Chapter XI: Part II: I (5)

Paul waited for one moment to see if Bridger had anything more to say, then gravely opened the door for his wife.

“Come, Grace.”

He walked with long steps back to the house, and for the first time in her life Grace admired her husband; she felt that, after all, he was not unworthy of his authority. She touched his arm.

“I’m glad you did that, Paul. I felt very proud.”

He removed his arm quickly, so that she shrank away.

“Did you think I was likely to be afraid of my gamekeeper?” he answered disdainfully.

“What are you going to do about me?” she asked.

“I don’t know yet. I must think it over. All that you told me last night was true?”

“Quite true.”

“Why did you tell me?”

“It was the only way to save those people. If I’d had the courage to do it a couple of hours earlier, that poor girl wouldn’t have killed herself.”

He said no more, and silently they reached the house.

For some days Paul made no reference to his wife’s confession, but went about the work of his estate, his Parliamentary labours, with stolid method, and only Grace’s new sympathy discerned the awful torment from which he suffered. He took care to speak naturally before the servants and his brother, but avoided to be alone with her. His back seemed strangely bent, and he walked with a listless torpor, as though his large limbs were grown suddenly too heavy to bear; his fleshy face was drawn and sallow, his eyelids puffy from want of sleep, and his eyes dim. At length Grace could stand her misery no longer; she went to the library, where she knew he was alone, and softly opened the door. He sat at the table with Blue-Books and paper spread in front of him, striving industriously to fit himself for the duties which he took so seriously; but he did not read: he rested his face on his hands, staring straight in front of him. He started when his wife entered, and looked at her with harassed eyes.

“I’m sorry to disturb you, Paul, but we can’t go on much longer in this way. I want to know what you’re going to do.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I wish to do my duty.”

“I suppose you’re going to divorce me.”

He gave a groan, and pushing back his chair, stood up.

“Oh, Grace, Grace, why did you do it? You know how I worshipped you; I would have given my life to save you a moment’s uneasiness. I trusted you with all my soul.”

“Yes, I know all that, I’ve repeated it to myself a thousand times.”

He looked at her so helplessly that she could not restrain her pity.

“Would you like me to go away? Your mother can easily come down to you, and you can talk it over with her.”

“You know what she’d advise me to do,” he cried.

“Yes.”

“D’you _want_ me to divorce you?”

She gave him a look of utter agony, but would not allow the gathering tears to fall from her eyes; with fierce self-reproach, she wished to excite in him no atom of commiseration. He glanced away, with a certain shame of his next question.

“D’you still care for—Reggie Bassett?”

“No,” she cried exultantly; “I loathe and detest and despise him. I know he’s not worth a quarter of you.”

He threw up his hands helplessly.

“Oh God! I wish I knew what to do. At first I could have killed you, and now—I feel we can’t go on as we are, ought to do something; I can’t forget the whole thing. I ought to hate you, but I can’t; notwithstanding everything, I love you still. If you go, I think I shall die.”

She looked at him thoughtfully, divining in some measure the emotions which tore him in sundry directions. It seemed due to his honour that he should divorce the errant wife, and yet he had not the heart to do it; anger and shame were banished by utter sorrow; and then, he could not bear the scandal and the public disgrace. Paul Castillyon was a man of old-fashioned ideas, and it seemed to him proper for a gentleman to keep his name out of the newspapers. Nor did he like the modern notion that the wronged husband cuts a somewhat heroic figure; he remembered vividly his disgust when a member of his club, divorcing his wife, had sought in the smoking-room to excite sympathy by narration of the lady’s infidelities. He was proud of his name, and could not bear that it should be covered with ridicule; the very thought shamed him, so that he could scarcely face his wife.

“I leave myself entirely in your hands,” she said at length. “I will do whatever you wish.”

“Can’t you give me a little more time to think it over? I don’t want to do anything hastily.”

“I think we’d better decide at once. It’ll be much better for you to settle it; you’re making yourself ill. I can’t bear to see you so awfully unhappy.”

“Don’t think about me; think about yourself. What will you do if——” He stopped, unable to continue.

“If you divorce me?”

“No, I can’t do that,” he cried quickly. “I dare say I’m a doting, weak fool, and you’ll despise me even more than you do; but I can’t lose you altogether. Oh, Grace, you don’t want me to divorce you?”

She shook her head.

“It would be very generous if you could spare me that. Will you be satisfied if I go and live abroad? I promise that you’ll have no cause to blame me again. We need tell people nothing; they’ll think it’s a sort of amicable separation.”

“I dare say that would be the best thing,” he said quietly.

“Then, good-bye.”

She stretched out her hand to him, and the tears in her eyes made everything dim about her. He took it silently.

“I want to tell you once more, Paul, how bitterly I regret all the unhappiness I’ve caused you. I was never a good wife to you. I hope with all my heart that you’ll be happier now.”

“How can I be happy, Grace? You were all my happiness. I can’t help it; all these days I’ve fought against it, I’ve done all I could, but still even now—now that I know you’ve never cared for me at all, and the rest—I love you with all my heart.”

The tears ran down her wasted, colourless cheeks, and for awhile she could not speak. She withdrew her hand, and stood in front of him with head bent down.

“I don’t ask you to believe me, Paul. I’ve lied to you and betrayed you, and you have the right to take my words as worthless. But I should like to tell you this before I go: I do love you now honestly. During these last months of wretchedness I’ve understood how kind and good you were, and I’ve been awfully touched by your great love for me; you made me utterly ashamed of myself. Oh, I’ve been worthless and selfish; I’ve sacrificed you blindly to all my whims, I’ve never tried to make you happy; but if I’m less of a cad than I was, it’s because of you. And the other day, when you gave that man his gun, I was so proud of you, and I felt such a poor mean creature I could have fallen on my knees before you and kissed your hands.”

She took her handkerchief and dried her eyes; then, forcing a smile, for one moment she flashed at him a gay look such as she had been accustomed to give.

“Don’t think too badly of me, will you?”

“Oh, Grace, Grace,” he cried, “I can’t bear it! Don’t go. I want you so badly. Let us try again.”

The colour rushed to her face, and she went to him quickly.

“Paul, d’you think you ever can forgive me? I tell you I love you as I never loved you before.”

“Let us try.”

He opened his arms, and with a cry of joy she flung herself into them; she lifted her lips to him, and when he kissed her she pressed more closely to him.

“My darling husband,” she whispered.

“Oh, Grace, let us thank God for His mercy to us.”

X

The summer passed, and Miss Ley went her way as usual, going industriously, with the vivacity of a young girl, to the various entertainments offered by the season. She had a knack for extracting amusement from functions which others found entirely tedious, and with sprightly, good-natured malice related her adventures conscientiously to the faithful Frank.

He, of course, remained in London, but once a fortnight went to see Herbert Field at Tercanbury. His visits, though himself knew they were useless, were of singular consolation to the Deanery household; his kindly humour and his sympathy had so endeared him that all looked forward with the keenest pleasure to his arrival; and he had a way of arousing confidence so that even Bella felt nothing more could be done for her husband than Frank did. On reaching home from Paris, they had settled down very quietly, and though at first the Dean felt some uneasiness in Herbert’s presence, this was soon replaced by a very touching affection; he learnt to admire the unflinching spirit with which the youth looked forward to inevitable death, the courage with which he bore pain. When the weather grew warmer, Herbert lay all day in the garden, rejoicing in the green leaves and the flowers and the singing of the birds; and forsaking his erudite studies, the Dean sat with him, talking of ancient authors or of the roses he loved so well. They played chess interminably, and Bella loved to watch them, the sun, broken into patches of green and yellow by the leaves, colouring them softly; it amused her to see the little smile of triumph with which her father looked up when he made a move to puzzle his opponent, and the boyish laugh of Herbert when he found a way out of the difficulty. They both seemed her children, and she could not tell which was dearer to her.

But cruelly the disease progressed, and at length Herbert was confined to bed; a terrible hæmorrhage exhausted him, so that Frank could not conceal from Bella his fear that at length the end was coming.

“For months he’s been hanging on a thread, and the thread is breaking. I’m afraid you must prepare yourself for the worst.”

“D’you mean it can only be a question of weeks?” she asked with agony.

He hesitated for a while, but decided it was better to tell her the truth.

“I think it’s only a question of days.”

She looked at him steadily, but her face by now was so trained to self-command that no expression of horror or of pain disturbed its steadfast gravity.

“Can nothing be done at all?” she asked.

“Nothing. I can be of no more use to you; but if it will comfort you at all, you’d better wire for me if he has another hæmorrhage.”

“It will be the last?”

“Yes.”

When she went back to Herbert he smiled so brightly that it seemed impossible Frank’s gloomy judgment could be true.

“Well, what does he say?”

“He says you keep your strength wonderfully,” she answered, smiling. “I hope soon you’ll be able to get up again.”

“I feel as well as possible. In another fortnight we can go to the seaside.”

Each knew that the other hid his real thought, but neither had the heart to put aside the false hopes with which they had so long tried to reassure themselves. Yet to Bella the strain was growing unendurable, and she besought Miss Ley to come and stay with them. Her father was grown so fond of Herbert that she dared not tell him the truth, and desired Miss Ley to distract his attention. She could not unaided continue much longer her own cheerfulness, and only the presence of someone else might make it possible to preserve a certain sober hilarity. Miss Ley consented, and forthwith arrived; but perceiving that it was her part to add some gaiety to that last act of life, she felt it a little gruesome; it was as though she were invited to some grim festival to watch the poor boy die. However, with unusual energy she exerted herself to amuse the Dean, and having an idea that her powers of conversation were not altogether contemptible, took pains to be at her best; it did Herbert infinite good to hear her talk with the old man, bantering him gently, playing about his words with the agility of a light-winged butterfly, propounding hazardous theories which she defended with all possible ingenuity. The Dean took pleasure in the contest, and opposed her with all the resources of his learning and his common-sense; with questions apparently guileless, he strove to lure her to self-contradiction, but when he managed this it profited him little, for she would extricate herself with a verbal quip, a prance, a flourish, and a caper; or else, since the only importance lay in the æsthetic value of a phrase, assert her utter indifference to the matter of the argument. To prove a commonplace, she would utter paradox after paradox—to make the fantastic obvious, would argue with the staid logic of Euclid.

“Man has four passions,” she said—“love, power, food, and rhetoric; but rhetoric is the only one that is proof against satiety, ennui, and dyspepsia.”

A fortnight passed, and one morning Herbert Field, alone with Bella, had another attack of hæmorrhage, so that for awhile she thought him dying. He fainted from exhaustion, and in terror she sent for the local doctor. Presently he was brought round to consciousness, but it was obvious that the end had come; from this final attack he could never rally. Yet it seemed impossible that human skill should have no further power; surely there must be some last desperate remedy for which the moment was now at hand, and Bella asked Miss Ley whether Frank might be sent for.

“Anyhow, we shall never trouble him again,” she said.

“You don’t know Frank,” answered Miss Ley. “Of course he’ll come at once.”

A telegram was despatched, and within four hours Frank arrived, only to see that Herbert’s condition was hopeless. He hovered between life and death, kept alive by constant stimulants, and they could do nothing but sit and wait. When Bella repeated to her father, from whom so far as possible she had hidden her husband’s desperate state, that the boy could scarcely outlast the night, he looked down for a moment, then turned to Frank.

“Is he strong enough for me to administer the Holy Sacrament?”

“Does he want it?”

“I think so. I have talked to him before, and he told me that he wished to take it before he died.”

“Very well.”

Bella went to prepare her husband, and the Dean assumed the garments of his office. Frank also went into the bedroom to be at hand if needed, and stood by the window apart from those three who performed the sacred mystery; it seemed to him as though the Dean were invested strangely with a greater, more benignant dignity. A certain majesty had descended upon the minister of God, and while he read the prayers a light shone on his face like, that on the face of a pictured saint.

_“Verily, verily I say unto you. He that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.”_

Bella knelt at the bedside, and Herbert Field, emaciated and extraordinarily weak, his sombre eyes shining unnaturally from his white and wasted face, listened attentively. There was no fear now, but only resignation and hope; it could be seen that with all his heart he believed those promises of life everlasting and of pardon for sins past; and Frank, storm-tossed on the sea of doubt, envied that undisturbed assurance.

_“The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life: Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on Him in thy heart by faith and thanksgiving.”_

The dying man took the bread and wine which should mystically prepare the Christian soul for her journey to the life beyond, and they seemed to give a peace ineffable; the tortured body was marvellously eased, and a new serenity descended upon the mind.

The Dean read the last solemn lines of the service, and rising from his knees, kissed the boy’s forehead. Herbert was too weak to speak, but the faintest shadow of a smile crossed his lips. Presently he dozed quietly. It was late in the afternoon now, and Frank suggested that he should take the Dean into the fresh air.

“There is no immediate danger, is there?” asked the old man.

“I don’t think so. He will probably live till the morning.”

They went out from the Deanery garden into the precincts. There was a large patch of green upon which boys of Regis School played cricket at nets, but they were away for the holidays, and only the cawing rooks, flying heavily about the elm-trees, disturbed the stillness. On one side was the cathedral, adorably gray in the rosy light of evening, and the stately magnificence of the central tower rose towards heaven like a strong man’s ideal turned to stone. All round were the houses of the Canons. The day had been hot and cloudless, but now a very light breeze fanned the cheeks of those two slowly sauntering. It was a spot which breathed a peace so exquisite that Frank wished dreamily his life had been cast in such pleasant ways. At intervals the cathedral bells rang out the quarters. Neither spoke, but they walked till the setting sun warned them that it grew late. When they returned to the house Miss Ley said that Herbert was awake, asking for the Dean; she proposed they should eat something, and then go to his room. He seemed slightly better, that she asked Frank if any hope remained.

“None. It can only be a question of a few hours more or less.”

When they went into the bedroom, Herbert greeted the with a smile, for his mind at the end seemed to regain a greater lucidity. Bella turned to them.

“Father, Herbert would like you to read to him.”

“I was going to suggest it,” answered the Dean.

The night was fallen, and all the stars shone out with a vehement splendour; through the casements, wide open, entered the fresh odours of the garden, suave and unwearied. Frank sat in a window, his face in shadow, so that none could see, and watched the lad lying so still that one might have thought him dead already. Then Bella so arranged the lamp that the Dean might be able to read; and when he sat down the light fell on his face wonderfully, and it seemed transparent as alabaster.

“What shall I read, Herbert?”

“I don’t mind,” the boy whispered.

The Dean took the Bible which lay at his hand, and thoughtfully turned the pages; but a strange idea came to him, and he put it down. The perfume of the night, of the leaves and of the roses, the savour of the dew, filled that room with a subtle delicacy, as though some light spirit of a poet’s fancy had taken possession of it; and by instinct he felt that the boy, who through life had loved so passionately the world’s sensuous beauty, must desire other words than those of Hebrew prophets. His great love and sympathy lifted him from the common level of his calling to a plane of higher charity, and the knowledge came what reading would give Herbert the most delectable comfort; bending forward, he whispered to Bella, who gave a look of utter astonishment, but none the less rose to do his bidding. She brought him a small book bound in blue cloth, and slowly he began to read.

_“Courting Amaryllis with song I go, while my she-goats feed on the hill, and Tityrus herds them. Ah, Tityrus, my dearly beloved, feed thou the goats, and to the well-side lead them, Tityrus. . . .”_

Miss Ley looked up with amazement, and even at that moment could not suppress an inward ironical laughter, for she recognised an idyl of Theocritus. Very gravely, dwelling on the pictures called up to his mind stored with classical learning, the good Dean read through the charming dialogue recounting preciously, with the elaborate simplicity of a decadent age, the amours of Sicilian shepherds. Herbert listened with quiet satisfaction, a happy smile set lightly on his pallid lips; and he too, his imagination curiously quickened by approaching death, saw the shady groves and babbling streams of Sicily, heard the piping of love-lorn goatherds, the coy responses of fair maids refusing the kisses so sweet to give only that surrender at length might be the more complete. Even in the translation a breath of pure poetry was there, and the spirit was preserved of a life consciously free from the artifice of civilization, wherein sunshine and shade, spring and summer, the perfume of flowers, offered satisfying delights.

The Dean finished, and closed the book; and silence fell upon them all, and they sat through the night. The words whereto they had listened seemed to have left with them a singular tranquillity, so that all the stress and passion of the world were banished; and even to Bella, though her husband lay a-dying, there came a strange sense of gratitude for the fulness and the beauty of life. The hours passed marked by the deep-tongued chiming of the cathedral bells; every quarter they pealed their warning, ominous, yet not terrifying, and to all it seemed that the parting soul waited only for the day to take her flight.

The silence was extraordinary, more lovely than sweet music; it seemed a living thing that filled the chamber of death with peace unspeakable; and the night was dark, for the stars now were vanished before the full moon, but the goddess spared the room her frigid brilliancy, and left the garden tenebrous. No breath of wind touched the trees, and not a rustle of leaves disturbed the stilly calm; the muteness of the sleeping town seemed all about them, so profound that one felt some spirit had descended thereon, throwing over all things, to emphasize the wakefulness of those who watched, a shroud of death. Then a sound stole through the air, so gradual and delicate a sound that none could tell how it began; one might have thought it born miraculously of the very silence; it was a silvery, tenuous note that travelled through the stillness like light through air, and all at once, with a suddenness that startled, broke into passionate, vehement song. It was the nightingale. The placid night rang like a sounding-board, and each breath of air took up the tremulous magic; the bird sang in a hawthorn-tree below the window, and its rapture rang through the garden, rang into the large room to the ears of the dying youth. He started from his sleep, and it seemed as though he were called back from death. None stirred, all fascinated and imprisoned by that miracle of song. Passion and anguish and exultation, rising and falling in perpetual harmony, sometimes the beauty was hardly sufferable, (as though was reached at length the heart’s limit of endurance,) so that one could have cried out with the sorrow of it. The music was poured upon the listening air,—trembling and throbbing with pain; joyous, triumphant, and conscious of might; it hesitated like a lover who knows that his love is hopeless; it was like the voice of a dying child lamenting the loveliness it would never know; it was the mocking laughter of a courtesan for whose sake a man has died; it wept and prayed, and gloried in the joy of living; it was all sweetness and tenderness, offering pardon for sins past, and charity and peace and the rest that ever endures; it exulted in the sweet scents of the earth, the multicoloured flowers, the gentle airs, the dew, and the white beam of the moon. Inhuman, ecstatic, defiant, the nightingale warbled, drunk with the beauty that issued from his throat. To Herbert, curiously alert, all his senses gathered to one last effort of appreciation, it recalled the land which he had never seen: Hellas—Hellas with its olive-gardens and its purling streams, its gray rocks all rosy in the setting sun, and its sacred groves, its blithe airs and its sonorous speech. Passed through his mind Philomel chanting for ever her distress, and Pan the happy shepherd, and the fauns and the flying nymphs; all the lovely things whereof he had read and dreamed appeared before him in one last passionate vision of a glory that was long since set. At that moment he was happy to die, for the world had given him much, and he had been spared the disillusion of old age. But to Frank the nightingale sang of other things—of the birth which follows ever on the heel of death, of life ever new and desirable, of the wonder of the teeming earth and the endless cycle of events. Men came and went, and the world turned on; the individual was naught, but the race continued its blind journey toward the greater nothingness; the trees shed their leaves and the flowers drooped and withered, but the spring brought new buds; hopes were dead before the desired came about; love perished, the love that seemed immortal; one thing succeeded another restlessly, and the universe was ever fresh and wonderful. He, too, was thankful for his life. And then, suddenly, in the very midst of his song, when he seemed to gather his heart for a final burst of infinite melody, the nightingale ceased, and through all the garden passed a shudder, as though the trees and the flowers and the taciturn birds of the day were distraught because they awoke suddenly to common life. For an instant the night quivered still with the memory of those heavenly notes, and then, more profoundly, the silence returned. Herbert gave a low sob, and Bella went to him quickly; she bent down to hear what he said.

“I’m so glad,” he whispered—“I’m so glad.”

Again the cathedral bells rang out, and the watchers counted the deliberate striking of the hour. They sat in silence. And then the darkness was insensibly diminished; as yet there was no light, but they felt the dawn was at hand. A chilliness came into the room, the greater cold of the departing night, and the velvet obscurity took on a subtle hue of amethyst. A faint sound came from the bed, and the Dean went over and listened; the end was very nearly come. He knelt down, and in a low voice began to repeat the prayers for the dying.

_“Almighty God, with whom do live the spirits of great men made perfect, after they are delivered from their earthly prisons: We humbly commend the soul of this Thy servant, our dear brother, into Thy hands, most humbly beseeching Thee that it may be precious in Thy sight. Wash it, we pray Thee, in the blood of that Immaculate Lamb, that was slain to take away the sins of the world; that whatsoever defilements it may have contracted in the midst of this miserable world, through the lusts of the flesh or the wiles of Satan, being purged and done away, it may be presented pure and without spot before Thee.”_

Miss Ley stood up and touched Frank’s arm.

“Come,” she whispered; “you and I can do no more good. Let us leave them.”

He rose silently, and following her, they stole very gently from the room.

I want to walk in the garden,” she said, her voice trembling. But once in the open air, her nerves, taut till then by a great effort of will, gave way on a sudden, and the strong, collected woman burst into a flood of tears. Sinking on a bench, she hid her face and wept uncontrollably. “Oh, it’s too awful,” she cried. “It seems so horribly stupid that people should ever die.”

Frank looked at her gravely, and in a reflective fashion filled his pipe.

“I’m afraid you’re rather upset; you’d better let me write you out a little prescription in the morning.”

“Don’t be a drivelling idiot,” she cried. “What do you think I want with your foolish bromides!”

He did not answer, but deliberately lit his pipe; and though Miss Ley knew it not, his words had the calming effect he foresaw. She brushed away the tears and took his arm. They walked up and down the lawn slowly; but Miss Ley, unused to give way to her emotions, was shaken still, and he felt her trembling.

“It’s just at such times as these that you and I are so utterly helpless. When people’s hearts are breaking for a word of consolation, when they’re sick with fear because of the unknown, we can only shrug our shoulders and tell them that we know nothing. It’s too awful to think that we shall never see again those we have loved so deeply; it’s too awful to think that nothing awaits us but cold extinction. I try to put death from my thoughts—I wish never to think of it; but it’s hateful, hateful. Each year I grow older I’m more passionately attached to life. After all, even if the beliefs of men are childish and untrue, isn’t it better to keep them? Surely superstition is a small price to pay for that wonderful support at the last hour, when all else fades to insignificance. How can people have the heart to rob the simple-minded of that great comfort?”

“But don’t you think most of us would give our very souls to believe? Of course we need it, and sometimes so intensely that we can hardly help praying to a God we know is not there. It’s very hard to stand alone and look forward—without hope.”

They wandered still, and the birds began to sing blithely; Nature awoke from her sleep, slowly, with languid movements. The night was gone, and yet the day was not come. The trees and the flowers stood out with a certain ghostly dimness, and the air in those first moments of dawn was fresh and keen: all things were swathed in a strange violet light that seemed to give new contours and new hues. There was a curious self-consciousness about the morning, and the leaves rustled like animate beings; the sky was very pale, cloudless, gray, and amethystine; and then suddenly a ray of yellow light shot right across it, and the sun rose.

“D’you know,” said Frank, “it seems to me that just as there is an instinct for life there must be an instinct for death also; some very old persons, here and there, long for the release, just as the majority long for existence. Perhaps in the future this will be more common; and just as certain insects, having done their life’s work, die willingly, without regret, from sheer cessation of the wish to live, so it may happen that men, too, will develop some such feeling. And then death will have no terrors, for we shall come to it as joyfully as after a hard day we go to our sleep.”

“And meanwhile?” asked Miss Ley, with a painful smile.

“Meanwhile we must have courage. In our sane moments we devise a certain scheme of life, and we must keep to it in the hour of trouble. I will try to live my life so that when the end comes I can look back without regret, and forward without fear.”

But now the sun flooded the garden with its magnificence, and there was a beauty in the morning that told more eloquently than human words the good lesson that life is to the living and the world is full of joy. Still the birds sang their merry songs—throstle and merle, and finch and twittering sparrow—and the flowers defiant, squandered their perfume. There were roses everywhere, and side by side were the buds and the full-blown blossoms and the dead, drooping splendours of yesterday; the great old trees of the Deanery garden were fresh and verdant as though they had not bloomed and faded for a hundred years; the very air was jocund and gay, and it was a delight merely to stand still and breathe.

But while they walked Miss Ley gave a cry, and leaving Frank’s arm, stepped forward; for Bella was seated on a bench under a tree, with the sun shining full on her face; she stared in front of her with wide-open eyes, unblinded by the brilliance, and the lines of care were suddenly gone from her face. Her expression was radiant, so that for a moment she was a beautiful woman.

“Bella, what is it?” cried Miss Ley. “Bella!”

She lowered her eyes and passed her hand over them, for now they were dazzled with shining gold. An ecstatic smile broke upon her lips.

“He died when the sun came into the room; a bridge of gold was set for him, and he passed painlessly into the open.”

“Oh, my poor child!”

Bella shook her head and smiled again.

“I’m not sorry; I’m glad that his suffering is over. He died so gently that at first I didn’t know it. I could hardly believe he was not asleep. I told father. And then I saw a lovely butterfly—a golden butterfly such as I’ve never seen before—hover slowly about the room. I couldn’t help looking at it, for it seemed to know its way, and then it came into the sunbeam and floated out along it—floated into the blue sky; and then I lost it.”

A week later Miss Ley was in London, where she meant to stay through August, partly because it bored her to decide where to spend that holiday season, partly because Mrs. Barlow-Bassett had been forced to go to a private hospital for an operation; but still more because Frank’s presence gave her the certainty that she would have someone to talk to whenever she liked. That month vastly amused her, for London gained then somewhat the air of a foreign capital, and since few of her acquaintance remained, she felt free to do whatever she chose without risk of being thought wilfully eccentric. Miss Ley dined with Frank in shabby little restaurants in Soho, where neither the linen nor the frequenters were of a spotless character; but it entertained her much to watch bearded Frenchmen languishing away from their native land, and to overhear the voluble confidences of ladies whose position in society was scarcely acknowledged. They went together to music-halls over the river or drove on the tops of ’buses, and discussed interminably the weather and eternity, the meaning of life, the foibles of their friends, Shakespeare, and the _Bilharzia hæmatobi_.

Miss Ley had left Bella and the Dean at Tercanbury. The widow never for a moment lost her grave serenity. She attended the burying of her husband with dry eyes, absently as though it were a formal ceremony that had no particular meaning to her; and the Dean, who could not understand her point of view, was dismayed, for he was broken down with grief, and it was his daughter who sought to console him. She repeated that Herbert was there among them now; and the furniture of the house, the roses of the garden, the blue of the sky, gained a curious significance, since he seemed to be in all things, partaking of their comfortable beauty, and adding to theirs a more subtle loveliness.

Soon Miss Ley received from her friend a letter, enclosing one from Herbert, scribbled in pencil but a few days before his death. She said:

_“This is apparently for you, and though it is the last thing he ever wrote, I feel that you should have it. It seems to refer to a conversation that you had with him, and I am glad to have found it. My father keeps well, and I also. Sometimes I can scarcely realize that Herbert is dead, he seems so near tome. I thought I could not live without him, but I am singularly content, and I know that soon we shall be united, and then for ever.”_

The letter was as follows:

“DEAR MISS LEY,
“You wanted to ask me a question the other day, and were afraid, in
case you pained me; but I guessed it, and would have answered very
willingly. Did you not wish to know whether, notwithstanding
poverty and illness and frustrated hopes and the prospect of death,
I was glad to have lived? Yes, notwithstanding everything. Except
that I must leave Bella, I am not sorry to die, for I know at last
well enough that I should never have been a great poet; and Bella
will join me soon. I have loved the world passionately, and I thank
God for all the beautiful things I have seen. I thank God for the
green meadows round Tercanbury, and the elm-trees, and the gray
monotonous sea. I thank Him for the loveliness of the cathedral on
rainy afternoons in winter, and for the jewelled glass of its
painted windows, and for the great clouds that sway across the sky.
I thank God for the scented flowers and the carolling birds, for
the sunshine and the spring breezes, and the people who have loved
me. Oh yes, I am glad to have lived; and if I had to go through it
all again, with the sorrows and disappointments and the sickness, I
would take it willingly, for to me at least the delight of life has
been greater than the pain. I am very ready to pay the price, and I
would wish to die with a prayer of thanksgiving on my lips.”

The letter broke off thus abruptly, as though he had meant to say much more, but wanted opportunity. Miss Ley read the letter to Frank when next he came.

“Do you notice,” she asked, “that every one of the things he speaks of appeals to the senses? Yet the only point upon which philosophers and divines agree is that this is the lower part of us, and must be resolutely curbed. They put the intellect on an altogether higher plane.”

“They lie in their throats. And you can prove that really they believe nothing of the kind by comparing the concern with which they treat their stomachs, and the negligence with which they use their minds. To make their food digestible, nourishing, and wholesome, enormous trouble is taken, but they will stuff into their heads any garbage they come across. When you contrast the heedlessness with which people choose their books from Mudie’s, and the care with which they order their dinner, you can be sure, whatever their protestations, that they lay vastly more store on their bellies than on their intellects.”

“I rather wish I’d said that,” murmured Miss Ley reflectively.

“I have no doubt you will,” he returned.

XI

Mrs. Barlow-Bassett, who cultivated the fashion with the assiduity of a woman not too well assured of her position in society, was preparing to spend August in Homburg, when a sudden illness prostrated her, and it was found that an immediate operation was needful. She went into a private hospital with the presentiment that she would never recover, and her chief sorrow was that she must leave Reggie, so ill-prepared for the mundane struggle, to go his way alone just when a mother’s loving care was most needed for his guidance. Her heart ached to keep him continually by her side, but she had trained herself to sacrifice every amiable tenderness, and when he told her of an arrangement to read in the country with his tutor, would not hear of its being disturbed. Her possible demise made it all the more necessary that he should be standing on his own feet as a professional man, and resolutely she crushed, not only her natural inclinations, but also all evidence of anxiety for her own condition; she made light of the approaching ordeal, so that his attention should be in no way diverted from his work. Reggie promised to write every day, and went so far (a trait which touched her deeply) as to insist on remaining in London till after her operation; he would not be able to see her, but at least could inquire how she had borne it. Mrs. Barlow-Bassett drove to Wimpole Street with her son, and bade him a very tender farewell; at the end, just before he left, her courage partly failed, and she could not prevent a cry of distress.

“And if something happens, Reggie, and I don’t recover, you will be a good boy, won’t you? You will be honest and straightforward and loyal?”

“What do _you_ think?” answered Reggie.

She folded him in her arms, and with a firmness not becoming her appearance, fashioned somewhat in the grand style, let him go with dry eyes and with smiling lips. But Mrs. Bassett had exaggerated a little the perils of her condition; she bore the operation admirably, and after the first two days proceeded without interruption to complete recovery. Reggie wrote with considerable regularity from Brighton, where it appeared the tutor had established himself for the summer, and gave his mother accounts of the work he did; he went into considerable detail, and, indeed, seemed so industrious that Mrs. Bassett was minded to remonstrate with his tutor. After all, it was holiday time, and scarcely fair that Reggie’s goodwill should be thus taken advantage of. Towards the end of the month she was well enough to move back to her own house, and the morning after her return came downstairs in a very contented frame of mind, rejoicing in her new health and in the splendid summer weather. Carelessly she opened her _Morning Post_, and as usual ran her eye down the announcements of birth, death, and marriage. Suddenly it caught her own name, and she read the following intelligence:

BARLOW-BASSETT—HIGGINS,—On the 30th ult., at St. George’s, Hanover Square, W., Reginald, only son of the late Frederick Barlow-Bassett, to Annie (Lauria Galbraith), second daughter of Jonathan Higgins, of Wimbledon.

For a moment Mrs. Bassett did not understand, and she read the paragraph twice, hopelessly mystified, before she realized that it announced to the world in general the marriage of her son. The date of the occurrence was the day after her operation, and on that very morning Reggie had called at Wimpole Street to inquire after her. The butler was still in the room, and helplessly Mrs. Bassett handed him the paper.

“D’you know what this means?” she asked.

“No, madam.”

Her first thought was that it must be a practical joke; and then, what was the meaning of that second name in parentheses—Lauria Galbraith? She rang for the servant, and told him at once to send a wire, which she directed to Reggie at Brighton, asking for an explanation of the extraordinary announcement; after breakfast she telegraphed to her solicitor and to the tutor’s London address. The tutor’s reply came first, to the effect that he had not seen Reggie since July; and in answer to her second question, he added that himself had been in London all the summer. At length Mrs. Bassett began to understand that something awful had happened. She went into Reggie’s room, and coming upon a locked drawer, had it broken open; she found in it a writing-case, and with horror and indignation turned out a motley collection of bills, pawn-tickets, and letters. She examined them all carefully, and first discovered that accounts for which she had given money were unpaid, and that others, enormous to her economical view, existed of which she knew nothing; then from the pawntickets she learned that Reggie had pledged his father’s watch, all his own trinkets, a dressing-case she had given him, and numberless other things. For an instant she hesitated at the letters, but only for an instant; it seemed her right now to know the worst, and little by little it dawned upon her that hitherto she had lived in a strange fool’s paradise. First there came epistles from duns, polite, supplicatory, menacing; then a couple of writs, smacking inexperienced eye of prison bars and unimagined penalties; letters from women in various writings, most of them ill-spelt, and the cheap stationery betrayed the sender’s rank. With frowning brow she read them, horrified and aghast; some were full of love, others of anger, but all pointed distinctly to Reggie’s polygamous tendency. At length came a bundle whereof the paper was quite different—thick, expensive, scented; and though not at once recognising the hand when she opened the first, Mrs. Bassett cried out; on the left side, at the top, in little letters of gold, surrounded by a scroll, was the name _Grace_, and though there was no address she knew that they were from Mrs. Castillyon. She read them all, and her dismay tamed to abject shame and anger. It appeared that this woman had given Reggie cheques and bank-notes. One letter said, “_I hope you can change the cheque_”; another, “_So sorry you’re hard up; here’s a fiver to go on with_”; a third, “_What a pig-dog your mother is to be so mean! What on earth does she spend her money on?_” At first they were with passion, but soon began to complain of unkindness or cruelty, and one letter after another was filled with bitter reproaches.

Mrs. Bassett took the whole contents of the writing-case, and locked them in her own cabinet, then hurried to Reggie’s tutor. Here she discovered that what she already suspected was true. She went home again, and called the upper servants. It humiliated her enormously that she must catechize them on the conduct of her son, but now she had no scruples. At first they would say nothing, but by dint of promise and threat she extracted the full story of how Reggie had lived during the last two years. At length, as a final blow, came an epistle from Reggie himself.

“371, Vauxhall Bridge Road.

“MY DEAR MATER,
“You will have seen in this morning’s _Post_ that I was married at
the end of last month to Miss Higgins, professionally known as
Lauria Galbraith, and we are now staying at the above address. I am
sure you will like Lauria, who is the best woman in the world, and
has saved me from going to the dogs. You might let us have a line
to say when we can come and see you. Lauria is most anxious to make
your acquaintance, I should tell you that I have decided to chuck
the Bar, and I am going on the stage. Lauria and I have got an
engagement for the autumn tour of _The Knave of Hearts_, and we
have come up to town for rehearsals. I am sure this will meet with
your approval, because law is a rotten profession, awfully
overcrowded, and as Lauria says, on the stage there is always room
for talent. I know I shall get on, and Lauria and I hope in a few
years to run our own company. I am working very hard, for although
I’m only walking on in this drama, (I wouldn’t have accepted the
offer, only Lauria has a ripping part, and, of course, as I hadn’t
been on the stage before, I had to take what I could get,) I am
learning _Hamlet_. Lauria and I think of giving some recitations of
that and _Romeo and Juliet_ in town next spring.

“Your affectionate son, “REGGIE.

“P.S.—You needn’t worry about the money, because on the stage I can earn far more than I ever should have done at the Bar. An actor-manager simply makes thousands.”

Mrs. Bassett burst into tears, for she had never imagined that Reggie could be so callous, so inanely flippant; but rage succeeded all other emotions in her breast, and she wrote angrily, telling her son never again to show his face at her house, or the servants would throw him into the street—telling him that no farthing of her money should ever be his; then silence seemed more dignified, and she determined merely to leave unanswered that impudent letter. But it was necessary to express her indignation to someone, and she sent an urgent note to Miss Ley, begging her at once to come.

When the good lady, obedient to the summons, arrived, she found Mrs. Bassett in a very hysterical condition, walking up and down the room excitedly; and in the disorder of her majestic manner she reminded her somewhat of a middle-aged bacchante.

“Thank God you’ve come!” she cried. “Reggie’s married an actress, and I’ve disinherited him. I won’t ever see him again, and for all I care he may starve.”

Miss Ley made no movement of surprise, merely noting the fact that herself was a woman of prevision. All she had expected was come about.

“I’ve been utterly deceived in him. He’s not passed a single examination, and the servants have told me that he often came home at night tipsy. He’s lied to me systematically; he’s deceived me in every possible way; and all the time I flattered myself he was a good, honest boy, he’s been leading the life of a rip and a libertine.”

Her words were interrupted by a fit of crying, while Miss Ley watched her reflectively. Presently Mrs. Bassett recovered herself.

“I confess the marriage surprises me,” murmured Miss Ley. “Your daughter-in-law must be a woman of character and tact, Emily; but all the rest has been known to your friends for the last year.”

“D’you mean to say you knew he was a drunken sot, and little better than a thief and a liar?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I thought you’d find out quite soon enough; and really, Emily, you’re such a fool you would probably have only made things worse.”

Mrs. Bassett was too much crushed to resent this plain speech.

“But you don’t know everything. I’ve found a lot of letters from women. It’s they who’ve led him astray. And d’you know whose are the worst?”

“Mrs. Castillyon’s?”

“Did you know that, too? Did everyone know my shame, and that my boy was being ruined, and did no one warn me? But I’m going to pay her out. I shall send every one to her husband. It’s she who’s done the mischief.”

She took from a drawer the bundle of letters, and excitedly gave them to Miss Ley.

“Is this all?” she asked.

“Yes.”

Miss Ley had with her a black satin bag, in which she kept her handkerchief and her purse, and swiftly opening it, she put the letters in.

“What are you doing?”

“My dear, don’t be a fool! You’re not going to send these letters to anyone, and as soon as I get home I mean to burn them. Reggie was a dissolute rip before ever he met Grace Castillyon, and the only woman who ruined him is—yourself! You were very angry when I told you once that the greatest misfortune which could befall a man was to have a really affectionate mother, but I assure you, except for your bad influence, Reggie would have been no worse a boy than any other.”

Mrs. Bassett turned livid.

“I think you must be mad, Mary. I’ve done all I could by example and precept to make him a gentleman. I’ve devoted my life to his education, and I’ve sacrificed myself to him absolutely from the day he was born. I can honestly say that I’ve been a good mother.”

“Pardon me,” answered Miss Ley coolly, “you’ve been a very bad mother, a very selfish mother, and you’ve systematically sacrificed him to your own whims and fancies.”

“How can you talk to me like that when I want sympathy and help? Haven’t you any pity for me?”

“None! All that has happened you’ve brought entirely on yourself. You made him a liar by compelling him to tell you his most private affairs, you drove him to deception by expecting from him an impossible purity, you warned him of temptation so as to make it doubly attractive. You never let him have a free will or a natural instinct, but insisted on his acting and feeling like a middle-aged and rather ill-educated woman. You thwarted all inclinations, and forced upon him yours. Good heavens! you couldn’t have been more selfish, cruel, and exacting if you’d detested the boy!”

Mrs. Bassett stared at her, overwhelmed.

“But I only asked common honesty and truthfulness, I only wanted to keep him from spot and stain, and I only expected the morality which religion and everything else enforces upon us.”