Chapter VI

BY the worst luck in the world it was a day of squalls and rain when Enid and her mother came down for the last week in May. Neville was raging with annoyance. He had decided that it was to be a perfectly fine day with a few clouds and a gentle wind; but Providence thought otherwise, and an hour before the arrival the sky was overcast; it was rather cold, and the hall-windows were spattered with drops.

" Light the fire here," said Nevill heavily to Masterson, as the butler came in to announce that he supposed tea would not be in the pavilion after all. Nevill was sunk in a chair, with his arms dangling down. Aunt Anna was standing up. She had just said she must be going.

" My dear boy! " remonstrated Anna.

Nevill groaned.

" Yes, I'm behaving disgracefully. Aren't I, Master-son? I'm a sulky brute."

" You wish the fire to be lighted, Sir Nevill? " asked Masterson, with dangerous calm.

" Yes."

" Then I will inform Charles, Sir Nevill," said Master-son yet more icily.

A conscience-stricken silence followed him out into the passage.

" Oh, Lord! " said Nevill. " Now Masterson's offended. You're all in a conspiracy. How am I supposed to know whose business it is to light the beastly fire? "

" You're not fit to have any servants," remarked Aunt Anna.

" Aunt! I shall burst into tears if you speak to me like that. Go away! Leave me to myself! I shall be stronger soon."

Anna was finding it quite hard to keep entirely composed. She could not have conceived that it would be so difficult to behave well, after all the time she had had to get ready. She assured herself that jealousy was absolutely the last of all the emotions that could possibly affect her. It was incredible that she could be jealous. No. It was simple anxiety that Nevill should have chosen well. She cared for nothing else so much as that.

But she found it rather a relief to take him at his word.

" Yes, I shall certainly go away," she said, " after that exhibition. Besides, I've got half a hundred things to see to. You said tulips for to-night at dinner, didn't you? "

" I think tulips," said Nevill. " Oh! I'm so frightened, Aunt Anna. Suppose she thinks it all perfectly beastly? I wish I hadn't bragged so much about the house. And why did I send those picture postcards? Picture post-cards idealise so terribly. Suppose she says I've deceived her? Oh! by the way, before you go "

"Yes?"

" Don't forget about her mother. Engage her in conversation. Just start her on anything. It doesn't matter in the least what. You've never been to Corfu, have you?"

"Corfu! No. Why?"

" That'll do just as well. Tell her you haven't been there, and ask her what it's like. She's great on Corfu."

" Why do you want her to talk about Corfu? I don't understand a word you're saying."

" Oh! you're not clever to-day, Aunt Anna. Why, I want to talk to Enid, of course! What do you suppose I've asked her here for? But clergymen '11 do just as well, if you've any objections to Corfu. She's tremendous on clergymen. Do you know any? "

" I once knew an archdeacon," said Anna meditatively.

" He'll do perfectly. Was he an Evangelical archdeacon? "

" I haven't the slightest idea. What difference does that make? "

" Oh! Evangelical ones are her sort. Did he have whiskers? "

" I forget."

" Well, it's very important to remember. Because if he hadn't he's sure to have been High Church, and she can't bear those. For goodness' sake don't go and put your foot in it, Aunt Anna, and mix up High Church and Evangelical. The difference is vital, I understand. Vital! I don't know what would happen if you went and mixed them up. I don't indeed. Oh, dear! I feel so miserable. Where's Jim? "

" Jim's out in the rain with the collies."

" Don't let them jump up on Enid, will you, when they come in? Mrs. Bessington doesn't matter so much. Yes, on second thoughts, I think you might let them jump up on Mrs. Bessington. That would start her all right, by George! I think she was bitten by one, once. Or was it her cousin who lived in Corfu?... Anyhow, that's not material. It'll do, anyhow. Yes. Mind you encourage the collies to jump up on Mrs. Bessington's dress with all their muddy paws. Don't forget, will you? "

" Tulips. Corfu. Clergymen. Not High Church. Collies. Cousin. Any more orders? "

" No, that's enough for the present, my dear Aunt. Oh! you are a dear! "

She moved away rather quickly as he turned towards her. Her whole soul seemed knit tight in some strange emotion. She simply could not have touched him just then.

" Where are you going? "

" Tulips," she said; and went swiftly through the door that led to the servants' quarters.

She was behind her window curtains as the carriage drove up; and, utterly ashamed of herself, she watched intently as the door of the brougham opened. Then she saw Nevill's curly head in the rain; and then two female figures emerge. Then all three vanished swiftly into the porch.

She thought she would give them ten minutes. Her rosary took her ten minutes; so she lifted this from her prie-dieu, and knelt down with it in her hands. Then she found herself after three or four decades contemplating the Agony in the Garden, and stopped. Then she bowed her head on her hands, and clenched those until they grew as white as bone. Then she went to the mirror with her sponge in her hands, looked at her face carefully, passed the sponge over her eyes two or three times, opened the door and went out.

.... " It was the guard at Victoria who looked so extraordinarily like my Uncle Henry; not the guard of our train, but the one who was looking after the train labelled ' Crystal Palace/ at the next platform, with his beard cut quite square. You remember, Enid, don't you?..."

Such were the words Aunt Anna heard as she passed round the gallery and began to come downstairs. Then the angle cut off the distinctness of the speaker's words, but the mumble went steadily on. She bit her lower lip fiercely, to keep back her laughter. She felt a little hysterical. She knew, now, that she understood all about Corfu and clergymen.

As she came down the last flight the three looked up all together, and the talking stopped. She felt like a child at her first party, overwhelmed with shyness.

She heard Nevill saying something, and the next instant felt her hand grasped, and saw the kindly eyes of a middle-aged woman looking into her own. Then, still more confused, she released her hands and turned, and found herself face to face with Enid.

For a moment she hesitated. Her swift woman's wit took in, not indeed every detail, but the effect of the whole. It was a splendid pale face, crowned with masses of hair under a big hat; and the face was lit by a pair of radiant eyes. A thin silk mantle hung from the shapely shoulders. Then Aunt Anna put out her hands, felt the girl's hands in hers, drew the girl to herself, and, without a word, kissed her slowly on the lips. (It was what she had decided, upstairs, to do if... if it were at all possible when the moment came.)

" It really is a shame," she heard herself saying presently, " that the weather should be like this. Nevill had given orders for a completely different sort of day, and tea in the pavilion. And it is — oh! look at that fire! "

Indeed, the fire seemed very feeble indeed. She took down the pair of bellows and kneeled before it.

" Oh! Aunt Anna! " she heard Nevill's voice begin.

She was recovering herself finely now. Give her thirty seconds more at the bellows, and she would be all right.

" There! " she said, and stood up again.

" I think it's perfectly glorious," said Enid.

(Oh, yes; indeed she was lovely, thought Aunt Anna. She was standing and looking slowly round the great hall. There could be no question at all about her beauty. The photograph had not lied.)

" Nevill," said the girl. (And, at the name, Aunt Anna set her teeth like a vice.) " Nevill! You never gave me the slightest idea "

" That's all right, then," said Nevill. " But the pavilion's the point, you know. Aunt Anna Where are you going, Aunt Anna? "

" Only to ring for tea, my dear. I can't think why they haven't brought it up."

As she came back, Mrs. Bessington moved slowly towards her.

" I was telling Nevill — you won't mind my calling him that, will you, my dear? You see — well; I was telling him about the guard that was so like my Uncle Henry. It was when we were at Victoria Station...."

The hunt was up. Anna recognised it in a moment, and with the deepest relief. She would not be required to say anything. She knew the type. Very tactfully she steered Mrs. Bessington to a tall chair, and manoeuvred her into it, and herself into another, close by the tea-table.

The Crystal Palace was the subject by the time that tea came in, and Mrs. Bessington was relating the first occasion on which she had taken Enid there — quite twelve years ago — when Enid was only a little dot. And so on.

Aunt Anna ministered the tea admirably. She put in the hot water at the right time; she remembered to put in Nevill's cream before the tea; she even succeeded in learning whether the two guests wanted sugar. Interminably the affair went on. Little by little the two others seemed to disappear from her range of vision. Now and then their voices were heard across the gentle torrent in her own ears; now and again they were silent. Two or three minutes ago the voices sounded quite far off, and she caught Lady Brightington's name. Evidently Nevill was showing her the portraits. Then there followed a long silence....

Mrs. Bessington was talking about coffee now....

" Did you say Corfu? " asked Anna, as she desperately and recklessly turned round away from Mrs. Bessington. The hall was empty; the two others were gone. She had played her part nobly.

" No, my dear. Coffee. But what about Corfu? I was there once, in eighteen eighty-nine, and the spring of eighteen ninety. I was there in the year that..."

Ill

The garden was as exquisite as spring itself, after the rain. By a swift caprice, while Mrs. Bessington was discoursing, and the two lovers were edging slowly round the portraits, the wind had dropped, the sun looked out, and the rain stopped; and, when the two, with infinite and careful discretion, slipped out upon the balustraded platform above the steps, the whole place shone and sparkled like a fairy's dream....

" Oh! " said Enid, and sighed once, deeply.

" Come down quietly," whispered Nevill, " or they'll hear us."

The lawn was wet, so it was obvious that they must pass along the path by the house and right round, so as to get to the pavilion.

" What's that? " asked Enid suddenly, as a bell rang three strokes and was silent again.

" Angelus," said Nevill. " Father Richardson rings it himself at five."

" That's the chaplain, isn't it? "

" Yes."

The girl looked at him, as they turned across towards the terrace.

" You don't like him. I thought so, in Rome," she said. " That won't do a bit. One ought to like people."

" I suppose that is so," said Nevill dispassionately.

" I shall make friends," she said. " I'll manage him. What's he been doing? "

" Oh, well! I suppose one might call it being tiresome."

" Well, if you won't, you won't," said Enid.

" My dear girl, I'm much too angry. Let's talk about something else. There you are! There's the pavilion."

If ever the coast could be clear, Father Richardson had thought, it would surely be for at least an hour after the arrival of guests. He had seen the brougham drive up, from the presbytery window; he had finished his own tea, and rung the Angelus, and it had occurred to him while he was doing so that here was an evident opportunity for him to look in the pavilion for a little pocketbook which he was convinced he must have left there a day or two before, when he had gone across to see Mrs. Fanning about some small matter connected with the chapel flowers. The guests had scarcely come, he thought; the garden was wet; it was obvious that he would interrupt nothing and nobody. He wasted a few minutes searching the presbytery once more for his book; and then, without misgiving, slipped out through the back gate of the presbytery and went across the gardens. He went rather quickly with his head down, straight up the steps of the pavilion, and stood confounded.

" Good-evening, Father," said Nevill.

The priest's eyes wandered past him to the beautiful girl who sat in the window-seat. Nevill was standing, but it was sufficiently plain that he had also been sitting on the window-seat until he heard the steps.

" I beg your pardon, Sir Nevill — I had no idea... I came to look for a book I think I must have left here."

Again his eyes moved round, as if searching for his book; and again they rested an instant on the girl's face.

Nevill hesitated a moment.

" May I introduce you to Miss Bessington? " he said...." Father Richardson."

The girl bowed a little.

" I saw your church as I came up," she said. " What a charming place you have here! "

" Er — yes," said Father Richardson.

" I am staying a few days," said the girl. " I wonder if I may come and see the church? I am not a Catholic, Father; but I know Rome very well."

" I shall be delighted," said the priest.

There fell a little pause.

" Well — the book," said Nevill. " We mustn't keep you, Father."

The book was searched for, and was not found. The priest apologised once more, and departed.

" He looks very nice," said Enid. " I wish you'd tell me why you don't like him."

Nevill sat down by her.

He felt entirely annoyed. This perpetual running in and out of the priest " as if the place belonged to him," as Nevill expressed it to himself, was beginning to get on his nerves. What in the world was the use of leaving a scathing message with Masterson if the man simply walked through without question? Yet he hesitated, with the habitual reserve of his class and his religion, to discuss him openly even with Enid.

" He's just rather trying, my dear. He gets on my nerves."

" You mustn't let him. Does he come and go just as he pleases, all over the place? "

" That's exactly the point," burst out Nevill. " At least, it's one of them. He's got his own presbytery and his garden and the whole park. Yet that doesn't seem enough. He doesn't seem to understand "

Enid smiled a little.

" Poor dear man! " she said. " He simply doesn't know. I'll make friends with him, and then "

" My darling! that's exactly what I don't want. We've been too good to him already."

Enid's eyes narrowed a little, with gentle laughter.

" Well, you'll see," she said. " By the way — does he know about... about? "

" Not a word. At least, I haven't told him. I've sent nothing to the papers, either, you know, as you told me."

" Well, look here," said Enid. " I foresee all kinds of difficulties if he doesn't know. Tell him this evening, will you? Arid then I'll go and see the church to-morrow morning, if I may. That'll all be open and straightforward then. You don't know how to manage him, I expect."

She smiled again at her lover.

IVAn hour later Nevill was ringing the presbytery bell.

He had had a good hour with Enid, till Mrs. Bessington had routed them out. Poor Anna had done her best: she had received a completely exhaustive account of Corfu; she had played her Archdeacon — (views unknown) — and had been answered by a number of little biographies of other clergymen: she had listened, when more personal matters had been approached, to long descriptions of Rome, and the character of the food to be obtained there, with parentheses on Nevill and Enid that had made her wince more than once. And then, with a suddenness to which she had no parry, Mrs. Bessington had informed her that it was time to see what the others were doing, and that Enid must come indoors; and which was the way to the famous pavilion, because she was convinced that they were there. So like a native guide, attached to the attacking general's stirrup, Anna had led her all round by the paths, because the lawn was still wet, and up the steps. It was then that Enid had nodded to Nevill to go, and he had left, hearing as he went the exordium of a discourse upon the porous character of red tiles and the harbourage they offered to damp. Mrs. Bessington's capacity for not seeing the wood for the trees, for missing the beauty or the interest of a place and fastening instead upon its least important detail, was abnormal.

One of the very few advantages of the presbytery to Father Richardson's mind lay in the fact that when the bell was rung, the inhabitant could peep swiftly through the sitting-room window and see who was there. Nevill, then, after seeing the priest's head dart, like a bird's, between the lace curtains, next saw him standing within the front-door which he had just opened to his visitor.

" Come inside, Sir Nevill/' said the priest. " What can I do for you? "

Nevill followed him into the sitting-room.

To his mind the sitting-room was abhorrent. There were religious pictures round the wall of, what appeared to him, exactly the wrong type. A frightful little chipped statue of the Cure d'Ars stood on the top of the writing-desk. A sham sheepskin mat lay before the hearth. A very small shelf of theological books hung near the window. A bicycle stood all along one wall — (Father Richardson had more than once hinted at the desirability of a proper bicycle-shed for the presbytery) — a white plaster crucifix hung above the fireplace, and a rack of pipes convenient to the hand of one who sat in the deep basket-chair. A rather bright Brussels carpet, chosen last year by the priest and paid for by Nevill, covered the floor, except where rather sticky-looking varnished boards appeared below the wainscotting; a cheerful paper, with hard-looking bunches of flowers that sprang, so to speak, to meet the eye, covered the walls. This also, last year, had been chosen by the priest and paid for by Nevill. The entire aspect of the room ratified and emphasised once more the opinion so rapidly forming in Nevill's mind that the inhabitant of it was stuffy, second-rate and impossible.

He sat down in the basket-chair, becoming aware that the seat of it was unduly depressed in one place, and prepared himself to begin.

"Found the pocket-book, Father?"

The priest said that he had. It was in the breast-pocket of his coat all the while.

Now Nevill had determined to be rather stiff. Expansiveness had not succeeded. So he plunged straight into his subject.

" Now that Miss Bessington has come with her mother, to stay a few days, I thought I had better come round at once and tell you how matters stand."

" I think she is the lady you are engaged to, is she not? " said the priest smoothly.

Nevill glanced up sharply.

" How did you know that? " he said.

Father Richardson smiled a little. He would not have been human if he had not been conscious that he was getting his own back for the defeat he had suffered the other day.

" I heard it two or three days ago," he said. " It seems to be known in the village. Two or three people have asked me whether it were true. I said that I... I was not in your confidence, Sir Nevill."

Nevill was conscious of a very sharp and unpleasant pang of compunction. He hastily ran over in his mind the number of people he had told — Masterson, Jim, Aunt Anna: and Aunt Anna had told Mr. Morpeth. Then there were the people in Rome. It might have leaked out in half a dozen ways. And yet he had not told his own chaplain and parish-priest. Yet he was conscious of another prick of anger too. Why could not the man have taken it more courteously? What need was there to be so pointed? However, he saw he must eat humble pie.

" I am very sorry, Father, you did not hear it from me direct. I had no idea that anyone knew, beyond my — my very closest friends. I must apologise."

The priest bowed very slightly, with a faint smile.

" Well, it's a fact," went on Nevill. " I was coming to you in any case in a day or two, with regard to the dispensation. No dates are settled yet. But I suppose that the preliminaries may as well be set on foot? "

" If you will give me the particulars/' said the priest, " I shall be happy to make the application."

Nevill repressed his rising annoyance. He was convinced that the other was delighted with his own magnanimity.

" Thank you, Father. Miss Bessington very much wishes to see the church to-morrow morning. Perhaps you might have the papers ready then? "

" I will do so/' said Father Richardson.

"About eleven o'clock then?"

" That will do perfectly."

Nevill stood up. He perceived that he must make yet further amends.

" Miss Bessington and her mother will be staying a few days. I hope you will come and dine with us one evening?"

" Thank you, Sir Nevill."

" I'll let you know then."

His eyes fell on the bicycle.

" I've thought over that bicycle-shed scheme, Father. I think perhaps it would be best to build one. It would always be useful."

" Just as you please, Sir Nevill."

Again Nevill had to check his resentment. He understood perfectly that this extraordinary detachment of manner on the part of the priest was intended as a cold and courteous rebuke. Why on earth could not the man be more genial about it?

" Well, if you'll sketch out what you think best, I'll send it to the agent."

" Thank you, Sir Nevill."

" Hopeless! " said the young man ten minutes later as he met Enid in the hall. " I've told him; but he's furious. It seems he heard gossip in the village about it. Lord knows how it got out! "

" Was he rude? "

" No. Too beastly polite by half. Now come round the house. We've loads of time before dressing."

Aunt Anna felt, towards noon next day, that, with all the goodwill in the world, she could not bear Mrs. Bessing-ton any more at all, just for the present. Mrs. Bessington found her, it appeared, a thoroughly sympathetic listener, and made the most of it. It would be an impossible task to set out in order all the subjects discussed at breakfast; but the effect upon Anna, who had to bear it all, was that it seemed as if she were trying to pour out tea and to see that people helped themselves, and that Jim did not spill the marmalade, as if she were doing these things in a kind of hailstorm.

The conversation seemed to stream and beat upon her brain in an unending clatter, not loud, but universal, so to say. Beneath it, in glimpses of intelligence, she perceived other people doing things — Jim, very polite and awed, watching first one guest and then the other, and then, when observed, devoting himself to his plate again with a demure innocence.

Jim had made his bow, so to say, officially last night when the gong sounded that was the signal for the company to dress and for Jim to go to bed. He had submitted to be kissed with his usual courtesy, looking a little disconcertingly after each caress at the caresser, as if to see how she liked it. Then he had gone gravely upstairs, without turning his head. Mrs. Bessington had improved upon the situation by relating at great length the history of a niece of hers who had suffered from water on the brain some time in the last century.

But Jim had his opportunity since then to observe the visitors. He had sat next Enid at breakfast, and she had paid him the most delicate compliment that can bepaid to a child: she treated him as a grown-up person, conversing with him without a single meaning glance at anyone else. Mrs. Bessington had, of course, spoken to him as if he were deaf, and never waited for an answer to her remarks. Jim had disappeared after breakfast, and there had been no opportunity of finding out what he thought of the visitors.

About noon then, when Anna, after suitable excuses, had gone off to the pavilion with her letters, and had made unsuccessful attempts to answer them; and as she turned, with the end of her pen in her mouth, had seen Jim, quite alone, with his hands in his pockets, strolling across the lawn, she called to him to come in. Jim, still strolling, came up the steps.

" Yes, Mummy? "

" Come and talk to me. I can't write any more."

Jim sat down politely.

" What shall I talk about? "

He seemed a little depressed, thought his mother. Well, and so was she.

" Where have they all gone? "

"The... the old lady," he said, " is very sleepy in the hall. Cousin Nevill's taken the other one to see the church."

" Why didn't you go with them? "

" I think they didn't want me. And, you see, I know the church quite well. Father Richardson's there, too."

Jim's polite self-possession was complete. Anna felt quite sure he was depressed. He crossed one brown leg over the other and contemplated his sandal. Then he began to whistle, very gently.

"Do you like them?" she asked suddenly.

" Oh, yes," said Jim, with a superb indifference. And at that his mother thought it better to probe no further.

Nevill was not quite as radiant as usual, thought his aunt, as they met for lunch. It was not that he did not talk: he talked readily and easily, and suggested a run in the motor down to the sea. But there seemed to be over him a veil, as thin as a very thin cloud over the sun on a hot summer's day. By the end of lunch it had practically vanished; but Aunt Anna remembered that it had been there. It was not until after tea in the pavilion, when the two guests with Nevill on the back seat and Jim beside the chauffeur had come back from the shore, that she even began to suspect the reason.

Mrs. Bessington had gone back to the house to fetch a book on Phoenician coins — (she was full of surprises like that) — when Enid gave the clue.

" Mrs. Fanning," she said, " we want to appeal to you. Nevill and I had an argument."

Her face shone with pleasantness. The drive had kindled a faint even flush in her face and brightened her eyes. Her beauty certainly grew on one, thought Anna.

" Tell me," said Anna. " You know I shall probably agree with my nephew! "

" Well, if you don't like a person, isn't it the best to make friends with them, instead of trying to look over the top of their head? (Don't interrupt, Nevill, please!) You shall have your side presently."

Nevill subsided.

" That depends," said Aunt Anna judiciously.

" Oh! don't say that. That sounds prudent.... I mean, generally speaking. Supposing you had to live with somebody, for instance, whom you couldn't bear. Wouldn't it be far better to try to understand them and to get at their good points and so on — rather than to be very cold and polite? "

" That sounds reasonable/' said Anna.

Enid turned a slow smile to Nevill.

" What did I say? " she said. " Now put your side, if you think I'm not fair."

" Look here," said Nevill. " It's no good beating about the bush. Put it like this. Suppose you hadn't actually got to live with a person — but had a very close neighbour — Say we were talking about Father Richardson" — he said brilliantly — " or...or anyone who could make things very unpleasant if he was tiresome. And suppose you had tried being very pleasant and all that, and... and things didn't go well. Then, I maintain, you'd better try the other thing. I'm speaking quite generally, of course."

Oh! the guileless stupidity of this man, thought Aunt Anna. Nevill's very device of mentioning the priest's name put the final touch on her certitude that he was exactly the person in point. Obviously the visit to the church this morning had been the origin of this puzzle. And yet, what was she to say? She hated to take Enid's side against Nevill; and yet Enid's advice had been exactly hers. She hesitated an instant.

" It's no good, my dear boy," she said. " You know exactly what I think. I think Miss Bessington's theory is perfectly right."

"Well — " began Nevill — "Why, what's up?"

He was sitting in the window-seat facing the door, and Anna saw his eyes change to a sudden gravity as he looked past her. She turned quickly, and there, across the lawn, came Masterson, at an ambling run, with a kind of desperate consternation in his gait and face. Nevill was up, and at the door, before Anna could move.

" What is it? " she heard him say.

" Miss Morpeth's... an accident... want to know if they can bring her here... out riding."

He spoke brusquely and roughly, without a word of respect. She could only catch a few words; but she caught enough. Then she too was by Nevill.

" Of course, Masterson. Anything. Tell them I'll come. Is Mr. Morpeth there? "

It was a very strange and subdued dinner at which the four sat that night. The tragedy had come and gone with an overwhelming swiftness, visiting the house and leaving it again, all within a couple of hours.

First there had come the tragic burden, borne between four men — the hurdle torn from the hedge into which the girl's horse had bolted after an alarm from a motor just outside the village — the hurdle on which lay a still figure with open eyes.

Anna had taken command with all the adequateness of which a sensitive woman alone has the secret. Enid had come forward, white-faced and excited, as the stretcher was carried in, and lifted one of the hands that hung dangling; and Aunt Anna, scarcely knowing how sharply she spoke, yet with a true commander's instinct, had bidden her leave it alone. Then she had had the hurdle carried into the morning-room, and the girl's body shifted with infinite care on to the wide chintz-covered sofa. It looked terribly like death; yet she was not absolutely sure. She had tried to force brandy into the pale lips, and had failed. Then, five minutes later, the little grey-bearded doctor had come....

" It is all over," he said, after two minutes' examination. " The neck was broken. Death must have been instantaneous."

And then Mr. Morpeth had come, fetched across the park by the house motor.

It was perhaps the sharpest agony that Anna had ever experienced — this watching of the curious old man whom she was learning to like and respect so greatly. It was she who had met him in the hall, and told him with a word. Nevill had gone straight off for him himself, a minute before the doctor's arrival.

Then she had followed him into the room where his daughter lay dead, still in her habit and boots — Anna had not dared to remove anything. She watched him go straight across to the sofa, without a tremor, and kneel down there without a word. From the room overhead came the soft sound of footsteps walking to and fro. A starling was twittering sharply, like a child's little musical instrument.... Then, after a space of absolute silence, he had risen, kissed his daughter's forehead slowly and lingeringly, and faced round. His complexion was ashy white; but his lips were steady, and his voice perfectly controlled.

" If you will allow me," he had said, " I will take my daughter's body home at once."

She had nodded, but she could not speak. Half an hour later the house was empty of death; but it was strangely still.

Anna could scarcely talk at all at dinner; and, with all the goodwill in the world, there were long silences. Enid was in black. (Anna, somehow, did not like that; and yet thought herself unreasonable for it.) Even Mrs. Bessington fell a-musing, again and again. There rested on them all the shadow of a tragedy and a grief that were not their own. Nevill had scarcely ever seen the dead girl before, except once or twice at dinner; and Anna herself hardly more often. It was wholly of the father.that she was thinking. He was alone now, in that house of theirs across the park, and his daughter lay dead upstairs.

There was no coherence then in the party. They drank coffee together in the hall, scarcely speaking; and presently Enid strolled without a word out on to the balustraded terrace that opened on to the gardens. After a minute or two Nevill joined her; Aunt Anna heard their voices talking together in a low tone; then the voices grew fainter, and she heard the crunch of gravel.

Outside the night had fallen still, and the sky was full of stars, against which rose up on one side, as the two paced along the walk, the great blotting masses of the cedars, and on the other the fa9ade of the house, with lighted windows here and there. Neither of them spoke till they had turned the corner behind the presbytery, had passed down towards the river, and were standing there, looking out over the low wall and listening to the rush and sway of the starlit water beyond. A great fish rose suddenly, and Enid shivered a little.

" It's terrible/' she said. " But... but how splendid the night is! Did you know her well? "

" No, my darling. I hardly ever saw her. I think she dined with us twice."

"And the father? You know him?"

" Hardly at all either. My aunt likes him very much, I believe."

She leaned suddenly against him, and put her hand on his shoulder. As he turned a little he could see her face and throat glimmering palely between her dark hair and her black dress.

" Nevill," she said, " I think your aunt is wonderful. How... how splendidly she took charge of everything this afternoon! "

" She's like that," said Nevill.

" Won't she hate going from here? It must be very hard. She's been so nice to me, too. I want to ask you something."

"Yes?"

" Do you think I might call her Aunt Anna too? '*