"I am very glad to hear that, Mr. Alston," said Mrs. Bonner heartily.

"I shan't take many things with me, just enough for the night. I'll go and pack my bag, and clear off to catch the six o'clock up train."

Why not go down to Hurst Dormer to-night, and send off this letter to Marjorie from Town instead of posting it here? He could see to a few things in Hurst Dormer on the morrow, see Marjorie, arrange her little troubles and then be back here by Saturday; but as he was not sure of his movements he left it that he would wire Mrs. Bonner his probable time of returning.

"One thing, I'll be able to have a good clear-up when he's gone," Mrs. Bonner thought. Forever her thoughts turned in the direction of soap and water. The temporary absence of anyone meant to Mrs. Bonner an opportunity for a good clean, and she had already started one that very evening when there came a tapping on her door.

"Now, whoever is that worriting this time of the night?" With sleeves rolled up over bare and plump arms she went to the door.

"Oh, good evening, Mrs. Bonner. I 'eard about you losing your lodger."

Mrs. Bonner stared into the darkness.

"Oh, it's you!" Judging by the expression of her voice, the visitor was not a favoured one.

"Yes, it's me!"

"Well, what do you want, Alice Betts?"

"Oh, nothing. I thought I'd just call in friendly-like."

"Very good of you, only I'm busy cleaning up."

"Men do make a mess, don't they? Fancy 'is going off like that. I wonder if the letter had anything to do with it?"

"Letter?"

"Yes, the one Miss Joan give our Bob to bring 'im this afternoon."

"Ha!" said Mrs. Bonner. "I shouldn't be surprised."

"Nor should I. I wonder what he is to her, don't you?"

"No, I don't. I ain't bothered my head thinking. It ain't none of my business, Alice Betts."

Alice Betts giggled.

"Well, any'ow he's gone," she said, and Mrs. Bonner did not contradict her. "And gone sudden."

"Very!"

"Depend on it, it was the letter done it. Well, I won't be keeping you."

"No, I ain't got no time for talking," said Mrs. Bonner, and closed the door. "A nosey Parker if ever there was one! Always shoving 'er saller face where she ain't wanted. I can't abide that gel!"

Miss Alice Betts hurried off to the Bettses' cottage in Starden.

"I got a letter to write in a 'urry. Give me a paper and envelope," she demanded.

"MISTER P. SLOTMAN, Dear sir," Alice wrote. "This is to imform you, as agreed, that Mister Alston has gone. Miss Jone writ him a letter, what about cannot say, only as soon as he gets it, he packs up and leaves Starden. I have been to Mrs. Bonner's to make sure and find it is correck, him having packed up and gone to London. So no more at present from yours truely, MISS ALICE BETTS."

And this letter, addressed to Mr. P. Slotman at the new address with which he had furnished her, went out from Starden by the early morning mail.

After Mrs. Bonner's comfortable but restricted cottage, it was good to be back in the spacious old rooms of Hurst Dormer. Hugh Alston was a home man. He had wired Mrs. Morrisey, and now he was back. To-night he slept once again in his own bed, the bed he had slept in since boyhood.

The following morning brought a telegram delivered by a shock-headed village urchin.

"I will be with you and so glad to see you on Saturday—MARJORIE."

Saturday, and he had hurried so that he might see her to-day.

It was not till late Saturday afternoon that Marjorie came at last, and Hugh had been fuming up and down, looking for her since early morning. Yet if he felt any ill-temper at her delay it was gone at a sight of the little face, so white and woebegone, so frankly miserable and unhappy that his heart ached for the child.

"Oh, Hugh, it is so good to see you again."

He kissed her. What else could he do? And then, holding her hand and drawing it through his arm, he led her into the house. He rang the bell for tea, for it was tea-time when she came.

"You are going to have a good tea first, then you are going to tell me all your troubles, and we are going to put them all straight and right. And then—then, Marjorie, you are going to smile as you used to."

A faint smile came to her lips, her eyes were on his face. "Oh, Hugh, if—if you knew how—how good it is to see you again and hear you speak to me."

He put his hand on her shoulders.

"It is always good to me to see you," he said softly. "You're one of the best things in my world, Marjorie, little maid."

She bent her head, so that her soft cheek touched his hand, and what man could draw his hand away from that caress? Not Hugh Alston.

And now came Phipps with the tea, which he arranged on the small table and retired.

"It's all right between them two," he announced in the kitchen a little later. "She'll be missus here after all, I'll lay ten to one."

"Law bless and save us!" said cook. "I thought it was off, and she was going to marry young Mr. Arundel."

Ordinarily, Marjorie had the sensible appetite of a young country girl. To-day she ate nothing. She sipped her tea, and looked with great soulful, miserable eyes at Hugh.

"And now, little girl, come, tell me."

"Oh, Hugh, not now. It is so difficult, almost impossible to tell you. I wrote that letter days and days before I posted it, and then I made up my mind all of a sudden to post it, and regretted it the moment after."

"Why?"

She shook her head.

"There is something wrong between you and Tom? Tell me, girlie!"

She was silent for a moment. "There is—everything wrong between Tom and—and me. But it is my—my fault, not his. Oh, Hugh, it is all my fault!"

"How?"

"I—I don't love him!" the girl gasped.

"Eh?" Hugh started. He sat back and stared at her. "Why—you—I—I thought—"

"So did I!" she cried, bursting into tears, "but I was wrong—wrong—all wrong. I didn't understand!" Her breast was heaving, there were sobs in her throat, sobs she fought and struggled against.

The dawn of understanding came to him. He believed he saw. She had fancied herself in love with Tom, and now she knew she was not—how did she know? For the simple reason that she found she was in love with someone else. Now who on earth could it be? he wondered.

"Won't you tell me all about it, dear?"

"I—I can't. Don't ask me—I ought not to have written, I ought not to have come. I wish—I wish I had not. It is my fault, not Tom's; he is good and kind and—and patient with me, and I know I am unkind and cross to him, and I feel ashamed of myself!"

"Marjorie!"

"Yes, Hugh?" She looked up.

"Tell me the truth, dear," he said gravely. "Do you realise that you are not in love with Tom because you know now that you are in love with someone else?"

She did not answer in words, nodding speechlessly.

"Is he a good man, dear?"

"The best in the world, Hugh," she said softly—"the finest, the dearest, and best."

"That's bad!" Hugh thought. "But I might have guessed that she would say that, bless her little heart! Poor Tom!" He sighed. "So, after all, this beautiful muddle I have made of things goes for nothing! Do you care to tell me who he is, Marjorie?"

"Don't ask me—don't ask me! I can't tell you! I wish I hadn't come. I had no right to ask you to—to listen to me. I wish I hadn't written now!"

He came across to her and put his hand on her shoulder. He bent and kissed the bright hair.

"Little girl, remember always that I am your old friend and your true friend, who would help you in every way at any time. I am not of much use, I am afraid; but such as I am, I am at your service, dear, always, always! Tell me, what can I do? How can I help you?"

"Nothing, nothing, you—you can't help me, Hugh!"

"Can I see Tom?"

"No, oh no, you must not!"

"Can I see—the other? Marjorie, does he know? Has he spoken to you—not knowing perhaps of your engagement to Tom?"

She shook her head. "He—he doesn't know anything!"

Silence fell on them.

"Don't think about it any more, you can't help me. Hugh, where have you been all this long time?"

"I have been in Kent, at Starden."

"Is—is that where she—"

"Joan? Yes! she lives there. I have been there, believing I can help her, and I shall help her!"

"You—you love her so?"

"Better than my life," he said quietly, and never dreamed how those four words entered like a keen-edged sword into the heart of the girl who heard them.

She rose almost immediately.

"I am a foolish, silly girl, and—and, Hugh, I want you to forget what I told you. I shall forget it. I shall go back to—to Tom, and I will try and be worthy of him, try and be good-tempered and—all he wants me to be. Good-bye, Hugh!"

It seemed to him that she had changed suddenly, changed under his very eyes; the tenderness and the tears seemed to have vanished. She spoke almost coldly, and with a dignity he had never seen in her before, and then she went with scarce a look at him, leaving him sorely puzzled.



CHAPTER XXXIII

GONE

"DEAR JOAN,

"I daresay you will wonder at not having heard from me for so long, but I have been busy. Things have been going from bad to worse with me of late, and I have been obliged to give up the old offices in Gracebury. I often think of the days when we were so much together, as I daresay you do. Naturally I miss you, and naturally I want to see you again. I feel that you seemed to have some objection to my coming to your house. That being so, I wish to consult your wishes in every way, and so I am writing to suggest that you meet me to-morrow, that is Saturday night, on the Little Langbourne Road. I daresay you will wonder why I am so familiar with your neighbourhood, but to tell you the truth I am naturally so interested in you that I have been down quietly several times—motoring, just to look round and hear news of you from local gossip, which is always amusing. I have heard of your engagement, of course, and I am interested; but we will talk of that when we meet—to-morrow night at the gate leading into the field where the big ruined barn stands, about half a mile out of Starden on the Little Langbourne Road at nine o'clock. This is definite and precise, isn't it? It will then be dark enough for you to be unobserved, and you will come. I am sure you will come. You would not anger and pain an old friend by refusing.

"I hear that the happy man is a sort of gentleman farmer who lives at Buddesby in Little Langbourne. If by any chance I should fail to see you at the place of meeting, I shall put up at Little Langbourne, and shall probably make the acquaintance of Mr. John Everard.

"Believe me, "Your friend, "PHILIP SLOTMAN."

It was a letter that all the world might read, and see no deep and hidden meaning behind it, but Joan knew better. She read threat and menace in every line. The man threatened that if she did not keep this appointment he would go to Langbourne and find John Everard, and then into John Everard's ears he would pour out his poisoned, lying, slanderous story.

Better a thousand times that she herself should go to Johnny and tell him the whole truth, hiding nothing. Yet she knew that she could not do that; her pride forbade. If she loved him—then it would be different. She could go to him, she could tell him everything, laying bare her soul, just because she loved him. But she did not love him. She liked him, she admired him, she honoured him; but she did not love him, and in her innermost heart she knew why she did not love Johnny Everard, and never would.

But the letter had come, the threat was here. What could she do? to whom turn? And then she remembered that hard by her own gate was a man, the man to whom she owed all this, all her troubles and all her annoyance and shame, but a man who would fight for and protect and stand by her. Her heart swelled, the tears gathered for a moment in her eyes.

He had not answered the letter she had sent him a couple of days ago. She had looked for an answer, and had felt disappointed at not receiving one, though she had told herself that she expected none.

For long Joan hesitated, pride fighting against her desire for help and support. But pride gave way; she felt terribly lonely, even though she was soon to be married to a man who loved her. To that man ought she to turn, yet she did not, and hardly even gave it a thought. She had made no false pretences to Johnny Everard. She had told him frankly that she did not love him, yet that if he were willing to take her without love, she would go to him.

So now, having decided what she would do, Joan went to her room to write a letter to the man she must turn to, the man who had the right to help her. She flushed as the words brought another memory into her mind; the flush ran from brow to chin, for back into her mind came the words the man had uttered. Strange it was how her mind treasured up almost all that he had ever said to her.

"You gave me that right, Joan, when you gave me your heart!"

That was what he had said, and she would never forget, because she knew—that it was true.

She went to her own room, where was her private writing-table. She found the room in the hands of a maid dusting and sweeping.

"You need not go, Alice," she said. "I am only going to write a letter." The girl went on with her work.

"I did not think to appeal to you, yet I find I must appeal for help that I know you will give, because but for you I should not need it. I—"

She paused.

"Funny, miss, Mrs. Bonner's lodger going off like that in such a hurry, wasn't it?" said the girl on her knees beside the hearth.

Joan started. "What do you mean, Alice?"

"The gentleman you gave our Bob a letter for—Mr. Alston," said Alice Betts. "Funny his going off like he did in such a hurry."

"Then you—you mean he is gone?"

"Thursday night, miss."

Gone! A feeling of desolation and helplessness swept over Joan.

Gone when she had counted so on his help! She remembered what she had written: "I ask you earnestly to leave Starden," and he had obeyed her. It was her own fault; she had driven him away, and now she needed him.

The girl was watching her out of the corner of her small black eyes. She saw Joan tear up the letter she had commenced to write.

"It was to him, she didn't know he had gone," Alice Betts thought, and Alice Betts was right.

* * * * *

Mr. Philip Slotman had fallen on evil days, yet Mr. Philip Slotman's wardrobe of excellent and tasteful clothes was so large and varied that poverty was not likely to affect his appearance for a long time to come.

Presumably also his stock of cigars was large, for leaning against the gate beside the tumble-down barn he was drowning the clean smell of the earth and the night with the more insinuating and somewhat sickly smell of a fine Havannah.

Some way down the road, perhaps a quarter of a mile distant, stood a large shabby car drawn up against a hedge, and in that car dozed a chauffeur.

Mr. Slotman took out his watch and looked at it in the dim light.

It was past nine, and he muttered an oath under his breath.

"She won't be such a fool as not to come now that fellow's gone!" he thought, and he was right, for a few moments later she was there.

"So you did come?"

"I am here," Joan said quietly. "You wish to speak to me?"

"Don't be so confoundedly hold-off! Aren't you going to shake hands?"

"Certainly not!"

"Oh, very well!" he snarled. "Don't then. Still putting on your airs, my lady!"

"I am here to hear anything you wish to say to me. Any threats that you have to make, any bargain that you wish to propose. I thought when I paid you that money—"

"That money's gone; it went in a few hours."

He felt savagely angry at her calmness, at her pride and superiority. Why, knowing what he knew, she ought to be pretty well on her knees to him.

"Please tell me what you wish to see me about and let me go. It is money, of course?"

Her voice was level, filled with scorn and utter contempt, and it made the man writhe in helpless fury.

"Look here, stow that!" he said coarsely. "Don't ride the high horse with me. Remember I know you, know all about you. I know who you are and what you are, and—and don't—don't"—he was stuttering and stammering in his rage—"don't think you can put me in my place, because you can't!"

Joan did not answer.

"If I want money I've got a right to ask for it! And I do. I've got something to sell, ain't I?—knowledge and silence. And silence is worth a lot, my girl, when a woman's engaged to be married, and when there's things in her past she don't care about people knowing of. Yes, Miss Joan Meredyth, my lady clerk on three quid a week was one person, but Miss Meredyth of Starden Hall, engaged to be married to Mr. John Everard of Buddesby, is another, ain't she?"

"Please say what you have to say," she said coldly. "I do not wish to stay here with you."

"But you are going to," he said. "You are going to!" He reached out suddenly and gripped her hand. He had expected that she might struggle; it would have been human if she had, but she didn't.

"Please release my hand," she said coldly. "I do not wish to stay here with you!" She paused. "Tell me why you wish to see me!"

He dropped her hand with a snarling oath.

"Well, if you want to know, it is money, and this time it is good money. I am up against it, and I've got to have money. I've been down here several times, hunting round, listening to things, hearing things. I heard about your engagement. I have heard about you. Oh, everyone looks up to you round here—Miss Meredyth of Starden!" He laughed. "And it is going to pay Miss Meredyth of Starden to shut my mouth, ain't it? June, nineteen eighteen, ain't so long ago, is it? Mr. Hugh Alston—hang him!—you set him on to me, didn't you?"

"So you have seen him?"

"I saw him, curse him! He came and—and—'

"Thrashed you?" Joan asked quietly "I thought he might!"

"Stop it! Stop your infernal airs!" he almost shouted. "I am here for money, and I want it, and mean to have it—five thousand this time!"

"I shall not pay you!"

"Oh, you won't—you won't! Then I go to Buddesby. I'll have a little chat there. I'll tell them a few things about Marlbury and about a trip to Australia that did not come off, and about a marriage that never took place. I've got quite a lot to chat about at Buddesby, and I shan't be done when I'm through there either. There's a nice little inn in Starden, isn't there? If one talked much there it would soon get about the place!"

Under cover of the darkness her cheeks flamed, but her voice was still as cold and as steady as before.

"Have you ever considered," she asked quietly, "that what you think you know, may not be true?"

"It is true! And if it isn't true, it is good enough for me; but it is true!"

"It is not!"

He laughed. "It is—at any rate I think so, and others'll think so. It'll want a lot of explaining away, Joan, won't it? if even it isn't true. But I know better. Well, what about it—about the money?"

"I shall consider," she said quietly. "I paid you before, blackmail! If I asked you if this was the final payment, and you said Yes. I know that I need not believe you, so—so I shall consider. I shall take time to think it over."

"Oh, you will?"

"Yes!"

Down the road came a cart. It lumbered along slowly, the carter trudging at the horse's head. Slotman looked at the slow-coming figure and cursed under his breath.

"When shall I hear?"

"I shall think it over, decide how I shall act, whether I shall pay you this money or not," she said. "In a few days, this day week, not before." She turned away.

"And—and if I go to Buddesby and get talking?"

"Then of course I pay you nothing!" she said calmly.

That was true. Slotman gritted his teeth. Two minutes later the carter trudging on his way passed a solitary man smoking by a gate, and far down the road a woman walked quickly towards Starden.



CHAPTER XXXIV

"FOR HER SAKE"

Into Hugh Alston's life had come two women, women he had loved, both now engaged to be married to other men, and Hugh Alston was a sorely worried and perplexed man about both of them.

"I'll go to Cornbridge to-morrow," said Hugh, and he went.

"Where," asked Lady Linden, "the dickens have you been?"

"In the country!"

"Isn't your own country good enough for you?" She looked at him shrewdly. She saw the worry in his face; it was too open and too honest to make concealment of his feelings possible.

Marjorie welcomed him with tearful gladness in her eyes. She said nothing, she held his hand tightly. Not till afterwards did she thank him for coming.

"I felt you would," she said. "I knew you would!"

And so he was glad he came.

And was she? She wondered, better a thousand times for her and her happiness if she never saw him again. So long as she lived she would not forget those four words that had entered like a sword into her heart and had slain for ever the last hope of happiness for her—"Better than my life!"

It was odd how women remembered Hugh Alston's words. How even on this very day another woman was remembering, and was fighting a fight, pride and obstinacy opposed to fear and loneliness and weariness of soul.

Hugh noticed a change in Tom.

"Hello, Alston," said Tom, and gripped him by the hand; but it was a weary and dispirited voice and grip, unlike those of Tom Arundel of yore.

They walked about Lady Linden's model farm together, Tom acting as showman with no little pride, and yet behind even the enthusiasm there was a weariness that Hugh detected.

"And the wedding, Tom?" Hugh asked him presently. "When is it to be?"

Tom looked up. "I don't know, Alston, sometimes I think never. Alston, you—you've seen her. You remember her as she was, the sweetest, dearest girl in the world, her eyes and her heart filled with sunshine, and now..." The lad's voice trailed off miserably.

"Hugh, I can't make her out; it worries me and puzzles me and—and hurts me. She is so different, she takes me up so sharply. I—I know I am a fool, I know I am not fit to touch her little hand. I know that I am not a man—like you, a man a girl could look up to and respect, but I've always loved her, Hugh, and I've kept straight. There are things I might have done and didn't do—for her sake. I just thought of her, Hugh, and so—so I've lived a decent life!"

Hugh's eyes kindled, for he knew that what the boy said was truth.

Thursday afternoon saw Hugh back at Hurst Dormer. It was a week now since he had left Starden. She had asked him to leave, and he had left, yet not exactly for that reason. His coming here had done no good, had only given him fresh worry and anxiety, and now he realised that all his sympathy was for Tom and not for Marjorie.

"Oh, my Lord! Uncertain, coy and hard to please is correct, and I suppose some of them can be ministering angels—yes, God bless them! I've seen them!" His face softened, his thoughts flew back to other days, days of strife and bloodshed, of misery and death, days when men lay helpless and in pain, and in memory Hugh saw the gentle, soft-footed girls at their work of mercy. Ministering angels—God's own!

"Mrs. Morrisey, I am going to London."

"Very good, sir!" Mrs. Morrisey was giving up all hopes of this restless young master of hers. "Very good, sir!"

"I shall be back"—he paused—"eventually, if not sooner!"

"Certainly, sir!" said Mrs. Morrisey, who had no sense of humour.

"Meanwhile, send on any letters to the Northborough Hotel. I shall catch the seven-thirty," said Hugh.

"I'll order the car round, sir," said Mrs. Morrisey.

And this very day at Starden pride broke down; the need was so great. It was not the money that the man demanded, but the bonds that paying it would forge about her, bind her for all time.

"Please come to me here. I want your help. I am in great trouble, and there is no one I can turn to but you.

"JOAN."

And not till after the letter was in the post did she remember that she had signed it with her Christian name only.



CHAPTER XXXV

CONNIE DECLARES

"My dear Connie!" Helen Everard was amazed. "My dear Connie, why talk such nonsense? This marriage between Joan and Johnny is the best, the very best possible thing in the world for him. Joan is—"

"I know all she is, Helen," said Connie; "no one knows better than I do. I know she is lovely; she is good, she is rich, and she is cold—cold to Johnny. She doesn't love him; and I love him, Helen, and I hate to think that Johnny should give his life to a woman who does not care for him!"

Helen shrugged her shoulders. "Sometimes, Connie with her queer unworldly notions annoys me," she thought.

"At any rate, dear child, it is all arranged, and whatever you and I say will not matter in the least. But, all the same, I am sorry you are opposed to the marriage."

"I am!" said Connie briefly.

She had declared herself, as she had known sooner or later she must, and she had declared on the side of the girl who loved Johnny Everard better than her life.

At home Johnny wondered at the change that had come to the two women whom he loved and believed in. It seemed to him that somehow they were antagonistic to him, they seemed to cling together.

Ellice deliberately avoided him. When he asked her to go out, as in the old days, she refused, and when he felt hurt Connie sided with her.

"Con, what does it mean?" he cried in perplexity.

"Nothing. What should it mean?"

"But it does. Ellice hardly speaks to me. When I speak to her she just answers. You—you"—he paused—"and you are different even. What have I done?"

"You have done nothing—yet, Johnny. It is what you are going to do—that troubles me and makes me anxious."

He stared, open-eyed.

"How?"

"Your marriage!"

"With Joan. You mean that you are against her?"

"I am against any woman who would have you for a husband and give you none of her heart," cried Connie.

"Why—why?" he stammered. "Con, you couldn't expect that Joan would fall in love with a chap like me?"

"Then why is she going to marry you? Isn't marriage a union of love and hearts? Oh, Johnny, I am anxious, very anxious. I hate it, this loveless marriage—"

"But I love her!" he said reverently.

"Do you—can you go on loving her? Can you? Your own heart starved, can you continue to love and give again and again? No, no, I know better—the time will come when you will realise you have married a cold and beautiful statue, and your heart will wither and shrivel within you, Johnny."

"Con, in time I will make her care for me a little."

"She never will!"

"Why?"

Connie looked out of the window. "Johnny, dear, if I am saying something that will hurt you, will you forgive me?—knowing that I love you so dearly, that all I want to see is your happiness, that I hate to see you imposed on, made a fool of, made a convenience of!"

"Connie, what do you mean?"

"I mean that I believe that Joan Meredyth will never love you, because all the heart she has to give has been given to someone else."

"You have no right to say that. What do you know? What can you know?"

"I know nothing. I can only guess. I can only stumble and grope in the dark. Think! That woman, lovely, sweet, brilliant, could she accept all that you offer her and give nothing in return if she were heart-free? Wouldn't your love for her appeal to her, touch her, force some tenderness in response? Oh, I have watched her. I have seen, and I have guessed what I know must—must be true. For she is all woman; she is no cold icicle, but you have not touched her heart, Johnny, and you never will, and so—so, my dear," Connie's voice choked with a sob, "you'll hate me for this—Johnny!"

He went to her, put his arm about her, and held her tightly and kissed her.

"To prove my hate, dear," he whispered, and then he went out with a very thoughtful look on his face.

In the yard he saw Ellice.

"Gipsy girl," he said, "come with me. Let's go out—anywhere in the car for a ride—it doesn't matter where. Come with me!"

Her face flushed, then paled.

"No thank you!" she said coldly. "I am busy doing something for Joan."

Johnny sighed with disappointment, there was pain in his eyes too. In the old days she would not have refused; she would have come gladly.

"My little Gipsy girl is against me too!" He walked away slowly and dejectedly, and the girl watched him. She lifted her hands and pressed them hard against her breast, and then—then Johnny heard the light fall of swift-moving feet. He felt a clutch on his arm, and turned. He saw a flushed face, bright eyes were looking into his.

"If—if you want me to, I'll come," she said. "I'll come with you—anywhere!"

He did not answer. His hands had dropped on to her shoulders; he stood there holding her and looking into her face, glowing with a beauty that he had never seen in it before, and in his eyes was still that puzzled look, the look of a man who does not quite understand.

"Why, Gipsy girl!" he said slowly, "you are a woman—you have grown up all suddenly."

"Yes, I am—I am a woman!" She laughed, but the laughter ended in a sob. She bent her head, and Johnny, strangely puzzled, slipped his arm about her and drew her a little closer to him.

He had thought her a child; but she was a woman, and he had seen in her eyes that which set his dull wits wondering.



CHAPTER XXXVI

"HE HAS COME BACK"

It was exactly a week since his departure that Hugh returned to Starden, and found Mrs. Bonner a little surprised, but by no means unready.

"You said as you'd send me a message, sir," she said.

"I did, and I haven't done it—I'll take the consequences." But there were no consequences to take. She prepared him an ample meal at the shortest notice, and was willing enough to stop and talk to him while he ate it.

"Anything new, anything fresh?"

"Nothing!"

"No strangers about Starden?"

"No!"

Had Slotman been? That was what Hugh wanted to know. Presently he asked the question direct.

"You don't happen to have seen that man I described to you some time back, a stout man with a lean face, overdressed, thick red lips, small eyes?"

"Law bless us! yes. I see him two days ago, drove past he did in a car—a shabby-looking car it was, but he didn't stop. He just stared at the cottage as he drove past, and I got an idea he smiled, only I ain't sure. I am sure of one thing, however; he did stare terribul hard at this cottage!"

"You are sure it is the man?"

Mrs. Bonner described Mr. Slotman's appearance vividly, and Mr. Slotman, had he been there, might not have been pleased to hear of the impression he had made on the good woman.

"A man," she concluded, "as I wouldn't trust, not a hinch!"

"It's the man!" Hugh thought. "And he's come back, as I thought he would. Funny he should look at the cottage! Good Lord! I wonder if he has spies about here?"

"Anyone else been? I suppose no one came here to ask about me, for instance, Mrs. Bonner?"

"No one, sir, not a soul, no—stay a moment. The day you left that there nosey Parker of a gel Alice Betts came. I couldn't make out whatever she came for. Me, I don't 'old with them Bettses, anyhow she came. It was her brother that brought you that letter from Miss Joan Meredyth the day you went, sir, and she said something about 'earing as I'd lost my lodger."

"I see. And who is Alice Betts?"

"Her—she be a maid at Starden Hall."

"I see," Hugh repeated. "I see! Mrs. Bonner," he said, "will you do something for me?"

"Anything, of course!"

"Will you take a letter for me to Miss Joan Meredyth?"

Would she not? Mrs. Bonner caught her breath. Then there was something between these two, even though Miss Joan Meredyth was engaged to marry Mr. John Everard of Buddesby!

"Mrs. Bonner," said Hugh a few minutes later, "I am going to trust you absolutely. Miss Meredyth and I—are—old friends. It is urgent that I see her. I want you to take this letter to her; tell no one at the Hall that the letter is from me, tell no one that I am back. No one knows. I did not meet a soul on the road from the station, and I don't want my presence here known. I am trusting you!"

"You can, sir!"

"I am sure of it. Take that note to Miss Meredyth, ask to see her personally. Don't mention my name. Give her that letter, and if, when she has read it, she will come with you, bring her here, because I must see her, and to-night."

It was Alice Betts who opened the door to Mrs. Bonner.

"Oh, good evening, Mrs. Bonner!"

"I didn't come 'ere to bandy no words with you," said Mrs. Bonner. "I never held with you, Alice Betts," she added severely.

"I don't see what I've done!"

"No pre-aps you don't. Anyhow, I'm here to see your mistress. You go and tell her I am here."

"If I say I've brought a letter that gel will guess who it is from," Mrs. Bonner thought, so, wisely, she held her peace.

A few minutes later Mrs. Bonner was shewn into the drawing-room. She dropped a curtsey.

"You want to see me?"

"Yes, miss, but first—excuse me, miss!"

Mrs. Bonner hurriedly opened the door.

"I thought so," she said. "Didn't you best be getting off to your work?"

Alice Betts went.

"A spy! If I might make so bold, miss, I'd get rid of her. Them Bettses never was no good, what with the drink and things. I got a letter for you, miss, only I didn't want that gel to know it."

"Joan, I am back again. No one knows that I am, here except Mrs. Bonner and now yourself. I have reasons for wishing my return to remain unknown. But I must see you. You will believe that I would not ask you to come to me here if there was not urgent need."

There was urgent need, and she knew it, for had she not written that appeal to him barely twenty-four hours ago? There had been no delay this time in his coming.

"And he, Mr. Alston, is at your cottage?"

"Yes, miss, came back only about a hour ago, and he's waiting there. He told me maybe you might come back with me, and he's trusting me not to tell anyone he's here, miss."

"Yes, I understand. And, Mrs. Bonner, you think that girl is a spy?"

"I know it. Wasn't she starting to listen at the keyhole and me hardly inside the room?"

Joan was silent for a moment. "Go back! Tell him—I shall come—presently. Tell him I am grateful to him for coming so quickly."

"I'll tell him."

Mrs. Bonner was gone, and Joan sat there hesitating. A trembling fit of nervousness had come to her, a sense of fear, strangely mingled with joy.

"I must go, there is no one else, but—I do not wish to see him," and yet she knew that she did. She wished to see him more than she wanted to see anything on earth. So presently when Helen, who retired early, had gone upstairs, Joan slipped a cloak over her shoulders and stole out of the house as surreptitiously as any maid stealing to a love tryst.

In Mrs. Bonner's tiny sitting-room Hugh was pacing restlessly in the confined space, pausing now and again to listen.

She was coming—coming. Presently she would be here, presently he would see her, this girl of his dreams, standing before him with the lamplight on her sweet face.

But it was not to pour out the story of his love that he had sent for her to-night. He must remember that she came unattended, unprotected, relying on his chivalry. Hugh took a grip on himself, and now he heard the familiar creaking of the little gate, and in a moment was at the door. But the excitement, the enthusiasm of just now was passed.

He looked at her standing before him. Looking at her, he pictured her as he had seen her before, cold and haughty, her eyes hard and bright, her lips curved with scorn for him, and now—he saw her with a flush in her cheeks, and the brightness of her eyes was not cold, but soft and misty, and her red-lipped mouth trembled.

Once he had seen her as now, all sweetness and tenderness. And so in his dreams of her had he pictured her, and now he saw her so again, and knew that his love for her and need of her were greater even than he had believed.

"I sent for you, Hugh." She hesitated, and again the colour deepened in her cheeks.

"You sent for me, dear?"

"Because I need you. I want your advice, perhaps your help. He—he came back again."

"When?"

"Last Saturday."

"And I left here Thursday," he smiled. "Joan, you have a spy in your house who reports my movements and yours to Slotman. No sooner was I gone from here than he was advised, and so he came. Now do you understand why I am here. I knew that man would come. He needs money, there is the magnet of your gold. He will never leave you in peace while he thinks you alone and unprotected, but while I was here you were safe, for he is a very coward."

"And that was why you came, knowing that he—"

She paused. "And I—I cut you in the street, Hugh."

"And hurt yourself by doing it," he said softly.

"Yes." She bowed her head, and then suddenly she thrust the softness and the tenderness from her, for they must be dangerous things when she loved this man as she did, and was promised to another.

"I must not forget that—I am—" She paused.

"Promised to another man? But you will never carry out that promise, Joan—you cannot, my dear! You cannot, because you belong to me. But it was not of that that you came to speak. Only remember what I have said. It is true."

"It cannot be true. I never break a promise! What am I to do? Tell me and advise me. You know—what he—he says—what he thinks or—or pretends to think." Again the burning flush was in her cheeks.

"I know!"

"And even though it is all a vile and cruel lie, yet I could not bear—"

"You shall not suffer!"

"Don't—don't you understand that if people should think—think of such a thing and me—that they should speak of it and utter my name—Lies or truth, it would be almost the same; the shame of it would be horrible—horrible!" She was trembling.

"Tell me, have you seen this man?"

"Yes, last Saturday. He wrote ordering me to meet him. In every line of the letter I read threats. I—I had to go; it was money, of course, five thousand pounds."

"And you didn't promise?" His voice was harsh and sharp, and looking at him she saw a man changed, a man whose face was hard and stern, and whose mouth had grown bitter. And, knowing it was for her, she knew that she had never admired him before as she did now.

"I promised nothing. I am to meet him again to-morrow night and—and tell him what I have decided. It is not the money, but—but to pay would seem as if I—I were afraid. And oh, I have paid before!"

"I know! And to-morrow you will meet him?"

"I—but—"

"You will meet him, Joan, but I shall be there also. Tell me where!"

She described the place, and he remembered it and knew it well enough.

"I shall be there, remember that. Go without fear—answer as you decide, but remember you pay nothing—nothing. And then I,"—he paused, and smiled for the first time—"I will do the paying."



CHAPTER XXXVII

THE DROPPING OF THE SCALES

It was like turning back the pages of a well-loved book, a breath out of the past. For this afternoon it seemed to John Everard that his little friend, almost sister, had come back to him.

And yet it seemed to Johnny, who studied her quietly, that here was one whom he had never known, never seen before. The child had been dear to him as a younger sister, but the child was no more.

And to-day, for these few brief hours, Ellice gave herself up to a happiness that she knew could be but fleeting. To-day she would be the butterfly, living and rejoicing in the sun. The darkness would come soon enough, but to-day was hers and his.

How far in his boldness John Everard drove that little car he did not quite realise, but it was a slight shock to him to read on a sign-post "Holsworth four miles," for Holsworth was more than forty miles from Little Langbourne.

"Gipsy, we must go back," he said. "We'll get some tea at the farmhouse we passed a mile back, and then we will hurry on. Con will be worrying."

They had tea at the little farmhouse, and sat facing one another, and more than ever grew the wonder in Johnny's mind. Why—why had this girl changed so? What was the meaning of it, the reason for it? It was not the years, for a few days, a few short weeks had wrought the change. And then he remembered with a sense of shame and wrongdoing that, strangely enough, he had scarcely flung one thought to Joan all that long afternoon.

And now in the dusk of the evening they set off on the homeward journey. And at Harlowe happened the inevitable, when one has only a small-sized tank, and undertakes a journey longer than the average, the petrol ran out. The car stopped after sundry spluttering explosions and back-firings.

"Nothing else for it, Gipsy. I must tramp back to Harlowe and get some petrol—serves me right, I ought to have thought of it. Are you afraid of being left there with the car?"

"Afraid!" She laughed. "Afraid of what, Johnny?"

"Nothing, dear!"

He set off patiently with an empty petrol tin in each hand, and she watched him till he was lost in the dusk.

"Afraid!" she repeated. "Afraid only of one thing in this world—of myself, of my love for him!" And then suddenly sobs shook her, and she buried her face in her hands and cried as if her heart must break.

It took Johnny a full hour to tramp to Harlowe and to tramp back with the two heavy tins, and then something seemed to go wrong. The car would not start up: another hour passed, and they had a considerable way to go, and then suddenly, seemingly without rhyme or reason, the car started and ran beautifully, and once more they were off and away.

But they were very late when they came into Starden, and with still some six and a half miles to go before they could reassure Connie.

"Connie will be worrying, Gipsy," Johnny said. "You know what Connie is, bless her! She'll think all sorts of tragedies—and—" He paused, his voice faltered, shook, and became silent.

They were running past Mrs. Bonner's cottage. The door of the cottage stood open, and against the yellow light within they could see the figure of a man and of a girl, and both knew the girl to be Joan Meredyth, and the man to be Mrs. Bonner's lodger, the man that Joan had cut that day in Starden.

The car was a quarter of a mile further down the road before either spoke, and then Johnny said, and his voice was jerky and uncertain:

"Yes, Connie will be getting nervous. I shall be glad to have you home—Gipsy."



CHAPTER XXXVIII

"HER CHAMPION"

Why should Joan have been at Mrs. Bonner's cottage at such an hour? Why should she have been there talking to the very man whom she had a week ago cut dead in the village? Why, if she had anything to say to him, whoever he was, had she not sent for him rather than seek him at his lodgings?

Questions that puzzled and worried Johnny Everard sorely, questions that he could not answer. Jealousy, doubt, and all the kindred feelings came overwhelmingly. Honest as the day, he never doubted a soul's honesty. If he found out that a man whom he had trusted was a thief, it shocked him; he kicked the man out and was done with him, and nothing was left but an unpleasant memory, but Joan was different.

Trust Joan? Of course he did, utterly and entirely.

"I should be unworthy of her if I didn't," he thought. "In any case, I am not worthy of her. It is all right!"

But was it all right?

Connie had been naturally a little anxious. She, womanlike, had built up a series of tragedies in her mind, the worst of which was Johnny and Ellice lying injured and unconscious on some far distant roadway; the least a smashed and disabled car, and Johnny and Ellice sitting disconsolate on a roadside bank.

But here they were, all safe and sound, and Connie bustled about, hurrying up the long delayed dinner, making anxious enquiries, and feeling a sense of relief and gratitude for their safe return, about which she said nothing at all.

And now Connie was gone to bed, and Ellice too; and Johnny smoked his pipe and frowned over it, and asked himself questions to which he could find no answer.

"But I trust her, absolutely," he said aloud. "Still, if she knows the man"—he paused—"why hasn't she spoken to me about him? I am to be her husband soon, thank Heaven, but—"

And then came more doubts and worries crowding into his mind, and his pipe went out, and he sat there, frowning at thoughts, greatly worried.

Johnny Everard looked up at the sound of the opening of the door. In the doorway stood a little figure. He had never realised how little she was till he saw her now, standing there with her bare feet and a thin white dressing-gown over her nightdress, her hair hanging in great waving tresses about her oval face and shoulders and far down her back.

She looked such a child—and yet such a woman, her great eyes anxiously on his face.

"Johnny," she said softly, "you have been worrying."

He nodded, speechless.

"Why, Johnny?"

"Because—because, Gipsy, I am a fool—a jealous fool, I suppose."

"If you doubt her honour and her honesty, Johnny, then you are a fool," she said bravely, "because Joan could not be mean and treacherous and underhand. It would not be possible for her."

"I thought you did not—like Joan?"

"And does that make any difference? Even if I do not like her, must I be unjust to her? I know she is fine and honourable and true and straight, and you must know that too, so—so why should you worry, Johnny? Why should you worry?"

"Why has she never said one word to me about this man? Why did she refuse to recognise him that day when she saw you and him together? Why does she go to Mrs. Bonner's cottage to meet him late at night?"

He hurled at her all those questions that he had been asking himself vainly.

"I do not know why," Ellice said gravely, "but I know that, whatever the reason is, it is honourable and honest. Joan Meredyth," she paused a little, with a catch of the breath, "Joan Meredyth could not be other than honest and true and—and straight, Johnny. It would not be her nature to be anything else."

"Why do you come here? Why do you come to tell me this, Gipsy?" He had risen, he stood looking at her—such a little thing, so graceful, so lovely with the colour in her cheeks, the light in her eyes, the light of her fine generosity. "Gipsy—" He became silent; looking at her, strange thoughts came—wild, impossible thoughts, thoughts that come when dreams end and one is face to face with reality. So many years he had known her, she had been part and parcel of his life, his everyday companion, yet it seemed to him that he had never known her till now—the fineness, the goodness of her, the beauty of her too, the womanliness of this child.

"I came here to tell you, Johnny, because you let yourself doubt," she said. "I heard you moving about the room restlessly, and that is not like you. Usually you sit here and smoke your pipe and think or read your paper. You never rise and move about the room as to-night."

"How do you know?"

She laughed shortly. "I know—everything," she said. "I listen to you night after night. I always have for years. I have heard you come up and go to your room, always. I always wait for that!"

"Gipsy, why—why should you?"

"Because," she said—"because—" And then she said no more, and would have turned away, her errand done, but that he hastened to her and caught her by the hand.

"Gipsy, wait. Don't go. Why did you come to tell me this of Joan to-night?"

"Because since you have asked her to be your wife, you belong to her, and you should not doubt her. She is above doubt—she could not be as some women, underhand and treacherous, deceitful. That would not be Joan Meredyth."

"And yet you do not like her, dear. Why not?"

"I can't—tell you." She tried to wrench her hand free, yet he held it strongly, and looked down into her eyes.

What did he see there? What tale did they in their honesty tell him, that hers lips must never utter? Was he less blind at this moment than ever before in his life? Johnny Everard never rightly understood.

"Good night," he said, "Gipsy, good night," and would have drawn her to him to kiss her—as usual, but she resisted.

"Please, please don't!" she said, and looked at him.

Her lips were quivering, there was a glorious flush in her cheeks; and in her eyes, a kind of fear. So he let her go, and opened the door for her and stood listening to the soft swish of her draperies as she sped up the dark stairs.

Then very slowly Johnny Everard came back to his chair. He picked up his pipe and stared at it, yet did not see it. He saw a pair of eyes that seemed to burn into his, eyes that had betrayed to him at last the secret of her heart.

"I didn't know—I didn't know," Johnny Everard said brokenly. "I didn't know, and oh, my God! I am not worthy of that! I am not worthy of that!"



CHAPTER XXXIX

"THE PAYING"

Once again Mr. Philip Slotman was tainting the fragrant sweetness and freshness of the night with the aroma of a large and expensive J.S. Muria.

Once again the big shabby old car stood waiting in the shadows, a quarter of a mile down the road, while he who hired it leaned against the gate under the shadow of the partly ruined barn.

He had not the smallest doubt but that she would come. It was full early yet; but she would come, though, being a woman, she would in all probability be late.

And she would pay, she dared not refuse him. Yet he needed more than the money, he thought, as he leaned at his ease against the gate and smoked his cigar.

And now she was coming. He flung the half-smoked cigar away and waited as the dark figure approached him in the night.

"You are early to-night, Joan." He endeavoured to put softness and tenderness into his voice.

"I am here at the time I appointed."

"To give me my answer—yes, but we won't discuss that now. I want to speak to you about something else."

"Something other than money?"

"Yes, do you think I always put money first?"

"I had thought so, Mr. Slotman."

"You do me a wrong—a great wrong. There is something that I put far ahead of money, of gold. It is you—Joan, listen! you must listen!" He had gripped her arm and held tightly, and as before she did not struggle nor try to win free of him.

"You shall listen to me. I have told you before many times that I love you."

He tried to drag her closer to him. And now she wrenched herself free.

"I came to discuss money with you, not—not impossibilities."

"So—so that is it, is it? I am impossible, am I?"

"To me—utterly. I have only one feeling for you, the deepest scorn. I don't hate you, because you are too mean, too paltry, too low a thing to hate. I have only contempt for you."

He writhed under the cold and cutting scorn of her words and her voice, the evil temper in him worked uppermost.

"So—so that's the talk, is it?" he cried with a foul oath. "That's it, is it? You—you two-penny ha'penny—" He choked foolishly over his words.

"You!" he gasped, "what are you? What have you been? What about you and—"

Again he was silent, writhing with rage.

"Money—yes, it is money-talk, then, and by thunder I'll make you pay! I'll bleed you white, you cursed—" Again more foolish oaths, the clumsy cursing of a man in the grip of passion.

"You shall pay! It's money-talk, yes—you shall pay! We will talk in thousands, my girl. I said five thousand. It isn't enough—what is your good name worth, eh? What is it worth to you? I could paint you a nice colour, couldn't I? What will this fellow Everard say when I tell him what I can tell him? How the village fools will talk it over in their alehouse, eh? And in the cottages, how they will stare at Miss Meredyth of Starden when she takes her walks abroad. They'll wink at one another, won't they. They'll remember! Trust 'em, they'll never forget!"

She felt sickened, faint, and horrified, yet she gave no sign.

"Money you said!" he shouted, "and money it shall be! Ten thousand pounds, or I'll give you away, so that every man and woman in Starden will count 'emselves your betters! I'll give you away to the poor fool you think you are going to marry! There won't be any wedding. I'll swear a man couldn't marry a thing—with such a name as I shall give you! Money, yes! you'll pay! I want ten thousand pounds! Not five, remember, but ten, and perhaps more to follow. And if you don't pay, there won't be many who will not have heard about your imaginary marriage to that dog, Hugh Alston."

The girl drew a deep shuddering sigh. She pressed her hands over her breast. From the shadows about the old barn a deeper shadow moved, something vaulted the gate lightly and came down with a thud on the ground beside Mr. Philip Slotman.

"Joan," said a voice, "you will go away and leave this man to me. I will attend to the paying of him."

Slotman turned, his rage gone, a cold sweat of fear bursting out on his forehead; his loose jaw sagged.

"A—a trap," he gasped.

"To catch a rat! And the rat is caught! Joan, go. I will follow presently."

No word passed between the two men as they watched the girl's figure down the road. She walked slowly; once she seemed to hesitate as though about to turn back. And it was in her mind to turn back, to plead for mercy for this man, this creature. Yet she did not. She flung her head up. No, she would not ask for mercy for him: Hugh Alston was just.

So in silence they watched her till the darkness had swallowed her.

"So you refused to accept my warning, Slotman?"

"I—I refuse to have anything to do with you. It is no business of yours, kindly allow me—"

Slotman would have gone. Hugh thrust out a strong arm and barred his way.

"Wait!" he said, "blackmailer!"

"I—I was asking for a loan."

"A gift of money with threats—lying, infamous threats. How shall I deal with you?" Hugh frowned as in thought. "How can a man deal with a dog like you? Dog—may all dogs forgive me the libel! Shall I thrash you? Shall I tear the clothes from your body, and thrash you and fling you, bleeding and tattered, into that field? Shall I hand you over to the Police?"

"You—you dare not," Slotman said; his teeth were chattering. "It will mean her name being dragged in the mud, the whole thing coming out. You—you dare not do it."

"You are right. I dare not, for the sake of her name—the name of such a woman must never be uttered in connection with such a thing as yourself. How, then, shall I deal with you? It must be the thrashing, yet it is not enough. It is a pity the duel has gone out, not that you would have fought me with a sword or pistol, Slotman, still—Yes, it must be the thrashing."

"If you touch me—"

Hugh laughed sharply. "If I touch you, what?"

"I shall call for help. I shall summon you. I—"

"Put your hands up."

"Help! help! help!"

Down the road the tired chauffeur slumbered peacefully on the seat of the shabby car. He heard nothing, save some distant unintelligible sounds and the cooing of a wood-pigeon in an adjacent thicket.

And then presently there came down the road a flying figure, the figure of a man who sobbed as he ran, a man from whom the clothes hung in ribbons, a man with wild staring eyes, and panting, labouring chest. He stumbled as he ran, and picked himself up again, to fall again. So, running, stumbling, falling, he came at last to the car and shrieked at the driver to awaken.



CHAPTER XL

"IS IT THE END?"

Lady Linden, wearing a lilac printed cotton sunbonnet, her skirts pinned up about her, was busy with a trowel, disordering certain flower-beds that presently the gardeners would come and put right.

"Idle women," said her ladyship, "are my abomination. How a woman can moon about and do nothing is more than I can understand. Look at me, am I not always busy? From early morning to dewy eve I—Curtis!"

"Yes, my lady?"

"Come here at once," said her ladyship. "I have dug up a worm. I dislike worms. Carry the creature away; don't hurt it, Curtis. I dislike cruelty even to worms. Ugh! How you can touch the thing!"

Curtis, under-gardener, trudged away with a large healthy worm dangling from thumb and forefinger, a sheepish grin on his face.

"Those creatures have none of the finer feelings," thought her ladyship. "Yet we are all brothers and sisters according to the Bible. I don't agree with that at all. Curtis, come back; there is another worm."

Marjorie stood at the window, watching her aunt's operations, yet seeing none of them. Her face was set and white and resolute, the soft round chin seemed to be jutting out more obstinately than usual.

For Marjorie had made up her mind definitely, and she knew that she was about to hurt herself and to hurt someone else.

But it must be. It was only fair, it was only just. Silence, she believed, would be wicked.

The door behind her opened, and Tom Arundel came into the room. He was fresh from the stable, and smelled of straw.

"Why, darling, is there anything up? I got your note asking me to come here at once. Joe gave it to me just as we were going to take out the brute Lady Linden has bought. Of all the vicious beasts! I wish to goodness she wouldn't buy a horse without a proper opinion, but it is useless talking to her. She said she liked the white star on its forehead—white star! black devil, I call it! But I'll break him in if I break my neck—doing it. But—I am sorry. You want me?"

"I want to speak to you."

"Then you might turn and look at a chap, Marjorie."

"I—I prefer to—to look out through the window," she said in a stifled voice.

Standing in the room he beheld her, slim and graceful, dark against the light patch of the window, her back obstinately turned to him; looking at her, there came a great and deep tenderness into his face, the light of a very honest and intense love.

"Tell me, sweetheart, then," he said—"tell me in your own way, what is it? Nothing very serious, is it?" There was a suggestion of laughter in his voice.

"It is very serious, Tom."

"Yes?"

"It—it concerns you—me and you—our future."

"Yes, dear, then it is serious." The laughter was gone; there came a look of fear, of anxiety into his eyes.

It could not be that she was going to discard him, turn him down, end it all now? But she was.

"Tom, it is only right and honest of me to tell you that—that"—her voice shook—"that I have made a mistake."

"That you do not love me?" he said, and his voice was strangely quiet.

"Oh, Tom, I believed I did. It all seemed so different when we used to meet, knowing that everyone was against us. It seemed so romantic, so—so nice, and now ..." Her voice trailed off miserably.

"And now, now, sweet," and his voice was filled with tenderness and yearning, "now I fall far short of what you hoped for."

"Oh, it isn't that. It is I—I—who am to blame, not you. I was a senseless, romantic little fool, a child, and now I am a woman."

"You don't love me, Marjorie?"

Silence for a moment, then she answered in a low voice: "No!"

"Nor ever will, your love can't come back again?"

"I don't think it—it was ever there. I was wrong; I did not understand. I was foolish and weak. I thought it fine to—to steal away and meet you. I think I put a halo of romance about your head, and now—"

"A halo of romance about my head," he repeated. He looked down at his hands, grimed with the work he had been at; he smiled, but there was no mirth in his smile.

This was the end then! And he loved her, Heaven knew how he loved her! He looked at the unyielding little figure against the light, and in his eyes was a great longing and a subdued passion.

"So it—it is the end, Marjorie?"

"I want it to be."

"Yes, I understand. I knew that I was not good enough, never good enough for you—far, far beneath you, dear. Only I would have tried to make you happy—that is what I meant, you understand that? I would have given my life to making you happy, little girl. Perhaps I was a fool to think I could. I know now that I could not."

"Tom, I am sorry," she said. "I am sorry."

He came to her, he put his hand on her arm.

"Don't blame yourself, dear," he said, "don't blame yourself. You can't help your heart; you—you only thought you cared for me for a time, but it was just a fancy, and it—it passed, didn't it? And now it is gone, and can never come back again. Of course it must end. Your wishes—always—mean everything to me." He bent, he touched the white hand with his lips, and then turned away. Once at the door he looked back; but she did not move, the tears were streaming down her cheeks, and she did not want him to see them.

How well he had taken it! How well, and yet he loved her! She realised now how much he loved her, how fine he was, and generous, even Hugh could not have been more generous than he.

And Marjorie stood there like one in a dream, watching, yet seeing nothing, going over in her mind all that had passed, suffering the pain of it. And she had loved him once! Those mystic moonlight meetings, his young arms about her, his lips against hers—oh, she had loved him! And then had come the commonplace, the everyday, sordid side of it, he the accepted lover, high in Lady Linden's favour, which meant the gradual awakening from a dream, her dream of love.

"I am fickle, I am false. I do not know my own mind, and—and I have hurt him. I am not worthy of hurting him. He is better, finer than I ever thought."

Still Lady Linden prodded and trowelled at the neat bed, still she demanded occasional help from the patient Curtis; and now came a man, breathless and coatless, rushing across the lawn. He had news for her, something that must be told; gone was his accustomed terror of her ladyship. He told her what he had to say, and she dropped the trowel and ran—actually ran as Marjorie had never seen her run.

She could have laughed, but for the pain at her heart. He had taken it so well; he had risen to a height she had not suspected him capable of, and the fault was hers, hers.

What was that? What were they carrying? God help her! What was that they were carrying across the lawn? Why did they walk so quietly, so carefully? Why ask?

She knew! Instinct told her. She knew! She flung out her hands and gripped at the window-frame and watched. She saw her aunt, her usually ruddy face drawn, haggard, and white. She saw something that lay motionless on a part of the old barn-door, which four men were carrying with such care. She saw a man on a bicycle dashing off down the drive.

Why ask? She knew! And only just now, a few short minutes ago—no, no, a lifetime ago—she had told him she did not love him.

"An accident, Marjorie." Lady Linden's voice was harsh, unlike her usual round tones. "An accident—that brute of a horse—girl, don't, don't faint."

"I am not going to. I want to help—him."

They had brought Tom Arundel into the house, had laid him on a bed in an upper room. The village doctor had come, and, finding something here beyond his skill, had sent off, with Lady Linden's full approval, an urgent message to a surgeon of repute, and now they were waiting—waiting the issues of life and death.

The servants looked at the white-faced, distraught girl pityingly. They remembered that she was to have been the dying man's wife. The whole thing had been so sudden, was so shocking and tragic. No wonder that she looked like death herself; they could not guess at the self-reproach, the self-denunciation, nor could Lady Linden.

"No one," said her ladyship, "is to blame but me. It was my doing, my own pig-headed folly. The boy told me that the horse was a brute, and I—I said that he—if he hadn't the pluck to try and break him in—I would find someone who would. I am his murderess!" her ladyship cried tragically. "Yes, Marjorie, look at me—look at the murderess of the man you love!"

"Aunt!"

"It is true. Revile me! I alone am guilty. I've robbed you of your lover." Lady Linden was nearer to hysterics at this moment than ever in her life.

"How long? how long?" she demanded impatiently. "How long will it be before that fool comes?"

The fool was the celebrated surgeon wired for to London. He had wired back that he was on his way; no man could do more.

But the waiting, the horrible waiting; the ceaseless watching and listening for the sound of wheels, the strange hush that had fallen upon the house, the knowledge that there in an upper chamber death was waiting, waiting to take a young life.

Hours, every minute of which had seemed like hours themselves, hours had passed. Lady Linden sat with her hands clenched and her eyes fixed on nothingness. She blamed herself with all her honest hearty nature; she blamed herself even more unsparingly than in the past she had blamed others for their trifling faults.

Her self-recriminations had got on Marjorie's nerves. She could not bear to sit here and listen to her aunt when all the time she knew that it was she—she alone who was to blame. She had told him that she did not love him, that all his hopes must end, that the future they had planned between them should never be, and so had sent him to his death.

She waited outside in the big hall, her eyes on the stairs, her ears tensioned to every sound from above, and at every sound she started.

Voices at last, low and muffled, voices pitched in a low key, men talking as in deep confidence. She heard and she watched. She saw the two men, the doctor and the surgeon, descending the stairs; she rose and went to meet them, yet said never a word.

She watched their faces; she saw that they looked grave. She saw that the face of the great man was worn and tired. She looked in vain for something that would whisper the word "Hope" to her.

"Miss Linden is engaged to Mr. Arundel," the local doctor said.

The great man held out his hand to her. He knew so well, how many thousands of times had he seen, that same look of questioning, pitiful in its dumbness.

He held her hand closely, "There is hope. That is all I care say to you—just a hope, and that is all."

It was all that he dared to say, the utmost to which he could go. He knew that false hopes, raised only to be crushed, were cruelty. And he had never done that, never would. "There is yet one ray of hope. He may live; I can say no more than that, Miss Linden."

And, little though it was, it was almost more than she had dared to hope for.



CHAPTER XLI

MR. RUNDLE TAKES A HAND

Battered and sorely bruised, Philip Slotman lay on his bed in the Feathers Inn in Little Langbourne, and cursed his luck. Every time he moved he swore to himself.

He was hurt in mind, body, and estate; he was consumed by a great rage and a sense of injury. He had suffered, and someone should pay—Joan mainly, after Joan, Hugh Alston. But it would be safer to make Joan pay. Not in money. Alston had insisted on it that he had nothing to expect in the way of cash from Miss Meredyth.

Slotman lay writhing, and cursing and planning vengeance. There were few things that he would not have liked to do to Hugh Alston, but finally he decided he could better hurt Hugh Alston through Joan, so thereafter he devoted his thoughts to Joan.

The church bells of Little Langbourne Church were ringing pleasantly when Philip Slotman, with many a grunt and inward groan, rose from his couch.

Except for a slight discoloration about the left eye and a certain stiffness of gait, there was nothing about Philip Slotman when he came down to the coffee-room for his breakfast to suggest that he had seen so much trouble the previous evening. But there were some who had seen Slotman come in, and among them was the waiter. He put his hand over his mouth, and smirked now at the sight of Slotman, and Slotman noticed it.

The bells rang no message of peace and good-will to Mr. Slotman this morning.

Yes, Joan would be the one. He would make her pay; he would hurt Alston through her, and hit her hard at the same time. He would stay here at Little Langbourne.

"Buddesby, sir?" said the waiter. "Yes, sir. Mister John Everard's place about a quarter of a mile beyond the village. Very interesting old 'ouse, sir, one of the best farms hereabouts. Mr. Everard's a well-to-do gentleman, sir, old family, not—"

"Oh, go away!"

The waiter withdrew. "Anyhow," he thought, "he got it all right last night, and serve him right. Law! what a mess 'e were in when he came in."

A quarter of a mile beyond the village. Slotman nodded. He would go. He remembered that Alston had said something last night about this man Everard, had suggested all sorts of things might happen to him, Slotman, if he communicated in any way with Everard.

"Anyhow I shall tell him, and unless he is a born fool he will soon get quit of her. By thunder! I'll make her name reek, as I told her I would. I'll set this place and Starden and half the infernal country talking about her! If she shews her face anywhere, she'll get stared at. I'll let her and that beast Alston see what it means to get on the wrong side of a chap like me."

A quarter of a mile beyond the village. Thank Heaven it was no further.

The church bells had ceased ringing, from the church itself came the pleasant sounds of voices. The village street lay white in the sunlight with the blue shadows of the houses, a world of peace and of beauty, of sweet scenes and of sweet sounds; and now he had left the village behind him.

"Is this Buddesby, my man? Those gates, are they the gates of Buddesby?"

"Aye, they be," said the man. He was a big, gipsy-looking fellow, who slouched with hunched shoulders and a yellow mongrel dog at his heels.

"The gates of Buddesby they be, and—" He paused; he stared hard into Slotman's face.

"Oh!" he said slowly, "oh, so 'tis 'ee, be it? I been watching out for 'ee."

"What—what do you mean?"

"I remember 'ee, I do. I remember your grinning face. I've carried it in my memory all right. See that dawg?" The man pointed to the lurcher. "See him: he's more'n a brother, more'n a son, more'n a wife to me. That's the dawg you run over that day, and you grinned. I seen it—you grinned!" The man's black eyes sparkled. He looked swiftly up the road and down it, and Slotman saw the action and quivered.

"I'll give you—" he began. "I am very sorry; it was an accident. I'll pay you for—"

But the man with the blazing eyes had leaped at him.

"I been waiting for 'ee, and I've cotched 'ee at last!" he shouted.

* * * * *

Johnny Everard, hands in pockets, mooning about his stock and rickyard, this calm Sunday morning, never guessed how near he had been to receiving a visitor.

He had not seen Joan since that night when, with Ellice beside him, he had seen her and the man at the door of Mrs. Bonner's cottage.

He had meant to go, but had not gone. He was due there to-day; this very morning Helen would expect him. He had never missed spending a Sunday with them since the engagement; and yet he felt loath to go, and did not know why.

He had seen Connie off to Church. Con never missed. Ellice had not gone. Ellice was perhaps a little less constant than Con. He wondered where the girl was now, and, thinking of her, the frown on his face was smoothed away.

Always there was wonder, a sense of unreality in his mind; a feeling that somehow, in some way, he was wrong. He must be wrong. Strangely enough, these last few days he had thought more constantly of Ellice than of Joan. He had pictured her again and again to himself—a little, white-clad, barefooted figure standing against the dusky background of the hallway, framed by the open door. He remembered the colour in her cheeks, and her brave championship of the other woman; but he remembered most of all the look in her eyes when she had said to him, "Please, please don't!"

"I shall never kiss her again," he said, and said it to himself, and knew as he said it that he was denying himself the thing for which now he longed.

He had kissed Joan's cold cheek, he had kissed her hand, but her lips had not been for him. He had wondered once if they ever would be, and he had cared a great deal; now he ceased to wonder.

"I shall never kiss Gipsy again," he thought, and, turning, saw her.

"So you—you didn't go to Church, Gipsy?"

"I thought you had gone to Starden."

They stood and looked at one another.

"No. I don't think I shall go to Starden to-day."

"But they expect you."

"I—I don't think I shall go to-day, Gipsy. Shall we go for a walk across the fields?"

"You ought to go to Starden," she said. "She—she will expect you."

But a spirit of reckless defiance had come to him.

"She won't miss me if I don't go."

"No, she won't miss you," the girl said softly, and her voice shook.

"So—so come with me, Gipsy girl."

"If you wish it."

"You know I do."

Yet when they went together across the fields, when they came to the edge of the hop-garden and saw the neatly trailing vines, which this year looked better and more promising than he could ever remember before, they had nothing to say to one another, not a word. Once he took her hand and held it for a moment, then let it go again; and at the touch of her he thrilled, little dreaming how her heart responded.

He scarcely looked at her. If he had, he might have seen a glow in her cheeks, a brightness in her eyes, the brightness born of a new and wonderful hope.

"After all, after all," the girl was thinking. "I believe he cares for me a little—not so much as he loves her, but a little, a little, and I love him."

Connie smiled on them as they came in together. It was as she liked to see them. She noticed the deep colouring in the girl's cheeks, the new brightness in her eyes, and Connie, who always acted on generous impulses, kissed her.

"What's that for?" Johnny cried. "Haven't you one for me too, Con?"

"Always, always," she said. She put her arms about his neck and hugged him.

It seemed as if the clouds that had so long overcast this little house had drifted away this calm Sabbath day, and the sun was shining down gloriously on them.

For some time Connie had been quietly watching the girl. There came back into her memory a promise given long ago. "I will do nothing, nothing, Con, unless I tell you first."

She knew Ellice for the soul of honour; she had felt safe, and now she was waiting.

"Well, Ellice, have you anything to say to me?" Johnny was gone after dinner to his tiny study to wrestle with letters and figures that he abhorred.

"Yes," Ellice said.

"I thought you had—well?"

"I am going to Starden," the girl said. "I am going to Starden this afternoon, Con."

"What for?"

"To see—her?"

"Why—why, darling, why?"

"To ask her if she can be generous—and oh, I believe she can—to ask her why she is taking him away from me when I love him so, and when—oh, Con—Con, when I believe that he cares a little for me."

Con held out her arms, she caught the girl tightly.

"My love and my prayers and my wishes will go with you, darling."



CHAPTER XLII

"WALLS WE CANNOT BATTER DOWN"

"Why?" Helen asked. "Why isn't Johnny here to-day, Joan?"

"I do not know," Joan said. She had scarcely given a thought to Johnny Everard that morning. All her thoughts had been of two men, the men she had left in the darkness by the roadside. She blamed herself bitterly now that she had left them; she trembled to think what might have happened.

"Helen, if Johnny Everard does come, I wish to speak to him. I have a good deal to say to him. I want to be alone with him for some time."

"Of course, darling." But there was anxious enquiry in Helen's face.

Surely, surely there had been no quarrel between them? Johnny was not one to quarrel with anyone, yet it was strange that he had not been here for so many days, and that this being Sunday still he was not here.

"When he comes," Joan was thinking, "I shall tell him—everything." She knew she would hate it; she knew that she would feel that in some way she was lowering herself. It would be a horrible confession for one with her stubborn pride to have to make. Not of guilt and wrongdoing, but that such should be ascribed to her.

Helen was watching from the window, her mind filled with worries and doubts.

A man had turned in by the gates, was walking slowly up the winding drive.

It was Johnny, of course. Helen saw it all. The car had gone wrong, but Johnny, not to miss this Sunday, had walked.

"Joan, Johnny is coming," she called out. "He is walking. He—" She paused; it was not Johnny. She was silent; she stared for a moment. The man looked familiar, then she knew who it was.

"Joan, it is Mr. Alston," she said quietly. "What does he want here?" And Helen's voice was filled with suspicion.

"Thank Heaven," Joan thought, "thank Heaven that he is here."

For the first time Hugh Alston knocked for admission on the Starden door. A score of times he had asked himself, "Shall I go?" And he could find no answer. He had come at last.

"What can he want? I did not know he was here in Starden. I didn't even know that he knew where Joan was. I don't understand this business at all," Helen was thinking.

A servant shewed him in. Joan shook hands with him. Helen did so, under an air of graciousness which hid a cold hostility. What was this man doing here? If he was nothing to Joan, and Joan was nothing to him, why did he come? And how could he be anything to Joan when she was to marry Johnny?

So this was her home! A fit setting for her loveliness, and yet he knew of a fitter, of another home where she could shine to even greater advantage. They talked of commonplace things, hiding their feelings behind words, waiting, Joan and Hugh, till Helen should leave them. But Helen lingered with less than her usual tact, lingered with a mind filled with vague suspicions, wondering why Johnny had not come.

Sitting near the window she could see the drive, and presently a young girl on an old bicycle coming up it. Helen stared.

"Why, here is Ellice Brand," she said, and fears took possession of her. There was something wrong! Johnny was ill, or had met with an accident. Ellice had ridden over to tell them.

"I'll go and see her, Joan," she said, and so at last was gone.

Hugh closed the door after her.

"You've been anxious?" he said briefly.

"Naturally!"

"There was no need. I had to give him what I had promised him, one must always keep one's word. It was rather a brutal business, Joan, but I had to go through with it. I'd sooner not tell you anything more. I am not proud of it."

"I—I understand, and you can understand that I was anxious."

"For him?"

"For—for you."

"For me?" He took two long strides to her. "Joan, are you going to let your pride rear impassable walls between us for ever? Can't you be fair, generous, natural, true to yourself? Can't you see how great, how overwhelming my love for you is?"

"There is—is something more than pride between us, Hugh."

"There is nothing—nothing that cannot be broken; that cannot be forced and broken down," he said eagerly. "You are to marry a man you do not love. Why should you? Would it be fair to yourself? Would it be fair to me? Would it be fair to your future? Think while there is time."

"I cannot," she said. "I have given him my promise—and I shall stand by it." She drew her hands away. "It is useless, Hugh. Useless now—if I did rear walls of pride between you and myself. I confess it now, I did; but they are so strong that we may not break them down."

"They shall be broken down!" he said. "Answer me this—this question truthfully, and from your soul. Look into my eyes, and answer me in one word, yes or no?" He held her hands again; he held her so that she must face him, and so holding her, looking into her eyes, he asked her: "Do you love me? Have you given to me some of your heart, knowing that I have given all of mine to you, knowing that I love you so, and need you and long for you? Do you love me a little in return, Joan?"

She was silent; her eyes met his bravely enough, yet it seemed as if she had no control upon her lips, the word would not come. Once before she had lied to him, and knew that she could not lie again, not with his eyes looking deep into hers, probing the very secrets of her soul.

"Joan, do you love me? My Joan, do you love me?" And then the answer came at last—"Yes."



CHAPTER XLIII

"NOT TILL THEN WILL I GIVE UP HOPE"

"There is nothing wrong, nothing the matter with Johnny or Connie?"

"Nothing."

"Then why—why did not Johnny come?"

"He is busy."

"But you—"

"I came to see Joan Meredyth," said Ellice quietly. She and Helen did not like one another; they were both frank in their dislike. Helen looked down on Ellice as a person of no importance, who was entirely unwanted, a mere nuisance, someone for ever in the way.

Ellice looked on Helen as the promoter of this engagement and marriage, as the woman who was responsible for everything. She did not like her. She resented her; but for Helen, there would never have been any break in the old happy life at Buddesby.

"So you wish to see Joan, why?"

"Privately."

"My dear child, surely—"

"I am not a child, and I wish to see Joan Meredyth privately, and surely I have the right, Mrs. Everard?"

Helen frowned. "Well, at any rate you cannot see her now. She is engaged, a friend is with her."

"I can wait."

"Very well," Helen said. "If you insist. Does Johnny know that you are here?" she asked with sudden suspicion.

"No; Connie knows. I told her, and I am willing to wait."

Helen looked at her. Helen was honest. "I thought the child pretty," she reflected, "and I was wrong; she is beautiful. I don't understand it. In some extraordinary way she seems to have changed." But her manner towards Ellice was as unfriendly as before.

"I do not in the least know how long Joan will be. You may have to wait a considerable time."

"I shall not mind."

In the room these two stood, Joan had made her confession frankly, truthfully. She had admitted her love for him, but of hope for the future she had none. That she loved him now, in spite of all the past, in spite of the troubles and shame he had brought on her, was something that had happened in spite of herself, against her will, against her desire; but because it was so, she admitted it frankly.

"But my love for you, Hugh, matters nothing," she said. "Because I love you I shall suffer more—but I shall never break my word to the man I have given it to."

"When you stand before the altar with that man's ring on your finger, when you have promised before God to be his wife, then and not till then will I give up hope. And that will be never. It is your pride, dear, your pride that ever fights against your happiness and mine; but I shall beat it down and humble it, Joan, and win you in the end. Your own true, sweet self."

"I don't think I have any pride left," she said. "I was prouder when I was poor than I am now. My pride was then all I had; it kept me above the sordid life about me. I cultivated it, I was glad of it, but since then—Oh, Hugh, I am not proud any more, only very humble, and very unhappy."

And because she was still promised to another man, he could not, as he would, hold out his arms to her and take her to his breast and comfort her. Instead, he took her hand and held it tightly for a time, then lifted it to his lips and went, leaving her; yet went with a full hope for the future in his heart, for he had wrung from her the confession that she loved him.

In the hall a girl, sitting there waiting patiently, looked at him with great dark eyes, yet he never saw her. A servant let him out, and then the servant came back to her. "Tell Miss Meredyth that I am here waiting to see her," Ellice said.

And as the man went away she wondered what had brought Hugh Alston here to-day, why he should be here so long with Joan when she could so distinctly remember Joan's lack of recognition of him in the village. She could also remember the sight of them that night, their dark shapes against the yellow glow of the lamplight in Mrs. Bonner's cottage.

How would she find Joan? she wondered. Softened, perhaps even confused, some of her coldness shaken, some of her self-possession gone? But no, Joan held out a hand in greeting to her.

"I did not know that you were here, Miss Brand," she said. "Have you not seen Mrs. Everard?"

"I have seen her," Ellice said, "but I didn't come here to-day to see her. I came to see you."

"To see me?" Joan smiled—a conventional smile. "You will sit down, won't you? Is it anything that I can do? It is not, I hope, that Mr. Everard is ill?"

"And—and if he were," the girl cried, "would you care?"

Joan started, her face grew colder.

"I do not understand."

"Yes, you—you do. Why are you marrying him? Why are you taking him from me when—"

"Taking him from—you?" Joan's voice was like ice water on flames of fire. Ellice was silent.

"Miss Meredyth, I came here to-day to see you, to speak to you, to—to open my heart to you." Her lips trembled. "Perhaps I am wrong, perhaps I have no right to be here to say what I am going to say. I told Connie; she—she knows that I have come here, and she knows why."

"Yes; go on."

"If—if you loved him it would be different. I would not dare think of saying anything then. I think I would be glad. I could, at any rate, be reconciled to it, because it would be for his happiness. If you loved him—but you don't—you don't! He is a man who could not live without love. It is part of his life. He might think, might believe that he would be content to take you because you are lovely and—and good and clever, and all those things that I am not, even though you do not love him, but the time would come when his heart would ache for the love you withheld. Oh, Joan—Joan, forgive me—forgive me, but I must speak. I think you would if you were in my place!"

The cold bitterness was passing slowly from Joan's face. There came a tinge of colour into her cheeks; her eyes that watched the girl grew softer and more tender.

"Go on," she said; "go on, tell me!"

"I have nothing more to say."

"Yes, you have—you have much more. You have this to say—you love him and want him, you wish to take him from me. Is that it, Ellice?"

"If you loved him I would not have dared to come. I would have told myself that I was content. But you don't. I have watched you—yes, spied on you—looking for some sign of tenderness that would prove to me that you loved him; but it never came. And so I know that you are marrying Johnny Everard with no love, accepting all the great love that he is offering to you and giving him nothing in exchange. Oh, it is not fair!"

"It is not fair," Joan said; "it is not fair, and yet I thought of that. I told him just what you have told me, and still he seemed to be content."

"Because he loves you so, and because he has hope in the future, because in spite of everything he still hopes that he might win your heart, and I know that he never can."

"How do you know that?"

"Because I—I think you have already given your heart away."

And now Joan's eyes flamed, the anger came back. "By what right do you say that? How dared you say that?"

"It is only what I believed. I believed that a woman so sweet, so beautiful, so good as you, must love. You could not live your life without love. If it has not come yet, then it will come some day, and then if you are his—his wife, it will come too late. You are made for love, Joan, just as he is. You could not live your life without it—you would feel need for it. Oh yes, you think I am a child, a foolish, romantic schoolgirl, a stupid little thing, talking, talking, but in your heart you know that I am right."

"But if he—loves me," Joan said softly, "if he loves me, little Ellice, then how can I break my word to him?"

"I do not ask you to break your word to him, only tell him, tell him the truth again. Tell him what I have told you, tell him—if there is someone else, if you have already met someone you care for—tell him that too, so that he will know how impossible it must ever be that you will give him the love he hoped to win. Tell him that, be frank and truthful. Remember, it is for all your lives—all his life and all yours. When he realises that your heart can never be his, do you think he will not surfer more, will not his sufferings be longer drawn out than if you told him so frankly now? If the break was to come now, to come and be ended for ever—but to live together, to live a mock life, to live beneath the same roof, to share one another's lives, and yet know one another's souls to be miles and miles apart—oh, Joan, you would suffer, and he too, he perhaps even more than you."