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A Modern Chronicle, Volume 8

Winston Churchil

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Title: A Modern Chronicle, Volume 8

Author: Winston Churchill

Release Date: October 19, 2004 [EBook #5381]

Language: English

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*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MODERN CHRONICLE, VOLUME 8 ***

Produced by David Widger

A MODERN CHRONICLE

By Winston Churchill

Volume 8.

CHAPTER XVI

IN WHICH A MIRROR IS HELD UP

Spring came to Highlawns, Eden tinted with myriad tender greens.

Yellow-greens, like the beech boughs over the old wall, and gentle

blue-greens, like the turf; and the waters of the lake were blue and

white in imitation of the cloud-flecked sky. It seemed to Honora, as she

sat on the garden bench, that the yellow and crimson tulips could not

open wide enough their cups to the sun.

In these days she looked at her idol, and for the first time believed it

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to be within her finite powers to measure him. She began by asking

herself if it were really she who had ruined his life, and whether he

would ultimately have redeemed himself if he had married a woman whom the

world would have recognized. Thus did the first doubt invade her heart.

It was of him she was thinking still, and always. But there was the

doubt. If he could have stood this supreme test of isolation, of the

world's laughter and scorn, although it would have made her own heavy

burden of responsibility heavier, yet could she still have rejoiced. That

he should crumble was the greatest of her punishments.

Was he crumbling? In these months she could not quite be sure, and she

tried to shut her eyes when the little pieces fell off, to remind herself

that she must make allowances for the severity of his disappointment.

Spring was here, the spring to which he had so eagerly looked forward,

and yet the listlessness with which he went about his work was apparent.

Sometimes he did not appear at breakfast, although Honora clung with

desperation to the hour they had originally fixed: sometimes Mr. Manning

waited for him until nearly ten o'clock, only to receive curt dismissal.

He went off for long rides, alone, and to the despair of the groom

brought back the horses in a lather, with drooping heads and heaving

sides; one of them he ruined. He declared there wasn't a horse in the

stable fit to give him exercise.

Often he sat for hours in his study, brooding, inaccessible. She had the

tennis-court rolled and marked, but the contests here were

pitifully-unequal; for the row of silver cups on his mantel, engraved

with many dates, bore witness to his athletic prowess. She wrote for a

book on solitaire, but after a while the sight of cards became

distasteful. With a secret diligence she read the reviews, and sent for

novels and memoirs which she scanned eagerly before they were begun with

him. Once, when she went into his study on an errand, she stood for a

minute gazing painfully at the cleared space on his desk where once had

lain the papers and letters relative to the life of General Angus

Chiltern.

There were intervals in which her hope flared, in which she tasted,

fearfully and with bated breath, something that she had not thought to

know again. It was characteristic of him that his penitence was never

spoken: nor did he exhibit penitence. He seemed rather at such times

merely to become normally himself, as one who changes personality,

apparently oblivious to the moods and deeds of yesterday. And these

occasions added perplexity to her troubles. She could not reproach him

--which perhaps in any event she would have been too wise to do; but she

could not, try as she would, bring herself to the point of a discussion

of their situation. The risk, she felt, was too great; now, at least.

There were instances that made her hope that the hour might come.

One fragrant morning Honora came down to find him awaiting her, and to

perceive lying on her napkin certain distilled drops of the spring

sunshine. In language less poetic, diamonds to be worn in the ears. The

wheel of fashion, it appeared, had made a complete revolution since the

early days of his mother's marriage. She gave a little exclamation, and

her hand went to her heart.

"They are Brazilian stones," he explained, with a boyish pleasure that

awoke memories and held her speechless. "I believe it's very difficult,

if not impossible, to buy them now. My father got them after the war and

I had them remounted." And he pressed them against the pink lobes of her

ears. "You look like the Queen of Sheba."

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"How do you know?" she asked tremulously. "You never saw her."

"According to competent judges," he replied, "she was the most beautiful

woman of her time. Go upstairs and put them on."

She shook her head. An inspiration had come to her.

"Wait," she cried. And that morning, when Hugh had gone out, she sent for

Starling and startled him by commanding that the famous Lowestoft set be

used at dinner. He stared at her, and the corners of his mouth twitched,

and still he stood respectfully in the doorway.

"That is all, Starling."

"I beg pardon, madam. How--how many will there be at the table?"

"Just Mr. Chiltern and I," she replied. But she did not look at him.

It was superstition, undoubtedly. She was well aware that Starling had

not believed that the set would be used again. An extraordinary order,

that might well have sent him away wondering; for the Lowestoft had been

reserved for occasions. Ah, but this was to be an occasion, a festival!

The whimsical fancy grew in her mind as the day progressed, and she

longed with an unaccustomed impatience for nightfall, and anticipation

had a strange taste. Mathilde, with the sympathetic gift of her nation,

shared the excitement of her mistress in this fete. The curtains in the

pink bedroom were drawn, and on the bed, in all its splendour of lace and

roses, was spread out the dinner-gown-a chef-d'oeuvre of Madame

Barriere's as yet unworn. And no vulgar, worldly triumph was it to adorn.

Her heart was beating fast as she descended the stairway, bright spots of

colour flaming in her cheeks and the diamonds sparkling in her ears. A

prima donna might have guessed her feelings as she paused, a little

breathless on the wide landing under the windows. She heard a footstep.

Hugh came out of the library and stood motionless, looking up at her. But

even those who have felt the silence and the stir that prefaces the

clamorous applause of the thousands could not know the thrill that swept

her under his tribute. She came down the last flight of steps, slowly,

and stopped in front of him.

"You are wonderful, Honora!" he said, and his voice was not quite under

control. He took her hand, that trembled in his, and he seemed to be

seeking to express something for which he could find no words. Thus may

the King have looked upon Rosamond in her bower; upon a beauty created

for the adornment of courts which he had sequestered for his eyes alone.

Honora, as though merely by the touch of his hand in hers, divined his

thought.

"If you think me so, dear," she whispered happily, "it's all I ask."

And they went in to dinner as to a ceremony. It was indeed a ceremony

filled for her with some occult, sacred, meaning that she could not put

into words. A feast symbolical. Starling was sent to the wine-cellar to

bring back a cobwebbed Madeira near a century old, brought out on rare

occasions in the family. And Hugh, when his glass was filled, looked at

his wife and raised it in silence to his lips.

She never forgot the scene. The red glow of light from the shaded candles

on the table, and the corners of the dining room filled with gloom. The

old butler, like a high priest, standing behind his master's chair. The

long windows, with the curtains drawn in the deep, panelled arches; the

carved white mantelpiece; the glint of silver on' the sideboard, with its

wine-cooler underneath,--these, spoke of generations of respectability

and achievement. Would this absorbed isolation, this marvellous wild love

of theirs, be the end of it all? Honora, as one detached, as a ghost in

the corner, saw herself in the picture with startling clearness. When she

looked up, she met her husband's eyes. Always she met them, and in them a

questioning, almost startled look that was new. "Is it the earrings?" she

asked at last. "I don't know," he answered. "I can't tell. They seem to

have changed you, but perhaps they have brought out something in your

face and eyes I have never seen before."

"And--you like it, Hugh?"

"Yes, I like it," he replied, and added enigmatically, "but I don't

understand it."

She was silent, and oddly satisfied, trusting to fate to send more

mysteries.

Two days had not passed when that restlessness for which she watched so

narrowly revived. He wandered aimlessly about the place, and flared up

into such a sudden violent temper at one of the helpers in the fields

that the man ran as for his life, and refused to set foot again on any of

the Chiltern farms. In the afternoon he sent for Honora to ride with him,

and scolded her for keeping him waiting. And he wore a spur, and pressed

his horse so savagely that she cried out in remonstrance, although at

such times she had grown to fear him.

"Oh, Hugh, how can you be so cruel!"

"The beast has no spirit," he said shortly. "I'll get one that has."

Their road wound through the western side of the estate towards misty

rolling country, in the folds of which lay countless lakes, and at length

they caught sight of an unpainted farmhouse set amidst a white cloud of

apple trees in bloom. On the doorstep, whittling, sat a bearded, unkempt

farmer with a huge frame. In answer to Hugh's question he admitted that

he had a horse for sale, stuck his knife in the step, rose, and went off

towards the barn near by; and presently reappeared, leading by a halter a

magnificent black. The animal stood jerking his head, blowing and pawing

the ground while Chiltern examined him.

"He's been ridden?" he asked.

The man nodded.

Chiltern sprang to the ground and began to undo his saddle girths. A

sudden fear seized Honora.

"Oh, Hugh, you're not going to ride him!" she exclaimed.

"Why not? How else am I going to find out anything about him?"

"He looks--dangerous," she faltered.

"I'm tired of horses that haven't any life in them," he said, as he

lifted off the saddle.

"I guess we'd better get him in the barn," said the farmer.

Honora went behind them to witness the operation, which was not devoid of

excitement. The great beast plunged savagely when they tightened the

girths, and closed his teeth obstinately against the bit; but the farmer

held firmly to his nose and shut off his wind. They led him out from the

barn floor.

"Your name Chiltern?" asked the farmer.

"Yes," said Hugh, curtly.

"Thought so," said the farmer, and he held the horse's head.

Honora had a feeling of faintness.

"Hugh, do be careful!" she pleaded.

He paid no heed to her. His eyes, she noticed, had a certain feverish

glitter of animation, of impatience, such as men of his type must wear

when they go into battle. He seized the horse's mane, he put his foot in

the stirrup; the astonished animal gave a snort and jerked the bridle

from the farmer's hand. But Chiltern was in the saddle, with knees

pressed tight.

There ensued a struggle that Honora will never forget. And although she

never again saw that farm-house, its details and surroundings come back

to her in vivid colours when she closes her eyes. The great horse in

every conceivable pose, with veins standing out and knotty muscles

twisting in his legs and neck and thighs. Once, when he dashed into the

apple trees, she gave a cry; a branch snapped, and Chiltern emerged,

still seated, with his hat gone and the blood trickling from a scratch on

his forehead. She saw him strike with his spurs, and in a twinkling horse

and rider had passed over the dilapidated remains of a fence and were

flying down the hard clay road, disappearing into a dip. A reverberating

sound, like a single stroke, told them that the bridge at the bottom had

been crossed.

In an agony of terror, Honora followed, her head on fire, her heart

pounding faster than the hoof beats. But the animal she rode, though a

good one, was no match for the great infuriated beast which she pursued.

Presently she came to a wooded corner where the road forked thrice, and

beyond, not without difficulty,--brought her sweating mare to a stand.

The quality of her fear changed from wild terror to cold dread. A hermit

thrush, in the wood near by, broke the silence with a song inconceivably

sweet. At last she went back to the farm-house, hoping against hope that

Hugh might have returned by another road. But he was not there. The

farmer was still nonchalantly whittling.

"Oh, how could you let any one get on a horse like that?" she cried.

"You're his wife, ain't you?" he asked.

Something in the man's manner seemed to compel her to answer, in spite of

the form of the question.

"I am Mrs. Chiltern," she said.

He was looking at her with an expression that she found incomprehensible.

His glance was penetrating, yet here again she seemed to read compassion.

He continued to gaze at her, and presently, when he spoke, it was as

though he were not addressing her at all.

"You put me in mind of a young girl I used to know," he said; "seems like

a long time ago. You're pretty, and you're young, and ye didn't know what

you were doin,' I'll warrant. Lost your head. He has a way of gittin'

'em--always had."

Honora did not answer. She would have liked to have gone away, but that

which was stronger than her held her.

"She didn't live here," he explained, waving his hand deprecatingly

towards the weather-beaten house. "We lived over near Morrisville in them

days. And he don't remember me, your husband don't. I ain't surprised.

I've got considerable older."

Honora was trembling from head to foot, and her hands were cold.

"I've got her picture in there, if ye'd like to look at it," he said,

after a while.

"Oh, no!" she cried. "Oh, no!"

"Well, I don't know as I blame you." He sat down again and began to

whittle. "Funny thing, chance," he remarked; "who'd a thought I should

have owned that there hoss, and he should have come around here to ride

it?"

She tried to speak, but she could not. The hideous imperturbability of

the man's hatred sickened her. And her husband! The chips fell in silence

until a noise on the road caused them to look up. Chiltern was coming

back. She glanced again at the farmer, but his face was equally

incapable, or equally unwilling, to express regret. Chiltern rode into

the dooryard. The blood from the scratch on his forehead had crossed his

temple and run in a jagged line down his cheek, his very hair (as she had

sometimes seen it) was damp with perspiration, blacker, kinkier; his eyes

hard, reckless, bloodshot. So, in the past, must he have emerged from

dozens of such wilful, brutal contests with man and beast. He had beaten

the sweat-stained horse (temporarily--such was the impression Honora

received), but she knew that he would like to have killed it for its

opposition.

"Give me my hat, will you?" he cried to the farmer.

To her surprise the man obeyed. Chiltern leaped to the ground.

"What do you want for him?" he demanded.

"I'll take five hundred dollars."

"Bring him over in the morning," said Chiltern, curtly.

They rode homeward in silence. Honora had not been able to raise her

voice against the purchase, and she seemed powerless now to warn her

husband of the man's enmity. She was thinking, rather, of the horror of

the tragedy written on the farmer's face, to which he had given her the

key: Hugh Chiltern, to whom she had intrusted her life and granted her

all, had done this thing, ruthlessly, even as he had satisfied to-day his

unbridled cravings in maltreating a horse! And she thought of that other

woman, on whose picture she had refused to look. What was the essential

difference between that woman and herself? He had wanted them both, he

had taken them both for his pleasure, heedless of the pain he might cause

to others and to them. For her, perhaps, the higher organism, had been

reserved the higher torture. She did not know. The vision of the girl in

the outer darkness reserved for castaways was terrible.

Up to this point she had, as it were, been looking into one mirror. Now

another was suddenly raised behind her, and by its aid she beheld not a

single, but countless, images of herself endlessly repeated. How many

others besides this girl had there been? The question gave her the

shudder of the contemplation of eternity. It was not the first time

Honora had thought of his past, but until today it had lacked reality;

until to-day she had clung to the belief that he had been misunderstood;

until to-day she had considered those acts of his of the existence of

which she was collectively aware under the generic term of wild oats. He

had had too much money, and none had known how to control him. Now,

through this concrete example of another's experience, she was given to

understand that which she had strangely been unable to learn from her

own. And she had fancied, in her folly, that she could control him!

Unable as yet to grasp the full extent of her calamity, she rode on by

his side, until she was aware at last that they had reached the door of

the house at Highlawns.

"You look pale," he said as he lifted her off her horse. The demon in

him, she perceived, was tired.

"Do I?"

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing," she answered.

He laughed.

"It's confoundedly silly to get frightened that way," he declared. "The

beast only wants riding."

Three mornings later she was seated in the garden with a frame of fancy

work. Sometimes she put it down. The weather was overcast, langourous,

and there was a feeling of rain in the air. Chiltern came in through the

gaffe, and looked at her.

"I'm going to New York on the noon train," he said.

"To New York?"

"Yes. Why not?"

"There's no reason why you shouldn't if you wish to," she replied, picking

up her frame.

"Anything I can get you?" he asked.

"No, thank you."

"You've been in such a deuced queer mood the last few days I can't make

you out, Honora."

"You ought to have learned something about women by this time," she said.

"It seems to me," he announced, "that we need a little livening up."

CHAPTER XVII

THE RENEWAL OF AN ANCIENT HOSPITALITY

There were six letters from him, written from a club, representing the

seven days of his absence. He made no secret of the fact that his visit

to the metropolis was in the nature of a relaxation and a change of

scene, but the letters themselves contained surprisingly little

information as to how he was employing his holiday. He had encountered

many old friends, supposedly all of the male sex: among them--most

welcome of surprises to him!--Mr. George Pembroke, a boon companion at

Harvard. And this mention of boon companionship brought up to Honora a

sufficiently vivid idea of Mr. Pembroke's characteristics. The extent of

her knowledge of this gentleman consisted in the facts that he was a

bachelor, a member of a prominent Philadelphia family, and that time hung

heavy on his hands.

One morning she received a telegram to the effect that her husband would

be home that night, bringing three people with him. He sent his love, but

neglected to state the names and sexes of the prospective guests. And she

was still in a quandary as to what arrangements to make when Starling

appeared in answer to her ring.

"You will send the omnibus to the five o'clock train," she said. "There

will be three extra places at dinner, and tea when Mr. Chiltern arrives."

Although she strove to speak indifferently, she was sure from the way the

old man looked at her that her voice had not been quite steady. Of late

her curious feeling about him had increased in intensity; and many times,

during this week she had spent alone, she had thought that his eyes had

followed her with sympathy. She did not resent this. Her world having now

contracted to that wide house, there was a comfort in knowing that there

was one in it to whom she could turn in need. For she felt that she could

turn to Starling; he alone, apparently, had measured the full depth of

her trouble; nay, had silently predicted it from the beginning. And

to-day, as he stood before her, she had an almost irresistible impulse to

speak. Just a word-a human word would have been such a help to her! And

how ridiculous the social law that kept the old man standing there,

impassive, respectful, when this existed between them! Her tragedy was

his tragedy; not in the same proportion, perhaps; nevertheless, he had

the air of one who would die of it.

And she? Would she die? What would become of her? When she thought of the

long days and months and years that stretched ahead of her, she felt that

her soul would not be able to survive the process of steady degradation

to which it was sure to be subjected. For she was a prisoner: the

uttermost parts of the earth offered no refuge. To-day, she knew, was to

see the formal inauguration of that process. She had known torture, but

it had been swift, obliterating, excruciating. And hereafter it was to be

slow, one turn at a time of the screws, squeezing by infinitesimal

degrees the life out of her soul. And in the end--most fearful thought of

all--in the end, painless. Painless! She buried her head in her arms on

the little desk, shaken by sobs.

How she fought that day to compose herself, fought and prayed! Prayed

wildly to a God whose help, nevertheless, she felt she had forfeited, who

was visiting her with just anger. At half-past four she heard the

carriage on the far driveway, going to the station, and she went down and

walked across the lawn to the pond, and around it; anything to keep

moving. She hurried back to the house just in time to reach the hall as

the omnibus backed up. And the first person she saw descend, after Hugh,

was Mrs. Kame.

"Here we are, Honora," she cried. "I hope you're glad to see us, and that

you'll forgive our coming so informally. You must blame Hugh. We've

brought Adele."

The second lady was, indeed, none other than Mrs. Eustace Rindge,

formerly Mrs. Dicky Farnham. And she is worth--even at this belated stage

in our chronicle an attempted sketch, or at least an attempted

impression. She was fair, and slim as a schoolgirl; not very tall, not

exactly petite; at first sight she might have been taken for a

particularly immature debutante, and her dress was youthful and rather

mannish. Her years, at this period of her career, were in truth but two

and twenty, yet she had contrived, in the comparatively brief time since

she had reached the supposed age of discretion, to marry two men and

build two houses, and incidentally to see a considerable portion of what

is known as the world. The suspicion that she was not as innocent as a

dove came to one, on closer inspection, as a shock: her eyes were tired,

though not from loss of sleep; and her manner--how shall it be described

to those whose happy lot in life has never been to have made the

acquaintance of Mrs. Rindge's humbler sisters who have acquired--more

coarsely, it is true--the same camaraderie? She was one of those for

whom, seemingly, sex does not exist. Her air of good-fellowship with men

was eloquent of a precise knowledge of what she might expect from them,

and she was prepared to do her own policing,--not from any deep moral

convictions. She belonged, logically, to that world which is disposed to

take the law into its own hands, and she was the possessor of five

millions of dollars.

"I came along," she said to Honora, as she gave her hand-bag to a

footman. "I hope you don't mind. Abby and I were shopping and we ran into

Hugh and Georgie yesterday at Sherry's, and we've been together ever

since. Not quite that--but almost. Hugh begged us to come up, and there

didn't seem to be any reason why we shouldn't, so we telephoned down to

Banbury for our trunks and maids, and we've played bridge all the way. By

the way, Georgie, where's my pocket-book?"

Mr. Pembroke handed it over, and was introduced by Hugh. He looked at

Honora, and his glance somehow betokened that he was in the habit of

looking only once. He had apparently made up his mind about her before he

saw her. But he looked again, evidently finding her at variance with a

preconceived idea, and this time she flushed a little under his stare,

and she got the impression that Mr. Pembroke was a man from whom few

secrets of a certain kind were hid. She felt that he had seized, at a

second glance, a situation that she had succeeded in hiding from the

women. He was surprised, but cynically so. He was the sort of person who

had probably possessed at Harvard the knowledge of the world of a Tammany

politician; he had long ago written his book--such as it was--and closed

it: or, rather, he had worked out his system at a precocious age, and it

had lasted him ever since. He had decided that undergraduate life, freed

from undergraduate restrictions, was a good thing. And he did not, even

in these days, object to breaking something valuable occasionally.

His physical attributes are more difficult to describe, so closely were

they allied to those which, for want of a better word, must be called

mental. He was neither tall nor short, he was well fed, but hard, his

shoulders too broad, his head a little large. If he should have happened

to bump against one, the result would have been a bruise--not for him.

His eyes were blue, his light hair short, and there was a slight baldness

beginning; his face was red-tanned. There was not the slightest doubt

that he could be effectively rude, and often was; but it was evident, for

some reason, that he meant to be gracious (for Mr. Pembroke) to Honora.

Perhaps this was the result of the second glance. One of his name had not

lacked, indeed, for instructions in gentility. It must not be thought

that she was in a condition to care much about what Mr. Pembroke thought

or did, and yet she felt instinctively that he had changed his greeting

between that first and second glance.

"I hope you'll forgive my coming in this way," he said. "I'm an old

friend of Hugh's."

"I'm very glad to have Hugh's friends," she answered.

He looked at her again.

"Is tea ready?" inquired Mrs. Kame. "I'm famished." And, as they walked

through the house to the garden, where the table was set beside the stone

seat: "I don't see how you ever can leave this place, Honora. I've always

wanted to come here, but it's even more beautiful than I thought."

"It's very beautiful," said Honora.

"I'll have a whiskey and soda, if I may," announced Mrs. Rindge. "Open

one, Georgie."

"The third to-day," said Mr. Pembroke, sententiously, as he obeyed.

"I don't care. I don't see what business it is of yours."

"Except to open them," he replied.

"You'd have made a fortune as a barkeeper," she observed,

dispassionately, as she watched the process.

"He's made fortunes for a good many," said Chiltern.

"Not without some expert assistance I could mention," Mr. Pembroke

retorted.

At this somewhat pointed reference to his ancient habits, Chiltern

laughed.

"You've each had three to-day yourselves," said Mrs. Rindge, in whose

bosom Mr. Pembroke's remark evidently rankled, "without counting those

you had before you left the club."

Afterwards Mrs. Kame expressed a desire to walk about a little, a

proposal received with disfavour by all but Honora, who as hostess

responded.

"I feel perfectly delightful," declared Mrs. Rindge. "What's the use of

moving about?" And she sank back in the cushions of her chair.

This observation was greeted with unrestrained merriment by Mr. Pembroke

and Hugh. Honora, sick at heart, led Mrs. Kame across the garden and

through the gate in the wall. It was a perfect evening of early June, the

great lawn a vivid green in the slanting light. All day the cheerful

music of the horse-mowers had been heard, and the air was fragrant with

the odour of grass freshly cut. The long shadows of the maples and

beeches stretched towards the placid surface of the lake, dimpled here

and there by a fish's swirl: the spiraeas were laden as with freshly

fallen snow, a lone Judas-tree was decked in pink. The steep pastures

beyond the water were touched with gold, while to the northward, on the

distant hills, tender blue lights gathered lovingly around the copses.

Mrs. Kame sighed.

"What a terrible thing it is," she said, "that we are never satisfied!

It's the men who ruin all this for us, I believe, and prevent our

enjoying it. Look at Adele."

Honora had indeed looked at her.

"I found out the other day what is the matter with her. She's madly in

love with Dicky."

"With--with her former husband?"

"Yes, with poor little innocent Dicky Farnham, who's probably still

congratulating himself, like a canary bird that's got out of a cage.

Somehow Dicky's always reminded me of a canary; perhaps it's his name.

Isn't it odd that she should be in love with him?"

"I think," replied Honora, slowly, "that it's a tragedy."

"It is a tragedy," Mrs. Kame hastily agreed. "To me, this case is one of

the most incomprehensible aspects of the tender passion. Adele's idea of

existence is a steeplechase with nothing but water-jumps, Dicky's to

loiter around in a gypsy van, and sit in the sun. During his brief

matrimonial experience with her, he nearly died for want of breath--or

rather the life was nearly shaken out of him. And yet she wants Dicky

again. She'd run away with him to-morrow if he should come within hailing

distance of her."

"And her husband?" asked Honora.

"Eustace? Did you ever see him? That accounts for your question. He only

left France long enough to come over here and make love to her, and he

swears he'll never leave it again. If she divorces him, he'll have to

have alimony."

At last Honora was able to gain her own room, but even seclusion, though

preferable to the companionship of her guests, was almost intolerable.

The tragedy of Mrs. Rindge had served--if such a thing could be--to

enhance her own; a sudden spectacle of a woman in a more advanced stage

of desperation. Would she, Honora, ever become like that? Up to the

present she felt that suffering had refined her, and a great love had

burned away all that was false. But now--now that her god had turned to

clay, what would happen? Desperation seemed possible, notwithstanding the

awfulness of the example. No, she would never come to that! And she

repeated it over and over to herself as she dressed, as though to

strengthen her will.

During her conversation with Mrs. Kame she had more than once suspected,

in spite of her efforts, that the lady had read her state of mind. For

Mrs. Kame's omissions were eloquent to the discerning: Chiltern's

relatives had been mentioned with a casualness intended to imply that no

breach existed, and the fiction that Honora could at any moment take up

her former life delicately sustained. Mrs. Kame had adaptably chosen the

attitude, after a glance around her, that Honora preferred Highlawns to

the world: a choice of which she let it be known that she approved, while

deploring that a frivolous character put such a life out of the question

for herself. She made her point without over-emphasis. On the other hand,

Honora had read Mrs. Kame. No very careful perusal was needed to convince

her that the lady was unmoral, and that in characteristics she resembled

the chameleon. But she read deeper. She perceived that Mrs. Kame was

convinced that she, Honora, would adjust herself to the new conditions

after a struggle; and that while she had a certain sympathy in the

struggle, Mrs. Kame was of opinion that the sooner it was over with the

better. All women were born to be disillusionized. Such was the key, at

any rate, to the lady's conduct that evening at dinner, when she capped

the anecdotes of Mr. Pembroke and Mrs. Rindge and even of Chiltern with

others not less risque but more fastidiously and ingeniously suggestive.

The reader may be spared their recital.

Since the meeting in the restaurant the day before, which had resulted in

Hugh's happy inspiration that the festival begun should be continued

indefinitely at Highlawns, a kind of freemasonry had sprung up between

the four. Honora found herself, mercifully, outside the circle: for such

was the lively character of the banter that a considerable adroitness was

necessary to obtain, between the talk and--laughter, the ear of the

company. And so full were they of the reminiscences which had been

crowded into the thirty hours or so they had spent together, that her

comparative silence remained unnoticed. To cite an example, Mr. Pembroke

was continually being addressed as the Third Vice-president, an allusion

that Mrs. Rindge eventually explained.

"You ought to have been with us coming up on the train," she cried to

Honora; "I thought surely we'd be put off. We were playing bridge in the

little room at the end of the car when the conductor came for our

tickets. Georgie had 'em in his pocket, but he told the man to go away,

that he was the third vice-president of the road, and we were his

friends. The conductor asked him if he were Mr. Wheeler, or some such

name, and Georgie said he was surprised he didn't know him. Well, the man

stood there in the door, and Georgie picked up his hand and made it

hearts--or was it diamonds, Georgie?"

"Spades," said that gentleman, promptly.

"At any rate," Mrs. Rindge continued, "we all began to play, although we

were ready to blow up with laughter, and after a while Georgie looked

around and said, 'What, are you there yet?' My dear, you ought to have

seen the conductor's face! He said it was his duty to establish Georgie's

identity, or something like that, and Georgie told him to get off at the

next station and buy Waring's Magazine--was that it, Georgie?"

"How the deuce should I know?"

"Well, some such magazine. Georgie said he'd find an article in it on the

Railroad Kings and Princes of America, and that his picture, Georgie's,

was among the very first!" At this juncture in her narrative Mrs. Rindge

shrieked with laughter, in which she was joined by Mrs. Kame and Hugh;

and she pointed a forefinger across the table at Mr. Pembroke, who went

on solemnly eating his dinner. "Georgie gave him ten cents with which to

buy the magazine," she added a little hysterically. "Well, there was a

frightful row, and a lot of men came down to that end of the car, and we

had to shut the door. The conductor said the most outrageous things, and

Georgie pretended to be very indignant, too, and gave him the tickets

under protest. He told Georgie he ought to be in an asylum for the

criminally insane, and Georgie advised him to get a photograph album of

the high officials of the railroad. The conductor said Georgie's picture

was probably in the rogue's gallery. And we lost two packs of cards out

of the window."

Such had been the more innocent if eccentric diversions with which they

had whiled away the time. When dinner was ended, a renewal of the bridge

game was proposed, for it had transpired at the dinner-table that Mrs.

Rindge and Hugh had been partners all day, as a result of which there was

a considerable balance in their favour. This balance Mr. Pembroke was

palpably anxious to wipe out, or at least to reduce. But Mrs. Kame

insisted that Honora should cut in, and the others supported her.

"We tried our best to get a man for you," said Mrs. Rindge to Honora.

"Didn't we, Abby? But in the little time we had, it was impossible. The

only man we saw was Ned Carrington, and Hugh said he didn't think you'd

want him."

"Hugh showed a rare perception," said Honora.

Be it recorded that she smiled. One course had been clear to her from the

first, although she found it infinitely difficult to follow; she was

determined, cost what it might, to carry through her part of the affair

with dignity, but without stiffness. This is not the place to dwell upon

the tax to her strength.

"Come on, Honora," said Hugh, "cut in." His tone was of what may be

termed a rough good nature. She had not seen him alone since his return,

but he had seemed distinctly desirous that she should enjoy the

festivities he had provided. And not to yield would have been to betray

herself.

The game, with its intervals of hilarity, was inaugurated in the library,

and by midnight it showed no signs of abating. At this hour the original

four occupied the table for the second time, and endurance has its

limits. The atmosphere of Liberty Hall that prevailed made Honora's

retirement easier.

"I'm sure you won't mind if I go to bed," she said. "I've been so used to

the routine of--of the chickens." She smiled. "And I've spent the day in

the open air."

"Certainly, my dear," said Mrs. Kame; "I know exactly how one feels in

the country. I'm sure it's dreadfully late. We'll have one more rubber,

and then stop."

"Oh, don't stop," replied Honora; "please play as long as you like."

They didn't stop--at least after one more rubber. Honora, as she lay in

the darkness, looking through the open square of her window at the silver

stars, heard their voiced and their laughter floating up at intervals

from below, and the little clock on her mantel had struck the hour of

three when the scraping of chairs announced the breaking up of the party.

And even after that an unconscionable period elapsed, beguiled,

undoubtedly, by anecdotes; spells of silence--when she thought they had

gone--ending in more laughter. Finally there was a crash of breaking

glass, a climax of uproarious mirth, and all was still. . .

She could not have slept much, but the birds were singing when she

finally awoke, the sunlight pouring into her window: And the hands of her

clock pointed to half-past seven when she rang her bell. It was a relief

to breakfast alone, or at least to sip her coffee in solitude. And the

dew was still on the grass as she crossed the wide lawn and made her way

around the lake to the path that entered the woods at its farther end.

She was not tired, yet she would have liked to have lain down under the

green panoply of the forest, where the wild flowers shyly raised sweet

faces to be kissed, and lose herself in the forgetfulness of an eternal

sleep; never to go back again to an Eden contaminated. But when she

lingered the melody of a thrush pierced her through and through. At last

she turned and reluctantly retraced her steps, as one whose hour of

reprieve has expired.

If Mrs. Rindge had a girlish air when fully arrayed for the day, she

looked younger and more angular still in that article of attire known as

a dressing gown. And her eyes, Honora remarked, were peculiarly bright:

glittering, perhaps, would better express the impression they gave; as

though one got a glimpse through them of an inward consuming fire. Her

laughter rang shrill and clear as Honora entered the hall by the rear

door, and the big clock proclaimed that the hour was half-past eleven.

Hugh and Mr. Pembroke were standing at the foot of the stairs, gazing

upward. And Honora, following their glances, beheld the two ladies, in

the negligee referred to above, with their elbows on the railing of the

upper hall and their faces between their hands, engaged in a lively

exchange of compliments with the gentlemen. Mrs. Kame looked sleepy.

"Such a night!" she said, suppressing a yawn. "My dear, you did well to

go to bed."

"And to cap it all," cried Mrs. Rindge, "Georgie fell over backwards in

one of those beautiful Adam chairs, and there's literally nothing left of

it. If an ocean steamer had hit it, or a freight tram, it couldn't have

been more thoroughly demolished."

"You pushed me," declared Mr. Pembroke.

"Did I, Hugh? I barely touched him."

"You knocked him into a cocked hat," said Hugh. "And if you'd been in

that kimono, you could have done it even easier."

"Georgie broke the whole whiskey service,--or whatever it is," Mrs.

Rindge went on, addressing Honora again. "He fell into it."

"He's all right this morning," observed Mrs. Kame, critically.

"I think I'll take to swallowing swords and glass and things in public. I

can do it so well," said Mr. Pembroke.

"I hope you got what you like for breakfast," said Honora to the ladies.

"Hurry up and come down, Adele," said Hugh, "if you want to look over the

horses before lunch."

"It's Georgie's fault," replied Mrs. Rindge; "he's been standing in the

door of my sitting-room for a whole half-hour talking nonsense."

A little later they all set out for the stables. These buildings at

Highlawns, framed by great trees, were old-fashioned and picturesque,

surrounding three sides of a court, with a yellow brick wall on the

fourth. The roof of the main building was capped by a lantern, the home

of countless pigeons. Mrs. Rindge was in a habit, and one by one the

saddle horses were led out, chiefly for her inspection; and she seemed to

Honora to become another woman as she looked them over with a critical

eye and discussed them with Hugh and O'Grady, the stud-groom, and talked

about pedigrees and strains. For she was renowned in this department of

sport on many fields, both for recklessness and skill.

"Where did you get that brute, Hugh?" she asked presently.

Honora, who had been talking to Pembroke, looked around with a start. And

at the sight of the great black horse, bought on that unforgettable day,

she turned suddenly faint.

"Over here in the country about ten miles," Chiltern was saying. "I heard

of him, but I didn't expect anything until I went to look at him last

week."

"What do you call him?" asked Mrs. Rindge.

"I haven't named him."

"I'll give you a name."

Chiltern looked at her. "What is it?" he said.

"Oblivion," she replied:

"By George, Adele," he exclaimed, "you have a way of hitting it off!"

"Will you let me ride him this afternoon?" she asked.

"I'm a--a candidate for oblivion." She laughed a little and her eyes

shone feverishly.

"No you don't," he said. "I'm giving you the grey. He's got enough in him

for any woman--even for you: And besides, I don't think the black ever

felt a side saddle, or any other kind, until last week."

"I've got another habit," she said eagerly. "I'd rather ride him astride.

I'll match you to see who has him."

Chiltern laughed.

"No you don't," he repeated. "I'll ride him to-day, and consider it

to-morrow."

"I--I think I'll go back to the house," said Honora to Pembroke. "It's

rather hot here in the sun."

"I'm not very keen about sunshine, either," he declared.

At lunch she was unable to talk; to sustain, at least, a conversation.

That word oblivion, which Mrs. Rindge had so aptly applied to the horse,

was constantly on her lips, and it would not have surprised her if she

had spoken it. She felt as though a heavy weight lay on her breast, and

to relieve its intolerable pressure drew in her breath deeply. She was

wild with fear. The details of the great room fixed themselves indelibly

in her brain; the subdued light, the polished table laden with silver and

glass, the roses, and the purple hot-house grapes. All this seemed in

some way to be an ironic prelude to disaster. Hugh, pausing in his

badinage with Mrs. Rindge, looked at her.

"Cheer up, Honora," he said.

"I'm afraid this first house-party is too much for her," said Mrs. Kame.

Honora made some protest that seemed to satisfy them, tried to rally

herself, and succeeded sufficiently to pass muster. After lunch they

repaired again to the bridge table, and at four Hugh went upstairs to

change into his riding clothes. Five minutes longer she controlled

herself, and then made some paltry excuse, indifferent now as to what

they said or thought, and followed him. She knocked at his dressing-room

door and entered. He was drawing on his boots. "Hello, Honora," he said.

Honora turned to his man, and dismissed him.

"I wish to speak to Mr. Chiltern alone."

Chiltern paused in his tugging at the straps, and looked up at her.

"What's the matter with you to-day, Honora?" he asked. "You looked like

the chief mourner at a funeral all through lunch."

He was a little on edge, that she knew. He gave another tug at the boot,

and while she was still hesitating, he began again.

"I ought to apologize, I know, for bringing these people up without

notice, but I didn't suppose you'd object when you understood how

naturally it all came about. I thought a little livening up, as I said,

wouldn't, hurt us. We've had a quiet winter, to put it mildly." He

laughed a little. "I didn't have a chance to see you until this morning,

and when I went to your room they told me you'd gone out."

"Hugh," she said, laying her hand on his shoulder. "It isn't the guests.

If you want people, and they amuse you, I'm--I'm glad to have them. And

if I've seemed to be--cold to them, I'm sorry. I tried my best--I mean I

did not intend to be cold. I'll sit up all night with them, if you like.

And I didn't come to reproach you, Hugh. I'll never do that--I've got no

right to."

She passed her hand over her eyes. If she had any wrongs, if she had

suffered any pain, the fear that obsessed her obliterated all. In spite

of her disillusionment, in spite of her newly acquired ability to see him

as he was, enough love remained to scatter, when summoned, her pride to

the winds.

Having got on both boots, he stood up.

"What's the trouble, then?" he asked. And he took an instant's hold of

her chin--a habit he had--and smiled at her.

He little knew how sublime, in its unconscious effrontery, his question

was! She tried to compose herself, that she might be able to present

comprehensively to his finite masculine mind the ache of today.

"Hugh, it's that black horse." She could not bring herself to pronounce

the name Mrs. Rindge had christened him.

"What about him?" he said, putting on his waistcoat.

"Don't ride him!" she pleaded. "I--I'm afraid of him--I've been afraid of

him ever since that day.

"It may be a foolish feeling, I know. Sometimes the feelings that hurt

women most are foolish. If I tell you that if you ride him you will

torture me, I'm sure you'll grant what I ask. It's such a little thing

and it means so much--so much agony to me. I'd do anything for you--give

up anything in the world at your slightest wish. Don't ride him!"

"This is a ridiculous fancy of yours, Honora. The horse is all right.

I've ridden dozens of worse ones."

"Oh, I'm sure he isn't," she cried; "call it fancy, call it instinct,

call it anything you like--but I feel it, Hugh. That woman--Mrs.

Rindge--knows something about horses, and she said he was a brute."

"Yes," he interrupted, with a short laugh, "and she wants to ride him."

"Hugh, she's reckless. I--I've been watching her since she came here, and

I'm sure she's reckless with--with a purpose."

"You're morbid," he said. "She's one of the best sportswomen in the

country--that's the reason she wanted to ride the horse. Look here,

Honora, I'd accede to any reasonable request. But what do you expect me

to do?" he demanded; "go down and say I'm afraid to ride him? or that my

wife doesn't want me to? I'd never hear the end of it. And the first

thing Adele would do would be to jump on him herself--a little wisp of a

woman that looks as if she couldn't hold a Shetland pony! Can't you see

that what you ask is impossible?"

He started for the door to terminate a conversation which had already

begun to irritate him. For his anger, in these days, was very near the

surface. She made one more desperate appeal.

"Hugh--the man who sold him--he knew the horse was dangerous. I'm sure he

did, from something he said to me while you were gone."

"These country people are all idiots and cowards," declared Chiltern.

"I've known 'em a good while, and they haven't got the spirit of mongrel

dogs. I was a fool to think that I could do anything for them. They're

kind and neighbourly, aren't they?" he exclaimed. "If that old rascal

flattered himself he deceived me, he was mistaken. He'd have been

mightily pleased if the beast had broken my neck."

"Hugh!"

"I can't, Honora. That's all there is to it, I can't. Now don't cut up

about nothing. I'm sorry, but I've got to go. Adele's waiting."

He came back, kissed her hurriedly, turned and opened the door. She

followed him into the hallway, knowing that she had failed, knowing that

she never could have succeeded. There she halted and watched him go down

the stairs, and stand with her hands tightly pressed together: voices

reached her, a hurrah from George Pembroke, and the pounding of hoofs on

the driveway. It had seemed such a little thing to ask!

But she did not dwell upon this, now, when fear was gnawing her: how she

had humbled her pride for days and weeks and months for him, and how he

had refused her paltry request lest he should be laughed at. Her

reflections then were not on his waning love. She was filled with the

terror of losing him--of losing all that remained to her in the world.

Presently she began to walk slowly towards the stairs, descended them,

and looked around her. The hall, at least, had not changed. She listened,

and a bee hummed in through the open doorway. A sudden longing for

companionship possessed her-no matter whose; and she walked hurriedly, as

though she were followed, through the empty rooms until she came upon

George Pembroke stretched at full length on the leather-covered lounge in

the library. He opened his eyes, and got up with alacrity.

"Please don't move," she said.

He looked at her. Although his was not what may be called a sympathetic

temperament, he was not without a certain knowledge of women;

superficial, perhaps. But most men of his type have seen them in despair;

and since he was not related to this particular despair, what finer

feelings he had were the more easily aroused. It must have been clear to

her then that she had lost the power to dissemble, all the clearer

because of Mr. Pembroke's cheerfulness.

"I wasn't going to sleep," he assured her. "Circumstantial evidence is

against me, I know. Where's Abby? reading French literature?"

"I haven't seen her," replied Honora.

"She usually goes to bed with a play at this hour. It's a horrid habit

--going to bed, I mean. Don't you think? Would you mind showing me about

a little?"

"Do you really wish to?" asked Honora, incredulously.

"I haven't been here since my senior year," said Mr. Pembroke. "If the

old General were alive, he could probably tell you something of that

visit--he wrote to my father about it. I always liked the place, although

the General was something of a drawback. Fine old man, with no memory."

"I should have thought him to have had a good memory," she said.

"I have always been led to believe that he was once sent away from

college in his youth,--for his health," he explained significantly. "No

man has a good memory who can't remember that. Perhaps the battle of

Gettysburg wiped it out."

Thus, in his own easy-going fashion, Mr. Pembroke sought to distract her.

She put on a hat, and they walked about, the various scenes recalling

incidents of holidays he had spent at Highlawns. And after a while Honora

was thankful that chance had sent her in this hour to him rather than to

Mrs. Kame. For the sight, that morning of this lady in her dressing-gown

over the stairway, had seemingly set the seal on a growing distaste. Her

feeling had not been the same about Mrs. Rindge: Mrs. Kame's actions

savoured of deliberate choice, of an inherent and calculating wickedness.

Had the distraction of others besides himself been the chief business of

Mr. Pembroke's life, he could not have succeeded better that afternoon.

He must be given this credit: his motives remain problematical; at length

he even drew laughter from her. The afternoon wore on, they returned to

the garden for tea, and a peaceful stillness continued to reign about

them, the very sky smiling placidly at her fears. Not by assuring her

that Hugh was unusual horseman, that he had passed through many dangers

beside which this was a bagatelle, could the student of the feminine by

her side have done half so well. And it may have been that his success

encouraged him as he saw emerging, as the result of his handiwork, an

unexpectedly attractive--if still somewhat serious-woman from the gloom

that had enveloped her. That she should still have her distrait moments

was but natural.

He talked to her largely about Hugh, of whom he appeared sincerely fond.

The qualities which attracted Mr. Pembroke in his own sex were somewhat

peculiar, and seemingly consisted largely in a readiness to drop the

business at hand, whatever it might be, at the suggestion of a friend to

do something else; the "something else," of course, to be the conception

of an ingenious mind. And it was while he was in the midst of an anecdote

proving the existence of this quality in his friend that he felt a sudden

clutch on his arm.

They listened. Faintly, very faintly, could be heard the sound of hoof

beats; rapid, though distant.

"Do you hear?" she whispered, and still held his arm.

"It's just like them to race back," said Pembroke, with admirable

nonchalance.

"But they wouldn't come back at this time--it's too early. Hugh always

takes long rides. They started for Hubbard's--it's twelve miles."

"Adele changes her mind every minute of the day," he said.

"Listen!" she cried, and her clutch tightened. The hoof beats grew

louder. "It's only one--it's only one horse!"

Before he could answer, she was already halfway up the garden path

towards the house. He followed her as she ran panting through the

breakfast room, the dining room, and drawing-room, and when they reached

the hall, Starling, the butler, and two footmen were going out at the

door. A voice--Mrs. Kame's--cried out, "What is it?" over the stairs, but

they paid no heed. As they reached the steps they beheld the slight

figure of Mrs. Rindge on a flying horse coming towards them up the

driveway. Her black straw hat had slipped to the back of her neck, her

hair was awry, her childish face white as paper. Honora put her hand to

her heart. There was no need to tell her the news--she had known these

many hours.

Mrs. Rindge's horse came over the round grass-plot of the circle and

planted his fore feet in the turf as she pulled him up. She lurched

forward. It was Starling who lifted her off--George Pembroke stood by

Honora.

"My God, Adele," he exclaimed, "why don't you speak?"

She was staring at Honora.

"I can't!" she cried. "I can't tell you--it's too terrible! The horse--"

she seemed to choke.

It was Honora who went up to her with a calmness that awed them.

"Tell me," she said, "is he dead?"

Mrs. Rindge nodded, and broke into hysterical sobbing.

"And I wanted to ride him myself," she sobbed, as they led her up the

steps.

In less than an hour they brought him home and laid him in the room in

which he had slept from boyhood, and shut the door. Honora looked into

his face. It was calm at last, and his body strangely at rest. The

passions which had tortured it and driven it hither and thither through a

wayward life had fled: the power gone that would brook no guiding hand,

that had known no master. It was not until then that she fell upon him,

weeping . . . .

CHAPTER XVIII

IN WHICH MR. ERWIN SEEK PARIS

As she glanced around the sitting-room of her apartment in Paris one

September morning she found it difficult, in some respects, to realize

that she had lived in it for more than five years. After Chiltern's death

she had sought a refuge, and she had found it here: a refuge in which she

meant--if her intention may be so definitely stated--to pass the

remainder of her days.

As a refuge it had become dear to her. When first she had entered it she

had looked about her numbly, thankful for walls and roof, thankful for

its remoteness from the haunts of the prying: as a shipwrecked castaway

regards, at the first light, the cave into which he has stumbled into the

darkness-gratefully. And gradually, castaway that she felt herself to be,

she had adorned it lovingly, as one above whose horizon the sails of hope

were not to rise; filled it with friends not chosen in a day, whose

faithful ministrations were not to cease. Her books, but only those

worthy to be bound and read again; the pictures she had bought when she

had grown to know what pictures were; the music she had come to love for

its eternal qualities--these were her companions.

The apartment was in the old quarter across the Seine, and she had found

it by chance. The ancient family of which this hotel had once been the

home would scarce have recognized, if they had returned the part of it

Honora occupied. The room in which she mostly lived was above the corner

of the quiet street, and might have been more aptly called a sitting-room

than a salon. Its panels were the most delicate of blue-gray,

fantastically designed and outlined by ribbings of blue. Some of them

contained her pictures. The chairs, the sofas, the little tabourets, were

upholstered in yellow, their wood matching the panels. Above the carved

mantel of yellowing marble was a quaintly shaped mirror extending to the

high ceiling, and flanked on either side by sconces. The carpet was a

golden brown, the hangings in the tall windows yellow. And in the morning

the sun came in, not boisterously, but as a well-bred and cheerful guest.

An amiable proprietor had permitted her also to add a wrought-iron

balcony as an adjunct to this room, and sometimes she sat there on the

warmer days reading under the seclusion of an awning, or gazing at the

mysterious facades of the houses opposite, or at infrequent cabs or

pedestrians below.

An archway led out of the sitting-room into a smaller room, once the

boudoir of a marquise, now Honora's library. This was in blue and gold,

and she had so far modified the design of the decorator as to replace the

mirrors of the cases with glass; she liked to see her books. Beyond the

library was a dining room in grey, with dark red hangings; it overlooked

the forgotten garden of the hotel.

One item alone of news from the outer world, vital to her, had drifted to

her retreat. Newspapers filled her with dread, but it was from a

newspaper, during the first year of her retirement, that she had learned

of the death of Howard Spence. A complication of maladies was mentioned,

but the true underlying cause was implied in the article, and this had

shocked but not surprised her. A ferment was in progress in her own

country, the affairs of the Orange Trust Company being investigated, and

its president under indictment at the hour of his demise. Her feelings at

the time, and for months after, were complex. She had been moved to deep

pity, for in spite of what he had told her of his business transactions,

it was impossible for her to think of him as a criminal. That he had been

the tool of others, she knew, but it remained a question in her mind how

clearly he had perceived the immorality of his course, and of theirs. He

had not been given to casuistry, and he had been brought up in a school

the motto of which he had once succinctly stated: the survival of the

fittest. He had not been, alas, one of those to survive.

Honora had found it impossible to unravel the tangled skein of their

relationship, and to assign a definite amount of blame to each. She did

not shirk hers, and was willing to accept a full measure. That she had

done wrong in marrying him, and again in leaving him to marry another

man, she acknowledged freely. Wrong as she knew this to have been,

severely though she had been punished for it, she could not bring herself

to an adequate penitence. She tried to remember him as he had been at

Silverdale, and in the first months of their marriage, and not as he had

afterwards become. There was no question in her mind, now that it was

given her to see things more clearly, that she might have tried harder,

much harder, to make their marriage a success. He might, indeed, have

done more to protect and cherish her. It was a man's part to guard a

woman against the evils with which she had been surrounded. On the other

hand, she could not escape the fact, nor did she attempt to escape it,

that she had had the more light of the two: and that, though the task

were formidable, she might have fought to retain that light and infuse

him with it.

That she did not hold herself guiltless is the important point. Many of

her hours were spent in retrospection. She was, in a sense, as one dead,

yet retaining her faculties; and these became infinitely keen now that

she was deprived of the power to use them as guides through life. She

felt that the power had come too late, like a legacy when one is old. And

she contemplated the Honora of other days--of the flesh, as though she

were now the spirit departed from that body; sorrowfully, poignantly

regretful of the earthly motives, of the tarnished ideals by which it had

been animated and led to destruction.

Even Hugh Chiltern had left her no illusions. She thought of him at tunes

with much tenderness; whether she still loved him or not she could not

say. She came to the conclusion that all capacity for intense feeling had

been burned out of her. And she found that she could permit her mind to

rest upon no period of her sojourn at Grenoble without a sense of horror;

there had been no hour when she had seemed secure from haunting terror,

no day that had not added its mite to the gathering evidence of an

ultimate retribution. And it was like a nightmare to summon again this

spectacle of the man going to pieces under her eyes. The whole incident

in her life as time wore on assumed an aspect bizarre, incredible, as the

follies of a night of madness appear in the saner light of morning. Her

great love had bereft her of her senses, for had the least grain of

sanity remained to her she might have known that the thing they attempted

was impossible of accomplishment.

Her feeling now, after four years, might be described as relief. To

employ again the figure of the castaway, she often wondered why she of

all others had been rescued from the tortures of slow drowning and thrown

up on an island. What had she done above the others to deserve

preservation? It was inevitable that she should on occasions picture to

herself the years with him that would have stretched ahead, even as the

vision of them had come to her that morning when, in obedience to his

telegram, she had told Starling to prepare for guests. Her escape had

indeed been miraculous!

Although they had passed through a ceremony, the conviction had never

taken root in her that she had been married to Chiltern. The tie that had

united her to him had not been sacred, though it had been no less

binding; more so, in fact. That tie would have become a shackle. Her

perception of this, after his death, had led her to instruct her attorney

to send back to his relatives all but a small income from his estate,

enough for her to live on during her lifetime. There had been some

trouble about this matter; Mrs. Grainger, in particular, had surprised

her in making objections, and had finally written a letter which Honora

received with a feeling akin to gratitude. Whether her own action had

softened this lady's feelings, she never understood; she had cherished

the letter for its unexpectedly charitable expressions. Chiltern's family

had at last agreed to accept the estate on the condition that the income

mentioned should be tripled. And to this Honora had consented. Money had

less value than ever in her eyes.

She lived here in Paris in what may be called a certain peace, made no

demands upon the world, and had no expectations from it. She was now in

half mourning, and intended to remain so. Her isolation was of her own

choice, if a stronger expression be not used. She was by no means an

enforced outcast. And she was even aware that a certain sympathy for her

had grown up amongst her former friends which had spread to the colony of

her compatriots in Paris; in whose numbers there were some, by no means

unrecognized, who had defied the conventions more than she. Hugh

Chiltern's reputation, and the general knowledge of his career, had no

doubt aided to increase this sympathy, but the dignity of her conduct

since his death was at the foundation of it. Sometimes, on her walks and

drives, she saw people bowing to her, and recognized friends or

acquaintances of what seemed to her like a former existence.

Such had been her life in Paris until a certain day in early September, a

month before this chapter opens. It was afternoon, and she was sitting in

the balcony cutting a volume of memoirs when she heard the rattle of a

cab on the cobbles below, and peered curiously over the edge of the

railing. Although still half a block away, the national characteristics

of the passenger were sufficiently apparent. He was an American--of that

she was sure. And many Americans did not stray into that quarter. The

length of his legs, for one thing, betrayed him: he found the seat of the

fiacre too low, and had crossed one knee over the other. Other and less

easily definable attributes he did not lack. And as he leaned against the

faded blue cushions regarding with interest the buildings he passed, he

seemed, like an ambassador, to convert the cab in which he rode into

United States territory. Then she saw that it was Peter Erwin.

She drew back her head from the balcony rail, and tried to sit still and

to think, but she was trembling as one stricken with a chill. The cab

stopped; and presently, after an interval, his card was handed her. She

rose, and stood for a moment with her hand against the wall before she

went into the salon. None of the questions she had asked herself were

answered. Was she glad to see him? and what would be his attitude towards

her? When she beheld him standing before her she had strength only to

pronounce his name.

He came forward quickly and took her hand and looked down into her face.

She regarded him tremulously, instinctively guessing the vital importance

of this moment for him; and she knew then that he had been looking

forward to it in mingled hope and dread, as one who gazes seaward after a

night of tempest for the ship he has seen at dusk in the offing. What had

the tempest done to her? Such was his question. And her heart leaped as

she saw the light growing in his eyes, for it meant much to her that he

should see that she was not utterly dismantled. She fell; his own hand

tremble as he relinquished hers. He was greatly moved; his voice, too,

betrayed it.

"You see I have found you," he said.

"Yes," she answered; "--why did you come?"

"Why have I always come to you, when it was possible?" he asked.

"No one ever had such a friend, Peter. Of that I am sure:'

"I wanted to see Paris," he said, "before I grew too decrepit to enjoy

it."

She smiled, and turned away.

"Have you seen much of it?"

"Enough to wish to see more."

"When did you arrive?"

"Some time in the night," he said, "from Cherbourg. And I'm staying at a

very grand hotel, which might be anywhere. A man I crossed with on the

steamer took me there. I think I'd move to one of the quieter ones, the

French ones, if I were a little surer of my pronunciation and the

subjunctive mood."

"You don't mean to say you've been studying French!"

He coloured a little, and laughed.

"You think it ridiculous at my time of life? I suppose you're right. You

should have seen me trying to understand the cabmen. The way these people

talk reminds me more of a Gatling gun than anything I can think of. It

certainly isn't human."

"Perhaps you have come over as ambassador," she suggested. "When I saw

you in the cab, even before I recognized you, I thought of a bit of our

soil broken off and drifted over here."

Her voice did not quite sustain the lighter note--the emotion his visit

was causing her was too great. He brought with him into her retreat not

so much a flood of memories as of sensations. He was a man whose image

time with difficulty obliterates, whose presence was a shining thing: so

she had grown to value it in proportion as she had had less of it. She

did inevitably recall the last time she had seen him, in the little

Western city, and how he had overwhelmed her, invaded her with doubts and

aroused the spirit which had possessed her to fight fiercely for its

foothold. And to-day his coming might be likened to the entrance of a

great physician into the room of a distant and lonely patient whom amidst

wide ministrations he has not forgotten. She saw now that he had been

right. She had always seen it, clearly indeed when he had been beside

her, but the spirit within her had been too strong, until now. Now, when

it had plundered her soul of treasures--once so little valued--it had

fled. Such were her thoughts.

The great of heart undoubtedly possess this highest quality of the

physician,--if the statement may thus be put backhandedly,--and Peter

Erwin instinctively understood the essential of what was going on within

her. He appeared to take a delight in the fancy she had suggested; that

he had brought a portion of the newer world to France.

"Not a piece of the Atlantic coast, certainly," he replied. "One of the

muddy islands, perhaps, of the Mississippi."

"All the more representative," she said. "You seem to have taken

possession of Paris, Peter--not Paris of you. You have annexed the seat

of the Capets, and brought democracy at last into the Faubourg."

"Without a Reign of Terror," he added quizzically.

"If you are not ambassador, what are you?" she asked. "I have expected at

any moment to read in the Figaro that you were President of the United

States."

"I am the American tourist," he declared, "with Baedeker for my Bible,

who desires to be shown everything. And I have already discovered that

the legend of the fabulous wealth of the Indies is still in force here.

There are many who are willing to believe that in spite of my modest

appearance--maybe because of it--I have sailed over in a galleon filled

with gold. Already I have been approached from every side by confidential

gentlemen who announced that they spoke English--one of them said

'American'--who have offered to show me many things, and who have

betrayed enough interest in me to inquire whether I were married or

single."

Honora laughed. They were seated in the balcony by this time, and he had

the volume of memoirs on his knee, fingering it idly.

"What did you say to them?" she asked.

"I told them I was the proud father of ten children," he replied. "That

seemed to stagger them, but only for a moment. They offered to take us

all to the Louvre."

"Peter, you are ridiculous! But, in spite of your nationality, you don't

look exactly gullible."

"That is a relief," he said. "I had begun to think I ought to leave my

address and my watch with the Consul General . . . ."

Of such a nature was the first insidious rupture of that routine she had

grown to look upon as changeless for the years to come, of the life she

had chosen for its very immutable quality. Even its pangs of loneliness

had acquired a certain sweet taste. Partly from a fear of a world that

had hurt her, partly from fear of herself, she had made her burrow deep,

that heat and cold, the changing seasons, and love and hate might be

things far removed. She had sought to remove comparisons, too, from the

limits of her vision; to cherish and keep alive, indeed, such regrets as

she had, but to make no new ones.

Often had she thought of Peter Erwin, and it is not too much to say that

he had insensibly grown into an ideal. He had come to represent to her

the great thing she had missed in life, missed by feverish searching in

the wrong places, digging for gold where the ground had glittered. And,

if the choice had been given her, she would have preferred his spiritual

to his bodily companionship--for a while, at least. Some day, when she

should feel sure that desire had ceased to throb, when she should have

acquired an unshakable and absolute resignation, she would see him. It is

not too much to say, if her feeling be not misconstrued and stretched far

beyond her own conception of it, that he was her one remaining interest

in the world. She had scanned the letters of her aunt and uncle for

knowledge of his doings, and had felt her curiosity justified by a

certain proprietorship that she did not define, faith in humankind, or

the lack of it, usually makes itself felt through one's comparative

contemporaries. That her uncle was a good man, for instance, had no such

effect upon Honora, as the fact that Peter was a good man. And that he

had held a true course had gradually become a very vital thing to her,

perhaps the most vital thing; and she could have imagined no greater

personal calamity now than to have seen him inconsistent. For there are

such men, and most people have known them. They are the men who,

unconsciously, keep life sweet.

Yet she was sorry he had invaded her hiding-place. She had not yet

achieved peace, and much of the weary task would have to be done over

after he was gone.

In the meantime she drifted with astounding ease into another existence.

For it was she, and not the confidential gentlemen, who showed Peter

Paris: not the careless, pleasure-loving Paris of the restaurants, but of

the Cluny and the Carnavalet. The Louvre even was not neglected, and as

they entered it first she recalled with still unaccustomed laughter his

reply to the proffered services of the guide. Indeed, there was much

laughter in their excursions: his native humour sprang from the same well

that held his seriousness. She was amazed at his ability to strip a sham

and leave it grotesquely naked; shams the risible aspect of which she had

never observed in spite of the familiarity four years had given her. Some

of his own countrymen and countrywomen afforded him the greatest

amusement in their efforts to carry off acquired European

"personalities," combinations of assumed indifference and effrontery, and

an accent the like of which was never heard before. But he was neither

bitter nor crude in his criticisms. He made her laugh, but he never made

her ashamed. His chief faculty seemed to be to give her the power to

behold, with astonishing clearness, objects and truths which had lain

before her eyes, and yet hidden. And she had not thought to acquire any

more truths.

The depth of his pleasure in the things he saw was likewise a revelation

to her. She was by no means a bad guide to the Louvre and the Luxembourg,

but the light in her which had come slowly flooded him with radiance at

the sight of a statue or a picture. He would stop with an exclamation and

stand gazing, self-forgetful, for incredible periods, and she would watch

him, filled with a curious sense of the limitations of an appreciation

she had thought complete. Where during his busy life had he got this

thing which others had sought in many voyages in vain?

Other excursions they made, and sometimes these absorbed a day. It was a

wonderful month, that Parisian September, which Honora, when she allowed

herself to think, felt that she had no right to. A month filled to the

brim with colour: the stone facades of the houses, which in certain

lights were what the French so aptly call bleuatre; the dense green

foliage of the horse-chestnut trees, the fantastic iron grills, the Arc

de Triomphe in the centre of its circle at sunset, the wide shaded

avenues radiating from it, the bewildering Champs Elysees, the blue

waters of the Seine and the graceful bridges spanning it, Notre Dame

against the sky. Their walks took them, too, into quainter, forgotten

regions where history was grim and half-effaced, and they speculated on

the France of other days.

They went farther afield; and it was given them to walk together down

green vistas cut for kings, to linger on terraces with the river far

below them, and the roofs of Paris in the hazy distance; that Paris,

sullen so long, the mutterings of which the kings who had sat there must

have heard with dread; that Paris which had finally risen in its wrath

and taken the pleasure-houses and the parks for itself.

Once they went out to Chantilly, the cameo-like chateau that stands

mirrored in its waters, and wandered through the alleys there. Honora had

left her parasol on the parapet, and as they returned Peter went to get

it, while she awaited him at a little distance. A group was chatting

gayly on the lawn, and one of them, a middle-aged, well-dressed man

hailed him with an air of fellowship, and Peter stopped for a moment's

talk.

"We were speaking of ambassadors the other day," he said when he joined

her; "that was our own, Minturn."

"We were speaking of them nearly a month ago," she said.

"A month ago! I can't believe it!" he exclaimed.

"What did he say to you?" Honora inquired presently.

"He was abusing me for not letting him know I was in Paris."

"Peter, you ought to have let him know!"

"I didn't come over here to see the ambassador," answered Peter, gayly.

She talked less than usual on their drive homeward, but he did not seem

to notice the fact. Dusk was already lurking in the courtyards and byways

of the quiet quarter when the porter let them in, and the stone stairway

of the old hotel was almost in darkness. The sitting-room, with its

yellow, hangings snugly drawn and its pervading but soft light, was a

grateful change. And while she was gone to--remove her veil and hat,

Peter looked around it.

It was redolent of her. A high vase of remarkable beauty, filled with

white roses, stood on the gueridon. He went forward and touched it, and

closed his eyes as though in pain. When he opened them he saw her

standing in the archway.

She had taken off her coat, and was in a simple white muslin gown, with a

black belt--a costume that had become habitual. Her age was thirty. The

tragedy and the gravity of her life during these later years had touched

her with something that before was lacking. In the street, in the

galleries, people had turned to look at her; not with impudent stares.

She caught attention, aroused imagination. Once, the year before, she had

had a strange experience with a well-known painter, who, in an impulsive

note, had admitted following her home and bribing the concierge. He

craved a few sittings. Her expression now, as she looked at Peter, was

graver than usual.

"You must not come to-morrow," she said.

"I thought we were going to Versailles again," he replied in surprise. "I

have made the arrangements."

"I have changed my mind. I'm not going."

"You want to postpone it?" he asked.

She took a chair beside the little blaze in the fireplace.

"Sit down, Peter. I wish to say something to you. I have been wishing to

do so for some time."

"Do you object if I stand a moment?" he said. "I feel so much more

comfortable standing, especially when I am going to be scolded."

"Yes," she admitted, "I am going to scold you. Your conscience has warned

you."

"On the contrary," he declared, "it has never been quieter. If I have

offended; it is through ignorance."

"It is through charity, as usual," she said m a low voice. "If your

conscience be quiet, mine is not. It is in myself that I am

disappointed--I have been very selfish. I have usurped you. I have known

it all along, and I have done very wrong in not relinquishing you

before."

"Who would have shown me Paris?" he exclaimed.

"No," she continued, "you would not have been alone. If I had needed

proof of that fact, I had it to-day--"

"Oh, Minturn," he interrupted; "think of me hanging about an Embassy and

trying not to spill tea!" And he smiled at the image that presented.

Her own smile was fleeting.

"You would never do that, I know," she said gravely.

"You are still too modest, Peter, but the time has gone by when I can be

easily deceived. You have a great reputation among men of affairs, an

unique one. In spite of the fact that you are distinctly American, you

have a wide interest in what is going on in the world. And you have an

opportunity here to meet people of note, people really worth while from

every point of view. You have no right to neglect it."

He was silent a moment, looking down at her. She was leaning forward, her

eyes fixed on the fire, her hands clasped between her knees.

"Do you think I care for that?" he asked.

"You ought to care," she said, without looking up. "And it is my duty to

try to make you care."

"Honora, why do you think I came over here?" he said.

"To see Paris," she answered. "I have your own word for it. To--to

continue your education. It never seems to stop."

"Did you really believe that?"

"Of course I believed it. What could be more natural? And you have never

had a holiday like this."

"No," he agreed. "I admit that."

"I don't know how much longer you are going to stay," she said. "You have

not been abroad before, and there are other places you ought to go."

"I'll get you to make out an itinerary."

"Peter, can't you see that I'm serious? I have decided to take matters in

my own hands. The rest of the time you are here, you may come to see me

twice a week. I shall instruct the concierge."

He turned and grasped the mantel shelf with both hands, and touched the

log with the toe of his boot.

"What I told you about seeing Paris may be called polite fiction," he

said. "I came over here to see you. I have been afraid to say it until

to-day, and I am afraid to say it now."

She sat very still. The log flared up again, and he turned slowly and

looked at the shadows in her face.

"You-you have always been good to me," she answered. "I have never

deserved it--I have never understood it. If it is any satisfaction for

you to know that what I have saved of myself I owe to you, I tell you so

freely."

"That," he said, "is something for which God forbid that I should take

credit. What you are is due to the development of a germ within you, a

development in which I have always had faith. I came here to see you, I

came here because I love you, because I have always loved you, Honora."

"Oh, no, not that!" she cried; "not that!"

"Why not?" he asked. "It is something I cannot help, something beyond my

power to prevent if I would. But I would not. I am proud of it, and I

should be lost without it. I have had it always. I have come over to beg

you to marry me."

"It's impossible! Can't you see it's impossible?"

"You don't love me?" he said. Into those few words was thrown all the

suffering of his silent years.

"I don't know what I feel for you," she answered in an agonized voice,

her fingers tightening over the backs of her white hands. "If reverence

be love--if trust be love, infinite and absolute trust--if gratitude be

love--if emptiness after you are gone be a sign of it--yes, I love you.

If the power to see clearly only through you, to interpret myself only by

your aid be love, I acknowledge it. I tell you so freely, as of your

right to know. And the germ of which you spoke is you. You have grown

until you have taken possession of--of what is left of me. If I had only

been able to see clearly from the first, Peter, I should be another woman

to-day, a whole woman, a wise woman. Oh, I have thought of it much. The

secret of life was there at my side from the time I was able to pronounce

your name, and I couldn't see it. You had it. You stayed. You took duty

where you found it, and it has made you great. Oh, I don't mean to speak

in a worldly sense. When I say that, it is to express the highest human

quality of which I can think and feel. But I can't marry you. You must

see it."

"I cannot see it," he replied, when he had somewhat gained control of

himself.

"Because I should be wronging you."

"How?" he asked.

"In the first place, I should be ruining your career."

"If I had a career," he said, smiling gently, "you couldn't ruin it. You

both overestimate and underestimate the world's opinion, Honora. As my

wife, it will not treat you cruelly. And as for my career, as you call

it, it has merely consisted in doing as best I could the work that has

come to me. I have tried to serve well those who have employed me, and if

my services be of value to them, and to those who may need me in the

future, they are not going to reject me. If I have any worth in the

world, you will but add to it. Without you I am incomplete."

She looked up at him wonderingly.

"Yes, you are great," she said. "You pity me, you think of my

loneliness."

"It is true I cannot bear to picture you here," he exclaimed. "The

thought tortures me, but it is because I love you, because I wish to take

and shield you. I am not a man to marry a woman without love. It seems to

me that you should know me well enough to believe that, Honora. There

never has been any other woman in my life, and there never can be. I have

given you proof of it, God knows."

"I am not what I was," she said, "I am not what I was. I have been

dragged down."

He bent and lifted her hand from her knee, and raised it to his lips, a

homage from him that gave her an exquisite pain.

"If you had been dragged down," he answered simply, "my love would have

been killed. I know something of the horrors you have been through, as

though I had suffered them myself. They might have dragged down another

woman, Honora. But they have strangely ennobled you."

She drew her hand away.

"No," she said, "I do not deserve happiness. It cannot be my destiny."

"Destiny," he repeated. "Destiny is a thing not understandable by finite

minds. It is not necessarily continued tragedy and waste, of that I am

certain. Only a little thought is required, it seems to me, to assure us

that we cannot be the judges of our own punishment on this earth. And of

another world we know nothing. It cannot be any one's destiny to throw

away a life while still something may be made of it. You would be

throwing your life away here. That no other woman is possible, or ever

can be possible, for me should be a consideration with you, Honora. What

I ask of you is a sacrifice--will you make me happy?"

Her eyes filled with tears.

"Oh, Peter, do you care so much as that? If--if I could be sure that I

were doing it for you! If in spite--of all that has happened to me, I

could be doing something for you--!"

He stooped and kissed her.

"You can if you will," he said.

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