I was very young, and very stupid.”

“Now for _my_ instance,” he said. “Not so very long ago, you were to go to Blackheath—by train; and I went to Charing Cross station.” But, with a flaming face, and real trouble in her eyes, she stopped him.

“Please, don’t—you hurt me. I think that you forget.”

He begged her pardon so sincerely that she could not refuse the morrow’s appointment.

They met at the station—she in a straw hat and linen frock—for the weather was wonderful; he in flannels. The perils of adventure glittered in her eyes; he played the courtier, sure now of his game. She begged for third-class tickets, but he compromised for second—and flagrantly bribed the guard to keep the carriage. It was impossible that she should avoid the knowledge that she was practically in possession—impossible that she should not see the approving smiles of the bystanders. “A pretty girl and her sweetheart”; simple comedy, of never-ending charm. Abhorrent to the Senhouses of this world, but not to be extirpated until Birnam come to Dunsinane.

Softly the knowledge brooded upon her, softly virginal she sat, very much aware. The epicure returned to Master Tristram, who by a whisper could have had her, but refrained. He sat by her, but respectfully—he discoursed at large. Powderham Castle—he spoke of that. It was a pity that the fine place could not be seen; but the Courteneys had let it, and he didn’t know the people. It was full, he happened to have heard. He believed that Bramleigh was staying there. He forgot if she knew Bramleigh; a quaint little man. But probably she wouldn’t want to be bothered with a lot of people; so they must be contented with the park. Thus Tristram discoursed; and at his discretion sat she, saying little, looking at him never, heeding every shade of inflection, and every hair’s breadth of movement of his. They reached the station; he helped her to descend.

All seemed well with Tristram’s wooing. His lady was in a pensive mood, softly receptive of his implications. The temptation to paint in bolder masses was not resisted, nor that more subtle form of art—the silent art. Speechless they loitered together; and sometimes their hands touched, and sometimes he hovered over her, as if protecting her with wings. Her eyes were veiled; she appeared sleek as a dove under his hand. Once he breathed her name—“Mary, oh, Mary—”; but he saw her shiver and stiffen, and knew that she was still to be won. So be it! But he could not give over the delicious chase. To have her thus wide-eyed, quivering, straining beside him—like a greyhound taut at his leash; he was beside himself with longing, and like a fool gave way.

“My dearest—” he began, but she checked him with a fierce cry—“No, no!—Not that—” and though he could see nothing but the sharp outline of her cheek and chin he knew that she was watching something. He looked about him vaguely. What on earth—? The sea—a narrow strip of blue tumbling water, spuming where it touched the yellow sands—the flecked, pale sky—the gorse—larks above it—in a far corner a gipsy’s tent, and a white horse foraging—. What on earth—?

He drew back. She seemed to start forwards as if to escape from him—but then she turned suddenly, and he saw that she was pale, that she trembled, and that there was real trouble in her eyes.

“I am tired,” she said, “very tired. May we go home now?”

“Of course—what a brute I am. But I thought that you— Won’t you tell me what has tired you all at once?”

“I don’t know—it came over me—suddenly. But I do want to go home, please—immediately.” Her eyes were full—brimming. He was touched.

“Come then, we’ll go to the station. It’s no great distance. Unless you would rather sit——”

“Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly! No, no, indeed, I must go home. My head aches dreadfully. I think a sunstroke—perhaps. I can hardly stand up——”

He saw that that was true. “Come,” he said, “take my arm. We’ll go at once.”

When they had turned back she seemed to recover. She walked, at any rate, as fast as he did—set the pace. But she would not talk any more. In the train she sat apart, looking out of the window—and after a time he let her alone.

At Exeter when he put her in the fly and would have followed her, she put her hand on his arm. “Please don’t come with me. I shall be myself directly. I beg you not to come. And don’t think me ungrateful—indeed, you have been kindness itself. I’m very much ashamed of myself——”

“I’ll see you to-morrow—to say good-bye. You will let me do that? I must know how you are, you see.”

“Yes—come to-morrow if you will. Good-bye. I am much better. I shall be quite well. But come, of course, if you had rather.”

“Of course I shall come.” He lifted his hat, bowed, and turned away. She watched him walk towards his hotel. Then, with a face of flame, she turned to her own affair.

This was to be her last bid for freedom; her last chance. If she was to be the crying shame of her sex, it must be so. Come what might, she must call for help.

She stayed the fly at the door, paid the man, and watched him turn and go galloping down the hill. Then she turned to her affair—across Exeter it took her, to the Honiton road.

She walked the whole way, some two miles out of the city, beyond the suburbs to where the open country began. And here she laid her _patteran_, with branches of crimson maple, torn from the sunny side of the hedge. At the corners of two by-roads she laid them—one to the South, one to the North. Not satisfied with that, she went North herself to the Cullompton road, and laid two _patterans_ more. Her cheeks burned like fire, and in her heart was a bitter pain; she felt that she had unsexed herself, was bedraggled and bemired. But her need had racked her—you can’t blame the wretch writhing there if he call upon his God.

XIX
HEARTACHE AND THE PHILOSOPHER

Love, which had given her heart wings to soar, clogged Senhouse about the feet, hobbled him and caused him to limp. If she had never loved before, she had played with love; but to him the woe was new. One need not inquire into his relations with women, or believe him immune, to understand that. It was so entirely new to him that he refused to believe in it. She was present with him, though with her face veiled, night and day; the thought of her was joy; his ledge of calochortus took a value in his eyes because she had looked at them, knelt among them, stroked and fondled one, at least. He mocked at himself for searching out and cherishing the marks of her feet, for stooping to touch what seemed to be the printings of her knees; and yet, when he went down the Pillar and stood among other precious growths of his, he saw them a huddle of wet weeds.

The outlook was a bad one. He tried to paint, and smeared out everything he tried; to write, and had nothing to say. He slept badly. And yet he could not leave the north; for he had an appointment in October which would take him to Penrith. A learned man from Baden was coming out to meet him, with proposals in his pocket of Grand Ducal dimensions; two years’ plant-hunting in the Caucasus, and three years’ gardening—with the Schwarzwald for his garden. So far the Grand Ducal Government was prepared to go upon report. The thing had been a year coming to a head, for Senhouse was a difficult man to inoculate with other people’s ideas; but to such a head it was now brought, and he felt that, whatever else he did, he must by all means meet Herr Doktor Löffner.

What was he to do, then, between June and October? Characteristically, with the south calling him, he went north. He shipped at Leith and went to Iceland with Bingo and a saddle-bag for all his luggage. He traversed that island from end to end; and though he could not tire himself, he got his sleeping powers back, began to paint and to believe in his painting, to botanize and to be sure it was worth while. He knew next to nothing of Danish, and was driven in upon himself for company. Upon that fare he throve. He moped no more, forgot Mary for whole hours together, and believed himself cured. In September he returned to Leith and went afoot down to Penrith to meet the Herr Doktor.

Their greeting was cordial. “Oh, man of silences, oh, thou unlettered one, do I find thee in truth?”

“My dear Doctor Löffner, you do indeed. Come into the yard and I’ll show you some things worth having.”

“Where have you been, my friend?”

“Iceland.”

“Iceland! Ach, then you haf—? No, you haf not—? Never in the worlt!”

“I’m not sure. But I rather think that I have.” What he had was some earth and broken limestone in a sponge-bag—so far as could be seen. But there was enough beside to occupy the pair of them until dinner. Before that meal was ready the Doctor had fallen weeping on Senhouse’s neck, had clasped him to his breast. “Thou hast it—thou hast it—oh, wonder-child!”—and then, as he wiped the dew from his glasses, with a startling lapse into idiom—“I say! Dot was cholly.”

The dinner was very gay; Bingo had an indigestion.

Next morning, the great man was taken out and about to view the various fields of tillage; the ledge where calochortus had been fair in Mary’s eyes, the larkspur slope, and what could be done with Alpines upon a Cumberland moraine. He was more than amazed, he was convinced. “You are chust the man for us. We pick you up cheap, I consider, for ten thousand mark.” Senhouse was not concerned to affirm or deny; but he insisted upon it that he was selling his liberty very cheaply indeed. “And I wouldn’t do it, you know, for a hundred thousand,” he said, “if it weren’t for the two years in the Caucasus. You have me there, I own. I’ve hungered after that for years, and now I’ll take it as it comes to me. There must be irises there which neither Leichtlin nor Korolkov have spotted—I’m certain of it.”

“And you are the man to spod them,” said Herr Löffner with deep feeling. “Bod, mind you, we haf them wid you in Schwarzwald.”

“Honour among thieves,” said Senhouse. “Depend upon me.”

Herr Löffner passed by the proposal that he should be taken to the Dukeries to see the cyclamen, or to Wales for the peonies, or to Cornwall for the Ramondias; but he could not resist the promise of Syrian irises growing wild on Dartmoor. That he must see before he died; and he would take Kew and necessary business there on the way. Agreed; they would start in the morning by the express from Carlisle.

This they did; Löffner, Senhouse, and Bingo journeyed to London, and put up at the Grand Hotel, which was chosen by the _savant_ solely on account of its name. “I feel grand to haf got you my Senhouse,” said he; “let us therefore go to the grandest hotel we can find.” It was not in his friend’s power to correct this simplicity; and the Grand Hotel was too grand for him.

In the “lounge” of this palace—“all looking-glasses and whisky,” as he described it—it was necessary for him to spend certain moments while Herr Löffner briskly inspected rooms, _menus_, and lists of wines. Briskly, but with method, he went to work. Senhouse, having discovered that most of the plants were imitation and the others dying, flung himself upon a plush settee and picked up journal after journal, in the hope of finding one which did not contain either photographs of ladies or advertisements. He was grumbling over an evening sheet when his friend joined him and, sighing his content at a good dinner ahead of him, produced and lighted a cigar. Senhouse found himself reading for a second time a paragraph of a leading article which began thus:—

“Ever since the by-election in Farlingbridge, caused by the death of Mr. Germain, the Government has been losing seats with a steadiness as reasonable as reason can require.” Midway through his second reading he stiffened and sat up.

“Excuse me, Löffner,” he said, “but I must leave you for an hour or so.”

Herr Löffner beamed and bowed. “I am sorry, but submit. Only—you must promise me to come back, or I lose you, _du wilder Mann_.”

Senhouse was not vague; on the contrary, he was remarkably collected. “Yes, I’ll come back. But this is a matter of losing myself—or the reverse, as the case may be.” He nodded, and walked straight out of the hotel into the street. Bingo, stepping delicately, with ears set back and muzzle to earth, followed close to his right heel. He shared his master’s contempt of London, but added fear.

The hour was late for callers, since it was now half-past seven, but he knew nothing of hours. He went directly to Hill-street and rang the bell. After a long interval a caretaker released many a bolt and peered round the edge of the door. A respectable, grey-haired lady, very anxious.

“Mrs. Germain?” said Senhouse. He almost heard her sigh.

“Out of town, sir.”

“So I see. But where is she?” Bingo lifted his head high, snuffed the air, misliked it, and yawned.

The elderly lady had no more doubts. “She would be at Southover House, Sir. The family is expected on the 15th for a few days, on their way abroad.”

Senhouse jerked away all this surplusage. “The family? What family? It is Mrs. John Germain, I mean.”

Whatever caution may have lingered in the caretaker now disappeared, in the occasion of a treasured wonder to be revealed. “Oh, Sir, we don’t know anything about her. It’s all a mystery, Sir, and has been since Mr. John—passed away.”

“What do you mean by that?” she was asked.

Her cue! “She’s not been seen or heard of, Sir—not by her own family nor by ours. She went away by herself in July—after the event. Sir—and here’s October come round, and never heard of yet.”

Senhouse betrayed nothing; but his mind moved like lightning. “Tell me exactly what you mean,” he bade her; and she did, omitting nothing. He listened, made no comments, and gave no chances.

Then he asked her, “Do you know Mr. Duplessis’s address?”

She did not.

“His club?” She said she would call her husband.

The husband in his shirt-sleeves was all for speculation upon the affair—speculation at large, illustrated by reminiscences. Duplessis was a good gambit; but the moment he had opened by saying that many a time had he stood behind Mr. Duplessis’s chair at the Reform he found himself rehearsing to his wife things that she had heard but an hour ago. Senhouse had snapped out his “Reform! Thanks,” and gone his way.

At the Reform—Bingo coiled on the steps, with one eye wary for peril—he learned that Duplessis was in Devonshire. “Wraybrook Park, near Honiton,” was his address. He returned to the hotel and found Herr Löffner immovable in his place, and still with a cigar. But he was deplorably hungry, and leapt to his feet the moment he saw Senhouse.

“Thank God for you,” he warmly said. “Come and dine.”

“I can’t dine, Löffner. You must hoard your thanksgiving. I’m going down to Devonshire.” The _savant_ gazed at him.

“To Devonshire—without dinner! That is not possible, my friend. To begin, it is bad for you—secondly, it is late.”

“Oh,” said Senhouse, “I’m a night-bird, you know. I don’t want you to come with me—in fact, I’d rather you didn’t. You’ve got lots to do at Kew, and can meet me there. But I must be off in half an hour. I shall catch the 9.25.”

Herr Löffner looked at his watch, then at his friend’s dog, then at his friend. Smiles played about his face and eyes. “What mischief do you meditate? What dark work?” he said; and you could hear the enthusiasm gurgling beneath, like flood water in a drain. But Senhouse was unfathomable, and for once not smiling.

“It’s serious work I’m after. Life-and-death work, I believe. My trip to the Caucasus hangs on it—and all my trips to come.”

“Herr Je! Du lieber——!”

“I know. It’s a queer thing. Nothing seemed to hang upon anything this morning, and now everything upon one thing. It’s no good, my dear man, I can’t explain. Trust me, I’ll telegraph to you from Exeter and wait for you there.”

“Bod—” said Herr Löffner out of his chest. “If you haf here a life-and-death-works—I cannot understand. If you make of it life-works, you telegraph and I come. But if it is a death-works—what then?”

“It won’t be,” said Senhouse. “It can’t be. Good-bye.” Herr Löffner went to his dinner.

At Wraybrook Park his lean face was announced to Duplessis at half-past ten in the morning, at the breakfast-table, by a respectful butler. It was not told him that it had awaited him since eight o’clock.

“Some one to see me—in the drive?” he had asked, suspecting nothing. “Why in the drive?”

“The gentleman preferred to be outside, Sir. He had a dog with him.”

Duplessis stared at his plate. “All right. I’ll come in a minute,” he said, and resumed his meal.

At eleven he came out of the front door, cigar in mouth, and saw immediately what was in store for him. The carriage drive at Wraybrook sweeps round the lake, which is the great feature of the place. On the edge of that he had seen in a moment the tall man in grey, bareheaded, talking with one of the gardeners, and had flushed. His eyes narrowed, and glittered; he paused perceptibly, then drew a breath and went down over the lawn.

Bingo, sitting up on his haunches, gave a short yap of warning, then apologized to his master. Senhouse finished what he had to say to the gardener, nodded and went up to meet his man.

They encountered without recognition: Bingo, with lifted forefoot, reserved his judgment. His custom was to run in and apply the test of nose to calf; but in this case he stayed behind.

“You wish to see me, I’m told.” Duplessis spoke first.

“Yes,” said Senhouse, “I do. I have to trouble you. I have just heard of John Germain’s death.”

In some sort Duplessis had been prepared for this—but in no way which could have been explained. He was able to take it quietly.

“News travels slowly your way,” he said. “Germain died in July.”

“So I have learned; but it must have been sudden. I happen to know that he was quite well at the beginning of that month; and had not the least reason to expect any such thing.”

“Why should you?” Duplessis was rather famous for impertinence.

Senhouse said, “I’ll tell you. I saw Mrs. Germain early in July”—Duplessis grew red—“In fact, she must have gone directly from the North, where I met her, to her husband’s bedside.”

“I think I’ll interrupt you for one moment,” Duplessis said. “You are probably as interested in saving time as I am. Therefore the sooner I know how I can serve you the better for both of us.” Bingo who had been looking with gloomy interest at the root of his tail, here attacked it with ferocity. Senhouse laughed.

“I’ll tell you. Mrs. Germain has disappeared.”

Duplessis asked, “Do you want me to find her for you?”

“I want you,” said Senhouse, “to tell me where she is.”

Duplessis looked him full in the face. “Really, I don’t know what business you have to ask me that.”

“Then I’ll tell you, if you please,” said Senhouse. “When she left the North she did not, I believe, go directly to London. She went to Blackheath, to her people. There she saw you.”

“Who told you that, Sir?” Duplessis was angry.

“She told me that she should see you there. It had not been her intention; but she changed her mind.”

“Then I have to thank you, Mr. Senhouse, for an insufferable interference in my affairs,” said Duplessis.

“I advised her to see you—yes. Come, now,” he said with a change of tone which Duplessis found hard to bear, “you have had your innings, I was careful not to touch on that. You have had more than one, if I don’t mistake you. I think now that I go in.”

Duplessis was not the man to give candour for candour. His eyes were steady on his enemy. “I don’t give ladies’ addresses without their leave, you know.”

“You may assume it here. When I saw Mrs. Germain in Cumberland she gave me to understand that she might wish to see me again.”

“If she had wished it,” said Duplessis, “I suppose she would have told you where she was. Apparently she does not wish it.”

“Obviously you do not,” Senhouse replied; “and I have reasons for putting your wish and her action together. And, as a matter of fact, she could not let me know anything, because I have no certain address.”

“Your addresses are nothing whatever to me,” said Duplessis. “I decline to tell you anything.”

“Very well,” said Senhouse slowly. “Then you must get what good you can out of that.”

Duplessis turned on his heel and walked away. Bingo, sleek and swift, ran after him and sniffed daintily at his calves. Curiosity, so to speak, was behind him, drove his tail in between his legs. It wanted but a spark to kindle the smouldering young man, and here it was. He turned again, blazing. “Call in your cur, will you? They don’t allow dogs here.”

“Bingo, heel,” said Senhouse, and watched him, smiling quietly.

XX
IN WHICH BINGO IS UNANSWERABLE

Swinging along his miles from Honiton back into Exeter he saw the _patteran_ just within the two-mile-stone. “She wants me. She’s here. Bless her wild heart.” Then he walked into the city, sat in the tree-shaded alley of the inn by Exebridge, and breakfasted, as well he might. He had eaten nothing since yesterday’s noon.

At two o’clock, as he leaned, smoking his pipe and looking at the river, he saw Duplessis in a dog-cart drive over the bridge. This was precisely what he had expected the moment he saw the _patteran_ in the road. “He’ll lunch before he moves; he’ll treat himself handsomely. I’ll give him till half-past three. Then we go together—the three of us.” Bingo lowered his ears. Senhouse and he were too old friends for eye-service or tail-signals. Together they crossed the bridge and strolled up the curving street. The second inn-yard they visited showed them the Wraybrook dog-cart, high and yellow-wheeled. “He’s put up. He goes back to-night. He’s lunching. Now what shall we do? I think, a walk.”

He addressed himself to the wooded heights which look down on Exeter. His spirits were high to meet the evening’s battle; he urged Bingo to extend himself, infected him with the fray to come. “My friend, do you know who lives in this town? Do you know whom we are to see by-and-by? A gentle-handed acquaintance, my friend—a lover of yours, whose troubles have been told you and me by signs. Not by words, Bingo, my boy; for words have not been made fine enough to voice her thoughts, half-thoughts and quarter-thoughts: no, but by a sigh scarcely heard, or a hand on your head, by caresses, and lingering touches, and suchlike pretty talk. That’s how we know her, and what we love her for, Bingo; because she’s timid and full of alarms—all on the edge of the real thing, hovering on the threshold of the cage.”

Bingo pricked up his ears, then whined. He moved his head to acknowledge a friendly speech, but he was trembling and looking up the road.

“Bingo, come in,” said Senhouse, and trembled, too. He saw Mary coming up the road, books under her arm. She was rosy with breasting the hill; and he could see that her eyes were very bright. He could see, from the gate at which he leaned, that she was charged with excitement; that her lips were never still, that she looked sideways for events. He had to put his hand on Bingo’s head to keep him back—and to keep himself back. “I’ll give him one more chance,” he told himself, and stayed where he was. Mary passed him, all unconscious, went quickly up the road, stopped at a white gate, and slowly pushed it open. As she went in he saw her pause and look down the road by which she had come. Then she went in, and the gate swung to and fro, and clicked as the latch caught.

Senhouse inspected the gate, then his watch. “Rosemount Academy for Young Ladies—three o’clock. She’s teaching till four. She expects him.” He retired to his trees; but had to call Bingo twice. He was halfway up the drive, nosing out his friend.

Duplessis came up the hill at five minutes to four, and smoked three cigarettes one after another. He looked at his watch incessantly, as he walked up and down the road. Senhouse watched him calmly, not making any effort at concealment—but concealed, because, it was obvious, Duplessis had no notion of his whereabouts. Ladies—young ladies in straw hats—came out of Rosemount Academy in twos and threes and vanished up or down the road, as the case might be. Some rode bicycles, and waved the prouder farewells to their friends afoot. One was fetched in a brougham by a furred matron; two had a maid; and one joined a brother in a cricket cap. Ladies of severer mien, tightly jacketed and in black, came presently; a long-haired music-master—and Mary.

As she stood beyond the gate she saw Duplessis. Senhouse knew that by her look. She had a trick, when she was at a pass, of driving all expression from her eyes. They showed then as masks of black: it was her way of defence. You could not tell whether she was glad or afraid of you.

But she addressed herself to her task; completed, or allowed the young musician to complete, the conversation, bade him a smiling farewell which sent him happily on his way, and then waited, blankly, but with colour, for Duplessis. The road was now empty but for these two.

He came up, lifting his hat; he took her hand, and held it while he bent to speak to her. Senhouse saw her so held, but with averted face; saw that she was listening, that she was serious—too serious to be frightened. Once he saw her look up at the man, and frame No with her grave lips; once again look up and frame Yes. At that second answer Duplessis took her hand again—her left hand which had been idle by her side—and held it while he continued to talk vehemently, in low tones. He watched her now intently, as she fought these long odds; and had Bingo by the scruff—Bingo on his hind legs, shivering and whining in whispers—“Steady, boy; hold yourself——.”

Mary was now pale, and in her eyes was the light of distress. They beaconed across the way: but no help came. As she listened she began to breathe quickly; he could see her bosom’s unrest. Her hand was caught up to Tristram’s lips—but she sprang away then, and her “Oh, no, no! Never, never—I could not do it,” gave Senhouse the cue for which he shook. He loosed Bingo, who, like a streak of grey light, shot across the road.

Duplessis started violently; but a low glad cry came from Mary’s heart. “Bingo! Oh, my dearest friend! Oh, Bingo!” She stooped in the road, and the two were one. Then she rose vividly bright and waited for Senhouse.

He crossed the road leisurely—with no looks for Duplessis. He held out the maple-branch. “My excuse,” he said. She took it from him, and kept it in her hand. But she could not speak. In the presence of the two men she showed nothing common or mean—no consciousness. She was perhaps at her best: her colour high, but not painful, her eyes serious, but not veiled. Modesty had been jarring affectation here: modesty was not possible. Her left hand still held Bingo’s head to her side: Bingo on his hind legs, revelling in her hand.

The two men, each in his way, put their fate to the touch. Neither took his eyes off her, neither gave an inch. Duplessis would not have compromised if he could. His sullen rage was patent: he let it smoulder. Senhouse smiled—all the faun showed in him: the stored secret knowledge, the power of the adept, of the seer into the dark, of him who would mock if he were not full of pity.

He spoke first. “It seems that you are to choose,” he said. “I can ask you to do that.”

Her soft eyes beamed, and her smile met his in the way. “Halfway House?” she said, asking.

He nodded. “Halfway House, we’ll put it still.”

Duplessis said nothing at all; but fixed her with his knit brows. A good ear might have heard three hearts beating. I think that Bingo’s did, for he nozzled in Mary’s hand.

She let him gently down, stooped over him, kissed his head, whispered in his ear. Then, rising to her assize, with a look divinely mild and a gesture of confidence which brought tears into one pair of eyes, she put her hand in Senhouse’s, and stood by his side.

Duplessis stiffened and looked at the pair of them. “I take your answer,” he said, bowed to her, and walked down the hill. Bingo, sitting sagely on his haunches, suddenly yawned.

Shyly they turned to each other, shyly kissed. Senhouse kissed her twice, then threw his head back and laughed his joy to the skies. “Oh, wonder of the world!” he cried, and took her to his heart.

* * * * *

Here’s for the last of her. In the train, on their way to London and Löffner, Senhouse was commenting upon what lay before them: the Caucasus, the Schwarzwald. What would she do in the Caucasus, for example? That was easy. “I shall sit in the door of the tent, waiting for you,” she told him. In the Black Forest? What else?

He believed her. “We are to leave Halfway House, then?” and then he looked out of the window at the rolling hills of Wilts. “At any rate, here I am a bondslave—yoked by Baden for five years. Make what you will of it.”

She said nothing; she was always slow of speech with her betters when they talked above her head. But she pondered the saying, it was clear, for presently she picked up his hand, stooped to it, and kissed it; then, lowering her head, put his arm over her neck, and looked at him from below it. It was a pretty act, one of her prettiest. He saw the beauty of her gentle rebuke.

It sent him to his knees. Bingo, sitting on her skirt, looked pityingly at his master, for a few seconds, and then up into her face.

THE END

Transcriber’s Notes

Obvious printing errors have been silently corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation, spelling and punctuation have been preserved.