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Title: Sister Teresa (1909 version)
Author: Moore, George Augustus (1852-1933)
Date of first publication: 1909
   (earlier version published in 1901)
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   London: Ernest Benn, 1929 (Benn's Essex Library)
Date first posted: 5 June 2009
Date last updated: 5 June 2009
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #327

This ebook was produced by: Jon Ingram
& the Online Distributed Proofreaders Europe
at http://dp.rastko.net




BENN'S ESSEX LIBRARY

_Edited by Edward G. Hawke, M.A. (Oxon.)_

_Published by Ernest Benn Limited, Bouverie House, Fleet Street,
London, E.C._ 4 _F' cap. 8vo. Cloth, gilt back, 3s. 6d. each net_.


LIST OF TITLES _(already published)_

EVELYN INNES _By_ GEORGE MOORE

CLIMBS ON ALPINE PEAKS _By_ His HOLINESS POPE PIUS XI

THE ROVER _By_ JOSEPH CONRAD

BLOOD AND SAND _By_ VICENTE BLASCO IBAEZ

FUNDAMENTAL THOUGHTS IN ECONOMICS _By_ GUSTAV CASSEL

THE RAIDERS _By_ S.R. CROCKETT

RHYMES OF A ROLLING STONE _By_ ROBERT W. SERVICE

EVE'S RANSOM _By_ GEORGE GISSING

_For further titles see end of book._




BENN'S ESSEX LIBRARY

_Edited by Edward G. Hawks, M.A._


GEORGE MOORE

SISTER TERESA

LONDON: ERNEST BENN LTD.

_Bouverie House, Fleet Street._


_First Edition_ 1901 _Second Edition (entirely rewritten)_ 1909 _Third
Edition (Essex Library)_ 1929

(_All Rights Reserved._)




PREFACE


A weaver goes to the mart with a divided tapestry, and with half in
either hand he walks about telling that whoever possesses one must,
perforce, possess the other for the sake of the story. But allegories
are out of place in popular editions; they require linen paper, large
margins, uncut edges; even these would be insufficient; only
illuminated vellum can justify that which is never read. So perhaps it
will be better if I abandon the allegory and tell what happened: how
one day after writing the history of "Evelyn Innes" for two years I
found myself short of paper, and sought vainly for a sheet in every
drawer of the writing-table; every one had been turned into
manuscript, and "Evelyn Innes" stood nearly two feet high.

"Five hundred pages at least," I said, "and only half of my story
finished.... This is a matter on which I need the publisher's
opinion."

Ten minutes after I was rolling away in a hansom towards Paternoster
Square, very anxious to persuade him that the way out of my difficulty
would be to end the chapter I was then writing on a full close.

"That or a novel of a thousand pages," I said.

"A novel of a thousand pages!" he answered. "Impossible! We must
divide the book." It may have been to assuage the disappointment he
read on my face that he added, "You'll double your money."

My publisher had given way too easily, and my artistic conscience
forthwith began to trouble me, and has never ceased troubling me since
that fatal day. The book the publisher puts asunder the author may not
bring together, and I shall write to no purpose in one preface that
"Evelyn Innes" is not a prelude to "Sister Teresa" and in another that
"Sister Teresa" is not a sequel to "Evelyn Innes." Nor will any
statement of mine made here or elsewhere convince the editors of
newspapers and reviews to whom this book will be sent for criticism
that it is not a revised edition of a book written ten years ago, but
an entirely new book written within the last eighteen months; the
title will deceive them, and my new book will be thrown aside or given
to a critic with instructions that he may notice it in ten or a dozen
lines. Nor will the fact that "Evelyn Innes" occupies a unique place
in English literature cause them to order that the book shall be
re-read and reconsidered--a unique place I hasten to add which it may
easily lose to-morrow, for the claim made for it is not one of merit,
but of kind.

"Evelyn Innes" is a love story, the first written in English for three
hundred years, and the only one we have in prose narrative. For this
assertion not to seem ridiculous it must be remembered that a love
story is not one in which love is used as an ingredient; if that were
so nearly all novels would be love stories; even Scott's historical
novels could not be excluded. In the true love story love is the
exclusive theme; and perhaps the reason why love stories are so rare
in literature is because the difficulty of maintaining the interest is
so great; probably those in existence were written without intention
to write love stories. Mine certainly was. The manuscript of this book
was among the printers before it broke on me one evening as I hung
over the fire that what I had written was a true love story about a
man and a woman who meet to love each other, who are separated for
material or spiritual reasons, and who at the end of the story are
united in death or affection, no matter which, the essential is that
they should be united. My story only varies from the classical formula
in this, that the passion of "the lovely twain" is differentiated.

It would be interesting to pursue this subject, and there are other
points which it would be interesting to touch upon; there must be a
good deal for criticism in a book which has been dreamed and
re-dreamed for ten years. But, again, of what avail? The book I now
offer to the public will not be read till I am dead. I have written
for posterity if I have written for anybody except myself. The
reflection is not altogether a pleasant one. But there it is; we
follow our instinct for good or evil, but we follow it; and while the
instinct of one man is to regard the most casual thing that comes from
his hand as "good enough," the instinct of another man compels him to
accept all risks, seeking perfection always, although his work may be
lost in the pursuit.

My readers, who are all Balzacians, are already thinking of Porbus and
Poussin standing before _le chef d'oeuvre Inconnu_ in the studio of
Mabuse's famous pupil--Frenhofer. Nobody has seen this picture for ten
years; Frenhofer has been working on it in some distant studio, and it
is now all but finished. But the old man thinks that some Eastern
woman might furnish him with some further hint, and is about to start
on his quest when his pupil Porbus persuades him that the model he is
seeking is Poussin's mistress. Frenhofer agrees to reveal his mistress
(_i.e._, his picture) on condition that Poussin persuades his mistress
to sit to him for an hour, for he would compare her loveliness with
his art. These conditions having been complied with, he draws aside
the curtain; but the two painters see only confused colour and
incoherent form, and in one comer "a delicious foot, a living foot
escaped by a miracle from a slow and progressive destruction."

In the first edition of "Evelyn Innes" (I think the passage has been
dropped out of the second) Ulick Dean says that one should be careful
what one writes, for what one writes will happen. Well, perhaps what
Balzac wrote has happened, and I may have done no more than to realise
one of his most famous characters.

G.M.




CHAPTER ONE


As soon as Mother Philippa came into the parlour Evelyn guessed there
must be serious trouble in the convent.

"But what is the matter, Mother Philippa?"

"Well, my dear, to tell you the truth, we have no money at all."

"None at all! You must have some money."

"As a matter of fact we have none, and Mother Prioress won't let us
order anything from the tradespeople."

"Why not?"

"She will not run into debt; and she's quite right; so we have to
manage with what we've got in the convent. Of course there are some
vegetables and some flour in the house; but we can't go on like this
for long. We don't mind so much for ourselves, but we are so anxious
about Mother Prioress; you know how weak her heart is, and all this
anxiety may kill her. Then there are the invalid sisters, who ought to
have fresh meat."

"I suppose so," and Evelyn thought of driving to the Wimbledon butcher
and bringing back some joints.

"But, Mother, why didn't you let me know before? Of course I'll help
you."

"The worst of it is, Evelyn, we want a great deal of help."

"Well, never mind; I'm ready to give you a great deal of help ... as
much as I can. And here is the Prioress."

The Prioress stood resting, leaning on the door-handle, and Evelyn was
by her side in an instant.

"Thank you, my child, thank you," and she took Evelyn's arm.

"I've heard of your trouble, dear Mother, and am determined to help
you; so you must sit down and tell me about it."

"Reverend Mother ought not to be about," said Mother Philippa. "On
Monday night she was so ill we had to get up to pray for her."

"I'm better to-day. If it hadn't been for this new trouble----" As the
Prioress was about to explain she paused for breath, and Evelyn said:

"Another time. What does it matter to whom you owe the money? You owe
it to somebody, and he is pressing you for it--isn't that so? Of
course it is, dear Mother. Well, I've come to bring you good news. You
remember my promise to arrange a concert tour as soon as I was free?
Everything has been arranged; we start next Thursday! and with fair
hope of success."

"How good of you!"

"You will succeed, Evelyn; and as Mother Philippa says, it is very
good of you."

The Prioress spoke with hesitation, and Evelyn guessed that the nuns
were thinking of their present necessities.

"I can let you have a hundred pounds easily, and I could let you have
more if it were not----" The pause was sufficiently dramatic to cause
the nuns to press her to go on speaking, saying that they must know
they were not taking money which she needed for herself. "I wasn't
thinking of myself, but of my poor people; they're so dependent upon
me, and I am so dependent upon them, even more than they are upon me,
for without them there would be no interest in my life, and nothing
for me to do except to sit in my drawing-room and look at the wall
paper and play the piano."

"We couldn't think of taking money which belongs to others. We shall
put our confidence in God. No, Evelyn, pray don't say any more."

But Evelyn insisted, saying she would manage in such a way that her
poor people should lack nothing. "Of course they lack a great deal,
but what I mean is, they'll lack nothing they've been in the habit of
receiving from me," and, speaking of their unfailing patience in
adversity, she said: "and their lives are always adversity."

"Your poor people are your occupations since you left the stage?"

"You think me frivolous, or at least changeable, Reverend Mother?"

"No, indeed; no, indeed," both nuns cried together, and Evelyn thought
of what her life had been, how the new occupations which had come into
it contrasted with the old--singing practice in the morning,
rehearsals, performances in the evening, intrigues, jealousies; and
the change seemed so wonderful that she would like to have spoken of
it to the nuns, only that could not be done without speaking of Owen
Asher. But there was no reason for not speaking of her stage life, the
life that had drifted by. "You see, my old friends are no longer
interested in me." A look of surprise came into the nuns' faces. "Why
should they be? They are only interested in me so long as I am
available to fill an engagement. And the singers who were my
friends--what should I speak to them about? Not of my poor people;
though, indeed, many of my friends are very good: they are very kind
to each other."

"But we mustn't think of taking the money from you that should go to
your poor people."

"No, no; that is out of the question, dear Mother. As I have told you,
I can easily let you have a hundred pounds; and as for paying off the
debts of the convent--that I look upon as an obligation, as a _bonne
bouche_, I might say. My heart is set on it."

"We can never thank you enough."

"I don't want to be thanked; it is all pleasure to me to do this for
you. Now goodbye; I'll write to you about the success of the concerts.
You will pray that I may be a great success, won't you? Much more
depends upon your prayers than on my voice."

Mother Philippa murmured that everything was in God's hands.

The Prioress raised her eyes and looked at Evelyn questioningly.
"Mother Philippa is quite right. Our prayers will be entirely pleasing
to God; He sent you to us. Without you our convent would be broken up.
We shall pray for you, Evelyn."




CHAPTER TWO


The larger part of the stalls was taken up by Lady Ascott's party; she
had a house-party at Thornton Grange, and had brought all her friends
to Edinburgh to hear Evelyn. Added to which, she had written to all
the people she knew living in Edinburgh, and within reach of
Edinburgh, asking them to come to the concert, pressing tickets upon
them.

"But, my dear, is it really true that you have left the stage? One
never heard of such a thing before. Now, why did you do this? You will
tell me about it? You will come to Thornton Grange, won't you, and
spend a few days with us?"

But in Thornton Grange Evelyn would meet many of her old friends, and
a slight doubt came into her eyes.

"No, I won't hear of a refusal. You are going to Glasgow; Thornton
Grange is on your way there; you can easily spend three days with us.
No, no, no, Evelyn, you must come; I want to hear all about your
religious scruples."

"That is the last thing I should like to speak about. Besides,
religious scruples, dear Lady Ascott----"

"Well, then, you shan't speak about them at all; nobody will ask you
about them. To tell you the truth, my dear, I don't think my friends
would understand you if you did. But you will come; that is the
principal thing. Now, not another word; you mustn't tire your voice;
you have to sing again." And Lady Ascott returned to the concert-hall
for the second part of the programme.

After the concert Evelyn was handed a letter, saying that she would be
expected to-morrow at Thornton Grange; the trains were as follows: if
she came by this train she would be in time for tea, and if she came
by the other she would be just in time for dinner.

"She's a kind soul, and after all she has done it is difficult to
refuse her." So Evelyn sent a wire accepting the invitation....
Besides, there was no reason for refusing unless---- A knock! Her
manager! and he had come to tell her they had taken more money that
night than on any previous night. "Perhaps Lady Ascott may have some
more friends in Glasgow and will write to them," he added as he bade
her good-night.

"Three hundred pounds! Only a few of the star singers would have
gathered as much money into a hall," and to the dull sound of gold
pieces she fell asleep. But the sound of gold is the sweetest tribute
to the actress's vanity, and this tribute Evelyn had missed to some
extent in the preceding concerts; the others were artistic successes,
but money had not flowed in, and a half-empty concert-room puts an
emptiness into the heart of the concert singer that nothing else can.
But the Edinburgh concert had been different; people had been more
appreciative, her singing had excited more enthusiasm. Lady Ascott had
brought musical people to hear her, and Evelyn awoke, thinking that
she would not miss seeing Lady Ascott for anything; and while looking
forward to seeing her at Thornton Grange, she thought of the money she
had made for the poor nuns, and then of the money awaiting her in
Glasgow.... It would be nice if by any chance Lady Ascott were
persuaded to come to Glasgow for the concert, bringing her party with
her. Anything was possible with Lady Ascott; she would go anywhere to
hear music.

"But what an evening!" and she watched the wet country. A high wind
had been blowing all day, but the storm had begun in the dusk, and
when she arrived at the station the coachman could hardly get his
horses to face the wind and rain. In answer to her question the
footman told her Thornton Grange was about a mile from the station;
and when the carriage turned into the park she peered through the wet
panes, trying to see the trees which Owen had often said were the
finest in Scotland; but she could only distinguish blurred masses, and
the yellow panes of a parapeted house.

"How are you, my dear Evelyn? I'm glad to see you. You'll find some
friends here." And Lady Ascott led her through shadowy drawing-rooms
curtained with red silk hangings, filled with rich pictures, china
vases, books, marble console tables on which stood lamps and tall
candles. Owen came forward to meet her.

"I am so glad to meet you, Miss Innes! You didn't expect to see me? I
hope you're not sorry."

"No, Sir Owen, I'm not sorry; but this is a surprise, for Lady Ascott
didn't tell me. Were you at the concert?"

"No, I couldn't go; I was too ill. It was a privation to remain at
home thinking---- What did you sing?"

Evelyn looked at him shrewdly, believing only a little in his
illness, and nearly convinced he had not gone to the concert because
he wished to keep his presence a secret from her ... fearing she would
not come to Thornton Grange if she knew he were there.

"He missed a great deal; I told him so when I returned," said Lady
Ascott.

"But what can one do, Miss Innes, when one is ill? The best music in
the world--even your voice when one is ill----. Tell me what you
sang."

"Evelyn is going to sing at Glasgow; you will be able to go there with
her."

The servant announced another guest and Lady Ascott went forward to
meet him. Guest after guest, and all were greeted with little cries of
fictitious intimacy; and each in turn related his or her journey, and
the narratives were chequered with the names of other friends who had
been staying in the houses they had just come from. Evelyn listened,
thinking of her poor people, contrasting their simplicities with the
artificialities of the gang--that is how she put it to herself--which
ran about from one house to another, visiting, calling itself Society,
talking always, changing the conversation rapidly, never interested in
any subject sufficiently to endure it for more than a minute and a
half. The life of these people seemed to Evelyn artificial as that of
white mice, coming in by certain doors, going out by others, climbing
poles, engaged in all kinds of little tricks; yet she was delighted to
find herself among them all again, for her life had been dull and
tedious since she left the convent; and this sudden change, taking her
back to art and to her old friends, was very welcome; and the babble
of all these people about her inveigled her out of her new self; and
she liked to hear about so many people, their adventures, their ideas,
misfortunes, precocious caprices.

The company had broken up into groups, and one little group, of which
Evelyn was part, had withdrawn into a corner to discuss its own circle
of friends; and all the while Evelyn's face smiled, her eyes and her
lips and her thoughts were a-tingle. Nonsense! Yes, it was nonsense!
But what delicious nonsense! and she waited for somebody to speak of
Canary--the "love machine," as he was called. No sooner had the
thought come into her mind than somebody mentioned his name, telling
how Beatrice, after sending him away in the luggage-cart, had yielded
and taken him back again. "He is her interest," Evelyn said to
herself, and she heard that Canary still continued to cause Beatrice
great unhappiness; and some interesting stories were told of her
quarrels--all her quarrels were connected with Canary. One of the most
serious was with Miss ----, who had gone for a walk with him in the
morning; and the guests at Thornton Grange were divided regarding Miss
----'s right to ask Canary to go for a walk with her, for, of course,
she had come down early for the purpose, knowing well that Beatrice
never came downstairs before lunch.

"Quite so." The young man was listened to, and he continued to argue
for a long while that it was not reasonable for a woman to expect a
man to spend the whole morning reading the _Times_, and that
apparently was what Beatrice wished poor Canary to do until she chose
to come down. Nevertheless, the general opinion was in favour of
Beatrice and against the girl.

"Beatrice has been so kind to her," and everybody had something to say
on this point.

"But what happened?" Evelyn asked, and the leader of this
conversation, a merry little face with eyes like wild flowers and a
great deal of shining hair, told of Beatrice's desperate condition
when the news of Miss ----'s betrayal reached her.

"I went up and found her in tears, her hair hanging down her back,
saying that nobody cared for her. Although she spends three thousand a
year on clothes, she sits up in that bedroom in a dressing-gown that
we have known for the last five years. 'Well, Beatrice,' I said, 'if
you'll only put on a pair of stays and dress yourself and come
downstairs, perhaps somebody will care for you.'"

A writer upon economic subjects who trailed a black lock of hair over
a bald skull declared he could see the scene in Beatrice's bedroom
quite clearly, and he spoke of her woolly poodle looking on, trying to
understand what it was all about, and his allusion to the poodle made
everybody laugh, for some reason not very apparent, and Evelyn
wondered at the difference between the people she was now among and
those she had left--the nuns in their convent at the edge of Wimbledon
Common, and her thoughts passing back, she remembered the afternoon in
the Savoy Hotel spent among her fellow-artists.

Her reverie endured, she did not know how long; only that she was
awakened from it by Lady Ascott, come to tell her it was time to go
upstairs to dress for dinner. Now with whom would she go down? With
Owen, of course, such was the etiquette in houses like Thornton
Grange. It was possible Lady Ascott might look upon them as married
people and send her down with somebody else--one of those young men!
No! The young men would be reserved for the girls. As she suspected,
she went down with Owen. He did not tell her where he had been since
she last saw him; intimate conversation was impossible amid a glitter
of silver dishes and anecdotes of people they knew: but after dinner
in a quiet corner she would hear his story. And as soon as the men
came up from the dining-room Owen went straight towards her, and she
followed him out of hearing of the card-players.

"At last we are alone. My gracious I how I've looked forward to this
little talk with you, all through that long dinner, and the formal
talk with the men afterwards, listening to infernal politics and still
more infernal hunting. You didn't expect to meet me, did you?"

"No; Lady Ascott said nothing about your being here when she came to
the concert."

"And perhaps you wouldn't have come if you had known I was here?"

"Is that why you didn't come to the concert?"

"Well, Evelyn, I suppose it was. You'll forgive me the trickery, won't
you?" She took his hand and held it for a moment. "That touch of your
hand means more to me than anything in the world." A cloud came into
her face which he saw and it pained him to see it. "Lady Ascott wrote
saying she intended to ask you to Thornton Grange, so I wrote at once
asking her if she could put me up; she guessed an estrangement, and
being a kind woman, was anxious to put it right."

"An estrangement, Owen? But there is no estrangement between us?"

"No estrangement?"

"Well, no, Owen, not what I should call an estrangement."

"But you sent me away, saying I shouldn't see you for three months.
Now three months have passed--haven't I been obedient?"

"Have three months passed?"

"Yes; It was in August you sent me away and now we are in November."

"Three months all but a fortnight."

"The last time I saw you was the day you went to Wimbledon to sing for
the nuns. They have captured you; you are still singing for them."

"You mustn't say a word against the nuns," and she told anecdotes
about the convent which interested her, but which provoked him even to
saying under his breath, "Miserable folk!"

"I won't allow you to speak like that against my friends."

Owen apologised, saying they had taken her from him. "And you can't
expect me to sympathise with people or with an idea that has done
this? It wouldn't be human, and I don't think you would like me any
better if I did--now would you, Evelyn? Can you say that you would,
honestly, hand upon your heart?--if a heart is beating there still."

"A heart is beating----"

"I mean if a human heart is beating."

"It seems to me, Owen, I am just as human, more human than ever, only
it is a different kind of humanity."

"Pedantry doesn't suit women, nor does cruelty; cruelty suits no one
and you were very cruel when we parted."

"Yes, I suppose I was, and it is always wrong to be cruel. But I had
to send you away; if I hadn't I should have been late for the concert.
You don't realise, Owen, you can't realise----" And as, she said those
words her face seemed to freeze, and Owen thought of the idea within
her turning her to ice.

"The wind! Isn't it uncanny? You don't know the glen? One of the most
beautiful in Scotland." And he spoke of the tall pines at the end of
it, the finest he had ever seen, and hoped that not many would be
blown down during the night. "Such a storm as this only happens once
in ten years. Good God, listen!" Like a savage beast the wind seemed
to skulk, and to crouch.... It sprang forward and seized the house and
shook it. Then it died away, and there was stillness for a few
minutes.

"But it is only preparing for another attack," Evelyn said, and they
listened, hearing the wind far away gathering itself like a robber
band, determined this time to take the castle by assault. Every moment
it grew louder, till it fell at last with a crash upon the roof.

"But what a fool I am to talk to you about the wind, not having seen
you for three months! Surely there is something else for us to talk
about?"

"I would sooner you spoke about the wind, Owen."

"It is cruel of you to say so, for there is only one subject worth
talking about--yourself. How can I think of any other? When I am alone
in Berkeley Square I can only think of the idea which came into your
head and made a different woman of you." Evelyn refrained from saying
"And a much better woman," and Owen went on to tell how the idea had
seized her in Pisa. "Remember, Evelyn, it played you a very ugly trick
then. I'm not sure if I ought to remind you."

"You mean when you found me sitting on the wall of an olive-garth? But
there was no harm in singing to the peasants."

"And when I found you in a little chapel on the way to the
pine-forest--the forest in which you met Ulick Dean. What has become
of that young man?"

"I don't know. I haven't heard of him."

"You once nearly went out of your mind on his account."

"Because I thought he had killed himself."

"Or because you thought you wouldn't be able to resist him?"

Evelyn did not answer, and looking through the rich rooms,
unconsciously admiring the gleaming of the red silk hangings in the
lamplight, and the appearance of a portrait standing in the midst of
its dark background and gold frame, she discovered some of the guests:
two women leaning back in a deep sofa amid cushions confiding to each
other the story of somebody's lover, no doubt; and past them, to the
right of a tall pillar, three players looked into the cards, one stood
by, and though Owen and Evelyn were thinking of different things they
could not help noticing the whiteness of the men's shirt fronts, and
the aigrette sprays in the women's hair, and the shapely folds of the
silken dresses falling across the carpet.

"Not one of these men and women here think as you do; they are
satisfied to live. Why can't you do the same?"

"I am different from them."

"But what is there different in you?"

"You don't think then, Owen, that every one has a destiny?"

"Evelyn, dear, how can you think these things? We are utterly
unimportant; millions and billions of beings have preceded us,
billions will succeed us. So why should it be so important that a
woman should be true to her lover?"

"Does it really seem to you an utterly unimportant matter?"

"Not nearly so important as losing the woman one loves." And looking
into her face as he might into a book, written in a language only a
few words of which he understood, he continued: "And the idea seems to
have absorbed you, to have made its own of you; it isn't religion, I
don't think you are a religious woman. You usen't to be like this when
I took you away to Paris. You were in love with me, but not half so
much in love with me as you are now with this idea, not so subjugated.
Evelyn, that is what it is, you are subjugated, enslaved, and you can
think of nothing else."

"Well, if that is so, Owen--and I won't say you are utterly wrong--why
can't you accept things as they are?"

"But it isn't true, Evelyn? You will outlive this idea. You will be
cured."

"I hope not."

"You hope not? Well, if you don't wish to be cured it will be
difficult to cure you. But now, here in this house, where everything
is different, do you not feel the love of life coming back upon you?
And can you accept negation willingly as your fate?"

Evelyn asked Owen what he meant and he said:

"Well, your creed is a negative one--that no man shall ever take you
in his arms again, saying, 'Darling, I am so fond of you!' You would
have me believe that you will be true to this creed? But don't I know
how dear that moment is to you? No, you will not always think as you
do now; you will wake up as from a nightmare, you will wake up."

"Do you think I shall?" Soon after their talk drifted to Lady Ascott
and to her guests, and Owen narrated the latest intrigues and the
mistakes Lady Ascott had been guilty of by putting So-and-so and
So-and-so to sleep in the same corridor, not knowing that their
_liaison_ had been broken off at least three months before.

"Jim is now in love with Constance."

"How very horrible!"

"Horrible? It is that fellow Mostyn who has put these ideas into your
head!"

"He has put nothing into my head, Owen."

"Upon my word I believe you're right. It is none of his doing. But he
has got the harvesting; ah, yes, and the nuns, too. You never loved me
as you love this idea, Evelyn?"

"Do you think not?"

"When you were studying music in Paris you were quite willing I should
go away for a year."

"But I repaid you for it afterwards; you can't say I didn't. There
were ten years in which I loved you. How is it you have never
reproached me before?"

"Why should I? But now I've come to the end of the street; there is a
blank wall in front of me."

"You make me very miserable by talking like this."

They sat without speaking, and Lady Ascott's interruption was welcome.

"Now, my dear Sir Owen, will you forgive me if I ask Evelyn to sing
for us? You'd like to hear her sing--wouldn't you?"

Owen sprang to his feet.

"Of course, of course. Come, Miss Innes, you will sing for us. I have
been boring you long enough, haven't I? And you'll be glad to get to
the piano. Who will accompany you?"

"You, Sir Owen, if you will be kind enough."

The card-players were glad to lay down their cards and the women to
cease talking of their friends' love affairs. All the world over it
is the same, a soprano voice subjugating all other interests; soprano
or tenor, baritone much less, contralto still less. Many came forward
to thank her, and, a little intoxicated with her success, she began to
talk to some of her women friends, thinking it unwise to go back into
a shadowy corner with Owen, making herself the subject of remark; for
though her love story with Owen Asher had long ceased to be talked
about, a new interest in it had suddenly sprung up, owing to the fact
that she had sent Owen away, and was thinking of becoming a nun--even
to such an extent her visit to the convent had been exaggerated; and
as the women lagging round her had begun to try to draw from her an
account of the motives which had induced her to leave the stage, and
the moment not seeming opportune, even if it were not ridiculous at
any moment to discuss spiritual endeavour with these women, she
determined to draw a red herring across the trail. She told them that
the public were wearying of Wagner's operas, taste was changing, light
opera was coming into fashion.

"And in light opera I should have no success whatever, so I was
obliged to turn from the stage to the concert-room."

"We thought it was the religious element in Wagner."

A card party had come from a distant drawing-room and joined in the
discussion regarding the decline of art, and it was agreed that
motor-cars had done a great deal to contribute--perhaps they had
nothing to do with the decline of Wagner--but they had contributed to
the decline of interest in things artistic. This was the opinion of
two or three agreeable, good-looking young men; and Evelyn forgot the
women whom she had previously been talking to; and turning to the men,
she engaged in conversation and talked on and on until the clock
struck eleven. Then the disposition of every one was for bed. Whispers
went round, and Lady Ascott trotted upstairs with Evelyn, hoping she
would find her room comfortable.

It was indeed a pleasant room, wearing an air of youthfulness, thanks
to its chintz curtains. The sofa was winning and the armchairs
desirable, and there were books and a reading-lamp if Evelyn should
feel disposed to draw the armchair by the fire and read for an hour
before going to bed. The writing-table itself, with its pens and its
blotting-book, and notepaper so prettily stamped, seemed intended to
inveigle the occupant of the room into correspondence with every
friend she had in the world; and Evelyn began to wonder to whom she
might write a letter as soon as Lady Ascott left the room.

The burning wood shed a pleasant odour which mingled pleasantly with
that of the dressing-table; and she wandered about the room, her mind
filled with vague meditations, studying the old engravings,
principally pictures of dogs and horses, hounds and men, going out to
shoot in bygone costumes, with long-eared spaniels to find the game
for them. There was a multitude of these pictures on the walls, and
Evelyn wondered who was her next-door neighbour. Was it Owen? Or was
he down at the end of the passage? In a house like Thornton Grange the
name of every one was put on his or her door, so that visitors should
not wander into the wrong room by accident, creating dismay and
provoking scandal. Owen, where was he? A prayer was offered up that he
might be at the other end of the house. It would not be right if Lady
Ascott had placed him in the adjoining room, it really would not be
right, and she regretted her visit. What evil thing had tempted her
into this house, where everything was an appeal to the senses,
everything she had seen since she had entered the house--food, wine,
gowns? There was, however, a bolt to her door, and she drew it,
forgetful that sin visits us in solitude, and more insidiously than
when we are in the midst of crowds; and as she dozed in the scented
room, amid the fine linen, silk, and laces, the sins which for
generations had been committed in this house seemed to gather
substance, and even shape; a strange phantasmata trooped past her,
some seeming to bewail their sins, while others indulged themselves
with each other, or turned to her, inciting her to sin with them,
until one of them whispered in her ear that Owen was coming to her
room, and then she knew that at his knock her strength would fail her,
and she would let him in.

Her temptations disappeared and then returned to her; at last she saw
Owen coming towards her. He leaned over the bed, and she saw his lips,
and his voice sounded in her ears. It told her that he had been
waiting for her; why hadn't she come to his room? And why had he found
her door bolted? Then like one bereft of reason, she slipped out of
bed and went towards the door, seeing him in the lucidity of her dream
clearly at the end of the passage; it was not until her hand rested on
the handle of his door that a singing began in the night. The first
voice was joined by another, and then by another, and she recognised
the hymn, for it was one, the _Veni Creator_, and the singers were
nuns. The singing grew more distinct, the singers were approaching
her, and she retreated before them to her room; the room filled with
plain chant, and then the voices seemed to die or to be borne away on
the wind which moaned about the eaves and aloft in the chimneys.
Turning in her bed, she saw the dying embers. She was in her
room--only a dream, no more. Was that all? she asked as she lay in her
bed singing herself to sleep, into a sleep so deep that she did not
wake from it until her maid came to ask her if she would have
breakfast in her room or if she were going down to breakfast.

"I will get up at once, Mrat, and do you look out a train, or ask the
butler to look out one for you; we are going to Glasgow by the first
quick train."

"But I thought Mademoiselle was going to stay here till Monday."

"Yes, Mrat, I know, so did I; but I have changed my mind. You had
better begin to pack at once, for there is certain to be a train about
twelve."

Evelyn saw that the devoted Mrat was annoyed; as well she might be,
for Thornton Grange was a pleasant house for valets and lady's maids.
"Some new valet," Evelyn thought, and she was sorry to drag Mrat away
from him, for Mrat's sins were her own--no one was answerable for
another; there was always that in her mind; and what applied to her
did not apply to anybody else.

"Dear Lady Ascott, you'll forgive me?" she said during breakfast, "but
I have to go to Glasgow this afternoon. I am obliged to leave by an
early train."

"Sir Owen, will you try to persuade her? Get her some omelette, and I
will pour out some coffee. Which will you have, dear? Tea or coffee?
Everybody will be so disappointed; we have all been looking forward to
some singing to-night."

Expostulations and suggestions went round the table, and Evelyn was
glad when breakfast was over; and to escape from all this company, she
accepted Owen's proposal to go for a walk.

"You haven't seen my garden, or the cliffs? Sir Owen, I count upon you
to persuade her to stay until to-morrow, and you will show her the
glen, won't you? And you'll tell me how many trees we have lost in
last night's storm."

Owen and Evelyn left the other guests talking of how they had lain
awake last night listening to the wind.

"Shall we go this way, round by the lake, towards the glen? Lady
Ascott is very disappointed; she said so to me just now."

"You mean about my leaving?"

"Yes, of course, after all she had done for you, the trouble she had
taken about the Edinburgh concert. Of course they all like to hear you
sing; they may not understand very well, still they like it, everybody
likes to hear a soprano. You might stay."

"I'm very sorry, Owen, I'm sorry to disappoint Lady Ascott, who is a
kindly soul, but--well, it raises the whole question up again. When
one has made up one's mind to live a certain kind of life--"

"But, Evelyn, who is preventing you from living up to your ideal? The
people here don't interfere with you? Nobody came knocking at your
door last night?"

"No."

"I didn't come, and I was next door to you. Didn't it seem strange to
you, Evelyn, that I should sleep so near and not come to say
good-night? But I knew you wouldn't like it, so I resisted the
temptation."

"Was that the only reason?"

"What do you mean?"

"Of course, I know you wouldn't do anything that would displease me;
you've been very kind, more kind than I deserve, but--"

"But what?"

"Well, it's hard to express it. Nothing happened to prevent you?"

"Prevent me?"

"I don't mean that you were actually prevented, but was there another
reason?"

"You mean a sudden scruple of conscience? My conscience is quite
healthy."

"Then what stayed you was no more than a fear of displeasing me? And
you wanted to come to see me, didn't you?"

"Of course I did. Well, perhaps there was another reason ... only ...
no, there was no other reason."

"But there was; you have admitted that there was. Do tell me."

And Owen told her that something seemed to have held him back when the
thought came of going to her room. "It was really very strange. The
thought was put into my mind suddenly that it would be better for me
not to go to your room."

"No more than a sudden thought? But the thought was very clear and
distinct?"

"Yes; but between waking and sleeping thoughts are unusually
distinct."

"You don't believe in miracles, Owen?" And she told him of her dream
and her sudden awaking, and the voices heard in her ears at first,
then in the room, and then about the house. "So you see the nuns kept
us apart."

"And you believe in these things?"

"How can I do otherwise?"

Owen sighed, and they walked on a few paces. The last leaves were
dancing; the woods were cold and wet, the heavy branches of the
fir-trees dripping with cold rain, and in the walks a litter of
chestnut-leaves.

"Not a space of blue in the sky, only grey. It will be drearier still
in Glasgow; you had better stay here," he said, as they walked round
the little lake, watching the water-fowl moving in and out of the
reeds, and they talked for some time of Riversdale, of the lake there,
and the ducks which rose in great numbers and flew round and round the
park dropping one by one into the water. "You will never see
Riversdale again, perhaps?"

"Perhaps not," she answered; and hearing her say it, his future life
seemed to him as forlorn as the landscape.

"What will you do? What will become of you? What strange
transformation has taken place in you?"

"If---- But what is the use of going over it again?"

"If what?"

"What would you have me do? Marriage would only ruin you, Owen, make
you very unhappy. Why do you want me to enter on a life which I feel
isn't mine, and which could only end in disaster for both of us."

He asked her why it would end in disaster, and she answered, "It is
impossible to lay bare one's whole heart. When one changes one's ideas
one changes one's friends."

"Because one's friends are only the embodiment of one's ideas. But I
cannot admit that you would be unhappy as my wife."

"Everybody is unhappy when they are not doing what Nature intended
them to do."

"And what did Nature intend you to do? Only to sing operas?"

"I should be sorry to think Nature intended me for nothing else. Would
you have me go on singing operas? I don't want to appear unreasonable,
but how could I go on singing even if I wished to go on? The taste has
changed; you will admit that light opera is the fashion, and I
shouldn't succeed in light opera. Whatever I do you praise, but you
know in the bottom of your heart there are only a few parts which I
play well. You may deceive yourself, you do so because you wish to do
so, but I have no wish to deceive myself and I know that I was never
a great singer; a good singer, an interesting singer in certain parts
if you like, but no more. You will admit that?"

"No, I don't admit anything of the kind. If you leave the stage what
will you do with your time? Your art, your friends----"

"No one can figure anybody else's life: everybody has interests and
occupations, not things that interest one's neighbour, but things that
interest herself."

"So it is because light opera has come into fashion again that you are
going to give up singing? Such a thing never happened before: a woman
who succeeded on the stage, who has not yet failed, whose voice is
still fresh, who is in full possession of her art, to say suddenly,
'Money and applause are nothing to me, I prefer a few simple nuns to
art and society.' Nothing seems to happen in life, life is always the
same; _rien ne change mais pourtant tout arrive_, even the rare event
of a successful actress relinquishing the stage."

"It is odd," she said as they followed the path through the wintry
wood, startled now and again by a rabbit at the end of the alley, by a
cock pheasant rising up suddenly out of the yew hedges, and, beguiled
by the beauty of the trees, they passed on slowly, pausing to think
what a splendid sight a certain wild cherry must be in the
spring-time. At the end of the wood Owen returned to the subject of
their conversation.

"Yes, it is strange that an actress should give up her art."

"But, Owen, it isn't so strange in my case as in any other; for you
know I was always a hothouse flower. You took me away to Paris and had
me trained regardless of expense, and with your money it was easy to
get an engagement."

"My money had nothing to do with your engagements."

"Perhaps not; but I only sang when it pleased me; I could always say,
'Well, my good man, go to So-and-so she will sing for you any parts
you please'; but I can only sing the parts I like."

"You think, then, that if you had lived the life of a real actress,
working your way up from the bottom, what has happened wouldn't have
happened; is that what you mean?"

"It is impossible for me to answer you. One would have to live one's
life over again."

"I suppose no one will ever know how much depends upon the gift we
bring into the world with us, and how much upon circumstances," and
Owen compared the gift to the father's seed and circumstances to the
mother's womb.

"So you are quite determined?" And they philosophised as they went, on
life and its meaning, on death and love, admiring the temples which
an eighteenth-century generation had built on the hillsides. "Here are
eight pillars on either side and four at either end, serving no
purpose whatever, not even shelter from the rain. Never again in this
world will people build things for mere beauty," Owen said, and they
passed into the depths of the wood, discovering another temple, and in
it a lad and lass.

"You see these temples do serve for something. Why are we not lovers?"
And they passed on again, Owen's heart filled with his sorrow and
Evelyn's with her determination.

She was leaving by the one train, and when they got back to the house
the carriage was waiting for her.

"Good-bye, Owen."

"Am I not to see you again?"

"Yes, you will see me one of these days."

"And that was all the promise she could make me," he said, rushing
into Lady Ascott's boudoir, disturbing her in the midst of her
letters. "So ends a _liaison_ which has lasted for more than ten
years. Good God, had I known that she would have spoken to me like
this when I saw her in Dulwich!"

Even so he felt he would have acted just as he had acted, and he went
to his room thinking that the rest of his life would be recollection.
"She is still in the train, going away from me, intent on her
project, absorbed in her desire of a new life ... this haunting which
has come upon her."




CHAPTER THREE


And so it was. Evelyn lay back in the corner of the railway carriage
thinking about the poor people, and about the nuns, about herself,
about the new life which she was entering upon, and which was dearer
to her than anything else. She grew a little frightened at the
hardness of her heart. "It certainly does harden one's heart," she
said; "my heart is as hard as a diamond. But is my heart as hard as a
diamond?" The thought awoke a little alarm, and she sat looking into
the receding landscape. "Even so I cannot help it." And she wondered
how it was that only one thing in the world seemed to matter--to
extricate the nuns from their difficulties, that was all. Her poor
people, of course she liked them; her voice, she liked it too,
without, however, being able to feel certain that it interested her as
much as it used to, or that she was not prepared to sacrifice it if
her purpose demanded the sacrifice. But there was no question of such
sacrifice: it was given to her as the means whereby she might effect
her purpose. If the Glasgow concert were as successful as the
Edinburgh, she would be able to bring back some hundreds of pounds to
the nuns, perhaps a thousand. And what a pleasure that would be to
her!

But the Glasgow concert was not nearly so successful: her manager
attributed the failure to a great strike which had just ended; there
was talk of another strike; moreover her week in Glasgow was a wet
one, and her manager said that people did not care to leave their
houses when it was raining.

"Or is it," she asked, "because the taste has moved from dramatic
singing to _il bel canto_? In a few years nobody will want to hear me,
so I must make hay while the sun shines."

Her next concert succeeded hardly better than the Glasgow concert;
Hull, Leeds, Birmingham were tried, but only with moderate success,
and Evelyn returned to London with very little money for the convent,
and still less for her poor people.

"It is a disappointment to me, dear Mother?"

"My dear child, you've brought us a great deal of money, much more
than we expected."

"But, Mother, I thought I should be able to bring you three thousand
pounds, and pay off a great part of your mortgage."

"God, my child, seems to have thought differently."

The door opened.

"Now who is this? Ah! Sister Mary John."

"May I come in, dear Mother?"

"Certainly."

"You see, I was so anxious to see Miss Innes, to hear about the
concert tour----"

"Which wasn't a success at all, Sister Mary John. Oh, not at all a
success."

"Not a success?"

"Well from an artistic point of view it was; I brought you some of the
notices," and Evelyn took out of her pocket some hundreds of cuttings
from newspapers. It had not occurred to her before, but now the
thought passed through her mind, formulating itself in this way:
"After all, the mummeress isn't dead in me yet; bringing my notices to
nuns! Dear me! how like me!" And she sat watching the nuns, a little
amused, when the Prioress asked Sister Mary John to read some passages
to her.

"Now I can't sit here and hear you read out my praises. You can read
them when I am gone. A little more money and a little less praise
would have suited me better, Sister Mary John."

"Would you care to come into the garden?" the nun asked. "I was just
going out to feed the birds. Poor things! they come in from the
common; our garden is full of them. But what about singing at
Benediction to-day? Would you like to try some music over with me and
forget the birds?"

"There will be plenty of time to try over music."

The door opened again. It was the porteress come to say that Monsignor
had just arrived and would like to speak with the Prioress.

"But ask him to come in.... Here is a friend of yours, Monsignor. She
has just returned from----"

"From a disastrous concert tour, having only made four hundred pounds
with six concerts. My career as a prima donna is at an end. The public
is tired of me."

"The artistic public isn't tired of you," said Sister Mary John.
"Read, Monsignor; she has brought us all her notices."

"Oh, do take them away, Sister Mary John; you make me ashamed before
Monsignor. Such vanity! What will he think of my bringing my notices
to read to you? But you mustn't think I am so vain as that, Monsignor;
it was really because I thought the nuns would be interested to hear
of the music--and to excuse myself. But you know, Mother, once I take
a project in hand I don't give it up easily. I have made up my mind to
redeem this convent from debt, and it shall be done. My concert tour
was a failure, but I have another idea in my head; and I came here to
tell it to you. I don't know what Monsignor will think of it. I have
been offered a good deal of money to go to America to sing my own
parts, for Wagner is not yet dead in America."

"But, Miss Innes, I thought you intended to leave the stage?"

"I have left the stage, but I intend to go back to it. That is a point
on which I will have to talk to Monsignor." Evelyn waited for the
prelate to speak.

"Such determination is very unusual, and if the cause be a good one I
congratulate you, Mother Prioress, on your champion who, to defend
you, will start for the New World."

"Well, Monsignor, unless you repudiate the motives of those who went
to Palestine to fight for the Holy Sepulchre, why should you repudiate
mine?"

"But I haven't said a word; indeed----"

"But you will talk to me about it, won't you? For I must have your
opinion before I go, Monsignor."

"Well, now I think I shall disappear," said Sister Mary John. "I'm
going to feed the birds."

"But you asked me to go with you."

"That was before Monsignor came. But perhaps he would like to come
with us. The garden is beautiful and white, and all the birds are
waiting for me, poor darlings!"

The nuns, Evelyn and Monsignor went down the steps.

"There is a great deal of snow in the sky yet," said Sister Mary John,
pointing to the yellow horizon. "To-night or to-morrow it will fall,
and the birds will die, if we don't feed them."

A flock of speckled starlings flew into a tree, not recognising Evelyn
and Monsignor, but the blackbirds and thrushes were tamer and ran in
front, watching the visitors with round, thoughtful eyes, the
beautiful shape of the blackbird showing against the white background,
and everybody admiring his golden bill and legs. The sparrows flew
about Sister Mary John in a little cloud, until they were driven away
by three great gulls come up from the Thames, driven inland by hard
weather. A battle began, the gulls pecking at each other, wasting time
in fighting instead of sharing the bread, only stopping now and then
to chase away the arrogant sparrows. The robin, the wisest bird, came
to Sister Mary John's hand for his food, preferring the buttered bread
to the dry. There were rooks in the grey sky, and very soon two
hovered over the garden, eventually descending into the garden with
wings slanted, and then the seagulls had to leave off fighting or go
without food altogether. A great strange bird rose out of the bushes,
and flew away in slow, heavy flight. Monsignor thought it was a
woodcock; and there were birds whose names no one knew, migrating
birds come from thousands of miles, from regions where the snow lies
for months upon the ground; and Evelyn and the prelate and the nuns
watched them all until the frosty air reminded the prelate that
loitering was dangerous. Sister Mary John walked on ahead, feeding the
birds, forgetful of Monsignor and Evelyn; a nun saying her rosary
stopped to speak to the Prioress; Evelyn and Monsignor went on alone,
and when they came towards St. Peter's Walk no one was there, and the
moment had come, Evelyn felt, to speak of her project to return to the
stage in order to redeem the convent from debt.

"You didn't answer me, Monsignor, when I said that I would have to
consult you regarding my return to the stage."

"Well, my dear child, the question whether you should go back to the
stage couldn't be discussed in the presence of the nuns. Your motives
I appreciate; I need hardly say that. But for your own personal safety
I am concerned. I won't attempt to hide my anxiety from you."

"But it is possible to remain on the stage and lead a virtuous life."

"You have told me yourself that such a thing isn't possible; from your
own mouth I have it."

Evelyn did not answer, but stood looking at the prelate, biting her
lips, annoyed, finding herself in a dilemma.

"The motive is everything, Monsignor. I was speaking then of the stage
as a vanity, as a glorification of self."

"The motive is different, but the temptations remain the same."

"I'm afraid I can't agree with you. The temptation is in oneself, not
in the stage, and when oneself has changed ... and then many things
have happened."

"You are reconciled to the Church, it is true, and have received the
Sacraments----"

"More than that, Monsignor, more than that," But it was a long time
before he could persuade her to tell him. "You don't believe in
miracles?"

"My dear child, my dear child!"

After that it was impossible to keep herself from speaking, and she
told how, at Thornton Grange, in the middle of the night, she had
heard the nuns singing the _Veni Creator_.

"The nuns told me, Monsignor, their prayers would save me, and they
were right."

"But you aren't sure whether you were dreaming or waking."

"But my experience was shared by Sir Owen Asher, who told me next
morning that he had thought of coming to my room and was restrained."

"Did he say that he, too, heard voices?"

She had to admit that Owen had not said that he had heard voices, only
that a restraint had been put upon him.

"The restraint need not have been a miraculous one."

"You think he didn't want to come to see me? I beg your pardon,
Monsignor."

"There is nothing to beg my pardon for. I am your confessor, your
spiritual adviser, and you must tell everything to me; and it is my
duty to tell you that you place too much reliance upon miracles. This
is not the first time you have spoken to me about miraculous
interposition."

"But if God is in heaven and His Church upon earth, why shouldn't
there be miracles? Moreover, nearly all the saints are credited with
having performed miracles. Their lives are little more than records of
miracles they have performed."

"I cannot agree with you in that. Their lives are records of their
love of God, and the prayers they have offered up that God's wrath may
be averted from a sinful world, and the prayers they have offered up
for their souls."

"What would the Bible be without its miracles? Miracles are recorded
in the Old and in the New Testaments. Surely miracles cannot have
ceased with the nineteenth century? Miracles must be inherent in
religion. To talk of miracles going out of fashion----"

"But, Miss Innes, I never spoke of miracles going out of fashion. You
misunderstand me entirely. If God wills it, a miracle may happen
to-morrow, in this garden, at any moment. Nobody questions the power
of God to perform a miracle, only we mustn't be too credulous,
accepting every strange event as a miracle; and you, who seemed so
difficult to convince on some points, are ready enough to believe----"

"You mean, Monsignor, because I experienced much difficulty in
believing that the sins I committed with Owen Asher were equal to
those I committed with Ulick Dean."

"Yes, that was in my mind; and I doubt very much that you are not of
the same opinion still."

"Monsignor, I have accepted your opinion that the sin was the same in
either case, and you have told me yourself that to acquiesce is
sufficient. You don't mind my arguing with you a little, because in
doing so I become clear to myself?"

"On the contrary, I like you to argue with me; only in that way can
you confide all your difficulties to me. I regret that,
notwithstanding my opinion, you still believe you are not putting
yourself in the way of temptation by returning to the stage."

"I know myself. If I didn't feel sure of myself, Monsignor, I wouldn't
go to America. Obedience is so pleasant, and your ruling is so
sweet----"

"Nevertheless, you must go your own way; you must relieve this convent
from debt. That is what is in your mind."

"I am sorry, Monsignor, for I should have liked to have had your
approval."

"It was not, then, to profit by my advice that you consulted me?"

Evelyn did not answer, and the singer and the prelate walked on in
silence, seeing Sister Mary John among her blackbirds and thrushes,
sparrows and starlings, accepting her crumbs without fear, no stranger
being by. The starlings, however, again flew into a tree when they saw
Evelyn and Monsignor, and some of the other birds followed them.

"The robin follows her like a dog; and what a saucy little bird he is!
Look at him, Monsignor! isn't he pretty, with his red breast and
black, beady eyes?"

"Last winter, Monsignor, he spent on the kitchen clock. He knows our
kitchen well enough, and will go back there if a thaw does not begin
very quickly. But look," continued Sister Mary John, "I have two
bullfinches following me. Aren't they provoking birds? They don't
build in our garden, where their nests would be safe, stupid birds!
but away in the common. I'd like to have a young bird and teach him to
whistle."

Evelyn and Monsignor stayed a moment watching the birds, thinking of
other things, and then turned into St. Peter's Walk to continue their
talk.

"The afternoon is turning cold, and we can't stop out talking in this
garden any longer; but before we go in I beg of you----"

"To agree that you should return to the stage?"

"For a few months, Monsignor. I don't want to go to America feeling
that you think I have acted wrongly by going. The nuns will pray for
me, and I believe in their prayers; and I believe in yours, Monsignor,
and in your advice. Do say something kind."

"You arc determined upon this American tour?"

"I cannot do otherwise. There is nothing else in my head."

"And you must do something? Well, Miss Innes, let us consider it from
a practical point of view. The nuns want money, it is true; but they
want it at once. Five thousand pounds at the end of next year will be
very little use to them."

"No, Monsignor, the Prioress tells me----"

"You are free to dispose of your money in your own way--in the way
that gives you most pleasure."

"Oh, don't say that, Monsignor. I have had enough pleasure in my
life." And they turned out of St. Peter's Walk, feeling it was really
too cold to remain any longer in the garden.

"Well, Miss Innes, you are doing this entirely against my advice."

"I'm sorry, but I cannot help myself; I want to help the nuns.
Everybody wants to do something; and to see one's life slipping
away----"

"But you've done a great deal."

"It doesn't seem to me I have done anything. Now that I have become a
Catholic, I want to do something from the Catholic point of view, or
from the religious point of view, if you like. Win you recommend to me
some man of business who will carry out the sale of my house for me,
and settle everything?"

"So that you may hand over to the nuns the money that the sale of your
pictures and furniture procures at Christie's?"

"Yes; leaving me just sufficient to go to America. I know I must
appear to you very wilful, but there are certain things one can only
settle for oneself."

"I can give you the address of my solicitor, a very capable and
trustworthy man, who will carry out your instructions."

"Thank you, Monsignor; and be sure nothing will happen to me in
America. In six months I shall be back."

Evelyn went away to Mr. Enterwick, the solicitor Monsignor
recommended, and the following month she sailed for America.




CHAPTER FOUR


Her pictures and furniture were on view at Christie's in the early
spring, and all Owen's friends met each other in the rooms and on the
staircase.

The pictures were to be sold on Saturday, the furniture, china, and
enamels on the following Monday.

"The pictures don't matter so much, although her own portrait is going
to be sold. But the furniture! Dear God, look at that brute trying the
springs of the sofa where I have sat so often with her. And there is
the chair on which I used to sit listening to her when she sang. And
her piano--why, my God, she is selling her piano!--What is to become
of that woman? A singer who sells her piano!"

"My dear friend, I suppose she had to sell everything or nothing?"

"But she'll have to buy another piano, and she might have kept the one
I gave her. It is extraordinary how religion hardens the heart,
Harding. Do you see that fellow, a great nose, lumpy shoulders,
trousers too short for him, a Hebrew barrel of grease--Rosental. You
know him; I bought that clock from him. He's looking into it to see if
anything has been broken, if it is in as good condition as when he
sold it. The brutes have all joined the 'knock-out,' and there----"

As he said these words young Mr. Rowe, who believed himself to be
connected with society, and who dealt largely in pictures, without,
however, descending to the vulgarity of shop-keeping (he would resent
being called a picture-dealer), approached and insisted on Sir Owen
listening to the story of his difficulties with some county
councillors who could not find the money to build an art gallery.

"But I object to your immortality being put on the rates."

"You write books, Mr. Harding; I can't."

As soon as he left them, Harding, who knew the dealer kind, the
original stock and the hybrid, told an amusing story of Mr. Rowe's
beginnings; and Owen forgot his sentimental trouble; but the story was
interrupted by Lady Ascott coming down the room followed by her
attendants, her literary and musical critics.

"Every one of them most interesting, I assure you, Sir Owen. Mr. Homer
has just returned from Italy----"

"But I know Mr. Homer; we met long ago at Innes' concerts. If I am not
mistaken you were writing a book then about Bellini."

"Yes, 'His Life and Works.' I've just returned from Italy, after two
years' reading in the public libraries."

Lady Ascott's musical critic was known to Owen by a small book he had
written entitled "A Guide to the Ring." Before he was a Wagnerian he
was the curator of a museum, and Owen remembered how desirous he was
to learn the difference between Dresden and Chelsea china. He had
dabbled in politics and in journalism; he had collected hymns, ancient
and modern, and Owen was not in the least surprised to hear that he
had become the director of a shop for the sale of religious prints and
statues, or that he had joined the Roman Church, and the group watched
him slinking round on the arm of a young man, one who sang forty-nine
songs by all the composers in Europe in exactly the same manner.

"He is teaching Botticelli in his three manners," said Lady Ascott,
"and Cyril is thinking of going over to Rome."

"Asher, let us get away from this culture," Harding whispered.

"Yes, let's get away from it; I want to show you a table, the one on
which Evelyn used to write her letters. We bought it together at the
Salle Druot."

"Yes, Asher, yes; but would you mind coming this way, for I see
Ringwood. He goes by in his drooping mantle, looking more like an
umbrella than usual. Lady Ascott has engaged him for the season, and
he goes out with her to talk literature--plush stockings, cockade.
Literature in livery! Ringwood introducing Art!"

Owen laughed and begged Harding to send his joke to the comic papers.

"An excellent subject for a cartoon."

"He has stopped again. Now I'm sure he's talking of Sophocles. He
walks on ... I'm mistaken; he is talking about Molire."

"An excellent idea of yours--'Literature in livery!'"

"His prose is always so finely spoken, so pompous, that I cannot help
smiling. You know what I mean."

"I've told you it ought to be sent to the papers. I wish he would
leave that writing-table; and Lady Ascott might at least ask him to
brush his coat."

"It seems to me so strange that she should find pleasure in such
company."

"Men who will not cut their hair. How is it?"

"I suppose attention to externals checks or limits the current of
feeling ... or they think so."

"I am feeling enough, God knows, but my suffering does not prevent me
from selecting my waistcoat and tying my tie."

Harding's eyes implied acquiescence in the folding of the scarf (it
certainly was admirably done) and glanced along the sleeves of the
coat--a rough material chosen in a moment of sudden inspiration; and
they did not miss the embroidered waistcoat, nor the daring brown
trousers (in admirable keeping withal), turned up at the ends, of
course, otherwise Owen would not have felt dressed; and, still a
little conscious of the assistance his valet had been to him, he
walked with a long swinging stride which he thought suited him,
stopping now and again to criticise a friend or a picture.

"There's Merrington. How absurdly he dresses! One would think he was
an actor; yet no man rides better to hounds. Lady Southwick! I must
have a word with her."

Before leaving Harding he mentioned that she attributed her lapses
from virtue, not to passionate temperament, but to charitable
impulses. "She wouldn't kiss----" and Owen whispered the man's name,
"until he promised to give two thousand pounds to a Home for Girl
Mothers."

"Now, my dear Lady Southwick, I'm so delighted to see you here. But
how very sad! The greatest singer of our time."

"She was exceedingly good in two or three parts."

A dispute arose, in which Owen lost his temper, but, recovering it
suddenly, he went down the room with Lady Southwick to show her a
Wedgewood dessert service which he had bought some years ago for
Evelyn, pressing it upon her, urging that he would like her to have
it.

"Every time you see it you will think of us," and he turned on his
heel suddenly, fearing to lose Harding, whom he found shaking hands
with one of the dealers, a man of huge girth--"like a waggoner," Owen
said, checking a reproof, but he could not help wishing that Harding
would not shake hands with such people, at all events when he was with
him.

"These are the Chadwells, whom----" (Harding whispered a celebrated
name) "used to call the most gentlemanly picture-dealers in
Bond-street." Harding spoke to them, Owen standing apart absorbed in
his grief, until the word "Asher" caught his ear.

"Of whom are you speaking?"

"Of you, of Sir Owen Asher." And Harding followed Owen, intensely
annoyed.

"Not even to a gentlemanly picture-dealer should you----"

"You are entirely wrong; I said 'Sir Owen Asher.'"

"Very strange you should say 'Sir Owen Asher'; why didn't you say Sir
Owen?"

Harding did not answer, being uncertain if it would not be better to
drop Asher's acquaintance. But they had known each other always. It
would be difficult.

"The sale is about to begin," Asher said, and Harding sat down angry
with Asher and interested in the auctioneer's face, created, Harding
thought, for the job ... "looking exactly like a Roman bust. Lofty
brow, tight lips, vigilant eyes, voice like a bell.... That damned
fellow Asher! What the hell did he mean----"

The auctioneer sat at a high desk, high as any pulpit, and in the
benches the congregation crowded--every shade of nondescript, the
waste ground one meets in a city: poor Jews and dealers from the
outlying streets, with here and there a possible artist or journalist.
As the pictures were sold the prices they fetched were marked in the
catalogues, and Harding wondered why.

Around the room were men and women of all classes; a good many of Sir
Owen's "set" had come--"Society being well represented that day," as
the newspapers would put it. All the same, the pictures were not
selling well, not nearly so well as Owen and Harding anticipated.
Harding was glad of this, for his heart was set on a certain drawing
by Boucher.

"I would sooner you had it, Harding, than anybody else. It would be
unendurable if one of those picture-dealers should get it; they'd come
round to my house trying to sell it to me again, whereas in your
rooms----"

"Yes," said Harding, "it will be an excuse to come to see me. Well, if
I can possibly afford it----"

"Of course you can afford it; I paid eighty-seven pounds for it years
ago; it won't go to more than a hundred. I'd really like you to have
it."

"Well, for goodness' sake don't talk so loud, somebody will hear you."

The pictures went by--portraits of fair ladies and ancient admirals,
landscapes, underwoods and deserts, flower and battle pieces, pathetic
scenes and gallantries. There was a time when every one of these
pictures was the hope and delight of a human being, now they went by
interesting nobody....

At last the first of Evelyn's pictures was hoisted on the easel.

"Good God! isn't it a miserable sight seeing her pictures going to
whomsoever cares to bid a few pounds. But if I were to buy the whole
collection----"

"I quite understand, and every one is a piece of your life."

The pictures continued to go by.

"I can't stand this much longer."

"Hush!"

The Boucher drawing went up. It was turned to the right and to the
left: a beautiful girl lying on her belly, her legs parted slightly.
Therefore the bidding began briskly, but for some unaccountable reason
it died away. "Somebody must have declared it to be a forgery," Owen
whispered to Harding, and a moment after it became Harding's property
for eighty-seven pounds--"The exact sum I paid for it years ago. How
very extraordinary!"

"A portrait by Manet--a hundred pounds offered, one hundred," and two
grey eyes in a face of stone searched the room for bidders. "One
hundred pounds offered, five, thirty, thirty-five, forty, fifty," and
so on to two hundred.

"Her portrait will cost me a thousand," Owen whispered to Harding,
and, catching the auctioneer's eyes, he nodded again. Seven hundred.
"Will they never stop bidding? That fellow yonder is determined to run
up the picture." Eight hundred and fifty! The auctioneer raised his
hammer, and the watchful eyes went round the room in search of some
one who would pay another ten pounds for Evelyn's portrait by Manet.
Eight hundred and fifty--eight hundred and fifty. Down came the
hammer. The auctioneer whispered "Sir Owen Asher" to his clerk.

"It's a mercy I got it for that; I was afraid it would go over the
thousand. Now, come, we have got our two pictures. I'm sick of the
place."

Harding had thought of staying on, just to see the end of the sale,
but it was easier to yield to Owen than to argue with him; besides, he
was anxious to see how the drawing would look on his wall. Of course
it was a Boucher. Stupid remarks were always floating about
Christie's. But he would know for certain as soon as he saw the
drawing in a new light.

He was muttering "it is genuine enough," when his servant opened the
door--"Sir Owen Asher."

"I see you have hung up the drawing. It looks very well, doesn't it.
You'll never regret having taken my advice."

"Taken your advice!" Harding was about to answer. "But what is the use
in irritating the poor man? He is so much in love he hardly knows what
he is saying. Owen Asher advising me as to what I should buy!"

Owen went over and looked into Harding's Ingres.

"Every time one sees it one likes it better." And they talked about
Ingres for some time, until Owen's thoughts went back to Evelyn, and
looking from the portrait by Ingres to the drawing by Boucher he
seemed suddenly to lose control; tears rose to his eyes, and Harding
watched him, wondering whither Owen's imagination carried him. "Is he
far away in Paris, hearing her sing for the first time to Madame
Savelli? Or is he standing with her looking over the bulwarks of the
_Medusa_, seeing the shape of some Greek island dying in the
twilight?" And Harding did not speak, feeling the lover's meditation
to be sacred. Owen flung himself into an armchair, and without
withdrawing his eyes from the picture, said, relying on Harding's
friendship:

"It is very like her, it is really very like her. I am much obliged to
you, Harding, for having bought it. I shall come here to see it
occasionally."

"And I'll present you with a key, so that when I am away you can spend
your leisure in front of the picture.... Do you know whom I shall feel
like? Like the friend of King Condules."

"But she'll not ask you to conspire to assassinate me. My murder would
profit you nothing. All the same, Harding, now I come to think of it,
there's a good deal of that queen in Evelyn, or did she merely desire
to take advantage of the excuse to get rid of her husband?"

"Ancient myths are never very explicit; one reads whatever psychology
one likes into them. Perhaps that is why they never grow old."

The door opened.. Harding's servant brought in a parcel of proofs.

"My dear Asher, the proof of an article has just come, and the editor
tells me he'll be much obliged if I look through it at once."

"Shall I wait?"

"Well, I'd sooner you didn't. Correcting a proof with me means a
rewriting, and----"

"You can't concentrate your thoughts while I am roving about the room.
I understand. Are you dining anywhere?"

"I'm not engaged."

The thought crossed Harding's mind when Owen left the room that it
would be better perhaps to write saying that the proofs detained him,
for to spend the evening with Owen would prove wearisome. "No matter
what the subject of conversation may be his mind will go back to her
very soon.... But to leave him alone all the evening would be
selfish, and if I don't dine with him I shall have to dine alone....'
Harding turned to his writing-table, worked on his proof for a couple
of hours, and then went to meet Owen, whom be found waiting for him at
his club.

"My dear friend, I quite agree with you," he said, sitting down to the
table; "what you want is change."

"Do you think, Harding, I shall find any interest again in anything?"

"Of course you will, my dear friend, of course you will." And he spoke
to his friend of ruined palaces and bas-reliefs; Owen listened
vaguely, begging of him at last to come with him.

"It will give you ideas, Harding; you will write better."

Harding shook his head, for it did not seem to him to be his destiny
to relieve the tedium of a yachting excursion in the Mediterranean.




CHAPTER FIVE


"One cannot yacht in the Baltic or in the Gulf of Mexico," Owen said,
and he went to the Mediterranean again to sail about the-gean
Islands, wondering if he should land, changing his mind, deciding
suddenly that the celebrated site he was going to see would not
interest him. He would stand watching the rocky height dying down, his
eyes fixed on the blue horizon, thinking of some Emperor's palace amid
the Illyrian hills, till, acting on a sudden impulse, he would call an
order to the skipper, an order which he would countermand next day. A
few days after the yacht would sail towards the Acropolis as though
Owen had intended to drop anchor in the Pirus. But he was too
immersed in his grief, he thought, to be able to give his attention to
ruins, whether Roman or Greek. All the same, he would have to decide
if he would return to the islands. He did not know them all; he had
never been to Samos, famous for its wine and its women.... The wine
cloyed the palate and no woman charmed him in the dance; and he sailed
away wondering how he might relieve the tedium of life, until one day,
after long voyaging, sufficiently recovered from his grief and
himself, he leaned over the taffrail, this time lost in admiration of
the rocks and summits above Syracuse, the Sicilian coasts carrying his
thoughts out of the present into the past, to those valleys where
Theocritus watched his "visionary flocks."

"'His visionary flocks,'" he repeated, wondering if the beautiful
phrase had floated accidentally into his mind, hoping that it was his
own, and then abandoning hope, for he had nearly succeeded in tracing
the author of the phrase; but there was a vision in it more intense
than Tennyson's. "Visionary flocks!" For while the shepherds watched
Theocritus dreamed the immortal sheep and goats which tempt us for an
instant to become shepherds; but Owen knew that the real flocks would
seem unreal to him who knew the visionary ones, so he turned away from
the coasts without a desire in his heart to trouble the shepherds in
the valley with an offer of his services, and walked up and down the
deck thinking how he might obtain a translation of the idyls.

"Sicily, Sicily!"

It was unendurable that his skipper should come at such a moment to
ask him if he would like to land at Palermo; for why should he land in
Sicily unless to meet the goatherd who in order to beguile Thyrsis to
sing the song of Daphnis told him that "his song was sweeter than the
music of yonder water that is poured from the high face of the rock"?
It was in Sicily that rugged Polyphemus, peering over some cliffs,
sought to discern Galatea in the foam; but before Owen had time to
recall the myth an indenture in the coast line, revealing a field,
reminded him how Proserpine, while gathering flowers on the plains of
Enna with her maidens, had been raped into the shadows by the dark
god. And looking on these waves, he remembered that it was over them
that Jupiter in the form of a bull, a garlanded bull with crested
horns, had sped, bearing Europa away from his pleasure. Venus had been
washed up by these waves! Poseidon! Sirens and Tritons had disported
themselves in this sea, the bluest and the beautifullest, the one sea
that mattered, more important than all the oceans; the oceans might
dry up to-morrow for all he cared so long as this sea remained; and
with the story of Theseus and "lonely Ariadne on the wharf at Naxos"
ringing in his ears he looked to the north-east, whither lay the
Cyclades and Propontis. Medea, too, had been deserted--"Medea deadlier
than the sea." Helen! All the stories of the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey"
had been lived about these seas, from the coasts of Sicily to those of
Asia Minor, whence neas had made his way to Carthage. Dido, she, too,
had been deserted. All the great love stories of the world had been
lived about these shores and islands; his own story! And he mused for
a long time on the accident--if it were an accident--which had led him
back to this sea. Or had he returned to these shores and islands
merely because there was no other sea in which one could yacht?
Hardly, and he remembered with pleasure that his story differed from
the ancient stories only in this, that Evelyn had fled from him, not
he from her. And for such a woeful reason! That she might repent her
sins in a convent on the edge of Wimbledon Common, whereas Dido was
deserted for--

Again his infernal skipper hanging about. This time he had come with
news that the _Medusa_ was running short of provisions. Would Sir Owen
prefer that they should put in at Palermo or Tunis?

"Tunis, Tunis."

The steersman put down the helm, and the fore and aft sails went
over. Three days later the _Medusa_ dropped her anchor in the Bay of
Tunis, and his skipper was again asking Owen for orders.

"Just take her round to Alexandria and wait for me there," he
answered, feeling he would not be free from England till she was gone.
It was his wish to get away from civilisation for a while, to hear
Arabic, to learn it if he could, to wear a bournous, to ride Arab
horses, live in a tent, to disappear in the desert, yes, and to be
remembered as the last lover of the Mediterranean--that would be _une
belle fin de vie, aprs tout_.

Then he laughed at his dreams, but they amused him; he liked to look
upon his story as one of the love stories of the world. Rome had
robbed Dido of her lover and him of his mistress. So far as he could
see, the better story was the last, and his thoughts turned willingly
to the Virgil who would arise centuries hence to tell it. One thing,
however, puzzled him. Would the subject-matter he was creating for the
future poet be spoilt if he were to fall in love with an Arab maiden,
some little statuette carved in yellow ivory? Or would it be enhanced?
Would the future Virgil regard her as an assuagement, a balm? Owen
laughed at himself and his dream. But his mood drifted into sadness;
and he asked if Evelyn should be punished. If so, what punishment
would the poet devise for her? In Theocritus somebody had been
punished: a cruel one, who had refused to relieve the burden of desire
even with a kiss, had been killed by a seemingly miraculous
interposition of Love, who, angered at the sight of the unhappy lover
hanging from the neck by the lintel of the doorpost, fell from his
pedestal upon the beloved, while he stood heart-set watching the
bathers in the beautiful bathing-places.

But Owen could not bring himself to wish for Evelyn's death by the
falling of a statue of Our Lady or St. Joseph; such a death would be a
contemptible one, and he could not wish that anything contemptible
should happen to her, however cruelly she had made him suffer. No, he
did not wish that any punishment should befall her; the fault was not
hers. And he returned in thought to the end which he had devised for
himself--a passing into the desert, leaving no trace but the single
fact that on a certain day he had joined a caravan. Going whither?
Timbuctoo? To be slain there--an English traveller seeking
forgetfulness of a cruel mistress--would be a romantic end for him!
But if his end were captivity, slavery? His thoughts turned from
Timbuctoo to one of the many oases between Tunis and the Soudan. In
one of these it would be possible to make friends with an Arab
chieftain and to live. But would she, whose body was the colour of
amber, or the desert, or any other invention his fancy might devise,
relieve him from the soul-sickness from which he suffered? It seemed
to him that nothing would. All the same, he would have to try to
forget her, "Evelyn, Evelyn."

The bournous which his Arab servant brought in at that moment might
help him. A change of language would be a help, and he might become a
Moslem--for he believed in Mohammedanism as much as in Christianity;
and an acceptance of the Koran would facilitate travelling in the
desert. That and a little Arabic, a few mouthfuls, and no Mahdi would
dare to enslave him.... But if he were only sure that none would!

Outside horses were stamping, his escort, seven Arab horses with seven
Arabs from the desert, or thereabout, in high-pummelled saddles,
wearing white bournous, their brown, lean hands grasping
long-barrelled guns with small carven stocks. The white Arab which
Owen had purchased yesterday waited, the saddle empty; and, looking at
him before mounting, Owen thought the horse the most beautiful thing
he had ever seen, more like an ornament than a live thing, an object
of luxury rather than of utility. Was he really going to ride this
horse for many hours? To do so seemed like making a drudge of some
beautiful woman. The horse's quarters curved like a woman's, a woman's
skin was hardly finer, nor were a woman's wrists and hands, though she
cared for them ever so much, shaping them with files, and polishing
them with powders, more delicate than the fetlock and hoof of this
wonderful horse. Nor was any woman's eye more beautiful, nor any
woman's ears more finely shaped; and the horse's muzzle came to such a
little point that one would have been inclined to bring him water in a
tumbler. The accoutrements were all Arab; and Owen admired the heavy
bits, furnished with many rings and chains, severe curbs, demanding
the lightest handling, without being able to guess their use. But in
the desert one rides like the Arab, and it would be ridiculous to go
away to the Sahara hanging on to a snaffle like an Irishman out
hunting.

So he mounted, and the cavalcade started amid much noise and dust,
which followed it until it turned from the road into the scrub. A
heavy dew had fallen during the night, and it glittered like silver
rain, producing a slight mirage, which deceived nobody, but which
prevented Owen from seeing what the country was like, until the sun
shone out. Then he saw that they were crossing an uncultivated rather
than a sterile plain, and the word "wilderness" came up in his mind,
for the only trees and plants he saw were wildings, wild artichokes,
tall stems, of no definite colour, with hairy fruits; rosemary,
lavender and yellow broom, and half-naked bushes stripped of their
foliage by the summer heat, covered with dust; nowhere a blade of
grass--an indurated plain, chapped, rotted by stagnant waters, burnt
again by the sun. And they rode over this plain for hours, the horses
avoiding the baked earth, choosing the softer places where there was a
litter of leaves or moss. Sometimes the cavalcade divided into twos
and threes, sometimes it formed into a little group riding to the
right or left, with Owen and his dragoman in front, Owen trying to
learn Arabic from the dragoman, the lesson interrupted continually by
some new sight: by a cloud of thistledown hovering over a great purple
field, rising and falling, for there was not wind enough to carry the
seed away; by some white vapour on the horizon, which his dragoman
told him was the smoke of Arabs clearing the scrub.

"A primitive method, and an easy one, saving the labour of billhook
and axe." About nine o'clock he saw some woods lying to the
north-west. But the horses' heads were turned eastward to avoid an arm
of a great marsh, extending northward to the horizon. It was then
that, wearying of trying to get his tongue round certain Arabic words,
he rode away from his dragoman, and tried to define the landscape as a
painter would; but it was all too vast, and all detail was lost in the
vastness, and all was alike. So, abandoning the pictorial, he
philosophised, discovering the fallacy of the old saying that we owe
everything to the earth, the mother of all. "We owe her very little.
The debt is on her side," he muttered. "It is we who make her so
beautiful, finding in the wilderness a garden and a statue in a marble
block. Man is everything." And the words put the thought into his mind
that although they had been travelling for many hours they had not yet
seen a human being, nor yet an animal. Whither the Arabs had gone the
dragoman could not tell him; he could only say they came to this plain
for the spring pasture; their summer pastures were elsewhere, and he
pointed to an old olive, brown and bent by the wind, telling Owen it
was deemed a sacred tree, to which sterile women came to hang votive
offerings. Owen reined up his horse in front of it, and they resumed
their journey, meeting with nothing they had not met with before,
unless, perhaps, a singular group of date-palms gathered together at
one spot, forerunners of the desert, keeping each other company,
struggling for life in a climate which was not theirs.

At eleven o'clock a halt was made in the bed of a great river
enclosed within steep mudbanks, now nearly as dry as the river they
had crossed in the morning; only a few inches of turbid water, at
which a long herd of cattle was drinking when they arrived; the banks
planted with great trees, olives, tamarisks, and masticks. At three
o'clock they were again in the saddle, and they rode on, leaving to
the left an encampment (the dragoman told Owen the name of the tribe),
some wandering horses, and some camels. The camels, who appeared to
have lost themselves, did not gallop away like the horses, but came
forward and peaceably watched the cavalcade passing, absent-minded,
bored ruminants, with something always on their minds. The sobriety of
these animals astonished him. "They're not greedy, and they are never
thirsty. Of what do they remind me?" And Owen thought for a while,
till catching sight of their long fleecy necks, bending like the necks
of birds, and ending in long flexible lips (it was the lips that gave
him the clue he was seeking), he said, "The Nonconformists of the
four-footed world," and he told his joke to his dragoman, without,
however, being able to make him understand.

"These Arabs have no sense of humour," he muttered, as he rode away.

The only human beings he saw on that long day's journey were three
shepherds--two youths and an old man; the elder youth, standing on a
low wall, which might be Roman or Carthaginian, Turkish or Arabian (an
antiquarian would doubtless have evolved the history of four great
nations from it), watched a flock of large-tailed sheep and black
goats, and blew into his flageolet, drawing from it, not music, only
sounds without measure or rhythm, which the wind carried down the
valley, causing the sheep-dog to rise up from the rock on which he was
lying and to howl dismally. Near by the old man walked, leaning on the
arm of the younger brother, a boy of sixteen. Both wore shepherd's
garb--tunics fitting tight to the waist, large plaited hats, and
sandals cut from sheep-skin. The old man's eyes were weak and red, and
he blinked them so constantly that Owen thought he must be blind; and
the boy was so beautiful that one of the Arabs cried out to him, in
the noble form of Arab salutation:

"Hail to thee, Jacob, son of Isaac; and hail to thy father."

Owen repeated the names "Jacob!" "Isaac!" a light came into his face,
and he drew himself up in his saddle, understanding suddenly that he
had fallen out of the "Odyssey," landing in the very midst of the
Bible; for there it was, walking about him: Abraham and Isaac, the old
man willing to sacrifice his son to please some implacable God hidden
behind a cloud; Jacob selling his birthright to Esau, the birthright
of camels, sheep, and goats. And down his mind floated the story of
Joseph sold by his brethren, and that of Ruth and Boaz: "Thy people
shall be my people, thy God shall be my God," a story of corn rather
than of flocks and herds. For the sake of Boaz she would accept
Yahveh. But would he accept such a God for Evelyn's sake, and such a
brute?--always telling his people if they continued to adore him they
would be given not only strength to overcome their enemies, but even
the pleasure of dashing out the brains of their enemies' children
against the stones; and thinking of the many apocalyptic inventions,
the many-headed beasts of Isaiah, the Cherubim and Seraphim, who were
not stalwart and beautiful angels, but many-headed beasts from
Babylonia, Owen remembered that these revolting monsters had been made
beautiful in the _gean_: sullen Astaarte, desiring sacrifice and
immolation, had risen from the waters, a ravishing goddess with winged
Loves marvelling about her, Loves with conches to their lips, blowing
the glad news to the world.

"How the thought wanders!" he said. "A moment ago I was among the
abominations of Isaiah. Now I am back, if not with the Greek Venus,
'whom men no longer call the Erecine,' at all events with an
enchanting Parisian, nearly as beautiful, and more delightful--a
voluptuous goddess, laughing amid her hair, drawn less austerely than
Ingres, but much more firmly than Boucher or Fragonard ... a fragrant
goddess."

And meditating with half his mind, he admired the endurance of his
horse with the other, who, though he could neither trot, nor gallop,
nor walk, could amble deliciously.

"If not a meditative animal himself, his gait conduces to meditation,"
Owen said, and he continued to dream that art could only be said to
have flourished among Mediterranean peoples, until he was roused from
his reverie by his horse, who suddenly pricked up his ears and broke
into a canter. He had been travelling since six in the morning, and it
was now evening; but he was fresh enough to prick up his ears,
scenting, no doubt, an encampment, the ashes of former fires, the
litter left by some wayfarers, desert wanderers, bedouins, Hebrews.

Owen began his dream again, and he could do so without danger, for his
horse hardly required the direction of the bridle even in the thick
wood; and while admiring his horse's sagacity in avoiding the trees he
pursued his theological fancies, an admirable stillness gathering the
while, shadows descending, unaccompanied by the slightest wind, and
no sound. Yes, a faint sound! And reining in his horse, he listened,
and all the Arabs about him listened, to the babble coming up through
the evening--a soft liquid talking like the splashing of water, or the
sound of wings, or the mingling of both, some language more liquid
than Italian. What language was being spoken over yonder? One of the
Arabs answered, "It is the voice of the lake."

As the cavalcade rode out of the wood the lake lay a glittering mirror
before Owen, about a mile wide; he could not determine its length, for
the lake disappeared into a distant horizon, into a semblance of low
shores, still as stagnant water, reflecting the golden purple of the
sunset, and covered with millions of waterfowl. The multitude swimming
together formed an indecisive pattern, like a vague, weedy scum
collected on the surface of a marsh. Ducks, teal, widgeon, coots, and
divers were recognisable, despite the distance, by their prow-like
heads, their balance on the water, and their motion through it, "like
little galleys," Owen said. Nearer, in the reeds agitated with
millions of unseen inhabitants, snipe came and went in wisps, uttering
an abrupt cry, going away in a short, crooked flight and falling
abruptly. In the distance he saw grey herons and ibises from Egypt.
The sky darkened, and through the dusk, from over the hills, thousands
of birds continued to arrive, creating a wind in the poplars. Like an
army marching past, battalion succeeded battalion at intervals of a
few seconds; and the mass, unwinding like a great ribbon, stretched
across the lake. Then the mist gathered, blotting out everything, all
noise ceased, and the lake itself disappeared in the mist.

Turning in the saddle, Owen saw a hillock and five olive-trees. A
fire was burning. This was the encampment.




CHAPTER SIX


He had undertaken this long journey in the wilderness for the sake of
a few days' falconry, and dreaded a disappointment, for all his life
long, intermittently of course, he had been interested in hawks. As a
boy he had dreamed of training hawks, and remembered one taken by him
from the nest, or maybe a gamekeeper had brought it to him, it was
long ago; but the bird itself was remembered very well, a large, grey
hawk--a goshawk he believed it to be, though the bird is rare in
England. As he lay, seeking sleep, he could see himself a boy again,
going into a certain room to feed his hawk. It was getting very tame,
coming to his wrist, taking food from his fingers, and, not noticing
the open window, he had taken the hawk out of its cage. Was the hawk
kept in a cage or chained to the perch? He could not remember, but
what he did remember, and very well, was the moment when the bird
fluttered towards the window; he could see it resting on the sill,
hesitating a moment, doubting its power of flight. But it had ventured
out in the air and had reached a birch, on which it alighted. There
had been a rush downstairs and out of the house, but the hawk was no
longer in the birch, and was never seen by him again, yet it persisted
in his memory.

The sport of hawking is not quite extinct in England, and at various
times he had caused inquiries to be made, and had arranged once to go
to the New Forest and on another occasion to Wiltshire. But something
had happened to prevent him going, and he had continued to dream of
hawking, of the mystery whereby the hawk could be called out of the
sky by the lure--some rags and worsted-work in the shape of a bird
whirled in the air at the end of a string. Why should the hawk leave
its prey for such a mock? Yet it did; and he had always read
everything that came under his hand about hawking with a peculiar
interest, and in exhibitions of pictures had always stood a long time
before pictures of hawking, however bad they might be.

But Evelyn had turned his thoughts from sport to music, and gradually
he had become reconciled to the idea that his destiny was never to
see a hawk strike down a bird. But the occasion long looked for had
come at last, to-morrow morning the mystery of hawking would cease to
be a mystery for him any longer; and as he lay in his tent, trying to
get a few hours' sleep before dawn, he asked himself if the
realisation of his dream would profit him much, only the certain
knowledge that hawks stooped at their prey and returned to the lure;
another mystery would have been unravelled, and there were few left;
he doubted if there was another; all the sights and shows with which
life entices us were known to him, all but one, and the last would go
the way the others had gone. Or perhaps it were wiser to leave the
last mystery unravelled.

Wrapping himself closer in his blanket he sought sleep again, striving
to quiet his thoughts; but they would not be quieted. All kinds of
vain questions ran on, questions to which the wisest have never been
able to find answers: if it were good or ill-fortune to have been
called out of the great void into life, if the gift of life were one
worth accepting, and if it had come to him in an acceptable form. That
night in his tent it seemed clear that it would be better to range for
ever, from oasis to oasis with the bedouins, who were on their way to
meet him, than to return to civilisation. Of civilisation it seemed to
him that he had had enough, and he wondered if it were as valuable as
many people thought; he had found more pleasure in speaking with his
dragoman, learning Arabic from him, than in talking to educated men
from the universities and such like. Riches dry up the soul and are an
obstacle to the development of self. If he had not inherited
Riversdale and its many occupations and duties, he would be to-day an
instinctive human being instead of a scrapbook of culture. For a rich
man there is no escape from amusements which do not amuse; Riversdale
had robbed him of himself, of manhood; what he understood by manhood
was not brawn, but instincts, the calm of instincts in contradiction
to the agitation of nerves. It would have been better to have known
only the simple life, the life of these Arabs! Now they were singing
about the camp fires. Queer were the intervals, impossible of
notation, but the rhythms might be gathered ... a symphony, a defined
scheme.... The monotony of the chant hushed his thoughts, and the
sleep into which he fell must have been a deep one.

A long time seemed to have passed between sleeping and waking.

Throwing his blanket aside, he seized his revolvers. The night was
filled with cries as if the camp had been attacked. But the
disturbance was caused by the stampeding of the horses; three had
broken their tethers and had gone away, after first tumbling into the
reeds, over the hills, neighing frantically. As his horse was not one
of the three it did not matter; the Arabs would catch their horses or
would fail to catch them, and indifferent he stood watching the moon
hanging low over the landscape, a badly drawn circle, but admirably
soft to look upon, casting a gentle, mysterious light down the lake.
The silence was filled with the lake's warble, and the ducks kept
awake by the moon chattered as they dozed, a soft cooing chatter like
women gossiping; an Arab came from the wood with dry branches; the
flames leaped up, showing through the grey woof of the tent; and,
listening to the crackling, Owen muttered "Resinous wood.... tamarisk
and mastic." He fell asleep soon after, and this time his sleep was
longer, though not so deep.... He was watching hawks flying in pursuit
of a heron when a measured tramp of hooves awoke him, and hard,
guttural voices.

"The Arabs have arrived," he said, and drawing aside the curtain of
his tent, he saw at least twenty coming through the blue dusk, white
bournous, scimitars, and long-barrelled guns! "Saharians from the
desert, the true bedouin."

"The bedouin but not the true Saharian," his dragoman informed him.
And Owen retreated into his tent, thinking of the hawks which the
Arabs carried on their wrists and how hawking had been declining in
Europe since the sixteenth century. But it still flourished in Africa,
where to-day is the same as yesterday.

And while thinking of the hawks he heard the voices of the Arabs
growing angrier. Some four or five spurred their horses and were about
to ride away; but the dragoman called after them, and Owen cried out,
"As if it matters to me which hawk is flown first." The quarrel waxed
louder, and then suddenly ceased, and when Owen came out of his tent
he saw an Arab take the latchet of a bird's hood in his teeth, and
pull the other end with his right hand. "A noble and melancholy bird,"
he said, and he stood a long while admiring the narrow flattened head,
the curved beak, so well designed to rend a prey, and the round, clear
eye, which appeared to see through him and beyond him, and which in a
few minutes would search the blue air mile after mile.

The hawk sprang from the wrist, and he watched the bird flying away,
like a wild bird, down the morning sky, which had begun in orange, and
was turning to crimson. "Never will they get that bird back! You have
lost your hawk," Owen said to the Arab.

The Arab smiled, and taking a live pigeon out of his bournous, he
allowed it to flutter in the air for a moment, at the end of a string.
A moment was sufficient; the clear round eye had caught sight of the
flutter of wings, and soon came back, sailing past, high up in the
air.

"A fine flight," the Arab said, "the bird is at pitch; now is the time
to flush the covey." A dog was sent forward, and a dozen partridges
got up. And they flew, the terrible hawk in pursuit, fearing their
natural enemy above them more than any rain of lead! Owen pressed his
horse into a gallop, and he saw the hawk drop out of the sky. The
partridge shrieked, and a few seconds afterwards some feathers floated
down the wind.

Well, he had seen a falcon kill a partridge, but would the falconer be
able to lure back his hawk? That was what he wanted to see, and,
curious and interested as a boy in his first rat hunt, he galloped
forward until stopped by the falconer, who explained that the moment
was always an anxious one, for were the hawk approached from behind,
or approached suddenly, it "might carry"--that is to say, might bear
away its prey for a hundred yards, and when it had done this once it
would be likely to do so again, giving a good deal of trouble. The
falconer approached the hawk very gently, the bird raised its head to
look at the falconer, and immediately after dipped its beak again into
the partridge's breast.

Owen expected the bird to fly away, but, continuing to approach, the
falconer stooped and reaching out his hand, drew the partridge towards
him, knowing the hawk would not leave it; and when he had hold of the
jesses, the head was cut from the partridge and opened, for it is the
brain the hawk loves; and the ferocity with which this one picked out
the eye and gobbled it awoke Owen's admiration again.

"Verily, a thing beyond good and evil, a Nietzschean bird."

He had seen a hawk flown and return to the lure, he had seen a hawk
stoop at its prey, and had seen a hawk recaptured; so the mystery of
hawking was at an end for him, the mystery had been unravelled, and
now there was nothing for him to do but to watch other birds and to
learn the art of hawking, for every flight would be different.

The sun had risen, filling the air with a calm, reposeful glow; the
woods were silent, the boughs hung lifeless and melancholy, every leaf
distinct at the end of its stem, weary of its life, "unable to take
any further interest in anything," Owen said, and the cavalcade rode
on in silence.

"A little too warm the day is, without sufficient zest in it," one of
the falconers remarked, for his hawk was flying lazily, only a few
yards above the ground, too idle to mount the sky, to get at pitch;
and as the bird passed him, Owen admired the thin body, and the
javelin-like head, and the soft silken wings, the feathered thighs,
and the talons so strong and fierce.

"He will lose his bird if he doesn't get at pitch," the falconer
muttered, and he seemed ashamed of his hawk when it alighted in the
branches, and stood there preening itself in the vague sunlight. But
suddenly it woke up to its duty, and going in pursuit of a partridge,
stooped and brought it to earth.

"A fine kill; we shall have some better sport with the ducks."

Owen asked the dragoman to translate what the falconer said.

"He said it was a fine kill. He is proud of his bird."

Some Arabs rode away, and Owen heard that a boat would be required to
put up the ducks; and he was told the duck is the swiftest bird in the
air once it gets into flight, but if the peregrine is at pitch it will
stoop, and bring the duck to earth, though the duck is by five times
the heavier bird. The teal is a bird which is even more difficult for
the hawk to overtake, for it rises easier than the duck; but if the
hawk be at pitch it will strike down the quick teal. One of the Arabs
reined in his horse, and following the line of the outstretched finger
Owen saw far away in a small pool or plash of water three teal
swimming. As soon as the hawk swooped the teal dived, but not the
least disconcerted, the hawk, as if understanding that the birds were
going to be put up, rose to pitch and waited, "quite professional
like," Owen said. The beautiful little drake was picked out of a tuft
of alfa-grass. But perhaps it was the snipe that afforded the best
sport.

At mid-day the falconers halted for rest and a meal, and Owen passed
all the hawks in review, learning that the male, the tercel, is not so
much prized in falconry as the female, which is larger and fiercer.
There was not one Barbary falcon, for on making inquiry Owen was told
that the bird he was looking at was a goshawk, a much more beautiful
hawk it seemed to him than the peregrine, especially in colour; the
wings were not so dark, inclining to slate, and under the wings the
breast was white, beautifully barred. It stood much higher than the
other hawks; and Owen admired the bird's tail, so long, and he
understood how it governed the bird's flight, even before he was told
that if a hawk lost one of its tail feathers it would not be able to
fly again that season unless the feather was replaced; and the
falconer showed Owen a supply of feathers, all numbered, for it would
not do to supply a missing third feather with a fourth; and the splice
was a needle inserted into the ends of the feathers and bound fast
with fine thread. The bird's beauty had not escaped Owen's notice,
but he had been so busy with the peregrines all the morning that he
had not had time to ask why this bird wore no hood, and why it had not
been flown. Now he learnt that the goshawk is a short-winged hawk,
which does not go up in the air, and get at pitch, and stoop at its
prey like the peregrine, but flies directly after it, capturing by
speed of wing, and is used principally for ground game, rabbits, and
hares. He was told that it seized the hare or the rabbit by the hind
quarters and moved up, finding the heart and lungs with its talons. So
he waited eagerly for a hare to steal out of the cover; but none
appeared, much to the bird's disappointment--a female, and a very fine
specimen, singularly tame and intelligent. The hawk seemed to
understand quite well what was happening, and watched for an
opportunity of distinguishing herself, looking round eagerly; and so
eager was she that sometimes she fell from the falconer's wrist, who
took no notice, but let her hang until she fluttered up again; and
when Owen reproved his cruelty, he answered:

"She is a very intelligent bird and will not hang by her legs longer
than she wants to."

It was in the afternoon that her chance came, and a rare one it was.
Two bustards rose out of a clump of cacti growing about a deserted
hermitage. The meeting of the birds must have been a chance one, for
they went in different directions, and flying swiftly, soon would have
put the desert between themselves, and the falconers, and each other,
if the bird going eastward had not been frightened by the Arabs coming
up from the lake, and, losing its head, it turned back, and flying
heavily over the hawking party, gave the goshawk her single chance, a
chance which was nearly being missed, the hawk not making up her mind
at once to go in pursuit; she had been used for hunting ground game;
and for some little while it was not certain that the bustard would
not get away; this would have been a pity, for, as Owen learned
afterwards, the bird is of great rarity, almost unknown.

"She will get him, she will get him!" the falconer cried, seeing his
hawk now flying with determination, and a moment after the bustard was
struck down.

As far as sport was concerned the flight was not very interesting, but
the bustard is so rarely seen and so wary a bird that even the Arabs,
who are not sportsmen, will talk with interest about it, and Owen rode
up curious to see this almost fabulous bird, known in the country as
the habara, a bird which some ornithologists deny to be the real
bustard. Bustard or no bustard, the bird was very beautiful, six or
seven pounds in weight, the size of a small turkey, and covered with
the most beautiful feathers, pale yellow speckled with brown, a long
neck and a short, strong beak, long black legs with three toes, the
fourth, the spur, missing. That a hawk should knock over a bustard had
not happened often, and he regretted that he knew not how to save the
bird's skin, for though stuffed birds are an abomination, one need not
always be artistic. And there were plenty at Riversdale. His
grandfather had filled many cases, and this rare bird merited the
honour of stuffing. All the same, it would have to be eaten, and with
the trophy hanging on his saddle bow Owen rode back to the encampment,
little thinking he was riding to see the flight which he had been
longing to see all his life.

One of the falconers had sent up a cast of hawks, and an Arab had
ridden forward in the hope of driving some ducks out of the reeds; but
instead a heron rose and, flopping his great wings, went away, stately
and decorative, into the western sky. The hawks were far away down on
the horizon, and there was a chance that they might miss him; but the
falconer waved his lure, and presently the hawks came back; it was
then only that the heron divined his danger, and instead of trying to
outdistance his pursuers as the other birds had done, and at the cost
of their lives, he flopped his wings more vigorously, ringing his way
up the sky, knowing, whether by past experience or by instinct, that
the hawks must get above him. And the hawks went up, the birds getting
above the heron. Soon the attack would begin, and Owen remembered that
the heron is armed with a beak on which a hawk might be speared, for
is it not recorded that to defend himself the heron has raised his
head and spitted the descending hawk, the force of the blow breaking
the heron's neck and both birds coming down dead together.

"Now will this happen?" he asked himself as he watched the birds now
well above the heron. "That one," Owen cried, "is about to stoop."

And down came the hawk upon the heron, but the heron swerved cleverly.
Owen followed the beautiful shape of the bird's long neck and beak,
and the trailing legs. The second hawk stooped. "Ah I now he is
doomed," Owen cried. But again the heron dodged the hawk cleverly, and
the peregrine fell past him, and Owen saw the tail go out, stopping
the descent.

Heron and hawks went away towards the desert, Owen galloping after
them, watching the aerial battle from his saddle, riding with loose
rein, holding the rein lightly between finger and thumb, leaving his
horse to pick his way. Again a hawk had reached a sufficient height
and stooped; again the heron dodged, and so the battle continued, the
hawks stooping again and again, but always missing the heron, until at
last, no doubt tired out, the heron failed to turn in time: heron and
hawk came toppling out of the sky together; but not too quickly for
the second hawk, which stooped and grappled the prey in mid-air.

Owen touched his horse with the spur; and, his eyes fixed on the spot
where he had seen the heron and hawks falling, he galloped, regardless
of every obstacle, forgetful that a trip would cost him a broken bone,
and that he was a long way from a surgeon.

But Owen's horse picked his way very cleverly through the numerous
rubble-heaps, avoiding the great stones protruding from the sand....
These seemed to be becoming more numerous; and Owen reined in his
horse.... He was amid the ruins of a once considerable city, of which
nothing remained but the outlying streets, some doorways, and many
tombs, open every one of them, as if the dead had already been
resurrected. Before him lay the broken lid of a sarcophagus and the
sarcophagus empty, a little sand from the desert replacing the ashes
of the dead man. Owen's horse approached it, mistaking it for a
drinking trough; "and it will serve for one," he said, "in a little
while after the next rainfall. Some broken capitals, fragments of
columns, a wall built of narrow bricks, a few inscriptions ... all
that remains of Rome, dust and forgetfulness."

About him the Arabs were seeking a heron and hawks; a falconer
galloped across the plain, waving a lure, in pursuit of another hawk,
so Owen was informed by his dragoman--as if falcon or heron could
interest him at that moment--and he continued to peer into the
inscription, leaving the Arabs to find the birds. And they were
discovered presently among some marbles, the heron's wings
outstretched in death, the great red wound in its breast making it
seem still more beautiful.




CHAPTER SEVEN


The lake water was salt, but there was a spring among the hills, and
when the hawks were resting (they rested every second day) Owen liked
to go there and lie under the tamarisks, dreaming of Sicily, of "the
visionary flocks" and their shepherds no less visionary, comparing the
ideal with the real, for before him flocks grazed up the hillside and
his eyes followed the goats straying in quest of branches, their horns
tipped with the wonderful light which threw everything into
relief--the bournous of the passing bedouin, the woman's veil, whether
blue or grey, the queer architecture of the camels and dromedaries
coming up through a fold in the hills from the lake, following the
track of the caravans, their long, bird-like necks swinging, looking,
Owen thought, like a great flock of migrating ostriches.

It was pleasant to lie and dream this pastoral country and its people,
seen through a haze of fine weather which looked as if it would never
end. The swallows had just come over and were tired; Owen was
provoking enough to drive them out of the tamarisks just to see how
tired they were, and was sorry for one poor bird which could hardly
keep out of his way. Whence had they come? he asked, returning to a
couch of moss. Had any of them come from Riversdale? Perhaps some had
been hatched under his own eaves? (Any mention of Riversdale was
sufficient to soften Owen's heart.) And now under the tamarisks his
thoughts floated about that bleak house and its colonnade, thinking of
a white swallow which had appeared in the park one year; friends were
staying with him, every one had wanted to shoot it, but leave had not
been granted; and his natural kindness of heart interested him as he
lay in the shade of the tamarisks, asking himself if the white swallow
would appear, thinking that the bird ought to nod to him as it passed,
smiling at the thought, and the smile dying as his dragoman
approached; for he was coming to teach him Arabic. Owen liked to
exercise his intelligence idly; a number of little phrases had already
been picked up, and his learning he tried on the bedouins as they came
up the hill from the lake, preferring speech with them rather than
with his own people, for his own people might affect to understand
him, his dragoman might have prompted them, whereas the new arrivals
afforded a more certain examination, and Owen was pleased when the
bedouin understood him.

Next day he was hawking, and the day after he was again under the
tamarisks learning Arabic, and so the days went by between sport and
study without his perceiving them until one morning Owen found the
spring in possession of a considerable caravan, some five and twenty
or thirty camel-drivers and horsemen; and anxious to practise the last
phrases he had acquired, he went forward to meet the Saharians, for
they were easily recognisable as such by the blacker skin and a
pungent blackness in the eyes. The one addressed by Owen delighted him
by answering without hesitation:

"From Laghouat."

The hard, guttural sound he gave to the syllables threw the word into
wonderful picturesqueness, enchanted Owen. It was the first time he
had heard an Arab pronounce this word, so characteristically African;
and he asked him to say it again for the pleasure of hearing it,
liking the way the Saharian spoke it, with an accent at once tender
and proud, that of a native speaking of his country to one who has
never seen it.

"How far away is----?"

Owen tried to imitate the guttural.

"Fifteen days' journey."

"And what is the road like?"

With the superlative gesture of an Arab the man showed the smooth road
passing by the encampment, moving his arms slowly from east to west to
indicate the circuit of the horizon.

"That is the Sahara," he added, and Owen could see that for the
bedouin there was nothing in the world more beautiful than empty space
and low horizons. It was his intention to ask what were the pleasures
of the Sahara, but he had come to the end of his Arabic and turned to
his dragoman reluctantly. Dragoman and Saharian engaged in
conversation, and presently Owen learned that the birds in the desert
were sand grouse and blue pigeons, and when the Saharian gathered that
these did not afford sufficient sport he added, not wishing a stranger
should think his country wanting in anything:

"There are gazelles."

"But one cannot catch gazelles with hawks."

"No," the Saharian answered, "but one can catch them with eagles."

"Eagles!" Owen repeated. "Eagles flying after gazelles!" And he looked
into the Arab's face, lost in wonderment, seeing a picturesque
cavalcade going forth, all the horses beautiful, champing at their
bits.

"But the Arab is too picturesque," he thought; for Owen, always
captious, was at that moment uncertain whether he should admire or
criticise; and the Arabs sat grandly upright in their high-pummelled
saddles of red leather or blue velvet, their slippered feet thrust
into great stirrups. He liked the high-pummelled saddles; they were
comfortable to ride long distances in, and it was doubtless on these
high pummels that the Arabs carried the eagles (it would be impossible
to carry so large a bird on a gloved hand); and criticism melted into
admiration. He could see them riding out with the eagles tied to the
pummels of their saddles, looking into the yellow desert; the
adjective seemed to him vulgar--afterwards he discovered the desert to
be tawny. "It must be a wonderful sight ... the gazelle pursued by the
eagle!" So he spoke at once to his dragoman, telling him that he must
prepare for a long march to the desert.

"To the desert!" the dragoman repeated.

"Yes, I want to see gazelles hunted by eagles," and the grave Arab
looked into Owen's blonde face, evidently thinking him a petulant
child.

"But your Excellency----" He began to talk to Owen of the length of
the journey--twenty days at least; they would require seven, eight, or
ten camels; and Owen pointed to the camels of the bedouins from the
Sahara. The dragoman felt sure that his Excellency had not examined
the animals carefully; if his Excellency was as good a judge of camels
as he was of horses, he would see that these poor beasts required
rest; nor were they the kind suited to his Excellency. So did he talk,
making it plain that he did not wish to travel so far, and when Owen
admitted that he had not fixed a time to return to Tunis the dragoman
appeared more unwilling than ever.

"Well, I must look out for another dragoman"; and remembering that one
of his escort spoke French, and that himself had learned a little
Arabic, he told the dragoman he might return to Tunis.

"Well, my good man, what do you want me to do?" And seeing that the
matter would be arranged with or without him, the Arab offered his
assistance, which was accepted by Owen, and it now remained for the
new dragoman to pay commission to the last, and for both to arrange
with the Saharians for the purchase of their camels and their
guidance. Laghouat was Owen's destination; from thence he could
proceed farther into the desert and wander among the different
archipelagoes, until the summer drove him northward.

The sale of the camels--if not their sale, their hire--for so many
months was the subject of a long dispute in which Owen was advised not
to interfere. It would be beneath his dignity to offer any opinion, so
under the tamarisks he sat smoking, watching the Arabs taking each
other by the shoulders and talking with an extraordinary volubility.
It amused him to watch two who appeared to have come to an
understanding. "They're saying, 'Was there ever any one so
unreasonable? So-and-so, did you hear what he said?'" Drawing long
pipes from their girdles, these two would sit and smoke in silence
till from the seething crowd a word would reach them, and both would
rush back and engage in the discussion as violently as before.

Sometimes everything seemed to have been arranged and the dragoman
approached Owen with a proposal, but before the proposal could be put
into words the discussion was renewed.

"In England such a matter as the sale of a few camels would not occupy
more than half a dozen minutes."

"All countries have their manners and all have their faults," the
dragoman answered, an answer which irritated Owen; but he had to
conceal his irritation, for to show it would only delay his departure,
and he was tired of hawking, tired of the lake and anxious to see the
great desert and its oases. And he felt it to be shameful to curse the
camels. Poor animals! they had come a long way and required a few
days' rest before beginning their journey homewards.

Three days after they were judged to be sufficiently rested; this did
not seem to be their opinion, for they bleated piteously when they
were called upon to kneel down, so that their packs might be put upon
them, and upon inquiring as to the meaning of their bleats Owen was
told they were asking for a cushion--"Put a cushion on my back to save
me from being skinned."

"Hail to all!"

And the different caravans turned north and south, Owen riding at the
head of his so that he might think undisturbed, for now that
everything had been decided, he was uncertain if the pleasure he would
get from seeing gazelles torn by eagles, would recompense him for the
trouble, expense, and fatigue of this long journey. He turned his
horse to the right, and moved round in his saddle, so that he might
observe the humps and the long, bird-like necks and the shuffling gait
of the camels. They never seemed to become ordinary to him, and he
liked them for their picturesqueness, deciding that the word
"picturesque" was as applicable to them as the word "beautiful" is
applicable to the horse. He liked to see these Arab horses champing at
their cruel bits, arching their crests; he liked their shining
quarters, his own horse, a most beautiful, courageous, and faithful
animal, who would wait for him for hours, standing like a wooden
horse; Owen might let him wander at will: for he would answer his
whistle like a dog and present the left side for him to mount, from
long habit no doubt. And the moment Owen was in the saddle his horse
would draw up his neck and shake all the jingling accoutrements with
which he was covered, arch his neck, and spring forward; and when he
did this Owen always felt like an equestrian statue. And he admired
the camel-drivers, gaunt men so supple at the knee that they could
walk for miles, and when the camel broke into a trot the camel-driver
would trot with him. And the temperance of these men was equal to that
of their beasts, at least on the march; a handful of flour which the
camel-driver would work into a sort of paste, and a drink from a skin
was sufficient for a meal. Running by the side of their beasts, they
urged them forward with strange cries; and they beguiled the march
with songs. His musical instincts were often awakened by these and by
the chants which reached him through the woof of his tent at night. He
fell to dreaming of what a musician might do with these rhythms until
his thoughts faded into a faint sleep, from which he was awakened
suddenly by the neighing of a horse: one had suddenly taken fire at
the scent of a mare which a breeze had carried through the darkness.

The first bivouacs were the pleasantest part of his journey, despite
the fact that he could find no answer to the question why he had
undertaken it, or why he was learning Arabic; all the same, these days
would never be forgotten; and he looked round ... especially these
nights, every one distinct in his mind, the place where yesterday's
tent had been pitched, and the place where he had laid his head a week
ago, the stones which three nights ago had prevented him from
sleeping.

"These experiences will form part of my life, a background, an
escapement from civilisation when I return to it. We must think a
little of the future--lay by a store like the bees"; and next morning
he looked round, his eyes delighting in the beauty of the light. Truly
a light sent from beyond skies in which during the course of the day
every shade of blue could be distinguished. A thin, white cloud would
appear towards evening, stretch like a skein of white silk across the
sky, to gather as the day declined into one white cloud, which would
disappear, little by little, into the sunset. As Owen rode at the
head of his cavalcade he watched this cloud, growing smaller, and its
diminishing often inspired the thought of a ship entering into a
harbour, sail dropping over sail.

The pale autumn weather continued day after day; everything in the
landscape seemed fixed; and it seemed impossible to believe that very
soon dark clouds would roll overhead, and wind tear the trees, and
floods dangerous to man and horse rush down the peaceful river beds,
now nearly dry, only a trickle of water, losing itself among sandy
reaches.

During the long march of twenty days the caravan passed through almost
every kind of scenery--long plains in which there was nothing but
reeds and tussocked grass, and these plains were succeeded by stony
hills covered with scrub. Again they caught sight of Arab fires in the
morning like a mist, at night lighting up the horizon; and a few days
afterwards they were riding through an oak forest whose inter-spaces
were surprisingly like the tapestries at Riversdale, only no archer
came forward to shoot the stag; and he listened vainly for the sounds
of hunting horns.

On debouching from the forest they passed through pleasantly, watered
valleys, the hillsides of which were cultivated. It was pleasant to
see fields again, though they were but meagre Arab fields. All the
same Owen was glad to see the blue shadows of the woods marking the
edge of these fields, for they carried his thoughts back to England,
to his own fields, and in his mood of mind every remembrance of
England was agreeable. He was beginning to weary of wild nature, so it
was pleasant to see an Arab shepherd emerge from the scrub and come
forward to watch for a moment and then go away to the edge of a ravine
where his goats were browsing, and sit upon a rock, followed by a
yellow dog with a pointed face like a fox. It was pleasant, too, to
discover the tents of the tribe at a little distance, and the next day
to catch sight of a town, climbing a hill so steep that it was matter
for wonderment how camels could be driven through the streets.

The same beautiful weather continued--blue skies in which every shade
of blue could be studied; skies filled with larks, the true English
variety, the lark which goes about in couples, mounting the blue air,
singing, as they mounted, a passionate medley of notes, interrupted by
a still more passionate cry of two notes repeated three or four times,
followed again by the same disordered cadenzas. The robin sings in
autumn, and it seemed strange to Owen to hear this bird singing a
solitary little tune just as he sings it in England--a melancholy
little tune, quite different from the lark's passionate outpouring,
just its own quaint little avowal, somewhat auto-biographical, a human
little admission that life, after all, is a very sad thing even to the
robin. Why shouldn't it be? for he is a domestic bird of sedentary
habits, and not at all suited to this African landscape. All the same,
it was nice to meet him there. A blackbird started out of the scrub,
chattered, and dived into a thicket, just as he would in Riversdale.

"The same things," Owen said, "all the world over." On passing through
a ravine an eagle rose from a jutting scarp; and looking up the rocks,
two or three hundred feet in height, Owen wondered if it was among
these cliffs the bird built its eerie, and how the young birds were
taken by the Arabs. Crows followed the caravan in great numbers, and
these reminded Owen of his gamekeeper, a solid man, six feet high,
with reddish whiskers, the most opaque Englishman Owen had ever seen.
"'We must get rid of some of them,'" Owen muttered, quoting Burton.
"'Terrible destructive, them birds.'"

Among these remembrances of England, a jackal running across the path,
just as a fox would in England, reminded Owen that he was in Africa;
and though occasionally one meets an adder in England, one meets them
much more frequently in the North of Africa. It was impossible to say
how many Owen had not seen lying in front of his horse like dead
sticks. As the cavalcade passed they would twist themselves down a
hole. As for rats they seemed to be everywhere, and at home
everywhere, with the adders and with the rabbits; any hole was good
enough for the rat. The lizards were larger and uglier than the
English variety, and Owen never could bring himself to look upon them
with anything but disgust--their blunt head, the viscous jaws exuding
some sort of scum; and he left them to continue their eternal siesta
in the warm sand.

That evening, after passing through a succession of hills and narrow
valleys, the caravan entered the southern plain, an immense
perspective of twenty or thirty miles; and Owen reined up his horse
and sat at gaze, watching the dim greenness of the alfa-grass striped
with long rays of pale light and grey shadows. But the extent of the
plain could not be properly measured, for the sky was darkening above
the horizon.

"The rainy season is at hand," Owen said; and he watched the clouds
gathering rapidly into storm in the middle of the sky. Now and again,
when the clouds divided, a glimpse was gotten of a range of
mountains, seven crests--"seven heads," the dragoman called them, and
he told Owen the name in Arabic. These mountains were reached the
following day, and, after passing through numberless defiles, the
caravan debouched on a plain covered with stones, bright as if they
had been polished by hand--a naked country torn by the sun, in which
nothing grew, not even a thistle. In the distance were hills whose
outline zigzagged, now into points like a saw, and now into long
sweeping curves like a scythe; and these hills were full of narrow
valleys, bare as threshing-floors. The heat hung in these valleys, and
Owen rode through them, choking, for the space of a long windless day,
in which nothing was heard except the sound of the horses' hooves and
the caw of a crow flying through the vague immensity.

But the ugliness of these valleys was exceeded by the ugliness of the
marsh at whose edge they encamped next day--a black, evil-smelling
marsh full of reeds and nothing more. The question arose whether
potable water would be found, and they all went out, Owen included, to
search for a spring.

After searching for some time one was found in possession of a number
of grey vultures and enormous crows, tanged in a line along the edges,
and in the distance these seemed like men stooping in a hurry to
drink. It was necessary to fire a gun to disperse these sinister
pilgrims. But in the Sahara a spring is always welcome, even when it
carries a taste of magnesia; and there was one in the water they had
discovered, not sufficient to discourage the camels, who drank freely
enough, but enough to cause Owen to make a wry face after drinking.
All the same, it was better than the water they carried in the skins.
The silence was extraordinary, and, hearing the teeth of the camels
shearing the low bushes of their leaves, Owen looked round, surprised
by the strange resonance of the air and the peculiar tone of blue in
the sky, trivial signs in themselves, but recognisable after the long
drought. He remembered how he had experienced for the last few days a
presentiment that rain was not far off, a presentiment which he could
not attribute to his imagination, and which was now about to be
verified. A large cloud was coming up, a few heavy drops fell, and
during the night the rain pattered on the canvas; and he fell asleep,
hoping that the morning would be fine, though he had been told the
rain would not cease for days; and they were still several days'
journey from Laghouat, where they would get certain news of eagles and
gazelles, for the Arab who had first told Owen about the
gazelle-hunters admitted (Owen cursed him for not having admitted it
before) that the gazelles did not come down from the hills until
after the rains and the new grass began to spring up.

All the next day the rain continued. Owen watched it falling into the
yellow sand blown into endless hillocks; "Very drie, very drie," he
said, recalling a phrase of his own north country. Overhead a low grey
sky stooped, with hardly any movement in it, the grey moving slowly as
the caravan struggled on through grey and yellow colour--the colour of
emptiness, of the very void. It seemed to him that he could not get
any wetter; but there is no end to the amount of moisture clothes can
absorb, a bournous especially, and soon the rain was pouring down
Owen's neck; but he would not be better off if he ordered the caravan
to stop and his servants to pitch his tent under a sand-dune. Besides,
it would be dangerous to do this, for the wind was rising, and their
hope was to reach a caravansary before nightfall.

"And it is not yet mid-day," Owen said to himself, thinking of the
endless hours that lay before him, and of his wonderful horse, so
courageous and so patient in adversity, never complaining, though he
sank at every step to over his fetlocks in the sand. Owen wondered
what the animal was thinking about, for he seemed quite cheerful,
neighing when Owen leaned forward and petted him. To lean forward and
stroke his horse's neck, and speak a few words of encouragement to one
who needed no encouragement, was all there was for him to do during
that long day's march.

"If he could only speak to me," Owen said, feeling he needed
encouragement; and he tried to take refuge in the past, trying to
memorise his life, what it had been from the beginning, just as if he
were going to write a book. When his memory failed him he called his
dragoman, and began an Arabic lesson. It is hard to learn Arabic at
any time, and impossible to learn it in the rain; and after acquiring
a few words he would ride up and down, trying the new phrases upon the
camel-drivers, admirable men who never complained, running alongside
of their animals, urging them forward with strange cries. Owen admired
their patience; but their cries in the end jarred his highly-strung
nerves, and he asked himself if it were not possible for them to drive
camels without uttering such horrible sounds, and appealed to the
dragoman, who advised him to allow the drivers to do their business as
they were in the habit of doing it, for it was imperative they should
reach the caravansary that night. The wind was rising, and storms in
the desert are not only unpleasant, but dangerous. Owen tried to fall
asleep in the saddle, and he almost succeeded in dozing; anyhow, he
seemed to wake from some sort of stupor at the end of the day, just
before nightfall, for he started, and nearly fell, when his dragoman
called to him, telling him they were about to enter the ravine on the
borders of which the caravansary was situated.

The first thing he saw were three palm-trees, yellow trees torn and
broken, and there were two more a little farther on; and there was a
great noise in their crowns when the caravan drew up before the walls
of the caravansary--five palms, the wind turning their crowns inside
out like umbrellas, horrible and black, standing out in livid lines
upon a sky that was altogether black; four great walls, and on two
sides of the square an open gallery, a shelter for horses; in the
corner rooms without windows, and open doorways. Owen chose one, and
the dragoman spoke of scorpions and vipers; and well he might do so,
for Owen drove a hissing serpent out of his room immediately
afterwards, killing it in the corridor. And then the question was,
could the doorway be barricaded in such a way as to prevent the
intrusion of further visitors?

The wind continued to rise, and he lay rolled in his blanket,
uncomfortable, frightened, listening to the wind raging among the
rocks and palms, and, between his short, starting sleeps, wondering if
it would not have been better to lie in the ravine, in some crevice,
rather than in this verminous and viperous place.

Next day he had an opportunity of contrasting the discomfort of the
caravansary with a bivouac under a rainy sky; for at nightfall, within
two days' journey of Laghouat, the caravan halted in a desolate
valley, shut in between two lines of reddish hills seemingly as barren
as the valley itself. After long searching in the ravines a little
brushwood was collected, and an attempt was made to light a fire,
which was unsuccessful. The only food they had that night was a few
dates and biscuits, and these were eaten under their blankets in the
rain, Owen having discovered that it was wetter in his tent than
without. This discomfort was the most serious he had experienced, yet
he felt it hardly at all, thinking that perhaps it would have been
very little use coming to the desert in a railway train or in a mail
coach. Only by such adventures is travel made rememberable, and,
looking out of his blankets, he was rewarded by a sight which he felt
would not be easily forgotten--the camels on their knees about the
drivers, who were feeding them from their hands, the poor beasts
leaning out their long necks to take what was given to them--a
wretched repast, yet their grunts were full of satisfaction.

In the morning, however, they were irritable, and bleated angrily
when asked to kneel down so that their packs might be put upon them;
but in the end they submitted, and Owen noticed a certain strain of
cheerfulness in their demeanour all that day. Perhaps they scented
their destination. Owen's horse certainly scented a stable within a
day's journey of Laghouat, for he pricked up his ears, and there was
nothing else but the instinct of a stable that could have induced him
to do so, for on their left was a sinister mountain--sinister always,
Owen thought, even in the sunlight, but more sinister than ever in the
rainy season, wrapped in a cloud, showing here and there a peak when
the clouds lifted. And no mountain seemed harder to leave behind than
this one. Owen, who knew that Laghouat was not many miles distant,
rode on in front, impatient to see the oasis rise out of the desert.
The wind still raged, driving the sand; and before him stretched
endless hillocks of yellow sand; and he wandered among these,
uncertain whither lay the road, until he happened upon a little convoy
bringing grain to the town. The convoy turned to the left.... His
mistake was that he had been looking to the right.

Laghouat, built among rocks, some of which were white, showed up high
above the plain; and, notwithstanding his desire for food and shelter,
he sat on his horse at gaze, interested in the ramparts of this black
town, defended by towers, outlined upon a grey sky.




CHAPTER EIGHT


"When a woman has seen the guest she no longer cares for the master."
An old hunter had told him this proverb, a lame, one-eyed man, an
outcast from his tribe, or very nearly, whose wife was so old that
Owen's presence afforded him no cause for jealousy, a friend of the
hunter who owned the eagles, so Owen discovered, but not until the end
of a week's acquaintance, which was strange, for he had seen a great
deal of this man in the last few days. The explanation he gave one
night in the caf where Owen went to talk and drink with the Spahis;
coming in suddenly, and taking Owen away into a corner, he explained
that he had not told him before that his friend Tahar, he who owned
the eagles, had gone away to live in another oasis, because it had not
occurred to him that Owen was seeking Tahar, fancying somehow that it
was another--as if there were hundreds of people in the Sahara who
hunted gazelles with eagles!

"_Grand Dieu!_" and Owen turned to his own dragoman, who happened to
be present. "_A-t-on jamais!... Ici depuis trois semaines!_"

The dragoman, who expected an outburst, reminded Owen of the progress
he had made in Arabic, and of the storms of the last three weeks, the
rain and wind which had made travelling in the desert impossible, and
when Owen spoke of starting on the morrow the dragoman shook his head,
and the wind in the street convinced Owen that he must remain where he
was.

"_Mais si j'avais su_----"

The dragoman pointed out to him the terrible weather they had
experienced, and how glad he had been to find shelter in Laghouat.

"_Oui. Sidna, vous tes maintenant au comble de regrets, mais pour
rien au monde vous n'auriez fait ces tapes vers le sud_."

Owen felt that the man was right, though he would not admit it; the
camels themselves could hardly have been persuaded to undertake
another day's march; his horse--well, the vultures might have been
tearing him if he had persevered, so instead of going off in one of
his squibby little rages, which would have made him ridiculous, Owen
suddenly grew sad and invited the hunter to drink with him, and it was
arranged that as soon as the wind dropped the quest for Tahar should
be pursued.

He would be found in an oasis not more than two days' journey from
Laghouat, so the hunter said, but the dragoman's opinion was that the
old hunter was not very sure; Tahar would be found there, and if he
were not there he was for certain in another oasis three or four days
still farther south.

"But I cannot travel all over the Sahara in search of eagles."

"If _Sidna_ would like to-return to Tunis?"

But to return to Tunis would mean returning to England, and Owen felt
that his business in the desert was not yet completed; as well travel
from one oasis to another in quest of eagles as anything else, and
three days afterwards he rode at the head of his caravan, anxious to
reach Ain Mahdy, trying to believe he had grown interested in the
Arab, and would like to see him living under the rule of his own
chief, even though the chief was, to a certain extent, responsible to
the French Government; still, to all intents and purposes he would be
a free Arab. Yes, and Owen thought he would like to see a Kaid; and
wondering what his reception would be like, he rode through the desert
thinking of the Kaid, his eyes fixed on the great horizons which had
re-appeared, having been lost for many days in mist and rain.

An exquisite silence vibrated through the great spaces, music for
harps rather than for violins, and Owen rode on, reaching the oasis,
as he had been told he would, at the end of the second day's journey.
When he arrived the Kaid was engaged in administering justice, and
Owen was forced _de faire un peu l'anti-chambre_; but this was not
disagreeable to him. The Arab court-house seemed to him an excellent
place for a lesson in the language; and the case the Kaid was deciding
was to his taste. A man was suing for divorce, and for reasons which
would have astonished Englishmen, and cause the plaintiff to be hurled
out of civilised society; but in the Sahara the case did not strike
anybody as unnatural; and Owen listened to the woman telling her
misfortunes under a veil. But though deeply interested he was forced
to leave the building; the flies plagued him unendurably, and
presently he found the flies had odious auxiliaries in the carpet, and
after explaining his torture to the dragoman, who was not suffering at
all, he left the building and walked in the street.

Half an hour after the Kaid came forward to meet him with a little
black sheep in his arms, struggling, frightened at finding itself
captured, bleating painfully. The wool was separated, and Owen was
invited to feel this living flesh, which in a few hours he would be
eating; it would have been impolite to the Kaid to refuse to feel the
sheep's ribs, so Owen complied, though he knew that doing so would
prevent him from enjoying his dinner, and he was very hungry at the
time. The sheep's eyes haunted him all through the meal, and his
pleasure was still further discounted by the news that though the
eagles were at Ain Mahdy, the owner having left them----

"Having left them," Owen repeated. "Good God! I was told he was here."

"He left here three days ago."

Owen cursed his friend in Laghouat. If he had only told him in the
beginning of the week! The dragoman answered:

"_Sidna, vous vous en souvenez_."

"Speak to me in Arabic, damn you! There is nothing to do here but to
learn Arabic."

"Quite true, _Sidna_, we shall not be able to start to-morrow; the
rains are beginning again."

"Was there ever such luck as mine, to come to the desert, where it
never rains, and to find nothing but rain?"--rain which Owen had never
seen equalled except once in Connemara, where he had gone to fish, and
it annoyed him to hear that these torrential rains only happened once
every three or four years in the Sahara. He was too annoyed to answer
his dragoman.... _Enfin_, Tahar had left his eagles at Ain Mahdy, and
Owen fed them morning and evening, gorging them with food, not knowing
that one of the great difficulties is to procure in the trained eagle
sufficient hunger to induce him to pursue the quarry. It was an
accident that some friend of Tahar's surprised Owen feeding the eagles
and warned him.

"These eagles will not be able to hunt for weeks now."

Owen cursed himself and the universe, Allah and the God of Israel,
Christ and the prophets.

"But, _Sidna_, their hunger can be excited by a drug, and this drug is
Tahar's secret."

"Then to-morrow we start, though there be sand storms or rain storms,
whatever the weather may be."

The dragoman condoned Owen's mistake in feeding the eagles.

"The gazelles come down from the mountains after the rains; we shall
catch sight of some on our way."

A few hours after he rode up to Owen and said, "Gazelles!"

When he looked to the right of the sunset Owen could see yellow,
spotted with black; something was moving over yonder among the patches
of rosemary and lavender.

The gazelles were far away when the caravan reached the rosemary, but
their smell remained, overpowering that of the rosemary and lavender;
it seemed as if the earth itself breathed nothing but musk, and Owen's
surprise increased when he saw the Arabs collecting the droppings, and
on asking what use could be made of these he was told that when they
were dried they were burnt as pastilles; when the animal had been
feeding upon rosemary and lavender they gave out a delicious odour.

Then the dragoman told Owen to prepare for sand grouse; and a short
while afterwards one of the Arabs cried, "Grouse! Grouse!" and a pack
of thirty or forty flew away, two falling into the sand.

They came upon a river in flood, and while the Arabs sought a ford
Owen went in search of blue pigeons, and succeeded in shooting
several; and these were plucked and eaten by the camp fire that night,
the coldest he had known in the Sahara. When the fire burnt down a
little he awoke shivering. And he awoke shivering again at daybreak;
and the cavalcade continued its march across a plain, flat and empty,
through which the river's banks wound like a green ribbon.... Some
stunted vegetation rose in sight about mid-day, and Owen thought that
they were near the oasis towards which they were journeying; but on
approaching he saw that what he had mistaken for an oasis was but the
ruins of one that had perished last year owing to a great drought,
only a few dying palms remaining. Oases die, but do new ones rise from
the desert? he wondered. A ragged chain of mountains, delightfully
blue in the new spring weather, entertained him all the way across an
immense tract of barren country; and at the end of it his searching
eyes were rewarded by a sight of his destination--some palms showing
above the horizon on the evening sky.




CHAPTER NINE


As the caravan approached the beach he caught sight of an Arab, or one
whom he thought was an Arab, and riding straight up to him, Owen
asked:

"Do you know Tahar?"

"The hunter?"

"Yes," and breathing a sigh, he said he had travelled hundreds of
miles in search of him--"and his eagles."

"He left here two or three days ago for Ain Mahdy."

"Left here! Good God!" and Owen threw up his arms.

"Left two days ago, and I have come from Ain Mahdy, nearly from Tunis,
in search of him I We have passed each other in the desert," he said,
looking round the great plain, made of space, solitude, and sun. It
had become odious to him suddenly, and he seemed to forget everything.

As if taking pity on him, Monsieur Bclre asked him to stay with him
until Tahar returned.

"We will hunt the gazelles together."

"That is very kind of you."

And Owen looked into the face of the man to whom he had introduced
himself so hurriedly. He had been so interested in Tahar, and so
overcome by the news of his absence, that he had not had time to give
a thought to the fact that the conversation was being carried on in
French. Now the thought suddenly came into his mind that the man he
was speaking to was not an Arab but a Frenchman. "He must certainly be
a Frenchman, no one but a Frenchman could express himself so well in
French."

"You are very kind," he said, and they strolled up the oasis together,
Owen telling Monsieur Bclre that at first he had mistaken him for an
Arab. "Only your shoulders are broader, and you are not so tall; you
walk like an Arab, not quite so loosely, not quite the Arab shuffle,
but still----"

"A cross between the European spring and the loose Arab stride?"

"Do you always dress as an Arab?"

"Yes, I have been here for thirty-one years, ever since I was
fourteen." Owen looked at him.

"Here, in an oasis?"

"Yes, in an oasis, a great deal of which I have created for myself.
The discovery of a Roman well enabled me to add many hundred
_hectares_ to my property.

"The rediscovery of a Roman well!"

"Yes. If the Sahara is barren, it is because there is no water." Owen
seemed to be on the verge of hearing the most interesting things about
underground lakes only twenty or thirty feet from the surface. "But I
will tell you more about them another time."

Owen looked at Bclre again, thinking that he liked the broad, flat
strip of forehead between the dark eyebrows, and the dark hair,
streaked with grey, the eyes deep in the head, and of an acrid
blackness like an Arab's; the long, thin nose like an Arab's--a face
which could have had little difficulty in acquiring the Arab cast of
feature; and there had been time enough to acquire it, though Bclre
was not more than forty-five.

"No doubt you speak Arabic like French."

"Yes, I speak modern Arabic as easily as French. The language of the
Koran is different." And Bclre explained that there was no writing
done in the dialects. When an Arab wrote to another, he wrote in the
ancient language, which was understood everywhere.

"You have learned a little Arabic, I see," Bclre said, and Owen
foresaw endless dialogues between himself and Monsieur Bclre, who
would instruct him on all the points which he was interested in. The
orchards they were passing through (apricot, apple, and pear-trees)
were coming into blossom.

"I had expected oranges and lemons."

"They don't grow well here, but we have nearly all our own
vegetables--haricot-beans, potatoes, artichokes, peas."

"Of course there are no strawberries?"

"No, we don't get any strawberries. There is my house." And within a
grove of beautiful trees, under which one could sit, Owen caught sight
of a house, half Oriental, half European. He admired the flat roofs
and the domes, which he felt sure rose above darkened rooms, where
Bclre and those who lived with him slept in the afternoons. "You
must be tired after your long ride, and would like to have a bath."

Owen followed Bclre through a courtyard, where a fountain sang in
dreamy heat and shade, bringing a little sensation of coolness into
the closed room, which did not strike him as being particularly
Moorish, notwithstanding the engraved brass lamps hanging from the
ceiling, and the Oriental carpet on the floor, and the screen inlaid
with mother-of-pearl. Owen did not know whether linen sheets were a
European convention, and could be admitted into an Eastern
dwelling-house, but he was not one of those who thought everything
should be in keeping. He liked incongruities, being an inveterate
romancist and only a bedouin by caprice. One appreciates sheets after
months of pilgrimage, and one appreciates a good meal after having
eaten nothing for a long while better than sand-goose roasted at the
camp fire. More than the pleasure of the table was the pleasure of
conversation with one speaking in his native language. Bclre's mind
interested him; it was so steady, it looked towards one point always.
That was his impression when he left his host after a talk lasting
till midnight; and, thinking of Bclre and his long journey to him,
he sat by his window watching stars of extraordinary brilliancy, and
breathing a fragrance rising from the tropical garden beneath him--a
fragrance which he recognised as that of roses; and this set him
thinking that it was the East that first cultivated roses; and amid
many memories of Persia and her poets, he threw himself into bed,
longing for sleep, for a darkness, which, in a few hours, would pass
into a delicious consciousness of a garden under exquisite skies.

His awakening was even more delightful than he anticipated. The
fragrance that filled his room had a magic in it which he had never
known before, and there was a murmur of doves in the palms, and in the
dovecot hanging above the dog-kennel. As he lay between sleeping and
waking, a pair of pigeons flew past his window, their shadows falling
across his bed. An Arab came to conduct him to his bath; and after
bathing he returned to his room, glad to get into its sunlight again,
and to loiter in his dressing, standing by the window, admiring the
garden below, full of faint perfume. The roses were already in
blossom, and through an opening in the ilex-trees he caught sight of a
meadow overflowing with shadow, the shadow of trees and clouds, and of
goats too, for there was a herd feeding and trying to escape from the
shepherd (a young man wearing a white bournous and a red felt cap)
towards the garden, where there were bushes. On the left, amid a group
of palms, were the stables, and Owen thought of his horse feeding and
resting after his long journey. And there were Bclre's horses too.
Owen had not seen them yet; nor had he seen the dog, nor the pigeons.
This oasis was full of pleasant things to see and investigate, and he
hurried through his meal, longing to get into the open air and to
gather some roses. All about him sounds were hushing, and lights
breaking, and shadows floating, and every breeze was scented. As he
followed the finely-sanded walks, he was startled by a new scent, and
with dilating nostrils tried to catch it, tried to remember if it were
mastick or some resinous fir; and, walking on like one in a trance, he
admired Bclre's taste in the planting of this garden.

"A strange man, so refined and intelligent--why does he live here?...
Why not?"

Returning suddenly to the ilex-trees, which he liked better than the
masticks, or the tamarisks, or any fir, he sat down to watch the
meadow, thinking there was nothing in the world more beautiful than
the moving of shadows of trees and clouds over young grass, and
nothing more beautiful than a young shepherd playing a flute: only one
thing more beautiful--a young girl carrying an amphora! She passed out
of the shadows, wearing a scarlet haik and on her arms and neck a
great deal of rough jewellery.

"She is going to the well," he said. The shepherd stopped playing and
advanced to meet her. Boy and girl stood talking for a little while.
He heard laughter and speech ... saw her coming towards him. "She will
follow this path to the house, and I shall see her better." A little
in front of the ilex-trees she stopped to look back upon the shepherd,
leaning the amphora upon her naked hip. The movement lasted only a
moment, but how beautiful it was! On catching sight of Owen, she
passed rapidly up the path, meeting Bclre on his way.

"Speaking to him in Arabic," Owen said, as he continued to admire the
beautiful face he had just seen--a pointed oval, dark eyes, a small,
fine nose, red lips and a skin the colour of yellow ivory. "Still a
child and already a woman, not more than twelve or thirteen at the
very most; the sun ripens them quickly." This child recalled a dream
which he had let drop in Tunis--a dream that he might go into the
desert and find an Arab maiden the colour of yellow ivory, and live
with her in an oasis, forgetful.... Only by a woman's help could he
ever forget Evelyn. The old bitterness welled up bitter as ever. "And
I thought she was beginning to be forgotten."

In his youth he had wearied of women as a child wearies of toys. Few
women had outlasted the pleasure of a night, all becoming equally
insipid and tedious; but since he had met Evelyn he had loved no
other. Why did he love her? How was it he could not put her out of his
mind? Why couldn't he accept an Arab girl--Bclre's girl? She was
younger and more beautiful. If she did not belong to Bclre---- Owen
looked up and watched them, and seeing Bclre glance in the direction
of the shepherd, he added, "Or to the shepherd."

The girl went into the house, and Bclre came down to meet his
guest, apologising for having left him so long alone.... He talked to
him about the beauty of the morning. The rains were over, or nearly,
but very often they began again.

"_Cella se peut qu'elle ne soit qu'une courte embellie, mais profitons
en_," and they turned to admire the roses.

"A beautiful girl, the one you were just speaking to."

"Yes ... yes; she is the handsomest in the oasis, and there are many
handsome girls here. The Arab race is beautiful, male and female. Her
brother, for instance, the shepherd----"

"Her brother," Owen thought. "Ah!" They stopped to watch the shepherd,
a boy of sixteen. "About two years older than his sister," Owen
remarked, and Bclre acquiesced. The boy had begun to play his flute
again. He played at first listlessly, then with all his soul, and then
with extraordinary passion. Owen watched the balance of his body and
arms, and the movement, extraordinarily voluptuous, of his neck and
head. He played on, his breath coming at times so feebly that there
was hardly any sound at all, at other times awaking music loud and
imperative; and the two men stood listening for how many minutes they
did not know, but for what seemed to them a long while. Their reveries
stopped when the music ceased. It was then that a dun-coloured dove
with a lilac neck flew through the garden and took refuge in a palm,
seen for a moment as she alighted on the flexible djerrid on a
background of blue air. She disappeared into the heart of the tree;
the leaves were again stirred. She cooed once or twice, and then there
was a hush and a stillness in every leaf.

"You would like to see my property?"

Owen said he would like to see all the oasis, or as much as they could
see of it in one day without fatiguing themselves.

"You can see it all in a day, for it is but a small island, about a
thousand Arabs in the villages."

"So many as that?"

"Well, there has to be, in order to save ourselves from the predatory
bands which still exist, for, as I daresay you have already learned,
the Arabs are divided into two classes--the agricultural and the
nomadic. We have to be in sufficient numbers to save ourselves from
the nomads, otherwise we should be pillaged and harried from year's
end to year's end--all our crops and camels taken."

"Border warfare--the same as existed in England in the Middle Ages."

Bclre agreed that the unsettled vagrant civilisation which existed in
the North of Africa up to 1830--which in 1860 was beginning to pass
away, and the traces of which still survived in the nineties--resembled
very much the border forays for which Northumberland is still famous;
and, walking through the palm-grove towards the Arab village, they
talked of the Arab race, listening all the while to the singing of doves
and of streams, Owen listless and happy.

"But I shall remember her again presently, and the stab will be as
bitter as ever!"

Bclre did not believe that the Arab race was ever as great a race as
we were inclined to give it credit for being.

"All the same, if it hadn't been for your ancestors, we might have all
been Moslems now," Owen said, stopping to admire what remained of the
race which had conquered Spain and nearly conquered France. "Now they
are outcasts of our civilisation--but what noble outcasts! That
fellow, he is old, and without a corner, perhaps, where to lay his
head, but he walks magnificently in his ragged bournous. He is poor,
but he isn't a beggar; his life is sordid, but it isn't trivial; he
retains his grand walk and his solemn salute; and if he has never
created an art, himself is proof that he isn't without the artistic
sentiment."

Bclre looked at Owen in surprise, and Owen, thinking to astonish
him, added:

"His poverty and his filth are sublime; he is a Jew from Amsterdam
painted by Rembrandt, or a Jew from Palestine described by the authors
of the Pentateuch."

"The Jew is a tougher fellow to deal with; he cannot be eradicated,
but the Arab was very nearly passing away. If he had insisted on
remaining the noble outcast which you admire, he would not have
survived the Red Indian many hundreds of years. I don't contest
whether to lose him would be a profit or a loss, but when civilisation
comes the native race must accept it or extinction."

"I suppose you're right," Owen answered, "I suppose you're right."

And they stopped to look at an Arab town; some of it was in the plain
below, some of it ran up the steep hillside, on the summit of which
was a ruined mosque.

"Why did they choose to build up such a steep hillside?"

"The oasis is limited, and the plain is devoted to orchards. Look at
the village! If you were to visit their town, you would not find a
street in which a camel could turn round, hardly any windows, and the
doors always half closed. They are still suspicious of us and anxious
to avoid our inquisition. Yes, that is the characteristic of the Arab,
to conceal himself, and his wife, and his business from us."

"One can sympathise with the desire to avoid inquisition, and
notwithstanding the genius of your race--no one is more sympathetic to
you than I am--yet it is impossible not to see that your fault is
red-tapeism, and that is what the Arab hates. You see I understand."

"I don't think I am unsympathetic, and the Arabs don't think it.
Perhaps there is no man in Africa who can travel as securely as I
can--even in the Soudan I should be well received--and what other
European could say as much? There must be something of the Arab in me,
otherwise I shouldn't have lived amongst them so long, nor should I
speak Arabic as easily as I do, nor should I look--remember, you
thought I was an Arab."

"Yes, at first sight."

The admission was given somewhat unwillingly, not because Owen saw
Bclre differently, he still saw an Arab exterior, but he had begun
to recognise him as a Frenchman. Race characteristics are generally
imaginary; there are, shall we say, twenty millions of Frenchmen in
France, and every one is different; how therefore is it possible to
speak of race characteristics? Still, if one may differentiate at all
between the French and English races (but is there a French and
English race?) we know there is a negro race because it is
black--however, if there be any difference between England and France,
the difference is that France is more inclined to pedantry than
England. If one admits any race difference, one may admit this one;
and, with such thoughts in his mind, Owen began to perceive Bclre as
the typical French pedagogue, a clever man, one who if he had remained
in Paris would have become _un membre de l'Institut_.

Bclre, _un membre de l'Institut_, talking to the beautiful girl whom
Owen had seen that morning! Owen smiled a little under his moustache,
and, as there was plenty of time for meditation while waiting for
Tahar to return from Ain Mahdy, he spent a great deal of time
wondering if any sensual relations existed between Bclre and this
girl. Bclre as a lover appeared to him anomalous and disparate--that
is how Bclre would word it himself, but these pedants were very
often serious sensualists. We easily associate conventional morality
with red-tapeism, for it seems impossible to believe that the stodgy
girl who spends her morning in the British Museum working at the
higher mathematics or Sanscrit is likely to spend her afternoon in
bed, yet this is what happens frequently; the real sensualist is the
pedant; "and, if one wants love, the real genuine article," whispered
a thought, "one must seek it among clergymen's daughters."

That girl Bclre's mistress! Why not? The thought pleased and amused
him, reconciled him to Bclre, whom he never should have thought
capable of such fine discrimination. But it did not follow that
because Bclre had chosen a beautiful girl to love he was susceptible
to artistic influences, sculpture excepted. Of the other arts Owen
felt instinctively that Bclre knew nothing; indeed, yester evening,
when he, Owen, had spoken of "The Ring," Bclre had answered that his
business in life had not allowed him to cultivate musical tastes. He
had once liked music, but now it interested him no longer.

"Tastes atrophy."

"Of course they do," Owen had answered, and Bclre's knowledge of
himself propitiated Owen, who recognised a clever man in the remark, a
man of many sympathies, though the exterior was prosaic. All the same
Owen would have wished for some music in the evening, and for some
musical assistance, for while waiting for the eagles to arrive he
spent his time thinking how he might write the songs he heard every
morning among the palm-trees; written down they did not seem nearly as
original as they did on the lips, and Owen suspected his notation to
be deficient. A more skilful musician would be able to get more of
these rhythms on paper than he had been able to do, and he regretted
his failures, for it would be interesting to bring home some copies of
these songs just to show....

But he would never see her again, so what was the good of writing down
these songs? What was the good of anything? A strange thing life is,
and he paused to consider how the slightest event, the fact that he
was unable to give complete expression on paper to an Arab rhythm,
brought the old pain back again, and every pang of it. Even the
society of Bclre was answerable for his suffering, and he thought
how he must go away and travel again; only open solitude and wandering
with rough men could still his pain; primitive Nature was the one
balm.... That fellow Tahar--why did he delay? Owen thought of the
eagles, the awful bird pursuing the fleeting deer, and himself riding
in pursuit. This was the life that would cure him--how soon? In three
months? in six? in ten years? It would be strange if he were to become
a bedouin for love of her, and he walked on thinking how they had lain
together one night listening to the silence, hearing nothing but an
acacia moving outside their window. Bclre was coming towards him and
the vision vanished.

"No news of Tahar yet?"

"No; you are forgetting that we are living in an oasis, where letters
are not delivered, and where we bring news of ourselves, and where no
news is understood to mean that the spring we were hastening towards
was dry, or that a sand-storm--"

"Sand-storms are rare at this season of the year."

"An old bedouin like Tahar is safe enough. To-morrow or the day after
... but I see you are impatient, you are growing tired of my company."

Owen assured Bclre he was mistaken, only a sedentary life was
impossible to him, and he was anxious to be off again.

"So there is something of the wanderer in you, for no business calls
you."

"No, my agent manages everything for me; it is, I suppose, mere
restlessness." And Owen spoke of going in quest of Tahar.

"To pass him again in the desert," and they went towards the point
where they might watch for Tahar, Bclre knowing by the sun the
direction in which to look. There was no route, nothing in the empty
space extending from their feet to the horizon--a line inscribed
across the empty sky--nothing to be seen although the sun hung in the
middle of the sky, the rays falling everywhere; it would have seemed
that the smallest object should be visible, but this was not so--there
was nothing. Even when he strained his eyes Owen could not distinguish
which was sand, which was earth, which was stone, even the colour of
the emptiness was undecided. Was it dun? Was it tawny? Striving to
express himself, Owen could find nothing more explicit to say than
that the colour of the desert was the colour of emptiness, and they
sat down trying to talk of falconry. But it was impossible to talk in
front of this trackless plain, _cela coupe la parole_, flowing away to
the south, to the west, to the east, ending--it was impossible to
imagine it ending anywhere, no more than we can imagine the ends of
the sky; and the desert conveyed the same impression of loneliness--in
a small way, of course--as the great darkness of the sky; "for the
sky," Owen said, half to himself, half to his companion, "is dark and
cold the moment one gets beyond the atmosphere of the earth."

"The desert is, at all events, warm," Bclre interjected.

Hot, trackless spaces, burning solitudes through which nobody ever
went or came. It was the silence that frightened Owen; not even in the
forest, in the dark solitudes avoided by the birds, is there silence.
There is a wind among the tree-tops, and when the wind is still the
branches sway a little; there is nearly always a swaying among the
branches, and even when there is none, the falling of some giant too
old to subsist longer breaks the silence, frightens the wild beast,
who retires growling. The sea conveys the same sense of primal
solitude as the forest, but it is less silent; the sea tears among the
rocks as if it would destroy the land, but when its rage is over the
sea laughs, and leaps, and caresses, and the day after fawns upon the
land, drawing itself up like a woman to her lover, as voluptuously.
Nowhere on earth, only in the desert, is there silence; even in the
tomb there are worms, but in some parts of the desert there are not
even worms, the body dries into dust without decaying. Owen imagined
the resignation of the wanderer who finds no water at the spring, and
lies down to die amid the mighty indifference of sterile Nature; and
breaking the silence, somewhat against his will, he communicated his
thoughts to Bclre, that an unhappy man who dare not take his life
could not do better than to lose himself in the desert. Death would
come easily, for seeing nothing in front of him but an empty horizon,
nothing above him but a blank sky, and for a little shelter a sand
dune, which the wind created yesterday and will uncreate to-morrow, he
would come to understand all that he need know regarding his
transitory and unimportant life. Does Nature care whether we live or
die? We have heard often that she cares not a jot for the
individual.... But does she care for the race--for mankind more than
for beastkind? His intelligence she smiles at, concerned with the
lizard as much as with the author of "The Ring." Does she care for
either? After all, what is Nature? We use words, but words mean so
little. What do we mean when we speak of Nature? Where does Nature
begin? Where does she end? And God? We talk of God, and we do not know
whether he sleeps, or drinks, or eats, whether he wears clothes or
goes naked; Moses saw his hinder parts, and he used to be jealous and
revengeful; but as man grows merciful God grows merciful with him, we
make him to our own likeness, and spend a great deal of money on the
making.

"Yes, God is a great expense, but government would be impossible
without him."

Bclre's answer jarred Owen's mood a little, without breaking it,
however, and he continued to talk of how words like "Nature," and
"God," and "Liberty" are on every lip, yet none is able to define
their meaning. Liberty he instanced as a word around which poems have
been written, "yet no poet could tell what he was writing about; at
best we can only say of liberty that we must surrender something to
gain something; in other words, liberty is a compromise, for no one
can be free to obey every impulse the moment one enters into his
being."

"Good God, Bclre! it is terrible to think one knows nothing, and
life, like the desert, is full of solitude."

Bclre did not answer, and, forgetful that it was impossible to
answer a cry of anguish, Owen began to suspect Bclre of thoughts
regarding the perfectibility of mankind, of thinking that with
patience and more perfect administration, &c. But Bclre was thinking
nothing of the kind; he was wondering what sort of reason could have
sent Owen out of England. Some desperate love affair perhaps, his wife
may have run away from him. But he did not try to draw Owen into
confidence, speaking instead of falconry and Tahar's arrival, which
could not be much longer delayed.

"After all, if you had not missed him in the desert we never should
have known each other."

"So much was gained, and if you ever come to England--" Bclre
smiled. "So you think we shall never meet again, and that we are
talking out our last talk on the edge of this gulf of sand?"

"We shall meet again if you come to the desert to hunt with eagles."

"But you will not come to England?" Bclre did not think it necessary
to answer. "But in France? You will return to France some day?"

"Why should I? Whom do I know in France? _Je ne suis plus un des
vtres. Qu'irais-je y faire_? But we are not talking for the last
time, Tahar has yet to arrive, he will be here to-morrow and we'll go
hunting; and after our hunting I hope to induce you to stop some while
longer. You see, you haven't seen the desert; the desert isn't the
desert in spring. To see the desert you will have to stop till July.
This sea of sand will then be a ring of fire, and that sky, now so
mild, will be dark blue and the sun will hang like a furnace in the
midst of it. Stay here even till May and you will see the summer,
_chez lui_."




CHAPTER TEN


At the beginning of July Owen appeared on the frontiers of Egypt
shrieking for a drink of clean water, and saying that the desire to
drink clean water out of a glass represented everything he had to say
for the moment about the desert; all the same, he continued to tell of
fetid, stale, putrid wells, and of the haunting terror with which the
Saharian starts in the morning lest he should find no water at the
nearest watering-place, only a green scum fouled by the staling of
horses and mules! Owen was as plain-spoken as Shakespeare, so Harding
said once, defending his friend's use of the word "sweat" instead of
"perspiration." There was no doubt the language was deteriorating,
becoming euphonistic; everybody was a euphonist except Owen, who
talked of his belly openly, blurting out that he had vomited when he
should have said he had been sick. There were occasions when Harding
did not spare Owen and laughed at his peculiarities; but there was
always a certain friendliness in his malice, and Owen admired
Harding's intelligence and looked forward to a long evening with him
almost as much as he had looked forward to a drink of clean water. "It
will be delightful to talk again to somebody who has seen a picture
and read a book," he said, leaning over the taff-rail of the steamer.
But this dinner did not happen the day he arrived in London--Harding
was out of town! And Owen cursed his luck as he walked out of the
doorway in Victoria Street. "Staying with friends in the country!" he
muttered. "Good God! will he never weary of those country houses,
tedious beyond measure--with or without adultery," he chuckled as he
walked back to his club thinking out a full-length portrait of his
friend--a small man with high shoulders, a large overhanging forehead,
walking on thin legs like one on stilts. But Harding's looks mattered
little; what people sought Harding for was not for his personal
appearance, nor even for his writings, though they were excellent, but
for his culture. A curious, clandestine little man with a warm heart
despite the exterior. Owen had seen Harding's eyes fill with tears and
his voice tremble when he recited a beautiful passage of English
poetry; a passionate nature, too, for Harding would fight fiercely for
his ideas, and his life had been lived in accordance with his beliefs.
As the years advanced his imaginative writing had become perhaps a
little didactic; his culture had become more noticeable--Owen laughed:
it pleased him to caricature his friends--and he thought of the stream
of culture which every hostess could turn on when Harding was her
guest. The phrase pleased him: a stream of culture flowing down the
white napery of every country house in England, for Harding travelled
from one to another. Owen had seen him laying his plans at Nice,
beginning his year as an old woman begins a stocking (setting up the
stitches) by writing to Lady So-and-so, saying he was coming back to
England at a certain time. Of course Lady So-and-so would ask him to
stay with her. Then Harding would write to the nearest neighbour,
saying, "I am staying with So-and-so for a week and shall be going on
to the north the week after next--now would it be putting you to too
much trouble if I were to spend the interval with you?" News of these
visits would soon get about, and would suggest to another neighbour
that she might ask him for a week. Harding would perhaps answer her
that he could not come for a week, but if she would allow him to come
for a fortnight he would be very glad because then he would be able to
get on to Mrs. ----. In a very short time January, February, March and
April would be allotted; and Owen imagined Harding walking under
immemorial elms gladdened by great expanses of park and pleased in the
contemplation of swards which had been rolled for at least a thousand
years. "A castellated wall, a rampart, the remains of a moat, a
turreted chamber must stir him as the heart of the war horse is said
to be stirred by a trumpet. He demands a spire at least of his
hostess; and names with a Saxon ring in them, names recalling deeds of
Norman chivalry awaken remote sympathies, inherited perhaps; sonorous
titles, though they be new ones, are better than plain Mr. and Mrs.;
'ladyship' and 'lordship' are always pleasing in his ears, and an
elaborate escutcheon more beautiful than a rose. After all, why not
admire the things of a thousand years ago as well as those of
yesterday?" Owen continued to think of Harding's admiration of the
past. "It has nothing in common with the vulgar tuft-hunter, deeply
interested in the peerage, anxious to get on. Harding's admiration of
the aristocracy is part of himself; it proceeds from hierarchical
instinct and love of order. He sees life flowing down the ages, each
class separate, each class dependent upon the other, a homogeneous
whole, beautiful on account of the harmony of the different parts,
each melody going different ways by contributing to the general
harmony. He sees life as classes; tradition is the breath of his
nostrils, symbol the delight of his eyes." Owen's thoughts divagated
suddenly, and he thought of the pain Harding would experience were he
suddenly flung into Bohemian society. He might find great talents
there--but even genius would not compensate him for disorder and
licence. The dinner might be excellent, but he would find no pleasure
in it if the host wore a painting jacket; a spot of ink on the shirt
cuff would extinguish his appetite, and a parlourmaid distress him,
three footmen induce pleasant ease of thought.

"A man born out of his time, in whom the disintegration of custom, the
fusing of the classes, produces an inner torment." And wondering how
he bore it, Owen began to think of an end for Harding, deciding that
sullen despair would take possession of him if the House of Lords were
seriously threatened. He would leave some seat of ancient story, and
proceed towards the midlands, seeking some blast furnace wherein to
throw himself. "A sort of modern Empedocles." And Owen laughed aloud,
for he was very much amused at his interpretation of his friend's
character. It was one which he did not think even his friend would
resent. "On the contrary, it would amuse him." And he picked up a
newspaper from the club table.

The first words he saw were "Evelyn Innes in America." "So she has
gone back to the stage, and without writing to me...." He sank back in
his armchair lost in a great bitterness but without resentment. Next
day, acting on a sudden resolve, he started for New York. But he did
not remain there very long, only a few days, returning to England,
exasperated, maddened against himself, unable to explain the cause of
his misfortune to Harding.

"I suppose you'll use it in a novel some day. I don't care if you do,
but you will never be able to explain how it happened." Harding
followed his friend into the study, thinking of the excellent cigar
which would be given to him more perhaps than of the story--a man who
suddenly finds his will paralysed. "It was just that, paralysis of
will, for after dinner when the time came to go to her I sat thinking
of her unable to get out of my chair, saying to myself, 'In five
minutes, in five minutes,' and as the minutes went by I looked at the
clock, saying to myself, 'If I don't go now I shall be late.' I can't
explain, but it was almost a relief when I found it was too late."

"What I don't understand is why you didn't go next day?"

"Nor do I; for naturally I wanted to see her, only I couldn't go,
something held me back, and in despair I returned to England, unable
to endure the strain. There you have it, Harding; don't ask me any
more for I can't tell you any more. During the voyage I was near out
of my mind, and could have thrown myself overboard, yet I couldn't go
to see her, though she is the only person I really care to see. Of
course friends are different," he added apologetically.

"And you could not forget her in the desert?"

"No, it only made me worse. Amid the sands her image would appear more
distinct than ever. Now why is it that one loves one woman more than
another, and what is there in this woman that enchants me, and from
whom I cannot escape in thought?... Yet I didn't go to see her in New
York."

"But would you go if she wrote to you?"

"Oh, if she wrote--that would be different, but she never will. There
is no doubt, Harding, love is a sort of madness and it takes every
man; none can look into his life without finding that at some time or
another he was mad; the only thing is that it has taken me rather
badly, and cure seems farther off than ever. Why is it, Harding, that
a man should love one woman so much more than another? It certainly
isn't because she has got a prettier face, or a more perfect figure,
or a more sensual temperament; for there is no end to pretty faces,
perfect figures, and sensual temperaments. Evelyn was pretty well
furnished with these things. I am prepared to admit that she was, but
of course there are more beautiful women and more sensual women, more
charming women, cleverer women--I suppose there are--yet no one ever
charmed me, enchanted me--that is the word--like this woman and I can
find no reason for the enchantment in her or in myself, only this,
that she represents more of the divine essence out of which all things
have come than any other woman."

"The divine essence?"

"Well, one has to use these words in order to be understood; but you
know what I mean, Harding--the mystery lying behind all phenomena, the
Breath, esoteric philosophers would say, out of which all things came,
which drew the stars in the beginning out of chaos, creating myriads
of things or the appearance of different things, for there is only one
thing. That is how the mystics talk--isn't it? You know more about
them than I do. If to every man some woman represented more of this
impulse than any other woman, he would be unable to separate himself
from her; she would always be a light in his life which he would
follow, a light in the mind--that is what Evelyn is to me; I never
understood it before, it is only lately--"

"The desert has turned you into a poet, I see, into a mystic."

"Hardly that; but in the desert there are long hours and nothing--only
thought; one has to think, if one isn't a bedouin, just to save
oneself from going mad: the empty spaces, the solitude, the sun I One
of these days when you have finished your books, I should like to
write one with you; my impressions of the desert as I rode from oasis
to oasis, seeking Tahar----"

"Who was he?"

"He was the man who had the eagles. Haven't I told you already
how----?"

"Yes, yes, Asher, but tell me did you meet Tahar, and did you see
gazelles hunted?"

"Yes, and larger deer. My first idea was hawking and we went to a
lake. One of these days I must tell you about that lake, about its
wild fowl, about the buried city and the heron which was killed. We
found it among Roman inscriptions. But to tell of these things--my
goodness, Harding, it would take hours!"

"Don't try, Asher. Tell me about the gazelles."

"How we went from oasis to oasis in quest of this man who always
eluded us, meeting him at last in Bclre's oasis. But you haven't
heard about Bclre, the proprietor, you might say, of one oasis; he
discovered a Roman well, and added thousands of acres; but if I began
to tell about Bclre we should be here till midnight."

"I should like to hear about the gazelles first."

"I never knew you cared so much for sport, Harding; I thought you
would be more interested in the desert itself, and in Bclre. It
spoils a story to cut it down to a mere sporting episode. There
doesn't seem to be anything to tell now except I tell it at length:
those great birds, nearly three feet high, with long heads like
javelins, and round, clear eyes, and lank bodies, feathered thighs,
and talons that find out instinctively the vital parts, the heart and
the liver; the bird moves up seeking these. And that is what is so
terrible, the cruel instinct which makes every life conditional on
another's death. We live upon dead things, cooked or uncooked."

"But how are these birds carried?"

"That is what I asked myself all the way across the desert. The hawks
are carried on the wrist, but a bird three feet high cannot be carried
on the wrist. The eagle is carried on the pummel of the saddle."

"And how are the gazelles taken and the eagles recaptured?"

"They answer to the lure just like a hawk. The gazelles come down
into the desert after the rains to feed among the low bushes, rosemary
and lavender. In the plain, of course, they have no chance, the bird
overtakes them at once; fleet as they are, wings are fleeter, and they
are overtaken with incredible ease, the bird just flutters after them.
But the hunt is more interesting when there are large rocks between
which the gazelles can take cover; then the bird will alight on the
rock and wait for the deer to be driven out, and the deer dreads the
eagle so much that sometimes they won't leave the rocks, and we pick
them up in our hands. The instinct of the eagle is extraordinary, as
you will see; the first gazelle was a doe, and the eagle swept on in
front, and, turning rapidly, flew straight into the hind's face, the
talons gathered up ready to strangle her. But the buck will sometimes
show fight, and, not caring to face the horns, the eagle will avoid a
frontal attack and sweep round in the rear, attacking the buck in the
quarters and riding him to death, just as a goshawk rides a rabbit,
seeking out all the while the vital parts."

"But gazelles are such small deer; now it would be more interesting
with larger deer."

"We killed some larger deer and some sheep, wild sheep I mean, or
goats, it is hard to say which they are; the courage of the birds is
extraordinary, they will attack almost anything, driving the sheep
headlong over the precipices. We caught many a fox. The eagle strikes
the fox with one talon, reserving the other to clutch the fox's throat
when he turns round to bite. Eagles will attack wolves; wolves are
hunted in Mongolia with eagles, the fight must be extraordinary. One
of these days I must go there."

"If Evelyn Innes doesn't return to you."

"One must do something," Owen answered. "Life would be too tedious if
one were not doing something. Have another cigarette, Harding." And he
went to the table and took one out of a silver box. "Do have one; it
comes out of her box, she gave me this box. You haven't seen the
inscription, have you?" And Harding had to get up and read it; he did
this with a lack of enthusiasm and interest which annoyed Owen, but
which did not prevent him from going to the escritoire and saying,
"And in this pigeon-hole I keep her letters, eight hundred and
fifty-three, extending over a period of ten years. How many letters
would that be a year, Harding?"

"My dear Asher, I never could calculate anything."

"Well, let us see." Owen took a pencil and did the sum, irritating
Harding, who under his moustache wondered how anybody could be so
self-centred, so blind to the picture he presented. "Eighty-five
letters a year, Harding, more than one a week; that is a pretty good
average, for when I saw her every day I didn't write to her."

"I should have thought you would write sometimes."

"Yes, sometimes we used to send each other notes."

"Will he never cease talking of her?" Harding said to himself; and,
tempted by curiosity, he got up, lighted another cigarette, and sat
down, determined to wait and see. Owen continued talking for the next
half-hour. "True, he hasn't had an opportunity of speaking to anybody
about her for the last year, and is letting it all off upon me."

"There is her portrait, Harding; you like it, don't you?"

Harding breathed again under his moustache. The portrait brought a new
interest into the conversation, for it was a beautiful picture. A
bright face which seemed to have been breathed into a grey
background--a grey so beautiful, Harding had once written, that every
ray of sunlight that came into the room awoke a melody and a harmony
in it, and held the eye subjugated and enchanted. Out of a grey and a
rose tint a permanent music had been made ... and, being much less
complete than an old master, it never satisfied. In this picture there
were not one but a hundred pictures. To hang it in a different place
in the room was to re-create it; it never was the same, whereas the
complete portraits of the old masters have this fault--that they never
rise above themselves. But a ray of light set Evelyn's portrait
singing like a skylark--background, face, hair, dress--cadenza upon
cadenza. When the blinds were let down, the music became graver, and
the strain almost a religious one. And these changes in the portrait
were like Evelyn herself, for she varied a good deal, as Owen had
often remarked to Harding; for one reason or for some other--no matter
the reason: suffice it to say that the picture would be like her when
the gold had faded from her hair and no pair of stays would discover
her hips. And now, sitting looking at it, Owen remembered the seeming
accident which had inspired him to bring Evelyn to see the great
painter whose genius it had been to Owen's credit to recognise always.
One morning in the studio Evelyn had happened to sit on the edge of a
chair; the painter had once seen her in the same attitude by the side
of her accompanist, and he had told her not to move, and had gone for
her grey shawl and placed it upon her shoulders. A friend of Owen's
declared the portrait to be that of a housekeeper on account of the
shawl--a strange article of dress, difficult to associate with a
romantic singer. All the same, Evelyn was very probable in this
picture; her past and her future were in this disconcerting compound
of the commonplace and the rare; and the confusion which this picture
created in the minds of Owen's friends was aggravated by the strange
elliptical execution. Owen admitted the drawing to be not altogether
grammatical; one eye was a little lower than the other, but the eyes
were beautifully drawn--the right eye, for instance, and without the
help of any shadow.

"Look at the face," he said to Harding, "achieved with shadow and
light, the light faintly graduated with a delicate shade of rose."

He compared the face to a jewel the most beautiful in the world, and
the background to eighteenth-century watered silk.

"The painter conjures," Harding said, "and she rises out of that grey
background."

"Quite so, Harding."

Owen sat, his eyes fixed on the picture, his thoughts far away,
thinking that it would be better, perhaps, if he never saw her again.
Not to see her again! The words sounded very gloomy; for he was
thinking of his ancestors at Riversdale, in their tomb, and himself
going down to join them.

"I think, Asher, it is getting late; I must go now."

The friends bade each other good-night among the footmen who closed
the front door.

In his great, lonely bedroom, full of tall mahogany furniture, Owen
lay down; and he asked himself how it was that he had left America
without seeing her. His journey to America was one of the uncanniest
things that had ever happened in his life. Something seemed to have
kept him from her, and it was impossible for him to determine what
that thing was, whether some sudden weakening of the will in himself
or some spiritual agency. But to believe in the transference of human
thought, and that the nuns could influence his action at three
thousand miles distance, seemed as if he were dropping into some base
superstition. Between sleeping and waking a thought emerged which kept
him awake till morning: "Why had Evelyn returned to the stage?" When
he saw her last at Thornton Grange her retirement seemed to be
definitely fixed. Nothing he could say had been able to move her. She
was going to retire from the stage.... But she had not done so. Now,
who had persuaded her? Was it Ulick Dean? Were these two in America
together? The thought of Evelyn in New York with Ulick Dean, going to
the theatre with her, Ulick sitting in the stalls, listening, just as
he, Owen, had listened to her, became unendurable; he must have news
of her; only from her father could he get reliable news. So he went to
Dulwich, uncertain if he should send in his card begging for an
interview, or if he should just push past the servant into the
music-room, always supposing Innes were at home.

"Mr. Innes is at home," the servant-girl answered.

"Is he in the music-room?"

"Yes, sir. What name?"

"No name is necessary. I will announce myself," and he pushed past the
girl.... "Excuse me, Mr. Innes, for coming into your house so
abruptly, but I was afraid you mightn't see me if I sent in my name,
and it would be impossible for me to go back to London without seeing
you. You don't know me."

"I do. You are Sir Owen Asher."

"Yes, and have come because I can't live any longer without having
some news of Evelyn. You know my story--how she sent me away. There is
nothing to tell you; she has been here, I know, and has told you
everything. But perhaps you don't know I have just come from the
desert, having gone there hoping to forget her, and have come out of
the desert uncured. You will tell me where she is, won't you?"

Innes did not answer for some while.

"My daughter went to America."

"Yes, I know that. I have just come from there, but I could not see
her. The last time we met was at Thornton Grange, and she told me she
had decided definitely to leave the stage. Now, why should she have
gone back to the stage? That is what I have come to ask you."

This tall, thin, elderly man, impulsive as a child, wearing his heart
on his sleeve, crying before him like a little child, moved Innes's
contempt as much as it did his pity. "All the same he is suffering,
and it is clear that he loves her very deeply." So perforce he had to
answer that Evelyn had gone to America against the advice of her
confessor because the Wimbledon nuns wanted money.

"Gone to sing for those nuns!" Owen shrieked. And for three minutes he
blasphemed in the silence of the old music-room, Innes watching him,
amazed that any man should so completely forget himself. How could she
have loved him?

"She is returning next week; that is all I know of her movements....
Sir Owen Asher."

"Returning next week! But what does it matter to me whether she
returns or not? She won't see me. Do you think she will, Mr. Innes?"

"I cannot discuss these matters with you, Sir Owen," and Innes took up
his pen as if anxious for Sir Owen to leave the room so that he might
go on copying. Owen noticed this, but it was impossible for him to
leave the room. For the last twelve years he had been thinking about
Innes, and wanted to tell him how Evelyn had been loved, and he wanted
to air his hatred of religious orders and religion in general.

"I am afraid I am disturbing you, but I can't help it," and he dropped
into a chair. "You have no idea, Mr. Innes, how I loved your
daughter."

"She always speaks of you very well, never laying any blame upon
you--I will say that."

"She is a truthful woman. That is the one thing that can be said."

Innes nodded a sort of acquiescence to this appreciation of his
daughter's character; and Owen could not resist the temptation to try
to take Evelyn's father into his confidence, he had been so long
anxious for this talk.

"We have all been in love, you see; your love story is a little
farther back than mine. We all know the bitterness of it--don't we?"

Innes admitted that to know the bitterness of love and its sweetness
is the common lot of all men. The conversation dropped again, and Owen
felt there was to be no unbosoming of himself that afternoon.

"The room has not changed. Twelve years ago I saw those old
instruments for the first time. Not one, I think, has disappeared. It
was here that I first heard Ferrabosco's pavane."

Innes remembered the pavane quite well, but refused to allow the
conversation to digress into a description of Evelyn's playing of the
_viola da gamba_. But if they were not to talk about Evelyn there was
no use tarrying any longer in Dulwich; he had learned all the old man
knew about his daughter. He got up.... At that moment the door opened
and the servant announced Mr. Ulick Dean.

"How do you do, Mr. Innes?" Ulick said, glancing at Owen; and a
suspicion crossed his mind that the tall man with small, inquisitive
eyes who stood watching him must be Owen Asher, hoping that it was not
so, and, at the same time, curious to make his predecessor's
acquaintance; he admitted his curiosity as soon as Innes introduced
him.

"The moment I saw you, Sir Owen, I guessed that it must be you. I had
heard so much about you, you see, and your appearance is so
distinctive."

These last words dissipated the gloom upon Owen's face--it is always
pleasing to think that one is distinctive. And turning from Sir Owen
to Innes, Ulick told him how, finding himself in London, he had
availed himself of the opportunity to run down to see him. Owen sat
criticising, watching him rather cynically, interested in his youth
and in his thick, rebellious hair, flowing upwards from a white
forehead. The full-fleshed face, lit with nervous, grey eyes, reminded
Owen of a Roman bust. "A young Roman emperor," he said to himself, and
he seemed to understand Evelyn's love of Ulick. Would that she had
continued to love this young pagan! Far better than to have been duped
by that grey, skinny Christian. And he listened to Ulick, admiring his
independent thought, his flashes of wit.

Ulick was telling stories of an opera company to which it was likely
he would be appointed secretary. A very unlikely thing indeed to
happen, Owen thought, if the company were assembled outside the
windows, within hearing of the stories which Ulick was telling about
them. Very amusing were the young man's anecdotes and comments, but it
seemed to Owen as if he would never cease talking; and Innes, though
seeming to enjoy the young man s wit, seemed to feel with Owen that
something must be done to bring it to an end.

"We shall be here all the afternoon listening to you, Ulick. I don't
know if Sir Owen has anything else to do, but I have some parts to
copy; there is a rehearsal to-night."

Ulick's manner at once grew so serious and formal that Innes feared he
had offended him, and then Owen suddenly realised that they were both
being sent away. In the street they must part, that was Owen's
intention, but before he could utter it Ulick begged of him to wait a
second, for he had forgotten his gloves. Without waiting for an answer
he ran back to the house, leaving Owen standing on the pavement,
asking himself if he should wait for this impertinent young man, who
took it for granted that he would.

"You have got your gloves," he said, looking disapprovingly at the
tight kid gloves which Ulick was forcing over his fingers. "Do you
remember the way? As well as I remember, one turns to the right."

"Yes, to the right." And talking of the old music, of harpsichords and
viols, they walked on together till they heard the whistle of the
train.

"We have just missed our train."

There was no use miming, and there-was no other train for half an
hour.

"The waiting here will be intolerable," Owen said. "If you would care
for a walk, we might go as far as Peckham. To walk to London would be
too far, though, indeed, it would do both of us good."

"Yes, the evening is fine--why not walk to London? We can inquire out
the way as we go."




CHAPTER ELEVEN


"A curious accident our meeting at Innes's."

"A lucky one for me. Far more pleasant living in this house than in
that horrible hotel."

Owen was lying back in an armchair, indulging in sentimental and
fatalistic dreams, and did not like this materialistic interpretation
of his invitation to Ulick to come to stay with him at Berkeley
Square. He wished to see the hand of Providence in everything that
concerned himself and Evelyn, and the meeting with this young man
seemed to point to something more than the young man's comfort.

"Looked at from another side, our meeting was unlucky. If you hadn't
come in, Innes would have told me more about Evelyn. She must have an
address in London, and he must know it."

"That doesn't seem so sure. She may intend to live in Dulwich when she
returns from America."

"I can't see her living with her father; even the nuns seem more
probable. I wonder how it was that all this time you and she never ran
across each other. Did you never write to her?"

"No; I was abroad a great deal. And, besides, I knew she didn't want
to see me, so what was the good in forcing myself upon her?"

It was difficult for Owen to reprove Ulick for having left Evelyn to
her own devices. Had he not done so himself? Still, he felt that if he
had remained in England, he would not have been so indifferent; and he
followed his guest across the great tessellated hall towards the
dining-room in front of a splendid servitude.

The footmen drew back their chairs so that they might sit down with
the least inconvenience possible; and dinner at Berkeley Square
reminded Ulick of some mysterious religious ceremony; he ate, overawed
by the great butler--there was something colossal, Egyptian,
hierarchic about him, and Ulick could not understand how it was that
Sir Owen was not more impressed.

"Habit," he said to himself.

At one end of the room there was a great gold screen, and "in a dim,
religious light" the impression deepened; passing from ancient Thebes
to modern France, Ulick thought of a great cathedral. The celebrant,
the deacon and the subdeacon were represented by first and second
footmen, the third footman, who never left the sideboard, he compared
to the acolyte, the yoke of the great butler proposing different wines
had a ritualistic ring in it; and, amused by his conception of dinner
in Berkeley Square, Ulick admired Owen's dress. He wore a black velvet
coat, trousers, and slippers. His white frilled shirt and his pearl
studs reminded Ulick of his own plain shirt with only one stud, and he
suspected vulgarity in a single stud, for it was convenient, and would
therefore appeal to waiters and the middle classes. He must do
something on the morrow to redeem his appearance, and he noticed
Owen's cuffs and sleeve-links, which were superior to his own; and
Owen's hands, they, too, were superior--well-shaped, bony hands, with
reddish hair growing about the knuckles. Owen's nails were beautifully
trimmed, and Ulick determined to go to a manicurist on the morrow. A
delicious perfume emerged when Owen drew his handkerchief from his
coat pocket; and all this personal care reminded Ulick of that time
long ago when Owen was Evelyn's lover and travelled with her from
capital to capital, hearing her sing everywhere. "Now he will never
see her again," he thought, as he followed Owen back to his study,
hoping to persuade him into telling the story of how he had gone down
to Dulwich to write a criticism of Innes's concert, and how he had at
once recognised that Evelyn had a beautiful voice, and would certainly
win a high position on the lyric stage if she studied for it.

It was a solace to Owen's burdened heart to find somebody who would
listen to him, and he talked on and on, telling of the day he and
Evelyn had gone to Madame Savelli, and how he had had to leave Paris
soon after, for his presence distracted Evelyn's attention from her
singing-lessons. "In a year," Madame Savelli had said, "I will make
something wonderful of her, Sir Owen, if you will only go away, and
not come back for six months."

"He lives in recollection of that time," Ulick said to himself, "that
is his life; the ten years he spent with her are his life, the rest
counts for nothing." A moment after Owen was comparing himself to a
man wandering in the twilight who suddenly finds a lamp: "A lamp that
will never burn out," Ulick said to himself. "He will take that lamp
into the tomb with him."

"But I must read you the notices." And going to an escritoire covered
with ormolu--one of those pieces of French furniture which cost
hundreds of pounds--he took out a bundle of Evelyn's notices. "The
most interesting," he said, "were the first notices--before the
critics had made up their mind about her."

He stopped in his untying of the parcel to tell Ulick about his
journey to Brussels to hear her sing.

"You see, I had broken my leg out hunting, and there was a question
whether I should be able to get there in time. Imagine my annoyance on
being told I must not speak to her."

"Who told you that?"

"Madame Savelli."

"Oh, I understand! You arrived the very day of her first appearance?"

Owen threw up his head and began reading the notices.

"They are all the same," he said, after reading half a dozen, and
Ulick felt relieved. "But stay, this one is different," and the long
slip dismayed Ulick, who could not feel much interest in the
impression that Evelyn had created as Elsa--he did not know how many
years ago.

"'Miss Innes is a tall, graceful woman, who crosses the stage with
slow, harmonious movements--any slight quickening of her step
awakening a sense of foreboding in the spectator. Her eyes, too, are
of great avail, and the moment she comes on the stage one is attracted
by their strangeness--grave, mysterious, earnest eyes, which smile
rarely; but when they do smile happiness seems to mount up from
within, illuminating her life from end to end. She will never be
unhappy again, one thinks. It is with her smile she recompenses her
champion knight when he lays low Telramund, and it is with her smile
she wins his love--and ours. We regret, for her sake, there are so few
smiles in Wagner: very few indeed--not one in "Senta" nor in
"Elizabeth."' The newspaper cutting slipped from Owen's hand, and he
talked for a long time about her walk and her smile, and then about
her "Iphigenia," which he declared to be one of the most beautiful
performances ever seen, her personality lending itself to the
incarnation of this Greek idea of fate and self-sacrifice. But Gluck's
music was, in Owen's opinion, old-fashioned even at the time it was
written--containing beautiful things, of course, but somewhat stiff in
the joints, lacking the clear insight and direct expression of
Beethoven's. "One man used to write about her very well, and seemed to
understand her better than any other. And writing about this
performance he says--Now, if I could find you his article." The
search proved a long one, but as it was about to be abandoned Owen
turned up the cutting he was in search of.

"'Her nature intended her for the representation of ideal heroines
whose love is pure, and it does not allow her to depict the violence
of physical passion and the delirium of the senses. She is an artist
of the peaks, whose feet may not descend into the plain and follow its
ignominious route.' And then here: 'He who has seen her as the
spotless spouse of the son of Parsifal, standing by the window, has
assisted at the mystery of the chaste soul awaiting the coming of her
pre-destined lover.' And 'He who has seen her as Elizabeth, ascending
the hillside, has felt the nostalgia of the skies awaken in his
heart.' Then he goes on to say that her special genius and her
antecedents led her to 'Fidelio,' and designed her as the perfect
embodiment of Leonore's soul--that pure, beautiful soul made wholly of
sacrifice and love.' But you never saw her as Leonore so you can form
no idea of what she really was."

"I will read you what she wrote when she was studying 'Fidelio':
'Beethoven's music has nothing in common with the passion of the
flesh; it lives in the realms of noble affections, pity, tenderness,
love, spiritual yearnings for the life beyond the world, and its joy
in the external world is as innocent as a happy child's. It is in this
sense classical--it lives and loves and breathes in spheres of feeling
and thought removed from the ordinary life of men. Wagner's later
work, if we except some scenes from "The Ring"--notably the scenes
between Wotan and Brunnhilde--is nearer to the life of the senses; its
humanity is fresh in us, deep as Brunnhilde's; but essential man lives
in the spirit. The desire of the flesh is more necessary to the life
of the world than the aspirations of the soul, yet the aspirations of
the soul are more human. The root is more necessary to the plant than
its flower, but it is by the flower and not by the root that we know
it."

"Is it not amazing that a woman who could think like that should be
capable of flinging up her art--the art which I gave her--on account
of the preaching of that wooden-headed Mostyn?" Sitting down suddenly
he opened a drawer, and, taking out her photograph, he said: "Here she
is as Leonore, but you should have seen her in the part. The
photograph gives no idea whatever; you haven't seen her picture. Come,
let me show you her picture: one of the most beautiful pictures that
---- ever painted; the most beautiful in the room, and there are many
beautiful things in this room. Isn't it extraordinary that a woman so
beautiful, so gifted, so enchanting, so intended by life for life
should be taken with the religious idea suddenly? She has gone mad
without doubt. A woman who could do the things that she could do to
pass over to religion, to scapulars, rosaries, indulgencies! My God!
my God!" and he fell back in his armchair, and did not speak again for
a long time. Getting up suddenly, he said, "If you want to smoke any
more there are cigars on the table; I am going to bed."

"Well, it is hard upon him," Ulick said as he took a cigar; and
lighting his candle, he wandered up the great green staircase by
himself, seeking the room he had been given at the end of one of the
long corridors.




CHAPTER TWELVE


"Did it ever occur to you," Owen said one evening, as the men sat
smoking after dinner, after the servant had brought in the whisky and
seltzer, between eleven and twelve, in that happy hour when the spirit
descends and men and women sitting together are taken with a desire to
communicate the incommunicable part of themselves--"did it ever occur
to you," Owen said, blowing the smoke and sipping his whisky and
seltzer from time to time, "that man is the most ridiculous animal on
the face of this earth?"

"You include women?" Ulick asked.

"No, certainly not; women are not nearly so ridiculous, because they
are more instinctive, more like the animals which we call the lower
animals in our absurd self-conceit. As I have often said, women have
never invented a religion; they are untainted with that madness, and
they are not moralists. They accept the religions men invent, and
sometimes they become saints, and they accept our moralities--what can
they do, poor darlings, but accept? But they are not interested in
moralities, or in religions. How can they be? They are the substance
out of which life comes, whereas we are but the spirit, the crazy
spirit--the lunatic crying for the moon. Spirit and substance being
dependent one on the other, concessions have to be made; the substance
in want of the spirit acquiesces, says, 'Very well, I will be
religious and moral too.' Then the spirit and the substance are
married. The substance has been infected--"

"What makes you say all this, Asher?"

"Well, because I have just been thinking that perhaps my misfortunes
can be traced back to myself. Perhaps it was I who infected Evelyn."

"You?"

"Yes, I may have brought about a natural reaction. For years I was
speaking against religion to her, trying to persuade her; whereas if I
had let the matter alone it would have died of inanition, for she was
not really a religious woman."

"I see, I see," Ulick answered thoughtfully.

"Had she met you in the beginning," Owen continued, "she might have
remained herself to the end; for you would have let her alone.
Religion provokes me ... I blaspheme; but you are indifferent, you are
not interested. You are splendid, Ulick."

A smile crossed Ulick's lips, and Owen wondered what the cause of the
smile might be, and would have asked, only he was too interested in
his own thoughts; and the words, "I wonder you trouble about people's
beliefs" turned him back upon himself, and he continued:

"I have often wondered. Perhaps something happens to one early in
life, and the mind takes a bias. My animosity to religion may have
worn away some edge off her mind, don't you see? The moral idea that
one lover is all right, whereas any transgression means ruin to a
woman, was never invented by her. It came from me; it is impossible
she could have developed that moral idea from within--she was infected
with it."

"You think so?" Ulick replied thoughtfully, and took another cigar.

"Yes, if she had met you," Owen continued returning to his idea.

"But if she had met me in the beginning you wouldn't have known her;
and you wouldn't consent to that so that she might be saved from
Monsignor?"

"I'd make many sacrifices to save her from that nightmare of a man;
but the surrender of one's past is unthinkable. The future? Yes. But
there is nothing to be done. We don't know where she is. Her father
said she would be in London at the end of the week; therefore she is
in London now."

"If she didn't change her mind."

"No, she never changes her mind about such things; any change of plans
always annoyed her. So she is in London, and we do not know her
address. Isn't it strange? And yet we are more interested in her than
in any other human being."

"It would be easy to get her address; I suppose Innes would tell us. I
shouldn't mind going down to Dulwich if I were not so busy with this
opera company. The number of people I have to see, five-and-twenty,
thirty letters every day to be written--really I haven't a minute. But
you, Asher, don't you think you might run down to Dulwich and
interview the old gentleman? After all, you are the proper person. I
am nobody in her life, only a friend of a few months, whereas she owes
everything to you. It was you who discovered her--you who taught her,
you whom she loved."

"Yes, there is a great deal in what you say Ulick, a great deal in
what you say. I hadn't thought of it in that light before. I suppose
the lot does fall to me by right to go to the old gentleman and ask
him. Before you came we were getting on very well, and he quite
understood my position."

Several days passed and no step was taken to find Evelyn's address in
London.

"If I were you, Asher, I would go down to-morrow, for I have been
thinking over this matter, and the company of which I am the secretary
of course cannot pay her what she used to get ten years ago, but I
think my directors would be prepared to make her a very fair offer,
and, after all, the great point would be to get her back to the
stage."

"I quite agree, Ulick, I quite agree."

"Very well, if you think so go to Dulwich."

"Yes, yes, I'll go." And Owen came back that evening, not with
Evelyn's address, but with the news that she was in London, living in
a flat in Bayswater. "Think of that," Owen said, "a flat in Bayswater
after the house I gave her in Park Lane. Think of that! Devoted to
poor people, arranging school treats, and making clothes."

"So he wouldn't give you her address?"

"When I asked him, he said, and not unreasonably, 'If she wanted to
see you she would write.' What could I answer? And to leave a letter
with him for her would serve no purpose; my letter would not interest
her; it might remain unanswered. No, no, mine is the past; there is no
future for me in her life. If anybody could do anything it is you. She
likes you."

"But, my good friend, I don't know where she is, and you won't find
out."

"Haven't I been to see her father?"

"Oh, her father! A detective agency would give us her address within
the next twenty-four hours, and the engagement must be filled up
within a few weeks."

"I can't go to a detective agency and pay a man to track her out--no,
not for anything."

"Not even to save her from Monsignor?"

"Not even that. There are certain things that cannot be done. Let us
say no more."

A fortnight later Owen was reading in the corner by the window about
five o'clock, waiting for Ulick to come home--he generally came in for
a cup of tea--and hearing a latchkey in the door, he put down his
book.

"Is Sir Owen in?"

"Sir Owen is in the study, sir."

And Ulick came in somewhat hurriedly. There was a light in his eyes
which told Owen that something had happened, something that would
interest him, and nothing could interest him unless news of Evelyn.

"Have you seen her?" and Owen took off his spectacles.

"Yes," Ulick answered. "I have seen her."

"You met her?"

"Yes."

"By accident?"

"Yes."

"Tell me about it."

Ulick was too excited to sit down; he walked about the hearthrug in
order to give more emphasis to his story.

"My hansom turned suddenly out of a large thoroughfare into some mean
streets, and the neighbourhood seemed so sordid that I was just going
to tell the driver to avoid such short cuts for the future when I
caught sight of a tall figure in brown holland. To meet Evelyn in such
a neighbourhood seemed very unlikely, but as the cab drew nearer I
could not doubt that it was she. I put up my stick, but at that moment
Evelyn turned into a doorway."

"You knocked?"

Ulick nodded.

"What sort of place was it?"

"All noise and dirt; a lot of boys."

"A school?"

"It seemed more like a factory. Evelyn came forward and said, 'I will
see you in half an hour, if you will wait for me at my flat.' 'But I
don't know the address,' I said. She gave me the address, Ayrdale
Mansions, and I went away in the cab; and after a good deal of driving
we discovered Ayrdale Mansions, a huge block, all red brick and iron,
a sort of model dwelling-houses, rather better."

"Good Lord!"

"I went up a stone staircase."

"No carpet?"

"No. Mrat opened the door to me. I told her I had met Miss Innes in a
slum; she followed me into the drawing-room, saying, 'One of these
days Mademoiselle will bring back some horrid things with her.'"

"Good Lord! Tell me what her rooms were like?"

"The flat is better than you would expect to find in such a building.
It is the staircase that makes the place look like a model
dwelling-house. There is a drawing-room and a dining-room."

"What kind of furniture has she in the drawing-room?"

"An oak settle in the middle of the room and--"

"That doesn't sound very luxurious."

"But there are photographs of pictures on the walls, Italian saints,
the Renaissance, you know, Botticelli and Luini; her writing-table is
near the window, and covered with papers; she evidently writes a great
deal. Mrat tells me she spends her evenings writing there quite
contented."

"That will do about the room; now tell me about herself."

"She came in looking very like herself."

"Glad to see you?"

"I think she was. She didn't seem to have any scruples about seeing
me. Our meeting was pure accident, so she was not responsible."

"Tell me, what did she look like?"

"Well, you know her appearance? She hasn't grown stouter; her hair
hasn't turned grey."

"Yet she has changed?"

"Yes, she has changed; but--I don't know exactly how to word it--an
extraordinary goodness seems to have come into her face. It always
seemed to me that a great deal of her charm was in the kindness which
seemed to float about her and to look out of her eyes, and that look
which you know, or which you don't know--"

"I know it very well."

"Well, that look is more apparent than ever. I noticed it especially
as she leaned over the table looking at me."

"I know, those quiet, kindly eyes, steady as marble. A woman's eyes
are more beautiful than a man's because they are steadier. Yes, it is
impossible to look into her eyes and not to love her; her thick hair
drawn back loosely over the ears. There never was anybody so winsome
as she. You know what I mean?"

"How he loves her!" Ulick said to himself; "how he loves her! All his
life is reflected in his love of her."

"Are you going to see her again?" Owen asked suddenly.

"Well, yes."

"Did she raise no difficulties?"

"No."

"You didn't speak to her about your plans to induce her to accept the
engagement?"

"Not yet."

"Shall you?"

"I suppose so, but I cannot somehow imagine that she will ever go back
to the stage. She said, having made money enough for the nuns, she had
finished with the stage for ever, and was glad of it."

"Once an idea gets into our minds we become the slaves of it, and her
mind was always more like a man's than a woman's mind."

This point was discussed, Ulick pretending not to understand Owen's
meaning in order to draw him into confidences.

"She has asked you to go to see her, so I suppose she likes you, I
wish you well. Anything rather than Monsignor should get her. You have
my best wishes."

"What does he mean by saying I have his best wishes? Does he mean that
he would prefer me to be her lover, if that would save her from
religion? Would he use me as the cat uses the monkey to pull the
chestnuts out of the fire, and then take them from me." But he did not
question Owen as to his meaning, and showed no surprise when a few
days afterwards Owen came into the drawing-room, interrupting him in
his work, saying:

"Have you forgotten?"

"Forgotten what?"

"Why, that you have an appointment with Evelyn."

"So I have, so I have!" he said, laying down his pen. "And if I don't
hasten, I shall miss it."

Owen took his hat, saying, "Your hat wants brushing; you mustn't go to
her with an unbrushed hat."

Ulick ran away north, casting one glance back. Owen--would he sit in
his study thinking of his lost happiness or would he try to forget it
in some picture-dealer's shop?




CHAPTER THIRTEEN


"Has Mr. Dean come in?"

"No, Sir Owen."

"What time is it?"

"Eight o'clock."

"Dinner is quite ready?"

"Quite ready, Sir Owen."

"I don't think there is any good in waiting. Something must have
detained Mr. Dean."

"Very well, Sir Owen."

The butler left the room surprised, for if there was one thing that
Sir Owen hated it was to dine by himself, yet Owen had not screamed
out a single blasphemy, or even muttered a curse, and wondering at his
master's strange resignation, the butler crossed the hall, hoping Sir
Owen's health was not run down. He put the evening paper by Sir Owen,
for there had been some important racing that day, and sometimes Sir
Owen would talk quite affably. There were other times when he would
not say a word, and this was one of them. He pushed the paper away,
and went on eating, irritated by the sound of his knife and fork on
his plate, the only sound in the dining-room, for the footmen went
silently over the thick pile carpet, receiving their directions by a
gesture from the great butler.

After dinner Owen had recourse to the evening paper, and he read it,
and every other paper in his room, advertisements and all, asking
himself what the devil had happened to Ulick. Some of his operatic
friends must have asked him to dinner. A moment after it seemed to him
that Ulick was treating his house like a hotel. "Damn him! he might
have easily sent me a telegram." At half-past ten the footman brought
in the whisky, and Owen sat sipping his drink, smoking cigars, and
wondering why Ulick had not come home for dinner; and the clock had
struck half-past eleven before Ulick's latchkey was heard in the door.

"I hope you didn't wait dinner for me?"

"We waited a little while. Where have you been?"

"She asked me to stay to dinner."

"Oh, she asked you to stay to dinner!" Such a simple explanation of
Ulick's absence Owen hadn't thought of, and, reading his face, Ulick
hastened to tell him that after dinner they had gone to a concert.

"Well, I suppose you were right to go with her; the concert must have
been a great break in her life.... Sitting there all the evening,
writing letters, trying to get situations for drunken men, girl
mothers, philanthropy of every kind. How she must have enjoyed the
concert! Tell me about it; and tell me how she was dressed."

Ulick had not remarked Evelyn's dress very particularly, and Owen was
angry with him for only being able to tell him that she wore a pale
silk of a faint greenish colour.

"And her cloak?"

"Oh, her cloak was all right; it seemed warm enough."

Owen wanted to know what jewellery she wore, and complained that she
had sold all the jewellery he had given her for the nuns. Ulick was
really sorry for him. Now, what did she think of the singing? To
please him Ulick attributed all his criticism of the singers to
Evelyn, and Owen said:

"Extraordinary, isn't it? Did she say that she regretted leaving the
stage? And what did she say about me?"

Ulick had been expecting this question.

"She hoped you were very well, and that you did not speak unkindly of
her."

"Speak unkindly of her!" and Owen's thoughts seemed to fade away.

Cigar after cigar, drink after drink, until sleep settled in their
eyes, and both went to bed too weary to think of her any more.

But next day Owen remembered that Ulick had not told him if he had
driven Evelyn home after the concert, and the fact that he had not
mentioned how they had parted was in itself suspicious; and he
determined to question Ulick. But Ulick was seldom in Berkeley Square;
he pleaded as his excuse business appointments; he had business
appointments all over London; Owen listened to his explanations, and
then they talked of other things. In this way Owen never learnt on
what terms Evelyn and Ulick were: whether she wrote to him, whether
they saw each other daily or occasionally. It was not natural to think
that after a dinner and a concert their intimacy should cease as
suddenly as it had begun. No doubt they dined together in restaurants,
and they went to concerts. Every hour which he spent away from
Berkeley Square he spent with her ... possibly. To find out if this
were true he would have to follow Ulick, and that he couldn't do. He
might question him? No, he couldn't do that. And, sitting alone in his
study in the evening, for Ulick had gone out after dinner, he asked
himself if he could believe that Ulick was with the directors of the
opera company. It was much more likely that he was in the Bayswater
flat, trying to persuade Evelyn to return to the stage. So far he was
doing good work, but the only means he had of persuading her was
through her senses, by making love to her. Her senses had kindled for
him once, why shouldn't they kindle again? It would be a hard struggle
between the flesh and the idea, the idea which urged her in one
direction, and the flesh which drew her in another. Which would
prevail? Ulick was young, and Owen knew how her senses flared up, how
certain music set her senses on fire and certain literature. "All
alone in that flat," and the vision becoming suddenly intense he saw
Ulick leading her to the piano, and heard the music, and saw her eyes
lifted as she had lifted them many times to him--grey marble eyes,
which would never soften for him again.

He had known her for so many years, and thought of her so intensely
that every feature of her face could be recalled in its minutest line
and expression; not only the general colour of her face, but the
whiteness of the forehead, and where the white skin freckled. How
strange it was that freckles should suit her, though they suited no
other woman! And the blue tints under the eyes, he remembered them,
and how the blue purpled, the rose red in the cheeks, and the various
changes--the greys in the chin, the blue veins reticulating in the
round white neck, and the pink shapes of the ear showing through the
shadow. Her hair was visible to him, its colour in the light and in
the shadow; and her long thin hands, the laces she wore at the wrists,
her rings, the lines of the shoulders, and of the arms, the
breasts--their size, their shape, and their very weight--every
attitude that her body fell into naturally. From long knowledge and
intense thinking he could see her at will; and there she was at the
end of the sofa crossing and uncrossing her lovely legs, so long from
the knees, showing through the thin evening gown; he thought of their
sweetness and the seduction of the foot advancing, showing an inch or
two beyond the skirt of her dress. And then she drew her rings from
her fingers, dropping them into her lap, and unconsciously placed them
again over the knuckles.

A great deal he would give--everything--for Ulick's youth, so that he
might charm her again. But of what avail to begin again? Had he not
charmed her before? and had not her love flowed past him like water,
leaving nothing but a memory of it; yet it was all he had--all that
life had given him. And it was so little, because she had never loved
him. Every other quality Nature had bestowed upon her, but not the
capacity for loving. For the first time it seemed to him he had begun
to understand that she was incapable of love--in other words, of
giving herself wholly to anybody. A strange mystery it was that one
who could give her body so unreservedly should be so parsimonious
about her soul. To give her body and retain herself was her gift,
above all other women, thereby remaining always new, always
unexpected, and always desirable. In the few visits to Paris which had
been allowed to him by her, and by Madame Savelli, she had repaid him
for the long abstinences by an extraordinary exaltation and rapture of
body and of intellect, but he had always experienced a strange
alienation, even when he held her in his arms--perhaps then more than
ever did he feel that she never was, and never could be, his. The
thought had always been at the back of his mind: "To-morrow I shall be
far from her, and she will be interested in other things. All she can
give me is her body--a delicious possession it is--and a sweet
friendliness, a kindliness which sometimes seems like love, but which
is not." Some men would regard her as a cold sensualist; maybe so,
though indeed he did not think that it was so, for her kindliness
precluded such a criticism. But even if it were so, such superficial
thinking about her mattered little to him who knew her as none other
could ever know her, having lived with her since she was two or three
and twenty till five and thirty--thinking of her always, noting every
faintest shade of difference, comparing one mood with another,
learning her as other men learn a difficult text from some ancient
parchment, some obscure palimpsest--that is what she was, something
written over. There was another text which he had never been able to
master; and he sat in his chair conscious of nothing but some vague
pain which--becoming more and more definite--awoke him at last. Though
he had studied her so closely perhaps he knew as little of her as any
one else, as little as she knew of herself. Of only one thing was
there any surety, and that was she could only be saved by an appeal to
the senses. So he had done right in encouraging her friendship with
Ulick, sending Ulick to her, putting his natural jealousy
aside--preferring to suffer rather than that she should be lost. God
only knew how he was suffering day by day, hour by hour; but it were
better that he should suffer than that she should be abandoned to the
spiritual constriction of the old Roman python. It was horrible to
think, but the powerful coils would break and crush to pulp; then the
beast would lubricate and swallow. Anything were better than this;
Ulick's kisses would never be more to Evelyn than the passing trance
of the senses; she never would love him as other women loved, giving
their souls: she had never given her soul, why should she give it now?
But, good God! if after some new adventure she should return to the
python?

His heart failed him; but only for a moment. Ulick might prove to her
the futility of her endeavour to lead a chaste life; and once that was
established she would become the beautiful, enchanting being that he
had known; but she would never return to him. If she only returned to
herself! The spirit of sacrifice tempted him, despite the suffering he
was enduring--a suffering which he compared to sudden scaldings: he
was being scalded to death by degrees, covered from head to foot with
blisters. A telegram in the hall for Ulick, a hesitation in Ulick's
voice, a sudden shifting of the eyes--anything sufficed--and therewith
he was burnt to the bone, far beyond the bone, into the very vitals.
Even now in his study, he waited another scalding. At any moment Ulick
might come in, and though he never betrayed himself by any word or
look, still his presence would suggest that he had just come from
Evelyn. Perhaps he had been walking with her in the park? But why wait
in Berkeley Square? If a martyrdom of jealousy he must endure, let it
be at Riversdale. Out of sight would not mean out of mind; but he
would not be constantly reminded of his torment; there would be
business to attend to which would distract his mind, and when he
returned in a few days to Berkeley Square merciful Fate would have
settled everything: she would be gone away with Ulick to be cured, or
would remain behind, a living food for the serpent.

The valet was told that he must be ready to catch the half-past four
train; and Ulick, when he returned from a long walk with Evelyn at
half-past six, learnt that Sir Owen had gone to Riversdale.

"Sir Owen says, sir, he hopes to see you when he returns."

But what business had taken Sir Owen out of London, and so suddenly?
The placid domestic could only tell him that Sir Owen often went to
Riversdale on business connected with the estate. "Sir Owen often gets
a wire from his agent." But this sudden call to see his agent did not
strike Ulick as very likely; far more likely that Asher had gone out
of town because he suspected--

"Poor chap! it must be dreadful seeing me come in and out of the
house, suspecting every time I am going to or coming from her. But it
was his own will that I should try to get her back to the stage and
away from Monsignor. All the same, it must have been devilishly
unpleasant." Ulick was very sorry for Owen, and hoped that if he did
succeed in tempting Evelyn away from Monsignor Owen would not hate him
for having done so. Nothing is more common than to hate one's
collaborator. Ulick laughed and suddenly grew serious. "His years are
against him. Old age, always a terror, becomes in an affair of this
kind a special terror, for there is no hope; she will never go back to
him, so I might as well get her. If I don't, Monsignor will"; and a
smile appeared again on his face, for he had begun to feel that he
would succeed in persuading Evelyn to accept the engagement, and to do
that would mean taking him on as a lover.

When he lighted a cigar the conviction was borne in upon him, as the
phrase goes, that to travel in an opera company without a mistress
would be unendurable.... Where could he get one equal to Evelyn?
Nowhere. No one in the company was comparable to her; and of course he
loved her, and she loved him: differently, in some strange way he
feared, but still she loved him, or was attracted to him--it did not
matter which so long as he could succeed in persuading her to accept
the engagement which his directors were most anxious to conclude. As
they walked through Kensington Gardens that afternoon he had noticed
how she had begun to talk suddenly on the question whether it would be
permissible for a woman in certain circumstances to take a second
lover, if her life with her first were entirely broken, and so on. He
had answered perfunctorily, and as soon as possible turned the
conversation upon other things. But it had come back--led back by her
unconsciously to the moral question. So it would seem that she was
coming round. But there was something hysterical, something so outside
of herself--something so irresponsible in her yielding to him, that he
did not altogether like the adventure which he had undertaken, and
asked himself if he loved her sufficiently, finding without difficulty
many reasons for loving her. Nowhere could he find anybody whom he
admired more, or who interested him more. He had loved her, and they
had spent a pleasant time together in that cottage on the river. A
memory of it lit up his sensual imagination, and he determined to
continue the experience just as any other young man would. Evelyn had
denied herself to him in Italy for some strange reason; whatever that
reason was it had been overcome, and once she yielded herself she was
glorious. What happened before would happen again, and if things did
not turn out as pleasantly as he hoped they would--that is to say, if
she would not remain in the opera company, well, the fault would not
be with him. She sang very well, though not as well as Owen thought;
and he went upstairs to dress for dinner, thinking how pleasant it was
to live in Berkeley Square.

They were dining together in a restaurant, and as she came forward to
meet him he said to himself, "She looks like accepting the
engagement." And when he spoke about it to her he only reminded her
that by returning to the stage she would be able to make more money
for her poor people, for he felt it were better not to argue. To take
her hand and tell her that it was beautiful was much more in his line,
to put his arm about her when they drove back together in the hansom,
and speak to her of the cottage at Reading--this he could do very
well; and he continued to inflame her senses until she withdrew
herself from his arm, and he feared that he was compromising his
chance of seeing her on the morrow.

"But you will come to the park, won't you? Remember, it is our last
day together."

"Not the last," she said, "the last but one. Yes, I will see you
to-morrow. Now goodbye."

"May I not go upstairs with you?"

"No, Ulick, I cannot bring you up to my flat; it is too late."

"Then walk a little way."

"But if I were to accept that engagement do you think I could remain a
Catholic?"

Ulick could see no difficulty, and begged of her to explain.

His question was not answered until they had passed many lamp-posts,
and then as they retraced their steps she said:

"Travelling about with an opera company do you think I could go to
Mass, above all to Communion?"

"But you'll be on tour; nobody will know."

"What shall I do when I return to London?"

"Why look so far ahead?"

"All my friends know that I go to Mass."

"But you can go to Mass all the same and communicate."

"But if you were my lover?"

"Would that make any difference?"

"Of course it would make a difference if I were to continue to go to
Mass and communicate; I should be committing a sacrilege. You cannot
ask me to do that."

Ulick did not like the earnestness with which she spoke these words.
That she was yielding, however, there could be little doubt, and
whatever doubt remained in his mind was removed on the following day
in the park under the lime-trees, where they had been sitting for
some time, talking indolently--at least, Ulick had been talking
indolently of the various singers who had been engaged. He had done
most of the talking, watching the trees and the spire showing between
them, enjoying the air, and the colour of the day, a little heedless
of his companion, until looking up, startled by some break in her
voice, he saw that she was crying.

"Evelyn, what is the matter? You are crying. I never saw you cry
before."

She laughed a little, but there was a good deal of grief in her
laughter, and confessed herself to be very unhappy. Life was proving
too much for her, and when he questioned her as to her meaning, she
admitted in broken answers that his departure with the company was
more than she could bear.

"Why, then, not come with us? You'll sign the agreement?"

And they walked towards Bayswater together, talking from time to time,
Ulick trying not to say anything which would disturb her resolution,
though he had heard Owen say that once she had made a promise she
never went back upon it.

There was all next day to be disposed of, but he would be very busy,
and she would be busy too; she would have to make arrangements, so
perhaps it would be better they should not meet.

"Then, at the railway station the day after to-morrow," and he bade
her goodbye at her door.

Owen was in his study writing.

"I didn't know you had returned, Asher."

"I came back this afternoon," and he was on the point of adding, "and
saw you with Evelyn as I drove through the park." But the admission
was so painful a one to make that it died upon his lips, finding
expression only in a look of suffering--a sort of scared look, which
told Ulick that something had happened. Could it be that Owen had seen
them in the park sitting under the limes? That long letter on the
writing-table, which Owen put away so mysteriously--could it be to
Evelyn? Ulick had guessed rightly. Owen had seen them in the park, and
he was writing to Evelyn telling her that he could bear a great deal,
but it was cruel and heartless for her to sit with Ulick under the
same trees. He had stopped in the middle of the letter remembering
that it might prevent her from going away with Ulick, and so throw her
back into the power of Monsignor. Even so, he must write his letter;
one has oneself to consider, and he could bear it no longer.

"I see you are writing, and I have many letters to write. You will
excuse me?" And Ulick went to his room. After writing his letters, he
sent word to Owen that he was dining out. "He will think I am dining
with her, but no matter; anything is better than that we two should
sit looking at each other all through the evening, thinking of one
thing and unable to speak about it."

Next day he was out all day transacting business, thinking in the
intervals, "To-morrow morning she will be in the station," sometimes
asking himself if Owen had written to her.

But the letter he had caught sight of on Owen's table had not been
posted. "After all, what is the good in writing a disagreeable letter
to her? If she is going away with Ulick what does it matter under what
trees they sat?" Yet everything else seemed to him nothing compared
with the fact that she and Ulick had pursued their courtship under the
limes facing the Serpentine; and Owen wondered at himself. "We are
ruled by trifles," he said; all the same he did not send the letter.

And that night Owen and Ulick bade each other goodbye for the last
time.

"Perhaps I shall see you later on in the year; in about six months'
time we shall be back in London."

Owen could not bring himself to ask if Evelyn had accepted the
engagement--what was the good? To ask would be a humiliation, and he
would know to-morrow; the porter at her flat would tell him whether
she was in London.




CHAPTER FOURTEEN


"Mr. Dean left this morning, Sir Owen." The butler was about to add,
"He left about an hour ago, in plenty of time to catch his train," but
guessing Sir Owen's humour from his silence, he said nothing, and left
the footman to attend on him.

"So he has persuaded her to go away with him.... I wonder--" And Owen
began to think if he should go to Ayrdale Mansions himself to find
out. But if she had not gone away with Ulick, and if he should meet
her in the street, how embarrassing it would be! Of what should he
speak to her? Of the intrigue she had been carrying on with Ulick
Dean? Should he pretend that he knew nothing of it? She would be
ashamed of this renewal of her affection for Ulick, though she had not
gone away with him; and if she had not gone, it would be only on
account of Monsignor. He sat irresolute, his thoughts dropping away
into remembrances of the day before--the two sitting together under
the lime-trees. That was the unendurable bitterness; it was easy to
forgive her Ulick, he was nothing compared to this deliberate soiling
of the past. If she could not have avoided the park, she might have
avoided certain corners sacred to the memory of their love-story--the
groves of limes facing the Serpentine being especially sacred to his
memory.

"But only man remembers; woman is the grosser animal." And in his
armchair Owen meditated on the coarseness of the female mind, always
careless of detail, even seeming to take pleasure in overlaying the
past with the present. "A mistake," he thought. "We should look upon
every episode as a picture, and each should hang in a place so
carefully appointed that none should do injury to another. But few of
us pay any regard to the hanging of our lives--women none at all. The
canvases are hooked anywhere, any place will suffice, no matter
whether they are hung straight or crooked; and a great many are left
on the floor, their faces turned to the wall; and some are hidden away
in cellars, where no memory ever reaches them. Poor canvases!" And
then, his thoughts reverting suddenly to his proposed visit to
Ayrdale Mansions, he asked himself what answer he could give if he
were asked to explain Ulick's presence at Berkeley Square--proofs of
his approval of Ulick's courtship; his motives would be misunderstood.
Never again would his love of her be believed in.

"I have been a fool--one always is a fool, and acts wrongly, when one
acts unselfishly. Self is our one guide--when we abandon self, we
abandon the rudder."

He would have just been content to keep Evelyn as his friend, and she
would have been willing to remain friends with him if he did not talk
against religion, or annoy her by making love to her. "There is a time
for everything," and he thought of his age. Passionate love should
melt into friendship, and her friendship he might have had if he had
thought only of himself; it would have been a worthy crown for the
love he had borne for her during so many years. Now there was nothing
left for him but a nasty sour rind of life to chew to the end--it was
under his teeth, and it was sour enough, and it never would grow less
sour. His sadness grew so deep that he forgot himself in it, and was
awakened by the sound of wheels.

"Somebody coming to call. I won't see anybody," and he rang the bell.
"I am not at home to anybody."

"But, Sir Owen, Mr. Dean--"

"Mr. Dean!" And Owen stood aghast, wondering what could have brought
Ulick back again.

"Are you at home to Mr. Dean, sir?"

"Yes, yes," and at the same moment he caught sight of Ulick coming
across the hall. "What has happened?" he said as soon as the door was
closed.

"She tried to poison herself last night."

"Tried to poison herself! But she is not dead?"

"No, she's not dead, and will recover."

"Tried to poison herself!"

"Yes, that is what I came back to tell you. We were to have met at the
station, but she didn't turn up; and, after waiting for a quarter of
an hour, I felt something must have happened, and drove to Ayrdale
Mansions."

"Tried to kill herself!"

"I'm afraid I have no time to tell you the story. Mrat will be able
to tell it to you better than I. I must get away by the next train.
There is no danger; she will recover."

"You say she will recover?" and Owen drew his hands across his eyes.
"I'm afraid I can hardly understand."

"But if you will just take a cab and go up to Ayrdale Mansions, you
will find Mrat, who will tell you everything."

"Yes, yes. You are sure she will recover?"

"Quite."

"But you--you are going away?"

"I have to, unless I give up my appointment. Of course, I should like
to stay behind; but there is no danger, absolutely none, only an
overdose of chloral."

"She suffered a great deal from sleeplessness. Perhaps it was an
accident."

Ulick did not answer, and the elder man drove in one direction and the
younger in another.

"Mrat, this is terrible!"

"Won't you come into the drawing-room, Sir Owen?"

"She is in no danger?"

"No, Sir Owen."

"Can I see her?"

"Yes, of course, Sir Owen; but she is still asleep, and the doctor
says she will not be able to understand or recognise anybody for some
hours. You will see her if you call later."

"Yes, I'll call later; but first of all, tell me, Mrat, when was the
discovery made?"

"She left a letter for me to say she was not to be called, and knowing
she had gone out for many hours, and finding her clothes and her boots
wet through, I thought it better not to disturb her. Of course, I
never suspected anything until Mr. Dean came."

"Yes, she was to meet him at the station." And as he said these words
he remembered that Mrat must know of Evelyn's intimacy with Ulick.
She must have been watching it for the last month, and no doubt
already connected Evelyn's attempted suicide in some way with Mr.
Dean, but the fact that they had arranged to meet at the railway
station did not point to a betrayal.

"There was no quarrel between them, then, Sir Owen?"

"None; oh, none, Mrat."

"It is very strange."

"Yes, it is very strange, Mrat; we might talk of it for hours without
getting nearer to the truth. So Mr. Dean came here?"

"Yes. When I opened the door he said, 'Where is mademoiselle?' and I
said, 'Asleep; she left a note that she was not to be called.' 'Then,
Mrat, something must have happened, for she was to meet me at the
railway station. We must see to this at once.' Her door was locked,
but Mr. Dean put his shoulder against it. In spite of the noise, she
did not awake--a very few more grains would have killed her."

"Grains of what?"

"Chloral, Sir Owen. We thought she was dead. Mr. Dean went for the
doctor. He looked very grave when he saw her; I could see he thought
she was dead; but after examining her he said, 'She has a young heart,
and will get over it.'"

"So that is your story, Mrat?"

"Yes, Sir Owen, that is the story. There is no doubt about it she
tried to kill herself, the doctor says."

"So, Mrat, you think it was for Mr. Dean. Don't you know mademoiselle
has taken a religious turn?"

"I know it, Sir Owen."

And he attributed the present misfortune to Monsignor, who had
destroyed Evelyn's mind with ceremonies and sacraments.

"Good God! these people should be prosecuted." And he railed against
the prelate and against religion, stopping only now and again when
Mrat went to her mistress's door, thinking she heard her call. "You
say it was between eleven and twelve she came back?"

"It was after twelve, Sir Owen."

"Now where could she have been all that time, and in the rain,
thinking how she might kill herself?"

"It couldn't have been anything else, Sir Owen. Her boots were soaked
through as if she had been in the water, not caring where she went."

Owen wondered if it were possible she had ventured into the
Serpentine.

"The park closes at nine, doesn't it, Sir Owen?" They talked of the
possibility of hiding in the park and the keepers not discovering
Evelyn in their rounds; it was quite possible for her to have escaped
their notice if she hid in the bushes about the Long Water.

"You think, Sir Owen, that she intended to drown herself?"

"I don't know. You say her boots were wet through. Perhaps she went
out to buy the chloral--perhaps she hadn't enough."

"Well, Sir Owen, she must have been doubtful if she had enough chloral
to kill herself, for this is what I found." And the maid took out of
her pocket several pairs of garters tied together.

"You think she tied these together so that she might hang herself?"

"There is no place she could hang herself except over the banisters. I
thought that perhaps she feared the garters were not strong enough
and she might fall and break her legs."

"Poor woman! Poor woman! So if the garters had proved stronger, she
would have strangled there minute by minute. Nothing but religious
mania--that is what drove her to it."

"I am inclined to think, Sir Owen, it must have been something of that
kind, for of course there were no money difficulties."

"The agony of mind she must have suffered! The agony of the suicide!
And her agony, the worst of all, for she is a religious woman." Owen
talked of how strange and mysterious are the motives which determine
the lives of human beings. "You see, all her life was in
disorder--leaving the stage and giving me up. Mrat, there is no use
in disguising it from you. You know all about it. Do you remember when
we met for the first time?"

"Yes, Sir Owen; indeed I do." And the two stood looking at each other,
thinking of the changes that time had made in themselves. Sir Owen's
figure was thinner, if anything, than before; his face seemed
shrunken, but there were only a few grey hairs, and the maid thought
him still a very distinguished-looking man--old, of course; but still,
nobody would think of him as an old man. Mrat's shoulders seemed to
be higher than they were when he last saw her; she had developed a
bust, and her black dress showed off her hips. Her hair seemed a
little thinner, so she was still typically French; France looked out
of her eyes. "Isn't it strange? The day we first met we little thought
that we would come to know each other so well; and you have known her
always, travelled all over Europe with her. How I have loved that
woman, Mrat! And here you are together, come from Park Lane to this
poor little flat in Bayswater. It is wonderful, Mrat, after all these
years, to be sitting here, talking together about her whom we both
love. You have been very good to her, and have looked after her well;
I shall never forget it to you."

"I have done my best, Sir Owen; and you know mademoiselle is one of
those whom one cannot help liking."

"But living in this flat with her, Mrat, you must feel lonely. Do you
never wish for your own country?"

"But I am with mademoiselle, Sir Owen; and if I were to leave her, no
one else could look after her--at least, not as I can. You see, we
know each other so well, and everything belonging to her interests me.
Perhaps you would like to see her, Sir Owen?"

"I'd like to see her, but what good would it do me or her? I'll see
her in the evening, when I can speak to her. To see her lying there
unconscious, Mrat--no, it would only put thoughts of death into my
mind; and she will have to die, though she didn't die last night, just
as we all shall have to die--you and I, in a few years we shall be
dead."

"Your thoughts are very gloomy, Sir Owen."

"You don't expect me to have gay thoughts to-day, do you, Mrat? So
here is where you live, you and she; and that is her writing-table?"

"Yes; she sits there in the evening, quite contented, writing
letters."

"To whom?" Owen asked. "To no one but priests and nuns?"

"Yes, she is very interested in her poor people, and she has to write
a great many letters on their behalf."

"I know--to get them work." And they walked round the room. "Well,
Mrat, this isn't what we are accustomed to--this isn't like Park
Lane."

"Mademoiselle only cares for plain things now; if she had the money
she would spend it all upon her poor people. It was a long time before
I could persuade her to buy the sofa you have been sitting on just
now; she has not had it above two months."

"And all these clothes, Mrat--what are they?"

"Oh, I have forgotten to take them away." And Mrat told him that
these were clothes that Evelyn was making for her poor people--for
little boys who were going upon a school-treat, mostly poor Irish; and
Owen picked up a cap from the floor, and a little crooked smile came
into his face when he heard it was intended for Paddy Sullivan.

"All the same, it is better she should think about poor people than
about religion."

"Far better, Sir Owen, far better. Sometimes I'm afraid she will bring
back things upon her. She comes back tired and sleeps; but when she
spends her time in churches thinking of her sins, or what she imagines
to be sins, Sir Owen, I hear her walking about her room at night, and
in the morning she tells me she hasn't slept at all."

"What you tell me is very serious, Mrat. All the same, all the
same--jackets and coats for Paddy Sullivan's children. Well, it is
very touching. There never was anybody quite so good, do you think
there was, Mrat?"

"That is the reason why we all love her; and you do, too, Sir Owen,
though you pretend to hate goodness and to despise--"

"No, Mrat, no. Tell mademoiselle, if she wakes, that I am coming back
to see her this evening late--the later the better, I suppose, for she
is not likely to fall asleep again once she wakes."

Mrat mentioned between nine and ten o'clock, and, to distract his
thoughts, Owen went to the theatre that evening, and was glad to leave
it at ten, before the play was over.

"Is she awake?"

"She has been awake some time. I think you will be able to have a
little talk with her." And Owen stole into the room with so little
noise that Evelyn did not hear him, and all the room was seen and
understood before she turned: the crucifix above the bedstead, the
pious prints, engravings which they had bought in Italy--Botticelli
and Filippo Lippi. She lay in a narrow iron bed, and all the form that
he knew so well covered in a plain nightgown such as he had never seen
before, but in keeping, he thought, with the rest of the room, and in
conformity--such was his impression, there was no time for
thinking--with her present opinions. The smallness of the chest of
drawers surprised him. Where did she keep her clothes? It might be
doubted if she possessed more than two or three gowns. Where were they
hanging? The few chairs and the dressing-table, on which he caught
sight of some ivory brushes he had given her, seemed the only
furniture in the room.

"Evelyn!"

"Oh, it is you, Owen. So you have come to see me. You are always
kind."

"My dear Evelyn, there never can be any question of kindness between
you and me. You will always be Evelyn, and I am only thinking now of
how glad I am to have found you again."

"Found me again!" And her thoughts seemed to float away, her mind not
being strong enough yet to think connectedly. "How did you hear about
me?" Before he could answer she said, "I suppose Ulick----" And then,
with an effort to remember, she added, "Yes, Mrat told me he had come
here," and the effort seemed to fatigue her.

"Perhaps it would be better if you didn't talk."

"Oh, no," she said, taking his hand, detaining it for a moment and
then losing it; "tell me."

And he told her, speaking very gently so that his voice might not tire
her, that Ulick had called at Berkeley Square.

"He told me you weren't going away with him."

A slight shudder passed through Evelyn's face, and she asked, "Where
is Ulick?"

"He has gone away. If he had stayed he would have lost his post as
secretary to the opera company."

Evelyn did not appear to hear the explanation, and it was some time
before she said:

"He has gone away. I don't think we shall see much of him again,
either you or I, Owen."

Owen did not resist asking if she regretted this, and she answered
that she did not regret it at all. "And now you understand, Owen, what
kind of woman I am; how hopeless everything is." In spite of herself,
a little trace of her old wit returning to her, she added, "You see
what an unfortunate man you are in your choice of a mistress."

Owen could not answer; and a moment after he remembered that it is
only those who feel as deeply as Evelyn who can speak as lightly,
otherwise they would not be able to resist the strain; and the strain
was a very terrible one, he could see that, for she turned over in
bed, and a little later he perceived that she had been crying. Turning
suddenly, she exclaimed:

"Owen, Owen, I am very frightened!"

"Frightened of what, dear one?"

"I don't know, Owen, I can't tell you; but I am very frightened, for
he seems not to be very far away and may come again."

"And who is 'he'?"

"It is impossible to tell you--a darkness, a shadow that seems always
by me, and who was very near me last night. A little more chloral and
I should not be here talking to you!"

"It is terrible, Evelyn, terrible! And how should I have lived?"

"You lived before me and you will live after me. Suicide is a mortal
sin, so Monsignor would tell me. We are forbidden to kill ourselves
even to escape sin, and that seems strange; for how shall I ever
believe that God would not have forgiven me, that he would not have
preferred me to kill myself than to have--?" And her voice died away,
Owen wondered whether for lack of strength or unwillingness to express
herself in words.

"My dear Evelyn! my dear Evelyn!"

"You don't understand, Owen; I am so different from what I was once. I
know it, I feel it, the difference, and it can't be helped."

"But it can be helped, Evelyn. You've been living by yourself,
spending whole days and nights alone, and you've been suffering from
want of sleep--something had to happen; but now that it has happened
you will get quite well, and if you had only done what I asked you
before--if we had been married--!"

"Don't let us talk about it, Owen; you don't understand how different
I am, how impossible--I--don't want to be unkind, you have been very
good to me always; and, understanding you as I seem to understand you
now, I am sorry you should have made such a bad choice, and that I was
not more satisfactory."

"But you are perfectly satisfactory, Evelyn. If I am satisfied, who
should have the right to grumble? The pain of losing you is better
than the pleasure of winning anybody else.... So you think, Evelyn,
you will never return to the stage?"

She did not answer, and, with dilated eyes, she looked through the
room till Owen turned, wondering if he should see anything; and he was
about to ask her if she saw the shadow again which she had spoken of a
while ago, but refrained from speaking, seeing that the time was not
one for questions.

"Evelyn," he said, "I will come to see you to-morrow. You are tired
to-night."




CHAPTER FIFTEEN


"She will fall asleep again, and to-morrow will be quite well. But
what a neat escape!" And he lingered with Mrat, feeling it were
better she should know everything, yet loth to tell her that he had
known all the while that Ulick was trying to persuade Evelyn to go
away with him. But Mrat must know that Ulick had been staying at
Berkeley Square.

"I suppose Monsignor comes here to see her?"

"He has been here, Sir Owen."

Owen would have liked to question her, but it did not seem honourable
to do so, and after a little talk about the danger of yielding to
religious impulses, he noticed that Mrat was drifting from him,
evidently thinking such discussions useless.

On the landing he told her that Ulick had gone away with the opera
company, and that it was not likely that he and mademoiselle would see
each other again.

"But when Mr. Dean comes back to London?" Mrat answered.

"Well, hardly even then; after a crisis like this she will not be
anxious to see him. You know, Mrat, he was staying with me at
Berkeley Square; and I knew of his visits here, only it seemed to me
the only way to save her from religion was by getting her to go back
to the stage."

Owen took breath; he had told his story, or as much as was necessary,
omitting the fact that he was an accomplice in the love-making which
had led to attempted suicide.

"You don't think I was right?"

"Well, Sir Owen, you see, I don't think mademoiselle will ever go back
to the stage."

"You think that, Mrat? Well, then, the only thing to save her from
religion is marriage. I don't mind telling you, nor is there any need
to tell you--you must know--that I have always wanted her to be my
wife, only she would not marry me, and for some reason impossible to
get at."

"Mademoiselle is like nobody else; _elle avait toujours son ide_."

"_Parfaitement, comme disent les paysannes de chez vous, d'une bte
qui ne ressemble pas au troupeau et qui allait toujours_."

"_Oui, mademoiselle a eu toujours son ide_. So Sir Owen thinks it was
fear of going back to the stage that persuaded mademoiselle to--"

"Something like that, Mrat. She liked Mr. Dean."

"But you are first in her thoughts, Sir Owen."

"That isn't astonishing. We have known each other so long. Now, after
what has happened, perhaps she will think differently about marriage,
do you understand, Mrat. She may think differently to-morrow, for
instance, and it would be better for all of us--for you, for myself,
for her. Don't you agree?"

"Well, Sir Owen, there is nothing I should like more than to see
mademoiselle married, only--"

"Only you don't think she'll marry me?"

"_Comme monsieur a dit, elle a eu toujours son ide._"

"But after the great shock surely she will see that marriage is the
only way." Owen continued to talk of marriage a little while longer,
and all the way home his thoughts ran on his chance of persuading
Evelyn to marry him. It did not seem possible that she could refuse
after the shock. The chances were all with him: he would catch her in
a moment when her faith in religion would be weakened, for she must
see that it had not saved her from attempted suicide; all the chances
were in his favour, and he hardly doubted at all he would be able to
persuade her to marry him. Once she agreed she would carry it out;
nothing she hated as much as any alteration of plan.

His mind wandered back into the past years, and he recalled little
facts significant of her character. However loud the storm she would
cross the Channel, though there was no reason for it--merely, as she
said, because it had been arranged to cross that day. He could
remember the dress she wore on that occasion, and the expression of
her face. Other instances equally trivial floated into his mind, every
one strangely vivid, delighting him because they were characteristic
of her. If he could only get her to say she would marry him. It would
be unnecessary to explain why he had sent Ulick to her. Or he might
explain. It didn't matter. Ulick would pass out of their lives, and
all this miserable business would be forgotten.

The quickest way of being married was in a registry office, but would
Evelyn look upon a civil marriage as sufficient? Once the civil
marriage was an accomplished fact, she could be married afterwards in
Church, even in a Catholic church; he would go there if it pleased her
to go. Besides, Evelyn really looked upon marriage more as a civil
than as a religious obligation. His thoughts continued to chatter,
keeping him up late, till long after midnight, and awaking him early.
And the sun seemed to him to have dawned on his wedding day. But even
if they were to be married in a registry office a best man would be
required. So his thoughts went to Harding, whom he knew to be in
London. But Harding would be busy with his writing until the
afternoon, and Owen strode about Bond Street, visiting the shops of
various picture dealers, welcoming any acquaintance whom he happened
to meet, walking to the end of the street with him, and spending the
last hour--from three to four--in the National Gallery, whither he had
gone to see some new acquisitions. But the new pictures did not
interest him. "My thoughts are elsewhere." And turning from the new
Titian, it seemed to him that he might drive to Victoria Street;
Harding's work must be over for the day.

"My dear Harding, you don't mind my interrupting you?" And he envied
his friend's interest in his manuscripts when the writer put them
away.

"You are not disturbing me; my secretary didn't come to-day, and
everything is habit. I can no longer write except by dictation."

"If I had known that I would have called in the morning."

"Again some drama in which Evelyn Innes is concerned," Harding said to
himself.

"Harding, I have come to ask your advice; you'll give me the very
best. But you will have to hear the whole story."

"Well, I am a story-teller, and like to hear stories."

Owen told him how he had met Ulick Dean at Innes', and had invited him
to stop at Berkeley Square, and how gradually the idea that he could
make use of Ulick in order to tempt Evelyn back to the stage had come
into his mind. Anything to save her from religion, from Monsignor.

Owen caught Harding looking at him from under his shaggy eyebrows, and
anger had begun to colour his cheeks when Harding said:

"Don't you remember, Asher, coming here a couple of years ago, and--"

"Yes, I know. You predicted that Ulick Dean and I would become
friends, and you are right; we did."

"And you preferred that Evelyn should be his mistress rather than that
she shall go over to Monsignor?"

"I am not ashamed to confess I did; anything seemed better--but there
is no use arguing the point. What I have come to tell you is that
rather than go away with him she tried to kill herself." And he told
Harding the story.

"What an extraordinary story! But nothing is extraordinary in human
nature. What we consider the normal never happens. Nature's course is
always zigzag, and no one can predict a human action."

"Well, then, my good friend, when you have done philosophising--I
don't mean to be rude, but you see my nerves have been at strain for
the last four-and-twenty hours; you will excuse me. My notion now is
that everything has happened for the best." And he confided to Harding
his hopes of being able to persuade Evelyn to marry him. "Only by
marriage can she be saved, and I think I can persuade her." And he
babbled about her appearance last night after her long sleep,
comparing her with the portrait in his room. The painter had omitted
nothing of her character; all that had happened he read into the
picture--the restless spiritual eyes, and the large voluptuous mouth,
and the small high temples which Leonardo would like to draw. The
painting of this picture was as illusive as Evelyn herself, the
treatment of the reddish hair and the grey background.

And Harding listened, saying, "So this is the end."

"You think she will marry me?"

"Everything in nature is unexpected, that is all I can tell you. Art
is logic, Nature incoherency."

"Well, let us hope that Nature will be a little more coherent
to-morrow than she was last night, and that Evelyn will do the right
thing. Women generally marry when it is pressed upon them
sufficiently, don't you think so, Harding?"

"I hope it will be so, since you desire it."

"And you will be my best man, won't you?"

"I shall be only too pleased. Now, if you wait for me while I change
my boots we'll go out together." And the two men crossed the Green
Park talking of the great moral laxity of the time they lived in;
whereas in the eighteenth century men were even accused of boasting of
their successes, now the conditions are reversed, men never admitting
themselves to be anything else but virtuous; women, on the contrary,
publishing their _liaisons_, and taking little pleasure in them until
they were known to everybody.

"_Liaisons_ have become as official as marriages. Who doesn't know--"
And Harding mentioned a number of celebrated "affairs" which had been
going on for ten, some twenty years. "The real love affair of her
ladyship now is probably some little tenor or drawing-master, and
Cecil's a little milliner; but her ladyship and Cecil are forced to
keep up appearances, for if they didn't who would talk about them any
more?"

"You should write that as a short story," Owen suggested. And the two
friends began to argue as to the number of lovers which fell to the
lot of fashionable women, from the age of twenty-three to fifty. Two
or three ladies were mentioned whose _liaisons_ reached a couple of
hundred, and there was another about whom they were not agreed, for
some of her _liaisons_ had lasted so long that Owen did not believe
she had had more than fifty lovers.

"It is impossible to imagine any time for a young man more propitious
than the present, or any society more agreeable than London. Morals,
as the newspapers would say, are in abeyance, conscience is looked
upon as pedantic, especially in women, and unbecoming." As the two
walked up St. James' Street together, Harding noticed that Owen,
notwithstanding his chatter about morals, was thinking of Evelyn, and
took very little interest in the display of the season--in the slim
nobility of England, fresh from Oxford, all in frock coats for the
first time, delighting in canes, and deerskin gloves, in collars and
ties, the newest fashion, going down the street in pairs, turning into
their clubs, lifting their hats to the women who drove past in
victorias and electric broughams.

"Never were women more charming than they are now," Owen said, in
order not to appear too much immersed in his own thoughts, and he
picked a woman out, pretending to be interested in her. "That one
leaning a little to the left, her white dog sitting beside her."

"Like a rose in Maytime."

"Rather an orchid in a crystal glass."

Harding accepted the correction.

"Do you know who she is, Harding?"

The question was a thoughtless one, for no one knows the whole of the
peerage, not even Harding, and it was painful for him to admit that he
did not know the lady, who happened to be an earl's daughter--somebody
he really should have known. Not having been born a peer himself, he
had, as a friend once said, resolved to make amends for the mistake in
his birth by never knowing anybody who hadn't a title. But this
criticism was not a just one; Harding was not a snob. It has already
been explained that love of order and tradition were part of his
nature; the reader remembers, no doubt, Harding's idiosyncrasies, and
how little interested he was in writers, and painters, avoiding always
the society of such people. But his face brightened presently, for a
very distinguished woman bowed to him, and he was glad to tell Owen
he was going to stay with her in the autumn. The Duchess had just
returned from Palestine, and it was beginning to be whispered she had
gone there with a young man. The talk turned again on the morality of
London, and exciting stories were told of a fracas which had occurred
between two well-known men. So their desks had been broken open, and
packets of love letters abstracted. New scandals were about to break
to blossom, other scandals had been nipped in the bud.

Harding said nothing wittier had been said for many generations than
the _mot_ credited to a young girl, who had described a ball given
that season by the women of forty as "The Hags' Hop." Somebody else
had called it "The Roaring Forties." Which was the better description
of the two? "The Roaring Forties" seemed a little pretentious, and
preference was given to the more natural epigram, "The Hags' Hop."

"We were all virtuous in the fifties, now licence has reached its
prime, and we shall fall back soon into decadence."

Harding, who was something of an historian, was able to illustrate
this prophecy by reference to antiquity. When the life of the senses
and understanding reached its height, as it did in the last stages of
the Roman Empire, a reaction came. St. Francis of Assisi was succeeded
by Alexander VI.; Luther soon followed after.

"And in twenty years hence we shall all become moral again. Good
heavens! the first sign of it has appeared--Evelyn."

Piccadilly flowed past, the stream of the season, men typical of
England in their age as in their youth, typical of their castles,
their swards, and lofty woods, of their sports and traditions,
hunting, shooting, racing, polo playing; the women, too, typical of
English houses and English parks, but not so typical; only
recognisable by a certain reflected light; an Englishman makes woman
according to his own image and likeness, taking clay often from
America. The narrow pavements of Bond Street were thronged, women
getting out of their carriages, intent on their shopping, bowing to
the men as they ran into the shops, making amends for the sombre black
of the men's coats by a delirium of feathers, skirts, and pink ankles.
And nodding to their friends, bowing to the ladies in the carriages,
Harding and Owen edged their way through the crowd.

"The street at this hour is like a ballroom, isn't it?" Owen said. "I
want-to get some cigars." And they turned into a celebrated store,
where half a dozen assistants were busily engaged in tying up parcels
of five hundred or a thousand cigars, or displaying neatly-made paper
boxes containing a hundred cigarettes.

"When will men give up smoking pipes, I should like to know?"

"I thought you were a pipe smoker?"

"So I was, but I can't bear the smell any longer."

"Yet you smoke cigars?"

"Cigars are different."

"How was it the change came?"

"I don't know." Owen ordered a thousand cigars to be sent to Berkeley
Square.

It was late for tea, and still too early for dinner.

"I am sorry to ask you to dine at such an early hour, but I daresay we
shan't have dinner till half-past seven."

But Harding remembered his tailor: some trousers. And he led Owen
towards Hanover Square, wondering if Owen would approve of his choice?

"It was like you to choose that grey."

Now what was there to find fault with in the grey he had chosen? They
turned over the tailor's pattern sheet. Daring, in the art of
dressing, is the prescriptive right of the professional just as it is
in writing. Owen was a professional dresser, whereas he, Harding, was
but an amateur; and that was why he had chosen a timid, insignificant
grey. At once Owen discovered a much more effective cloth; and he
chose a coat for Harding, who wanted one--the same rough material
which Harding had often admired on Owen's shoulders. But would such a
dashing coat suit him as well as it did its originator, and dare he
wear the fancy waistcoats Owen was pressing upon him?

"They suit you, Asher, but you still go in at the waist, and brown
trousers look well on legs as straight as billiard cues."

"Is there nothing we can do for you, Sir Owen?"

Owen spoke about sending back a coat which he was not altogether
satisfied with.

"Every suit of clothes I have, Harding, costs me fifty pounds."

Harding raised his thick eyebrows, and Owen explained that only one
suit in six was worth wearing.

"There is more truth in what you say than appears. I once wore a suit
of clothes for six years! And they were as good as new when--" But
Owen refused to be interested in Harding's old clothes.

"If I'm not married to-morrow I shall never marry. You don't believe
me, Harding? Now, of what are you thinking? Of that suit of clothes
which you have had for six years or of my marriage--which?"

At the moment that Owen interrupted him Harding was thinking that
perhaps a woman who had attempted suicide to escape from another man
would not drift as easily into marriage as Owen thought; but, of
course, he did not dare to confess such an opinion.

"You don't mind dining at half-past seven?"

"Not in the least, my good friend, not in the least." Going towards
Berkeley Square they continued to speak about Evelyn.... She would
have to refuse Owen to-night or accept him: so he would know his fate
to-night.

"Just fancy," he said, "to-morrow I am either going to be married
or--" And he stared into the depths of a picture about which he
thought he would like to have Harding's opinion, but it did not matter
what anybody thought of pictures until he knew what Evelyn was going
to do. None had any interest for him; but they could not talk of
Evelyn during dinner, the room being full of servants, and he was
forced to listen to Harding, who was rather tiresome on the subject of
how a collection of pictures had better be formed, and the proposal to
go to France to seek for an Ingres did not appeal to him.

"I hope you don't mind my smoking a pipe," Harding said as they rose
from table.

"No," he said, "smoke what you like, I don't care; smoke in my study,
only raise the window. But you'll excuse me, Harding. My appointment
is for eight."

As he was about to leave the room a footman came in, saying that Miss
Innes' maid would like to see him, and, guessing that something had
happened, Owen said:

"It is to tell me I'm not to go to see her; something disagreeable
always--" And he left the room abruptly.

"I have shown the maid into the morning-room, Sir Owen."

"Now, what is the matter, Mrat?"

"Perhaps you had better read the letter first, Sir Owen, and then we
can talk."

"I can't read without my glasses; do you read it, Mrat." Without
waiting for her to answer he returned to the dining-room. "I have
forgotten my glasses, Harding, that is all; you will wait for me." His
hand trembled as he tried to fix the glasses on his nose.

     "MY DEAR OWEN,--I am afraid you will be disappointed, and I am
     disappointed too, for I should like to see you; but I think it
     would be better, and Monsignor, who was here to-day, thinks it
     would be better, that we should not see each other ... for the
     present. I have recovered a good deal, but am still far from
     well; my nerves are shattered. You know I have been through a
     great deal; and though I am sure you would have refrained from
     all allusions to unpleasant topics, still your presence would
     remind me too much of what I don't want to think about. It is
     impossible for me to explain better. This letter will seem unkind
     to you, who do not like unkind letters; but you will try to
     understand, and to see things from my point of view, and not to
     rave when I tell you that I am going to a convent--not to be a
     nun; that, of course, is out of the question; but for rest, and
     only among those good women can I find the necessary rest.

     "My first thought was to go to Dulwich to my father, but--well,
     here is a piece of news that will interest you--he has been
     appointed _capelmeister_ to the Papal choir, the ambition of his
     life is fulfilled, and he started at once for Rome. It is
     possible that three or four months hence, when he is settled, he
     will write to ask me to go out to join him there, and Monsignor
     would like me to do this, for, of course, my duty is by my
     father, who is no longer as young as he used to be. I don't like
     to leave him, but the matter has been carefully considered; he
     has been here with Monsignor, and the conclusion arrived at is,
     that it is better for me to go to the convent for a long rest.
     Afterwards ... one never knows; there is no use making plans.

     "EVELYN."

"No use making plans; I should think not, indeed," Owen cried. "Never
will she come out of that convent, Mrat, never! They have got her,
they have got her! You remember the first day we met, you and I, in
the Rue Balzac, and you have been with her ever since; you were with
us in Brussels when she sang 'Elizabeth,' and in Germany--do you
remember the night she sang 'Isolde'? So it has come to this, so it
has come to this; and in spite of all we could do. Do you remember
Italy, Mrat? Good God! Good God!" And he fell into a chair and did
not speak again for some time. "It would have been better if Ulick
Dean had persuaded her to go away with him. It was I who told him to
go to see her and kept him in my house because I knew that this damned
priest would get her in the end."

"But, Sir Owen, for mademoiselle to be a nun is out of the question
... if you knew what convents were."

"Oh, Mrat, don't talk to me, don't talk to me; they have got her!"

Then a sudden idea seized him.

"Come into the dining-room," he said. "You know Mr. Harding? He is
there." He passed out of the room, leaving the door open for Mrat to
follow through. "Harding, read this letter." He stood watching Harding
while he read; but before Harding was half-way down the page he said:
"You see, she is going into a convent. They have got her, they have
got her! But they shan't get her as long as I have a shoulder with
which to force in a door. The doors of those mansions where she has
gone to live are not very strong, are they, Mrat? She shall see me;
she shall not go to that convent. That blasted priest shall not get
her. Those ghouls of nuns!" And he was about to break from the room
when Mrat threw herself in front of him.

"Remember, Sir Owen, she has been very ill; remember what has
happened, and if you prevent her from going to the convent----"

"So, Mrat, you're against me too? You want to drive her into a
convent, do you?"

"Sir Owen, you hardly know what you are saying. I am thinking of what
might happen if you went to Ayrdale Mansions, and forced in the door.
Sir Owen, I beg of you."

"Then if you oppose me you are responsible. They will get her, I tell
you; those blasted ghouls, haunters of graveyards, diggers of graves,
faint creatures who steal out of the light, mumblers of prayers! You
know, Harding, what I say is true. God!" He raised his fist in the air
and fell back into an armchair, screaming oaths and blasphemies
without sense. It was on Harding's lips to say, "Asher, you are making
a show of yourself." "_Vous vous donnez en spectacle_" were the words
that crossed Mrat's mind. But there was something noble in this
crisis, and Harding admired Owen--here was one who was not afraid to
shriek out and to rage. And what nobler cause for a man's rage?

"The woman he loves is about to be taken out of the sunlight into the
grey shadow of the cloister. Why shouldn't he rage?"

"To sing of death, not of life, and where the intelligence wilts and
bleaches!" he shrieked. "What an awful end! don't you understand?
Devils! devils!" and he slipped from his chair suddenly on to the
hearthrug, and lay there tearing at it with his fingers. The elegant
fribble of St. James' Street had passed back to the primeval savage
robbed of his mate.

"You give way to your feelings, Asher."

At these words Asher sprang to his feet, yelling:

"Why shouldn't I give way to my feelings? You haven't lost the most
precious thing on God's earth. You never cared for a woman as I do;
perhaps you never cared for one at all. You don't look as if you did."
Owen's face wrinkled; he jibbered at one moment like a demented
baboon, at the next he was transfigured, and looked like some Titan as
he strode about the room, swearing that they should not get her.

"But it all depends upon herself, Owen; you can do nothing," Harding
said, fearing a tragedy. But Owen did not seem to hear him, he could
only hear his own anger thundering in his heart. At last the storm
seemed to abate a little, and he said that he knew Harding would
forgive him for having spoken discourteously; he was afraid he had
done so just now.

"But, you know, Harding, I have suspected this abomination; the taint
was in her blood. You know those Papists, Harding, how they cringe,
how shamefaced they are, how low in intelligence. I have heard you say
yourself they have not written a book for the last four hundred years.
Now, why do you defend them?"

"Defend them, Asher? I am not defending them."

"Paralysed brains, arrested intelligences." He stopped, choked, unable
to articulate for his haste. "That brute, Monsignor Mostyn--at all
events I can see him, and kick the vile brute." And taken in another
gust of passion, Owen went towards the door. "Yes, I can have it out
with him."

"But, Asher, he is an old man; to lay hands upon him would be ruin."

"What do I care about ruin? I am ruined. They have got her, and her
mind will be poisoned. She will get the abominable ascetic mind. The
pleasure of the flesh transferred! What is legitimate and beautiful in
the body put into the mind, the mind sullied by passions that do not
belong to the mind. That is what papistry is! They will poison that
pure, beautiful woman's mind. That priest has put them up to it, and
he shall pay for it if I can get at him to-night!" Owen broke away
suddenly, leaving Harding and Mrat in the dining room, Harding
regretting that he had accepted Owen's invitation to dinner.... If
Asher and Monsignor were to meet that night? Good Lord!.... Owen would
strike him for sure, and a blow would kill the old man.

"Mrat, this is very unfortunate.... Not to be able to control one's
temper. You have known him a long time ... I hope nothing will happen.
Perhaps you had better wait."

"No, Mr. Harding, I can't wait; I must go back to mademoiselle." And
the two went out together, Harding turning to the right, jumping into
a cab as soon as he could hail one, and Mrat getting into another in
order to be in time to save her mistress from her madman lover.




CHAPTER SIXTEEN


Three hours after Harding and Mrat had left Berkeley Square, Owen let
himself in with his latchkey. He was very pale and very weary, and his
boots and trousers were covered with mud, for he had been splashing
through wet streets, caring very little where he went. At first he had
gone in the direction of the river, thinking to rouse up Monsignor,
and to tell him what he thought of him, perhaps to give him a good
thrashing; but the madness of his anger began to die long before
reaching the river. In the middle of St. James's Park the hopelessness
of any effort on his part to restrain Evelyn became clear to him
suddenly, and he uttered a cry, walking on again, and on again, not
caring whither he walked, splashing on through the wet, knowing well
that nothing could be done, that the inevitable had happened.

"It would have been better if she had died," he often said; "it would
have been much better if she had died, for then I should be free, and
she would be free. Now neither is free."

There were times when he did not think at all, when his mind was away;
and, after a long absence of thought, the memory of how he had lost
her for ever would strike him, and then it seemed as if he could walk
no longer, but would like to lie down and die. All the same, he had to
get home, and the sooner he got home the better, for there was whisky
on the table, and that would dull his memory; and, tottering along the
area railings, he thought of the whisky, understanding the drunkard
for the first time and his temptations. "Anything to forget the agony
of living!"

Three or four days afterwards he wrote to her from Riversdale.
Something had to be written, though it was not very clear that
anything could be gained by writing, only he felt he must write just
to wish her goodbye, to show that he was not angry, for he would like
her to know that he loved her always; so he wrote:

     "For the last four days I have been hoping to get a letter from
     you saying you had changed your mind, and that what was required
     to restore you to health was not a long residence in a convent,
     but the marriage ceremony. This morning, when my valet told me
     there were no letters, I turned aside in bed to weep, and I think
     I must have lain crying for hours, thinking how I had lost my
     friend, the girl whom I met in Dulwich, whom I took to Paris, the
     singer whose art I had watched over. It was a long time before I
     could get out of bed and dress myself, and during breakfast tears
     came into my eyes; it was provoking, for my servant was looking
     at me. You know how long he has been with me, so, yielding to the
     temptation to tell somebody, I told him; I had to speak to
     somebody, and I think he was sorry for me, and for you. But he is
     a well-bred servant, and said very little, thinking it better to
     leave the room on the first opportunity.

     "Mrat, who brought your letter, told me you said I would
     understand why it was necessary for you to go to a convent for
     rest. Well, in a way, I do understand, and, in a way, I am glad
     you are going, for at all events your decision puts an end to the
     strife that has been going on between us now for the last three
     years. It was first difficult for me to believe, but I have
     become reconciled to the belief that you will never be happy
     except in a chaste life. I daresay it would be easy for me, for
     Ulick, or for some other man whom you might take a fancy to, to
     cause you to put your idea behind you for a time. Your senses are
     strong, and they overpower you. You were, on more than one
     occasion, nearly yielding to me, but if you had yielded it would
     have only resulted in another crisis, so I am glad you did not.
     It is no pleasure to make love to a woman who thinks it wrong to
     allow you to make love to her, and, could I get you as a
     mistress, strange as it will seem to you, upon my word, Evelyn, I
     don't think I would accept you. I have been through too much. Of
     course, if I could get back the old Evelyn, that would be
     different, but I am very much afraid she is dead or overpowered;
     another Evelyn has been born in you, and it overpowers the old.
     An idea has come into your mind, you must obey it, or your life
     would be misery. Yes, I understand, and I am glad you are going
     to the convent, for I would not see you wretched. When I say I
     understand, I only mean that I acquiesce--I shall never cease to
     wonder how such a strange idea has come into your mind; but there
     is no use arguing that point, we have argued it often enough, God
     knows! I cannot go to London to bid you goodbye. Goodbyes are
     hateful to me. I never go to trains to see people off, nor down
     to piers to wave handkerchiefs, nor do I go to funerals. Those
     who indulge their grief do so because their grief is not very
     deep. I cannot go to London to bid you goodbye unless you promise
     to see me in the convent. Worse than a death-bed goodbye would be
     the goodbye I should bid you, and it, too, would be for eternity.
     But say I can go to see you in the convent, and I will come to
     London to see you.

     "Yours,

     "OWEN."


     "MY DEAR OWEN,--You have written me a beautiful letter. Not one
     word of it would I have unwritten, and it is a very great grief
     to me that I cannot write you a letter which would please you as
     much as your letter pleases me. No woman, since the world began,
     has had such a lover as I have had, and yet I am putting him
     aside. What a strange fatality! Yet I cannot do otherwise. But
     there is consolation for me in the thought that you understand;
     had it been otherwise, it would have been difficult for me to
     bear it. You know I am not acting selfishly, but because I cannot
     do otherwise. I have been through a great deal, Owen, more,
     perhaps, even than you can imagine. That night! But we must not
     speak of it, we must not speak of it! Rest is required, avoidance
     of all agitation--that is what the doctor says, and it agitates
     me to write this letter. But it must be done. To see you, to say
     goodbye to you, would be an agitation which neither of us could
     bear, we should both burst into tears; and for you to come to see
     me in the convent would be another agitation which must be
     avoided. The Prioress would not allow me to see you alone, if she
     allowed me to see you at all. No, Owen, don't come to see me
     either in London or in the convent. Leave me to work out my
     destiny as best I can. In three or four months perhaps I shall
     have recovered. Until then,

     "Yours ever,

     "EVELYN."




CHAPTER SEVENTEEN


In a letter to Monsignor, Evelyn wrote:

"I have just sent a letter to my father, in which I tell him, amid
many hopes of a safe arrival in Rome, not unduly tired, and with all
the dear instruments intact, unharmed by rough hands of porters and
Custom House officers, that, one of these days, in three or four
months, when I am well, I look forward to contributing the _viola da
gamba_ part of a sonata to the concert of the old instrumental music
which he will give when he has put his choir in order: you know I used
to play that instrument in my young days. A more innocent, wish never
entered into the heart of a human being, you will say, yet this letter
causes me many qualms, for I cannot help thinking that I have been
untruthful; I have--lied is, perhaps, too strong a word--but I have
certainly equivocated to the Prioress, and deceived her, I think,
though it is possible, wishing to be deceived, she lent herself to the
deception. Now I am preferring an accusation against the dear
Prioress! My goodness, Monsignor, what a strange and difficult thing
life is, and how impossible to tell the exact truth! If one tries to
be exact one ends by entangling the thread, and getting it into very
ugly knots indeed. In trying to tell the truth, I have been guilty of
a calumny against the Prioress, nothing short of that, Monsignor,
nothing short of that--against the dear Prioress, who deserves better
of me, for her kindness towards me since I have been to the convent
has never ceased for a single instant!

"One of her many kindnesses is the subject of this letter. When I
arrived here the nuns were not decided, and I was not decided, whether
I should live in the convent as I did before, as a guest, or whether,
in view of the length of my probable residence in the convent, I
should be given the postulant's cap and gown. Mother Mary Hilda
thought it would be dangerous to open the doors of the novitiate to
one who admitted she was entering the religious life only as an
experiment, especially to one like myself, an opera singer, who,
however zealously she might conform to the rule, would bring a
certain atmosphere with her into the novitiate, one which could not
fail to affect a number of young and innocent girls, and perhaps
deleteriously. I think I agree with Mother Mary Hilda. All this I
heard afterwards from Mother Philippa, who, in her homely way, let out
the secret of these secret deliberations to me--how the Prioress, who
desired the investiture, said that every postulant entered the
novitiate as an experiment. 'But believing,' Mother Mary Hilda
interrupted, 'that the experiment will succeed, whereas, in her case,
the postulant does not believe at all.'

"As it was impossible for the Mothers to decide I was sent for, and
asked whether I thought the experiment would succeed or fail. 'But
what experiment?' I had to ask. And the Prioress and Mother Hilda were
not agreed, their points of view were not the same; mine was, again, a
different point of view, mine being, as you know, a determination to
conquer a certain thing in my nature which had nearly brought about my
ruin, and which, if left unchecked, would bring it about. Room for
doubt there was none, and, after such an escape as mine, one does not
hesitate about having recourse to strong remedies. My remedy was the
convent, and, my resolve being to stay in the convent till I had
conquered myself, it did not at the time seem to me a falsehood to say
that I put myself in the hands of God, and hoped the experiment would
succeed. Mother Mary Hilda, who is very persistent, asked me what I
meant by conquering myself, and answered, a subjugation of that part
of me which was repellent to God. At these words the Prioress's face
lit up, and she said, 'Well, Mother Hilda, I suppose you are
satisfied?' Mother Hilda did not answer, but I could see that she was
not satisfied; and I am not satisfied either, for I feel that I am
deceiving the nuns.

"But, Monsignor, if a different answer had been given, if I had said
that I looked upon the convent as a refuge where a difficult time
might be passed, two or three months, it does not seem to me that I
would have answered the nuns more truthfully. The Prioress seems to
think with me in this, going so far as to suggest that there are
occasions when we do well not to try to say everything, for the very
simple reason that we do not know everything--even about ourselves;
and she seemed glad that I had not said more, and took me there and
then to her room, and, in the presence of Mother Philippa and Mother
Mary Hilda, said, 'Now, we must hide all this fair hair under a little
cap.' I knelt in front of the Prioress, and she put a white cap on my
head, and pinned a black veil over it; and when she had done this she
drew me to her and kissed me, saying, 'Now you look like my own
child, with all your worldly vanities hidden away. I believe Monsignor
Mostyn would hardly know his penitent in her new dress.'

"I think I can see you smile as you read this, and I think I can hear
you thinking, 'Once an actress always an actress.' But there is not
sufficient truth in this criticism to justify it, and if such a
thought does cross your mind, I feel you will suppress it quickly in
justice to me, knowing, as you must know, that a badge gives courage
to the wearer, putting a conviction into the heart that one is not
alone, but a soldier in a great army walking in step towards a
definite end. This sounds somewhat grandiloquent, but it seems to me
somewhat like the truth. Trying to get into step is interesting and
instructive, and the novitiate, though hardly bearable at times, is
better than sitting in the lonely guest-room. Mother Hilda's
instruction in the novitiate seems childish, yet why is it more
childish than a hundred other things? Only because one is not
accustomed to look at life from the point of view of the convent. As a
guest, I felt it to be impossible to remain in the convent for three
months, and it pleased me, I admit it, and interested me, I admit it,
to try to become part of this conventual life, so different, so
strangely different, from the life of the world, so remote from common
sympathies. In speaking of this life, one hardly knows what words to
employ, so inadequate are words to express one's meaning, or shall I
say one's feeling? 'Actress again,' I hear your thoughts, Monsignor;
'a woman desirous of a new experience, of new sensations.' No, no,
Monsignor, no; but I confess that the pure atmosphere of the convent
is easier and more agreeable to breathe than the atmosphere of the
world and its delight. To her whose quest is chastity, it is
infinitely agreeable to feel that she is living among chaste women,
the chastity of the nuns seems to penetrate and enfold me. To the
hunted animal a sense of safety is perhaps a greater pleasure than any
other, and one is never really unhappy, however uncomfortable one's
circumstances may be, if one is doing what one wants to do.... But I
am becoming sententious."

In another letter to Monsignor she said:

"This morning I received a long and delightful letter from my father
telling me about the progress he is making, or I should say the
progress that the choir is making under his direction, and now
convinced he found everybody of the necessity of a musical reformation
of some kind, and how gratifying it was to find them ready to accept
his reading of the old music as the one they had been waiting for all
this time. But, Monsignor, does my father exaggerate? For all this
sounds too delightful to be true. Is it possible that his ideas meet
with no opposition? Or is it that an opposition is preparing behind an
ambuscade of goodwill? Father is such an optimist that any enthusiasm
for his ideas convinces him that stupidity has ended in the world at
last. But you will not be duped, Monsignor, for Rome is your native
city, and his appointment of _capelmeister_ is owing to you, and the
kindly reception of my father's ideas--if they have been received as
he thinks--is also owing to you. You will not be deceived, as he would
easily be, by specious appearance, and will support him in the
struggle that may be preparing under cover. I know you will.

"His letter is entirely concerned with music; he does not tell me
about his daily life, and, knowing how neglectful he is of material
things, thinking only of his ideas, I am not a little anxious about
him: how he is lodged, and if there is anybody by him who will see
that he has regular meals. He will neglect his meals if he is allowed
to neglect them, so, in the interests of the musical reformation,
somebody should be charged to look after him, and he should not be
allowed to overwork himself; but it will be difficult to prevent this.
The most we can hope for is that he shall get his meals regularly, and
that the food be of good quality and properly cooked. The food here is
not very good, nor very plentiful; to feel always a little hungry is
certainly trying, and the doctor has spoken to the Prioress on the
subject, insisting that nourishing food is necessary to those
suffering from nervous breakdown, and healthy exercise; of healthy
exercise there is plenty, for the nuns dig their own garden; so I am a
reformer in a small way, and I can assure you my reformation is
appreciated by the nuns, who thank me for it; my singing at
Benediction is better appreciated on a full than on an empty stomach,
especially when it is the song that fills the stomach. And it is my
singing that enables Mother Philippa, who looks after the catering, to
spend more money at the baker's and the butcher's. There has been an
improvement, too, in the cooking; a better watch is kept in the
kitchen, and not only my health but the health of the entire community
is improved.

"We are a little more joyous now than we were, and every day I seem to
be better able to appreciate the happiness of living among people who
share one's ideas. One cannot love those whose ideas are different, at
least I cannot; a mental atmosphere suitable to our minds is as
necessary as fresh air is to our lungs. And I feel it a great
privilege to be allowed to live among chaste women, no longer to feel
sure of my own unworthiness, no longer; it is terrible to live always
at war with oneself. The eyes of the nuns and their voices exhale an
atmosphere in which it seems to me my soul can rise, and very often as
I walk in the garden with them I feel as if I were walking upon air.
Owen Asher used to think that intellectual conversation kindled the
soul; so it does in a way; and great works of art enkindle the soul
and exalt it; but there is another exaltation of soul which is not
discoverable in the intellect, and I am not sure that it is not the
greater: the exaltation of which I speak is found in obedience, in
submission, yes, and in ignorance, in trying--I will not say to lower
oneself--but in trying to bring oneself within the range of the humble
intelligence and to understand it. And there is plenty of opportunity
for this in the convent. To explain what I mean, and perhaps to pass
away the tedium of an afternoon which seems long drawn out, I will put
down here for you, Monsignor, the conversation, as much as I can
remember of it, which introduced me to the inhabitants of the
novitiate.

"When Mother Hilda recited the Litany of Our Lady, and we had risen to
our feet, she said:

"'Now, Evelyn, you must be introduced to your sisters--Sister Barbara
I think you have met, as she sings in the choir. This is Sister
Angela; this tall maypole is Sister Winifred, and this little being
here is Sister Jerome, who was the youngest till you came. Aren't you
pleased, Jerome, to have one younger than yourself?' The novices said,
'How do you do?' and looked shy and awkward for a minute, and then
they forgot me in their anxiety to know whether recreation was to be
spent indoors or out.

"'Mother, we may go out, mayn't we? Oh, thank you so much, it is such
a lovely evening. We need not wear cloaks, need we? Oh, that is all
right, just our garden shoes.' And there was a general scurry to the
cells for shoes, whilst Mother Hilda and I made our way downstairs,
and by another door, into the still summer evening.

"'How lovely it is!' I said feeling that if Mother Hilda and I could
have spent the recreation hour together my first convent evening would
have been happy. But the chattering novices soon caught us up, and
when we were sitting all a-row on a bench, or grouped on a variety of
little wooden stools, they asked me questions as to my sensations in
the refectory, and I could not help feeling a little jarred by their
familiarity.

"'Were you not frightened when you felt yourself at the head of the
procession? I was,' said Winifred.

"'But you didn't get through nearly so well as Sister Evelyn; you
turned the wrong way at the end of the passage and Mother had to go
after you,' said Sister Angela. 'We all thought you were going to run
away.' And they went into the details as to how they had felt on their
arrival, and various little incidents were recalled, illustrating the
experience of previous postulants, and these were productive of much
hilarity.

"'What did you all think of the cake?' said Sister Barbara suddenly.

"'Was it Angela's cake?' asked Mother Hilda, 'Angela, I really must
congratulate you; you will be quite a distinguished _chef_ in time."

"Sister Angela blushed with delight, saying, 'Yes, I made it
yesterday, Mother; but, of course, Sister Rufina stood over me to see
that I didn't forget anything.'

"'Ah, well, I don't think I cared very much for the flavouring,' said
Sister Barbara in pondering tones.

"'You seemed to me to be enjoying it very much at the time,' I said,
joining the conversation for the first time; and when I added that
Sister Barbara had eaten four slices of bread and butter the laugh
turned against Barbara, and every one was hilarious. It is evident
that Sister Barbara's appetite is considered an excellent joke in the
novitiate.

"Of course I marvelled that grown-up women should be so easily amused,
and then remembered a party at the Savoy Hotel (on leaving it I went
to the presbytery to confess to you, Monsignor). I had to admit to
myself that the talk at Louise Helbrun's party did not move on a
higher level; our conversation did not show us to be wiser than the
novices, and our behaviour was certainly less exemplary. Everything is
attitude of mind, and the convent attitude towards life is curiously
sympathetic to me ... at present. My doubts lest it should not always
be so is caused by the fury of my dislike to my former attitude of
mind; something tells me that such fury as mine cannot be maintained,
and will be followed by a certain reaction. I don't mean that I shall
ever again return to a life of sin, that life is done with for ever.
Even if I should fall again--the thought is most painful to me--but
even if that should happen it would be a passing accident, I never
could again continue in sin, for the memory of the suffering sin has
caused me would be sure to bring me back again and force me to take
shelter and to repent.

"I know too much belief in one's own power of resistance is not a good
thing, but I can hardly bear to think of the suffering I endured
during those weeks with Ulick Dean, walking in Hyde Park, round that
Long Water, talking of sin and its pleasures, feeling every day that
I was being drawn a little nearer to the precipice, that I was losing
every day some power of resistance. It is terrifying to lose sense of
the reality of things, to lose one's own will, to feel that one is
merely a stone that has been set rolling. To feel like this is to
experience the obtuse and intense sensations of nightmare, and this I
know well. Have I not told you, Monsignor, of the dreams from which I
suffered, which brought me to you, and which forced me to confession,
those terrific dreams which used to drive me dazed from my bed, flying
through the door of my room into the passage to wake up before the
window, saying to myself:

"'Oh, my God! it is a dream, it is a dream, thank God, it is only a
dream!'

"But I must not allow myself to dwell on that time, to do so throws me
back again, and I have almost escaped those fits of brooding in which
I see my soul lost for ever. Sooner than go back to that time I would
become a nun, and remain here until the end of my life, eating the
poorest food, feeling hungry all day; anything were better than to go
back to that time!"

In another letter she said:

"I am afraid I shall always continue to be looked upon as an actress
by the Prioress, and St. Teresa's ecstasies and ravishments, with
added miracles and prophecies, would not avail to blot out the motley
which continues in her eyes, though it dropped from me three years
ago.

"'My dear Evelyn, you have hardly any perception of what our life is,'
she said to me yesterday. 'You know it only from the outside, you are
still an actress, you are acting on a different stage, that is all.'
And it seemed to me that the Prioress thought she was speaking very
wisely, that she flattered herself on her wisdom, and rejoiced not a
little in my discomfiture, visible on my face, for one cannot control
the change of expression, 'which gives one away,' as the phrase goes.
She laughed, and we walked on together, I genuinely perplexed and
pathetically anxious to discover if she had spoken the truth, fearing
lest I might be adapting myself to a new part, not quite sure, hoping,
however, that something new had come into my life. On such occasions
one peers into one's heart, but however closely I peer it is
impossible for me to say that the Prioress is right or that she was
wrong. Everybody will say she is right, of course, for it is so
obvious that a prima donna who retires to a convent must think of the
parts she has played, of her music, and the applause at the end of
every evening, applause without which she could not live. To say that
no thought of my stage life ever crosses my mind would be to tell a
lie that no one would believe; all thoughts cross one's mind,
especially in a convent of a contemplative Order where the centre of
one's life is, as Mother Mary Hilda would say, the perpetual adoration
of the Blessed Sacrament exposed upon the altar; where, as she
teaches, next to receiving Holy Communion, this hour of prayer and
meditation in the presence of our Lord is the central feature of our
spiritual life, the axis on which our spiritual progress revolves.

"This was the subject of yesterday's lesson; nevertheless, during the
meditation thoughts came and went, and I found much difficulty in
trying to fix my mind. Perhaps I shall never learn how to meditate
on--shall I say the Cross?--I shall never be able to fix my attention.
Thoughts of the heroes and heroines of legends come and go in my mind,
mixing with thoughts of Christ and His apostles; yet there is little
of me in these flitting remembrances. My stage life does not interest
me any longer, but the Prioress does not see it as I do, far away, a
tiny speck. My art was once very real to me, and I am surprised, and a
little disappointed sometimes, that it should seem so little now. But
what I would not have, if I could change it, is the persistency with
which I remember my lovers; not that I desire them, oh, no; but in the
midst of a meditation on the Cross a remembrance catches one about the
heart, and, closing the eyes, one tries to forget; and, Monsignor,
what is worse than memory is our powerlessness to regret our sins. We
may not wish to sin again, but we cannot regret that we have sinned.
How is one to regret that one is oneself? For one's past is as much
oneself as one's present. Has any saint attained to such a degree of
perfection as to wish his past had never existed?

"Another part of my life which I remember very well--much better than
my stage life--is the time I spent working among the poor under your
direction. My poor people are very vivid in my memory; I remember
their kindness to each other, their simplicities, and their patience.
The patience of the poor is divine! But the poor people who looked to
me for help had to be put aside, and that was the hardest part of my
regeneration. Of course I know that I should have perished utterly if
I had not put them aside, but even the thought of my great escape does
not altogether satisfy me, and I would that I might have escaped
without leaving them, the four poor women whom I took under my special
protection, and who came to see me the day before I came to the
convent to ask me not to leave them. Four poor women, poor beyond
poverty, came to ask me not to go into the convent. 'The convent will
be always able to get on without you, miss.' Such poverty as theirs
is silent, they only asked me not to leave them, not to go to the
convent. Among them was poor Lena, a hunchback seamstress, who has
never been able to do more than keep herself from starving. It is hard
that cripples should have to support themselves. She has, I think,
always lived in fear lest she should not be able to pay for her room
at the end of the week, and her food was never certain. How little it
was, yet to get it caused her hours and hours of weary labour. Three
and sixpence a week was all she could earn. Poor Lena, what has become
of her? So little of the money which my singing brings to the convent
would secure her against starvation, yet I cannot send her a penny.
Doesn't it seem hard, Monsignor? And if she were to die in my absence
would not the memory of my desertion haunt me for ever? Should I be
able to forgive myself? You will answer that to save one's soul is
everybody's first concern, but to sacrifice one's own soul for the
poor may not be theological, but it would be sublime. You who are so
kind, Monsignor, will not reprove me for writing in this strain,
writing heresy to you from a convent devoted to the Perpetual
Adoration of the Sacrament, but you will understand, and will write
something that will hearten me, for I am a little disheartened to-day.
You will write, perhaps, to the Reverend Mother, asking her if I may
send Lena some money; that would be a great boon if she would allow
it. In my anxiety to escape from the consequences of my own sins I had
almost forgotten this poor girl, but yesterday she came into my mind.
It was the lay sisters who reminded me of the poor people I left; the
lay sisters are what is most beautiful in the convent.

"Yesterday, when the grass was soaked with dew and the crisp leaves
hung in a death-like silence, one of them, Sister Bridget, came down
the path carrying a pail of water, 'going,' she said, answering me,
'to scrub the tiles which covered the late Reverend Mother's grave.
Ah, well, Mother's room must have its weekly turn out.' How beautiful
is the use of the word 'room' in the phrase, and when I pointed out to
her that the tiles were still clean her answer was that she regarded
the task of attending the grave not as a duty but as a privilege. Dear
Sister Bridget, withered and ruddy like an apple, has worked in the
community for nearly thirty years. She has been through all the early
years of struggle: a struggle which has begun again--a struggle the
details of which were not even told her, and which she has no
curiosity to hear. She is content to work on to the end, believing
that it was God's will for her to do so. The lay sisters can aspire to
none of the convent offices; they have none of the smaller
distractions of receiving guests, and instructing converts and so
forth, and not to have as much time for prayer as they desire is their
penance. They are humble folk, who strive in a humble way to separate
themselves from the animal, and they see heaven from the wash-tub
plainly. In the eyes of the world they are ignorant and simple hearts.
They are ignorant, but of what are they ignorant? Only of the passing
show, which every moment crumbles and perishes. I see them as I
write--their ready smiles and their touching humility. They are humble
workers in a humble vineyard, and they are content that it should be
so."




CHAPTER EIGHTEEN


"You see, Evelyn," the Prioress said, "it is contrary to the whole
spirit of the religious life to treat the lay sisters as servants, and
though I am sure you don't intend any unkindness, they have complained
to me once or twice that you order them about."

"But, my dear Mother, it seems to me that we are all inferior to the
lay sisters. To slight them----"

"I am sure you did not do so intentionally."

"I said, 'Do hurry up,' but I only meant I was in a hurry. I don't
think anything you could have said could have pained me more than that
you should think I lack respect for the lay sisters."

Seeing that Evelyn was hurt the Prioress said:

"The sisters have no doubt forgotten all about it by now."

But Evelyn wanted to know which of the sisters had complained, so that
she might beg her pardon.

"She doesn't want you to beg her pardon."

"I beg you to allow me, it will be better that I should. The benefit
will be mine."

The Prioress shook her head, and listened willingly to Evelyn, who
told her of her letter to Monsignor.

"Now, wasn't it extraordinary, Mother, that I should have written like
that about Sister Bridget, and to-day you should tell me that the lay
sisters complained about me? If the complaint had been that I was
inclined to put the active above the contemplative orders and was
dissatisfied with our life here----"

"Dissatisfied!" the Prioress said.

"Only this, Mother: I have been reading the story of the Order of the
Little Sisters of the Poor, and it seems to me so wonderful that
everything else, for the moment, seems insignificant."

The Reverend Mother smiled.

"Your enthusiasms, my dear Evelyn, are delightful. The last book you
read, the last person you meet----"

"Do you think I am so frivolous, so changeable as that, dear Mother?"

"Not changeable, Evelyn, but spontaneous."

"It would seem to me that everything in me is of slow growth--but why
talk of me when there is Jeanne to talk about; marvellous,
extraordinary, unique----" Evelyn was nearly saying "divine Jeanne,"
but she stopped herself in time and substituted the word "saintly."
"No one seems to me more real than this woman, no one in literature;
not Hamlet, nor Don Quixote, not Dante himself starts out into clearer
outline than this poor servant-girl--a goatherd in her childhood." And
to the Prioress, who did not know the story of this poor woman, Evelyn
told it, laying stress--as she naturally would--on Jeanne's refusal to
marry a young sailor, whom she had been willing to marry at first, but
whom she refused to marry on his returning after a long voyage. When
he asked her for whom she had refused him, she answered for nobody,
only she did not wish to marry, though she knew of no reason why she
should not. It was not caprice but an instinct which caused Jeanne to
leave her sweetheart, and to go on working in humble service attending
on a priest until he died, then going to live with his sister,
remaining with her until she died, and saving during all those long
twenty years only four-and-twenty pounds--all the money she had when
she returned to the little seaport town whence she had come: a little
seaport town where the aged poor starved in the streets, or in garrets
in filth and vermin, without hope of relief from any one.

It was to this cruel little village, of which there are many along the
French coast, and along every coast in the world, that Jeanne returned
to rent a garret with an old and bedridden woman, unable to help
herself. Without the poor to help the poor the poor would not be able to
live, and this old woman lived by the work of Jeanne's hands for many a
year, Jeanne going every morning to the market-place to find some humble
employment, finding it sometimes, returning at other times desperate,
but concealing her despair from her bedridden companion, telling her as
gaily as might be that they would have to do without any dinner that
day. So did they live until two little seamstresses--women inspired by
the same pity for the poor as Jeanne herself--heard of her, and asked
the _cur_, in whom this cruel little village had inspired an equal
pity, to send for Jeanne. She was asked to give her help to those in
greater need than she--the blind beggars and such like who prowled about
the walls of the churches.

On leaving the priest it is related that she said: "I don't
understand, but I never heard any one speak so beautifully." But next
day when she went to see the priest she understood everything,
sufficient at all events for the day which was to take to her garret a
blind woman whom the seamstresses had discovered in the last stages of
neglect and age. There was the bedridden woman whom Jeanne supported,
and who feared to share Jeanne's charity with another, and resented
the intrusion; she had to be pacified and cajoled with some little
present of food, for the aged and hungry are like animals--food
appeases them, silences many a growl; and the blind woman was given a
corner in the garret. "But how is she to be fed?" was the question put
to Jeanne next morning, and from that question the whole Order of the
Little Sisters of the Poor started. Jeanne, inspired suddenly, said,
"I will beg for them," and seizing a basket she went out to beg for
broken victuals.

"There is a genius for many things besides the singing of operas,
painting pictures, and writing books," Evelyn said, "and Jeanne's
genius was for begging for her poor people. And there is nothing more
touching in the world's history than her journey in the milk-cart to
the regatta. You see, dear Mother, she was accustomed to beg from door
to door among squalid streets, stopping a passer-by, stooping under
low doorways, intruding everywhere, daring everything among her own
people, but frightened by the fashionable folk _en grande toilette_
bent on amusement. It seems that her courage almost failed her, but
grasping the cross which hung round her neck, she entered a crowd of
pleasure-seekers, saying, 'Won't you give me something for my poor
people?' Now, Mother, isn't the story a wonderful one? for there was
genius in this woman, though it was only for begging: a tall, thin,
curious, fantastic figure, considered simple by some, but gifted for
her task which had been revealed to her in middle age."

"But why, Evelyn, does that seem to you so strange that her task
should have been revealed to her in middle age?"

Evelyn looked at the Reverend Mother for a while unable to answer,
then went on suddenly with her tale, telling how that day, at that
very regatta, a man had slapped Jeanne in the face, and she had
answered, "You are perfectly right, a box on the ears is just what is
suited to me; but now tell me what you are going to give me for my
poor people." At another part of the ground somebody had begun to
tease her--some young man, no doubt, in a long fashionable grey
frock-coat with race-glasses hung round his neck, had ventured to
tease this noble woman, to twit her, to jeer and jibe at her
uncouthness, for she was uncouth, and she stood bearing with these
jeers until they apologised to her. "Never mind the apology," she had
answered; "you have had your fun out of me, now give me something for
my poor people." They gave her five francs, and she said, "At that
price you may tease me as much as you please."

Evelyn asked if it were not extraordinary how an ignorant and uncouth
woman, a goatherd during her childhood, a priest's servant till she
was well on in middle age, should have been able to invent a system of
charity which had penetrated all over Europe. Every moment Evelyn
expected the Prioress to check her, for she was conscious that she was
placing the active orders above the contemplative, Jeanne above St.
Teresa, and, determined to see how far she could go in this direction
without being reproved, she began to speak of how Jeanne, after having
made the beds and cleaned the garret in the morning, took down a big
basket and stood receiving patiently the remonstrances addressed to
her, the blind woman saying, "I am certain and sure you will forget to
ask for the halfpenny a week which I used to get from the grocery
store, you very nearly forgot it last week, and had to go back for
it." "But I'll not make a mistake this time," Jeanne would answer. Her
bedridden friend would reprove her, "But you did forget to ask for my
soup." To bear patiently with all such unjust remonstrances was part
of Jeanne's genius, and Evelyn asked the Reverend Mother if it were
not strange that a woman like Jeanne had never inspired some great
literary work.

"I spoke just now of Hamlet, Don Quixote, but Falstaff himself is not
more real than Jeanne, and her words are always so wonderful,
wonderful as Joan of Arc's. When the old woman used to hide their food
under the bed-clothes and sell it for food for the pigs, leaving the
Little Sisters almost starving, Jeanne used to say, 'So-and-so has not
been as nice as usual this afternoon.' How is it, Mother, that no
great writer has ever given us a portrait of Jeanne?"

"Well, Jeanne, my dear Evelyn, has given us her own portrait. What can
a writer add to what Nature has given? No one has ever yet given a
portrait of a great saint, of St. Teresa--what can any one tell us
that we do not already know?"

"St. Teresa's life passed in thought, whereas Jeanne's passed in
action."

"Don't be afraid, Evelyn," the Prioress said, "to say what you mean,
that perhaps the way of the Little Sisters of the Poor is a better way
than ours."

"It seems so, Mother, doesn't it?"

"It is permissible to have doubts on such a subject--which is the
better course, mercy or prayer? We have all had our doubts on this
subject, and it is the weakness of our intelligences that causes these
doubts to arise."

"How is that, Mother?"

"It is easy to realise the beauty of the relief of material suffering.
The flesh is always with us, and we realise so easily that it suffers
that there are times when relief of suffering seems to us the only
good. But in truth bread and prayer are as necessary to man, one as
the other. You have never heard the story of the foundation of our
Order? It will not appeal to the animal sympathies as readily as the
foundation of the Sisters of the Poor, but I don't think it is less
human." And the Reverend Mother told how in Lyons a sudden craving for
God had occurred in a time of extraordinary prosperity. Three young
women had suddenly wearied of the pleasure that wealth brought them,
and had without intercommunication decided that the value of life was
in foregoing it, that is to say, foregoing what they had always been
taught to consider as life; and this story reaching as it did to the
core of Evelyn's own story, was listened to by her with great
interest, and she heard in the quiet of the Reverend Mother's large
room, in which the silence when the canaries were not shrilling was
intense, how a sign had been vouchsafed to these three young women,
daughters of two bankers and a silk merchant, and how all three had
accepted the signs vouchsafed to them and become nuns.

"I am not depreciating the active Orders when I say they are more
easily understood by the average man than--shall I say the Carmelite
or any contemplative Order, our own for example. To relieve suffering
makes a ready appeal to his sympathies, but he is incapable of
realising what the world would be were it not for our prayers. It
would be a desert. In truth the active and the contemplative Orders
are identical, when we look below the surface."

"How are they identical, Mother?"

"In this way: the object of the active Orders is to relieve suffering,
but the good they do is not a direct good. There will always be
suffering in the world, the little they relieve is only like a drop
taken out of the ocean. It might even be argued that if you eliminate
on one side the growth is greater on the other; by preserving the
lives of old people one makes the struggle harder for others. There is
as much suffering in the world now as there was before the Little
Sisters began their work--that is what I mean."

"Then, dear Mother, the Order does not fulfil its purpose."

"On the contrary, Evelyn, it fulfils its purpose, but its purpose is
not what the world thinks it is; it is by the noble example they set
that the Little Sisters of the Poor achieve their purpose. It is by
forsaking the world that they achieve their purpose, by their
manifestation that the things of this world are not worth considering.
The Little Sisters pray in outward acts, whereas the contemplative
Orders pray only in thought. The purpose, as I have said, is
identical; the creation of an atmosphere of goodness, without which
the world could not exist. There are two atmospheres, the atmosphere
of good and the atmosphere of evil, and both are created by thought,
whether thought in the concrete form of an act or thought in its
purest form--an aspiration. Therefore all those who devote themselves
to prayer, whether their prayers take the form of good works or
whether their prayer passes in thought, collaborate in the production
of a moral atmosphere, and it is the moral atmosphere which enables
man to continue his earthly life. Yourself is an instance of what I
mean. You were inspired to leave the stage, but whence did that
inspiration come? Are you sure that our prayers had nothing to do with
it? And the acts of the Little Sisters of the Poor all over the
world--are you sure they did not influence you?"

Evelyn thought of Owen's letter, the last he had written to her, for
in it he reminded her that she had nearly yielded to him. But was it
she who had resisted? She attributed her escape rather to a sudden
realisation on his part that she would be unhappy if he persisted.
Now, what was the cause of this sudden realisation, this sudden
scruple? For one seemed to have come into Owen's mind. How wonderful
it would be if it could be attributed to the prayers of the nuns, for
they had promised to pray for her, and, as the Prioress said,
everything in the world is thought: all begins in thought, all returns
to thought, the world is but our thought.

While she pondered, unable to believe that the nuns' prayers had saved
her, unwilling to discard the idea, the Prioress told of the three
nuns who came to England about thirty years ago to make the English
foundation. But of this part of the story Evelyn lost a great deal;
her interest was not caught again until the Prioress began to tell how
a young girl in society, rich and beautiful, whose hand was sought by
many, came to the rescue of these three nuns with all her fortune and
a determination to dedicate her life to God. Her story did not
altogether catch Evelyn's sympathies, and the Prioress agreed with
Evelyn that her conduct in leaving her aged parents was open to
criticism. We owe something to others, and it appears that an idea had
come into her mind when she was twelve years old that she would like
to be a nun, and though she appeared to like admiration and to
encourage one young man, yet she never really swerved from her idea,
she always told him she would enter a convent.

Evelyn did not answer, for she was thinking of the strange threads one
finds in the weft of human life. Every one follows a thread, but
whither do the threads lead? Into what design? And while Evelyn was
thinking the Prioress told how the house in which they were now living
had been bought with five thousand out of the thirty thousand pounds
which this girl had brought to the convent. The late Prioress was
blamed for this outlay. Blame often falls on innocent shoulders, for
how could she have foreseen the increased taxation? how could she have
foreseen that no more rich postulants would come to the convent, only
penniless converts turned out by their relations, and aged
governesses? A great deal of the money had been lost in a railway, and
it was lost at a most unfortunate time, only a few days before the
lawyer had written to say that the Australian mine in which most of
their money was invested had become bankrupt.

"There was nothing for us to do," the Prioress said, "but to mortgage
the property, and this mortgage is our real difficulty, and its
solution seems as far off as ever. There seems to be no solution. We
are paying penal interest on the money, and we have no security that
the mortgagee will not sell the property. He has been complaining that
he can do better with his money, though we are paying him five and six
per cent."

"And if he were to sell the property, Mother, you would all have to go
back to your relations?"

"All of us have not relations, and few have relations who would take
us in. The lay sisters--what is to become of them?--some of them old
women who have given up their lives. Frankly, Evelyn, I am at my wits'
end."

"But, Mother, have I not offered to lend you the money? It will be a
great pleasure to me to do it, and in some way I feel that I owe the
money."

"Owe the money, Evelyn?"

The women sat looking at each other, and at the end of a long silence
the Prioress said:

"It is impossible for us to take your money, my child?"

"But something must be done, Mother."

"If you were staying with us a little longer----"

"I have made no plans to leave you." And to turn the conversation
from herself Evelyn spoke of the crowds that came to Benediction.

"To hear you, dear, and when you leave us our congregation will be the
same as it was before, a few pious old Catholic ladies living on small
incomes who can hardly afford to put a shilling into the plate."
Evelyn spoke of the improvement of the choir, and the Prioress
interrupted her, saying, "Don't think for a moment that any
reformation in the singing of the plain chant is likely to bring
people to our church; the Benedictine gradual _versus_ the Ratisbon."
And the Prioress shrugged her shoulders contemptuously. "What has
brought us a congregation is you, my dear--your voice and your story
which is being talked about. The story is going the rounds that you
are going to become a nun, and that interests everybody. An opera
singer entering a convent! Such a thing was never heard of before, and
they come to hear you."

"But, Mother, I never said I was going to join the Order. I only came
here in the hope----"

"And I accepted you as a postulant in the hope that you would
persevere. All this seems very selfish, Evelyn. It looks as if we were
only thinking of your money; but you know it isn't so."

"Indeed, I do, Mother. I know it isn't so."

"When are you going to leave us?"

"Well, nothing is decided. Every day I expect to hear from my father,
and if he wishes----"

"But if he doesn't require you? By remaining with us you may find you
have a vocation. Other women have persevered and discovered in the
end----" The Prioress's face changed expression, and Evelyn began to
think that perhaps the Prioress had discovered a vocation in herself,
after long waiting, and though she had become Prioress discovered too
late that perhaps she had been mistaken. "You have no intention of
joining the Order?"

"You mean to become a novice and then to become a nun and live here
with you?"

"You need say no more."

"But you don't think I have deceived you, Mother?"

"No, I don't blame anybody, only a hope has gone. Besides, I at least,
Evelyn, shall be very sorry to part with you, sorry for many reasons
which I may not tell you ... in the convent we don't talk of our past
life." And Evelyn wondered what the Prioress alluded to. "Has she a
past like mine? What is her story?"

The canaries began singing, and they sang so loudly the women could
hardly hear themselves speak. Evelyn got up and waved her handkerchief
at the birds, silencing them.

       *       *       *       *       *

Late that night a telegram came telling Evelyn that her father was
dangerously ill, and she was to start at once for Rome.




CHAPTER NINETEEN


The wind had gathered the snow into the bushes and all the corners of
the common, and the whole earth seemed but a little brown patch, with
a dead grey sky sweeping by. For many weeks the sky had been grey, and
heavy clouds had passed slowly, like a funeral, above the low horizon.
The wind had torn the convent garden until nothing but a few twigs
remained; even the laurels seemed about to lose their leaves. The nuns
had retreated with blown skirts; Sister Mary John had had to
relinquish her digging, and her jackdaw had sought shelter in the
hen-house.

One night, when the nuns assembled for evening prayer, the north wind
seemed to lift the roof as with hands; the windows were shaken; the
nuns divined the wrath of God in the wind, and Miss Dingle, who had
learned through pious incantation that the Evil One would attempt a
descent into the convent, ran to warn the portress of the danger. At
that moment the wind was so loud that the portress listened, perforce,
to the imaginings of Miss Dingle's weak brain, thinking, in spite of
herself, that some communication had been vouchsafed to her. "Who
knows," her thoughts said, "who can say? The ways of Providence are
inscrutable." And she looked at the little daft woman as if she were a
messenger.

As they stood calculating the strength of the lock and hinges the
door-bell suddenly began to jingle.

"He wouldn't ring the bell; he would come down the chimney," said Miss
Dingle.

"But who can it be?" said the portress, "and at this hour."

"This will save you." Miss Dingle thrust a rosary into the nun's hand
and fled down the passage. "Be sure to throw it over his neck."

The nun tried to collect her scattered thoughts and her courage. Again
the bell jingled; this time the peal seemed crazier than the first,
and, rousing herself into action, she asked through the grating who it
might be.

"It is I, Sister Evelyn; open the door quickly, Sister Agnes."

The nun held the door open, thanking God it was not the devil, and
Evelyn dragged her trunk through the door, letting it drop upon the
mat abruptly.

"Tell dear Mother I want to speak to her--say that I must see her--be
sure to say that, and I will wait for her in the parlour."

"There is no light there; I will fetch one."

"Never mind, don't trouble; I don't want a light. But go to the
Reverend Mother and tell her I must see her before any one else."

"Of course, Sister Evelyn, of course." And the portress hurried away,
feeling that things had happened in a life which was beyond her life,
beyond its scope. Perhaps Sister Evelyn had come to tell the Prioress
the Pope himself was dead, or had gone mad; something certainly had
happened into which it was no business of hers to inquire. And this
vague feeling sent her running down the passage and up the stairs, and
returning breathless to Evelyn, whom she found in a chair nearly
unconscious, for when she called to her Evelyn awoke as from sleep,
asking where she was.

"Sister Evelyn, why do you ask? You are in Wimbledon Convent, with
Sister Agnes; what is the matter?"

"Matter? Nothing and everything." She seemed to recover herself a
little. "I had forgotten, Sister Agnes, I had forgotten. But the
Prioress, where is she?"

"In her room, and she will see you. But you asked me to go to the
Prioress saying she must see you--have you forgotten, Sister Evelyn?
You know the way to her room?"

Evelyn did not answer; and feeling perhaps that she might lose her way
in the convent, Sister Agnes said she would conduct her to the
Prioress, and opened the door for her, saying, "Reverend Mother,
Sister Evelyn."

There was a large fire burning in the room, and Evelyn was conscious
of the warmth, of bodily comfort, and was glad to sit down.

"You are very cold, my child, you are very cold. Don't trouble to
speak, take your time and get warm first." And Evelyn sat looking into
the fire for a long time. At last she said:

"It is warm here, Mother, I am so glad to be here. But perhaps you
will turn me away and won't have me. I know you won't, I know you
won't, so why did I come all this long way?"

"My dear child, why shouldn't we be glad to have you back? We were
sorry to part with you."

"That was different, that was different."

These answers, and the manner in which they were spoken even more than
the answers themselves, frightened the Prioress; but unable to think
of what might have happened, she sat wondering, waiting for Evelyn to
reveal herself. The hour was late, and Evelyn showed no signs of
speaking. Perhaps it would be better to ring for one of the lay
sisters, and ask her to show Evelyn to her room.

"You will stay here to-night?"

"Yes, if you will allow me."

"Allow you, my dear child! Why speak in this way?"

"Oh, Mother, I am done for, I am done for!"

"You haven't told me yet what has happened."

Evelyn did not answer; she seemed to have forgotten everything, or to
be thinking of one thing, and unable to detach her thoughts from it
sufficiently to answer the Prioress's question.

"Your father----"

"My father is dead," she answered. And the Prioress, imagining her
father's death to be the cause of this mental breakdown, spoke of the
consolations of religion, which no doubt Mr. Innes had received, and
which would enable Mr. Innes's soul to appear before a merciful God
for judgment.

"There is little in this life, my dear; we should not be sorry for
those who leave it--that is, if they leave it in a proper disposition
of soul."

"My father died after having received the Sacrament of the Church. Oh,
his death!" And thinking it well to encourage her to speak, the
Prioress said:

"Tell me, my dear, tell me; I can understand your grief and sympathise
with you; tell me everything."

And like one awakening Evelyn told how for days he had fluctuated
between life and death, sometimes waking to consciousness, then
falling back into a trance. In spite of the hopes the doctors had held
out to him he had insisted he was dying.

"'I am worn to a thread,' he said, 'I shall flicker like that candle
when it reaches the socket, and then I shall go out. But I am not
afraid of death: death is a great experience, and we are all better
for every experience. There is only one thing----'

"He was thinking of his work, he was sorry he was called away before
his work was done; and then he seemed to forget it, to be absorbed in
things of greater importance."

Sometimes the wind interrupted the Prioress's attention, and she
thought of the safety of her roofs; Evelyn noticed the wind, and her
notice of it served to accentuate her terror. "It is terror," the
Prioress said to herself, "rather than grief."

"I waited by his bedside seeing the soul prepare for departure. The
soul begins to leave the body several days before it goes; it flies
round and round like a bird that is going to some distant country. I
must tell you all about it, Mother. He lay for hours and hours looking
into a corner of the room. I am sure he saw something there; and one
night I heard him call me. I went to him and asked him what he wanted;
but he lay quiet, looking into the corner of the room, and then he
said, 'The wall has been taken away.' I know he saw something there.
He saw something, he learnt something in that last moment that we do
not know. That last moment is the only real moment of our lives, the
only true moment--all the rest is falsehood, delirium, froth. The rest
of life is contradictions, distractions and lies, but in the moment
before death I am sure everything becomes quite clear to us. Then we
learn what we are. We do not know ourselves until then. If I ask who
am I, what am I, there is no answer. We do not believe in ourselves
because we do not know who we are; we do not know enough of ourselves
to believe in anything. We do not believe; we acquiesce that certain
things are so because it is necessary to acquiesce, but we do not
believe in anything, not even that we are going to die, for if we did
we should live for death, and not for life."

"Your father's death has been a great grief to you; only time will
help you to recover yourself."

"Recover myself? But I shall never recover, no, Mother, never, never,
never!"

The Prioress asked when Mr. Innes had died.

"I can't remember, Mother; some time ago."

The Prioress asked if he were dead a week.

"Oh, more than that, more than that."

"And you have been in Rome ever since? Why did you not come here at
once?"

"Why, indeed, did I not come here?" was all Evelyn could say. She
seemed to lose all recollection, or at all events she had no wish to
speak, and sat silent, brooding. "Of what is she thinking?" the
Prioress asked herself, "or is she thinking of anything? She seems
lost in a great terror, some sin committed. If she were to confess to
me. Perhaps confession would relieve her." And the Prioress tried to
lead Evelyn into some account of herself, but Evelyn could only say,
"I am done for, Mother, I am done for!" She repeated these words
without even asking the Prioress to say no more: it seemed to her
impossible to give utterance to the terror in her soul. "What could
have happened to her?"

"Did you meet, my child, either of the men whom you spoke to me of?"

The question only provoked a more intense agony of grief.

"Mother, Mother, Mother!" she cried, "I am done for! Let me go, let me
leave you."

"But, my child, you can't leave us to-night, it is too late. Why
should you leave us at all."

"Why did I ever leave you? But, Mother, don't let us talk any more
about it. I know myself; no one can tell me anything about myself; it
is all clear to me, all clear to me from the beginning; and now, and
now, and now----"

"But, my child, all sins can be forgiven. Have you confessed?"

"Yes, Mother, I confessed before I left Italy, and then came on here
feeling that I must see you; I only wanted to see you. Now I must go."

"No, my child, you mustn't go; we will talk of this to-morrow."

"No, let us never talk of it again, that I beseech you, Mother;
promise me that we shall never talk of it again."

"As you like, as you like. Perhaps every one knows her own soul
best.... It is not for me to pry into yours. You have confessed, and
your grief is great."

The Prioress went back to her chair, feeling relieved, thinking it was
well that Evelyn had confessed her sin to some Italian priest who did
not know her, for it would be inconvenient for Father Daly to know
Evelyn's story. Evelyn could be of great use to them; it were well,
indeed, that she had not even confessed to her. She must not leave the
convent; and arriving at that conclusion, suddenly she rang the bell.
Nothing was said till the lay sister knocked at the door. "Will you
see, Sister Agnes, that Sister Evelyn's bed is prepared for her?"

"In the guest-room or in the novitiate, Reverend Mother?"

"In the novitiate," the Prioress answered.

Evelyn had sunk again into a stupor, and, only half-conscious of what
was happening to her, she followed the lay sister out of the
Prioress's room.

"It is very late," the Prioress said to herself, "all the lights in
the convent should be out; but the rule doesn't apply to me." And she
put more coal on the fire, feeling that she must give all her mind to
the solution of the question which had arisen--whether Evelyn was to
remain with them to-morrow. It had almost been decided, for had she
not told Sister Agnes to take Evelyn to the novitiate? But Evelyn
might herself wish to leave to-morrow, and if so what inducements,
what persuasion, what pressure should be used to keep her? And how far
would she be justified in exercising all her influence to keep Evelyn?
The Prioress was not quite sure. She sat thinking. Evelyn in her
present state of mind could not be thrown out of the convent. The
convent was necessary for her salvation in this world and in the next.

"She knows that, and I know it."

The Prioress's thoughts drifted into recollections of long ago; and
when she awoke from her reverie it seemed that she must have been
dreaming a long while: "too long" she thought; "but I have not thought
of these things for many a year.... Evelyn has confessed, her sins are
behind her, and it would be so inconvenient----" The Prioress's
thoughts faded away, for even to herself she did not like to admit
that it would be inconvenient for Evelyn to confess to Father Daly the
sins she had committed--if she had committed any. Perhaps it might be
all an aberration, an illusion in the interval between her father's
death and her return to the convent. "Her sins have been absolved, and
for guidance she will not turn to Father Daly but to me." The Reverend
Mother reflected that a man would not be able to help this woman with
his advice. She thought of Evelyn's terror, and how she had cried, "I
am done for, I am done for!" She remembered the tears upon Evelyn's
cheeks and every attitude so explicit of her grief.

"A penitent if ever there was one, one whom we must help, whom we must
lead back to God. Evelyn must remain in the convent. To-morrow we must
seek to persuade her. But it will not be difficult." Then, listening
to the wind, the Prioress remembered that the convent roof required
re-slating. "Who knows? Perhaps what happened may have been divinely
ordered to bring her back to us? Who knows? who knows?" She thought of
the many other things the convent required: the chapel wanted
re-decorating, and they had to spare every penny they could from their
food and clothing to buy candles for the altar; another item of
expense was the resident chaplain; and when in bed she lay thinking
that perhaps to-morrow she would find a way out of the difficulty that
had puzzled her so long.




CHAPTER TWENTY


"Yes, dear Mother, if you are willing to keep me I shall be glad to
remain. It is good of you. How kind you all are!"

Very little more than that she could be induced to say, relapsing,
after a few words, into a sort of stupor or dream, from which very
often it was impossible to rouse her; and the Prioress dreaded these
long silences, and often asked herself what they could mean, if the
cause were a fixed idea ... on which she was brooding. Or it might be
that Evelyn's mind was fading, receding. If so, the responsibility of
keeping her in the convent was considerable. A little time would,
however, tell them. Any religious instruction was, of course, out of
the question, and books would be fatal to her.

"Her mind requires rest," the Prioress said. "Even her music is a
mental excitement."

"I don't think that," Sister Mary John answered. "And as for work, I
have been thinking I might teach her a little carpentry. If plain
carpentry does not interest her sufficiently, she might learn to work
at the lathe."

"Your idea is a very good one, Sister Mary John. Go to her at once and
set her to work. It is terrible to think of her sitting brooding,
brooding."

"But on what is she brooding, dear Mother?"

"No doubt her father's death was a great shock."

And Sister Mary John went in search of Evelyn, and found her wandering
in the garden.

"Of what are you thinking, Sister?" As Evelyn did not answer, Sister
Mary John feared she resented the question. "You don't like me to walk
with you?"

"Yes I do, I don't mind; but I wonder if the Prioress likes me to be
here. Can you find out for me?"

"Why should you think we do not wish to have you here?"

"Well you see, Sister--oh, it is no use talking." Her thoughts seemed
to float away, and it might be five or ten, minutes before she would
speak again.

"I wish you would come to the woodshed, Sister. If not I must leave
you."

"Oh, I'll go to the woodshed with you."

"And will you help me with my work?"

"I help you with your work!"

There was a long, narrow table in the woodshed--some planks laid upon
two trestles; and the walls were piled with all kinds of sawn wood,
deal planks, and rough timber, and a great deal of broken furniture
and heaps of shavings. The woodshed was so full of rubbish of all
kinds that there was only just room enough to walk up and down the
table. Sister Mary John was making at that time a frame for cucumbers,
and Evelyn watched her planing the deal boards, especially interested
when she pushed the plane down the edge of the board, and a long,
narrow shaving curled out of the plane, but asking no questions.

"Now, wouldn't you like to do some work on the other side of the
table, Sister?"

Evelyn did not answer, and it was not that day nor the next, but at
the end of the week, that she was persuaded to take the pincers and
pull the nails out of an old board.

"And when you have done that, I will show you how to plane it."

She seemed to have very little strength--or was it will that she
lacked? The pincers often fell from her hands, and she would stand,
lost in reverie.

"Now, Sister, you have only pulled two nails out of that board in the
last ten minutes; it is really very tiresome of you, and I am waiting
for it."

"Do you really mean that you are waiting for this board? Do you want
it?"

"But of course; I shouldn't have asked you to draw the nails out of it
if I didn't." And it was by such subterfuges that she induced Evelyn
to apply herself. "Now, you won't think of anything until you have
drawn out every nail, will you? Promise me." Sister Mary John put the
pincers into her hand, and when the board was free of nails, it seemed
that Evelyn had begun to take an interest in the fate of the board
which she had prepared. She came round the table to watch Sister Mary
John planing it, and was very sorry when the nun's plane was gapped by
a nail which had been forgotten.

"This iron will have to go to the grinders."

"I am so sorry, Sister. Will you forgive me?"

"Yes, I'll forgive you; but you must try to pay attention."

When the cucumber-frame was finished Sister Mary John was busy making
some kitchen chairs, and the cutting out of the chair-backs moved
Evelyn's curiosity.

"Shall you really be able to make a chair that one can sit upon?"

"I hope so."

"Have you ever made one before?"

"Well, no, this is my first chair, but I made several stools."

The mystery of dovetailing was explained to Evelyn, and she learned
that glue was required.

"Now you may, if you like, melt the glue for me."

There was a stove in the adjoining shed, and Sister Mary John lighted
a fire and told Evelyn that she was to keep stirring the glue. "And be
sure not to let it burn." But when she came back twenty minutes later,
she found that Evelyn had wandered away from the stove to the farther
end of the shed to watch a large spider.

"Oh, Sister, just look at the spider! There is a fly in the web; see
how he comes out to seize his prey!"

"But, my goodness, Evelyn! what about my glue? There it is, all burnt
in the pot, and I shall have to take it to the kitchen and get hot
water and scrape it all out. It is really very tiresome of you."

When she returned with the glue, Evelyn said:

"You see, Sister, it is difficult to fix one's thoughts on a glue-pot;
the glue melts so slowly, and, watching the spider, lost count of
time. But I think I should like to saw something."

"That's a very good idea."

A saw was put into her hand, and half an hour after the sister came to
see how Evelyn had been getting on. "Why, you will be a first-rate
carpenter; you have sawn those boards capitally, wandering a little
from the line, it is true, but you will do better to-morrow."

Whenever Sister Mary John heard the saw cease she cried out, "Now,
Sister Evelyn, what are you thinking about? You are neglecting your
work." And Evelyn would begin again, and continue until her arm ached.

"Here is Mother Abbess."

"See, dear Mother, what Evelyn has been doing. She sawed this board
through all by herself, and you see she has sawn it quite straight,
and she has learned how to plane a board; and as for glueing, she
does it capitally!"




CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE


"What are you looking for, Sister Evelyn?"

"Veronica asked me to go into the garden; I think it was to gather
some laurel-leaves, but I can't remember where they grow."

"Never mind the leaves, I will gather them for you. Take my spade and
dig a little while. It is pleasanter being in the open air than in
that hot sacristy."

"But I don't know how to dig. You'll only laugh at me."

"No, no. See, here is a bed of spring onions, and it wants digging
out. You press the spade in as far as you can, pull down the handle,
and lift out the earth. I shall be some little while away, and I
expect you will have dug some yards. You can dig as far as this. Try,
Evelyn, make up your mind that you will; if you make up your mind, you
will succeed."

Evelyn promised.

"But you won't stay a long time, will you?" she called after the nun.
"Now I know why Sister Mary John wears men's boots." And she stooped
to pin up her skirt.

All the while the sky was clearing, the wind drove the clouds
westward, breaking up the dark masses, scattering, winnowing, letting
the sun through. Delicious was the glow, though it lasted but for a
few minutes--perhaps more delicious because it was so transitory.
Another patch of wind-driven clouds came up, and the world became cold
and grey again. A moment afterwards the clouds passed, the sun shone
out, and the delicious warmth filled mind and body with a delight that
no artificial warmth could; and, to enjoy the glowing of the sun,
Evelyn left her digging, and wandered away through the garden,
stopping now and then to notice the progress of the spring. A late
frost had cut the blossoms of the pear and the cherry; the half-blown
blossom dropped at the touch of the finger, and Evelyn regretted the
frost, thinking of the nets she had made.

"They'll be of very little use this year." And she wondered if the
currant and gooseberry-bushes had escaped; the apples had, for they
were later, unless there was another frost. "And then my nets will be
of no use at all; and I have worked so hard at them!"

The lilac-bushes were not yet in leaf--only some tiny green shoots.
"We shall not have any lilac this year till the middle of May. Was
there ever such a season?" Larks were everywhere, ascending in short
flights, trilling as they ascended; and Evelyn listened to their
singing, thinking it most curious--quaint cadenzas in which a note was
wanting, like in the bagpipes, a sort of aerial bagpipes. But on a
bare bough a thrush sang, breaking out presently into a little tune of
five notes. "Quite a little tune; one would think the bird had been
taught it." She waited for him to sing it again, but, as if not
wishing to waste his song, being a careful bird, he continued a sort
of recitative; then, thinking his listener had waited long enough for
his little aria, he broke out again. "There it is, five notes--a
distinct little tune." Why should he sing and no other thrush sing it?
There was a robin; but he sang the same little roundelay all the
year.... A little, pale-brown bird, fluttering among the bushes,
interested her; but it was some time before she could catch fair sight
of it. "A dear little wren!" she said. "It must have its nest about
here." She sought it, knowing its beautifully woven house, with one
hole, through which the bird passes to feed a numerous progeny, and
expected to find it amid the tangle of traveller's-joy which covered
an old wall.

In the convent garden there was a beautiful ash-tree, under which
Evelyn had often sat with the nuns during recreation, but it showed no
signs of coming into leaf; and the poplars rose up against the bright
sky, like enormous brooms. The hawthorns had resisted the frost better
than the sycamores. One pitied the sycamore and the chestnut-trees
most of all; and, fearing they would bear no leaves that year, Evelyn
stood with a black and shrivelled leaf in her hand. "Autumn, before
the spring has begun," she said. "But here is Jack." And she stooped
to pick up the great yellow tomcat, whom she remembered as a kindly,
affectionate animal; but now he ran away from her, turning to snarl at
her. "What can have happened to our dear Jack?" she asked herself. And
Miss Dingle, who had been watching her from a little distance, cried
out:

"You'll not succeed in catching him; he has been very wicked lately,
and is quite changed. The devil must have got into him, in spite of
the blue ribbon I tied round his neck."

"How are you, Miss Dingle?"

Miss Dingle evinced a considerable shyness, and muttered under her
breath that she was very well. She hoped Evelyn was the same; and ran
away a little distance, then stopped and looked back, her curiosity
getting the better of her. "Ordinary conversation does not suit her,"
Evelyn said to herself. And, when they were within speaking distance
again, Evelyn asked her what had become of the blue ribbon she had
tied round the cat's neck to save him from the devil.

"He tore it off--I mean the devil took it off. I can't catch him. If
you'd try?--if you'd get between him and that bush. It is a pity to
see a good cat go to the devil because we can't get a bit of blue
ribbon on his neck."

Evelyn stood between the cat and the bush, and creeping near, caught
him by the neck, and held him by the forepaws while Miss Dingle tried
to tie the ribbon round his neck; but Jack struggled, and raising one
of his hind paws obliged Evelyn to loose him.

"There is no use trying; he won't let it be put on his neck."

"But what will become of him? He will get more and more savage." Miss
Dingle ran after the cat, who put up his tail and trotted away,
eluding her. She came back, telling Evelyn that she might see the
devil if she wished. "That is to say, if you are not afraid. He's in
that corner, and I don't like to go there. I have hunted him out of
these bushes--you need not be afraid, my rosary has been over them
all."

Evelyn could see that Miss Dingle wished her to exorcise the dangerous
corner, and she offered to do so.

"You have two rosaries, you might lend me one."

"No, I don't think I could. I want two, one for each hand, you see....
I have not seen you in the garden this last day or two. You've been
away, haven't you?"

"I've been in Rome."

"In Rome! Then why don't you go and hunt him out ... frighten him
away? You don't need a rosary if you have touched the precious relics.
You should be able to drive him out of the garden, and out of the park
too, though the park is a big place. But here comes Sister Mary John.
You will tell me another time if you've brought back anything that the
Pope has worn."

Sister Mary John came striding over the broken earth, followed by her
jackdaw. The bird stopped to pick up a fat worm, and the nun sent Miss
Dingle away very summarily.

"I can't have you here, Alice. Go to the summer-house and worry the
devil away with your holy pictures. I've no time for you, dear," she
said to the jackdaw, who had alighted on her shoulder; "and I have
been looking for you everywhere," she said, turning from her bird to
Evelyn. "You promised me---- But I suppose digging tired you?"

"No, it was not that, Sister, only the sun came out and the warmth was
so delicious; I am afraid I am easily beguiled."

"We are all easily beguiled," Sister Mary John answered somewhat
sharply. "Now we must try to get on with our digging. You can help me
a little with it, can't you?" And looking up and down a plot about ten
yards long and twenty feet wide, protected by a yew-hedge, she said,
"This is the rhubarb-bed. And this piece," she said, walking to
another plot between the yew-hedge and the gooseberry-bushes, "will
have to be dug up. We were short of vegetables last year."

"You speak very lightly, Sister, of so much digging. Do you never get
tired?" So that she might not lose heart altogether, Sister Mary John
told her one of these beds had been dug up in autumn, and that no more
would be required than the hoeing out of the weeds.

"Is hoeing lighter work than digging?"

"You will find out soon." Evelyn set to work; but when she had cleared
a large piece of weeds she had to go over the ground again, having
missed a great many. "But you will soon get used to the work. Now,
there's the dinner bell. Are you so tired as all that?"

"Well, you see, I have never done any digging before."

After dinner Sister Mary John without further words told her she was
to go in front with the dibble and make holes for the potatoes, for an
absent-minded person could not be trusted with the seed potatoes--she
would be sure to break the shoots. The next week they were engaged in
sowing French beans and scarlet runners, and Evelyn thought it rather
unreasonable of the sister to expect her to know by instinct that
French beans should not be set as closely together as the scarlet
runners, and she laughed outright when the sister said, "But surely
you know that broad beans must be trodden firmly into the ground?"
Sister Mary John, noticed her laugh. "Work in the garden suits her,"
she said to herself, "she is getting better; only we must be careful
against a relapse. Now, Evelyn, we must weed the flower beds, or there
will be no flowers for the Virgin in May." And they weeded and weeded,
day after day, filling in the gaps with plants from the nursery. A few
days later came the seed sowing, the mignonette, sweet pea, stocks,
larkspur, poppies, and nasturtiums--all of which should have been sown
earlier, the nun said, only the season was so late, and the vegetables
had taken all their time.

"They all like to see flowers on the altar, but not one of them will
tie up her habit and dig, and they are as ignorant as you are, dear."

"Sister, that is unkind. I have learned as much as can be expected in
a month."

"You aren't so careless as you were." The two women walked a little
way, and they sat for a long time looking into the distant park,
enjoying the soft south wind blowing over it. Evelyn would have liked
to have sat there indefinitely, and far too soon did the nun remind
her that time was going by and they must return to their work. "We
have had some warm nights lately and the wallflowers are out; come and
look at them, dear." And forgetful of her, Sister Mary John rose and
went towards the flower garden. Evelyn was too tired to follow, and
she sat watching Sister Mary John, who seemed as much part of the
garden as the wind, or the rain, or the sun.




CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO


A cold shower struck the windows of the novitiate. "Was there ever
such weather? Will it never cease raining and blowing?" the novices
cried, and they looked through the panes into the windy garden. Next
day the same dark clouds rolled overhead, with gleams of sunshine now
and then lighting up the garden and the distant common, where
sometimes a horseman was seen galloping at the close of day, just as
in a picture.

"How wet he will be when he gets home!" a novice would sometimes say,
and the conversation was not continued.

"I wonder if we shall ever have fine weather again?" broke in another.

"One of these days it will cease raining," Mother Hilda said, for she
was an optimist; and very soon she began to be looked upon as a
prophetess, for the weather mended imperceptibly, and one afternoon
the sky was in gala toilette, in veils and laces: a great lady
stepping into her carriage going to a ball could not be more
beautifully attired. An immense sky brushed over with faint wreathing
clouds with blue colour showing through, a blue brilliant as any
enamel worn by a great lady on her bosom; and the likeness of the
clouds to plumes passed through Evelyn's mind, and her eyes wandering
westward, noticed how the sky down there was a rich, almost sulphurous
yellow; it set off the white and blue aerial extravagances of the
zenith. The garden was still wet and cold, but a warm air was coming
in, and voices of the nuns and novices sounded so innocent and free
that Evelyn was moved by a sudden sympathy to join them.

Under yonder trees the three Mothers were walking, looking towards
Evelyn now and then; she was the subject of their conversation, the
Prioress maintaining it would be a great benefit to her to take the
veil.

"But, dear Mother, do you think she will ever recover her health
sufficiently for her to decide and for us to decide, whether she has a
vocation?" Mother Hilda asked.

"It seems to me that Evelyn is recovering every day. Do you remember
at first whole days passed without her speaking? Now there are times
when she joins in the conversation."

Mother Mary Hilda did not answer, and a little aggressive glance shot
out of the Prioress's eyes.

"You don't like to have her in the novitiate. I remember when she
returned from Rome----"

"It seems to me that it would be just as well for her to live in the
convent as an oblate, occupying the guest-room as before."

"Now, why do you think that, Hilda? Let us have things precise."

"Her life as an opera singer clings about her."

"On the contrary, I cannot discover any trace of her past life in her.
In the chapel she seems very often overcome, and for piety seems to
set an example to us all."

"You see, dear Mother, I am responsible for the religious education of
some half-dozen young and innocent girls, and, though I like Evelyn
herself very much, her influence----"

"But what influence? She doesn't speak."

"No matter; it is known to every one in the convent that she has once
been a singer, though they don't know, perhaps, she was on the stage;
and she creates an atmosphere which I assure you----"

"Of course, Hilda you can oppose me; you always oppose. Nothing is
easier than opposition. Your responsibilities, I would not attempt to
deny that they exist, but you seem to forget that I, too, have
responsibilities. The debts of the convent are very pressing. And
Mother Philippa, too, has responsibilities."

"It would be a great advantage if Evelyn could discover she had a
vocation. Four or five, perhaps six hundred a year--she must have at
least that, for opera singers are very well paid, so I have always
heard--would----"

"But, Mother Philippa, the whole question is whether Evelyn has a
vocation. We know what the advantages would be," said Mother Hilda in
a low, insinuating voice which always exasperated the Reverend Mother.

"I think it would be better to wait," Mother Philippa answered. "You
see, she is suffering from a great mental breakdown; I think she
should have her chance like another." And, turning to the Prioress,
she said, "Dear Mother, do you think when Evelyn recovers her health
sufficiently to arrive at a decision that she will stay with us?"

"Not if a dead set is made against her, and if she is made to feel she
has no vocation, and that her influence is a pernicious one."

"Dear Mother, I never said----"

"Well, don't let us discuss the matter any more for the moment. Of
course, if you decide that Evelyn is not to remain in the
novitiate----"

"It is for you to decide the matter. You are Reverend Mother here, it
is for us to obey; only since you ask me----"

"Ask you, Hilda? But you tell me nothing. You merely oppose. What is
your dislike to Evelyn?"

"Dislike!"

"I am sure there is no dislike on Mother Hilda's part," Mother
Philippa said; "I am quite sure of that, Reverend Mother. Evelyn's
health is certainly improving, and I hope she will soon be able to
sing for us again at Benediction. Haven't you noticed that our
congregation is beginning to fall away? And you won't deny that the
fact that an opera singer wishes to enter our convent gives a
distinction----"

"It depends, Mother Philippa, in what sense you use the word
'distinction.' But I see you don't agree with me; you think with the
Prioress that Evelyn is----"

"Don't let us argue this question any more. Hilda, go and tell Evelyn
I want her."

"How Hilda does try to thwart me, to make, things more difficult than
they are!"

"Evelyn, my dear child, I have sent for you to ask if you feel well
enough to-day to sing for us at Benediction?"

"Oh, yes, dear Mother, why shouldn't I sing for you? What would you
like me to sing?"

The Prioress hesitated, and then asked Evelyn to suggest some pieces,
and after several suggestions Evelyn said:

"Perhaps it would be better if I were to call Sister Mary John, if you
will allow me, Mother." And she went away, calling to the other nun,
who came quickly from the kitchen garden in her big boots and her
habit tucked up nearly to her knees, looking very much more like a
labouring woman than a musician.

"We were talking just now of what Evelyn would sing for us at
Benediction; perhaps you had better go away and discuss the matter
between you."

"Will you sing Stradella's 'Chanson d'glise' or will you sing
Schubert's 'Ave Maria'? Nothing is more beautiful than that."

"I will sing the 'Ave Maria.'"

The nun sat down to play it, but she had not played many bars when
Evelyn interrupted her. "The intention of the single note, dear
Sister, the octave you are striking now, has always seemed to me like
a distant bell heard in the evening. Will you play it so."




CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE


And the idea of a bell sounding across the evening landscape was in
the mind of the congregation when Sister Mary John played the octave;
and the broken chords she played with her right hand awoke a sensation
of lights dying behind distant hills.

It is almost night, and amid a lonely landscape a harsh rock appears,
and by it a forlorn woman stands--a woman who is without friend or any
mortal hope--and she commends herself to the care of the Virgin. She
begins to sing softly, tremulous, like one in pain and doubt, "Ave
Maria, hearken to the Virgin's cry." The melody she sings is rich,
even ornate, but the richness of the phrase, with its two little grace
notes, does not mitigate the sorrow at the core; the rich garb in
which the idea is clothed does not rob the song of its humanity.

Evelyn's voice filled with the beauty of the melody, and she sang the
phrase which closes the stanza--a phrase which dances like a puff of
wind in an evening bough--so tenderly, so lovingly, that acute tears
trembled under the eyelids. And all her soul was in her voice when she
sang the phrase of passionate faith which the lonely, disheartened
woman sings, looking up from the desert rock. Then her voice sank into
the calm beauty of the "Aye Maria," now given with confidence in the
Virgin's intercession, and the broken chords passed down the keyboard,
uniting with the last note of the solemn octaves, which had sounded
through the song like bells heard across an evening landscape.

"How beautifully she sings it!" a man said out loud, and his neighbour
looked and wondered, for the man's eyes were full of tears.

"You have a beautiful voice, child," said the Prioress when they came
out of church, "and it is a real pleasure to me to hear you sing, and
it will be a greater pleasure when I know that for the future your
great gift will be devoted to the service of God. Shall we go into the
garden for a little walk before supper? We shall have it to ourselves,
and the air will do you good."

It was the month of June, and the convent garden was in all the
colour of its summer--crimson and pink; and all the scents of the
month, stocks and sweetbriar, were blown up from St. Peter's Walk. In
the long mixed borders the blue larkspurs stood erect between
Canterbury bells and the bush peonies, crimson and pink, and here and
there amid furred leaves, at the end of a long furred stalk, flared
the foolish poppy, roses like pale porcelain clustered along the low
terraced walk and up the house itself, over the stucco walls; but more
beautiful than the roses were the delicate petals of the clematis,
stretched out like fingers upon the walls.

An old nun was being wheeled up and down the terrace in a bath-chair
by one of the lay sisters, that she might enjoy the sweet air.

"I must say a word to Sister Lawrence," the Prioress said, "she will
never forgive me if I don't. She is the eldest member of our
community; if she lives another two years, she will complete half a
century of convent life."

As they drew near Evelyn saw two black eyes in a white, almost
fleshless face. The eyes alone seemed to live, and the shrunken
figure, huddled in many shawls, gave an impression of patriarchal age.
Evelyn saw by her veil that Sister Lawrence was a lay sister, and the
old nun tried to draw herself up in her chair as they approached, and
kissed the hand of the Prioress.

"Well, Sister, how are you feeling? I have brought you our new musical
postulant to look at. I want to know what you think of her. You must
know, Evelyn," said the Prioress, "that Sister Lawrence is a great
judge of people's vocations; I always consult her about my new
postulants."

Sister Lawrence took Evelyn's hands between hers and gazed into her
face so earnestly that Evelyn feared her innermost thoughts were being
read. Then, with a little touch of wilfulness, that came oddly from
one so old and venerable, the Sister said:

"Well, Reverend Mother, she is pretty anyhow, and it is a long time
since we had a pretty postulant."

"Really, Sister Lawrence, I am ashamed of you," said the Prioress with
playful severity; "Sister Evelyn will be quite disedified."

"Mother, if I like them to be pretty it is only because they have one
more gift to bring to the feet of our dear Lord. I see in Sister
Evelyn's face that she has a vocation. I believe she is the providence
that God has sent to help us through our difficulties."

"We are all praying," said the Prioress, "that it may be so."

"Well, Hilda, you'll agree with me now, I think, that we have every
reason to hope."

"Hope for what, dear Mother?"

"That we shall discover a vocation in Evelyn. You heard what Sister
Lawrence said, and she has had great experience."

"It is possible to God, of course, that an opera singer may find a
vocation for the religious life, and live happily in a community of
nuns devoted to Perpetual Adoration."

"But you don't believe God desires that such a thing should come to
pass?"

"I shouldn't like to say that, it would be too presumptuous; but it
would be entirely out of the ordinary course."

The Prioress began to wonder if Mother Hilda suspected that some great
sin committed while she was in Rome was the cause of Evelyn's nervous
breakdown; and the Mistress of the Novices, as she walked by the side
of the Prioress, began to wonder why the Prioress wished that Evelyn
should become a nun. It might be that the Prioress, who was a widow,
was interested in the miracle of the great shock which had caused
Evelyn to relinquish her career and to turn to the Church! That might
be her motive, she reflected. Those who have lived in the world are
attracted and are interested in each other, and are to some extent
alien to the real nun, to her who never doubts her vocation from the
first and resolves from the first to bring her virginity to God--it
being what is most pleasing to him. It might be that the Prioress was
influenced, unconsciously, of course, by some such motive; yet it was
strange that she should be able to close her eyes to Evelyn's state of
mind. The poor woman was still distracted and perplexed by a great
shock which had happened before she came to the convent and which had
been aggravated by another when she went to Rome; she had returned to
them as to a refuge from herself. Such mental crises often happened to
women of the world, to naturally pious women; but natural piety did
not in the least mean a vocation, and Mother Hilda had to admit to
herself that she could discover no sign of a vocation in Evelyn. How
were it possible to discover one? She was not herself, and would not
be for a long while, if she ever recovered herself. Mother Prioress
had chosen to admit her as a postulant.... Even that concession Mother
Hilda did not look upon with favour. Why not go one step farther and
make Miss Dingle a postulant? It seemed to her that if Mother Prioress
insisted that Evelyn should take the white veil at present, a very
serious step would be taken. It was the Mistress of the Novices who
would be responsible for Evelyn's instruction, and Evelyn was hardly
ever in the novitiate; she was always singing, or working in the
garden.




CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR


"I am afraid, dear Mother, her progress towards recovery is slow."

"I don't agree with you. A great nervous breakdown I That journey to
Rome, only to see her father die before her eyes, was a great
shock--such a one as it would take anybody a long time to recover
from. Evelyn is very highly-strung, there can be no doubt of that. I
wonder how it is that you don't understand?"

"But I do understand, dear Mother, only I find it hard to believe that
the time has come for her to take the white veil."

"Or that it will ever come?"

"The other day she said in the novitiate she was sure she would go to
hell, and that she wouldn't be able to bear the uncertainty much
longer...."

"What ever did she mean? You must have misunderstood her, Mother
Hilda." And the Prioress determined to talk to Evelyn "on the first
occasion"--the first occasion with the Prioress meant the very next
minute. So she went in search of her, and finding her by the fishpond,
quite unaware that any one was watching her, the thought crossed the
Prioress's mind that Hilda might be right after all: Evelyn might be
sitting there thinking how, after a short struggle, the water would
end the misery that was consuming her.

"Evelyn, dear, of what are you thinking?"

"Only of the fish, dear Mother. You know they are quite deaf; fish
haven't ears. There is a legend, however, of a boy playing the flute
and the fish leaping to listen."

"If her health doesn't improve," the Prioress said to herself, "we
shall not be able to keep her."

"Evelyn, dear, you are not looking very well; I am afraid you haven't
been sleeping lately."

"Last night I hardly closed my eyes, dear Mother, and to-day there is
no reality anywhere. One begins to hate everything--the shapes of the
trees, the colour of the sky."

"It is just what I suspected," the Prioress said to herself, "she was
thinking of suicide. Suicide in a convent--such a thing has never
happened. Yet why shouldn't such a thing happen? Everything happens in
this world."

But, notwithstanding some alarming relapses, Evelyn's health continued
to improve, slowly, but it continued to improve; and after a long day's
work in the garden she would talk quite cheerfully, saying that that
night for sure she would get some hours of sleep. The Prioress listened,
saying to herself, "There is no doubt that manual work is the real
remedy, the only remedy." Sister Mary John was of the same opinion, and
the Prioress relied on Sister Mary John to keep Evelyn hoeing and
digging when it was fine, and making nets in the workshop when it was
wet. She was encouraged to look after the different pets; and there were
a good many to look after; her three cats occupied a good deal of her
time, for the cats were always anxious to kill her tame birds. One cat
had killed several, so the question had arisen whether he should be
drowned in the fishpond or trained to respect caged birds. The way to do
this, Evelyn had been told, was to put a caged bird on the ground in
front of the cat, and, standing over him with a cane, strike swiftly and
severely the moment the cat crouched to spring. A cat above all other
animals hates to be beaten, for a cat is probably one of the most
sagacious animals, more even than a dog, though he does not care to show
it. The beating of the cat was repellent to Evelyn, but Sister Mary John
had no such scruples, and the beatings proved so efficient that the cat
would run away the moment he was shown a bird in a cage. In turn each of
the cats received its lesson, and henceforth Evelyn's last
presents--blackbirds, thrushes, linnets, and bullfinches--lived in
safety.

The feeding of these birds and the cleaning of the aviary occupied two
hours a day during the winter. She had also her greenhouse to attend
to; herself and Sister Mary John, with some help from the outside, had
built one, and hot-water pipes had been put in; and her love of
flowers was so great that she would run down the garden even when the
ground was covered with snow to stoke up the fire, if she thought she
had forgotten to do so, saying that they would have no tulips, or lily
of the valley, or azaleas for the altar, if the temperature were
allowed to drop. Her talk was all about her garden, and when the
spring returned she was working there constantly with Sister Mary John
in the morning till the Angelus rang at twelve; then they went into
dinner, and as soon as dinner was over Evelyn returned with Sister
Mary John to the garden and worked till it was time to go into church
for Benediction. Or sometimes they left the garden when the other nuns
went there for recreation, having music to try over, for now, since
she had recovered her health, Evelyn sang every day at Benediction.

"There is no reason why she should remain any longer with us," the
Prioress often said, "unless there is some hope of her staying
altogether. You will admit, Hilda, that her health is much improved,
and that she is capable now of arriving at some decision."

"There is no doubt her health is improving."

"And her piety--have you noticed it? She almost sets us an example."

Mother Hilda did not answer, and the Prioress understood her silence
to mean that she would hardly look upon Evelyn as an example for the
convent to follow.

"Well, something will have to be decided." And one evening the
Prioress asked Mother Philippa and Mother Hilda to her room after
evening prayers.

"We were talking of Evelyn the other day in the garden, Hilda, and you
admitted that she was in a state now to decide whether she should go
or stay."

"You mean, dear Mother, that Evelyn must either leave us or join the
community?"

"Or show some signs that she wishes to join it. Her postulancy has
been unduly prolonged; it is nearly a year since she returned from
Rome, and she was a postulant for six months before that."

"You think that if she hadn't a vocation she would have left us
before? But are you not forgetting that she was suffering from a
nervous breakdown, and came here with the intention of seeking rest
rather than becoming one of us?"

"Her health has been mending this long while. Really, Hilda----"

"I am sorry, Mother, if I seem stubborn."

"Not stubborn, but I should like to hear you explain your reasons for
thinking Evelyn has not a vocation. And Mother Philippa is most
anxious to hear them, too."

Mother Philippa listened, thinking of her bed, wondering why Mother
Mary Hilda kept them up by refusing to agree with the Prioress.

"I am afraid I shall not be able to say anything that will convince
you. I have had some experience----"

"We know that you are very experienced, otherwise you would not be the
Mistress of the Novices. You don't believe in Evelyn's vocation?"

"I'm afraid I don't, and----"

"And what, Mother Hilda? We are here for the purpose of listening to
you. We shall be influenced by everything you say, so pray speak your
mind fully."

"About Evelyn? But that is just my point; there is nothing for me to
say about her. I hardly know her; she has hardly been in the novitiate
since she returned from Rome."

"You think before taking the veil she should receive more religious
instruction from you?"

"She certainly should. I grant you Evelyn is a naturally pious woman,
and that counts for a great deal; but what I attach importance to is
that she is still alien to the convent, knowing hardly anything of our
rule, of our observances. A novice spends six months in the novitiate
with me learning obedience, how to forget herself, how she is merely
an instrument, and how the greatest purpose of her life is to obey."

"It is impossible to overestimate the value of obedience, but there
are some--I will not say who can dispense with obedience, of course
not, but who cannot put off their individualities, who cannot become
the merely typical novice--that one who would tell you, if she were
asked to describe the first six months of her life in the convent,
that all she remembered was a great deal of running up and down
stairs. There are some who may not be moulded, but who mould
themselves; and they are not the worst, sometimes they are the best
nuns. For instance, Sister Mary John--who will doubt her vocation? And
yet there is not a more headstrong nun in our community. I don't wish
to say one word against Sister Mary John, who is an example to us all;
it is only to answer your objection that I mentioned her."

"Sister Mary John is quite different," Mother Hilda answered. And,
after waiting some moments for Mother Hilda to continue, the Prioress
said:

"You would wish her, then, to spend some time longer with you in the
novitiate?"

"I am not sure it would be of any use. There is another matter about
which I hardly like to speak; still, I must remind you that the
convent has never been the same since she came here. She has not been
herself since she came back from Rome, but now she is regaining
herself, and you cannot have failed to notice that both Sister Mary
John and Veronica are drawn towards her. I am sure they are not aware
of it, and would resent my criticism as unjust. Not only Sister Mary
John and Veronica, but all of us; it seems to me that we all talk too
much about her ... I am sometimes almost glad that she is so little in
the novitiate. Her influence on such simple-minded young women as
Sister Jerome and Sister Barbara must be harmful--how could it be
otherwise, coming out of another world? and her voice, too--you don't
agree with me?" And Mother Hilda turned to Mother Philippa. Mother
Philippa shook her head, and confessed she had not the slightest
notion of what Mother Hilda meant.

"But you have, dear Mother?"

"Yes, I know very well what you mean, only I don't agree with you. Her
singing, of course, gives her an exceptional position in the convent,
but I don't think she avails herself of it; indeed, her humility has
often seemed to me most striking."

"In that I agree with you," Mother Hilda answered; "so I feel that
perhaps, after all, I may be misjudging her."

At this concession the Prioress's manner softened at once towards the
Mistress of the Novices.

"Well, Hilda, come, tell me, have you said everything you have to say?
Have you given us your full reasons for not wishing Evelyn to take the
veil if she should decide to do so? I see you hesitate. I asked you
here to-night so that you might speak your mind. Let everything be
said. There is no use telling me afterwards that you didn't say things
because you thought I wouldn't like to hear them. Say everything."

Pressed by the Prioress, Mother Hilda admitted that she was concerned
regarding the motive which actuated the Prioress and Mother Philippa.

"I include her."

Mother Philippa looked up suddenly. The Prioress smiled.

"My motive!" said Mother Philippa.

"Nothing is farther from my thought than to attribute a wrong motive
to anybody, but I am not quite sure, dear Mother, that you would be as
anxious for Evelyn to join our community if she had no money ... and
no voice."

"Situated as we are, we cannot accept penniless women as choir
sisters. You know that well enough--am I not right, Mother Philippa?"

And Mother Philippa agreed that no one could be admitted into the
convent as a choir sister unless she brought some money with her.

"But you hold a different opinion, Hilda?"

"I understand that we cannot admit as a choir sister a woman who has
no money; but that is quite different from admitting an opera singer
because she has money and can sing for us. It seems to me that nuns
devoted to Perpetual Adoration should not yield themselves to money
considerations."

"Yield to money considerations--no; but as long as we live upon earth,
we shall live dependent upon money in some form or another. Our
pecuniary embarrassments--you know all about them. I need not refer to
the mortgagee, who, at any moment, may foreclose. Think of what it
would be if this house were to be put up for sale, and we had all to
return to our relations. How many are there who have relations who
would take them in? And the lay sisters--what would become of them and
our duties towards them--they who have worked for us all these years?
Sister Lawrence--would you like to see her on the roadside, or carried
to the workhouse? Spiritual considerations come first, of course, but
we must have a house to live in and a chapel to pray in. Do you never
think of these things, Hilda?"

"Yes, and I appreciate the anxiety our pecuniary difficulties cause
you, dear Mother. I am not indifferent, I assure you, but I cannot
help feeling that anything were better than we should stop, instead of
going forward, towards the high ideal----"

"Well, Hilda, are you prepared to risk it? We have a chance of
redeeming the convent from debt--will you accept the responsibility?"

"Of what, dear Mother?"

"Of refusing to agree that Evelyn shall be allowed to take the white
veil, if she wishes to take it."

"But taking the white veil will not enable us to get hold of her
money. We shall have to wait till she is professed."

"But if she is given the white veil," the Prioress answered sternly,
"she will be induced to remain. The fact of her taking the white veil
is a great inducement, and a year hence who knows----"

"Well, dear Mother, you will act, I am sure, for the best. Perhaps it
would have been better if you had not consulted me; but, having
consulted me, I had to tell you what I think. I am aware that in
practical matters I am but a very poor judge. Remember, I passed, like
Veronica, from the school-room to the convent. But you know the
world."

"It is very kind of you to admit so much; but it seems to me, Hilda,
you are only admitting that much so as to give a point to your
contention, or what I suppose is your contention--that those who never
knew the world may attain to a more intense spirituality than poor
women such as myself and Mother Philippa here, who did not enter the
convent as early in life as you did ... but who renounced the world."

The sharp tone of the Prioress's voice, when she mentioned Mother
Philippa's name, awoke the nun, who had been dozing.

"Well, Mother Philippa, what is your opinion?"

"It seems to me," the nun answered, now wide awake, "that it is a
matter for Evelyn to decide. You think I was asleep, but I wasn't; I
heard everything you said. You were discussing your own scruples of
conscience, which seem to me quite beside the question. Our conscience
has nothing to do with the matter; it is all a question for Evelyn to
decide herself ... as soon as she is well, of course."

"And she is now quite well. I will see her to-morrow on the subject."

On this the Prioress rose to her feet, and the other two nuns
understood that the interview was at an end.

"Dear Mother, I know how great your difficulties are," said Mother
Hilda, "and I am loth to oppose your wishes in anything. I know how
wise you are, how much wiser than we--but however foolishly I may
appear to be acting, you will understand that I cannot act
differently, feeling as I do."

"I understand that, Hilda; we all must act according to our lights.
And now we must go to bed, we are breaking all the rules of the
house."




CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE


After breakfast Veronica came to Evelyn, saying that dear Mother would
like to speak to her. Evelyn nodded, and went gaily to see the
Prioress in her room on the ground-floor. Its long French windows,
opening on to the terrace-walk, appealed to her taste; and the crowded
writing-table, on which stood a beautiful crucifix in yellow ivory.
Papers and tin boxes were piled in one corner. But there was no
carpet, and only one armchair, overworn and shabby. There were flowers
in vases and bowls, and, in a large cage, canaries uttered their
piercing songs.

"I like your room, dear Mother, and wish you would send for me a
little oftener. All your writing--now couldn't I do some of it for
you?"

"Yes, Evelyn, I should like to use you sometimes as a secretary ... if
you are going to remain with us."

"I don't know what you mean, Mother."

"Well, sit down. I have sent for you because I want to have a little
talk with you on this subject." And she spoke of Evelyn's postulancy;
of how long it had lasted. It seemed to the Prioress that it would be
better, supposing Evelyn did not intend to remain with them, for her
to live with them as an oblate, occupying the guest-chamber.

"Your health doesn't permit much religious instruction; but one of
these days you will realise better than you do now what our life is,
and what its objects are."

So did the Prioress talk, getting nearer the point towards which she
was making, without, however, pressing Evelyn to answer any direct
question, leading her towards an involuntary decision.

"But, dear Mother, I am safe here, you know."

"And yet you fear, my dear child, you have no vocation?"

"Well, it seems extraordinary that I----"

"More extraordinary things have happened in the world than that;
besides, there is much time for you to decide. No one proposes that
you should be admitted to the Order to-morrow; such a thing, you know,
is impossible, but the white veil is a great help. Evelyn, dear, this
question has been running in my mind some time back--is it well for
you to remain a postulant any longer? The white veil, again I say, is
such a help."

"A help for what, dear Mother?"

"Well it will tell you if you have a vocation; at the end of the year
you will know much better than you know now."

"I a nun!" Evelyn repeated.

"In a year you will be better able to decide. Extraordinary things
have happened."

"But it would be extraordinary," Evelyn said, speaking to herself
rather than to the nun.

"I have spoken to Mother Hilda and Mother Phillipa on the subject, and
they are agreed that if you are to remain in the convent it would be
better for you to take the white veil."

"Or do they think that it would be better for me to leave the
convent?"

"It would be impossible for us to think such a thing, my dear child."

"But what I would wish to understand, dear Mother, is this--have I to
decide either to leave the convent or to take the white veil?"

"Oh, no; but you have been so long a postulant."

"But when I went to Rome my postulancy----"

"Even so, you have been a postulant for over a year; and, should you
discover that you have no vocation, the fact of having been a novice,
of having worn the white veil, will be a protection to you ever
afterwards, should you return to the world."

"You think so, dear Mother?"

And the Prioress read in Evelyn's face that she had touched the right
note.

"Yes, to have a name, for instance--not only the veil, but the name. I
have been thinking of a name for you--what do you think of 'Teresa'?"

"Teresa!" Evelyn answered. And her thoughts went to the great nun
whose literature she had first read in the garden outside, when she
walked there as a visitor. It was under a certain tree, where she had
often sat since with Mother Hilda and the novices, that she had first
read the "Autobiography" and "The Way of Perfection." There were the
saint's poems, too; and, thinking of them, a pride awoke in her that
for a time, at least, she should bear the saint's name. The Prioress
was right, the saint's name would fortify her against her enemy; and
her noviceship would be something to look back upon, and the memory of
it would protect her when she left the convent.

"I am glad that we shall have you, at all events, for some months more
with us--some months more for sure, perhaps always. But take time to
consider it."

"Dear Mother, I am quite decided."

"Think it over. You can tell me your decision some time in the
afternoon, or to-morrow."

It was a few days after that the Prioress took Evelyn up to the
novitiate, where the novices were making the dress that Evelyn was to
wear when she received the white veil.

"You see, Teresa, we spare no expense or trouble on your dress," said
the Prioress.

"Oh, it is no trouble, dear Mother." And Sister Angela rose from her
chair and turned the dress right side out and shook it, so that Evelyn
might admire the handsome folds into which the silk fell.

"And see, here is the wreath," said Sister Jerome, picking up a wreath
of orange-blossoms from a chair.

"And what do you think of your veil, Sister Teresa? Sister Rufina did
this feather-stitch. Hasn't she done it beautifully?"

"And Sister Rufina is making your wedding-cake. Mother Philippa has
told her to put in as many raisins and currants as she pleases. Yours
will be the richest cake we have ever had in the convent." Sister
Angela spoke very demurely, for she was thinking of the portion of the
cake that would come to her, and there was a little gluttony in her
voice as she spoke of the almond paste it would have upon it.

"It is indeed a pity," said Sister Jerome, "that Sister Teresa's
clothing takes place so early in the year."

"How so, Sister Jerome?" Evelyn asked incautiously.

"Because if it had been a little later, or if Monsignor had not been
delayed in Rome--I only thought," she added, stopping short, "that you
would like Monsignor to give you the white veil--it would be nicer for
you; or if the Bishop gave it," she added, "or Father Ambrose. I am
sure Sister Veronica never would have been a nun at all if Father
Ambrose had not professed her. Father Daly is such a little frump."

"That will do, children; I cannot really allow our chaplain to be
spoken of in that manner." And Mother Hilda looked at Evelyn,
thinking, "Well, the Prioress has had her way with her."

The recreation-bell rang, and the novices clattered down the stairs of
the novitiate, their childish eagerness rousing Evelyn from the mild
stupor which still seemed to hang about her mind; and she smiled at
the novices and at herself, for suddenly it had all begun to seem to
her like a scene in a play, herself going to take the white veil and
to become a nun, at all events, for a while. "Now, how is all this to
end?" she asked herself. "But what does it matter?" Clouds seemed to
envelop her mind again, and she acquiesced when the Prioress said:

"I think your retreat had better begin to-day."

"When, Mother?"

"Well, from this moment."

"If Teresa will come into the garden with me," said Mother Hilda.

It was impossible for the Prioress to say no, and a slaty blush of
anger came into her cheek. "Hilda will do all she can to prevent her."
Nor was the Prioress wholly wrong in her surmise, for they had not
walked very far before Evelyn admitted that the idea of the white veil
frightened her a great deal.

"Frightens you, my dear child?"

"But if I had a vocation I should not feel frightened. Isn't that so,
Mother Hilda?"

"I shouldn't like to say that, Teresa. One can feel frightened and yet
desire a thing very much; desire and fear are not incompatible."

Tears glistened in her eyes, and she appealed to Mother Hilda, saying:

"Dear Mother, I don't know why I am crying, but I am very unhappy.
There is no reason why I should be, for here I am safe."

"Will she ever recover her mind sufficiently to know what she is
doing?" Mother Hilda asked herself.

"It is always," Evelyn said, "as if I were trying to escape from
something." Mother Hilda pressed her to explain. "I cannot explain
myself better than by telling that it is as if the house were burning
behind me, and I were trying to get away."

That evening Mother Hilda consulted the Prioress, telling her of
Evelyn's tears and confusion.

"But, Hilda, why do you trouble her with questions as to whether she
would like to be a nun or not? As I have said repeatedly, the veil is
a great help, and, in a year hence, Teresa will know whether she'd
like to join our community. In the meantime, pray let her be in peace
and recover herself." The Prioress's voice was stern.

"Only this, dear Mother----"

"The mistake you make, Hilda, seems to me to be that you imagine every
one turns to religion and to the convent for the same reason, whereas
the reasons that bring us to God are widely different. You are
disappointed in Teresa, not because she lacks piety, but because she
is not like Jerome or Angela or Veronica, whom we both know very well.
Each seeks her need in religion, and you are not acquainted with
Teresa's, that is all. Now, Hilda, obedience is the first of all the
virtues, and I claim yours in all that regards Teresa." Mother Hilda
raised her quiet eyes and looked into the Prioress's face, and then
lowered them again. "We should be lacking in our duty," the Prioress
continued, "if we don't try to keep her by all legitimate means. She
will receive the white veil at the end of the week; try to prepare her
for her clothing, instruct her in the rule of our house; no one can do
that as well as you."

Lifting her eyes again for a moment, Mother Hilda answered that it
should be as the Prioress wished--that she would do her best to
instruct Teresa; and she moved away slowly, the Prioress not seeking
to detain her any longer in her room.




CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX


Next day in the novitiate Mother Hilda explained to Evelyn how the
centre of their life was the perpetual adoration of the Blessed
Sacrament exposed on the altar.

"Our life is a life of expiation; we expiate by our prayers and our
penances and our acts of adoration the many insults which are daily
flung at our divine Lord by those who not only disobey His
commandments, but deny His very presence on our altars. To our prayers
of expiation we add prayers of intercession; we pray for the many
people in this country outside the faith who offend our Lord Jesus
Christ more from ignorance than from malice. All our little acts of
mortification are offered with this intention. From morning Mass until
Benediction our chapel, as you know, is never left empty for a single
instant of the day; two silent watchers kneel before the Blessed
Sacrament, offering themselves in expiation of the sins of others.
This watch before the Blessed Sacrament is the chief duty laid upon
the members of our community. Nothing is ever allowed to interfere
with it. Unfailing punctuality is asked from every one in being in the
chapel at the moment her watch begins, and no excuse is accepted from
those who fail in this respect. Our idea is that all through the day a
ceaseless stream of supplication should mount to heaven, that not for
a single instant should there be a break in the work of prayer. If our
numbers permitted it we should have Perpetual Adoration by day and
night, as in the mother house in France; but here the bishop only
allows us to have exposition once a month throughout the night, and
all our Sisters look forward to this as their greatest privilege."

"It is a very beautiful life, Mother Hilda; but I wonder if I have a
vocation?"

"That is the great question, my dear," and a cloud gathered in Mother
Hilda's face, for it had come into her mind to tell Evelyn that she
hardly knew anything of the religious life as yet; but remembering her
promise to the Prioress, she said; "Obedience is the beginning of the
religious life, and you must try to think that you are a child in
school, with nothing to teach and everything to learn. The experience
of your past life, which you may think entitles you to consideration--"

"But, dear Mother, I think nothing of the kind; my whole concern is to
try to forget my past life. Ah, if I could only--"

Mother Hilda wondered what it must be to bring that look of fear into
Evelyn's eyes, but she refrained from questioning her, saying:

"I beg of you to put all the teachings of the world as far from your
mind as possible. It will only confuse you. What we think wise the
world thinks foolish, and the wisdom of the world is to us a vanity."

"If it were only a vanity," Evelyn answered. And her thoughts moved
away from the Mother Mistress to herself, wondering how it was that
this conventual life was so sympathetic to her, finding a reason in
the fact that her idea had alienated her from the world; she had come
here in quest of herself, and had found something, not exactly
herself, perhaps, but at all events a refuge from one side of herself
and many other things--a group of women who thought as she did. But
would the convent always be as necessary to her as it was to-day? And
what a grief it would be to the nuns when the term of her noviceship
ended. Would she find courage to tell them that she did not wish to
take final vows? But she must listen to Mother Hilda who was
instructing her in the virtue of obedience. After obedience came the
rule of silence.

"But I don't know how the work in the garden will be done if one isn't
allowed to speak."

"The work in the garden must wait until your retreat is over. Now go,
my dear; I am waiting for Sisters Winifred and Veronica, who are
coming to me for their Latin lesson."

"May I go into the garden?"

It amused Evelyn to ask the question, so strange did it seem that she
should ask, like a little child, permission to go into the garden; and
as she went along the passages she began to fear that the old Evelyn
was on her way back, the woman who had disappeared for so many months.
Be that as it may, she was not altogether Sister Teresa on the day of
her clothing, though she tried to imitate the infantile glee of the
novices, and of the nuns too; for they were nearly as childish as the
novices. In spite of herself she wearied of the babble and the
laughter over orange blossoms and wedding-cake, especially of Sister
Jerome's babble. She was particularly noisy that afternoon; her
unceasing humour had begun to jar, and Evelyn had begun to feel that
she must get away from it all, and she asked leave to go into the
garden.

Ah, the deep breath she drew! How refreshing it was after the long
time spent in church in the smell of burning wax and incense. "The
incense of the earth is sweeter," she said; and the sound of the wind
in the boughs reminded her of the voice of the priest intoning the
"Veni Creator." "Nature is more musical," and her eyes strayed over
the great park to its rim miles away, indistinct, though the sky was
white as white linen above it, only here and there a weaving of some
faint cream tones amid clouds rising very slowly; a delicious warmth
fell out of the noonday sky, enfolding the earth; and, discomforted by
her habit--a voluminous trailing habit with wide hanging sleeves--she
stood on the edge of the terrace thinking that the stiff white
head-dress made her feel more like a nun than her vows.

"Of what am I thinking?" she asked herself, for her thoughts seemed to
go out faintly, like the clouds; she seemed more conscious of the
springtime than she had ever been before, of a sense of delight going
through her when, before her eyes, the sun came out, lighting up the
distant inter-spaces and the stems of the trees close by. The ash was
coming into leaf, but among the green tufts every bough could still be
traced. The poplars looked like great brooms, but they were reddening,
and in another week or two would be dark green again. The season being
a little late, the lilacs and laburnums were out together; pink and
white blossoms had begun to light up the close leafage of the
hawthorns, and under the flowering trees grass was springing up,
beautiful silky grass. "There is nothing so beautiful in the world as
grass," Evelyn thought, "fair spring grass." The gardener was mowing
it between the flower beds, and it lay behind his hissing scythe along
the lawn in irregular lines.

"There is the first swallow, just come in time to see the tulips, the
tall May tulips which the Dutchmen used to paint."

So did Evelyn think, and her eyes followed Sister Mary John's jackdaw.
He seemed to know the hour of the day, and was looking out for his
mistress, who generally came out after dinner with food for him, and
speech--the bird seemed to like being spoken to, and always put his
head on one side so that he might listen more attentively. A little
further on Evelyn met three goslings straying under the flowering
laburnums, and she returned them to their mother in the orchard.
Something was moving among the potato ridges, and wondering what it
could be, she discovered the cat playing with the long-lost tortoise.
How funny her great fluffy tom-cat looked, as he sat in front of the
tortoise, tapping its black head whenever it appeared beyond the
shell. All cats are a beautiful shape, but this one was a beautiful
colour, "grey as a cloud at even"; but to leave him playing with the
tortoise would be cruel to the tortoise, so she decided to carry the
cat to the other end of the garden, where the sparrows were picking up
the green peas.

The pear blossom had disappeared some weeks ago, and now the apple was
in bloom. Some trees were later than others, and there were still
tight pink knots amid the brown boughs. Evelyn sat down and closed her
eyes, so that she might enjoy more intensely the magic of this
Maytime. Every now and again a breeze shook the branches, shedding
white blossom over the bright grass, and faint shadows rushed out and
retreated. The sun was swallowed up in a sudden cloud. A dimness came
and a chill, but not for long enduring; the world was lit up, all the
lilac leaves were catching the light and dancing in the breeze. "How
living the world is, no death anywhere." Then her eyes turned to the
convent, for at that moment she caught sight of one of the lay sisters
coming towards her, evidently the bearer of a message. Sister Agnes
had come to tell her that a lady had called to see her.

"The lady is in the parlour. Mother Hilda is with her."

"Bat her name?"

Sister Agnes could not give Evelyn her visitor's name; but on the way
to the parlour they were met by the Prioress, who told Evelyn that the
lady who had come to see her was a French lady, Mademoiselle Helbrun.

"Louise! Dear Mother, she is an actress, one of the women I used to
sing with."

"Perhaps you had better not see her, and you may count upon me not to
offend her; she will understand that on the day of your clothing----"

"No, no, dear Mother, I must see her."

"Teresa, one never uses the word 'must' to the Prioress, nor to any
one in the convent; and on the day of your clothing it seems to me you
might have remembered this first rule of our life."

"Of course I am very sorry, Mother; but now that she has come I am
afraid it would agitate me more not to see her than to see her. It was
the surprise of hearing her name after such a long while--there is no
reason I can think of----"

"Teresa, it is for me to think, it is for you to obey."

"Well, Mother, if you will allow me."

"Ah, that is better. Of course she has come here to oppose your being
here. How will you answer her?"

"Louise is an old friend, and knows me well, and will not argue with
me, so it seems to me; and if she should ask me why I'm here and if I
intend to remain, it will be easy for me to answer her, "I am here
because I am not safe in the world."

"But she'll not understand."

"Yes she will, Mother. Let me see her."

"Perhaps you are right, Teresa; it will be better for you to see her.
But it is strange she should have come this afternoon."

"Some intuition, some voice must have told her."

"Teresa, those are fancies; you mustn't let your mind run on such
things."

They were at the door of the parlour. Evelyn opened it for the
Prioress, allowing her to pass in first.

"Louise, how good of you to come to see me. How did you find my
address? Did Mrat give it to you?"

"No, but I have heard--we all know you are thinking of becoming a
nun."

"If you had been here a little earlier," the Prioress said, "you would
have been in time for Teresa's clothing." And there was an appeal in
the Prioress's voice, the appeal that one Catholic makes to another.
The Prioress, of course, assumed that Louise had been brought up a
Catholic, though very likely she did not practise her religion; few
actresses did. So did the Prioress's thoughts run as she leaned
forward; her voice became winning, and she led Louise to ask her
questions regarding the Order. And she told Louise that it was a
French Order originally, wearying her with the story of the arrival of
the first nuns. "How can Evelyn stop here listening to such nonsense?"
she thought. And then Mother Hilda told Louise about Evelyn's singing
at Benediction, and the number of converts she had won to the Church
of Rome.

"As no doubt you know, Mademoiselle Helbrun, once people are drawn
into a Catholic atmosphere----".

"Yes, I quite understand. So you sing every day at Benediction, do
you, Evelyn? You are singing to-day? It will be strange to hear you
singing an 'Ave Maria.'"

"But, Louise, if I sing an 'O Salutaris,' will you sing Schubert's
'Ave Maria'?"

"No, you sing Schubert's 'Ave Maria' and I will sing an 'O
Salutaris.'"

Evelyn turned to the Prioress.

"Of course, we shall be only too glad if Mademoiselle Helbrun will
sing for us."

"The last time we saw each other, Louise, was the day of your party in
the Savoy Hotel."

"Yes, didn't we have fun that day? We were like a lot of children. But
you went away early."

"Yes, that day I went to Confession to Monsignor."

"Was it that day? We noticed something strange in you. You seemed to
care less for the stage, to have lost your vocation."

"We hope she has begun to find her vocation," Mother Hilda answered.

"But that is just what I mean--in losing her vocation for the stage
she has gained, perhaps, her vocation for the religious life."

"Vocation for the stage?"

"Yes, Mother Hilda," the Prioress said, turning to the Mistress of the
Novices, "the word vocation isn't used in our limited sense, but for
anything for which a person may have a special aptitude."

"That day of your party--dear me, how long ago it seems, Louise! How
much has happened since then? You have sung how many operas? In whose
company are you now?" Before they were aware of it the two singers had
begun to chatter of opera companies and operas. Ulick Dean was
secretary of the opera company with which Louise was travelling. They
were going to America in the autumn. The conversation was taking too
theatrical a turn, and the Prioress judged it necessary to intervene.
And without anybody being able to detect the transition, the talk was
led from America to the Pope and the Papal Choir.

"May we go into the garden, clear Mother?" Evelyn said, interrupting.
Her interruption was a welcome one; the Prioress in her anxiety to
change the subject had forgotten Mr. Innes's death and Evelyn's return
to Rome. She gave the required permission, and the four women went out
together.

"Do you think we shall be able to talk alone?"

"Yes, presently," Evelyn whispered. Soon after, in St. Peter's Walk,
an opportunity occurred. The nuns had dropped behind, and Evelyn led
her friend through the hazels, round by the fish pond where they would
be able to talk undisturbed. Evelyn took her friend's arm. "Dear
Louise, how kind of you to come to see me. I thought I was forgotten.
But how did you find me out?"

"Sir Owen Asher, whom I met in London, told me I would probably get
news of you here."

Evelyn did not answer.

"Aren't you glad to see me?"

"Of course I am. Haven't I said so? Don't you see I am? And you have
brought beautiful weather with you, Louise. Was there ever a more
beautiful day? White clouds rising up in the blue sky like great
ships, sail over sail."

"My dear Evelyn, I have not come to talk to you about clouds, nor
green trees, though the birds are singing beautifully here, and it
would be pleasant to talk about them if we were going to be alone the
whole afternoon. But as the nuns may come round the corner at any
minute I had better ask you at once if you are going to stop here?"

"Is that what you have come to ask me?"

Evelyn got up, though they had only just sat down.

"Evelyn, dear, sit down. You are not angry with me for asking you
these questions? What do you think I came here for?"

"You came here, then, as Reverend Mother suspected, to try to persuade
me away? You would like to have me back on the stage?"

"Of course we should like to have you back among us again. Owen
Asher----"

"Louise, you mustn't speak to me of my past life."

"Ulick----"

"Still less of him. You have come here, sent by Owen Asher or by Ulick
Dean--which is it?"

"My dear Evelyn, I came here because we have always been friends and
for old friendship's sake--sent by nobody."

These words seemed to reassure her, and she sat down by her friend,
saying that if Louise only knew the trouble she had been through.

"But all that is forgotten ... if it can be forgotten. Do you know if
our sins are ever forgotten, Louise?"

"Sins, Evelyn? What sins? The sin of liking one man a little better
than another?"

"That is exactly it, Louise. The sin and the shame ate in just what
you have said--liking one man better than another. But I wish, Louise,
you wouldn't speak to me of these things, for I'll have to get up and
go back to the convent."

"Well, Evelyn, let us talk about the white clouds going by, and how
beautiful the wood is when the sun is shining, flecking the ground
with spots of light; birds are singing in the branches, and that
thrush! I have never heard a better one." Louise walked a little way.
Returning to Evelyn quickly, she said, "There are all kinds of birds
here--linnets, robins, yes, and a blackbird. A fine contralto!"

"But why, Louise, do you begin to talk about clouds and birds?"

"Well, dear, because you won't talk about our friends."

"Or is it because you think I must be mad to stay here and to wear
this dress? You are quite wrong if you think such a thing, for it was
to save myself from going mad that I came here."

"My dear Evelyn, what could have put such ideas into your head?"

"Louise, we mustn't talk of the past. I can see you are astonished at
this dress, yet you are a Catholic of a sort, but still a Catholic. I
was like you once, only a change came. One day perhaps you will be
like me."

"You think I shall end in a convent, Evelyn?"

Evelyn did not answer, and, not knowing exactly what to say next,
Louise spoke of the convent garden.

"You always used to be fond of flowers. I suppose a great part of your
time is spent in gardening?"

An angry colour rose into Evelyn's cheek.

"You don't wish me," she said, "to talk about myself? You
think----Never mind, I don't care what you think about me."

Louise assured her that she was mistaken; and in the middle of a long
discourse Evelyn's thoughts seemed suddenly to break away, and she
spoke to Louise of the greenhouse which she had made that winter,
asking her if she would like to come to see it with her.

"A great deal of it was built with my own hands, Sister Mary John and
I. You don't know her yet; she is our organist, and an excellent one."

At that moment Evelyn laid her hand on Louise's arm, and a light
seemed to burst into her face.

"Listen!" she said, "listen to the bird! Don't you hear him?"

"Hear what, dear?"

"The bird in the branches singing the song that leads Siegfried to
Brunnhilde."

"A bird singing Wagner?"

"Well, what more natural than that a bird should sing his own song?"

"But no bird----" A look of wonder, mingled with fear, came into
Louise's face.

"If you listen, Louise." In the silence of the wood Louise heard
somebody whistling Wagner's music. "Don't you hear it?"

Louise did not answer at once. Had she caught some of Evelyn's madness
... or was she in an enchanted garden?

"It is a boy in the park, or one of the nuns."

"Nuns don't whistle, and the common is hundreds of yards away. And no
boy on the common knows the bird music from 'Siegfried'? Listen,
Louise, listen! There it goes, note for note. Francis is singing well
to-day."

"Francis!"

"Look, look, you can see him! Now are you convinced?"

And the wonder in Louise's face passed into a look of real fear, and
she said:

"Let us go away."

"But why won't you listen to Francis? None of my birds sings as he
does. Let me tell you, Louise----"

But Louise's step hastened.

"Stop! Don't you hear the Sword motive? That is Aloysius."

Louise stopped for a moment, and, true enough, there was the Sword
motive whistled from the branches of a sycamore. And Louise began to
doubt her own sanity.

"You do hear him, I can see you do."

"What does all this mean?" Louise said to the Reverend Mother, drawing
her aside. "The birds, the birds, Mother Superior, the birds!"

"What birds?"

"The birds singing the motives of 'The Ring.'"

"You mean Teresa's bullfinches, Mademoiselle Helbrun? Yes, they
whistle very well."

"But they whistle the motives of 'The Ring'!"

"Ah! she taught them."

"Is that all? I thought she and I were mad. You'll excuse me, Mother
Superior? May I ask her about them?"

"Of course, Mademoiselle Helbrun, you can." And Louise walked on in
front with Evelyn.

"Mother Superior tells me you have taught bullfinches the motives of
'The Ring,' is it true?"

"Of course. How could they have learned the motives unless from me?"

"But why the motives of 'The Ring'?"

"Why not, Louise? Short little phrases, just suited to a bird."

"But, dear, you must have spent hours teaching them."

"It requires a great deal of patience, but when there is a great whirl
in one's head----"

Evelyn stopped speaking, and Louise understood that she shrank from
the confession that to retain her sanity she had taught bullfinches to
whistle.

"So she is sane, saner than any of us, for she has kept herself sane
by an effort of her own will," Louise said to herself.

"Some birds learn much quicker than others; they vary a great deal."

"My dear Evelyn, it is ever so nice of you. Just fancy teaching
bullfinches to sing the motives of 'The Ring.' It seemed to me I was
in an enchanted garden. But tell me, why, when you had taught them,
did you let them fly away?"

"Well, you see, they can only remember two tunes. If you teach them a
third they forget the first two, and it seemed a pity to confuse
them."

"So when a bullfinch knows two motives you let him go? Well, it is all
very simple now you have explained it. They find everything they want
in the garden. The bullfinch is a homely little bird, almost as
domestic as the robin; they just stay here, isn't that it?"

"Sometimes they go into the park, but they come every morning to be
fed. On the whole, Francis is my best bird; but there is another who
in a way excels him--Timothy. I don't know why we call him Timothy; it
isn't a pretty name, but it seems suited to him because I taught him
'The Shepherds Pipe'; and you know how difficult it is, dropping half
a note each time? Yet he knows it nearly all; sometimes he will
whistle it through without a mistake. We could have got a great deal
of money for him if he had been sold, and Reverend Mother wanted me to
sell him, but I wouldn't."

And Evelyn led Louise away to a far corner.

"He is generally in this corner; these are his trees." And Evelyn
began to whistle.

"Does he answer you when you whistle?"

"No; scraping one's feet against the gravel, some little material
noise, will set him whistling." And Evelyn scraped her feet. "I'm
afraid he isn't here to-day. But there is the the bell for
Benediction. We must not keep the nuns waiting." And the singers
hurried towards the convent, where they met the Prioress and the
Mistress of the Novices and Sister Mary John.

"Dear me, how late you are, Sister!" said Sister Mary John. "I suppose
you were listening to the bullfinches. Aren't they wonderful? But
won't you introduce me to Mademoiselle Helbrun? It would be
delightful, mademoiselle if you would only sing for us."

"I shall be very pleased indeed."

"Well, we have only got two or three minutes to decide what it is to
be. Will you come up to the organ loft?"

And that afternoon the Wimbledon laity had the pleasure of hearing two
prime donne at Benediction.




CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN


One day in the last month of Evelyn's noviceship--for it was the
Reverend Mother's plans to put up Evelyn for election, provided she
could persuade Evelyn to take her final vows--Sister Mary John sat at
the harmonium, her eyes fixed, following Evelyn's voice like one in a
dream. Evelyn was singing Stradella's "Chanson d'glise," and when she
had finished the nun rose from her seat, clasping her friend's hand,
thanking her for her singing with such effusion that the thought
crossed Evelyn's mind that perhaps her friend was giving to her some
part of that love which it was essential to the nun to believe
belonged to God alone; and knowing Sister Mary John so well, she could
not doubt that, as soon as the nun discovered her infidelity to the
celestial Bridegroom, she would separate herself at once from her. A
tenderness in the touch of the hand, an ardour in the eye, might
reveal the secret to her, or very likely a casual remark from some
other nun would awaken her conscience to the danger--an imaginary
danger, of course--but that would not be her idea. Formal relations
would be impossible between them, one of them would have to leave;
and, without this friendship, Evelyn felt she could not live in the
convent.

The accident she foresaw happened two days after, when sitting in the
library writing. Veronica came in. Evelyn had seen very little of her
lately, and at one time Evelyn, Veronica, and Sister Mary John had
formed a little group, each possessing a quality which attracted the
others; but, insensibly, musical interests and literary
interests--Sister Mary John had begun to teach Evelyn Latin--had drawn
Evelyn and Sister Mary John together, excluding Veronica a little.
This exclusion was more imaginary than real. But some jealousy of
Sister Mary John had entered her mind; and Evelyn had noticed, though
Sister Mary John had failed to notice, that Veronica had, for some
time past, treated them with little disdainful airs. And now, when she
opened the door, she did not answer Evelyn at once, though Evelyn
welcomed her with a pretty smile, asking her whom she was seeking.
There was an accent of concentrated dislike in Veronica's voice when
Evelyn said she was looking for Sister Mary John.

"I heard her trampling about the passage just now; she is on her way
here, no doubt, and won't keep you waiting."

The word "trampling" was understood by Evelyn as an allusion to the
hobnails which Sister Mary John wore in the garden. Veronica often
dropped a rude word, which seemed ruder than it was owing to the
refinement and distinction of her face and her voice. A rude word
seemed incongruous on the lips of this mediaeval virgin; and Evelyn
sat nibbling the end of the pen, thinking this jealousy was dangerous.
Sister Mary John only had to hear of it. The door opened again; this
time it was Sister Mary John, who had come to ask Evelyn what was the
matter with Veronica.

"I passed her in the passage just now, and when I asked her if she had
seen you, she said she really was too busy to speak to me; and, a
moment after, she stood a long while to play with the black kitten,
who was catching flies in the window."

"There is no doubt that Veronica has changed; lately she has been
rather rude to me."

"To you, Teresa? Now, what could she be rude about to you?" The nun's
face changed expression, and Evelyn sat reading it. "Do you think she
is jealous of the time we spend together? We have been together a
great deal lately."

"But it is necessary that we should be--our music."

"Yes, our music, of course; but I was thinking of other times."

Evelyn knew that Sister Mary John was thinking of the time they had
spent reading the Breviary together--four great volumes, one for every
season of the year. It was Sister Mary John who had taught her to
appreciate the rich, mysterious tradition of the Church, and how these
books of ritual and observances could satisfy the mind more than any
secular literature. There was always something in the Office to talk
about, something new amid much that remained the same--the
reappearance of a favourite hymn.

"All the same, Sister, we should not take so much pleasure in each
other's society. Veronica is quite right."

At that moment Evelyn was called away by the portress, who had come to
tell her that Mother Hilda wanted her in the novitiate, and Sister
Mary John was left thinking in the library that Veronica was certainly
right, and every moment the conviction grew clearer. It must have been
forming in her mind for a long time past, for, within five minutes
after Evelyn had left the room, the nun determined to go straight to
the Prioress and tell her that her life was being absorbed by Evelyn
and beg her to transfer her to the Mother House in France. Never to
see Evelyn again: Her strength almost failed her as she went towards
the door. But what would it profit her to see Evelyn for a few years
if she should lose her for eternity? A little courage, and they would
meet to part no more. In a few years both would be in heaven. A
confusion of thought began in her; she remembered many things, that
she no longer loved Christ as she used to love him. She no longer
stood before the picture in which Christ took St. Francis in His arms,
saying to Christ, "My embrace will be warmer than his when thou takest
me in thy arms." She had often thought of herself and Evelyn in
heaven, walking hand in hand. Once they had sat enfolded in each
other's arms under a flowering oleander. Christ was watching them! And
all this could only point to one thing, that her love of Evelyn was
infringing upon her love of God. And Evelyn, too, had questioned her
love of God as if she were jealous of it, but she had answered Evelyn
that nuns were the brides of Christ, and must set no measure on their
love of God. "There is no lover," she had said, "like God; He is
always by you, you can turn to Him at any moment. God wishes us to
keep all our love for Him." She had said these things, but how
differently she had acted, forgetful of God, thinking only of Evelyn,
and her vows, and not a little of the woman herself.

The revelation was very sudden ... Sister Mary John seemed to find
somebody in herself of whom she knew nothing, and a passion in herself
unknown to her before. Therefore to the Prioress she went at once to
tell her everything.

"Mother, I have come to ask you if you will transfer me to the Mother
House in France."

The Reverend Mother repeated the words in astonishment, and listened
to Sister Mary John, who was telling her that she had found herself in
sin.

"My life is falling to pieces, Mother, and I can only save myself by
going away."

A shipwreck this was, indeed, for all the Prioress's plans! If Sister
Mary John left, how was Evelyn to be persuaded to take the veil? "At
every moment I am confronted with some unexpected obstacle." She tried
to argue with Sister Mary John; but the nun was convinced she must go.
So the only thing to do was to make terms.

"Teresa must know nothing of what has happened, on that I insist.
There is too much of this kind of thing going on in my convent; I have
heard of it among the younger nuns, all are thinking of visions. But
among you women, who have been in the convent for many years, I had
thought----"

"Mother, we are all weak; the flesh errs, and all we can do is to
check ourselves, to pray, and take such measures as will save us from
falling into sin again. Of what you said just now about the younger
nuns I know nothing, nor has any vision been vouchsafed to me, only I
have stumbled."

The Prioress did not answer; she was thinking how Sister Mary John
might be transferred.

"Mrs. Cater is going to France next month, you can travel with her."

"So a month must pass! I thought of leaving to-day or to-morrow, but I
see that is impossible. A month! How shall I endure it?"

"No one will know," the Prioress answered, with a little vehemence.
"It is a secret between us, I repeat, and I forbid you to tell any one
the reason of your leaving. Teresa will be professed in a few weeks I
hope; she has reached the critical moment of her life, and her mind
must not be disturbed. The raising of such a question, at such a time,
might be fatal to her vocation."

The Prioress rose from her chair, and, following Sister Mary John to
the door, impressed upon her again that it was essential that no one
should ever know why she had left the convent.

"You can tell Teresa before you leave, but she must hear nothing of it
till the moment of your leaving. I give you permission merely to say
goodbye to her on the day you leave, and in the interval you will see
as little of each other as possible."

But when Sister Mary John said that Sister Elizabeth could accompany
Evelyn as well as she could the Prioress interrupted her.

"You must always accompany her when she sings at Benediction; you must
do nothing to let her suspect that you are leaving the convent on her
account. You promise me this? You can tell her what you like, of
course, when you are leaving, but not before. Of course, there is no
use arguing with you again, Sister Mary John. You are determined, I
can see that; but I do assure you that your leaving us is a sore trial
to us, more than you think for."

In the passage Sister Mary John came unexpectedly upon Evelyn
returning from the novitiate.

"Well, I have got through my Latin lesson, and Mother Hilda is
delighted at my progress. She flatters herself on her instruction, but
any progress I have made is owing to you. ... But what is the matter,
Sister? Why do you move away?" Evelyn put her hand on the nun's
shoulder.

"Don't, Sister; I must go."

"Why must you go?"

"Teresa, try to think----" She was about to say "of God, and not of
me," but her senses seemed to swoon a little at that moment, and she
fell into Evelyn's arms.

"Teresa! Teresa! What is this?"

It was the Prioress coming from her room.

"A sudden giddiness, Mother," the nun answered.

"Just as I was telling her of my Latin lesson in the novitiate, that I
could learn Latin with her better than with Mother Hilda."

"We met in the passage," Sister Mary John said, moving away.

"And a sudden giddiness came over her," Evelyn explained.

"Teresa, Sister Cecilia, who is our sacristan, is a little slow; she
wants help, you are just the one to help her, and come with me."




CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT


And Evelyn followed the Prioress into a fragrance of lavender and
orris-root; she was shown the vestments laid out on shelves, with
tissue-paper between them. The most expensive were the white satin
vestments, and these dated from prosperous times; and she was told how
once poverty had become so severe in the convent that the question had
arisen whether these vestments should be sold, but the nuns had
declared that they preferred bread and water, or even starvation, to
parting with their vestments.

"These are for the priest," the Prioress said, "these are for the
deacon and subdeacon, and they are used on Easter Sundays, the
professed days of the Sisters, and the visits of the Bishop; and these
vestments with the figure of Our Lady, with a blue medallion in the
centre of the cross, are used for all feasts of the Virgin."

On another shelf were the great copes, in satin and brocade, gold and
white, with embroidered hoods and orphries, and veils to match; and
the processional banners were stored in tall presses, and with them,
hanging on wire hooks, were the altar-curtains, thick with gold
thread; for the high altar there were curtains and embroidered
frontals, and tabernacle hangings, and these, the Prioress explained,
had to harmonise with the vestments; and the day before Mass for the
Dead the whole altar would have to be stripped after Benediction and
black hangings put up.

"Cecilia will tell you about the candles. They have all to be of equal
length, Teresa, and it should be your ambition to be economical, with
as splendid a show as possible. No candle should ever be allowed to
burn into its socket, leaving less than the twelve ordained by the
Church for Exposition."

As soon as the Prioress left them, Sister Cecilia told Evelyn that she
would have to work very hard indeed, for it was the Prioress's whim
not to use the ordinary altar cloths with an embroidered hem, but
always cloths on which lace frontals were lightly tacked; and Evelyn
was warned that the sewing on of the lace, without creasing the white
linen, required great care; and the spilling of a little wax could
not be passed over, the cloth would have to go to the wash.

It was as she said; they had to work hard, and they were always
behindhand with their work. She learned from Cecilia that, apart from
the canonical directions for Divine Service, there existed an
unwritten code for pious observances--some saints were honoured by
having their banner exhibited during the octave of the feast, while
others were allowed little temporary altars on which some relic could
be exposed. The Sisters themselves were often mistaken regarding what
had been done on previous anniversaries; but the Prioress's memory was
unfailing, and one of the strictest rules of the house was that the
sacristan took orders from none but the Prioress. And when a
discussion arose between Cecilia and Evelyn, one of them went to the
Prioress to ask her to say which was right.

Sister Cecilia was stupid and slow, and very soon Evelyn had absorbed
most of the work of the sacristy doing it as she pleased, until one
day, the Prioress coming in to see what progress had been made, found
St. Joseph's altar stripped, save for a single pair of candlesticks
and two flower vases filled with artificial flowers. Evelyn was
admonished, but she dared to answer that she was not interested in St.
Joseph, though, of course, he was a worthy man.

"My dear Teresa, I cannot allow you to speak in this way of St.
Joseph; he is one of the patrons of the convent. Nor can I allow his
altar to be robbed in this fashion. Have you not thought that we are
looking forward to the time when you should be one of us?"

Behind them stood Sister Cecilia, overcome with astonishment that a
mere novice should dare to speak to the Prioress on terms of equality.
When the Prioress left the room she said:

"You didn't answer the Prioress just now when she asked if you had
forgotten that you were soon to become one of us."

"How could I answer ... I don't know."

This answer seemed to exhaust Sister Cecilia's interest in the
question, and, handing Evelyn two more candles, she asked, "Do you
want me any more?"

On Evelyn saying she did not, she said:

"Well, then, I may go and meditate in the chapel."

"On what is she going to meditate?" Evelyn wondered; and from time to
time her eyes went towards the nun, who sat crouched on her haunches,
now and again beating her ears with both hands--a little trick of hers
to scatter casual thoughts, for even sacred things sometimes suggested
thoughts, of evil to Sister Cecilia, and her plan to reduce her
thoughts to order was to slap her ears. Evelyn watched her, wondering
what her thoughts might be. Whatever they were, they led poor Cecilia
into disgrace, for that evening she forgot to fill the lamp which
burnt always before the tabernacle, it being the rule that the Easter
light struck on Holy Saturday should be preserved through the year,
each new wick being lighted upon the dying one. And Sister Cecilia's
carelessness had broken the continuity. She was severely reprimanded,
ate her meals that day kneeling on the refectory floor, and for many a
day the shameful occurrence was remembered. And her place was taken by
Veronica, who, delighted at her promotion, wore a quaint air of
importance, hurrying away with a bundle of keys hanging from her belt
by a long chain, amusing Evelyn, who was now under Veronica's orders.

"Yes, it is rather strange, isn't it, Sister? But I can't help it. Of
course you ought to be in my place, and I can't think why dear Mother
has arranged it like this."

Nuns employed in the sacristy might talk, and in a few days Veronica's
nature revealed itself in many little questions.

"It is strange you should wish to be a nun."

"But why is it strange, Veronica?"

"For you are not like any of us, nor has the convent been the same
since you came."

"Are you sorry that I wish to be a nun?"

"Sorry, Sister Teresa? No, indeed. God has chosen you from the
beginning as the means He would employ to save us; only I can't see
you as a nun, always satisfied with the life here."

"Every one doesn't know from childhood what she is going to do. But
you always knew your vocation, Veronica."

"I cannot imagine myself anything but a nun, and yet I am not always
satisfied. Sometimes I am filled with longings for something which I
cannot live without, yet I do not know what I want. It is an
extraordinary feeling. Do you know what I mean, Sister?"

"Yes, dear, I think I do."

"It makes me feel quite faint, and it seizes me so suddenly. I have
wanted to tell you for a long time, only I have not liked to. There
are days when it makes me so restless that I cannot say my prayers, so
I know the feeling must be wrong. Something in the quality of your
voice stirs this feeling in me; your trill brings on this feeling
worse than anything. You don't know what I mean?"

"Perhaps I do. But why do you ask?"

"Because your singing seems to affect no one as it does me.... I
thought it might affect you in the same way--what is it?"

"I wouldn't worry, Veronica, you will get over it; it will pass."

"I hope it will." Evelyn felt that Veronica had not spoken all her
mind, and that the incident was not closed. The novice's eyes were
full of reverie, and behind her the open press exhaled a fragrance of
lavender. "You see," she said, turning, "Father Ambrose is coming
to-morrow. I wonder what he will think of you? He'll know if you have
a vocation."

Father Ambrose, an old Carmelite monk and the spiritual adviser of the
Prioress, was known to be a great friend of Veronica's, and whenever
he came to the convent Veronica's excitement started many little
pleasantries among the novices. Next day Evelyn waited for one of
these to arise. She had not long to wait; all the novices and
postulants with Mother Hilda were sitting under the great tree. The
air was warm, and Mother Hilda guided the conversation occasionally.
Every one was anxious to talk, but every one was anxious to think too,
for every one knew she would be questioned by the aged monk, and that
the chance of being accepted as a nun depended, in no small measure,
on his opinion of her vocation.

"Have you noticed, Sister Teresa, how beaming Sister Veronica has
looked for the last day or two? I can't think what has come to her."

"Can't you, indeed? You must be very slow. Hasn't she been put into
the sacristy just before Father Ambrose's visit; now she will be able
to put out his vestments herself. You may be sure we shall have the
best vestments out every day, and she will be able to have any amount
of private interviews behind our backs."

"Now, children, that will do," said Mother Hilda, noticing Veronica's
crimson cheeks as she bent over her work.

Evelyn wondered, and that evening in the sacristy Veronica broke into
expostulations with an excitement that took Evelyn by surprise.

"How could I not care for Father Ambrose! I have known him all my
life. Once I was very ill with pleurisy. I nearly died, and Father
Ambrose anointed me, and gave me the last Sacraments. I had not made
my first Communion then. I was only eleven, but they gave me the
Sacrament, for they thought I was dying, and I thought so too, and I
promised our Lord I would be a nun if I got well. I never told any one
except Father Ambrose, and he has helped me all through to keep my
vow, so you see he has been everything to me; I have never loved any
one as I love Father Ambrose. When he comes here I always ask him for
some rule or direction, so that I may have the happiness of obeying
him till his next visit; and it is so trying, is it not, Sister
Teresa, when the novices make their silly little jokes about it? Of
course, they don't understand, they can't; but to me Father Ambrose
means everything I care for; besides, he is really a saint. I believe
he would have been canonised if he had lived in the Middle Ages. He
has promised to profess me. It is wrong, I know, but really I should
hardly care to be professed if Father Ambrose could not be by. We must
have these vestments for him." Evelyn was about to take them out. "No,
allow me."

Veronica took the vestments out of her hand, a pretty colour coming
into her cheeks as she did so. And Evelyn understood her jealousy,
lest any other hands but hers should lay the vestments out that he was
to wear, and she turned her head so that Veronica might not think she
was being watched. And the little nun was happy in the corner of the
sacristy laying out the vestments, putting the gold chalice for him to
use, and the gold cruets, which Evelyn had never seen used before.

"You see, being a monk, he has a larger amice than the ordinary
priest." And Veronica produced a strip of embroidery which she tacked
on the edge of the amice, so that it might give the desired appearance
when the monk drew it over his head on entering or leaving the
sacristy.

A few days after Evelyn came upon this amice with the embroidery edge
put away in a secret corner, so that it should not be used in the
ordinary way; and, as she stood wondering at the child's love for the
aged monk, Sister Agnes came to tell her she was wanted to bid Sister
Mary John goodbye.

"To bid Sister Mary John goodbye!"

"Yes, Sister Teresa, that is what the Prioress told me to tell you."

Evelyn hurried to the library. Sister Mary John was standing near the
window, and she wore a long black cloak over her habit, and had a
bird-cage in her hand. Evelyn saw the sly jackdaw, with his head on
one side, looking at her.

"What is the meaning of this, Sister? You don't tell me you are going
away? And for how long?"

"For ever, Sister; we shall never see each other again. I promised the
Prioress not to tell you before. It was a great hardship, but I gave
my promise, she allowing us to see each other for a few minutes before
I left."

"I can't take in what you're saying. Going away for ever? Oh, Sister,
this cannot be true!" And Evelyn stood looking at the nun, her eyes
dilated, her fingers crisped as if she would hold Sister Mary John
back. "But what is taking you away?"

"That is a long story, too long for telling now; besides, you know it.
You know I have been very fond of you, Teresa; too fond of you."

"So that's it. And how shall I live here without you?"

"You are going to enter the convent, and as a nun you will learn to
live without me; you will learn to love God better than you do now."

"One moment; tell me, it is only fair you should tell me, how our love
of each other has altered your love of God?"

"I can never tell you, Teresa, I can only say that I never understood,
perhaps, as I do now, that nothing must come between the soul and God,
and that there is no room for any other love in our hearts. We must
remember always we are the brides of Christ, you and I, Sister."

"But I am not professed, and never shall be."

"I hope you will, Sister, and that all your love will go to our
crucified Lord."

They stood holding each other's hands.

"Won't you let me kiss you before you go?"

"Please let me go; it will be better not. The carriage is waiting; I
must go."

"But never, never to see you again!"

"Never is a long while; too long. We shall meet in heaven, and it
would be unwise to forfeit that meeting for a moment of time on this
earth."

"A moment of time on this earth," Evelyn answered. She stood looking
out of the window like one dazed; and taking advantage of her
abstraction Sister Mary John left the room. The Prioress came into the
library.

"Mother, what does this mean? Why did you let her go?"

The Prioress sat down slowly and looked at Evelyn without speaking.

"Mother, you might have let her stay, for my sake."

"I allowed her to see you before she left, and that was the most I
could do, under the circumstances."

"The most you could do under the circumstances? I don't understand.
Mother, you might have asked her to wait. She acted on impulse."

"No, Teresa, she came to me some weeks ago to tell me of her
scruples."

"Scruples! Her love of me, you mean?"

"I see she has told you. Yes."

The Prioress was about to ask her about her vows; but the present was
not the moment to do so, and she allowed Evelyn to go back to the
sacristy.




CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE


"Veronica, she has gone away for good--gone away to France. All I
could do---- Now I am alone here, with nobody."

"But, Teresa, I don't understand. What are you speaking about?" Evelyn
told her of Sister Mary John's departure. "You cared for her a great
deal, one could see that."

"Well, she was the one whom I have seen most of since I have been here
... except you, Veronica." A look appeared in the girl's face which
suggested, very vaguely, of course, but still suggested, that Veronica
was jealous of the nun who had gone. Evelyn looked into the girl's
face, trying to read the dream in it, until she forgot Veronica, and
remembered the nun who had gone; and when she awoke from her dream she
saw Veronica still standing before her with a half-cleaned candlestick
in her hand.

"She seemed so determined, and all I could say only made her more so;
yet I told her I was very fond of her ... and she always seemed to
like me. Why should she be so determined?"

"I should have thought you would have guessed, Teresa."

Evelyn begged Veronica to explain, but the girl hesitated, looking at
her curiously all the time, saying at last:

"It seems to me there can be only one reason for her leaving, and that
was because she believed you to be her counterpart."

"Her counterpart--what's that?"

"Have you been so long in the convent without knowing what a
counterpart is, Teresa? The convent is full of counterparts. Did you
never see one in the garden, in a shady corner? You spent many hours
in the garden. I am surprised. Are you telling the truth, Sister?"

Evelyn opened her eyes.

"Telling the truth! But do they come in the summer-time in the garden,
while the sun is out?"

"Yes, they do; and very often they come to one in the evening ... but
more often at night."

Evelyn stood looking into Veronica's face without speaking, and at
that moment the bell rang.

"We have only just got time," Veronica said, "to get into chapel."

"What can she mean? Counterparts visiting the nuns in the twilight ...
at night! Who are these counterparts?" Evelyn asked herself. "The idle
fancies of young girls, of course." But she was curious to hear what
these were, and on the first favourable opportunity she introduced the
subject, saying:

"What did you mean, Veronica, when you said that it was strange I had
been in the convent so long without rinding my counterpart?"

"I didn't say that, Teresa. I said without a counterpart finding you
out, or that is what I meant to say. It is the counterpart which seeks
us, not we the counterpart. It would be wrong for us to seek one. You
know what I said about your singing, how it disturbed me and prevented
me from praying? Well, sometimes a memory of your singing precedes the
arrival of my counterpart."

"But did you not say that Sister Mary John was my counterpart?"

Veronica answered that Sister Mary John may have thought so.

"But she is a choir sister." And to this Veronica did not know what
answer to make. The silence was not broken for a long while, each
continuing her work, wondering when the other would speak. "Have all
the nuns counterparts?"

"I don't know anything about the choir sisters, but Rufina and Jerome
have. Cecilia is too stupid, and no counterpart ever seems to come to
her. Sister Angela has the most beautiful counterpart in the world,
except mine!" And the girl's eyes lit up.

Evelyn was on the point of asking her to describe her visitor, but,
fearing to be indiscreet, she asked Veronica to tell her who were the
counterparts, and whence they came. Veronica could tell her nothing,
and, untroubled by theory or scruple, she seemed to drift
away--perhaps into the arms of her spiritual lover. On rousing her
from her dream Evelyn learnt that Sister Angela, who was fond of
reading the Bible, had discovered many texts anent counterpartial
love. Which these could be Evelyn wondered, and Veronica quoted the
words of the Creed, "Christ descended into hell."

"But the counterpart doesn't emanate out of hell?"

A look of pain came into the nun's face, and she reminded Evelyn that
Christ was away for three days between His death and His
resurrection, and there were passages she remembered in Paul, in the
Epistle to the Romans, which seemed to point to the belief that He
descended into hell, at all events that He had gone underground; but
of this Veronica had no knowledge, she could only repeat what Sister
Angela had said--that when Christ descended into hell, the warders of
the gates covered their faces, so frightened were they, not having had
time to lock the gates against Him, and all hell was harrowed. But
Christ had walked on, preaching to those men and women who had been
drowned in the Flood, and they had gone up to heaven with Him.

"But, Veronica, those who are in hell never come out of it."

"No, they never come out of it; only Christ can do all things, and He
descended into hell, not to watch the tortures of the damned--you
couldn't think that, Sister Teresa?--but to save those who had died
before His coming. Once we had a meditation on a subject given to us
by Mother Hilda from one of the Gospels: Three men were seen coming
from a tomb, two supporting a man standing between them, the shadow of
the Cross came from behind; and the heads of two men touched the sky,
but the head of the man they supported passed through the sky, and far
beyond it, for the third man was our Lord coming out of hell."

"But, Veronica, you were telling me about the counterparts."

"Well, Sister Teresa, the counterparts are those whom Christ redeemed
in those three days, and they come and visit every convent."

"In what guise do they come?" Evelyn asked. And she heard that the
arrival of the counterpart was always unexpected, but was preceded by
an especially happy state of quiet exaltation.

"Have you never felt that feeling, Sister Teresa? As if one were
detached from everything, and ready to take flight."

"Yes, dear, I think I know what you mean. But the counterpart is a
sort of marriage, and you know Christ says that there is neither
marriage, nor giving in marriage, when the kingdom of God shall come
to pass."

"Not giving in marriage," the girl answered, "as is understood in the
world, but we shall all meet in heaven; and the meeting of our
counterpart on earth is but a faint shadow of the joy we shall
experience after death--an indwelling, spirit within spirit, and
nothing external. That is how Mother Hilda teaches St. Teresa when we
read her in the novitiate."

"Sister Teresa is wonderful--her ravishments when God descended upon
her and she seemed to be borne away. But I didn't think that any one
among you experienced anything like that. It doesn't seem to me that a
counterpart is quite the same; there is something earthly."

"No, Sister, nothing earthly whatever."

"But, Veronica, you said that Sister Mary John left the convent
because she believed me to be her counterpart. I am in the world, am I
not?"

A perplexed look came into Veronica's face, and she said:

"There are counterparts and counterparts."

"And you think I am a wicked counterpart? You wouldn't like me to be
yours?"

"I didn't say that, Sister; only mine is in heaven."

"And when did he come last to you?" Evelyn asked, as she folded up the
vestments.

"Teresa, you are folding those vestments wrong. You're not thinking of
what you're doing." And the vestments turned the talk back to Father
Ambrose.

"Surely the monk isn't the counterpart you were speaking of just now?"

"No, indeed, my counterpart is quite different from Father Ambrose; he
is young and beautiful. Father Ambrose has got a beautiful soul, and I
love him very dearly; but my counterpart is, as I have said, in
heaven, Sister."

The conversation fell, and Evelyn did not dare to ask another
question; indeed, she determined never to speak on the subject again
to Veronica. But a few days afterwards she yielded to the temptation
to speak, or Veronica--she could not tell which was to blame in this
matter, but she found herself listening to Veronica telling how she
had, for weeks before meeting with her counterpart, often felt a soft
hand placed upon her, and the touch would seem so real that she would
forget what she was doing, and look for the hand without being able to
find it.

"One night it seemed, dear, as if I could not keep on much longer, and
all the time I kept waking up. At last I awoke, feeling very cold all
over; it was an awful feeling, and I was so frightened that I could
hardly summon courage to take my habit from the peg and put it upon my
bed. But I did this, for, if what was coming were a wicked thought, it
would not be able to find me out under my habit. At last I fell
asleep, lying on my back with arms and feet folded, a position I
always find myself in when I awake, no matter in what position I may
go to sleep. Very soon I awoke, every fibre tingling, an exquisite
sensation of glow, and I was lying on my left side (something I am
never able to do), folded in the arms of my counterpart. I cannot give
you any idea of the beauty of his flesh, and with what joy I beheld
and felt it. Luminous flesh, and full of tints so beautiful that they
cannot be imagined. You would have to see them. And he folded me so
closely in his arms, telling me that it was his coming that had caused
the coldness; and then telling of his love for me, and how he would
watch over me and care for me. After saying that, he folded me so
closely that we seemed to become one person; and then my flesh became
beautiful, luminous, like his, and I seemed to have a feeling of love
and tenderness for it. I saw his face, but it is too lovely to speak
about. How could I think such a visitation sinful? for all my thoughts
were of pure love, and he did not kiss me; but I fell asleep in his
arms, and what a sleep I slept there! When I awoke he was no longer by
me."

"But why should you think it was sinful, dear?"

"Because our counterpart really is, or should be, Jesus Christ; we are
His brides, and mine was only an angel."

"But you've said, dear, that those who were drowned in the Flood come
down to those living now upon earth to prepare them----" The sentence
dropped away on Evelyn's lips; she could not continue it, for it
seemed to her disgraceful to draw out this girl into speaking of
things which were sacred to her, and which had a meaning for her that
was pure. Her love was for God, and she was trying to explain; and the
terms open to her were terms of human love, which she, Evelyn, with a
sinful imagination, misconstrued, involuntarily perhaps, but
misconstrued nevertheless.

At that moment Sister Angela came into the sacristy, and, seeing
Sister Veronica and Teresa looking at each other in silence, a look of
surprise came into her face, and she said:

"Now, you who are always complaining that the work of the sacristy is
behindhand, Veronica----"

Veronica awoke from her dream.

"I know, Sister, we ought not to waste time talking, but Teresa asked
me about my counterpart."

Evelyn felt the blood rising to her face, and she turned away so that
Angela might not see it.

"And you've told her?"

"Yes. And you, Sister Angela, have got a counterpart; won't you tell
Teresa about him?"

And then, unable to repress herself at that moment, Evelyn turned to
Angela, saying:

"It began about Sister Mary John--who left the convent to my great
grief, so Veronica tells me, because she believed herself to be my
counterpart."

At this, Angela's face grew suddenly very grave, and she said:

"Of course, Teresa, she would leave the convent if she believed that;
but there was no reason for her believing it?"

"None," Evelyn answered, feeling a little frightened. "None. But what
do you mean?"

"Only this, that our counterparts are in heaven; but there are
counterparts and counterparts. One---- I cannot explain now, dear, for
I was sent by the Prioress to ask you, Veronica, to go to her room;
she wants to speak to you. And I must go back to the novitiate. I
suppose," she added, "Veronica has told you that our counterparts are
a little secret among ourselves? Mother Hilda knows nothing of them.
It would not do to speak of these visitations; but I never could see
any harm, for it isn't by our own will that the counterpart comes to
us; he is sent."

Evelyn asked in what Gospel Christ's descent into hell is described,
and heard it was in that of Nicodemus; her estimation of Angela went
up in consequence. Angela was one of the few with intellectual
interests; and it was Evelyn's wish to hear about this Gospel that led
her, a few days afterwards, to walk with Angela and Veronica in the
orchard. Angela was delighted to be questioned regarding her reading,
and she told all she knew about Nicodemus. Veronica walked a little
ahead, plucking the tall grasses and enjoying the beautiful weather.
Evelyn, too, enjoyed the beautiful weather while listening to the
story of the harrowing of hell, as described by Nicodemus. There were
no clouds anywhere, and the sky, a dim blue overhead, turned to grey
as it descended. The June verdure of the park was a wonderful
spectacle, so many were the varying tints of green; only a few
unfledged poplars retained their russet tints. Outside the garden,
along the lanes, all the hedges overflowed with the great lush of
June; nettles and young ivy, buttercups, cow-parsley in profusion, and
in the hedge itself the white blossom of the hawthorn. "The wild
briar," Evelyn said to herself, "preparing its roses for some weeks
later, and in the low-lying lands, where there is a dip in the fields,
wild irises are coming into flower, and under the larches on the banks
women and children spend the long day chattering. Here we talk of
Nicodemus and spiritual loves."

Angela, an alert young woman, whose walk still retained a dancing
movement, whose face, white like white flowers and lit with laughing
eyes, set Evelyn wondering what strange turn of mind should have
induced her to enter a convent. Locks of soft golden hair escaped from
her hood, intended to grow into long tresses, but she had allowed her
hair to be cut. An ideal young mother, she seemed to Evelyn to be; and
the thought of motherhood was put into Evelyn's mind by the story
Angela was telling, for her counterpart had been drowned in Noah's
deluge when he was four years old.

"But he is a dear little fellow, and he creeps into my bed, and lies
in my arms; his hair is all curls, and he told me the story of his
drowning, how it happened five thousand years ago. He was carried away
in his cot by the flood, and had floated away, seeing the tops of
trees, until a great brown bear, weary of swimming, laid hold of the
cot and overturned it."

Veronica, who had heard Nicodemus's description of the harrowing of
hell many times, returned to them, a bunch of wild flowers in her
hand.

"Are not these Bright Eyes beautiful? They remind me of the eyes of my
baby; his eyes are as blue as these." And she looked into the little
blue flower. "Sister Teresa hasn't yet met a counterpart, but that is
only because she doesn't wish for it; one must pray and meditate,
otherwise one doesn't get one." And Evelyn learned how Rufina had
waited a long time for her counterpart. One day an extraordinary
fluttering began in her breast, and she heard the being telling her
not to forget to warn the doctor that he had grown a little taller,
and had come now to reach the end of toes and fingers. Evelyn wanted
to understand what that meant, but Angela could not tell her, she
could only repeat what Rufina had told her; and a look of reproval
came into Veronica's face when Angela said that when Rufina was asked
what her counterpart was like she said that it was like having
something inside one, and that lately he seemed to be much in search
of her mouth and tongue; and when she asked him what he was like he
replied that he was all a kiss.

"It really seems to me----" A memory of her past life checked her from
reproving the novices for their conversation; they were innocent
girls, and though their language seemed strange they were innocent at
heart, which was the principal thing, whereas she was not. And the
talk went on now about Sister Cecilia, who had been long praying for a
counterpart, but whose prayers were not granted.

"She is so stupid; how could a counterpart care about her? What could
he say?" Angela whispered to Veronica, pressing the bunch of flowers
which Veronica had given her to her lips.

"Cecilia isn't pretty. But our counterparts don't seek us for our
beauty," Veronica answered, Evelyn thought a little pedantically,
"otherwise mine never would have found me." And the novices laughed.

The air was full of larks, some of them lost to view, so high were
they; others, rising from the grass, sang as they rose.

"Listen to that one, how beautifully that bird sings!" And the three
women stood listening to a heaven full of larks till the Angelus bell
called their thoughts away from the birds.

"We have been a long time away. Mother Hilda will be looking for us."
And they returned slowly to the Novice Mistress, Evelyn thinking of
Cecilia. "So it was for a counterpart she was praying all that time in
the corner of the chapel; and it was a dream of a counterpart that
caused her to forget to fill the sacred lamp."




CHAPTER THIRTY


It was the day of the month when the nuns watched by day and night
before the Sacrament. Cecilia's watch came at dawn, at half-past two,
and the last watcher knocked at her cell in the dusk, telling her she
must get up at once. But Cecilia answered:

"I cannot get up, Sister, I cannot watch before the Sacrament this
morning."

"And why, Sister? Are you ill?"

"Yes, I am very ill."

"And what has made you ill?"

"A dream, Sister."

And seeing it was Angela who had come to awaken her, Cecilia rose from
her pillow, saying, "A horrible dream, not a counterpart like yours,
Angela; oh! I can't think of it! It would be impossible for me to take
my watch."

And walking down the passage, not knowing what to make of Cecilia's
answers, Angela stopped at Barbara's cell to tell her Cecilia was ill
and could not take her watch that morning.

"And you must watch for her."

"Why ... what is it?"

"I can tell you no more, Cecilia's ill."

And she hurried away to avoid further questions, wondering what reason
stupid Cecilia would give Mother Hilda for her absence from chapel and
the row there would be if she were to tell that a counterpart had
visited her! If she could only get a chance to tell Cecilia that she
must say she was ill! If she didn't---- Angela's thoughts turned to
her little counterpart, from whom she might be separated for ever. No
chance of speaking happened as the procession moved towards the
refectory; and after breakfast the novices bent their heads over their
work, when Mother Hilda said:

"I hear, Cecilia, that you were so ill this morning that you couldn't
take your watch."

"It wasn't illness--not exactly."

"What, then?"

"A bad dream, Mother."

"It must have been a very bad dream to prevent you from getting up to
take your watch. I'm afraid I don't believe in dreams." The novices
breathed more freely, and their spirits rose when Mother Hilda said,
"The cake was heavy; you must have eaten too much of it. Barbara, you
must take notice of this indigestion, for you are fond of cake." The
novices laughed again, and thought themselves safe. But after
breakfast the Prioress sent for Cecilia, and they saw her leave the
novitiate angry with them all--she had caught sight of their smiles
and dreaded their mockery, and went to the Prioress wondering what
plausible contradiction she could give to Angela's story of the ugly
counterpart, so she was taken aback by the first question.

"Now, what is it that I hear about a refusal to get up to take your
watch? Such a thing----"

"Not laziness, Mother. Mother, if you knew what my dream was, you
would understand it was impossible for me to watch before the
Sacrament."

"A dream!"

Cecilia didn't answer.

"You can tell me your dream ... I shall be able to judge for myself."

"No, no; it is too frightful!" And Cecilia fell upon her knees.

"One isn't responsible for one's dreams."

"Is that so, Mother? But if one prays?"

"But you don't pray for dreams?"

"Not for the dream I had last night."

"Well, for what did you pray? Praying for dreams, Cecilia, is entirely
contrary to the rule, or to the spirit of the rule."

"But Veronica, Angela, Rufina--they all pray that their counterparts
may visit them."

"Counterparts!" the old woman answered. "What are you talking about?"

"Must I tell you?"

"Of course you must tell me."

"But it will seem like spite on my part."

"Spite! Spite?"

"Because they have gotten beautiful counterparts through their
prayers, whereas---- Oh, Mother, I cannot tell you."

The Prioress forgot the stupid girl at her feet.

"Counterparts!"

"Who visit them."

"Counterparts visiting them! You don't mean that anybody comes into
the convent?"

"Only in dreams."

Cecilia tried to explain, but stumbled in her explanation so often
that the Reverend Mother interrupted her:

"Cecilia, you are talking nonsense! I have never heard anything like
it before!"

"But what I am telling you, Mother, is in the gospel Nicodemus----"

"Gospel of Nicodemus!"

"The harrowing of hell!"

"But what has all this got to do---- I cannot understand you."

The story was begun again and again.

"Veronica's counterpart an angel, with luminous tints in his flesh;
Angela's a child drowned in Noah's flood! But--" The Prioress checked
her words. Had all the novices taken leave of their senses? Had they
gone mad?... It looked like it. Anyhow, this kind of thing must be put
a stop to and at once. She must get the whole truth out of this stupid
girl at her feet, who blubbered out her story, obviously trying to
escape punishment by incriminating others.

"So you were praying that an angel might visit you; but what came was
quite different?"

"Mother, Mother!" howled Cecilia; "it was a dwarf, but I didn't want
him in my bed. I've been punished enough.... Anything more
horrible----"

"In your bed I ... anything so horrible? What do you mean?"

"Am I to tell you? Must I?"

"Certainly."

"After all, it was only a dream."

"Go on."

"First I was awakened by a smell coming down the chimney."

"But there are no chimneys."

"I'm telling what I thought. There was a smell, which sometimes seemed
to collect in one corner of the room, sometimes in another. At last it
seemed to come from under the bed and ... he crawled out."

"Who crawled out!"

"The dwarf--a creature with a huge head and rolling eyes and a great
tongue. That is all I saw, for I was too frightened; I heard him say
he was my counterpart, but I cried out, Mother, that it was not true.
He laughed at me, and said I had prayed for him. Then it seemed,
Mother, I was running away from him, only I was checked at every
moment by the others--Veronica, Barbara, and Angela--who put their
feet out so that I might fall; and they caught me by the arms; and all
were laughing, saying, 'Look at Sister Cecilia's counterpart; she has
got one at last and is running away from him. But he shall get her; he
shall get her,' I ran on until I found myself in a corner, between two
brick walls, and the dwarf standing in front of me, rolling up his
night-shirt in his hands, and telling me he was in great agony; for
his punishment was to swallow all the souls of the nuns who had made
bad Communions, and that I was to come at once with him. I wouldn't
go, but he took me by both hands, dragging me towards the chapel. I
told him Father Daly would sprinkle holy water upon him; but he didn't
seem to mind, Mother. If I hadn't been awakened by Barbara knocking at
my door I don't know----"

"Now you see, my dear child, what comes of praying for
counterparts.... This must be seen into at once."

"But you will not say that I told you?"

"Cecilia, I have heard enough; it isn't for you to ask me to make any
promises. Be sure, I shall try to act for the best. Mother Hilda and
Mother Philippa know nothing of these stories?"

"Nothing; it is entirely between the novices."

"You can go now, and remember not a word of what has passed between
us, not a word."

"But I must confess to Father Daly. My mind wouldn't be at rest if I
didn't, for the dwarf did take me in his arms."

"You can confess to Father Daly if you like; but I can't see you have
committed any sin; you've been merely very foolish." And the Prioress
turned towards the window, wondering if she should consult with Father
Daly. The secret would not be kept; Angela and Veronica would speak
about it, and there were others more or less implicated, no doubt, and
these would have recourse to Father Daly for advice, or to Mother
Hilda.

"Come in. So it is you, Teresa? Disturbing me! No, you are not
disturbing me; I am not busy, and if I were it wouldn't matter. You
want to talk to me. Now, about what?"

There was only one subject which would cause Evelyn to hesitate, so
the Prioress guessed that she had come to tell her that she wished to
leave the convent.

"Well, Teresa, be it so; I cannot argue with you any more about a
vocation. I suppose you know best."

"You seem very sad, Mother?"

"Yes, I am sad; but you are not the cause of my sadness, though what
you have come to tell me is sad enough. I was just coming to the
conclusion, when you came into the room, that things must take their
course. God is good; his guiding hand is in everything, so I suppose
all that is happening is for the best. But it is difficult to see
whither it is tending, if it be not towards the dissolution of the
Order."

"The dissolution of the Order, Mother!"

"Well, if not of its dissolution, at all events of a change in the
rule. You know that many here--Mother Philippa, Sister Winifred, aided
and abetted by Father Daly--are anxious for a school, and we can only
have a school by becoming an active Order. You have helped us a great
deal, and our debts are no longer as pressing as they were; but we
still owe a good deal of money, and as you do not intend to become a
member of the community you will take your money away with you. And
this fact will strengthen the opposition against me."

The Prioress lay back in her chair, white and frail, exhausted by the
heat.

"May I pull down the blind, Mother?"

"Yes, you may, dear; the sun is very hot."

"Your determination to leave us isn't the only piece of bad news which
reached me this morning. Have you heard of Sister Cecilia's adventure
with her counterpart?" Evelyn nodded and tried to repress a smile. "It
is difficult not to smile, so ridiculous is her story; and if I didn't
look upon the matter as very serious, I shouldn't be able to prevent
myself from smiling."

"But you will easily be able, Mother, to smile at this nonsense.
Veronica, who is a most pious girl, will not allow her mind to dwell
on counterparts since she knows it to be a sin, or likely to lead to
sin, and Angela and the others--if there are any others----"

"That will not make an end to the evil. Everything, my dear Teresa,
declines. Ideas, like everything else, have their term of life.
Everything declines, everything turns to clay, and I look upon this
desire for spiritual visitations as a warning that the belief which
led to the founding of this Order has come to an end! From such noble
prayers as led to the founding of this Order we have declined to
prayers for the visitation of counterparts."

Evelyn was about to interrupt, but the Prioress shook her head,
saying, "Well, if not the whole of the convent, at all events part of
it--several novices." And she told Evelyn the disease would spread
from nun to nun, and that there was no way of checking it.

"Unless by becoming an active order," Evelyn answered, "founding a
school."

The old woman rose to her feet instantly, saying that she had spoken
out of a moment of weakness; and that it would be cowardly for her to
give way to Mother Philippa and Sister Winifred; she would never
acquiesce in any alteration of the rule.

"But you, too," she said, "are inclined towards the school?"

Evelyn admitted she was thinking of the poor, people whom she had left
to their fate, so that she might save herself from sin; and the talk
of the two women dropped from the impersonal to the personal, Evelyn
telling the Prioress a great deal more of herself than she had told
before, and the Prioress confiding to Evelyn in the end her own story,
a simple one, which Evelyn listened to with tears in her eyes.

"Before I came here I was married, and before I was married I often
used to come to the convent, for I was fond of the nuns, and was a
pious girl. But after my marriage I was captured by life--the vine of
life grew about me and held me tight. One day, passing by the door of
the convent, my husband said, 'It is lucky that love rescued you, for
when I met you you were a little taken by the convent, and might have
become a nun if you hadn't fallen in love. You might have shut
yourself up there and lived in grey habit and penances!' That day I
wore a grey silk dress, and I remember lifting the skirt up as we
passed the door and hitting the kerbstone with it. 'Shut up in that
prison-house! Did I ever seriously think of such a thing?' These were
my words, but God, in his great goodness and wisdom, resolved to bring
me back. A great deal is required to save our souls, so deeply are we
enmeshed in the delight of life and in the delight of one another....
God took my husband from me after an illness of three weeks. That
happened forty years ago. I used to sit on the seashore, crying all
day, and my little child used to put his arms about me and say, 'What
is mammie crying for?' Then my child died; seemingly without any
reason, and I felt that I could not live any longer amid the desires
and activities of the world. I'll not try to tell you what my grief
was; you have suffered grief, and can imagine it. Perhaps you can. I
left my home and hurried here. When I saw you return, soon after your
father's death; I couldn't but think of my own returning. I saw myself
in you."

"But, Mother, do you regret that you came here?"

The old nun did not answer for some time.

"It is hard to say, Teresa. There are deceptions everywhere, in the
convent as in the world; and the mediocrity of the Sisters here is
tiresome; one longs for a little more intelligence. And, as I was
saying just now, everything declines; an idea ravels like a sleeve.
Are you happy here?... You are not; I see it in your eyes."

"The only ones who are happy here," Evelyn answered, "I am sure, are
those like Veronica, who pass from the schoolroom to the novitiate."

"You think that? But the convent is a great escapement. You came here,
having escaped death only by an accident, and when you went to Rome to
see your father you came back distraught, your mind unhinged, and it
was months before you could believe that your sins could be forgiven.
If you leave here, what will become of you? You will return to the
stage."

Evelyn smiled sadly.

"You will meet your lovers again. Temptation will be by you; you are
still a young woman. How old are you, Teresa?"

"Thirty-eight. But I no longer feel young."

"Then, do you not think it better to spend the last term with us? I am
an old woman, Teresa, and you are the only friend I have in the
convent, the only one who knows me; it would be a great charity if you
were to remain with me.... But you fear I shall live too long? No,
Teresa, the time will not be very long."

"Mother, don't talk like that, it only grieves me. As long as you wish
me to stay I'll stay."

"But if I weren't here you would leave?" Evelyn did not answer. "You
would be very lonely?"

"Yes, I should be lonely." And then, speaking at the end of a long
silence, she said, "Why did you send away Sister Mary John? She was my
friend, and one must have a friend--even in a convent."

"Teresa, I begged of her to remain. And you are lonely now without
her?"

"I should be lonelier, Mother, if you weren't here."

"We will share our loneliness together."

Evelyn seemed to acquiesce.

"My dear child, you are very good; you have a kind heart. One sees it
in your eyes."

She left the Prioress's room frightened, saying. "Till the Prioress's
death."




CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE


Father Daly paced the garden alley, reading his Breviary, and,
catching sight of him, Sister Winifred, a tall, thin woman, with a
narrow forehead and prominent teeth, said to herself, "Now's my
chance."

"I hope you won't mind my interrupting you, Father, but I have come to
speak to you on a matter of some importance. It will take some minutes
for me to explain it all to you, and in confession, you see, our time
is limited. You know how strict the Prioress is that we shouldn't
exceed our regulation three minutes."

"I know that quite well," the little man answered abruptly; "a most
improper rule. But we'll not discuss the Prioress, Sister Winifred.
What have you come to tell me?"

"Well, in a way, it is about the Prioress. You know all about our
financial difficulties, and you know they are not settled yet."

"I thought that Sister Teresa's singing----"

"Of course, Sister Teresa's singing has done us a great deal of good,
but the collections have fallen off considerably; and, as for the rich
Catholics who were to pay off our debts, they are like the ships
coming from the East, but whose masts have not yet appeared above the
horizon."

"But does the Prioress still believe that these rich Catholics will
come to her aid?"

"Oh, yes, she believes; she tells us that we must pray, and that if we
pray they will come. Well, Father, prayer is very well, but we must
try to help ourselves, and we have been thinking it over; and, in
thinking it over, some of us have come to very practical conclusions."

"You have come to the conclusion that perhaps a good deal of time is
wasted in this garden, which might be devoted to good works?"

"Yes, that has struck us, and we think the best way out of our
difficulties would be a school."

"A school!"

"Something must be done," she said, "and we are thinking of starting
a school. We've received a great deal of encouragement. I believe I
could get twenty pupils to-morrow, but Mother Prioress won't hear of
it. She tells us that we are to pray, and that all will come right.
But even she does not depend entirely upon prayer; she depends upon
Sister Teresa's singing."

"A most uncertain source of income, I should say."

"So we all think."

They walked in silence until within a few yards of the end of the
walk; and, just as they were about to turn, the priest said:

"I was talking at the Bishop's to a priest who has been put in charge
of a parish in one of the poorest parts of South London. There is no
school, and the people are disheartened; and he has gone to live among
them, in a wretched house, in one of the worst slums of the district.
He lives in one of the upper rooms, and has turned the ground floor,
which used to be a greengrocer's shop, into a temporary chapel and
school, and now he is looking for some nuns to help him in the work.
He asked me if I could recommend any, and I thought of you all here,
Sister Winifred, with your beautiful church and garden, doing, what I
call, elegant piety. It has come to seem to me unbearably sad that you
and I and these few here, who could do such good work, should be kept
back from doing it."

"I am afraid our habit, Father, makes that sort of work out of the
question for us." And Sister Winifred dropped her habit for a moment
and let it trail gracefully.

Long, grey habits, that a speck of dirt will stain, are very suitable
to trail over green swards, but not fit to bring into the houses of
the poor, for fear they should be spoiled. "Oh," he cried, "I have no
patience with such rules, such petty observances. I have often asked
myself why the Bishop chose to put me here, where I am entirely out of
sympathy, where I am useless, where there is nothing for me to do
really, except to try to keep my temper. I have spoken of this matter
to no one before, but, since you have come to speak to me, Sister
Winifred, I, too, must speak. Ever since I've been here I've been
longing for some congenial work--work which I could feel I was
intended to do. It seems hard at times to feel one's life slipping
away and the work one could do always withheld from one's reach. You
understand?"

"Indeed, I do. It is the fate of many of us here, Father Daly."

"Now, if you could make a new foundation--if some three or four of
you--if the Bishop would send me there."

"Of course, we might go and do good work in the district you speak
of, but I doubt whether the Bishop would recognise us as a new
foundation."

"I daresay he wouldn't." And they walked a little way in silence. "You
were telling me of your project for a school, Sister Winifred."

Sister Winifred entered into the details. But she had unduly excited
Father Daly, and he could not listen.

"My position here," he said, interrupting her, "is an impossible one.
The only ones here who consider my advice are the lay sisters, the
admirable lay sisters who work from morning till evening, and forego
their prayers lest you should want for anything. You know I'm treated
very nearly with contempt by almost all the choir sisters. You think I
don't know that I am spoken of as a mere secular priest? Every
suggestion of mine meets with a rude answer. You have witnessed a good
deal of this, Sister Winifred. I daresay you've forgotten, but I
remember it all ... you have come to speak to me here because the
Prioress will not allow you to spend more than three minutes in the
confessional, arrogating to herself the position of your spiritual
adviser, only allowing to me what is to her no more than the
mechanical act of absolution. In her eyes I am a mere secular priest,
incapable of advising those who live in an Order! Do you think I
haven't noticed her deference to the very slightest word that Father
Ambrose deigns to speak to her? Her rule doesn't apply to his
confessional, only to mine--a rule which I have always regarded as
extremely unorthodox; I don't feel at all sure that the amateur
confessional which she carries on upstairs wouldn't be suppressed were
it brought under the notice of Rome; I have long been determined to
resist it, and I beg of you, Sister Winifred, when you come to me to
confession to stay as long as you think proper. On this matter I now
see that the Prioress and I must come to an understanding."

"But not a word, Father Daly, must we breathe to her of what I have
come to tell you about. The relaxation of our Order must be referred
to the Bishop, and with your support."

They walked for some yards in silence, Father Daly reflecting on the
admirable qualities of Sister Winifred, her truthfulness and her
strength of character which had brought her to him; Sister Winifred
congratulating herself on how successfully she had deceived Father
Daly, and thinking how she might introduce another subject into the
conversation (a delicate one it was to introduce); so she began to
talk as far away as possible from the subject which she wished to
arrive at. The founders of the Orders seemed to her the point to start
from; the conversation could be led round to the question of how much
time was wasted on meditation; it would be easy to drop a sly hint
that the meditations of the nuns were not always upon the Cross; she
managed to do this so adroitly that Father Daly fell into the trap at
once.

"Love of God, of course, is eternal; but each age must love God in its
own fashion, and our religious sentiments are not those of the Middle
Ages." The exercises of St. Ignatius did not appeal in the least to
Father Daly, who disapproved of letting one's thoughts brood upon
hell; far better think of heaven. Too much brooding on hell engenders
a feeling of despair, which was the cause of Sister Teresa's
melancholia. Too intense a fear of hell has caused men, so it is said,
to kill themselves. It seems strange, but men kill themselves through
fear of death. "I suppose it is possible that fear of hell might
distract the mind so completely---- Well, let us not talk on these
subjects. We were talking of----" The nun reminded the priest they
were talking of the exercises of St. Ignatius. "Let us not speak of
them. St. Ignatius's descriptions of the licking of the flames round
the limbs of the damned may have been suitable in his time, but for us
there are better things in the exercises."

"But do you not think that the time spent in meditation might be spent
more profitably, Father? I have often thought so."

"If the meditation were really one."

"Exactly, Father, but who can further thoughts; thought wanders, and
before one is aware one finds oneself far from the subject of the
meditation."

"No doubt; no doubt."

"It was through active work that Sister Teresa was cured."

"If any fact has come to your knowledge, Sister, it is your duty to
tell it to me, the spiritual adviser of the nuns, notwithstanding all
the attempts of the Prioress to usurp my position."

"Well, Father, if you ask me----"

"Yes, certainly I ask you." And Sister Winifred told how, through a
dream, Sister Cecilia had been unable to go down from her cell to
watch before the Sacrament.

"We are not answerable for our dreams," the priest answered.

"No; but if we pray for dreams?"

"But Cecilia could not desire such a dream?"

"Not exactly that dream." And so the story was gradually unfolded to
the priest.

"What you tell me is very serious. The holy hours which should be
devoted to meditation of the Cross wasted in dreams of counterparts!
A strange name they have given these visitations, some might have
given them a harsher name." Father Daly's thoughts went to certain
literature of the Middle Ages. "The matter is, of course, one that is
not entirely unknown to me; it is one of the traditional sins of the
convent, one of the plagues of the Middle Ages. The early Fathers
suffered from the visits of Succubi. What you tell me is very
alarming. Would it not be well for me to speak to the Prioress on the
subject?"

"No, on no account."

"But she must be exceedingly anxious to put a stop to such a pollution
of the meditation?"

"Yes, indeed, I will say that nobody is more opposed to it; but she is
one of these women who, though she sees that something is wrong, will
not go to the root of the wrong at once. The tendency of her mind is
towards the contemplative, and not towards the active orders, and she
will not give way to the relaxation of the rule. You had better just
take the matter into your hands, feeling sure she will approve of the
action in the end. A word or two on the subject in your sermon on
Sunday would be very timely."

Father Daly promised to think the matter over, and Sister Winifred
said:

"But you must know we shall have much opposition?"

"But who will oppose us?"

"Those who have succeeded in getting counterparts will not surrender
them easily." And Sister Winifred was persuaded to mention the names
of the nuns incriminated in this traffic with the spirits of the
children who had been drowned in Noah's flood.

"Beings from the other world!" Father Daly cried, alarmed that not one
of the nuns had spoken on this subject to him in the convent. "This is
the first time a nun has spoken to me----"

"All will speak to you on this matter when you explain to them the
danger they are incurring--when you tell them in your sermon. There is
the bell; now I must fly. I will tell you more when I come to
confession this afternoon." As she went up the path she resolved to
remain ten minutes in the confessional at least, for such a breach of
the rule would challenge the Prioress's spiritual authority, and in
return for this Father Daly would use his influence with the Bishop to
induce the Prioress to relax the rule of the community. To make her
disobedience more remarkable, she loitered before slipping into the
confessional, and the Prioress, who had just come into the chapel,
noticed her. But without giving it another thought the Prioress began
her prayers. At the end of five minutes, however, she began to grow
impatient, and at the end of ten minutes to feel that her authority
had been set aside.

"You've been at least ten minutes in the confessional, Sister
Winifred."

"It is hard, indeed, dear Mother, if one isn't allowed to confess in
peace," Sister Winifred answered. And she tossed her head somewhat
defiantly.

"All the hopes of my life are at an end," the Prioress said to Mother
Hilda. "Every one is in rebellion against me; and this branch of our
Order is about to disappear. I feel sure the Bishop will decide
against us, and what can we do with the school? Sister Winifred will
have to manage it herself. I will resign. It is hard indeed that this
should happen after so many years of struggle; and, after redeeming
the convent from its debts, to be divided in the end."




CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO


Next Sunday Father Daly took for his text, "And all nations shall turn
and fear the Lord truly, and shall bury their idols" (Toby xiv. 6).

"Yes, indeed, we should bury our idols." And then Father Daly asked if
our idols were always external things, made of brass and gold, or if
they were not very often cherished in our hearts--the desires of the
flesh to which we give gracious forms, and which we supply with
specious words; "we think," he said, "to deceive ourselves with those
fair images born of our desires; and we give them names, and attribute
to them the perfections of angels, believing that our visitations are
angels, but are we sure they are not devils?"

The Prioress raised her eyes, and looked at him long and steadily,
asking herself what he was going to say next.

He went on to tell how one of the chief difficulties of monastic life
was to distinguish between the good and the evil visitant, between the
angel and the demon; for permission was often given to the demon to
disguise himself as an angel, in order that the nun and the monk might
be approved. Returning then to the text, he told the story of Tobit
and Tobias's son, and how Tobias had to have resort to burning
perfumes in order to save himself from death from the evil spirit,
who, when he smelt the perfume, fled into Egypt and was bound by an
angel. "We, too, must strive to bind the evil spirit, and we can do so
with prayer. We must have recourse to prayer in order to put the evil
spirit to flight. Prayer is a perfume, and it ascends sweeter than the
scent of roses and lilies, greeting God's nostrils, which are in
heaven."

The Prioress thought this expression somewhat crude, and she again
looked at the preacher long and steadfastly, asking herself if the
text and Father Daly's interpretation of it were merely coincidences,
or if he were speaking from knowledge of the conditions of
convents.... Cecilia, had she told him everything? The Prioress
frowned. Sister Winifred was careful not to raise her eyes to the
preacher, for she was regretting his words, foreseeing the
difficulties they would lead her into, knowing well that the Prioress
would resent this interference with her authority, and she would have
given much to stop Father Daly; but that, of course, was impossible
now, and she heard him say that the angel who bound the evil spirit in
Egypt four thousand years ago is to-day the symbol of the priest in
the confessional, and it was only by availing themselves of that
Sacrament, not in any invidious sense, but in the fullest possible
sense, confiding their entire souls to the care of their spiritual
adviser, that they could escape from the evil spirits which penetrated
into monasteries to-day no less than before, as they had always done,
from the earliest times; for the more pious men and women are, the
more they retire from the world, the more delicate are the temptations
which the devil invents. Convents dedicate to the Adoration of the
Sacrament, to meditation on the Cross, convents in which active work
is eschewed are especially sought by the evil spirits, "the larvae of
monasticism," he called them. An abundance of leisure is favourable to
the hatching of these; and he drew a picture of how the grub first
appears, and then the winged moth, sometimes brown and repellant,
sometimes dressed in attractive colours like the butterfly. The soul
follows as a child follows the butterfly, from flower to flower
through the sunshine, led on out of the sunshine into dark alleys, at
the end of which are dangerous places, from whence the soul may never
return again.

"Nuns and monks of the Middle Ages, those who knew monasticism better
than it ever could be known in these modern days, dreaded these larva
more than anything else, and they had methods of destroying them and
repelling the beguilements of evil spirits better than we have, for
the contemplative orders were more kindred to those earlier times than
to-day. Monasticism of to-day takes another turn. Love of God is
eternal, but we must love God in the idiom and spirit of our time."
And Father Daly believed that there was no surer method of escaping
from the danger than by active work, by teaching, which, he argued,
was not incompatible with contemplation, if not carried to excess; and
there were also the poor people, and to work for them was always
pleasing to God. Any drastic changes were, of course, out of the
question, but he had been asked to speak on this subject, and it
seemed to him that they should look to Nature for guidance, and in
Nature they found not revolution but evolution; the law of Nature was
progression. Why should any rule remain for ever the same? It must
progress just as our ideas progress. He wandered on, words coming up
in his mouth involuntarily, saying things which immediately after
they were said he regretted having said, trying to bring his sermon to
a close, unable to do so, obliged, at last, to say hurriedly that he
hoped they would reflect on this matter, and try to remember he was
always at their service and prepared to give them the best advice.

As soon as Mass was over Mother Hilda went to the Prioress. "We'll
speak on this matter later." And the Prioress went to her room
hurriedly. The nuns hung about the cloister, whispering in little
groups, forgetful of the rule; the supporters of the Prioress
indignant with the priest, who had dared to call into question the
spiritual value of their Order, and to tell them it would be more
pleasing to God for them to start a school. It was felt even by the
supporters of the school that the priest had gone too far, not in
advocating the school, but in what he had said regarding the liability
of the contemplative orders to be attacked by demons, for really what
he had said amounted to that.




CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE


When the news arrived that Father Daly had been transferred suddenly
by the Bishop to another parish, Sister Winifred walked about in
terror, expecting every minute to bring her a summons to the
Prioress's room. A shiver went through her when she thought of the
interview which probably awaited her; but as the morning wore away
without any command reaching her, she began to take pleasure in the
hope that she had escaped, and in the belief that the Prioress was
afraid of an explanation. No doubt that was it; and Sister Winifred
picked up courage and the threads of the broken intrigue, resolving
this time to confine herself to laying stress on the necessitous
condition of the convent, which was still in debt, and the
impossibility of Sister Teresa's singing redeeming it entirely.

It would have been wiser if she had conducted her campaign as she
intended to do, but the temptation was irresistible to point out,
occasionally, that those who did not agree with her were the very
nuns--Angela, Veronica, Rufina, and one or two others--who had
confessed to the sin of praying for the visitations of counterparts
during the hour of meditation and other hours. By doing this she
prejudiced her cause. Her inuendoes reached the ears of the Bishop and
Monsignor Mostyn, who came to the convent to settle the difficulty of
an alteration in the rule; she was severely reprimanded, and it was
decreed that the contemplative Orders were not out of date, and that
nuns should be able to meditate on the Cross without considering too
closely the joys that awaited the brides of Christ in heaven. St.
Teresa's writings were put under ban, only the older nuns, who would
not accept the words of the saint too literally, being allowed to read
them. "Added to which," as Monsignor said, "the idle thoughts of the
novices are occupying too much of our attention. This is a matter for
the spiritual adviser of the novices, and Father Rawley is one who
will keep a strict watch."

The Bishop concurred with Monsignor, and then applied his mind to the
consideration of the proposed alteration of the rule, deciding that no
alteration could receive his sanction, at all events during the life
of the present Prioress. Sister Winifred was told that the matter must
be dropped for the present. It so happened that Monsignor came upon
her and Evelyn together before the Bishop left; and he tried to
reconcile them, saying that when the Prioress was called to God--it
was only a question of time for all of us, and it didn't seem probable
that she would live very long; of course, it was a very painful
matter, one which they did not care to speak about--but after her
death, if it should be decided that the Order might become a teaching
Order, Sister Teresa would be the person who would be able to assist
Sister Winifred better than any other.

"But, Monsignor," Evelyn said, "I do not feel sure I've a vocation for
the religious life."

Out of a shrivelled face pale, deeply-set eyes looked at her, and it
seemed that she could read therein the disappointment he felt that she
was not remaining in the convent. She was sorry she had disappointed
him, for he had helped her; and she left him talking to Sister
Winifred and wandered down the passage, not quite certain whether he
doubted her strength to lead a chaste life in the world, or could she
attribute that change of expression in his eyes to wounded vanity at
finding that the living clay put into his hands was escaping from them
unmoulded ... by him? Hard to say. There was a fear in her heart! Now
was it that she might lack the force of character to leave the convent
when the time came ... after the Prioress's death? Life is but a
ceaseless uprooting of oneself. Sister Winifred might be elected....

"Who will have the strength to turn the convent into an active Order
when I am gone?" the Prioress often asked Evelyn, who could only
answer her that she hoped she would be with them for many a day yet.
"No, my dear, not for many months. I am a very old woman." She
questioned Evelyn regarding Mother Philippa's administration; and
Evelyn disguised from her the disorder that had come into the convent,
not telling how the nuns spent a great deal of time visiting each
other in their cells, how in the garden some walked on one side and
some on the other, how the bitterest enmities had sprung up. But,
though she was not told these things, the Prioress knew her convent
had fallen into decadence, and sometimes she said:

"Well, I haven't the strength to restore dignity to this Order; so it
had better disappear, become an active Order. But who among you will
be able to reorganise it? Mother Philippa--what do you think, dear?"

"Mother Philippa is an excellent woman," Evelyn answered; "but as an
administrator--"

"You don't believe in her?"

"Only when she is guided by another, one superior to herself."

"One who will see that the rule is maintained?"

Evelyn was thinking of Mother Hilda.

"Mother Hilda," she said, "seems to me too quiet, too subtle, too
retiring." And the Prioress agreed with her, saying under her breath:

"She prefers to confine herself to the education of her novices. So
what is to be done?"

From Mother Hilda Evelyn's thoughts went to Sister Mary John, and it
seemed to her she never realised before the irreparable loss the
convent had sustained. But what was the good in reminding the Prioress
of Sister Mary John? No doubt, lying back there in her chair, the old
mind was thinking of the nun she had lost, and who would have proved
of such extraordinary service in the present circumstances. While
looking at the Prioress, thinking with her (for it is true the
Prioress was thinking of Sister Mary John), Evelyn understood
suddenly, in a single second, that if Sister Mary John had not left
Sister Winifred would not have come forward with the project of a
school, nor would there have been any schism. But in spite of all her
wisdom, the Prioress had not known, until this day, how dependent they
were on Sister Mary John. A great mistake had been made, but there was
no use going into that now.

A bell rang, and Evelyn said:

"Now, Mother, will you take my arm and we'll go down to chapel
together?"

"And after Benediction I will take a turn in the garden with you," the
Prioress said.

She was so weary of singing Gounod's "Ave Maria" that she accentuated
the vulgarity of the melody, and wondered if the caricature would be
noticed. "The more vulgarly it is sung the more money it draws." And
smiling at the theatrical phrase, which had arisen unexpectedly to her
lips, she went into the garden to join the Prioress.

"Come this way, dear; I want to talk to you." And the Prioress and the
novice wandered away from the other nuns towards the fish-pond, and
stood listening to the gurgle of the stream and to the whisper of the
woods. An inspiring calm seemed to fall out of the sky, filling the
heart with sympathy, turning all things to one thing, drawing the
earth and sky and thoughts of men and women together.

"Teresa, dear, when you leave us what do you intend to do? You have
never told me. Do you intend to return to the stage?"

"Mother, I cannot bear to think of leaving you." The old nun raised
her eyes for a moment, and there was a great sadness in them, for she
felt that without Evelyn her death would be lonely.

"We came here for the same reason, or very nearly. I stayed, and you
are going."

"And which do you think is the better part, Mother?"

The nun did not answer for a long time, and Evelyn's heart seemed to
beat more quickly as she waited for the answer.

"These are things we shall never know, whether it is better to go or
to stay. All the wisdom of the ages has never solved this
question--which ever course we take; it costs a great deal to come
here."

"And it costs a great deal to remain in the world. Something terrible
would have happened to me. I should have killed myself. But you know
everything, Mother; there is no use going over that story again."

"No, there is none. Only one thing remains to be said, Teresa--to
thank you for remaining with me. You are a gift from God, the best I
have received for a long time, and if I reach heaven my prayers will
always be with you."

"And, Mother, if you reach heaven, will you promise me one thing, that
you will come to me and tell me the truth?"

"That I promise, and I will keep my promise if I am allowed."

The ripple of the stream sounded loud in their ears, and the skies
became more lovely as Evelyn and the Prioress thought of the promise
that had been asked and been given.

"I'll ask you to do some things for me." And she gave Evelyn
instructions regarding her papers. "When you have done all these
things you will leave the convent. You will not be able to remain. I
have seen a great deal of you, more than I saw of any other novice,
and I know you as if you were my own child ... I am very old, and you
are still a young woman."

"Mother, I am nearly forty, and my trials are at an end, or nearly."

"Truly, a great trial. I am old enough now, Teresa, to speak about it
without shame. A great trial, yet one is sorry when it is over. And
you still believe that a calamity would have befallen you?"

"And a great calamity nearly did befall me."

They sat side by side, their eyes averted, knowing well that they had
reached a point beyond which words could not carry them.

"We are always anxious to be understood, every one wants to be
understood. But why? Of what use?"

"Mother, we must never speak on this subject again, for I love you
very dearly, and it is a great pain to me to think that your death
will set me free."

"It seems wrong, Teresa, but I wouldn't have you remain in the convent
after me; you are not suited to it. I knew it all the while, only I
tried to keep you. One is never free from temptation. Now you know
everything.... We have been here long enough."

"We have only been here a few minutes," Evelyn answered; "at least it
has only seemed a few minutes to me. The evening is so beautiful, the
sky is so calm, the sound of the water so extraordinary in the
stillness! Listen to those birds, the chaffinch shrieking in that
aspen, and the thrush singing all his little songs somewhere at the
end of the garden."

"And there is your bullfinch, dear. He will remain in the convent to
remind them of you when you have left."

The bird whistled a stave of the Bird Music from "Siegfried," and then
came to their feet to pick. Evelyn threw him some bread, and they
wandered back to the novices, who had forgotten their differences, and
were sitting under their tree with Mother Hilda discussing a subject
of great interest to them.

"We haven't seen them united before for a long time."

"That odious Sister Winifred waiting for your death, thinking only of
her school."

"That is the way of the world, and we find the world everywhere, even
in a convent. Her idea comes before everything else. Only you, Teresa,
are good; you are sacrificing yourself to me; I hope it will not be
for long."

"But we said, Mother, we wouldn't talk of that any more. Now, what are
the novices so eager about?"

Sister Agatha ran forward to tell them that it had been suddenly
remembered that the thirtieth of the month would be Sister Bridget's
fortieth anniversary of her vows.

"Forty years she has been in the convent, and we are thinking that we
might do something to commemorate the anniversary."

"I should like to see her on an elephant, riding round the garden.
What a spree it would be!" said Sister Jerome.

The words were hardly out of her mouth when she regretted them,
foreseeing allusions to elephants till the end of her days, for
Sister Jerome often said foolish things, and was greatly quizzed for
them. But the absurdity of the proposal did not seem to strike any
one; only the difficulty of procuring an elephant, with a man who
would know how to manage the animal, was very great. Why not a donkey?
They could easily get one from Wimbledon; the gardener would bring
one. But a donkey ride seemed a strange come-down after an elephant
ride, and an idea had suddenly struck Sister Agatha.

"Sister Jerome doesn't mean a real elephant, I suppose. We might
easily make a very fine elephant indeed by piling the long table from
the library with cushions, stuffing it as nearly as possible into the
shape of an elephant."

"And the making of the elephant would be such a lark!" cried Sister
Jerome.

Mother Hilda raised no objection, and the Prioress and Evelyn walked
aside, saying:

"Well, it is better they should be making elephants than dreaming of
counterparts."




CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR


The creation of the beast was accomplished in the novitiate, no one
being allowed to see it except the Prioress. The great difficulty was
to find beads large enough for the eyes, and it threatened to
frustrate the making of their beast. But the latest postulant
suggested that perhaps the buttons off her jacket would do, they were
just the thing; and the legs of the beast were most natural and
life-like; it had even a tail.

As no one out of the novitiate had seen this very fine beast, the
convent was on tip-toe with excitement and when, at the conclusion of
dinner, the elephant was wheeled into the refectory, every one clapped
her hands, and there were screams of delight. Then the saddle was
brought in and attached by blue ribbons. Sister Bridget, who did not
seem quite sure that the elephant was not alive, was lifted on it and
held there; and was wheeled round the refectory in triumph, the
novices screaming with delight, the professed, too. Only Evelyn stood
silent and apart, sorry she could not mix with the others, sharing
their pleasures. To stand watching them she felt to be unkind, so she
went into the garden, and wandered to the sundial, whence she could
see Richmond Park; and looking into the distance, hearing the childish
gaiety of the nuns, she remembered Louise's party at the Savoy Hotel
years and years ago. The convent had ceased to have any meaning for
her; so she must return, but not to the mummers, they, too, had faded
out of her life. She did not know whither she was going, only that she
must wander on ... as soon as the Prioress died. The thought caused
her to shudder, and, remembering that the old woman was alone in her
room, she went up to ask her if she would care to come into the garden
with her. The Prioress was too weak to leave her room, but she was
glad to have Evelyn, and to listen to her telling of the great success
of the elephant.

"Of course, my dear, the recreations here must seem to you very
childish. I wonder what your life will be when I'm gone?"

"To-morrow you will be stronger, and will be able to come into the
garden."

But the old nun never left her room again, and Evelyn's last memory of
her in the garden was when they had sat by the fish-pond, looking into
the still water, reflecting sky and trees, with a great carp moving
mysteriously through a dim world of water-weed and flower. There were
many other memories of the Prioress which lingered through many years,
memories of an old woman lying back in her chair, frail and white,
slipping quite consciously out of life into death. Every day she
seemed to grow a trifle smaller, till there was hardly anything left
of her. It was terrible to be with her, so conscious was she that
death was approaching, that she and death were drawing nearer and
nearer, and to hear her say, "Four planks are the only habit I want
now." Another time, looking into Evelyn's eyes, she said, "It is
strange that I should be so old and you so young."

"But I don't feel young, Mother." And every day the old woman grew
more and more dependent upon Evelyn.

"You are very good to me. Why should you wait here till I am dead?
Only it won't be long, dear. Of what matter to me that the convent
will be changed when I am dead. If I am a celestial spirit, our
disputes--which is the better, prayer or good works--will raise a
smile upon my lips. But celestial spirits have no lips. Why should I
trouble myself? And yet--"

Evelyn could see that the old woman could not bear to think that her
life's work was to fall to pieces when she was gone.

"But, dear Mother, we all wish that what we have done shall remain;
and we all wish to be remembered, at least for a little while. There
is nothing more human. And your papers, dear Mother, will have to be
published; they will vindicate you, as nothing else could."

"But who is to publish them?" the Prioress asked. "They would require
to be gone over carefully, and I am too weak to do that, too weak even
to listen to you reading them."

Evelyn promised the Prioress again that she would collect all the
papers, and, as far as she could, select those which the Prioress
would herself select; and the promise she could see pleased the dying
woman. It was at the end of the week that the end came. Evelyn sat by
her, holding her hand, and hearing an ominous rattling sound in the
throat, she waited, waited, heard it again, saw the body tremble a
little, and then, getting up, she closed the eyes, said a little
prayer, and went out of the room to tell the nuns of the Prioress's
death, surprised at what seemed to her like indifference, without
tears in her eyes, or any manifestation of grief. There could be
none, for she was not feeling anything; she seemed to herself to be
mechanically performing certain duties, telling Mother Philippa, whom
she met in the passage, in a smooth, even voice, that the Prioress had
died five minutes ago, without any suffering, quite calmly. Her lack
of feeling seemed to her to give the words a strange ring, and she
wondered if Mother Philippa would be stirred very deeply.

"Dead, Sister, dead? How terrible! None of us there. And the prayers
for the dying not said! Surely, Teresa, you could have sent for us. I
must summon the community at once." And the sub-Prioress hurried away,
feeling already on her shoulders the full weight of the convent
affairs.

In a few moments the Sisters, with scared faces, were hurrying from
all parts of the house to the room where the Prioress lay dead. Evelyn
felt she could not go back, and she slipped away to look for Veronica,
whom she found in the sacristy.

"Veronica, dear, it is all over."

The girl turned towards her and clasped her hands.

"Auntie is dead," was all she said, and, dropping into a chair, her
tears began to flow.

"Dear Veronica, we both loved her very much."

"So we did, Sister; the convent will be very different without her.
Whom will they elect? Sister Winifred very possibly. It won't matter
to you, dear, you will go, and we shall have a school; everything will
be different."

"But many weeks will pass before I leave. Your aunt asked me to put
her papers in order; I shall be at work in the library for a long
while."

"Oh, I am so glad, Sister. I thought perhaps you would go at once."
And Veronica dried her tears. "But, dear, we can't talk now. I must
join the others in the prayers for the dead, and there will be so much
to do."

"We shall have to strip the altar, I suppose?"

"Oh, yes, the whole chapel--we shall want all our black hangings. But
I must go."

At that moment a Sister hurried in to say the bell was to be tolled at
once, and Evelyn went with Veronica to the corner of the cloister
where the ropes hung, and stood by listlessly while Veronica dragged
at the heavy rope, leaving a long interval between each clang.

"Oughtn't we to go up, Sister?" Veronica asked again.

"No, I can't go back yet," Evelyn answered. And she went into the
garden and followed the winding paths, wondering at the solemn
clanging, for it all seemed so useless.

The chaplain arrived half-an-hour afterwards, and next day several
priests came down from London, and there was a great assembly to chant
the Requiem Mass. But Evelyn, though she worked hard at decorating the
altar, was not moved by the black hangings, nor by the doleful chant,
nor by the flutter of the white surplice and the official drone about
the grave. All the convent had followed the prelates down the garden
paths; by the side of the grave Latin prayers were recited and holy
water was sprinkled. On the day the Prioress was buried there were few
clouds in the sky, sunshine was pretty constant, and all the birds
were singing in the trees; every moment Evelyn expected one of her
bullfinches to come out upon a bough and sing its little stave. If it
did, she would take his song for an omen. But the bullfinches happened
to be away, and she wished that the priests' drone would cease to
interrupt the melody of the birds and boughs. The dear Prioress would
prefer Nature's own music, it was kinder; and the sound of the earth
mixed with the stones falling on the coffin-lid was the last
sensation. After it the prelates and nuns returned to the convent,
everybody wondering what was going to happen next, every nun asking
herself who would be elected Prioress.

"Dear Mother, it is all over now," Evelyn said to Mother Hilda in the
passage, and the last of the ecclesiastics disappeared through a
doorway, going to his lunch.

"Yes, dear Teresa, it is all over so far as this world is concerned.
We must think of her now in heaven."

"And to-morrow we shall begin to think for whom we shall vote--at
least, you will be thinking, I am not a choir sister, and am leaving
you."

"Is that decided, Teresa?"

"Yes, I think so. Perhaps now would be the time for me to take off
this habit; I only retained it at the Prioress's wish. But, Mother,
though I have not discovered a vocation, and feel that you have wasted
much time upon me, still, I wouldn't have you think I am ungrateful."

"My dear, it never occurred to me to think so." And the two women
walked to the end of the cloister together, Evelyn telling Mother
Hilda about the Prioress and the Prioress's papers.

And from that day onward, for many weeks, Evelyn worked in the
library, collecting her papers, and writing the memoir of the late
Prioress, which, apparently, the nun had wished her to do, though why
she should have wished it Evelyn often wondered, for if she were a
soul in heaven it could matter to her very little what anybody thought
of her on earth. How a soul in heaven must smile at the importance
attached to this rule and to these exercises! How trivial it all must
seem to the soul!... And yet it could not seem trivial to the soul, if
it be true that by following certain rules we get to heaven. If it be
true! Evelyn's thoughts paused, for a doubt had entered into her
mind--the old familiar doubt, from which no one can separate herself
or himself, from which even the saints could not escape. Are they not
always telling of the suffering doubt caused them? And following this
doubt, which prayers can never wholly stifle, the old original pain
enters the heart. We are only here for a little while, and the words
lose nothing of their original freshness by repetition; and, in order
to drink the anguish to its dregs, Evelyn elaborated the words,
reminding herself that time is growing shorter every year, even the
years are growing shorter.

"The space is very little between me and the grave."

Some celebrated words from a celebrated poet, calling attention to the
brevity of life, came into her mind, and she repeated them again and
again, enjoying their bitterness. We like to meditate on death; even
the libertine derives satisfaction from such meditation, and poets are
remembered by their powers of expressing our great sorrow in stinging
terms. "Our lives are not more intense than our dreams," Evelyn
thought; "and yet our only reason for believing life to be reality is
its intensity. Looked at from the outside, what is it but a little
vanishing dust? Millions have preceded that old woman into the earth,
millions shall follow her. I shall be in the earth too--in how many
years? In a few months perhaps, in a few weeks perhaps. Possibly
within the next few days I may hear how long I may expect to live, for
what is more common than to wake with a pain, and on consulting a
doctor to see a grave look come into his face, and to hear him tell of
some mortal disease beyond his knife's reach? Words come reluctantly
to one's tongue. "How long have I to live?" "About a year, about six
months; I cannot say for certain."

Doctors are answering men and women in these terms every day, and
Evelyn thought of some celebrated sayings that life's mutability has
inspired. She remembered some from the Bible, and some from
Shakespeare; and those she remembered from Fitzgerald, from his "Omar
Khayyam," took her back to the afternoon she spent with Owen by the
Serpentine, to the very day when he gave her the poem to read,
thinking to overcome her scruples with literature.

"There were no scruples in me then. My own business, 'The Ring,' is
full of the pagan story of life and death. We have babbled about it
ever since, trying to forget or explain it, without, however, doing
either; I tried to forget it on the stage, and did not succeed, but it
was not fear of death that brought me here. The nuns do not succeed
better than I; all screens are unavailing, for the wind is about
everywhere--a cold, searching wind, which prayers cannot keep out; our
doorways are not staunch--the wind comes under the door of the
actress's dressing-room and under the door of the nun's cell in
draughts chilling us to the bone, and then leaving us to pursue our
avocations for a time in peace. The Prioress thought that in coming
here she had discovered a way to heaven, yet she was anxious to defend
herself from her detractors upon earth. If she had believed in her
celestial inheritance she would have troubled very little, and I
should be free to go away now. Perhaps it is better as it is," she
reflected. And it seemed to her that no effort on her part was called
for or necessary. She was certain she was drifting, and that the
current would carry her to the opposite bank in good time; she was
content to wait, for had she not promised the Prioress to perform a
certain task? And it was part of her temperament to leave nothing
undone; she also liked a landmark and the finishing of her book would
be a landmark.

She was even a little curious to see what turn the convent affairs
would take, and as she sat biting the end of her pen, thinking, the
sound of an axe awoke her from her reverie. Trees were being felled in
the garden, "and an ugly, red-brick building will be run up, in which
children of city merchants will be taught singing and the piano." Was
it contempt for the world's ignorance in matters of art that filled
her heart? or was she animated with a sublime pity for those parents
who would come to her (if she remained in the convent, a thing she had
no intention of doing) to ask her, Evelyn Innes, if she thought that
Julia would come to something if she were to persevere, or if Kitty
would succeed if she continued to practise "The Moonlight Sonata," a
work of the beauty of which no one in the convent had any faintest
comprehension? She herself had some gifts, and, after much labour, had
brought her gifts to fruition, not to any splendid but to some
fruition. It was not probable that any one who came to the convent
would do more than she had done; far better to learn knitting or
cooking--anything in the world except music. Her gift of singing had
brought her to this convent. Was it really so? Was her gift connected
in some obscure way with the moral crisis which had drawn her into
this convent? There seemed to be a connection, only she did not seem
to be able to work it out. But there must be one surely, otherwise her
poor people, whom she loved so dearly, would not have been abandoned.
A very cruel abandonment it was, and she pondered a long while on this
subject without arriving at any other conclusion except that for her
to remain in the convent to teach music to the children of rich
merchants, who had villas in Wimbledon, was out of the question. Her
poor people were calling to her, and the convent had no further
concern in her life. Of that she was sure. It was no longer the same
convent. The original aspiration had declined; the declension had been
from the late Prioress to Sister Winifred, who, knowing that her own
election to Prioress was impossible, had striven to get Mother
Philippa elected Prioress and herself sub-Prioress--a very clever move
on her part, for with Mother Philippa as Prioress the management of
the school would be left to her, and the school was what interested
her. Of course, the money they made would be devoted to building a
chapel, or something of that kind; but it was the making of money
which would henceforth be the pleasure of the convent. Evelyn took a
certain pleasure in listening negligently to Mother Winifred, who
seemed unable to resist the desire to talk to her about vocations
whenever they met. From whatever point they started, the conversation
would soon turn upon a vocation, and Evelyn found herself in the end
listening to a story of some novice who thought she had no vocation
and had left the convent, but had returned.

"And very often," Mother Winifred would say sententiously, "those who
think themselves most sure of their vocation find themselves without
one."

And Evelyn would answer, "Those who would take the last place are put
up first--isn't that it, Mother Winifred?"

Very often as they walked round the great, red-brick building, with
rows of windows on either side facing each other, so that the sky
could be seen through the building, Evelyn said:

"But do you not regret the trees?" She took pleasure in reminding
every nun that they sacrificed the beauty of the garden in the hope of
making a little money; and these remarks, though they annoyed Mother
Winifred, did not prevent her from speaking with pride of the school,
now rapidly advancing towards completion, nor did Evelyn's criticism
check her admiration of Evelyn herself. It seemed to Evelyn that
Mother Winifred was always paying her compliments, or if she were not
doing that, she would seek opportunities to take Evelyn into her
confidence, telling her of the many pupils they had been promised, and
of the conversions that would follow their teaching. The girls would
be impressed by the quiet beauty of the nun's life; some of them
would discover in themselves vocations for the religious life, and a
great many would certainly go away anxious for conversion; and, even
if their conversions did not happen at once, though they might be
delayed for years, sooner or later many conversions would be the
result of this school. And the result of all this flummery was:

"Now, why should you not stay with us, dear, only a little while
longer? It would be such a sad thing if you were to go away, and find
that, after all, you had a vocation for the religious life, for if you
return to us you will have to go through the novitiate again."

"But, Mother Winifred, you always begin upon the supposition that I
have a vocation. Now, supposing you begin upon the other
supposition--that I have not one."

Mother Winifred hesitated, and looked sharply at Evelyn; but, unable
to take her advice, on the very next opportunity she spoke to Evelyn
of the vocation which she might discover in herself when it was too
late.

"You have forgotten what I said, Mother Winifred."

Mother Winifred laughed, but, undaunted, she soon returned with some
new argument, which had occurred to her in the interval, as she prayed
in church, or in her cell at night, and the temptation to try the
effect of the new argument on Evelyn was irresistible.

"Dear Sister Teresa--you see the familiar name comes to my tongue
though you have put off the habit--we shall be a long time in
straitened circumstances. A new mortgage has had, as you know, to be
placed on the property in order to get money to build the school; the
school will pay, but not at once."

Evelyn protested she was not responsible for this new debt. She had
advised the Prioress and Mother Winifred against it, warning them that
she did not intend to remain in the convent.

"But we always expected that you would remain."

And in this way Evelyn was made to feel her responsibility so much
that in the end she consented to give up part of her money to the
nuns. So long as she had just enough to live upon it did not matter,
and she owed these nuns a great deal. True that she had paid them ten
times over what she owed them, but still, it was difficult to measure
one's debts in pounds, shillings, and pence. However, that was the way
the nuns wanted her to measure them, and if she could leave them
fifteen hundred pounds----. And as soon as this sum was agreed upon,
Sister Winifred never lost an opportunity of regretting that the
convent was obliged to accept this magnificent donation, hinting that
the Prioress and herself would be willing (and there would be no
difficulty in obtaining the consent of the choir sisters) to accept
Evelyn's services for three years in the school instead of the money.

"Five hundred a year we shall be paying you, but the value of your
teaching will be very great; mothers will be especially anxious to
send their daughters to our school, so that they may get good singing
lessons from you."

"And when I leave?"

"Well, the school will have obtained a reputation by that time. Of
course, you will be a loss, but we must try to do without you."

"Three years in this convent!"

"But you are quite free here; you come and go as you please. After
all, your intention in leaving the convent is to teach music. Why not
teach music here?"

The argument was an ingenious one, but Evelyn did not feel that it
would appeal to her in the least, either to continue living in the
convent after she had finished her book, or to go back to the convent
to give singing lessons three or four times a week.

It would be preferable for her to give fifteen hundred pounds to the
convent, and so finish with the whole thing; and this she intended to
do, though she put Mother Winifred off with evasion, leaving her
thinking that perhaps after all she would teach for some little while
in the convent. It was necessary to do this, for Mother Winifred could
persuade Mother Philippa as she pleased; and it had occurred to Evelyn
that perhaps Mother Winifred might arrange for her expulsion. Nothing
could be easier than to tell her that somebody's friend was going to
stay with them in the convent, that the guest-room would be wanted. To
leave now would not suit Evelyn at all. The late Prioress's papers
belonged to the convent; and to deceive Mother Winifred completely
Evelyn agreed to give some singing lessons, for they had already begun
to receive pupils though the school was not yet finished.

This teaching proved very irksome to her, for it delayed the
completion of her book, and she often meditated an escape, thinking
how this might be accomplished while the nuns played at ball in the
autumn afternoon. Very often they were all in the garden, all except
Sister Agnes, the portress, and she often left her keys on the nail.
So it would be easy for Evelyn to run down the covered way and take
the keys from the nail and open the door. And the day came when she
could not resist the temptation of opening the door, not with a view
to escape, but just to know what the sensation of the open door was
like. And she stood for some time looking into the landscape,
remembering vaguely, somewhere at the back of her mind, that she could
not take the Prioress's papers with her, they did not belong to her;
the convent could institute an action for theft against her, the
Prioress not having made any formal will, only a memorandum saying she
would like Evelyn to collect her papers.

So it was necessary for her to lock the gate again, to restore the
keys to the nail, and return to the library. But in a few weeks more
her task would be done, and it would be pleasanter to go away when it
was done; and, as it has already been said, Evelyn liked landmarks.
"To pass out is easy, but the Evelyn that goes out will not be the
same as the Evelyn who came in." And a terror gathered in her mind,
remembering that she was forty, and to begin life again after forty,
and after such an experience as hers, might prove beyond her strength.
Doubts enter into every mind, doubt entered into hers; perhaps the
convent was the natural end of her life, not as a nun, but as an
oblate. The guest-room was a pleasant room, and she could live more
cheaply in the convent than elsewhere. There are cowardly hours in
every life, and there were hours when this compromise appealed to
Evelyn Innes. But if she remained she would have to continue teaching
under Mother Winifred's direction. A little revolt awoke in her. She
could not do that; and she began to think what would happen to her
when she left the convent. There would not be money enough left her to
sit down in a small flat and do nothing; she would have to work. Well,
she would have to do that in any case, for idleness was not natural to
her, and she would have to work for somebody besides herself--for her
poor people--and this she could do by giving singing lessons. Where?
In Dulwich? But to go back to the house in which she lived her life,
to the room which used to be hung with the old instruments, and to
revive her mother's singing classes? No, she could not begin her life
from exactly the same point at which she left off. And gradually the
project formed in her mind of a new life, a life which would be at
once new and old. And the project seemed to take shape as she wrote
the last pages of her memoir of the late Prioress.

"It is done, and I have got a right to my own manuscript; they cannot
take that from me." And she went into the sacristy, her manuscript in
her hand.

The cool, sweet room seemed empty, and Veronica emerged from the
shadow, almost a shadow. There were two windows, lattice panes, and
these let the light fall upon the counter, along which the vestments
were kid for the priest. The oak press was open, and it exhaled an
odour of orris root and lavender, and Veronica, standing beside it, a
bunch of keys at her girdle, once more reminded Evelyn of the
mediaeval virgin she had seen in the Rhenish churches.

"I have finished collecting your aunt's papers."

"And now you are going to leave us?"

There was a sob in the girl's voice, and all Evelyn's thoughts about
her seemed to converge and to concentrate. There was the girl before
her who passed through life without knowing it, interested in putting
out the vestments for an old priest, hiding his amice so that no other
hands but hers should touch it; this and the dream of an angel who
visited her in sleep and whose flesh was filled with luminous tints
constituted all she knew of life, all she would ever know. There were
tears in her eyes now, there was a sob in her voice; she would regret
her friend for a day, for a week, and then the convent life would draw
about her like great heavy curtains. Evelyn remembered how she had
told her of a certain restlessness which kept her from her prayers;
she remembered how she had said to her, "It will pass, everything will
pass away." She would become an old nun, and would be carried to the
graveyard just as her aunt had been. When would that happen? Perhaps
not for fifty years. Sooner or later it would happen. And Evelyn
listened to Veronica saying the convent would never be the same
without her, saying:

"Once you leave us you will never come back."

"Yes, I shall, Veronica; I shall come once or twice to see you."

"Perhaps it would be better for you not to come at all," the girl
cried, and turned away; and then going forward suddenly as Evelyn was
about to leave the sacristy, she said:

"But when are you leaving? When are you leaving?"

"To-morrow; there is no reason why I should wait any longer."

"We cannot part like this." And she put down the chalice, and the
women went into a chill wind; the pear-trees were tossing, and there
were crocuses in the bed and a few snowdrops.

"You had better remain until the weather gets warmer; to leave in this
bleak season! Oh, Sister, how we shall miss you! But you were never
like a nun."

They walked many times to and fro, forgetful of the bleak wind
blowing.

"It must be so, you were never like a nun. Of course we all knew, I at
least knew ... only we are sorry to lose you."

The next day a carriage came for Evelyn. The nuns assembled to bid
her goodbye; they were as kind as their ideas allowed them to be, but,
of course, they disapproved of Evelyn going, and the fifteen hundred
pounds she left them did not seem to reconcile them to her departure.
It certainly did not reconcile Mother Winifred, who refused to come
down to wish her goodbye, saying that Evelyn had deceived them by
promising to remain, or at all events led them to think she would stay
with them until the school was firmly established. Mother Philippa
apologised for her, but Evelyn said it was not necessary.

"After all, what Mother Winifred says is the truth, only I could not
do otherwise. Now, goodbye, I'll come to see you again, may I not?"

They did not seem very anxious on this point, and Evelyn thought it
quite possible she might never see the convent again, which had meant
so much to her and which was now behind her. Her thoughts were already
engaged in the world towards which she was going, and thinking of the
etiolated hands of the nuns she remembered the brown hands of her poor
people; it was these hands that had drawn her out of the convent, so
she liked to think; and it was nearly the truth, not the whole truth,
for that we may never know.




CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE


The blinds of 27, Berkeley Square were always down, and when Sir
Owen's friends called the answer was invariably the same: "No news of
Sir Owen yet; his letters aren't forwarded; business matters are
attended to by Mr. Watts, the secretary." And Sir Owen's friends went
away wondering when the wandering spirit would die in him.

It was these last travels, extending over two years, in the Far East,
that killed it; Owen felt sure of that when he entered his house, glad
of its comfort, glad to be home again; and sinking into his armchair
he began to read his letters, wondering how he should answer the
different invitations, for every one was now more than six months old,
some going back as far as eighteen months. It seemed absurd to write
to Lady So-and-so, thanking her for an invitation so long gone by. All
the same, he would like to see her, and all his friends, the most
tedious would be welcome now. He tore open the envelopes, reading the
letters greedily, unsuspicious of one amongst them which would make
him forget the others--a letter from Evelyn. It came at last under his
hand, and having glanced through it he sank back in his chair,
overcome, not so much by surprise that she had left her convent as at
finding that the news had put no great gladness into his heart,
rather, a feeling of disappointment.

"How little one knows about oneself!" But he wasn't sorry she had left
the convent. A terrible result of time and travel it would be if his
first feeling on opening her letter were one of disappointment. He was
sorry she had been disappointed, and thought for a long time of that
long waste of life, five years spent with nuns. "We are strange
beings, indeed," he said. And getting up, he looked out the place she
wrote from, discovering it to be a Surrey village, probably about
thirty miles from London, with a bad train service; and having sent a
telegram asking if it would suit her for him to go down to see her
next day, he fell back in his chair to think more easily how his own
life had been affected by Evelyn's retreat from the convent; and again
he experienced a feeling of disappointment. "A long waste of life, not
only of her life, but of mine," for he had travelled thousands of
miles ... to forget her? Good heavens, no! What would his life be
without remembrance of Evelyn? He had come home believing himself
reconciled to the loss of Evelyn, and willing to live in memories of
her--the management of his estate a sufficient interest for his life,
and his thoughts were already engaged in the building of a new
gatehouse; after all, Riversdale was his business, and he had come
home to work for his successor while cherishing a dream--wasn't it
strange? But this letter had torn down his dream and his life was
again in pieces. Would he ever be at rest while she was abroad? Would
it not have been better for them both if she had remained in her
convent? The thought seemed odiously selfish. If she were to read his
disappointment on hearing that she was no longer in the convent?...
Telepathy! There were instances! And his thoughts drifted away, and he
seemed to lose consciousness of everything, until he was awakened by
the butler bringing back her reply.

Now he would see her in twenty-four hours, and hear from her lips a
story of adventure, for it is an adventure to renounce the world, the
greatest, unless a return to the world be a greater. She had known
both; and it would be interesting to hear her tell both stories--if
she could tell her stories; she might only be half aware of their
interest and importance.

"God only knows what she is like now! A wreck, a poor derelict woman,
with no life to call her own. The life of an actress which I gave her,
and which was so beautiful, wrecked; and the life of a nun, which she
insisted on striving after, wrecked." A cold, blighting sorrow like a
mist came up, it seemed to penetrate to his very bones, and he asked
why she had left the convent--of what use could she be out of it?...
only to torment him again. Twenty times during the course of the
evening and the next morning he resolved not to go to see her, and as
many times a sudden desire to see her ripped up his resolution; and he
ordered the brougham. "Five years' indulgence in vigils and
abstinences, superstitions must have made a great change in her;
utterly unlike the Evelyn Innes whom I discovered years ago in
Dulwich, the beautiful pagan girl whom I took away to Paris." He was
convinced. But anxious to impugn his conviction, he took her letter
from his pocket, and in it discovered traces, which cheered him, of
the old Evelyn.

"She must have suffered terribly on finding herself obliged after five
years to retreat, and something of the original spirit was required
for her to fight her way out, for, of course, she was opposed at every
moment."

The little stations went by one by one: the train stopped nine or ten
times before it reached the penultimate.

"In the next few minutes I shall see her. She is sure to come to the
station to meet me. If she doesn't I'll go back--what an end that
would be! A strange neighbourhood to choose. Why did she come here?
With whom is she living? In a few minutes I shall know."

The train began to slacken speed. "Why, there she is on the platform."
The train rushed by her, the first-class carriages stopping at the
other end; and, calling to the porter to take his bag out of the
carriage, he sprang out, tall and thin. "Like one who had never had
the gout," she said, as she hurried to meet him, smiling, so
intimately did his appearance bring back old times. "He is so like
himself, and better dressed than I am; the embroidered waistcoat still
goes in at the waist; and he still wears shirts with mauve stripes.
But he is a good deal greyer ... and more wrinkled than I am."

"So it is you, Evelyn. Let me look at you." And, holding both her
hands, he stood looking into the face which he had expected to find so
much changed that he hardly found it changed at all, his eyes passing
over, almost without notice, the white hairs among the red, and the
wrinkles about the eyes and forehead, which, however, became more
apparent when she smiled. His touch was more conclusive of
disappointment than his eyes; her hands seemed harder than they used
to be, the knuckles had thickened, and, not altogether liking his
scrutiny, she laughed, withdrawing her hands.

"Where is your valet, Owen?"

It was then that he saw that her teeth had aged a little, yellowed a
little; a dark spot menaced the loss of one of the eye-teeth if not
attended to at once. But her figure seemed the same, and to get a back
view he dropped his stick. No, the convent had not bent her; a tall,
erect figure was set off to advantage by a dark blue linen dress, and
the small, well-reared head and its roll of thick hair by the blue
straw hat trimmed with cornflowers.

"Her appearance is all right; the vent must be in her mind," he said,
preparing himself for a great disillusionment as soon as their talk
passed out of the ordinary ruts.

"My valet? I didn't bring him. You might not be able to put him up."

"I shouldn't."

"But is there any one to carry my bag? I'll carry it myself if you
don't live too far from here."

"About a mile. We can call at the inn and tell them to send a fly for
your bag--if you don't mind the walk."

"Mind the walk--and you for companionship? Evelyn, dear, it is
delightful to find myself walking with you, and in the country," he
added, looking round.

"The country is prettier farther on."

Owen looked round without, however, being able to give his attention
to the landscape.

"Prettier farther on? But how long have you been here?"

"Nearly two years now. And you--when did you return?"

"How did you know I was away?"

"You didn't write."

"I returned yesterday."

"Yesterday? You only read yesterday my letter written six months ago."

"We have so much to talk about, Evelyn, so much to learn from each
other."

"The facts will appear one by one quite naturally. Tell me, weren't
you surprised to hear I had left the convent? And tell me, weren't you
a little disappointed?"

"Disappointed, my dear Evelyn? Should I have wired to you, and come
down here if----. It seemed as if the time would never pass."

"I don't mean that you aren't glad to see me. I can see you are. But
admit that you were disappointed that I hadn't succeeded----"

"I see what you mean. Well, I was disappointed that you were
disappointed; I admit so much." And, walking up the sunny road, he
wondered how it was that she had been able to guess what his thoughts
were on reading her letter. After all, he was not such a brute as he
had fancied himself, and her divination relieved his mind of the fear
that he lacked natural feeling, since she had guessed that a certain
feeling of disappointment was inevitable on hearing that she had not
been able to follow the chosen path. But how clever of her! What
insight!

"I hope you don't misunderstand. I cannot put into words the
pleasure----"

"I quite understand. Even if we turn out of our path sometimes, we
don't like others to vacillate ... conversions, divagations, are not
sympathetic."

"Quite true. The man who knows, or thinks he knows, whither he is
going commands our respect, and we are willing to follow----"

"Even though he is the stupider?"

"Which is nearly always." And they ceased talking, each agreeably
surprised by the other's sympathy.

It was on his lips to say, "We are both elderly people now, and must
cling to each other." But no one cares to admit he is elderly, and he
did not speak the words for his sake and for hers, and he refrained
from asking her further questions about the convent; for he had come
to see a woman, loved for so many years, and who would always be loved
by him, and not to gratify his curiosity; he asked why she had chosen
this distant country to live in.

"Distant country? You call this country distant? You, who have only
just come back----"

"Returned yesterday from the Amur."

"From the Amur? I thought I was _the_ amour."

"So you are. I am speaking now of a river in Manchuria."

"Manchuria? But why did you go there?"

"Oh, my dear Evelyn, we have so much to tell each other that it seems
hopeless. Can you tell me why you--no, don't answer, don't try to tell
why you went to the convent; but tell me why you came to live in this
neighbourhood?"

"Well, the land is very cheap here, and I wanted a large piece of
ground."

"Oh, so you've settled here?"

"Yes; I've built a cottage.... But I haven't been able to lay the
garden out yet."

"Built a cottage?"

"What is there surprising in that?"

"Only this, that I returned home resolved to do some building at
Riversdale--a gate lodge," and he talked to her of the gate lodge he
had in mind, until he became aware of the incongruity. "But I didn't
come here to talk to you of gate lodges. Tell me, Evelyn, how do you
spend your time?"

"I go to town every morning to teach singing; I have singing-classes."

"So you are a singing-mistress now. Well, everything comes round at
last. Your mother----"

"Yes, everything comes round again," she said, sighing; "and the
neighbourhood isn't inconvenient. There is a good train in the morning
and a good train in the evening; the one you came by is a wretched
one, but if you had come by the later train you would have seen less
of me. You're not sorry?"

"My dear Evelyn, don't be affected. I'm trying to take it all in. You
have retreated from the convent, and are now a singing-mistress. Have
you lost your voice?"

"I'm afraid a good deal of it." And, pointing with her parasol, she
said, "There is the inn; I will tell them to fetch your bag."

As she went towards the "Stag and Hounds" he congratulated himself
that the earlier woman still subsisted in the later, there could be no
doubt of that, and in sufficient proportion for her to create a new
life, and out of nothing but her own wits, for if she had escaped from
the convent with her intelligence, or part of it, she hadn't escaped
with her money; the nuns had got her money safe enough. She would be
loth to admit it, but it could not be otherwise. So out of her own
wits she had negotiated the purchase of a large piece of ground (she
had said a large piece), and built a cottage, and a very pretty
cottage too, he was sure of that; and his face assumed a blank
expression, for he was away with her in some past time, in the midst
of an architectural discussion. But returning gradually from this
happy past, her intelligence seemed to him like some strong twine or
wire! "How clever of her to have discovered this country where land
was cheap!" And he looked round, seeing its beauty because she lived
in it. Above all, to have found work to do, no easy matter when one
has torn oneself and one's past to shreds, as she had done. No doubt
she was making quite a nice little income by teaching; and, in
increasing admiration, he walked round the dusty inn and the
triangular piece of grass in front of it. A game of bat-and-trap was
in progress, and he conceived a love for that old English game, though
till now he thought it stupid and vulgar. The horse-pond appealed to
him as a picturesque piece of water, and, standing back from it, he
admired the rows of trees on the further bank--pollards of some
kind--and, still more, the reflections of these trees in the dark
green water; and his eyes followed the swallows, dipping and gliding
through the moveless air. A spire showed between the trees, a girl and
some children were gathering wild flowers in the hedgerows. How like
England! But here was Evelyn!

"Did you ever see a more beautiful evening? And aren't you glad that
the evening in which I see you again is--one would like to call it
beatific, only I don't like the word; it reminds me of the convent you
have left."

"One goes away in order that one may return home, Owen."

"Quite true; and all my travels were necessary for me to admire your
long, red road winding gracefully up the hillside between tall
hedges, full of roses, convolvulus, and ivy, under trees throwing a
pleasant shade." And coming suddenly upon an extraordinary fragrance,
he threw up his head, and, with dilated nostrils, cried out,
"Honeysuckle!"

"Yes, isn't it sweet?" she said. And, standing under a cottage porch,
he thought of the days gone by; and their memory was as overpowering
as the vine.

"I have brought you no present."

"Owen, you only returned yesterday."

"All the same, I should have brought you something. A bunch of wild
flowers I can give you, and I will begin my nosegay with a branch of
this honeysuckle. There are dog-roses in the hedges. I used to send
you expensive flowers, but times have changed." And he insisted on
returning to the brook, having seen, so he said, some forget-me-nots
among the sedges. And with these and some sprays of a little pink
flower, which he told her was the cuckoo-flower, they walked, telling
and asking each other the names of different wayside weeds till they
arrived at the cottage.

"There is my cottage."

And Owen saw, some twenty or thirty yards from the roadside, the white
gables of a cottage thrusting over against a space of blue sky.
Flights of swallows flew shrieking past, and the large elms on the
right threw out branches so invitingly that Owen thought of long hours
passed in the shade with books and music; but, despite these shady
elms, the cottage wore a severe air--a severe cottage it was, if a
cottage can be severe. Owen was glad Evelyn hadn't forgotten a
verandah.

"A verandah always suggests a creole. But there is no creole in you."

"You wouldn't have thought my cottage severe if you hadn't known that
I had come from a convent, Owen. You like it, all the same."

Owen fell to praising the cottage which he didn't like.

"On one thing I did insist--that the hall was to be the principal
room. What do you think of it? And tell me if you like the
chimney-piece. There are going to be seats in the windows. Of course,
I haven't half finished furnishing." And she took him round the room,
telling how lucky she had been picking up that old oak dresser with
handles, everything complete for five pounds ten, and the oak settle
standing in the window for seven.

"I can't consider the furniture till I have put these flowers in
water." So he fetched a vase and filled it, and when his nosegay had
been sufficiently admired, he said, "But, Evelyn, I must give you some
flower-vases.... And you have no writing-table."

"Not a very good one. You see, I have had to buy so many things."

"You must let me give you one. The first time you come up to London we
will go round the shops."

"You'll want to buy me an expensive piece, unsuitable to my cottage,
won't you, Owen?" She led him through the dining-room past the
kitchen, into which they peeped.

"Eliza's cooking an excellent dinner!" he said. And they went through
the kitchen into the garden.

"You see what a piece of ground I have. We are enclosing it." And Owen
saw two little boys painting a paling. "Now, do you like the green? It
was too green, but this morning I put a little yellow into it; it is
better now." They walked round the acre of rough ground overlooking
the valley, Owen saying that Evelyn was quite a landed proprietor.

"But who are these boys? You have quite a number," he said, coming
upon three more digging, or trying to dig.

"They are digging the celery-bed."

"But one is a hunchback, he can't do much work; and that one has a
short leg; the third boy seems all right, but he isn't more than seven
or eight. I am afraid you won't have very much celery this year." They
passed through the wicket into the farther end of Evelyn's domain,
which part projected on the valley, and there they came upon two more
children, one of whom was blind.

"This poor child--what work can he do?"

"You'd be surprised; and his ear is excellent. We're thinking of
putting him to piano-tuning."

"We are thinking?"

"Yes, Owen; these little boys live here with me in the new wing. I'm
afraid they are not very comfortable there, but they don't complain."

"Seven little crippled boys, whom you look after!"

"Six--the seventh is my servant's son; he is delicate, but he isn't a
cripple. We don't call him her son here, she is nominally his aunt."

"You look after these boys, and go up to London to earn their living?"

"I earn sufficient to run my little establishment."

As they returned to the cottage, one of the boys thrust his spade into
the ground.

"Please, miss, may we stay up a little longer this evening? It won't
be dark till nine or half-past, miss."

"Yes, you can stay up." And Owen and Evelyn went into the house. "I
do hope, Owen, that Eliza's cooking will not seem to you too utterly
undistinguished."

"You have forgotten, Evelyn, that I have been living on hunter's fare
for the last two years."

At that moment Eliza put the soup-tureen on the table.

"Why, the soup is excellent! An excellent soup, Eliza!"

"There is a chicken coming, Sir Owen, and Miss Innes told me to be
sure to put plenty of butter on it before putting it into the oven,
that that was the way you liked it cooked."

"I am glad you did, Eliza; the buttering of the chicken is what we
always overlook in England. We never seem to understand the part that
good butter plays in cooking; only in England does any one talk of
such a thing as cooking-butter." And he detained Eliza, who fidgeted
before him, thinking of the vegetables waiting in the kitchen, of what
a strange man he was, while he told her that his cook, a Frenchman,
always insisted on having his butter from France, costing him, Owen,
nearly three shillings a pound.

"Law, Sir Owen!" And Eliza went back to the kitchen to fetch her
vegetables, and Evelyn laughed, saying:

"You have succeeded in impressing her."

"You have cooked the chicken excellently well, Eliza, and the butter
you used must have been particularly good," he said, when the servant
returned with the potatoes and brussels sprouts. But he was anxious
for her to leave the room so that he might ask Evelyn if she
remembered the chickens they used to eat in France.

"Evelyn, dear, shall we ever be in France again?"

"My poor little boys, what would happen to them while I was away? For
you, who care about sweets, Owen, I'm afraid Eliza will seem a little
behind the times; afraid of a failure, we decided on a rice pudding."

"Excellent; I should like nothing better."

Owen was in good humour, and she asked him if he had brought something
to smoke--a cigar.

"Some cigarettes. I have given up smoking cigars, stinking things!"

"But you used to be so fond of cigars, Owen?"

"Oh, a long time ago. Didn't you notice that man in the trap in front
of us as we came from the station? That vile cigar, the whole evening
smelt of it."

"My dear Owen!"

Then he got up from the table and went to the piano and waited there
for Evelyn, who was talking to Eliza about the purchase of another bed
and where it should be placed in the dormitory, a matter so trivial
that a dozen words should suffice to settle it, so he thought; but
they kept on talking, and when Eliza left the room she took up some
coarse sewing. To bring her to the piano he struck a few notes,
saying:

"The Muses are awake, Evelyn."

"No, Owen, no; I am in no mood for singing." When he asked her if she
never sang, the answer was, "Sometimes I go to the piano when I am
restless; I sing a little, yes, a little into my muff; you know what I
mean. But this evening I would sooner talk. You said we had so much to
talk about." He admitted she knew what his feelings were better than
he knew them himself. It would be a pity to waste this evening in
music (this evening was consecrate to themselves), and from talking of
Elizabeth and Isolde they drifted into remembrances of the old days so
dear to him. But he had always reproached Evelyn with a fault, a
certain restlessness; it was rare for her to settle herself down to a
nice quiet chat, and this was a serious fault in a woman, a fault in
everybody, for a nice quiet chat is one of the best things in life. He
was prone to admit, however, that when the mood for a chat was upon
her nobody could talk or listen as she could by a fireside. Yielding
to her humour, like a bird she would talk on and on with an enthusiasm
and an interest in what she was saying which made her a wonder and a
delight; and seeing that by some good fortune he had come upon her in
one of these rare humours, he did not regret her refusal to sing, and
watched her at his feet listening to him with an avidity which was
enchanting, making him feel that there was nothing in the world but he
and she. She had once said, enchanting him with the admission, for it
was so true, that if she were alone with a man for an evening he must
hate her very much if he was not to fall in love with her. On
reminding her of her saying she admitted that she had forgotten it. It
seemed to him that his dead mistress had come to life again. Her eyes
shone with something of their old light, and he said to himself, "The
convent has faded out of her mind and out of her face."
Interpenetrated with her sweet atmosphere, which had for ever haunted
him, he breathed like one who hears music going by. Every moment was a
surprise. The next great surprise being the discovery that the convent
had not quelled the daring of her thought--it came and went
swallow-like, as before.

"Because there were no men in the convent. Though I am virtuous, Owen,
and must remain so, I can't live without men. If I am deprived of
men's society for a few days I wilt."

The picture of herself painted in these few words, Evelyn wilting amid
the treble of the nuns like a plant in an uncongenial soil, delighted
Owen, enabling him to forget the sad fact that she was virtuous and
would have to remain so. For she was still his Evelyn, a hero
worshipper, with man for her hero always, even though it were a
priest. A moment of the thought caused him a sigh, but he was in the
seventh heaven when she told him the first letter she had written when
she left the convent was for him. He had maligned her in thinking the
past had no meaning for her. For who was so faithful to her friends?
Again he forgot everything but himself sitting by her, seeing her
bright eyes, listening to her voice, absorbed by her atmosphere; and
talking and listening by turns he was carried away in a delicious
oblivion of everything except the sensation of the moment. It seemed
to him like floating down the current of some enchanted river; but
even in enchanted rivers there are eddies, otherwise the enchantment
of the current and the flowery banks under which it flows would become
monotonous, and presently Owen was caught in an eddy. The stream
flowed gaily while he told her of his experiences in the desert; she
was interested in the gazelles and in the eagles, though qualifying
the sport as cruel, and in his synthesis of the desert--a desire for a
drink of clean water. Nor did she resent his allusion to his meeting
with Ulick at Dowlands, interrupting him, however, to tell him that
Ulick had married Louise.

"Married Louise!"

Louise! What an evocation of past times was in this name And their
talk passed into a number of little sallies.

"Well, he'll spend a great deal of her money for her."

"No, he is doing pretty well for himself."

It seemed like listening to a fairy tale to hear that Ulick was doing
very well for himself; and travelling back to the convent, by those
mysterious roads which conversation follows, Owen learned that it was
at the end of the first year of her postulancy that Evelyn had heard
of her father's illness. Up to that moment he had not noticed a change
in her humour, not until he began to question her as to her reason for
suddenly returning from Rome to the convent. It was then that a
strange look came into her face; she got up from her chair and walked
about the room, gloomy and agitated, sitting down in a corner like one
overcome, whelmed in some extraordinary trouble. When he went to her
she crossed the room, settling herself in another corner, tucking
herself away into it. His question had awakened some terrific memory;
and perforce he did not dare to ask her what her trouble was, none
that she could confide to him, that was clear, and he began to think
that it would be better to leave her for a while. He could go out and
speak with the little boys, for a memory like the one which had laid
hold of her must pass away suddenly, and his absence would help to
pass it. If she were not better when he returned it would be well for
him to seek some excuse to sleep at the inn, for her appearance in the
corner frightened him; and standing by the window, looking into the
quiet evening, he railed against his folly. Any one but himself would
have guessed that there was some grave reason for her life in the
convent. Such an end as this to the evening that had begun so well!
"My God, what am I to do!" And, turning impulsively, he was about to
fling himself at her feet, beseeching of her to confide her trouble,
but something in her appearance prevented him and in dismay he
wondered what he had said to provoke such a change. What had been said
could not be unsaid, the essential was that the ugly thought upon her
like some nightmare should be forgotten. Now what could he say to win
her out of this dreadful gloom? If he were to play something!

A very few bars convinced him that music would prove no healer to her
trouble. To lead her thoughts out of this trouble--was there no way?
What had they been talking about? The bullfinches which she had taught
to whistle the motives of "The Ring"; but such a laborious occupation
could only have been undertaken for some definite purpose, to preserve
her sanity, perhaps, and it would be natural for a woman to resent any
mention of mental trouble such as she had suffered from on her return
from Rome. Something had happened to her in Rome--what? And he sat for
a long time, or what seemed to him a long time, perplexed, fearing to
speak lest he might say something to irritate her, prolonging her
present humour.

"If I had only known, Evelyn, if I had only known!" he said, unable to
resist the temptation of speech any longer. As she did not answer he
added, after a moment's pause, "I think I shall go out and talk to
those boys." But on his way to the door he stopped. "I wish that brig
had gone down."

"That brig? What do you mean?"

"The boat which took me round the world and brought me back, and which
I am going to sell, my travelling days being over." Seeing she was
interested, he continued to tell her how the _Medusa_ had been
declared no longer seaworthy, and of his purchase of another yacht.

"But you said you wished the brig had gone down."

And, seizing the pretext, he began to tell her of the first thing that
came into his head; how he had sailed some thousands of miles from the
Cape to the Mauritius, explaining the mysteries of great circle
sailing, and why they had sailed due south, though the Mauritius was
in the north-west, in order that they might catch the trade winds.
Before reaching these there were days when the sailors did little else
but shift the sails, trying to catch every breeze that fluttered about
them, tacking all the while, with nothing to distract them but the
monotonous albatross. The birds would come up the seas, venturing
within a few yards of the vessel, and float away again, becoming mere
specks on the horizon. Again the specks would begin to grow larger,
and the birds would return easily on moveless wings.

"When one hears the albatross flies for thousands of miles one wonders
how it could do this without fatigue; but one wonders no longer when
one has seen them fly, for they do not weary themselves by moving
their wings, their wings never move, they float month after month
until the mating instinct begins to stir in them, and then in couples
they float down the seas to the pole. There is nothing so wonderful as
the flight of a bird; and it seemed to me that I never could weary of
watching it. But I did weary of the albatross, and one night, after
praying that I might never see one again, I was awakened by the
pitching of the vessel, by the rattling of ropes, and the clashing of
the blocks against swaying spars. I had been awakened before by storms
at sea. You remember, Evelyn, when I returned to Dulwich--I had been
nearly wrecked off the coast of Marseilles?" Evelyn nodded. "But the
sensation was not like anything I had ever experienced at sea before,
and interested and alarmed I climbed, catching a rope, steadying
myself, reaching the poop somehow."

"'We're in the trades, Sir Owen!' the man at the helm shouted to me.
'We're making twelve or fourteen knots an hour; a splendid wind!'

"The sails were set and the vessel leaned to starboard, and then the
rattle of ropes began again and the crashing of the blocks as she
leaned over to port. Such surges, you have no idea, Evelyn,
threatening the brig, but slipping under the keel, lifting her to the
crest of the wave. Caught by the wind for a moment she seemed to be
driven into the depths, her starboard grazing the sea or very nearly.
The spectacle was terrific; the lone stars and the great cloud of
canvas, the whole seeming such a little thing beneath it, and no one
on deck but the helmsman bound to the helm, and well for him--a slip
would have cost him his life, he would have been carried into the sea.
An excellent sailor, yet even he was alarmed at the canvas we carried,
so he confided to me; but my skipper knew his business, a first-rate
man that skipper, the best sailor I have ever met. There are few like
him left, for the art of sailing is nearly a lost art, and the
difficulty of getting men who can handle square sails is
extraordinary. But this one, the last of an old line, came up, crying
out quite cheerfully, 'Sir Owen, we're in luck indeed to have caught
the trades so soon.'

"Day after day, night after night, we flew like a seagull. 'Record
sailing,' my skipper often cried to me, telling me the number of knots
we had made in the last four-and-twenty hours."

"And the albatrosses, I hope you didn't catch one?"

"One day the skipper suggested that we should, the breast feathers
being very beautiful; and, the wind having slackened a little, a hook
was baited with a piece of salt pork, which the hungry bird seized. As
soon as he was drawn on board he flapped about more helpless than
anything I have ever seen, falling into everything he could fall into,
biting several of the crew. You know the sonnet in which Baudelaire
compares the bird on the wing to the poet with the Muse beside him and
the albatross on deck to the poet in the drawing-room. You remember
the sonnet, how the sailors teased the bird with their short black
pipes."

"But the breast feathers?"

"We didn't kill the bird; I wouldn't allow him to be killed. We threw
him overboard, and down into the sea he went like a log."

Evelyn asked if he were drowned.

"Albatrosses don't drown. He swam for a time and fluttered, and at
last succeeded in getting on the wing. I was very glad to see him
float away, and was still more glad a few minutes afterwards, for
before the bird was out of sight a sign appeared in the heavens, and I
began to think of the story of 'The Ancient Mariner.' You know--"

"Yes, I know the story, how all his misfortunes arose from the killing
of an albatross. But what was the sign?"

"A dull yellow like a rainbow, only more pointed, and my skipper said
to me, 'Sir Owen, that is one of them hurricanes; if I knew which way
she was going I'd try to get out of the way as fast as I could, for we
shall be torn to pieces in a very few minutes.' I assure you it was an
anxious moment watching that red, yellow light in the sky; it grew
fainter, and eventually disappeared, and the skipper said, 'We have
just missed it.' A few days afterwards we came into the Mauritius, and
the first thing we saw was a great vessel in the ports, her iron masts
twisted and torn just like hairpins, Evelyn. She had been caught in
the tornado, a great three-masted vessel.... We should have gone down
like an open boat."

"And after you left the Mauritius your destination was--"

"Borneo, Sumatra, the Malay Archipelago." "But what were you seeking
in the Malay Archipelago?" "What does one ever seek? One seeks, no
matter what; and, not being able to see you, Evelyn, I thought I would
try to see everything in the world."

"But there is nothing to see in Borneo?"

"Well, you will laugh when I tell you, but it seemed to me that I'd
like to see the orang-outang in his native forests. I had been to
Greece, and I knew the Italian Renaissance--"

"And after so much art to see an orang-outang in a tree would be a new
experience, Owen."

"Soon there will be no more higher apes, if medical science continues
to progress; no more gorillas or chimpanzees."

"In a world without gorillas life will not be worth living. I quite
understand."

Owen laughed.

"I should be sorry for anything to disappear. The poor mother is
speared, for she will fight for her little one; ugly as he may be in
our eyes he is beautiful in hers."

"But you didn't do this, Owen?"

"No; after two or three days in a forest one wearies of it; and after
all it wasn't very likely that I should have got a snapshot. The
camera is my weapon."

"And after the orang-outang which you failed to meet?"

"I spent some time in Japan."

"And then?"

"Well, then, I went to Manchuria, to the Amur, a country almost
forgotten." And he told her how the eagles drove the wild sheep over
the precipices, and of a wolf hunt with eagles.

"You have seen now everything the world has to show?"

"Very nearly, and after seeing it all I come back to the one thing
that interests me."

Tears rose to Evelyn's eyes; such an avowal of love a woman hardly
ever hears.

The voices of the children playing in the garden reached their ears,
and Evelyn said:

"They should have been in bed long ago, but, Owen, your being here
makes everything so exceptional."

"Really? I'm glad of that," he answered shyly, fearing to say anything
which would carry her thoughts back among unpleasant memories. But it
was quite safe to speak of her love of the poor, and of poor children.
"What inspired you to start this home, Evelyn?"

"Well, you see, I had to have something to work for, some interest;
and not having any children of my own.... They really must go to bed."

"But, Evelyn, why will you interrupt our talk? Let us go on talking;
tell me about the convent. Your adventures are so much more wonderful
than mine. You haven't half told me what there is to tell--the
Prioress and the sub-Prioress, you never liked her?"

A smile gathered about her lips, and he asked her what she was smiling
at; and it was with some difficulty he persuaded her to tell him about
Sister Winifred and Father Daly.

"Counterparts! counterparts!" he said. "And Cecilia giving the whole
show away because her counterpart was a dwarf! How could you live
among such babies?"

"After all, Owen, are they any more babies than we are? Our interests
are just as unreal."

"Your interest here is not as unreal; their hope is to build a wall of
prayer between a sinful world and the wrath of God. Such silliness
passes out of perception."

"Your perception? We come into the world with different perceptions;
but do not let us drift into argument, not this evening, Owen."

"Quite so, let us not drift into argument.... I am sorry you charged
me with being disappointed that you didn't remain in the convent; you
see I didn't know of the wonderful work you were doing here. Your
kindness is more than a nun's kindness." But he feared his casual
words might provoke her, and hastened to ask her about Sister
Winifred, at length persuading her into the admission that Sister
Winifred used to whip the children.

"I'm sure she liked whipping them. Women who shut themselves out from
life develop cruelty. I can quite understand how she would like to
hear them cry."

"Tell me more about the nuns."

"No, Owen, I wouldn't speak ill of the nuns. Don't press me to speak
ill of them. You don't know, Owen, what might have become of me had it
not been for the convent. I don't know what might have become of me. I
might have drifted away and nothing have ever been heard of me again."
A dark look gathered in her face, "vanishing like the shadow of a
black wing over a sunny surface," Owen said to himself. "Now what has
frightened her? Not her love of me, for that love she always looked
on as legitimate." He remembered how she used to cling to that view,
while admitting it to be contrary to the teaching of the Church. Did
she still cling to this belief? "Probably, for we do not change our
instinctive beliefs," he said, and longed to question her; but not
daring, and, thinking a lighter topic of conversation desirable, he
told her he would like to teach Eliza how to make coffee.

"There is only one way of making coffee," he said, and he had learned
the secret from a friend, who had always the best coffee. He had known
him as a bachelor, he had known him as a married man, and afterwards
as a divorced man, but in these different circumstances the coffee
remained the same. So he said, "My good friend how is it that your
cooks make equally good coffee?" And the friend answered that it was
himself who had taught every cook how to make coffee; it was only a
question of boiling water. And, still talking of the making of coffee,
they wandered into the garden and stood watching the little boys all
arow, their heads tucked in for Eliza's son to jump over them, and
they were laughing, enjoying their play, inspired, no doubt, by the
dusk and the mystery of yon great moon rising out of the end of the
grey valley.

"I'm afraid Jack will hurt the others, or tire them; they really must
go to bed. You'll excuse me, Owen, I shall be back with you in about
half an hour?"

He strolled through the wicket about the piece of waste ground,
thinking of the change that had come over her when he spoke of her
return from Rome. Possibly she had met Ulick in Rome and had fled from
him, or some other man. But he was not in the least curious to inquire
out her secret, sufficient it was for him to know that her mood had
passed. How suddenly it had passed! And how fortunate his mention of
the yacht! Her attention had suddenly been distracted, now she was as
charming as before ... gone to look after those little boys, to see
that their beds were comfortable, and that their night-shirts had
buttons on them. Every day in London their living was earned in
tiresome lessons to pupils who had no gift for singing, but had to be
encouraged for the sake of their money, which was spent on this
hillside.

"Such is the mysterious way of life. Our rewards are never those we
anticipate, but we are rewarded."

The money he had spent on her had brought her to this hillside to
attend on six cripples, destitute little boys. After all what better
reward could he have hoped for? But a great part of his love of her
had been lost. Never again would he take her hand or kiss her again.
So his heart filled with a natural sadness and a great tenderness,
and he stood watching the smoke rising from the cottagers' chimneys
straight into the evening air. She had told him that one of her little
boys had come from that village, and to hear how the child had been
adopted he must scramble down this rough path. The moment was
propitious for a chat with the cottagers, whom he would find sitting
at their doors, the men smoking their pipes, the women knitting or
gossiping, "the characteristic end of every day since the beginning of
the world," he said, "and it will be pleasant to read her portrait in
these humble minds."

"A fine evening, my man?"

"Fine enough, sir; the wheat rick will be up before the Goodwood
races, the first time for the last thirty years." And the talk turned
on the price of corn and on the coming harvest, and then on Miss
Innes, who sometimes came down to see them and sang songs for the
children.

"So she sings for the children? She used to do that in Italy."

"Has she been in Italy, sir?"

To interest them he told how Evelyn had sung in all the opera houses
of Europe; and then, fearing his confessions were indiscreet, he asked
the woman nearest him if she was the mother of the little boy Evelyn
had taken to live with her.

"No, sir, 'e is Mrs. Watney's son in the next cottage." And Owen moved
away to interrogate Mrs. Watney, who told him that her son was not a
cripple.

"'Is limbs be sound enough, only the poor little chap 'ad the
small-pox badly when he was four, and 'as been blind ever since. A
extraordinary 'appy child, and Miss Innes has promised to 'ave him
taught the pianna."

"A piano-tuner must have a good ear, and Miss Innes says his ear is
perfect. He'll whistle anything he hears."

Owen bade the cottagers good-night and climbed up the hillside again.
The lights were burning in the boy's dormitory, so Evelyn must still
be there, and finding a large stone among the rough ground where he
could sit he waited for her, interested in the round moon, looking
like the engraved dial of some great clock, and in the grey valley and
the sullen sky passing overhead into a dim blueness, in which he could
detect a star here and there. The evening hummed a little still, and
the sounds of voices, the last sounds to die out of a landscape,
became rare and faint. One by one the gossiping folk under the hill
crept within doors, and Owen was so absorbed by the silence that he
did not hear Evelyn approaching; and when she spoke he hardly
answered her, and she, as if participating already in his emotion,
stood by him, not asking for words from him, looking with him into the
solitude of the valley, seeking to see beyond the veils of blue mist
gathering and blotting out all detail, creeping up intimately tender.
What could he say to her worth saying at such a moment? he began to
ask himself; and just then a song came from a hawthorn growing by the
edge of the hill, a solitary song, mysterious and strange, a
passionate strain which freed their souls, till, walking about this
dusky hillside, the lovers seemed to lose their bodies and to become
all spirit; and they walked on in silence, speech seeming a sacrilege.

"So now you are going to settle down at Riversdale; your travels are
over?"

"Yes, they are over. I shall travel no more. I didn't find what I
sought."

"And what was that?"

And her words as she spoke them sounded to Owen passionate, tender,
and melancholy as the nightingale; and his words, too, seemed to
partake of the same passionate melancholy.

"Forgetfulness of you."

"So you wished to forget me? I am sorry."

"Sorry that I haven't forgotten you? That, Evelyn, is impossible for
me to believe; it isn't human to wish ourselves forgotten."

"No, Owen, I don't wish you to forget me, I am glad you have not; but
I am sorry there was any need for you to seek forgetfulness."

"And is there any need?"

"Yes, for the Evelyn you loved died years ago."

"Oh, Evelyn, don't say that; she is not dead?"

"Perhaps not altogether, a trace here and there, a slight flavour, but
not a woman who could bring you happiness as you understand happiness,
Owen."

"All the happiness I ever had I owe to you. How can I thank you for
those ten years?"

"But you paid for them with a great deal of sorrow."

"Had it not been for you, Evelyn, I shouldn't have lived at all. How
often have I told you that? I have seen all the world, and yet I have
only seen one thing in the world--you."

"Owen, you mustn't speak to me like that."

"While that bird is singing you are afraid to listen to me! How
passionately it sings, but how little it feels compared with what I am
feeling. Why did you say that the Evelyn of old is dead?"

"Well, Owen, don't you know that we are always dying, always changing.
You are in love, not with me, but with your memory of me."

"A great deal of my love is memory, of course, still--"

Words again seemed vain, foolish, even sacrilegious, so little could
he convey to her of what he believed to be the truth, and they walked
in silence through the fragrance of the soft night, thinking of the
colour of the sky, in which the sunset was not yet quite dead. His
memory of his love of this woman long ago in Dulwich, in Paris, and in
all the cities and scenes they had visited together, raised him above
himself; and he felt that her soul mingled with his in an ecstatic
sadness beyond words, but which the nightingale sang clearly; the
stars, too, sang it clearly; and they stood mute in the midst of the
immortal symphony about them. "Evelyn, I love you. How wonderful our
lives have been!" But what use to break the music, audible and
inaudible, with such weak words? The villagers under the hill could
speak as well; the bird in the bush and the stars above it were
speaking for him; and he was content to listen.

The silence of the night grew more intense, there were millions of
stars, small and great, and the moon now shone amidst them alone, "of
different birth," divided from them for ever as he was divided from
this woman, whose arm touched his as they walked through the darkness,
divided for ever, unable to communicate his soul to hers. Did she
understand what he was feeling--the mystery of their lives written in
the stars, sung by the nightingale and breathed by the flowers? Did
she understand? Had the convent rule left her sufficient sensibility
to understand such simple human truths?

"How sweetly the tobacco plant smells!" she said.

"Yes, doesn't it? But what is the meaning of our story? My finding you
at Dulwich--Evelyn, have you ever thought enough about it? How
extraordinary that event was, extraordinary as the stars above us; my
going down that evening and hearing you sing? Do you remember the look
with which you greeted me--do you remember that cup of tea?"

"It was coffee."

"And then all our meetings in the garden under the cedar-tree?"

"You used to say we looked like a picture by Marcus Stone when we sat
under it."

"Never mind what we looked like. Think of it! Of our journey to Paris,
and my visit to Brussels to hear you sing."

"And Madame Savelli, who wouldn't let me speak to you; she said I
might tire my voice."

"Yes, how I hated her and Olive that day! You sang 'Elizabeth,' and
when you walked up, to the sound of flutes and clarionettes, seemingly
to the stars, there was something in the way you did it that put a
fear into my heart. It was all pre-destined from the beginning."

"So you believe, Owen, that the end is fated, and that I was created
to come back after many wanderings to help these poor little crippled
boys?"

"Is that the meaning of it all, Evelyn?"

"Maybe--who knows?--that meaning as well as another." And through the
dusk he could see her eyes shining with something of their old light.

"Was it fated from the beginning that I should only meet you here to
part with you again? Is that the meaning you read in the song of the
nightingale, in the stare of the moon and the perfume of the garden?
There is a meaning, Evelyn, in our lives for certain, but are you
reading it aright?"

For a moment the meaning of their lives seemed clear to them. Life had
a meaning! for a moment, they were both sure of it; they had met for
something, there was a design in life, and though they were separated
on earth they seemed to move in celestial circles, just as the stars
moved in that great design above them, each sphere rolling on, filled
with love for its sister sphere, guided and controlled each by the
other, yet always apart. Owen walked thinking how, billions of years
hence, all those lights might wax into one light, all souls to one
soul, all ends to one end. For one moment he might possess Evelyn's
soul as he had never been able to possess it on earth ... perhaps.

"I love you now just as much as I loved you before, perhaps more, for
there is memory to aid me."

"You are in love with memory, not with me."

Her words went to his heart, as the thorn of the rose is said to go to
the nightingale's heart, and, unable to answer her, he listened. "How
wonderfully the bird sings, the interpreter of the primal melancholy
from which we never escape ... since the beginning of time, its
interpreter."

"Is he telling his own story, or is he telling ours?"

"Both, for all love songs are as ours, made of the same intense
passionate melancholy. Why is love the most melancholy of all joys?
With what passionate melancholy he enchants her who is sitting in the
nest close by! The origin of art is sex; woman is a reed, and our
desire--"

"Hush! Listen to the nightingale! His discourse is better than yours."

"How absorbed he is in his song, stave after stave; he seems to say,
'You want more tunes? If that is all, you shall have more.' Hush! And
they listened to the rich warble, sounding so strange in the midst of
the lonely country. "A love-call of three notes, which he repeats
before passing into cadenzas. Hush!" The bird started again, and this
time as if encouraged by the success of his last efforts.

"What flutings! What trills! What runs! Pearls and jewels scattered.
Little tunes of three or four notes, casting a spell about the
hillside, followed by passionate cadenzas."

Another bird answered far away out of the stillness, the same sweet
strain it was; and listening, they seemed to hear the same strain
within their hearts--a silent, mysterious song. All the world seemed
singing the same sweet strain of melancholy, now when the moon passed
out of the dusk--shining high up in the heavens, with stars above and
beneath--Owen thought of some mysterious music-maker. Flocks of
various coloured stars, flaming Jupiter high up in the sky, red Mars
low down in the horizon, the Great Bear beautifully distinct, the
polar star at an angle--the star whereby Owen used to steer. All the
world seemed to be going to the same sweet strain; the soul, seemingly
freed, rose to the lips, and, in her pride, sought words wherewith to
tell the passionate melancholy of the night and of life. But the soul
could not tell it, only the nightingale, who, without knowing it, was
singing what the soul may only feel.

"The bird is telling me what your voice used to tell me long ago."

The lovers wandered through the garden, suffused with delicate scents,
and Owen told her of the legend of the nightingale and the swallow, a
legend coming down from some barbaric age, from a king called Pandion,
who, despite his wife's beauty, fell in love with her sister, and
ravished her in some town in Thessaly, the name of which Owen could
not remember. Fearing, however, that his lust would reach his wife's
ears, Pandion cut out the girl's tongue. This barbarous act, committed
before Greece was, had been redeemed by the Grecian spirit, which had
added that the girl, though without tongue to tell the cruel deed,
had, nevertheless, hands wherewith to weave it. The weft of her
misfortune only inspired another barbarous deed: Pandion killed both
sisters and his son Italus. Again the Grecian spirit touched the
legend, changing the tongueless girl into a swallow, a bird with a
little cry, and fleet wings to carry its cry all over the world, and
the unhappy wife into the bird "which sleeps all day and sings all
night." "Sophocles," Owen said, "speaks of the nightingale as moaning
all the night in ivy clusters, moaning or humming. A strange
expression his seems to us, our musical sense being different from
that of the antique world, if the antique world really possessed any
musical sense." The lovers wandered round the house, listening to the
bird's sweet singing, stopping at the hill's steep side so that they
might listen better.

"Now the bird is telling of sorrows other than ours--isn't that so,
Evelyn? I don't seem to recognise anything of ourselves in its song;
it is singing a new song."

"Perhaps," Evelyn answered, "now it is singing the sadness of the
mother under the hill for her son."

"I went to see her, she is not unhappy; she is happy that her son is
with you."

"But another child died last year; and for her, if she is listening,
the bird is certainly singing the death of that child."

When they had completed once more the round of the garden, the bird
seemed to have again changed his intervals; a gaiety seemed to have
come into his singing, and Owen said:

"Now his music is lighter; he is singing an inveigling little story,
the story of first love. Look, Evelyn, do you see that boy and girl
walking under the hedge with their arms entwined? They, too, have
stopped to listen to the nightingale, but the song they really hear
comes out of their own hearts."

Then the song changed, suddenly acquiring a strange, voluptuous
accent, which carried Owen's thoughts back to a night when he had been
awakened out of his sleep by a woman's voice singing, and, starting up
in bed, he had listened, rousing himself sufficiently from sleep to
distinguish that the voice he was listening to was Evelyn's. The song
was a love-call, and, believing it to be such, he had thrown aside the
curtain, and had found her leaning out of her window, singing the Star
Song, not to the evening star, as in the opera, but to the morning
star shining white like a diamond out of the dawning of the sky. The
valley under the castle walls was submerged in mist, and the distant
hillside was indistinguishable. The castle seemed to stand by the side
of some frozen sea, so intense was the silence. He had always looked
back upon this morning as one of the great moments of his life, and
going to her room like going to some great religious rite. Each man
must worship where he finds the Godhead.

"Who knows," he said to Evelyn, "that the bird in the nest close by
does not listen with the same rapture--"

"As you, in the box, used to listen to me on the stage? For the
comparison to hold good, I should have sung Italian music, roulades.
Listen to those cadenzas!"

"How melancholy are their gaieties!"

"Yes, aren't they?" she answered. "How poignant the two notes!--with
which _il commence son grand air_."

"But our love-call ended years ago," she said, with an accent of
regret in her voice. And they walked towards the house, Owen dreading
that some sudden impulse might throw her into his arms and her mind
might be unhinged again, and he would lose her utterly. So he spoke to
her of the first thing that came into her mind, and what came first
was a memory of Moschus's lament for Bion and the brevity of human
life as contrasted with the long life of the world.

"'The mallows wither in the garden, and the green parsley--' how does
it go?" And he tried to remember as they went upstairs. "'The mallows
wither in the garden--' no, that is not how it begins. 'Ah me! when
the mallows wither in the garden, and the green parsley, and the
curled tendrils of the anise, on a later day these live again and
spring in another year; but we men, we, the great and mighty, or wise,
when once we have died in the hollow earth we sleep, gone down into
silence, a right long and endless and unawakening sleep.'"

"Begin, ye Sicilian Muses, begin the Dirge!"

And Evelyn listened, saying, "How very beautiful! how very wonderful!"

"But you believe, Evelyn, that we do live again?"

"It is too late to argue that question; it is nearly midnight. I hope
you will like your room. Eliza has unstrapped your portmanteau, I see.
Your bed is comfortable, I think."

It surprised him that she should follow him into his room, and stand
there talking to him, talking even about the bed he was to sleep in.
It would have been easy to lay his hands upon her shoulder, saying,
"Evelyn, are we to be parted?" but something held him back. And he
listened to her story of the buying of the bed, hearing that it had
been forgotten in the interest excited by the rumour of certain
portfolios filled with engravings supposed to be of great value. The
wardrobe too, had been bought at the same auction, and he looked into
its panels, praising them.

"But you want more light." She went over and lighted the candles on
the dressing-table, accomplishing the duties of hostess quite
unconcerned, ignoring the past. "One would think she had forgotten
it," he said to himself. "Are we to part like this? But it is for her
to decide. So quiet, so self-contained; it doesn't seem even to occur
to her." He waited incapable of speech or action, paralysed, till she
bade him good-night. As soon as the door closed, or a moment after, he
began to realise his mistake. What he should have done was to lay his
hand upon her shoulder and lead her to the window-seat, and sit with
her there till a greyness came into the sky and a cold air rustled in
the trees. "Of course, of course," he muttered, for he could see
himself and her in the dawn together, united again and tasting again
in a kiss infinity. In her kiss he had tasted that unity, that binding
together of the mortal to the immortal, of the finite to the infinite,
which Paracelsus--He tried to recall the words, "He who tastes a crust
of bread has tasted of the universe, even to the furthest star." She
had always been his universe, and he had always believed that she had
come out of the star-shine like a goddess when it pleases Divinity to
lie with a mortal. Of this he was sure, that he had never kissed her
except in this belief.... This had sanctified their love, whereas
other men knew love as an animal satisfaction. It had always seemed to
him that there was something essential in her, something which had
always been in human nature and which always would be. This light,
this joy, and this aspiration he had seen in certain moments: when she
walked on the stage as Elizabeth or Elza, she had always seemed to
reflect a little of that light which floats down through the
generations ... illuminating "the liquid surface of man's life." But a
change had come, darkening that light, causing it to pass, at least
into eclipse. He drew his hand across his eyes--a phase of her life
was hidden from him; yet it, too, may have had a meaning.... We
understand so little of life. No, no, it had no meaning in his mind,
and we are only concerned with our own minds. All the same, the fact
remained--she had had to seek rest in a convent; and the idea that had
driven her there, though now lying at the bottom of her mind, might be
brought to the surface--any chance word; he had had proof. Perhaps it
was as well that he had not laid his hand upon her shoulder and asked
her to stay with him, for by what spectacle of remorse, of terror,
might he not have been confronted to-morrow or the next day? Cured!
Nobody is ever cured. Never again would she be the same woman as had
left Dulwich to go to Paris with him, he knew that well enough; and
he, too, was very far indeed from being the same Owen Asher who had
gone to Dulwich to hear a concert of Elizabethan music.

A period for every one, for every one a season. The gates of love
open, and we pass into the garden and out of it by another gate,
which never opens for us again. To linger by a closed or a closing
gate is not wise: the tarrying lover is a subject for contempt and
jeers; better to pass out quickly and to fare on, though it requires
courage to fare on through the autumn, knowing that after autumn comes
winter. True, the winds would grow harder. The autumn of their lives
was not over, the skies were still bright above them, and the winds
soft and low. The winds would grow harder, but they must still fare on
through the snow. But there is a joy by the hearth when the yuel-log
is burning. So thanking God that he had not attempted to detain her,
he wandered to the window to watch the stars, which seemed to him like
a golden net; and he asked who had cast that net, and if he and she
were parcel of some great draught which, at some indefinite date,
would be drawn out of the depths, and if, when that time came, they
would remember the joy and sorrow they had endured upon earth, or if
all would be swept into forgetfulness. At some indefinite date they
might meet among the stars, but what stellar infinities might be drawn
together mattered little to him; his sole interest was in this lag end
of their journey--if their lives should be united henceforth or lived
separately.

Nothing repeats itself, so it was well he had not asked her to stay
with him. Of mistress and lover a fitting end had been written long
ago, just as the end of those stars was written long before the stars
came into being; but it might well be that they might take the road,
this lag end of it, together as husband and wife. If he didn't
marry--he could marry nobody but her--what would he do with his life?
what sort of end? He had no heart for further travels, and feared to
wear away the years amid books and pictures, collecting rare porcelain
and French furniture; there is very little else for an old man. With
her the lag end of the journey would be delectable. In the same house
together, leading her in the evenings to the piano! Even if she had
lost part of her voice, sufficient remained to recall the old days
when he used to journey thousands of miles to hear her; and he lay
quite still, listening to the sweet thought of marriage, singing like
a bird in the acacia-tree, trill after trill, and then a
run--delicious crescendos reaching to the stars, diminuendos sinking
into the valley.

The bird suddenly ceased, and with its song in his brain Owen dozed,
awakening at dawn, remembering her, how she had built herself a
cottage, and settled her life here among four or five little crippled
boys. Could she undo her life to follow him? Uprooted, transplanted,
her brain might give way again, and this time without hope of
recovery. Or was he cheating himself, trying to find reasons for not
asking her to marry him--perhaps his manifest duty towards her. Owen
looked into his soul, asking himself if he were acting from a selfish
or an unselfish motive.

Sleep seemed as far away as ever, and, getting out of bed, he drew the
curtains, seeking the landscape, still hidden in the mist, only a few
tree-tops showing over the grey vapour--the valley filled with it--and
over the hidden hill one streak of crimson. A rook cawed and flew away
into the mist, leaving Owen to wonder what the bird's errand might be;
and this rook was followed by others, and seeing nothing distinctly
and knowing nothing of himself or of this woman whom he had loved so
long, he returned to his bed frightened, counting his years, asking
himself how many more he had to live.

A knock! Only Eliza bringing his bath water. Good heavens! he had been
asleep. "Eliza, what time is it?"

"Half-past eight, Sir Owen. Miss Innes will be soon home from Mass to
give the little boys their breakfast."

"Home from Mass!" he muttered. And he learned from Eliza that Miss
Innes got up every morning at seven, for a Catholic gentleman lived in
the neighbourhood who had a private chaplain. "And she goes to Mass,"
Owen muttered, "every morning, and comes back to give the little boys
their breakfast!"

There was no Catholic gentleman within a mile of Riversdale, he was
thankful to say, and his thankfulness on the point was proof to him of
how years and circumstances had estranged him from Evelyn; for, though
he would not obstruct or forbid, it would be impossible for him to
keep a sneer out of his face when she told him she had been to the
sacraments or refrained from meat on Friday. "What a strange notion it
is to think that a priest can help one," he said, thinking then that
his presence would be a sneer, however he might control his tongue or
his face; she would feel that he held her little observances in
contempt, and her, too, just a little. How could it be otherwise? How
could he admire one who slipped her neck into a spiritual halter and
allowed herself to be led? Yet he loved her--or was it the memory of
their love that he loved? Which? He loved her when he saw her among
the crippled children distributing porridge and milk, or maybe it was
not love, but admiration.

"My dear, I didn't know you would be down so soon. If you will only go
into the garden and wait for me, I shan't be long."

"Now then, children, you must hurry with your porridge; Sir Owen is
waiting for his breakfast."

"My dear Evelyn, I am not in a hurry. Let the children take their
time."

And he went into the garden to think if life at Riversdale would suit
her as well as this life. It would be impossible for him to accompany
her to chapel, and if he did not do so there would be an
estrangement.... Nor could he allow Riversdale to be turned into an
orphanage. Perhaps he would allow her to do anything that pleased her;
all the same, she would feel that the permission did not come out of
his instinct, only out of a desire to please her.

"Well, Owen," she said as soon as he had finished breakfast, "I don't
want to hurry you, but if you are to catch that train we must start at
once."

It was one of her off days, and she was going to spend it at the
cottage. There were a great many things for her to do. She never had
much time, but she would go to the station with him.

"But you have already walked two miles."

"Ah! Eliza has told you?"

"Yes, that you go to Mass every morning."

Owen seemed to regret the fact, and when he broke silence again it was
to inquire into the expenses of the orphanage and to deplore the
necessity which governed her life of going to London every day,
returning home late, and he offered her a subscription which would
cover the entire cost. But his offer of money seemed to embarrass her,
and he understood that her pleasure was to go to London to work for
these children, for only in that way could the home be entirely her
own. If she were to accept help from the outside it would drift away
from her and from its original intention, just as the convent had
done. Nor was it very likely that she would care to give up her work
and come to live at Riversdale, as his wife, of course as his wife,
and it would pain her to refuse him.... Better leave things as they
were.

"You are right," he said, "not to live in London; one avoids a great
deal of loneliness. One is more lonely in London than anywhere I know.
The country is the natural home of man. Man is an arborial animal," he
added, laughing, "and is only happy among trees."

"And woman, what is she? A material animal?"

"I suppose so. You have your children; I have my trees."

The words seemed to have a meaning which eluded them, and they
pondered while they descended the hillside until the piece of
low-lying land came into view and the bridge crossing the sluggish
stream, amid whose rushes he had gathered the wild forget-me-not. As
he was about to speak of them he remembered her singing classes, and
that yester evening had worn away without hearing her sing. "You have
lost all interest in music, I fear. You think of it now as a means of
making money ... for your children," he added, so that his words might
not wound her.

"And you, Owen, does music still interest you,"--she nearly said, "now
that I am out of it?" but stopped, the words on her lips.

"Yes," he said, "I think it does," and there was an eagerness in his
voice when he said, "I have been trying my hand at composition again,
and I have written a good many songs and some piano pieces, one for
piano and violin."

"A sonata?"

"Well, something in that way ... not very strict in form perhaps."

"That doesn't matter."

"When you come to see me I should like to show you some of my things.
You will come to see me when you are in London ... when you have a
moment?"

"Evelyn always keeps her promises," he said to himself, and he did not
give up hope that she would come to see him, although nearly two weeks
went by without his hearing from her. Then a note came, saying that
she had been kept busy and had not been able to find spare time, but
yesterday a pupil had written saying she would not come to her lesson,
"so now I can come to you."

"Miss Innes, Sir Owen."

His face lighted up, and laying his book aside he sprang out of his
chair, and all consciousness of time ceased in his mind till she began
to put on her glove.

"You have only just arrived, and already you are going."

"My dear Owen, I have been here an hour, and the time has passed
quickly for you because you have been playing your music over for me
and I have been singing ... humming, for it is hardly singing now."

"I am sorry, Evelyn, the time has seemed so long to you. I didn't
intend to bore you. You said you would like to see some of my music."

"So I did, Owen, and some of the best things you have composed are
among those you have shown me. Your writing has improved a great
deal."

"I am so glad you think so. When will you come again?"

"The first spare hour."

"Really? You promise."

They saw each other at intervals. Sometimes the intervals were very
long, and Owen would write to her complaining, and he would get a note
telling that her time was not her own, and that a great deal of money
was necessary for her boys. But she would try to come and see him next
week, and he would write begging her not to disappoint him, as he was
giving a concert and wanted her help to compose the programme.

A great deal of time was spent in Berkeley Square, more than she could
afford, trying pieces over; and she would often say, "My dear Owen, I
really must go now or I shall miss my train at Victoria." He always
looked disappointed when she said she was going, and he never could
understand why she would not sing at his concerts. It was very
difficult even to persuade her to come to one.

"You see, I cannot sleep here, Owen. I have to go to a hotel."

One day she got a letter from him which she feared to open. "It is to
ask me to help him to compose another programme, and I haven't got a
minute."

She was mistaken. The letter was to tell her that he had been elected
president of the new choral society ... "a group of young musicians."
The envelope enclosed a programme, and she read: "President, Sir Owen
Asher, Bart." "I'm glad, I'm glad," she said as she walked up the
room. "He has some natural talent for music, and if he hadn't been
born a rich man and spent his life doing other things he might have
done something in music. If he had begun younger ... if he hadn't met
me ... a good many ifs; but there it is, and that is how it has
ended."


THE END

_Printed and Made in Great Britain by The Crypt House Press Limited,
Gloucester and London._



[End of _Sister Teresa (1909 version)_ by George Moore]
