Chapter IV

MR. JAMES FAKENHAM was walking on the gravel path behind the house with a cigarette after breakfast.

He was a very harmless and entirely respectable young man of thirty-two years, with a thin, mask-like face; black hair so beautifully ordered that it resembled a discreet wig; narrow black eyes, rather melancholy; very delicate, hairless hands, with blue veins showing on the back; and was dressed this morning in that costume which he considered absolutely appropriate to a small country house where there was nothing to do except riding and trout-fishing.

His history was as correct as himself. He had had the dignity of orphanhood for thirty years; he had been sent to Harrow and Oxford by his aunt, in whose house he spent his holidays; he had entered the Home Office at the earliest possible age, and had remained there ever since, discharging his duties with that exact proportion of zeal, punctuality, and indifference that was compatible with and appropriate to his proper position. His aunt, whose heir he was to be, allowed him four hundred pounds a year and the hospitality of her house in Queen's Gate. He kept a small, trim horse in the mews round the corner, and might be observed riding in the Row, carefully and slowly, with his toes out, in the proper manner at the proper times. He had a small group of persons whom he called his friends, with whom he dined, danced, smoked, motored, and went to the theatre. He moved gently about in town among extremely correct people, and went dutifully with his aunt for at least a part of his vacations. He had no vices worth mentioning; he did the duties of his state of life; he was very far indeed from being stupid; and if it was impossible for anyone to be enthusiastic about him, it was equally impossible to be enthusiastic against him. One is not enthusiastic about a quiet, inhuman machine.

I love contemplating people of this kind, because the subject is so endless and evasive. I have no certainty of what Mr. Fakenham thinks about, but I am stimulated by him to form unverifiable conjectures for ever. Thoughts undoubtedly pass through his mind beyond those to which he gives expression, but I have no idea as to what they are; words proceed out of his mouth — often, so long as the subject is on his own plane, shrewd and suggestive; and actions are done by him. He lives, and he will die; and as to what he will do then not even I dare to form conjectures of any kind. He is the strongest argument for the annihilation of the soul that I have ever met.

He is religious? Well, he goes to church nearly always in the country, and even sometimes in town, and I imagine that his philosophy consists in regarding himself as a philosopher.

He is artistic? Intellectual? Well, he collects a few engravings and first editions of artists and poets whom no one has ever heard of except a group of persons in London and Paris of which he is one. He published a small volume of slightly improper essays ten years ago, and is extremely pained if anyone mentions the fact, for that was in the days of his youthful enthusiasm and indiscretion, before he had learned that self-repression was the epitome of all the virtues. (It was in those days that for about two years he had been accustomed to dress in the fashion of George IV, with, I think, straps to his trousers and a high satin stock. It had caused quite a sensation for a time.) He is really rather shrewd about people and human nature generally, though his outlook is not as catholic as it might be.

I wish now to describe his appearance this morning— not that anything depends upon it. (He is not, later on, to be convicted by its means of some nameless crime.) I wish only to gaze upon him for a minute or two.

He went up and down the path between the laurels neither slowly nor fast — the former would be self-conscious, the latter enthusiastic; he carried in his left hand a small silver matchbox with " Jim " engraved upon it in a feminine handwriting. I have no idea who gave it him; perhaps he bought it. His right hand held a small round Turkish cigarette. He wore upon his body a grey flannel suit, with a single carnation in his button-hole, and upon his head a neat Panama hat with a dark green ribbon; he had a high collar of the new fashion round his neck, embraced by a beautiful little very dark red silk tie that contrasted admirably with the soft blue-green flannel shirt beneath. On one finger he wore a gold ring with a coat lightly engraved. He had pumps upon his feet, and green clocked socks. A couple of documents in long envelopes, of no importance whatever, protruded from his jacket-pocket on the left side.

So, then, he walked. Below him was the shrubbery that shrouded the house; above him, beyond the laurels, stood the summer-house and the woods behind. Birds sang, and insects hummed, and the sun shone in an unclouded sky. And this lord of creation walked up and down, formulating thoughts, no doubt, though no living man could conjecture with any certainty as to their contents — in a grey flannel suit and Panama hat. He had breakfasted half an hour before, and would go indoors presently to the smoking-room to see if the papers had come.

Probably he was a little annoyed, therefore, when Lady Sarah appeared, radiant, flushed, healthy, and hatless, but carrying a dog-whip, and accompanied by a trio of fox-terriers. He was first aware of their approach by the sudden apparition of a young rabbit, panic-stricken, but running like a streak, which burst from the lower shrubbery, as a chorus of shrill barks broke out below, and vanished again upwards in the direction of the summer-house. Then the quartet appeared, en echelon, the girl last, cracking her whip and issuing orders. But the thing was useless; the pack had disappeared in full cry among the woods; and the two began to saunter together to await their return.

They knew one another quite well, in a flat sort of key; for there was no emotion available with Mr. Jim Fakenham. Their elders were old friends, and this was perhaps the fourth or fifth time that Jim had come here for a week or so in the summer. Further, they met fairly often in London, and were each of them perfectly acquainted with the tastes of the other. Jim was a little critical sometimes of the lack of repose in Lady Sarah, and she, in moments of expansion, rather impatient of the extreme self-repression and colourlessness of Jim. But they were good friends; they had quite finished at least two years ago those remarks of mutual disapprobation that were bound to be said, and had survived them. They accepted one another now as final. Sarah, even, had begun to repeat some of Jim's sayings as her own.

" Sorry there are no men here," she said presently. " What'll you do with yourself to-day? "

Oh, I'm all right," he said vaguely. " I've got one or two papers to finish; and — and there's the trout stream."

"By the way, the Westons' stream's in better order than ours. You can always go there, if you want, you know."

" Perhaps I will," he said. " After tea."

This was Jim's one physical accomplishment. It was impossible to call it a passion; for he had no such thing; but, so far as things interested him at all, trout fishing interested him most. His enthusiasm had never yet risen — since one fatal holiday in Norway which he had spent with zealots who refused to dine at eight — to making anything resembling a business of that sport; but he certainly quite liked to take out his beautifully polished split-cane rod, his fly-book and net, half an hour after tea, and go down to some slow-flowing stream where monsters dwelt, subaqueous and alone, beneath the tangled roots of chestnut and lime. (He would always, however, be back at half-past seven.) He was just a little ashamed of his liking for it; for in his dim philosophy indifference was the greatest of virtues: and no doubt he would give it up, like everything else, in a few years' time. Meanwhile, if the weather was really pleasant, it was worth while just to go down alone for an hour or two, and see what could be done. It gave him an appetite for dinner; the sport was not noisy, and he could enjoy it without perturbation, in a really nice-looking suit.

"You might go to tea with the Westons," said Lady Sarah presently. " It'd give you an extra half-hour. Mother takes rather a long time, you know; and there's the walk afterwards."

Jim nodded gently. I imagine that he was considering whether it was worth it. He had nothing particular to say to the Westons, and was-inclined to regard their religion as something corresponding to a slight air of ill-breeding. It had a fatal capacity for the production of enthusiasm.

"Yes, I might," he said. Then he glanced at Sarah.

" Yes, I know," she said. " It's very early to be so untidy. But those dogs, you know."

" I was thinking how charming," said Jim.

This was a little unusual from Jim, and the girl wondered why he had said it. She was quite sure he did not mean it. She decided to pay no further attention to it.

" I must see after those dogs," she said. " By the way, I wish you would go to the Westons. You heard all that last night? I can't make out Mary."

" Yes, I heard it," he said. " I suppose it's all right?"

" How do you mean? "

" Oh, the sort of thing Catholics do. It seems to me very odd. But, of course, I'm very narrow-minded. And up in those gardens, too."

" I can't make it out. Mary seemed to hate it as much as I do; but she's given in; at least, I think so. It isn't like her. I told you about Mr. Weston, didn't I? "

"His recovery?" asked Jim, carefully lighting a new cigarette from the stump of the old one.

" Yes. Well, that's at the bottom of it, of course. It seems to have sent him perfectly mad."

" Sort of revival, in both senses," remarked Jim.

" Exactly. Well, I wish you'd look in and see what you think. I think you're rather good at that kind of thing, you know."

"I daresay I will," said Jim, secretly pleased.

Sarah understood his attitude perfectly; in fact, it was largely her own. It seemed to him slightly indecent that religion, or indeed any instinct of the kind, should so display itself in outward action. It was not meant for that. And as for this form of display, no reprobation could be strong enough. They were both a little shocked, as if acquaintances of theirs should suddenly manifest bad taste. It was kinder not to say too much about it.

Then a dog arrived suddenly, miry-nosed and panting, and regarded them with his head on one side, from the vantage of a high bank; justice had to be administered and further search made. Jim went discreetly indoors to look at the papers.

The Manningham stream, Jim thought (and said later at dinner), as he approached it along the inside of the park palings (he had not been to tea at the house, after all), looked extraordinarily like a certain sort of Academy picture this evening.

It moved leisurely along at the foot of the slope on which the house was built, looping itself generously here and there, full-brimming, translucent; with here a water-meadow, dark with clumps of rushes, here an opulent may-hedge, while overhead towered the chestnuts, limes, and beeches that formed the front rank of the woods that trooped to the water's edge. The stream itself was a joy to the eye of the observer as well as to that of the dry-fly- fisher. It was full to the very brim just now, after the rains of early July, yet clear as glass; the chestnut blossom had for the most part floated away long ago, and lay now only in thin rims of faded pink above the lines of posts that here and there broke the even flow of the water into tiny cataracts. The rich evening sunlight poured across the western slopes, turning the green to gold, and the gold to an indescribable radiance; and as a foil, just beyond the stream, lay the heavy scented gloom of the deep woods. The air was full of evening sounds, the liquid talking of birds, the steady organ-hum of insects, the far-away suggestive jangle of cow-bells.

Jim was aware of all this with a certain pleasure. It was a little common and simple and English, of course — he preferred Italy — but it had its charm; and he hummed softly to himself as he set up his rod, passed the line through the rings, and at last, cigarette in lips, sat down on a stump to select his fly.

It was a " coch-y-bonddhu " that he chose at last, after a careful stare at the surface of the water — a fat little fly, consisting of iridescent feathers standing all ways at once, with dishevelled wings of a light brown — altogether an important-looking little beast, that would fall with a small succulent plop, would float detached on the liquid mirror, and — above all to be considered under the circumstances — would dry quickly.

It was attached; the reel was looked to; the fly-book put away; and business began.

It would be about an hour later that Jim, now half a mile upstream and immediately below the northern side of the house, became aware of footsteps that approached and halted. But it was impossible to attend just then. Not two minutes before, as the " Welshman's button " (female), who had succeeded the " coch-y-bonddhu," floated, an apparently agonising moribund, just beyond a small clump of rushes, beneath an overhanging beech, there had appeared for one instant a solemn fish-face of incalculable size, seen magnified beneath the surface, and gone again, with a single ripple to mark it, inspecting the fly and vanishing with a hesitating air. All now 'depended upon a perfect cast. Jim, crouching unseen, kneeling in spite of his beautiful grey flannel trousers on a damp tussock, was waving the fly softly to and fro, waiting for that psychological moment when first impressions should have faded from the fish-mind and a second temptation should prove irresistible.

That moment came. There was a long, careful movement of the rod backwards (the fly whirled exquisitely in the sunlight), an indescribable pushing swish forwards, and simultaneously the sudden plunge of a rat opposite, and the consequent destruction of that mirror of peace. The rod checked, the fly flew up and wrapped itself affectionately about the beech leaves that sloped from the further bank.

" Damn! " said Jim softly.

Then Jack came forward.

There was a short exchange of greetings and technical explanations. It appeared that Jim had caught one two-pounder in the pool below the keeper's cottage (this was exhibited); that his rod was by Farlow, with double-brazed suction joints and a greenheart top; that the stream would be the better for just one thunder-shower; that Lady Carberry was extremely well and was to open the flower-show next Thursday; that Mr. Fakenham himself was to stay at least another week, then he was going to Norfolk; that he hoped Weston was really all right again; that he thought he must be getting homewards, and would Weston have a cast or two first?

Jack did not say much beyond what was necessary for courtesy's sake. These two had never got on very enthusiastically together, though they had smoked together perhaps half a dozen times, and the trout stream had been put at Jim's disposal in a general kind of way whenever he was with the Carberrys. Jack had secretly considered Jim rather an effeminate fool, and Jim had hinted gently to Sarah that Jack was rather bourgeois and Philistine. The two points of view were quite characteristic and quite untrue. Yet as they talked now each ratified emphatically his previous judgment.

" I suppose you won't stop to dinner," said Jack, with a regretful air that was completely hypocritical.

" Thanks very much; but Lady Carberry mightn't like it, you know," said Jim, with a sorrow he did not feel.

That courtesy was exchanged; and the two walked in silence.

Then suddenly Jack broke it, quite uncharacteristically, thought Jim.

" You've heard about our change of plans? " he said.

" I — er — heard something," said Jim vaguely. " Mrs. Weston was talking "

"Yes," said Jack, with an air of finality, and walked again in silence.

He seemed a little jumpy, thought Jim; it was just like these slightly bourgeois people to lack repose. If Jim himself was ever compelled by circumstances to embrace the profession of an acrobat, he would say nothing whatever about it: he would simply appear one evening in exceedingly well-fitting fleshings of a slightly unusual tint, and would silence criticism by his assumption that all was as it should be. He sincerely hoped now that there were going to be no confidences. But Jack broke out again presently, with an effort.

" Look here," he said. " I want just to say this. I daresay it'll seem quite mad; but — but you've heard about my illness. Well, it's that that's made the difference. And — and I just want to know what Lady Carberry and that lot think about it. Not that it'll make any difference," he added; " but I want to know."

"My dear Weston, I don't think it's anybody's affair but your own — and Mrs. Weston's."

" Well, then— what do they say? "

Jim reflected an instant He recalled very vividly a conversation at dinner last night — or rather a monologue, which it would be hardly discreet to report.

" Oh, she doesn't like it, of course— since you've asked me," he said. " But I don't see that it's her affair."

" And you? "

Jim smiled with his melancholy eyes.

" Oh, my theory is, Live and let live. You see, I'm not a Catholic, and don't understand."

Jack nodded.

"Thanks," he said. "Well, you'll come and dine one night? "

" I shall be charmed," said Jim. " Ah, here's Mrs. Weston."

They had come in sight of the lodge gate by now, and a pony-carriage wheeled in as they looked.

" Mary," cried Jack. " No, don't bother."

The girl climbed out, for all that, as the groom ran to the pony's head. Then she came towards them across the thirty yards of grass. She looked very well indeed, thought Jim, with his artistic perceptions, though again regrettably like an Academy figure against her background — small, trim, and brisk, rather flushed and bright-eyed with sun and breeze, and the west behind her. But she was just a little bourgeois in character too, he considered: she was too enthusiastic and decided to be quite perfect. She was not at all of the solemn number of the elect. He took off his cap and smiled as she came up and linked herself to her husband's arm.

" How do you do again, Mr. Fakenham? " she said, and made an enquiry after the sport.

The three walked together slowly, and halted to say good-bye. But there was plainly something the matter with Jack, for he again recurred.

" I've been telling him," he said almost defiantly, " that I don't care in the least what people say, and he quite agrees."

" Why, of course," said Mary, with an astonished air of whose genuineness Jim was not quite certain. " Of course we do as we please with our own things."

" It's nobody's business but ours, I think," repeated Jack.

Jim looked at him gently. He was quite a tolerable judge of moods, according to his own standards.

" You see it's like this, Fakenham," went on the other. " I've had a shock. I needn't go into it, but there it is. And I'm going to make a change. My wife didn't much like it at first, but we had a good talk last night, and she sees now as I do, at least in some of the things, anyhow. I know it's ridiculous talking like this to you, but I want you to let them know — oh, in your own words, of course — that we really mean business. So we do hope they'll mind theirs."

Jim looked for a fleeting instant at Mary. He felt as if the whole thing was slightly indecent, and wondered how she took it. But she was looking at her husband with an expression he could not understand, a kind of set look, one of a kind of admiration too, that was inexplicable.

" Oh, I'm sure " began Jim, almost uncomfortably.

" Yes, that's exactly it, Mr. Fakenham," said the girl. "Jack and I entirely agree in this business. We want that to be quite clear."

Again she glanced at her husband, and again Jim was a little puzzled. What he read in her face was not at all in accordance with what he had learned of her through her friend Sarah. However, he told himself, it was not his business.

The rod had to be readjusted now, and it took a moment or two while the others waited. Then the usual things were said, and Jim went off. The two stood looking after him.

Mary took her husband's arm again and pressed it.

"Oh, Jack!" she said quite inconsequently, "I'm glad we talked last night."

"Yes," said Jack.

Jim Fakenham seemed doomed to fill the role of confidant just now, and it was one for which he felt himself possessed of no ability, except for very subtle temperaments.

He came down this evening an hour later, in a costume of dinner jacket, braided trousers, and a shirt with just the hint of a frill, and feeling that a flower was demanded, stepped out of the drawing-room window immediately to obtain one.

There he ran into Lady Sarah, also dressed for dinner, but with an air of unusual perturbation. She held a note in her hand.

He made a remark or two, selected a white rose and pinned it daintily into his button-hole, while she looked on abstractedly.

" Look here," she said suddenly. " It's frightfully indiscreet of me; but do just read this — oh! and don't breathe a word, of course."

He took it, glanced at the name at the end, then turning back read it through. He made no comment at all as he gave it back.

" Well? " she said.

" I've no remarks to make," observed Jim, with his hands in his pockets, looking at the sunset.

"But I don't understand it a bit," said the girl peevishly. " It's not like Mary. Do you think she's trying to be loyal, or what? "

Jim creased his lips tightly. (It was a substitute for a shrug of the shoulders.)

" I hardly know her, you see."

" Mary shan't play-act with me," said the girl vehemently. " I'll soon have it out of her, if that's all."

" No, I really don't think she's doing that," said Jim. u I met them both just now. He seemed more uncomfortable than she did — if I may venture to say ioo A WINNOWING so.... Oh no, I don't mean he was giving in at all. On the contrary, he seemed extremely pugnacious. But he asked me right out what Lady Carberry thought of it all; and she didn't."

" But she knew."

" Perhaps that was it," said Jim.

Sarah stood silent for a moment, creasing and un-creasing the note.

" I don't understand all this about her talking to Mr. Jack last night, and the difference it has made. What difference can it make? He's perfectly mad. Don't you think so? "

11 Yes, I do."

" But Mary's not. Far from it. Oh, do tell me what you think."

Jim moved on a step along the garden-path without speaking. The ground fell steeply away behind them, and far across the valley to the eastwards Manningham Hall pricked its chimneys among the woods. The sun was gone down, but the sky was still glorious with colour.

" They're Catholics," he said at last. " And with Catholics you can never know. There's a touch of fanaticism always, and it flares up." (He felt extremely shrewd and large as he uttered this sentence.) "Personally I should guess that Mrs. Weston was — well, piqued by what — er — Lady Carberry said yesterday. She probably went home rather angry. Then they talked, as she says; and she just chose, partly out of pique, and partly, I daresay, because she's very fond of her husband, to wish what he wishes."

" And you think that's all? Why she talks as if she was repentant about something — all that about 'understanding/ and so on. And then there's that other mysterious sentence on the last page, about there being something she can't ever mention to a soul."

Jim smiled.

" You think that means nothing? " asked the girl.

" No — I mean yes."

" You're sure? "

" I think it's just part of the pose," said Jim magnificently.

Sarah sighed.

" Well, I'm sure I hope so," she said. " If Mary's going to become religious too, I shan't ever trust anyone again. Why are you smiling, Mr. Fakenham? "

"Only — only it's all so odd. Do — er — women always watch one another like that, and get interested and excited? "

Sarah smiled.

" Mary's a dear," she said. " No, of course they don't. Well, yes; I think they do more than men."

Dinner was as august an affair in this house as it was possible to imagine, and was conducted with a solemnity of demeanour entirely unimaginable. Other persons might make alterations, and begin with this and end with that, and dine in the garden, and have iced soup and frozen coffee on hot days, and permit cigarettes to appear on the very cloth itself; but here were no modernities. The date of eighteen hundred and seventy, I believe, was the year in which Lady Carberry first shone upon the social world; and the details of custom in that year — I forget at this moment what they are — were for her immovable and sacrosanct. Poor Jim was conscious of committing a hundred solecisms; even his dinner jacket had once been eyed through a pair of long glasses; but he was determined not to yield, and he compensated by his extreme deference to the old lady in conversation for those little ways of which she did not approve. It is a cheering and a pleasing fact that young men of this kind have a strange attractiveness to severe old ladies of Lady Carberry's kind; and she permitted herself to talk before him with a confidence she did not give to everyone. She even allowed him to smoke his cigarette in full view of the very drawing-room windows themselves.

It was as cheese appeared that she diverted the talk in the dangerous direction.

" I have been thinking a great deal," she said, " about that poor Mrs. Weston. I think it's terrible her being put upon like that."

That struck the key. It was evident that Lady Carberry's attitude was to be one of commiseration.

She had two methods in dealing with antagonists: one consisted in severe and public reprobation or in yet more severe silence; the other in a vehement compassion which there was no resisting. It was under this scourge that Mary was to be brought; she was to be represented as a victim of her husband's folly. It did not matter in the least that the whole thing was not at all the old lady's business; as she herself said in a phrase that was irresistible — she made it her business; and that was an end of it.

Sarah glanced up and down again.

" Of course we can do nothing," continued her mother severely; " we shall have to wait and see the whole village turned upside down and all the Rector's work undone. We must just submit; I know that. But I am sorry for that poor woman."

Sarah flushed a little.

" Mother, I don't think you need be," she said. " I've had a note from Mary. She seems quite reconciled."

The old lady shook her head with a bitter smile. Jim noticed, in that kind of paralytic state which the old lady's more emphatic conversation tended to produce in him in spite of himself, the miniature of the deceased Lord Carberry * — a nobleman in a red coat,

• I cannot find that this nobleman ever did anything beyond writing four pamphlets on Indian Administration that are very severe against the Liberal policy of his day. He seems to have been a man of almost startling obscurity; and I suspect him of having been henpecked by his wife.

io4 A WINNOWING with whiskers and a long upper lip — rise and fall upon the lace-shrouded throat of his widow.

" She may say so," said the great lady; " of course she must be loyal to her husband. I admire her for that. But she's far too sensible to agree with him. I shall make an opportunity to have a good talk with her."

Miss Fakenham murmured an admirative assent.

It is an appalling, and yet a fascinating spectacle — this tyranny of the old. Here was the whole situation staked out, regardless of others' claims; or, to change the metaphor, here were all these persons, attached like marionettes to their wires, set to play those parts thought suitable by this one old lady. I despair of describing her forcefulness. Jim was aware of it, no doubt, in a detached kind of way; after all, he was only her guest. He could hardly remember a single conversation under his hostess's auspices in which he had sincerely said what he thought; (that is the one drawback to forcefulness). Sarah was aware of it — no longer with anything that could be called resentment: that had flared, perhaps ten times in as many years, and seemed dead within her. A dull, half-humorous resignation had taken its place. Miss Fakenham was aware of it, and revelled in its power. The men behind the chairs were aware of it; in fact, it was worth their respective places to forget it. The very furniture of the room — the hopelessly inconvenient sideboard, purchased lit *he year 1873; the gouty-legged mahogany chairs; the stuffy c~oet. the terrible splendour of the pictures—all were aware ^ it or at least retained their positions only by its power. T^ oresence brooded over all, and made all its own. Yet it rebi^wi jn kut one old lady, stout and ill-formed, of no great position, of second-rate faculties, always rather unwell, with the portrait of her deceased husband round her neck, a bracelet of his hair on her wrist, a rich black dress trimmed with lace, a small country house, a town house, and two thousand a year. Why are such things permitted?

Ill

It is a characteristic of Catholic clergy, politicians, and diplomats that they usually say less than they think — in distinction from the rest of the world, who usually say more than they think. The priest, that is, usually makes up his mind before he utters it; the layman employs utterance as a method of thought. (Of course there are exceptions to both rules.)

Father Banting, for instance, had not in the least made up his mind as to the new situation that had unfolded round him, and accordingly said nothing whatever about it to anybody, except as regarded the barest external facts. He did not know whether the development would advance or recede; Jack would become more or less of a d*""'' > vvnetner Mary would resent the ch— £e less or more as time went on. P»* ne thought about it a great deal.

Now it is a fact, if the world would only believe it, that a priest is usually an extremely common-sense and cautious man. He knows perfectly well, from books, if not from experience, that there are few catastrophes so great and irremediable as those that follow an excess of zeal. He has read of, if he has not seen, shipwreck after shipwreck caused by the mere crowding on of too much sail with the best will in the world; the disease that he has to combat at least as often as any other is the state of mind called Scrupulousness — the result, in most cases, of some unbalanced excess of virtue.

Father Banting, then, was not as content as might be thought with Jack's sudden burst into devotion. He was pleased, naturally, with its very solid fruits so far; but he had not in the least made up his mind as to the future. As to the origin of it all — the apparent resuscitation from death — well, he put that into a small pigeon-hole in his mind labelled " doubtful," that already contained a certain number of well-wrappered packets. He did not know: that was all. He marked time; and meanwhile was in correspondence with his bishop as to the bestowal of his thousand pounds.

The rooms he occupied were an enormous improvement on his old lodgings. They were three in number, in the chapel-wing; his bedroom, a small rather stuffy apartment, chiefly occupied by a large bed and a chipped-winged cherub in pink plaster; his sitting-room, where his pipes lay about and his books; and a small prim apartment, where he could eat when the squire was away. But they were comfortable and convenient, and it was a pleasure not to have to trudge up through the park every morning before breakfast. He interviewed people when necessary in the sacristy down below.

It was here that Sarah was requested to wait one morning, a week or two later, when she asked for him.

She had never been in a sacristy before, and looked about her with a superior sort of curiosity. It seemed to her as if she were very much behind the scenes indeed. Two chairs called " Glastonbury " stood before a disreputable-looking pine table on which rested a large flat book, an ink-bottle, a clogged pen, a grimy book of devotion, and two or three crumpled pieces of linen. There was a kind of tallish cupboard on one side, with drawers covered with American cloth; and at the back small glass vessels, a dish, a bottle of wine, and a mysterious sort of calendar lay huddled together. Other objects met her eye as she looked round — a sheeted flat thing hanging on a pole; a couple io8 A WINNOWING of staves bound with brass; a censer. A yellowish wardrobe between the windows was half open and disclosed a vision of linen within. It was all rather dingy and unswept. There was not much glamour here, at any rate.

She sat down; and almost immediately Father Banting creaked in, in new boots with elastic sides and sham laces.

It was rather difficult for Sarah to approach her business, for it was nothing else than to pump the clergyman of all the information she could gain. She was persuaded, of course, that he knew a great deal about the whole matter, even if he were not somehow at the back of it all. She did not actually suspect him of having engineered the entire affair from the beginning, but she was quite positive that he had pulled the strings very adroitly ever since. There was that thousand pounds, for example, of which Mary had told her.

" I came to talk to you about Mrs. Weston," she said presently, with an air of great frankness. " Of course she doesn't know I've come, and you won't say anything, will you? "

Father Banting smiled gently. He had not a notion what to say.

" Why, of course not, if you wish me not to," he said. "Won't you move your chair, Lady Sarah? I'm afraid you're in a draught there."

He got up and satisfied himself that the door into the chapel was closed. Sarah repressed her impatience admirably.

<c It's all a terrible upset," she said, when he had settled down again. " Of course from your point of view, Father Banting, it's all as good as can be. I quite understand that. But I wondered whether there wasn't anything I could do to smooth down matters. Mary — Mrs. Weston — seems to be quite changing."

The priest took off his spectacles, drew out a magenta silk handkerchief from the breast pocket of a very old cassock, and began to polish the glasses carefully. But still he said nothing. Sarah thought him very stupid indeed, and certainly he did not look very clever. He had what is called an amiable expression. He was going grey fast, and his forehead above his eyes — more weak-looking than ever now that his glasses were off — was a gentle moist pink. He wore a celluloid collar, rather yellow at its rim, Sarah observed.

Something in his air of timidity irritated her. She felt it was dreadful that this stupid old man — not even a strong, crafty personality such as a priest ought to be — should so control people like Jack and his wife. It was just because he was a priest, she supposed. Well, at any rate, she had no superstitious awe of him. So she became a little more rude than she had intended.

' It's a very serious thing, you know, to the neigh-no A WINNOWING bourhood — all these changes. I don't think your — your Church will gain by it at all in the long run. People are beginning to talk."

He replaced his handkerchief in his pocket. A corner of it still showed, vivid against the dusky shiny cloth. Then he put his spectacles on again and cleared his throat.

" What do you want me to do, Lady Sarah? I don't quite understand. What are people saying? " (Ah! that had gone home, then! She congratulated herself on the stroke.)

"Well, I don't want to offend you," she said, smiling, watching his rather stout old hands folded on the table, " but you know what people do say about priestcraft, and so on. Of course I don't believe it, but "

" Then why do you tell me of it? " came gently back.

She started a little. It almost sounded like a reproof. But that, of course, was out of the question.

" I thought it my duty," she said, with patient tolerance. " I knew you wouldn't wish to do anything that brought disrepute "

" Do I understand you to mean that you think I am urging Mr. Weston on? "

She was genuinely surprised.

" Why, of course," she said. " And I don't blame you in the least. It's perfectly right and natural from your point of view. I quite see that."

A WINNOWING in

He cleared his throat again, rather suddenly, and she heard him uncross his feet beneath the table.

K And you have come to say "

(She seemed to have been so successful up to this poirrt that she determined on a far bolder stroke than she had imagined possible. She had had no idea that he would give in so easily. He seemed to have no personality at all.)

" Well, I've come to see whether it isn't possible^ even now, to dissuade Mr. Weston from this scheme. You know Mrs. Weston can't bear it, though she's given in at last. Don't you think that a few tactful words, dropped at the right time, might make him pause even now? I'm sure you know the way — in the confessional, perhaps — or "

Again he took off his spectacles, again drew out his handkerchief and fell to polishing.

Sarah felt her spirits rise incalculably. She had prepared herself, with some timorousness, for a really formidable interview; for there lurked in her, in spite of her protestations to herself, an indefinable kind of fear of this old man. She had very seldom spoken to him before — perhaps half a dozen times altogether; but she had a sort of innate distrust and awe of a priest, as of one who possessed arts and powers beyond the reach of the average worldling. (Of course she would have denied this vigorously, if she had been challenged.)

And now that he was really bearded, he was nothing ii2 A WINNOWING at all — just a nervous, short-sighted old man among his shabby instruments of worship. She waited;br his capitulation. It surely must come soon.

He put his spectacles on the table before him and wiped his nose carefully.

" Lady Sarah," he said, " I'm sorry to have to say this; but I'm afraid I am obliged. I don't think you quite understand what you are doing."

She looked at him in the blankest astonishment.

" I understand you," he went on carefully, " to have threatened me with the displeasure of your friends if I continue a course of action with regard to two of my own people — a course of action which you credit me with without any evidence at all. I shall not discuss whether or no that course of action is mine or not; but in any case I am bound to tell you that I cannot for one instant allow — er — your ladyship to interfere, even with the best intentions, or to suggest to me what I am or am not to say in the confessional."

" But, Father Banting "

" I am very sorry that your ladyship should have thought it possible "

" Father Banting "

He rose steadily, picking up his spectacles; but his old hands shook uncontrollably.

" I trust that your ladyship will not bear malice against me for having spoken so. I — I thought it better to explain the situation as clearly as possible."

H Sarah too stood up — white with anger and disappointment. And the worst of it was that she knew perfectly well that it was her own fault.

" I shall not trouble you again with the matter. Good morning, Father Banting. I am sorry that you should have so misunderstood me."