"Now we are alone, I have something to say to you," she began. The frigid silence which met her words made her task the harder; the atmosphere of the room was eloquent of antagonism. With an effort she continued: "I don't know what you all think of me—I haven't tried to think—but I'm worse—oh! ever so much worse than you believe."

The others wondered what revelations were toward. Devitt's mind went back to the night when Mavis had last stood in the drawing-room. Mavis went on:

"When I was away my heart was filled with hate: I hated you all and longed to be revenged."

Mavis's audience were uncomfortable; it was an axiom of their existence to shy at any expression of emotion.

The Devitts longed for the appearance of the fat butler, who would announce that dinner was served. But to-night his coming was delayed till Mavis had spoken.

"Chance threw Harold in my way," she went on. "He loved me at once, and I took advantage of his love, thinking to be revenged on you for all I believed—yes, I must tell you everything—for all I believed you had done against me."

Here Mrs Devitt lifted up her hands, as if filled with righteous anger at this statement.

Mavis took no notice, but continued:

"That is why I married him. That was then. Now I am punished, as the wicked always are, punished over and over again. Why did I do it? Why? Why?"

Here a look of terror came into her eyes; these looked helplessly about the room, as if nothing could save her from the torment that pursued her.

"He is ill; very ill. His doctor told me. How long do you think he will live?"

"Pritchett?" asked Devitt.

"Yes, when he came down to Swanage. What he told me only makes it worse."

"Makes what worse?" asked Devitt, who was eager to end this painful scene.

"My punishment. He thinks me good—everything I ought to be. I love him! I love him! I love him! He's all goodness and love. He believes in me as he believes in God. I love him! How long do you think he'll live? I love him! I love him! I love him!"



CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

A SURPRISE

Mavis spoke truly. She loved her husband, although with a different love from that which she had known for Perigal. She had adored the father of her child with her soul and with her body, but in her affection for her husband there was no trace of physical passion, of which she had no small share. This new-born love was, in truth, an immense maternal devotion which seemed to satisfy an insistent longing of her being.

Upon the day of their wedding, Mavis was already wondering if she were beginning to love Harold; but for all this uncertainty, she believed that if the marriage were to be a physical as well as a civil union, she would have confessed before the ceremony took place her previous intimacy with Perigal. After the marriage, the holy fervour with which Harold had regarded Mavis bewildered her. The more his nature was revealed to her, the better she was enabled to realise the cold-blooded brutality with which the supreme Power (Mavis's thoughts did not run so easily in the direction of a Heavenly Father as was once their wont) had permanently mutilated Harold's life, which had been of the rarest promise. Still ignorant of her real sentiments for her husband, she had persuaded him, for no apparent reason, to delay acquainting his family with the news of their marriage. Truth soon illumined Mavis's mind. Directly she realised how devotedly she loved her husband (the maternal aspect of her love did not occur to her), her punishment for her previous duplicity began. She was constantly overwhelmed with bitter reproaches because of her having set out to marry her husband from motives of revenge against his family.

Mavis's confession to the Devitts temporarily eased her mind, but, as her husband's solicitude for her happiness redoubled, her torments recommenced with all their old-time persistency. Harold's declining health gave her innumerable anguished hours; she realised that, so long as he lived, she would suffer for the deception she had practised. She believed that, if she survived him, her remaining days would be filled with grief.

Whichever way she looked, trouble confronted her with hard, unbending features.

She was enmeshed in a net of sorrow from which there was no escape.

In order to stifle any hints or rumours which might have got about Melkbridge of Mavis having been a mother without being a wife, she was pressed by the Devitts to make a stay of some length at Melkbridge House. Guessing the reason of this invitation, she accepted, although she, as well as her husband, were eager to get into a quaint, weather-beaten farmhouse which Harold had bought in the neighbourhood.

To make her stay as tolerable as possible, Mavis set herself to win the hearts of the Devitt family, the feminine members of which, she was convinced, were bitterly hostile to her. The men of the household, to the scarcely concealed dismay of the women, quickly came over to her side. Lowther she appreciated at his worth; her studied indifference to him went a long way towards securing that youth's approval, which was not unmingled with admiration for her person. Montague she was beginning to like. For his part, he was quickly sensible of the feminine distinction which Mavis's presence bestowed upon his home. The fine figure she cut in evening dress at dinner parties, when the Devitts feasted their world; her conversation in the drawing-room afterwards; the emotion she put into her playing and singing (it was the only expression Mavis could give to the abiding griefs gnawing at her heart), were social assets of no small value, which Devitt was the first to appreciate. Mrs Harold Devitt's appearance and parts gave to his assemblies a piquancy which was sadly lacking when his friends repaid his hospitality. Mavis, also, pointed out to Devitt the advisability of rescuing from the lumber rooms several fine old pieces of furniture which were hidden away in disgrace, largely because they had belonged to Montague's humble grandfather. The handiwork of Chippendale and Hepplewhite was furbished up and put about the house, replacing Tottenham Court Road monstrosities. When the old furniture epidemic presently seized upon Melkbridge, the Devitts could flatter themselves that they had done much to influence local fashion in the matter.

Montague came to take pleasure in Mavis's society, when he would drop his blustering manner to become his kindly self. They had many long talks together, which enabled Mavis to realise the loneliness of the man's life. The more Montague saw of her the more he disliked his son-in-law's share in the paternity of Mavis's dead child.

Now and again he would discuss business worries with her, which established a community of interest between them. His friendship gave Mavis confidence in her endeavours to placate the female Devitts. This latter was uphill work: Mrs Devitt and her sister entrenched themselves in a civil reserve which resisted Mavis's most strenuous assaults. With Victoria, Mavis believed, at first, that she had better luck, Mrs Charlie Perigal's sentiments and manner of expressing them being all that the most exigent fancy might desire; but as time wore on, Mavis got no further with her sister-in-law; she could never feel that she and Victoria had a single heart beat in common.

As with so many others, Mavis began by liking but ended by being repelled by Victoria's inhuman flawlessness.

Thus Mavis lived for the weeks she stayed at Melkbridge House. But at all times, no matter what she might be doing, she was liable to be attacked by bitter, heart-rending grief at the loss of her child. Mavis had already suffered so much that she was now able to distinguish the pains peculiar to the different varieties of sorrow. This particular grief took the shape of a piteous, persistent heart hunger which nothing could stay. Joined to this was a ceaseless longing for the lost one, which cast drear shadows upon the bright hues of life. The way in which she was compelled to isolate her pain from all human sympathy did not diminish its violence.

One night, when the Devitts were entertaining their kind, the conversation at dinner touched upon a local petty sessions case, in which the nursemaid of one of those present had been punished for concealing the birth of an illegitimate child, who had since died.

"It was a great worry to me," complained the nurse's mistress. "She was such a perfect nurse."

"I hope you'll do something for her when she comes out," urged Harold.

The woman stared at Harold in astonishment.

"Think how the poor girl's suffered," he continued.

"Do you really think so?" asked the woman.

"She's lost her child."

"But I always understood that those who lose children out of wedlock cannot possible grieve like married women who have the same loss."

In a moment Mavis's thoughts flew to Pennington Churchyard, where her heart seemed buried deep below the grass; certain of her facial nerves twitched, while tears filled her eyes. Devitt's voice recalled her to her surroundings; she looked up, to catch his eyes looking kindly into hers. Although she made an effort to join in the talk, she was mentally bowing her head, the while her being ached with anguish. She did not recover her spirits for the rest of the evening.

There came a day when one of the big guns of the financial world was expected to dinner. Mavis had many times met at Melkbridge House some of the lesser artillery of successful business men, when she had been surprised to discover what dull, uninteresting folk they were; apart from their devotion to the cult of money-getting, they did not seem to have another interest in life, the ceaseless quest for gold absorbing all their vitality. This big gun was a Sir Frederick Buntz, whose interest Devitt, as he told Mavis, was anxious to secure in one of his company-promoting schemes. In order to do Devitt a good turn, Mavis laid herself out to please the elderly Sir Frederick, who happened to have an eye for an attractive woman. Sir Frederick scarcely spoke to anyone else but Mavis throughout dinner; at the end of the evening, he asked her if she advised him to join Devitt's venture.

Mavis's behaviour formed the subject of a complaint made by Mrs Devitt when alone with Montague in their bedroom.

"Didn't you notice the shameless way she behaved?" asked Mrs Devitt.

"Nonsense!" replied her well-pleased lord.

"Everyone noticed it. She's rapidly going from bad to worse."

"Anyway, it's as good as put five thousand in my pocket, if not more."

"What do you mean?"

Montague's explanation modified his wife's ill opinion of Mavis. The next morning, when Devitt thanked his daughter-in-law for influencing Sir Frederick in the way she had done, Mavis said:

"I want something in return."

"Some shares for yourself?"

"A rise of a pound a week for Miss Toombs."

"That plain, unhealthy little woman at the boot factory!"

"She's a heart of gold. I know you'll do it for me," said Mavis, who was now conscious of her power over Devitt.

Having won her way, Mavis set out to intercept Miss Toombs, who about this time would be on her way to business. They had not met since Mavis's marriage to Harold, Miss Toombs refusing to answer Mavis's many letters and always being out when her old friend called.

Mavis ran against Miss Toombs by the market-place; her friend looked in worse health than when she had last seen her.

"Good morning," said Mavis.

"Don't talk to me," cried Miss Toombs. "I hate the sight of you."

"No, you don't. And I've done you a good turn."

"I'm sorry to hear it. I wish you good morning."

"What have I done to upset you?" asked Mavis.

"Don't pretend you don't know."

"But I don't."

"What! Then I'll tell you. You've married young Devitt, when there's a man worth all the women who ever lived eating his heart out for you."

Mavis stopped, amazed at the other woman's vehemence.

"A man who you've treated like the beast you are," continued Miss Toombs hotly. "After all that's happened, he longed to marry you, and that's more than most men would have done."

"You don't know—you can't understand," faltered Mavis.

"Yes, I do. You're not really bad; you're only a precious big fool and don't know when you've got a good thing."

"I—I love my husband."

"Rot! You may think you do, but you don't. You're much too hot-blooded to stick that kind of marriage long. I know I wouldn't. And it serves you right if you ever make a mess of it."

"I thought Sir Archibald only pitied me," said Mavis, in extenuation of her marriage.

"Pity! pity! He's a man, not a bloodless nincompoop," said Miss Toombs. "And it's you I have to thank for seeing him so often," she added, as her anger again flamed up.

"Sir Archibald?" asked Mavis.

"He sees me to talk about you," said Miss Toombs sorrowfully. "And he never looks twice at me. He doesn't even like me enough to ask me to go away for a week-end with him. I'm simply nothing to him, and that's the truth."

"I think you a dear, anyway. And I've got you a rise of a pound a week."

"What?"

Mavis repeated her information.

"That'll buy me some summer muslins I've long had my eye on, and one or two bits of jewellery. Then, perhaps, he'll look at me," declared Miss Toombs.

The next moment she caught sight of her reflection in Perrott's (the grocer's) window, at which she cried:

"Just look at me! What on earth could ever make that attractive?"

"Your kind nature," replied Mavis. "You're much too fond of under-valuing your appearance."

"It's all damned unfair!" cried Miss Toombs passionately. "What use are your looks to you? What fun do you get out of life? Why—oh why haven't I your face and figure?"

"What would you do with it?" asked Mavis.

"Get him, get him somehow. If he wouldn't marry me I'd manage to 'live.' And he's not a cad like Charlie Perigal," cried Miss Toombs, as she hurried off to work.

When Mavis got back, she learned that the morning post had brought an invitation for the Devitts and herself for a dinner that Major Perigal was giving in two weeks' time. Major Perigal, also, wrote privately to Mavis, urging her to give him the honour of her company; he assured her that his son would not be present.

Little else but the approaching dinner was discussed by the Devitts for the rest of the day. As if to palliate their interest in the matter, they explained to Mavis how the proffered hospitality was alien to the ways of the giver of the feast. At heart they were greatly pleased with the invitation; it promised a meeting with county folk on equal terms, together with a termination to the aloofness with which Major Perigal had treated the Devitts since his son's marriage to Victoria. They accepted with alacrity. Mavis, alone, hesitated.

Her husband urged her to go, although his physical disability would prevent him from accompanying her.

"I want my dearest to go," he said. "It will give me so much pleasure to know how wonderful you looked, and how everyone admired you."

Mavis decided to accept the invitation, largely because it was her husband's wish; a little, because she had the curiosity to meet those who would have been acquaintances and friends had her father been alive. Her lot had been thrown so much among those who worked for daily bread, that she was not a little eager to mix, if it were only for a few hours, with her own social kind.

Mavis, again at Harold's wish, reluctantly ordered an expensive frock for the dinner. It was of grey taffetas embroidered upon bodice and skirt with black velvet butterflies. The night of the dinner, when Mavis was ready to go, she showed herself to her husband before setting out. He looked at her long and intently before saying:

"I shall always remember you like this."

"What do you mean?" she asked, a little afraid.

"It isn't what I expect. It's what I deserve for marrying a glorious young creature like you."

"Am I discontented?" she asked proudly.

"God bless you. You're as good as you're beautiful," he replied.

As she stooped to kiss him, the prayer of her heart was:

"May he never know why I married him."

His eyes, alight with love, followed her as she left the room.

Major Perigal received his guests in the drawing-room. The first person whom Mavis encountered after she had greeted her host was Windebank. She recalled that she had not seen him since her illness at Mrs Trivett's, He had written to congratulate her on her marriage when she had come to stay with the Devitts; since then, she had not heard from him.

Although Mavis knew that she might see him to-night, she was so taken aback at meeting him that she could think of nothing to say. He relieved her embarrassment by talking commonplace.

"Here's someone who much wishes to meet you," he said presently. "It's Sir William Ludlow; he served with your father in India."

Mavis knew the name of Sir William Ludlow as that of a general with a long record of distinguished service.

When he was introduced by Windebank, Mavis saw that he had soldier written all over his wiry, spare person; she congratulated herself upon meeting a man who might talk of the stirring events in which he had taken so prominent a part. He had only time to tell Mavis how she more resembled her mother than her father when a move was made for the dining-room. Mavis was taken down by Windebank.

"Thank you," she said in an undertone, when they had reached the landing.

"What for?"

"All you've done."

He turned on her such a look of pain that she did not say any more.

Windebank sat on her right; General Sir William Ludlow on her left. Directly opposite was a little pasty-faced woman with small, bright eyes. Victoria, by virtue of her relationship to Major Perigal, faced her father-in-law at the bottom of the table; upon her right sat the most distinguished-looking man Mavis had ever seen. Tall, finely proportioned, with noble, regular features, surmounted by grey hair, he suggested to Mavis a fighting bishop of the middle ages: she wondered who he was. The soldier on her left talked incessantly, but, to Mavis's surprise, he made no mention of his campaigns; he spoke of nothing else but rose culture, his persistent ill-luck at flower shows, the unfairness of the judging. The meal was long and, even to Mavis, to whom a dinner party was in the nature of an experience, tedious.

Infrequent relief was supplied by the pasty-faced woman opposite, who was the General's wife; she did her best to shock the susceptibilities of those present by being in perpetual opposition to their stolid views.

An elderly woman, whose face showed the ravages of time upon what must have been considerable beauty (somehow she looked rather disreputable), had referred to visits she had paid, when in London for the season, to a sister who lived in Eccleston Square.

"Such a dreadful neighbourhood!" she complained. "It made me quite ill to go there."

"I love it," declared Lady Ludlow.

"That part of London!" exclaimed the faded beauty.

"Why not? Whatever life may be there, it is honest in its unconcealment. And to be genuine is to be noble."

"You're joking, Kate," protested the faded beauty.

"I'm doing nothing of the kind. Give me Pimlico," declared Lady Ludlow emphatically.

At mention of Pimlico, Mavis and Windebank involuntarily glanced into each other's eyes; the name of this district recalled many memories to their minds.

When dinner was over, Mavis had hardly reached the drawing-room with the women-folk, when Lady Ludlow pounced upon her.

"I've been so anxious to meet you," she declared. "You're one of the lucky ones."

"Since when am I lucky?" asked Mavis.

"Since your father died and you had to earn your living till you were married. Old Jimmy Perigal told me all about it. You're to be envied."

"I fail to see why."

"You've mixed with the world and have escaped living with all these stuffy bores."

"They don't know how lucky they are," remarked Mavis with conviction.

"Nonsense! Give me life and the lower orders. What did my husband talk about during dinner?"

"Roses."

"Of course. When he was at his wars, I had some peace. Now I'm bored to death with flowers."

"Who was that distinguished-looking man who sat on Mrs Charles Perigal's right?" asked Mavis.

"That's Lord Robert Keevil, whose brother is the great tin-god 'Seend.'"

"The Marquis of Seend?" queried Mavis.

"That's it: he was foreign minister in the last Government. But Bobbie Keevil is adorable till he's foolish enough to open his mouth. Then he gives the game away."

"What do you mean?"

"He's the complete fool. If he would only hold his tongue, he might be a success. His wife is over there. Her eyes are always weeping for the loss of her beauty. Your father wanted to marry her in his youth. But give me people who don't bother about such tiresome conventionalities as marriage."

Mavis looked curiously at the woman whom her father had loved. Doubtless, she was comely in her youth, but now Mavis saw pouched eyes, thin hair, a care-lined face not altogether innocent of paint and powder. And it was those cracked lips her father had longed to kiss; those dim eyes, the thought of which had, perhaps, shortened his hours of rest! The sight of the faded beauty brought home to Mavis the vanity of earthly love, till she reflected that, had the one-time desire of her father's heart been gratified, the sorrow they would have shared in common would ever endear her to his heart, and keep her the fairest woman the earth possessed, for all the defacement time might make in her appearance.

When the men came up from the dining-room, there was intermittent music in which Mavis took part. The sincerity of her voice, together with its message of tears, awoke genuine approval in her audience.

"An artiste, my dear," declared Lady Ludlow. "Artistes have always a touch of vulgarity in their natures, or they wouldn't make their appeal. We must be great friends. I'm sick to death of correct people."

For the rest of the evening, Mavis noticed how she herself was constantly watched by Windebank and Major Perigal, the former of whom dropped his eyes when he saw that Mavis perceived the direction of his glance. As the evening wore on, Mavis was faintly bored and not a little troubled. She reflected that it was in these very rooms that Charlie Perigal had read her piteous little letters from London, and from where he probably penned his lying replies. Mavis would have liked to have been alone so that she could try to appreciate the whys and wherefores of the most significant events in her life. The conditions of her last stay in London and those of her present life were as the poles apart so far as material well-being was concerned; her mind ached to fasten upon some explanation that would reconcile the tragic events in her life with her one-time implicit faith in the certain protection extended by a Heavenly Father to His trusting children. Perhaps it was as well that Mavis was again asked to sing; the effort of remembering her words put all such thoughts from her mind.

Whatever clouds may have gathered about Mavis's appreciation of the evening, there was no doubt of the enjoyment of those Devitts who were present. The dinner was, to them, an event of social moment in their lives. Although they looked as if they had got into the dignified atmosphere of Major Perigal's drawing-room by mistake, they were greatly delighted with their evening; afterwards, they did not fail to make copious references to those they had met at dinner to their Melkbridge friends.

A month after the dinner, Major Perigal died suddenly in his chair. Two days after he was buried, Mavis received an intimation from his solicitors, which requested her presence at the reading of his will. Wondering what was toward, Mavis made an appointment. To her boundless astonishment, she learned that Major Perigal, "on account of the esteem in which he held the daughter of his old friend, Colonel Keeves," had left Mavis all his worldly goods, with the exception of bequests to servants and five hundred pounds to his son Charles.



CHAPTER FORTY

A MIDNIGHT WALK

Thus it would seem as if fate wished to make amends for the sorry tricks it had played Mavis. Her first impressions after hearing the news were of such a contradictory nature that she was quite bewildered. Those present at the reading of the will, together with Montague Devitt, who had accompanied her, hastened to offer their congratulations (those of Devitt being chastened by the reflection of how much his daughter Victoria suffered from Mavis's good fortune), but, even while these were talking and shaking her hand, two salient emotions were already emerging from the welter in Mavis's mind. One of these was an immeasurable, passionate regret for her child's untimely death. If he had lived, she would now have been able to devote her sudden enrichment to providing him, not only with the comforts that wealth can secure, but also with a career when he should come to man's estate. The other emotion possessing her was the inevitable effect of unexpected good fortune on a great and persistent remorse: more than ever, she suffered tortures of self-reproach for having set out to marry her husband from motives of revenge against his family. Whilst thus occupied with her thoughts, she became conscious that someone was watching her; she turned in the direction from which she believed she was being regarded, to see Charlie Perigal with his eyes fixed on her. She looked him full in the eyes, the while she was relieved to find that his presence did not affect the beating of her heart. Seeing that she did not avoid his glance, he came over to her.

"I congratulate you," he said.

"Thank you," she replied indifferently.

"I have also to congratulate you on your marriage—that is, if you are happy."

"I am very happy," she declared with conviction.

"That's more than I am."

"Indeed!" she remarked carelessly.

"Although, in some respects, I deserve all I've got—I'm bad and mean right through."

"Indeed!" said Mavis, as before.

"But there's something to be said for me. To begin with, no one can help being what they are. There's no more merit in your being good than there is demerit in my being what I am."

"Did I ever lay claim to goodness?"

"Because you didn't, it goes nearer to making you good and admirable than anything else you could do. Directly virtue becomes self-conscious, it is vulgar."

Mavis began to wonder if it would ease the pain at her heart if she were to confess her duplicity to her husband.

Perigal continued:

"An act is judged by its results; it is considered either virtuous or vicious according as its results are harmful or helpful to the person affected."

"Indeed!" said Mavis absently.

"Once upon a time, there was no right and no wrong, till one man in the human tribe got more than his fair share of arrow-heads—then, his wish to keep them without fighting for them led to the begetting of vice and virtue as we know it."

"How was that?" asked Mavis, striving to escape from her distracting emotions by following what Perigal was saying.

"The man with the arrow-heads hired a chap with a gift of the gab to tell the others how wrong it was to want things someone else had collared. That was the first lesson in morality, and the preacher, seeing there was money in the game, started the first priesthood. Yes, morality owes its existence to the fact of the well-to-do requiring to be confirmed in their possessions without having to defend them by force."

Mavis was now paying no attention to Perigal's talk: mind and heart were in Pennington Churchyard. Perigal, thinking he was interesting Mavis, went on:

"You mayn't think it, but a bad egg like me does no end of a lot of good in the world, although downright criminals do more. If it weren't for people who interfered with others' belongings, the race would get slack and deteriorate. It's having to look after one's property which keeps people alert and up to the mark, and, therefore, those who're the cause of this fitness have their uses. No, my dear Mavis, evil is a necessary ingredient of the body politic, and if it were abolished to-morrow the race would go to 'pot.'"

Perigal said more to the same effect. Mavis was, presently, moved to remark:

"You take the loss of the money you expected very calmly."

"No wonder!"

"No wonder?" she queried, without expressing any surprise in her voice.

"To begin with, you have it. Then I've seen you."

Mavis thought for a moment before saying:

"I suppose, as I'm another man's wife, I ought to be angry at that remark."

"Aren't you?" he asked eagerly.

She did not reply directly; perhaps some recognition of the coldness with which she regarded him penetrated his understanding, for he added pleadingly:

"Don't say you don't mind because you're absolutely indifferent to me!"

"Why not?"

"Anything but that," he said, while a distressed look crept into his eyes. "But then, if you speak the truth, you couldn't say that after all that has—

"I'm going to speak the truth," she interrupted. "It doesn't interest me to say anything else."

"Well?" he exclaimed anxiously.

"I don't in the least mind what you said. And I'm not in the least offended, because, whatever you might ever say or do, it would never interest me."

He stared at her helplessly for a few moments before saying:

"Serve me jolly well right."

Mavis did not say any more, at which Perigal got up to leave her.

"I've been a precious fool," he muttered, after glancing at Mavis's face before moving away.

Devitt scarcely spoke whilst driving Mavis home; consequently, her thoughts had free play. It would certainly ease her mind, she reflected, if she made full confession to her husband of the reasons that impelled her to make his acquaintance and accept his offer of marriage; but it then occurred to her that this tranquillity of soul would be bought at the price, not only of his implicit faith in her, but of his happiness. Therefore, whatever pangs of remorse it was destined for her to suffer, he must never know; she being the offender, it was not meet that she should shift the burden of pain from her shoulders to his. Her sufferings were her punishment for her wrongdoing.

Mrs Devitt and Miss Spraggs were silent when they learned of Mavis's good fortune; they were torn between enhanced respect for Harold's wife and concern for Victoria, who had married a penniless man. Mavis could not gauge the effect of the news on Victoria, as she had gone back to London after Major Perigal's funeral, her husband remaining at Melkbridge for the reading of the will. Harold, alone among the Devitts, exhibited frank dismay at his wife's good fortune.

"Aren't you glad, dearest?" asked Mavis.

"For your sake."

"Why not for yours?"

"It's the thing most likely to separate us."

"Separate us!" she cried in amazement.

"Why not? This money will put you in the place in life you are entitled to fill."

Mavis stared at him in astonishment.

"With your appearance and talents you should be a great social success with the people who matter," he continued.

"Nonsense!"

"You undervalue your wonderful self. I should never have been so selfish as to marry you."

"You don't regret it?"

"For the great happiness it has brought me—no. But when I think how you might have made a great marriage and had a real home—"

"Aren't we going to have a real home?" she interrupted.

"Are we?"

"If it's love that makes the home, we have one whatever our condition," declared Mavis.

"Thank you for saying that. But what I meant was that children are wanted to make the perfect home."

Mavis's face fell.

"You, with your rare nature, must want to have a child," he continued. "I don't know which must be worse: for a childless woman to long for a child or to have one and lose it."

Mavis grasped the arm of the chair for support.

"What's the matter?" he asked, alarmed.

"What you said. Don't, don't say I'm dissatisfied any more."

Thus Mavis and those nearest to her learned of the alteration in her fortunes.

Mavis was not long in discovering that the command of money provided her with a means of escape from the prepossessions afflicting her mind. The first thing she did was to summon the most renowned nerve specialists to Melkbridge, where they held a lengthy consultation in respect of Harold's physical condition. Mavis was anxious to know if anything could be done to strengthen the slender thread of his life; she was much distressed to learn that the specialists' united skill could do nothing to stay the pitiless course of his disease. This verdict provided a further sorrow for Mavis, which she had to keep resolutely to herself, inasmuch as she told Harold that the doctors had spoken most favourably of the chances of his obtaining considerable alleviation of his physical distresses.

"And then you regret my coming into all this money, when it can do so much for you," she said, with a fine assumption of cheerfulness.

To get some distraction from her many troubles, Mavis next set about seeking out all the people who had ever been kind to her in order that they should benefit from her good fortune.

It did not take her long to discover that Miss Annie Mee was dead; but for all she and her solicitors were able to do, they could find no trace of 'Melia. Mavis paid Mr Poulter's debts, gave him a present of a hundred pounds (endowing the academy he called it), and, in memory of Miss Nippett, she gave "Turpsichor" two fine new coats of paint. Mavis also discovered where Miss Nippett was buried, and, finding that the grave had no headstone, she ordered one. To Mrs Scatchard and her niece she made handsome presents, and gave Mr Napper a finely bound edition of the hundred best books; whilst Mr and Mrs Trivett were made comfortable for life. Mavis was unable to find two people she was anxious to help. These were the "Permanent" and the "Lil" of Halverton Street days. One day, clad in shabby garments, she went to Mrs Gowler's address at New Cross to get news of the former. But the house of evil remembrance was to let; a woman at the next door house told Mavis that Mrs Gowler had been arrested and had got ten years for the misdeeds which the police had at last been able to prove. Mavis went on a similar errand to Halverton Street, to find that Lil had long since left and that there was no one in the house who knew of her whereabouts. She had been lost in one of the many foul undercurrents of London life. The one remaining person Mavis wished to benefit was Miss Toombs. For a long time, this independent-minded young woman resisted the offers that Mavis made her. One day, however, when Miss Toombs was laid up with acute indigestion, Mavis prevailed on her to accept a handsome cheque which would enable her to do what she pleased for the rest of her life, without endangering the happiness she derived from tea, buttered toast, and hot-water bottles in winter.

"It was unkind of you not to take it before," said Mavis.

Miss Toombs looked stupidly at her benefactor.

"Now I know you want to thank me. Good night," said Mavis, as she put out her hand.

Miss Toombs took it, gripped it, and then turned round with her face to the wall. The next morning, Mavis received a letter from her in pencil. In this, she told Mavis that the desire of her life had been for independence; but that she had held out against taking the money because she had latterly become jealous of Mavis, owing to Windebank's lifelong infatuation for her.

In addition to these benefactions, Mavis insisted on repaying Windebank for all the expense he had been put to for her illness, her child's funeral, and for her long stay at Swanage.

Thus, Mavis's first concern was to benefit those who had shown her kindness; whether or not she added to the sum of their individual happiness is another matter. Mr Poulter, doubtless, thought that dear Mrs Harold Devitt, while she was about it, might just as well have gilded "Turpsichor's" head and face. Mrs Scatchard, and particularly Miss Meakin, were probably resentful that Mavis did not ask them to mix with her swell friends; whilst Miss Toombs had plenty of time on her hands in which to indulge in vain regrets because she was not as attractive and finely formed as Mavis.

Beyond these gifts, it was a long time before Mavis could get into the habit of spending her substance freely, and without thought of whether she could really afford to part with money; the reason being that, for so many years in her life, she had had to consider so carefully every penny she spent, that she found it difficult to break away from these habits of economy. Late in the year, she moved up from her Melkbridge place (which she had long since gone into) to the house in town which Major Perigal had been in the habit of letting, or, if a tenant were not forthcoming, shutting up.

When she got there with Harold and Jill, she welcomed the distractions that London life offered, and in which her husband joined so far as his physical disability would permit. Windebank, to whom Harold took a great liking, and Lady Ludlow introduced Mavis to their many acquaintances. In a very short time, Mavis had more dear, devoted friends than she knew what to do with. The women, who praised her and her devotion "to a perfect dear of a husband" to her face, would, after enjoying her hospitality, go away to discuss openly how soon she would elope with Windebank, or any other man they fancied was paying her attention.

Mavis was not a little surprised by the almost uniform behaviour of the men who frequented her house. Old or young, rich or impecunious, directly they perceived how comely Mavis was, and that her husband was an invalid, did not hesitate to consider her fair game to be bagged as soon as may be. Looks, manners, veiled words, betrayed their thoughts; but, somehow, even the hardiest veteran amongst them did not get so far as a declaration of love. Something in Mavis's demeanour suggested a dispassionate summing up of their desires and limitations, in which the latter made the former appear a trifle ridiculous, and restrained the words that were ever on their tongues. This propensity on the part of men who, Mavis thought, ought to know better, occasioned her much disquiet. She confided these tribulations to Lady Ludlow's ear.

"Men are all alike all the world over," remarked the latter, on hearing Mavis's complaint. "You can't trust 'em further than you can see 'em."

"Not all, surely," replied Mavis, thinking of the innocuous young men, indigenous to Shepherd's Bush, whom she had so often danced with at "Poulter's."

"Anyhow, men in our class of life are all at one on that point. Directly they see a pretty woman, their one idea is to get hold of her."

"I wouldn't believe it, unless I'd seen for myself the truth of it."

"It's a great pity all of our sex didn't realise it; but then it would make the untempted more morally righteous than ever," declared Lady Ludlow.

"But if a man really and truly loves a woman—"

"That's another story altogether. A woman is always safe with the man who loves her."

"Because his love is her best protection?"

"Assuredly."

The sudden reflection that Perigal had never really loved her produced, strangely enough, in Mavis a sharp but short-lived revulsion of feeling in his favour. On the whole, Mavis's, heart inclined to social gaiety. To begin with, the constant change afforded by a succession of events which, although all of a piece, were to her unseasoned senses ever varying, provided some relief from the remorse and suffering that were always more or less in possession of her heart. Also, having for all her life been cut off from the gaieties natural to her age and kind, her present innocent dissipations were a satisfaction of this long repressed social instinct.

But, at all times, Windebank's conduct was a puzzle. Although he had the run of the house, although scarcely a day passed without Mavis seeing a good deal of him, he never betrayed by word or look the love which Miss Toombs declared burned within him for Mavis. He had left the service in order to devote more time to his Wiltshire property, but his duties seemed to consist chiefly in making himself useful to Mavis or her husband. Womanlike, Mavis would sometimes try to discover her power over him, but although no trouble was too great for him to take in order to oblige her, Mavis's most provoking moods neither weakened his allegiance nor made him other than his calm, collected self.

"No! Miss Toombs is mistaken," thought Mavis. "He doesn't love me; he but understands and pities me."

A week before Christmas, Mavis and her husband returned to Melkbridge. Christmas Day that year fell on a Sunday. Upon the preceding Saturday, she bade her many Melkbridge acquaintances to the feast. When this was over, she wished her guests good night and a happy Christmas. After seeing her husband safely abed and asleep, she set about making preparations for a project that she had long had in her mind. Going to her room, she put on the plainest and most inconspicuous hat she could find; she also donned a long cloak and concealed face and hair in a thick veil. Unlocking a box, she got out a cross made of holly, which she concealed under her cloak. Then, after listening to see if the house were quiet, she went downstairs in her stockings, and carrying the thick boots she purposed wearing. Arrived at the front door, the bolts and bars of which she had secretly oiled, she opened this after putting on her boots, and let herself out into the night. Vigorous clouds now and again obscured the stars: the world seemed full of a great peace. Mavis waited to satisfy herself that she had not awakened anyone in the house; she then struck out in the direction of Pennington. It was only on the rarest occasions that Mavis could visit her boy's grave, when she had to employ the greatest circumspection to avoid being seen. Although since her translation from insignificance to affluence and local importance, she was remarkably well known in and about Melkbridge, and although her lightest acts were subjects of common gossip, she could not let Christmas go by without taking the risk that a visit to the churchyard at Pennington would entail. Her greatest fear of detection was in going through the town, but she kept well under the shadows of the town hall side of the market-place, so that the policeman, who was there on duty, walking-stick in hand, would not see her. Once in the comparative security of the Pennington road, she hurried past dark inanimate cottages and farmsteads, whilst overhead familiar constellations sprawled in a now clear sky. Several times on her progress, she fancied that she heard footsteps striking the hard, firm road behind her, but, whenever she stopped to listen, she could not hear a sound. Just as she reached the brewery at Pennington, clouds obscured the stars; she had some difficulty in picking her way in the darkness. When she got to the churchyard gate, happily unlocked, it was still so dark that she had to light matches in order to avoid stumbling on the graves. Even with the help of matches, it was as much as she could do to find her way to the plain white stone on which only the initials of her boy and the dates of his birth and death were recorded. When she got to the grave, the wind had blown out so many of her matches that she had only four left. One of these she lit in order to place the holly cross on the grave; she had just time to put it where she wanted it to lie, when the match went out. She knelt on the ground, while her heart went out to what was lying so many feet beneath.

"Oh, my dear! my dear!" she cried, but the sound of her own voice startled her into silence. The cry of her heart was:

"What is all that I have worth without you! How gladly would I give up my all, if only I could hold you warm and breathing in my arms!"

Then she fell to thinking what a joyous time would be hers at this season of the year, were her boy alive and if they were going to spend Christmas together. Pain possessed her; its operation seemed to isolate her from the world that she had lately known. She breathed an atmosphere of anguish; the mourning that the presence of those in the churchyard had caused their loved ones seemed to find expression in her heart, till, happily, tears eased her pain.

Then she became conscious of the physical discomfort occasioned by kneeling on the ground in the cold night air.

She got up. In order to take a last look at the grave, she lit another match. This burned steadily, enabling her to glance about her to see what companionship her boy possessed on this drear December night. The feeble match flame intensified the gloom and emphasised the deep, black quietude of the place. This hamlet of the dead was amazingly remote from all suggestions of life. It appeared to hug itself for its complete detachment from human interests. It seemed desolate, alone, forgotten by the world. As Mavis left its stillness, she thought:

"At least he's found a great peace."

Before Mavis left the churchyard, the stars enabled her to discern her path. She hastened in the direction of Melkbridge, wondering if her absence had been discovered. As before, she believed that she was followed, but strove to think that the footsteps she was all but certain she heard were the echo of her own. As she hurried through the town, this impression became a conviction. She was alarmed, and resolved to find out who it was who had elected to spy upon her actions. When she came to the place where the road branched off to her house, she concealed herself in the shadow of the wall. She had not long to wait. Very soon, the tall upright figure of a man swung into the road in which she was standing. One glance was enough to tell her that it was Windebank. As he was about to pass her, he paused as if to listen.

"Who are you looking for?" asked Mavis, who was anxious to discover what he was doing out of doors.

"Let me see you home," he said coldly.

"If anyone sees us, they will think—" she began.

"We shan't meet anyone. It's not safe for you to be out."

They walked in silence. As he did not express the least surprise at finding her out alone in the small hours of the morning, Mavis believed that he had divined her intention of going to Pennington and had hung about the house till she had come out, when he had followed, all the way to and from her destination, in order to protect her from harm.

"Good night," he said, as he stopped just before they reached the nearest lodge gates of her grounds.

"Good night and thank you," replied Mavis.

"I won't wish you a very happy Christmas."

"May I wish you one?"

"Good night," he answered curtly.



CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

TRIBULATION

Although, as time went on, Mavis became used to her griefs, and although she got pleasure from the opulent, cultured atmosphere with which she was surrounded, she was neither physically nor spiritually happy. It was not that the mutual love existing between herself and Harold abated one jot; neither was it that she had lost overmuch of her old joyousness in nature and life. But there were two voids in her being (one of which she knew could never be filled) which were the cause of her distress. A woman of strong domestic instincts, she would have loved nothing better than to have had one or two children. Owing to her changed circumstances, maternity would not be associated with the acute discomforts which she had once experienced. Whenever she heard of a woman of her acquaintance having a baby, her face would change, her heart would be charged with a consuming envy. Illustrations of children's garments in the advertisement columns of women's journals caused her to turn the page quickly. Whenever little ones visited her, she would often, particularly if the guest were a boy, furtively hug him to her heart. Once or twice, on these occasions, she caught Windebank's eye, when she wondered if he understood her longing.

Her other hunger was for things of the spirit. She was as one adrift upon a sea of doubt; many havens noticed her signals of distress, but, despite the arrant display of their attractions, she could not find one that promised anchorage to which she could completely trust. Her old-time implicit faith in the existence of a Heavenly Father, who cared for the sparrows of life, had waned. Whenever the simple belief recurred to her, as it sometimes did, she would think of Mrs Gowler's, to shudder and put the thought of beneficent interference with the things of the world from her mind.

At the same time she could not forget that when there had seemed every prospect of her being lost in the mire of London, or in the slough of anguish following upon her boy's death, she had, as if by a miracle, escaped.

Now and again, she would find herself wondering if, after all, the barque of her life had been steered by a guiding Hand, which, although it had taken her over storm-tossed seas and stranded her on lone beaches, had brought her safely, if troubled by the wrack of the waters she had passed, into harbour.

Incapable of clear thought, she could arrive at no conclusion that satisfied her.

At last, she went to Windebank to see if he could help.

"What is one to do if one isn't altogether happy?" she asked.

"Who isn't happy?"

"I'm not altogether."

"You! But you've everything to make you."

"I know. But I'll try and explain."

"You needn't."

"Why? You don't know what troubles me."

"That's nothing to do with it. All troubles are alike in this respect, that the only thing to be done is to mend what's wrong. If you can't, you must make the best of it," he declared grimly.

After this rough-and-ready advice, Mavis felt that it would be futile to attempt a further explanation of her disquiet.

"Thanks; but it isn't so easy as it sounds," she said.

"Really!" he remarked, not without a suggestion of sarcasm in his exclamation.

* * * * *

About this time, Mavis saw a good deal of Perigal. He rented from her husband the farm that Harold had purchased soon after his marriage, and in which he had purposed living. Perigal had long since spent the ten thousand pounds he had inherited from his mother; he was now living on the four hundred a year his wife possessed. If anything, Mavis encouraged his frequent visits; his illuminating comments on men and things took her out of herself; also, if the truth be told, Mavis's heart held resentment against the man who had played so considerable a part in her life. Whenever Mavis was in London, the sight of a fallen woman always fed this dislike; she reflected that, but for the timely help she had enjoyed, she might have been driven to a like means of getting money if her child had been in want. Another thing that urged her against Perigal was that she constantly noticed how negligently many of the married women of her acquaintance interpreted their wifely duties, and, in most cases, to husbands who had dowered their mates with affection and worldly goods. She reflected that, by all the laws of justice, Perigal should have appreciated to the full the treasure of love and passion which she had poured out so lavishly at his feet.

Perigal, all unconscious of the way in which Mavis regarded him, went out of his way to pay her attention.

One summer afternoon, while Harold rested indoors, Mavis gave Perigal tea beneath the shade of a witch-elm on the lawn. She was looking particularly alluring; if she were at all doubtful of this fact, the admiration expressed in Perigal's eyes would have reassured her. They had been talking lightly, brightly, each in secret pursuing the bent of their own feelings for the other, when the spectre of Mavis's spiritual troublings blotted out the sunlight and the brilliant gladness of the summer afternoon. She was silent for awhile, presently to be aware that Perigal's eyes were fixed on her face. She looked towards him, at which he sighed deeply.

"Aren't you happy?" she asked.

"How can I be?"

"You've everything you want in life."

"Have I? Since when?"

"The day you married."

"Rot!"

"What do you mean?"

"I can tell you after all that" (here he caught Mavis's eye)—"after we've been such friends—as far as I'm concerned, my marriage has been a ghastly failure."

"You mustn't tell me that," declared Mavis, to whom the news brought a secret joy.

"I can surely tell you after—after we've been such dear friends. But we don't hit it off at all. I can't stick Vic at any price."

"Nonsense! She's pretty and charming. Everyone who knows her says the same."

"When they first know her; then they think no end of a lot of her; but after a time everyone's 'off' her, although they haven't spotted the reason."

"Have you?"

"Unfortunately, that's been my privilege. Vic has enough imagination to tell her to do the right thing and all that; but otherwise, she's utterly, constitutionally cold."

"Nonsense! She must have sympathy to 'do the right thing,' as you call it."

"Not necessarily. Hers comes from the imagination, as I told you; but her graceful tact chills one in no time. I might as well have married an icicle."

"I'm sorry," remarked Mavis, saying what was untrue.

"And then Vic has a conventional mind: it annoys me awfully. Conventions are the cosmetics of morality."

"Where did you read that?"

"And these conventions, that are the rudiments of what were once full-blooded necessities, are most practised by those who have the least call for their protection. Pity me."

"I do."

Perigal's eyes brightened.

"I'm unhappy too," said Mavis, after a pause.

"Not really?"

"I wondered if you would help me."

"Try me."

Perigal's eyes glittered, a manifestation which Mavis noticed.

"You know how you used to laugh at my belief in Providence."

"Is that how you want me to help?"

"If you will."

Perigal's face fell.

"Fire away," he said, as he lit a cigarette.

Mavis told him something of her perplexities.

"I want to see things clearly. I want to find out exactly where I am. Everything's so confusing and contradictory. I shan't be really happy till I know what I really and truly believe."

"How can I help you? You have to believe what you do believe."

"But why do I believe what I do believe?"

"Because you can't help yourself. Your present condition of mind is the result of all you have experienced in your existence acting upon the peculiar kind of intelligence with which your parents started you in life. Take my advice, don't worry about these things. If you look them squarely in the face, you only come to brutal conclusions. Life's a beastly struggle to live, and then, when subsistence is secured, to be happy. It's nature's doing; it sees to it that we're always sharpening our weapons."

Mavis did not speak for a few moments; when she did, it was to say:

"I can't understand how I escaped."

"From utter disaster?" he asked.

"Scarcely that."

"I hope not, indeed. But you were a fool not to write to me and let me have it for my selfishness. But I take it that at the worst you'd have written, when, of course, I should have done all I could."

"All?"

"Well—all I reasonably could."

"I wasn't thinking so much of that," said Mavis. "What I can't understand is why I've dropped into all this good fortune, even if it's at your expense."

"You owe it to the fact of your being your father's daughter and that he was friendly with the pater. Next, you must thank your personality; but the chief thing was that you are your father's daughter."

"And I often and often wished I'd been born a London shop-girl, so that I should never long for things that were then out of my reach. So there was really something in my birth after all."

"I should jolly well think there was. It's no end of an asset. But to go back to what we were talking about."

"About nature's designs to make us all fight for our own?"

"Yes. Look at yourself. You're now ever so much harder than you were."

"Are you surprised?" she asked vehemently, as she all but betrayed her hatred.

"It's really a good thing from your point of view. It's made you more fitted to take your own part in the struggle."

"Then, those who injured me were the strong preying on the weak?" she asked.

"It's the unalterable law of life. It's a disagreeable one, but it's true. It's the only way the predominance of the species is assured."

"I think I'll have a cigarette," said Mavis.

"One of mine?"

"One of my own, thanks."

"You're very unkind to me," said Perigal.

"In not taking your cigarette?"

"You ignore everything that's been between us. You look on me as heartless, callous; you don't make allowances."

"For what?"

"My cursed temperament. No one knows better than I what a snob I am at heart. When you were poor, I did not value you. Now—"

"Now?"

"Can you ask?"

A joy possessed Mavis's heart; she felt that her moment of triumph was near.

Perigal went on:

"Still, I deserve all I get, and that's so rare in life that it's something in the nature of an experience."

Mavis did not speak. She was hoping no one would come to interrupt them.

"There's one thing you might have told me about," he went on.

"What?"

Perigal dropped his eyes as he said:

"Someone who died."

Mavis's heart was pitiless.

"Why should I?"

"He was mine as much as yours. There are several things I want to know. And if it were the last word I utter, all that happened over that has 'hipped' me more than anything."

"I shall tell you nothing," declared Mavis.

"I've a right to know."

"No."

"Why not?"

"I tell you, no. You left me to fight alone; it was all so terrible, I daren't think of it more than I can help."

"But—"

"There are no 'buts,' no anything. I bore the sorrow alone, and I shall keep to myself all the tenderness that remains: nothing can ever alter it."

"You say that as if you hated me. Don't do that, little Mavis. I love you more than I do my mean selfish self."

"You love me!"

"I do now. I wanted you to know. Once or twice, I hoped—never mind what. But from the way you said what you said just now, I see it's utterly 'off.'"

"You never said anything truer. And do you know why?" she asked with flaming eye.

"Because I left you in the lurch?"

"Not altogether that, but because you were a coward, and, above all, a fool, in the first place. I know what I was. I see what other women are, and it makes me realise my value. I realise my value as, if you'd married me, I'd have faced death, anything with you. Pretty women with a few brains who'll stick to a man are rather scarce nowadays. But it wasn't good enough for you: you wouldn't take the risk. You've no—no stuffing. That is why, if you and I were left alone in the world together for the rest of our lives, I should never do anything but despise you."

Perigal's face went white. He bit his thin lips. Then he smiled as he said:

"Retributive justice."

"I'm sorry to be so candid. But it's what I've been thinking for months. I've only waited for an opportunity to say it."

"We've both scored," he said. "You can't take away what you've given, and that's a lot to be thankful for—but—but—"

"Well?"

"I'm dependent for my bread and butter on a woman who bores me to death, and have to look to a family for any odd jobs I may get—a family that, whatever they may do for me, I should always despise. That, and because I see what a fool I've been to lose you, is where you've scored."

As he strolled away, wondering how Mavis could be so indifferent to him after all that had happened, she did not trouble to glance after his retreating form.

Henceforth, Mavis was left much to herself. Perigal avoided her; whilst Windebank, about this time, to her annoyance, discontinued his frequent visits. Having so much time on her hands, Mavis returned to her old prepossessions about the why and wherefore of the varied happenings in her life.

Looking back, she found that her loving trust, her faith in her lover, her girlish innocence of the ways of sensual men had been chiefly responsible for her griefs; that it was indeed, as Perigal said, that she in her weakness had been preyed upon by the strong. Thus, it followed that girlish confidence in the loved one's word, the primal instinct of abnegation of self to the adored one, whole-hearted faith—all these characteristics (which were above price) of a loving heart were in the nature of a handicap in the struggle for happiness. It also followed that a girl thus equipped would be at a great disadvantage in rivalry with one who was cold, selfish, calculating. Mavis shuddered as she reached this conclusion.

Her introspections were interrupted by an event that, for the time, put all such thoughts from her mind.

One morning, upon going into Harold's room, she found that he did not recognise her. The local doctor, who usually attended him, was called in; he immediately asked for another opinion. This being obtained from London, the remedies the specialist prescribed proved so far beneficial that the patient dimly recovered the use of his senses, with the faint promise of further improvement if the medical instructions were obeyed to the letter. Then followed for Mavis long, scarcely endurable night watches, which were so protracted that often it seemed as if the hand of time had stopped, as if darkness for ever enshrouded the world. When, at last, day came, she would make an effort to snatch a few hours' sleep in order to fit her for the next night's attendance on the loved one. The shock of her husband's illness immediately increased her faith in Divine Providence. It was as if her powerlessness in the face of this new disaster were such that she relied on something more than human aid to give her help. Always, before she tried to sleep, she prayed long and fervently to the Most High that He would restore her beloved husband to comparative health; that He would interfere to arrest the fell disease with which he was afflicted. She prayed as a mother for a child, sick unto death. At the back of her mind she had formed a resolution that, if her prayer were answered, she would believe in God for the rest of her life with all her old-time fervour. She dared not voice this resolve to herself; she believed that, if she did so, it would be in the nature of a threat to the Almighty; also, she feared that, if her husband got worse, it would be consequently incumbent on her to lose the much needed faith in things not of this world. Thus, when Mavis knelt she poured out her heart in supplication. She was not only praying for her husband but for herself.

But Mavis's prayer was unheard. Her husband steadily got worse. One night, when the blackness of the sky seemed as a pall thrown over the corpse of her hopes, she took up a chance magazine, in which some verses, written to God by an author, for whose wide humanity Mavis had a great regard, attracted her.

The substance of these lines was a complaint of His pitiless disregard of the world's sorrow. One phrase particularly attracted her: it was "His unweeting way."

"That is it," thought Mavis. "That expresses exactly what I feel. There is, there must be, a God, but His ways are truly unweeting. He has seen so much pain that He has got used to it and grown callous."



CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

THE WELL-BELOVED

One morning, when Mavis was leaving Harold, she was recalled by one of the nurses. He had signalled that he wished to see her again. Upon Mavis hastening to his side, he tried to speak, but could not. His eyes seemed to smile a last farewell till unconsciousness possessed him.

As before, Mavis called in the most expensive medical advice, which told her that nothing could be done. It appeared that Harold's spine had commenced to curve in such a manner that his lungs were seriously affected. It was only a question of months before the slight thread, by which his life hung, would be snapped. Mavis knew of many cases in which enfeebled lungs had been bolstered up for quite a long time by a change to suitable climates; she was eager to know if the same held good in her husband's case.

"Oh yes," said the great specialist. "There were parts of South Africa where the veld air was so rarefied that a patient with scarcely any lung at all might live for several years. But—"

"But what?" asked Mavis.

"If I may say so, he will never be other than what he now is. Would it be advisable to prolong—?"

The expression on Mavis's face stopped him short in the middle of his question.

"Of course, if you've decided to send him, it's quite another matter," he went on. "In that case, you cannot be too careful in seeing he has the most reliable attendants procurable."

Mavis hesitated the fraction of a second before replying:

"I should go with him."

It needed only that brief moment for Mavis to make up her mind. She would do her utmost to prolong her husband's life; she would accompany him wherever he went to obtain this end.

In making this last resolve, Mavis knew well the trials and discomforts to which she would expose herself. Her well-ordered days, her present existence, which seemed to run on oiled wheels, the friends and refinements with which she had surrounded herself, the more particularly appealed to her when contrasted with the lean years of her earlier life. Her days of want, joined to her natural inclinations, had created a hunger for the good things of the earth, which her present opulence had not yet stayed. She still held out her hands to grasp the beautiful, satisfying things which money, guided by a mind of some force and a natural refinement, can buy. Therefore, it was a considerable sacrifice for Mavis to give up the advantage she not only possessed, but keenly appreciated, to tend a man who was a physical and mental wreck, in a part of the world remote from civilising influences. But, together with her grief for the loss of her boy, there lived in her heart an immense and ineradicable remorse for having married her husband from motives of revenge against his family.

Harold's living faith in her goodness kept these regrets green; otherwise, the kindly hand of time would have rooted them from her heart.

"Do you believe?" Mavis had once asked of her husband on a day when she had been troubled by things of the spirit.

"In you," he had replied, which was all she could get from him on the subject.

His reply was typical of the whole-hearted reverence with which he regarded her.

Mavis believed that to tend her husband in the land where existence might prolong his life would be some atonement for the deception she had practised. When she got a further eminent medical opinion, which confirmed the previous doctor's diagnosis, she set about making preparations for the melancholy journey. These took her several times to London; they proved to be of a greater magnitude than she had believed to be possible.

When driving to a surgical appliance manufacturer on one of these visits, she saw an acquaintance of her old days playing outside a public house. It was Mr Baffy, the bass viol player, who was fiddling his instrument as helplessly as ever, while he stared before him with vacant eyes. Mavis stopped her cab, went up to his bent form and put a sovereign into his hand as she said:

"Do you remember me?"

The vacant manner in which his eyes stared into hers told Mavis that he had forgotten her.

When Mavis's friends learned of her resolution, they were unanimous in urging her to reconsider what they called her Quixotic fancy. Lady Ludlow was greatly concerned at losing her friend for an indefinite period; she pointed out the uselessness of the proceeding; she endeavoured to overwhelm Mavis's obstinacy in the matter with a torrent of argument. She may as well have talked to the Jersey cows which grazed about Mavis's house, for any impression she produced. After a while, Mavis's friends, seeing, that she was determined, went their several ways, leaving her to make her seemingly endless preparations in peace.

Alone among her friends, Windebank had not contributed to the appeals to Mavis with reference to her leaving England with her husband: for all this forbearing to express an opinion, he made himself useful to Mavis in the many preparations she was making for her departure and stay in South Africa. So ungrudgingly did he give his time and assistance, that Mavis undervalued his aid, taking it as a matter of course.

Three days before it was arranged that Mavis should leave Southampton with Harold, her resolution faltered. The prospect of leaving her home, which she had grown to love, increased its attractions a thousand-fold. The familiar objects about her, some of which she had purchased, had enabled her to sustain her manifold griefs. Cattle in the stables (many of which were her dear friends), with the passage of time had become part and parcel of her lot. A maimed wild duck, which she had saved from death, waited for her outside the front door, and followed her with delighted quacks when she walked in the gardens. All of these seemed to make their several appeals, as if beseeching her not to leave them to the care of alien hands. Her dearly loved Jill she was taking with her. Another deprivation that she would keenly feel would be the music her soul loved. Whenever she was assailed by her remorseless troubles in London, she would hasten, if it were possible, to either the handiest and best orchestral concert, or a pianoforte recital where Chopin was to be played. The loneliness, sorrowings, and longings of which the master makers of music (and particularly the consumptive Pole) were eloquent, found kinship with her own unquiet thoughts, and companionship is a notorious assuager of griefs.

Physical, and particularly mental illness, was hateful to her. If the truth be told, it was as much as she could do to overcome the repugnance with which her husband's presence often inspired her, despite the maternal instinct of which her love for Harold was, for the most part, composed. In going with him abroad, she was, in truth, atoning for any wrong she may have done him.

Two days later, Mavis occupied many hours in saying a last farewell to her home. It was one of the October days which she loved, when milk-white clouds sailed lazily across the hazy blue peculiar to the robust ripe age of the year. This time of year appealed to Mavis, because it seemed as if its mellow wisdom, born of experience, corresponded to a like period in the life of her worldly knowledge. The prize-bred Jersey cows grazed peacefully in the park grounds. Now and again, she would encounter an assiduous bee, which was taking advantage of the fineness of the day to pick up any odds and ends of honey which had been overlooked by his less painstaking brethren. Mavis, with heavy heart, visited stables, dairies, poultry-runs. These last were well at the back of the house; beyond them, the fields were tipped up at all angles; they sprawled over a hill as if each were anxious to see what was going on in the meadow beneath it. Followed by Jill and Sally, her lame duck, Mavis went to the first of the hill-fields, where geese, scarcely out of their adolescence, clamoured about her hands with their soothing, self-contented piping. Even the fierce old gander, which was the terror of stray children and timid maid-servants, deigned to notice her with a tolerant eye. Mavis sighed and went indoors.

Just before tea, she was standing at a window sorrowfully watching the sun's early retirement. The angle of the house prevented her from seeing her favourite cows, but she could hear the tearing sound their teeth made as they seized the grass.

She had seen nothing of her friends (even including Windebank) for the last few days. They had realised that she was not to be stopped from going on what they considered to be her mad enterprise, and had given her up as a bad job. No one seemed to care what became of her; it was as if she were deserted by the world. A sullen anger raged within her; she would not acknowledge to herself that much of it was due to Windebank's latent defection. She longed to get away and have done with it; the suspense of waiting till the morrow was becoming intolerable. As the servants were bringing in tea, Mavis could no longer bear the confinement of the house; she hurried past the two men to go out of the front door.

She walked at random, going anywhere so long as she obeyed the passion for movement which possessed her. Some way from the house, she chanced upon Windebank, who was standing under a tree.

"Why are you here?" she asked, as she stood before him.

"I was making up my mind."

"What about?"

"If I should see you again."

"You needn't. Do you hear? You needn't," she said passionately. He looked at her surprised. She went on:

"Everyone's forgotten me and doesn't care one bit what becomes of me. You're the worst of all."

"I?"

"You. They're honest and stay away. You, in your heart, don't wish to trouble to say good-bye, but you haven't the pluck to act up to your wishes. I hate you!"

"But, Mavis—"

"Don't call me that. You haven't the courage of your convictions. I hate you! I hate you! I hate you! I wish I'd never seen you. Be honest and go away and leave me."

"No!" cried Windebank, as he seized her arm.

"That's right! Strike me!" cried Mavis, reckless of what she said.

"I'm going to be honest at last and tell you something," he declared.

"More insults!"

"It is an insult this time, but all the same you'll hear it."

Mavis was a little awed by the resolution in his face and manner. He went on now a trifle hoarsely:

"Little Mavis, I love you more than I ever believed it possible for man to love woman. I've tried to forget you, but I want you more and more."

"How—how dare you!" she cried.

"Because I love you. And because I do, I've fought against seeing you; but as you've come to me and you're going away to-morrow, I must tell you."

Mavis was less resentful of his words; she resisted an inclination to tremble violently.

"Don't go," urged Windebank.

"Where?"

"Abroad. Don't go and leave me. I love you."

"How can you! Harold was your friend."

"My enemy. He took you from me when I was sure of you; my enemy, I tell you. Oh, little Mavis, let me make you happy. You can do no good going with him, so why not stay? I'd give my life to hold you in my arms, and I know I'd make you happy."

"You mustn't; you mustn't," murmured Mavis, as she strove to believe that his words and the grasp of his hand on her arm did not minister to the repressed, but, none the less ardent longings of her being.

"I must. I tell you I haven't been near a woman since I struck you again in Pimlico, and all for love of you. I've waited. Now, I'll get you."

Windebank placed his arms about her and kissed her lips, eyes, and hair many, many times. Then he held her at arm's length, while his eyes looked fixedly into hers.

A delicious inertia stole over Mavis's senses. He had only to kiss her again for her to fall helplessly into his arms.

Although she realised the enormity of his offence, something within her seemed to impel her to wind her arm about his neck and draw his lips to hers. Instead, she summoned all her resolution; striking him full in the face, she freed herself to run quickly from him. As she ran, she strove to hide from herself that, in her inmost heart, she was longing for him to overtake her, seize her about the body, and carry her off, as might some primeval man, to some lair of his own, where he would defend her with his life against any who might seek to disturb her peace.

But Windebank did not follow her. That night she sobbed herself to sleep. The next morning, Mavis left with Harold for Southampton.

Many months later, Mavis, clad in black, stood, with Jill at her side, on the deck of a ship that was rapidly steaming up Southampton water. Her eyes were fixed on the place where they told her she would land. The faint blurs on the landing pier gradually assumed human shape; one on which she fixed her eyes became suspiciously like Windebank. When she could no longer doubt that he was waiting to greet her, she went downstairs to her cabin, to pin a bright ribbon on her frock. When he joined her on the steamer, neither of them spoke for a few moments.

"I got your letter from—" he began.

"Don't say anything about it," she interrupted. "I know you're sorry, but I'd rather not talk of it."

Windebank turned his attentions to Jill, to say presently to Mavis:

"Are you staying here or going on?"

"I don't know. I think I'll stay a little. And you?"

"I'll stay too, if you've no objection."

"I should like it."

Windebank saw to the luggage and drove Mavis to the barrack-like South-Western Hotel; then, after seeing she had all she wanted, he went to his own hotel to dress for his solitary dinner. He had scarcely finished this meal when he was told that a lady wished to speak to him on the telephone. She proved to be Mavis, who said:

"If you've nothing better to do, come and take me out for some air."

The next few days, they were continually together, when they would mostly ramble by the old-world fortifications of the town. During all this time, neither of them made any mention of events in the past in which they were both concerned.

One evening, an unexpected shower of rain disappointed Windebank's expectation of seeing Mavis after dinner. He telephoned to her, saying that, after coming from a hot climate, she must not trust herself out in the wet.

He was cursing the weather and wondering how he would get through the evening without her, when a servant announced that a lady wished to see him. The next moment, Mavis entered his sitting-room. He noticed that she had changed her black frock for one of brighter hue.

"Why have you come?" he asked, when the servant had gone.

"To see you. Don't you want me?"

"Yes, but—"

"Then sit down and talk; or rather don't. I want to think."

"You could have done that better alone."

"I want to think," she repeated.

They sat for some time in silence, during which Windebank longed to take her in his arms and shower kisses on her lips.

Presently, when she got up to leave, she found so much to say that she continually put off going. At last, when they were standing near the door, Mavis put her face provokingly near his. He bent, meaning to kiss her hair, but instead his lips fell on hers.

To his surprise, Mavis covered his mouth with kisses. Windebank's eyes expressed astonishment, while his arm gripped her form.

"Forgive me; forgive me," she murmured.

"What for?" he gasped.

"I've been a brute, a beast, and you've never once complained."

"Dearest!"

"It's true enough; too true. All your life you've given me love, and all I've given you are doubts and misunderstandings. But I'll atone, I'll atone now. I'm yours to do what you will with, whenever you please, now, here, if you wish it. You needn't marry me; I won't bind you down; I only ask you to be kind to me for a little, I've suffered so much."

"You mean—you mean—"

"That you've loved me so long and so much that I can only reward you by giving you myself."

She opened her arms. He looked at her steadily for a while, till, with a great effort, he tore himself from her presence and left the room.

The next morning, Mavis received a letter from Windebank.

"My own dearest love," it ran, "don't think me a mug for leaving you last night as I did, but I love you so dearly that I want to get you for life and don't wish to run any risk of losing what I treasure most on earth. I am making arrangements so that we can get married at the very earliest date, which I believe is three days from now. And then—"

Mavis did not read any more just then.

"When and where you please," she scribbled on the first piece of paper she could find. Lady Ludlow's words occurred to her as she sent off her note by special messenger: "A woman is always safe with the man who loves her."

Three days later, Windebank and Mavis were made man and wife. For all Windebank's outward impassivity, Mavis noticed that, when he put the ring on her finger, his hand trembled so violently that he all but dropped it. Directly the wedding was over, Windebank and Mavis got into the former's motor, which was waiting outside the church.

"At last!" said Windebank, as he sat beside his wife.

"Where next?" asked Mavis.

"To get Jill and your things and then we'll get away."

"Where to? I hope it's right away, somewhere peaceful in the country."

"We'll go on till you come to a place you like."

They went west. They had lunched in high spirits at a wayside inn, which took Mavis's fancy, to continue travelling till the late afternoon, when the machine came to a dead stop.

"We'll have to camp in a ditch," said Mavis.

"How you'd curse me if we had to!" said her husband.

"It would be heaven with you," she declared.

Windebank reverently kissed her.

He saw that the car wanted spirit, which he learned could be bought at a village a short way ahead. Mavis and Jill accompanied Windebank to the general shop where petrol was sold.

"I can't let you out of my sight," she said, as they set out.

"Why not?"

"You might run off."

He laughed. By the time they reached the shop, Mavis had quite emerged from the sobriety of her demeanour to become an approximation to her old light-hearted self.

"That's how I love to see you," remarked Windebank.

When they entered the shop, Mavis' face fell.

"What's the matter?" he asked, all concern for his wife.

"Don't you smell paraffin?"

"What of it?"

"It takes me back to Pimlico—that night when we went shopping together—you bought me a shilling's worth."

"I wish someone would come; then we'd get out of it," remarked Windebank.

But his wife did not appear to listen; she was lost in thought. Then she clung desperately to his arm.

"What is it?" he asked tenderly.

"It's love I want; love. Nothing else matters. Love me: love me: love me. A little love will help me to forget."

THE END