{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_2023/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_2023","id":"gutenberg_2023","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2023","summary":null,"tags":["Brittany (France) -- Fiction","Category: British Literature","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Novels","Category: Romance","Category: Science-Fiction & Fantasy","Short stories, English"],"text":"Produced by Les Bowler.  HTML version by Al Haines.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nMALVINA OF BRITTANY\n\n\nby\n\nJerome K. Jerome\n\n\n\n\nContents.\n\nMALVINA OF BRITTANY.\n\n     The Preface.\n     I.   The Story.\n     II.  How it came about.\n     III. How cousin Christopher became mixed up with it.\n     IV.  How it was kept from Mrs. Arlington.\n     V.   How it was told to Mrs. Marigold.\n     VI.  And how it was finished too soon.\n     The Prologue.\n\nTHE STREET OF THE BLANK WALL.\n\nHIS EVENING OUT.\n\nTHE LESSON.\n\nSYLVIA OF THE LETTERS.\n\nTHE FAWN GLOVES.\n\n\n\n\nMALVINA OF BRITTANY.\n\n\n\n\nTHE PREFACE.\n\nThe Doctor never did believe this story, but claims for it that, to a\ngreat extent, it has altered his whole outlook on life.\n\n\"Of course, what actually happened--what took place under my own nose,\"\ncontinued the Doctor, \"I do not dispute.  And then there is the case of\nMrs. Marigold.  That was unfortunate, I admit, and still is, especially\nfor Marigold.  But, standing by itself, it proves nothing.  These\nfluffy, giggling women--as often as not it is a mere shell that they\nshed with their first youth--one never knows what is underneath.  With\nregard to the others, the whole thing rests upon a simple scientific\nbasis.  The idea was 'in the air,' as we say--a passing brain-wave.\nAnd when it had worked itself out there was an end of it.  As for all\nthis Jack-and-the-Beanstalk tomfoolery--\"\n\nThere came from the darkening uplands the sound of a lost soul.  It\nrose and fell and died away.\n\n\"Blowing stones,\" explained the Doctor, stopping to refill his pipe.\n\"One finds them in these parts.  Hollowed out during the glacial\nperiod.  Always just about twilight that one hears it.  Rush of air\ncaused by sudden sinking of the temperature.  That's how all these sort\nof ideas get started.\"\n\nThe Doctor, having lit his pipe, resumed his stride.\n\n\"I don't say,\" continued the Doctor, \"that it would have happened\nwithout her coming.  Undoubtedly it was she who supplied the necessary\npsychic conditions.  There was that about her--a sort of atmosphere.\nThat quaint archaic French of hers--King Arthur and the round table and\nMerlin; it seemed to recreate it all.  An artful minx, that is the only\nexplanation.  But while she was looking at you, out of that curious\naloofness of hers--\"\n\nThe Doctor left the sentence uncompleted.\n\n\"As for old Littlecherry,\" the Doctor began again quite suddenly,\n\"that's his speciality--folklore, occultism, all that flummery.  If you\nknocked at his door with the original Sleeping Beauty on your arm he'd\nonly fuss round her with cushions and hope that she'd had a good night.\nFound a seed once--chipped it out of an old fossil, and grew it in a\npot in his study.  About the most dilapidated weed you ever saw.\nTalked about it as if he had re-discovered the Elixir of Life.  Even if\nhe didn't say anything in actually so many words, there was the way he\nwent about.  That of itself was enough to have started the whole thing,\nto say nothing of that loony old Irish housekeeper of his, with her\nhead stuffed full of elves and banshees and the Lord knows what.\"\n\nAgain the Doctor lapsed into silence.  One by one the lights of the\nvillage peeped upward out of the depths.  A long, low line of light,\ncreeping like some luminous dragon across the horizon, showed the track\nof the Great Western express moving stealthily towards Swindon.\n\n\"It was altogether out of the common,\" continued the Doctor, \"quite out\nof the common, the whole thing.  But if you are going to accept old\nLittlecherry's explanation of it--\"\n\nThe Doctor struck his foot against a long grey stone, half hidden in\nthe grass, and only just saved himself from falling.\n\n\"Remains of some old cromlech,\" explained the Doctor.  \"Somewhere about\nhere, if we were to dig down, we should find a withered bundle of bones\ncrouching over the dust of a prehistoric luncheon-basket. Interesting\nneighbourhood!\"\n\nThe descent was rough.  The Doctor did not talk again until we had\nreached the outskirts of the village.\n\n\"I wonder what's become of them?\" mused the Doctor.  \"A rum go, the\nwhole thing.  I should like to have got to the bottom of it.\"\n\nWe had reached the Doctor's gate.  The Doctor pushed it open and passed\nin.  He seemed to have forgotten me.\n\n\"A taking little minx,\" I heard him muttering to himself as he fumbled\nwith the door.  \"And no doubt meant well.  But as for that\ncock-and-bull story--\"\n\n\nI pieced it together from the utterly divergent versions furnished me\nby the Professor and the Doctor, assisted, so far as later incidents\nare concerned, by knowledge common to the village.\n\n\n\nI.   THE STORY.\n\nIt commenced, so I calculate, about the year 2000 B.C., or, to be more\nprecise--for figures are not the strong point of the old\nchroniclers--when King Heremon ruled over Ireland and Harbundia was\nQueen of the White Ladies of Brittany, the fairy Malvina being her\nfavourite attendant.  It is with Malvina that this story is chiefly\nconcerned.  Various quite pleasant happenings are recorded to her\ncredit.  The White Ladies belonged to the \"good people,\" and, on the\nwhole, lived up to their reputation.  But in Malvina, side by side with\nmuch that is commendable, there appears to have existed a most\nreprehensible spirit of mischief, displaying itself in pranks that,\nexcusable, or at all events understandable, in, say, a pixy or a\npigwidgeon, strike one as altogether unworthy of a well-principled\nWhite Lady, posing as the friend and benefactress of mankind.  For\nmerely refusing to dance with her--at midnight, by the shores of a\nmountain lake; neither the time nor the place calculated to appeal to\nan elderly gentleman, suffering possibly from rheumatism--she on one\noccasion transformed an eminently respectable proprietor of tin mines\ninto a nightingale, necessitating a change of habits that to a business\nman must have been singularly irritating.  On another occasion a quite\nimportant queen, having had the misfortune to quarrel with Malvina over\nsome absurd point of etiquette in connection with a lizard, seems, on\nwaking the next morning, to have found herself changed into what one\njudges, from the somewhat vague description afforded by the ancient\nchroniclers, to have been a sort of vegetable marrow.\n\nSuch changes, according to the Professor, who is prepared to maintain\nthat evidence of an historical nature exists sufficient to prove that\nthe White Ladies formed at one time an actual living community, must be\ntaken in an allegorical sense.  Just as modern lunatics believe\nthemselves to be china vases or poll-parrots, and think and behave as\nsuch, so it must have been easy, the Professor argues, for beings of\nsuperior intelligence to have exerted hypnotic influence upon the\nsuperstitious savages by whom they were surrounded, and who,\nintellectually considered, could have been little more than children.\n\n\"Take Nebuchadnezzar.\"  I am still quoting the Professor.  \"Nowadays we\nshould put him into a strait-waistcoat.  Had he lived in Northern\nEurope instead of Southern Asia, legend would have told us how some\nKobold or Stromkarl had turned him into a composite amalgamation of a\nserpent, a cat and a kangaroo.\"  Be that as it may, this passion for\nchange--in other people--seems to have grown upon Malvina until she\nmust have become little short of a public nuisance, and eventually it\nlanded her in trouble.\n\nThe incident is unique in the annals of the White Ladies, and the\nchroniclers dwell upon it with evident satisfaction.  It came about\nthrough the betrothal of King Heremon's only son, Prince Gerbot, to the\nPrincess Berchta of Normandy.  Malvina seems to have said nothing, but\nto have bided her time.  The White Ladies of Brittany, it must be\nremembered, were not fairies pure and simple.  Under certain conditions\nthey were capable of becoming women, and this fact, one takes it, must\nhave exerted a disturbing influence upon their relationships with\neligible male mortals.  Prince Gerbot may not have been altogether\nblameless.  Young men in those sadly unenlightened days may not, in\ntheir dealings with ladies, white or otherwise, have always been the\nsoul of discretion and propriety. One would like to think the best of\nher.\n\nBut even the best is indefensible.  On the day appointed for the\nwedding she seems to have surpassed herself.  Into what particular\nshape or form she altered the wretched Prince Gerbot; or into what\nshape or form she persuaded him that he had been altered, it really, so\nfar as the moral responsibility of Malvina is concerned, seems to be\nimmaterial; the chronicle does not state:  evidently something too\nindelicate for a self-respecting chronicler to even hint at. As,\njudging from other passages in the book, squeamishness does not seem to\nhave been the author's literary failing, the sensitive reader can feel\nonly grateful for the omission.  It would have been altogether too\nharrowing.\n\nIt had, of course, from Malvina's point of view, the desired effect.\nThe Princess Berchta appears to have given one look and then to have\nfallen fainting into the arms of her attendants.  The marriage was\npostponed indefinitely, and Malvina, one sadly suspects, chortled. Her\ntriumph was short-lived.\n\nUnfortunately for her, King Heremon had always been a patron of the\narts and science of his period.  Among his friends were to be reckoned\nmagicians, genii, the Nine Korrigans or Fays of Brittany--all sorts of\nparties capable of exerting influence, and, as events proved, only too\nwilling.  Ambassadors waited upon Queen Harbundia; and Harbundia, even\nhad she wished, as on many previous occasions, to stand by her\nfavourite, had no alternative.  The fairy Malvina was called upon to\nreturn to Prince Gerbot his proper body and all therein contained.\n\nShe flatly refused.  A self-willed, obstinate fairy, suffering from\nswelled head.  And then there was that personal note.  Merely that he\nshould marry the Princess Berchta!  She would see King Heremon, and\nAnniamus, in his silly old wizard's robe, and the Fays of Brittany, and\nall the rest of them--!  A really nice White Lady may not have cared to\nfinish the sentence, even to herself.  One imagines the flash of the\nfairy eye, the stamp of the fairy foot. What could they do to her, any\nof them, with all their clacking of tongues and their wagging of heads?\nShe, an immortal fairy!  She would change Prince Gerbot back at a time\nof her own choosing.  Let them attend to their own tricks and leave her\nto mind hers.  One pictures long walks and talks between the distracted\nHarbundia and her refractory favourite--appeals to reason, to\nsentiment:  \"For my sake.\"  \"Don't you see?\"  \"After all, dear, and\neven if he did.\"\n\nIt seems to have ended by Harbundia losing all patience.  One thing\nthere was she could do that Malvina seems either not to have known of\nor not to have anticipated.  A solemn meeting of the White Ladies was\nconvened for the night of the midsummer moon.  The place of meeting is\ndescribed by the ancient chroniclers with more than their usual\nexactitude.  It was on the land that the magician Kalyb had, ages ago,\nraised up above all Brittany to form the grave of King Taramis.  The\n\"Sea of the Seven Islands\" lay to the north.  One guesses it to be the\nridge formed by the Arree Mountains.  \"The Lady of the Fountain\"\nappears to have been present, suggesting the deep green pool from which\nthe river D'Argent takes its source.  Roughly speaking, one would place\nit halfway between the modern towns of Morlaix and Callac.\nPedestrians, even of the present day, speak of the still loneliness of\nthat high plateau, treeless, houseless, with no sign of human hand\nthere but that high, towering monolith round which the shrill winds\nmoan incessantly.  There, possibly on some broken fragment of those\ngreat grey stones, Queen Harbundia sat in judgment.  And the judgment\nwas--and from it there was no appeal--that the fairy Malvina should be\ncast out from among the community of the White Ladies of Brittany.\nOver the face of the earth she should wander, alone and unforgiven.\nSolemnly from the book of the roll-call of the White Ladies the name of\nMalvina was struck out for ever.\n\nThe blow must have fallen upon Malvina as heavily as it was unexpected.\nWithout a word, without one backward look, she seems to have departed.\nOne pictures the white, frozen face, the wide-open, unseeing eyes, the\ntrembling, uncertain steps, the groping hands, the deathlike silence\nclinging like grave-clothes round about her.\n\nFrom that night the fairy Malvina disappears from the book of the\nchroniclers of the White Ladies of Brittany, from legend and from\nfolklore whatsoever.  She does not appear again in history till the\nyear A.D. 1914.\n\n\n\nII.  HOW IT CAME ABOUT.\n\nIt was on an evening towards the end of June, 1914, that Flight\nCommander Raffleton, temporarily attached to the French Squadron then\nharboured at Brest, received instructions by wireless to return at once\nto the British Air Service Headquarters at Farnborough, in Hampshire.\nThe night, thanks to a glorious full moon, would afford all the light\nhe required, and young Raffleton determined to set out at once.  He\nappears to have left the flying ground just outside the arsenal at\nBrest about nine o'clock.  A little beyond Huelgoat he began to\nexperience trouble with the carburettor.  His idea at first was to push\non to Lannion, where he would be able to secure expert assistance; but\nmatters only getting worse, and noticing beneath him a convenient\nstretch of level ground, he decided to descend and attend to it\nhimself.  He alighted without difficulty and proceeded to investigate.\nThe job took him, unaided, longer than he had anticipated.  It was a\nwarm, close night, with hardly a breath of wind, and when he had\nfinished he was feeling hot and tired.  He had drawn on his helmet and\nwas on the point of stepping into his seat, when the beauty of the\nnight suggested to him that it would be pleasant, before starting off\nagain, to stretch his legs and cool himself a little.  He lit a cigar\nand looked round about him.\n\nThe plateau on which he had alighted was a table-land standing high\nabove the surrounding country.  It stretched around him, treeless,\nhouseless.  There was nothing to break the lines of the horizon but a\ngroup of gaunt grey stones, the remains, so he told himself, of some\nancient menhir, common enough to the lonely desert lands of Brittany.\nIn general the stones lie overthrown and scattered, but this particular\nspecimen had by some strange chance remained undisturbed through all\nthe centuries.  Mildly interested, Flight Commander Raffleton strolled\nleisurely towards it.  The moon was at its zenith.  How still the quiet\nnight must have been was impressed upon him by the fact that he\ndistinctly heard, and counted, the strokes of a church clock which must\nhave been at least six miles away.  He remembers looking at his watch\nand noting that there was a slight difference between his own and the\nchurch time.  He made it eight minutes past twelve.  With the dying\naway of the last vibrations of the distant bell the silence and the\nsolitude of the place seemed to return and settle down upon it with\nincreased insistence.  While he was working it had not troubled him,\nbut beside the black shadows thrown by those hoary stones it had the\neffect almost of a presence.  It was with a sense of relief that he\ncontemplated returning to his machine and starting up his engine. It\nwould whir and buzz and give back to him a comfortable feeling of life\nand security.  He would walk round the stones just once and then be\noff.  It was wonderful how they had defied old Time.  As they had been\nplaced there, quite possibly ten thousand years ago, so they still\nstood, the altar of that vast, empty sky-roofed temple.  And while he\nwas gazing at them, his cigar between his lips, struggling with a\nstrange forgotten impulse that was tugging at his knees, there came\nfrom the very heart of the great grey stones the measured rise and fall\nof a soft, even breathing.\n\nYoung Raffleton frankly confesses that his first impulse was to cut and\nrun.  Only his soldier's training kept his feet firm on the heather.\nOf course, the explanation was simple.  Some animal had made the place\nits nest.  But then what animal was ever known to sleep so soundly as\nnot to be disturbed by human footsteps?  If wounded, and so unable to\nescape, it would not be breathing with that quiet, soft regularity,\ncontrasting so strangely with the stillness and the silence all round.\nPossibly an owl's nest.  Young owlets make that sort of noise--the\n\"snorers,\" so country people call them.  Young Raffleton threw away his\ncigar and went down upon his knees to grope among the shadows, and,\ndoing so, he touched something warm and soft and yielding.\n\nBut it wasn't an owl.  He must have touched her very lightly, for even\nthen she did not wake.  She lay there with her head upon her arm.  And\nnow close to her, his eyes growing used to the shadows, he saw her\nquite plainly, the wonder of the parted lips, the gleam of the white\nlimbs beneath their flimsy covering.\n\nOf course, what he ought to have done was to have risen gently and\nmoved away.  Then he could have coughed.  And if that did not wake her\nhe might have touched her lightly, say, on the shoulder, and have\ncalled to her, first softly, then a little louder, \"Mademoiselle,\" or\n\"Mon enfant.\"  Even better, he might have stolen away on tiptoe and\nleft her there sleeping.\n\nThis idea does not seem to have occurred to him.  One makes the excuse\nfor him that he was but three-and-twenty, that, framed in the purple\nmoonlight, she seemed to him the most beautiful creature his eyes had\never seen.  And then there was the brooding mystery of it all, that\natmosphere of far-off primeval times from which the roots of life still\ndraw their sap.  One takes it he forgot that he was Flight Commander\nRaffleton, officer and gentleman; forgot the proper etiquette applying\nto the case of ladies found sleeping upon lonely moors without a\nchaperon.  Greater still, the possibility that he never thought of\nanything at all, but, just impelled by a power beyond himself, bent\ndown and kissed her.\n\nNot a platonic kiss upon the brow, not a brotherly kiss upon the cheek,\nbut a kiss full upon the parted lips, a kiss of worship and amazement,\nsuch as that with which Adam in all probability awakened Eve.\n\nHer eyes opened, and, just a little sleepily, she looked at him. There\ncould have been no doubt in her mind as to what had happened. His lips\nwere still pressing hers.  But she did not seem in the least surprised,\nand most certainly not angry.  Raising herself to a sitting posture,\nshe smiled and held out her hand that he might help her up.  And, alone\nin that vast temple, star-roofed and moon-illumined, beside that grim\ngrey altar of forgotten rites, hand in hand they stood and looked at\none another.\n\n\"I beg your pardon,\" said Commander Raffleton.  \"I'm afraid I have\ndisturbed you.\"\n\nHe remembered afterwards that in his confusion he had spoken to her in\nEnglish.  But she answered him in French, a quaint, old-fashioned\nFrench such as one rarely finds but in the pages of old missals.  He\nwould have had some difficulty in translating it literally, but the\nmeaning of it was, adapted to our modern idiom:\n\n\"Don't mention it.  I'm so glad you've come.\"\n\nHe gathered she had been expecting him.  He was not quite sure whether\nhe ought not to apologise for being apparently a little late.  True, he\nhad no recollection of any such appointment.  But then at that\nparticular moment Commander Raffleton may be said to have had no\nconsciousness of anything beyond just himself and the wondrous other\nbeside him.  Somewhere outside was moonlight and a world; but all that\nseemed unimportant.  It was she who broke the silence.\n\n\"How did you get here?\" she asked.\n\nHe did not mean to be enigmatical.  He was chiefly concerned with still\ngazing at her.\n\n\"I flew here,\" he answered.  Her eyes opened wider at that, but with\ninterest, not doubt.\n\n\"Where are your wings?\" she asked.  She was leaning sideways, trying to\nget a view of his back.\n\nHe laughed.  It made her seem more human, that curiosity about his back.\n\n\"Over there,\" he answered.  She looked, and for the first time saw the\ngreat shimmering sails gleaming like silver under the moonlight.\n\nShe moved towards it, and he followed, noticing without surprise that\nthe heather seemed to make no sign of yielding to the pressure of her\nwhite feet.\n\nShe halted a little away from it, and he came and stood beside her.\nEven to Commander Raffleton himself it looked as if the great wings\nwere quivering, like the outstretched pinions of a bird preening itself\nbefore flight.\n\n\"Is it alive?\" she asked.\n\n\"Not till I whisper to it,\" he answered.  He was losing a little of his\nfear of her.  She turned to him.\n\n\"Shall we go?\" she asked.\n\nHe stared at her.  She was quite serious, that was evident.  She was to\nput her hand in his and go away with him.  It was all settled. That is\nwhy he had come.  To her it did not matter where.  That was his affair.\nBut where he went she was to go.  That was quite clearly the programme\nin her mind.\n\nTo his credit, let it be recorded, he did make an effort.  Against all\nthe forces of nature, against his twenty-three years and the red blood\npulsing in his veins, against the fumes of the midsummer moonlight\nencompassing him and the voices of the stars, against the demons of\npoetry and romance and mystery chanting their witches' music in his\nears, against the marvel and the glory of her as she stood beside him,\nclothed in the purple of the night, Flight Commander Raffleton fought\nthe good fight for common sense.\n\nYoung persons who, scantily clad, go to sleep on the heather, five\nmiles from the nearest human habitation, are to be avoided by\nwell-brought-up young officers of His Majesty's Aerial Service.  The\nincidence of their being uncannily beautiful and alluring should serve\nas an additional note of warning.  The girl had had a row with her\nmother and wanted to get away.  It was this infernal moonlight that was\nchiefly responsible.  No wonder dogs bayed at it.  He almost fancied he\ncould hear one now.  Nice, respectable, wholesome-minded things, dogs.\nNo damned sentiment about them. What if he had kissed her!  One is not\nbound for life to every woman one kisses.  Not the first time she had\nbeen kissed, unless all the young men in Brittany were blind or white\nblooded.  All this pretended innocence and simplicity!  It was just put\non.  If not, she must be a lunatic.  The proper thing to do was to say\ngood-bye with a laugh and a jest, start up his machine and be off to\nEngland--dear old practical, merry England, where he could get\nbreakfast and a bath.\n\nIt wasn't a fair fight; one feels it.  Poor little prim Common Sense,\nwith her defiant, turned-up nose and her shrill giggle and her innate\nvulgarity.  And against her the stillness of the night, and the music\nof the ages, and the beating of his heart.\n\nSo it all fell down about his feet, a little crumbled dust that a\npassing breath of wind seemed to scatter, leaving him helpless,\nspellbound by the magic of her eyes.\n\n\"Who are you?\" he asked her.\n\n\"Malvina,\" she answered him.  \"I am a fairy.\"\n\n\n\nIII. HOW COUSIN CHRISTOPHER BECAME MIXED UP WITH IT.\n\nIt did just occur to him that maybe he had not made that descent quite\nas successfully as he had thought he had; that maybe he had come down\non his head; that in consequence he had done with the experiences of\nFlight Commander Raffleton and was now about to enter on a new and less\ncircumscribed existence.  If so, the beginning, to an adventuresome\nyoung spirit, seemed promising.  It was Malvina's voice that recalled\nhim from this train of musing.\n\n\"Shall we go?\" she repeated, and this time the note in her voice\nsuggested command rather than question.\n\nWhy not?  Whatever had happened to him, at whatever plane of existence\nhe was now arrived, the machine apparently had followed him.\nMechanically he started it up.  The familiar whir of the engine brought\nback to him the possibility of his being alive in the ordinary\nacceptation of the term.  It also suggested to him the practical\nadvisability of insisting that Malvina should put on his spare coat.\nMalvina being five feet three, and the coat having been built for a man\nof six feet one, the effect under ordinary circumstances would have\nbeen comic.  What finally convinced Commander Raffleton that Malvina\nreally was a fairy was that, in that coat, with the collar standing up\nsome six inches above her head, she looked more like one than ever.\n\nNeither of them spoke.  Somehow it did not seem to be needed.  He\nhelped her to climb into her seat and tucked the coat about her feet.\nShe answered by the same smile with which she had first stretched out\nher hand to him.  It was just a smile of endless content, as if all her\ntroubles were now over.  Commander Raffleton sincerely hoped they were.\nA momentary flash of intelligence suggested to him that his were just\nbeginning.\n\nCommander Raffleton's subconscious self it must have been that took\ncharge of the machine.  He seems, keeping a few miles inland, to have\nfollowed the line of the coast to a little south of the Hague\nlighthouse.  Thereabouts he remembers descending for the purpose of\nreplenishing his tank.  Not having anticipated a passenger, he had\nfilled up before starting with a spare supply of petrol, an incident\nthat was fortunate.  Malvina appears to have been interested in\nwatching what she probably regarded as some novel breed of dragon being\nnourished from tins extricated from under her feet, but to have\naccepted this, together with all other details of the flight, as in the\nnatural scheme of things.  The monster refreshed, tugged, spurned the\nground, and rose again with a roar; and the creeping sea rushed down.\n\nOne has the notion that for Flight Commander Raffleton, as for the rest\nof us, there lies in wait to test the heart of him the ugly and the\ncommonplace.  So large a portion of the years will be for him a\nbusiness of mean hopes and fears, of sordid struggle, of low cares and\nvulgar fret.  But also one has the conviction that there will always\nremain with him, to make life wonderful, the memory of that night when,\ngodlike, he rode upon the winds of heaven crowned with the glory of the\nworld's desire.  Now and again he turned his head to look at her, and\nstill, as ever, her eyes answered him with that strange deep content\nthat seemed to wrap them both around as with a garment of immortality.\nOne gathers dimly something of what he felt from the look that would\nunconsciously come into his eyes when speaking of that enchanted\njourney, from the sudden dumbness with which the commonplace words\nwould die away upon his lips.  Well for him that his lesser self kept\nfirm hold upon the wheel or maybe a few broken spars, tossing upon the\nwaves, would have been all that was left to tell of a promising young\naviator who, on a summer night of June, had thought he could reach the\nstars.\n\nHalf-way across the dawn came flaming up over the Needles, and later\nthere stole from east to west a long, low line of mist-enshrouded land.\nOne by one headland and cliff, flashing with gold, rose out of the sea,\nand the white-winged gulls flew out to meet them. Almost he expected\nthem to turn into spirits, circling round Malvina with cries of welcome.\n\nNearer and nearer they drew, while gradually the mist rose upward as\nthe moonlight grew fainter.  And all at once the sweep of the Chesil\nBank stood out before them, with Weymouth sheltering behind it.\n\n\nIt may have been the bathing-machines, or the gasometer beyond the\nrailway station, or the flag above the Royal Hotel.  The curtains of\nthe night fell suddenly away from him.  The workaday world came\nknocking at the door.\n\nHe looked at his watch.  It was a little after four.  He had wired them\nat the camp to expect him in the morning.  They would be looking out\nfor him.  By continuing his course he and Malvina could be there about\nbreakfast-time.  He could introduce her to the colonel:  \"Allow me,\nColonel Goodyer, the fairy Malvina.\"  It was either that or dropping\nMalvina somewhere between Weymouth and Farnborough.  He decided,\nwithout much consideration, that this latter course would be\npreferable.  But where?  What was he to do with her?  There was Aunt\nEmily.  Hadn't she said something about wanting a French governess for\nGeorgina?  True, Malvina's French was a trifle old-fashioned in form,\nbut her accent was charming.  And as for salary---  There presented\nitself the thought of Uncle Felix and the three elder boys.\nInstinctively he felt that Malvina would not be Aunt Emily's idea.  His\nfather, had the dear old gentleman been alive, would have been a safe\nrefuge.  They had always understood one another, he and his father.\nBut his mother!  He was not at all sure.  He visualised the scene:  the\ndrawing-room at Chester Terrace.  His mother's soft, rustling entrance.\nHer affectionate but well-bred greeting.  And then the disconcerting\nsilence with which she would await his explanation of Malvina.  The\nfact that she was a fairy he would probably omit to mention.  Faced by\nhis mother's gold-rimmed pince-nez, he did not see himself insisting\nupon that detail:  \"A young lady I happened to find asleep on a moor in\nBrittany.  And seeing it was a fine night, and there being just room in\nthe machine.  And she--I mean I--well, here we are.\"  There would\nfollow such a painful silence, and then the raising of the delicately\narched eyebrows:  \"You mean, my dear lad, that you have allowed\nthis\"--there would be a slight hesitation here--\"this young person to\nleave her home, her people, her friends and relations in Brittany, in\norder to attach herself to you.  May I ask in what capacity?\"\n\nFor that was precisely how it would look, and not only to his mother.\nSuppose by a miracle it really represented the facts. Suppose that, in\nspite of the overwhelming evidence in her favour--of the night and the\nmoon and the stars, and the feeling that had come to him from the\nmoment he had kissed her--suppose that, in spite of all this, it turned\nout that she wasn't a fairy. Suppose that suggestion of vulgar Common\nSense, that she was just a little minx that had run away from home, had\nreally hit the mark. Suppose inquiries were already on foot.  A hundred\nhorse-power aeroplane does not go about unnoticed.  Wasn't there a law\nabout this sort of thing--something about \"decoying\" and \"young girls\"?\nHe hadn't \"decoyed\" her.  If anything, it was the other way about. But\nwould her consent be a valid defence?  How old was she?  That would be\nthe question.  In reality he supposed about a thousand years or so.\nPossibly more.  Unfortunately, she didn't look it.  A coldly suspicious\nmagistrate would probably consider sixteen a much better guess.  Quite\npossibly he was going to get into a devil of a mess over this business.\nHe cast a glance behind him.  Malvina responded with her changeless\nsmile of ineffable content.  For the first time it caused him a\ndistinct feeling of irritation.\n\nThey were almost over Weymouth by this time.  He could read plainly the\nadvertisement posters outside the cinema theatre facing the esplanade:\n\"Wilkins and the Mermaid.  Comic Drama.\"  There was a picture of the\nlady combing her hair; also of Wilkins, a stoutish gentleman in striped\nbathing costume.\n\nThat mad impulse that had come to him with the first breath of dawn, to\nshake the dwindling world from his pinions, to plunge upward towards\nthe stars never to return--he wished to Heaven he had yielded to it.\n\nAnd then suddenly there leapt to him the thought of Cousin Christopher.\n\n\nDear old Cousin Christopher, fifty-eight and a bachelor.  Why had it\nnot occurred to him before?  Out of the sky there appeared to Commander\nRaffleton the vision of \"Cousin Christopher\" as a plump, rubicund angel\nin a panama hat and a pepper-and-salt tweed suit holding out a\nlifebelt.  Cousin Christopher would take to Malvina as some motherly\nhen to an orphaned duckling.  A fairy discovered asleep beside one of\nthe ancient menhirs of Brittany.  His only fear would be that you might\nwant to take her away before he had written a paper about her.  He\nwould be down from Oxford at his cottage. Commander Raffleton could not\nfor the moment remember the name of the village.  It would come to him.\nIt was northwest of Newbury. You crossed Salisbury Plain and made\nstraight for Magdalen Tower. The Downs reached almost to the orchard\ngate.  There was a level stretch of sward nearly half a mile long.  It\nseemed to Commander Raffleton that Cousin Christopher had been created\nand carefully preserved by Providence for this particular job.\n\nHe was no longer the moonstruck youth of the previous night, on whom\nphantasy and imagination could play what pranks they chose.  That part\nof him the keen, fresh morning air had driven back into its cell.  He\nwas Commander Raffleton, an eager and alert young engineer with all his\nwits about him.  At this point that has to be remembered.  Descending\non a lonely reach of shore he proceeded to again disturb Malvina for\nthe purpose of extracting tins.  He expected his passenger would in\nbroad daylight prove to be a pretty, childish-looking girl, somewhat\ndishevelled, with, maybe, a tinge of blue about the nose, the natural\nresult of a three-hours' flight at fifty miles an hour.  It was with a\nstartling return of his original sensations when first she had come to\nlife beneath his kiss that he halted a few feet away and stared at her.\nThe night was gone, and the silence.  She stood there facing the\nsunlight, clad in a Burberry overcoat half a dozen sizes too large for\nher.  Beyond her was a row of bathing-machines, and beyond that again a\ngasometer.  A goods train half a mile away was noisily shunting trucks.\n\nAnd yet the glamour was about her still; something indescribable but\nquite palpable--something out of which she looked at you as from\nanother world.\n\nHe took her proffered hand, and she leapt out lightly.  She was not in\nthe least dishevelled.  It seemed as if the air must be her proper\nelement.  She looked about her, interested, but not curious. Her first\nthought was for the machine.\n\n\"Poor thing!\" she said.  \"He must be tired.\"\n\nThat faint tremor of fear that had come to him when beneath the\nmenhir's shadow he had watched the opening of her eyes, returned to\nhim.  It was not an unpleasant sensation.  Rather it added a piquancy\nto their relationship.  But it was distinctly real.  She watched the\nfeeding of the monster; and then he came again and stood beside her on\nthe yellow sands.\n\n\"England!\" he explained with a wave of his hand.  One fancies she had\nthe impression that it belonged to him.  Graciously she repeated the\nname.  And somehow, as it fell from her lips, it conjured up to\nCommander Raffleton a land of wonder and romance.\n\n\"I have heard of it,\" she added.  \"I think I shall like it.\"\n\nHe answered that he hoped she would.  He was deadly serious about it.\nHe possessed, generally speaking, a sense of humour; but for the moment\nthis must have deserted him.  He told her he was going to leave her in\nthe care of a wise and learned man called \"Cousin Christopher\"; his\ndescription no doubt suggesting to Malvina a friendly magician.  He\nhimself would have to go away for a little while, but would return.\n\nIt did not seem to matter to Malvina, these minor details.  It was\nevident--the idea in her mind--that he had been appointed to her.\nWhether as master or servant it was less easy to conjecture: probably a\nmixture of both, with preference towards the latter.\n\nHe mentioned again that he would not be away for longer than he could\nhelp.  There was no necessity for this repetition.  She wasn't doubting\nit.\n\nWeymouth with its bathing machines and its gasometer faded away. King\nRufus was out a-hunting as they passed over the New Forest, and from\nSalisbury Plain, as they looked down, the pixies waved their hands and\nlaughed.  Later, they heard the clang of the anvil, telling them they\nwere in the neighbourhood of Wayland Smith's cave; and so planed down\nsweetly and without a jar just beyond Cousin Christopher's orchard gate.\n\nA shepherd's boy was whistling somewhere upon the Downs, and in the\nvalley a ploughman had just harnessed his team; but the village was\nhidden from them by the sweep of the hills, and no other being was in\nsight.  He helped Malvina out, and leaving her seated on a fallen\nbranch beneath a walnut tree, proceeded cautiously towards the house.\nHe found a little maid in the garden.  She had run out of the house on\nhearing the sound of his propeller and was staring up into the sky, so\nthat she never saw him until he put his hand upon her shoulder, and\nthen was fortunately too frightened to scream.  He gave her hasty\ninstructions.  She was to knock at the Professor's door and tell him\nthat his cousin, Commander Raffleton, was there, and would he come down\nat once, by himself, into the orchard. Commander Raffleton would rather\nnot come in.  Would the Professor come down at once and speak to\nCommander Raffleton in the orchard.\n\nShe went back into the house, repeating it all to herself, a little\nscared.\n\n\"Good God!\" said Cousin Christopher from beneath the bedclothes. \"He\nisn't hurt, is he?\"\n\nThe little maid, through the jar of the door, thought not.  Anyhow, he\ndidn't look it.  But would the Professor kindly come at once? Commander\nRaffleton was waiting for him--in the orchard.\n\nSo Cousin Christopher, in bedroom slippers, without socks, wearing a\nmustard-coloured dressing-gown and a black skull cap upon his head--the\nvery picture of a friendly magician--trotted hastily downstairs and\nthrough the garden, talking to himself about \"foolhardy boys\" and\n\"knowing it would happen\"; and was much relieved to meet young Arthur\nRaffleton coming towards him, evidently sound in wind and limb.  And\nthen began to wonder why the devil he had been frightened out of bed at\nsix o'clock in the morning if nothing was the matter.\n\nBut something clearly was.  Before speaking Arthur Raffleton looked\ncarefully about him in a manner suggestive of mystery, if not of crime;\nand still without a word, taking Cousin Christopher by the arm, led the\nway to the farther end of the orchard.  And there, on a fallen branch\nbeneath the walnut tree, Cousin Christopher saw apparently a khaki\ncoat, with nothing in it, which, as they approached it, rose up.\n\nBut it did not rise very high.  The back of the coat was towards them.\nIts collar stood out against the sky line.  But there wasn't any head.\nStanding upright, it turned round, and peeping out of its folds Cousin\nChristopher saw a child's face.  And then looking closer saw that it\nwasn't a child.  And then wasn't quite sure what it was; so that coming\nto a sudden halt in front of it, Cousin Christopher stared at it with\nround wide eyes, and then at Flight Commander Raffleton.\n\nIt was to Malvina that Flight Commander Raffleton addressed himself.\n\n\"This,\" he said, \"is Professor Littlecherry, my Cousin Christopher,\nabout whom I told you.\"\n\nIt was obvious that Malvina regarded the Professor as a person of\nimportance.  Evidently her intention was to curtsy, an operation that,\nhampered by those trailing yards of clinging khaki, might prove--so it\nflashed upon the Professor--not only difficult but dangerous.\n\n\"Allow me,\" said the Professor.\n\nHis idea was to help Malvina out of Commander Raffleton's coat, and\nMalvina was preparing to assist him.  Commander Raffleton was only just\nin time.\n\n\"I don't think,\" said Commander Raffleton.  \"If you don't mind I think\nwe'd better leave that for Mrs. Muldoon.\"\n\nThe Professor let go the coat.  Malvina appeared a shade disappointed.\nOne opines that not unreasonably she may have thought to make a better\nimpression without it.  But a smiling acquiescence in all arrangements\nmade for her welfare seems to have been one of her charms.\n\n\"Perhaps,\" suggested Commander Raffleton to Malvina while refastening a\nfew of the more important buttons, \"if you wouldn't mind explaining\nyourself to my Cousin Christopher just exactly who and what you\nare--you'd do it so much better than I should.\"  (What Commander\nRaffleton was saying to himself was:  \"If I tell the dear old Johnny,\nhe'll think I'm pulling his leg.  It will sound altogether different\nthe way she will put it.\")  \"You're sure you don't mind?\"\n\nMalvina hadn't the slightest objection.  She accomplished her\ncurtsy--or rather it looked as if the coat were curtsying--quite\ngracefully, and with a dignity one would not have expected from it.\n\n\"I am the fairy Malvina,\" she explained to the Professor.  \"You may\nhave heard of me.  I was the favourite of Harbundia, Queen of the White\nLadies of Brittany.  But that was long ago.\"\n\nThe friendly magician was staring at her with a pair of round eyes that\nin spite of their amazement looked kindly and understanding. They\nprobably encouraged Malvina to complete the confession of her sad brief\nhistory.\n\n\"It was when King Heremon ruled over Ireland,\" she continued.  \"I did a\nvery foolish and a wicked thing, and was punished for it by being cast\nout from the companionship of my fellows.  Since then\"--the coat made\nthe slightest of pathetic gestures--\"I have wandered alone.\"\n\nIt ought to have sounded so ridiculous to them both; told on English\nsoil in the year One Thousand Nine Hundred and Fourteen to a smart\nyoung officer of Engineers and an elderly Oxford Professor.  Across the\nroad the doctor's odd man was opening garage doors; a noisy milk cart\nwas clattering through the village a little late for the London train;\na faint odour of eggs and bacon came wafted through the garden, mingled\nwith the scent of lavender and pinks.  For Commander Raffleton, maybe,\nthere was excuse.  This story, so far as it has gone, has tried to make\nthat clear.  But the Professor!  He ought to have exploded in a burst\nof Homeric laughter, or else to have shaken his head at her and warned\nher where little girls go to who do this sort of thing.\n\nInstead of which he stared from Commander Raffleton to Malvina, and\nfrom Malvina back to Commander Raffleton with eyes so astonishingly\nround that they might have been drawn with a compass.\n\n\"God bless my soul!\" said the Professor.  \"But this is most\nextraordinary!\"\n\n\"Was there a King Heremon of Ireland?\" asked Commander Raffleton. The\nProfessor was a well-known authority on these matters.\n\n\"Of course there was a King Heremon of Ireland,\" answered the Professor\nquite petulantly--as if the Commander had wanted to know if there had\never been a Julius Caesar or a Napoleon.  \"And so there was a Queen\nHarbundia.  Malvina is always spoken of in connection with her.\"\n\n\"What did she do?\" inquired Commander Raffleton.  They both of them\nseemed to be oblivious of Malvina's presence.\n\n\"I forget for the moment,\" confessed the professor.  \"I must look it\nup.  Something, if I remember rightly, in connection with the daughter\nof King Dancrat.  He founded the Norman dynasty.  William the Conqueror\nand all that lot.  Good Lord!\"\n\n\"Would you mind her staying with you for a time until I can make\narrangements,\" suggested Commander Raffleton.  \"I'd be awfully obliged\nif you would.\"\n\nWhat the Professor's answer might have been had he been allowed to\nexercise such stock of wits as he possessed, it is impossible to say.\nOf course he was interested--excited, if you will.  Folklore, legend,\ntradition; these had been his lifelong hobbies.  Apart from anything\nelse, here at least was a kindred spirit.  Seemed to know a thing or\ntwo.  Where had she learned it?  Might not there be sources unknown to\nthe Professor?\n\nBut to take her in!  To establish her in the only spare bedroom.  To\nintroduce her--as what? to English village society.  To the new people\nat the Manor House.  To the member of Parliament with his innocent\nyoung wife who had taken the vicarage for the summer.  To Dawson, R.A.,\nand the Calthorpes!\n\nHe might, had he thought it worth his while, have found some\nrespectable French family and boarded her out.  There was a man he had\nknown for years at Oxford, a cabinetmaker; the wife a most worthy\nwoman.  He could have gone over there from time to time, his notebook\nin his pocket, and have interviewed her.\n\nLeft to himself, he might have behaved as a sane and rational citizen;\nor he might not.  There are records favouring the latter possibility.\nThe thing is not certain.  But as regards this particular incident in\nhis career he must be held exonerated.  The decision was taken out of\nhis hands.\n\nTo Malvina, on first landing in England, Commander Raffleton had stated\nhis intention of leaving her temporarily in the care of the wise and\nlearned Christopher.  To Malvina, regarding the Commander as a gift\nfrom the gods, that had settled the matter.  The wise and learned\nChristopher, of course, knew of this coming.  In all probability it was\nhe--under the guidance of the gods--who had arranged the whole sequence\nof events.  There remained only to tender him her gratitude.  She did\nnot wait for the Professor's reply.  The coat a little hindered her\nbut, on the other hand, added perhaps an appealing touch of its own.\nTaking the wise and learned Christopher's hand in both her own, she\nknelt and kissed it.\n\nAnd in that quaint archaic French of hers, that long study of the\nChronicles of Froissart enabled the Professor to understand:\n\n\"I thank you,\" she said, \"for your noble courtesy and hospitality.\"\n\n\nIn some mysterious way the whole affair had suddenly become imbued with\nthe dignity of an historical event.  The Professor had the sudden\nimpression--and indeed it never altogether left him so long as Malvina\nremained--that he was a great and powerful personage.  A sister\npotentate; incidentally--though, of course, in high politics such\npoints are immaterial--the most bewilderingly beautiful being he had\never seen; had graciously consented to become his guest.  The\nProfessor, with a bow that might have been acquired at the court of\nKing Rene, expressed his sense of the honour done to him.  What else\ncould a self-respecting potentate do?  The incident was closed.\n\nFlight Commander Raffleton seems to have done nothing in the direction\nof re-opening it.  On the contrary, he appears to have used this\nprecise moment for explaining to the Professor how absolutely necessary\nit was that he should depart for Farnborough without another moment's\nloss of time.  Commander Raffleton added that he would \"look them both\nup again\" the first afternoon he could get away; and was sure that if\nthe Professor would get Malvina to speak slowly, he would soon find her\nFrench easy to understand.\n\nIt did occur to the Professor to ask Commander Raffleton where he had\nfound Malvina--that is, if he remembered.  Also what he was going to do\nabout her--that is, if he happened to know.  Commander Raffleton,\nregretting his great need of haste, explained that he had found Malvina\nasleep beside a menhir not far from Huelgoat, in Brittany, and was\nafraid that he had woke her up.  For further particulars, would the\nProfessor kindly apply to Malvina?  For himself, he would never, he\nfelt sure, be able to thank the professor sufficiently.\n\nIn conclusion, and without giving further opportunity for discussion,\nthe Commander seems to have shaken his Cousin Christopher by the hand\nwith much enthusiasm; and then to have turned to Malvina.  She did not\nmove, but her eyes were fixed on him.  And he came to her slowly.  And\nwithout a word he kissed her full upon the lips.\n\n\"That is twice you have kissed me,\" said Malvina--and a curious little\nsmile played round her mouth.  \"The third time I shall become a woman.\"\n\n\n\nIV.  HOW IT WAS KEPT FROM MRS. ARLINGTON.\n\nWhat surprised the Professor himself, when he came to think of it, was\nthat, left alone with Malvina, and in spite of all the circumstances,\nhe felt neither embarrassment nor perplexity.  It was as if, so far as\nthey two were concerned, the whole thing was quite simple--almost\nhumorous.  It would be the other people who would have to worry.\n\nThe little serving maid was hovering about the garden.  She was\nevidently curious and trying to get a peep.  Mrs. Muldoon's voice could\nbe heard calling to her from the kitchen.  There was this question of\nclothes.\n\n\"You haven't brought anything with you?\" asked the Professor.  \"I mean,\nin the way of a frock of any sort.\"\n\nMalvina, with a smile, gave a little gesture.  It implied that all\nthere was of her and hers stood before him.\n\n\"We shall have to find you something,\" said the Professor. \"Something\nin which you can go about--\"\n\nThe Professor had intended to say \"our world,\" but hesitated, not\nfeeling positive at the moment to which he himself belonged; Malvina's\nor Mrs. Muldoon's.  So he made it \"the\" world instead. Another gesture\nconveyed to him that Malvina was entirely in his hands.\n\n\"What really have you got on?\" asked the Professor.  \"I mean\nunderneath.  Is it anything possible--for a day or two?\"\n\nNow Commander Raffleton, for some reason of his own not at all clear to\nMalvina, had forbidden the taking off of the coat.  But had said\nnothing about undoing it.  So by way of response Malvina undid it.\n\nUpon which the Professor, to Malvina's surprise, acted precisely as\nCommander Raffleton had done.  That is to say, he hastily re-closed the\ncoat, returning the buttons to their buttonholes.\n\nThe fear may have come to Malvina that she was doomed never to be rid\nof Commander Raffleton's coat.\n\n\"I wonder,\" mused the Professor, \"if anyone in the village--\"  The\nlittle serving maid flittering among the gooseberry bushes--she was\npretending to be gathering goose-berries--caught the Professor's eye.\n\n\"We will consult my chatelaine, Mrs. Muldoon,\" suggested the Professor.\n\"I think we shall be able to manage.\"\n\nThe Professor tendered Malvina his arm.  With her other hand she\ngathered up the skirts of the Commander's coat.\n\n\"I think,\" said the Professor with a sudden inspiration as they passed\nthrough the garden, \"I think I shall explain to Mrs. Muldoon that you\nhave just come straight from a fancy-dress ball.\"\n\nThey found Mrs. Muldoon in the kitchen.  A less convincing story than\nthat by which the Professor sought to account to Mrs. Muldoon for the\nhow and the why of Malvina it would be impossible to imagine.  Mrs.\nMuldoon out of sheer kindness appears to have cut him short.\n\n\"I'll not be asking ye any questions,\" said Mrs. Muldoon, \"so there'll\nbe no need for ye to imperil your immortal soul.  If ye'll just give a\nthought to your own appearance and leave the colleen to me and\nDrusilla, we'll make her maybe a bit dacent.\"\n\nThe reference to his own appearance disconcerted the Professor.  He had\nnot anticipated, when hastening into his dressing gown and slippers and\nnot bothering about his socks, that he was on his way to meet the chief\nlady-in-waiting of Queen Harbundia.  Demanding that shaving water\nshould be immediately sent up to him, he appears to have retired into\nthe bathroom.\n\nIt was while he was shaving that Mrs. Muldoon, knocking at the door,\ndemanded to speak to him.  From her tone the Professor came to the\nconclusion that the house was on fire.  He opened the door, and Mrs.\nMuldoon, seeing he was respectable, slipped in and closed it behind her.\n\n\"Where did ye find her?  How did she get here?\" demanded Mrs. Muldoon.\nNever before had the Professor seen Mrs. Muldoon other than a placid,\ngood-humoured body.  She was trembling from head to foot.\n\n\"I told you,\" explained the Professor.  \"Young Arthur--\"\n\n\"I'm not asking ye what ye told me,\" interrupted Mrs. Muldoon.  \"I'm\nasking ye for the truth, if ye know it.\"\n\nThe Professor put a chair for Mrs. Muldoon, and Mrs. Muldoon dropped\ndown upon it.\n\n\"What's the matter?\" questioned the Professor.  \"What's happened?\"\n\nMrs. Muldoon glanced round her, and her voice was an hysterical whisper.\n\n\"It's no mortal woman ye've brought into the house,\" said Mrs. Muldoon.\n\"It's a fairy.\"\n\nWhether up to that moment the Professor had really believed Malvina's\nstory, or whether lurking at the back of his mind there had all along\nbeen an innate conviction that the thing was absurd, the Professor\nhimself is now unable to say.  To the front of the Professor lay\nOxford--political economy, the higher criticism, the rise and progress\nof rationalism.  Behind him, fading away into the dim horizon of\nhumanity, lay an unmapped land where for forty years he had loved to\nwander; a spirit-haunted land of buried mysteries, lost pathways,\nleading unto hidden gates of knowledge.\n\nAnd now upon the trembling balance descended Mrs. Muldoon plump.\n\n\"How do you know?\" demanded the Professor.\n\n\"Shure, don't I know the mark?\" replied Mrs. Muldoon almost\ncontemptuously.  \"Wasn't my own sister's child stolen away the very day\nof its birth and in its place--\"\n\nThe little serving maid tapped at the door.\n\nMademoiselle was \"finished.\"  What was to be done with her?\n\n\"Don't ask me,\" protested Mrs. Muldoon, still in a terrified whisper.\n\"I couldn't do it.  Not if all the saints were to go down upon their\nknees and pray to me.\"\n\nCommon-sense argument would not have prevailed with Mrs. Muldoon. The\nProfessor felt that; added to which he had not any handy.  He directed,\nthrough the door, that \"Mademoiselle\" should be shown into the\ndining-room, and listened till Drusilla's footsteps had died away.\n\n\"Have you ever heard of the White Ladies?\" whispered the Professor to\nMrs. Muldoon.\n\nThere was not much in the fairy line, one takes it, that Mrs. Muldoon\nhad not heard of and believed.  Was the Professor sure?\n\nThe Professor gave Mrs. Muldoon his word of honour as a gentleman. The\n\"White Ladies,\" as Mrs. Muldoon was of course aware, belonged to the\n\"good people.\"  Provided nobody offended her there was nothing to fear.\n\n\"Shure, it won't be meself that'll cross her,\" said Mrs. Muldoon.\n\n\"She won't be staying very long,\" added the Professor.  \"We will just\nbe nice to her.\"\n\n\"She's got a kind face,\" admitted Mrs. Muldoon, \"and a pleasant way\nwith her.\"  The good body's spirits were perceptibly rising.  The\nfavour of a \"White Lady\" might be worth cultivating.\n\n\"We must make a friend of her,\" urged the Professor, seizing his\nopportunity.\n\n\"And mind,\" whispered the Professor as he opened the door for Mrs.\nMuldoon to slip out, \"not a word.  She doesn't want it known.\"\n\nOne is convinced that Mrs. Muldoon left the bathroom resolved that, so\nfar as she could help it, no breath of suspicion that Malvina was other\nthan what in Drusilla's holiday frock she would appear to be should\nescape into the village.  It was quite a pleasant little frock of a\nsummery character, with short sleeves and loose about the neck, and\nfitted Malvina, in every sense, much better than the most elaborate\nconfection would have done.  The boots were not so successful.  Malvina\nsolved the problem by leaving them behind her, together with the\nstockings, whenever she went out.  That she knew this was wrong is\nproved by the fact that invariably she tried to hide them.  They would\nbe found in the most unlikely places; hidden behind books in the\nProfessor's study, crammed into empty tea canisters in Mrs. Muldoon's\nstoreroom.  Mrs. Muldoon was not to be persuaded even to abstract them.\nThe canister with its contents would be placed in silence upon the\nProfessor's table.  Malvina on returning would be confronted by a pair\nof stern, unsympathetic boots.  The corners of the fairy mouth would\ndroop in lines suggestive of penitence and contrition.\n\nHad the Professor been firm she would have yielded.  But from the black\naccusing boots the Professor could not keep his eyes from wandering to\nthe guilty white feet, and at once in his heart becoming \"counsel for\nthe defence.\"  Must get a pair of sandals next time he went to Oxford.\nAnyhow, something more dainty than those grim, uncompromising boots.\n\nBesides, it was not often that Malvina ventured beyond the orchard. At\nleast not during the day time--perhaps one ought to say not during that\npart of the day time when the village was astir.  For Malvina appears\nto have been an early riser.  Somewhere about the middle of the night,\nas any Christian body would have timed it, Mrs. Muldoon--waking and\nsleeping during this period in a state of high nervous tension--would\nhear the sound of a softly opened door; peeping from a raised corner of\nthe blind, would catch a glimpse of fluttering garments that seemed to\nmelt into the dawn; would hear coming fainter and fainter from the\nuplands an unknown song, mingling with the answering voices of the\nbirds.\n\nIt was on the uplands between dawn and sunrise that Malvina made the\nacquaintance of the Arlington twins.\n\n\nThey ought, of course, to have been in bed--all three of them, for the\nmatter of that.  The excuse for the twins was their Uncle George.  He\nhad been telling them all about the Uffington spectre and Wayland\nSmith's cave, and had given them \"Puck\" as a birthday present.  They\nwere always given their birthday presents between them, because\notherwise they did not care for them.  They had retired to their\nrespective bedrooms at ten o'clock and taken it in turns to lie awake.\nAt the first streak of dawn Victoria, who had been watching by her\nwindow, woke Victor, as arranged.  Victor was for giving it up and\ngoing to sleep again, but Victoria reminding him of the \"oath,\" they\ndressed themselves quite simply, and let themselves down by the ivy.\n\nThey came across Malvina close to the tail of the White Horse.  They\nknew she was a fairy the moment they saw her.  But they were not\nfrightened--at least not very much.  It was Victor who spoke first.\nTaking off his hat and going down on one knee, he wished Malvina good\nmorning and hoped she was quite well.  Malvina, who seemed pleased to\nsee them, made answer, and here it was that Victoria took charge of the\naffair.  The Arlington twins until they were nine had shared a French\nnurse between them; and then Victor, going to school, had gradually\nforgotten; while Victoria, remaining at home, had continued her\nconversations with \"madame.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" said Victoria.  \"Then you must be a French fairy.\"\n\nNow the Professor had impressed upon Malvina that for reasons needless\nto be explained--anyhow, he never had explained them--she was not to\nmention that she was a fairy.  But he had not told her to deny it.\nIndeed how could she?  The most that could be expected from her was\nthat she should maintain silence on the point.  So in answer to\nVictoria she explained that her name was Malvina, and that she had\nflown across from Brittany in company with \"Sir Arthur,\" adding that\nshe had often heard of England and had wished to see it.\n\n\"How do you like it?\" demanded Victoria.\n\nMalvina confessed herself charmed with it.  Nowhere had she ever met so\nmany birds.  Malvina raised her hand and they all three stood in\nsilence, listening.  The sky was ablaze and the air seemed filled with\ntheir music.  The twins were sure that there were millions of them.\nThey must have come from miles and miles and miles, to sing to Malvina.\n\nAlso the people. They were so good and kind and round.  Malvina for the\npresent was staying with--accepting the protection, was how she put it,\nof the wise and learned Christopher.  The \"habitation\" could be seen\nfrom where they stood, its chimneys peeping from among the trees.  The\ntwins exchanged a meaning glance.  Had they not all along suspected the\nProfessor!  His black skull cap, and his big hooked nose, and the\nyellow-leaved, worm-eaten books--of magic:  all doubts were now\nremoved--that for hours he would sit poring over through owlish\ngold-rimmed spectacles!\n\nVictor's French was coming back to him.  He was anxious to know if\nMalvina had ever met Sir Launcelot--\"to talk to.\"\n\nA little cloud gathered upon Malvina's face.  Yes, she had known them\nall:  King Uthur and Igraine and Sir Ulfias of the Isles. Talked with\nthem, walked with them in the fair lands of France.  (It ought to have\nbeen England, but Malvina shook her head.  Maybe they had travelled.)\nIt was she who had saved Sir Tristram from the wiles of Morgan le Fay.\n\"Though that, of course,\" explained Malvina, \"was never known.\"\n\nThe twins were curious why it should have been \"of course,\" but did not\nlike to interrupt again.  There were others before and after. Most of\nthem the twins had never heard of until they came to Charlemagne,\nbeyond which Malvina's reminiscences appeared to fade.\n\nThey had all of them been very courteous to her, and some of them\nindeed quite charming.  But...\n\nOne gathers they had never been to Malvina more than mere\nacquaintances, such as one passes the time with while waiting--and\nlonging.\n\n\"But you liked Sir Launcelot,\" urged Victor.  He was wishful that\nMalvina should admire Sir Launcelot, feeling how much there was in\ncommon between that early lamented knight and himself.  That little\naffair with Sir Bedivere.  It was just how he would have behaved\nhimself.\n\nAh! yes, admitted Malvina.  She had \"liked\" him.  He was always so--so\n\"excellent.\"\n\n\"But he was not--none of them were my own people, my own dear\ncompanions.\"  The little cloud had settled down again.\n\nIt was Bruno who recalled the three of them to the period of\ncontemporary history.\n\nPolley the cowman's first duty in the morning was to let Bruno loose\nfor a run.  He arrived panting and breathless, and evidently offended\nat not having been included in the escapade.  He could have given them\nboth away quite easily if he had not been the most forgiving of\nblack-and-tan collies.  As it was, he had been worrying himself crazy\nfor the last half-hour, feeling sure they had forgotten the time.\n\"Don't you know it's nearly six o'clock?  That in less than half an\nhour Jane will be knocking at your doors with glasses of hot milk, and\nwill probably drop them and scream when she finds your beds empty and\nthe window wide open.\"  That is what he had intended should be his\nfirst words, but on scenting Malvina they went from him entirely.  He\ngave her one look and flopped down flat, wriggling towards her, whining\nand wagging his tail at the same time.  Malvina acknowledged his homage\nby laughing and patting his head with her foot, and that sent him into\nthe seventh heaven of delight.  They all four descended the hill\ntogether and parted at the orchard gate.  The twins expressed a polite\nbut quite sincere hope that they would have the pleasure of seeing\nMalvina again; but Malvina, seized maybe with sudden doubts as to\nwhether she had behaved with discretion, appears to have replied\nevasively.  Ten minutes later she was lying asleep, the golden head\npillowed on the round white arm; as Mrs. Muldoon on her way down to the\nkitchen saw for herself.  And the twins, fortunate enough to find a\nside door open, slipped into the house unnoticed and scrambled back\ninto their beds.\n\nIt was quarter past nine when Mrs. Arlington came in herself and woke\nthem up.  She was short-tempered with them both and had evidently been\ncrying.  They had their breakfast in the kitchen.\n\nDuring lunch hardly a word was spoken.  And there was no pudding. Mr.\nArlington, a stout, florid gentleman, had no time for pudding. The rest\nmight sit and enjoy it at their leisure, but not so Mr. Arlington.\nSomebody had to see to things--that is, if they were not to be allowed\nto go to rack and ruin.  If other people could not be relied upon to do\ntheir duty, so that everything inside the house and out of it was\nthrown upon one pair of shoulders, then it followed as a natural\nconsequence that that pair of shoulders could not spare the necessary\ntime to properly finish its meals.  This it was that was at the root of\nthe decay of English farming.  When farmers' wives, to say nothing of\nsons and daughters old enough one might imagine to be anxious to do\nsomething in repayment for the money and care lavished upon them, had\nall put their shoulders to the wheel, then English farming had\nprospered.  When, on the other hand, other people shirked their fair\nshare of labour and responsibility, leaving to one pair of hands...\n\nIt was the eldest Arlington girl's quite audible remark that pa could\nhave eaten two helpings of pudding while he had been talking, that\ncaused Mr. Arlington to lose the thread of his discourse.  To put it\nquite bluntly, what Mr. Arlington meant to say was this:  He had never\nwanted to be a farmer--at least not in the beginning. Other men in his\nposition, having acquired competency by years of self-sacrificing\nlabour, would have retired to a well-earned leisure.  Having yielded to\npersuasion and taken on the job, he was going to see it through; and\neverybody else was going to do their share or there would be trouble.\n\nMr. Arlington, swallowing the remains of his glass in a single gulp,\nspoilt a dignified exit by violently hiccoughing, and Mrs. Arlington\nrang the bell furiously for the parlourmaid to clear away.  The pudding\npassed untouched from before the very eyes of the twins.  It was a\nblack-currant pudding with brown sugar.\n\nThat night Mrs. Arlington appears to have confided in the twins, partly\nfor her own relief and partly for their moral benefit.  If Mrs.\nArlington had enjoyed the blessing in disguise of a less indulgent\nmother, all might have been well.  By nature Mrs. Arlington had been\nendowed with an active and energetic temperament. \"Miss\nCan't-sit-still-a-minute,\" her nurse had always called her.\nUnfortunately it had been allowed to sink into disuse; was now in all\nprobability beyond hope of recovery.  Their father was quite right.\nWhen they had lived in Bayswater and the business was in Mincing Lane\nit did not matter.  Now it was different.  A farmer's wife ought to be\nup at six; she ought to see that everybody else was up at six; servants\nlooked after, kept up to the mark; children encouraged by their\nmother's example.  Organisation.  That was what was wanted.  The day\nmapped out; to every hour its appointed task. Then, instead of the\nmorning being gone before you could turn yourself round, and confusion\nmade worse confounded by your leaving off what you were doing and\ntrying to do six things at once that you couldn't remember whether you\nhad done or whether you hadn't...\n\nHere Mrs. Arlington appears to have dissolved into tears.  Generally\nspeaking, she was a placid, smiling, most amiable lady, quite\ndelightful to have about the house provided all you demanded of her\nwere pleasant looks and a sunny disposition.  The twins appear to have\njoined their tears to hers.  Tucked in and left to themselves, one\nimagines the problem being discussed with grave seriousness, much\nwhispered conversation, then slept upon, the morning bringing with it\nideas.  The result being that the next evening, between high tea and\nsupper, Mrs. Muldoon, answering herself the knock at the door, found\ntwin figures standing hand in hand on the Professor's step.\n\nThey asked her if \"the Fairy\" was in.\n\n\n\nV.  HOW IT WAS TOLD TO MRS. MARIGOLD.\n\nThere was no need of the proverbial feather.  Mrs. Muldoon made a grab\nat the settle but missed it.  She caught at a chair, but that gave way.\nIt was the floor that finally stopped her.\n\n\"We're so sorry,\" apologised Victor.  \"We thought you knew.  We ought\nto have said Mademoiselle Malvina.\"\n\nMrs. Muldoon regained her feet, and without answering walked straight\ninto the study.\n\n\"They want to know,\" said Mrs. Muldoon, \"if the Fairy's in.\"  The\nProfessor, with his back to the window, was reading.  The light in the\nroom was somewhat faint.\n\n\"Who wants to know?\" demanded the Professor.\n\n\"The twins from the Manor House,\" explained Mrs. Muldoon.\n\n\"But what?--but who?\" began the Professor.\n\n\"Shall I say 'not at home'?\" suggested Mrs. Muldoon.  \"Or hadn't you\nbetter see them yourself.\"\n\n\"Show them in,\" directed the Professor.\n\nThey came in, looking a little scared and still holding one another by\nthe hand.  They wished the Professor good evening, and when he rose\nthey backed away from him.  The Professor shook hands with them, but\nthey did not let go, so that Victoria gave him her right hand and\nVictor his left, and then at the Professor's invitation they sat\nthemselves down on the extreme edge of the sofa.\n\n\"I hope we do not disturb you,\" said Victor.  \"We wanted to see\nMademoiselle Malvina.\"\n\n\"Why do you want to see Mademoiselle Malvina?\" inquired the Professor.\n\n\"It is something very private,\" said Victor.\n\n\"We wanted to ask her a great favour,\" said Victoria.\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" said the Professor, \"but she isn't in.  At least, I don't\nthink so.\"  (The Professor never was quite sure.  \"She slips in and out\nmaking no more noise than a wind-driven rose leaf,\" was Mrs. Muldoon's\nexplanation.)  \"Hadn't you better tell me?  Leave me to put it to her.\"\n\nThey looked at one another.  It would never do to offend the wise and\nlearned Christopher.  Besides, a magician, it is to be assumed, has\nmore ways than one of learning what people are thinking.\n\n\"It is about mamma,\" explained Victoria.  \"We wondered if Malvina would\nmind changing her.\"\n\nThe Professor had been reading up Malvina.  It flashed across him that\nthis had always been her speciality:  Changing people.  How had the\nArlington twins discovered it?  And why did they want their mother\nchanged?  And what did they want her changed into?  It was shocking\nwhen you come to think of it!  The Professor became suddenly so stern,\nthat if the twins could have seen his expression--which, owing to the\nfading light, they couldn't--they would have been too frightened to\nanswer.\n\n\"Why do you want your mother changed?\" demanded the Professor.  Even as\nit was his voice alarmed them.\n\n\"It's for her own good,\" faltered Victoria.\n\n\"Of course we don't mean into anything,\" explained Victor.\n\n\"Only her inside,\" added Victoria.\n\n\"We thought that Malvina might be able to improve her,\" completed\nVictor.\n\nIt was still very disgraceful.  What were we coming to when children\nwent about clamouring for their mothers to be \"improved\"!  The\natmosphere was charged with indignation.  The twins felt it.\n\n\"She wants to be,\" persisted Victoria.  \"She wants to be energetic and\nto get up early in the morning and do things.\"\n\n\"You see,\" added Victor, \"she was never properly brought up.\"\n\n\nThe Professor maintains stoutly that his only intention was a joke. It\nwas not even as if anything objectionable had been suggested. The\nProfessor himself had on occasions been made the confidant of both.\n\n\"Best woman that ever lived, if only one could graft a little energy\nupon her.  No sense of time.  Too easy-going.  No idea of keeping\npeople up to the mark.\"  So Mr. Arlington, over the nuts and wine.\n\n\"It's pure laziness.  Oh, yes, it is.  My friends say I'm so 'restful';\nbut that's the proper explanation of it--born laziness. And yet I try.\nYou have no idea, Professor Littlecherry, how much I try.\"  So Mrs.\nArlington, laughingly, while admiring the Professor's roses.\n\nBesides, how absurd to believe that Malvina could possibly change\nanybody!  Way back, when the human brain was yet in process of\nevolution, such things may have been possible.  Hypnotic suggestion,\nmesmeric influence, dormant brain cells quickened into activity by\nmagnetic vibration.  All that had been lost.  These were the days of\nGeorge the Fifth, not of King Heremon.  What the Professor was really\nafter was:  How would Malvina receive the proposal?  Of course she\nwould try to get out of it.  A dear little thing.  But could any sane\nman, professor of mathematics...\n\nMalvina was standing beside him.  No one had remarked her entrance. The\neyes of the twins had been glued upon the wise and learned Christopher.\nThe Professor, when he was thinking, never saw anything.  Still, it was\nrather startling.\n\n\"We should never change what the good God has once fashioned,\" said\nMalvina.  She spoke very gravely.  The childishness seemed to have\nfallen from her.\n\n\"You didn't always think so,\" said the Professor.  It nettled the\nProfessor that all idea of this being a good joke had departed with the\nsound of Malvina's voice.  She had that way with her.\n\nShe made a little gesture.  It conveyed to the Professor that his\nremark had not been altogether in good taste.\n\n\"I speak as one who has learned,\" said Malvina.\n\n\"I beg your pardon,\" said the Professor.  \"I ought not to have said\nthat.\"\n\nMalvina accepted the Professor's apology with a bow.\n\n\"But this is something very different,\" continued the Professor. Quite\nanother interest had taken hold of the Professor.  It was easy enough\nto summon Dame Commonsense to one's aid when Malvina was not present.\nBefore those strange eyes the good lady had a habit of sneaking away.\nSuppose--of course the idea was ridiculous, but suppose--something did\nhappen!  As a psychological experiment was not one justified?  What was\nthe beginning of all science but applied curiosity?  Malvina might be\nable--and willing--to explain how it was done.  That is, if anything\ndid happen, which, of course, it wouldn't, and so much the better.\nThis thing had got to be ended.\n\n\"It would be using a gift not for one's own purposes, but to help\nothers,\" urged the Professor.\n\n\"You see,\" urged Victor, \"mamma really wants to be changed.\"\n\n\"And papa wants it too,\" urged Victoria.\n\n\"It seems to me, if I may so express it,\" added the Professor, \"that\nreally it would be in the nature of making amends for--well, for--for\nour youthful follies,\" concluded the Professor a little nervously.\n\nMalvina's eyes were fixed on the Professor.  In the dim light of the\nlow-ceilinged room, those eyes seemed all of her that was visible.\n\n\"You wish it?\" said Malvina.\n\nIt was not at all fair, as the Professor told himself afterwards, her\nlaying the responsibility on him.  If she really was the original\nMalvina, lady-in-waiting to Queen Harbundia, then she was quite old\nenough to have decided for herself.  From the Professor's calculations\nshe must now be about three thousand eight hundred. The Professor\nhimself was not yet sixty; in comparison a mere babe! But Malvina's\neyes were compelling.\n\n\"Well, it can't do any harm,\" said the Professor.  And Malvina seems to\nhave accepted that as her authority.\n\n\"Let her come to the Cross Stones at sundown,\" directed Malvina.\n\n\nThe Professor saw the twins to the door.  For some reason the Professor\ncould not have explained, they all three walked out on tiptoe.  Old Mr.\nBrent, the postman, was passing, and the twins ran after him and each\ntook a hand.  Malvina was still standing where the Professor had left\nher.  It was very absurd, but the Professor felt frightened.  He went\ninto the kitchen, where it was light and cheerful, and started Mrs.\nMuldoon on Home Rule.  When he returned to the parlour Malvina was gone.\n\nThe twins did not talk that night, and decided next morning not to say\na word, but just to ask their mother to come for an evening walk with\nthem.  The fear was that she might demand reasons.  But, quite oddly,\nshe consented without question.  It seemed to the twins that it was\nMrs. Arlington herself who took the pathway leading past the cave, and\nwhen they reached the Cross Stones she sat down and apparently had\nforgotten their existence.  They stole away without her noticing them,\nbut did not quite know what to do with themselves.  They ran for half a\nmile till they came to the wood; there they remained awhile, careful\nnot to venture within; and then they crept back.  They found their\nmother sitting just as they had left her.  They thought she was asleep,\nbut her eyes were wide open. They were tremendously relieved, though\nwhat they had feared they never knew.  They sat down, one on each side\nof her, and each took a hand, but in spite of her eyes being open, it\nwas quite a time before she seemed conscious of their return.  She rose\nand slowly looked about her, and as she did so the church clock struck\nnine. She could not at first believe it was so late.  Convinced by\nlooking at her watch--there was just light enough for her to see\nit--she became all at once more angry than the twins had ever known\nher, and for the first time in their lives they both experienced the\nsensation of having their ears boxed.  Nine o'clock was the proper time\nfor supper and they were half an hour from home, and it was all their\nfault.  It did not take them half an hour.  It took them twenty\nminutes, Mrs. Arlington striding ahead and the twins panting breathless\nbehind her.  Mr. Arlington had not yet returned.  He came in five\nminutes afterwards, and Mrs. Arlington told him what she thought of\nhim.  It was the shortest supper within the twins' recollection.  They\nfound themselves in bed ten minutes in advance of the record.  They\ncould hear their mother's voice from the kitchen.  A jug of milk had\nbeen overlooked and had gone sour.  She had given Jane a week's notice\nbefore the clock struck ten.\n\nIt was from Mr. Arlington that the Professor heard the news.  Mr.\nArlington could not stop an instant, dinner being at twelve sharp and\nit wanting but ten minutes to; but seems to have yielded to temptation.\nThe breakfast hour at the Manor Farm was now six a.m., had been so\nsince Thursday; the whole family fully dressed and Mrs. Arlington\npresiding.  If the Professor did not believe it he could come round any\nmorning and see for himself.  The Professor appears to have taken Mr.\nArlington's word for it.  By six-thirty everybody at their job and Mrs.\nArlington at hers, consisting chiefly of seeing to it for the rest of\nthe day that everybody was.  Lights out at ten and everybody in bed;\nmost of them only too glad to be there. \"Quite right; keeps us all up\nto the mark,\" was Mr. Arlington's opinion (this was on Saturday).  Just\nwhat was wanted.  Not perhaps for a permanency; and, of course, there\nwere drawbacks.  The strenuous life--seeing to it that everybody else\nleads the strenuous life; it does not go with unmixed amiability.\nParticularly in the beginning.  New-born zeal:  must expect it to\noutrun discretion. Does not do to discourage it.  Modifications to be\nsuggested later. Taken all round, Mr. Arlington's view was that the\nthing must be regarded almost as the answer to a prayer.  Mr.\nArlington's eyes on their way to higher levels, appear to have been\narrested by the church clock.  It decided Mr. Arlington to resume his\nhomeward way without further loss of time.  At the bend of the lane the\nProfessor, looking back, observed that Mr. Arlington had broken into a\ntrot.\n\n\nThis seems to have been the end of the Professor, regarded as a sane\nand intelligent member of modern society.  He had not been sure at the\ntime, but it was now revealed to him that when he had urged Malvina to\ntest her strength, so to express it, on the unfortunate Mrs. Arlington,\nit was with the conviction that the result would restore him to his\nmental equilibrium.  That Malvina with a wave of her wand--or whatever\nthe hocus-pocus may have been--would be able to transform the hitherto\nincorrigibly indolent and easy-going Mrs. Arlington into a sort of\nfeminine Lloyd George, had not really entered into his calculations.\n\nForgetting his lunch, he must have wandered aimlessly about, not\nreturning home until late in the afternoon.  During dinner he appears\nto have been rather restless and nervous--\"jumpy,\" according to the\nevidence of the little serving maid.  Once he sprang out of his chair\nas if shot when the little serving maid accidentally let fall a\ntable-spoon; and twice he upset the salt.  It was at mealtime that, as\na rule, the Professor found his attitude towards Malvina most\nsceptical.  A fairy who could put away quite a respectable cut from the\njoint, followed by two helpings of pie, does take a bit of believing\nin.  To-night the Professor found no difficulty.  The White Ladies had\nnever been averse to accepting mortal hospitality. There must always\nhave been a certain adaptability.  Malvina, since that fateful night of\nher banishment, had, one supposes, passed through varied experiences.\nFor present purposes she had assumed the form of a jeune fille of the\ntwentieth century (anno Domini). An appreciation of Mrs. Muldoon's\nexcellent cooking, together with a glass of light sound claret, would\nnaturally go with it.\n\nOne takes it that he could not for a moment get Mrs. Arlington out of\nhis mind.  More than once, stealing a covert glance across the table,\nit seemed to him that Malvina was regarding him with a mocking smile.\nSome impish spirit it must have been that had prompted him.  For\nthousands of years Malvina had led--at all events so far as was\nknown--a reformed and blameless existence; had subdued and put behind\nher that fatal passion of hers for change:  in other people.  What\nmadness to have revived it!  And no Queen Harbundia handy now to keep\nher in check.  The Professor had a distinct sensation, while peeling a\npear, that he was being turned into a guinea-pig--a curious feeling of\nshrinking about the legs.  So vivid was the impression, that\ninvoluntarily the Professor jumped off his chair and ran to look at\nhimself in the mirror over the sideboard. He was not fully relieved\neven then.  It may have been the mirror. It was very old; one of those\nthings with little gilt balls all round it; and it looked to the\nProfessor as if his nose was growing straight out of his face.\nMalvina, trusting he had not been taken suddenly ill, asked if there\nwas anything she could do for him.  He seems to have earnestly begged\nher not to think of it.\n\nThe Professor had taught Malvina cribbage, and usually of an evening\nthey played a hand or two.  But to-night the Professor was not in the\nmood, and Malvina had contented herself with a book.  She was\nparticularly fond of the old chroniclers.  The  Professor had an entire\nshelf of them, many in the original French.  Making believe to be\nreading himself, he heard Malvina break into a cheerful laugh, and went\nand looked over her shoulder.  She was reading the history of her own\nencounter with the proprietor of tin mines, an elderly gentleman\ndisliking late hours, whom she had turned into a nightingale.  It\noccurred to the Professor that prior to the Arlington case the\nrecalling of this incident would have brought to her shame and remorse.\nNow she seemed to think it funny.\n\n\"A silly trick,\" commented the Professor.  He spoke quite heatedly. \"No\none has any right to go about changing people.  Muddling up things they\ndon't understand.  No right whatever.\"\n\nMalvina looked up.  She gave a little sigh.\n\n\"Not for one's own pleasure or revenge,\" she made answer.  Her tone was\nfilled with meekness.  It had a touch of self-reproach.  \"That is very\nwrong, of course.  But changing them for their own good--at least, not\nchanging, improving.\"\n\n\"Little hypocrite!\" muttered the Professor to himself.  \"She's got back\na taste for her old tricks, and Lord knows now where she'll stop.\"\n\nThe Professor spent the rest of the evening among his indexes in search\nof the latest information regarding Queen Harbundia.\n\n\nMeanwhile the Arlington affair had got about the village.  The twins in\nall probability had been unable to keep their secret.  Jane, the\ndismissed, had looked in to give Mrs. Muldoon her version of Thursday\nnight's scene in the Arlington kitchen, and Mrs. Muldoon, with a sense\nof things impending, may unconsciously have dropped hints.\n\nThe Marigolds met the Arlingtons on Sunday, after morning service, and\nheard all about it.  That is to say, they met Mr. Arlington and the\nother children; Mrs. Arlington, with the two elder girls, having\nalready attended early communion at seven.  Mrs. Marigold was a pretty,\nfluffy, engaging little woman, ten years younger than her husband.  She\ncould not have been altogether a fool, or she would not have known it.\nMarigold, rising politician, ought, of course, to have married a woman\nable to help him; but seems to have fallen in love with her a few miles\nout of Brussels, over a convent wall. Mr. Arlington was not a regular\nchurch-goer, but felt on this occasion that he owed it to his Maker.\nHe was still in love with his new wife.  But not blindly.  Later on a\nguiding hand might be necessary.  But first let the new seed get firmly\nrooted. Marigold's engagements necessitated his returning to town on\nSunday afternoon, and Mrs. Marigold walked part of the way with him to\nthe station.  On her way back across the fields she picked up the\nArlington twins.  Later, she seems to have called in at the cottage and\nspoken to Mrs. Muldoon about Jane, who, she had heard, was in want of a\nplace.  A little before sunset she was seen by the Doctor climbing the\npath to the Warren.  Malvina that evening was missing for dinner.  When\nshe returned she seemed pleased with herself.\n\n\n\nVI.  AND HOW IT WAS FINISHED TOO SOON.\n\nSome days later--it may have been the next week; the exact date appears\nto have got mislaid--Marigold, M.P., looked in on the Professor.  They\ntalked about Tariff Reform, and then Marigold got up and made sure for\nhimself that the door was tight closed.\n\n\"You know my wife,\" he said.  \"We've been married six years, and\nthere's never been a cloud between us except one.  Of course, she's not\nbrainy.  That is, at least...\"\n\nThe Professor jumped out of his chair.\n\n\"If you take my advice,\" he said, \"you'll leave her alone.\"  He spoke\nwith passion and conviction.\n\nMarigold looked up.\n\n\"It's just what I wish to goodness I had done,\" he answered.  \"I blame\nmyself entirely.\"\n\n\"So long as we see our own mistakes,\" said the Professor, \"there is\nhope for us all.  You go straight home, young man, and tell her you've\nchanged your mind.  Tell her you don't want her with brains. Tell her\nyou like her best without.  You get that into her head before anything\nelse happens.\"\n\n\"I've tried to,\" said Marigold.  \"She says it's too late.  That the\nlight has come to her and she can't help it.\"\n\nIt was the Professor's turn to stare.  He had not heard anything of\nSunday's transactions.  He had been hoping against hope that the\nArlington affair would remain a locked secret between himself and the\ntwins, and had done his best to think about everything else.\n\n\"She's joined the Fabian Society,\" continued Marigold gloomily.\n\"They've put her in the nursery.  And the W.S.P.U.  If it gets about\nbefore the next election I'll have to look out for another\nconstituency--that's all.\"\n\n\"How did you hear about her?\" asked the Professor.\n\n\"I didn't hear about her,\" answered Marigold.  \"If I had I mightn't\nhave gone up to town.  You think it right,\" he added, \"to--to encourage\nsuch people?\"\n\n\"Who's encouraging her?\" demanded the professor.  \"If fools didn't go\nabout thinking they could improve every other fool but themselves, this\nsort of thing wouldn't happen.  Arlington had an amiable,\nsweet-tempered wife, and instead of thanking God and keeping quiet\nabout it, he worries her out of her life because she is not the\nmanaging woman.  Well, now he's got the managing woman. I met him on\nWednesday with a bump on his forehead as big as an egg. Says he fell\nover the mat.  It can't be done.  You can't have a person changed just\nas far as you want them changed and there stop. You let 'em alone or\nyou change them altogether, and then they don't know themselves what\nthey're going to turn out.  A sensible man in your position would have\nbeen only too thankful for a wife who didn't poke her nose into his\naffairs, and with whom he could get away from his confounded politics.\nYou've been hinting to her about once a month, I expect, what a tragedy\nit was that you hadn't married a woman with brains.  Well, now she's\nfound her brains and is using them.  Why shouldn't she belong to the\nFabian Society and the W.S.P.U?  Shows independence of character.  Best\nthing for you to do is to join them yourself.  Then you'll be able to\nwork together.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" said Marigold rising.  \"I didn't know you agreed with her.\"\n\n\"Who said I agreed with her?\" snapped the Professor.  \"I'm in a very\nawkward position.\"\n\n\"I suppose,\" said Marigold--he was hesitating with the door in his\nhand--\"it wouldn't be of any use my seeing her myself?\"\n\n\"I believe,\" said the Professor, \"that she is fond of the neighbourhood\nof the Cross Stones towards sundown.  You can choose for yourself, but\nif I were you I should think twice about it.\"\n\n\"I was wondering,\" said Marigold, \"whether, if I put it to her as a\npersonal favour, she might not be willing to see Edith again and\npersuade her that she was only joking?\"\n\nA light began to break upon the Professor.\n\n\"What do you think has happened?\" he asked.\n\n\"Well,\" explained Marigold, \"I take it that your young foreign friend\nhas met my wife and talked politics to her, and that what has happened\nis the result.  She must be a young person of extraordinary ability;\nbut it would be only losing one convert, and I could make it up to her\nin--in other ways.\"  He spoke with unconscious pathos. It rather\ntouched the Professor.\n\n\"It might mean,\" said the Professor--\"that is, assuming that it can be\ndone at all--Mrs. Marigold's returning to her former self entirely,\ntaking no further interest in politics whatever.\"\n\n\"I should be so very grateful,\" answered Marigold.\n\nThe Professor had mislaid his spectacles, but thinks there was a tear\nin Marigold's eye.\n\n\"I'll do what I can,\" said the Professor.  \"Of course, you mustn't\ncount on it.  It may be easier to start a woman thinking than to stop\nher, even for a--\"  The Professor checked himself just in time. \"I'll\ntalk to her,\" he said; and Marigold gripped his hand and departed.\n\n\nIt was about time he did.  The full extent of Malvina's activities\nduring those few midsummer weeks, till the return of Flight Commander\nRaffleton, will never perhaps be fully revealed. According to the\nDoctor, the whole business has been grossly exaggerated.  There are\nthose who talk as if half the village had been taken to pieces, altered\nand improved and sent back home again in a mental state unrecognisable\nby their own mothers.  Certain it is that Dawson, R.A., generally\ndescribed by everybody except his wife as \"a lovable little man,\" and\nwhose only fault was an incurable habit of punning, both in season--if\nsuch a period there be--and more often out, suddenly one morning\nsmashed a Dutch interior, fifteen inches by nine, over the astonished\nhead of Mrs. Dawson.  It clung round her neck, recalling biblical\npictures of the head of John the Baptist, and the frame-work had to be\nsawn through before she could get it off.  As to the story about his\nhaving been caught by Mrs. Dawson's aunt kissing the housemaid behind\nthe waterbutt, that, as the Doctor admits, is a bit of bad luck that\nmight have happened to anyone.  But whether there was really any\nevidence connecting him with Dolly Calthorpe's unaccountable missing of\nthe last train home, is of course, a more serious matter.  Mrs. Dawson,\na handsome, high-spirited woman herself, may have found Dawson, as\noriginally fashioned, trying to the nerves; though even then the\nquestion arises:  Why have married him?  But there is a difference, as\nMrs. Dawson has pointed out, between a husband who hasn't enough of the\nnatural man in him and a husband who has a deal too much.  It is\ndifficult to regulate these matters.\n\nAltogether, and taking an outside estimate, the Doctor's opinion is\nthat there may have been half a dozen, who, with Malvina's assistance,\nsucceeded in hypnotising themselves into temporary insanity.  When\nMalvina, a little disappointed, but yielding quite sweetly her own\njudgment to that of the wise and learned Christopher, consented to\n\"restore\" them, the explanation was that, having spent their burst of\nill-acquired energy, they fell back at the first suggestion to their\nformer selves.\n\nMrs. Arlington does not agree with the Doctor.  She had been trying to\nreform herself for quite a long time and had miserably failed. There\nwas something about them--it might almost be described as an\naroma--that prompted her that evening to take the twins into her\nconfidence; a sort of intuition that in some way they could help her.\nIt remained with her all the next day; and when the twins returned in\nthe evening, in company with the postman, she knew instinctively that\nthey had been about her business.  It was this same intuitive desire\nthat drew her to the Downs.  She is confident she would have taken that\nwalk to the Cross Stones even if the twins had not proposed it.\nIndeed, according to her own account, she was not aware that the twins\nhad accompanied her.  There was something about the stones; a sense as\nof a presence.  She knew when she reached them that she had arrived at\nthe appointed place; and when there appeared to her--coming from where\nshe could not tell--a diminutive figure that seemed in some mysterious\nway as if it were clothed merely in the fading light, she remembered\ndistinctly that she was neither surprised nor alarmed.  The diminutive\nlady sat down beside her and took Mrs. Arlington's hands in both her\nown.  She spoke in a strange language, but Mrs. Arlington at the time\nunderstood it, though now the meaning of it had passed from her. Mrs.\nArlington felt as if her body were being taken away from her. She had a\nsense of falling, a feeling that she must make some desperate effort to\nrise again.  The strange little lady was helping her, assisting her to\nmake this supreme effort.  It was as if ages were passing.  She was\nwrestling with unknown powers.  Suddenly she seemed to slip from them.\nThe little lady was holding her up. Clasping each other, they rose and\nrose and rose.  Mrs. Arlington had a firm conviction that she must\nalways be struggling upward, or they would overtake her and drag her\ndown again.  When she awoke the little lady had gone, but that feeling\nremained with her; that passionate acceptance of ceaseless struggle,\nactivity, contention, as now the end and aim of her existence.  At\nfirst she did not recollect where she was.  A strange colourless light\nwas around her, and a strange singing as of myriads of birds.  And then\nthe clock struck nine and life came back to her with a rush.  But with\nit still that conviction that she must seize hold of herself and\neverybody else and get things done.  Its immediate expression, as\nalready has been mentioned, was experienced by the twins.\n\nWhen, after a talk with the Professor, aided and abetted by Mr.\nArlington and the eldest Arlington girl, she consented to pay that\nsecond visit to the stones, it was with very different sensations that\nshe climbed the grass-grown path.  The little lady had met her as\nbefore, but the curious deep eyes looked sadly, and Mrs. Arlington had\nthe impression, generally speaking, that she was about to assist at her\nown funeral.  Again the little lady took her by the hands, and again\nshe experienced that terror of falling.  But instead of ending with\ncontest and effort she seemed to pass into a sleep, and when she opened\nher eyes she was again alone.  Feeling a little chilly and unreasonably\ntired, she walked slowly home, and not being hungry, retired supperless\nto bed.  Quite unable to explain why, she seems to have cried herself\nto sleep.\n\nOne supposes that something of a similar nature may have occurred to\nthe others--with the exception of Mrs. Marigold.  It was the case of\nMrs. Marigold that, as the Doctor grudgingly admits, went far to weaken\nhis hypothesis.  Mrs. Marigold, having emerged, was spreading herself,\nmuch to her own satisfaction.  She had discarded her wedding ring as a\nrelic of barbarism--of the days when women were mere goods and\nchattels, and had made her first speech at a meeting in favour of\nmarriage reform.  Subterfuge, in her case, had to be resorted to.\nMalvina had tearfully consented, and Marigold, M.P., was to bring Mrs.\nMarigold to the Cross Stones that same evening and there leave her,\nexplaining to her that Malvina had expressed a wish to see her\nagain--\"just for a chat.\"\n\n\nAll might have ended well if only Commander Raffleton had not appeared\nframed in the parlour door just as Malvina was starting. His Cousin\nChristopher had written to the Commander.  Indeed, after the Arlington\naffair, quite pressingly, and once or twice had thought he heard the\nsound of Flight Commander Raffleton's propeller, but on each occasion\nhad been disappointed.  \"Affairs of State,\" Cousin Christopher had\nexplained to Malvina, who, familiar one takes it with the calls upon\nknights and warriors through all the ages, had approved.\n\nHe stood there with his helmet in his hand.\n\n\"Only arrived this afternoon from France,\"  he explained.  \"Haven't a\nmoment to spare.\"\n\nBut he had just time to go straight to Malvina.  He laughed as he took\nher in his arms and kissed her full upon the lips.\n\nWhen last he had kissed her--it had been in the orchard; the Professor\nhad been witness to it--Malvina had remained quite passive, only that\ncurious little smile about her lips.  But now an odd thing happened.  A\nquivering seemed to pass through all her body, so that it swayed and\ntrembled.  The Professor feared she was going to fall; and, maybe to\nsave herself, she put up her arms about Commander Raffleton's neck, and\nwith a strange low cry--it sounded to the Professor like the cry one\nsometimes hears at night from some little dying creature of the\nwoods--she clung to him sobbing.\n\n\nIt must have been a while later when the chiming of the clock recalled\nto the Professor the appointment with Mrs. Marigold.\n\n\"You will only just have time,\" he said, gently seeking to release her.\n\"I'll promise to keep him till you come back.\"  And as Malvina did not\nseem to understand, he reminded her.\n\nBut still she made no movement, save for a little gesture of the hands\nas if she were seeking to lay hold of something unseen.  And then she\ndropped her arms and looked from one of them to the other. The\nProfessor did not think of it at the time, but remembered afterwards;\nthat strange aloofness of hers, as if she were looking at you from\nanother world.  One no longer felt it.\n\n\"I am so sorry,\" she said.  \"It is too late.  I am only a woman.\"\n\nAnd Mrs. Marigold is still thinking.\n\n\n\nTHE PROLOGUE.\n\nAnd here follows the Prologue.  It ought, of course, to have been\nwritten first, but nobody knew of it until quite the end entirely. It\nwas told to Commander Raffleton by a French comrade, who in days of\npeace had been a painter, mingling with others of his kind, especially\nsuch as found their inspiration in the wide horizons and legend-haunted\ndells of old-world Brittany.  Afterwards the Commander told it to the\nProfessor, and the Professor's only stipulation was that it should not\nbe told to the Doctor, at least for a time.  For the Doctor would see\nin it only confirmation for his own narrow sense-bound theories, while\nto the Professor it confirmed beyond a doubt the absolute truth of this\nstory.\n\n\nIt commenced in the year Eighteen hundred and ninety-eight (anno\nDomini), on a particularly unpleasant evening in late February--\"a\nstormy winter's night,\" one would describe it, were one writing mere\nromance.  It came to the lonely cottage of Madame Lavigne on the edge\nof the moor that surrounds the sunken village of Aven-a-Christ. Madame\nLavigne, who was knitting stockings--for she lived by knitting\nstockings--heard, as she thought, a passing of feet, and what seemed\nlike a tap at the door.  She dismissed the idea, for who would be\npassing at such an hour, and where there was no road?  But a few\nminutes later the tapping came again, and Madame Lavigne, taking her\ncandle in her hand, went to see who was there.  The instant she\nreleased the latch a gust of wind blew out the candle, and Madame\nLavigne could see no one.  She called, but there was no answer.  She\nwas about to close the door again when she heard a faint sound.  It was\nnot exactly a cry.  It was as if someone she could not see, in the\ntiniest of voices, had said something she could not understand.\n\nMadame Lavigne crossed herself and muttered a prayer, and then she\nheard it again.  It seemed to come from close at her feet, and feeling\nwith her hands--for she thought it might be a stray cat--she found\nquite a large parcel, It was warm and soft, though, of course, a bit\nwet, and Madame Lavigne brought it in, and having closed the door and\nre-lit her candle, laid it on the table.  And then she saw it was the\ntiniest of babies.\n\nIt must always be a difficult situation.  Madame Lavigne did what most\npeople would have done in the case.  She unrolled the wrappings, and\ntaking the little thing on her lap, sat down in front of the dull peat\nfire and considered.  It seemed wonderfully contented, and Madame\nLavigne thought the best thing to do would be to undress it and put it\nto bed, and then go on with her knitting. She would consult Father Jean\nin the morning and take his advice. She had never seen such fine\nclothes.  She took them off one by one, lovingly feeling their texture,\nand when she finally removed the last little shift and the little white\nthing lay exposed, Madame Lavigne sprang up with a cry and all but\ndropped it into the fire. For she saw by the mark that every Breton\npeasant knows that it was not a child but a fairy.\n\nHer proper course, as she well knew, was to have opened the door and\nflung it out into the darkness.  Most women of the village would have\ndone so, and spent the rest of the night on their knees.  But someone\nmust have chosen with foresight.  There came to Madame Lavigne the\nmemory of her good man and her three tall sons, taken from her one by\none by the jealous sea, and, come what might of it, she could not do\nit.  The little thing understood, that was clear, for it smiled quite\nknowingly and stretched out its little hands, touching Madame Lavigne's\nbrown withered skin, and stirring forgotten beatings of her heart.\n\nFather Jean--one takes him to have been a tolerant, gently wise old\ngentleman--could see no harm.  That is, if Madame Lavigne could afford\nthe luxury.  Maybe it was a good fairy.  Would bring her luck.  And\ncertain it is that the cackling of Madame's hens was heard more often\nthan before, and the weeds seemed fewer in the little patch of garden\nthat Madame Lavigne had rescued from the moor.\n\nOf course, the news spread.  One gathers that Madame Lavigne rather\ngave herself airs.  But the neighbours shook their heads,  and the\nchild grew up lonely and avoided.  Fortunately, the cottage was far\nfrom other houses, and there was always the great moor with its deep\nhiding-places.  Father Jean was her sole playmate.  He would take her\nwith him on his long tramps through his scattered district, leaving her\nscreened among the furze and bracken near to the solitary farmsteads\nwhere he made his visitations.\n\nHe had learnt it was useless:  all attempt of Mother Church to scold\nout of this sea and moor-girt flock their pagan superstitions.  He\nwould leave it to time.  Later, perhaps opportunity might occur to\nplace the child in some convent, where she would learn to forget, and\ngrow into a good Catholic.  Meanwhile, one had to take pity on the\nlittle lonely creature.  Not entirely for her own sake maybe; a dear\naffectionate little soul strangely wise; so she seemed to Father Jean.\nUnder the shade of trees or sharing warm shelter with the soft-eyed\ncows, he would teach her from his small stock of knowledge.  Every now\nand then she would startle him with an intuition, a comment strangely\nunchildlike.  It was as if she had known all about it, long ago.\nFather Jean would steal a swift glance at her from under his shaggy\neyebrows and fall into a silence.  It was curious also how the wild\nthings of the field and wood seemed unafraid of her.  At times,\nreturning to where  he had left her hidden, he would pause, wondering\nto whom she was talking, and then as he drew nearer would hear the\nstealing away of little feet, the startled flutter of wings.  She had\nelfish ways, of which it seemed impossible to cure her.  Often the good\nman, returning from some late visit of mercy with his lantern and his\nstout oak cudgel, would  pause and listen to a wandering voice.  It was\nnever near enough for him to hear the  words, and the voice was strange\nto him, though he knew it could be no one else.  Madame Lavigne would\nshrug her shoulders.  How could she help it?  It was not for her to\ncross the \"child,\" even supposing bolts and bars likely to be of any\nuse.  Father Jean gave it up in despair.  Neither was it for him either\nto be too often forbidding and lecturing.  Maybe the cunning tender\nways had wove their web about the childless old gentleman's heart,\nmaking him also somewhat afraid.  Perhaps other distractions! For\nMadame Lavigne would never allow her to do anything but the lightest of\nwork.  He would teach her to read.  So quickly she learnt that it\nseemed to Father Jean she must be making believe not to have known it\nalready.  But he had his reward in watching the joy with which she\nwould devour, for preference, the quaint printed volumes of romance and\nhistory that he would bring home to her from his rare journeyings to\nthe distant town.\n\n\nIt was when she was about thirteen that the ladies and gentlemen came\nfrom Paris.  Of course they were not real ladies and gentlemen. Only a\nlittle company of artists seeking new fields.  They had \"done\" the\ncoast and the timbered houses of the narrow streets, and one of them\nhad suggested exploring the solitary, unknown inlands. They came across\nher seated on an old grey stone reading from an ancient-looking book,\nand she had risen and curtsied to them.  She was never afraid.  It was\nshe who excited fear.  Often she would look after the children flying\nfrom her, feeling a little sad.  But, of course, it could not be\nhelped.  She was a fairy.  She would have done them no harm, but this\nthey could not be expected to understand.  It was a delightful change;\nmeeting human beings who neither screamed nor hastily recited their\npaternosters, but who, instead, returned one's smile.  They asked her\nwhere she lived, and she showed them.  They were staying at\nAven-a-Christ; and one of the ladies was brave enough even to kiss her.\nLaughing and talking they all walked down the hill together.  They\nfound Madame Lavigne working in her garden.  Madame Lavigne washed her\nhands of all responsibility.  It was for Suzanne to decide.  It seemed\nthey wanted to make a picture of her, sitting on the grey stone where\nthey had found her.  It was surely only kind to let them; so next\nmorning she was there again waiting for them.  They gave her a\nfive-franc piece.  Madame Lavigne was doubtful of handling it, but\nFather Jean vouched for it as being good Republican money; and as the\ndays went by Madame Lavigne's black stocking grew heavier and heavier\nas she hung it again each night in the chimney.\n\nIt was the lady who had first kissed her that discovered who she was.\nThey had all of them felt sure from the beginning that she was a fairy,\nand that \"Suzanne\" could not be her real name.  They found it in the\n\"Heptameron of Friar Bonnet.  In which is recorded the numerous\nadventures of the valiant and puissant King Ryence of Bretagne,\" which\none of them had picked up on the Quai aux Fleurs and brought with him.\nIt told all about the White Ladies, and therein she was described.\nThere could be no mistaking her; the fair body that was like to a\nwillow swayed by the wind.  The white feet that could pass, leaving the\ndew unshaken from the grass.  The eyes blue and deep as mountain lakes.\nThe golden locks of which the sun was jealous.\n\nIt was all quite clear.  She was Malvina, once favourite to Harbundia,\nQueen of the White Ladies of Brittany.  For reasons--further allusion\nto which politeness forbade--she had been a wanderer, no one knowing\nwhat had become of her.  And now the whim had taken her to reappear as\na little Breton peasant girl, near to the scene of her past glories.\nThey knelt before her, offering her homage, and all the ladies kissed\nher.  The gentlemen of the party thought their turn would follow.  But\nit never did.  It was not their own shyness that stood in their way:\none must do them that justice.  It was as if some youthful queen,\nexiled and unknown amongst strangers, had been suddenly recognised by a\nlittle band of her faithful subjects, passing by chance that way.  So\nthat, instead of frolic and laughter, as had been intended, they\nremained standing with bared heads; and no one liked to be the first to\nspeak.\n\nShe put them at their ease--or tried to--with a gracious gesture. But\nenjoined upon them all her wish for secrecy.  And so dismissed they\nseem to have returned to the village a marvellously sober little party,\nexperiencing all the sensations of honest folk admitted to their first\nglimpse of high society.\n\nThey came again next year--at least a few of them--bringing with them a\ndress more worthy of Malvina's wearing.  It was as near as Paris could\nachieve to the true and original costume as described by the good Friar\nBonnet, the which had been woven in a single night by the wizard spider\nKarai out of moonlight.  Malvina accepted it with gracious thanks, and\nwas evidently pleased to find herself again in fit and proper clothes.\nIt was hidden away for rare occasions where only Malvina knew.  But the\nlady who had first kissed her, and whose speciality was fairies,\ncraving permission, Malvina consented to wear it while sitting for her\nportrait.  The picture one may still see in the Palais des Beaux Arts\nat Nantes (the Bretonne Room).  It represents her standing straight as\nan arrow, a lone little figure in the centre of a treeless moor.  The\npainting of the robe is said to be very wonderful.  \"Malvina of\nBrittany\" is the inscription, the date being Nineteen Hundred and\nThirteen.\n\n\nThe next year Malvina was no longer there.  Madame Lavigne, folding\nknotted hands, had muttered her last paternoster.  Pere Jean had urged\nthe convent.  But for the first time, with him, she had been frankly\nobstinate.  Some fancy seemed to have got into the child's head.\nSomething that she evidently connected with the vast treeless moor\nrising southward to where the ancient menhir of King Taramis crowned\nits summit.  The good man yielded, as usual.  For the present there\nwere Madame Lavigne's small savings.  Suzanne's wants were but few.\nThe rare shopping necessary Father Jean could see to himself.  With the\ncoming of winter he would broach the subject again, and then be quite\nfirm.  Just these were the summer nights when Suzanne loved to roam;\nand as for danger! there was not a lad for ten leagues round who would\nnot have run a mile to avoid passing, even in daylight, that cottage\nstanding where the moor dips down to the sealands.\n\nBut one surmises that even a fairy may feel lonesome.  Especially a\nbanished fairy, hanging as it were between earth and air, knowing\nmortal maidens kissed and courted, while one's own companions kept away\nfrom one in hiding.  Maybe the fancy came to her that, after all these\nyears, they might forgive her.  Still, it was their meeting place, so\nlegend ran, especially of midsummer nights.  Rare it was now for human\neye to catch a glimpse of the shimmering robes, but high on the\ntreeless moor to the music of the Lady of the Fountain, one might still\nhear, were one brave enough to venture, the rhythm of their dancing\nfeet.  If she sought them, softly calling, might they not reveal\nthemselves to her, make room for her once again in the whirling circle?\nOne has the idea that the moonlight frock may have added to her hopes.\nPhilosophy admits that feeling oneself well dressed gives confidence.\n\nIf all of them had not disappeared--been kissed three times upon the\nlips by mortal man and so become a woman?  It seems to have been a\npossibility for which your White Lady had to be prepared.  That is, if\nshe chose to suffer it.  If not, it was unfortunate for the too daring\nmortal.  But if he gained favour in her eyes!  That he was brave, his\nwooing proved.  If, added thereto, he were comely, with kind strong\nways, and eyes that drew you?  History proves that such dreams must\nhave come even to White Ladies.  Maybe more especially on midsummer\nnights when the moon is at its full.  It was on such a night that Sir\nGerylon had woke Malvina's sister Sighile with a kiss.  A true White\nLady must always dare to face her fate.\n\n\nIt seems to have befallen Malvina.  Some told Father Jean how he had\narrived in a chariot drawn by winged horses, the thunder of his passing\nwaking many in the sleeping villages beneath.  And others how he had\ncome in the form of a great bird.  Father Jean had heard strange sounds\nhimself, and certain it was that Suzanne had disappeared.\n\nFather Jean heard another version a few weeks later, told him by an\nEnglish officer of Engineers who had ridden from the nearest station on\na bicycle and who arrived hot and ravenously thirsty.  And Father Jean,\nunder promise of seeing Suzanne on the first opportunity, believed it.\nBut to most of his flock it sounded an impossible rigmarole, told for\nthe purpose of disguising the truth.\n\n\nSo ends my story--or rather the story I have pieced together from\ninformation of a contradictory nature received.  Whatever you make of\nit; whether with the Doctor you explain it away; or whether with\nProfessor Littlecherry, LL.D., F.R.S., you believe the world not\naltogether explored and mapped, the fact remains that Malvina of\nBrittany has passed away.  To the younger Mrs. Raffleton, listening on\nthe Sussex Downs to dull, distant sounds that make her heart beat, and\nvery nervous of telegraph boys, has come already some of the\ndisadvantages attendant on her new rank of womanhood.  And yet one\ngathers, looking down into those strange deep eyes, that she would not\nchange anything about her, even if now she could.\n\n\n\n\nTHE STREET OF THE BLANK WALL.\n\nI had turned off from the Edgware Road into a street leading west, the\natmosphere of which had appealed to me.  It was a place of quiet houses\nstanding behind little gardens.  They had the usual names printed on\nthe stuccoed gateposts.  The fading twilight was just sufficient to\nenable one to read them.  There was a Laburnum Villa, and The Cedars,\nand a Cairngorm, rising to the height of three storeys, with a curious\nlittle turret that branched out at the top, and was crowned with a\nconical roof, so that it looked as if wearing a witch's hat.\nEspecially when two small windows just below the eaves sprang suddenly\ninto light, and gave one the feeling of a pair of wicked eyes suddenly\nflashed upon one.\n\nThe street curved to the right, ending in an open space through which\npassed a canal beneath a low arched bridge.  There were still the same\nquiet houses behind their small gardens, and I watched for a while the\nlamplighter picking out the shape of the canal, that widened just above\nthe bridge into a lake with an island in the middle.  After that I must\nhave wandered in a circle, for later on I found myself back in the same\nspot, though I do not suppose I had passed a dozen people on my way;\nand then I set to work to find my way back to Paddington.\n\nI thought I had taken the road by which I had come, but the half light\nmust have deceived me.  Not that it mattered.  They had a lurking\nmystery about them, these silent streets with their suggestion of\nhushed movement behind drawn curtains, of whispered voices behind the\nflimsy walls.  Occasionally there would escape the sound of laughter,\nsuddenly stifled as it seemed, and once the sudden cry of a child.\n\nIt was in a short street of semi-detached villas facing a high blank\nwall that, as I passed, I saw a blind move half-way up, revealing a\nwoman's face.  A gas lamp, the only one the street possessed, was\nnearly opposite.  I thought at first it was the face of a girl, and\nthen, as I looked again, it might have been the face of an old woman.\nOne could not distinguish the colouring.  In any case, the cold, blue\ngaslight would have made it seem pallid.\n\nThe remarkable feature was the eyes.  It might have been, of course,\nthat they alone caught the light and held it, rendering them uncannily\nlarge and brilliant.  Or it might have been that the rest of the face\nwas small and delicate, out of all proportion to them. She may have\nseen me, for the blind was drawn down again, and I passed on.\n\nThere was no particular reason why, but the incident lingered with me.\nThe sudden raising of the blind, as of the curtain of some small\ntheatre, the barely furnished room coming dimly into view, and the\nwoman standing there, close to the footlights, as to my fancy it\nseemed.  And then the sudden ringing down of the curtain before the\nplay had begun.  I turned at the corner of the street.  The blind had\nbeen drawn up again, and I saw again the slight, girlish figure\nsilhouetted against the side panes of the bow window.\n\nAt the same moment a man knocked up against me.  It was not his fault.\nI had stopped abruptly, not giving him time to avoid me.  We both\napologised, blaming the darkness.  It may have been my fancy, but I had\nthe feeling that, instead of going on his way, he had turned and was\nfollowing me.  I waited till the next corner, and then swung round on\nmy heel.  But there was no sign of him, and after a while I found\nmyself back in the Edgware Road.\n\nOnce or twice, in idle mood, I sought the street again, but without\nsuccess; and the thing would, I expect, have faded from my memory, but\nthat one evening, on my way home from Paddington, I came across the\nwoman in the Harrow Road.  There was no mistaking her.  She almost\ntouched me as she came out of a fishmonger's shop, and unconsciously,\nat the beginning, I found myself following her.  This time I noticed\nthe turnings, and five minutes' walking brought us to the street.  Half\na dozen times I must have been within a hundred yards of it.  I\nlingered at the corner.  She had not noticed me, and just as she\nreached the house a man came out of the shadows beyond the lamp-post\nand joined her.\n\nI was due at a bachelor gathering that evening, and after dinner, the\naffair being fresh in my mind, I talked about it.  I am not sure, but I\nthink it was in connection with a discussion on Maeterlinck.  It was\nthat sudden lifting of the blind that had caught hold of me.  As if,\nblundering into an empty theatre, I had caught a glimpse of some drama\nbeing played in secret.  We passed to other topics, and when I was\nleaving a fellow guest asked me which way I was going.  I told him,\nand, it being a fine night, he proposed that we should walk together.\nAnd in the quiet of Harley Street he confessed that his desire had not\nbeen entirely the pleasure of my company.\n\n\"It is rather curious,\" he said, \"but today there suddenly came to my\nremembrance a case that for nearly eleven years I have never given a\nthought to.  And now, on top of it, comes your description of that\nwoman's face.  I am wondering if it can be the same.\"\n\n\"It was the eyes,\" I said, \"that struck me as so remarkable.\"\n\n\"It was the eyes that I chiefly remember her by,\" he replied. \"Would\nyou know the street again?\"\n\nWe walked a little while in silence.\n\n\"It may seem, perhaps, odd to you,\" I answered, \"but it would trouble\nme, the idea of any harm coming to her through me.  What was the case?\"\n\n\"You can feel quite safe on that point,\" he assured me.  \"I was her\ncounsel--that is, if it is the same woman.  How was she dressed?\"\n\nI could not see the reason for his question.  He could hardly expect\nher to be wearing the clothes of eleven years ago.\n\n\"I don't think I noticed,\" I answered.  \"Some sort of a blouse, I\nsuppose.\"  And then I recollected.  \"Ah, yes, there was something\nuncommon,\" I added.  \"An unusually broad band of velvet, it looked\nlike, round her neck.\"\n\n\"I thought so,\" he said.  \"Yes.  It must be the same.\"\n\nWe had reached Marylebone Road, where our ways parted.\n\n\"I will look you up to-morrow afternoon, if I may,\" he said.  \"We might\ntake a stroll round together.\"\n\nHe called on me about half-past five, and we reached the street just as\nthe one solitary gas-lamp had been lighted.  I pointed out the house to\nhim, and he crossed over and looked at the number.\n\n\"Quite right,\" he said, on returning.  \"I made inquiries this morning.\nShe was released six weeks ago on ticket-of-leave.\"\n\nHe took my arm.\n\n\"Not much use hanging about,\" he said.  \"The blind won't go up\nto-night.  Rather a clever idea, selecting a house just opposite a\nlamp-post.\"\n\nHe had an engagement that evening; but later on he told me the\nstory--that is, so far as he then knew it.\n\n                    *          *          *\n\nIt was in the early days of the garden suburb movement.  One of the\nfirst sites chosen was off the Finchley Road.  The place was in the\nbuilding, and one of the streets--Laleham Gardens--had only some half a\ndozen houses in it, all unoccupied save one.  It was a lonely, loose\nend of the suburb, terminating suddenly in open fields.  From the\nunfinished end of the road the ground sloped down somewhat steeply to a\npond, and beyond that began a small wood.  The one house occupied had\nbeen bought by a young married couple named Hepworth.\n\nThe husband was a good-looking, pleasant young fellow.  Being\nclean-shaven, his exact age was difficult to judge.  The wife, it was\nquite evident, was little more than a girl.  About the man there was a\nsuggestion of weakness.  At least, that was the impression left on the\nmind of the house-agent.  To-day he would decide, and to-morrow he\nchanged his mind.  Jetson, the agent, had almost given up hope of\nbringing off a deal.  In the end it was Mrs. Hepworth who, taking the\nmatter into her own hands, fixed upon the house in Laleham Gardens.\nYoung Hepworth found fault with it on the ground of its isolation.  He\nhimself was often away for days at a time, travelling on business, and\nwas afraid she would be nervous.  He had been very persistent on this\npoint; but in whispered conversations she had persuaded him out of his\nobjection.  It was one of those pretty, fussy little houses; and it\nseemed to have taken her fancy. Added to which, according to her\nargument, it was just within their means, which none of the others\nwere.  Young Hepworth may have given the usual references, but if so\nthey were never taken up.  The house was sold on the company's usual\nterms.  The deposit was paid by a cheque, which was duly cleared, and\nthe house itself was security for the rest.  The company's solicitor,\nwith Hepworth's consent, acted for both parties.\n\nIt was early in June when the Hepworths moved in.  They furnished only\none bedroom; and kept no servant, a charwoman coming in every morning\nand going away about six in the evening.  Jetson was their nearest\nneighbour.  His wife and daughters called on them, and confess to have\ntaken a liking to them both.  Indeed, between one of the Jetson girls,\nthe youngest, and Mrs. Hepworth there seems to have sprung up a close\nfriendship.  Young Hepworth, the husband, was always charming, and\nevidently took great pains to make himself agreeable.  But with regard\nto him they had the feeling that he was never altogether at his ease.\nThey described him--though that, of course, was after the event--as\nhaving left upon them the impression of a haunted man.\n\nThere was one occasion in particular.  It was about ten o'clock. The\nJetsons had been spending the evening with the Hepworths, and were just\non the point of leaving, when there came a sudden, clear knock at the\ndoor.  It turned out to be Jetson's foreman, who had to leave by an\nearly train in the morning, and had found that he needed some further\ninstructions.  But the terror in Hepworth's face was unmistakable.  He\nhad turned a look towards his wife that was almost of despair; and it\nhad seemed to the Jetsons--or, talking it over afterwards, they may\nhave suggested the idea to each other--that there came a flash of\ncontempt into her eyes, though it yielded the next instant to an\nexpression of pity.  She had risen, and already moved some steps\ntowards the door, when young Hepworth had stopped her, and gone out\nhimself.  But the curious thing was that, according to the foreman's\naccount, Hepworth never opened the front door, but came upon him\nstealthily from behind.  He must have slipped out by the back and crept\nround the house.\n\nThe incident had puzzled the Jetsons, especially that involuntary flash\nof contempt that had come into Mrs. Hepworth's eyes.  She had always\nappeared to adore her husband, and of the two, if possible, to be the\none most in love with the other.  They had no friends or acquaintances\nexcept the Jetsons.  No one else among their neighbours had taken the\ntrouble to call on them, and no stranger to the suburb had, so far as\nwas known, ever been seen in Laleham Gardens.\n\nUntil one evening a little before Christmas.\n\nJetson was on his way home from his office in the Finchley Road. There\nhad been a mist hanging about all day, and with nightfall it had\nsettled down into a whitish fog.  Soon after leaving the Finchley Road,\nJetson noticed in front of him a man wearing a long, yellow mackintosh,\nand some sort of soft felt hat.  He gave Jetson the idea of being a\nsailor; it may have been merely the stiff, serviceable mackintosh.  At\nthe corner of Laleham Gardens the man turned, and glanced up at the\nname upon the lamp-post, so that Jetson had a full view of him.\nEvidently it was the street for which he was looking.  Jetson, somewhat\ncurious, the Hepworths' house being still the only one occupied, paused\nat the corner, and watched.  The Hepworths' house was, of course, the\nonly one in the road that showed any light.  The man, when he came to\nthe gate, struck a match for the purpose of reading the number.\nSatisfied it was the house he wanted, he pushed open the gate and went\nup the path.\n\nBut, instead of using the bell or knocker, Jetson was surprised to hear\nhim give three raps on the door with his stick.  There was no answer,\nand Jetson, whose interest was now thoroughly aroused, crossed to the\nother corner, from where he could command a better view.  Twice the man\nrepeated his three raps on the door, each time a little louder, and the\nthird time the door was opened.  Jetson could not tell by whom, for\nwhoever it was kept behind it.\n\nHe could just see one wall of the passage, with a pair of old naval\ncutlasses crossed above the picture of a three-masted schooner that he\nknew hung there.  The door was opened just sufficient, and the man\nslipped in, and the door was closed behind him.  Jetson had turned to\ncontinue his way, when the fancy seized him to give one glance back.\nThe house was in complete darkness, though a moment before Jetson was\npositive there had been a light in the ground floor window.\n\nIt all sounded very important afterwards, but at the time there was\nnothing to suggest to Jetson anything very much out of the common.\nBecause for six months no friend or relation had called to see them,\nthat was no reason why one never should.  In the fog, a stranger may\nhave thought it simpler to knock at the door with his stick than to\nfumble in search of a bell.  The Hepworths lived chiefly in the room at\nthe back.  The light in the drawing-room may have been switched off for\neconomy's sake.  Jetson recounted the incident on reaching home, not as\nanything remarkable, but just as one mentions an item of gossip.  The\nonly one who appears to have attached any meaning to the affair was\nJetson's youngest daughter, then a girl of eighteen. She asked one or\ntwo questions about the man, and, during the evening, slipped out by\nherself and ran round to the Hepworths.  She found the house empty.  At\nall events, she could obtain no answer, and the place, back and front,\nseemed to her to be uncannily silent.\n\nJetson called the next morning, something of his daughter's uneasiness\nhaving communicated itself to him.  Mrs. Hepworth herself opened the\ndoor to him.  In his evidence at the trial, Jetson admitted that her\nappearance had startled him.  She seems to have anticipated his\nquestions by at once explaining that she had had news of an unpleasant\nnature, and had been worrying over it all night.  Her husband had been\ncalled away suddenly to America, where it would be necessary for her to\njoin him as soon as possible.  She would come round to Jetson's office\nlater in the day to make arrangements about getting rid of the house\nand furniture.\n\nThe story seemed to reasonably account for the stranger's visit, and\nJetson, expressing his sympathy and promising all help in his power,\ncontinued his way to the office.  She called in the afternoon and\nhanded him over the keys, retaining one for herself.  She wished the\nfurniture to be sold by auction, and he was to accept almost any offer\nfor the house.  She would try and see him again before sailing; if not,\nshe would write him with her address.  She was perfectly cool and\ncollected.  She had called on his wife and daughters in the afternoon,\nand had wished them good-bye.\n\nOutside Jetson's office she hailed a cab, and returned in it to Laleham\nGardens to collect her boxes.  The next time Jetson saw her she was in\nthe dock, charged with being an accomplice in the murder of her husband.\n\n                    *          *          *\n\nThe body had been discovered in a pond some hundred yards from the\nunfinished end of Laleham Gardens.  A house was in course of erection\non a neighbouring plot, and a workman, in dipping up a pail of water,\nhad dropped in his watch.  He and his mate, worrying round with a rake,\nhad drawn up pieces of torn clothing, and this, of course, had led to\nthe pond being properly dragged.  Otherwise the discovery might never\nhave been made.\n\nThe body, heavily weighted with a number of flat-irons fastened to it\nby a chain and padlock, had sunk deep into the soft mud, and might have\nremained there till it rotted.  A valuable gold repeater, that Jetson\nremembered young Hepworth having told him had been a presentation to\nhis father, was in its usual pocket, and a cameo ring that Hepworth had\nalways worn on his third finger was likewise fished up from the mud.\nEvidently the murder belonged to the category of crimes passionel.  The\ntheory of the prosecution was that it had been committed by a man who,\nbefore her marriage, had been Mrs. Hepworth's lover.\n\nThe evidence, contrasted with the almost spiritually beautiful face of\nthe woman in the dock, came as a surprise to everyone in court.\nOriginally connected with an English circus troupe touring in Holland,\nshe appears, about seventeen, to have been engaged as a \"song and dance\nartiste\" at a particularly shady cafe chantant in Rotterdam, frequented\nchiefly by sailors.  From there a man, an English sailor known as\nCharlie Martin, took her away, and for some months she had lived with\nhim at a small estaminet the other side of the river.  Later, they left\nRotterdam and came to London, where they took lodgings in Poplar, near\nto the docks.\n\nIt was from this address in Poplar that, some ten months before the\nmurder, she had married young Hepworth.  What had become of Martin was\nnot known.  The natural assumption was that, his money being exhausted,\nhe had returned to his calling, though his name, for some reason, could\nnot be found in any ship's list.\n\nThat he was one and the same with the man that Jetson had watched till\nthe door of the Hepworths' house had closed upon him there could be no\ndoubt.  Jetson described him as a thick-set, handsome-looking man, with\na reddish beard and moustache.  Earlier in the day he had been seen at\nHampstead, where he had dined at a small coffee-shop in the High\nStreet.  The girl who had waited on him had also been struck by the\nbold, piercing eyes and the curly red beard.  It had been an off-time,\nbetween two and three, when he had dined there, and the girl admitted\nthat she had found him a \"pleasant-spoken gentleman,\" and \"inclined to\nbe merry.\"  He had told her that he had arrived in England only three\ndays ago, and that he hoped that evening to see his sweetheart.  He had\naccompanied the words with a laugh, and the girl thought--though, of\ncourse, this may have been after-suggestion--that an ugly look followed\nthe laugh.\n\nOne imagines that it was this man's return that had been the fear\nconstantly haunting young Hepworth.  The three raps on the door, it was\nurged by the prosecution, was a pre-arranged or pre-understood signal,\nand the door had been opened by the woman.  Whether the husband was in\nthe house, or whether they waited for him, could not be said.  He had\nbeen killed by a bullet entering through the back of the neck; the man\nhad evidently come prepared.\n\nTen days had elapsed between the murder and the finding of the body,\nand the man was never traced.  A postman had met him coming from the\nneighbourhood of Laleham Gardens at about half-past nine.  In the fog,\nthey had all but bumped into one another, and the man had immediately\nturned away his face.\n\nAbout the soft felt hat there was nothing to excite attention, but the\nlong, stiff, yellow mackintosh was quite unusual.  The postman had\ncaught only a momentary glimpse of the face, but was certain it was\nclean shaven.  This made a sensation in court for the moment, but only\nuntil the calling of the next witness.  The charwoman usually employed\nby the Hepworths had not been admitted to the house on the morning of\nMrs. Hepworth's departure.  Mrs. Hepworth had met her at the door and\npaid her a week's money in lieu of notice, explaining to her that she\nwould not be wanted any more.  Jetson, thinking he might possibly do\nbetter by letting the house furnished, had sent for this woman, and\ninstructed her to give the place a thorough cleaning.  Sweeping the\ncarpet in the dining-room with a dustpan and brush, she had discovered\na number of short red hairs. The man, before leaving the house, had\nshaved himself.\n\nThat he had still retained the long, yellow mackintosh may have been\nwith the idea of starting a false clue.  Having served its purpose, it\ncould be discarded.  The beard would not have been so easy.  What\nroundabout way he may have taken one cannot say, but it must have been\nsome time during the night or early morning that he reached young\nHepworth's office in Fenchurch Street.  Mrs. Hepworth had evidently\nprovided him with the key.\n\nThere he seems to have hidden the hat and mackintosh and to have taken\nin exchange some clothes belonging to the murdered man. Hepworth's\nclerk, Ellenby, an elderly man--of the type that one generally\ndescribes as of gentlemanly appearance--was accustomed to his master\nbeing away unexpectedly on business, which was that of a ships'\nfurnisher.  He always kept an overcoat and a bag ready packed in the\noffice.  Missing them, Ellenby had assumed that his master had been\ncalled away by an early train.  He would have been worried after a few\ndays, but that he had received a telegram--as he then supposed from his\nmaster--explaining that young Hepworth had gone to Ireland and would be\naway for some days.  It was nothing unusual for Hepworth to be absent,\nsuperintending the furnishing of a ship, for a fortnight at a time, and\nnothing had transpired in the office necessitating special\ninstructions.  The telegram had been handed in at Charing Cross, but\nthe time chosen had been a busy period of the day, and no one had any\nrecollection of the sender.  Hepworth's clerk unhesitatingly identified\nthe body as that of his employer, for whom it was evident that he had\nentertained a feeling of affection.  About Mrs. Hepworth he said as\nlittle as he could. While she was awaiting her trial it had been\nnecessary for him to see her once or twice with reference to the\nbusiness.  Previous to this, he knew nothing about her.\n\nThe woman's own attitude throughout the trial had been quite\nunexplainable.  Beyond agreeing to a formal plea of \"Not guilty,\" she\nhad made no attempt to defend herself.  What little assistance her\nsolicitors had obtained had been given them, not by the woman herself,\nbut by Hepworth's clerk, more for the sake of his dead master than out\nof any sympathy towards the wife.  She herself appeared utterly\nindifferent.  Only once had she been betrayed into a momentary emotion.\nIt was when her solicitors were urging her almost angrily to give them\nsome particulars upon a point they thought might be helpful to her case.\n\n\"He's dead!\" she had cried out almost with a note of exultation. \"Dead!\nDead!  What else matters?\"\n\nThe next moment she had apologised for her outburst.\n\n\"Nothing can do any good,\" she had said.  \"Let the thing take its\ncourse.\"\n\nIt was the astounding callousness of the woman that told against her\nboth with the judge and the jury.  That shaving in the dining-room, the\nmurdered man's body not yet cold!  It must have been done with\nHepworth's safety-razor.  She must have brought it down to him, found\nhim a looking-glass, brought him soap and water and a towel, afterwards\nremoving all traces.  Except those few red hairs that had clung,\nunnoticed, to the carpet.  That nest of flat-irons used to weight the\nbody!  It must have been she who had thought of them. The idea would\nnever have occurred to a man.  The chain and padlock with which to\nfasten them.  She only could have known that such things were in the\nhouse.  It must have been she who had planned the exchange of clothes\nin Hepworth's office, giving him the key.  She it must have been who\nhad thought of the pond, holding open the door while the man had\nstaggered out under his ghastly burden; waited, keeping watch,\nlistening to hear the splash.\n\nEvidently it had been her intention to go off with the murderer--to\nlive with him!  That story about America.  If all had gone well, it\nwould have accounted for everything.  After leaving Laleham Gardens she\nhad taken lodgings in a small house in Kentish Town under the name of\nHoward, giving herself out to be a chorus singer, her husband being an\nactor on tour.  To make the thing plausible, she had obtained\nemployment in one of the pantomimes.  Not for a moment had she lost her\nhead.  No one had ever called at her lodgings, and there had come no\nletters for her.  Every hour of her day could be accounted for.  Their\nplans must have been worked out over the corpse of her murdered\nhusband.  She was found guilty of being an \"accessory after the fact,\"\nand sentenced to fifteen years' penal servitude.\n\nThat brought the story up to eleven years ago.  After the trial,\ninterested in spite of himself, my friend had ferreted out some further\nparticulars.  Inquiries at Liverpool had procured him the information\nthat Hepworth's father, a shipowner in a small way, had been well known\nand highly respected.  He was retired from business when he died, some\nthree years previous to the date of the murder. His wife had survived\nhim by only a few months.  Besides Michael, the murdered son, there\nwere two other children--an elder brother, who was thought to have gone\nabroad to one of the colonies, and a sister who had married a French\nnaval officer.  Either they had not heard of the case or had not wished\nto have their names dragged into it.  Young Michael had started life as\nan architect, and was supposed to have been doing well, but after the\ndeath of his parents had disappeared from the neighbourhood, and, until\nthe trial, none of his acquaintances up North ever knew what had become\nof him.\n\nBut a further item of knowledge that my friend's inquiries had elicited\nhad somewhat puzzled him.  Hepworth's clerk, Ellenby, had been the\nconfidential clerk of Hepworth's father!  He had entered the service of\nthe firm as a boy; and when Hepworth senior retired, Ellenby--with the\nold gentleman's assistance--had started in business for himself as a\nships' furnisher!  Nothing of all this came out at the trial.  Ellenby\nhad not been cross-examined.  There was no need for it.  But it seemed\nodd, under all the circumstances, that he had not volunteered the\ninformation.  It may, of course, have been for the sake of the brother\nand sister.  Hepworth is a common enough name in the North.  He may\nhave hoped to keep the family out of connection with the case.\n\nAs regards the woman, my friend could learn nothing further beyond the\nfact that, in her contract with the music-hall agent in Rotterdam, she\nhad described herself as the daughter of an English musician, and had\nstated that both her parents were dead.  She may have engaged herself\nwithout knowing the character of the hall, and the man, Charlie Martin,\nwith his handsome face and pleasing sailor ways, and at least an\nEnglishman, may have seemed to her a welcome escape.\n\nShe may have been passionately fond of him, and young Hepworth--crazy\nabout her, for she was beautiful enough to turn any man's head--may in\nMartin's absence have lied to her, told her he was dead--lord knows\nwhat!--to induce her to marry him.  The murder may have seemed to her a\nsort of grim justice.\n\nBut even so, her cold-blooded callousness was surely abnormal!  She had\nmarried him, lived with him for nearly a year.  To the Jetsons she had\ngiven the impression of being a woman deeply in love with her husband.\nIt could not have been mere acting kept up day after day.\n\n\"There was something else.\"  We were discussing the case in my friend's\nchambers.  His brief of eleven years ago was open before him.  He was\npacing up and down with his hands in his pockets, thinking as he\ntalked.  \"Something that never came out.  There was a curious feeling\nshe gave me in that moment when sentence was pronounced upon her.  It\nwas as if, instead of being condemned, she had triumphed.  Acting!  If\nshe had acted during the trial, pretended remorse, even pity, I could\nhave got her off with five years.  She seemed to be unable to disguise\nthe absolute physical relief she felt at the thought that he was dead,\nthat his hand would never again touch her.  There must have been\nsomething that had suddenly been revealed to her, something that had\nturned her love to hate.\n\n\"There must be something fine about the man, too.\"  That was another\nsuggestion that came to him as he stood staring out of the window\nacross the river.  \"She's paid and has got her receipt, but he is still\n'wanted.'  He is risking his neck every evening he watches for the\nraising of that blind.\"\n\nHis thought took another turn.\n\n\"Yet how could he have let her go through those ten years of living\ndeath while he walked the streets scot free?  Some time during the\ntrial--the evidence piling up against her day by day--why didn't he\ncome forward, if only to stand beside her?  Get himself hanged, if only\nout of mere decency?\"\n\nHe sat down, took the brief up in his hand without looking at it.\n\n\"Or was that the reward that she claimed?  That he should wait, keeping\nalive the one hope that would make the suffering possible to her?\nYes,\" he continued, musing, \"I can see a man who cared for a woman\ntaking that as his punishment.\"\n\nNow that his interest in the case had been revived he seemed unable to\nkeep it out of his mind.  Since our joint visit I had once or twice\npassed through the street by myself, and on the last occasion had again\nseen the raising of the blind.  It obsessed him--the desire to meet the\nman face to face.  A handsome, bold, masterful man, he conceived him.\nBut there must be something more for such a woman to have sold her\nsoul--almost, one might say--for the sake of him.\n\nThere was just one chance of succeeding.  Each time he had come from\nthe direction of the Edgware Road.  By keeping well out of sight at the\nother end of the street, and watching till he entered it, one might\ntime oneself to come upon him just under the lamp.  He would hardly be\nlikely to turn and go back; that would be to give himself away.  He\nwould probably content himself with pretending to be like ourselves,\nmerely hurrying through, and in his turn watching till we had\ndisappeared.\n\nFortune seemed inclined to favour us.  About the usual time the blind\nwas gently raised, and very soon afterwards there came round the corner\nthe figure of a man.  We entered the street ourselves a few seconds\nlater, and it seemed likely that, as we had planned, we should come\nface to face with him under the gaslight.  He walked towards us,\nstooping and with bent head.  We expected him to pass the house by.  To\nour surprise he stopped when he came to it, and pushed open the gate.\nIn another moment we should have lost all chance of seeing anything\nmore of him except his bent back.  With a couple of strides my friend\nwas behind him.  He laid his hand on the man's shoulder and forced him\nto turn round.  It was an old, wrinkled face with gentle, rather watery\neyes.\n\nWe were both so taken aback that for a moment we could say nothing. My\nfriend stammered out an apology about having mistaken the house, and\nrejoined me.  At the corner we burst out laughing almost\nsimultaneously.  And then my friend suddenly stopped and stared at me.\n\n\"Hepworth's old clerk!\" he said.  \"Ellenby!\"\n\n                    *          *          *\n\nIt seemed to him monstrous.  The man had been more than a clerk. The\nfamily had treated him as a friend.  Hepworth's father had set him up\nin business.  For the murdered lad he had had a sincere attachment; he\nhad left that conviction on all of them.  What was the meaning of it?\n\nA directory was on the mantelpiece.  It was the next afternoon.  I had\ncalled upon him in his chambers.  It was just an idea that came to me.\nI crossed over and opened it, and there was his name, \"Ellenby and Co.,\nShips' Furnishers,\" in a court off the Minories.\n\nWas he helping her for the sake of his dead master--trying to get her\naway from the man.  But why?  The woman had stood by and watched the\nlad murdered.  How could he bear even to look on her again?\n\nUnless there had been that something that had not come out--something\nhe had learnt later--that excused even that monstrous callousness of\nhers.\n\nYet what could there be?  It had all been so planned, so cold-blooded.\nThat shaving in the dining-room!  It was that seemed most to stick in\nhis throat.  She must have brought him down a looking-glass; there was\nnot one in the room.  Why couldn't he have gone upstairs into the\nbathroom, where Hepworth always shaved himself, where he would have\nfound everything to his hand?\n\nHe had been moving about the room, talking disjointedly as he paced,\nand suddenly he stopped and looked at me.\n\n\"Why in the dining-room?\" he demanded of me.\n\nHe was jingling some keys in his pocket.  It was a habit of his when\ncross-examining, and I felt as if somehow I knew; and, without\nthinking--so it seemed to me--I answered him.\n\n\"Perhaps,\" I said, \"it was easier to bring a razor down than to carry a\ndead man up.\"\n\nHe leant with his arms across the table, his eyes glittering with\nexcitement.\n\n\"Can't you see it?\" he said.  \"That little back parlour with its fussy\nornaments.  The three of them standing round the table, Hepworth's\nhands nervously clutching a chair.  The reproaches, the taunts, the\nthreats.  Young Hepworth--he struck everyone as a weak man, a man\nphysically afraid--white, stammering, not knowing which way to look.\nThe woman's eyes turning from one to the other.  That flash of contempt\nagain--she could not help it--followed, worse still, by pity.  If only\nhe could have answered back, held his own! If only he had not been\nafraid!  And then that fatal turning away with a sneering laugh one\nimagines, the bold, dominating eyes no longer there to cower him.\n\n\"That must have been the moment.  The bullet, if you remember, entered\nthrough the back of the man's neck.  Hepworth must always have been\npicturing to himself this meeting--tenants of garden suburbs do not\ncarry loaded revolvers as a habit--dwelling upon it till he had worked\nhimself up into a frenzy of hate and fear.  Weak men always fly to\nextremes.  If there was no other way, he would kill him.\n\n\"Can't you hear the silence?  After the reverberations had died away!\nAnd then they are both down on their knees, patting him, feeling for\nhis heart.  The man must have gone down like a felled ox; there were no\ntraces of blood on the carpet.  The house is far from any neighbour;\nthe shot in all probability has not been heard. If only they can get\nrid of the body!  The pond--not a hundred yards away!\"\n\nHe reached for the brief, still lying among his papers; hurriedly\nturned the scored pages.\n\n\"What easier?  A house being built on the very next plot. Wheelbarrows\nto be had for the taking.  A line of planks reaching down to the edge.\nDepth of water where the body was discovered four feet six inches.\nNothing to do but just tip up the barrow.\n\n\"Think a minute.  Must weigh him down, lest he rise to accuse us;\nweight him heavily, so that he will sink lower and lower into the soft\nmud, lie there till he rots.\n\n\"Think again.  Think it out to the end.  Suppose, in spite of all our\nprecautions, he does rise?  Suppose the chain slips?  The workmen going\nto and fro for water--suppose they do discover him?\n\n\"He is lying on his back, remember.  They would have turned him over to\nfeel for his heart.  Have closed his eyes, most probably, not liking\ntheir stare.\n\n\"It would be the woman who first thought of it.  She has seen them both\nlying with closed eyes beside her.  It may have always been in her\nmind, the likeness between them.  With Hepworth's watch in his pocket,\nHepworth's ring on his finger!  If only it was not for the beard--that\nfierce, curling, red beard!\n\n\"They creep to the window and peer out.  Fog still thick as soup. Not a\nsoul, not a sound.  Plenty of time.\n\n\"Then to get away, to hide till one is sure.  Put on the mackintosh. A\nman in a yellow mackintosh may have been seen to enter; let him be seen\nto go away.  In some dark corner or some empty railway carriage take it\noff and roll it up.  Then make for the office.  Wait there for Ellenby.\nTrue as steel, Ellenby; good business man.  Be guided by Ellenby.\"\n\nHe flung the brief from him with a laugh.\n\n\"Why, there's not a missing link!\" he cried.  \"And to think that not a\nfool among us ever thought of it!\"\n\n\"Everything fitting into its place,\" I suggested, \"except young\nHepworth.  Can you see him, from your description of him, sitting down\nand coolly elaborating plans for escape, the corpse of the murdered man\nstretched beside him on the hearthrug?\"\n\n\"No,\" he answered.  \"But I can see her doing it, a woman who for week\nafter week kept silence while we raged and stormed at her, a woman who\nfor three hours sat like a statue while old Cutbush painted her to a\ncrowded court as a modern Jezebel, who rose up from her seat when that\nsentence of fifteen years' penal servitude was pronounced upon her with\na look of triumph in her eyes, and walked out of court as if she had\nbeen a girl going to meet her lover.\n\n\"I'll wager,\" he added, \"it was she who did the shaving.  Hepworth\nwould have cut him, even with a safety-razor.\"\n\n\"It must have been the other one, Martin,\" I said, \"that she loathed.\nThat almost exultation at the thought that he was dead,\" I reminded him.\n\n\"Yes,\" he mused.  \"She made no attempt to disguise it.  Curious there\nhaving been that likeness between them.\"  He looked at his watch.  \"Do\nyou care to come with me?\" he said.\n\n\"Where are you going?\" I asked him.\n\n\"We may just catch him,\" he answered.  \"Ellenby and Co.\"\n\n                    *          *          *\n\nThe office was on the top floor of an old-fashioned house in a\ncul-de-sac off the Minories.  Mr. Ellenby was out, so the lanky\noffice-boy informed us, but would be sure to return before evening; and\nwe sat and waited by the meagre fire till, as the dusk was falling, we\nheard his footsteps on the creaking stairs.\n\nHe halted a moment in the doorway, recognising us apparently without\nsurprise; and then, with a hope that we had not been kept waiting long,\nhe led the way into an inner room.\n\n\"I do not suppose you remember me,\" said my friend, as soon as the door\nwas closed.  \"I fancy that, until last night, you never saw me without\nmy wig and gown.  It makes a difference.  I was Mrs. Hepworth's senior\ncounsel.\"\n\nIt was unmistakable, the look of relief that came into the old, dim\neyes.  Evidently the incident of the previous evening had suggested to\nhim an enemy.\n\n\"You were very good,\" he murmured.  \"Mrs. Hepworth was overwrought at\nthe time, but she was very grateful, I know, for all your efforts.\"\n\nI thought I detected a faint smile on my friend's lips.\n\n\"I must apologise for my rudeness to you of last night,\" he continued.\n\"I expected, when I took the liberty of turning you round, that I was\ngoing to find myself face to face with a much younger man.\"\n\n\"I took you to be a detective,\" answered Ellenby, in his soft, gentle\nvoice.  \"You will forgive me, I'm sure.  I am rather short-sighted.  Of\ncourse, I can only conjecture, but if you will take my word, I can\nassure you that Mrs. Hepworth has never seen or heard from the man\nCharlie Martin since the date of\"--he hesitated a moment--\"of the\nmurder.\"\n\n\"It would have been difficult,\" agreed my friend, \"seeing that Charlie\nMartin lies buried in Highgate Cemetery.\"\n\nOld as he was, he sprang from his chair, white and trembling.\n\n\"What have you come here for?\" he demanded.\n\n\"I took more than a professional interest in the case,\" answered my\nfriend.  \"Ten years ago I was younger than I am now.  It may have been\nher youth--her extreme beauty.  I think Mrs. Hepworth, in allowing her\nhusband to visit her--here where her address is known to the police,\nand watch at any moment may be set upon her--is placing him in a\nposition of grave danger.  If you care to lay before me any facts that\nwill allow me to judge of the case, I am prepared to put my experience,\nand, if need be, my assistance, at her service.\"\n\nHis self-possession had returned to him.\n\n\"If you will excuse me,\" he said, \"I will tell the boy that he can go.\"\n\nWe heard him, a moment later, turn the key in the outer door; and when\nhe came back and had made up the fire, he told us the beginning of the\nstory.\n\nThe name of the man buried in Highgate Cemetery was Hepworth, after\nall.  Not Michael, but Alex, the elder brother.\n\nFrom boyhood he had been violent, brutal, unscrupulous.  Judging from\nEllenby's story, it was difficult to accept him as a product of modern\ncivilisation.  Rather he would seem to have been a throwback to some\nsavage, buccaneering ancestor.  To expect him to work, while he could\nlive in vicious idleness at somebody else's expense, was found to be\nhopeless.  His debts were paid for about the third or fourth time, and\nhe was shipped off to the Colonies.  Unfortunately, there were no means\nof keeping him there.  So soon as the money provided him had been\nsquandered, he returned, demanding more by menaces and threats.\nMeeting with unexpected firmness, he seems to have regarded theft and\nforgery as the only alternative left to him. To save him from\npunishment and the family name from disgrace, his parents' savings were\nsacrificed.  It was grief and shame that, according to Ellenby, killed\nthem both within a few months of one another.\n\nDeprived by this blow of what he no doubt had come to consider his\nnatural means of support, and his sister, fortunately for herself,\nbeing well out of his reach, he next fixed upon his brother Michael as\nhis stay-by.  Michael, weak, timid, and not perhaps without some\nremains of boyish affection for a strong, handsome, elder brother,\nfoolishly yielded.  The demands, of course, increased, until, in the\nend, it came almost as a relief when the man's vicious life led to his\ngetting mixed up with a crime of a particularly odious nature. He was\nanxious now for his own sake to get away, and Michael, with little\nenough to spare for himself, provided him with the means, on the solemn\nunderstanding that he would never return.\n\nBut the worry and misery of it all had left young Michael a broken man.\nUnable to concentrate his mind any longer upon his profession, his\ncraving was to get away from all his old associations--to make a fresh\nstart in life.  It was Ellenby who suggested London and the ship\nfurnishing business, where Michael's small remaining capital would be\nof service.  The name of Hepworth would be valuable in shipping\ncircles, and Ellenby, arguing this consideration, but chiefly with the\nhope of giving young Michael more interest in the business, had\ninsisted that the firm should be Hepworth and Co.\n\nThey had not been started a year before the man returned, as usual\ndemanding more money.  Michael, acting under Ellenby's guidance,\nrefused in terms that convinced his brother that the game of bullying\nwas up.  He waited a while, and then wrote pathetically that he was ill\nand starving.  If only for the sake of his young wife, would not\nMichael come and see them?\n\nThis was the first they had heard of his marriage.  There was just a\nfaint hope that it might have effected a change, and Michael, against\nEllenby's advice, decided to go.  In a miserable lodging-house in the\nEast End he found the young wife, but not his brother, who did not\nreturn till he was on the point of leaving.  In the interval the girl\nseems to have confided her story to Michael.\n\nShe had been a singer, engaged at a music-hall in Rotterdam.  There\nAlex Hepworth, calling himself Charlie Martin, had met her and made\nlove to her.  When he chose, he could be agreeable enough, and no doubt\nher youth and beauty had given to his protestations, for the time\nbeing, a genuine ring of admiration and desire.  It was to escape from\nher surroundings, more than anything else, that she had consented.  She\nwas little more than a child, and anything seemed preferable to the\nnightly horror to which her life exposed her.\n\nHe had never married her.  At least, that was her belief at the time.\nDuring his first drunken bout he had flung it in her face that the form\nthey had gone through was mere bunkum.  Unfortunately for her, this was\na lie.  He had always been coolly calculating.  It was probably with\nthe idea of a safe investment that he had seen to it that the ceremony\nhad been strictly legal.\n\nHer life with him, so soon as the first novelty of her had worn off,\nhad been unspeakable.  The band that she wore round her neck was to\nhide where, in a fit of savagery, because she had refused to earn money\nfor him on the streets, he had tried to cut her throat.  Now that she\nhad got back to England she intended to leave him.  If he followed and\nkilled her she did not care.\n\nIt was for her sake that young Hepworth eventually offered to help his\nbrother again, on the condition that he would go away by himself.  To\nthis the other agreed.  He seems to have given a short display of\nremorse.  There must have been a grin on his face as he turned away.\nHis cunning eyes had foreseen what was likely to happen.  The idea of\nblackmail was no doubt in his mind from the beginning.  With the charge\nof bigamy as a weapon in his hand, he might rely for the rest of his\nlife upon a steady and increasing income.\n\nMichael saw his brother off as a second-class passenger on a ship bound\nfor the Cape.  Of course, there was little chance of his keeping his\nword, but there was always the chance of his getting himself knocked on\nthe head in some brawl.  Anyhow, he would be out of the way for a\nseason, and the girl, Lola, would be left.  A month later he married\nher, and four months after that received a letter from his brother\ncontaining messages to Mrs. Martin, \"from her loving husband, Charlie,\"\nwho hoped before long to have the pleasure of seeing her again.\n\nInquiries through the English Consul in Rotterdam proved that the\nthreat was no mere bluff.  The marriage had been legal and binding.\n\nWhat happened on the night of the murder, was very much as my friend\nhad reconstructed it.  Ellenby, reaching the office at his usual time\nthe next morning, had found Hepworth waiting for him.  There he had\nremained in hiding until one morning, with dyed hair and a slight\nmoustache, he had ventured forth.\n\nHad the man's death been brought about by any other means, Ellenby\nwould have counselled his coming forward and facing his trial, as he\nhimself was anxious to do; but, viewed in conjunction with the relief\nthe man's death must have been to both of them, that loaded revolver\nwas too suggestive of premeditation.  The isolation of the house, that\nconveniently near pond, would look as if thought of beforehand.  Even\nif pleading extreme provocation, Michael escaped the rope, a long term\nof penal servitude would be inevitable.\n\nNor was it certain that even then the woman would go free.  The\nmurdered man would still, by a strange freak, be her husband; the\nmurderer--in the eye of the law--her lover.\n\nHer passionate will had prevailed.  Young Hepworth had sailed for\nAmerica.  There he had no difficulty in obtaining employment--of\ncourse, under another name--in an architects office; and later had set\nup for himself.  Since the night of the murder they had not seen each\nother till some three weeks ago.\n\n                    *          *          *\n\nI never saw the woman again.  My friend, I believe, called on her.\nHepworth had already returned to America, and my friend had succeeded\nin obtaining for her some sort of a police permit that practically left\nher free.\n\nSometimes of an evening I find myself passing through the street. And\nalways I have the feeling of having blundered into an empty\ntheatre--where the play is ended.\n\n\n\n\nHIS EVENING OUT.\n\nThe evidence of the park-keeper, David Bristow, of Gilder Street,\nCamden Town, is as follows:\n\nI was on duty in St. James's Park on Thursday evening, my sphere\nextending from the Mall to the northern shore of the ornamental water\neast of the suspension bridge.  At five-and-twenty to seven I took up a\nposition between the peninsula and the bridge to await my colleague.\nHe ought to have relieved me at half-past six, but did not arrive until\na few minutes before seven, owing, so he explained, to the breaking\ndown of his motor-'bus--which may have been true or may not, as the\nsaying is.\n\nI had just come to a halt, when my attention was arrested by a lady. I\nam unable to explain why the presence of a lady in St. James's Park\nshould have seemed in any way worthy of notice except that, for certain\nreasons, she reminded me of my first wife.  I observed that she\nhesitated between one of the public seats and two vacant chairs\nstanding by themselves a little farther to the east.  Eventually she\nselected one of the chairs, and, having cleaned it with an evening\npaper--the birds in this portion of the Park being extremely\nprolific--sat down upon it.  There was plenty of room upon the public\nseat close to it, except for some children who were playing touch; and\nin consequence of this I judged her to be a person of means.\n\nI walked to a point from where I could command the southern approaches\nto the bridge, my colleague arriving sometimes by way of Birdcage Walk\nand sometimes by way of the Horse Guards Parade.  Not seeing any signs\nof him in the direction of the bridge, I turned back.  A little way\npast the chair where the lady was sitting I met Mr. Parable.  I know\nMr. Parable quite well by sight.  He was wearing the usual grey suit\nand soft felt hat with which the pictures in the newspapers have made\nus all familiar.  I judged that Mr. Parable had come from the Houses of\nParliament, and the next morning my suspicions were confirmed by\nreading that he had been present at a tea-party given on the terrace by\nMr. Will Crooks.  Mr. Parable conveyed to me the suggestion of a man\nabsorbed in thought, and not quite aware of what he was doing; but in\nthis, of course, I may have been mistaken.  He paused for a moment to\nlook over the railings at the pelican.  Mr. Parable said something to\nthe pelican which I was not near enough to overhear; and then, still\napparently in a state of abstraction, crossed the path and seated\nhimself on the chair next to that occupied by the young lady.\n\nFrom the tree against which I was standing I was able to watch the\nsubsequent proceedings unobserved.  The lady looked at Mr. Parable and\nthen turned away and smiled to herself.  It was a peculiar smile, and,\nagain in some way I am unable to explain, reminded me of my first wife.\nIt was not till the pelican put down his other leg and walked away that\nMr. Parable, turning his gaze westward, became aware of the lady's\npresence.\n\nFrom information that has subsequently come to my knowledge, I am\nprepared to believe that Mr. Parable, from the beginning, really\nthought the lady was a friend of his.  What the lady thought is a\nmatter for conjecture; I can only speak to the facts.  Mr. Parable\nlooked at the lady once or twice.  Indeed, one might say with truth\nthat he kept on doing it.  The lady, it must be admitted, behaved for a\nwhile with extreme propriety; but after a time, as I felt must happen,\ntheir eyes met, and then it was I heard her say:\n\n\"Good evening, Mr. Parable.\"\n\nShe accompanied the words with the same peculiar smile to which I have\nalready alluded.  The exact words of Mr. Parable's reply I cannot\nremember.  But it was to the effect that he had thought from the first\nthat he had known her but had not been quite sure.  It was at this\npoint that, thinking I saw my colleague approaching, I went to meet\nhim.  I found I was mistaken, and slowly retraced my steps. I passed\nMr. Parable and the lady.  They were talking together with what I\nshould describe as animation.  I went as far as the southern extremity\nof the suspension bridge, and must have waited there quite ten minutes\nbefore returning eastward.  It was while I was passing behind them on\nthe grass, partially screened by the rhododendrons, that I heard Mr.\nParable say to the lady:\n\n\"Why shouldn't we have it together?\"\n\nTo which the lady replied:\n\n\"But what about Miss Clebb?\"\n\nI could not overhear what followed, owing to their sinking their\nvoices.  It seemed to be an argument.  It ended with the young lady\nlaughing and then rising.  Mr. Parable also rose, and they walked off\ntogether.  As they passed me I heard the lady say:\n\n\"I wonder if there's any place in London where you're not likely to be\nrecognised.\"\n\nMr. Parable, who gave me the idea of being in a state of growing\nexcitement, replied quite loudly:\n\n\"Oh, let 'em!\"\n\nI was following behind them when the lady suddenly stopped.\n\n\"I know!\" she said.  \"The Popular Cafe.\"\n\n\nThe park-keeper said he was convinced he would know the lady again,\nhaving taken particular notice of her.  She had brown eyes and was\nwearing a black hat supplemented with poppies.\n\n                    *          *          *\n\nArthur Horton, waiter at the Popular Cafe, states as follows:\n\nI know Mr. John Parable by sight.  Have often heard him speak at public\nmeetings.  Am a bit of a Socialist myself.  Remember his dining at the\nPopular Cafe on the evening of Thursday.  Didn't recognise him\nimmediately on his entrance for two reasons.  One was his hat, and the\nother was his girl.  I took it from him and hung it up.  I mean, of\ncourse, the hat.  It was a brand-new bowler, a trifle ikey about the\nbrim.  Have always associated him with a soft grey felt.  But never\nwith girls.  Females, yes, to any extent.  But this was the real\narticle.  You know what I mean--the sort of girl that you turn round to\nlook after.  It was she who selected the table in the corner behind the\ndoor.  Been there before, I should say.\n\nI should, in the ordinary course of business, have addressed Mr.\nParable by name, such being our instructions in the case of customers\nknown to us.  But, putting the hat and the girl together, I decided not\nto.  Mr. Parable was all for our three-and-six-penny table d'hote; he\nevidently not wanting to think.  But the lady wouldn't hear of it.\n\n\"Remember Miss Clebb,\" she reminded him.\n\nOf course, at the time I did not know what was meant.  She ordered thin\nsoup, a grilled sole, and cutlets au gratin.  It certainly couldn't\nhave been the dinner.  With regard to the champagne, he would have his\nown way.  I picked him out a dry '94, that you might have weaned a baby\non.  I suppose it was the whole thing combined.\n\nIt was after the sole that I heard Mr. Parable laugh.  I could hardly\ncredit my ears, but half-way through the cutlets he did it again.\n\nThere are two kinds of women.  There is the woman who, the more she\neats and drinks, the stodgier she gets, and the woman who lights up\nafter it.  I suggested a peche Melba between them, and when I returned\nwith it, Mr. Parable was sitting with his elbows on the table gazing\nacross at her with an expression that I can only describe as quite\nhuman.  It was when I brought the coffee that he turned to me and asked:\n\n\"What's doing? Nothing stuffy,\" he added.  \"Is there an Exhibition\nanywhere--something in the open air?\"\n\n\"You are forgetting Miss Clebb,\" the lady reminded him.\n\n\"For two pins,\" said Mr. Parable, \"I would get up at the meeting and\ntell Miss Clebb what I really think about her.\"\n\nI suggested the Earl's Court Exhibition, little thinking at the time\nwhat it was going to lead to; but the lady at first wouldn't hear of\nit, and the party at the next table calling for their bill (they had\nasked for it once or twice before, when I came to think of it), I had\nto go across to them.\n\nWhen I got back the argument had just concluded, and the lady was\nholding up her finger.\n\n\"On condition that we leave at half-past nine, and that you go straight\nto Caxton Hall,\" she said.\n\n\"We'll see about it,\" said Mr. Parable, and offered me half a crown.\n\nTips being against the rules, I couldn't take it.  Besides, one of the\njumpers had his eye on me.  I explained to him, jocosely, that I was\ndoing it for a bet.  He was surprised when I handed him his hat, but,\nthe lady whispering to him, he remembered himself in time.\n\nAs they went out together I heard Mr. Parable say to the lady:\n\n\"It's funny what a shocking memory I have for names.\"\n\nTo which the lady replied:\n\n\"You'll think it funnier still to-morrow.\" And then she laughed.\n\n\nMr. Horton thought he would know the lady again.  He puts down her age\nat about twenty-six, describing her--to use his own piquant\nexpression--as \"a bit of all right.\"  She had brown eyes and a taking\nway with her.\n\n                    *          *          *\n\nMiss Ida Jenks, in charge of the Eastern Cigarette Kiosk at the Earl's\nCourt Exhibition, gives the following particulars:\n\nFrom where I generally stand I can easily command a view of the\ninterior of the Victoria Hall; that is, of course, to say when the\ndoors are open, as on a warm night is usually the case.\n\nOn the evening of Thursday, the twenty-seventh, it was fairly well\noccupied, but not to any great extent.  One couple attracted my\nattention by reason of the gentleman's erratic steering.  Had he been\nmy partner I should have suggested a polka, the tango not being the\nsort of dance that can be picked up in an evening.  What I mean to say\nis, that he struck me as being more willing than experienced. Some of\nthe bumps she got would have made me cross; but we all have our\nfancies, and, so far as I could judge, they both appeared to be\nenjoying themselves.  It was after the \"Hitchy Koo\" that they came\noutside.\n\nThe seat to the left of the door is popular by reason of its being\npartly screened by bushes, but by leaning forward a little it is quite\npossible for me to see what goes on there.  They were the first couple\nout, having had a bad collision near the bandstand, so easily secured\nit.  The gentleman was laughing.\n\nThere was something about him from the first that made me think I knew\nhim, and when he took off his hat to wipe his head it came to me all of\na sudden, he being the exact image of his effigy at Madame Tussaud's,\nwhich, by a curious coincidence, I happened to have visited with a\nfriend that very afternoon.  The lady was what some people would call\ngood-looking, and others mightn't.\n\nI was watching them, naturally a little interested.  Mr. Parable, in\nhelping the lady to adjust her cloak, drew her--it may have been by\naccident--towards him; and then it was that a florid gentleman with a\nshort pipe in his mouth stepped forward and addressed the lady. He\nraised his hat and, remarking \"Good evening,\" added that he hoped she\nwas \"having a pleasant time.\"  His tone, I should explain, was\nsarcastic.\n\nThe young woman, whatever else may be said of her, struck me as\nbehaving quite correctly.  Replying to his salutation with a cold and\ndistant bow, she rose, and, turning to Mr. Parable, observed that she\nthought it was perhaps time for them to be going.\n\nThe gentleman, who had taken his pipe from his mouth, said--again in a\nsarcastic tone--that he thought so too, and offered the lady his arm.\n\n\"I don't think we need trouble you,\" said Mr. Parable, and stepped\nbetween them.\n\nTo describe what followed I, being a lady, am hampered for words.  I\nremember seeing Mr. Parable's hat go up into the air, and then the next\nmoment the florid gentleman's head was lying on my counter smothered in\ncigarettes.  I naturally screamed for the police, but the crowd was\ndead against me; and it was only after what I believe in technical\nlanguage would be termed \"the fourth round\" that they appeared upon the\nscene.\n\nThe last I saw of Mr. Parable he was shaking a young constable who had\nlost his helmet, while three other policemen had hold of him from\nbehind.  The florid gentleman's hat I found on the floor of my kiosk\nand returned to him; but after a useless attempt to get it on his head,\nhe disappeared with it in his hand.  The lady was nowhere to be seen.\n\n\nMiss Jenks thinks she would know her again.  She was wearing a hat\ntrimmed with black chiffon and a spray of poppies, and was slightly\nfreckled.\n\n                    *          *          *\n\nSuperintendent S. Wade, in answer to questions put to him by our\nrepresentative, vouchsafed the following replies:\n\nYes.  I was in charge at the Vine Street Police Station on the night of\nThursday, the twenty-seventh.\n\nNo.  I have no recollection of a charge of any description being\npreferred against any gentleman of the name of Parable.\n\nYes.  A gentleman was brought in about ten o'clock charged with\nbrawling at the Earl's Court Exhibition and assaulting a constable in\nthe discharge of his duty.\n\nThe gentleman gave the name of Mr. Archibald Quincey, Harcourt\nBuildings, Temple.\n\nNo.  The gentleman made no application respecting bail, electing to\npass the night in the cells.  A certain amount of discretion is\npermitted to us, and we made him as comfortable as possible.\n\nYes.  A lady.\n\nNo.  About a gentleman who had got himself into trouble at the Earl's\nCourt Exhibition.  She mentioned no name.\n\nI showed her the charge sheet.  She thanked me and went away.\n\nThat I cannot say.  I can only tell you that at nine-fifteen on Friday\nmorning bail was tendered, and, after inquiries, accepted in the person\nof Julius Addison Tupp, of the Sunnybrook Steam Laundry, Twickenham.\n\nThat is no business of ours.\n\nThe accused who, I had seen to it, had had a cup of tea and a little\ntoast at seven-thirty, left in company with Mr. Tupp soon after ten.\n\n\nSuperintendent Wade admitted he had known cases where accused parties,\nto avoid unpleasantness, had stated their names to be other than their\nown, but declined to discuss the matter further.\n\nSuperintendent Wade, while expressing his regret that he had no more\ntime to bestow upon our representative, thought it highly probable that\nhe would know the lady again if he saw her.\n\nWithout professing to be a judge of such matters, Superintendent Wade\nthinks she might be described as a highly intelligent young woman, and\nof exceptionally prepossessing appearance.\n\n                    *          *          *\n\nFrom Mr. Julius Tupp, of the Sunnybrook Steam Laundry, Twickenham, upon\nwhom our representative next called, we have been unable to obtain much\nassistance, Mr. Tupp replying to all questions put to him by the one\nformula, \"Not talking.\"\n\nFortunately, our representative, on his way out through the drying\nground, was able to obtain a brief interview with Mrs. Tupp.\n\nMrs. Tupp remembers admitting a young lady to the house on the morning\nof Friday, the twenty-eighth, when she opened the door to take in the\nmilk.  The lady, Mrs. Tupp remembers, spoke in a husky voice, the\nresult, as the young lady explained with a pleasant laugh, of having\npassed the night wandering about Ham Common, she having been\nmisdirected the previous evening by a fool of a railway porter, and not\nwishing to disturb the neighbourhood by waking people up at two o'clock\nin the morning, which, in Mrs. Tupp's opinion, was sensible of her.\n\nMrs. Tupp describes the young lady as of agreeable manners, but\nlooking, naturally, a bit washed out.  The lady asked for Mr. Tupp,\nexplaining that a friend of his was in trouble, which did not in the\nleast surprise Mrs. Tupp, she herself not holding with Socialists and\nsuch like.  Mr. Tupp, on being informed, dressed hastily and went\ndownstairs, and he and the young lady left the house together. Mr.\nTupp, on being questioned as to the name of his friend, had called up\nthat it was no one Mrs. Tupp would know, a Mr. Quince--it may have been\nQuincey.\n\nMrs. Tupp is aware that Mr. Parable is also a Socialist, and is\nacquainted with the saying about thieves hanging together.  But has\nworked for Mr. Parable for years and has always found him a most\nsatisfactory client; and, Mr. Tupp appearing at this point, our\nrepresentative thanked Mrs. Tupp for her information and took his\ndeparture.\n\n                    *          *          *\n\nMr. Horatius Condor, Junior, who consented to partake of luncheon in\ncompany with our representative at the Holborn Restaurant, was at first\ndisinclined to be of much assistance, but eventually supplied our\nrepresentative with the following information:\n\nMy relationship to Mr. Archibald Quincey, Harcourt Buildings, Temple,\nis perhaps a little difficult to define.\n\nHow he himself regards me I am never quite sure.  There will be days\ntogether when we will be quite friendly like, and at other times he\nwill be that offhanded and peremptory you might think I was his\nblooming office boy.\n\nOn Friday morning, the twenty-eighth, I didn't get to Harcourt\nBuildings at the usual time, knowing that Mr. Quincey would not be\nthere himself, he having arranged to interview Mr. Parable for the\nDaily Chronicle at ten o'clock.  I allowed him half an hour, to be\nquite safe, and he came in at a quarter past eleven.\n\nHe took no notice of me.  For about ten minutes--it may have been\nless--he walked up and down the room, cursing and swearing and kicking\nthe furniture about.  He landed an occasional walnut table in the\nmiddle of my shins, upon which I took the opportunity of wishing him\n\"Good morning,\" and he sort of woke up, as you might say.\n\n\"How did the interview go off?\" I says.  \"Got anything interesting?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he says; \"quite interesting.  Oh, yes, decidedly interesting.\"\n\nHe was holding himself in, if you understand, speaking with horrible\nslowness and deliberation.\n\n\"D'you know where he was last night?\" he asks me.\n\n\"Yes,\" I says; \"Caxton Hall, wasn't it?--meeting to demand the release\nof Miss Clebb.\"\n\nHe leans across the table till his face was within a few inches of mine.\n\n\"Guess again,\" he says.\n\nI wasn't doing any guessing.  He had hurt me with the walnut table, and\nI was feeling a bit short-tempered.\n\n\"Oh! don't make a game of it,\" I says.  \"It's too early in the morning.\"\n\n\"At the Earl's Court Exhibition,\" he says; \"dancing the tango with a\nlady that he picked up in St. James's Park.\"\n\n\"Well,\" I says, \"why not?  He don't often get much fun.\"  I thought it\nbest to treat it lightly.\n\nHe takes no notice of my observation.\n\n\"A rival comes upon the scene,\" he continues--\"a fatheaded ass,\naccording to my information--and they have a stand-up fight.  He gets\nrun in and spends the night in a Vine Street police cell.\"\n\nI suppose I was grinning without knowing it.\n\n\"Funny, ain't it?\" he says.\n\n\"Well,\" I says, \"it has its humorous side, hasn't it?  What'll he get?\"\n\n\"I am not worrying about what HE is going to get,\" he answers back. \"I\nam worrying about what _I_ am going to get.\"\n\nI thought he had gone dotty.\n\n\"What's it got to do with you?\" I says.\n\n\"If old Wotherspoon is in a good humour,\" he continues, \"and the\nconstable's head has gone down a bit between now and Wednesday, I may\nget off with forty shillings and a public reprimand.\n\n\"On the other hand,\" he goes on--he was working himself into a sort of\nfit--\"if the constable's head goes on swelling, and old Wotherspoon's\nliver gets worse, I've got to be prepared for a month without the\noption.  That is, if I am fool enough--\"\n\nHe had left both the doors open, which in the daytime we generally do,\nour chambers being at the top.  Miss Dorton--that's Mr. Parable's\nsecretary--barges into the room.  She didn't seem to notice me.  She\nstaggers to a chair and bursts into tears.\n\n\"He's gone,\" she says; \"he's taken cook with him and gone.\"\n\n\"Gone!\" says the guv'nor.  \"Where's he gone?\"\n\n\"To Fingest,\" she says through her sobs--\"to the cottage.  Miss\nBulstrode came in just after you had left,\" she says.  \"He wants to get\naway from everyone and have a few days' quiet.  And then he is coming\nback, and he is going to do it himself.\"\n\n\"Do what?\" says the guv'nor, irritable like.\n\n\"Fourteen days,\" she wails.  \"It'll kill him.\"\n\n\"But the case doesn't come on till Wednesday,\" says the guv'nor. \"How\ndo you know it's going to be fourteen days?\"\n\n\"Miss Bulstrode,\" she says, \"she's seen the magistrate.  He says he\nalways gives fourteen days in cases of unprovoked assault.\"\n\n\"But it wasn't unprovoked,\" says the guv'nor.  \"The other man began it\nby knocking off his hat.  It was self-defence.\"\n\n\"She put that to him,\" she says, \"and he agreed that that would alter\nhis view of the case.  But, you see,\" she continues, \"we can't find the\nother man.  He isn't likely to come forward of his own accord.\"\n\n\"The girl must know,\" says the guv'nor--\"this girl he picks up in St.\nJames's Park, and goes dancing with.  The man must have been some\nfriend of hers.\"\n\n\"But we can't find her either,\" she says.  \"He doesn't even know her\nname--he can't remember it.\"\n\n\"You will do it, won't you?\" she says.\n\n\"Do what?\" says the guv'nor again.\n\n\"The fourteen days,\" she says.\n\n\"But I thought you said he was going to do it himself?\" he says.\n\n\"But he mustn't,\" she says.  \"Miss Bulstrode is coming round to see\nyou.  Think of it!  Think of the headlines in the papers,\" she says.\n\"Think of the Fabian Society.  Think of the Suffrage cause.  We mustn't\nlet him.\"\n\n\"What about me?\" says the guv'nor.  \"Doesn't anybody care for me?\"\n\n\"You don't matter,\" she says.  \"Besides,\" she says, \"with your\ninfluence you'll be able to keep it out of the papers.  If it comes out\nthat it was Mr. Parable, nothing on earth will be able to.\"\n\nThe guv'nor was almost as much excited by this time as she was.\n\n\"I'll see the Fabian Society and the Women's Vote and the Home for Lost\nCats at Battersea, and all the rest of the blessed bag of tricks--\"\n\nI'd been thinking to myself, and had just worked it out.\n\n\"What's he want to take his cook down with him for?\" I says.\n\n\"To cook for him,\" says the guv'nor.  \"What d'you generally want a cook\nfor?\"\n\n\"Rats!\" I says.  \"Does he usually take his cook with him?\"\n\n\"No,\" answered Miss Dorton.  \"Now I come to think of it, he has always\nhitherto put up with Mrs. Meadows.\"\n\n\"You will find the lady down at Fingest,\" I says, \"sitting opposite him\nand enjoying a recherche dinner for two.\"\n\nThe guv'nor slaps me on the back, and lifts Miss Dorton out of her\nchair.\n\n\"You get on back,\" he says, \"and telephone to Miss Bulstrode.  I'll be\nround at half-past twelve.\"\n\nMiss Dorton went out in a dazed sort of condition, and the guv'nor\ngives me a sovereign, and tells me I can have the rest of the day to\nmyself.\n\n\nMr. Condor, Junior, considers that what happened subsequently goes to\nprove that he was right more than it proves that he was wrong.\n\nMr. Condor, Junior, also promised to send us a photograph of himself\nfor reproduction, but, unfortunately, up to the time of going to press\nit had not arrived.\n\n                    *          *          *\n\nFrom Mrs. Meadows, widow of the late Corporal John Meadows, V.C.,\nTurberville, Bucks, the following further particulars were obtained by\nour local representative:\n\nI have done for Mr. Parable now for some years past, my cottage being\nonly a mile off, which makes it easy for me to look after him.\n\nMr. Parable likes the place to be always ready so that he can drop in\nwhen he chooses, he sometimes giving me warning and sometimes not.  It\nwas about the end of last month--on a Friday, if I remember\nrightly--that he suddenly turned up.\n\nAs a rule, he walks from Henley station, but on this occasion he\narrived in a fly, he having a young woman with him, and she having a\nbag--his cook, as he explained to me.  As a rule, I do everything for\nMr. Parable, sleeping in the cottage when he is there; but to tell the\ntruth, I was glad to see her.  I never was much of a cook myself, as my\npoor dead husband has remarked on more than one occasion, and I don't\npretend to be.  Mr. Parable added, apologetic like, that he had been\nsuffering lately from indigestion.\n\n\"I am only too pleased to see her,\" I says.  \"There are the two beds in\nmy room, and we shan't quarrel.\"  She was quite a sensible young woman,\nas I had judged from the first look at her, though suffering at the\ntime from a cold.  She hires a bicycle from Emma Tidd, who only uses it\non a Sunday, and, taking a market basket, off she starts for Henley,\nMr. Parable saying he would go with her to show her the way.\n\nThey were gone a goodish time, which, seeing it's eight miles, didn't\nso much surprise me; and when they got back we all three had dinner\ntogether, Mr. Parable arguing that it made for what he called \"labour\nsaving.\"  Afterwards I cleared away, leaving them talking together; and\nlater on they had a walk round the garden, it being a moonlight night,\nbut a bit too cold for my fancy.\n\nIn the morning I had a chat with her before he was down.  She seemed a\nbit worried.\n\n\"I hope people won't get talking,\" she says.  \"He would insist on my\ncoming.\"\n\n\"Well,\" I says, \"surely a gent can bring his cook along with him to\ncook for him.  And as for people talking, what I always say is, one may\njust as well give them something to talk about and save them the\ntrouble of making it up.\"\n\n\"If only I was a plain, middle-aged woman,\" she says, \"it would be all\nright.\"\n\n\"Perhaps you will be, all in good time,\" I says, but, of course, I\ncould see what she was driving at.  A nice, clean, pleasant-faced young\nwoman she was, and not of the ordinary class.  \"Meanwhile,\" I says, \"if\nyou don't mind taking a bit of motherly advice, you might remember that\nyour place is the kitchen, and his the parlour.  He's a dear good man,\nI know, but human nature is human nature, and it's no good pretending\nit isn't.\"\n\nShe and I had our breakfast together before he was up, so that when he\ncame down he had to have his alone, but afterwards she comes into the\nkitchen and closes the door.\n\n\"He wants to show me the way to High Wycombe,\" she says.  \"He will have\nit there are better shops at Wycombe.  What ought I to do?\"\n\nMy experience is that advising folks to do what they don't want to do\nisn't the way to do it.\n\n\"What d'you think yourself?\" I asked her.\n\n\"I feel like going with him,\" she says, \"and making the most of every\nmile.\"\n\nAnd then she began to cry.\n\n\"What's the harm!\" she says.  \"I have heard him from a dozen platforms\nridiculing class distinctions.  Besides,\" she says, \"my people have\nbeen farmers for generations.  What was Miss Bulstrode's father but a\ngrocer?  He ran a hundred shops instead of one.  What difference does\nthat make?\"\n\n\"When did it all begin?\" I says.  \"When did he first take notice of you\nlike?\"\n\n\"The day before yesterday,\" she answers.  \"He had never seen me\nbefore,\" she says.  \"I was just 'Cook'--something in a cap and apron\nthat he passed occasionally on the stairs.  On Thursday he saw me in my\nbest clothes, and fell in love with me.  He doesn't know it himself,\npoor dear, not yet, but that's what he's done.\"\n\nWell, I couldn't contradict her, not after the way I had seen him\nlooking at her across the table.\n\n\"What are your feelings towards him,\" I says, \"to be quite honest? He's\nrather a good catch for a young person in your position.\"\n\n\"That's my trouble,\" she says.  \"I can't help thinking of that.  And\nthen to be 'Mrs. John Parable'!  That's enough to turn a woman's head.\"\n\n\"He'd be a bit difficult to live with,\" I says.\n\n\"Geniuses always are,\" she says; \"it's easy enough if you just think of\nthem as children.  He'd be a bit fractious at times, that's all.\nUnderneath, he's just the kindest, dearest--\"\n\n\"Oh, you take your basket and go to High Wycombe,\" I says.  \"He might\ndo worse.\"\n\nI wasn't expecting them back soon, and they didn't come back soon. In\nthe afternoon a motor stops at the gate, and out of it steps Miss\nBulstrode, Miss Dorton--that's the young lady that writes for him--and\nMr. Quincey.  I told them I couldn't say when he'd be back, and they\nsaid it didn't matter, they just happening to be passing.\n\n\"Did anybody call on him yesterday?\" asks Miss Bulstrode, careless\nlike--\"a lady?\"\n\n\"No,\" I says; \"you are the first as yet.\"\n\n\"He's brought his cook down with him, hasn't he?\" says Mr. Quincey.\n\n\"Yes,\" I says, \"and a very good cook too,\" which was the truth.\n\n\"I'd like just to speak a few words with her,\" says Miss Bulstrode.\n\n\"Sorry, m'am,\" I says, \"but she's out at present; she's gone to\nWycombe.\"\n\n\"Gone to Wycombe!\" they all says together.\n\n\"To market,\" I says.  \"It's a little farther, but, of course, it stands\nto reason the shops there are better.\"\n\nThey looked at one another.\n\n\"That settles it,\" says Mr. Quincey.  \"Delicacies worthy to be set\nbefore her not available nearer than Wycombe, but must be had. There's\ngoing to be a pleasant little dinner here to-night.\"\n\n\"The hussy!\" says Miss Bulstrode, under her breath.\n\nThey whispered together for a moment, then they turns to me.\n\n\"Good afternoon, Mrs. Meadows,\" says Mr. Quincey.  \"You needn't say we\ncalled.  He wanted to be alone, and it might vex him.\"\n\nI said I wouldn't, and I didn't.  They climbed back into the motor and\nwent off.\n\nBefore dinner I had call to go into the woodshed.  I heard a scuttling\nas I opened the door.  If I am not mistaken, Miss Dorton was hiding in\nthe corner where we keep the coke.  I didn't see any good in making a\nfuss, so I left her there.  When I got back to the kitchen, cook asked\nme if we'd got any parsley.\n\n\"You'll find a bit in the front,\" I says, \"to the left of the gate,\"\nand she went out.  She came back looking scared.\n\n\"Anybody keep goats round here?\" she asked me.\n\n\"Not that I know of, nearer than Ibstone Common,\" I says.\n\n\"I could have sworn I saw a goat's face looking at me out of the\ngooseberry bushes while I was picking the parsley,\" she says.  \"It had\na beard.\"\n\n\"It's the half light,\" I says.  \"One can imagine anything.\"\n\n\"I do hope I'm not getting nervy,\" she says.\n\nI thought I'd have another look round, and made the excuse that I\nwanted a pail of water.  I was stooping over the well, which is just\nunder the mulberry tree, when something fell close to me and lodged\nupon the bricks.  It was a hairpin.  I fixed the cover carefully upon\nthe well in case of accident, and when I got in I went round myself and\nwas careful to see that all the curtains were drawn.\n\nJust before we three sat down to dinner again I took cook aside.\n\n\"I shouldn't go for any stroll in the garden to-night,\" I says. \"People\nfrom the village may be about, and we don't want them gossiping.\"  And\nshe thanked me.\n\nNext night they were there again.  I thought I wouldn't spoil the\ndinner, but mention it afterwards.  I saw to it again that the curtains\nwere drawn, and slipped the catch of both the doors.  And just as well\nthat I did.\n\nI had always heard that Mr. Parable was an amusing speaker, but on\nprevious visits had not myself noticed it.  But this time he seemed ten\nyears younger than I had ever known him before; and during dinner,\nwhile we were talking and laughing quite merry like, I had the feeling\nmore than once that people were meandering about outside.  I had just\nfinished clearing away, and cook was making the coffee, when there came\na knock at the door.\n\n\"Who's that?\" says Mr. Parable.  \"I am not at home to anyone.\"\n\n\"I'll see,\" I says.  And on my way I slipped into the kitchen.\n\n\"Coffee for one, cook,\" I says, and she understood.  Her cap and apron\nwere hanging behind the door.  I flung them across to her, and she\ncaught them; and then I opened the front door.\n\nThey pushed past me without speaking, and went straight into the\nparlour.  And they didn't waste many words on him either.\n\n\"Where is she?\" asked Miss Bulstrode.\n\n\"Where's who?\" says Mr. Parable.\n\n\"Don't lie about it,\" said Miss Bulstrode, making no effort to control\nherself.  \"The hussy you've been dining with?\"\n\n\"Do you mean Mrs. Meadows?\" says Mr. Parable.\n\nI thought she was going to shake him.\n\n\"Where have you hidden her?\" she says.\n\nIt was at that moment cook entered with the coffee.\n\nIf they had taken the trouble to look at her they might have had an\nidea.  The tray was trembling in her hands, and in her haste and\nexcitement she had put on her cap the wrong way round.  But she kept\ncontrol of her voice, and asked if she should bring some more coffee.\n\n\"Ah, yes! You'd all like some coffee, wouldn't you?\" says Mr. Parable.\nMiss Bulstrode did not reply, but Mr. Quincey said he was cold and\nwould like it.  It was a nasty night, with a thin rain.\n\n\"Thank you, sir,\" says cook, and we went out together.\n\nCottages are only cottages, and if people in the parlour persist in\ntalking loudly, people in the kitchen can't very well help overhearing.\n\nThere was a good deal of talk about \"fourteen days,\" which Mr. Parable\nsaid he was going to do himself, and which Miss Dorton said he mustn't,\nbecause, if he did, it would be a victory for the enemies of humanity.\nMr. Parable said something about \"humanity,\" which I didn't rightly\nhear, but, whatever it was, it started Miss Dorton crying; and Miss\nBulstrode called Mr. Parable a \"blind Samson,\" who had had his hair cut\nby a designing minx who had been hired to do it.\n\nIt was all French to me, but cook was drinking in every word, and when\nshe returned from taking them in their coffee she made no bones about\nit, but took up her place at the door with her ear to the keyhole.\n\nIt was Mr. Quincey who got them all quiet, and then he began to explain\nthings.  It seemed that if they could only find a certain gentleman and\npersuade him to come forward and acknowledge that he began a row, that\nthen all would be well.  Mr. Quincey would be fined forty shillings,\nand Mr. Parable's name would never appear. Failing that, Mr. Parable,\naccording to Mr. Quincey, could do his fourteen days himself.\n\n\"I've told you once,\" says Mr. Parable, \"and I tell you again, that I\ndon't know the man's name, and can't give it you.\"\n\n\"We are not asking you to,\" says Mr. Quincey.  \"You give us the name of\nyour tango partner, and we'll do the rest.\"\n\nI could see cook's face; I had got a bit interested myself, and we were\nboth close to the door.  She hardly seemed to be breathing.\n\n\"I am sorry,\" says Mr. Parable, speaking very deliberate-like, \"but I\nam not going to have her name dragged into this business.\"\n\n\"It wouldn't be,\" says Mr. Quincey.  \"All we want to get out of her is\nthe name and address of the gentleman who was so anxious to see her\nhome.\"\n\n\"Who was he?\" says Miss Bulstrode.  \"Her husband?\"\n\n\"No,\" says Mr. Parable; \"he wasn't.\"\n\n\"Then who was he?\" says Miss Bulstrode.  \"He must have been something\nto her--fiance?\"\n\n\"I am going to do the fourteen days myself,\" says Mr. Parable.  \"I\nshall come out all the fresher after a fortnight's complete rest and\nchange.\"\n\nCook leaves the door with a smile on her face that made her look quite\nbeautiful, and, taking some paper from the dresser drawer, began to\nwrite a letter.\n\nThey went on talking in the other room for another ten minutes, and\nthen Mr. Parable lets them out himself, and goes a little way with\nthem.  When he came back we could hear him walking up and down the\nother room.\n\nShe had written and stamped the envelope; it was lying on the table.\n\n\"'Joseph Onions, Esq.,'\" I says, reading the address.  \"'Auctioneer and\nHouse Agent, Broadway, Hammersmith.' Is that the young man?\"\n\n\"That is the young man,\" she says, folding her letter and putting it in\nthe envelope.\n\n\"And was he your fiance?\" I asked.\n\n\"No,\" she says.  \"But he will be if he does what I'm telling him to do.\"\n\n\"And what about Mr. Parable?\" I says.\n\n\"A little joke that will amuse him later on,\" she says, slipping a\ncloak on her shoulders.  \"How once he nearly married his cook.\"\n\n\"I shan't be a minute,\" she says.  And, with the letter in her hand,\nshe slips out.\n\n\nMrs. Meadows, we understand, has expressed indignation at our\npublication of this interview, she being under the impression that she\nwas simply having a friendly gossip with a neighbour.  Our\nrepresentative, however, is sure he explained to Mrs. Meadows that his\nvisit was official; and, in any case, our duty to the public must be\nheld to exonerate us from all blame in the matter.\n\n                    *          *          *\n\nMr. Joseph Onions, of the Broadway, Hammersmith, auctioneer and house\nagent, expressed himself to our representative as most surprised at the\nturn that events had subsequently taken.  The letter that Mr. Onions\nreceived from Miss Comfort Price was explicit and definite.  It was to\nthe effect that if he would call upon a certain Mr. Quincey, of\nHarcourt Buildings, Temple, and acknowledge that it was he who began\nthe row at the Earl's Court Exhibition on the evening of the\ntwenty-seventh, that then the engagement between himself and Miss\nPrice, hitherto unacknowledged by the lady, might be regarded as a fact.\n\nMr. Onions, who describes himself as essentially a business man,\ndecided before complying with Miss Price's request to take a few\npreliminary steps.  As the result of judiciously conducted inquiries,\nfirst at the Vine Street Police Station, and secondly at Twickenham,\nMr. Onions arrived later in the day at Mr. Quincey's chambers, with, to\nuse his own expression, all the cards in his hand.  It was Mr. Quincey\nwho, professing himself unable to comply with Mr. Onion's suggestion,\narranged the interview with Miss Bulstrode.  And it was Miss Bulstrode\nherself who, on condition that Mr. Onions added to the undertaking the\nfurther condition that he would marry Miss Price before the end of the\nmonth, offered to make it two hundred.  It was in their joint\ninterest--Mr. Onions regarding himself and Miss Price as now one--that\nMr. Onions suggested her making it three, using such arguments as,\nunder the circumstances, naturally occurred to him--as, for example,\nthe damage caused to the lady's reputation by the whole proceedings,\nculminating in a night spent by the lady, according to her own account,\non Ham Common.  That the price demanded was reasonable Mr. Onions\nconsiders as proved by Miss Bulstrode's eventual acceptance of his\nterms.  That, having got out of him all that he wanted, Mr. Quincey\nshould have \"considered it his duty\" to communicate the entire details\nof the transaction to Miss Price, through the medium of Mr. Andrews,\nthinking it \"as well she should know the character of the man she\nproposed to marry,\" Mr. Onions considers a gross breach of etiquette as\nbetween gentlemen; and having regard to Miss Price's after behaviour,\nMr. Onions can only say that she is not the girl he took her for.\n\nMr. Aaron Andrews, on whom our representative called, was desirous at\nfirst of not being drawn into the matter; but on our representative\nexplaining to him that our only desire was to contradict false rumours\nlikely to be harmful to Mr. Parable's reputation, Mr. Andrews saw the\nnecessity of putting our representative in possession of the truth.\n\n\nShe came back on Tuesday afternoon, explained Mr. Andrews, and I had a\ntalk with her.\n\n\"It is all right, Mr. Andrews,\" she told me; \"they've been in\ncommunication with my young man, and Miss Bulstrode has seen the\nmagistrate privately.  The case will be dismissed with a fine of forty\nshillings, and Mr. Quincey has arranged to keep it out of the papers.\"\n\n\"Well, all's well that ends well,\" I answered; \"but it might have been\nbetter, my girl, if you had mentioned that young man of yours a bit\nearlier.\"\n\n\"I did not know it was of any importance,\" she explained.  \"Mr. Parable\ntold me nothing.  If it hadn't been for chance, I should never have\nknown what was happening.\"\n\nI had always liked the young woman.  Mr. Quincey had suggested my\nwaiting till after Wednesday.  But there seemed to me no particular\nobject in delay.\n\n\"Are you fond of him?\" I asked her.\n\n\"Yes,\" she answered.  \"I am fonder than--\"  And then she stopped\nherself suddenly and flared scarlet.  \"Who are you talking about?\" she\ndemanded.\n\n\"This young man of yours,\" I said.  \"Mr.--What's his name--Onions?\"\n\n\"Oh, that?\" she answered.  \"Oh, yes; he's all right.\"\n\n\"And if he wasn't?\" I said, and she looked at me hard.\n\n\"I told him,\" she said, \"that if he would do what I asked him to do,\nI'd marry him.  And he seems to have done it.\"\n\n\"There are ways of doing everything,\" I said; and, seeing it wasn't\ngoing to break her heart, I told her just the plain facts.  She\nlistened without a word, and when I had finished she put her arms round\nmy neck and kissed me.  I am old enough to be her grandfather, but\ntwenty years ago it might have upset me.\n\n\"I think I shall be able to save Miss Bulstrode that three hundred\npounds,\" she laughed, and ran upstairs and changed her things.  When\nlater I looked into the kitchen she was humming.\n\nMr. John came up by the car, and I could see he was in one of his moods.\n\n\"Pack me some things for a walking tour,\" he said.  \"Don't forget the\nknapsack.  I am going to Scotland by the eight-thirty.\"\n\n\"Will you be away long?\" I asked him.\n\n\"It depends upon how long it takes me,\" he answered.  \"When I come back\nI am going to be married.\"\n\n\"Who is the lady?\" I asked, though, of course, I knew.\n\n\"Miss Bulstrode,\" he said.\n\n\"Well,\" I said, \"she--\"\n\n\"That will do,\" he said; \"I have had all that from the three of them\nfor the last two days.  She is a Socialist, and a Suffragist, and all\nthe rest of it, and my ideal helpmate.  She is well off, and that will\nenable me to devote all my time to putting the world to rights without\nbothering about anything else.  Our home will be the nursery of\nadvanced ideas.  We shall share together the joys and delights of the\npublic platform.  What more can any man want?\"\n\n\"You will want your dinner early,\" I said, \"if you are going by the\neight-thirty.  I had better tell cook--\"\n\nHe interrupted me again.\n\n\"You can tell cook to go to the devil,\" he said.\n\nI naturally stared at him.\n\n\"She is going to marry a beastly little rotter of a rent collector that\nshe doesn't care a damn for,\" he went on.\n\nI could not understand why he seemed so mad about it.\n\n\"I don't see, in any case, what it's got to do with you,\" I said, \"but,\nas a matter of fact, she isn't.\"\n\n\"Isn't what?\" he said, stopping short and turning on me.\n\n\"Isn't going to marry him,\" I answered.\n\n\"Why not?\" he demanded.\n\n\"Better ask her,\" I suggested.\n\nI didn't know at the time that it was a silly thing to say, and I am\nnot sure that I should not have said it if I had.  When he is in one of\nhis moods I always seem to get into one of mine.  I have looked after\nMr. John ever since he was a baby, so that we do not either of us treat\nthe other quite as perhaps we ought to.\n\n\"Tell cook I want her,\" he said.\n\n\"She is just in the middle--\" I began.\n\n\"I don't care where she is,\" he said.  He seemed determined never to\nlet me finish a sentence.  \"Send her up here.\"\n\nShe was in the kitchen by herself.\n\n\"He wants to see you at once,\" I said.\n\n\"Who does?\" she asked.\n\n\"Mr. John,\" I said.\n\n\"What's he want to see me for?\" she asked.\n\n\"How do I know?\" I answered.\n\n\"But you do,\" she said.  She always had an obstinate twist in her, and,\nfeeling it would save time, I told her what had happened.\n\n\"Well,\" I said, \"aren't you going?\"\n\nShe was standing stock still staring at the pastry she was making. She\nturned to me, and there was a curious smile about her lips.\n\n\"Do you know what you ought to be wearing?\" she said.  \"Wings, and a\nlittle bow and arrow.\"\n\nShe didn't even think to wipe her hands, but went straight upstairs. It\nwas about half an hour later when the bell rang.  Mr. John was standing\nby the window.\n\n\"Is that bag ready?\" he said.\n\n\"It will be,\" I said.\n\nI went out into the hall and returned with the clothes brush.\n\n\"What are you going to do?\" he said.\n\n\"Perhaps you don't know it,\" I said, \"but you are all over flour.\"\n\n\"Cook's going with me to Scotland,\" he said.\n\nI have looked after Mr. John ever since he was a boy.  He was forty-two\nlast birthday, but when I shook hands with him through the cab window I\ncould have sworn he was twenty-five again.\n\n\n\n\nTHE LESSON.\n\nThe first time I met him, to my knowledge, was on an evil-smelling,\none-funnelled steam boat that in those days plied between London Bridge\nand Antwerp.  He was walking the deck arm-in-arm with a showily dressed\nbut decidedly attractive young woman; both of them talking and laughing\nloudly.  It struck me as odd, finding him a fellow-traveller by such a\nroute.  The passage occupied eighteen hours, and the first-class return\nfare was one pound twelve and six, including three meals each way;\ndrinks, as the contract was careful to explain, being extra.  I was\nearning thirty shillings a week at the time as clerk with a firm of\nagents in Fenchurch Street.  Our business was the purchasing of\narticles on commission for customers in India, and I had learned to be\na judge of values.  The beaver lined coat he was wearing--for the\nevening, although it was late summer, was chilly--must have cost him a\ncouple of hundred pounds, while his carelessly displayed jewellery he\ncould easily have pawned for a thousand or more.\n\nI could not help staring at him, and once, as they passed, he returned\nmy look.\n\nAfter dinner, as I was leaning with my back against the gunwale on the\nstarboard side, he came out of the only private cabin that the vessel\nboasted, and taking up a position opposite to me, with his legs well\napart and a big cigar between his thick lips, stood coolly regarding\nme, as if appraising me.\n\n\"Treating yourself to a little holiday on the Continent?\" he inquired.\n\nI had not been quite sure before he spoke, but his lisp, though slight,\nbetrayed the Jew.  His features were coarse, almost brutal; but the\nrestless eyes were so brilliant, the whole face so suggestive of power\nand character, that, taking him as a whole, the feeling he inspired was\nadmiration, tempered by fear.  His tone was one of kindly contempt--the\ntone of a man accustomed to find most people his inferiors, and too\nused to the discovery to be conceited about it.\n\nBehind it was a note of authority that it did not occur to me to\ndispute.\n\n\"Yes,\" I answered, adding the information that I had never been abroad\nbefore, and had heard that Antwerp was an interesting town.\n\n\"How long have you got?\" he asked.\n\n\"A fortnight,\" I told him.\n\n\"Like to see a bit more than Antwerp, if you could afford it, wouldn't\nyou?\" he suggested.  \"Fascinating little country Holland. Just long\nenough--a fortnight--to do the whole of it.  I'm a Dutchman, a Dutch\nJew.\"\n\n\"You speak English just like an Englishman,\" I told him.  It was\nsomehow in my mind to please him.  I could hardly have explained why.\n\n\"And half a dozen other languages equally well,\" he answered, laughing.\n\"I left Amsterdam when I was eighteen as steerage passenger in an\nemigrant ship.  I haven't seen it since.\"\n\nHe closed the cabin door behind him, and, crossing over, laid a strong\nhand on my shoulder.\n\n\"I will make a proposal to you,\" he said.  \"My business is not of the\nkind that can be put out of mind, even for a few days, and there are\nreasons\"--he glanced over his shoulder towards the cabin door, and gave\nvent to a short laugh--\"why I did not want to bring any of my own staff\nwith me.  If you care for a short tour, all expenses paid at slap-up\nhotels and a ten-pound note in your pocket at the end, you can have it\nfor two hours' work a day.\"\n\nI suppose my face expressed my acceptance, for he did not wait for me\nto speak.\n\n\"Only one thing I stipulate for,\" he added, \"that you mind your own\nbusiness and keep your mouth shut.  You're by yourself, aren't you?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I told him.\n\nHe wrote on a sheet of his notebook, and, tearing it out, handed it to\nme.\n\n\"That's your hotel at Antwerp,\" he said.  \"You are Mr. Horatio Jones's\nsecretary.\"  He chuckled to himself as he repeated the name, which\ncertainly did not fit him.  \"Knock at my sitting-room door at nine\no'clock tomorrow morning.  Good night!\"\n\nHe ended the conversation as abruptly as he had begun it, and returned\nto his cabin.\n\nI got a glimpse of him next morning, coming out of the hotel bureau. He\nwas speaking to the manager in French, and had evidently given\ninstructions concerning me, for I found myself preceded by an\nobsequious waiter to quite a charming bedroom on the second floor,\nwhile the \"English breakfast\" placed before me later in the coffee-room\nwas of a size and character that in those days I did not often enjoy.\nAbout the work, also, he was as good as his word.  I was rarely\noccupied for more than two hours each morning.  The duties consisted\nchiefly of writing letters and sending off telegrams.  The letters he\nsigned and had posted himself, so that I never learnt his real\nname--not during that fortnight--but I gathered enough to be aware that\nhe was a man whose business interests must have been colossal and\nworld-wide.\n\nHe never introduced me to \"Mrs. Horatio Jones,\" and after a few days he\nseemed to be bored with her, so that often I would take her place as\nhis companion in afternoon excursions.\n\nI could not help liking the man.  Strength always compels the adoration\nof youth; and there was something big and heroic about him.  His\ndaring, his swift decisions, his utter unscrupulousness, his occasional\ncruelty when necessity seemed to demand it.  One could imagine him in\nearlier days a born leader of savage hordes, a lover of fighting for\nits own sake, meeting all obstacles with fierce welcome, forcing his\nway onward, indifferent to the misery and destruction caused by his\nprogress, his eyes never swerving from their goal; yet not without a\nsense of rough justice, not altogether without kindliness when it could\nbe indulged in without danger.\n\nOne afternoon he took me with him into the Jewish quarter of Amsterdam,\nand threading his way without hesitation through its maze of unsavoury\nslums, paused before a narrow three-storeyed house overlooking a\nstagnant backwater.\n\n\"The room I was born in,\" he explained.  \"Window with the broken pane\non the second floor.  It has never been mended.\"\n\nI stole a glance at him.  His face betrayed no suggestion of sentiment,\nbut rather of amusement.  He offered me a cigar, which I was glad of,\nfor the stench from the offal-laden water behind us was distracting,\nand for a while we both smoked in silence:  he with his eyes\nhalf-closed; it was a trick of his when working out a business problem.\n\n\"Curious, my making such a choice,\" he remarked.  \"A butcher's\nassistant for my father and a consumptive buttonhole-maker for my\nmother.  I suppose I knew what I was about.  Quite the right thing for\nme to have done, as it turned out.\"\n\nI stared at him, wondering whether he was speaking seriously or in grim\njest.  He was given at times to making odd remarks.  There was a vein\nof the fantastic in him that was continually cropping out and\nastonishing me.\n\n\"It was a bit risky,\" I suggested.  \"Better choose something a little\nsafer next time.\"\n\nHe looked round at me sharply, and, not quite sure of his mood, I kept\na grave face.\n\n\"Perhaps you are right,\" he agreed, with a laugh.  \"We must have a talk\nabout it one day.\"\n\nAfter that visit to the Goortgasse he was less reserved with me, and\nwould often talk to me on subjects that I should never have guessed\nwould have interested him.  I found him a curious mixture.  Behind the\nshrewd, cynical man of business I caught continual glimpses of the\nvisionary.\n\nI parted from him at The Hague.  He paid my fare back to London, and\ngave me an extra pound for travelling expenses, together with the\nten-pound note he had promised me.  He had packed off \"Mrs. Horatio\nJones\" some days before, to the relief, I imagine, of both of them, and\nhe himself continued his journey to Berlin.  I never expected to see\nhim again, although for the next few months I often thought of him, and\neven tried to discover him by inquiries in the City.  I had, however,\nvery little to go upon, and after I had left Fenchurch Street behind\nme, and drifted into literature, I forgot him.\n\nUntil one day I received a letter addressed to the care of my\npublishers.  It bore the Swiss postmark, and opening it and turning to\nthe signature I sat wondering for the moment where I had met \"Horatio\nJones.\"  And then I remembered.\n\nHe was lying bruised and broken in a woodcutter's hut on the slopes of\nthe Jungfrau.  Had been playing a fool's trick, so he described it,\nthinking he could climb mountains at his age.  They would carry him\ndown to Lauterbrunnen as soon as he could be moved farther with safety,\nbut for the present he had no one to talk to but the nurse and a Swiss\ndoctor who climbed up to see him every third day.  He begged me, if I\ncould spare the time, to come over and spend a week with him.  He\nenclosed a hundred-pound cheque for my expenses, making no apology for\ndoing so.  He was complimentary about my first book, which he had been\nreading, and asked me to telegraph him my reply, giving me his real\nname, which, as I had guessed it would, proved to be one of the best\nknown in the financial world.  My time was my own now, and I wired him\nthat I would be with him the following Monday.\n\nHe was lying in the sun outside the hut when I arrived late in the\nafternoon, after a three-hours' climb followed by a porter carrying my\nsmall amount of luggage.  He could not raise his hand, but his\nstrangely brilliant eyes spoke their welcome.\n\n\"I am glad you were able to come,\" he said.  \"I have no near relations,\nand my friends--if that is the right term--are business men who would\nbe bored to tears.  Besides, they are not the people I feel I want to\ntalk to, now.\"\n\nHe was entirely reconciled to the coming of death.  Indeed, there were\nmoments when he gave me the idea that he was looking forward to it with\nan awed curiosity.  With the conventional notion of cheering him, I\ntalked of staying till he was able to return with me to civilisation,\nbut he only laughed.\n\n\"I am not going back,\" he said.  \"Not that way.  What they may do\nafterwards with these broken bones does not much concern either you or\nme.\n\n\"It's a good place to die in,\" he continued.  \"A man can think up here.\"\n\nIt was difficult to feel sorry for him, his own fate appearing to make\nso little difference to himself.  The world was still full of interest\nto him--not his own particular corner of it:  that, he gave me to\nunderstand, he had tidied up and dismissed from his mind.  It was the\nfuture, its coming problems, its possibilities, its new developments,\nabout which he seemed eager to talk.  One might have imagined him a\nyoung man with the years before him.\n\nOne evening--it was near the end--we were alone together.  The\nwoodcutter and his wife had gone down into the valley to see their\nchildren, and the nurse, leaving him in my charge, had gone for a walk.\nWe had carried him round to his favourite side of the hut facing the\ntowering mass of the Jungfrau.  As the shadows lengthened it seemed to\ncome nearer to us, and there fell a silence upon us.\n\nGradually I became aware that his piercing eyes were fixed on me, and\nin answer I turned and looked at him.\n\n\"I wonder if we shall meet again,\" he said, \"or, what is more\nimportant, if we shall remember one another.\"\n\nI was puzzled for the moment.  We had discussed more than once the\nvarious religions of mankind, and his attitude towards the orthodox\nbeliefs had always been that of amused contempt.\n\n\"It has been growing upon me these last few days,\" he continued. \"It\nflashed across me the first time I saw you on the boat.  We were\nfellow-students.  Something, I don't know what, drew us very close\ntogether.  There was a woman.  They were burning her.  And then there\nwas a rush of people and a sudden darkness, and your eyes close to\nmine.\"\n\nI suppose it was some form of hypnotism, for, as he spoke, his\nsearching eyes fixed on mine, there came to me a dream of narrow\nstreets filled with a strange crowd, of painted houses such as I had\nnever seen, and a haunting fear that seemed to be always lurking behind\neach shadow.  I shook myself free, but not without an effort.\n\n\"So that's what you meant,\" I said, \"that evening in the Goortgasse.\nYou believe in it?\"\n\n\"A curious thing happened to me,\" he said, \"when I was a child.  I\ncould hardly have been six years old.  I had gone to Ghent with my\nparents.  I think it was to visit some relative.  One day we went into\nthe castle.  It was in ruins then, but has since been restored. We were\nin what was once the council chamber.  I stole away by myself to the\nother end of the great room and, not knowing why I did so, I touched a\nspring concealed in the masonry, and a door swung open with a harsh,\ngrinding noise.  I remember peering round the opening.  The others had\ntheir backs towards me, and I slipped through and closed the door\nbehind me.  I seemed instinctively to know my way.  I ran down a flight\nof steps and along dark corridors through which I had to feel my way\nwith my hands, till I came to a small door in an angle of the wall.  I\nknew the room that lay the other side.  A photograph was taken of it\nand published years afterwards, when the place was discovered, and it\nwas exactly as I knew it with its way out underneath the city wall\nthrough one of the small houses in the Aussermarkt.\n\n\"I could not open the door.  Some stones had fallen against it, and\nfearing to get punished, I made my way back into the council room. It\nwas empty when I reached it.  They were searching for me in the other\nrooms, and I never told them of my adventure.\"\n\nAt any other time I might have laughed.  Later, recalling his talk that\nevening, I dismissed the whole story as mere suggestion, based upon the\nimagination of a child; but at the time those strangely brilliant eyes\nhad taken possession of me.  They remained still fixed upon me as I sat\non the low rail of the veranda watching his white face, into which the\nhues of death seemed already to be creeping.\n\nI had a feeling that, through them, he was trying to force remembrance\nof himself upon me.  The man himself--the very soul of him--seemed to\nbe concentrated in them.  Something formless and yet distinct was\nvisualising itself before me.  It came to me as a physical relief when\na spasm of pain caused him to turn his eyes away from me.\n\n\"You will find a letter when I am gone,\" he went on, after a moment's\nsilence.  \"I thought that you might come too late, or that I might not\nhave strength enough to tell you.  I felt that out of the few people I\nhave met outside business, you would be the most likely not to dismiss\nthe matter as mere nonsense.  What I am glad of myself, and what I wish\nyou to remember, is that I am dying with all my faculties about me.\nThe one thing I have always feared through life was old age, with its\ngradual mental decay.  It has always seemed to me that I have died more\nor less suddenly while still in possession of my will.  I have always\nthanked God for that.\"\n\nHe closed his eyes, but I do not think he was sleeping; and a little\nlater the nurse returned, and we carried him indoors.  I had no further\nconversation with him, though at his wish during the following two days\nI continued to read to him, and on the third day he died.\n\nI found the letter he had spoken of.  He had told me where it would be.\nIt contained a bundle of banknotes which he was giving me--so he\nwrote--with the advice to get rid of them as quickly as possible.\n\n\"If I had not loved you,\" the letter continued, \"I would have left you\nan income, and you would have blessed me, instead of cursing me, as you\nshould have done, for spoiling your life.\"\n\nThis world was a school, so he viewed it, for the making of men; and\nthe one thing essential to a man was strength.  One gathered the\nimpression of a deeply religious man.  In these days he would, no\ndoubt, have been claimed as a theosophist; but his beliefs he had made\nfor, and adapted to, himself--to his vehement, conquering temperament.\nGod needed men to serve Him--to help Him.  So, through many changes,\nthrough many ages, God gave men life:  that by contest and by struggle\nthey might ever increase in strength; to those who proved themselves\nmost fit the sterner task, the humbler beginnings, the greater\nobstacles.  And the crown of well-doing was ever victory.  He appeared\nto have convinced himself that he was one of the chosen, that he was\ndestined for great ends.  He had been a slave in the time of the\nPharaohs; a priest in Babylon; had clung to the swaying ladders in the\nsack of Rome; had won his way into the councils when Europe was a\nbattlefield of contending tribes; had climbed to power in the days of\nthe Borgias.\n\nTo most of us, I suppose, there come at odd moments haunting thoughts\nof strangely familiar, far-off things; and one wonders whether they are\nmemories or dreams.  We dismiss them as we grow older and the present\nwith its crowding interests shuts them out; but in youth they were more\npersistent.  With him they appeared to have remained, growing in\nreality.  His recent existence, closed under the white sheet in the hut\nbehind me as I read, was only one chapter of the story; he was looking\nforward to the next.\n\nHe wondered, so the letter ran, whether he would have any voice in\nchoosing it.  In either event he was curious of the result.  What he\nanticipated confidently were new opportunities, wider experience. In\nwhat shape would these come to him?\n\nThe letter ended with a strange request.  It was that, on returning to\nEngland, I should continue to think of him:  not of the dead man I had\nknown, the Jewish banker, the voice familiar to me, the trick of\nspeech, of manner--all such being but the changing clothes--but of the\nman himself, the soul of him, that would seek and perhaps succeed in\nrevealing itself to me.\n\nA postscript concluded the letter, to which at the time I attached no\nimportance.  He had made a purchase of the hut in which he had died.\nAfter his removal it was to remain empty.\n\nI folded the letter and placed it among other papers, and passing into\nthe hut took a farewell glance at the massive, rugged face. The mask\nmight have served a sculptor for the embodiment of strength.  He gave\none the feeling that having conquered death he was sleeping.\n\nI did what he had requested of me.  Indeed, I could not help it.  I\nthought of him constantly.  That may have been the explanation of it.\n\nI was bicycling through Norfolk, and one afternoon, to escape a coming\nthunderstorm, I knocked at the door of a lonely cottage on the\noutskirts of a common.  The woman, a kindly bustling person, asked me\nin; and hoping I would excuse her, as she was busy ironing, returned to\nher work in another room.  I thought myself alone, and was standing at\nthe window watching the pouring rain.  After a while, without knowing\nwhy, I turned.  And then I saw a child seated on a high chair behind a\ntable in a dark corner of the room.  A book of pictures was open before\nit, but it was looking at me.  I could hear the sound of the woman at\nher ironing in the other room. Outside there was the steady thrashing\nof the rain.  The child was looking at me with large, round eyes filled\nwith a terrible pathos. I noticed that the little body was misshapen.\nIt never moved; it made no sound; but I had the feeling that out of\nthose strangely wistful eyes something was trying to speak to me.\nSomething was forming itself before me--not visible to my sight; but it\nwas there, in the room.  It was the man I had last looked upon as,\ndying, he sat beside me in the hut below the Jungfrau.  But something\nhad happened to him.  Moved by instinct I went over to him and lifted\nhim out of his chair, and with a sob the little wizened arms closed\nround my neck and he clung to me crying--a pitiful, low, wailing cry.\n\nHearing his cry, the woman came back.  A comely, healthy-looking woman.\nShe took him from my arms and comforted him.\n\n\"He gets a bit sorry for himself at times,\" she explained.  \"At least,\nso I fancy.  You see, he can't run about like other children, or do\nanything without getting pains.\"\n\n\"Was it an accident?\" I asked.\n\n\"No,\" she answered, \"and his father as fine a man as you would find in\na day's march.  Just a visitation of God, as they tell me.  Sure I\ndon't know why.  There never was a better little lad, and clever, too,\nwhen he's not in pain.  Draws wonderfully.\"\n\nThe storm had passed.  He grew quieter in her arms, and when I had\npromised to come again and bring him a new picture-book, a little\ngrateful smile flickered across the drawn face, but he would not talk.\n\nI kept in touch with him.  Mere curiosity would have made me do that.\nHe grew more normal as the years went by, and gradually the fancy that\nhad come to me at our first meeting faded farther into the background.\nSometimes, using the very language of the dead man's letter, I would\ntalk to him, wondering if by any chance some flash of memory would come\nback to him, and once or twice it seemed to me that into the mild,\npathetic eyes there came a look that I had seen before, but it passed\naway, and indeed, it was difficult to think of this sad little human\noddity, with its pleading helplessness, in connection with the strong,\nswift, conquering spirit that I had watched passing away amid the\nsilence of the mountains.\n\nThe one thing that brought joy to him was his art.  I cannot help\nthinking that, but for his health, he would have made a name for\nhimself.  His work was always clever and original, but it was the work\nof an invalid.\n\n\"I shall never be great,\" he said to me once.  \"I have such wonderful\ndreams, but when it comes to working them out there is something that\nhampers me.  It always seems to me as if at the last moment a hand was\nstretched out that clutched me by the feet.  I long so, but I have not\nthe strength.  It is terrible to be one of the weaklings.\"\n\nIt clung to me, that word he had used.  For a man to know he is weak;\nit sounds a paradox, but a man must be strong to know that. And\ndwelling upon this, and upon his patience and his gentleness, there\ncame to me suddenly remembrance of that postscript, the significance of\nwhich I had not understood.\n\nHe was a young man of about three- or four-and-twenty at the time. His\nfather had died, and he was living in poor lodgings in the south of\nLondon, supporting himself and his mother by strenuous, ill-paid work.\n\n\"I want you to come with me for a few days' holiday,\" I told him.\n\nI had some difficulty in getting him to accept my help, for he was very\nproud in his sensitive, apologetic way.  But I succeeded eventually,\npersuading him it would be good for his work. Physically the journey\nmust have cost him dear, for he could never move his body without pain,\nbut the changing landscapes and the strange cities more than repaid\nhim; and when one morning I woke him early and he saw for the first\ntime the distant mountains clothed in dawn, there came a new light into\nhis eyes.\n\nWe reached the hut late in the afternoon.  I had made my arrangements\nso that we should be there alone.  Our needs were simple, and in\nvarious wanderings I had learnt to be independent.  I did not tell him\nwhy I had brought him there, beyond the beauty and stillness of the\nplace.  Purposely I left him much alone there, making ever-lengthening\nwalks my excuse, and though he was always glad of my return I felt that\nthe desire was growing upon him to be there by himself.\n\nOne evening, having climbed farther than I had intended, I lost my way.\nIt was not safe in that neighbourhood to try new pathways in the dark,\nand chancing upon a deserted shelter, I made myself a bed upon the\nstraw.\n\nI found him seated outside the hut when I returned, and he greeted me\nas if he had been expecting me just at that moment and not before.  He\nguessed just what had happened, he told me, and had not been alarmed.\nDuring the day I found him watching me, and in the evening, as we sat\nin his favourite place outside the hut, he turned to me.\n\n\"You think it true?\" he said.  \"That you and I sat here years ago and\ntalked?\"\n\n\"I cannot tell,\" I answered.  \"I only know that he died here, if there\nbe such a thing as death--that no one has ever lived here since.  I\ndoubt if the door has ever been opened till we came.\"\n\n\"They have always been with me,\" he continued, \"these dreams.  But I\nhave always dismissed them.  They seemed so ludicrous.  Always there\ncame to me wealth, power, victory.  Life was so easy.\"\n\nHe laid his thin hand on mine.  A strange new look came into his\neyes--a look of hope, almost of joy.\n\n\"Do you know what it seems to me?\" he said.  \"You will laugh perhaps,\nbut the thought has come to me up here that God has some fine use for\nme.  Success was making me feeble.  He has given me weakness and\nfailure that I may learn strength.  The great thing is to be strong.\"\n\n\n\n\nSYLVIA OF THE LETTERS.\n\nOld Ab Herrick, so most people called him.  Not that he was actually\nold; the term was an expression of liking rather than any reflection on\nhis years.  He lived in an old-fashioned house--old-fashioned, that is,\nfor New York--on the south side of West Twentieth Street: once upon a\ntime, but that was long ago, quite a fashionable quarter.  The house,\ntogether with Mrs. Travers, had been left him by a maiden aunt.  An\n\"apartment\" would, of course, have been more suitable to a bachelor of\nsimple habits, but the situation was convenient from a journalistic\npoint of view, and for fifteen years Abner Herrick had lived and worked\nthere.\n\nThen one evening, after a three days' absence, Abner Herrick returned\nto West Twentieth Street, bringing with him a little girl wrapped up in\na shawl, and a wooden box tied with a piece of cord. He put the box on\nthe table; and the young lady, loosening her shawl, walked to the\nwindow and sat down facing the room.\n\nMrs. Travers took the box off the table and put it on the floor--it was\nquite a little box--and waited.\n\n\"This young lady,\" explained Abner Herrick, \"is Miss Ann Kavanagh,\ndaughter of--of an old friend of mine.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" said Mrs. Travers, and remained still expectant.\n\n\"Miss Kavanagh,\" continued Abner Herrick, \"will be staying with us\nfor--\"  He appeared to be uncertain of the length of Miss Kavanagh's\nvisit.  He left the sentence unfinished and took refuge in more\npressing questions.\n\n\"What about the bedroom on the second floor?  Is it ready?  Sheets\naired--all that sort of thing?\"\n\n\"It can be,\" replied Mrs. Travers.  The tone was suggestive of judgment\nreserved.\n\n\"I think, if you don't mind, Mrs. Travers, that we'd like to go to bed\nas soon as possible.\"  From force of habit Abner S. Herrick in speaking\nemployed as a rule the editorial \"we.\"  \"We have been travelling all\nday and we are very tired.  To-morrow morning--\"\n\n\"I'd like some supper,\" said Miss Kavanagh from her seat in the window,\nwithout moving.\n\n\"Of course,\" agreed Miss Kavanagh's host, with a feeble pretence that\nthe subject had been on the tip of his tongue.  As a matter of fact, he\nreally had forgotten all about it.  \"We might have it up here while the\nroom is being got ready.  Perhaps a little--\"\n\n\"A soft boiled egg and a glass of milk, if you please, Mrs. Travers,\"\ninterrupted Miss Kavanagh, still from her seat at the window.\n\n\"I'll see about it,\" said Mrs. Travers, and went out, taking the quite\nsmall box with her.\n\nSuch was the coming into this story of Ann Kavanagh at the age of eight\nyears; or, as Miss Kavanagh herself would have explained, had the\nquestion been put to her, eight years and seven months, for Ann\nKavanagh was a precise young lady.  She was not beautiful--not then.\nShe was much too sharp featured; the little pointed chin protruding\ninto space to quite a dangerous extent.  Her large dark eyes were her\none redeeming feature.  But the level brows above them were much too\nready with their frown.  A sallow complexion and nondescript hair\ndeprived her of that charm of colouring on which youth can generally\ndepend for attraction, whatever its faults of form.  Nor could it\ntruthfully be said that sweetness of disposition afforded compensation.\n\n\"A self-willed, cantankerous little imp I call her,\" was Mrs. Travers's\ncomment, expressed after one of the many trials of strength between\nthem, from which Miss Kavanagh had as usual emerged triumphant.\n\n\"It's her father,\" explained Abner Herrick, feeling himself unable to\ncontradict.\n\n\"It's unfortunate,\" answered Mrs. Travers, \"whatever it is.\"\n\nTo Uncle Ab himself, as she had come to call him, she could on occasion\nbe yielding and affectionate; but that, as Mrs. Travers took care to\npoint out to her, was a small thing to her credit.\n\n\"If you had the instincts of an ordinary Christian child,\" explained\nMrs. Travers to her, \"you'd be thinking twenty-four hours a day of what\nyou could do to repay him for all his loving kindness to you; instead\nof causing him, as you know you do, a dozen heartaches in a week.\nYou're an ungrateful little monkey, and when he's gone you'll--\"\n\nUpon which Miss Kavanagh, not waiting to hear more, flew upstairs and,\nlocking herself in her own room, gave herself up to howling and\nremorse; but was careful not to emerge until she felt bad tempered\nagain; and able, should opportunity present itself, to renew the\ncontest with Mrs. Travers unhampered by sentiment.\n\nBut Mrs. Travers's words had sunk in deeper than that good lady herself\nhad hoped for; and one evening, when Abner Herrick was seated at his\ndesk penning a scathing indictment of the President for lack of\nfirmness and decision on the tariff question, Ann, putting her thin\narms round his neck and rubbing her little sallow face against his\nright-hand whisker, took him to task on the subject.\n\n\"You're not bringing me up properly--not as you ought to,\" explained\nAnn.  \"You give way to me too much, and you never scold me.\"\n\n\"Not scold you!\" exclaimed Abner with a certain warmth of indignation.\n\"Why, I'm doing it all--\"\n\n\"Not what _I_ call scolding,\" continued Ann.  \"It's very wrong of you.\nI shall grow up horrid if you don't help me.\"\n\nAs Ann with great clearness pointed out to him, there was no one else\nto undertake the job with any chance of success.  If Abner failed her,\nthen she supposed there was no hope for her:  she would end by becoming\na wicked woman, and everybody, including herself, would hate her.  It\nwas a sad prospect.  The contemplation of it brought tears to Ann's\neyes.\n\nHe saw the justice of her complaint and promised to turn over a new\nleaf.  He honestly meant to do so; but, like many another repentant\nsinner, found himself feeble before the difficulties of performance. He\nmight have succeeded better had it not been for her soft deep eyes\nbeneath her level brows.\n\n\"You're not much like your mother,\" so he explained to her one day,\n\"except about the eyes.  Looking into your eyes I can almost see your\nmother.\"\n\nHe was smoking a pipe beside the fire, and Ann, who ought to have been\nin bed, had perched herself upon one of the arms of his chair and was\nkicking a hole in the worn leather with her little heels.\n\n\"She was very beautiful, my mother, wasn't she?\" suggested Ann.\n\nAbner Herrick blew a cloud from his pipe and watched carefully the\ncurling smoke.\n\n\"In a way, yes,\" he answered.  \"Quite beautiful.\"\n\n\"What do you mean, 'In a way'?\" demanded Ann with some asperity.\n\n\"It was a spiritual beauty, your mother's,\" Abner explained.  \"The soul\nlooking out of her eyes.  I don't think it possible to imagine a more\nbeautiful disposition than your mother's.  Whenever I think of your\nmother,\" continued Abner after a pause, \"Wordsworth's lines always come\ninto my mind.\"\n\nHe murmured the quotation to himself, but loud enough to be heard by\nsharp ears.  Miss Kavanagh was mollified.\n\n\"You were in love with my mother, weren't you?\" she questioned him\nkindly.\n\n\"Yes, I suppose I was,\" mused Abner, still with his gaze upon the\ncurling smoke.\n\n\"What do you mean by 'you suppose you were'?\" snapped Ann.  \"Didn't you\nknow?\"\n\nThe tone recalled him from his dreams.\n\n\"I was in love with your mother very much,\" he corrected himself,\nturning to her with a smile.\n\n\"Then why didn't you marry her?\" asked Ann.  \"Wouldn't she have you?\"\n\n\"I never asked her,\" explained Abner.\n\n\"Why not?\" persisted Ann, returning to asperity.\n\nHe thought a moment.\n\n\"You wouldn't understand,\" he told her.\n\n\"Yes, I would,\" retorted Ann.\n\n\"No, you wouldn't,\" he contradicted her quite shortly.  They were both\nbeginning to lose patience with one another.  \"No woman ever could.\"\n\n\"I'm not a woman,\" explained Ann, \"and I'm very smart.  You've said so\nyourself.\"\n\n\"Not so smart as all that,\" growled Abner.  \"Added to which, it's time\nfor you to go to bed.\"\n\nHer anger with him was such that it rendered her absolutely polite. It\nhad that occasional effect upon her.  She slid from the arm of his\nchair and stood beside him, a rigid figure of frozen femininity.\n\n\"I think you are quite right, Uncle Herrick.  Good night!\"  But at the\ndoor she could not resist a parting shot:\n\n\"You might have been my father, and then perhaps she wouldn't have\ndied.  I think it was very wicked of you.\"\n\nAfter she was gone Abner sat gazing into the fire, and his pipe went\nout.  Eventually the beginnings of a smile stole to the corners of his\nmouth, but before it could spread any farther he dismissed it with a\nsigh.\n\nAbner, for the next day or two, feared a renewal of the conversation,\nbut Ann appeared to have forgotten it; and as time went by it faded\nfrom Abner's own memory.  Until one evening quite a while later.\n\nThe morning had brought him his English mail.  It had been arriving\nwith some regularity, and Ann had noticed that Abner always opened it\nbefore his other correspondence.  One letter he read through twice, and\nAnn, who was pretending to be reading the newspaper, felt that he was\nlooking at her.\n\n\"I have been thinking, my dear,\" said Abner, \"that it must be rather\nlonely for you here, all by yourself.\"\n\n\"It would be,\" answered Ann, \"if I were here all by myself.\"\n\n\"I mean,\" said Abner, \"without any other young person to talk to\nand--and to play with.\"\n\n\"You forget,\" said Ann, \"that I'm nearly thirteen.\"\n\n\"God bless my soul,\" said Abner.  \"How time does fly!\"\n\n\"Who is she?\" asked Ann.\n\n\"It isn't a 'she,'\" explained Abner.  \"It's a 'he.' Poor little chap\nlost his mother two years ago, and now his father's dead.  I\nthought--it occurred to me we might put him up for a time.  Look after\nhim a bit.  What do you think?  It would make the house more lively,\nwouldn't it?\"\n\n\"It might,\" said Ann.\n\nShe sat very silent, and Abner, whose conscience was troubling him,\nwatched her a little anxiously.  After a time she looked up.\n\n\"What's he like?\" she asked.\n\n\"Precisely what I am wondering myself,\" confessed Abner.  \"We shall\nhave to wait and see.  But his mother--his mother,\" repeated Abner,\n\"was the most beautiful woman I have ever known.  If he is anything\nlike she was as a girl--\"  He left the sentence unfinished.\n\n\"You have not seen her since--since she was young?\" questioned Ann.\n\nAbner shook his head.  \"She married an Englishman.  He took her back\nwith him to London.\"\n\n\"I don't like Englishmen,\" said Ann.\n\n\"They have their points,\" suggested Abner.  \"Besides, boys take after\ntheir mothers, they say.\"  And Abner rose and gathered his letters\ntogether.\n\nAnn remained very thoughtful all that day.  In the evening, when Abner\nfor a moment laid down his pen for the purpose of relighting his pipe,\nAnn came to him, seating herself on the corner of the desk.\n\n\"I suppose,\" she said, \"that's why you never married mother?\"\n\nAbner's mind at the moment was much occupied with the Panama Canal.\n\n\"What mother?\" he asked.  \"Whose mother?\"\n\n\"My mother,\" answered Ann.  \"I suppose men are like that.\"\n\n\"What are you talking about?\" said Abner, dismissing altogether the\nPanama Canal.\n\n\"You loved my mother very much,\" explained Ann with cold deliberation.\n\"She always made you think of Wordsworth's perfect woman.\"\n\n\"Who told you all that?\" demanded Abner.\n\n\"You did.\"\n\n\"I did?\"\n\n\"It was the day you took me away from Miss Carew's because she said she\ncouldn't manage me,\" Ann informed him.\n\n\"Good Lord! Why, that must be two years ago,\" mused Abner.\n\n\"Three,\" Ann corrected him.  \"All but a few days.\"\n\n\"I wish you'd use your memory for things you're wanted to remember,\"\ngrowled Abner.\n\n\"You said you had never asked her to marry you,\" pursued Ann\nrelentlessly; \"you wouldn't tell me why.  You said I shouldn't\nunderstand.\"\n\n\"My fault,\" muttered Abner.  \"I forget you're a child.  You ask all\nsorts of questions that never ought to enter your head, and I'm fool\nenough to answer you.\"\n\nOne small tear that had made its escape unnoticed by her was stealing\ndown her cheek.  He wiped it away and took one of her small paws in\nboth his hands.\n\n\"I loved your mother very dearly,\" he said gravely.  \"I had loved her\nfrom a child.  But no woman will ever understand the power that beauty\nhas upon a man.  You see we're built that way.  It's Nature's lure.\nLater on, of course, I might have forgotten; but then it was too late.\nCan you forgive me?\"\n\n\"But you still love her,\" reasoned Ann through her tears, \"or you\nwouldn't want him to come here.\"\n\n\"She had such a hard time of it,\" pleaded Abner.  \"It made things\neasier to her, my giving her my word that I would always look after the\nboy.  You'll help me?\"\n\n\"I'll try,\" said Ann.  But there was not much promise in the tone.\n\nNor did Matthew Pole himself, when he arrived, do much to help matters.\nHe was so hopelessly English.  At least, that was the way Ann put it.\nHe was shy and sensitive.  It is a trying combination. It made him\nappear stupid and conceited.  A lonely childhood had rendered him\nunsociable, unadaptable.  A dreamy, imaginative temperament imposed\nupon him long moods of silence:  a liking for long solitary walks.  For\nthe first time Ann and Mrs. Travers were in agreement.\n\n\"A sulky young dog,\" commented Mrs. Travers.  \"If I were your uncle I'd\nlook out for a job for him in San Francisco.\"\n\n\"You see,\" said Ann in excuse for him, \"it's such a foggy country,\nEngland.  It makes them like that.\"\n\n\"It's a pity they can't get out of it,\" said Mrs. Travers.\n\nAlso, sixteen is an awkward age for a boy.  Virtues, still in the\nchrysalis state, are struggling to escape from their parent vices.\nPride, an excellent quality making for courage and patience, still\nappears in the swathings of arrogance.  Sincerity still expresses\nitself in the language of rudeness.  Kindness itself is apt to be\nmistaken for amazing impertinence and love of interference.\n\nIt was kindness--a genuine desire to be useful, that prompted him to\npoint out to Ann her undoubted faults and failings, nerved him to the\ntask of bringing her up in the way she should go.  Mrs. Travers had\nlong since washed her hands of the entire business.  Uncle Ab, as\nMatthew also called him, had proved himself a weakling. Providence, so\nit seemed to Matthew, must have been waiting impatiently for his\nadvent.  Ann at first thought it was some new school of humour.  When\nshe found he was serious she set herself to cure him.  But she never\ndid.  He was too conscientious for that. The instincts of the guide,\nphilosopher, and friend to humanity in general were already too strong\nin him.  There were times when Abner almost wished that Matthew Pole\nsenior had lived a little longer.\n\nBut he did not lose hope.  At the back of his mind was the fancy that\nthese two children of his loves would come together.  Nothing is quite\nso sentimental as a healthy old bachelor.  He pictured them making\nunity from his confusions; in imagination heard the patter on the\nstairs of tiny feet.  To all intents and purposes he would be a\ngrandfather.  Priding himself on his cunning, he kept his dream to\nhimself, as he thought, but under-estimated Ann's smartness.\n\nFor days together she would follow Matthew with her eyes, watching him\nfrom behind her long lashes, listening in silence to everything he\nsaid, vainly seeking to find points in him.  He was unaware of her\ngenerous intentions.  He had a vague feeling he was being criticised.\nHe resented it even in those days.\n\n\"I do try,\" said Ann suddenly one evening apropos of nothing at all.\n\"No one will ever know how hard I try not to dislike him.\"\n\nAbner looked up.\n\n\"Sometimes,\" continued Ann, \"I tell myself I have almost succeeded. And\nthen he will go and do something that will bring it all on again.\"\n\n\"What does he do?\" asked Abner.\n\n\"Oh, I can't tell you,\" confessed Ann.  \"If I told you it would sound\nas if it was my fault.  It's all so silly.  And then he thinks such a\nlot of himself.  If one only knew why!  He can't tell you himself when\nyou ask him.\"\n\n\"You have asked him?\" queried Abner.\n\n\"I wanted to know,\" explained Ann.  \"I thought there might be something\nin him that I could like.\"\n\n\"Why do you want to like him?\" asked Abner, wondering how much she had\nguessed.\n\n\"I know,\" wailed Ann.  \"You are hoping that when I am grown up I shall\nmarry him.  And I don't want to.  It's so ungrateful of me.\"\n\n\"Well, you're not grown up yet,\" Abner consoled her.  \"And so long as\nyou are feeling like that about it, I'm not likely to want you to marry\nhim.\"\n\n\"It would make you so happy,\" sobbed Ann.\n\n\"Yes, but we've got to think of the boy, don't forget that,\" laughed\nAbner.  \"Perhaps he might object.\"\n\n\"He would.  I know he would,\" cried Ann with conviction.  \"He's no\nbetter than I am.\"\n\n\"Have you been asking him to?\" demanded Abner, springing up from his\nchair.\n\n\"Not to marry me,\" explained Ann.  \"But I told him he must be an\nunnatural little beast not to try to like me when he knew how you loved\nme.\"\n\n\"Helpful way of putting it,\" growled Abner.  \"And what did he say to\nthat?\"\n\n\"Admitted it,\" flashed Ann indignantly.  \"Said he had tried.\"\n\nAbner succeeded in persuading her that the path of dignity and virtue\nlay in her dismissing the whole subject from her mind.\n\nHe had made a mistake, so he told himself.  Age may be attracted by\ncontrast, but youth has no use for its opposite.  He would send Matthew\naway.  He could return for week-ends.  Continually so close to one\nanother, they saw only one another's specks and flaws; there is no\nbeauty without perspective.  Matthew wanted the corners rubbed off him,\nthat was all.  Mixing more with men, his priggishness would be laughed\nout of him.  Otherwise he was quite a decent youngster, clean minded,\nhigh principled.  Clever, too:  he often said quite unexpected things.\nWith approaching womanhood, changes were taking place in Ann.  Seeing\nher every day one hardly noticed them; but there were times when,\nstanding before him flushed from a walk or bending over him to kiss him\nbefore starting for some friendly dance, Abner would blink his eyes and\nbe puzzled.  The thin arms were growing round and firm; the sallow\ncomplexion warming into olive; the once patchy, mouse-coloured hair\ndarkening into a rich harmony of brown.  The eyes beneath her level\nbrows, that had always been her charm, still reminded Abner of her\nmother; but there was more light in them, more danger.\n\n\"I'll run down to Albany and talk to Jephson about him,\" decided Abner.\n\"He can come home on Saturdays.\"\n\nThe plot might have succeeded:  one never can tell.  But a New York\nblizzard put a stop to it.  The cars broke down, and Abner, walking\nhome in thin shoes from a meeting, caught a chill, which, being\nneglected, proved fatal.\n\nAbner was troubled as he lay upon his bed.  The children were sitting\nvery silent by the window.  He sent Matthew out on a message, and then\nbeckoned Ann to come to him.  He loved the boy, too, but Ann was nearer\nto him.\n\n\"You haven't thought any more,\" he whispered, \"about--\"\n\n\"No,\" answered Ann.  \"You wished me not to.\"\n\n\"You must never think,\" he said, \"to show your love for my memory by\ndoing anything that would not make you happy.  If I am anywhere\naround,\" he continued with a smile, \"it will be your good I shall be\nwatching for, not my own way.  You will remember that?\"\n\nHe had meant to do more for them, but the end had come so much sooner\nthan he had expected.  To Ann he left the house (Mrs. Travers had\nalready retired on a small pension) and a sum that, judiciously\ninvested, the friend and attorney thought should be sufficient for her\nneeds, even supposing--The friend and attorney, pausing to dwell upon\nthe oval face with its dark eyes, left the sentence unfinished.\n\nTo Matthew he wrote a loving letter, enclosing a thousand dollars. He\nknew that Matthew, now in a position to earn his living as a\njournalist, would rather have taken nothing.  It was to be looked upon\nmerely as a parting gift.  Matthew decided to spend it on travel.  It\nwould fit him the better for his journalistic career, so he explained\nto Ann.  But in his heart he had other ambitions.  It would enable him\nto put them to the test.\n\nSo there came an evening when Ann stood waving a handkerchief as a\ngreat liner cast its moorings.  She watched it till its lights grew\ndim, and then returned to West Twentieth Street.  Strangers would take\npossession of it on the morrow.  Ann had her supper in the kitchen in\ncompany with the nurse, who had stayed on at her request; and that\nnight, slipping noiselessly from her room, she lay upon the floor, her\nhead resting against the arm of the chair where Abner had been wont to\nsit and smoke his evening pipe; somehow it seemed to comfort her.  And\nMatthew the while, beneath the stars, was pacing the silent deck of the\ngreat liner and planning out the future.\n\nTo only one other being had he ever confided his dreams.  She lay in\nthe churchyard; and there was nothing left to encourage him but his own\nheart.  But he had no doubts.  He would be a great writer.  His two\nhundred pounds would support him till he had gained a foothold. After\nthat he would climb swiftly.  He had done right, so he told himself, to\nturn his back on journalism:  the grave of literature. He would see men\nand cities, writing as he went.  Looking back, years later, he was able\nto congratulate himself on having chosen the right road.  He thought it\nwould lead him by easy ascent to fame and fortune.  It did better for\nhim than that.  It led him through poverty and loneliness, through hope\ndeferred and heartache--through long nights of fear, when pride and\nconfidence fell upon him, leaving him only the courage to endure.\n\nHis great poems, his brilliant essays, had been rejected so often that\neven he himself had lost all love for them.  At the suggestion of an\neditor more kindly than the general run, and urged by need, he had\nwritten some short pieces of a less ambitious nature.  It was in bitter\ndisappointment he commenced them, regarding them as mere pot-boilers.\nHe would not give them his name.  He signed them \"Aston Rowant.\"  It\nwas the name of the village in Oxfordshire where he had been born.  It\noccurred to him by chance.  It would serve the purpose as well as\nanother.  As the work progressed it grew upon him.  He made his stories\nout of incidents and people he had seen; everyday comedies and\ntragedies that he had lived among, of things that he had felt; and when\nafter their appearance in the magazine a publisher was found willing to\nmake them into a book, hope revived in him.\n\nIt was but short-lived.  The few reviews that reached him contained\nnothing but ridicule.  So he had no place even as a literary hack!\n\nHe was living in Paris at the time in a noisy, evil-smelling street\nleading out of the Quai Saint-Michel.  He thought of Chatterton, and\nwould loaf on the bridges looking down into the river where the drowned\nlights twinkled.\n\nAnd then one day there came to him a letter, sent on to him from the\npublisher of his one book.  It was signed \"Sylvia,\" nothing else, and\nbore no address.  Matthew picked up the envelope.  The postmark was\n\"London, S.E.\"\n\nIt was a childish letter.  A prosperous, well-fed genius, familiar with\nsuch, might have smiled at it.  To Matthew in his despair it brought\nhealing.  She had found the book lying in an empty railway carriage;\nand undeterred by moral scruples had taken it home with her.  It had\nremained forgotten for a time, until when the end really seemed to have\ncome her hand by chance had fallen on it.  She fancied some kind little\nwandering spirit--the spirit perhaps of someone who had known what it\nwas to be lonely and very sad and just about broken almost--must have\nmanoeuvred the whole thing.  It had seemed to her as though some strong\nand gentle hand had been laid upon her in the darkness.  She no longer\nfelt friendless.  And so on.\n\nThe book, he remembered, contained a reference to the magazine in which\nthe sketches had first appeared.  She would be sure to have noticed\nthis.  He would send her his answer.  He drew his chair up to the\nflimsy table, and all that night he wrote.\n\nHe did not have to think.  It came to him, and for the first time since\nthe beginning of things he had no fear of its not being accepted.  It\nwas mostly about himself, and the rest was about her, but to most of\nthose who read it two months later it seemed to be about themselves.\nThe editor wrote a charming letter, thanking him for it; but at the\ntime the chief thing that worried him was whether \"Sylvia\" had seen it.\nHe waited anxiously for a few weeks, and then received her second\nletter.  It was a more womanly letter than the first.  She had\nunderstood the story, and her words of thanks almost conveyed to him\nthe flush of pleasure with which she had read it. His friendship, she\nconfessed, would be very sweet to her, and still more delightful the\nthought that he had need of her:  that she also had something to give.\nShe would write, as he wished, her real thoughts and feelings.  They\nwould never know one another, and that would give her boldness.  They\nwould be comrades, meeting only in dreamland.\n\nIn this way commenced the whimsical romance of Sylvia and Aston Rowant;\nfor it was too late now to change the name--it had become a name to\nconjure with.  The stories, poems, and essays followed now in regular\nsuccession.  The anxiously expected letters reached him in orderly\nprocession.  They grew in interest, in helpfulness.  They became the\nletters of a wonderfully sane, broad-minded, thoughtful woman--a woman\nof insight, of fine judgment.  Their praise was rare enough to be\nprecious.  Often they would contain just criticism, tempered by\nsympathy, lightened by humour.  Of her troubles, sorrows, fears, she\ncame to write less and less, and even then not until they were past and\nshe could laugh at them.  The subtlest flattery she gave him was the\nsuggestion that he had taught her to put these things into their proper\nplace.  Intimate, self-revealing as her letters were, it was curious he\nnever shaped from them any satisfactory image of the writer.\n\nA brave, kind, tender woman.  A self-forgetting, quickly-forgiving\nwoman.  A many-sided woman, responding to joy, to laughter:  a merry\nlady, at times.  Yet by no means a perfect woman.  There could be\nflashes of temper, one felt that; quite often occasional\nunreasonableness; a tongue that could be cutting.  A sweet, restful,\ngreatly loving woman, but still a woman:  it would be wise to remember\nthat.  So he read her from her letters.  But herself, the eyes, and\nhair, and lips of her, the voice and laugh and smile of her, the hands\nand feet of her, always they eluded him.\n\n\nHe was in Alaska one spring, where he had gone to collect material for\nhis work, when he received the last letter she ever wrote him. They\nneither of them knew then it would be the last.  She was leaving\nLondon, so the postscript informed him, sailing on the following\nSaturday for New York, where for the future she intended to live.\n\nIt worried him that postscript.  He could not make out for a long time\nwhy it worried him.  Suddenly, in a waste of endless snows, the\nexplanation flashed across him.  Sylvia of the letters was a living\nwoman!  She could travel--with a box, he supposed, possibly with two or\nthree, and parcels.  Could take tickets, walk up a gangway, stagger\nabout a deck feeling, maybe, a little seasick.  All these years he had\nbeen living with her in dreamland she had been, if he had only known\nit, a Miss Somebody-or-other, who must have stood every morning in\nfront of a looking-glass with hairpins in her mouth.  He had never\nthought of her doing these things; it shocked him.  He could not help\nfeeling it was indelicate of her--coming to life in this sudden,\nuncalled-for manner.\n\nHe struggled with this new conception of her, and had almost forgiven\nher, when a further and still more startling suggestion arrived to\nplague him.  If she really lived why should he not see her, speak to\nher?  So long as she had remained in her hidden temple, situate in the\nvague recesses of London, S.E., her letters had contented him.  But now\nthat she had moved, now that she was no longer a voice but a woman!\nWell, it would be interesting to see what she was like.  He imagined\nthe introduction:  \"Miss Somebody-or-other, allow me to present you to\nMr. Matthew Pole.\"  She would have no idea he was Aston Rowant.  If she\nhappened to be young, beautiful, in all ways satisfactory, he would\nannounce himself.  How astonished, how delighted she would be.\n\nBut if not!  If she were elderly, plain?  The wisest, wittiest of women\nhave been known to have an incipient moustache.  A beautiful spirit\ncan, and sometimes does, look out of goggle eyes.  Suppose she suffered\nfrom indigestion and had a shiny nose!  Would her letters ever again\nhave the same charm for him?  Absurd that they should not.  But would\nthey?\n\nThe risk was too great.  Giving the matter long and careful\nconsideration, he decided to send her back into dreamland.\n\nBut somehow she would not go back into dreamland, would persist in\nremaining in New York, a living, breathing woman.\n\nYet even so, how could he find her?  He might, say, in a poem convey to\nher his desire for a meeting.  Would she comply?  And if she did, what\nwould be his position, supposing the inspection to result unfavourably\nfor her?  Could he, in effect, say to her:  \"Thank you for letting me\nhave a look at you; that is all I wanted.  Good-bye\"?\n\nShe must, she should remain in dreamland.  He would forget her\npostscript; in future throw her envelopes unglanced at into the\nwastepaper basket.  Having by this simple exercise of his will replaced\nher in London, he himself started for New York--on his way back to\nEurope, so he told himself.  Still, being in New York, there was no\nreason for not lingering there a while, if merely to renew old memories.\n\nOf course, if he had really wanted to find Sylvia it would have been\neasy from the date upon the envelope to have discovered the ship\n\"sailing the following Saturday.\"  Passengers were compelled to\nregister their names in full, and to state their intended movements\nafter arrival in America.  Sylvia was not a common Christian name. By\nthe help of a five-dollar bill or two--.  The idea had not occurred to\nhim before.  He dismissed it from his mind and sought a quiet hotel up\ntown.\n\n\nNew York was changed less than he had anticipated.  West Twentieth\nStreet in particular was precisely as, leaning out of the cab window,\nhe had looked back upon it ten years ago.  Business had more and more\ntaken possession of it, but had not as yet altered its appearance.  His\nconscience smote him as he turned the corner that he had never once\nwritten to Ann.  He had meant to, it goes without saying, but during\nthose first years of struggle and failure his pride had held him back.\nShe had always thought him a fool; he had felt she did.  He would wait\ntill he could write to her of success, of victory.  And then when it\nhad slowly, almost imperceptibly, arrived--!  He wondered why he never\nhad.  Quite a nice little girl, in some respects.  If only she had been\nless conceited, less self-willed.  Also rather a pretty girl she had\nshown signs of becoming.  There were times--  He remembered an evening\nbefore the lamps were lighted.  She had fallen asleep curled up in\nAbner's easy chair, one small hand resting upon the arm.  She had\nalways had quite attractive hands--a little too thin.  Something had\nmoved him to steal across softly without waking her.  He smiled at the\nmemory.\n\nAnd then her eyes, beneath the level brows!  It was surprising how Ann\nwas coming back to him.  Perhaps they would be able to tell him, the\npeople of the house, what had become of her.  If they were decent\npeople they would let him wander round a while.  He would explain that\nhe had lived there in Abner Herrick's time.  The room where they had\nsometimes been agreeable to one another while Abner, pretending to\nread, had sat watching them out of the corner of an eye.  He would like\nto sit there for a few moments, by himself.\n\nHe forgot that he had rung the bell.  A very young servant had answered\nthe door and was staring at him.  He would have walked in if the small\nservant had not planted herself deliberately in his way.  It recalled\nhim to himself.\n\n\"I beg pardon,\" said Matthew, \"but would you please tell me who lives\nhere?\"\n\nThe small servant looked him up and down with growing suspicion.\n\n\"Miss Kavanagh lives here,\" she said.  \"What do you want?\"\n\nThe surprise was so great it rendered him speechless.  In another\nmoment the small servant would have slammed the door.\n\n\"Miss Ann Kavanagh?\" he inquired, just in time.\n\n\"That's her name,\" admitted the small servant, less suspicious.\n\n\"Will you please tell her Mr. Pole--Mr. Matthew Pole,\" he requested.\n\n\"I'll see first if she is in,\" said the small servant, and shut the\ndoor.\n\nIt gave Matthew a few minutes to recover himself, for which he was\nglad.  Then the door opened again suddenly.\n\n\"You are to come upstairs,\" said the small servant.\n\nIt sounded so like Ann that it quite put him at his ease.  He followed\nthe small servant up the stairs.\n\n\"Mr. Matthew Pole,\" she announced severely, and closed the door behind\nhim.\n\nAnn was standing by the window and came to meet him.  It was in front\nof Abner's empty chair that they shook hands.\n\n\"So you have come back to the old house,\" said Matthew.\n\n\"Yes,\" she answered.  \"It never let well.  The last people who had it\ngave it up at Christmas.  It seemed the best thing to do, even from a\npurely economical point of view.\n\n\"What have you been doing all these years?\" she asked him.\n\n\"Oh, knocking about,\" he answered.  \"Earning my living.\"  He was\ncurious to discover what she thought of Matthew, first of all.\n\n\"It seems to have agreed with you,\" she commented, with a glance that\ntook him in generally, including his clothes.\n\n\"Yes,\" he answered.  \"I have had more luck than perhaps I deserved.\"\n\n\"I am glad of that,\" said Ann.\n\nHe laughed.  \"So you haven't changed so very much,\" he said. \"Except in\nappearance.\n\n\"Isn't that the most important part of a woman?\" suggested Ann.\n\n\"Yes,\" he answered, thinking.  \"I suppose it is.\"\n\nShe was certainly very beautiful.\n\n\"How long are you stopping in New York?\" she asked him.\n\n\"Oh, not long,\" he explained.\n\n\"Don't leave it for another ten years,\" she said, \"before letting me\nknow what is happening to you.  We didn't get on very well together as\nchildren; but we mustn't let him think we're not friends.  It would\nhurt him.\"\n\nShe spoke quite seriously, as if she were expecting him any moment to\nopen the door and join them.  Involuntarily Matthew glanced round the\nroom.  Nothing seemed altered.  The worn carpet, the faded curtains,\nAbner's easy chair, his pipe upon the corner of the mantelpiece beside\nthe vase of spills.\n\n\"It is curious,\" he said, \"finding this vein of fancy, of tenderness in\nyou.  I always regarded you as such a practical, unsentimental young\nperson.\"\n\n\"Perhaps we neither of us knew each other too well, in those days,\" she\nanswered.\n\nThe small servant entered with the tea.\n\n\"What have you been doing with yourself?\" he asked, drawing his chair\nup to the table.\n\nShe waited till the small servant had withdrawn.\n\n\"Oh, knocking about,\" she answered.  \"Earning my living.\"\n\n\"It seems to have agreed with you,\" he repeated, smiling.\n\n\"It's all right now,\" she answered.  \"It was a bit of a struggle at\nfirst.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he agreed.  \"Life doesn't temper the wind to the human lamb. But\nwas there any need in your case?\" he asked.  \"I thought--\"\n\n\"Oh, that all went,\" she explained.  \"Except the house.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" said Matthew.  \"I didn't know.\"\n\n\"Oh, we have been a couple of pigs,\" she laughed, replying to his\nthoughts.  \"I did sometimes think of writing you.  I kept the address\nyou gave me.  Not for any assistance; I wanted to fight it out for\nmyself.  But I was a bit lonely.\"\n\n\"Why didn't you?\" he asked.\n\nShe hesitated for a moment.\n\n\"It's rather soon to make up one's mind,\" she said, \"but you seem to me\nto have changed.  Your voice sounds so different.  But as a boy--well,\nyou were a bit of a prig, weren't you?  I imagined you writing me good\nadvice and excellent short sermons.  And it wasn't that that I was\nwanting.\"\n\n\"I think I understand,\" he said.  \"I'm glad you got through.\n\n\"What is your line?\" he asked.  \"Journalism?\"\n\n\"No,\" she answered.  \"Too self-opinionated.\"\n\nShe opened a bureau that had always been her own and handed him a\nprogramme.  \"Miss Ann Kavanagh, Contralto,\" was announced on it as one\nof the chief attractions.\n\n\"I didn't know you had a voice,\" said Matthew.\n\n\"You used to complain of it,\" she reminded him.\n\n\"Your speaking voice,\" he corrected her.  \"And it wasn't the quality of\nthat I objected to.  It was the quantity.\"\n\nShe laughed.\n\n\"Yes, we kept ourselves pretty busy bringing one another up,\" she\nadmitted.\n\nThey talked a while longer:  of Abner and his kind, quaint ways; of old\nfriends.  Ann had lost touch with most of them.  She had studied\nsinging in Brussels, and afterwards her master had moved to London and\nshe had followed him.  She had only just lately returned to New York.\n\nThe small servant entered to clear away the tea things.  She said she\nthought that Ann had rung.  Her tone implied that anyhow it was time\nshe had.  Matthew rose and Ann held out her hand.\n\n\"I shall be at the concert,\" he said.\n\n\"It isn't till next week,\" Ann reminded him.\n\n\"Oh, I'm not in any particular hurry,\" said Matthew.  \"Are you\ngenerally in of an afternoon?\"\n\n\"Sometimes,\" said Ann.\n\n\nHe thought as he sat watching her from his stall that she was one of\nthe most beautiful women he had ever seen.  Her voice was not great.\nShe had warned him not to expect too much.\n\n\"It will never set the Thames on fire,\" she had said.  \"I thought at\nfirst that it would.  But such as it is I thank God for it.\"\n\nIt was worth that.  It was sweet and clear and had a tender quality.\n\nMatthew waited for her at the end.  She was feeling well disposed\ntowards all creatures and accepted his suggestion of supper with\ngracious condescension.\n\nHe had called on her once or twice during the preceding days.  It was\ndue to her after his long neglect of her, he told himself, and had\nfound improvement in her.  But to-night she seemed to take a freakish\npleasure in letting him see that there was much of the old Ann still\nleft in her:  the frank conceit of her; the amazing\nself-opinionatedness of her; the waywardness, the wilfulness, the\nunreasonableness of her; the general uppishness and dictatorialness of\nher; the contradictoriness and flat impertinence of her; the swift\ntemper and exasperating tongue of her.\n\nIt was almost as if she were warning him.  \"You see, I am not changed,\nexcept, as you say, in appearance.  I am still Ann with all the old\nfaults and failings that once made life in the same house with me a\nconstant trial to you.  Just now my very imperfections appear charms.\nYou have been looking at the sun--at the glory of my face, at the\nwonder of my arms and hands.  Your eyes are blinded. But that will\npass.  And underneath I am still Ann.  Just Ann.\"\n\nThey had quarrelled in the cab on the way home.  He forgot what it was\nabout, but Ann had said some quite rude things, and her face not being\nthere in the darkness to excuse her, it had made him very angry.  She\nhad laughed again on the steps, and they had shaken hands.  But walking\nhome through the still streets Sylvia had plucked at his elbow.\n\nWhat fools we mortals be--especially men!  Here was a noble woman--a\nrestful, understanding, tenderly loving woman; a woman as nearly\napproaching perfection as it was safe for a woman to go!  This\nmarvellous woman was waiting for him with outstretched arms (why should\nhe doubt it?)--and just because Nature had at last succeeded in making\na temporary success of Ann's skin and had fashioned a rounded line\nabove her shoulder-blade!  It made him quite cross with himself.  Ten\nyears ago she had been gawky and sallow-complexioned. Ten years hence\nshe might catch the yellow jaundice and lose it all. Passages in\nSylvia's letters returned to him.  He remembered that far-off evening\nin his Paris attic when she had knocked at his door with her great gift\nof thanks.  Recalled how her soft shadow hand had stilled his pain.  He\nspent the next two days with Sylvia.  He re-read all her letters, lived\nagain the scenes and moods in which he had replied to them.\n\nHer personality still defied the efforts of his imagination, but he\nended by convincing himself that he would know her when he saw her. But\ncounting up the women on Fifth Avenue towards whom he had felt\ninstinctively drawn, and finding that the number had already reached\neleven, began to doubt his intuition.  On the morning of the third day\nhe met Ann by chance in a bookseller's shop.  Her back was towards him.\nShe was glancing through Aston Rowant's latest volume.\n\n\"What I,\" said the cheerful young lady who was attending to her, \"like\nabout him is that he understands women so well.\"\n\n\"What I like about him,\" said Ann, \"is that he doesn't pretend to.\"\n\n\"There's something in that,\" agreed the cheerful young lady.  \"They say\nhe's here in New York.\"\n\nAnn looked up.\n\n\"So I've been told,\" said the cheerful young lady.\n\n\"I wonder what he's like?\" said Ann.\n\n\"He wrote for a long time under another name,\" volunteered the cheerful\nyoung lady.  \"He's quite an elderly man.\"\n\nIt irritated Matthew.  He spoke without thinking.\n\n\"No, he isn't,\" he said.  \"He's quite young.\"\n\nThe ladies turned and looked at him.\n\n\"You know him?\" queried Ann.  She was most astonished, and appeared\ndisbelieving.  That irritated him further.\n\n\"If you care about it,\" he said.  \"I will introduce you to him.\"\n\nAnn made no answer.  He bought a copy of the book for himself, and they\nwent out together.  They turned towards the park.\n\nAnn seemed thoughtful.  \"What is he doing here in New York?\" she\nwondered.\n\n\"Looking for a lady named Sylvia,\" answered Matthew.\n\nHe thought the time was come to break it to her that he was a great and\nfamous man.  Then perhaps she would be sorry she had said what she had\nsaid in the cab.  Seeing he had made up his mind that his relationship\nto her in the future would be that of an affectionate brother, there\nwould be no harm in also letting her know about Sylvia.  That also\nmight be good for her.\n\nThey walked two blocks before Ann spoke.  Matthew, anticipating a\npleasurable conversation, felt no desire to hasten matters.\n\n\"How intimate are you with him?\" she demanded.  \"I don't think he would\nhave said that to a mere acquaintance.\"\n\n\"I'm not a mere acquaintance,\" said Matthew.  \"I've known him a long\ntime.\"\n\n\"You never told me,\" complained Ann.\n\n\"Didn't know it would interest you,\" replied Matthew.\n\nHe waited for further questions, but they did not come.  At\nThirty-fourth Street he saved her from being run over and killed, and\nagain at Forty-second Street.  Just inside the park she stopped\nabruptly and held out her hand.\n\n\"Tell him,\" she replied, \"that if he is really serious about finding\nSylvia, I may--I don't say I can--but I may be able to help him.\"\n\nHe did not take her hand, but stood stock still in the middle of the\npath and stared at her.\n\n\"You!\" he said.  \"You know her?\"\n\nShe was prepared for his surprise.  She was also prepared--not with a\nlie, that implies evil intention.  Her only object was to have a talk\nwith the gentleman and see what he was like before deciding on her\nfuture proceedings--let us say, with a plausible story.\n\n\"We crossed on the same boat,\" she said.  \"We found there was a good\ndeal in common between us.  She--she told me things.\"  When you came to\nthink it out it was almost the truth.\n\n\"What is she like?\" demanded Matthew.\n\n\"Oh, just--well, not exactly--\"  It was an awkward question.  There\ncame to her relief the reflection that there was really no need for her\nto answer it.\n\n\"What's it got to do with you?\" she said.\n\n\"I am Aston Rowant,\" said Matthew.\n\nThe Central Park, together with the universe in general, fell away and\ndisappeared.  Somewhere out of chaos was sounding a plaintive voice:\n\"What is she like?  Can't you tell me?  Is she young or old?\"\n\nIt seemed to have been going on for ages.  She made one supreme\ngigantic effort, causing the Central Park to reappear, dimly, faintly,\nbut it was there again.  She was sitting on a seat. Matthew--Aston\nRowant, whatever it was--was seated beside her.\n\n\"You've seen her?  What is she like?\"\n\n\"I can't tell you.\"\n\nHe was evidently very cross with her.  It seemed so unkind of him.\n\n\"Why can't you tell me--or, why won't you tell me?  Do you mean she's\ntoo awful for words?\"\n\n\"No, certainly not--as a matter of fact--\"\n\n\"Well, what?\"\n\nShe felt she must get away or there would be hysterics somewhere. She\nsprang up and began to walk rapidly towards the gate.  He followed her.\n\n\"I'll write you,\" said Ann.\n\n\"But why--?\"\n\n\"I can't,\" said Ann.  \"I've got a rehearsal.\"\n\nA car was passing.  She made a dash for it and clambered on.  Before he\ncould make up his mind it had gathered speed.\n\nAnn let herself in with her key.  She called downstairs to the small\nservant that she wasn't to be disturbed for anything.  She locked the\ndoor.\n\nSo it was to Matthew that for six years she had been pouring out her\ninmost thoughts and feelings!  It was to Matthew that she had laid bare\nher tenderest, most sacred dreams!  It was at Matthew's feet that for\nsix years she had been sitting, gazing up with respectful admiration,\nwith reverential devotion!  She recalled her letters, almost passage\nfor passage, till she had to hold her hands to her face to cool it.\nHer indignation, one might almost say fury, lasted till tea-time.\n\nIn the evening--it was in the evening time that she had always written\nto him--a more reasonable frame of mind asserted itself. After all, it\nwas hardly his fault.  He couldn't have known who she was.  He didn't\nknow now.  She had wanted to write.  Without doubt he had helped her,\ncomforted her loneliness; had given her a charming friendship, a\ndelightful comradeship.  Much of his work had been written for her, to\nher.  It was fine work.  She had been proud of her share in it.  Even\nallowing there were faults--irritability, shortness of temper, a\ntendency to bossiness!--underneath it all was a man.  The gallant\nstruggle, the difficulties overcome, the long suffering, the high\ncourage--all that she, reading between the lines, had divined of his\nlife's battle!  Yes, it was a man she had worshipped.  A woman need not\nbe ashamed of that.  As Matthew he had seemed to her conceited,\npriggish.  As Aston Rowant she wondered at his modesty, his patience.\n\nAnd all these years he had been dreaming of her; had followed her to\nNew York; had--\n\nThere came a sudden mood so ludicrous, so absurdly unreasonable that\nAnn herself stopped to laugh at it.  Yet it was real, and it hurt. He\nhad come to New York thinking of Sylvia, yearning for Sylvia.  He had\ncome to New York with one desire:  to find Sylvia.  And the first\npretty woman that had come across his path had sent Sylvia clean out of\nhis head.  There could be no question of that.  When Ann Kavanagh\nstretched out her hand to him in that very room a fortnight ago he had\nstood before her dazzled, captured.  From that moment Sylvia had been\ntossed aside and forgotten.  Ann Kavanagh could have done what she\nliked with him.  She had quarrelled with him that evening of the\nconcert.  She had meant to quarrel with him.\n\nAnd then for the first time he had remembered Sylvia.  That was her\nreward--Sylvia's:  it was Sylvia she was thinking of--for six years'\ndevoted friendship; for the help, the inspiration she had given him.\n\nAs Sylvia, she suffered from a very genuine and explainable wave of\nindignant jealousy.  As Ann, she admitted he ought not to have done it,\nbut felt there was excuse for him.  Between the two she feared her mind\nwould eventually give way.  On the morning of the second day she sent\nMatthew a note asking him to call in the afternoon. Sylvia might be\nthere, or she might not.  She would mention it to her.\n\nShe dressed herself in a quiet, dark-coloured frock.  It seemed\nuncommittal and suitable to the occasion.  It also happened to be the\ncolour that best suited her.  She would not have the lamps lighted.\n\nMatthew arrived in a dark serge suit and a blue necktie, so that the\ngeneral effect was quiet.  Ann greeted him with kindliness and put him\nwith his face to what little light there was.  She chose for herself\nthe window-seat.  Sylvia had not arrived.  She might be a little\nlate--that is, if she came at all.\n\nThey talked about the weather for a while.  Matthew was of opinion they\nwere going to have some rain.  Ann, who was in one of her contradictory\nmoods, thought there was frost in the air.\n\n\"What did you say to her?\" he asked.\n\n\"Sylvia?  Oh, what you told me,\" replied Ann.  \"That you had come to\nNew York to--to look for her.\"\n\n\"What did she say?\" he asked.\n\n\"Said you'd taken your time about it,\" retorted Ann.\n\nMatthew looked up with an injured expression.\n\n\"It was her own idea that we should never meet,\" he explained.\n\n\"Um!\" Ann grunted.\n\n\"What do you think yourself she will be like?\" she continued.  \"Have\nyou formed any notion?\"\n\n\"It is curious,\" he replied.  \"I have never been able to conjure up any\npicture of her until just now.\"\n\n\"Why 'just now'?\" demanded Ann.\n\n\"I had an idea I should find her here when I opened the door,\" he\nanswered.  \"You were standing in the shadow.  It seemed to be just what\nI had expected.\"\n\n\"You would have been satisfied?\" she asked.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said.\n\nThere was silence for a moment.\n\n\"Uncle Ab made a mistake,\" he continued.  \"He ought to have sent me\naway.  Let me come home now and then.\"\n\n\"You mean,\" said Ann, \"that if you had seen less of me you might have\nliked me better?\"\n\n\"Quite right,\" he admitted.  \"We never see the things that are always\nthere.\"\n\n\"A thin, gawky girl with a bad complexion,\" she suggested.  \"Would it\nhave been of any use?\"\n\n\"You must always have been wonderful with those eyes,\" he answered.\n\"And your hands were beautiful even then.\"\n\n\"I used to cry sometimes when I looked at myself in the glass as a\nchild,\" she confessed.  \"My hands were the only thing that consoled me.\"\n\n\"I kissed them once,\" he told her.  \"You were asleep, curled up in\nUncle Ab's chair.\"\n\n\"I wasn't asleep,\" said Ann.\n\nShe was seated with one foot tucked underneath her.  She didn't look a\nbit grown up.\n\n\"You always thought me a fool,\" he said.\n\n\"It used to make me so angry with you,\" said Ann, \"that you seemed to\nhave no go, no ambition in you.  I wanted you to wake up--do something.\nIf I had known you were a budding genius--\"\n\n\"I did hint it to you,\" said he.\n\n\"Oh, of course it was all my fault,\" said Ann.\n\nHe rose.  \"You think she means to come?\" he asked.  Ann also had risen.\n\n\"Is she so very wonderful?\" she asked.\n\n\"I may be exaggerating to myself,\" he answered.  \"But I am not sure\nthat I could go on with my work without her--not now.\"\n\n\"You forgot her,\" flashed Ann, \"till we happened to quarrel in the cab.\"\n\n\"I often do,\" he confessed.  \"Till something goes wrong.  Then she\ncomes to me.  As she did on that first evening, six years ago.  You\nsee, I have been more or less living with her since then,\" he added\nwith a smile.\n\n\"In dreamland,\" Ann corrected.\n\n\"Yes, but in my case,\" he answered, \"the best part of my life is passed\nin dreamland.\"\n\n\"And when you are not in dreamland?\" she demanded.  \"When you're just\nirritable, short-tempered, cranky Matthew Pole.  What's she going to do\nabout you then?\"\n\n\"She'll put up with me,\" said Matthew.\n\n\"No she won't,\" said Ann.  \"She'll snap your head off.  Most of the\n'putting up with' you'll have to do.\"\n\nHe tried to get between her and the window, but she kept her face close\nto the pane.\n\n\"You make me tired with Sylvia,\" she said.  \"It's about time you did\nknow what she's like.  She's just the commonplace, short-tempered,\ndisagreeable-if-she-doesn't-get-her-own-way, unreasonable woman. Only\nmore so.\"\n\nHe drew her away from the window by brute force.\n\n\"So you're Sylvia,\" he said.\n\n\"I thought that would get it into your head,\" said Ann.\n\nIt was not at all the way she had meant to break it to him.  She had\nmeant the conversation to be chiefly about Sylvia.  She had a high\nopinion of Sylvia, a much higher opinion than she had of Ann Kavanagh.\nIf he proved to be worthy of her--of Sylvia, that is, then, with the\nwhimsical smile that she felt belonged to Sylvia, she would remark\nquite simply, \"Well, what have you got to say to her?\"\n\nWhat had happened to interfere with the programme was Ann Kavanagh. It\nseemed that Ann Kavanagh had disliked Matthew Pole less than she had\nthought she did.  It was after he had sailed away that little Ann\nKavanagh had discovered this.  If only he had shown a little more\ninterest in, a little more appreciation of, Ann Kavanagh!  He could be\nkind and thoughtful in a patronising sort of way.  Even that would not\nhave mattered if there had been any justification for his airs of\nsuperiority.\n\nAnn Kavanagh, who ought to have taken a back seat on this occasion, had\npersisted in coming to the front.  It was so like her.\n\n\"Well,\" she said, \"what are you going to say to her?\"  She did get it\nin, after all.\n\n\"I was going,\" said Matthew, \"to talk to her about Art and Literature,\ntouching, maybe, upon a few other subjects.  Also, I might have\nsuggested our seeing each other again once or twice, just to get better\nacquainted.  And then I was going away.\"\n\n\"Why going away?\" asked Ann.\n\n\"To see if I could forget you.\"\n\nShe turned to him.  The fading light was full upon her face.\n\n\"I don't believe you could--again,\" she said.\n\n\"No,\" he agreed.  \"I'm afraid I couldn't.\"\n\n\"You're sure there's nobody else,\" said Ann, \"that you're in love with.\nOnly us two?\"\n\n\"Only you two,\" he said.\n\nShe was standing with her hand on old Abner's empty chair.  \"You've got\nto choose,\" she said.  She was trembling.  Her voice sounded just a\nlittle hard.\n\nHe came and stood beside her.  \"I want Ann,\" he said.\n\nShe held out her hand to him.\n\n\"I'm so glad you said Ann,\" she laughed.\n\n\n\n\nTHE FAWN GLOVES.\n\nAlways he remembered her as he saw her first:  the little spiritual\nface, the little brown shoes pointed downwards, their toes just\ntouching the ground; the little fawn gloves folded upon her lap.  He\nwas not conscious of having noticed her with any particular attention:\na plainly dressed, childish-looking figure alone on a seat between him\nand the setting sun.  Even had he felt curious his shyness would have\nprevented his deliberately running the risk of meeting her eyes.  Yet\nimmediately he had passed her he saw her again, quite clearly:  the\npale oval face, the brown shoes, and, between them, the little fawn\ngloves folded one over the other.  All down the Broad Walk and across\nPrimrose Hill, he saw her silhouetted against the sinking sun.  At\nleast that much of her:  the wistful face and the trim brown shoes and\nthe little folded hands; until the sun went down behind the high\nchimneys of the brewery beyond Swiss Cottage, and then she faded.\n\nShe was there again the next evening, precisely in the same place.\nUsually he walked home by the Hampstead Road.  Only occasionally, when\nthe beauty of the evening tempted him, would he take the longer way by\nRegent Street and through the Park.  But so often it made him feel sad,\nthe quiet Park, forcing upon him the sense of his own loneliness.\n\nHe would walk down merely as far as the Great Vase, so he arranged with\nhimself.  If she were not there--it was not likely that she would\nbe--he would turn back into Albany Street.  The newsvendors' shops with\ntheir display of the cheaper illustrated papers, the second-hand\nfurniture dealers with their faded engravings and old prints, would\ngive him something to look at, to take away his thoughts from himself.\nBut seeing her in the distance, almost the moment he had entered the\ngate, it came to him how disappointed he would have been had the seat\nin front of the red tulip bed been vacant.  A little away from her he\npaused, turning to look at the flowers.  He thought that, waiting his\nopportunity, he might be able to steal a glance at her undetected.\nOnce for a moment he did so, but venturing a second time their eyes\nmet, or he fancied they did, and blushing furiously he hurried past.\nBut again she came with him, or, rather, preceded him.  On each empty\nseat between him and the sinking sun he saw her quite plainly:  the\npale oval face and the brown shoes, and, between them, the fawn gloves\nfolded one upon the other.\n\nOnly this evening, about the small, sensitive mouth there seemed to be\nhovering just the faintest suggestion of a timid smile.  And this time\nshe lingered with him past Queen's Crescent and the Malden Road, till\nhe turned into Carlton Street.  It was dark in the passage, and he had\nto grope his way up the stairs, but with his hand on the door of the\nbed-sitting room on the third floor he felt less afraid of the solitude\nthat would rise to meet him.\n\nAll day long in the dingy back office in Abingdon Street, Westminster,\nwhere from ten to six each day he sat copying briefs and petitions, he\nthought over what he would say to her; tactful beginnings by means of\nwhich he would slide into conversation with her.  Up Portland Place he\nwould rehearse them to himself.  But at Cambridge Gate, when the little\nfawn gloves came in view, the words would run away, to join him again\nmaybe at the gate into the Chester Road, leaving him meanwhile to pass\nher with stiff, hurried steps and eyes fixed straight in front of him.\nAnd so it might have continued, but that one evening she was no longer\nat her usual seat. A crowd of noisy children swarmed over it, and\nsuddenly it seemed to him as if the trees and flowers had all turned\ndrab.  A terror gnawed at his heart, and he hurried on, more for the\nneed of movement than with any definite object.  And just beyond a bed\nof geraniums that had hidden his view she was seated on a chair, and\nstopping with a jerk absolutely in front of her, he said, quite angrily:\n\n\"Oh! there you are!\"\n\nWhich was not a bit the speech with which he had intended to introduce\nhimself, but served his purpose just as well--perhaps better.\n\nShe did not resent his words or the tone.\n\n\"It was the children,\" she explained.  \"They wanted to play; so I\nthought I would come on a little farther.\"\n\nUpon which, as a matter of course, he took the chair beside her, and it\ndid not occur to either of them that they had not known one another\nsince the beginning, when between St. John's Wood and Albany Street God\nplanted a garden.\n\nEach evening they would linger there, listening to the pleading passion\nof the blackbird's note, the thrush's call to joy and hope. He loved\nher gentle ways.  From the bold challenges, the sly glances of\ninvitation flashed upon him in the street or from some neighbouring\ntable in the cheap luncheon room he had always shrunk confused and\nawkward.  Her shyness gave him confidence.  It was she who was half\nafraid, whose eyes would fall beneath his gaze, who would tremble at\nhis touch, giving him the delights of manly dominion, of tender\nauthority.  It was he who insisted on the aristocratic seclusion\nafforded by the private chair; who, with the careless indifference of a\nman to whom pennies were unimportant, would pay for them both.  Once on\nhis way through Piccadilly Circus he had paused by the fountain to\nglance at a great basket of lilies of the valley, struck suddenly by\nthe thought how strangely their little pale petals seemed suggestive of\nher.\n\n\"'Ere y' are, honey.  Her favourite flower!\" cried the girl, with a\ngrin, holding a bunch towards him.\n\n\"How much?\" he had asked, vainly trying to keep the blood from rushing\nto his face.\n\nThe girl paused a moment, a coarse, kindly creature.\n\n\"Sixpence,\" she demanded; and he bought them.  She had meant to ask him\na shilling, and knew he would have paid it.  \"Same as silly fool!\" she\ncalled herself as she pocketed the money.\n\nHe gave them to her with a fine lordly air, and watched her while she\npinned them to her blouse, and a squirrel halting in the middle of the\nwalk watched her also with his head on one side, wondering what was the\ngood of them that she should store them with so much care.  She did not\nthank him in words, but there were tears in her eyes when she turned\nher face to his, and one of the little fawn gloves stole out and sought\nhis hand.  He took it in both his, and would have held it, but she\nwithdrew it almost hurriedly.\n\nThey appealed to him, her gloves, in spite of their being old and much\nmended; and he was glad they were of kid.  Had they been of cotton,\nsuch as girls of her class usually wore, the thought of pressing his\nlips to them would have put his teeth on edge.  He loved the little\nbrown shoes, that must have been expensive when new, for they still\nkept their shape.  And the fringe of dainty petticoat, always so\nspotless and with never a tear, and the neat, plain stockings that\nshowed below the closely fitting frock.  So often he had noticed girls,\nshowily, extravagantly dressed, but with red bare hands and sloppy\nshoes.  Handsome girls, some of them, attractive enough if you were not\nof a finicking nature, to whom the little accessories are almost of\nmore importance than the whole.\n\nHe loved her voice, so different from the strident tones that every now\nand then, as some couple, laughing and talking, passed them, would fall\nupon him almost like a blow; her quick, graceful movements that always\nbrought back to his memory the vision of hill and stream.  In her\nlittle brown shoes and gloves and the frock which was also of a shade\nof brown though darker, she was strangely suggestive to him of a fawn.\nThe gentle look, the swift, soft movements that have taken place before\nthey are seen; the haunting suggestion of fear never quite conquered,\nas if the little nervous limbs were always ready for sudden flight.  He\ncalled her that one day.  Neither of them had ever thought to ask one\nanother's names; it did not seem to matter.\n\n\"My little brown fawn,\" he had whispered, \"I am always expecting you to\nsuddenly dig your little heels into the ground and spring away\"; and\nshe had laughed and drawn a little closer to him.  And even that was\njust the movement of a fawn.  He had known them, creeping near to them\nupon the hill-sides when he was a child.\n\nThere was much in common between them, so they found.  Though he could\nclaim a few distant relatives scattered about the North, they were\nboth, for all practical purposes, alone in the world.  To her, also,\nhome meant a bed-sitting room--\"over there,\" as she indicated with a\nwave of the little fawn glove embracing the north-west district\ngenerally; and he did not press her for any more precise address.\n\nIt was easy enough for him to picture it:  the mean, close-smelling\nstreet somewhere in the neighbourhood of Lisson Grove, or farther on\ntowards the Harrow Road.  Always he preferred to say good-bye to her at\nsome point in the Outer Circle, with its peaceful vista of fine trees\nand stately houses, watching her little fawn-like figure fading away\ninto the twilight.\n\nNo friend or relative had she ever known, except the pale,\ngirlish-looking mother who had died soon after they had come to London.\nThe elderly landlady had let her stay on, helping in the work of the\nhouse; and when even this last refuge had failed her, well-meaning folk\nhad interested themselves and secured her employment.  It was light and\nfairly well paid, but there were objections to it, so he gathered, more\nfrom her halting silences than from what she said.  She had tried for a\ntime to find something else, but it was so difficult without help or\nresources.  There was nothing really to complain about it, except--\nAnd then she paused with a sudden clasp of the gloved hands, and,\nseeing the troubled look in her eyes, he had changed the conversation.\n\nIt did not matter; he would take her away from it.  It was very sweet\nto him, the thought of putting a protective arm about this little\nfragile creature whose weakness gave him strength.  He was not always\ngoing to be a clerk in an office.  He was going to write poetry, books,\nplays.  Already he had earned a little.  He told her of his hopes, and\nher great faith in him gave him new courage.  One evening, finding a\nseat where few people ever passed, he read to her.  And she had\nunderstood.  All unconsciously she laughed in the right places, and\nwhen his own voice trembled, and he found it difficult to continue for\nthe lump in his own throat, glancing at her he saw the tears were in\nher eyes.  It was the first time he had tasted sympathy.\n\nAnd so spring grew to summer.  And then one evening a great thing\nhappened.  He could not make out at first what it was about her: some\nlittle added fragrance that made itself oddly felt, while she herself\nseemed to be conscious of increased dignity.  It was not until he took\nher hand to say good-bye that he discovered it.  There was something\ndifferent about the feel of her, and, looking down at the little hand\nthat lay in his, he found the reason.  She had on a pair of new gloves.\nThey were still of the same fawn colour, but so smooth and soft and\ncool.  They fitted closely without a wrinkle, displaying the slightness\nand the gracefulness of the hands beneath. The twilight had almost\nfaded, and, save for the broad back of a disappearing policeman, they\nhad the Outer Circle to themselves; and, the sudden impulse coming to\nhim, he dropped on one knee, as they do in plays and story books and\nsometimes elsewhere, and pressed the little fawn gloves to his lips in\na long, passionate kiss.  The sound of approaching footsteps made him\nrise hurriedly. She did not move, but her whole body was trembling, and\nin her eyes was a look that was almost of fear.  The approaching\nfootsteps came nearer, but a bend of the road still screened them.\nSwiftly and in silence she put her arms about his neck and kissed him.\nIt was a strange, cold kiss, but almost fierce, and then without a word\nshe turned and walked away; and he watched her to the corner of Hanover\nGate, but she did not look back.\n\nIt was almost as if it had raised a barrier between them, that kiss.\nThe next evening she came to meet him with a smile as usual, but in her\neyes was still that odd suggestion of lurking fear; and when, seated\nbeside her, he put his hand on hers it seemed to him she shrank away\nfrom him.  It was an unconscious movement.  It brought back to him that\nhaunting memory of hill and stream when some soft-eyed fawn, strayed\nfrom her fellows, would let him approach quite close to her, and then,\nwhen he put out his hand to caress her, would start away with a swift,\nquivering movement.\n\n\"Do you always wear gloves?\" he asked her one evening a little later.\n\n\"Yes,\" she answered, speaking low; \"when I'm out of doors.\"\n\n\"But this is not out of doors,\" he had pleaded.  \"We have come into the\ngarden.  Won't you take them off?\"\n\nShe had looked at him from under bent brows, as if trying to read him.\nShe did not answer him then.  But on the way out, on the last seat\nclose to the gate, she had sat down, motioning him to sit beside her.\nQuietly she unbuttoned the fawn gloves; drew each one off and laid them\naside.  And then, for the first time, he saw her hands.\n\nHad he looked at her, seen the faint hope die out, the mute agony in\nthe quiet eyes watching him, he would have tried to hide the disgust,\nthe physical repulsion that showed itself so plainly in his face, in\nthe involuntary movement with which he drew away from her. They were\nsmall and shapely with rounded curves, but raw and seared as with hot\nirons, with a growth of red, angry-coloured warts, and the nails all\nworn away.\n\n\"I ought to have shown them to you before,\" she said simply as she drew\nthe gloves on again.  \"It was silly of me.  I ought to have known.\"\n\nHe tried to comfort her, but his phrases came meaningless and halting.\n\nIt was the work, she explained as they walked on.  It made your hands\nlike that after a time.  If only she could have got out of it earlier!\nBut now!  It was no good worrying about it now.\n\nThey parted near to the Hanover Gate, but to-night he did not stand\nwatching her as he had always done till she waved a last good-bye to\nhim just before disappearing; so whether she turned or not he never\nknew.\n\nHe did not go to meet her the next evening.  A dozen times his\nfootsteps led him unconsciously almost to the gate.  Then he would\nhurry away again, pace the mean streets, jostling stupidly against the\npassers-by.  The pale, sweet face, the little nymph-like figure, the\nlittle brown shoes kept calling to him.  If only there would pass away\nthe horror of those hands!  All the artist in him shuddered at the\nmemory of them.  Always he had imagined them under the neat, smooth\ngloves as fitting in with all the rest of her, dreaming of the time\nwhen he would hold them in his own, caressing them, kissing them.\nWould it be possible to forget them, to reconcile oneself to them?  He\nmust think--must get away from these crowded streets where faces seemed\nto grin at him.  He remembered that Parliament had just risen, that\nwork was slack in the office. He would ask that he might take his\nholiday now--the next day.  And they had agreed.\n\nHe packed a few things into a knapsack.  From the voices of the hills\nand streams he would find counsel.\n\nHe took no count of his wanderings.  One evening at a lonely inn he met\na young doctor.  The innkeeper's wife was expecting to be taken with\nchild that night, and the doctor was waiting downstairs till summoned.\nWhile they were talking, the idea came to him.  Why had he not thought\nof it?  Overcoming his shyness, he put his questions. What work would\nit be that would cause such injuries?  He described them, seeing them\nbefore him in the shadows of the dimly lighted room, those poor,\npitiful little hands.\n\nOh! a dozen things might account for it--the doctor's voice sounded\ncallous--the handling of flax, even of linen under certain conditions.\nChemicals entered so much nowadays into all sorts of processes and\npreparations.  All this new photography, cheap colour printing, dyeing\nand cleaning, metal work.  Might all be avoided by providing rubber\ngloves.  It ought to be made compulsory.  The doctor seemed inclined to\nhold forth.  He interrupted him.\n\nBut could it be cured?  Was there any hope?\n\nCured?  Hope?  Of course it could be cured.  It was only local--the\neffect being confined to the hands proved that.  A poisoned condition\nof the skin aggravated by general poverty of blood.  Take her away from\nit; let her have plenty of fresh air and careful diet, using some such\nsimple ointment or another as any local man, seeing them, would\nprescribe; and in three or four months they would recover.\n\nHe could hardly stay to thank the young doctor.  He wanted to get away\nby himself, to shout, to wave his arms, to leap.  Had it been possible\nhe would have returned that very night.  He cursed himself for the\nfancifulness that had prevented his inquiring her address. He could\nhave sent a telegram.  Rising at dawn, for he had not attempted to\nsleep, he walked the ten miles to the nearest railway station, and\nwaited for the train.  All day long it seemed to creep with him through\nthe endless country.  But London came at last.\n\nIt was still the afternoon, but he did not care to go to his room.\nLeaving his knapsack at the station, he made his way to Westminster. He\nwanted all things to be unchanged, so that between this evening and\ntheir parting it might seem as if there had merely passed an ugly\ndream; and timing himself, he reached the park just at their usual hour.\n\nHe waited till the gates were closed, but she did not come.  All day\nlong at the back of his mind had been that fear, but he had driven it\naway.  She was ill, just a headache, or merely tired.\n\nAnd the next evening he told himself the same.  He dared not whisper to\nhimself anything else.  And each succeeding evening again.  He never\nremembered how many.  For a time he would sit watching the path by\nwhich she had always come; and when the hour was long past he would\nrise and walk towards the gate, look east and west, and then return.\nOne evening he stopped one of the park-keepers and questioned him.\nYes, the man remembered her quite well:  the young lady with the fawn\ngloves.  She had come once or twice--maybe oftener, the park-keeper\ncould not be sure--and had waited.  No, there had been nothing to show\nthat she was in any way upset.  She had just sat there for a time, now\nand then walking a little way and then coming back again, until the\nclosing hour, and then she had gone.  He left his address with the\npark-keeper.  The man promised to let him know if he ever saw her there\nagain.\n\nSometimes, instead of the park, he would haunt the mean streets about\nLisson Grove and far beyond the other side of the Edgware Road, pacing\nthem till night fell.  But he never found her.\n\nHe wondered, beating against the bars of his poverty, if money would\nhave helped him.  But the grim, endless city, hiding its million\nsecrets, seemed to mock the thought.  A few pounds he had scraped\ntogether he spent in advertisements; but he expected no response, and\nnone came.  It was not likely she would see them.\n\nAnd so after a time the park, and even the streets round about it,\nbecame hateful to him; and he moved away to another part of London,\nhoping to forget.  But he never quite succeeded.  Always it would come\nback to him when he was not thinking:  the broad, quiet walk with its\nprim trees and gay beds of flowers.  And always he would see her seated\nthere, framed by the fading light.  At least, that much of her:  the\nlittle spiritual face, and the brown shoes pointing downwards, and\nbetween them the little fawn gloves folded upon her lap.","title":"Malvina of Brittany","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":53883}