Chapter VI

THE autumn weeks passed for Dick in London like a burden almost too heavy to bear. His work moved before him, unreal, as against a stormy background which would neither breaknor clear. Over there to the north-east not a hundred miles away a process was taking place, of whose details he had no knowledge, and of whose result he was frightened to think. He told himself again and again that he was a fool to care so terribly—that, in any case, nothing could be worse than Chris’s former condition—that the man who had charge of him was infinitely more strong and experienced than himself; in fact he brought every reasonable argument to bear upon his emotions, and each in turn fell back vanquished. All that remained was that he might be a sentimentalist and a fool, but that he did care, so that his work was irksome, his prayers except on one subject without savour, and his entire outlook on life coloured by a thing which he could not help and which was no longer his business. He sent Chris’s name to the Carthusians and the Carmelites 3 but. it. did) net comfort him for more than a day or two.

He became a little superstitious, and more than once looked round him with a touch of apprehensiveness as he sat late at night over his office. He reflected that if ghost-stories were true, and Chris were to kill himself, nothing would be more likely than that—at that point he called himself several kinds of a fool, and looked sternly again upon the printed Latin.

His anxiety was not lightened by encouraging news.

A day or two after he had written to his father, unable to bear the silence any longer (for he had promised not to write to Chris direct), he had an unsatisfactory answer, stating that Mr. Rolls knew what he was about, that he quite realised the seriousness of his task, and that any developments should be reported immediately. From the letter he gained only one grim solace, and that was the thought that his father also was as uncomfortable as he well could be.

It was piteous to think of that broken, dissolute shadow of a man in those hard hands. Surely Rolls’ standard was too high; he did not condescend enough; mercy and not judgment was the way of salvation. Of course it appeared to such a man nothing less than deplorable weakness to meet such a poor broken creature as Chris on his own ground. There were no doubt plenty of wise saws about the bracing effect of adversity, and the enervating action of tenderness, but saws did not apply to exceptional cases. A broken heart needed something else.

Of Chris’s attitude towards Annie Hamilton he had no very clear idea; but that there was a good deal of revulsive hatred in it he had no doubt. He had not dared to ask. He had so completely accepted Chris’s poses in the place of Chris’s soul, that he did not dare to enquire after the latter. They were as formidable footmen who always said Not at home with an air of personal grievance. All that could be done was to treat them with a dignified deference, and go away.

But he minded, cruelly.

It was not till half-way through October that he received further tidings, and they came in an abrupt and unpleasant form.

He had been out visiting through all the dreary afternoon, and let himself in by his latch-key just as the lamps were beginning to glimmer through the faint town-fog as through a solution of badly frosted glass. He noticed almost mechanically that his usual peg was already occupied by a coat and hat, but was too tired to draw any conclusions from that fact.

He went upstairs to his own room where he hoped tea would be waiting, and opened the door.

His father was standing there, warming his back at the fire.

For a moment he felt physically sick with fear.

“It is nothing serious, my dear boy. Don’t look like that.”

Us St Chris

“It is Chris, but nothing definite.”

Dick shut the door, came forward, and sat down heavily.

“Father, for God’s sake, what is it?”

“My dear boy, I tell you it is nothing definite; but I thought I would run up and see you. Can you put me up?”

“Of course. But what’s the matter?”

“That’s better. I'll just sit down.... Yes, two lumps please, and a slice of that cake.”

Dick made an effort, handed his father what he wanted, and took a cup for himself.

“ Now then,” he said.

“Well, it is nothing very definite. But I have heard some news that I thought you ought to know— Miss Annie is to marry Brasted.”

Dick’s spoon jerked out of his saucer with the twitch of his fingers, but he made no movement to pick it up. He stared straight at the ruddy, troubled face looking at him.

“Stirling told me. He was beaming. He told me it was a secret.”

“When?” stammered Dick.

“When did he tell me?. This morning. He was coming out of the park gates as I passed. It had just been arranged—or rather, I suppose, he had just been told.”

“Does he know?”

“Who?.. Oh, no. How could he? Itisa secret.”

Dick stooped and picked up his spoon; he was horribly frightened, but he made another vast effort to behave naturally, and apparently succeeded, for his father after another look went on quietly.

“T thought I might as well come—Dick, I’m fond of that young man, and I can’t bear to think...Is he fond of her still?”

Dick shook his head.

“J haven’t the least idea.”

“ But he will think he ought to be. Just so, and that comes to the same thing with him. I suppose he may do anything. He must be told.”

“é Yes.”’

“J think you’re the man to do it. You have known him a long time, you see. That’s why I came up. Can you come back with me to-morrow?”

“IT must—I can arrange it. But—but will Rolls 3 ce Ah! ”»

The priest looked up again at his father, and saw a shadow on his face that was strange to it.

“What do you mean?”’ he said quickly.

Mr. Yolland stirred his tea thoughtfully with pursed lips.

“IT wanted to see you about that too. I don’t understand him in the least. He told me more the other night—just before I wrote to you—than he has ever told me in the whole course of his life. I thought I understood it too, at the time, and I find I don’t.”

“What did he tell you?”

“Oh, about his methods and so on. It seems that he has none—that he just waits to see what will happen. He has no plans beforehand. It’s a kind of fatalism, as far as I can understand it. I’ve been thinking over it a lot—but really——”

“T thought you knew him so well,” interrupted the other with a touch of bitterness.

“So did I. But I don’t.”

“Have they had any rows?”

“At least two, if not three. One was next day. And he dropped another of his odd hints a week or two afterwards, and there was some gossip too in the village, but that may have been the same. Dick, I’m really rather frightened.”

The two men looked steadily at one another, and neither found any comfort in it. Dick stood up suddenly, and went across to the fire.

“Oh! my God!” he murmured. “ And it’s all my fault.”

The elder man rose too, and put his hand on his son’s shoulder.

““My dear boy, you mustn’t talk nonsense. It’s my fault as much as yours. We both did what we thought best. And perhaps it may be the best, after all,’ he ended feebly.

After a minute’s silence the priest turned round with a white, steady face.

“Sit down, father, I’m all right. I’m not going to make a fool of myself. But we must put an end to this.”

He poured out another cup of tea for his father, and one for himself.

“Now then,” he said, “let us go through this carefully. What was it you heard in the village?”’

(He was speaking now as an equal to an equal. His father recognised it and responded.)

“There was a scene in the street. It began in the King’s Arms. He was there apparently—and the worse for drink 2

“One glass does that,” slipped in Dick.

“T daresay. Well, there he was; and it seemed he was talking a lot about—about France, and so on. Whalley came and ordered him out, and he wouldn’t go; so Whalley went up to the house. And in five minutes Rolls was there, with a horsewhip.”

A swift hiss of pain broke from the priest’s lips.

“‘ No, it didn’t come to blows. There was no need. Rolls said a number of things in the bar—before them all—at least that was what I heard; he told them everything pretty well, and he lashed the poor devil with his tongue until—until—well, they said it was awful to see the poor brute’s face. He turned whiter and whiter. He tried to go for Rolls, but Whalley and the others held him back. Then he began to scream, and Rolls waited till he had done, and then went on again, and—and the poor devil collapsed at the end, and was carried home.”

“ Well?”’ came in an almost soundless voice from the priest.

“Well, he’s there still. That’s the extraordinary part. | Howin God’s Name Rolls keeps him there—! Why the man doesn’t bolt Pes

“Ts he working still, do you mean?”

The other nodded.

“He was yesterday. Father Maples saw him from the drive.”

“When was all this?”’

“ About a fortnight ago.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“What was the use? He’s a free man, I suppose— he isn’t tied there.”

Dick drew a long breath and leaned back.

“T’m not so sure,” he said. ‘‘In fact I’m sure he is. I think Rolls is—is s “T know.... Well, perhaps. But now this last thing is too much. Why couldn’t the girl wait a bit? It isn’t decent. And as for Brasted -

“Tt’s not Brasted’s fault. It’s that infernal mother. Well, what do you propose?”

“I propose that we should both go down there to-morrow. We'll just walk in and tell Rolls what we’ve come to do, and insist upon it. Then you shall tell the poor chap, and see what he wants to do.”

There was a long silence.

Then the priest got up.

“T must go away by myself,’ he said. “ This wants thinking about. Dinner at half-past seven, if I don’t come back before. I haven’t the faintest notion: 2

His voice broke and ceased, and he went out, shutting the door behind him.

Mr. Yolland sat five minutes longer, staring at the fire, with his head on his hand. Then he too got up and went out.

Five minutes later as he passed in from the street te the church, the first thing that he saw among the gloom of the seats was his son’s head bowed in his hands.

It was a curious journey that the two had next day. On both brooded the coming interview with unbearable foreboding, and they were silent as men are silent when they approach a crisis at forty miles an hour.

Dick sat in the corner of the carriage, his head propped on his hand, staring out of the window, conscious of the occasional crackle of a newspaper in the diagonally opposite corner, and also of the fact that his father was not reading it.

He had learnt last night, as they sat together till nearly midnight, how extraordinarily that queer emotional unsatisfactory friend of his had affected the elder man; it was as if he had come across a child that had fallen in the mud and hurt himself; there was pity, anger, impatience, and tenderness all at once—pity at his state, anger at his culpable folly in falling, impatience with his refusal to be helped, and tenderness at the whole miserable affair. It was a crumb of comfort to know that his father felt like that; hitherto he had thought himself merely a weak fool; now it appeared that others drew the same emotions from the contemplation of Chris. But it was not much more than a crumb, for both were helpless, and each knew it of himself and guessed it of the other. It was not just money that Chris wanted—that could be supplied; it was readjustment, a clean spirit, a purged imagination, humility in the place of despair, self-respect in place of self-regard—a hundred virtues in place of a hundred vices.

Dick gave it up; they must leave miracles to God Almighty. But what could perhaps be done, and had to be done, was the breaking to him of the news, the preventing of his putting an end to himself, and his rescue from the hands of the man who was beginning to wear, to Dick’s eyes, the appearance of a heartless demon.

If there was any sort of depending on Chris himself there might be a hope of this last detail, but there was no certainty that he would respond. He might be either completely cowed or completely reckless. The fiendish brutality that had held him so long might hold him still, indeed it probably would.

_ Dick ground his teeth in a kind of sympathetic agony as he pictured all that must have happened, and especially the horrible little scene in the inn— the grinning faces of rustics, the sneering brutality of the big man with the horse-whip, the dreadful details poured out one by one like molten iron on to the raw flesh. No doubt Chris had been bragging— bragging in a kind of despair at his own isolation, desirous to wake some emotion, even the vilest and the feeblest, after his experience of that stone-wall man—bragging mysteriously of his life in Paris, of the splendid creature who had adored him, all full of rich epithets and hints and allusions only half understood by his listeners, but pitiably enjoyed by himself. And that dry, unbreakable brute had come in and told them all the facts, the sordid beastliness, Chris’s relations with her, his dependence on her, her parting gift of five pounds—the price of shame. He had done it no doubt, as he had promised, to ‘‘ break him”; he bad “ met him on his own ground,” as he had boasted to his friend, and driven the attack home, till the wretched sinner writhed and struggled and screamed, as the cruel point turned and twisted in his heart. Ah! Dick’s nails pinched his own hands in shaking fury and compassion.... And now it would probably be too late, and Chris beyond recovery: self-respect would be gone, and there was nothing else.

Again he questioned himself as to Chris’s attitude towards Annie. Only two things were possible, either he was in love with her still, or he thought that he ought to be, and, as had been said yesterday, the two came to pretty much the same thing. The only difference, pondered Dick, astonished at his own acuteness, was that in the first case Chris would do something desperate, and in the second that he would probably only pretend to. But either must be prevented, and this was only possible by getting him away from Foxhurst....

There was a movement in the carriage as the train whisked over the junction lines a mile from home, and his father put aside the absurd newspaper and came across to the opposite corner.

“We drive home then first, Dick, and lunch. Then we have the carriage again at half-past two.”

The priest nodded.

“We'll have the blue room got ready—it’s near yours—in case we get him away.”

“We must get him away,” said Dick brusquely.

“Yes, well——” and his father looked at him doubtfully.

“We must. Why, you said so yourself.”

“My dear boy, we will do our best.”

Dick looked at him, and said no more.

Amplefield seemed somewhat unreal to the son of the house as he passed through the hall and sat at lunch with his father. It was as when someone comes to a house after a death there. Things were so familiar and so powerless to help, and yet it appeared that all that was needed was a violent effort of the will, and all would be as it had been before. If he only could wrench time backwards or forwards, and set Chris there as he had been two years before, or as he might be a year hence, elaborate still, it might be, full of affectations and poses, and yet with an unbroken heart! The very poses were better than this naked reality.

Dick looked up vaguely at his father.

“ Have you told them we shall be there to-night? 4 he said.

“Not yet.”

“ And the room?” pursued Dick determinedly.

“Not yet. My dear boy, you must not be so positive. Perhaps he won’t come.”

“He must come.”

“Or Rolls may forbid us to see him.’

“T shall see him.”

“ Dick, you mustn’t be violent.”

‘““T shall see him,” repeated the priest.

There was no more to be said. Mr. Yolland registered a resolution to keep close to Dick whatever happened. There must not be a scene.

It was a curious drive through the russet autumn country. The day was a little overcast, and it appeared that what light there was radiated from the golden woods rather than from the grey sky. The grandchildren of the pheasants who had crowed two years ago at the coming of the gentleman in the fawncoloured coat, crowed again now as exultantly as their ancestors; the world was what it had been Sue was men’s lives that had changed.

As the phaeton whisked up Foxton Street, Dick kept his eyes steadily in front of him, looking out for the red towers on the left; he was only aware out of the corners of his eyes of the little bow window of the “ King’s Arms” and the gravelled space before the steps. Then the carriage slowed, wheeled sharply, passed through the gate-posts and turned up the lime-avenue.

Dick scarcely noticed the processes of stopping, climbing out, and following the butler through the corridor. It all appeared so inevitable, as if he acted in a play of which each word was arranged; yet, though he knew his part in substance, he had not learnt it in detail; he was far from word-perfect. But he did not doubt that he would take up his cues.

Then the door opened, and the tall man whose figure had been so constantly before his eyes for the last twenty hours turned in the window-seat with a book in his hands and stood up.

Dick heard his father’s voice.

“I have had news, John—the news you asked me for. I thought I had better bring Dick too.’

ce Ah! 3)

Then a courtly hand waved to a couple of chairs, and Dick found himself stiffly sitting, staring at the hard face seen in shadow against the high window.

“ About Miss Annie, then?”

“ Yes, she is to marry Brasted.”

“When did you hear this? ”

“Stirling told me yesterday.”

“You did not write?”

“No. I thought it better to get Dick down. He has known Mr. Dell longer than either of us.”

“T see. But I thought it was understood that I was to have the charge of Mr. Dell for the present.”

There was an oddly hard tone in the voice. He spoke as one aloof at a distance.

Dick’s resolution rose to meet it. He was aware that there would have to be a struggle, and his own sense of fury told him of the weight of this other personality that called it up.

“J am not satisfied, Mr. Rolls. Chris is an old friend of mine; I know him very well.”

“Yes, Father Yolland?”’

“T do not think this treatment is the best for him.”

“Jndeed. Has he written to you then?”

“No. But I am quite certain. I have thought it wrong from the beginning.”

“ And why are you now interfering?”

Dick’s anger blazed a little. He could hardly keep himself from crying out.

“You forget, sir, that this man is my friend. I have a perfect right to do as I like.”

“Dick, Dick,’ murmured his father.

“7 have heard about what happened at the ‘ King’s Arms. I think it was perfectly brutal. Do you deny it, sir?”’

Mr. Rolls’ stiff figure was like an image.

“Tt depends on what you have heard, Father Yolland——’

“That you exposed him before them all—that you told them all that I had told you.”

“I beg your pardon, but Mr. Dell told me also.”

“All the worse then,” snapped the priest. NY owt broke his confidence as well.”

“Well, Father Yolland?”

“Well, sir, well! Well, I have come down to take him away. My father agrees with me.”

The other broke in.

“ John, you know, I must say I think I do agree with Dick. You see ve

Mr. Rolls lifted a hand.

“Mr. Dell is a free agent. He is not in prison. If he wishes to go, he can go.”

Dick rose.

“Well, then i.

“Sit down a moment, father, please.... But I am astonished that you should come here and speak like this.... It is for Mr. Dell to reprove me if I have done wrong.”

“Chris reprove you? Why, the man is like wax——”

“Exactly, Father Yolland. Or rather he is beginning to be. And you do not trust me to mould him There is no more to be said.”

Dick hesitated an instant. He had not expected him to take this line. Then his resolution triumphed.

“I did not mean to insult you, Mr. Rolls.... I— I beg your pardon—I was angry. But I still think that you do not understand him,”

The other waved his hand gently.

“There is no more to be said, Father Yolland. Then I suppose you wish to see Mr. Dell. I will send for him.”

“T must see him alone, sir.”

“Forgive me, Father Yolland, but you shall do nothing of the kind. At this moment he is my servant, and you are in my house.”

“T will not see him in your presence, sir.”’

The other got up, went tranquilly across to the bell and rang it. Then he turned his melancholy eyes on to the priest.

“You need not, Father Yolland, if you do not wish it.”

“‘ Dick, Dick, be reasonable,” broke in his father’s voice.

“But I shall send for Mr. Dell now,” went on the other, “and tell him the news you have brought. He must not hear it elsewhere. I hold myself responsible “

• The priest sprang up.

“ How dare you, sir Sad

“T hold myself responsible so long as he is in my charge. You may remain here; you may tell him yourself, if you wish. And if he chooses to go with you, he shall.”

Dick stood trembling a moment. Then he sat down again. It was impossible to find fault; all was apparently entirely above-board. And after all, the actual telling did not matter; it was on the treatment afterwards that all depended, and he would have Chris to himself this evening. The door opened.

‘Simmons, kindly send someone out to find the under-gardener. Tell him I wish to speak to him.”

The door closed. Rolls went back and sat down with his back to the window.

“ Now, Father Yolland, will you tell me what you wish? Are you to tell him, or shall 1?”

“JT will tell him.”

Then the minutes began to pass in silence in the curious old-world room. The western sun broke through its clouds presently, and the glare behind the stiff figure in the chair grew intolerable in its brightness. The whole chamber was flooded with mellow light that fell on the panelled walls, the old carved press and the portraits, and even the dark corners became saturated with reflected splendour.

Dick sat in a daze of bewilderment and suspense. How smoothly and easily all had gone—with the smoothness of inexorable wheels whose motive power is hidden. His own was the only passion that had broken the peace, and as that ebbed from him, it left behind a dull resentment against the man who had caused it, the resentment of a weak nature against a strong one. Though there had been no bullying or storming, yet the weight of the personality had been overpowering.

There he sat then, that monstrous incarnation of a force whose roots the priest felt now more than ever before, sprang from something lying far behind that by which most men lived. Others were swayed by pity or passion, but this man, surely, by that which is to human emotions what substance is to accidents, an element to its energy. And through all swelled and swelled his anxiety, distracting and absorbing the point of his attention— as a man in the presence of mysteries of birth or death counts the ticks of a clock or sees irrelevant faces and houses in the red coals of a fire.... How would Chris look and behave? What would he say when he heard? Above all what words were to be used to tell him? He had better tell him first that he had come to take him away—that he would be provided for, and then break it to him quietly.... Perhaps he was exaggerating what would be the effect of the news; it was very possible that Chris had altogether outgrown his love for that wretched girl; at least he must have become accustomed long ago to the knowledge that he had lost her—to the knowledge that some day she would belong to somebody else, Oh! it would surely all go quietly enough; this brutal presence in the room, this detestably tranquil man as silent and inexorable as God— surely he could not make any difference. The three would drive back presently, and dine at eign that night..

-There were. steps in the flagged passage; the heavy steps of a working-man in his boots.

Then the door opened, and a man in corduroys came forward and stopped.

Dick rose to his feet in an instant.

“Chris!”’ he said, and stopped, forgetting even to put out his hand.

The sight was so astonishing. There stood the man whom he had last seen three months before in a trim well-cut suit, well groomed and tidy; now in heavy gardening clothes, stained about the knees, with great earth-coloured boots, a weather - beaten buttoned corduroy jacket showing a leather belt below, a red handkerchief round his throat, ill-shaven, closely-cropped, and with an old cap in his hands. He bore himself as upright as ever, but there was an odd fallen look about his tanned face; his lips were drawn down at the corners, and his eyes looked out narrow and furtive, turning now to the priest, then with a quick glance to right and left where the other two men sat, then back again to his friend.

“Chris!” said the priest again, taking a step forward and holding out his hand. ‘‘ We have come to take you away.”

The other made no movement; he glanced swiftly towards the window where his master sat, and then down to the floor. But he drew himself up a little as he spoke.

“You sent for me, sir?”’

His voice was almost emotionless, and Dick sickened at the sound of it.

“Chris! For God’s sake.”

The man in the window cleared his throat. He had not stirred at the entrance or the words.

“These gentlemen are come to bring you some news,” he said.

‘Chris! take my chair,’ the performance.

“I beg your pardon, Father Yolland,” came the steady voice from the window. “It is not customary for my servants to sit down in my presence.”

“Ah!” cried the priest, seeing how he had been trapped. He perceived in an instant that the whole occasion was being made to serve for a further humiliation of this poor broken brute.

“ Dick, Dick!’ came from his father.

“T can’t stand it, it’s devilish,” raged Dick.

““T am sorry to be obliged to ask you to behave yourself, Father Yolland,” came the passionless voice again.

Dick drew a long trembling breath; he was powerless and he knew it. Meanwhile he could not leave this miserable figure to bear itself with such pathetic dignity.

“Then I will stand too,” he said sharply “ Chris, we have come to take you away from this place— to-night—we have the carriage here.”

There was a dead silence, only the man’s eyes looked furtively towards the window.

“Chris, Chris, do you understand? You need not stop here; not another moment. Get your things together.... I—I will tell you the rest when we get home.”

“I beg your pardon, Father Yolland; you will tell him now. Or I will, if you prefer.”

“No, no! not you. For God’s sake, Mr. Rolls, let me tell him alone.”

“Took at him, Father Yolland. Do you think it kind to keep him waiting?”

It was intolerable to hear this cold comment on cried Dick, indignant at a present agony, but Dick stared again at Chris, and there was a miserable entreaty in his eyes that cut the priest’s heart like a physical stab. Those downturned lips too were moving as if he beseeched for pity; he was fumbling his hat in his hands.

“Oh! Chris,” he cried, with a great sob. ‘‘ Don’t look like that. It’s not so bad. You won’t mind so much as that... Chris! I can’t bear it!”

“Shali I tell him, Father Yolland?”

“No, no, no! I’m his friend. He knows that, don’t you, don’t you, old man?” sobbed the priest. “You'll take it from me—not—not—not from him. Oh! don’t look like that.... Yes.... Til tell you at once. It’s—it’s about Annie.”

There was again a dead silence. The two elder men sat like images, and the two younger stared for the first time straight in one another’s eyes. Dick’s were blind with tears of pity and anger at the hateful brutality of it all. He could see no more than a pale tanned face with burning eyes swimming before him. It was the first time he had spoken her name to this man for nearly two years.

Then he thought he understood, choked back his tears, and made a great effort to control his voice.

“No, no, she’s not dead; she’s not ill. She’s perfectly well. She’s going to—to be married.... There! there! you don’t mind so much, do you? You guessed it, didn’t you?”

Some sound broke from those down-turned lips that had seemed set like a trap just now, and again the priest thought he understood.

“Oh! oh! there’s nothing against him. He’s a good man, I suppose. It’s—it’s Brasted.”

The corduroy figure began to Sway ever so slightly, and Dick flung his arm round it in a passion of pity, laying his other hand on the rough shoulder, and looking up entreatingly into those agonised eyes.

“Chris! Chris! don’t look like that. There’s nothing against him, you know, except what he did to you. It must have happened some day. You knew that.... And... and you’ve got accustomed to it by now.... And now you'll come away quietly with us; it’ll be all right; it’ll be all perfectly right. Father, tell him it’ll be all right. We'll look after you. You shall do what you like. You shan’t be here another hour..And—and you'll just get your things together. [ll come with you. And you shall go right away, if you like—to Italy—anywhere. It'll be all right.... Chris! say it’ll be all right.”

He felt hands seeking his own as if to disengage them, and he gripped more tightly, but there was no mistaking the movement, and in bewilderment he stepped back and stood staring at the figure that remained upright and steady now.

Then he heard Chris’s voice again, very low and broken; and it was not speaking to him.

ier that: all.—sir-?”

“Chris!” he cried again passionately.

“T beg your pardon, Father Yolland, my servant is speaking to me. Yes, that is all, Dell, unless you wish to say anything.”

“No, sir,’ came the low voice once more.

“Very well then; you take it like a man. Do you hear, Father Yolland?”

“No, no! it can’t be,” cried the priest. ‘‘ Chris! you don’t mean you are not coming?”’

“Do you wish to go with Father Yolland, Dell?”

There was a pause in which Dick heard nothing but the. hammering of the blood in his own ears. Then came the answer.

“No, sir;” and then after another pause, still more low, “it is not worth while.”

“You hear, Father Yolland?”

Dick sprang forward and seized his friend by the arm.

“Chris! You don’t mean it, you don’t mean it! Say you will come! This man is killing you.”

The arm remained passive, and the downcast eyes did not even look at him.

The man in the window spoke again.

“You have had your answer, Father Yolland. Kindly let my servant go to his work.”

“Chris! you don’t mean it! You shall have anything you like.”

Then he felt a hand put on his shoulder, and turned to see a lean face and strong melancholy eyes looking at him.

‘‘T mean what I say, Father Yolland. Have the goodness to stand back.”

Dick relinquished the arm and stood staring.

“You,can eo; Dell.

As in a dream the priest saw his friend turn to the door and lay hold of the handle. He could not bear iv;

“Let me go, sir.... Father, stop him, stop him!..-For God’s sake!..77’

He saw Chris shake his head as if to himself; then the door opened and closed again gently, and there was a sound of heavy boots on the flags.

Then a change came, swift and unexpected. “Mr. Yolland, forgive me, but I must go after him. He means something this time. Kindly order your own carriage. I will send for you both if there is any need.”

Then the door opened once more noiselessly, and the fierce presence was gone.

Dick stood dazed.

“What does it all mean? What’s it about? Father, I don’t understand.”