Chapter III

TuE Vicar of Hinton, the Reverend James Stirling, was a very good man indeed, but he was not a very clever one. His attitude towards those whom he would have called his brethren of the Roman Communion was one of polite suspicion; he was accustomed to say that their training was of such a character in the seminary that it was impossible to be quite certain of the behaviour of even their most English-minded men; and in this manner he was able to preserve a certain reputation among his small and devoted flock for the generally incompatible virtues of charity and shrewdness.

Another of his views was to the effect that the more detached and the more scrupulously uncontroversial the conversation of a Romish priest, the more certain was his skill and subtlety in the art of proselytism; and he was accustomed therefore, with a kind of secret pride in his own vigilance, to make a point of paying a little visit to Hinton Hall as soon as possible after Father Yolland, or Father Maples, the rector of the little church in Amplefield village, had set foot there.

On the Saturday evening, therefore, towards five o’clock, his buttoned-up figure appeared at the door of the drawing-room.

Annie was the first to see him, as she sat next to Chris who had arrived half an hour before. She signalled with her eyes to her mother who was not feeling in a clerical mood just then, and who shewed a slight air of patience as she turned round.

“Good evening, Mr. Stirling. May I introduce Mr. Dell—Mr. Stirling.”

Annie watched the two shake hands, with a touch of new interest. The two men represented very tolerably the two sides of her nature, though she could not have so formulated it. The Vicar stood for the clerical, the supernatural, the restrained, the orderly, the established; the other for the new and strange, the daring, the chivalrous. Chris had been talking vividly of Italy since his arrival, bringing in sonorous Southern words into his conversation; she had learnt the meaning of polenta, loggia and simpaticissimo, and, to her, the very atmosphere of the pretty English room was instinct with Southern passion.

“ How do you do, Mr. Dell?”” murmured the Vicar in his pained monotone.

For the first time in her life, his figure seemed to her less than morally gigantic. His clothes were almost tco neat, his little gold Latin cross hanging from a gold-clasped hair-chain—which in itself hada pleasing suggestion of a hair-shirt—almost irritating; his voice almost conventional.

Chris said nothing, but his attitude was less deferential than usual.

Then the two sat down and the Vicar was presently balancing a Derby tea-cup on the point of a lean clerical knee.

“T was talking to Mrs. Wendy about the harvest-decorations,” began the clergyman, with a comprehensive glance round the company. (Lord Brasted had gone away that afternoon, and Jack was not yet come in.)

“The loaves were really too large this year—they were almost—almost grotesque. It is very helpful, I think, to have loaves—they are—are symbolical of— ofsomuch. Yes, and grapes too; but they must not overshadow the real nature of the Festival.”

Mrs. Hamilton murmured politely, and the Vicar was presently launched on a discourse respecting the high spirituality of daily bread.

Annie had a sense that she was being disloyal in her thoughts, for her meditations for the last twenty-six hours had made a certain change in her; and she was conscious of a very slight feeling of impatience as her pastor proceeded. Harvest decorations and their symbolisms were of course very beautiful and helpful—it was hardly possible to imagine anything more so, but just at that moment she wished to hear about Italy. Maize was not at all the same thing as polenta.

She looked at Chris; he was stirring his tea meditatively with compressed lips, and it seemed to her that he was behaving very exquisitely. - Roman Catholics did not have harvest festivals, and yet this one was listening with decorous attention.

“It is Corpus Christi,” ended the clergyman at last, “‘ without—without the materialistic ideas embodied in that Feast; not but that I——”

Chris looked up.

“I beg your pardon, sir; but do you think that? I should have thought it was almost the other way.”

Mr. Stirling twitched slightly all over, and _ his spoon rattled. He was as much astonished as if a member of his congregation had disputed a statement from the pulpit.

“T beg your pardon?” he said kindly.

Chris glanced almost apologetically at Mrs. Hamilton, who smiled ever so slightly back. He was encouraged and went on.

“The bread that perisheth,” he said, “is surely more material than the bread which does not”

The Vicar lifted the tea-cup, changed legs, and went on.

“Certainly, Mr.—Mr. Dell. I quite take your point. It is very—very shrewd. Yes, yes; I quite agree, but I am afraid that you do not i

Mrs. Hamilton broke in.

“Mr. Dell is a Roman Catholic, you know, Vicar.”

Again the clergyman twitched.

“Oh, indeed. Yes. No; I was not aware.”

He looked so unhappy that she hastened to soothe him.

“ But pray go on, Mr. Stirling. It is most interesting; we are all on your side, you know. Mr. Dell, you must fight alone.”

“As a priest,” began the Vicar sonorously (on Gh); but Annie was not attending to him. She was thinking how cleverly the guest had answered; it was very shrewd, and rather startling.

How easy and competent he looked now, again with lowered eyes and a slight air of embarrassment. No doubt he had not meant to provoke a discussion. Of course he was bound to protest; the other had made an attack; but how bold to enter the lists with a learned and holy priest, and how courteous to be so silent again now!

Once more the Vicar ended (on Ef) ‘Sasa priest,” and waited for a reply which he proposed to interrupt; but no reply came.

“Well, Mr. Dell?”

“Tam silenced,” said Chris smiling. “TI could not presume——”

Annie drew a breath of admiration; it was beautifully done. Then her mother began, and the conversation shifted off into quiet waters.

The Vicar’s bearing as he took his jeave at last was that of an awakened sentry, alarmed but alert, and prepared to go to any lengths in the defence of his post. He said a priestly word or two about the importance of being in time for evensong, and Bishop Dupanloup’s remarks on the subject, and took his leave, with a confidential hand-pressure to the two ladies, and a bow, like the salute of a dissatisfied duellist, to Chris.

Then he was gone, and Chris sat down again.

“ He is such a conscientious clergyman,” observed Mrs. Hamilton, setting down her cup. “A model to his neighbours. Yes, Mr. Dell?”

“T am sure of it,” said Chris heartily.

“Of course he thinks you very dangerous.”

“IT am very much gratified.”

He was feeling very much gratified with himself too; he had turned that corner well, and he was perfectly aware that he had made a good impression. For himself, he had the greatest dislike of clergy of all denominations with the exception of a few of his own communion. He liked priests who were human and

Infection ol unprofessional, like Dick; and he liked those who were no more than picturesque offerers of sacrifice, such as the strange, stiff-vestmented mask-like persons who made gestures in Roman basilicas, and resembled priests of Cybele, Venus and Isis. In other words he loved sacerdotal images and human creatures, but hated clerical personages.

Yet he had behaved, he thought, with extreme tact just now. He had drawn an inch or two of the blade of his sword for an instant from its sheath, in defence of his professed Faith, and had snicked it home again and bowed dramatically at the menace of an assault. It could not have been better done. He had shown courage, tact and courtesy. Besides, the irony of his defending dogma pleased him considerably.

The girl made a little movement beside him.

‘What is it, Annie?”’ asked her mother.

“Italy, please,” said the girl shyly.

Chris smiled indulgently and began all over again.

His discourse was really effective, for he knew his subject. It was like an article in the third column of the Daily Mail. It bristled with rather elementary allusions; it was gemmed with Italian words; it was richly enamelled with odorous languorous pictures; cicadas sang in it; the scent of cigarettes and flowers floated through it; it was lighted with volcanic sunsets. Veiled women peeped through its meshes; brown-limbed Italian boys lounged in the foreground; scarlet cardinals rustled in the middle-distance; and now and again, like a peep into a pagan heaven, a Pontiff showed himself, as on Renaissance clouds, surrounded by Greek gods, stiff, sacerdotal, ivory-faced, in vestments of a heathen priest, uttering Latin epigrams and Horatian odes and Apostolic benedictions.

It came to the girl almost as a revelation, adding bright points of colour in the misty picture that stood to her for Italy. Things, histories, pictures, blue seas, the Renaissance, the Popish religion—all alike fell into their proper tones and became significant; while on the other hand, during his actual words delivered in the manner of a second Othello with a spice of Don Juan, English matters appeared cramped and provincial; her home a colourless place, herself and her mother limited barbarians, and even the Vicar more of a clergyman and less of a priest.

Jack burst in presently, bringing a whiff of heather and gunpowder, and was made to sit down and hold his tongue; and, as Chris went on, even this wholesome cousin of hers seemed a little raw and imperceptive; and it was with a real sigh that she heard the bell for evensong actually ringing half-a-mile away, and rose to go for worship and spiritual direction.

Chris too sighed, for he was enjoying himself immensely, and rose with her, spruce and alert.

“Please go on afterwards,” said the girl. “I love to hear it.”

Chris smiled indulgently once more.

“ You must go and see it all for yourself, some day, Miss Hamilton. My poor words——”

Jack laughed abruptly.

“By Gad!” he said, for he felt a little awed by this verbose and profound traveller.

“It is all very nice,” said Mrs. Hamilton sedately. “But you must go and put on your things, Annie. Thank you so much, Mr. Dell.”

Infection to

Jack too went with her, to change his things, and Chris sat down once more.

“Yes, dosmoke, Mr. Dell. Howvery well youtalk!”’

Chris looked up deprecatingly from the silver cigarette-case that Dick had pressed upon him on leaving.

“Talk, Mrs. Hamilton, but what is that? It is feeling that matters—inspiration not expression.”

She looked at him gravely, and he saw that he had touched a wrong note.

“Oh! yes. Of course you think me artificial and unhealthy, and all the rest. I only hope I did not say anything I ought not, to Miss Hamilton. But it’s in my blood; I can’t helpit, and I do so long for simplicity. Cannot you help me, my dear lady?”

He spoke with a kind of dejected helplessness which touched her; while he reached for the matches.

“My dear Mr. Dell, I don’t think you are unhealthy, really.”

“But indeed I am,” he sighed.

Really this young man was rather an appealing person. He plainly had great powers; he must have had a stormy youth, and now regretted it. He was so simple at heart, she felt sure; there was a great deal of good in him. She began to feel more motherly than ever. Besides he obviously had not done anything very bad; he had been very frank with her two days before, and nothing of that kind had appeared. He seemed to her a tarnished sort of Sir Galahad—tarnished, not corrupt.

So she folded her hands, bowed her grey head a little, and began to talk.

Chris went to bed that night in a bright, dimity-furnished room with a brass fender, blue carpet, and 6—(2096)

74 The Sewiumentanats a prie-dieu—well-content with himself, and with a kind of melancholy delight in simplicity.

He had had a charming conversation too with Jack in the smoking-room, during which he had exalted the cleanness of English youth and simple, gentlemanly ideals, much to the embarrassment of that shining example of them. He had been beautifully reminiscent too of wasted years and a passionate adolescence, painting them in alluring colours at the same time that he warned Jack against their deceptiveness.

But he had cleared the air finally by a brisk story or two of Renaissance love and war, and the rest had slipped from the boy’s innocent back like oily water, leaving him still pleased and admiring, though with an added whiff of wonder.

He had lighted bed-candles for the ladies with deft grace, and had looked once into the virginal eyes of Annie who was a little pale this evening.

And now here he was in his lavender-scented bed, clothed in exquisite pyjamas, with the prospect of a sheltered Sunday before him. He thought perhaps he would wander in the churchyard on the following evening and listen to the simple English hymns. His eyes would fill with beautiful tears; there would be a shake in his voice as he met his friends afterwards. It would be as well if there was a little rain, but not too much; it would give him an air of the homeless wanderer.

But again he was not exactly conscious of posing; he wished no more than that the innate picturesqueness of his character should be apparent, for he sincerely thought now that a cultivated simplicity was the subtlest grace of all.

He would be very simple to-morrow. He would not eat too much breakfast; (besides they would probably bring him an early cup of tea;) he could add a word or two about Italian meals.

His mind recurred to earlier events, and he lay a minute or two, with the eider-down drawn to his chin, reflecting on Dick Yolland, the breeze that had blown between them, and the future prospects of the Amplefield library.

Indeed it had not been his fault; Dick did not understand that there was pride left even in a pensioner. It was a privilege to bestow charity, scarcely to receive it, and patronage must be out of the question. Of course Dick was not a man of the world in the full sense, but he had had a lesson now. And he was really an excellent chap, and the library was a good thought of his. He could accept it without misgivings; it was an honest piece of work that wanted doing, and fifty pounds was not excessive for six weeks’ skilled labour at a dirty job.

He did not even regret the tears; they were not wholly without grace, and the moral effect had been tremendous; they had drawn an apology. Besides, he had felt deeply wounded, and they were natural to a man of his temperament.

Once more his thoughts sprang back.

Really, that virginal English girl was a dear creature; so simple and wholesome, like a draught of spring water, and he could see her often now for the next six weeks. He glanced out, as he leaned to press the switch of the electric light, at his Boccaccio laid like a totem beside his bed... No, he would not read that to-night; he would think about Annie instead.

Annie scarcely understood her own symptoms.

She was extraordinarily ignorant of herself, of men, and of the world she lived in—of everything except the small graces of life and moderate High-Church theology. She knew that there were such things as good and evil, the first practically, the second theoretically, but of the bewildering combination of the two—of the fiery gas called romance or passion or glamour, she knew nothing at all.

All she perceived now was that this man excited her.

The little ecclesiastically-smelling church in which she sat this Sunday morning had an unreal air to her, as it had once or twice before, after a late children’s party or aservants’ ball. Her spirit ebbed and flowed as she stood, sat and knelt, bringing now a flush of pleasure, now a spasm of discontent. Her hands seemed a little hot and dry, and she drew off her gloves in the middle of the psalms, to clasp the sleek, cool pitchpine rail before her. She wanted to sit down, to stretch her knees, to drink a glass of cold water. She sang vigorously at one moment, and the next wondered why the chants were set so high. And all the while her thoughts fled here and there like circling pigeons; sometimes dwelling above Mr. Stirling in his short surplice and elaborately embroidered stole, sometimes on the solemn ruffed Elizabethan who lay in cool grey stone where the guild-altar had once stood, sometimes on Mrs. Wendy’s purple bonnet in the front pew, and the Markham girls to the left; sometimes soaring away over all that she had heard last night; but again and again they returned, as to their cote, to the figure of the melancholy-faced young man whom she would see again when church was over.

He would be walking back now over the park. He had gone off at ten o’clock to mass; and she imagined him far away, coming with that deliberate ease that was so characteristic of him. He was in his yellow coat—the very sight of it on Sunday morning had struck her as attractively profane, for God surely. wanted black on His day—he had his gloves in his hand,—white wool, a malacca cane, brown aromatic boots, and a pleasantly sacrilegious grey hat with a furrow down the middle.

How curious it was that such a costume and religion should really go together; such clothes, she had hitherto believed, were the marks of unbelief; Jack, who now yawned, now boomed like a hoarse bee in the hymn beside her with closed lips, wore, of course, his black tail-coat, a grey silk tie with a pearl pin, and black boots; and his shining hat reposed in the aisle. Yet religion seemed more essential to the guest than it did to her cousin. Jack was obviously bored with the supernatural, though he performed its duties with decorum; Mr. Dell managed to find it romantic; at least he had succeeded in so representing it last night. That of course must be, as Mr. Stirling had so often pointed out, from the worldly spirit imported into Romanism. “My kingdom is not of this world,” he had said, implying that it was not for the vulgar but the select.

She thought about this with such absorption that the recitative sermon passed like a dream, and she was presently on her knees again to ask her Maker’s pardon for her distractions and to receive Mr. Stirling’s benedictiOn-

As she followed her mother through the private door from the churchyard to the Hall garden, her heart quickened a little, for there he was, a slender autumnal-coloured figure, hands behind back, pacing slowly down the long path before them between the tawny ribbon-beds. It was as she had hoped; he had come back across the fields, and was waiting to walk with them to the house.

There was about him to her eyes a faint air of mystery, for it could not have been long since he had knelt in the Popish church, but this was soon lost in his vivid present personality.

“T had a word with Father Maples,” he said to her mother. “He told me he knew you.”

Mrs. Hamilton assented. She was in her purple silk, carrying her skirt carefully over the loose wet gravel, and did not seem greatly interested.

“And I saw Mr. Rolls too, in the distance.”

“Ah!” she said. ‘Do you know him?”

“T met him at lunch on Friday,” said Chris briefly.

“And what did you think?”

“A fine old fellow,’ said Chris, with an air of appreciative patronage.

“And was that all?”

“He hardly spoke,” explained the other, anxious for his intuitions. “I—I should think he has suffered,” he added, as he always did whenin doubt about anyone.

She walked in silence through the gate that he held open, and dropped her skirt on the broad dry walk.

“T think he is the most remarkable man I know,” she said presently.

Chris uttered an interested murmur.

“He is a solitary since his wife died—thirty-five years ago, I suppose; he does not entertain; he sees no one but Mr. Yolland and the extraordinary creatures that stay with him.”

“What sort of creatures?”

“ All sorts.”

Chris walked with his head on one side like an interested terrier, waiting for her to go on.

“ Annie, I have left my prayer-book. No, don’t go, Mr. Deil, you won’t know where to find it. And where is Jack?”

-“ Tack stopped to talk to the Markhams,” explained Annie.

“‘ Well, go and get it for me, will you, and come on with Jack.”

The girl was astonished at her own annoyance as she walked down the path; she told herself that she wanted to hear more about Mr. Rolls, who was always something of a terrifying mystery to her mind; there were, as her mother said, odd rumours about him and his guests that she did not understand. Yet she knew at the back of her mind that curiosity was not her chief motive in resenting the message.

Jack was not to be found; she looked about fretfully for him and then gave it up. By the time that she had reached the house, Mr. Dell and her mother were gone indoors.

She was rather silent at lunch, and sat with her eyes on her plate, but she was vividly conscious of every word that he spoke, and of every movement of his deft hands. There was no more talk of Mr. Rolls, and she pretended to herself that her sense of resentment arose from that fact. It was. not until coffee was brought in that the conversation had for her the smallest intrinsic interest.

Her mother asked Chris whether he was going to town next day.

“No,” he said, ‘“‘ back to Amplefield. I told you about Mr. Yolland? It begins to-morrow.”

She looked up quickly and met his eyes with her own. Was that true?

“Tam to arrange the library,” he explained. “‘ Mr. Yolland is kind enough to take pity on a pauper; besides his books are in terrible disorder.”

“ But that’s ripping,” broke in Jack. “ You must come over here a lot before I go.”

His face showed a rather wan smile.

““ My dear boy,” he said, “I simply can’t. I shall be hard at work. You will have to come and see me.”’

There was an indescribable melancholy in his voice that set the girl’s heart stirring. Of course he had not meant that about being a pauper; it was only a picturesque way of saying that he was not rich. But was it really true that he would be in the neighbourhood yet for a while—that she would be able to hear more about Italy? She dropped her eyes and sat absorbed in the assimilation of this new fact.

Outside one window of the schoolroom on the ground-floor projected the end of a long glazed verandah that ran along to the smoking-room door. It was a pleasant place on a sunny winter day, set with rugs and cane-chairs; the windows of the two

Infection real rooms that looked into it opened to the ground, and were often left ajar, allowing the smell of the musk-pots and geraniums to flow into the house.

Annie came into the schoolroom after lunch, and sat listlessly down by the fire. Her mother and the guest were gone off somewhere to talk, and it had been hinted to the girl that her presence was not required.

She sat now with her arms behind her head, wondering what in the world they were talking about. She had never seen her mother so much interested in anybody before. It would be untrue to say that she was jealous; but it was a fact that she was slightly displeased. She had hoped to hear him talk again, and now half Sunday was gone and he had delivered no more discourses. She crossed her slender feet and sighed a little.

Then she heard a door open and voices in the verandah.

“ Well then,” said her mother’s voice, “to continue. Yes, take that chair, Mr. Dell—don’t you think perhaps that you have been a little wanting in—l won’t say courage—but ie

“Ves, yes,” cried a pathetic voice. “You are perfectly right; it is courage that I need—courage against the hardness of the world, treacherous friends —may I move a little? there is something of a draught just here—courage against Fate. I know it; I feel it; it is perfectly true.”

Annie was so much astonished that she sincerely forgot that she was not meant to hear this conversation.

“ Well, then—Mr. Dell——”

“Dear lady, you have helped me enormously. I shall always look back on this day; I feel I can face anything—poverty, starvation—you have awakened me.’

Annie stood up trembling. It was horrible to her to hear such things.

“Even the clothes that I wear are Dick’s gift,” went on the male voice, shaking with passion; “ they scorch me as I sit here. To think that I ‘4

Then the girl remembered, and her hands went instinctively to her ears. She must get out of the room. She understood nothing of the dramatic instinct with which Chris spoke; she only knew that she had been listening, and had heard a secret. What he had said carelessly at lunch was literally true; this man of delicate tastes, of a fastidious and sensitive spirit, was living on the charity of others, was on the verge of penury. It was a terrible and an admirable secret.

Then she went out on tip-toe, trembling a little.

Mrs. Hamilton was rather ashamed of herself as she stood at the door next morning and saw Chris drive away in the dog-cart.

She was ashamed, as her prayer-book instructed her to be, of what she had done and of what she had left undone. On the one hand she had shown this curious young man a great deal of sympathy; the motherly feeling had become even stronger on the previous afternoon as she and he had sat together in the sunny verandah, while she held her hands in her lap and listened, and he smoked a cigarette or two and confessed his failures and shortcomings. He had done both in a theatrical manner, but that, she told herself, was his way, and he certainly had been frank enough; he had confessed in scarcely veiled terms that he had been led seriously astray in his youth by a seductive middle-aged woman, and he had cried out with passion that the rest of his life must be devoted to expiating his guilt. But she was a little ashamed now of hér sudden interest; it was not her custom to melt so quickly and with so little excuse. It was almost as if she had been entrapped.

She was also slightly ashamed at what she had left undone. She had said good-bye cordially enough; she had even, in general terms, expressed a wish to see him again; but there had been no actual specification of date. He would be busy, she told herself; she must not tempt him away from his work. Yet she knew that was not her sole reason for her silence; there was just in the back of her mind a suspicion that she had been somewhat remotely resembling a fool. Yet, she was ashamed of her silence for all that; it would have been but natural to ask him to dine, for example, next Sunday, before Jack went back to his crammer’s. Jack had looked sulky enough at the omission.

There was one more reason, so shadowy that it scarcely deserved the name, connected with Annie. That maiden had been very silent indeed last night; she had not spoken one word between supper and bedtime except what was absolutely necessary; she had not even referred to an Italian lecture; and her eyes had been rather bright. It was ludicrous of course to materialise this thought into form, but its spirit had been there when she had compressed her lips to hold back a specific invitation. Annie was too much excited, she said to herself; she did not wonder, but it would be time for her to meet men-of-the-world this time next year.

She stood now, with Annie behind her and Jack on the gravel in front, and the three waved together as the dog-cart, with a raised hat protruding from it, whisked round the corner by the laurels. Then she turned and went without a word into the house.

It was just a little flat at Hinton Hall that day. Jack disappeared half-an-hour later, gunned and gaitered, taking lunch with him; Annie went upstairs to her own room, and Mrs. Hamilton proceeded to household matters. It was what they did on most other days at this time, but the disruption appeared Significant now; it was as if a certain bond had been withdrawn, and they had fallen apart in consequence. The elder lady at least, as she jingled off to the housekeeper’s room, thought the hall a little chilly and empty. Then she once more compressed her lips and set about her tasks.

Annie was listless at lunch too; she lifted her upper lip ever so slightly at the chicken salmt, and said that she was going to ride if she might.

““Why not?” said her mother. “Miss Annie’s mare then at—what time?—at half-past two, with the groom; and the pony-carriage for me at three. I will drive myself. Where are you going, Annie?”’

‘To the woods, I think,” said the girl.

Mrs. Hamilton was sitting in her room after tea, looking vaguely through Mr. Walter Pater’s Renaissance. She scarcely knew why she had taken it from the shelf; it had been almost an unconscious choice, and she was turning the leaves when Jack came in, in dress-clothes and a home-spun jacket.

“T thought Annie was here,” he said.

“So you’ve come back. Have you had tea? No, I haven’t seen Annie for the last half-hour.”

“ She’s not in the schoolroom,” said the boy.

“ Well, I don’t know then. Tell me, Jack—sit down first; I can’t bear to talk while you're standing up. How did you get on with Mr. Dell?”

“Oh, he’s ripping!” said Jack, yawning a little.

“Ts he coming over here again to shoot?”

“1 don’t know; he wouldn't say.”

“ Would you like him to dine one day? ee

Rather.’

“ Well ’?—she put down the book—* How about next Sunday?”

“Oh! yes; that'll do.”

“What did you talk about last night? y

“Oh! I don’t know. Lots of things. He told me some stories.”

He was obviously rather impatient, so she let him go, and went to her desk to write a little note to Mr. Dell. It would go by the first post in the morning. She had just signed herself his very sincerely when the door was opened again rather hastily, and Jack came through, shutting it behind him.

“I say, Aunt Mary, Annie’s in her bedroom.”

“Well, why not?”

“I think she’s crying, or something.”

She stood up abruptly.

“ Nonsense.’

“She is; she told me to go away, and I could hear.”’

Mrs. Hamilton stood quite still for a moment; then she went straight past him and out. Annie had been listless all day, she remembered.

She had plenty of time to form theories as she went along the corridor and up the stairs from the hall, but she accepted none of them as final. Then she tapped on the door of the girl’s bedroom. There was no answer, and she tapped again.

There came a rather startled voice from within, asking who was there.

“Let me in at once,” she said sharply.

There was a murmur of dissent, and she tapped again.

“Do you hear me, Annie?”

Then the door was unlocked, and she went in.

The girl was in her dressing-gown, with her hair down her back, and her face was still tremulous with tears. There was one candle only burning on the dressing-table, and the bed was all tumbled as if it had been lain upon,

“Now what is it?”’ asked Mrs. Hamilton rather sternly.

Annie’s face broke up into lines, and she brushed her hand quickly across her eyes.

“ Are you ill?”

“Yes,” whispered the girl hesitatingly, still staring pale-faced at her mother.

‘“‘ Annie—that’s not true. Tell me!”

Her voice showed a sort of relenting, and the next instant she had caught her daughter by the shoulders and kissed her.

“Sit down, my pet, and tell me.”

She drew her across to the fire, and sat down; and the girl sank beside her on to the white hearth-rug, leaning against her knee with her face turned away and half-hidden in her hands.

“Now tell me,’ said the elder woman softly, passing her arm gently round the girl’s throat.

There was a long silence. She could feel a little pulse beating in her daughter’s throat, and the silky texture of the skin, and over her hand fell the long black hair, Outside all was very still in the hush of an October frost, and within the little flames leapt and laughed between the coals. The theories poured through her brain, but they were fewer than before; and still she accepted none as final; it might be any one of half a dozen things, or two or three together. She had known her cry like this before for the death of a cat.

Then she heard two words.

Paecant.”

She tightened her hand a little on the smooth throat that heaved and jerked with sobs.

“No, not yet,” she said. “‘ When you are quiet.”

Again the silence fell. She waited until the heaving throat grew still, watching the fire intently as if for inspiration.

“Now, my darling. Have you done anything wrong?”’

“ No—at least i

(That swept away one group of theories.)

“ Has anything happened when you were out this afternoon?”’

“eNom

(Another group was gone. There were only two left now.)

“Ts it anything to do with Jack?”’

“ N—no.”

She tightened her grasp yet more firmly, drawing the soft head back against her knee, and put her other hand on to it.

“Well, then, is it anything to do with anyone you have seen lately?”’

There was dead silence once more. Then the girl wrenched her head free and buried her face in her hands.

Her mother resolutely drew it back again.

“Now, my darling, I think I know all about it. It’s about Mr. Dell, isn’t it? Now I’m not going to scold you. You can wait until you are quite quiet, and then you can tell me all about it.”

She had contradicted herself, but it was a comfortable sort of contradiction, and she did not trouble to correct it. She remained perfectly still, scarcely knowing whether love or anger ruled her, and stroking, always stroking, the smooth, shapely throat and shoulder beneath her hand.

At last she spoke again.

“Now, my dear; tell me exactly what you are crying about. Is it because he has gone roe

““ N—not exactly.”

“Well, then, what is it? What do you know about him?”

There was no answer.

“‘Did he tell you anything?”’

“N—no; but—but I heard.”

“Heard 2? What? Don’t be afraid, my dear.”

“T heard him—talking to you—in the verandah. J—I—didn’t mean to listen.”

For one moment her heart stood sick with fear. But she fought it down.

““Tel] me what you heard.”

Her voice rang a little hard, and she knew it by the shrinking under her hand.

“No, my pet; I am not in the least angry. I know you didn’t mean to listen. But tell me what you heard.”

“‘ He—he is so poor.”

There followed a storm of sobs, and the girl tore herself loose and Jeaned forward, crying as if her heart would break.

Jack, waiting below in bewildered perplexity at the vagaries of women, stood up as his aunt came back to her room twenty minutes after the dressing-bell had rung.

She seemed a little disturbed, and went straight across to her writing-desk without speaking to him. There was an open letter lying there, and she took it up rather sharply.

“ Annie’s got a headache,” she said, tearing the paper across and across. ‘‘ She won’t come to dinner;

I have sent her to bed. Tell them to put off dinner five minutes.”

Jack rang the bell as his aunt left the room. It was a comfort that there was nothing wrong. But what queer people women were! Why couldn't Annie have said that she was ill?