Unconquered : A romance

By Maud Diver

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Title: Unconquered
        A romance

Author: Maud Diver


        
Release date: June 16, 2026 [eBook #78882]

Language: English

Original publication: Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1917

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78882

Credits: Al Haines


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNCONQUERED ***






UNCONQUERED



  "The stars are threshed and the souls
  are threshed from their husks."
                              _Blake._

  "Men and angels, ye
  Whom stain of strife befouls,
  A light to kindle souls
  Bear, radiant, in the stain."
                            _Meredith._




  UNCONQUERED

  _A Romance_


  BY

  MAUD DIVER

  _Author of "The Strong Hours," "Far to Seek,"
  "Lonely Furrow," etc._



  BOSTON AND NEW YORK
  HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
  The Riverside Press Cambridge




  COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY MAUD DIVER


  The Riverside Press
  CAMBRIDGE * MASSACHUSETTS
  PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.




  To
  MARY

  IN REMEMBRANCE
  OCTOBER 10TH, 1901


  "A turn, and we stand in the heart of things..."
                                            _Browning._




AUTHOR'S NOTE

The chapters dealing with France, and the incidents connected with
these, are founded on fact.  I merely mention this because it seems
to me that the main incident gains in effect from the knowledge that
it is not mere invention.--M. D.




CONTENTS


BOOK I.--BEL

BOOK II.--THE UTTER PRICE

BOOK III.--VIA CRUCIS

BOOK IV.--VIA LUCIS




BOOK I

BEL



CHAPTER I

"Whom does love concern save the lover and the beloved?  Yet its
impact deluges a thousand shores."--E. M. FORSTER.


Sir Mark Forsyth pushed back his chair, left the dinner-table, and
strolled over to the bay-window.  He drew out his cigarette-case, but
apparently forgot to open it.  He stood there, looking out across the
garden, that merged into rocky spaces of heather and bracken, and
culminated in an abrupt descent to Loch Etive.  Low above the
darkening hills the sunset splendour flamed along the horizon, and
all the waters beneath were alight with the transient glory.  But the
man's face wore the abstracted air of one who dwells upon an inner
vision.  Though the subdued flow of talk behind him entered his ears,
it did not seem to reach his brain.  "Bobs," his devoted Irish
terrier, crept out from under the table, and joining his master, made
sundry infallible bids for attention, without success.

Presently alluring whiffs of cigarette smoke, intruding on his
dreams, reminded Sir Mark of the unopened case in his hand.

"I vote for coffee on the terrace, Mother," he said, turning his eyes
from the glory without to the dimness of the unlighted dining-room.
"Then we'll have the boats out.  There's going to be an afterglow and
a half presently."

"I told Grant about the coffee two minutes ago, dear," Lady Forsyth
answered, smiling; but her eyes dwelt a little anxiously on the
silhouetted view of her son's profile, as he set a match to his
cigarette.  The straight, outstanding nose and square chin vividly
recalled his dead father.  But the imaginative brow was of her
bestowing and a splash of light on his hair showed the reddish
chestnut tint of her own people: the tint she loved.

"Come along, children," she added, including in that category four
out of her five guests--two girls, unrelated to herself, Ralph
Melrose, a Gurkha subaltern, and Maurice Lenox, an artist friend of
Mark's.

Keith Macnair, professor of philosophy--his rugged face lined with
thought, his dark hair lightly frosted at the temples--was the only
genuine grown-up of her small house-party.  A connection of her own,
and devoted to both mother and son, he was so evenly placed between
them in the matter of age that he could play elder brother to Mark or
younger brother to Lady Forsyth as occasion required.  And, whenever
professional claims permitted, occasion usually did require his
presence, in some capacity, either at Wynchcombe Friars or Inveraig.
Between times, he lived and lectured and wrote philosophical books in
Edinburgh; and never, if he could help it, did he fail to spend most
of his summer holiday at Inveraig.

When the party rose from the table he joined Mark in the window; and
as the two girls stood back to let Lady Forsyth pass out, she slipped
an arm round each.  Her love of youth and young things seemed to
deepen with her own advancing years.  But she had her preferences;
and it was the arm round Sheila Melrose that tightened as they passed
through the long drawing-room to the terrace, where coffee was set
upon a low stone table in full view of the illumined lake and sky.

"It's splendid to have you safe back again, child," she said,
releasing Monica Videlle and drawing Sheila down to the seat beside
her.  "India's monopolised you quite long enough.  There's some
mysterious magnetism about that country.  People seem to catch it
like a disease.  And I was getting alarmed lest you might succumb to
the infection."

Miss Melrose smiled thoughtfully at the sunset.  "I'm not sure _I_
haven't succumbed already!" she said in her low, clear-cut voice.  "I
have vague tempting dreams of going back with Ralph when his furlough
is up; or with Mona, to help doctor her Indian women.  But probably
they'll never materialise----"

"More than probably, if I have any say in the matter!"

Lady Forsyth spoke lightly, but under the lightness lurked a note of
decision.  She had her own private dreams concerning this girl with
the softly shining eyes under level brows, and the softly resolute
lips that never seemed quite to leave off smiling even in repose.

At mention of India, Miss Videlle's thoughtful face came suddenly to
life.  "It would be lovely for me," she said.  "Too good to be true!"

"Never mind, Miss Videlle," Maurice consoled her almost tenderly.
"This ripping evening's not too good to be true.  And _I_ can put you
up to some tips for squaring Lady Forsyth--in strict confidence of
course!"

He bent towards her with a slightly theatrical offer of his arm, and
they moved off to a seat near the ivy-covered wall, looking towards
the distant rapids.

Lady Forsyth glanced after them with a passing twinge of concern.

The girl--a fairly recent acquisition of Sheila's--was shy and
clever, with a streak of dark blood in her veins.  She had done
brilliantly at Oxford, and was now qualified to take up the medical
work in India on which she had set her heart.  Sheila had acquired
her while going through a course of massage and magnetic healing, for
which she showed so distinct a gift that she had serious thoughts of
taking it up in earnest.  A vague idea of going out with Monica
Videlle had been simmering in her brain for the past week; but she
had not spoken of it till to-night.

"Wonder what's come to old Mark," mused Ralph pensively, stirring his
coffee.  "Thought this picnic arrangement was all for his benefit----"

"Rather so!" Mark's voice answered him, as he and Macnair strolled
round the corner of the house.  "Hurry up with the coffee, Mums.  I
love dabbling my oars in the sunset.  Lenox, old chap, you two might
go on ahead and give the word."

They went on readily enough; and the rest soon followed them through
the wilder spaces of the garden, down rocky steps to the bay, where
sand and rough grass shelved gently to the water's edge.  Here they
found two boats already afloat, with Maurice and Monica--she was
commonly called Mona--established in one of them.

Lady Forsyth, nothing if not prompt, privately consigned Ralph to
that boat, Mark and Keith to her own.  It was a heavenly evening, and
she thanked goodness they were going to have it to themselves: quite
a rare event since Maurice Lenox had discovered that superfluous Miss
Alison.

"Coming to row stroke for us?" she asked as Mark handed her in.

He shook his head, smiling down at her.

"That's to be Keith's privilege!  I'm for the other boat."  But
neither his smile nor the light pressure of her arm could atone for
the refusal.

"Pointed and purposeless," she denounced it mentally; but within a
very few moments his purpose was revealed.

"Down Connel way first, Keith," he called out, as he pushed off his
own boat and sprang lightly in.  "I want to run up to the village.
Miss Alison and her friend might like to join us."

So they rowed towards Connel at his command: and for Lady Forsyth the
pleasure of the outing was gone; the peace and beauty of the evening
spoilt by fierce resentment against these intrusive strangers who had
no authorised position in the scheme of things.  And her natural
vexation was intensified by concern for Sheila: though whether the
girl took Mark's sudden and strange defection seriously it was
impossible to tell.  She wore that smiling, friendly graciousness of
hers like a bright veil, that seemed to baffle attempts at intimacy,
while it enhanced her charm.  Even with Lady Forsyth, who loved her
as a daughter, she had her reserves, notably on matters nearest her
heart.

"After all, she knows the real Mark almost as well as I do," Mark's
mother reflected by way of consolation.  "And she's wiser than I am,
in many ways, though she _is_ nearly thirty years younger.  I'm
probably racing on miles too fast.  He's barely known the girl a
fortnight.  He _couldn't_ be so crazy!--  All the same, he's no
business to--it's distracting!" she concluded, her irritation flaming
up again at sight of the two figures that were now approaching the
shore, escorted by Mark.

Miss Alison, the taller one, had unquestionably height and grace to
recommend her.  Mark, who stood six feet in his socks, could barely
give her a couple of inches; and the languid deliberation of her
movements had, on Lady Forsyth, the same maddening effect as a drawl
in speech.  Her own brain and body were too quick, in the original
sense of the word, not to make her a trifle intolerant towards the
"half-alive"; and, rightly, or wrongly, Miss Alison was apt to
produce that impression even on her admirers, though no doubt they
expressed it differently.

Personal prejudice apart, Lady Forsyth preferred the girl's
companion, Miss O'Neill, in spite of her wrong-headed zeal for the
Suffrage and Home Rule.  Had Bel Alison been out in search of a foil,
she could have discovered none better than this big-hearted,
fanatical woman of five-and thirty, shortish, and squarely built,
with an upward nose, an ugly, humorous mouth, and a quantity of rough
brown hair in a chronic state of untidiness.  Lady Forsyth gathered
that she was an active philanthropist, and that the incongruous pair
shared a flat somewhere in Earl's Court.  To outward seeming they had
certainly nothing beyond the same address in common.

If Bel's movements were over-deliberate, Miss O'Neill's were apt to
be sudden; and she strode into the boat with the decision of one
given to putting her foot down to some purpose.

"Steady on!  You evidently don't do things by halves!" Sir Mark
remonstrated, laughing, and consigning her to a cushion in the bows.
Bel had already usurped Maurice's seat astern, and Mark rowed
stroke--this time without need of invitation.  Then they turned about
and moved slowly up the loch, dabbling their oars in the sunset fires
and shivering the purple shadows of the hills.

And if for Helen Forsyth the pleasure of the evening was over, for
Mark it had but just begun.  And she knew it.  Therein lay the sting.
Though "the boy" was now very much a man, she could honestly have
said, two weeks ago, that nothing beyond minor differences and mutual
flashes of temper had marred the deep essential unity of their
relation--a unity the more inestimably precious since he was now all
she had left of her nearest and dearest on earth.  Husband, daughter
and younger son had all passed on before her into the Silence, and of
her own people one brother alone remained.  At the moment he was High
Commissioner of New Zealand, and seemed disposed to stay on there
indefinitely when his term of office expired.  The Empire, he wrote,
was a saner, sweeter, more spacious place of abode than
twentieth-century England, which seemed temporarily given over to the
cheap-jack, the specialist, and the party politician.  And she--while
loving every foot of her husband's country and her own--understood
too well the frequent disappointment of those who came, on rare and
hardly earned leave, from the ends of the earth and failed to find,
in picture-palaces and music-halls, in the jargon of Futurists and
demagogues, the England of their dreams.

For this cause, her sole remaining brother had become little more
than a memory and a monthly letter.  Yet, could she never account
herself a lonely woman, while she had Keith for friend and mentor,
Mark for son, and Sheila for--more than possible--daughter.  What
business had this unknown girl to step into their charmed circle and
unsettle the very foundation of things?  Never, till to-night, had it
seemed possible to Mark's mother that she could arrive at dreading
the fulfilment of his heart's desire.  Yet that was what it amounted
to.  Dread lurked behind her surface irritation.  The touch of second
sight in her composition made her vaguely conscious of danger in the
air.  Small wonder if she anathematised Maurice Lenox for his knack
of picking up promiscuous strangers, and, in this case, aggravating
his offence by failing to appropriate his own discovery.




CHAPTER II

"Quand on vous voit, on vous aime; quand on vous aime, où vous
voit-on?"


For a while the two boats kept in touch, so that talk passed easily
between them.  Miss Alison spoke little.  Silence rather became the
fair pensive quality of her charm--and probably she knew it.  The
uncharitable supposition was Lady Forsyth's: and she was fain to
confess that pensiveness and silence harmonised well with the fine,
straight nose, the mass of dull gold hair, and eyes of that
transparent blue which lacks warmth and depth, yet has a limpid
beauty of its own, especially where the pupils are large and the
lashes noticeably long.

Mark, too, had fallen silent: the worst possible sign.  But Miss
O'Neill atoned for all deficiencies by discoursing vigorously to
Maurice's swaying shoulders, upon the latest developments of the
suffrage campaign.  Maurice, equal to any emergency, had no
difficulty in airing his own views on the subject--as it were,
through the back of his head--to one who had hammered shop windows
with her own hand, though she graciously drew the line at firing
churches and wrecking trains.  Yet she was a woman of generous and,
at times, noble impulses.  The greater part of her small annuity was
lavished on a very personal form of rescue work--and on Bel.

"It's rank injustice, say what you please," she declared in her
strong vibrant tones, "to imprison and torture poor misguided girls
who have the courage of the faith that's in them.  The real blame
lies on the heads of those who've driven us to extremes."

"That sounds very fine, Miss O'Neill, but I'm afraid it won't hold
water," Macnair put in quietly from the other boat.  "It has been the
standing excuse of fanatics and--dare I add?--criminals all down the
ages.  Your latest forms of argument will simply harden and justify
opposition to a cause that is not without certain elements of justice
and right."

His pleasant voice had the clear, leisured enunciation of the
scholar, a quality peculiarly exasperating to the red-hot enthusiast
whose thoughts are, in the main, emotions intellectually expressed.
"Justice and right indeed!" Miss O'Neill fairly hurled the words at
him.  "That's all we're asking, isn't it?  And precisely what we'll
never be getting under a man-made Government and man-made laws."

Macnair smiled and shrugged his shoulders.  He had no mind to let
argument and recrimination desecrate the peace and glowing beauty of
a Highland summer evening; and with practised ease he slid into the
calmer waters of generalisation, as much in the hope of weaning Lady
Forsyth from troubled thoughts as for the pleasure of expressing his
own.

"The truth is," he said, resting on his oars, while the boats drifted
into a luminous bay, "every age, like every country, has its moral
microbe; and the microbe of this one is 'Down with everything';
'Can't; won't; shan't; don't; Pass it along the line,' that's about
the tune of it, in all ranks.  Kipling may or may not be a classic
poet, but his Commissariat Camels puts the present-day spirit into a
nutshell.  For nearly a hundred years the world has been fed on a
steady diet of revolt; and now we have the climax, distaste for
duties and clamour for rights.  The fine, brave old wisdom of
acceptance is altogether out of court----"

Mark, withdrawing his gaze from Miss Alison's profile, treated him to
a smile of amused approval.  "Why this sudden access of eloquence,
old man?" he asked; and Keith deliberately winked over his shoulder.

"Miss O'Neill there's to blame; and the modern world does seem rather
egregiously modern when one's been living for months in a backwater
with Pindar for company."

"Oh, Keith, have you really found time for your promised translation
of the Odes?"  Lady Porsyth--herself a translator of some
distinction--leaned eagerly forward.

"I've been making time for a few of them," he answered, pleased with
the success of his diversion, "by neglecting my Bergson book."

"Have you got them here?"

"Yes.  They're in type, awaiting your consideration."

"Well done.  You'll publish them, of course?"

He shook his head.  "Not even to please you!  I've simply been
enjoying myself, exploring a little deeper into the heart of an old
friend; one who could look life in the face without feeling convinced
that he personally could have made a better job of it.  One suspects
even our poets, these days, of being propagandists in disguise.
Pindar is as sublime and as useless as a snow-peak; and one can no
more convey the essence of him in English than one could convey the
scent of a rose in Parliamentary language!  Yet one is fool enough to
try!"

Sheila, who had been listening with her quiet intentness, remarked
softly, "_Why_ don't we all learn Greek?"

"Because the humanities are out of court in an age of scientific
materialism.  Wasn't there a promise, once, that I should teach
_you_?"

The girl flushed with pleasure.  "I thought you'd forgotten."

"And _I_ thought Miss Videlle had persuaded you to give up everything
for this massage you're so keen about."

Their talk took a more personal tone, and Lady Forsyth's attention
strayed again towards the other boat.  It had drifted a little
farther off, and a change of seats was in progress between Mark and
Miss Videlle.  One moment his tall figure loomed against the dying
splendour; the next, he sank cautiously down beside Miss Alison, who
vouchsafed him a sidelong glance of welcome.

"We're moving on a bit, Mother," he sang out, seeing her face turned
in their direction.

They moved on accordingly: and it did not occur to Lady Forsyth that
Miss O'Neill, sitting alone in the bows, obscured from vision of the
disturbing pair, was in much the same mood as herself.  Lonely,
passionate, and emotional, her thwarted womanhood had found in Bel
Alison an object on which she could lavish at once the protective
tenderness of a mother and the devoted service of a man.  Unhappily,
this last included a consuming jealousy of those who had a better
natural right to the girl than herself.  Diligently and skilfully,
therefore, she had scattered seeds of prejudice against the unjust
half of creation--which, by the way, she very much appreciated in
units, while denouncing it in the mass.  By way of a more positive
deterrent, her slender means were taxed to the utmost that Bel might
have cushions and flowers and curtains to suit her fastidious taste.
No one, least of all Miss Alison, suspected the extent of her secret
shifts and sacrifices.  And, intermittently she had her reward.  But
no skill in self-deception could blind her to the fact that her
lavish devotion was as dust in the balance against the passing
attentions of a baronet, lord of two estates, and a fine-looking
fellow to boot.  To-night the conviction rankled with peculiar
keenness by reason of her suppressed irritation with Macnair.

"Shirking the issue.  Just like a man!" she soliloquised wrathfully.
"And dragging in his own trumpery translations by the heels.  The
conceit of the creatures!  And the folly of them.  Wasting good
abilities over the vapourings of a musty old Greek poet.  Blind as a
bat, or simply not caring a snap that the world's crammed with evils
crying out to be reformed.  Let them cry, so long as he can scribble
in peace...."

At this point her somewhat chaotic thoughts were interrupted by music
from the other end of the boat.  Mark was singing Wallace's lullaby,
_Son of Mine_; half crooning it, at first, for the benefit of Miss
Alison, who did not know it.  But as the strong swing of the melody
took hold of him, he let out his voice to the full--a true, clear
baritone; music in its every cadence; and something more than music,
for those who had ears to hear.

Harry, raging inwardly, heard, and understood very well that the days
of her own dominion were numbered.  Lady Forsyth understood equally
well; but she had passed beyond the raging mood.  The song was an old
favourite; every note of it laden with associations; and in spite of
herself tears started to her eyes.

As for Mark, others might understand or not as they pleased.  He was
singing to an audience of one; to the girl who sat beside him, her
uncovered head lifted and half turned away toward the dark sweeping
curves of the hills.

When the murmur of applause died down she turned to him with the slow
lift of her lashes that, conscious or no, thrilled him afresh at each
repetition.  "I didn't know you could sing like that," she said
softly.

"I can't always," he answered, flushing under her implied praise.
"Sometimes--it just takes hold of me.  Don't you sing yourself?  I'm
sure you've got music in you."

She suppressed a small sigh.  "Oh yes.  It's one of my poor little
half-fledged talents; useless for want of proper development.  My
elder sister's the clever one, and she got all the chances.  She
found me convenient sometimes for duets."

"Duets?  Good.  I know plenty.  Let's have a try.  What was her line?"

"Classical.  Mostly German."

Mark was silent a moment raking his memory.  Then he had an
inspiration.  "Mendelssohn's 'I would that the love'...?  Wasn't that
the sort of thing?"

"Yes.  Very much so."

"Right!  We'll give them a treat.  You take the air."

She shook her head.  "You're going much too fast.  I never said I'd
sing; and--I've rather forgotten the words."

"You won't slip out of it that way!" he told her; and leaning close
he crooned under his breath: "I would that the love I bear thee, My
lips in one word could say; That soft word----"

"Oh yes, I remember now," she cut him short rather abruptly; but a
faint colour showed in her cheeks and this time she did not lift her
lashes.  "Very pretty, but drenched with sentiment.  That's the worst
of German songs."

"Well, you can't beat the music of 'em," he persisted, rebuffed a
little by her tone, and hoping it was assumed for the benefit of Miss
Videlle, who was most vexatiously in the way.  "I'm set on it anyhow.
Are you ready?"

Taking her smile for consent he moved one hand, beating time in the
air; then, without preliminary, their united voices took up the song.
Bel's, though sweet and true within its range, proved too slight an
organ to stand the open-air test, and Mark had need to moderate his
full-toned alto accordingly, thereby giving an added effect of
tenderness to words and music already sufficiently expressive.

And again Lady Forsyth--a most unwilling listener--understood
everything far too well.  Deliberately she hardened herself against
the appeal of the music.  For this time she was simply angry--angry
as she had never yet been with her son; though, needless to say, she
attributed his egregious behaviour entirely to Miss Alison.

"How can he?  How dare he!" was the cry of her pained heart.  "So
unlike him.  An insult to Sheila.  Flinging his folly in her face."

But Sheila was drawing her finger-tips lightly through the water,
watching the effect with that shadowy smile of hers, and to all
appearances simply enjoying the song.  Almost Lady Forsyth found
herself hoping that it was so.  In any case, she was thankful when
the "exhibition" ended, and Maurice's cheerful voice was heard
calling out: "Your turn, Miss Videlle!  Can't you give us a
music-hall masterpiece by way of diversion?"

But Miss Videlle disowned all knowledge of masterpieces, music-hall
or otherwise, and Maurice himself came nobly to the rescue.

"I'm not up to Mark's style; but I'm top-hole at genuine Harry
Lauders," he volunteered with becoming modesty.  "And as you're all
so pressing, it would be ungracious to hide my light under a bushel."

"Good egg!" sang out Ralph from the second boat.  "Give us 'Roamin'
in the Gloamin'.'"

And Maurice, with a deliberate wink at Mark over Miss Videlle's
shoulder, proceeded to give it for all he was worth, in the broadest
of broad Scotch.  But Mark was in no mood to see the joke of a
performance that sounded far too like a travesty of his own chosen
love-song.

"I kissed her-r twice and I asked her-r once if she would be my
br-ride," sang Maurice with insolent gusto, burring his r's like a
policeman's rattle; and Mark simply wanted to kick him into the loch.

Lady Forsyth, on the other hand, was privately blessing the boy's
foolery, that seemed to clear the air and sent the boats skimming
homeward to the swing of chorus on chorus; only her son's voice being
conspicuous by its absence.  Keith's boat was leading now; and
without turning round deliberately she could see nothing of the two
who haunted her mind.

This was perhaps fortunate; for Mark's arm lay along the back of the
seat, his shoulder was within three inches of Bel's; and under cover
of the music they had picked up the dropped thread of their talk in
lowered tones that imparted tender significance to the simplest
remark.

"I don't call your singing a half-fledged talent," he said with a
faint stress on the pronoun.  "You've the gift, anyway.  Why not make
more of it--study, practise?"

She smiled and lifted her shoulders.  "I've tried, but I couldn't
keep it up.  Laziness, perhaps; I don't know.  Vanity, perhaps, a
little.  I either want to do things splendidly or else--I can't be
bothered.  I need someone to spur me, to encourage me."

"Well, I should have thought Miss O'Neill----"

"Harry?  Oh yes, she'd lie down and let me walk over her if I wanted
to.  But she's swamped in 'the Cause' and philanthropic work.  As for
my talents, when I wanted the helping hand it wasn't there; and
now--it's too late.  I've dabbled first in one thing and then in
another, and frittered away what little ambition I ever had."

The emotionless quiet of her tone suggested a noble resignation to
the general obstructiveness of life; a resignation that, to the man's
strenuous spirit, seemed alike pathetic and premature.

"Why, you're only on the threshold of things," he rebuked her gently.
"What are the talents you've dabbled in?  Do tell me."

"Oh, I've written a little and acted a little.  I wanted badly to
take that up in earnest.  Heavens!  Wasn't there a row!  So I fell
back on the writing.  Verses, chiefly."

"Have they appeared, any of them?"

"A few.  Here and there.  I was vain enough once to have a booklet
printed out of my allowance.  Then there was a worse row than ever."

"But why?"

"Well--they weren't exactly of the pretty-pretty order.  And my
father's a clergyman: that kind of clergyman."

"I see."

He saw her, in fact, a creature of fine sensibilities, striving for
self-expression, thwarted, discouraged, and misprized by those who
should have been her natural helpers, and his heart went out to her
the more.

"May I--" he hesitated.  "Miss Alison, won't you let me see some of
your verses?"

"No.  Not for the world."  She flushed suddenly and her voice had a
tremor in it.  It was the first time he had seen her really perturbed.

"I'm sorry," he began; but she was mistress of herself in a moment
and turned the matter off with a laugh.

"We're both making mountains out of molehills!  The verses were
wretched poor stuff, most of them.  Father was quite right to condemn
them; but he went the wrong way about it.  He usually does.  They
were just the outcome of--an influence; a passing phase.  I hated
them myself--afterwards.  One does go through phases, doesn't one?
At least I do.  It's rather interesting.  Saves one from the
bottomless pit of boredom, the only thing we're really afraid of
nowadays."  She made the statement in all seriousness.  "But--looking
back--one sometimes wonders how much that other girl was really me?"

He did not answer at once; partly because he was trying not to be
aware that while she spoke there had blown through him a chill breeze
of doubt: an unwelcome reminder that after all he knew nothing as yet
of her life, her antecedents, or--if it came to that--of herself.  He
only knew that almost from the first moment of contact she had put a
spell upon him that he had neither the power nor the will to resist.

"Do I seem to be talking utter nonsense?" she asked suddenly in a
changed voice; and doubt fled like a wraith at sunrise.

"Rather not.  I was only hoping--that this _is_ the real you.  I'm
not simply a phase--am I?--like all the rest?"

At that she turned to him with the lazy uplift of her lashes, and the
astonishing blue of her eyes flashed on him like a light.

"Isn't it--rather too soon to tell?"

"_Is_ it?" he challenged her boldly, and exulted to see the blood
rise in her cheeks.  More than that he could not achieve.  For
another Lauder chorus had just died down and they were nearing the
shore.

"Look here," he said, low and rapidly.  "I am off up the loch
to-morrow in my little steam yacht--fishing.  Come along too--will
you?"

She gave him a reproachful look.  "I can't.  You know I can't."

"Oh, well, bring your police dog along if you must; and I'll get
Lenox to make a square.  Will that do?"

"Yes.  I'll ask Harry.  If it is like to-day--it'll be lovely."

"Better than to-day, I hope," he muttered, wondering very much if he
could wait till then, and cursing the wire entanglements of
convention.

"I'm going to see you home," he announced as he handed her out of the
boat, and repeated his intention when all the party was ashore.
"Good night, Mums," he added, laying a hand on his mother's shoulder.
"Lenox is coming along with me.  Leave things open for us, will you?"

"Very well, dear; don't be too late," she said, looking up at him;
but between the gathering dusk and his own preoccupation he missed
the mute appeal of her eyes.

During the short walk back to the village, Miss O'Neill took complete
command of affairs.  Having at last recovered her treasure, she
slipped a retaining hand through Bel's arm, and never a chance had
Mark of another intimate word.

She graciously fell in with the morrow's plan, however; and
afterwards, as the men strolled back, smoking, to Inveraig, Maurice
was frankly informed what would be expected of him on the occasion.
Mark betrayed his repressed excitability by speaking rather more
rapidly and abruptly than usual.

"I'm running this show altogether--you understand?  We're not going
off on a blooming picnic to play consequences.  No nonsense, mind.
And no Harry Lauder--confound you!  All you and Miss O'Neill are
required to do is to make yourselves scarce.  Fact is, you're only
there because I couldn't get--Miss Alison to come alone."

Maurice smiled broadly.  "I gathered as much.  But I say, Forsyth,"
he hesitated and took a pull at his pipe, "do you really mean
business?"

"Rather so.  What kind of a cad d'you take me for?" snapped Mark,
whose temper was quick at the best of times.  "Think I'd play the
fool with a girl like that?"

"Sorry, old chap.  Didn't intend to rile you.  Only to a mere
outsider, it seems just a trifle precipitate.  Besides--one naturally
thought----"

"Oh, dry up.  Nobody asked you to think."

There was pain as well as anger in Mark's tone.  He knew very well
what Maurice thought--what others were likely to think; and although
Lady Forsyth did not guess it, his sensitiveness on Sheila's account
almost equalled her own.  It hurt him horribly that by any act of his
he should seem to cast even the slightest slur on her.  And he saw no
reason.  For years they had been like brother and sister.  Certainly,
since her return from India he had caught himself wondering--But
before wonder could crystallise into belief, Bel had arisen in her
moonlight beauty and all the stars of heaven had suffered eclipse.
Come to think of it, he owed young Lenox a debt he could never repay;
and for the rest of the way he made royal atonement for his flash of
temper.

"Good night, old chap," he said when they reached the house.  "I'm
not turning in just yet."

And for more than half an hour he paced the terrace, wondering,
hoping, dreaming; while his mother lay awake in her bedroom above,
both windows flung wide, listening to the restless sound of his
footsteps; wondering also; and scarcely daring to hope that he had
already spoken and been refused.

Not until she heard him come in, at last, and shut the door of his
room, did she let her tired body have its way and fall into a
troubled sleep.




CHAPTER III

"You know not the limit of this kingdom, still you are its queen."
RABINDRANATH TAGORE.


Miss O'Neill, as might be supposed, proved no easy subject for
diplomatic manipulation.  Long before they had made an end of their
picnic-lunch, in a glen of rocks and birches and purple cushions of
heather, she had effectually given Mr. Lenox to understand that she
was neither to be deceived nor coerced by his tactful attempts to
detach her from the other two.  Years of pushing and shouldering
through obstacles in the Suffrage campaign, had so far blunted her
finer sensibilities that she could smilingly hold her ground even
among those who obviously wished her elsewhere: and she held it
to-day, till Mark lost patience and frankly took the bull by the
horns.

"I say, Miss O'Neill, you might take pity on Lenox and honour him
with your company up the glen," he said; and beneath his engaging
tone there lurked a faint note of command.  "He's no fisherman, and
he can't keep himself to himself for ten minutes on end.  So you see,
it would be a real act of charity to remove him."

"Yes, Sir Mark, I can see that without spectacles," answered the
redoubtable Harry, challenging him with her greenish-brown eyes.

"Good business!" Sir Mark retorted unabashed.  "When you reach the
high moor you'll be rewarded by a view that's worth some climbing to
see.  Of course, if Miss Alison would prefer to go with you----"

"Miss Alison's far too comfortable where she is, thanks!" Bel
interposed with her deliberate drawl.  She had settled herself on a
low rock and sat dreamily watching the river, elbows on knees, chin
cradled in her hands.  Without changing her attitude, she glanced up
at Sir Mark and her smile seemed to link them in completest
understanding.  "If the necessity for silence becomes too
overpowering I can always go to sleep.  I'll be as good as gold,
Harry dear--"  She shifted her gaze to Miss O'Neill's resolute,
rebellious face.  "And I think Sir Mark can be trusted not to let me
fall into the river!"

The upward jerk of Harry's head implied wholesale distrust of the
species; but finding herself cornered she surrendered at discretion.
"Well, Mr. Lenox," she said, "since it's a case of obeying orders, we
must make the best of each other.  This way, I suppose?"  She strode
on before him up the narrow, stony path; and Maurice, with an
abortive grin at Mark followed in her wake.

Keeping well ahead of him, she toiled on indomitably till trees were
dwarfed to bushes and the primeval splendour of the high moors came
suddenly into view.  Before them, and upon either hand, the heather
and the heavens were all.  It was as if they stood upon the shore of
an amethystine sea, studded with islands of granite and juniper, and
shadowed only by slow-moving continents of cloud.  For Maurice, with
the blood of Eldred and Quita Lenox in his veins, such a vision was
among the rare things that could smite him to silence.  He drew a
great breath and stood very still, his young, expressive face
glorified, passingly, by the artist's pure joy in colour, and the
Scot's love of the land.

Miss O'Neill, a townswoman by taste and habit, would have preferred a
throng of human faces, any day, to the sublime emptiness around them.
Hot, breathless, and in a ferment of anxiety, she sank gratefully on
to the nearest rock and looked up at her companion; but the light on
his face checked her ever-ready tongue.  She liked the boy.  He was
more than "a mere he-thing," and that streak of the woman in him
appealed strongly to the masculine strain in herself.  But protracted
silence irked her; and very soon anxiety goaded her into speech.

"Mr. Lenox, how long have you known Sir Mark Forsyth?  Are you
acquaintances or friends?"

Maurice considered that point without removing his eyes from the
heather.  "Rather more than acquaintances, I should say, and on the
way to becoming friends.  I've known him two years on and off.  But
I've never yet been to Wynchcombe Friars, his Hampshire place.  He's
crazy about it.  They say you never know the real Forsyth till you've
seen him there.  I'm going there this autumn, to be converted from
Futurism and Experimental Art in general!  At least that's his
notion.  He's a splendid chap.  Chockful of ideas.  A bit
reactionary, some of them.  He's dead against what we should call
industrial progress, and what he calls sacrificing the man to the
machine.  They've got a great scheme on, he and his mother and
Macnair, for joining up all the scattered attempts at reviving
handicrafts and guilds----"

"Oh, bother their crafts and guilds!" Miss O'Neill broke in with
scant ceremony.  "Sheer fads!  Result of riches and idleness.  _I_
want to know is he the kind of man to take up a girl violently--you
see how it's been--just to pass the time?"

"No!"  Maurice rapped out the negative with unusual vehemence.  "As a
matter of fact, I believe he intends to offer her his heart and his
title and all his worldly goods before we get back to them."

Miss O'Neill started visibly.  "What--on a fortnight's acquaintance?"

"Yes.  A trifle steep, isn't it?  And, for a man in his position, a
wife's a rather important item."

"Something more than an amiable housekeeper--is that your meaning?"
Miss O'Neill rounded on him, a flash of temper in her eyes.  "I
thought better of you, Mr. Lenox.  But you're all alike in the grain.
A man in Sir Mark's position must have a beautiful figurehead for his
dinner-table: a graceful, accommodating doll, that he can hang with
jewels and silks and satins.  But my Bel's no doll-woman, for all her
soft manners and sweet temper.  No doubt he flatters himself that, in
a fortnight, he's read her from cover to cover: and he'll be telling
her, sure as fate, that he's the one man on earth to make her happy,
and think he's paying her the compliment of her life into the
bargain!"

Good-natured Maurice began to feel that Forsyth had been a trifle
inconsiderate saddling him with a virago whom he was quite at a loss
how to appease.

"Well--compliment or no, she's free to refuse him," he remarked
soothingly; "and after all, it's the natural thing."

Miss O'Neill pounced on the words almost before they were out.  "_Of
course_ it's the natural thing for a man like Sir Mark--spoilt by his
mother, one can see with half an eye--to snatch at a beautiful woman.
And where does a girl's freedom come in when a man dazzles her brain
with extravagant lover's talk?  Besides--he's rich.  She's poor.  It
almost amounts to bribery.  I hate the whole thing.  I came away for
her sake, to give her a chance of knowing him better, just in case--
But if it's true, what you say, I shall go straight down again----"

She sprang up from her rock and faced about; but Lenox, smilingly
determined, stood astride across the narrow path.

"Excuse me, Miss O'Neill, not if I can prevent it," he said.
"Forsyth's going to have his chance fair and square.  Of course if
you're game for a free fight--well, come on!"

For a second she looked him up and down, a sudden flicker of humour
in her eyes.  "I tackled a policeman once.  A bigger fellow than you.
And he was very glad to get rid of me."

"I can well believe it," Maurice answered with becoming gravity.
"But look here, just consider, what earthly good would you do by
deferring the inevitable--say, twenty-four hours--and probably
annoying Miss Alison into the bargain?"

The last shot told.  Harry let out her breath in a great sigh.
"Life's a bewildering business," she mused aloud.  But common sense
told her he spoke truth; and she liked him none the less for backing
up his friend.  "Very well, Mr. Lenox, I give it up.  You evidently
have instructions from headquarters, and I'll stay here till you give
the word.  But scenery bores me stiff; so please make yourself as
interesting as you know how."

"Right you are," said Maurice; and indicating her deserted rock he
flung himself on the heather at her feet in such a position that her
prosaic figure in its knitted coat and rough skirt should not intrude
upon his vision of the landscape.  Then he proceeded, in his fluent
fashion, to enlarge on the subject uppermost in his mind--Sir Mark's
queer conviction that a wide-spread revival of handicrafts and guilds
would go far to solve the strike problem by restoring the creative
sense in labour and renewing the broken link between art and life----

For Sir Mark himself, at that moment, life held only one purpose, one
achievement worthy of serious consideration--the linking of his own
destiny with that of the girl who seemed capable of maintaining
indefinitely her graceful pose of contemplation.  It was a pose that
revealed to admirable advantage the long lines of her figure and the
beauty of her small head with its close-fitting coils of hair.  Her
discarded hat lay on the heather at her feet.  Close to her chosen
rock sprang a young birch, its supple grace a reflection of her own;
its drooping plumes, stirred by the breeze, dappling her blue dress
with tiny restless shadows.

Was it some day-dream that so held her, Mark wondered, or pure
consideration for the trout that he had presumably come out to catch?
Either way, her silence and abstraction had the effect of so
intensifying his own emotion that speech seemed desecration.
Besides--he had spoken already.  Could there really be any need to
tell her again how swiftly and strangely she had swept him from his
moorings, so that life held nothing, momentarily, but his glorified
vision of herself?  Last night the sound of her voice, echoing his
own confession, had silenced, for good, the whispers of prudence that
strove to curb his impetuous spirit, counselling delay.  If only that
confounded Miss O'Neill had given him a chance while the glamour was
on them both, the whole thing might have seemed less egregiously
precipitate.  Now that he had schemed for half an hour's privacy; now
that she sat there, only a few yards away, seemingly unaware of his
existence, a shiver of uncertainty chilled him.  A fortnight ago
to-day, while he and Maurice were rambling in search of subjects, he
had beheld her for the first time.  For him that fortnight was an
indefinable age.  For her it might simply be fourteen days----

But this sort of havering would never do.  He was a strong man, not
unschooled in suffering, but little used to being thwarted in his
desire.  And he did not seriously expect to be thwarted now.
Deliberately he laid aside his fishing tackle, and leaning on one
elbow looked up at the girl, whose rock was set a little higher along
the sloping bank of the stream.  For a few seconds he took his fill
of her, from the coronet of her hair to the seductive curves of her
mouth and chin that made such tender atonement for the cool
directness of her eyes.

Still she did not move; but her lips parted in a small sigh, and the
spell was broken.  Mark rose and planted himself before her.

"Miss Alison," he began--and could get no further.

"Well?" she asked with that distracting lift of her lashes.  "Is the
precious tackle out of gear?"

Her coolness almost angered him and gave him sudden command of his
tongue.  "_Tackle_?  D'you really suppose I came out here to catch
trout?"

"You said so last night.  And you seemed to be making elaborate
arrangements----"

"So I was--to get half an hour alone with you," he announced bluntly,
and saw the ghost of a blush creep up under her skin.  He wanted
simply to take her in his arms without more ado.  Instead, he sat
down close to the rock, plunged his hands in the heather, and leaned
towards her.

"I was trying to tell you last night.  Didn't you understand?"

"N-no.  I thought the music--and the sentiment had rather carried you
away."

"It was _you_ who carried me away.  The music was a kind of
safety-valve, that's all."  He leaned still nearer.  "Bel--is there a
ghost of a chance for me?  Is it sheer conceit and impertinence on my
part to ask--so soon?"

"No--oh no."  And suddenly she covered her face as if the intensity
of his gaze affected her like strong sunlight.

He was silent a moment, watching her and crushing the heather in his
strong fingers.  Then, very gently, he laid a hand on her knee.

"What is it?  Tell me.  I must know."

At that she dropped her hands.  By chance or design, one of them fell
on his own and rested there.  The light contact sent electric thrills
up his arm.

"That's just it," she said with her slow smile.  "You must know.  But
we neither of us do--yet.  It's been a wonderful fortnight.  And if I
haven't travelled quite so fast or so far as you, that doesn't
mean----"

"Of course it doesn't.  I'm not such a conceited ass as to suppose
you could fall in love with me at sight.  But now I've spoken--isn't
there any response?"

"Haven't you felt any?" she asked lightly, and the hand that rested
on his moved in a just perceptible caress.

"For God's sake don't play with me!" he broke out, half angry again.
"I'm in deadly earnest."

"I know.  That's just why one of us must try to keep a cool head."

"Nonsense!  You're simply fencing.  And you haven't answered my
question."

"I'm trying to.  But I'm half afraid ... to let myself go.
No--don't!"  She warded him off with a gesture, but deliberately
replaced her hand over his.  "It's too sudden altogether.  Wouldn't
it be wiser--for both of us--to wait a little?  You don't really know
me one bit."

He bowed his head and kissed the fingers that covered his own.  "I
know I love you," he said simply, his deep voice low and controlled.
"And if you can say the same, that's enough for me.  The rest will be
an enchanted voyage of discovery."

"Voyages of discovery are rather risky things," she reminded him.
"And sometimes--they end in smoke.  You see, you're not just any one.
I'm outside your world; and--your mother doesn't like me."

"Nonsense," he said again, with less conviction than before.

"It isn't.  I'm sure she wants you to marry Miss Melrose.  And I
thought at first--you seem very intimate."

"Naturally.  Our intimacy began when she was eight and I was twelve."
He spoke looking out across the stream.  Something in him winced at
her allusion to Sheila in that connection.  But it was only fair to
her to explain things; and he forced himself to proceed.  "Her people
are our nearest neighbours in Hampshire.  Her mother's the sort of
person who subsists chiefly on fads and philanthropy--the kind of
philanthropy that makes you abominate charity and all its works.
When we lost...  Ailsa, my little sister, Mother sort of annexed
Sheila, unofficially.  But that doesn't imply--that she expects me to
do likewise.  We're devoted to her--both of us.  She's a splendid
little person;" he turned now and spoke with greater naturalness and
warmth.  "Not very easy to know.  But _real_, right through.  You're
bound to love her.  There--are you satisfied?"  Without warning he
slipped an arm round her.  "Will you give me my answer now?"

He felt her yield under pressure of his hand: then, with a sudden
enchanting simplicity, she lifted her face to his----

Presently she sighed; pushed him from her a little and looked
steadily into his eyes--blue, like her own, but a deeper, tenderer
shade, shot through with fine radiations of orange.  Hers seemed
still to hold a question.  His were purely exultant.

"Darling, we've done it now," he said under his breath.

"Yes.  I suppose--we have," she answered in the same key.

"Suppose?  You're not going back on things, after _that_.  Next
question is--when will you marry me?  Next week?"

Her flush, that had died down, mounted again, clear carmine,
beautiful to see.  "Oh, Mark!  Give me a few minutes to realise it
all.  You're so impatient.  Such a boy.  You make me feel ... ages
old----"

"Look here, I can't have you talking that sort of rot," he protested;
incorrigibly blunt, even in love.  "It's morbid sentimentalism.  You
see, I'm the son of a mother who doesn't know how to feel old at
fifty.  'Boy,' indeed!  You're a mere child yourself--the dearest in
creation."

"No--no.  I'm _not_ a child."  Her emphatic protest rang true.
"Perhaps your mother has kept the bloom on life.  Mine has never had
any bloom on it, worth mentioning.  I was reared in a groove; a very
virtuous groove; and ... I didn't fit.  I wanted to feel and know and
live; to be something more than a vegetable in a Wiltshire village.
I knew I had talents of sorts; and I felt, if I could only get away
and have a fair chance, I might achieve something worth doing, or, at
least ... meet a man worth marrying."  She spoke looking away from
him across the sun-splashed water.  "The only brother I cared about
went off to the ends of the earth before he was twenty.  If I'd been
old enough to go with him, I wouldn't be here now!"

"Poor darling!"  He tightened his hold of her.  "Dreadful
calamity--isn't it?--to be here now!  But didn't your mother
understand you--help you?"

"Poor little mother.  She did her best.  My unconventional streak
comes from her side.  But she's a very tame edition; watered down by
an early marriage with father, who's as conventional as a high-road,
but unfortunately not as broad!  Privately, I think she was half
proud of me and half terrified of what I might do next, like the hen
in Hans Andersen.  It was father's pharisaical attitude towards my
mild vagaries that made me worse, till at last I kicked clean over
the traces, demanded a reasonable allowance (to my amazement, I got
it), and went off to London, to take the world by storm."

"To Miss O'Neill?" Mark queried, a faint anxiety in his tone.

"Oh no.  Harry's a fairly recent phase.  I boarded with a friendly
family in the second-rate theatrical line.  That was my chosen road
to achievement.  But it didn't come off--worse luck!"

"Nor the man worth marrying?"

Her eyes lingered in his.  "Not to any great extent!  They were
rather a mixed lot.  And everything seemed in league against me.  I
made no headway anywhere.  Still--it was experience.  It was life.
One was too busy, either hoping or despairing, to be dull.  Each new
phase seemed to be the discovery of a new kingdom, till you
found--you hadn't the key.  There was the writing phase, the acting
phase, the American phase----"

"America?  Why on earth----?"

"Oh, I don't know.  The chance came.  And the notion attracted me.  A
bigger, fresher world; experience----"

"You seem mighty keen on experience," Mark struck in.  "D'you mean
knowledge--or simply new sensations?"

She hesitated.  "After all--new sensations are a form of knowledge.
The most interesting on earth.  I'd go almost anywhere to discover
the feel of things----"

She stopped short, and Mark frowned into vacancy.  For the first time
he caught himself wondering how old was she.

"_I_ should say better be an ignoramus than a mere connoisseur in
sensations," he remarked quietly.  "But perhaps I missed your
meaning."

"Perhaps there wasn't any meaning to miss!  I was talking--rather at
random."  Then very lightly she leaned her head against his.
"Mark--dearest, don't look like that."

"Well, you mustn't talk like that," he said with decision.  "How long
were you in America?"

"Eighteen months.  Not very pleasant always.  But it did me no end of
good.  I even went home for a time, full of fine resolves.  But the
poor things soon shrivelled up in father's atmosphere.  Then--it was
Harry to the rescue."

"And now it's Mark!"  With sudden fervour he caught her to him.  "No
more 'phases' after this, my Bel.  You shall have your freedom and
your chance.  I'll make up to you, all I can, for the bad years.
Mother will love you----"

Bel shook her head.  "She doesn't like me."

"Darling, she doesn't know you.  Mother may have her cranks and
prejudices.  But if there's one woman on earth she can be trusted to
love--it's my wife.  I'll take you to her to-night."

"No--no.  To-morrow.  To-night--there's Harry.  It'll be a blow.  You
see, when I first came to her, I was so sick with everything, I swore
I'd never marry.  She's jealous already----"

"Poor soul!" Mark said tenderly.  "But I'm jealous too.  I can't
share you with Miss O'Neill.  If it comes to a tug, you'll have to
choose between us."

"I have chosen."  She spoke with genuine fervour; and leaning against
him, she closed her eyes.  So seen, her face looked years younger and
of a saint-like purity.  Doubts and qualms seemed sacrilege.  Without
a word he kissed her lowered lids, and found, to his surprise, that
her lashes were wet.




CHAPTER IV

  "I am of an age with each; what
  Matter if my hair turns grey?"
                  --SIR RABINDRANATH TAGORE.


That radiant day of summer, all too short for Mark, taxed to the
utmost his mother's impatient spirit that could bear any ill better
than the ache of suspense, sharpened by premonition of the worst.
Mark's offhand manner of announcing the day's programme to the
breakfast-table in general confirmed her own secret fear.  And if he
were really crazy enough to speak, the result was a foregone
conclusion.  She would be asked to love, as a daughter, this alien
girl, of whom she knew nothing except that she was not the real mate
of the real Mark.

At the thought, a horrid sense of helplessness overwhelmed her.  Open
opposition would be worse than futile: yet smiling acquiescence was
beyond her.  Truth of intercourse--finest of all fine arts--was, for
both mother and son, a necessity of their natures.  To it they owed
that deeper intimacy not often attained between one generation and
another; but, in the present dilemma, it would make things so much
harder for them both that dread almost outweighed her longing for his
return.

Breakfast ended, Ralph announced his intention of carrying both girls
off for a long walk.  Keith retired to the study with the _Scotsman_
and a formidable pile of correspondence, leaving Helen to her own
devices.  Nothing she liked better, in normal circumstances; for her
devices were many and absorbing.  But to-day the silence and
emptiness seemed to affect her like a ghostly presence, impalpable,
yet vaguely threatening.  A chill sense of impending disaster swept
through her.  She felt suddenly tired; oppressed by the dead weight
of the years that she carried with such valiant elasticity of body
and spirit and heart.

Half a century of life had dulled but scarcely silvered her red-brown
hair; had pencilled fine lines between her brows and at the corners
of her too sensitive mouth.  But youth still triumphed in the eyes,
in the slender alertness of her figure, in the swift impulsion of
thought and speech.  Yet she lived and felt life--the whole world's
life--too intensely not to suffer moments of sharp reaction; and this
was one.  Hitherto, she had seen Mark's marriage as the chance of
regaining a daughter.  Now she saw it, rather, as a risk of losing
her son, and her heart cried out that this was more than she could
bear.  In the past twelve years, she had suffered loss on loss, with
a sort of fierce stoicism, the nearest approach to resignation that
one of her nature could achieve.  Now, being a mere mother, she must
stand aside and watch him drifting on to the rocks----

It simply did not bear thinking of; and, gathering up her letters,
she went in search of work, the unfailing anodyne for every ill.

At that time, under Keith's critical supervision, she was translating
Emile Faguet.  She was also studying Russian, with other translations
in view; and she had correspondents in all parts of Europe, many of
whom she had never seen.  But these activities were fringes merely on
the main work of her life--the revival of arts and crafts and home
industries among Mark's people and the linking up of all similar
efforts throughout the United Kingdom.

Yet, for all her activities and far-reaching aims, her true life had
always been centred in her home.  And she was content that it should
be so; content to let outsiders dub her "Victorian," for refusing to
be swept into the maelstrom of modern restlessness; to let the
"progressives" swirl past her--social reformers, seekers after new
religions, new panaceas for every ill; content to find time for
cultivating the art of friendship, not merely in her own class, but
among Mark's tenants on both estates.

Leisure to possess her own soul and the hearts of others was, for
her, a simple necessity of life; and that very necessity, by limiting
her sphere of action, was half the secret of her influence and charm.
Ideals are uncomfortable things socially, but they have the merit of
keeping their owners fresh; and the world's more strenuous workers
found in her home atmosphere, a refreshment and inspiration worth
some sacrifice of activity to preserve in an age of wholesale
experiment in life and art and religion.  They might rate her for
living in a backwater; but, as intimacy grew, they realised that she
was more vitally in touch than themselves with the world's greater
issues; that her uneventful days were rich in experience, informed by
a central purpose and an unshaken faith in certain abiding
truths--periodically obscured and neglected, yet as certain to return
with power as sunshine after rain.

"When religion decays and irreligion prevails, then I manifest
Myself.  For the protection of good, for the destruction of evil, and
for the firm establishment of national righteousness, I am born again
and again."

Krishna's ancient prophecy, printed in gold on an illuminated scroll,
confronted her as she entered her sanctuary.  The scroll had been a
birthday "surprise" from Mark; an achievement of schoolboy days when
he was altogether her own; and the thought upset her equanimity
afresh.

Look where she would, the room was full of him: a friendly, intimate
room, set in the bastioned tower that dated from feudal times.  But
arrow-slits had long given place to unlimited light and air; and,
like all rooms that are loved and genuinely lived in, it was quick
with the personality of one who imparted something of herself to the
very chair she used and the books and pictures on her walls.  These
last were few and individual; but of the books there was no end.  A
catholic assembly, they climbed the only bit of wall-space not
occupied by the grate.  They stood about invitingly in revolving
cases; and a privileged company was piled upon the floor near her
chair.  Keith often accused her of having an untidy mind: and the
state of her room betrayed her.  The one tidy spot was the
writing-table, which she never used.

Over the mantelpiece hung an early portrait of her husband, that
might almost have been a portrait of Mark.  But Sir Richard's face
was heavier than his son's; the brow more massive, the lower lip more
prominent.  It was a shrewd, virile Anglo-Saxon face, unillumined by
the Gaelic strain that Mark had from his mother.

Yet, throughout, Sir Richard had respected his wife's ideals and
enthusiasms, had smiled indulgently over her panacea for the
democratic peril, and had allowed her a fairly free hand in the
education of his sons.  So long as the heir of Wynchcombe Friars
remained a staunch Imperialist, he might be as constructive as he
pleased: and if there was the remotest truth in Helen's convictions,
let Mark stand for Winchester and air his views in Parliament.  That
had been Sir Richard's practical contribution to the subject.

But the Baronet had now been dead ten years; and, so far, Mark had
made no bid for Parliamentary fame.  Helen Forsyth had spent the
first years of her widowhood travelling in Europe with Keith and
Mark, who gave promise of developing into a sculptor of originality
and power.  For his benefit as an artist they had lived mainly in
Florence, Rome, and Greece, with a bias in favour of the first.  For
in the great Florentine, young Mark had found his acknowledged master
of his own thoughtful yet fiery spirit.  But, for his education as a
man, Lady Forsyth had insisted on more than a nodding acquaintance
with the rest of Europe; and finally Mark had spent two years leading
voraciously at Oxford, largely with the art and labour problem in
view.

Since his coming of age, he had devoted himself heart and soul to
sculpture and the management of his estates.  But the notion of
Parliament still remained in abeyance.  The rise of the
lawyer-politician and the commercial magnate had intensified his
native distrust of democracy, while the increasing narrowness and
bitterness of party spirit had effectually quenched his natural
ambition to stand for the county of his birth.  One Forsyth uncle
already represented the family.  In Mark's opinion that sufficed; and
neither Keith nor his mother had quarrelled with his decision.

It was as artist and responsible landowner that she longed to see him
pre-eminent; and every year he had given clearer promise of
fulfilling her hope.  At seven-and-twenty there remained only the
last and most critical achievement--his marriage.  On this score
alone he had caused her more than one flutter of anxiety; and now----!

She clenched her teeth to keep back the futile curse; and, for the
next hour or so, kept her attention chained to the intricate task of
transposing idiomatic phrases and fine shades of meaning from one
language into another.

It was nearly twelve when the door opened and Sheila appeared,
bringing the _Times_ and the midday post: Sheila, with a bright spot
of colour in each cheek and a smile that radiated sweetness and
light.  How on earth could Mark----?  But that bitter, useless
question was taboo.

Her own smile was more natural than it had been at breakfast; but
Sheila did not fail to detect the lurking shadow in her eyes, or the
significant fact that she did not eagerly tear open the paper and
plunge into the latest letter from Belfast.

"Mums, haven't you spent enough of this glorious morning grinding at
Emile Faguet?" she said, kneeling down and laying a hand over the
open page.  "You look tired--worried."

"I _am_ worried," Lady Forsyth admitted with a direct look, and
Sheila's colour ebbed a little.

"Unhappy, are you--about Mark?" she asked very low.

"Yes.  Haven't I reason to be?"

"But, Mums--she seems a very sweet person.  And if he cares----"

"My dear, you're as bad as the rest of them about that girl."

Lady Forsyth was so rarely impatient with her that Sheila set her
lips a moment before venturing further.  "Well, you know, she _is_
extraordinarily attractive."

"Is she?  I don't see it."

"Isn't that, perhaps, because--you won't see it?"

"Sheila!"

"Dearest--I'm sorry.  But surely he must know her better than we do,
because--he cares.  And you don't give her a chance if you shut your
heart against her.  It's so unlike you.  And it will be very hard on
Mark ... if she----"

"Oh, child, be quiet!"  Championship from this quarter was
intolerable; and setting her hands on the girl's shoulders she gave
them a gentle shake.  "There's no call to waste any of your sweet
pity on Mark.  If he speaks to-day--and I have a horrid feeling he
will--_she's_ not likely to refuse him.  And that's all he cares
about at the moment.  I'm not being unjust to him, dear.  I'm facing
the truth; which is sometimes quite as difficult as facing cannon.
But--well, I can't talk about it.  You talk, instead.  You haven't
told me half enough about India.  I've an idea--something happened
out there.  Am I right?"

The girl nodded, looking out seaward.  "I've been wanting to tell you
and yet rather shirking it.  This one--hurt me a good deal."

"_Another_ 'poor thing'?"

"Yes; badly poor.  What Mark would call a worm.  The third in two and
a half years!  I begin to be ashamed of myself!  And--a little afraid
too."  She paused. "Mums, because I'm not a wobbler myself, will it
always be the wobbling men who insist on clinging to me?  Shall I
perhaps be driven by this troublesome law of opposites to choose
between marrying some pitifully lovable 'poor thing' or--never
marrying at all?  Not lively alternatives--are they?"

Lady Forsyth's hand slipped from the girl's shoulder to her waist.
"Darling, I hope it won't come to that."

"So do I.  Naturally I'd ... prefer to marry.  I--" she hesitated and
coloured a little--"I would feel desolate ... without children.  Am I
very ... premature?"

Lady Forsyth drew her close and kissed her warm cheek.

"You're very woman," she said.  "And Fate may have better things in
store for you than the most importunate wobbler of them all.  I hope
you discouraged this last one more decisively than his predecessor."

Sheila shook her head.  "I simply couldn't.  They do tug badly at my
heart-strings.  No denying it."

"I suppose that means he's still hanging on?  And hurting you every
time he gives a fresh tug?  A fine exhibition of masculine
selfishness!"

"Mums, he doesn't realise it hurts.  And--he has so much against him:
if you only knew----"

"Well, I _want_ to know."  Pushing aside her manuscript she drew a
low stool close to her chair, and Sheila settled down on it, with a
small sigh of content.  "Now tell me.  What has he against him?"

"Loneliness and poor health; and an ugly little desert station at the
end of nowhere; and hating the country--and--and drink!"

"Darling!  You've outdone yourself this time!"

Sheila turned quickly.  "_Please_ stop bothering about me, and be
sorry for him.  You would be, if you'd seen him.  So worn and sallow;
though he's barely thirty.  Clever--very.  Too many brains and too
few convictions I used to tell him.  And then, there had been a
girl--when he was home on his first leave.  She made violent friends
with him: she drew him on till he lost his heart to her; only to find
that she had deliberately used him as a stalking-horse for another
man, who afterwards turned out to be married already.  He heard that
she went off with him in spite of it, but _that_ he can't believe.  A
dismal tale, isn't it?  The trouble was he couldn't stop loving her,
even though he knew she was worthless----"

"Until he found in my beautiful Sheila the privileged bit of
sticking-plaster to mend his heart!"  Lady Forsyth interrupted her
with a touch of heat.  "I wonder he had the face to tell you----"

"He didn't tell me till I'd refused him--twice.  Then we had a long
talk and he poured out all his bottled-up miseries.  And I wasn't
_only_ a bit of sticking-plaster.  He'd stopped loving her long ago.
Do be fair to him, dearest.  You're in a wicked mood to-day!"

"I've never been in a worse.  And the tale of your latest 'poor
thing' isn't exactly a specific for the blues!  How about the
drinking?  And what was the final understanding, after refusals
followed by confidences?"

The hand that rested on her knee moved in a slow, soothing caress.
"I'm afraid you won't approve.  Ralph didn't.  But I overruled him.
He--Mr. Seldon--begged me so hard not to throw him over altogether
that I said he might write once a month.  And the thing that arrives
is more like an intimate diary than a letter.  He can write, Mums.
And he isn't drinking--like he was.  That was part of the compact.
It began in a bad cholera season: no one to notice; no one to care.
He says the average man never realises, till he has to spend months
alone, that what he calls the voice of his conscience is much more
often the voice of other people's!  So now--I'm his 'other people'!
He gave me his word and he writes quite honestly about it.  If ever
he really slips back again he says he'll stop writing and chuck
everything.--There!  That's my poor little tale; I'm happier now it's
out.  You may scold me; but you'd have done just the same yourself!"

For answer, Lady Forsyth put both arms round her and kissed her
fervently.  "Be as angelic as you please to your poor things,
darling," she said.  "But for heaven's sake don't marry them."

"I couldn't," Sheila answered softly.  "I'd sooner--go without."

In the silence that followed Lady Forsyth felt as if the girl must
hear her vehement thoughts.  But very soon Sheila spoke again.

"I told Mr. Seldon about our little colony of arts and crafts, and he
is ever so interested.  He says machinery's gaining ground fearfully
fast in India; cheapening and speeding up everything and killing the
craftsman's joy in his work, just as it's done over here.  I had a
letter yesterday.  He enclosed some Indian designs for carving.  I
_must_ show you."

She ran off to fetch them; and thenceforward "shop" banished every
subject from the field.  They were still at it when the gong sounded
for lunch, and half the interminable day was gone.

Lunch would be rather an effort.  Helen's eager interest in the
panorama of life made it a matter of course that she should lead the
talk at table, and she was in no mood for it to-day.

To her relief, she found herself spared the trouble.  Keith, who had
an uncanny knack of divining her needs, came in armed with a book
that had arrived by the second post and made havoc of his morning's
work.  His feigned inability to part with it was obviously an excuse
to make it the main topic of the meal.

"Calls itself an Essay on the _Confusion of the Arts_," he said,
placing a spare knife between the leaves.  "I ordered it for Mark on
Stoddard's recommendation.  But I'm inclined to think it really
belongs to you.  The writer upholds so many of your pet
convictions.--Listen here."  The knife was removed.  "'Of course the
present movement may continue indefinitely; we may have ideas of
education still more undisciplinary; a still more pathological
outpouring of fiction;...  In short, the dehumanizing of life and
literature may go on for ever.  But we should not count upon it.
Reactions have been known to occur, and they have occasionally been
sudden.  The world may even now be threatened with a subliminal
uprush of common sense, however disconcerting the prospect may be to
Mr. Bernard Shaw and his followers.  But prophecy is vain.
Everything depends on leadership; and one can never tell whether the
right persons will take the trouble to be born!'"

"One only knows they are notoriously lazy in that respect!"  Lady
Forsyth struck in with a chuckle of appreciation.  "I like your new
friend.  Any more gems of that quality?"

"Several.  Ah--here we are.  Don't you seem to recognise your own
voice?  'Any one who makes a stand for vital and humane concentration
is set down as a mere laggard or reactionary, whereas he may find
himself, rather, a pioneer and leader of a forlorn hope--not all
forlorn....  The revival of broad, vigorous, masculine distinctions
between art and art alone can save us from the confusions that have
crept into modern life and literature, and which I trace to two main
sources--emotional unrestraint and pseudo-science....  To set colour
above design, illusion above informing purpose, suggestion above
symmetry, is to set the feminine virtues above the masculine--and
that has been the chief cause of the corruption of art and literature
in the past century.'"

An indictment so sweeping roused Mona, fresh from her Oxford
triumphs.  "But, Mr. Macnair, I call that heresy!" she protested; and
Keith smiled indulgently at her unusual warmth.

"Heresy, my dear young lady, is, after all, only the truth as seen by
the fellow in the opposite camp.  And there still remain certain
unregenerates in the other camp who are praying for the rediscovery
of Man."

"Or a German invasion!" murmured Lady Forsyth.  "With apologies to
Mona, I'm afraid nothing milder will save us from the petticoat
peril!"

At that Ralph looked up from his mayonnaise.  In a wilderness of
abstractions, here was something he could understand.

"I say, Lady Forsyth!  Rather a costly form of salvation, don't you
think?"

"Salvation is always costly, Ralph," she answered him gravely.  "And
it is always worth the price paid."

Here Mona struck in again; and the argument, as Keith had intended,
carried them well through lunch.

The meal over they adjourned to the shade of three ancient pines on
the terrace; but very soon Ralph, who was frankly bored, persuaded
Mona to come out on the loch, and Keith's contentment was complete.

The new book lasted them till tea-time.  Then as none of the
wanderers reappeared, he was persuaded to fetch his translations and
read them to the audience of two for whom they had probably been
written, if the truth were known.  It was sometimes said of Macnair
that men delighted in his lectures almost as much for the quality of
his voice as for the lucidity of his thought: and to-day, when
instrument and music were in perfect accord, the effect on Helen's
troubled, sensitive spirit was all that he could have desired.  She
possessed in full measure the artist's gift of surrender to a mood.
Sheer beauty of thought and language, serene and splendid harmonies,
drawn from the discords of life, stirred her like organ music; and
for Keith her abstracted silence was the quintessence of praise.

Suddenly, round a bend of the loch, a white sail dipped into
view:--and the spell was broken.  Keith who had seen it also, still
read on; but he no longer had the ear of her spirit.  She was simply
listening for the sound of Mark's footstep--and another.

To her relief, the scrunch of gravel, when it came, plainly bespoke
masculine boots.  Then the two men appeared round the corner of the
house, and Mark waved his stick.  Bobs, who had been left at home,
flung himself headlong on his recovered master with little sobbing
squeals of joy, and, for one wild moment, hope revived in Helen's
heart.

"Well, you three look jolly comfortable there," Mark greeted them, as
he came up; and it was Keith who answered him.  His mother seemed to
be looking for her scissors.  One glance at his face had sufficed.




CHAPTER V

"Of love it may be said, the more unearthly, the more
invisible."--HARDY.


The first moment that escape was decently possible, Lady Forsyth left
the group under the pines and went straight to her bedroom.  Mark
would follow her, of course, but she had desperate need of a few
minutes' breathing space.  She knew now that what Keith called "the
brave old wisdom of acceptance" was still far from her; that she had
not really faced the truth till she saw it in Mark's eyes.  And while
her pulses still throbbed unevenly his voice sounded at the door.

"Mother, can I come in?" he asked; and the next moment stood before
her--a glowing embodiment of victory.

"Congratulate me, Mums," he said.  "I've brought off the great event
with honours.  Miss Alison--Bel has promised to be my wife."

"I know.  I have known it--all day," she answered him, with a brave
attempt at a smile.

"More than I have!  Hadn't the cheek to count on her.  It was rather
sharp work, and I'm not what you might call a fascinating chap.  But
I simply couldn't wait.  It's the most amazing luck----"

He broke off as if he had come into actual collision with her
thought.  For nearly half a minute she endured the challenging
scrutiny of his gaze.  Then: "Mother, what's up?" he asked, in a
changed voice.  "Aren't you going to congratulate me?"

She drew in a steadying breath.  He had given her a cue that made
plain speaking a shade less difficult.

"My darling boy," she said quietly, "I've never played at pretences
with you and I can't do it now.  You admit this has been sharp work.
And, honestly, I wish you had waited.  I should have thought better
of your judgment and the quality of--your love."

He frowned sharply.  "Oh Lord, I didn't come here for a preachment.
The last thing one would expect from you.  I suppose it means you've
taken one of your prejudices against her."

"Dear, I don't _know_ her yet.  No more do you."

"Well, anyway, I love her.  Strikes me that's the straightest road to
knowledge.  And as she loves me----"

"Did she tell you so, Mark--quite unmistakably?"

"Well, of course," he retorted with rising temper; and was suddenly
confronted by the realisation that Bel had done nothing of the kind.
The discovery made him angrier than ever; but there was no
untruthfulness in him.  "I don't know about unmistakably.  You don't
expect a girl to make passionate declarations.  Isn't the fact of her
accepting me proof enough for any one?"

"_Is_ it?"  Lady Forsyth had herself in hand now, and she could not
forego her one chance of candour even while she perceived the
futility of reasoning with a man in his exalted state.  "Don't you
realise that, in your case, there are ... other factors?  Your
position, your title..."

"My--?  Great Scott!"  He stood speechless.  The thing had simply not
occurred to him.  Title and position were, for him, as much a matter
of course as the hair on his head.  Then, as surprise subsided, anger
flared up again.  "Upon my soul, Mother, I don't know what's come to
you.  One would hardly think it was from you I'd learnt to credit
people with the best motives.  Are you trying to insinuate that she
may have fooled me?  Accepted all my worldly goods under a pretence
of caring----?"

"No: not pretence," she interrupted, with a flash of impatience.
"How can I make myself clear to you if you won't let me finish a
sentence?  I meant that your sudden infatuation--I can call it
nothing else--might very well turn any girl's head and tempt her to
imagine herself in love with you when she is really in love with the
whole thing--flattered--attracted----"

"Mother, be quiet!  I _will_ not hear you!"  There was pain as well
as anger in the cry.  "You don't understand her.  You won't try to
understand her.  You're simply jealous--prejudiced.  And I was
counting on you--oh, confound it all----"

He swung round on his heel and strode away from her that she might
not see how deeply he was wounded by the failure of one who had never
failed him yet.

And she, feeling suddenly exhausted, sank down on the sofa near which
she had been standing; her lips compressed, her face strained and
hard.

The silence lasted little more than a minute; but to both it seemed
interminable.  Their deep and real devotion had never been less
apparent than now; yet, even in that antagonistic pause, each knew it
unshaken, unshakable, by anything that either might say or do.  Hence
its infinite capacity for inflicting pain.

Mark remained standing by the window; and Lady Forsyth's answer, when
it came, was addressed to the unpromising outline of his back and
shoulders.

"If you won't hear me, Mark, there is no more to be said.  It has
been difficult enough to speak at all at such a moment----"

"Then I wish to God you'd held your tongue," he flashed round upon
her.  "You haven't succeeded in shaking my faith--in her.  You've
only taken the shine out of the happiest day of my life.  If that's
any consolation to you!"

Without giving her time to answer he swung out of the room; and the
trivial fact that he refrained from slamming the door seemed cruelly
to emphasise that his words had not been spoken in temper, but wrung
from him by the bitterness of disappointment and hurt pride.

For a time she remained as he had left her, sitting very still and
upright, looking into vacancy.  Then she covered her face and bowed
her head upon the carved end of the sofa.  But no tears came.  She
would not suffer them.  She was still too angry with Fate, with Mark,
and, above all, with the girl who had so transformed him.  And tears,
after forty, hurt too poignantly to bring relief.  She was suffering,
merely, and realising the power of those words, spoken by them both
in the heat of the spirit, to disfigure the finer fabric of their
lives.  Between two natures equally frank and fiery, lightning
flashes of temper were inevitable; but never before had they revealed
such threatening depths of division.  Worst of all, that division
could not be hidden from others.  The fact and the reason would be
obvious to them all: a thought intolerable to her sensitive pride
that shrank from scrutiny even of sympathetic eyes.

And to-morrow--and to-morrow----?

The ghost of a shiver ran through her.  Life with an estranged Mark
and an unloved daughter-in-law was the last impossibility.  She was a
fool to have spoken while the ardour and thrill of possession were so
fresh upon him.  Yet, had she kept silence, he would eventually have
forced the truth from her.  It was the price of her proudest
achievement; but it cannot be said that she paid it willingly----

At this point her thoughts were checked by the sound of his footstep.
She might have known he would come.  Instantly she was on her feet:
her heart too full of relief for any thought of what she should say.

Outside the door he paused--and she held her breath.  Then, very
gently, he turned the handle and came in.

The temper had gone out of his face but not the pain.  He came
straight up to her and set both hands on her shoulders.  "Mother, I'm
sorry," he said simply.  "I was a brute.  But one doesn't expect
unfairness from you."

"Darling, it was clumsy of me--I didn't mean to be unfair," she
answered, grasping his wrists.  "But it's always been the truth
between us.  I couldn't insult you with empty insincerities."

"And it didn't strike you that you were insulting _her_?"

His fervent stress on the pronoun was indiscreet, to say the least of
it, and Lady Forsyth winced visibly.

"Mums, don't be a fool," he said, with gruff tenderness, gently
pressing her down on to the sofa.  "If you're going to start with
being jealous----"

"It's not jealousy, Mark."

"Then what the deuce is it?"

One thought sprang to both their minds, but neither could or would
speak it.

"We've got to know where we stand about this business," Mark went on.
"If you're going to dislike and distrust her, the position's
impossible.  The trouble is, she suspects something of the sort.  But
of course I told her it was all rot.  Mother, you simply must be good
to her.  She seems to have had a pretty rank time of it with her own
people."

"In what way?"

"D'you really care to hear?"

"Of course I do, seeing how vitally her past concerns your future."

Mark grimaced indulgently.  "Can't you drop me and take a little
decent interest in her?"

"I'll try--if you'll give me a chance!  What about her people, and
this Miss O'Neill?  I've often wondered----"

He told her, in clipped phrases, pacing to and fro, as his habit was
when moved or trying to express his thoughts.  He seldom sat down
except to eat or read; and always seemed most completely himself when
squarely planted on his feet.

His version of Bel's very mixed experiences--glorified
inevitably--failed to dispel his mother's instinctive sense of
something lacking in the girl, precisely what, it was too soon to
tell.

"Poor child!" she said, when he had finished.  "I wonder--how old is
she?"

Mark frowned.  "I haven't the remotest.  We didn't exchange birth
certificates.  About five-and-twenty----"

"More than that."

"Well, if she was forty it would make no earthly difference," he
retorted.  "The point is--will you be decent to her, if it's only for
my sake?  She doesn't seem ever to have had a home worth mentioning.
I want her to feel she has a real one here."

She sighed and rose to her feet.  "Darling, I'll do my best."  A deep
metallic sound vibrated through the house--"Good gracious!  There's
dinner and I haven't changed."

"Who cares?  You look awfully sweet in that blue thing.  Come along."

He slipped a hand through her arm and led her out on to the landing.
But at the head of the stairs he paused.  A vision of Sheila skimming
down the lower flight reminded him sharply that there were others to
be told.  There were also congratulations to be endured.

"I say, Mums, you might go ahead and break the ice," he said, giving
her a gentle forward push.  "I feel most beastly shy of them all."

Shyness was the least part of her own acute discomfort; but the
obedience of a wife is as nothing to that of a well-trained mother.
So she went before to do his bidding; and, being a mother, she would
not have had it otherwise.  Indeed the boyish request, following upon
his casual compliment, seemed to bring her nearer to him than she had
felt for days.

But in spite of her good services, Mark found dinner, flavoured with
discreet congratulations, a singularly unappetising meal.  His
mother's doubtful attitude worried him more than he cared to confess.
Amongst the others also, he felt--or imagined--a lack of genuine
sympathy in the air; and the obvious word "congratulation" was
conspicuous by its absence.  Pure accident, no doubt; but it jarred.
Of a sudden he felt vaguely "out of it," and more than a little
aggrieved that his happiness--which should have added the perfecting
touch to their summer party--seemed instead to have put things
indefinably out of gear.

Matters were not much better in the drawing-room after dinner--the
friendliest hour of the day at Inveraig.  Keith took up a book.  Lady
Forsyth obliterated herself behind the _Times_; and Sheila, soon
after the men came in, slipped quietly out of the room.  Ralph,
kicking his heels on the window-seat, proposed Bridge.  Mark refused
without ceremony; and Maurice proceeded to monopolise Miss Videlle,
by way of reward for duty done.

Mark, in his highly strung mood, felt unjustifiably annoyed with them
all, and the more he suspected their lack of sympathy the more his
chivalrous nature swerved towards Bel.  He gave it up at last and
decided to go to The Rowans.  There at least he would be welcome and
could talk naturally.

"I'm going for a stroll, Mother," he announced to the vast expanse of
the _Times_.  "Leave something unlocked if I'm late."

He wondered--would Keith offer to accompany him?  But Keith made no
move.

In the hall his happy impulse was checked by the recollection of
Harry--probably antagonistic and quite certain to speak her mind
without reserve.  His unexpected appearance might only make things
difficult for Bel.  He felt checked at every turn.

"Oh damn it all!" he muttered aloud, and in the same breath caught
sight of Sheila coming slowly downstairs.

The light falling on her from above burnished the outward sweeping
waves of her dark hair, made shadowed mysteries of her eyes, and
luminously caressed the curves of her face, that, like her voice, was
at once clear-cut and soft.  Her high-waisted, silver-grey gown added
a cubit to her stature; and Mark, watching her unperceived, was
smitten afresh by her natural wild-flower grace, the very antithesis
of Bel's more exotic charm.  Seen thus, Sheila looked no less than
beautiful; but Mark's mind, just then, was concentrated on Bel.  If
only he could enlist Sheila's championship, the girl would have twice
the chance with his mother.

Straightway he resolved on a direct appeal, and going quickly
forward, planted himself on the mat, one hand grasping the balustrade.

She started and came to a standstill two steps above him, so that
their eyes were almost level.

"What is it?  Mums wanting me?" she asked, and he thought she looked
paler than usual, but perhaps it was only the light.

"No.  _I_ am though," he said, with his usual directness.  "Are you
frightfully busy?  Or frightfully bored with me and my engagement?"

"Neither," she answered, a smile flickering in her eyes.  "Why?"

"Well, the rest seem to be.  And mother was quite upset.  I had no
end of a scene with her."

"Poor darling!" Sheila murmured distressfully, and Mark made a
whimsical grimace.

"Which?  Her or me?"

Her pallor vanished.  "Mums, of course.  Still, I'm sorry all round.
It'll spoil things for you both."

"Rather!  But I'm thinking you could do a deal to smooth matters,
Sheila--if you choose.  It's Bel, I'm bothered about.  I want you all
to make her feel welcome.  And things don't look promising so far.
Come out for a stroll, will you!  I've a lot to say."

"I'd love to."

He stood back to make way for her, and as she reached his side his
hand closed lightly on her arm.  "Sure you'll be warm enough in
this?" he said.

She nodded and went rather quickly on before him into the garden.

Avoiding the terrace, they turned into a coppice of birch and pine,
and so passed out on to an open stretch of heather, duskily purple
and bronze in the fading light.

Mark did most of the talking, and--in the repetition of her story to
more sympathetic ears--Bel shone out with fresh lustre as the heroine
of a plucky, if somewhat erratic, fight against the tyranny of
circumstance and unfavourable early surroundings.

Sheila listened to it all in her quietly intent fashion that was balm
to the excitable natures of both mother and son.  She had the true
gift for listening, which is even rarer than the gift of speech; and
for Mark her silence had a quality of its own.  It was a living
thing, alert and aware.  When a man felt worried it seemed to distil
a sympathy that called for no embarrassing response.  And her brief
contributions to their talk were more than satisfactory.

Of course she would love his Bel as a sister, and "Mums" would be
sure to come round in time.  To doubt it were a poor compliment to
Bel, she reminded him; and he wondered how he had overlooked that
obvious truth.

Only once she spoke of herself.  "You know, I'm afraid," she said,
"however well things turn out, Mums will never quite be able to put
her in my place.  And I'm also afraid...," she hesitated and looked
up at him, "that I wouldn't have it otherwise."

"No more would I," he agreed, with sudden fervour.  "You belong--to
us both.  And you always will."

When, at length, darkness and falling dew drove them in, she had
charmed him completely from his mood of vague doubt and irritation.
But for the new name on his lips, and the stir of excitement in his
veins, it was almost as if they were the Mark and Sheila of a month
ago: almost--but not quite.

In the hall he held out his hand.  "I'd rather not go in there again.
Tell them I haven't gone out, will you?"  He paused.  "I'm a rotten
hand at saying things, Sheila.  But, somehow, you've made everything
look different.  And you'll square mother all right.  I can trust
you."

He grasped her hand harder than he realised; but she bore it without
wincing.

"Yes, Mark," she said, "you can trust me.  I'll do my very best."

And none knew better than he the measure of her very best.  He ran
upstairs with a lighter heart.  One could rely on Sheila, though the
heavens fell; and his doubts--as she had said--were an injustice to
Bel, who would probably twist them all--including his mother--round
her little finger, once she set herself to the task.  His last
thought was of their meeting on the morrow.  But it was Sheila's
face, softly radiant in the lamplight, that perversely haunted his
dreams.




CHAPTER VI

  "Where beauty's veil doth cover every blot,
  And all things turn to fair that eyes can see!...
  Both grace and faults are loved of more and less:
  Thou makest faults graces that to thee resort."
                                            SHAKESPEARE.


Mark stepped back from his modelling pedestal and critically surveyed
the result of his morning's work--a terra-cotta study of
Contemplation, inspired by his vision of Bel under the birch-tree on
that day of very mixed memories which seemed infinitely more than two
weeks ago.

The small statue, classic in its serenity and simplicity of
treatment, was a perfect thing of its kind; as unlike the bulk of
Mark's rugged, individual studies as Bel's whole attitude to life was
unlike his own.  Every line of it rested the eye, even as the girl's
cool deliberate nature rested his own ceaselessly questing brain.

So far he had found no trace in her of the hidden conflict between
spirit and matter that was the keynote of his art.  Already he
recognised her spasmodic rebellions rather as a series of skilful
evasions that implied no deep questioning of life or desire of
knowledge.  She was not a genuine rebel, like Miss O'Neill.  Almost
he suspected her of being an impressionist in life.  But doubts and
discoveries notwithstanding, the charm still held, and would probably
continue to hold--irrespective of anything that she might be or do.
Incidentally, she was proving herself an admirable model.  This was
the third morning he had victimised her, and she was still enduring
it with the patience of a Griselda; still sitting, as she had sat for
a good hour, on a long low stool at the far end of the room, in a
blue wrapper with falling sleeves that revealed her arms.  Elbows on
knees, chin cradled in her hand--was she thinking, dreaming, or
mildly bored?  He would have asked her had they been alone.  But
Lenox was ensconced in the deep window-seat behind him, working at a
post-impressionist pastel--a challenge to Mark's insistence on the
classic note.

"Tired--are you?" he asked instead; and she gave him a sidelong
glance with the slow lift of her lashes that still stirred him,
though he knew it now for a conscious trick of manner.  "Could you
hang on for another fifteen minutes without a serious collapse?"

"I could--just; if I may have a cigarette directly it's over."  Mark,
as well she knew, held ridiculously old-fashioned opinions on that
subject, and a cigarette just before lunch was the depth of
demoralisation.

"I call that taking a mean advantage," he reproved her without
severity.  "But I admit you've earned it."

"A very sustaining admission!  And the prospect of getting it is more
sustaining still."

Her cool, provocative smile made him confound Lenox for being
present, which was precisely what she intended.  Then, with a sigh of
resignation she, so to speak, absented herself, and her gaze reverted
to a large and vigorous bas-relief that occupied the centre of a deep
wall-shelf right before her.

It was a recent achievement; a thing of signal beauty and power, as
magnificently impetuous as the figure on the table was gracious and
controlled.  It portrayed the death of a Viking self-immolated on the
deck of his blazing barque in a storm off the coast of Norway.  In
the background, the savage peaks of the mainland were roughly
indicated.  The rest was a whirl of wind-battered clouds and waters,
scrolls of smoke and twisted blades of fire that wreathed and
devoured the doomed ship.  Her prow, a Valkyrie with winged helmet
and lifted spear, rode high on the crest of a wave, poised, as it
were, for the flight to Valhalla when her hero on the sloping deck
should have finished his last fight.  And it was not finished yet.
Raised on one elbow, his head flung upward, his long locks, beard,
and eyebrows were blown abroad by the wind.  He seemed less to be
awaiting the stroke of death, than rejoicing in the majestic duel
between the gods of fire and storm.  Though dwarfed by his mighty
surroundings, that dying fragment of flesh and bone and sinew
dominated all--a serene and splendid figure of defiance; a symbol,
finely conceived and wrought, of the unconquering yet unconquered
spirit of man.  That, for Mark, had been the inner significance of
his theme, above and beyond his sheer joy in the swirl of the
tempest, with one quenchless spark of human will and courage for the
point of stillness in the midst.

For days, while working at it, he had scarcely been off his feet or
sat down to a meal, and his final spurt of inspiration had kept him
going from breakfast-time one day till four o'clock next morning.
The thing was unquestionably his finest achievement yet.  He had put
more of himself into it than into any work of his hands; and he
wondered, now, whether Bel was seeing it merely as a vigorous bit of
drama, or feeling it, understanding it, as every artist craves that
his work should be felt and understood.

She had made few comments when first he showed her his studio, his
inner self, except that she had not realised she was going to marry a
genius and she hoped he was not one of the too uncomfortable kind.
He had promptly reassured her by waiving all claim to genius and
promising not to be "uncomfortable" if he could possibly avoid it.  A
faint, very faint, twinge at his heart had been loyally ignored; and
before long she had charmed him--almost--into forgetfulness that it
had ever been there.

Still, it could not be said that they made swift progress in
intimacy.  One day she would seem exquisitely near him, and the next
would slip distractingly out of reach.  At first this had puzzled
him.  Then he suspected it of being deliberate; and suspicion was
tinged with resentment.  He neither understood nor appreciated the
feline element inherent in certain women.  Nor did he relish the
suspicion that at times Bel could, and did, play upon him, as a
skilled musician plays upon an instrument; that she could even
exasperate him to the point of fury without losing an iota of her
charm.  That charm she was at small pains to exercise on the other
members of the household, except in the case of Maurice and Ralph.
With them it was instinctive, simply; with the rest it would have
been something of an effort, which apparently was not worth making.

As regards Lady Forsyth--though Sheila had been better than her
word--things did not, so far, look promising.  Just at first, for
Mark's sake, the two had made a genuine effort at friendliness; but
on both sides the effort was so much more in evidence than the
friendliness that they very soon found themselves tacitly avoiding
any attempt at intimate talk...  For this unhappy state of things
Mark, not unnaturally, blamed his mother rather than Bel.  She, after
all, was the older woman.  A convincing lead from her might have
worked wonders; but the very sincerity he had always so loved in her
had now become a stone of stumbling.  That he could understand, being
cast in the same mould.  What he secretly resented was her
blindness--wilful or otherwise--to Bel's charm; to the sweetness and
goodness in her that would only, he fancied, blossom freely in an
atmosphere of sympathetic appreciation, his mother's most notable
gift.  How deeply he had counted on this, he now began to realise;
but for fear of hurting her and making matters worse, he bridled his
tongue, with the result that he, too, found himself avoiding
occasions for personal talk.  His people, it seemed, could not, or
would not, assimilate Bel; while Bel's whole attitude politely
implied that she was marrying him, not his people.  But they
three--his mother, Keith, and Sheila--were so closely linked with his
main interest in life that it was hard to see how matters would range
themselves when it came to the point of marriage.  And he intended to
marry soon.  An engagement was an unsatisfactory state of affairs,
and there was nothing to wait for that he could see----

"There!  The fifteen minutes is up," he said suddenly, consulting his
watch and stepping back again for another critical survey.  "I won't
keep you a second longer.  She shall have her finishing touches
to-morrow."

Bel rose, yawned, stretched herself gracefully at some length, and
then stood smiling at him, hands clasped behind her head.

Maurice--unnoticed by Mark, but not by Bel--took up a fresh piece of
paper and began a lightning sketch of her pose.

"You're a model of a model!" Mark commended her warmly.  Then his
gaze moved from her to the bas-relief, as if contrasting the two
things he loved almost equally with two different sides of his nature.

"Have you made friends with my Viking?" he asked, and she pursed her
lips as if considering.

"Frankly--I've tried to; but I can't.  The wind of him blows even
one's thoughts about.  He's magnificent, of course.  But too stormy
and uncomfortable for my taste; so uncomfortable that I was rather
wondering how you could have enjoyed doing him?"

Mark raised his eyebrows.  "That doesn't lend itself to explanation,"
he said lightly.  "Some sort of natural affinity, perhaps.  I'm a bit
stormy and uncomfortable myself, in certain moods."  He opened his
cigarette-case and held it out to her.  "I apologise for blowing your
thoughts about.  We'll change your view to-morrow."

"Now you're angry!" she said sweetly, taking a cigarette and tapping
it on the back of her hand.  As she did so a half hoop of diamonds
flashed into view.  "Honesty's not the best policy, let the copybooks
never so virtuously rage!"

"I prefer it anyway," he said.  "Have a light."  He struck a match
and held it for her.  "I hope my Lady of Dreams is more to your
taste.  She's warranted not to stir the ghost of a breeze in any
one's thought!"

Bel came forward now and contemplated herself with undisguised
satisfaction.  "Mark, you _have_ improved her.  She's lovely!"

"Naturally.  She can't help herself, bless her," he said under his
breath, for the pure pleasure of calling up a blush.  "Now then,
Lenox," he added aloud, "have you the cheek to produce your
caricature of my future wife?"

"Rather!"  Maurice promptly held up for inspection a curious blur of
blues and greens, of pale gold hair and flesh tints of doubtful
fleshliness.  After some looking, the suggestion of a woman emerged;
and later still, a ghostly suggestion of Bel.  It was unquestionably
clever--and nothing more.  Mark laughed aloud.

"Call that a portrait!  By the yellow blob on the top one would just
know which way to hang it!"

"Mark, you're very rude!"  Bel waved him aside with her cigarette.
"It's queer and perverse; but _I_ rather like it."

Maurice sprang to his feet and executed a low bow.  "Miss Alison, it
is yours----"

He broke off and straightened himself, for the door opened to admit
Keith with the _Times_ in his hand.  "Your mother wants lunch at
once," he said.  "I'm driving her into Ardmuir early on business.
Would you care to come?"

"Thanks no.  We've a private picnic on, across the loch."

Mark glanced at the open sheet.  "Any fresh news?"

"A few more details about that Irish shooting affray; an ugly,
ominous business.  While our precious politicians are hurling
epithets at each other, things over there are rapidly drifting
towards bloodshed on a big scale."

Mark's eyes flashed and he thrust out his chin.  "If fighting's
imminent, the sooner you and I pack our things and cross over to
Belfast the better.  At least we can help to stiffen the ranks."

"Mark--you don't _mean_ that?" Bel broke in, a touch of sharpness in
her startled tone.

"Every word of it," he answered quietly, and Macnair's long mouth
twisted as he looked from one to the other.  "I could name a dozen
good fellows here who'd come with me like a shot."

"But--what do _you_ know about soldiering?"

He laughed.  "More than you think for.  I've been put through my
paces in the O.T.C.  I can ride; I can flag-wag; and I'm a marksman,
which is very much to the point.  You've not discovered all my
talents yet by any means!"

But Bel was scarcely listening.  Her eyes were on Keith, whom already
she recognised as an authority on most things, including Mark himself.

"You're not really going, are you, Mr. Macnair?" she asked in a tone
of faint dismay.  "The Government would surely never let it get as
far as civil war."

Keith, more charmed than he cared to own, reassured her with his
kindliest smile.  "I sincerely hope not, Miss Alison, for all our
sakes.  This Austrian ultimatum to Serbia may very well set Europe
ablaze; and at such a moment we should be worse than fools to start
cutting each other's throats at home."

Bel looked distinctly relieved.  In spite of her American phase, she
remained essentially an islander.  For her, Europe was a vast vague
region across the Channel, chiefly represented by Paris and the
Riviera.  But with Mark it was otherwise.

"I say, Keith," he asked sharply.  "Is that Serbian business really
going to make things buzz?  I've done no more than squint at
headlines lately.  And we've had such a surfeit of 'Wolf, Wolf!' one
gets a bit sceptical!"

Keith smiled.  "When you can find time to 'squint' at two letters
I've had from Vienna and Rome, you'll be sceptical no longer.  If
Austria wrings the last humiliation from little Serbia, Russia will
be in it; which means France will be in it too----"

"In _what_, Mr. Macnair?"  Bel's relief was swiftly evaporating.

"The conflagration of Europe," Keith said gravely; and the plain
statement sent an odd, uncomfortable thrill through them all.

"But we're not Europe.  It would not mean us?"

Keith gave her a direct look.  "In my opinion, Miss Alison, we _are_
Europe and it would mean us.  Unless we recognise that obvious fact
in time, we shall simply be marched over.  Whether our reigning
politicians will take your view or mine, remains to be proved.--But
there goes the gong.  And we must feed, though dynasties fall!"

He hurried out and Maurice followed him.

As the door closed on them, Mark, in his silent, impetuous fashion,
turned and took the girl in his arms.  "Poor darling!  Did I frighten
her badly?"

"No.  You made her very angry!" she answered, in her most seductive
voice; and for all apology he kissed her passionately.

"It _will_ be all right, won't it?" she questioned, still in her
childlike vein.

"God knows.  I hope it will," he said.  "Anyway, if we are sitting on
a live crater, we'll take our fill of peace and sunshine this
afternoon.  Come along!"

But at lunch there was more disturbing talk about Ireland.  Mark
still spoke of going over if the tension snapped, though Bel had
taken his caresses for a sign of grace.  Ralph clamoured to accompany
him.  Sheila threatened to beg, borrow, or steal a uniform and go
with them.  As for Lady Forsyth she seemed as bad as any one.  A spot
of colour in each cheek heightened the blue of her eyes.  She felt
the whole tragic tangle of right and wrong keenly, vividly, as she
felt everything, from a pin-prick to an earthquake in the antipodes;
and, like all truly imaginative natures, she could sink the personal
point of view when larger issues held the field.  Bel, very wisely,
kept silence.  Anything she might have to say on the subject was for
one ear alone.  Meantime, she privately reiterated her opinion that
Lady Forsyth was an odd, uncomfortable sort of person, quite unworthy
to be the mother of Mark.

Lunch ended, the "uncomfortable person" retreated to her turret-room
to write a couple of notes before starting, and thither Mark followed
her--an event so rare these days that she started when the door
opened and he came in.

"Mother," he plunged as usual, "the others were mostly joking at
lunch.  But I meant what I said.  Did you?"

She looked up quickly, and her eyes caressed his fine, strong face.
"Of course I did."

"Thought so.  You _are_ a real sportswoman, Mums."

She sighed and smiled almost in one breath.  "A fair imitation!  I
shall pray more fervently than ever for a peaceful solution.
Besides--" a tentative pause--"How about Bel?"

"_She'd_ be all right.  Why shouldn't she?"

But the touch of sharpness in his tone betrayed him--and Bel also.
"You might credit her with a few good qualities.  She's got as many
as most people if you'd honestly look for them.  But you won't."

"Dear, that's not true.  You might try and be fair to me.  I've done
my best."

"So has she, no doubt, though you probably haven't noticed it.  But
it seems precious little use either way.  So the less said the
better."  He swung round and took a step toward the door.

"Oh, Mark!" she murmured, and checked herself.  He was right.  Words
only widened the breach.  But the low sound brought him back to her
side.  "Mums," he said, a hand on her shoulder, "is this rotten state
of things always going on between us?"

"Oh, I hope not."  She laid her fingers over his.  "'My faith is
large in time.'  We two impatient folk must manage to have patience
with each other.  The trouble is--forgive me, dear--I can find so
little in her to take hold of.  It's rather like trying to grasp a
cloud.  Later on I may arrive at the substance that must be there!"

"Yes, it's _there_ right enough."  Mark's tone was curiously quiet,
considering how she had dared.  "Are you yet convinced, Mother, that
she cares, or do you still believe she's marrying my title and
possessions?"

Lady Forsyth started.  "Have you any doubt yourself?"

"If I have, it's all your fault.  What d'you really think?  Tell me."

"I think she cares more now than she did at first, though not nearly
so much as she ought to before she becomes your wife.  You've won
her, nominally, by the primitive process of snatching.  But you've
yet to win her actually.  So don't be in a hurry to snatch at
marriage.  You're still comparative strangers.  Give yourselves a
year at least."

"Oh Lord!" he groaned, "I was thinking of Christmas.  I'm blest if I
could keep it up for a year."

"Keep up--what?" she asked, amused and amazed.

"Oh--you know!" he flung out an expressive hand.  "This lovering
business.  I'm not much of a hand at the sentimental touch.  Little
compliments and attentions and all that.  _Your_ fault again!  You
haven't reared me that way.  Mind you, it's not that I don't care----"

"Of course not!"  Her amusement was full of understanding.  "It's
only that you're even more of a Scot than I thought you were!  Poor
Bel!"

"Not a bit of it!" he retorted; but that first touch of sympathy
pleased him.  "I believe I'm improving.  But--after marriage, she
wouldn't expect so much--eh?"

"She might--and she might not.  Women mostly do.  And when they marry
the non-lovering type of Scot--they suffer.  A friend of mine--an
Irishwoman and childless--was so completely withered by ten years of
life with a dour and devoted Scottish husband that she simply had to
leave him, and to this day he doesn't understand why."

"Hurry up, Helen!  What's come to you?" Keith's voice rang out from
the stairs; and Lady Forsyth leapt to her feet.  "Bad boy to delay me
like this!  But do give yourself time to get your hand in.  Promise."

He smiled at her characteristic urgency.  She looked ridiculously,
engagingly young, he thought, in her blue motor bonnet with its long
veil floating over her shoulder, and the eyes that answered his smile
were suspiciously bright.  Obeying a rare impulse, he stooped and
kissed them.  "Well--just to please you," he said, "I'll try and hang
on till Easter."

"Bless you!" she whispered.  Then she waved to him from the threshold
and was gone.

For several minutes he stood there looking round the familiar
room--that still seemed alive with her presence--in a very mixed
frame of mind.  It was puzzling, and it hardly seemed right somehow;
but the fact remained that, even now, this vivid, virile little
mother of his was easily the biggest thing in his life.  To please
her he had promised to wait till Easter.  Rather an unflattering
discrepancy, when you came to think of it, between nine months'
engagement and his original proposal to marry in a week.  And, with a
sudden twinge of compunction, he hurried out in search of Bel.




CHAPTER VII

  "Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won,
  Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assailéd;
  And when a woman woos, what woman's son
  Will sourly leave her till she have prevailéd?"
                                            SHAKESPEARE.


That picnic on the farther shore of the loch marked a definite step
in the progress of their intimacy.

Bel, in a distinctly coming-on disposition, proved herself at once a
more enchanting and disturbing possession than Mark had found her
hitherto.  First she must discover a hollow full of bracken for his
"arm-chair"; then she must take possession of the tea-basket and
proceed to "play at being married" with all the airy innocence of
nineteen.  But nineteen never could have worked so simply yet
skilfully on a man's heartstrings that, before their idyllic meal was
over, the man in question found himself more than half regretting
that promise to his mother.  It was almost as if Bel had guessed at
his defection and set out to punish him.

When tea was over he proffered his cigarette case.  "More
demoralisation, I suppose?"

"No; the reward of virtue!" she said, deftly extracting one with each
hand.

"I say!  Sheer greed!  What about virtue being its own reward?"

She wrinkled her nose very prettily.  "Can't say I've ever found it
so.  But then--I'm not overburdened with virtue.  So I'm entitled to
the reward!"

"Not in that form.  You're my wife this afternoon!"

"So you can be as hectoring as you please?  At that rate I vote we
remain engaged to the end of the chapter!"

"Bel--if you talk like that, I'll marry you to-morrow," he threatened
her, tempted beyond endurance; but she was gravely considering her
two cigarettes.  Then, lifting her lashes, she regarded him with lazy
tenderness.  "I'll be very good," she said, "and give up one of them
in exchange--for a kiss!"

Thus challenged he seized her and kissed her vehemently--lips, eyes,
and hair.

"Oh--oh!" she breathed, half in ecstasy, half in remonstrance; and he
desisted without releasing her.

"You brought it on yourself," he said huskily.  "Bel--you're a witch.
You _do_ know how to make a man crazy for you."

Her sigh expressed contentment unabashed.  But she seemed chiefly
concerned with the cigarette in her left hand.  It was crumpled into
a limp wreck.

"There now, you've killed the poor thing," she said, holding it up
for his inspection.  "And I might just as well have enjoyed it.  Do
look at Bobs over there, disapproving visibly of your behaviour."

Mark looked; and the Irish terrier's stump of a tail moved to and fro
in small jerks.  The rest of him remained motionless, watchful, nose
between paws, obviously prepared for active intervention, if need
arose.

"Good old Bobs!" murmured Mark; and two velvet ears, several shades
darker than the chestnut head, twitched in response, as who should
say: "I appreciate the attention, but we can't enjoy ourselves
properly till we're rid of her."

Bel snapped her fingers in friendly invitation.  But he paid no heed.
"He's quite uncomfortably human, that dog, and he hasn't accepted me
yet.  He's a jealous red-head, like his master--almost as jealous as
his master's mother!"

"Why do you think she's jealous?" Mark asked, instinctively on the
defensive at the mention of her name.

"I don't think.  I know.  It's quite natural.  I should be horribly
jealous--of my son."

"You would--would you?" he asked in a changed voice; and she, resting
her head against him, answered nothing.  Possibly she thought the
allusion might induce him to speak more definitely of their marriage;
but he merely continued to hold her, more gently now, and to stroke
her ruffled hair.

For several minutes they remained thus, thinking their own curiously
divergent thoughts.  Then by degrees she drew herself away, laid the
crumpled cigarette on his knee and put the other between her lips.
"Light, please," she said, and as he held the match for her, she
looked searchingly into his eyes.

"Bel--" he began vehemently; but she checked him with a gesture.
"Pax!  I want to enjoy my cigarette unmolested.  Tell me more about
the Hampshire home.  I've heard next to nothing about it yet."

She settled herself to listen, hands lightly clasped round her knees,
her eyes gazing dreamily out over the water.  Like all women who pose
habitually and instinctively, she had the art of seeming more natural
than genuine simplicity can ever appear.  And she had touched the
right spring.  If Mark loved any place in the world better than
Inveraig, it was Wynchcombe Friars.  His feeling for both was too
personal, too deep-seated to be articulate; but he could at least
describe externals; and he did it well.  He told her of the long,
rambling Elizabethan house, with its oak panelling and dark roof
beams; of the great flagged terrace, flanked by moss-covered urns,
overlooking a forest of Scotch firs that trooped down into the valley
and climbed the opposite ridge in massed battalions.

"Outside my bedroom and studio windows," he said, "there's a very sea
of pine tops, sinking into the hollow and rising again till they are
splashed like dark foam against the sky.  Magnificent trees.  Most of
'em hundreds of years old.  And the charm of it is that, on the other
side of our ridge, behind the house, we drop down into typical
English country: meadows and park land, and the Wynch flowing lazily
through it; great lonely beeches and oaks, with all space to spread
themselves in, and the grand old ruins of Wynchcombe Abbey.  You'll
simply love it.  I'm longing to take you all over it."

"I'm longing too.  It sounds very beautiful," she said with feeling;
then paused, as if picturing the scene.  But her feminine brain was
revolving matters more practical than pine forests and ruined abbeys.

"Horses to ride?" she asked casually.

"Yes; and to drive.  We're not motor-folk really.  But mother
succumbed to one at last for long distances."

"I'm glad.  I love motoring.  Are you within reasonable distance of
town?"

"Seven miles from a branch line station and bad connections.  We
usually motor to the main line thirteen miles off.  But we're not
great Londoners, either of us.  We've too much that's keenly
interesting on the spot."

"Rather narrowing, isn't it?"

"I haven't found it so."

Again she was silent, contemplating the blurred beauty of inverted
hills in the loch.

"And Wynchcombe Friars," she asked, "would be our main residence?"

"Well--where else?" he said, smiling at her pensive profile and
wondering what she was driving at.  "There's only this, besides.
This is mother's little place--a legacy from a bachelor godfather.  I
don't run to half a dozen establishments."

"But surely"--she turned to him now, half eager, half
anxious--"surely you have a house in town?"

"Rather not.  Don't want it, and couldn't afford it.  I'm not a cocoa
or a patent medicine millionaire.  Keeping up two estates--though
Inveraig is not large--takes a fair amount of money.  And I've put a
good deal into our arts and crafts centre."

Her face fell so noticeably that he slipped a consoling hand through
her arm.  "Poor little girl!  Is it a house in town she's after?"

"Well, naturally I"--she coloured a little--"I thought--you kind of
people always went the regular round--London, Scotland, and the
country."

"So we do; the social sort.  Mother and I aren't the social sort.  I
didn't suppose you were either."

"I haven't had half a chance.  But I'd like to be.  A flat wouldn't
ruin you, would it, Mark?  Just for the season."

This time it was his face that fell.  "Oh Lord!  I could never stick
out a London season, Bel.  The very best time in the country too."

"And _I_ could never exist all the year round out of town."  She
stated the fact sweetly but with entire conviction.

"Hang it all!  This is rather a serious state of affairs!" he said,
with a lightness he was far from feeling.  "We must see if we can't
effect a compromise."

Suddenly he remembered his mother's words a fortnight ago; and
impulsively he spoke his thought.  "Of course if you feel--you've
been let in; accepted a baronet under false pretences----"

"Oh be _quiet_!" she entreated, pain and passion in her low tone.
"It's _you_ I've accepted."

"And you'll take me as you find me?  That's all right."  His fingers
pressed her arm.  "You do care--actively, Bel?  It's not simply a
case of 'L'un qui baise...?'"

It was a question to rouse the incurable coquette in her; and she
flashed him a fugitive smile.

"In the course of my variegated life," she said, "I've mostly found
it more blessed to receive than to give.  But in your case--isn't my
rather precipitate acceptance proof enough for you?  And the fact
that you can reduce me--_me_, to asking for kisses?"

"Oh--kisses!" he dismissed them with a shrug.

"Well--if it's more practical proof you're wanting"--she hesitated,
then turned full upon him, her languor discarded like a garment.  "I
simply can't bear this crazy talk about going to Ulster.  It's no
earthly concern of yours.  Mark--darling, _don't_ go, even if they
are fools enough to fight."

She leaned urgently towards him.  Her whole sweet face looked
younger, tenderer, more appealing than he had seen it since that
momentous afternoon in the glen.  So swift, so surprising was her
change of front, that he looked openly dismayed.

"You don't seem very keen on practical proofs after all," she said,
bringing her face a shade nearer to his.  "I did think your mother
would have the sense to discourage you."

He shook his head.  "Mother understands."

"That really means she gives in to your every whim.  It's the way
mothers are made.  Specially when they own a son with a chin like
yours!  But the modern wife isn't quite so accommodating.  And I
suppose my feeling about it counts for something?"

"Of course it does--tremendously."

"Then say you won't go; and there'll be no more bother."

He thrust out his formidable chin and looked across the loch with
troubled eyes.

"Darling," she persisted, "where's the _point_ of mixing yourself up
with a purely Irish quarrel?"

He shrugged his shoulders, still keeping his eyes away from her face.

"I suppose--a natural prompting of the blood.  Mother's a Stuart, of
these parts, with a strain of North Ireland in her; and there's a
link between Ulster and the south-west of Scotland that only those
who belong there quite understand.  In very old days, the two coasts
were so close, at points, that men could row to and fro in ordinary
sea-boats.  And it's not a purely Irish quarrel, Bel.  It's of the
first importance that the United Kingdom should remain
united--especially just now.  Nothing would suit Germany better than
Home Rule and 'Ireland-a-nation' before she throws off her mask.
Personally, I admit I'm keen for a share in the scrap, if it comes to
scrapping.  I've the blood of fighters in my veins.  But of
course--if you're dead against it----"

"I _am_ dead against it," she said, softly implacable, edging closer
still.  "And _you're_ too strong to be obstinate.  Mark--you're not
going to refuse the first thing I seriously ask you to do for me?"

Her low-toned tenderness disarmed him utterly.  "No, I'm _not_," he
said, with sudden vehemence, drawing her to him.  "I won't go to
Ireland, Bel.  No need to worry any more."

With a sigh of relief, she put her free arm round his shoulder,
lifted her head, and kissed him on the lips.  It was the first time
she had done so spontaneously; and, at the moment, it eased
considerably his bitter sense of disappointment.  He said nothing,
however, and for the rest of the evening Bel was all tenderness and
simplicity; not a shadow of coquetry to mar the effect.


"I think my concession deserves a special reward," he said later on,
as he grounded the boat under Inveraig, and handed her ashore.  "You
might chuck your Harry for once and come on up to dinner."

But she demurred at that.  Honestly she couldn't chuck Harry
to-night.  Considering Harry's views and her devotion and her
resentment, she was taking it all beautifully--in the intervals.
"She's done more for me in three years," Bel concluded, "than my own
people have in the rest of my life.  So you oughtn't to grudge her
the crumbs that fall from your table!  You've monopolised me all day;
and she hates being alone in the evening."

"Bring her along then.  _I_ don't mind."

"Perhaps not, Mr. Egoist.  But she would.  She wants me to herself,
just as you do.  Don't you see?"

Mark grimaced.  "No, I don't see.  A couple of women.  Morbid rot!
Mother says the Suffrage business is increasing that sort of thing.
I'll be glad to get you out of the atmosphere and away from all that
rescue work of hers."

"But, Mark, it's splendid work----"

"Of course it is, for her.  Quite unsuitable, though, for you.  If
you really won't come up, I'll see you home."

No, she really wouldn't.  She was resolute on that point.

"Your people up there have had enough of me to-day," she added,
smiling into his dissatisfied face.  "They're like Bobs.  They
haven't quite accepted me yet.  And--honestly, I don't seem to catch
on, somehow, except with Mr. Lenox----"

"Not Sheila?" he asked, a little anxiously.  "I'm very keen you two
should be good friends."

"She evidently knows that, and she's doing her best.  She's sweetness
itself to me.  But still----"

"Well?  What's wrong with her?"  He was on the defensive again.

"My dear, there's nothing wrong.  If there was, she'd probably be
twice as charming.  She's the kind of tranquil angel who would show
up beautifully against a tragic background.  But, in ordinary life,
she seems almost too good to be true."

"She's nothing of the kind," he retorted hotly, which did not improve
matters.  But for the life of him, he could not keep cool.  "She's
the right sort all through."

"Well, if she's such a living wonder, why on earth don't you marry
her instead of me?" Bel countered with perfect good temper.

"For a very obvious reason, which you don't deserve to be told in so
many words."

"Mark, you're horrid!" she pushed him lightly with her shoulder.
"Don't let's spoil our beautiful afternoon squabbling over a side
issue.  No doubt we shall shake down together in the end.  Only give
us time."

Her sweet reasonableness disarmed him--for the moment.  But he was a
long while falling off to sleep that night.  Things did not easily
worry him; but within the last twelve hours several events of more
than minor importance had conspired to that end.

First, Bel's frankness made it clear that at Inveraig she found no
atmosphere of genuine welcome or of home.  He must give them time, as
she had said; but it was an unpropitious start.  Second, he had, in
effect, saddled himself with two promises that would be far from easy
to keep.  Third, there was the unwelcome prospect of that possible
flat in town.  If Bel seriously set her heart on it, he did not see
himself refusing her; though goodness knew where the money was coming
from, or how he was going to survive large doses of London society.
Son of a mother who treated life as an art, he lacked the
herd-instinct of the social type.  But for all her indulgence, and
his own imperious ways, he was not radically selfish; and beneath his
blunt, Scottish exterior there dwelt a deep, natural tenderness for
woman, as woman, common to the essentially masculine man.

Marriage, he supposed, meant compromise; and he began to see that,
with Bel for wife, he would have to do his full share of it.  Looking
back over their "beautiful afternoon," he was uncomfortably aware of
certain fundamental discords; still more aware that his mother had
been right in several respects.  It was an annoying trick of hers.
She had been right about Ulster; about Bel's eye to worldly
advantage; even about the minor matter of her age.  For Mark had
discovered, incidentally, that she was twenty-nine in June, two years
older than himself.  Not that a year or so mattered this way or that.
But it was an additional score for his mother; and gave greater
weight to her curious antipathy to the girl of his choice.

His disappointment about Ulster was keener even than he cared to
admit; and here again--as his acutely wide-awake brain recalled words
and looks and tones--a sudden vexatious doubt assailed him.  Had her
tenderly urgent request been as spontaneous as it seemed: a genuine
response to his question about active caring?  Or had she been
skilfully leading him towards it all along?  Her pretty coquetting
with the tea-things, her pretence at being married, and her casual
mention of a son--had it all been cleverly designed to stir him to
the depths and so make victory secure?  He hated himself for the
suspicion.  It persisted none the less.  Yet he knew quite well that
it would evaporate at the sight of her face and the touch of her
lips.  Only when the spell of her presence was removed was he capable
of doubting her for an instant; and even so, he saw those doubts as a
reflection on himself rather than on her.  He was tired, simply;
and--yes, more than a little disappointed.  That was all; and the
sooner he got to sleep the better.

Springing out of bed he stood a few minutes at the window looking out
upon a world of stars in the heavens above and the waters below.
Fitfully, through the silence, came the clear night note of the
curlew; and the sound of the ebbing tide was like hushed voices
talking secrets the stars must not overhear.  As a small boy, lying
wakeful in the summer twilight, Mark had woven entrancing tales about
those mysterious confidences between the retreating waters and the
shore: tales that had become part of the fabric of his inner life.

A few deep breaths filled his lungs with clean cool air and quieted
his brain.  Metaphorically, he wrung the serpent's neck and flung him
into the loch.  Then he went quietly back to bed.  Happen what might
Bel was Bel: a bewildering wonder of womanhood, neither to be
analysed nor criticised; but simply to be loved and cherished and--so
far as possible--obeyed.




CHAPTER VIII

  "England clasps in her embraces
  Many.  What is England's state?
  Warn her, Bard, that Power is pressing
  Hotly for his dues this hour:
  Tell her that no drunken blessing
  Stops the onward march of Power.

  Has she ears to take forewarnings,
  She will cleanse her of her stains;
  Feed and speed, for braver mornings,
  Valorously, the growth of brains."
                        GEORGE MEREDITH.


Two days later the head-lines of every newspaper in the kingdom
announced in heavy-leaded type "Austria declares War," "Partial
Russian Mobilisation."

At hundreds of breakfast-tables incredulous people read out those few
and fateful words.  Even at this late hour, the majority could
scarcely bring themselves to believe that the Titanic struggle--long
prophesied to deaf ears--had begun at last; that Austria was the
megaphone merely through which Germany cried aloud her challenge to
the world.

Keith Macnair, it need hardly be said, was numbered among the
minority who had seen, with anger and dismay, warning after warning
scoffed at or ignored by a pacific Government and a comfort-loving
people; yet he neither exclaimed, nor cursed the blind guides who had
been sedulously whittling down the fighting strength of the British
Isles.

"Hullo!  The fat's in the fire," he remarked coolly, having pulled in
his chair and opened the _Scotsman_ with his customary deliberation.
"The voice is the voice of Jacob; but the hand is the hand of Esau."

It was Lady Forsyth, standing behind him, who exclaimed and read out
snatches from the Summary of Contents with heightened colour and
quickened breath.

Though Keith had all the natural man's objection to these peculiarly
feminine methods, he bore the infliction without a murmur, till Mark,
towering behind his mother, took her waist between his hands and
propelled her towards the sputtering kettle.

"Steady on, Mums, and feed your sheep," he commanded, standing guard
over her.  "Your righteous wrath will only give you indigestion, and
the elderly gentlemen who are engineering this eruption won't be one
penny the worse."

"And you ought to be grateful to them really!" Mona remarked, with a
wicked twinkle.  "What about the German invasion you were praying
for?"

They all "ragged" her, young and old.  She was irresistible; and
unquenchable.

"Well, at least we can fight invading Germans, and we couldn't fight
the petticoats!" she retorted, while Mark thrust a caddy spoon into
her inattentive hand.  "But it still remains to be seen whether our
_pax vobiscums_ will permit us to hurt a single hair of a single
'kindred Teuton' head!"

The tea was made by now, thanks chiefly to Mark; and for five minutes
she managed to concentrate her attention on cups and saucers.  But
throughout the meal they could talk of little else than the veiled
drama of the nations and its probable developments.  Mark himself was
rather quieter than usual; but perhaps he thought the more.

When the younger ones went out on to the terrace, he followed Keith
into the study, and for some time the two--who were as brothers in
all but blood--sat together in a smoky, companionable silence, each
absorbed in his own printed sheet.  The Irish news was by no means
reassuring.  But Mark, to Keith's surprise, had tacitly dropped the
subject; and it was the older man who spoke first.

"I'd give something for a glimpse, this minute, into Germany's
barracks and her sacred Kiel Canal.  If I know anything of the Kaiser
and his gang, she's on the move already; counting on our neutrality
of course.  God send she may find herself mistaken; but Grey will
leave no stone unturned to avoid war.  As a philosopher and a man of
letters, I'm with him there.  But the rest of me is convinced that
nothing short of Treitschke's 'terrible medicine' will shake us out
of our democratic fiddle-faddling and partisan squabbling.  It would
link up the men and women, not to mention the Empire; and as for the
Irish--at the first hint of real business, they'd be falling on each
other's necks.  In that case, Mark, you and I would be for offering
our services elsewhere."

"Yes--of course.  Rather so!" Mark agreed with fervour; then checked
himself and fell silent.

Keith said nothing; but his thoughts were effectually diverted from
the threat of war to a more personal threat that touched him very
nearly, because Mark was Helen's son.  Being a man, he understood, as
she could never do, the nature of Mark's infatuation for this
alluring girl--"the ideal mistress" he classified her mentally; the
siren-type, who sits combing her hair in the sunset and smilingly
wrecks the souls of men.  The straighter and cleaner a man's record,
the more easily she flings her gold dust in his eyes; and should she
chance to fall in love----

Macnair had not yet made up his mind on that score.  He was concerned
at the moment with one painful, practical question: could she, in the
event of war, conceivably induce Helen's son to play the coward's
part?  He knew Mark for a man of strong passions; but he believed him
equally strong in spirit and in will.  He felt troubled and anxious
none the less.  Had he known of that recent surrender he would have
felt more anxious still.

Mark left the study without further allusion to the subject; and
later in the morning Bel appeared serenely graceful, in a new yellow
silk golf coat and a distractingly becoming hat.  With such a vision
before his eyes no man in his senses could feel seriously concerned
about European thunderclouds that might still, at the eleventh hour,
dissolve in a harmless shower of rain.

Bel, of course, was airily convinced they would.  "Besides," she
concluded, with her engaging air of sagacity, "where's the earthly
use of being an island, with an invincible Navy, if we're to be
scared by every little flare-up across the Channel?"

Mark smiled and shook his head at her.  She was ensconced in the deep
window-sill of the studio, lightly swinging one foot.

"It's not a case of being scared, but of being prepared," he said,
fingering the stray tendrils in the nape of her neck.  "If Germany's
engineering this squabble it'll be the biggest flare-up the world's
ever seen; and before many days are out we may be thanking Prince
Louis on our knees for having kept the Fleet in being----"

"Oh, be quiet!" she commanded, slapping the hand that caressed her.
"You're as bad as Mr. Macnair."  She leaned half out of the window.
"It's a divine morning.  A boat on the loch would be more to the
purpose than all your horrid battleships put together.  Here comes
the midday post."

"The _Times_!" cried Mark, and was promptly extinguished.

"You aren't going to look at the _Times_ till to-night," she said.
"You're to look at me in my new clothes.  What else did I put them on
for?"

The word "clothes" reminded him of an expected parcel.  "You wait
there a minute," he said mysteriously; and very soon reappeared with
two of them.  From the smaller, he extracted a rope of amber beads;
from the larger, a snow leopard skin, lined with satin, to form a
natural cloak.

Bel's face, during these proceedings, was certainly better worth
looking at than the _Times_.  The beads were the very colour of her
coat; the pale tones and dusky markings of the skin harmonised
perfectly with her hair; and her delight in both was too genuine to
be marred by minor affectations.  By lunch-time Mark had almost
forgotten the International Crisis, and the threat of war.

But throughout that unforgettable week--when the world's destiny hung
in the balance--events in Europe moved swiftly toward the great
upheaval; while in England the tension of anxiety increased daily.
Between those who feared that an enlightened Liberal Government would
be criminal enough to fight, and those who feared the worse
criminality of its failure to stand by France, there could be little
peace of mind anywhere, except among the wilfully or constitutionally
blind--a large majority in every country.

At Inveraig they could talk of little else, except in snatches.  And
Mark--reared by his mother to live in touch with the whole vast sweep
of life--was as bad as the rest: though Bel, in her leopard-skin
cloak and amber beads, was a vision enchanting enough to distract any
man's thoughts from graver matters: and indeed she did her utmost to
that end with fitful success.  In her heart she hated this looming
shadow, chiefly because it dwarfed her proudest achievement--the
conquest of Mark: and as the week drew on, she became bored; even
faintly irritable.  She began to find or invent excuses for avoiding
meals at Inveraig, and when Mark remonstrated, she candidly owned to
being tired of the subject.  She wasn't accustomed to that sort of
talk, and a little of it went a long way.  She would give him a
holiday on Friday, she concluded graciously.  They had friends coming
to join them at The Rowans--Mr. and Miss Maitland from his part of
the world.

Mark raised his eyebrows.  "Maitland?"

"Yes.  He's classical master at High Rough School.  D'you know him?"

"'M--slightly.  I've not much use for him.  Sort of chap whose veins
run ink instead of blood."

She flushed a little and lifted her head.  "He's a great friend of
mine; so you needn't make rude remarks."

"A _great_ friend?"

Mark bent a searching glance upon her.

"Yes: in his lukewarm way."

"Oh, if he's lukewarm, he'll do!  Didn't I say his veins ran ink?
I'll let you be polite to him on Friday, and I must have Saturday
afternoon and evening entire as a reward!"


But even while they talked, Europe hummed with the stir of gathering
armies; and by Saturday morning the head-lines announced "Russian
Mobilisation Complete."  Germany, who had secretly forestalled that
event, responded by declaring a state of war, and an impenetrable
veil fell between her and the outer world.

Keith handed the paper to Mark, who had come in late for breakfast.
"There you are, old boy.  I said the end of the month, didn't I?
Russia brings in France automatically.  It only remains for Italy and
England to show their hands.  I back Italy to keep hers clean and
stay out of it."

"And I back England to fight."

"Yes--if we've still enough of the old leaven to save us from the
curse of legal verbiage and inaction."

For the rest of the meal he confined himself to intermittent
"rumblings" (the word was Lady Forsyth's) against peace-cranks,
Internationals, and so forth; but it was not until he had talked over
the telephone to a friend in Edinburgh that he really let himself
go--an event as rare as the proverbial "blue moon."

For it transpired that his friend--a professor of distinction--had
just promised his signature to a neutrality letter strongly
protesting against England's intervention in a Continental quarrel.

"Continental quarrel, forsooth!  And the damned fools, not content
with their egregious letter, are moving heaven and earth--that's to
say International and Labour lights--to get up a Neutrality
Committee, by way of further assisting a divided Government that
stands shivering on the brink.  Here we are, sunk deep in the ruts of
peace in its most repellent form--peace, that has almost landed us in
civil war; yet sober-minded men and women cry out against our taking
the only course that can conceivably save half Europe, including
ourselves, from the domination of the German machine."

His quiet grey eyes had a glint of steel in them, as he stood there
beside the telephone in the study, swept, by intensity of conviction,
so completely out of his philosophic calm, that Helen and Mark, the
natural talkers, never dreamed of interposing a word.  On the rare
occasions when the spirit of speech moved him, they were willing to
listen ad infinitum.

He had descended to a lower plane now, and was confounding the
tyranny of the week-end habit, the curse of the country, that would
send responsible people scuttling out of town on a Friday, though the
last trump were sounding in their ears.  He also confounded, for the
first time in his life, that sacrosanct institution the Scottish
Sunday, which would cut them off from letters, telegrams, and papers
for twenty-four hours.

"Never mind, old man, we've got the blessed telephone," Mark consoled
him, clapping a hand on his shoulder.  "And we can jolly well make
ourselves a nuisance to all our friends and relations.  What else is
a telephone for?  I vote we run down to Glasgow on Monday and sleep
the night.  We'd feel a bit closer to things----"

An imperious tinkle interrupted him.  Admiral Sir John Forsyth this
time.  Unlike the heads of the political world, he had come up
post-haste from Dorset, and he wanted a few words with his nephew.

It was while these things were in progress that Bel arrived, eager
for a sight of Mark, and found herself relegated to the drawing-room
with Sheila and Mona for company.  Sheila apologised in her
friendliest fashion; but that was quite beside the point.  The
appearance of the tea-tray brought in Lady Forsyth; but not till tea
was half over did the telephone release Mark.  Then at last came her
chance of escape; and the lovers wandered off through the pine copse
on to the small patch of open moor overlooking the loch.

"A shame to keep her waiting," he apologised tenderly.  "But this is
history, darling, on a tremendous scale; so you must make allowances."

"I'm trying to."  She dropped her lips with a bewitching air of
martyrdom.  "But tremendous things are rather exhausting.  I can't
get into a state of thrill, like your mother and the rest.  And I'm
very glad--you may think what you like!--that there really is a
chance we shall keep out of it.  Mr. Maitland says Sir Edward Grey
has admitted that the Entente's not binding, and a Liberal Government
can't drag a free people into the horrors of war."

"Damn Maitland!" Mark flashed out; then reddened and drew in his lip.
"Sorry.  But if you don't want fireworks you'd better keep that
chap's inspired remarks to yourself.  Besides, you're practically one
of us now; and I can't have you talking pacifist twaddle."

"Well, don't let's talk of it at _all_.  I'm sick of the whole thing."

Mark said nothing, and they walked on in silence through the heather.
Then she turned to him and slipped a hand through his arm.  "Darling,
let's go off somewhere to-morrow for the whole day and forget all
about everything, except each other."

"Bel!"  He stood regarding her with an enigmatical smile.  For an
instant she thought he would consent.  "I'd love to, of course," he
said honestly.  "But I simply couldn't do it.  Though we can't get
papers, there's the telephone; and my mind would be on the stretch
the whole time."

She shrugged, with a faint reflection of his smile.  "Very well.
I'll join the others.  They're going for an outing in any case.  Your
Scotch Sunday is so desolating."

"Then I'll call in for you after supper, if you're not too tired.
Keith and I are going to Glasgow on Monday for the night.  See how
they're taking things there."

She sighed.  "This wretched war is simply spoiling everything."  Her
shoulder touched his as she spoke, and at once he put his arm round
her. "It seems to shut me out."

"Only because you refuse to come in."

"But, Mark--it's such a horror."  Her shiver was not pure
affectation.  "And I've no taste for horrors.  I can feel it hovering
there, across the Channel, like a tiger waiting to spring.  And when
I try to forget it, you don't help me.  As you won't come to-morrow,
I shall console myself by asking Mr. Lenox.  I like him the best of
your lot."

"All right; ask him.  He can keep an eye on you.  See that you don't
flirt with Maitland."

"But I do--always.  It's an understood thing between us.  And if I
can't have you, I must get what fun I can out of him!"

Maurice, though feeling the strain in his own way, accepted Bel's
invitation, plus her proviso that no one was to say "War" or
"Politics" from start to finish.  Privately she felt Mark's defection
more keenly than she cared to admit, but she intended to enjoy
herself in spite of it; and she succeeded, by the primitive process
of playing the two men off against each other.  Maitland--a
loose-limbed narrowly built person of nondescript colouring--had for
years been discreetly in love with her.  He was of those for whom
discretion is the better part of everything.  For which cause a
penniless Bel could never become Mrs. Maitland.  But the moth
persisted in hovering round the candle, and he had heard with a mild
pang of her engagement to Sir Mark.

Like many schoolmasters of second-rate quality, Maitland was less a
man of intellect than of specialised culture.  Years of close touch
with the "humanities" had failed to make him human.  He was
humanitarian, merely: a very different pair of sleeves.

Maurice, watching him with Miss Alison, saw the girl in a new light,
and wondered a little what Forsyth would think about it.  But on his
return he simply remarked that Maitland seemed the sort of
schoolmaster who disseminated ignorance; that Miss Alison had been in
great form, and they had had a ripping day.


Early on Monday afternoon the two men set out for Glasgow; and to
Lady Forsyth the house, bereft of their presence, seemed a dead
thing.  A man's woman in the finest sense of the phrase, her men were
the first best gifts of God to her.  She was their born comrade.  She
had the rare gift of seeing life with their eyes; and through her
nature ran a streak of inconsistency, peculiarly endearing to the
more consistent half of creation.

Even in the midst of her real anxiety lest a Government wedded to
peace should withhold England from the path of honour and safety, her
sensitive spirit revolted against the oncoming holocaust of death and
suffering, with a fierce intensity of which Bel's nature was purely
incapable.  She felt it as a vast thundercloud, stealthily,
inexorably blotting out the light of heaven.  These days of
waiting--days of tense and awful quiet for all who were far from the
throbbing heart of things--were as the pause of utter stillness that
precedes the crash of the storm.  And in that stillness she could see
and feel too vividly things that filled her with a shuddering dread.
The whole world's sorrow seemed to beat upon her heart, and at
intervals through the vast diapason of universal anguish came the
piercing note of personal pain.

She knew--triumphantly, yet shiveringly she knew--what it would mean
for her if England went into the war, not merely as a protective
Power, but as a united Empire to challenge conclusions with her most
insidious and most formidable enemy.  Mark would go out to France;
and he would lose no time in going.  That was his way.  He had said
no word of it, so far, either to her or Bel.  But she knew his
intention, if the girl did not; and even while she shrank from the
surrender of her last best treasure, she never dreamed of withholding
him.  If it were really to be war on a big scale, everything,
everyone must go....




CHAPTER IX

      "Thy trumpet lies in the dust...
      Help me to don my armour!
  Let hard blows of trouble strike fire into my life.
  Let my heart beat in pain--beating the drum of thy victory.
  My hands shall be utterly emptied to take up thy trumpet."
                                      RABINDRANATH TAGORE.


"War declared--_at last_!" Keith announced, in his quiet impressive
voice; and Lady Forsyth heard the words with an odd mingling of
relief and dread.

The next moment she was startled by a stab of almost physical pain
near her heart.  That it was not physical she knew very well.
Instinctively she glanced at Mark, whose eyes were already on her
face; and there passed between them a swift, unspoken message that
eased the hearts of both.

Breakfast, usually a cheerful meal, was rather a silent affair; and
the minute it was over Lady Forsyth slipped away to her turret-room.
Sheila was helping Ralph pack, that he might hurry down south and
report himself at the India Office.  Mark had gone off to the study
with Keith; and Lady Forsyth had been sitting in her chair by the
window for nearly half an hour before she heard his step outside the
door.

She turned, with his name on her lips; but her throat felt
constricted, and no sound came.

In response to that mute appeal, he dropped on one knee beside her
and laid his hands in her lap.  It was his old boyish trick when he
came to confess a delinquency and knew himself forgiven in advance.

"Mother," he said, "we've got to put everything into this, you and
I--to the uttermost farthing.  All our men must go.  And I must give
'em the lead myself."

His voice was steady, and there was a light in his eyes that she had
never seen there yet.  For all her courage, her own smile was a
rather misty affair.

"You're my uttermost farthing," was all she could say.

"Yes.  It's bitter hard luck on you.  But--you don't grudge my going?"

She shook her head.  "The greater my treasures the greater my gift.
This widow's mite is a very large mite!" she added, smiling bravely
now, and passing her hands slowly over his broad shoulders down to
his elbows where they rested.

For answer he looked steadily into her eyes.  The faint, yet
perceptible barrier raised by his engagement was levelled utterly;
the old blessed sense of comradeship restored.  Friction between them
was purely a surface affair.  The moment they touched fundamentals,
they were one.  And Mark, for his part, was aware of a restfulness in
this deeper understanding; a restfulness that he had missed of late
without knowing it.

He knew now, very well; and she saw that he knew: but he only said,
"I was sure I could count on you.  Keith, approves, of course.  I
rather thought of going down at once with Ralph.  You know--it's
enlisting I'm after.  The quickest way----"

"Oh Mark--not that!"  Her hands went up in protest; and, for the
first time, there was sharp pain in her voice.

"Now be a good Mums and listen without interrupting," he commanded,
imprisoning her hands.  "We're simply going to have the biggest rush
to the colours that the world's ever seen.  I'm sure of it.  And it's
up to us 'aristocratic noodles' to give the sacred working-men, of
our sacred democracy, a thumping good lead.  That's what I meant
about my own fellows.  Thought you understood----"

"But, my dear--" she checked herself, half laughing.  "Have you done?
May I interrupt now?"

"You have interrupted!  Always do.  Go ahead!"

"Well, this is how _I_ feel about it.  Scores and scores of our
blessed noodles will enlist, for the very reason you've given.  The
thing will be overdone, and if there's a shortage anywhere, it'll be
among the officers.  Then the wrong sort of men will get commissions
and numbers of the right sort will remain stuck in the ranks: one way
of democratising the Army!  Horrible idea!  I believe, as you very
well know, in the true aristocracy of breeding and character, in its
duties even more than its privileges; and above all in its innate
spirit of leadership, that can be trained but not made.  That's
why--especially in a war that will exceed all others in horror and
intensity--I strongly object to wholesale squandering of officer
material, our most precious possession."

"But, mother, I'm not an officer," Mark protested, adding with a
twinkle: "You're having a jolly long innings, you know!"

"Well, I must speak now.  It's my only chance.  And you're officer
material, Mark.  You'd make a fine one, with a minimum of training.
You've got it in you.  Will you--for once admit I may be in the
right?"

He regarded her quizzically.  "I was determined not to, when you
started."

"Well, at least consult Keith and Uncle John and Uncle Everard before
you do anything drastic!  You wouldn't have to wait long for a
commission.  We've heaps of interest--Frank Gordon and Jim Stuart,
not to mention others, would do anything for you in that line.  I
don't want to be selfish or unpatriotic, but you've admitted it comes
hard on me.  Why make it needlessly harder?"

To her entire amazement he flung his arms round her and leaned his
head against her shoulder.

"You blessed little mother," he said under his breath.  "You're as
plucky as they're made.  Our share in this war shall begin with a
private victory for you!  And let's hope it may be a good omen!"

Taking her head between his hands he kissed her fervently, and she
clung to him without a word.

At last he sighed and stood up, very erect, looking out across the
sunlit water to the shadowy hills.  Her eyes took the same direction;
but the familiar scene was no more than a bright quivering blue of
colour.  For a moment they both felt oddly shy of each other.

Presently it passed, and Helen looked up at her son.  "I can't say
what I'm feeling, Mark.  But I don't think you'll regret my victory.
Besides, there's Bel."

"Yes.  Poor Bel," he said in a changed voice.  "She hates the whole
business.  And she'll hate it worse than ever now.  But if she plays
up as you have, she'll do!"  He glanced at his watch.  "She'll be
here in a minute.  I must go and meet her.  Don't stay and brood
alone, Mums.  Go down and talk to Keith.  He wants to rush into
Ardmuir this morning and fix up a recruiting show for Friday.  Sir
Mark Forsyth in the chair!  On Saturday I vote we go south.  There'll
be a thundering lot to do.  This food panic's disgraceful.  Famine,
indeed!  As if we hadn't a ship afloat."

She put her hands to her temples.  "It makes one's head spin.  I'll
go soon, dear, but I must have a few minutes alone--to take it all
in."

So he left her, and went slowly down-stairs with a preoccupied look
in his eyes.  It was scarcely the look of a lover eager to meet the
beloved after two days' absence; and in truth his natural eagerness
was dimmed by a lurking doubt as to how Bel would receive his
announcement.  The contrast between the utter confidence he had felt
in his mother's acquiescence and his curious lack of confidence in
the girl he meant to make his wife hurt him horribly.  He blamed
himself for it, as a matter of course; but deep down, he knew that
doubt did not come readily to his nature; that never yet had he
doubted where he loved.

From the front door he caught sight of her at the far end of the
drive, moving in her graceful, leisurely fashion, head bent, eyes on
the ground.  She was wearing the yellow silk golf coat and the amber
beads, and the distractingly becoming hat; and, of a sudden, Mark
realised with a pang, how, in the last few days, the great issues at
stake had dwarfed everything--even Bel.

But now that the tension was over, the die cast, her spell reasserted
itself; and a great wave of tenderness flowed through him.  It would
be hateful having to leave her: but he was so made that the question
of choice simply did not enter his head.

Now he hurried forward, convinced that so great an occasion must lift
her above herself.  It was always the same: at sight of her, doubt
grew shamefaced--and fled.

Before he reached her, she looked up and waved with her parasol, and
Bobs, suddenly recognising her, bounded forward with eloquent tongue
and tail.  While she was patting him, Mark came up and quietly
slipped a hand through her arm.

"That's good," he said, with a sigh of satisfaction.  "Come to our
summer-house on the heather and have a talk."

As he led her towards the copse she gave him one of her soft
side-long glances, whether of scrutiny or affection it were hard to
say.

"Bobs is more demonstrative than his master."

The answering flash of his eye and tongue were direct as his whole
nature.  "You won't induce me to kiss you in the open drive by your
base insinuations!"

And it was not till they reached the depth of the little wood that he
came to a standstill; a strange light of exaltation on his face.
Then he drew her to him and kissed her with a still intensity of
passion, as if he would make her understand the measure of his love
before telling her that which, perversely taken, might seem to throw
a doubt on it.

When he released her, she stood back a little and smiled on him, rosy
from his kiss, hands laid lightly on his breast.

"Are you as glad--as all that, to get her back?" she asked.

"More than all that--heaps more.  I agree with Robert Louis.
Separation has its good points!  But we'll soon be suffering from too
sharp a taste of it--scores of us.  I suppose you deigned to glance
at the head-lines this morning?"

"Yes, of course."  She frowned.  "It's horrible--beyond belief.  Rex
says it simply means that, in spite of all our science and progress,
the world's not civilised yet."

"More fool he, to imagine it was.  Patches of it are half-civilised,
that's about all.  And enough too.  Over-civilisation, goodness knows
why, has a queer tendency to rot men's souls.  Makes the body too
comfortable, perhaps."

"Rubbish!  That's one of your fads just because you're against
progress."

"Not I, in the right direction.  I'm only against the modern craze
for rushing wildly round a fixed point and getting nowhere.  This war
may set the clock back, but I bet it'll get us somewhere before it's
done with us."

He was back at the unavoidable subject again; and this time he
resolved to have done with shilly-shallying.

They had reached the summer-house fronting moor and loch; and as he
stood aside to let her pass in, she said, smiling: "I like the way
you barbarians justify your own point of view!  Anyway, I suppose
you're all satisfied now, and things will be a little more normal?"

"Normal?"  His shock of surprise sounded in his tone.  "How can they
be normal when we've got to fight for our lives against a Power like
Germany?  Who'd wish them to be?  I'm afraid you haven't read much
_more_ than the head-lines, Bel.  There's no end to think of: no end
to do.  As soon as I've rounded up my fellows here, we must go back
home and round 'em up there.  I wanted to enlist myself, but mother's
persuaded me to apply for a commission.  She's splendid about it, and
I'm counting on you to be the same."

"Mark!"  Her surprise was no less than his own.  She sank upon a
wooden seat near the window and looked up at him, with eyes that had
gone suddenly chill and hard, like bits of blue glass.  "Have you
quite gone off your head?"

Words and tone produced a horrid revulsion of feeling.  But he
answered her with studied quietness.  "I was never saner in my life."

She received that statement with a faint lift of her brows.

"You can stand there and tell me--me--you're going to fight in the
most awful war there's ever been, as calmly as if you were talking
about ordering a new suit, in spite of all I said about Ulster?"

"Ulster!  Good Lord, you're not building on _that_?" he cried,
enlightened at last.  "My darling girl, can't you see for yourself
that there's no shadow of comparison?  That was a matter of personal
choice.  Something I could give up for your sake--and I did."

"Well, if you really--care, you ought to give up this too.  It's not
fair on me, or your mother.  Fighting is the soldiers' business.
Leave it to them."

"A few hundred thousand against millions--eh?"

"That's the Government's fault.  Besides, we've plenty of
Territorials and things."

His short laugh sounded more impatient than amused.

"A lot you know about Territorials and things!  They're thousands
below strength.  And anyway, Bel, it's not a question of
Territorials--or of caring.  It's a plain matter of duty."

"Well, you've money and brains.  You could do quite good work in lots
of other ways."

"And round up better chaps than myself to go out and fight for me?
No, thank you!  There'll be too many ready to take shelter behind
that plausible excuse.  If they feel they can do so honestly, let
them.  Anything I could do at home could be equally well done by
mother and Keith.  Did you happen to notice the 'Call to Arms'?  Do
words like that leave you unmoved?"

"N-no.  But it means common men, not men with big responsibilities
like you."

"Bel, that's pure quibbling.  It says 'All,' and it means 'All.'
Could any man, I ask you, with a shred of conscience or love for his
country, read that and remain at home rotting round with recruits and
committees?  I couldn't, that's flat.  This war is either a crusade
or a meaningless horror.  And for me--it's a crusade.  I'm not
talking hot air.  There's too much of that in the papers already.
I'm only trying to make you see that I've no choice.  I can't stand
outside--even for you."

"That simply means you won't," she said very low.  He sighed and
stood silent, baffled, yet unshaken, looking out over the
sun-splashed heather.  Then it occurred to him that, being a woman,
persuasion might move her though argument failed.

He sank on one knee and put his arm round her.  "Darling," he urged,
"I can't bear hurting you like this.  War is cruelly hard on the
women: but you only make things worse for us both if you let it come
between us."

He felt her stiffen under his hand.  "It has come between us
utterly," she said.  "All this week it's been getting worse.  If you
talk till all's blue, I shall never see this--with your eyes.  So it
just amounts to this.  You must either give up your quixotic notion
of patriotism, or ... you must give up ... me."

She spoke with more than her usual deliberation.  The words seemed to
drop out clear and hard as pebbles.

"Bel!  You don't mean that!" he cried, hurt to the quick.  "It would
simply break my heart."

His sincerity was so plain, that her own heart thrilled in response.
She slipped a hand round his head.  Her fingers drifted with a slow
caressing movement over his hair; and her voice took its most
seductive tone.

"Mark, darling, if that's true, keep me--keep me.  I'm yours, if only
... you'll stay out of the fighting!"

Instantly he released her and sprang to his feet--angry, miserable,
desperate.  Yet still, in his very desperation, he argued, pleaded,
and exhorted her afresh: without result.  He had struck the layer of
adamant beneath her skin-deep tenderness.  She could not, or would
not, see things in their true proportion; and, finally, her hardness
stung his pride into life.

"It's Maitland, I suppose, who's been perverting you," he flung out
angrily.  "Better marry him, if you're so keen on a husband who
prefers to let others do his fighting for him."

At that she swept to her feet, the incarnation of dignity, and looked
him full in the eyes.  "Rex has nothing whatever to do with it.  And
your other suggestion doesn't deserve an answer."  She stood silent a
moment; but he neither spoke nor moved.  Then: "I--I'm going now,"
she said.  "We shall be leaving here very soon."

"No hurry.  We're going ourselves on Saturday."  He was watching her
fingers.  She had drawn off his ring, and she tendered it him without
a word.

Still he made no move.

"Take it," she whispered, "it's yours--now!"

"_I've_ no use for the beastly thing," he answered between his teeth,
and lifting it from her palm he flung it out into the heather.

Her dignity and coldness went to pieces in a flash.  "Oh Mark--what a
sin!" she cried sharply; and hurrying out, she knelt down and began
feeling, with fingers that shook a little, for her vanished treasure.

Mark, watching her from the threshold of the summer-house, did not so
much as notice that faint tremor.  The red mist of anger clouded his
brain.

"So much for a woman's sense of proportion!" he said bitterly.  "It's
not a sin for you to smash me up because I refuse to play the
shirker.  But it's a sin to chuck away fifty pounds' worth of
diamonds.  Money's sacred--if nothing else is.  Keep it if you find
it, or it'll go straight into the loch."

As she rose to answer him, her eye lighted on the gleaming thing, and
with a sigh of relief she picked it up.  "Sooner than that, I will
keep it, though I can't wear it," she said.  "Besides, you may think
better of this."

"Not until the Germans do," he answered, and she knew he meant it.
"Don't return any other trifles, or they'll go the same way as the
ring."

"Then I suppose--it's good-bye."

He heard the faint tremor in her voice.  But at that moment her very
tears would scarce have moved him.

"Oh, good-bye," he said casually, his face hard as a rock.  "Whatever
happens, let's preserve the decencies."

She caught her breath as if he had struck her; then turning she
walked away through the heather, gracefully, deliberately, with the
familiar swing of her parasol at each step; even as he had seen her
walking towards him half an hour ago.

He had blamed himself for doubting her, and she had justified his
doubts up to the hilt.  In spite of the dull pain and anger within
him, his eyes followed her, clung to her, till the last gleam of her
yellow coat disappeared among the trees.

Then, with the look of a man stunned, he sat down near the
window-ledge and bowed his head upon his arms.




CHAPTER X

      Vanish every idle thought,
      Perish, last of Folly's ways!
  All that pride of eye hath sought,
  All that rebel flesh hath wrought,
  Utterly reduced to naught,
       How can ye outlive these days?
                                      X.


That was how his mother found him when she came in search of him.
The lunch-gong had brought no Mark; and no one had seen him, except
Maurice, who, from his window, had caught sight of the lovers
entering the wood.  All the morning she had been secretly anxious.
Now she felt certain something was wrong, and telling the others not
to wait, she fled out to his favourite haunt, hardly knowing what she
expected to find.

He did not hear her till she set foot in the summer-house; and the
wild idea smote him--Could it be Bel?

With a start he looked up; and at sight of his face Lady Forsyth's
heart stood still.

"My darling Boy, what _has_ happened?"

Mark frowned and straightened his shoulders.  "She's chucked
me--that's all," he said in a dazed voice.  "They've poisoned her
point of view between them."  His eyes challenged hers.  "Mother,
you've been right all along.  I suppose--you even foresaw--this!"

"Dear, indeed I didn't."  Her hand closed on the rough woodwork.  She
so longed to gather him to her heart.  "I was anxious--a little.  But
I hoped better things of her."

"So did I.  We were a pair of fools, it seems.  And there's an end of
_that_."  With a gesture he dismissed the subject, and added, almost
in his normal voice, "What about the meeting?  Any luck?"

"Yes.  People are quite keen.  But--you'll hardly feel like speaking."

"Oh, I'll speak all right.  The King's affairs come a long way first.
I've had enough of false perspectives this morning.  I'll probably
speak all the better for having--flung in everything."  He sighed.
"Give me to-morrow, Mums, to pull myself together, and I'll do any
mortal thing that's required of me.  But I can't show up yet--you
understand?  And it's you that must do the telling--as before!"

A spasm of pain crossed his face and she passed a hand over his hair.

He drew back sharply.  "Oh--not that," he murmured; then checked
himself and tried to smile.  "Sorry.  I'm feeling--all raw, Mother.
I can't be civil even to you."  He could not tell her why the feel of
a woman's hand on his hair was unendurable, and would be, for some
time to come.

"I understand, dear," she said, and turned to go.  "Shall I send
anything to the studio?"

He shook his head.  "Later on, perhaps.  Dinner time.  You might come
up yourself."

"Of course I will."

And so she left him.

Lunch was nearly over when she got back.  They had kept some hot for
her; but she hardly touched it.

Briefly, without comment, she told them her news: and escaped with
Keith into the study.  To him she could speak more freely.  He loved
Mark like a brother; a good deal more, indeed, than the average
brother: and she knew--though neither had spoken of it--that he had
shared her distrust of Bel.

But her thoughts and her words were of Mark only as she stood beside
the man who so intimately shared their lives, her small hand clenched
upon the edge of the high mantelshelf; tears in her eyes; but none in
her voice.

"He faces trouble so exactly like his father," she said, when she had
told him of Mark's refusal to postpone the meeting.  "But Richard's
phlegm went deeper.  Mark, underneath, has all my terrible
sensibility; though he won't let me see it except accidentally."

Keith said nothing.  He was not given to superfluous comment; and on
the whole she found his silences more satisfactory than other
people's talk.  He knew she was more or less thinking aloud.  She was
not even looking at him, but at a full-length photograph of her
husband--a powerful figure of a man.

"It's so strange," she went on in the same subdued tone.  "I
sometimes see Richard's very self looking at me out of Mark's eyes.
When the look comes I seem actually to feel him there.  Twice this
morning I've seen it.  Once when Mark spoke of war and again when he
spoke of--that wretched girl.  Oh Keith--I hate her!"

The low voice broke unmistakably; and she bowed her forehead on the
back of her hand.

Macnair stood looking at her, his keen eyes clouded with tenderness.
A moment he seemed to hesitate, then deliberately, he laid his hand
on her shoulder.  "Helen, don't break your heart over it," he said.
"We men pull through these things: and Mark is made of sterner stuff,
if I know him, than to let a girl like Miss Alison smash him up for
good.  More likely to do that by marrying him than by leaving him.
There's a crumb of consolation for you!"

She raised her head now and smiled at him through tears that were not
allowed to fall.

"If there is such a crumb anywhere, trust you to find it!  What a
blessing you are to us, Keith!"  As his hand slipped from her
shoulder she caught and held it a minute.  Then her thoughts went
back to her son.  "I wonder--will he ever have eyes for Sheila again,
after this?"

"More likely after this than before.  Sheila's a born mother-woman, a
little Sister of Compassion.  And we men are such fools, that we're
very apt to overlook the beauty of that type till we've suffered a
few hard knocks from the other sort.  The revulsion from that type,
when it comes, is curiously complete.  But it takes time.  As for our
Sheila, whether she would have him, after this, is another matter."

Helen sighed.  "I can't forgive Maurice yet," she said.  "I wonder if
he'll enlist?"  And their talk slid back to the one all-absorbing
subject--the War.


As for Mark, he spent that interminable afternoon tramping endlessly,
aimlessly over the hills; hoping by the mechanical motion to deaden
thought and ease the pain within.  Where all memory was intolerable,
it hurt him most to recall how cruelly she had tempted him by tone
and touch; as it were bribing him to be false to his own convictions.
The whole thing bewildered almost as much as it hurt him.  There were
moments when he came near to hating her; proof, though he did not
realise it, that the love she evoked was strongly tinctured with
baser metal.

And all the while Bobs, the incurably faithful, trotted to heel or
gambolled coquettishly under his master's eyes without eliciting a
word or caress.

Hunger and lengthening shadows drew him back at last to the home he
loved yet now acutely desired to avoid.  She had poisoned even that.
Yet how his heart ached for her!  How the unregenerate blood in his
veins craved the touch of her lips and hands.

He reached his study without encountering anything more human than a
stray housemaid; and there the first thing he lighted on was his own
tender and beautiful little Study of Contemplation.  Standing just
inside the door, he feasted his eyes on the soft, still face, the
small head with its close-fitting cap of hair and the long-limbed
grace of her figure.  Then rage flamed in him.  He felt like smashing
the thing with a hammer and flinging away the pieces as he had flung
away her ring.  A mere pulse-beat of hesitation saved him and the
artist prevailed over the man.  He could not murder the work of his
hands.  Later on, he would give it to Maurice to wean him from the
sin of impressionism.  Meanwhile, he lifted it as tenderly as he
would have touched the original, put it away in a corner cupboard and
turned the key.

He had scarcely done so when he heard his mother outside.

"Open the door, dear," she said.  "My hands are full."

He opened it and relieved her of a tray set out with appetising food
and wine.

"Stunning of you, Mums," he said.  "I'm hungry."

To her delight he ate everything and drank three glasses of wine,
while they discussed ways and means; the money they could realise,
the men they could raise for England in this most critical hour of
her destiny.  Except for the absence of laughter and badinage in
their talk, it was as if nothing abnormal had happened.  But Lady
Forsyth did not fail to note the disappearance of his terra-cotta
treasure; and she was sinful enough to hope it had been destroyed.

She stayed more than half an hour and left him with a fervent "God
bless you!"  But this time she attempted no caress.  She understood.


Next morning, after breakfast, she lingered in her turret-room,
wondering what he would do with himself, hoping he would come and let
her know.  He did come; and her heart ached at the tired look in his
eyes.

"I'm going to take the _Watersprite_ up the loch, Mums," he told her.
"And I'll be away all day.  Grant has stocked her well, so I shan't
starve.  Don't be an idiot if I'm late and go imagining I've drowned
myself.  At a time like this, a man's life is not his own to chuck
away.  Besides, I'm not the sort.  And--there happens to be you," he
added with a travesty of a smile.  "On the whole I'd sooner have the
honour of being shot by the Germans----"

"Mark--don't!"  She drew in a sharp breath.

"Sorry, Mums.  But it's true.  By the way, as I'm wasting some
valuable time hadn't we better stay over Sunday?"

"That would make things easier," she admitted.  "But I thought--you'd
rather get away soon."

"My dear Mother, don't fash yourself with fancies.  If it'll ease
things, we'll jolly well stay.  _I_ don't care a damn."

The spark of irritation was purely refreshing: and he never
apologised to her for "language" accidental or otherwise.  So
complete was the comrade spirit between them that he prided himself
on his habit of speaking to her straightly as man to man.  More than
once, in University days, he had filled some prospective visitor with
envy by the casual remark: "Don't be alarmed if you hear me scrapping
with my mother.  She's the right sort.  I can talk to her just
exactly as I talk to you."

Now, in answer to his outburst, she said quietly: "Very well, Monday.
I'll tell the others."

"That's all right.  And don't you be a fool about me!"

So he left her and she did her best to obey him; but the faint
consolation that his trouble brought him nearer to herself was
obliterated by her acute consciousness of his hidden pain and
resentment against the cause of it.

That grey, weary Thursday seemed as if it would never pass.  Clouds
had rolled up out of the west.  Scudding showers lashed the loch; and
through them she could picture Mark driving the little steam-yacht he
loved.  Long after sunset he came back wet to the skin; but looking,
on the whole, more like himself.  He had fought and conquered
something out there in the rain and wind.  But he spent what remained
of the evening in his studio as before.

On Friday evening, when they were gathered in the square hall waiting
to start, he strode casually downstairs and nodded his greetings as
if he had merely been away for a couple of nights.  He had prepared a
speech, he said, that ought to make the men of Ardmuir sit up to some
purpose: and Keith, watching the little incident from the study
threshold, murmured: "Well done, old boy!"

A second car had been ordered to accommodate the party; and while
they made ready, Mark was left momentarily alone with Sheila in the
hall.

Then she took courage and looked up at him.

"Mark--I'm so sorry," she whispered.  "I may say that much, mayn't I?"

For a second he held her gaze.  Then: "You may say anything you
please," he answered, "when you look like that!  Truth is," he
paused, "she's never been taught to see things the right way.  It was
just--that one couldn't make her understand."

"Poor Bel!  She must be very unhappy."

"Bel--unhappy!"  His astonishment was manifest.  But then--Sheila had
not seen the look in her eyes.  "I doubt it," he added with a touch
of bitterness.

"_I_ don't," the soft voice persisted.  "She's bound to be--if she
cares."

"But if she cared, how _could_ she----?"

The note of pain in his voice gave her still more courage.

"You said--she didn't understand, and that poisons everything."

Touched to the heart he said impulsively, "Sheila, what a wise little
Mouse you are!"

It was his old nickname for her and she drew in a quick breath.  "Not
so very!  But I do know--about caring."

"The first best knowledge surely," he said: then Keith appeared and
bade them hurry up.

But her eyes, shining on him through tears, and her words that gave
him a new point of view lingered in his memory.  Odd how readily he
could speak of Bel to Sheila, how hardly to his mother, with whom he
could talk of everything in earth or heaven.  And surely no one but
Sheila could have been inspired to couple sympathy for himself with
so tender and delicate a plea for Bel.  If she were right, if Bel
were really suffering, the door of hope might still be ajar.
Meantime there was his speech; for which he had made comprehensive
notes; there were convictions and appeals that he must drive home to
the hearts of his hearers; and while he sat smoking in silence beside
Keith--who drove the car--words full of vigour and fire came crowding
into his brain----

When at length he stood on the platform waiting for his clamorous
welcome to subside, the flame of his conviction burnt away all
nervousness, all dread of failure; and for half an hour he spoke as
none had imagined he could speak, himself least of all.

"First rate," Keith said quietly as he sat down amid a storm of
cheers.

"Heaven knows how I did it!" he answered under cover of the noise.
"Wish I could bolt now."

But the Provost had risen and was praising him to his face; a far
worse ordeal than the one he had so triumphantly weathered.  The
recruiting result, in figures, was not sensational: but Ardmuir was
obviously impressed.  It begged leave to distribute Sir Mark's "great
recruiting speech" as a leaflet; and Sir Mark, privately overwhelmed,
gave gracious consent, with the air of one who made brilliant
speeches as easily as he ate his breakfast.

"Really, old boy, you ought to stand for Parliament," Keith said as
they drove home.  "If that speech of yours is well distributed, the
men will soon be tumbling in.  One has to give them time up here.
The Radical spirit is so strong in our beloved country."

"And the beauty of it is that the bulk of 'em, if they only knew it,
remain Radicals just _because_ they're so conservative!"  Mark
retorted with a flash of his mother's humour.  "But Parliament--no
thanks; not yet awhile."

Saturday was given over to rounding up his own men and business
connected with his mother's small estate.  That evening he conquered,
not without difficulty, a temptation to stroll down into the village
and discover whether The Rowans was yet empty of its treasure; and
when the last post came in he knew.

Glancing through half a dozen envelopes, he came suddenly on Bel's
handwriting.  His mother, who was watching him, saw, without
appearing to see, that he pocketed all his letters unopened and,
after a reasonable interval, rose and left the room.  It was easy to
guess what had happened; and she rated herself for the horrid sinking
at her heart.  She could not sleep till she knew: but as Mark did not
reappear, she went up early and, in passing, knocked at his door.

"Good night, dear," she said.

He opened it and stood before her--transfigured.

"Come along in, Mums."  Drawing her forward he closed the door behind
her.  "Read that!"

He thrust a faintly scented sheet of note-paper into her hand, and
she obeyed.

Bel's communication was brief, moving, and very much to the point.


"Are you generous enough to forgive me--and come to me?" she wrote
without preamble.  "If you can keep it up--_I can't_.  I saw and
heard you at Ardmuir.  You are _brave_.  As for me, I'm bitterly
sorry and ashamed.  I hate it all still.  But if you wish it, I am
yours--unconditionally, BEL.  I shall be alone here after 10.30.  I
can't face Inveraig."


Lady Forsyth had to read that note more than once before she could
feel sure of her voice.  To her it seemed studied, consciously
written for effect: and the writing itself was equally studied, with
the same touch of hardness in it that showed in the level line of
eyelids and brows.

"Well?"  Mark was growing impatient.

"You can forgive her?" she asked, looking steadily up at him.

"Of course I can.  And you must too.  She's sorry.  She--cares.
Isn't that enough for any one?"

"But she's not convinced."

"_I'll_ convince her, in time.  I hope she'll come south with us
to-morrow."

Lady Forsyth drew in her lips and at once his hands came down on her
shoulders.

"Look here, Mums, I won't have you antagonising and doubting her any
more--after this.  It spoils everything.  You might make an effort if
only for my sake.  It's beyond belief getting her back; and your
attitude's the only flaw in my happiness.  Has been all along."

She was silent a minute, then she put her two hands on his breast.
"Dear, I will make an effort for your sake.  I refuse to be the flaw
in your happiness!  It's a degrading position for a mother."

He stooped and kissed her for the first time since Wednesday morning.
"Bless you!" he said.  "Good night."

Alone in her room, confronting this new, unwelcome development, she
realised how, through all the pain of his grief, she had been upheld
by the secret conviction that his loss was gain; some day he would
know it.  Now the old miserable uncertainty was nagging at her
afresh.  In her heart, she distrusted the sincerity of the whole
incident.  But she had given her word to Mark, and Bel should have
the benefit of all the doubts in creation.


Mark's watch was three minutes short of the half-hour when he stood
outside the square grey house perched on the hillside above the road.
A white curtain fluttered; and a glimpse of Bel's face signified that
the coast was clear.

When he entered the homely sitting-room and closed the door she did
not run to meet him as a simpler woman would have done.  She remained
standing near the mantelpiece on the farther side of the square
table, smiling her cool provocative smile.

"Mark!" she said softly.  "I've been wondering and wondering would
you really come?"

By that time the square table was no longer between them and Mark was
holding her as if he could never let her go.

"Would you have broken your heart, if I hadn't?" he asked at last.

"Very nearly!" she admitted, with the slowest possible lift of her
lashes.

"But, Bel--if you cared, how could you pull it through?  How could
you look at me with your eyes like bits of glass?"

"You forget," she said, "I can act.  It was because--I cared so much;
because I couldn't bear the idea of your taking part in that horror
out there; and because you were so obstinate, that in the end I put
on the strongest screw I could think of--and it wasn't so strong as I
supposed.  That's the inner history of the last three days."

He regarded her searchingly, taking it all in.  "Women are queer
things," he said.  "Did you really suppose I'd capitulate--under the
screw?"

"I half hoped so--till I heard your speech.  Then I began to see that
I'd never known the real Mark: only Bel's lover."

"And--did you approve of the real Mark?"

She laughed and kissed him.

"Honestly, I found him rather alarming.  Too big altogether for a
mere Bel.  But I wanted him more than ever.  And now I know he's
still mine, I can't let him go!"

For Mark there was only one flaw in those first raptures of reunion:
and for that flaw his mother was unwittingly responsible.  Nothing
would induce Bel to come up to Inveraig or to travel south with the
Forsyths on Monday.

"I can't face them yet awhile," she persisted, "specially your
Mother.  She won't easily forgive me for hurting you so.  No real
mother could.  Besides, she was probably thanking her stars for your
escape; and now I've turned up again, like a bad penny!"

"Bel!"

But she laid her hand upon his lips.

"Hush and listen to me.  It wouldn't be fair on Harry either;
stranding her with those two.  In ten days, we can both come south
and a regenerate Bel can dare to pay you a visit.  Their minds will
be full of such big terrible things by then that they'll take me for
granted.  As for you--the real Mark will be so swamped with his
responsibilities that there would be no time for love-making, even if
I came."

In the end he was forced to admit that she was right.  Three days of
fighting himself had not been without a steadying effect on his
impatient spirit: and so the matter was settled.

Rain and wind had ceased.  They spent all the afternoon and evening
together on the water; and on Monday the Forsyth party travelled down
to Wynchcombe Friars.

At no time could Lady Forsyth leave Inveraig without a pang: and
never had it been sharper than on that 10th of August with the glory
and anguish of Belgium's gallant stand beating on her brain, and the
poignant question at her heart--when, and in what circumstances,
would they four see that grey rugged house and the lochs and hills of
Scotland again?




BOOK II

THE UTTER PRICE



CHAPTER I

  In my heart there burns a flame;
    But no smoke shows;
    And no one knows.
                        _Japanese Song._


Wynchcombe Friars was a singularly perfect relic of the Tudor period.
It rambled, it blossomed into irrelevant gables, it took you to its
heart.  The lordly spaciousness of an eighteenth-century mansion
seemed dull and featureless, by contrast with its individuality, its
friendly charm.  And of all its beautiful old rooms was none more
individual than Mark's studio, with its oak-pannelled walls, deep
window-seats and leaded casements that opened upon the sea of pine
tops he had described to Bel.  For him and his mother, it was the
soul of the house; and in nothing was their intimacy more evident
than in the fact that this, his holy of holies, was hers also.  A
certain square bay-window that caught the last of the sun upon the
pines held her armchair of dull blue brocade, her book-case and elbow
table.  Blue prevailed also in the window-seats, the casement
curtains and the Turkish rugs on the polished floor.

The studio itself contained little beyond Mark's paraphernalia, his
writing-table and a few pieces of priceless old furniture.  The
spirit of Michael Angelo pervaded the place:--models of his statues
and groups, sepia studies by Mark from the great friezes; and a
portrait of the Florentine's rugged head occupied the place of honour
above the mantelpiece.  The blue-tiled fireplace beneath was flanked
by Mark's first two essays in statuary: symbolic figures of Triumph
and Defeat.  Triumph, a splendid nude, stood poised upon a rock; arms
uplifted, head flung back.  Defeat, a fallen Lucifer, still sullenly
defiant, leaned upon his battered sword; a figure of sombre strength.
The Viking, who accompanied Mark on his moves, was set in a dark oak
niche that served for frame and threw him into strong relief.

Still, beneath all the beauty and friendliness of the room, there
lurked the same unobtrusively ascetic note that had been more marked
in the simpler studio at Inveraig.

So at least thought Maurice Lenox, who lounged smoking in an
armchair, wondering, secretly, how Mark could bring himself to leave
it all, patriotism or no.  He, personally, had found it quite enough
of a wrench to shut up his modest rooms in Chelsea--till when?  God,
or the devil, alone could tell.

He had gone straight from Inveraig to his home in Surrey, wondering
what possible use there could be for such as he in this terrible
_galère_:--he, who had small knowledge of firearms and so heartily
detested taking life that he could not even find pleasure in fishing.
Mark had suggested enlisting in the Artists' Rifles: a suggestion
since confirmed by Sir Eldred Lenox, with a blunt admonition to look
sharp about it.  Sir Nevil Sinclair, of Bramleigh Beeches, commanded
them.  He would send the boy's name up for a commission the moment he
was reasonably fit for it: and on the whole Maurice found it a relief
to have the question of choice taken out of his hands.  He had
stipulated for a few days of his promised visit to Wynchcombe Friars,
before taking the plunge; and those few days--with Macnair for the
only other guest had laid the foundation of a genuine friendship with
Forsyth, whose finer qualities shone out notably in this hour of
crisis.

Whereas at Inveraig he had at times seemed selfish and a trifle
dictatorial, here, as responsible land-owner, his mastery and force
of character showed in a new light.  And as for selfishness--his
whole mind seemed set upon the welfare of his people and his place in
the coming time of stress.  Now, at the very moment when he was most
needed, and most longed to be on the spot, he was cheerfully and
actively engaged in transferring the reins of government into other
hands.  To Maurice--a man of random moods and many points of
view--such strength and singleness of purpose seemed enviable as it
was admirable; and the fact that Forsyth had remained unshaken even
by Miss Alison's defection had made a deep impression on the lighter
nature of his friend.  Since then, he had learnt a good deal more,
not only of Sir Mark in a fresh manifestation, but of England's
greatest asset--sadly misprized in a democratic age--the hereditary
lords of the land.

To-day his brief respite was over.

At the moment, he and Mark had effected their escape from the
infliction of war-talk, as perpetrated by Mrs. Melrose and the
Vicar's wife, at the tea-table on the terrace.  Sir Mark's sudden
engagement, by the way, had been a severe shock to Mrs. Melrose, who
suspected that Sheila must have played her cards remarkably ill.  But
that, after all, was how one might expect her to play cards of any
worldly value.  She was her Melrose grandmother all over.  Not a drop
of Burlton blood in her veins.  But the war had dwarfed that personal
disappointment: and the good lady was brimming with benevolent
schemes for herself and the whole neighbourhood.

Meantime the Vicar's wife held the field.  Having come in quest of a
subscription, she had stayed to murmur decorous and very premature
lamentations over the undesirable features of billeting and of the
Territorial camps: the sort of thing that reduced Lady Forsyth to
speechless exasperation.  Mark, divided between sympathy and
amusement, had watched her holding herself in, till the assertive
voice of Mrs. Melrose created a diversion and dubious murmurs were
drowned in a flood of propositions for the local housing of Belgians
and the conversion of Wendover Court into a luxurious hospital for
officers.

"You, Lady Forsyth, with this heavenly place, ought to specialise on
convalescents or nerve-cases"--Mrs. Melrose dearly loved making other
people's plans--"If we all take a _distinctive_ line, there'll be no
muddle or overlapping.  And of course dear little Lady Sinclair will
devote herself to the Indians--when they come."

Privately Helen reflected that if her neighbours continued so to
afflict her, the first nerve-case for Wynchcombe Friars would be its
own mistress.

It was at this point that Mark had given up waiting for the
Sinclairs.  Not even the presence of Sheila--who had come over with
her mother and was staying on to discuss "War plans"--could detain
him, once Mrs. Melrose held the field.  Basely deserting Lady Forsyth
he left word that Sir Nevil, if he should turn up, would be very
welcome in the studio.

Now, while Maurice lounged and reflected, he sat at his littered
writing-table, a pipe between his teeth, two deep furrows in his
forehead.  Beyond that littered table the room held no other signs of
work.  Easel and modelling pedestal stood empty.  A woeful tidiness
prevailed, and Mark himself looked older, Maurice thought.  Small
wonder, seeing all that he must forgo at a stroke when his name
appeared in the _Gazette_.

So, throughout Great Britain, in the same casual unemotional fashion,
men of every grade were making the supreme sacrifice, cheerfully
putting behind them all that made life worth living--possessions,
talents, hardly earned distinction, cherished hopes and still more
cherished homes.  No doubt many of them, like Maurice, privately
rebelled; but they, too, were carried forward by the infection of
brave example, if by no higher motive.  In Mark's company, Maurice
had felt that infection strongly: but on this his last evening of
freedom the artist in him raged afresh against the hideousness and
waste and cruelty of modern war.

For ten minutes Mark had been smoking steadily and silently.  He had
a difficult letter on his mind.  Maurice, who had the horrors of
Tirlemont on his nerves, felt suddenly impelled to more candid speech
than he had hitherto indulged in, lest he be misjudged.

"I don't know what your private feelings are, Forsyth," he plunged
boldly; and Mark started as if he had been waked from a dream.  "But
the more I look at this business of enlisting and going out to
slaughter Germans--not to mention the chance of their returning the
compliment--the more heartily I hate the whole thing.  It's nothing
so simple as mere funk.  And it's not that I'm shirking--you
understand."

"Oh, yes.  I understand," Mark rejoined, setting his teeth on the
stem of his pipe.

But he did not seem disposed to enlarge on his understanding of his
private feelings; and Maurice, whose mixed emotions were clamouring
for expression, went on: "Mere funk would at least give one something
to tackle and overcome.  It's this cursed inferno going on inside
one's head that does the damage.  And the beastly thing seems quite
independent of one's thoughts or attention.  Just keeps on
automatically at the back of my brain.  Even when I'm reading or
talking, I can hear those infernal guns and shells.  I can see the
mangled fragments that once were men--the wounds--the blood--the
slopes of the Liége forts----"

"Damn you!  Shut _up_!"  Mark leaned forward suddenly, a spark of
anger in his eyes.  "D'you suppose you're the only one that's plagued
with an imagination?"

Maurice sighed.

"Sorry, old chap," he said, disappointed, but contrite.  "It's a
relief all the same.  And I thought--you understood----"

"Of course I do: a long sight too well."  Mark's tone was gentler
now. "If it's relief you're after, you'll get that most effectively
by going out yourself; seeing things with your actual eyes: doing
things with your actual hands that'll give you no time for
cinematographs in your head.  You can thank your stars you're a man.
It's the women given that way who'll have the devil's own time of it.
My mother's one, worse luck; and it'll come hard on her--when I'm
gone."

Maurice ventured no comment on a subject so poignantly intimate as
Lady Forsyth's anxiety for her one remaining son; nor did Mark seem
to expect any.  He took a few pulls at his pipe, then reverted to
generalities.

"Don't write me down an unfeeling brute, Maurice," he said with his
friendly smile.  "War's the roughest game on earth and we've got to
be a bit rough with ourselves if we're to play it to any purpose.
I'm horribly well aware that the 'sorrowful great gift of
imagination' is the very deuce on these occasions.  A shade less of
it in us, who have to do the killing, and a shade more of it in our
Westminster Olympians--who have to do the foreseeing and
forestalling--would be a pleasanter business for ourselves and a
better look-out for the country.  They're an agile crew with their
tongues; and if words were bullets, we might be in Berlin the week
after next!  Personally, I'd like to see most of 'em scrapped 'for
the duration of the war.'  Kitchener paramount, with a picked
Council, would pull us through in half the time.  But that's not my
business nor yours.  It's for us to play up all we can; thank God for
one real Man, and not waste our precious energies in grumbling.
There's a sermon for you.  And you brought it on yourself!"

Maurice rose, flung away his cigarette end, and strolled down the
length of the room and back.

"It's done me a power of good being here," he said, coming to a
standstill by the mantelpiece and contemplating Mark's "Triumph."
"You're a man as well as an artist, Forsyth; and the bulk of us are
not; I, personally, am cursed with too much of Uncle Michael in my
composition."

Mark laughed.

"Confound your Uncle Michael!  You run along and enlist and kill
every German you can lay hands to and your composition will take care
of itself.  A wee bit stiffening's all you want; and a wee bit taste
of red-hot reality will put some backbone into your studio-bred art,
that ennobles nothing and nobody and doesn't even want to make itself
understood.  It's just on the cards that this war--when we're through
with it--may give us an altogether saner and more robust revival of
art that will spring naturally from a more robust conception of life:
an art that will genuinely reflect the spirit of the age, as Michael
Angelo reflects the Renaissance.  Our present age of machinery and
money-getting has precious little spirit to reflect.  No collective
convictions.  Practically no faith, except in success.  Consequently
life has no vital use for art: and we're ousted by the cinematograph.
A few, like myself and Sinclair, still hang on to beauty and the
classics.  The rest, like the bulk of your advanced friends, say
'Ugliness, be thou my beauty' and proceed to make a little hell of
their own in the Grafton Galleries!  Just at present, Maurice, the
mere artist is the most superfluous creature on God's earth...."

He suddenly laughed and checked himself.  "Off on my hobby-horse
again!  Why the deuce don't you chuck a book at me, old chap?  Too
much spouting at these recruiting shows will make me an infliction to
my friends.  Ah--there goes Mrs. Melrose!  Joy for Mother!  Likewise
the devout Mrs. Clutterbuck, who thinks to advertise her own virtue
by maligning better folk than herself.  Come on down.  We'll get the
tail-end of tea and the poor dears will need cheering up."

They found the poor dears in very fair spirits--considering.  Helen
was delighted at recapturing Sheila; and the girl herself made no
secret of her distaste for the restless superficial activities of her
own home.  A telegram from Sir Nevil Sinclair explained his
non-appearance and begged Mark not to fail him at the Bramleigh
meeting next day.  Then, tea being removed and the others dispersed,
Mark found himself alone with Sheila, whom he had scarcely seen since
the day of Bel's regeneration.

"It's good to get you back again, Mouse," he said, with brotherly
directness: and as she merely smiled without looking up, he allowed
his eyes to linger on her face.  "But I'm not sure I approve of the
massage plan, specially if it means careering off to France with Miss
Videlle."

Sheila hesitated.  "I thought--if you married--there might be Bel.
But if Mums really needs me, I'd leave anything, anyone ... for her.
She knows that."  The girl's voice throbbed with feeling and a faint
colour showed in her cheeks.  "I'm very doubtful, though, whether she
could or would stay here long--without you."

Mark started and frowned.

"She must!  She'll be safe here; and there's no end of useful work
for her on the spot.  All the same--" he paused, looking deep into
the heart of the wood, at pine stems rosy with shafts of light.  "I
believe you know best.  She won't stop.  She'd break her heart.  War
comes cruel hard on the women."

Sheila said nothing: but the set of her lips showed a faint line of
strain that he had not noticed before.  "Come for a quarter-deck
prowl with me, Mouse," he said.

They paced the wide-flagged terrace, veined with moss, till near
dinner-time; and only at the last did Mark speak the thought
uppermost in his mind.  They had reached the far end when he came to
a standstill and faced her squarely.

"Sheila--it goes against the grain asking favours for Bel, even of
you and Mother; but you were such a brick before; and now--it's a bit
of an ordeal for her facing you all after--what happened up there.
Otherwise she'd have been here sooner.  Of course I'll make her speak
to Mums straight away, which may clear the air, between them.  But I
want you all to be ever so kind and not let her feel a shadow of
awkwardness.  Just pick up the threads again as if nothing had
happened.  Will you--for my sake?"

Sheila was leaning now against the balustrade, her hands pressed palm
downwards on the stone work.

"Yes, Mark," she said in an odd, contained voice, "I'll do anything I
can for your sake.  But in my heart--" she suddenly looked up at him
with her clear honest eyes, "I can't forgive her--ever!"

"_You_?"  His surprise brought the blood to her cheeks.  "But when it
happened you were so--understanding.  It was you who took the edge
off my bitterness."

"Because then--I didn't understand," Sheila explained with
difficulty.  "I thought she had really lost you through her own
blindness; and--I was sorry for her.  But afterwards, one couldn't
help suspecting it was all ... that perhaps she was simply ...
putting on the screw."

"She admitted as much," he said, looking away across the rose garden.

"Mark!  How _could_ she?"  Her low tone vibrated like a smitten
harp-string.

"That's the mystery to a masculine brain.  It hurt--considerably.
But it seems women do these things."

Sheila checked a natural impulse to repudiate the sweeping assertion.
She saw him deliberately erecting a screen for Bel, at the expense of
others; but she had already been candid enough, and she would not
permit herself to insinuate disparagement.

Her enigmatical silence urged Mark to add: "Bel's had her share of
unhappiness, anyhow.  She didn't enjoy those three days much more
than I did and she's lost more than a week down here.  So just be
good to her, you deceptive little bit of adamant--and bless you from
my heart."

"That's bribery!" Sheila said laughing, and straightening her
shoulders.  "I don't take payment for my services.  But it's time to
go and dress for dinner!"

As they strolled back to the house she caught herself reflecting
quite philosophically on the impunity with which the Bels of this
world may steal horses, while their less privileged sisters dare not
cast a glance over the hedge.

But in spite of her excuse about dressing for dinner, she seemed in
no such hurry after all.  A sudden longing came over her to see the
studio, to sit alone for a few minutes in that shrine of blessed
memories: and, having seen Mark safely vanish into his bedroom, she
made bold to venture in.

Sinking into Lady Forsyth's armchair, she let the crowding memories
sweep through her brain, while her eyes ranged from picture to
picture, from statue to statue, as it were learning them by heart,
because in future the right of entry she so prized would belong to
another.  For her, Mark and his art were one and indivisible; and, by
an unerring instinct, she dreaded the effect of Bel's demoralising
influence on both.

Dearly she loved the virile figure of Triumph; more dearly still, the
Viking.  Him, she saw and felt as Mark had hoped that Bel might see
and feel him.  She had been at Wynchcombe Friars during those
wonderful days when he came to life under Mark's hands; and in her
private heart he stood for the symbol of his creator's unquenchable
spirit.

In all these children of his hand and brain, she found the
quintessence of the man, and it was her instinct to seek the essence
of things.

Mark himself, without and within, was all that she would have a man
be--she, who seemed fated to attract only the "poor things" of earth.
Since Ailsa's death and his return from Europe, she had worshipped
him, with the still intensity of her Northern nature.  So felicitous
had been their relation, and she so young, so happy in a home
atmosphere the very antithesis of her own, that no afterthought had
troubled her unclouded content.

For this reason, she had been able to accept, loyally, uncritically,
his sudden and bewildering infatuation for a girl obviously unworthy
of him; an infatuation that could survive even his knowledge of the
motive which had promoted Bel to such unsparing use of her power.
Entirely one with him in spirit, she could not choose but will what
he willed: and conviction that Bel honestly loved him had mitigated
the pain of her own hidden disappointment in him.

But now even that faint consolation was gone: and here, where
associations were more intimate than at Inveraig, the shock to her
belief in him seemed infinitely harder to bear.  Here the question
forced itself upon her--how could he, being what he was?

And his fresh appeal on behalf of Bel had badly shaken her innate
capacity for acceptance.

Because of that appeal--which would also be made to the others--this
girl, who had so cruelly tormented him for her own ends, must not be
allowed to suffer a twinge of the discomfort she so richly deserved.
For the first time, Sheila was goaded almost to the point of
rebellion.  For the first time her will was at odds with his: and it
hurt more than she chose to admit.  From a child she had invented her
own private code of courage that never allowed her to say, "I can't
bear it."  And she would not say it now.

She would do what he asked, under protest, because he asked it.  Her
attitude, she was convinced, would matter nothing to Bel, who
obviously looked down on her, from the attitude of her twenty-nine
years, with a mild good-humoured contempt.  But it would matter
greatly to Mark;--and that sufficed.

She rose at last and wandered round the beloved room.  Before the
Viking she stood a long while, trying to draw the valiant soul of him
into her own soul: then she went reluctantly out.

As she closed the door behind her, Mark opened his own and smilingly
confronted her.  "Hullo!  Is that the way you dress for dinner?"

She coloured a little under his gaze.

"I couldn't resist going in--just to greet them all."

"Well--you might have let me come too!  Are they such very special
friends?"

"A part of me--almost," she said very low.  "I've known most of
them--haven't I?--ever since they were born."

Then she went quickly down the passage; and for several seconds Mark
stood looking after her.  The sudden softening of his whole face,
could she have seen it, would have been balm to her heart.




CHAPTER II

  The heavens such grace did lend her
  That she might admired be.
                                SHAKESPEARE.


Next morning early, Mark drove Maurice to the main line station,
despatched him with a final volley of chaff, and proceeded patiently
to tramp the lane outside till the down train should bring him the
desire of his eyes.  From the station-master he learnt that "she"
might be anything from twenty minutes to two hours late.  Yesterday
five specials had run through, packed with horses and men, and there
would be more to-night.

"Jolly for they Germans, sir!" he added with a jovial wink.  "They
_do_ say now that the British Army will be keeping Christmas in
Berlin!"

"And on the other side they say the Kaiser will keep it in London,"
Mark answered him.  "Best leave fairy tales to the Germans.  It's
their line!"

And he retired to commune with his own heart in the lane.

The train gave him ample time to lose patience and recapture it; and
the longer he waited, the brighter grew the halo round Bel's golden
head.  Idealist as he was, in art and life, he could not choose but
idealise the woman he loved: if, indeed, he were not rather in love
with a phantom of his own brain, who wore the appearance and spoke
with the voice of Bel.  During the last ten days, while his conscious
mind had been absorbed in things practical, the subconscious,
unoccupied artist in him had been sedulously gilding her halo; and as
for that bewildering jar in Scotland, he had so completely credited
her with his own sensitiveness on the subject, that his one wish was
to make her forget it had ever been.  He had shrunk even from asking
her to speak of it to his mother; and had made the request in his
last letter, rather than spring an unpleasantness on her by way of
greeting.

And now--all he craved was herself.  Her letters were not the same
thing at all.  Clever, affectionate and often amusing, they seemed
just to miss something that, for him, was the secret of her charm.
In them the slightly studied effect of her whole attitude to life
seemed more definitely artificial; and after reading them, a troubled
uncertainty was apt to pervade his mind.  But sight and touch of her
would cure all such lover's folly----

Ah--the whistle at last!

He reached the platform as the train drew up, and there emerged from
a distant carriage the tall, unmistakable figure in a bluish coat and
skirt and close-fitting hat.  About midway down the platform they met
and clasped hands.  She coloured a little when their eyes met; but
they merely talked of luggage and the lateness of the train.

It is a common experience, that first, faint shock of actual meeting
after keen anticipation; and in these two it waked the undersense
that, although they had taken the most hazardous step in life, they
were still comparative strangers.  In some vague way they seemed to
have lost touch; to have become suddenly shy of each other--the man
more so than the girl.

Shy or no, she was contented, utterly, to be sitting there beside him
in the August sunlight, speeding between stretches of ripe cornland;
between purple sweeps of heather, when they climbed a ridge; and on
through rolling open country where the earlier trees showed a yellow
leaf or two, and the oaks were still sunset-tinted with their second
blossoming.  England, relying serenely upon her grey ghosts of the
North Sea, lay dozing in the high noon of the year, while little
Belgium, like another Kate Barlass, thrust her arm through the staple
that the murderers might be stayed, if only for a moment.  A
Territorial Camp, an occasional motor decked with flags, a group of
khaki figures resting in the shade--these were the sole reminders of
that invisible horror across the Channel, that for Bel was no more
than the shadow of a shadow, though the cloud of it overhung her own
life and set visibly upon her lover's brow.

Every now and then she took stock of him under her eyelids, from his
rough motor-cap and his sensitive mouth, safe-guarded by that
uncompromising chin, to the lean, strong fingers controlling the
machine.  A woman could safely entrust her destiny to that mouth and
those hands, though she might wish, incidentally, that he would take
a less exaggerated view of this singularly inopportune war.  It was
just her luck that it should have been timed to spoil the most
promising "phase" of her life.  If only Mark's admirable virility
were tempered by a touch of Rex Maitland's intelligent common sense,
matters would be so much easier and pleasanter all round.  And the
coming interview with Lady Forsyth was a nuisance, to put it mildly:
but still----

"Have I given you time to get through the worst of your troublesome
affairs?" she asked after an interchange of commonplaces that led
nowhere.  "I'm hoping for a clear field as the reward of my lost
week."

He gave her a contrite glance.

"I wish it were clearer.  Russell, my land-agent, has played up like
a Trojan.  But the wood seems to thicken as one goes on.  And to-day
I'm booked for a recruiting show at Bramleigh.  No getting out of it.
Sir Nevil Sinclair--the artist, you know--said I must manage to
placate you somehow.  So please be placated and save me the managing!"

Down went the corners of her mouth.  "Our first day!  And not even
Mr. Lenox to play with."

"Won't Sheila do?"

"As a substitute for _you_?  Mark, your modesty is incredible!  Is
she with you still?"

"She came back yesterday."

"And Mr. Macnair?"

"Yes."

"Are they part of your permanent family, those two?"

"More or less.  People just accrue to Mums.  Are you placated
now--Queen of Wynchcombe Friars?"

She laid gloved finger-tips on his knee.

"I'm trying to be.  I vowed a vow to be heavenly good this time, to
make up for...."

His hand closed on hers.

"That's over and done with," he said.  "I'm sorry--even about Mother.
But it seemed only fair.  I'll take you to her straight----"

"I'd prefer half an hour first with her son--not in a motor on the
open road!  Darling, give me time to feel more at home."

His eyes sought hers.  "I'm agreeable.  We'll stop at the gate and go
up through the wood.  I can fetch the car afterwards.  No superfluous
attendants these days!"

On a cushion of moss in the cool of the pine-wood, they recaptured
the atmosphere of Scotland and the little cloud of estrangement
melted away.  Mark, who had keenly felt the momentary jar, was the
more relieved.

"Now, my darling girl, time's up," he said, reluctant, but
inflexible; "Mother will be picturing us wrecked on the road, and
sending poor old Keith to pick up the pieces!  Come."

At that, she knelt upright, and, with a charmingly tender air of
proprietorship, passed her hands over his head, bringing them to rest
on his shoulders.  "I'm glad I've found you again," she said.  "That
strange man at the station rather alarmed me."

"You knew how to conjure him away, you witch!" he answered, stopping
her lips with a kiss.

She accepted the kiss, but not his tacit dismissal of the subject.
For her, a new sensation not analysed was a sensation wasted.

"I suppose it was that things hadn't time to crystallise properly
after the break," she went on, twisting a button between her finger
and thumb.  "I hope the War Office will be merciful and allow us a
good spell this time.  Separations are rather uncanny things.  You
never quite know----"

"Well, if you don't know me when I get back this evening," he said,
with perfect gravity, "the marriage that has been arranged, etc., had
better not take place."

"Mark!"  Her voice had a sharp, startled note.

"That'll learn you!" he retorted, smiling.  "We'll make out our
'para' to-morrow."

And he heard no more of the subject.

They found Lady Forsyth alone in the drawing-room reading her midday
post.

"My dears!"  She sprang up to greet them.  "We've been wondering what
had come to you."

Mark explained, asked a few questions, backed casually towards the
door--and vanished, leaving the women alone.

Bel had resolved that there should be neither awkwardness nor
hesitation.  Already she had rehearsed the little scene half a dozen
times; and as the door closed, she turned to the small, upright
figure near the piano, both hands flung out.

"Dear Lady Forsyth, you _are_ going to forgive me, aren't you?  I
know I don't deserve it.  But Mark has been so beautifully
generous----"

"That is easier for him than for his mother," Lady Forsyth rejoined
with her disconcerting frankness: but her smile made partial
atonement and she took the proffered hands.  "Not that I'm belittling
Mark's generosity.  It takes a just man to be generous even in
exasperating circumstances; and Mark possesses that rare quality in a
high degree.  He particularly wants us all to make light of the whole
matter; and--to please him, Bel, I can at least condone what I can't
pretend to understand."

This--as may be supposed--was not precisely the due Bel had prepared
for herself.  But she had the adaptability of the born actress; and
she recognised that Lady Forsyth had paid her the embarrassing
compliment of speaking her mind as to a daughter.

"That's rather a crushing form of forgiveness!" she said, with the
pretty droop of her lips.  "And I don't suppose it's much use trying
to explain...."

"Not the slightest, my dear."  Lady Forsyth's tone was brisk but
kindly.  "Facts, like beauty, are best left unadorned.  I take it for
granted you must have been very much upset to hurt a brave man so
unnecessarily.  Had your refusal been final, I could have better
understood."

The girl flinched at that and bit her lip.  "You don't sound much
like forgiving me.  And I don't think," she made bold to add, "that
Mark would be quite pleased if he heard you."

"He would probably bite my head off," Lady Forsyth answered, taking
the wind out of her sails.  "And if you want to make him angry with
me, you can tell him what I have said.  I should say just the same if
he were present.  Mark and I are in complete accord, however much we
squabble.  He knows my bark is worse than my bite: and you'll soon
know it too, Bel.  So don't let's write in brass what is meant to be
writ in water.  We shall gain nothing by making Mark our apple of
discord.  He's a very large apple, big enough for two!  Now, after
that, let me 'behave' and show you to your room.  Later on, you must
see over the dear old house."

"Yes.  It's a dream of a place."  Bel swerved thankfully to a more
congenial subject and the still more congenial reflection that all
this stately, soft-toned beauty would some day be her own.

Once this wretched war was over, everything would go swimmingly.  He
would settle down and shed some of his troublesome ideals.  That flat
in town--which she had already chosen and furnished mentally--would
be the best possible antidote for what she vaguely styled "that sort
of thing."  She washed her hands and tidied her smooth hair in a
frame of mind too serene even to be clouded by the prospect of a
whole afternoon without Mark.

And downstairs, alone in the drawing-room, Lady Forsyth was playing
Grieg's Temple Dance with a fire and fury that brought Keith in from
the terrace, startled concern in his eyes.

"Bless my soul, Helen!  Who are you wanting to murder now?  The Crown
Prince or one of our own super-Solomons?"

"Neither," she answered, crashing out the last double chord.  Then,
swinging round on the stool she faced him with heightened colour,
head in air.  "It's Mark's future wife.  And I'm in terror that he'll
want to marry before he goes out.  Keith--it's not only wicked
prejudice.  I distrust her more than ever.  She came to me with a
pretty, ready-made apology which I am afraid I dislocated by my
incurable candour.  Then, having let fly for my own satisfaction, I
proceeded to smooth things over for love of Mark.  Told her my bark
was worse than my bite."

"That I can swear to," Keith struck in smiling.

"Still--by every oath I mustn't use, if I was a natural savage
instead of a Christian woman, who adores her son, I'd _bite_ her with
all my teeth--There!  Between that and Grieg, I feel a little better.
But, oh, you sagacious bachelor, you have your divine compensations.
At times it's a positive curse to love any human thing better than
your own soul."

"It is that," Macnair agreed with quiet emphasis, as the door opened
to admit Mark himself.

The air seemed still to vibrate with Helen's impassioned outburst,
and he glanced quickly from one to the other.

"What have you two been plotting--eh?"

"The wholesale reconstruction of the universe!" Keith answered
lightly; but Mark went straight to his mother and laid his hand on
her.

"She's been working herself up about nothing," he said.  "I can feel
her quivering all through.  Keith, you oughtn't to encourage her.
She'll be needing all her reserves of strength, if she's to pull
through this.  Would the drive to Bramleigh calm you down,
Motherling?  Or would it churn you up again, hearing me speak?"

"No: I should love it," she answered in a low voice.  The invitation
and the touch of his hand had soothed her already, as nothing else
could have done.  It was as if, by some telepathic process, he had
divined the cause of her emotional stress; and when the two girls
came in he said casually, without removing his hand: "I'm carrying
Mums off with me to Bramleigh.  You've had your drive, Bel, and the
outing will do her a power of good."

The announcement faintly ruffled Bel's conviction that all was for
the best in this best of all possible worlds.  But later in the
evening, when her own turn came, when she wandered with Mark through
the terraced gardens down to the river, he found her apparently
satisfied, if not communicative, as regards her interview of the
morning.  Convinced of her own supreme sovereignty, instinct told her
that she would gain nothing by "giving the woman away."




CHAPTER III

"I am the Fact," said War, "and I stand astride the path of Life....
There can be nothing else and nothing more in human life until you
have reckoned with me."--H. G. WELLS.


That same evening, a good deal later on, Lady Forsyth sat at her
dressing-table, brushing out her hair, recalling, with pride, Mark's
vivid speech, the cheers, the record "bag" of recruits, and wondering
if he would forget to come for his usual good night.

His room opened out of hers; and the door between stood chronically
ajar--a companionable habit begun in her first days of loneliness
after his father's death.  He rarely missed the little ceremony of
early tea, when he would establish himself at the foot of the bed and
argue or read aloud, or simply "rag" her, as the spirit moved him.
Then he would wander in and out, in the later stages of dressing,
hindering and delighting her in about equal measure.  Or they would
carry on a violent argument through the open door, a pair of
disembodied voices, till some climax would bring one or other
gesticulating to the threshold.  These morning and evening hours were
the times of their most formidable encounters, their wildest
nonsense, their utmost joy in each other's society, exhibited in a
manner peculiar to themselves.  At night the "hair-brush interview"
had become a regular institution.  It might be over in ten minutes or
last till midnight, according to their mood.  This was the time for
graver matters, for the give and take of advice; and although there
might be little outward show of sentiment, those hours of comradeship
were among the most sacred treasures of the mother's heart.

To-night she brushed till her arm ached, listening for his footstep;
and the moment she put the hated thing down, he came, bringing with
him the whiff of cigarette smoke she loved.

Standing behind her, he took her head between his hands, lightly
passing his fingers through her hair and smiled at her in the glass.
She was responsive as a cat when her hair was caressed; and he knew
it.

"Poor deserted little Mums!" he said.  "Had you given me up in
despair?"

"Absolutely."

"And how long would you have hung on past despair point?" he asked
with a twinkle.

"Probably half an hour....  What have you done with your lady-love?"

"Ordered her to bed."

"So early?  All for my benefit?  I scent an ulterior motive."

He laughed and pulled her hair.  "Your instinct's infallible!  It's
this marrying business.  I know I promised to wait; but the whole
face of the world has changed since then."

He detected the faint compression of her lips.

"Mums, you're incorrigible.  She's a delicious thing."

"Who says otherwise?"

"You do--internally!  Not a mite of use throwing dust in my eyes.
When you're converted--as you will be--I shall know it, to the tick
of a minute.  Meantime"--he moved over to the window and stood there
facing her--"the question is, in a war like this, oughtn't one to
marry, if possible, before going out?  She got on to war weddings
this evening, and I was tongue-tied.  That mustn't happen again.
What's your notion?  D'you still think--wait?"

A pause.  She dreaded, as he did, the possibility of Wynchcombe
Friars passing into the hands of Everard Forsyth and his son, whose
views were not their views, except in matters political.  Had the
wife in question been Sheila, her answer would have been
unhesitating.  As it was, she parried his awkward question with
another.

"What do you think yourself, Mark?"

He laughed.

"Oh, you clever woman!  I have my answer.  And in this case I believe
you're right.  Personally, I'm game to marry her at once.  But ...
there are other considerations.  Seems her precious Harry's been
rubbing into her that these war marriages aren't fair on women--that
it's a bigger shadow on their lives losing a husband than a lover.
It's a tragic sort of start, I admit; and once we're married the
wrench of separation would surely be harder for both.  Then, as
regards myself, you know how this coming struggle has obsessed my
mind; how we've doubted, both of us, the spirit of modern
England--the selfish, commercial spirit of the red-necktie brand.
And now that I see the old country shaming our doubts, I simply want
to fling myself into this business--heart and brain and body.  And,
frankly, I've a feeling I could give myself to things with a freer
mind ... as a bachelor.  That's the truth--for your very private ear.
Thirdly and lastly, if we married, she ought to be here with you, and
I'm doubtful if you'd either of you relish that arrangement, lacking
me to do buffer state.  See?"

"I do see, very clearly," she answered, regarding him with grave
tenderness, her elbows on the table, her chin in her hands.

"Thought you would.  There's only one thing worries me.  As my
wife--if the worst happened, she'd at least be well provided for.
Seems she has literally no money, and a very fair gift for spending
it."

Helen's quick brain--lightened by her relief--sprang to instant
decision.  "You could settle that by adding a codicil to your will.
Those investments of father's that are not tied up with the place
would give her quite a comfortable income."

"Capital!" he cried, slapping his leg.  "Fool I was not to think of
it.  Simply forestall my instructions about her marriage settlement.
We'll fix it up at once and I'll talk things over with her to-morrow.
See how she feels about it herself."

They discussed details for another half-hour; then, in his peremptory
fashion, he ordered her to bed.

"God bless you," she whispered as he shed a kiss on her hair.  "This
afternoon I was the proudest mother in England."

"O fool woman--just because I caught the gift of the gab!  With
practice I might even degenerate into a politician.  Just as well I'm
in for a few years of the silent service.  Go to sleep quick, and
don't let yourself be bogey ridden by German devilments."

But though wisdom endorsed his command, she disobeyed it flatly.
There was no sleep in her brain; and instead of going to bed, she sat
down in the window-seat, leaned against the woodwork and looked out
upon the still serenity of garden, terrace, and pine wood, softly
illumined by an unclouded moon.  The very peace and beauty of those
moonlit August nights had an uncanny power of intensifying the inner
visions that daylight and ceaseless occupation kept partially in
check.  She could not now look upon the moon without seeing the
sacked villages, the human wreckage of battle that the same impartial
goddess illumined, over there, on the shell-battered fields of
Belgium and France.

Earlier in the day her spirit had been uplifted by Miss Sorabji's
beautiful letter "England in Earnest," by her exhortation, from the
Gita, "Think of this not as a war, but as a sacrifice of arms
demanded of the gods."  But now, in the peace and silence of night,
it was the anguish of the flight from Tirlemont that lived before her
eyes and chilled her blood.  Too vividly, she pictured the flaming
town; the rush of panic-stricken people; women and children, shot,
bayoneted, ruthlessly ridden down.  And already there were whispers
of things infinitely worse than killing--things unnamable, at thought
of which imagination blenched----

From that great, confused mass of misery there emerged the pathetic
figure of one fugitive peasant woman and five children who stood
bewildered in the Place de la Gare, crying all of them as if their
hearts would break.  That morning the German soldiery had killed the
woman's husband and trampled two of her children to death before her
face--a minor item in an orgy of horrors.  But it is poignant
personal detail that pierces the heart: and the acute realisation of
one mother's anguish brought sudden tears to Helen's eyes.

So blurred was the moonlit garden, when she looked down into it, that
a shadow moving at the end of the terrace set her heart fluttering in
her throat.

Spy hunting and spy mania were in the air.  Almost every day brought
its crop of tales, credible and incredible: horses poisoned wholesale
at Aldershot, mysterious gun-emplacements, hidden arms and ammunition
in the least expected places.  Even allowing for exaggeration, such
rumours were sufficiently disturbing.  They gave a creepy, yet rather
thrilling sense of insecurity to things as perennially and unshakably
secure as the Bank of England or Westminster Abbey.  Nor could even
these symbols of stability be reckoned immune, with the financial
world in convulsions and a mysterious fleet of Zeppelins threatening
to bombard London!

In the over-civilised and over-legislated world, that came by a
violent end in July, 1914, the uncertainty of life had been little
more than a pious phrase, spasmodically justified by events.  Now it
was an impious fact, vaguely or acutely felt almost every hour of the
day--by none more acutely than by Helen Forsyth with her quick
sensibilities and vivid brain.  Even Mark admitted that she was
keeping her head creditably on the whole; but in certain moods she
was quite capable of demanding a drastic search for gun-emplacements
in her own grounds or suspecting a secret store of ammunition among
the ruins of Wynchcombe Abbey, all on the strength of a semi-German
gardener dismissed years ago.  Only last week a suspicious,
Teutonic-looking individual had come to the back door and put the
cook "all in a tremor" by asking superfluous questions about the
neighbourhood.  And now this mysterious wanderer in the garden--at
such an hour----!

She was on her feet, brushing aside the tears that obscured her
vision.  But the shadow had vanished behind a bush and did not seem
disposed to reappear.  For a second she stood hesitating.  If she
called Mark, he would either laugh at her or scold her for not being
in bed.  The creature was probably harmless.  She would creep
down-stairs quietly and explore.  For all her nerves and fanciful
fears, she was no coward in the grain.  Hastily twisting up her hair,
she slipped on a long opera coat and crept noiselessly down into the
drawing-room.  There she found that the French window leading on to
the terrace had been left unlocked.

"How careless of Mark!" she murmured; and, with fluttering pulse,
stepped out into the moonlight.

There he was again!  Summoning all her courage she went forward,
uncertain even now what she meant to say.

The shadowy figure had turned.  It was coming towards her.
Then--with a start of recognition she stopped dead.

"Keith!" she exclaimed softly, and could have laughed aloud in her
relief.

"Helen--what are you doing out here?" he asked, an odd thrill in his
low voice.

"What are you doing?" she retorted.  "Frightening me out of my life!
I saw a suspicious-looking shadow; and--don't laugh at me--I thought
it might be a spy."

"And you came down to tackle him alone!  Just like you!  Supposing it
had been?"

"Oh--thank goodness it's not!  But don't you ever give me away."
Helen's laugh ended in an involuntary shiver.

"Cold?" he asked quickly.

"No--no!  Let's walk a little and feel normal."

He moved on beside her, anxious, yet deeply content.  Then: "Helen,"
he said suddenly.  "If you're going to let things get on your nerves
like this, you'll be done for.  Your best chance is to take up some
absorbing war-work; the harder the better."

"What work?  And where?"

He caught a note of desperation in her tone.  "Scrubbing hospital
floors?  Or playing about with Belgians and invalids here, while
Sheila is at Boulogne, you scouring France in our car, and Mark in
the thick of it all?  He wants me to stay here, I know.  But, Keith,
I simply _can't_.  What else, though, can a useless woman of fifty
do?"

"To start with, she can refrain from calling herself useless, which
is a libel!  To go on with--"  He paused, regarding her.  The
supposed spy was meditating a bold suggestion.  "Helen--could you ...
would you ... come out with me as my orderly?  If so, I could confine
my activities to the Base.  I verily believe you'd find the real
thing less nerve-racking than the nightmares of an imagination like
yours.  But, could you stand it, physically?  And ... would the
conventions permit?"

Her low laugh answered him straight away.  "My dear Keith, talk of
inspiration!  It would just save my soul alive.  I can act infinitely
better than I can endure.  I should feel nearer to Mark.  And as for
the conventions, I hanged them all years ago.  What harm, if the poor
dead things are drawn and quartered?"  She checked herself and looked
up at him.  "Will you take your Bible oath that I shouldn't simply be
in the way?"

"I'll take it on as many Bibles as you like to produce," he answered,
with becoming gravity.  "But I'm thinking ... for your sake ...
another woman....  How about Sheila?"

"Sheila!  Lovely."

"Would she give up her precious massage?"

"If I wanted her she'd give up anything.  But--the massage wouldn't
bring her up against the worst horrors.  Your work would.  And she's
full young--barely three and twenty."

"She is that.  Though, if I'm any good at observation, I should say
the stature of her spirit is far in advance of her years.  She gives
me the impression of great reserve power, that girl.  She never seems
to put out her full strength, or to waste it in kicking against the
pricks."

"One for me!" Lady Forsyth murmured meekly.

"Yes, one for you!  And I make bold to prophesy she would be worth
five of you in a painful emergency!"

He made that unflattering statement in a tone of such extraordinary
tenderness that she beamed as at a compliment.

"Let the righteous smite me friendly--when I deserve it!  You seem to
have made a close study of my Sheila.  It only remains to secure her
services and Mark's consent----"

"_Mother_!"  His deep voice called suddenly from the window.  "I'm
ashamed of you.  Come to bed at once!"

"Coming!" she called back, adding under her breath: "Keith, remember
I only came down for a book.  And you found me locking you out."

Then she hurried away, obedient always to the voice of her son.

Nightmares had been effectually dispelled.


Bel's hope that the War Office would be merciful was not fulfilled.
The Juggernaut across the Channel would not stand still at any one's
bidding.  The Great Man who worked day and night, creating new
armies, had need of every promising semblance of an officer he could
lay hands on; and Mark's name was a recommendation in itself.

Bel was given little more than a week in which to be "heavenly good";
and it must be admitted that she made the most of it.  She took
kindly, on the whole, to Mark's solution of the marriage problem.
How far her acquiescence was due to his exceeding thoughtfulness in
the matter of money it might be invidious to enquire.  There remained
the fact that Harry O'Neill--scenting a possible war wedding--had
skilfully put forward her own pronounced views on the subject; while,
incidentally, spoiling her idol more egregiously than ever.  And the
girl herself leaned towards a more auspicious beginning of her
married life.  Mark found her oddly superstitious on the subject;
and, with her gift for evading unpleasant facts, she had risen
readily to the optimistic conviction that the war would be over by
Christmas or the New Year.  Apparently it did not occur to her, or to
others of her persuasion, that a short war could only spell victory
for Germany.  But there seemed little use in dispelling an illusion
that kept her happy; and, in her case, could do no harm.

So she clung unchallenged to her comforting belief; and, the great
question being settled, Mark was free to consider other matters.

First and foremost, there was Keith's amazing proposition to enlist
Mums--a project that did not square with Mark's private plan for
keeping her safely wrapped in cotton wool and harmless war-activities
at Wynchcombe Friars.  Son-like, he had scarce realised how
infinitely dear she was to him, till her eagerness to cross the
Channel had driven him to consider the possibility in all its
bearings.  And the inclusion of Sheila in the programme brought to
light his hidden tenderness for her that seemed in no way diminished
by his passion for Bel.  Why the deuce couldn't the women be
reasonable, and stay in England where there would be work enough for
all?  And what business had Keith to go encouraging them?  But so
plainly were the three enamoured of their idea that in the end he had
not the heart to damp them.

In the privacy of his thoughts, he thanked goodness that Bel could be
trusted not to emulate them; though her attitude towards the war was
now less hostile than it had been.  The very air she breathed was
impregnated with war-fever, war-talk and war-realities.  It was
increasingly evident that new war-activities were going to become the
fashion; and she was of those who unquestioningly follow a fashion,
lead it where it may.  Having no taste for the menial work of
hospitals or for tending the sick and wounded, she had elected to
help in some sort of women's work engineered by Harry, "the Cause"
being temporarily extinct.  So far as possible she turned away her
eyes from beholding and her heart from feeling the full measure of
the invisible horror, which, to more imaginative minds, became too
acutely visible and audible during that critical last week of August,
1914.

For by now, across the Channel, the Great Retreat had begun.  Days
that, at Wynchcombe Friars, slipped by all too fast, seemed over
there, to have neither beginning nor end.  Common standards of time
were lost in that ceaseless, sleepless nightmare of dogged marching
and still more dogged fighting, whenever Prussian hordes gave the
broken remnant of an army a chance to turn and smite, as the British
soldier can smite even in retreat.

It was from Le Cateau that an officer friend sent a pencil scrawl to
Mark.


"It is quite evident that we have taken the knock badly.  With any
other army one would say we're beaten.  But Tommy doesn't understand
the word.  You can only beat him by knocking the life out of him.
And even when you think he's dead, chances are he'll get up and kick
you.  People at home simply haven't begun to know what heroes these
chaps are.  Makes me sick even to think of certain supercilious folk,
I seem to remember, who thought the worst of any man in uniform on
principle.  Great Scott, they're not fit to lick Tommy's boots."


Mark handed that letter to Bel.

"There's one in the eye for your precious Maitland," he remarked
coolly.  "Copy it out verbatim, please, and send it to him with my
compliments!"

And Bel obeyed with exemplary meekness.  She had rather objected to
the tone of Maitland's last letter; and, in her own fashion, she was
very much impressed.  Heroism, a long way off and entirely
unconnected with one's self, was an admirable thing in man.


It was near the end of August, when the Channel ports were being
evacuated and the fall of Paris seemed merely a matter of days, that
Mark at last found his name in the _Gazette_ coupled with that of a
distinguished Highland regiment; and in record time he was
ready--uniform, equipment, parting presents and all.

Like most of his race and kind, he would have preferred an informal
departure--casual "good-byes," as though he were going off on
business for a week or so.  But he had won the hearts of his people
by justice, understanding, and the personal touch that was a
tradition at Wynchcombe Friars: he had inspired them, by precept and
exhortation, to give of their best ungrudgingly; and he could not
deny them the legitimate thrill of speeding his departure with
congratulations and cheers.

Only on Sunday, his last day, he evaded one ordeal by limiting his
attendance at church to early service with his mother.  Bel had
little taste for early rising, and Mark did not press the point.

In the afternoon he delighted his humbler friends--wives of the
gamekeeper, the coachman and the manager of his arts and crafts
colony--by calling on them in full uniform.  Though he occasionally
wore the kilt and glengarry at Inveraig, his Hampshire folk had never
seen him thus attired; and their open admiration was so embarrassing
that, after several hours of it, he returned limp and exhausted,
clamouring for whisky and soda and the society of Bel, who could
always be trusted to keep her admiration within bounds.

To her he devoted the evening; and early on Monday the more personal
farewells must be said, the cheerful, casual note vigorously
maintained.  It was not "the real thing" yet; and the women, in their
hearts, prayed that the "the real thing" might be deferred for many
months to come.  Meantime, unless England was favoured with an
invasion, he would be safe enough on the south-east coast of
Scotland; and later on, if rooms were available, he would permit his
mother and Bel to intrude upon his violent industry for a week.

Keith drove them all to the station, and behold, outside the grey
stone gateway, an impromptu guard of honour lined the road to
Wendover: villagers and farm hands, weavers and metal-workers, women,
children, and ineligible men.  At sight of the motor, they broke into
shouts and ragged cheers that would have moved a heart many degrees
less responsive than the heart of Mark Forsyth.

"Drive slower, man," he said to Keith; and, standing up in the car,
he waved his glengarry--giving them shout for shout--till he could no
more.

That vision of him, so standing, with the morning light in his eyes,
the sun upon his chestnut-red hair and his kilt blown back by the
wind, remained stamped indelibly upon his mother's brain.




CHAPTER IV

  "Hearts that are as one high heart,
  Withholding nought from doom or bale,
  Burningly offered up--to bleed,
  To bear, to break, but not to fail."
                              LAURENCE BINYON.


The dream of that coveted week at Mark's war station materialised
about the middle of September.  More: it was a success; a blessed
memory unspoiled by any jarring note, and it brought the two women
nearer to each other than they had been yet.

They found Mark, in charge of a double company chiefly armed with
broom-sticks, handling his Highlanders to some purpose; giving his
spare hours to revolver practice, with plump German targets in view.
His Colonel, who lost no time in making friends with Lady Forsyth,
spoke of him in glowing terms, and gave his women folk every facility
for seeing the coast defences prepared against the promised invasion.
They wandered, shivering inwardly, through a maze of genuine
trenches, heavily sandbagged, that, in the event of a landing, were
to be held "at all costs."  They inspected cunning entanglements of
barbed wire on the beach and underground forts that looked more like
heat bumps on the face of the earth than strong defensive positions;
and they heard amazing stories of spies, though the Government had
nominally demolished the system.  They had tea with half a dozen
jilted officers, on a bare deal table, in an upper room of a house
that had been shorn of its furniture to accommodate Mark, with two
fellow subalterns and three hundred men.

Everything conspired to make those few September days an untarnished
memory.  The tide of retreat had turned.  The miracle had happened
and the Germans, flung back from the gates of Paris, had been
brilliantly defeated on the Marne.  India's response to the call of
her King-Emperor had sent a thrill through the whole kingdom: and
some impeccable authority--name unknown--reported hundreds of
Russians at Ostend.  Hopeful souls dreamed again of a swift and
decisive issue.  But the Great Brain piling up armies in Whitehall
still pinned his faith on England's "last million men."

In fact, there was only one flaw in the week of their content; it
passed too soon.  Then the price must be paid in the renewed wrench
of parting; and for the first time Lady Forsyth saw tears in Bel's
eyes.

Of course they must come again, Mark assured them at the last.  "The
C.O. has fallen in love with Mums!  He'd be heartbroken if I didn't
give him another chance.  And he's a useful chap to please.  So that
settles it!"


But towards the end of September, before there was time even to think
of another chance, Mark had his orders.  A decimated battalion was
clamouring for reinforcements; and a message flashed to Wynchcombe
Friars that he would be home next day on forty-eight hours leave,
picking up Bel in town.

That blunt announcement drove the blood from Lady Forsyth's face.
Sheila was back with her again; and Keith had just returned from a
week's absence on business connected with the Forsyth-Macnair Car.

"He's got his wish," was all she said: and went quickly out of the
room.

Next morning they arrived--the two of them; Mark rather defiantly
cheerful, Bel more than a little subdued.  Lady Forsyth had never
liked the girl better than in those two days.

To the women it seemed hard that so many of his precious hours at
home must be squandered on business.  But Mark had to face the fact
that he might never return; and to make his dispositions accordingly.
It had always been his wish to emulate his father and be practically
his own land-agent.  But four years of minority and the long absence
in Europe had obliged him to employ a trustworthy man of experience:
and he was thankful for it now.  George Russell, happily well over
forty, had proved as capable as he was devoted: which is saying a
good deal for his capacity.  He possessed, moreover, a shrewder
business head than either mother or son: and, on occasion, to Mark's
huge delight, he would assume a tenderly protective attitude, as of
one whose mission in life was to save them from themselves.

In the matter of Belgian refugees, for instance, he regretted to
report that Lady Forsyth was not sufficiently discriminating.  They
were proving, as was natural, "a very mixed lot," and Russell had a
positive flair for the wrong sort.  It was not fair on Sir Mark to
crowd up his cottages with "foreign riff-raff": the deserving would
make a quite sufficient drain on his limited resources.  The good
fellow learnt with unconcealed relief that Lady Forsyth would soon be
going to Boulogne with Miss Melrose and that he would be left
practically in charge of everything.  They had decided to lend the
house to Sir Richard's two sisters chiefly with a view to keeping it
available for hospitality to officers, wounded or otherwise.  The
little colony of arts and crafts had dwindled considerably: but the
workshops were not to be altogether closed down.  Lady Forsyth was
anxious to encourage refugee lace-makers, Belgian and French.

Mark himself was thankful for business details that relieved the
underlying strain.  But he refused on this occasion to bid any
official "Good-byes."  He had taken leave of his people when he
joined the army.  This final wrench was his own most private and
personal affair as they would doubtless understand.

Tea on the terrace was a creditably cheerful meal; and it was not
till near dinner-time that Mark managed to slip away by himself for
an hour of quiet communing with the land he loved--the woods, the
river, and the lordly ruins that, for him, were written all over with
the inner history of his own brief twenty-seven years.  Bel had asked
him more than once how he could bear to leave it all: and to-night,
as he saw the red sun tangled among his pine tops, that question so
shook his fortitude that he challenged it with another.  Could he
bear to think of German troops defiling the fair and stately face of
it, terrorising with torture and outrage, the men and women whose
welfare was his main concern in life?  Confronted with that
challenge, the coward question fled ashamed.

After dinner he had half an hour's talk with Sheila, into whose hands
he solemnly commended his more mercurial mother.  "She's a jewel of
price," he added frankly, "but in certain moods, she takes some
managing.  And on the whole you're better at it than old Keith.
Don't let her crock up from the strain of it all.  And write to me.
Promise."

She promised--and his mind felt more at rest.

Later on he took Bel out on to the terrace, where they paced up and
down in the starlight, talking fitfully.  Time was too short for all
they had to say: and for that very reason they could not say one half
of it.  Interludes of silence increased.  At last came one so
prolonged that, by a mutual impulse, they came to a standstill, near
a low stone bench, confronting each other and the inexorable fact.

"Oh Mark--to-morrow!" Bel breathed unsteadily, her dim face close to
his.  "It seems impossible."

For answer he took hold of her: and sitting down, gathered her on to
his knees.  Then, amazed, he heard her whisper at his ear:
"Darling--I'm horribly afraid.  I keep feeling--I shall never get you
back."

It was spoken at last, the fear of perpetual parting that knocked at
both their hearts.  But the man knew that spectre must be ignored.
"I'll come back with any luck, my Bel," he said, kissing her, "to
claim you for good, and worry your life out!  I vote we marry the
first leave I get."

He passed his hand slowly down her bare arm.  "Darling, you're cold,"
he said.  "There's a dew and a half falling.  Come in at once.  Are
we downhearted?--No!"

The light of the hall showed her on the verge of tears.  But she
pulled herself together and he dismissed her with a blessing that
meant more to him than to her.

In the drawing-room he found Keith alone, with a solitary electric
light switched on, smoking by the open window; a privilege Helen
permitted him for the sake of his company.

"Hullo!  Gone--both of 'em?" Mark asked in surprise.

"Yes.  I ordered them off.  They looked strained and tired.  Couldn't
read.  Couldn't talk.  Your mother has some letters to write, I
think.  She left word--would you look in?"

"Bless her, she takes things beastly hard."

"She does," Keith assented briefly: and Mark proceeded to fill his
pipe.

During the process Keith watched him, appraising his straight, clean
manhood and cursing the devilish nature of modern war.

Presently, when Mark had finished with his pipe, he spoke.

"Keith, old chap, on the strength of peculiar circumstances and the
general uncertainty of things, I'm going to make an infernally
impertinent remark.  To begin with, Mother's most distractingly on my
mind.  I've fixed up most things, with a view to--possible
contingencies.  But I don't seem able to fix up her.  If I'm knocked
out she's simply done for.  Not even this precious work of hers for
consolation.  It all goes to Uncle Everard who'll make an end of our
colony straight away.  She'll lose everything at a stroke, except
Inveraig.  And she--alone there----!"

He set his teeth; and Keith passed a long thin hand across his eyes.
"That's the tragedy of it," he said; adding, with forced lightness,
"Where does the impertinence come in?"

"It's jolly well coming in now.  Don't bite my head off.  Truth is
I'm not stone-blind; and just lately--I've been wondering ... why the
deuce don't you make a match of it?  You and Mums!"

Macnair started, and his face looked rather a queer colour in the dim
light.

"Great heavens, Mark!  Talk of explosives!"

For the moment he could get no further; and Mark was puzzled.  "You
mean--it's never occurred to you?"

"I mean nothing of the sort."

"Then I bet you _do_ want to bite my head off----"

"I'm not ... so sure," he said slowly.  His voice was more natural
now.  "I always like your sledge-hammer directness.  At the same
time--"  He rose and paced the length of the room revolving that
amazing proposition.

"If I thought there was a ghost of a chance," Mark persisted, as
Keith turned in his stride, "it would take a ton weight off my mind."

"Not to mention mine," Keith answered smiling; and when he reached
the window he put a hand on Mark's shoulder.  "As it seems a case of
plain speaking to-night, I may as well admit the truth.  She's been
the star of my life for fifteen years--and I'd give all I possess to
marry her."

Mark's eyebrows went up.

"And she ten years a widow!  Why not have a shot at it, old chap, and
make this Boulogne trip a sort of war honeymoon----"

"My dear boy!  The pace you young fellows travel!  And you ignore ...
there's Helen herself to be reckoned with----"

For the first time in his life Mark saw the blood mount into Keith's
face and heard him hesitate over his mother's name;--phenomena that
checked his fluency a little but rather increased his zeal.

"Well, if you don't have a try," he said, "hanged if the C.O. won't
forestall you.  He's dead smitten.  Two lovers at fifty--she ought to
be ashamed of herself!"

But Keith seemed no way perturbed by the possibility of a rival.

"_If_ she ever marries again," he said quietly, "it will be myself.
But, Mark, is it possible you've never realised that, for her, your
father is still as much alive as when he walked this earth.  There's
a modest percentage of human beings so made, and a good few of them
are Scots.  For them there is actually neither death, nor separation.
I believe your father still bars my way, as much as he did when--I
first loved her.  Of course ... I may exaggerate!"

"Hope you do!"  Mark was deeply moved.  "She doesn't often speak of
him to me."

"Nor to me.  But--when she does, it's quite clear."

"'M.  Rough luck!  All the same, if the worst happens, give me your
word you'll have a try ... for her sake and mine as well as your own.
No one would dream there's eight years between you."

Keith simply held out his hand and Mark's closed on it hard.  The
good understanding that had always existed between them was complete.

Mark found his mother writing letters in bed.  He had accused her
more than once of writing them in her bath.  She looked strained and
tired, as Keith said; but in her blue dressing-jacket with hair
demurely parted and a thick plait over her shoulder, she appeared
younger, if anything, than the man he had left downstairs.

"Incurable woman!" he said lightly.  "Who's your victim this time?"

She told him; and while she read out snatches of her letter,
Mark--watching her with new eyes--wondered, had she the least
inkling?  Would a word from him be of any service to Keith?

Curiosity impelled him to talk of the Boulogne trip, to enlarge on
his confidence in Keith, and even to touch on the unconventional
character of the whole plan.  Neither in look nor tone could he
detect a glimmer of after-thought or shadow of self-consciousness.
The causes of her satisfaction were clear as daylight: longing to be
in the same country as himself: candid pleasure in Keith's and
Sheila's company and her innate love of getting off the beaten track.

"It's just one of the many beautiful things that a genuine,
understanding friendship makes possible," she concluded, stamping and
sealing her letter: and Mark began to feel rather sorry for Keith.
But he wisely refrained from any hint of his own knowledge.  It would
probably do no good and would certainly spoil her pleasure in going.

Instead, he commandeered her writing board, an act of tyranny that
would normally have involved a fight.  Her unnatural meekness hurt
him more sharply than any words of love, could she have brought
herself to speak them.  When he came back to the bed, she indicated a
little pile of Active Service Compendiums and a pocket Red-letter
Testament on the table beside her.  She had already given him his
wrist watch and a silver flask.

"That _from_ me," she said touching the Book, "and those _for_ me.  I
shall be hungry for news remember and out of touch with Bel, who will
get it all."

"Not quite all--faithless and unbelieving!" he answered echoing her
lightness, then he added with decision.  "You're not coming up to
town, Mums; not even to the station--understand?  It'll be bad enough
having Bel.  But she's cooler all through.  No matter how brave you
are, I can always feel you quivering inside.  And I couldn't stand
it.  Nor could you."

She shook her head.  "It was only--a temptation.  Not to miss----"

A spasm crossed her face and he went down on his knees beside her.

"Darling, if we are going to make fools of ourselves," he said
huskily.  "I'd better be off.  It's near midnight.  Time you were
asleep."  No answer; and he spoke still lower.  "Give me your
blessing, Mums--like when I went to school."

Still without speaking she laid her hands on his bowed head; and from
his heart he echoed her passionate silent plea for his safe return.

Then he stood up and kissed her good night----

For sheer misery and discomfort nothing could exceed the actual hour
or two before departure.  Bel could be with him in his room while he
"completed his mobilisation."  The rest could only hang about
aimlessly, making futile talk or inventing futile occupations to keep
thought at bay.  In the background, several maids and a grey-haired
butler hovered fitfully; and Bobs, a picture of abject misery, lay
awaiting his master at the foot of the stairs.

He came at last, in a violent hurry, shouting an order to Keith and
springing clean over the prostrate Bobs.

Bel followed more leisurely; flushed a little, but controlled.  Then
the hovering servants came forward and Helen slipped quietly into her
husband's study.

There, at last, Mark came to her--followed closely by a tailless Bobs.

Somehow she contrived to smile.  Then his arms were round her,
crushing her to him.

"God bless you," he whispered.  "Don't fret.  It's going to be all
right.  And--if it isn't ... it'll _still_ be all right."

Then he kissed her again and let her go.

From the threshold he waved to her, smiling resolutely, though tears
stood in his eyes.  She waved back to him.  The door shut between
them.  He was gone.

As she stood motionless, fighting back her grief, she was startled by
that sharp, familiar pang in the region of her heart: and a momentary
darkness as if a raven's wing had brushed across her eyes.  She
shivered and kneeled hastily down to comfort the desolate Bobs, while
her tears fell, unchecked now, upon his rough brown head.




CHAPTER V

"Here is the hard paradox: war ... truly devilish, bestial, senseless
thing, produces in masses--as peace distinctly does not produce
them--brothers and sisters to Christ."--G. B. DAWAR.


Wynchcombe Friars without Mark was no place to tarry in; but there
seemed no end to the delays; and Keith turned even these to good
account by teaching Sheila to drive the Forsyth-Macnair car.  Two
drivers with one orderly would get through twice the work.

It was near the middle of October when, at last, they found
themselves speeding towards Folkestone.  Keith, who had laid aside
philosophy "for the duration of the war," delighted in his own small
ark of salvation as a Captain delights in his ship.  From "stem to
stern" she was as perfect as skill and money could make her; fitted
up with four stretchers and bedding; crammed to the limit of her
capacity with first aid appliances and a minimum of luggage.

Here and there autumn had laid a fiery finger on the woods.  Birches
and elms were tipped with gold.  Otherwise the October sun riding in
a cloudless heaven suggested high summer.  Mark had been gone nearly
two weeks.  Two brief cheerful letters assured his mother he was
alive and well.  Till she could see him again, those simple facts
were all that vitally concerned herself; though pessimists prophesied
invasion by Zeppelin and transport; and away over there--unseen, yet
acutely felt--Belgium continued her heroic stand against the
all-devouring, all-defiling German Army.

The fall of Antwerp, pronounced impregnable, had resounded through
Europe like the knell of doom.  For a time, even the bravest were
shaken with dismay and the stream of refugees increased daily.  The
streets of Folkestone overflowed with that pitiful flotsam of wrecked
cities.  Some wept; some cursed; some prayed; but the prevailing
expression was a terrible stunned indifference, as though shock on
shock had hammered them into automata that could move and eat and
sleep, but could no longer feel.

In Boulogne--when they reached it--the flotsam of wrecked battalions
was more in evidence.  Things were still primitive here as regards
organisation: but already the place was an English colony.  The
British Red Cross Society was beginning to make things move and
owners of private cars were doing splendid service.  To these were
now added the unrelated trio from Wynchcombe Friars.  But their first
objective was Rouen, where a young Stuart nephew lay badly wounded,
craving for the sight of a face from home.  His invalid mother could
not get to him; so Lady Forsyth went in her stead, only to find on
arrival that the boy had been dead an hour.  For the sake of that
faraway mother she asked to see him, though privately she dreaded the
ordeal.  She was aware, suddenly, of a very unheroic shrinking from
close contact with the awful actualities of war.  But that shrinking
in no way affected her zeal for the work in hand.

News that a train-load of casualties was expected that evening sent
them full speed to the station; but it was dusk when they arrived to
find the process of unloading begun.  At the entrance, a group of Red
Cross officials stood talking and laughing, hardened by habit to the
painful scene.  As the car drew up they crowded round, admiring it
and questioning Macnair, while tragic burdens were being carried past
them in the half light.

Helen, too overwrought to make allowances, wondered how Keith had the
patience to answer them.

Presently, her attention was caught by a number of black shadows,
like wheelbarrows abnormally large and high.

"What are those?" she asked a porter, and discovered that they were
severely wounded men on wheeled stretchers either too brave or too
exhausted to utter a sound of complaint.

At that she could restrain herself no longer.

"Keith," she exclaimed, flagrantly interrupting a Medical Authority
with a passion for cars.  "Why are those unfortunate men kept hanging
about in this noisy place?  Can't we get four of them away?"

But Medical Authority checked her impatience in a tone of mild
reproof.

"Those fellows are all right where they are, Lady Forsyth," he said.
"They're not fit to be moved off their stretchers.  So we're waiting
for the trams.  If you like to back into the station, you may pick up
some milder cases who'll be glad of a lift."

They backed in accordingly and picked up two maimed men and a
remarkably cheerful subaltern with his left arm in a sling and a
bandage across one eye.  As they passed out, Keith offered to return
for another load; and to Helen's disgust, the offer was politely
declined.

By the time they reached the field hospital--a collection of
marquees, fitted up with electric light--it was nearly ten o'clock.

"Quite early; but we don't seem to be _wanted_; so I suppose we must
go to bed," Helen remarked with doleful emphasis, as they re-settled
the car.  "I don't know what you think about it, Keith.  _I_ feel
distinctly snubbed.  Four out of three hundred!  What's that?"

"A beginning--and no bad one!" Keith answered placidly, filling his
pipe.  "Fanshawe says if we report ourselves at Boulogne we shall get
all the work we want.  There's heavy fighting on the north.  A big
battle developing for Ypres and Calais."

To Boulogne they returned accordingly: and had no cause this time to
feel either snubbed or superfluous.  There was still a famine of cars
at the Base and the wounded were arriving in thousands: their bodies
mangled and mutilated; their spirits, in the main, unquenched.

Macnair and his party drove up to their Hotel at noon: and their
greeting from the Red Cross Authority was very much to the point.

"All available cars wanted immediately at the Gare Maritime.  Better
get some lunch first."

That lunch was of the briefest.  Keith dumped their luggage in the
hall without so much as asking if there were rooms to be had.  Helen
did not even open the coveted letter from Mark, till they were back
in the motor, speeding towards the bare unsheltered Gare, where
impromptu and comfortless hospital trains debouched their tragic
loads.  Mercifully the sun of that miraculous autumn still shone
unclouded; and, by the time autumn gave place to the wettest winter
in decades, better arrangements had been made.

All that afternoon they worked, unceasingly, and late into the night.
Back and forth, back and forth between station and hospital; jolting
inevitably over railway lines, and a strip of merciless cobble
pavement that, for men with shattered limbs, hurriedly dressed,
involved several minutes of excruciating agony.

"Keith, couldn't they possibly take up that cruel bit of pave?" Helen
pleaded after their seventh journey with three men at death's door.
"Even a raw road would be better than those stones."

"I'll move heaven and earth to get it improved," he assured her,
little guessing that he had pledged himself to a labour of Hercules.


By the time they could take breath and think about finding beds, they
were all dead weary, sustained only by the knowledge that they had
given their mite of service to the utmost of their power.  In Mark's
letter, which Helen had scarcely found time to read, there was a
sentence on this head that had haunted her brain throughout those
strenuous hours.

"Oh Mums, if only the good casual folk at home could be made to see
even the half of what we see in the way of wanton destruction, and
calculated brutality, wherever the gentle German has left his trail,
they'd possibly begin to realise the powers of evil we're up against
in this war and things in general would march to a different tune.
But they can't see.  That's the trouble.  And hearing about such
things isn't the same at all.  If we're ever going to win through
hell to human conditions again it won't be merely by signing cheques
and making speeches, but by the individual personal service of every
man and woman in whatever capacity; and I'm proud to feel you three
are giving it like Trojans.  God bless you all!"

She stood gleaning a few more scraps under an electric light, when
Keith came up to say he had secured a room for her and Sheila; and a
friendly Irish doctor had offered him a bed in his hospital train.

"I'm in great luck with my two assistants," he added smiling down at
her eager, tired face.  "Sheila betters my expectation, which is
saying a good deal.  Her self-possession to-day astonished me.  She'd
have the nerve for advance ambulance work in the firing line, I do
believe.  But I'm glad we've got her safe here."

He glanced towards her where she sat at a writing-table scribbling a
hurried letter to Mark in praise of their mutually beloved Mums.
Then he went up and touched her shoulder.

"Good night, Sheila," he said.  "Get to bed sharp, both of you.  I'll
call for you to-morrow."

"We'll be ready early," she answered looking up at him; and he
discovered, to his surprise, that her eyes were swimming in tears.


There was a certain monotony about the days of unremitting work that
followed; a monotony tinged with its own peculiar high lights and
shadows; with beauty and terror, fortitude and anguish, the incoming
and outgoing pulse-beat of life at the Base.  Scarcely a day passed
without some minor incident, some flash of human revelation that
neither Keith nor his orderlies would forget while they lived.

For Helen--with every nerve responsive to the suffering around
them--the strain of it all proved no light matter; yet, in retrospect
she counted those terrible days as among the richest experiences of
her life.

To her it was distracting that wounded men should suffer additional
miseries from the fact that even in two and a half months of war it
had been impossible to cope with all the complex needs of the
situation.  Hospitals were few and quite inadequate.  The magnificent
ambulance trains of later days were still in the workshops at home;
while untiring men on the spot did the best they could with the high,
comfortless passenger coaches of France.  Even the more luxurious
sleeping carriages were too cramped for the ingress and egress of
badly wounded men: and when, at last, these were landed, like so many
bales of goods, on the unsheltered platform of the Gare, shortage of
ambulance cars and trained stretcher-bearers added the finishing
touch to their nightmare journey.  But soon after Keith's arrival the
zeal and organisation of the British Red Cross began to make
themselves felt, in this respect as in others.  Every ambulance that
could be raised in London was rushed across to Boulogne; till in a
few days there were eighty of one kind or another plying between
train and hospital and ship.

For all that, there was still need of superhuman exertion to cope,
even inadequately with the terrible stream of wounded; the back wash
as it were, from the Homeric struggle round Ypres.  In that region,
the Belgians were making their last desperate stand, and war-worn
British Divisions,--haggard, sleepless, cruelly depleted--were still
miraculously holding their own against Army Corps on Army Corps of
fresh German troops heartened by an overwhelming superiority in guns
and shells.  There--during those awful days--whole battalions of the
finest troops on earth practically ceased to exist; and thence came
the main influx of comfortless, over-crowded trains.

Steadily the tale of wounded swelled, till it reached an average of
two thousand a day.  And what were eighty cars among so many?  Little
better than the five loaves and two small fishes in Galilee: and here
was no hope of miraculous intervention.  The outstanding miracle of
that golden October--when England neither knew her peril nor the full
cost of her salvation--was the superhuman fortitude of those that
were broken on the wheel and the untiring energy of those who served
them in the teeth of baffling conditions.

Day after day the open platform was thronged with men on stretchers
in all stages of mental and bodily collapse; British, Indian, French,
Belgian, German--brothers all, for the moment, in suffering if in
nothing else.  Some stared wildly and talked nonsense; some were
apathetic; some incurably cheerful; though often their wounds had not
been dressed for days.

The lack of trained stretcher-bearers was a serious difficulty till
St. John's Ambulance Society came to the rescue.  Porters, willing
but unskilful, did what they could.  Keith himself, and others like
him, helped to carry scores of men.  From early morning till near
midnight the cars of rescue ran to and fro; but in spite of every
effort there were unavoidable delays.  Men died there on the
stretchers, or in draughty cars, while red-tape regulations kept them
waiting outside hospitals and ships.  And that cruel strip of pavé
remained unsmoothed, though Keith had pressed the point with
unauthorised persistence.  And Helen cursed--so far as her ladyhood
permitted--every time they crossed it with patients in the last
extremity.

The unceasing rush of work left small leisure for nightmares or even
for anxiety; but the strain and pain of it was taxing her nerves to
breaking-point.  Always, as they drew near the familiar crowded
station, there sprang the inevitable question: "Will it be Mark this
time?"  But though the passing days brought many from his regiment,
Mark was not found among them.

As for Sheila, her sensitive spirit felt the test more acutely than
either of the elders, who kept watchful eyes on her, were allowed to
suspect.  Only by clinging desperately to her childhood's code of
courage could she save herself, at times, from the ignominy of
collapse.  It was sustaining, too, to feel that Keith trusted her,
that Helen relied on her; and Mark's occasional letters--full of a
brotherly tenderness that showed little in his speech--made it seem
possible to win through anything without flinching visibly.  The fact
that she could face this inferno of pain and death and mental anguish
without a sense of bitterness or rebellion was more of an asset than
she knew.  It was, in fact, the keystone of her character, the secret
of her spiritual poise.  For to accept, actively to accept, spells
capacity to transcend; but that she had still to discover.

They had little time, any of them, for abstract or personal thought.
The war, and its pressing demands on them constituted their life.
Keith had secured a small private sitting-room, where they could
enjoy an occasional evening of quiet and rest.  But as work was
seldom over till near eleven, such oases were rare indeed.  At times
their heads felt stunned with the eternal rattling to and fro, their
hearts numbed by contact with the awful harvest of a modern
battlefield.  But on the whole they loved their work, and would not
have been otherwhere for a kingdom.

They grew skilled in the art of talking the men's minds away from
their sufferings: and Sheila--"Mouse" though she was--showed so
notable a gift for this form of spiritual healing, that Lady Forsyth
finally christened her "Queen of the Poor Things."  Some
mother-quality in her touch and tone seemed to go straight to their
hearts.  Men who left the station groaning and clenching their teeth,
to keep the curses back, would surprisingly soon be conjured into
recounting their adventures, or better still, talking of wives and
children at home.

Keith himself confessed that he had never properly appreciated the
British Tommy till he carried him wounded; and Helen lost her heart a
dozen times over.  More than once when they chanced upon men
shattered and bandaged past human recognition, she came very near
losing her head: but only once did she disgrace herself by fainting
outright.

On that occasion, Keith carried her straight back to their Hotel,
laid her on the sofa and stayed by her till she was sufficiently
recovered to feel very much ashamed of herself.

"Promise I won't do it again," she assured him as he stood leaning
over her.

"No, that you certainly won't," he said sternly.  "If ever you do, I
shall pack you straight off home.  To-night, for a punishment, you'll
go early to bed.  Sheila will be quite safe with me."

Argument and rebellion were useless.  Moreover, she was honestly
exhausted; and before ten o'clock she was sound asleep.

But even weariness could not break the habit of short rest; and by
one of the morning she was amazingly wide awake.

Some distant sound had roused her, and now it drew nearer:--footsteps
and voices; men cheering and singing of "La Gloire" and "La Mort."
Nearer still they came, tramping along the pavement, till they were
almost under her open window.

Then she was aware of a discordant note in that gallant chorus.  One
voice, raised in terror and remonstrance, was trying to dominate
those other voices that were obviously shouting it down.

"J'ai peur!  Mon Dieu, camarades, j'ai peur!"

The words reached her distinctly now.  But the rest, unheeding, sang
louder than ever of "la mort" and "la gloire."

Possibly they were sorry for him.  The coward is the unhappiest of
men.  Yet he too being "enfant de la patrie" must go, even as others
went: and Helen Forsyth, hearing him go, found the tears streaming
down her face--not for the coercion of one reluctant citizen, but for
the unending horror and misery of it all: the fear and the anguish
and the calculated cruelty that were so infinitely worse than death.

Sheila, sleeping the profound sleep of healthily exhausted youth,
stirred not an eyelash even when the noise was at its height.  But,
for Helen, that pitiful interlude had put an end to rest; had opened
the door to nightmare memories and her own most private fears.

Since the long letter from Mark, that had greeted her on arrival,
there had been one barren field postcard: and even that was ten days
old.

And away there, in the trenches, the struggle seemed to wax fiercer
every hour....

The blank parallelogram of her window gleamed pale grey before, in
spite of herself, she fell asleep.




CHAPTER VI

  "They stand to be her sacrifice,
  The sons this Mother flings like dice,
  To face the odds and brave the Fates...."
                                GEORGE MEREDITH.


The strain of Mark's sudden silence told increasingly upon the three
of them.  It was tacitly assumed that postal arrangements were
disorganised.  Each hoped that the others believed in that consoling
fiction; but privately, they were sceptics all.

Helen continued to post his paper and her own thick envelope every
other day in the hope that he was still to be found somewhere in the
terrible maze of trenches that drew England's best and bravest as a
magnet draws steel.

Meantime, they were thankful for unremitting work; for the constant
movement and interest of life at the Base.  Young officers, eager for
action, might be bored to extinction by a few weeks in camp or in one
of the crowded hotels; but an observer, blessed with humour and a
large love of human nature, could not fail to find at every turn food
for thought, for laughter and for tears.

War is neither all horror, nor all heroism, or it could not be waged
by flesh and blood.  Soldiers who can die like gods, or fight as the
beasts that perish, are, in the intervals, men of like passions with
their kind.  And genuine soldiers were scarce among those who now
poured into Boulogne, to fill the gaps in that dangerously thin line
round Ypres: Territorials and schoolmasters, clergymen and clerks,
lords of commerce and lords of the land; dissimilar in almost every
essential, yet welded together by one common resolve, one common
faith:--a crusade indeed!

And the manifold needs of a host undreamed of by the wildest,
wickedest "militarists," demanded the existence of that other army
chiefly congregated at the Base;--doctors, nurses, chaplains,
ambulance folk, owners of private cars, and those sorrowful birds of
passage--relations of dying or dangerously wounded men.  On the
quays, in streets and hotels they thronged, those incongruous
fragments of the world's greatest drama; and Lady Forsyth never tired
of watching them or listening to their snatches of talk.  Neither
weariness, nor nightmare visions, nor anxiety, even, could blunt the
edge of her keen interest in the human panorama.

"Oh, Sheila, my lamb," she exclaimed one evening after a day of very
varied emotions, "aren't people--all sorts and kinds of
them--passionately interesting?  Even when I'm laid on the uttermost
shelf, I shall still be always peeping over the edge!"

"And you'll always find me peeping up at you!" the girl answered,
smiling at the quaint conceit.  "It's simply wonderful, being with
you--through all this!"


A temporary lull in the stream of wounded was followed, too soon, by
a renewed rush of hospital trains filled to overflowing; the harvest
of a fresh German onslaught.  But by this time there were more cars
and more stretcher-bearers.  Ambulance trains, splendidly equipped,
were being hurried out from England; and the customs sheds at the
station had become a great shelter, roughly partitioned into
dressing-stations for those who had need of immediate care.  From
this seed of voluntary effort there sprung up, in time, a big
stationary hospital, but by then the Forsyth-Macnair car was needed
elsewhere.

Meantime, in every effort to minimise the sufferings of the men he
served, Keith was actively to the fore.  He even talked of running a
second car.  Helen herself was amazed at his energy and
versatility--he whom she had hitherto regarded as a man wedded
entirely to books and thought.  But among all the surprises of a war
rich in surprise, good and evil, were none more remarkable than such
unlooked-for revelations of human capacity and character.

Still no sign of Mark, though there were many discoveries, sad and
glad, on that ever-crowded platform: and one morning, on a day they
did not soon forget, Sheila made a find on her own account that
concerned them all more nearly than they knew.

It was a brilliant morning.  Scarcely a cloud in the sky or a ripple
on the sea; and they reached the station early to find a train had
arrived before daylight.  Stretcher cases had been left undisturbed;
but those who could walk were strolling or limping up and down in the
sun.  Others, more seriously damaged, lay about in groups on the
ground or propped against bales of goods; great gaunt Highlanders,
Gunners and Guardsmen, Indians and Canadians--their coats, boots, and
puttees caked with the mud of Flanders; heads and limbs swathed in
bandages bright with blood; rough jokes on their lips; a ready gleam
of laughter in their tired eyes.  And the sun beat down upon them
all; and the last of the flies gave them no peace.

It was a sight to contract the heart in pity and to lift it in pride
of common human manhood that could so smilingly suffer and endure.

There must have been seven hundred of them, all told.  To dress their
wounds and remove them would be an arduous day's work; and only by
very special efforts could they be fed.  Red Cross and V.A.D. ladies
hurried to and fro with food and hot drinks and words of welcome,
hardly less acceptable.

Keith went off, at once, to help with the stretchers; and for a space
the three were separated.  Helen promptly attached herself to a
Highlander whose face was obliterated in bandages, save for his mouth
and one eye: and very soon Sheila came hurrying up to them, two spots
of colour in her pale cheeks.

"Mums, _who_ d'you think I've found?--No, not Mark," she added
quickly.  "It's my very 'poor thing,' Mr. Seldon, of all people on
earth.  I knew he'd taken up motor cycling keenly; but I didn't dream
he'd volunteer for despatch riding.  Just shows you can never label
people off-hand.  It seems he had furlough due and wanted to be
useful; so he's been running to and fro, in this awful fighting, and
had his right leg smashed for a reward.  When your Kiltie's had his
breakfast, do come and be introduced."

The Kiltie's one eye beamed at the familiar allusion from so engaging
a morsel of girlhood; and he nearly choked himself in a gallant
effort to empty his steaming cup of coffee at a gulp.  But Sheila
noticed nothing.  She was engrossed in her regenerate "poor thing":
rather more so than Lady Forsyth quite approved.

She, herself, found him not unattractive; dark as a gypsy, with
thoughtful eyes that followed Sheila wherever she moved.

"That _you_ should have found me!  The most amazing luck!" he kept
repeating, at intervals, apparently taking it for granted that Lady
Forsyth understood the situation.

And, indeed, Helen caught herself wondering was it out of pure
consideration for him that the girl chiefly confined her
ministrations to men in his neighbourhood?  She even came back to ask
for details of the culminating adventure that had possibly cost him a
leg.

"There's just a shred of hope they may save it," he added
philosophically.  "And I'm hanging on to that.  Anyway it's not
likely now, I'd be quarrelling with my fate!  I told you I was coming
over.  Didn't you get my letter?"

"No.  It'll probably follow me here.  Now--I mustn't stay talking.
Shall I ask Mr. Macnair to get you for our car?"

"Do; angel of mercy!"

Snatches, in this vein, Helen overheard as she came and went upon her
own errands and her swift brain sprang half-way to meet possible
developments not entirely to her liking.  Still--she was sorry for
the man and glad when Keith secured him as a passenger.

They left him finally at the hospital where Mona was beginning to
earn distinction; and Sheila promised to look him up later.  Then
back they rattled again to that eternally familiar Gare.

This time they lighted on Maurice Lenox--not wounded, but shivering
with fever, his nerves all ajar from sleeplessness and shell fire.
The hope that he might give them news of Mark was soon extinguished.
Maurice had run across him earlier in the day, and had since heard
great things of his capacity and courage; but where the regiment was
at present he had not the ghost of an idea.

Maurice himself was a rather damaged edition of the lively clever boy
they had known at Inveraig.  He declared that the horrors of war
"made in Germany" exceeded the wildest cinematographs in his brain.
He had only been "forward" three times for training purposes; but
every time "the luck" had been against him.  He thanked his stars he
had got out of it alive; and had not the remotest desire to go back.

After her talk with him, Helen wilted visibly; and by the end of
their strenuous morning she looked so white and strained that Keith
prescribed an afternoon of complete rest.  The station work was too
urgent for Sheila and himself to cry off altogether; but they would
come back early and cheer her loneliness.

Helen accepted her fate the more readily because, from the moment of
waking, her spirit had been shadowed by a too-familiar sensation.
Some large event was hovering near.  For this reason she felt
reluctant to leave the Hotel; and when the waiter brought in her
tea-tray with two envelopes on it, she did not even need to look at
the writing.  Her instincts--as Mark had once said--were infallible.

The second letter was from his Colonel; but that could wait.

Page on close written page she scanned, while absently sipping her
tea; till her heart brimmed over afresh with love and pride; and
gratitude that, in spite of all, she had him still.  She could not
help contrasting the tone of his letter with the talk of Maurice that
morning.  No insistence, here, on horrors, or on hell fire; no easy
optimism, either, as regards the gigantic task in hand.

"Every day makes it clearer," he wrote, "that we've a thundering hard
job before us and that our line round here is dangerously thin.
Officers and men are about equally exhausted by the long strain and
insufficient reliefs; and enemy movements all suggest that they're
cheerfully reckoning to extinguish us in time for Christmas in Town.
Bless their innocent hearts!  They've yet to reckon with Tommy's
talent for hanging on with his back teeth, even when a good few of
them have been extracted!

"Mums, he's simply a human miracle; and we're all head over ears in
pride of him, though we don't let on to any great extent.  We've had
a welcome breather in billets the last three days.  But there are big
doings on; and I expect we'll soon go forward again.  Look out for a
field PC and be of good heart till you get one.  'Who dies if England
lives?'  That's the only sane way to look at it.

"Just had three ripping letters from you and Sheila and Bel.  It does
a man's heart good, in the midst of all this, to get such delicious
whiffs of home.  You sound a shade anxious.  But fretting's waste of
strength, little Mums, and your Highland laddie's going strong.  The
C.O.'s a mighty man of valour.  Talks of making me Adjutant when
Collins takes up his staff job; all for love of you, I'll swear!
And--talking of love, I've one word for your very private ear.  If
old Keith should suddenly startle you by an offer of marriage, don't
say 'No' if you can help it.  Mind, I'm not sure if he will.  But
I've reason to suppose he may.  What matter, after all, the
difference in years--you that, at fifty, can still behave like a
child of ten!"

Helen read and re-read those amazing words in a very mixed frame of
mind.  An offer of marriage--!  Mark's imagination was running away
with him.  More than once of late she had wondered if Keith cared for
Sheila.  But herself--!  Impossible.  Undeniably it warmed her heart,
true lover of love that she was: yet Keith was right.  She could
still, at times, feel that Other so near her, in spirit, as to make
the idea of a second husband seem little short of sacrilege.

Dropping Mark's letter in her lap, she covered her face.
"Richard--Richard!" she whispered, and yielded herself to the vague
yet intimate sense of his presence, that gradually enfolded her and
as gradually faded, leaving her doubly alone.

By way of banishing ghosts she opened the Colonel's letter and read,
with uplifted heart, his sincere and soldierly praise of her son whom
he hoped very soon to secure for his Adjutant.  The first moment it
was possible, he added, Mark should have a few days' leave.  No man
in the battalion had earned a better right to it.  Moreover, in the
recent fighting, he had shown such conspicuous gallantry that his
name was to be sent up for a decoration.

Such news made royal atonement for anxiety; and she was still reading
when there came a knock at the door.

"Entrez!" she said casually, supposing the man had come for her
tea-things.  Then she found that he was holding a salver towards her;
and on the salver lay a telegram.

At sight of it all the wheels of her being stopped dead.  Everything
seemed slipping away from her.  Mechanically, she took the envelope
and rose to her feet.

The waiter, too often a messenger of sorrow, vanished swiftly: and
Helen Forsyth stood alone reading, with dazed iteration, the bald
announcement that the War Office regretted to report her son
Lieutenant Sir Mark Stuart Forsyth "Wounded and Missing, believed
killed."

Her immobility was the measure of her anguish; and the shock was the
greater coming at a moment when his voice had almost sounded in her
ears.

Still mechanically, she picked up that precious letter and, for the
first time, looked at the date.  It was a week old.

Life without Mark----!

She pressed a hand across her tearless eyes: and while she stood so,
the door opened again.  She started violently.  A crazy hope of
reprieve flashed through her brain.  But it was only Keith.

The paper she held and the look in her eyes enlightened him: and
before he could master his voice, she had recovered hers.

"Keith--it's _come_!" she cried holding out the telegram.  "God help
us!"

A sudden faintness overwhelmed her, and she put both hands to her
head.  Keith saw her sway just perceptibly; and without an instant's
hesitation he put an arm round her shoulders.

"Helen--my dear," was all he could say, as she leaned limply against
him, shaken with sharp, tearless sobs.

Once, in despair at the sheer impotence of speech, he laid his hand
on her head; a moment--no more.  Then very gently he led her to the
sofa, and she lay there, her rebel spirit broken by this last and
cruelest blow.

He picked up the telegram; re-read it, and put it on the mantelpiece.
Its work was not yet done.  The news would hit Sheila hard.  And Miss
Alison.  Had Helen thought of that?

She was thinking of it now.

"Keith," she sat upright, her eyes tearless still.  "I've just
remembered--poor Bel!  Shall we wire or write?"

"A letter would be more merciful," he said.

"Very well.  I don't know how to write it.  But I'll try."  She sat
silent, gazing at a photograph of Mark in uniform.  Then: "Keith--he
_is alive_.  I am sure of it," she said slowly in a voice of
impressive quietness and conviction.  "While I was lying there
something--Someone told me.  If he were not, he would have come to
me, as Derek came.  With all three of them, I had the warning.  So,
unless he does come, I shall cling to my conviction."

"Yes:--cling to it," he said.  "You've always seen true.  Meantime,
I'll take the car to the Front and not cease from searching, till I
find him or some trace of him.  You two must go home at once."

"_Home_--?" She shivered.

"Have faith--and patience," he said gently.  "Throw all your energy
into some sort of work less painful than the work here."

"But Sheila will hate leaving it.  Her whole heart is given to the
wounded."

"A very large part of it is given to you.  And now--you are one of
them; one of the wounded in spirit, whose names appear in no casualty
lists."

At last, to his relief, he saw tears in her eyes.  She brushed them
away and rose to her feet.

"I must try and write to Bel.  And oh--there were letters from him
and the Colonel.  You must read them----"

Suddenly she remembered--and went hot all over at thought of how he
had held her while she was immersed in grief.  Dexterously
abstracting Mark's last sheet, she handed him the rest and went back
to the escritoire.

For a while Keith sat watching her, love and pain and pity contending
in his heart.  Then he opened the letters.  It was the first time she
had given him one of Mark's to read.

Hers to Bel scarcely filled a sheet.  But it took a long time to
write; and before it was finished, Sheila came in, visibly refreshed
by an hour's talk with Mona and Seldon, who was not to lose his leg.

Hearing her step, Lady Forsyth put down her pen and covered her face.

Keith, feeling like an executioner, again took up the telegram that
was propped against a vase; and involuntarily Sheila put up a hand as
if he had struck her.

"So soon?" she breathed, looking beyond him at Helen's bowed head.

"Not the worst--yet," Keith answered handing her the paper.

She took in the contents at a glance; and for a long minute she stood
gazing at it; lifeless as a statue; white to the lips, their first
tremor resolutely stilled.

Presently she came back, as it were, from a long way off.  "We can
still hope--and pray," she said just above her breath.

Then, turning from him, she hurried over to Helen; and Keith went
out, leaving them together----


Next morning there were hasty preparations to catch the midday boat.
Keith's idea had been to cross with them and see them safe on English
ground: but in the end there was no resisting Helen's urgent plea
that he would not waste so many precious hours on them.

She promised him a telegram from Dover, and another from Wynchcombe
Friars.  Then, Helen-like, when it came to the actual pang of
parting, she impulsively clutched his arm.

"Oh--_take care_ of yourself," she said with smothered intensity.
"Both of you gone: and we alone--waiting----"

"For the fulfilment of your conviction," he reminded her.  "Be sure
_I_ shall not rest till I have found him."

"Do you suppose I doubt that?" she asked, a new tenderness in her
eyes.

But even to him she could not speak her inmost fear--"What if Mark
were wounded and in German hands?"




CHAPTER VII

  "Your hearts are lifted up; your hearts
    That have foreknown the utter price;
  Your hearts burn upward, as a flame
    Of splendour and of sacrifice,"
                  _To Women_--LAWRENCE BINYON.


Wynchcombe Friars again--with the spirit of Mark haunting them in
every room and at every turn of the grounds.  Most intolerable were
the little intimate things that conjured up his presence, the very
tone of his voice: and--to crown all, there was Bobs.  His ecstatic
greeting, the sobbing squeals of joy that Mark so loved to hear; his
rush beyond them, obviously in search of his master; shook the
foundations of their fortitude.  Not until now did Helen discover how
much virtue had gone out of her: and the reaction, while it lasted,
was a nightmare of which she afterwards felt heartily ashamed.

Sheila, thankful to be alone with her at such a time, quietly took
the reins of government into her small, capable hands.  On the day
after their arrival she put Lady Forsyth to bed and practically kept
her there for a week, soothing and stimulating, with massage, the
nerves of her head and her spirit.

She had the peculiar love of the born healer for all things hurt or
unhappy; and the reserve force in her, detected by Keith, had kept
the poise of her spirit unshaken through all.  But the hovering
shadow of a smile no longer haunted her lips.  She had learnt, by
aspiration rather than petition, to draw freely upon the one
unlimited Source of Strength; and young as she was, the older woman
grew to rely upon her utterly during those days when the light within
her was darkness.

Mercifully they found no strangers in the house; and Sir Richard's
sisters promptly discovered plausible excuses for going home.  Helen
was evidently in good hands; and in no mood for any other company.
So for a while they two had their shrine of sacred memories to
themselves; and Lady Forsyth who had supposed she knew her Sheila
through and through, began to feel as if she had never really known
her--till now.  Such still, strong natures are slow studies always.
In the ordinary way of life, they seldom sparkle or allure.  It needs
the high demand to call forth the hidden elements that make them the
salt of the earth.  And now, in response to that high demand, the
true Sheila shone out like a star in darkness.

Alone with her and the healing influences of home, Helen's courage
revived apace; and with it her natural tendency to merge the personal
in the larger view.

All over England, all over Europe, suspense or suffering, in some
form, had become a paramount law of life.  It was the price of
patriotism.  Men paid it with their blood and their mutilated bodies:
women with their tears and mutilated lives.  One in suffering, they
had the more need, all of them, to be one in courage.  And Mark
himself had willed to give everything, without reserve, without
regret.  Bitter repining on her part were simple disloyalty to him:
and there remained the saving mercy that her sorrow was tinged with
hope.

There came a morning when she felt able to speak of these things to
Sheila; even to tell her in detail of that talk in her turret-room;
and their tacit, mutual resolve not to fail him in this last and
hardest test of loyalty linked them closer than ever----


So far no word from Bel; and Lady Forsyth felt anxious, a little.
Deep and real fellow-feeling had wakened her first genuine impulse of
affection towards the girl.  She had written almost as to a daughter.
And on this very morning of her talk with Sheila, Bel's answer
came:--heart-broken, purged of affectation, yet emphasising, in every
line, her complete divergence of feeling and point of view.

"You will wonder, dear, why I haven't written sooner, but I'm an
arrant coward inside, and I simply couldn't face putting the cold
truth on paper.  Your sweet letter, written while the shock was fresh
upon you, was a heroic thing.  One sees where Mark got his courage.
If he'd only had a little less of it--he might be with us still.  You
will disapprove of that 'If.'  But I'm too utterly crushed to invent
correct sentiments.  I can only put my own down anyhow, even if
they're all wrong.  Sweet of you to tell me of your private
conviction.  I hope to Heaven it may be true: but I have no
sustaining faith to keep me going.  Myself, I had a horrid feeling,
that last night, that it was--the end.  It's dear of you to say I can
come when I like.  But just now, having to work keeps one from
collapse and I am sure you two are happier together.  Later
on--perhaps.  Harry is an angel to me.  But I'm not pleasant company
these days.  Nothing interests me now and I hate this abominable war
worse than ever.  If you hear any news, please wire.  I got a letter
from him--after yours.  And it smashed me up.  That's partly why I
didn't write.  Love to you and Sheila

  from your desperately unhappy,
                              BEL."


Lady Forsyth handed the letter to Sheila.  It was blotted at the end,
where tears had dropped.

"Poor child!  She cares more than I gave her credit for.--I wonder,"
she added, half to herself, "what he would think of that letter?"

Sheila bit her lip and was silent, and they fell to discussing Lady
Forsyth's latest scheme--country Cottage Homes for Children Orphaned
by the War.


That morning proved a turning-point in their new, shadowed life.  On
all sides there was work crying out to be done.  They had no right
any longer to shut themselves up with their sorrow.

"If we believe he will come back, we must live up to our faith," Lady
Forsyth said simply: and they did so, to the best of their power.
Keith wrote every few days, just to keep in touch with them and
report his movements.  There was nothing else to report--as yet.

Among countless notes of sympathy and hope, and of admiration for
Mark was none more uplifting to the mother's heart than the sincere
and simple tribute of Colonel Munro.


"To the Regiment and to me personally," he wrote, "the loss is so
great that although the worst is reported, we cannot give up hope.
Neither will you, I feel sure, for many weeks to come.  Forsyth's
presence among us was an inspiration.  It is not often in these
dead-level days that one meets with a man who seems a natural-born
king.  Without exaggeration, that was how we felt about him.
Unfortunately, those of his company who were with him last are also
missing; but I feel convinced we shall hear of them all yet.  I have
named and described the men to Mr. Macnair, who writes that he is
instituting a search on his own account.  Good luck to him: and to
you--the very best that heart can wish.  Yours ever,

R. MUNRO."


Sheila shared that letter, and every other, even as she shared the
difficult task of answering them all.  In this respect, at least, she
was grateful to Bel who had tacitly relinquished the sad, high
privilege that was hers by right.

The cottage scheme involved much correspondence and occasional
journeys to London: and it was then that they began to realise more
acutely the contrast between the "War drama" as visualised by an
island people, and the stern, yet stimulating actuality, just across
the Channel.

There, even at the Base, the atmosphere was electrical with the
spirit of the Front, with the enthusiasm and passion of a great
imaginative race, for whom invasion was no "bogey" but a bloody and
devastating fact.  Here, the great unseen thing was frankly a
sensation fitfully discerned through the fog of censored despatches;
analysed, with bewildering brilliance, by literary strategists; and
distorted by visionaries, who extolled "the war against War," and
feverishly planned a new heaven on earth.

Happily for them, the real issues hung upon the vigil and the valour
of a negligible minority who were only concerned to beat the Germans,
and to make good, with their lives, the State's miscalculations and
delays.

But the very advantages of the islander are a part of his many
disabilities.  Not only did realisation come slowly to England: but
it came too often in the wrong guise.  In London, the newspaper craze
became a form of dram-drinking.  Everything that could be said about
the great obsession was repeated over and over, in every conceivable
tone of voice: till a bewildered public began to wonder whether
politicians believed in their high-sounding generalities or
journalists in their inspired leaders.

Though social life had practically ceased, the pavements of the City
were still thronged with men of military age, quite convinced, by the
tone of certain journals, that their services were not urgently
needed elsewhere; that the War would probably be over by Christmas;
certainly by Easter.  And, after all, were they not doing good work,
necessary work, on the spot?

Lady Forsyth herself had reason to feel grateful, often, for the
steadying effect of contact with the real thing--even the fringe of
it: and her native sensibility to atmosphere made her feel, more
keenly than most, the clash of contrast between the often unwholesome
ferment of London and the immovable phlegm of the countryside.
Coming home, tired in body and spirit, after a long day's work in
Town, she would be beset by distracting doubts as to how this great
and casual country of hers would emerge from the searching test of
war.

It was then that Sheila, quick to read her mood, would slip behind
her, unloose her hair, and with skilful finger-tips, magically pluck
out weariness and doubts alike, till Lady Forsyth would catch at her
hands and kiss them.

"Sheila, that's not mere massage.  You seem to reach one's very soul."

And the girl stood smiling down upon her like a young goddess radiant
with conscious power.

"That's because I'm loving you hard all the time," she said.  "It's a
heavenly gift.  I used to feel--such a dumb thing.  Now I can give it
all out through my fingers, I feel free.  And--Dearest," she added
gravely, "you mustn't get disheartened because London, on the
surface, seems unspeakable.  The unspeakables are always on the
surface.  Underneath, there are hundreds of real workers and silent
sufferers, doing and bearing things without trumpets or banners.  And
aren't our sailors and soldiers miracles to praise God for?  Surely
such leaven as that must end in leavening the whole lump----"

"You're a miracle to praise God for," Lady Forsyth began; but her lip
trembled and she was silent.

Then Sheila, in her protecting mother-fashion, drew the older woman's
head close to her breast.  "Nearly three weeks now," she whispered.
"We _must_ hear something soon."

Lady Forsyth shivered; but Sheila went resolutely on: "London wears
you out, Mums, body and soul.  Let's give it up for a little.
There's plenty of work on the spot.  It will hearten up Mark's people
to see more of you.  They must be anxious too, in their own way."

They were: and it was the very reflection of her own anxiety, the
hovering question on every face, that at first made this paramount
duty a very real ordeal.  But it was Mark's work; and his mother
found it by no means devoid of compensation.  It drew them all closer
together; it threw fresh light on Mark's individual fashion of
upholding the aristocratic ideal among a free people; and it steadily
strengthened her own conviction that there, where human nature is
still untainted by industrialism, lies the true hope of England's
future.  She was sustained, also, by a private resolve that when Mark
returned he should find, within the boundaries of his own kingdom, a
right spirit towards the War.

Very soon she discovered an ally of equal enthusiasm and wider
experience--Dr. Warburton, Headmaster of High Rough School.  He had
lost no time in getting to the Front, as Chaplain of the Forces,
leaving High Rough in charge of Rex Maitland, to that gentleman's
undisguised satisfaction.  Already the fatal word "indispensable" had
become a mark of distinction more coveted in some quarters than a
decoration.  Warburton, at home for the moment, on business connected
with the school, spent most of his spare time trying to instil the
spirit of the trenches into cottages and country shops, where
impassioned leaders were dismissed as "hot air" and despatches full
of foreign names were only half understood.

As an old friend of the family, he had been among the first admitted
to see Helen, on her return from abroad: and the day after her talk
with Sheila, he turned up at tea-time in the private hope that he
might glean news of Mark.

His leonine head with its shock of grizzled hair, hawk's eyes under
shaggy brows, and a Homeric laugh, gave a general impression of
bigness, belied by his mere inches: but the man's inner stature
corresponded unmistakably with the laugh and the lion's head.

Within a week, now, he would be back in France.  "And high time,
too," he added, thoughtfully sipping his tea.  "I'll miss coming
here.  Otherwise--" he shot out his great moustache--"It's healthier
at the Front in spite of the shells.  The real spirit of England is
in the trenches and on the sea."

As he spoke the door opened and a parlour-maid brought in the
afternoon post.

"Ah--Keith," Lady Forsyth murmured, seizing a thin unstamped envelope
and letting the rest fall into her lap.

Warburton rose, as if to put down his cup, and strolled across to the
window.  Presently a small sound of relief reached him and he turned
quickly about.  "Found him, have they?"

"Not yet," Helen answered with a brave smile.  "But the Sergeant, who
was wounded trying to help him, has made his way back to the Regiment
after hair-breadth adventures.  They're sending him home at once,
Keith says.  He has my address.  He will write.  Then I can go and
see him."  She spoke in short swift sentences, holding emotion in
leash.  Sheila had risen and was standing near the fire, ostensibly
warming her hands.  "He and another soldier managed to drag Mark to a
farm.  He was hit in the head.  Unconscious.  They could do no more.
The Germans began shelling the place: and there they had to leave him
with kind French people.  They weren't even sure--if he was alive.
That's all--so far."  She tried to smile.  "It doesn't lift the fog
much, does it?  But still, just to see this man who was with him----"

"Yes--yes," Warburton's regard held more of admiration than of pity.
"Let me go with you--if the call comes in time," he added, and rather
abruptly took his leave.

That night Lady Forsyth wrote to Bel.  "Come to me for the week-end,
dear," she added, "if you feel you can now, and would care to hear in
detail what little I may have to tell.  With any luck I ought to see
Sergeant Macgregor before Saturday."

And in a very few days the summons came.  It was from Aldershot; and
Sheila decided to go with them.  While they interviewed Macgregor she
would love to make a round of the wards.  For, in secret, she missed
her "poor things" and the work at Boulogne.

It was hard not to hope for impossibilities; but the Sergeant's
rather disjointed tale served neither to justify Helen's obstinate
conviction, nor to dispel her secret fears.  He was a red-headed man,
square and sturdy, just able to hobble.  His nerves were obviously
shaken by all he had been through; and his emotion in speaking of
that particular day made it the harder to restrain her own.  Of the
nature of Mark's wound he could tell her nothing except that there
was blood all over his head and that they had bandaged it roughly--he
and a British Tommy, who contributed his own mud-stained puttee, worn
for weeks.

The mother winced at that.  "Did he know you?" she asked quickly
hoping he had not seen.

"Ah canna rightly tell, ma leddy," was the unsatisfactory reply.  "Ah
kneeled in the mud and ah said: 'Ye ken verra weel who I am, sir?'
An' he smiled crooked-like an' pit up his hand to stroke me cheek
like a bairn.  An' there came a sound in his thrapple.  But niver a
word.  The Lord shield him from the hands o' they Jairman blayguards."

But Helen knew, now, that the tide of war had rolled over the village
where they had left her son: and for the moment hope and courage were
dead within her.


Warburton left for France next day, having promised to look up Keith:
and Bel arrived with Harry to stay over Sunday.  Lady Forsyth had
smiled, not without understanding, at her request that Harry might
"come too."  Even in her sorrow Bel was still a victim to fear of
being bored: and Harry's masculine attitude of worship and service
was more of an asset than she knew.

Lady Forsyth discovered many fresh points in common with Harry; but
the change in Bel, obvious to both, troubled her beyond measure.  Not
merely was her smiling serenity subdued by grief: but it seemed
overlaid with a fine film of hardness from which things painful or
emotional glanced off like arrows from a surface of steel.  She would
neither look at the papers, nor talk of the war.  This fact alone
made conversation difficult; but for Helen this stumbling-block was
as nothing to its inner significance.  The strain and pain of war,
that was steadily softening and enlarging Sheila, appeared to be
having the opposite effect on Bel.  Deliberately she turned her eyes
away from beholding the world's anguish and heroism: deliberately she
hardened her heart against its effect upon herself; so that she
seemed in danger of losing even the surface softness that had been no
small part of her charm.

Plainly, her love for Mark, however sincere, had no alchemic power to
transmute the dross in her to gold.  Would his return, such as he was
now, dissolve that film of hardness?  Or was the girl laying up
further tragedy for herself and others?

Alone with Lady Forsyth, Bel was gentle and affectionate, yet
completely aloof.  She listened to Macgregor's story with set lips
and a fine line between her brows.  Though the mother's voice shook
and tears threatened, Bel's eyes were dry.

"And after that--you can _still_ manage to hope?" was all she said.

"Dear, it is not so much hope with me, as--belief," Lady Forsyth
answered gently, and Bel's sigh had a faint note of exasperation.

"You are amazing," she said.  "And--so like him."  Then with a swift
dramatic gesture, she rose and seemed to fling away her mantle of
composure.  "Oh, this brutal, senseless war!" she cried, her eyes
still hard, her low voice tense with feeling.  "A man like
that--splendid, strong, gifted--smashed up like a bit of matchboard.
And what earthly use has it been to any one--his sacrifice or our
pain?"

The older woman listened to that strange outburst with something very
like relief.  It proved that Bel was not hard all through and it
cried aloud the very thoughts that had visited her own heart in the
small hours when all the wheels run low.

"Bel--Bel!" she remonstrated gently, "that is _the_ question one dare
not ask.  It's hard not to.  No one knows that better than I do.  But
the answer is, if Mark, and others of his quality, had taken that
point of view, where would England be now?"

"Oh England!"  She dismissed her country with a faint shrug.  "Mark
would be here with us, safe and whole.  That's all I know--or care."

Her voice still had its low bitterness; but it shook a little now and
going over to the window she sat awhile looking out upon the wood and
the terrace where she had walked with him in that other life, gone
beyond recall.

Vaguely she heard the door open.  Then a low sound from Lady Forsyth
made her look round sharply.  Helen had risen--her lips were set and
pale.

Bel glanced at the open letter she held out to her.  It was a formal
intimation, garnished with formal regret, that Lieutenant Sir Mark
Forsyth, formerly reported missing, in November, was now officially
reported killed.  The scanty information received in the past three
weeks gave no grounds for supposing otherwise.

"Of course this was bound to come," Helen said mechanically.

But Bel pushed aside the paper and covered her face.

Helen stood silent a moment; then she found courage to repeat her own
conviction.

"Dear, they may report what they please.  Mark _is_ alive.  I know
it."

Bel simply shook her head.

"You don't believe me?"

"No."

"But--you won't go into mourning.  Bel, you mustn't."

"No--no.  I detest mourning."

The muffled voice broke suddenly.  Lady Forsyth put an arm round the
girl's shoulders and Bel leaned against her sobbing like a child.
Then, with a shivering sigh, she released herself and hurried out of
the room.

Lady Forsyth picked up that hateful slip of paper and dropped it into
the fire.  Mark was alive:--nothing could shake her belief in that.
But he was wounded--and in German hands.  Her inmost fear had come
true.




BOOK III

VIA CRUCIS



CHAPTER I

  "Love is swift of foot,
    Love's a man of war,
  And can hit and can shoot
    From far."
                        GEORGE HERBERT.


It was on the first of December that Sir Mark Forsyth was officially
reported killed; and it was upon an evening of early November, on a
battle-scarred road of Northern France, that a certain waggon-load of
dead and wounded men jolted leisurely towards a certain village
lately recaptured by the Prussians.  The open body of the cart was
spacious and full of straw that had once been tolerably clean, but
was now defiled with mud and blood.  It held six men--two French,
three British, and one German.  Two of them were obviously dead,
three were as obviously alive and in cruel pain.  The sixth, who wore
a kilt and a blood-stained puttee wound about his head, lay on his
back, motionless, wide-eyed, watching a bank of grey cloud dissolve
into shredded wisps of gold.  Presently the sun broke through and
smiled upon the aftermath of battle as upon the sheaves of some
peaceful harvest garnered with thanks and praise.

In this unceremonious fashion was Mark removed from the farm where
Macgregor had been forced to leave him--dead, to all appearance, or
at the point of death.

Of how he came to be there, in such woeful company, he knew nothing.
His brain seemed blurred and curiously inert.  He felt no pain, only
a horrid faintness; utter exhaustion from loss of blood.  He would
have given the world for a sip of brandy.  Where was his flask? he
wondered vaguely, but felt too weak to stir a finger.

Above him, beside the driver, sat a little French doctor, talking and
gesticulating vehemently.  He might be of use, Mark reflected with
feeble impatience, if one could only attract his attention.

Summoning all his ebbing strength, he tried to shout.  The sole
result was a horrid choking sensation and an abortive noise in his
throat.

He grew suddenly alarmed.  What did it mean?  And where were they
going?  Had he, possibly, been taken prisoner in spite of himself?

There was none to enlighten him, even could he have spoken; and the
torment of uncertainty remained.  The fact that he suffered no
physical pain was a minor item to be thankful for.  Not altogether a
minor item, perhaps, judging from sounds emitted by the German at the
far end of the cart.  Between groans and broken curses he was calling
impartially on God and his mother.

The last galvanised Mark's brain into momentary life.  What of his
own mother--and Bel?  Would they believe him killed?  How long was it
since his clock of time had stopped dead?  Would it ever be set going
again?  And--what of the fight?

More questions--nothing but questions--unanswered and unanswerable.
They buzzed about him like hornets; and to be rid of them he fell
back on memory.  He recalled a world that rained shells and
shrapnel--a violent, friendly and increasingly muddy world, in which
Allies and enemies were wildly intermingled, till it was cleft from
end to end by long and opposing lines of trenches, with a No Man's
Land of varying width between.  In the No Man's Land things had
happened: things that left a scar on the memory--things a man could
not talk about and, most unhappily, could not forget.  In those early
days reliefs were few and infrequent; and Mark looked back on trench
life as an endless age of strain--nerve and body and imaginative
brain racked to the limit of endurance, and under all a dogged
resolve that there should be no limit of endurance but the arbitrary
limit of death.

Too vividly he remembered those last days, when grey-green battalions
had been hurled against them, wave on wave, till his Highlanders, who
stood like rocks in a storm, had been forced to retire by an urgent
order from those who alone knew when wisdom demanded sacrifice of
ground rather than of men.  Stubbornly, foot by foot, they had fallen
back from their hard-won position.  Then--consternation ... and
confusion.  The battalion on their right seemed to have melted away.

But the enemy allowed them no breathing space for dismay.  They were
in dire peril: and Mark lost not a moment in rallying his men for a
final desperate stand....  Suddenly, in the midst of it, when the
struggle was fiercest, the earth had seemed to collapse under him.
He recalled a horrid sensation of falling backwards, headlong--into
nothingness.

At that point his memory broke off short.  The rest was a meaningless
jumble of sights and sensations like a troubled dream.

He was lying in a turnip-field.  Something had happened to his head.
Blood was flowing freely, but he felt no pain.  In vain he tried to
move.  Weakness flowed over him.  Living and conscious, he lay there
among the dead, listening to the roar of battle that rolled steadily
farther away; fearful exceedingly lest they should bury or burn him;
or, finding him alive, should take him prisoner while this
ignominious helplessness hung like lead upon his limbs.

At times he could hear voices and men passing.  But very soon
darkness fell again; and out of the darkness came a vision of
Macgregor's face.  He remembered trying to speak, and the feel of the
man's rough cheek when he patted it in sign of recognition.  To his
intense relief, he had felt them trying to move him.  What had come
of it?  Where were they now?

The questions were at him afresh and the haunting thought of his
mother.  Once more he summoned all his strength in an effort to reach
her mentally.  He had succeeded in doing so on more than one
occasion.  But now, the attempt was lunacy.  It simply exhausted his
last remnant of strength, and once more he slipped back into the
outer dark....


By some miracle, his resolute spirit hung on to the thread of life
that remained; and when next it struggled up from the bottomless pit,
the cart and the jolting and the smell of blood had vanished like all
the other dreams.  He was lying on a bed.  He could feel the blanket
against his chin.  The air he breathed was faintly impregnated with
antiseptics and the scent of clean straw.

As his brain cleared, he heard women's voices murmuring rhythmically
in a foreign tongue.  Too weak and weary to stir, he lay awhile
steeped in contentment, till that rhythmical murmur resolved itself
into Latin prayers.  French nuns, good souls, must be praying by his
bed.

Next moment, the chill trickle of water on his face made him start
and open his eyes.  One of the nuns was bending over him.

"Our Lady be praised," she said softly.  "The spirit has returned.
Monsieur will drink this, and strength will also return."

She held a cup to his lips; warm milk dashed with brandy--pure
nectar!  It seemed to set life stirring in his veins, even as the
woman's face set some vague memory stirring in his mind.  The breadth
of brow and cheek-bones, the mouth, with its resolute softness and
the deep dent above the chin, struck a note of dim familiarity; but
he felt far too lazy and comfortable to search for a clue.

The barn-like room in which he found himself was no hospital, but a
rough makeshift.  There were but half a dozen beds like his own.  The
remaining sufferers lay on straw pallets; and the little French
doctor, whose profile he recognised, appeared to be in charge.  That
fact, and the presence of nuns made him hopeful of being in the right
hands.  If only he could ask!  But the curse of dumbness was on him
still; and a fear that it might be permanent chilled the flow of
returning life.

The other nuns had risen and moved away.  She whom they called
Sœur Colette stood smiling down on him.

"Ça va bien," she said.  "Monsieur comprend?"

He made a sign of assent, then with his left hand and eyebrow, tried
to convey the question he could not ask.  Her face lit up.

"Le bon Dieu soit bénit.  Monsieur desires a little conversation.  As
much as one can, I will relate."

Serene and smiling, she sat beside him on a low stool.  It was purely
refreshing to hear a woman's voice again.

"M. le docteur," she told him, "a saint of God with a rough tongue,
gathered up many dead and wounded from the terrible battle, more than
a week ago, and brought them here to the Red Cross Hospital, then in
the hands of my people.  Now--Mary Mother, pity us!--it is once more
taken by the Prussians.  The hospital is seized for themselves, and
M. le docteur is graciously permitted to use this ruined farm.
Those, alas, who recover become prisoners of war.  Monsieur himself
on arriving was as one dead; and, next evening, we of the Sisterhood
must pray for the souls of the departed.  But I, who came to kneel
near Monsieur, said: 'This, surely, is not death.'  While others
summoned M. le docteur, myself I found, by the mercy of God, one
pulse, so small, so feeble, there in the neck of Monsieur.  Imaginez!"

Mark smiled his crooked smile and lifted his eyebrows.  He found it
hard to believe in her fairy tale.  But, if it were true, this woman,
with the beautiful familiar face, had evidently been his good angel.

She was explaining to him now the nature of his wound, and how
splinters of bone pressing on the brain made him powerless to speak
or move.  These the little doctor had partially lifted.  But the
complete operation was a delicate one; and he would prefer to wait
awhile, in hopes that the tide of battle should roll eastward again.

"It might be well for Monsieur, then, to seem as one dead," Sœur
Colette explained, with a flicker of humour in her great dark eyes.
"They would not think him worth the trouble to remove; and in Paris
all is possible."

Mark had need of the utmost consolation he could extract from that
thought.  For, as strength returned, impatience returned also, and
his imprisoned spirit girded at the hampering hulk of a body over
which it had lost command--for how long?

Questions again!  He grew to hate them heartily.  Wherever he turned
for relief, there one or more would spring up to confound him; and at
moments of supreme exasperation, his brain seemed alive with notes of
interrogation, seeking answers and finding none.  More than once he
vowed mentally that if he regained the power of speech, he would
never again ask a question while he lived.


And he suffered more than exasperation during those interminable
November days.  The very inactivity of his body seemed to induce a
restless activity of mind.  Fleeting inspirations mocked him:
wonderful, impossible ideas for bas-reliefs and great symbolic
figures.  Strange moods swept through him and strange unreasoning
fears.  There were visions also--and dreams: visions of things he
would have given years of life to forget; dreams from which he awoke
in a cold sweat, so shaken that he would lie staring at the darkness,
positively afraid to close his eyes.

Very often the dreams were nightmare distortions of realities.  These
had a horrid knack of recurring at intervals; and the one most
dreaded by Mark concerned a minor incident of No Man's Land that had
been permanently photographed on his brain.

Always it began at the same point: dusk, illumined fitfully by
searchlights and bursting shells; the silhouetted figure of a Sapper
subaltern walking coolly into the open with his coil of wire; then
the scream of a bursting shell--and there, where the boy had stood,
was a mound of earth and debris at a crater's rim.

Later on, the moon revealed something that moved fitfully near the
edge of the mound.  It was the leg of that Sapper subaltern--buried
alive.  Under heavy and persistent enemy fire, any attempt at rescue
would have been madness; and Mark, digging and carrying all that
night, had prayed that a second shell might put the boy out of his
misery.  But in the morning the leg still moved, and continued to
move at intervals all day; till Mark, fresh to such horrors, could
endure it no more.

That night, when the firing slackened a little, another figure, armed
with a spade, had crept over the parapet and walked coolly out into
the open.

And again, just as it reached the mound, a shell screamed and the
earth yawned--and when Mark recovered consciousness, he was lying on
his face a good many yards nearer his own trenches, himself half
buried in the debris of that other mound, which was now no more.  He
thanked God the boy was dead; but the memory of that twenty-four
hours had haunted him for weeks; and now with pitiless persistence it
haunted his dreams.

The fact that he could neither speak nor shake off mental obsessions
by a rousing walk, aggravated their tyranny over him; and there were
times when it crazed him, almost, to lie there, like a felled tree,
powerless even to ask how he could let his dear ones know he was
alive.

One morning, in such a mood, he tried to convey by gesture this
question that so troubled him; and, to his delight, Sœur Colette
understood almost at once.  No, Monsieur could neither send nor
receive letters until the good day when "les poilus" or "les Tommies"
came to their rescue.  And Monsieur had lost his talisman.

Mark's left hand went quickly to his throat.  It was true.  The
precious silver disc and silver chain were gone.  He glanced at his
wrist.  No leather-coated watch--his mother's gift.  Filled with
sudden, acute dismay, he went through the dumb show of feeling in
coat-pockets.

Again Sœur Colette understood and shook her head.  There was
nothing in Monsieur's coat--nothing at all.  Monsieur le docteur
could discover neither his name nor his regiment.  In proof of her
statement, she brought him the coat.  It was rifled very completely.
His flask, his gold pencil--Sheila's present--his letter-case and
letters--all gone.  The very buttons and badges had been neatly
removed; a finishing touch that suggested the gentle German.

And Mark lay there realising that, unless and until he recovered his
speech, he was lost, absolutely--even his identity gone.

He was not merely a log, but a nameless log.  He chafed at the
ignominy of it, as a man in sore straits will chafe at a trifle, yet
endure the worst with fortitude.

Suddenly, with vast relief, he remembered his brogues.  If only he
could tell Sœur Colette to look inside them!

But the attempt produced such wild and ludicrous misunderstandings
that the little nun grew embarrassed and Mark gave it up in despair.
Perhaps his brogues had also been stolen by the Germans.  After all,
his precious name was no earthly use to him at present, and the
future was a blank.


In this monotonous fashion the first weeks of November ebbed away.
On the whole they were left in peace, except for periodical
incursions of a rough-mannered German officer with aggressive
moustaches, a high narrow forehead, and unmistakable Prussian eyes.

It was his joke, when in a humorous mood, to bid the fierce little
doctor hurry up with his contributions for the nearest prison camp in
the Fatherland.  More than once he infuriated Mark by alluding to him
as "that English swine."  But it was the thinly-veiled insolence of
the man's manner to Sœur Colette that made him long most
vehemently for command of his hands and tongue.  Happily for himself,
and for those who loved him, he could do no more than glare and
clench a hidden fist.

On one occasion it chanced that Captain Adler encountered the flame
of impotent wrath in his eyes, and the sight appeared to tickle his
Teutonic sense of humour.  With deliberate relish and a sneering
smile he looked Mark over from head to foot, then turned to the
doctor who stood near, inwardly nervous, outwardly fiercer than ever.

"Doubtless the hoch wohlgeboren a without-fear-or-reproach knight
is," he remarked, with a contemptuous jerk of his thumb.  "But never
again will he for the fair-and-distressed lady of his admiration one
blow of revenge strike."

Mark could only set his teeth.  Sœur Colette, who knew a little
German, bent very low over the young Frenchman she was feeding; and
the Prussian, chuckling audibly, swung out of the barn.

That afternoon there came a lull in the unceasing rain and wind.  The
sky cleared and the sun shone out with a divine effulgence upon all
the ruin and tragedy wrought by man.

Since Mark's arrival there had been only one such golden interval.
It had lasted several days, and he had succeeded in conveying his
great wish to be out in the open.  So to-day the little doctor and
his orderly carried him, bed and all, into the homely garden.

There, storm-draggled chrysanthemums made patches of colour.  Stray
leaves of Virginia creeper flamed on the walls; and the farmhouse
itself gaped roofless to the indifferent heavens.  A dovecot,
battered and empty of doves, leaned drunkenly against the barn that
was their hospital.  The poplars behind it, etched delicately upon
the blue, had been stripped, in this terrible autumn, of branches as
well as leaves; and the fields beyond were pock-marked by shell fire.
Yet peasant women still patiently tended the wounded earth and its
products.

Some way off, on rising ground, stood the feudal chateau--what
remained of it: headless turrets, gables shattered and distorted;
windows, like empty eye-sockets, mere gaping holes.  And the garden,
beneath, sloping downward to the river, was a chaos of trampled
shrubberies and twisted iron.

Mark, in his utter loneliness, cut off from letters and activity and
the companionable gift of speech, could, at least, thank God for the
"silver streak" and the grey battleships that preserved his own most
sacred treasures from a like fate.  But thought of those treasures so
tormented him and roused such a buzzing swarm of questions, that he
refrained--as far as possible--from futile excursions into the future
or the past; and he began to grow impatient for the advent of Sœur
Colette with his chocolate.

He accepted, without after-thought, the fact that it was always she
who attended him and entertained him; nor was he disposed to quarrel
with the arrangement.  He had discovered by this time why she created
about him an atmosphere of home and of assurance that all was well.
Dreaming one night of Sheila, he had waked in the morning to find
Sœur Colette standing by his bed; and the haunting sense of
familiarity was a puzzle no longer.

For a moment Mark had fancied he must still be dreaming.  Then the
nun spoke and the illusion vanished.  But the charm remained; a charm
that carried him back to early days before Bel's disturbing witchery
had changed the complexion of life.  In his isolation and bitter
uncertainty, he surrendered himself, instinctively, to this blessed
illusion of home.  It was his one real solace throughout those grey,
interminable weeks.

What their one-sided talks and increasing friendliness might mean to
Sœur Colette he neither knew, nor sought to know.  As a nun, he
deemed her sacred, a being set apart.  He was apt to forget--as the
insolent Adler never forgot--that a nun is nevertheless a woman.  But
to-day, as the minutes lagged past and she did not appear, there
stirred in him an emotion other than mere impatience--an emotion
belonging to that virile world where a man could walk and talk and
fight and hold a woman in his arms.

He checked himself sharply.  That would never do.  It was almost as
if, through this unknown Frenchwoman, the spirit of Sheila were
drawing him back to his old allegiance that, in those July days
before the deluge, had been on the verge--he knew it now--of
blossoming into a strong and deep love.  And she--?  Had she,
possibly, begun to care?  But that also, would never do.  He had
chosen; or, to be more accurate, Bel had chosen and he had succumbed.

He surveyed his great prostrate figure almost with disgust.  Would
Bel, as revealed in her recent letters, have any use for a lover who
could neither pay her compliments nor take her in his arms?  Strange
how, in these few weeks, she seemed to have slipped away from him.
Even her face eluded his memory.  It was the face and form of his
virile little mother that was most constantly with him in these days.

Now, deliberately, he called up a vision of an earlier Bel--unknown,
irresistible, ardently desired--sitting on a rock beside the burn
awaiting his avowal, while he fondly believed her dreaming her own
dreams.  This time memory played him no tricks; and the very
vividness of the scene intensified his dawning perception of a
change, gradual, indefinable, that had crept into their relation
since war wrenched them apart.  Her first letters, he remembered, had
bothered him; and he had found the same lack, the same touch of
artificiality in those that had followed him to France.  His very
hunger for them had only increased the vague disappointment they so
often produced.  He recalled a remark of hers: "Separations are
rather uncanny things."  Curiously true--in her own case.  While she
was with him, it seemed, she approximated instinctively to the woman
he would have her be.  Without him, she became simply the product of
her unsatisfactory antecedents.

Well, he had lost her letters with the rest of his kit; and on the
whole he was not sorry....

Just as impatience revived afresh, Sœur Colette and the chocolate
appeared at last.

Sight of her recalled the morning's incident and she saw the
recollection in his eyes.

"Monsieur must not so concern himself on my account," she said, after
apologies for the delay.  "If Monsieur could know what one has seen,
what one has passed through unharmed, since they drove us from our
convent!  I have no fear.  I am shielded by Our Lady!"

For a few seconds Mark looked hard at her.  Then, to her amazement,
he blurted out two words, the first he had uttered for a month.
"Tell me," he said.  His voice sounded strange; but he had produced
the right words, and he saw his own exultation repeated in her eyes.

"Ah, Monsieur!" she cried.  "It will come at last--the miracle.  We
have prayed without ceasing.  And now--one must obey Monsieur's first
command!  But it is a story too terrible for altogether telling,
Monsieur understands?"

Monsieur understood very well; but he had a great wish to know more
of this sainted woman, who smiled with Sheila's smile and spoke with
her voice.  So in the quiet of that golden afternoon she told
him--sitting on the doctor's camp-stool--of the town in Northern
France that was her home, and of the bombardment that was the
beginning of sorrows; when people lived in their cellars under the
shadow of a greater fear than the fear of death.  For after the
shells came the Uhlans, demanding money and wine and women; above all
wine and more wine, drowning their manhood so that no form of
brutality came amiss.

With the same unimpassioned detachment, she told him of her own
Sisterhood that, in pity, had stayed to help the wounded, and of "la
petite Pauline."  A novice, beautiful and spirited, she had resented
the coarse gallantry of certain German soldiers.  Her contempt had
roused the devil in them.  Embraces not willingly given, must be
taken by force.

"And she--poor innocent--she died in my arms, crazed with terror and
torment.  And they laughed ... those devils!"  She was silent a
moment, looking out over the disfigured landscape.  "Monsieur, there
are things that even the good God Himself can surely never forgive."

Rising abruptly, she left him--haunted, enraged, half wishing he had
not asked for her tale.  Yet these were the very abominations that,
if ever he reached home again, must be remembered, verified, and
mercilessly avenged.  She was right, that small fearless woman: there
were things that God Himself could not forgive.

From that day there came a slight change in Mark's happy relation
with Sœur Colette.  Her likeness to Sheila worried him now, almost
as much as it had charmed him before.  The sense of having
unconsciously slipped away from Bel set him idealising her afresh;
regilding her halo, till she became again almost the Bel of that July
afternoon in the glen, before the shock of her repudiation had
temporarily shaken his faith and love.

Sœur Colette, dimly aware of some jar in their communion, suffered
her own private shock of awakening.  While all went smoothly, she had
suspected nothing.  Now she knew--and shame overwhelmed her.  While
her lips had prayed daily for the victorious return of French or
British soldiers, her heart, dedicated to the Mother of God, had been
secretly dreading the end of this, the one idyll of her saintly life.
And because she shrank from confession of that most human lapse, she
devised for herself certain penances that failed signally to still
the strange new disturbance within.

At last, on a day, the dull thunder she had prayed for reverberated
along the horizon.  By slow degrees it rolled nearer, steadily
nearer, till Mark could distinguish the familiar note of bursting
shells.  Then it was that he began to ask himself--would the Germans
think him worth taking along with them as a prisoner of war?

He hoped they might not even be given time to save their own skins.




CHAPTER II

  "So hard it seems that one must bleed
  Because another needs will bite!
  All round we find cold nature slight
  The feelings of the totter-knee'd."
                                      MEREDITH.


Lady Forsyth sat in her bedroom window-seat, looking out over the
terrace to the restless pine woods tossed and tumbled by the wind.
Masses of grey cloud sagged low above the trees.  Here and there
patches of fragile blue showed fitfully.  Then the sun took courage
and flashed a pale smile from between two scurrying clouds.
Gradually the sky cleared.  The wet flags of the terrace gleamed like
polished steel.  Drenched and dismal trees stood suddenly
transfigured.  Every leaf and twig flaunted a diamond.

"How Mark would love it!" was the mother's instinctive thought: and
closing her eyes a moment she lifted her face to the sun's caress.
The clear light revealed lines that had not been there in August.
She had passed through deep waters, this bereaved woman, who refused
to own herself bereaved: and in some ways the past week had seemed
the longest, the hardest of all.  While Bel mourned her lover as
dead, she, who refused to mourn her son, had been subjected to
requests for photographs and details for obituary notices.  She had
been threatened with a fresh epidemic of condolences; and, finally,
in self-defence, had sent a brief notice to the _Times_, and _Morning
Post_, announcing that Sir Mark Forsyth's family had not yet given up
hope.  Let them denounce her for a fool if they chose!  The flame
within still burned on; tremulous, unquenchable.

When she looked down again, two figures had appeared on the terrace:
Sheila and Mr. Seldon, moving very slowly, deep in talk.  The man was
tall and thin, with a small, aristocratic head.  He could not yet
walk without crutches; but, by a miracle of surgery, the leg had been
saved.  He seemed a homeless creature: parents dead; married sister
in India; and Sheila had begged that he might spend part of his
convalescence at Wynchcombe Friars.

She was quite frankly interested in his new development.  Whether
that interest went deeper, Lady Forsyth found it hard to tell; the
more so, that she felt doubtful how far Sheila had ever let herself
go in respect of Mark.  That she loved him was certain, and natural
enough; but the extent and nature of that love was her own most
hidden secret, kept under lock and key.

Lady Forsyth herself had hoped honestly, for Sheila's sake, that the
girl's heart was not given irrevocably to Mark.  Yet here she was,
with her native inconsistency, resenting the least sign that it might
have strayed elsewhere.  She had the grace to remind herself that
Sheila--by temperament and by her own shy confession--was made for
marriage, for motherhood.  But--it must not be Seldon.  On that point
Helen was unwavering: though, in spite of drawbacks, she liked the
man.  She found him clever, interesting, and annoyingly
self-conscious.  Sheila, it seemed, had complete faith in his
remarkable transmutation.  Helen privately doubted whether it would
outlast the stimulus of the war.  She even suspected him of playing
up to the girl's new view of him in the hope that so he might win her
after all.

Well, Sheila was strong enough and wise enough to work out her own
salvation; but there were moments when Helen was half tempted to wish
that Mr. Seldon had stuck to his desert station and his whisky.

By now the fugitive gleam had brought two more figures into the
garden: Ralph Melrose, with his left arm in a sling, and Mona's young
step-brother, Eldred Laurence: an infant of twenty who had been
through everything from Mons to Ypres.  He limped badly and wore a
bandage over one eye.  Both boys, Helen perceived, had brought back
from their great ordeal an engaging modesty and cheerfulness; a truer
perspective of things in general.  And they were not rare phenomena.
They were average specimens of their kind; standing proofs of the
hard paradox that "the senseless, devilish, bestial thing" called War
had, even in a few months, done more to lift and enlarge the
characters of those who waged it, in a right spirit, than a decade of
material prosperity and peace.

These three convalescents, and one other, represented Helen's
household of the moment.  That other was the Rev. George Wilton,
Wynchmere's new curate.  In an impulse of kindliness--since
regretted--Helen had succumbed to the importunity of Mrs. Clutterbuck
on his behalf.  With a battalion temporarily billeted on the little
town, there were simply no "rooms" to be had; none, at least, that
suited the Rev. Wilton's fastidious taste.  The one Hotel was
over-crowded with officers.  Three subalterns had invaded the
Vicarage and Mrs. Clutterbuck was in a quiver of anxiety over the
possible effect upon her two plain daughters of khaki and frivolous
conversation for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  If "dear Lady
Forsyth" would take pity on Mr. Wilton, it would be an "act of
Christian kindness," and who knew but she might find herself
entertaining an angel unawares!

She had entertained the angel for a week, now, and was only aware of
having stumbled on a specimen of sanctified snobbery, who annoyed her
to exasperation.  Though she numbered among her friends more than one
Scottish Minister, the average English curate had a knack of setting
all her bristles on end: and Mr. Wilton was the average curate--with
aggravations.

"He is what Americans would call a 'bromide,'" she had written to
Keith shortly after his arrival.  "He discovers the obvious with
enthusiasm.  He asks me for the toast or the salt as apologetically
as if he were asking for a five pound note; and he says '_Eg_-zactly'
to every word I utter--almost before it's out!  When I'm in a really
wicked mood, I contradict myself wildly just to test his mental and
moral agility!  I'm convinced I shall catch him out one day, backing
up compulsion, or the right of churchmen to defend their country.
And he's dead against both.  By which you may see that I'm badly
needing the two of you to keep me in order...."

By this time it was four o'clock.  The strollers had gone in for tea:
and as Helen rose to join them, the "angel unawares" came flapping
down the path through the rose-garden, a neatly folded mackintosh and
an unrolled umbrella hanging over his left arm.

There had been a partial movement of troops.  He had been out to "try
his luck": and in that one respect, at least, she was his fervent
well-wisher.

She found them all in the drawing-room and Sheila making tea.

"Couldn't wait for you, Mums," she apologised.  "The kettle was
having a fit!"

The two subalterns rose at her entrance.  But it was Wilton who
secured her favourite chair and pushed it a couple of inches nearer
the table.

"I hope you didn't have your long wet walk in vain?" she said; and he
turned an eloquent eye upon her as he sank back among his cushions.

"I think not.  But even if I had, I cannot pretend I should have
suffered serious disappointment."  His gaze wandered appreciatively
round the firelit room.  "It has been such a pleasure--such a
privilege...  Muffins?  Sandwiches?"

He proffered them with eager empressement; and proceeded to recount,
in minutest detail, the happy chance by which he believed he had at
last secured the good cooking, the south aspect and the unlimited
supply of hot water indispensable to his well-being.

Lady Forsyth, it must be admitted, listened with only one ear.  The
other was attentively following a discussion between Ralph and
Laurence as to the best means of making a sheltered, complacent
people "sit up and begin to take notice of the scrap across the
water."

Laurence was for compulsion; Ralph for a vigorous revival of his
Majesty's Opposition; and Helen was a keen advocate of both.
Skilfully and politely, she slipped away from the vexed question of
curtains and pictures to the more congenial occupation of
reconstructing the Government, and "rounding up" the slackers who
were obviously "waiting to be fetched."

"Nothing short of _that_," she concluded in her emphatic fashion,
"will disturb their casual conviction that England can beat Germany
with one hand tied behind her back."

It was a subject on which she was apt to wax hot, even a trifle
caustic; but never, since Wilton's arrival, had she spoken with such
vehemence as she felt suddenly moved to do by sheer irritation at his
womanish fiddle-faddling.  For a while he listened in mute amazement,
with the bird-like tilt of his head and eyes riveted on her face.
Then, as she paused to empty her cup, he leaned a little towards her.

"But _dear_ Lady Forsyth," he asked in his slowest, silkiest tones,
"how, precisely, would you define that somewhat loose term of
disparagement--a slacker?"

"A self-regarding, spiritual sluggard," she answered him with a
straight look.  "Is that precise enough?  The 'slacker'--so far as I
understand the breed--would rather _not_ see England share the fate
of Belgium; but would very _much_ rather not risk his life or limbs,
to avert the calamity.  At best, he is afflicted with a disease
called 'humanitarianism,' that would have men save their skins at the
cost of everything that makes their skins worth saving.  At worst, he
simply shirks his obvious duty for the sake of his own peace and
comfort."

"Hear, hear!" from the three convalescents and from Wilton a faint
gasp of dismay.

"_Eg_-zactly," he murmured automatically, fingering his remnant of
cake.  "But that sounds ... _just_ a little sweeping; not to say
severe."

With a sigh of impatience, Lady Forsyth rose and went over to the
fire.  Her cheeks were flushed; but her hands and feet were cold.

"Certain sorts of people _require_ a dash of severity," she remarked
to the room at large.  "Browning was right.  There are some souls
'terror must burn the truth into'...  A good many in these islands,
high and low."

Wilton nervously cleared his throat.  "Ah--Browning," he struck in,
evading the issue.  "A stimulating writer.  Rather too rough and
obscure for my taste."

"That's not the point."  She dismissed his taste impatiently.
Interruption annoyed her when she was well under way.  "The point is
terror burning the truth into people, who have a positive genius for
shutting their eyes to it--if it's likely to make them uncomfortable.
One wonders, will even these unmasked Germans convince our
intellectuals that evil in all its forms is a deadly reality, to be
fought and conquered; not a sort of moral indigestion to be cured
with sugar-coated tabloids!  Between science and civilisation, we've
exploded hell and chloroformed the devil.  And if we're properly
advanced, we can't even commit sin.  We are merely the victims of
environment or inherited tendencies.  Nothing like the polysyllable
steam-roller for flattening out awkward facts!  Take the case of the
slacker.  What does his argument amount to in Saxon English?  'I
don't see the force of risking my life for my country.'  But deck it
out in polysyllables, and you can conjure it into quite a lofty
sentiment.  You try, Mr. Wilton, in your next sermon----"

"Hullo, here comes Sheila's scarlet spider."  Ralph's voice from the
window-seat broke the thread of her monologue and saved the slightly
staggered curate from further discomfiture.  "A wire for one of us!"

Lady Forsyth started.  "Keith!" was her instant thought.  "Ralph,
dear, run and get it," she said.  "Hester's out."

An odd silence fell till he reappeared.  "For you," he said, "and the
imp's waiting."

With a sudden leap of conviction, she tore it open and read: "Sir
Mark Forsyth is alive and wounded but safe.  I have letter from
France.  Posting to-night."

It was signed by Mark's bootmaker at Winchester.  But, at the moment,
her brain took in nothing beyond the incredible fact.  Mark was
there--across the Channel.  She could go to him....

"Any answer?" Ralph asked.

She shook her head.  Then, suddenly, she looked up, with a strange,
uncertain smile.  "Mark is alive--safe!" she said, an uncontrollable
note of triumph in her low voice.

She saw Sheila rise; heard disjointed sounds from the four men: then
a rush of tears blinded her, and she hurried out of the room.


It was some time before Sheila joined her.  She, who had shared all,
knew that the mother's first ecstasy of reprieve was a matter between
her own soul and God.  And Sheila herself found it hard to speak
calmly of this great news.  The blaze of it made one realise what a
shadowy thing hope had been at best.

She found Lady Forsyth sitting over her fire drowned fathoms deep in
the wonder of it all.  Undried tears gleamed on her cheeks and the
precious telegram lay unheeded on the floor.

Sheila knelt down by her and they clung together in silence.  Then,
casually, Sheila picked up the telegram.  "I want--to see it
written," she murmured with a sudden stab of recollection.  "But--why
Jevons?"

"That's the mystery.  Why should he get a letter about my boy?  And
what's wrong with Mark that he didn't write himself?  Oh my dear,
what marvels of perversity we are!  Here have I kept myself going for
weeks by the firm belief that we must get him back: and now it's
come, I'm a shivering sceptic.  I have almost to pinch myself to make
sure it's not a dream."

But Sheila standing by her was reading the telegram over and over.
"It's no dream," she said.  "It's--a miracle.  I suppose we can't
wire to Mr. Macnair or Colonel Munro till you get that letter.
But--there's Bel."

"Yes--there's Bel."  A pause.  "I hope the shock of joy will unfreeze
her.  She'd better come here, if she can.  Get me a form, darling,
and see if the men are happy.  I'd like to sit here peacefully till
dinner--and think about my boy."

Sheila dropped a kiss on her hair and vanished: not for long.

"Quite happy, are they?  _All_ of them?" Lady Forsyth asked when the
wire had been despatched.  "I'm pricked with faint compunction over
the curate man.  He roused the devil in me with his hot bath and his
art curtains.  But I didn't mean to hit quite so hard...."

Sheila's eyes twinkled.  "I'm afraid we all loved it!  And you
needn't be pricked with compunction, Dearest.  I found him on the
drawing-room sofa, quite audibly asleep, with his mouth open!"

"There are _some_ souls...!" Helen confided to the blazing logs.


That evening was the liveliest that the convalescents had experienced
at Wynchcombe Friars.  After dinner Lady Forsyth played to them for
the first time.  Music was the one adequate outlet for her pent-up
emotion.  She chose only triumphal themes and she played them
triumphantly.  Let her audience understand if they chose.

Seldon, ensconced in an armchair by the fire, listened with rapt
attention, his neat profile cut like a cameo on the oak panelling
beyond.  Sheila sat near him on the wide fender-stool, absorbed in
her own thoughts.

Suddenly when the music was loudest he leaned towards her over the
arm of his chair.

"Miss Melrose," he said in a low voice.  "Do tell me, who is--Bel?
Is she a connection?  What's her other name?"

Sheila started and looked round.

"Alison," she said, "Bel Alison.  She's engaged--to Sir Mark.  Why?
D'you know her?"

"I seem to remember the name," he answered evasively.  "A tall,
striking-looking girl?"

"Yes."  His manner pricked Sheila's curiosity; but she did not repeat
her question.

"Coming to-morrow, is she?"

"Yes," Sheila said again; and this time a wild possibility darted
through her brain.

Seldon, frowning and biting his lip, still scrutinised the fire.
"Sounds like a girl--I met one summer," he remarked casually.  "Odd
if it is the same.--And she's to be mistress of all this?  She's in
luck.  Sir Mark, I take it, is a very fine fellow?"

"A very fine fellow," the girl answered; and for a few minutes Seldon
seemed to ponder her statement.  Then, with an odd jerk of his head,
he abruptly changed the subject.

"A treat to hear playing like that.  What with gramaphones and
things, people won't be bothered nowadays.  And she's got such a
ripping touch."

"She's inspired to-night," Sheila said, glancing towards the slender
upright figure in the dull blue teagown, shot through with gold,
woven for her by Mark's people and designed by Mark himself.

Seldon, it was evident, would say no more about Bel.  That in itself
lent colour to the wild possibility that Sheila hoped, for Mark's
sake, was too wild to be true.  The bare chance of it so troubled her
that long after she had soothed Lady Forsyth into a deep sleep, she
lay wide-eyed, in her own little room, wondering and dreading and
piecing things together; wishing fervently that Seldon had held his
tongue.

Well, to-morrow she would see them together; and Bel, ignorant of Mr.
Seldon's anonymous confidences, would almost certainly give herself
away.




CHAPTER III

  "She gave no vine of Love to rear,
  Love's wine drank not; yet bent her ear
  To themes of Love no less."
                                        MEREDITH.


Next morning, in spite of her vigil, Sheila appeared earlier than
usual in Lady Forsyth's room, to share tea and letters--especially
letters.  And there failed not the envelope with the Winchester
postmark.

The bootmaker--respectfully amazed and delighted--begged to enclose a
letter in French whose contents he had learnt from a Belgian refugee.
It was written in Sœur Colette's fine clear hand; and beneath her
modest signature a circle of sealing-wax bore the Forsyth crest.

At sight of it the mother's tears started.  "Oh, I'm an idiot.  Read
it to me, darling," she said handing the letter to Sheila.  And
Sheila read in a low steady voice, the plain tale, simple yet
astonishing, of Mark's threefold reprieve from death: of the mystery
that surrounded him till Sœur Colette--who attributed every detail
to the goodness of God and the Holy Virgin--discovered his name and
regiment written inside his brogues; of the victorious French Army
that returned at last, scattering and annihilating "les Boches" so
that there was scant time for collecting sick prisoners or indeed for
anything but a hurried retreat upon stronger positions.

"But already," continued the writer, "M. le docteur had of his wisdom
made them to suppose that Monsieur was without hope of recovery.  May
the good God forgive him that deception so well-intended.  Possessing
no other address, I venture to report these matters to M. le
cordonnier, trusting that they may yet arrive to the relations of
Monsieur Sir Forsyth who is of a courage and patience unsurpassed.
Having power to move his left hand he has pressed with his own ring
the wax one has spilt upon this page for a message to Madame his
mother.  If one should come soon and take him to Paris, M. le docteur
has great hope that in time he will walk and speak as before."

Thus Sœur Colette, in her saintly simplicity; and neither of the
women, who read and read again the letter she had written, with tears
and prayers, caught a glimpse of the idyll that had saddened and
glorified her life.  They had far too much, on their own account, to
think of, to give thanks for, and to do.

"Oh, if I could only pack up and start this instant!" was the cry of
Helen's impatient spirit.  "And he, lying paralysed, all these
weeks--my poor darling!"

The first obvious move was a telegram to Keith, care of Colonel
Munro, whom he kept informed of his movements: more telegrams to
relations and friends; and--a letter to Mark.  Life was suddenly real
again; purposeful, genuinely worth living.

Soon after breakfast came a wire from Bel.  "Thanks for splendid
news.  Arriving Westover 4.15."

"I'll take the car out and meet her," Sheila announced with decision.

Something in her tone made Lady Forsyth look up from the letter she
was writing.  "Very sweet of you, my lamb," she said: but Sheila knew
that sweetness had nothing whatever to do with it.  "Crown your
virtue by giving his Reverence a lift into Wynchmere as you go
through.  We shall scarcely escape tears at parting!  The fleshpots
and the title and the joy of casually airing it can be trusted to
eclipse all my egregious remarks."

It seemed she was not far wrong.  After lunch Wilton hovered about
like a tame rook, murmuring plaintive platitudes, lamenting his
inability to put into adequate words ... and so on and so forth.  But
at the last, spurred by inexorable sounds without, he found, in one
breath, the adequate word and the courage to speak it.

"_Dear_ Lady Forsyth," he murmured bowing over her hand.  "It has
been such a privilege.  Quite a liberal education.  So hard to tear
oneself away!  At lunch I was wishing--forgive the audacity--that I
had the luck to be your son.  Then I need never go away."

"My son?"  She started and changed colour: at that moment it was the
last audacity she felt disposed to forgive.  "If you were my son, Mr.
Wilton, you'd have to go a good deal farther than Wynchmere.  I
should send you straight out to France--where you ought to be now."

The startled curate drew back as if from a blow.  "But my cloth--my
sacred calling----"

She gave him a direct look.  "It may surprise you," she said.  "But I
have looked carefully through the ordering of priests and the
Thirty-nine Articles and I can find there no admonition whatever that
churchmen shall abstain from bearing arms in defence of their
country.  And look at the French priests.  Hundreds of them in the
ranks; lifting the Church, by their manliness and courage, to a
position it has not occupied since the Revolution.  I know several
clergymen, Scottish and English, with the colours.  And I am quite
_sure_ their sacred calling has suffered no stain because they have
bayoneted a few Germans and quitted themselves like men.  They will
preach sermons worth hearing, those brave fellows ... if they win
through.  It's men, real men, that we need if the Church is to regain
her lost hold on us all."

"_Eg_-zactly," he agreed inadvertently, to her huge delight.

"Well then--why not go out and qualify----?"

"Impossible, dear lady, impossible."  He reddened distressfully
lifting one long hand as if to ward off the devil in person.
"Others--I would not presume to judge.  Every man is ultimately
responsible to the Inner Light.  And _my_ conscience would never
permit----"

"That settles it," she interposed briskly, without a touch of
flippancy.  "We can't start a full-dress debate on the doorstep; Miss
Melrose has a train to meet.  I hope the hot water and the cooking
and the curtains will leave nothing to be desired.  I mean it," she
added with her kindest smile, and handed him over to Sheila, who had
found some difficulty in dispensing with the services of Ralph.

Wilton was abnormally silent all the way to Wynchmere; and Sheila was
absorbed in her driving and her own thoughts.  At intervals the
pensive curate glanced at her under his eyelids; appraised her
charming profile--a shade too resolute for his taste--and her capable
handling of the machine.  Yet his thoughts were practical rather than
sentimental.  Thanks to a natural genius for gleaning personal items,
he already knew that Sheila Melrose possessed advantages which
distinctly enhanced her charming profile.  In the common phrase of
parish gossips there was "plenty of money going" at Westover Court.
Mrs. Melrose, he learnt, was a Burlton, daughter of a great steel
magnate in the North; married, by some queer freak of fate, to George
Melrose, the distinguished antiquarian.  Melrose, himself,--shy and
clever, drowned fathoms deep in his researches--appeared to spend
most of his time in Egypt, where Sheila had stayed with him on her
way from India.  Not even the War, nor a very real affection for his
youngest daughter, had power to lure him back to the uncongenial
atmosphere of the old home he had once so loved that, in order to
save it, he had married money.  Then, too late, a lucky speculation
had considerably increased his own private means; and, as Westover
Court had become a stronghold of the entire Burlton family, he had
found it expedient to spend a good deal of his time elsewhere.

Wynchmere had duly given the new curate its garbled history of the
Melrose _ménage_; but for Wilton the chief point of interest lay in
the assurance that all three daughters would be well dowered; and
this one was an open favourite at Wynchcombe Friars.  Decidedly, if
it came to business, the youngest Miss Melrose would do very well.

The glow of this secret decision made his limp handshake at parting a
degree less limp than usual: but Sheila wore thick driving gloves and
was visibly in a hurry to be gone.

At Westover station she annexed Bel--radiant, friendly, and eager for
further news.

"Sheila--is it stark true?" she asked as they spun along between bare
hedges.  "Have you got the mysterious letter?  Who wrote it?  Please
tell everything."

And Sheila told--keeping her eyes on the wheel.

At the word "paralysis" Bel started.

"Oh, how horrible!  So disfiguring.--I suppose Lady Forsyth will go
out to him.  And she believed it all the time.  Isn't she a wonder?
_I_ can't, even now.  Not till I see him and feel him----"

There flashed a vivid memory of her first drive along this familiar
road, when Mark had sat beside her in the August sunlight: and she
fell silent, thinking her own thoughts.

Sheila had just braced herself to a casual mention of Seldon, when
Bel spoke again.

"Any wounded at Wynchcombe Friars just now?"

"Yes, three of them.  Ralph--almost well.  Mona's brother, Mr.
Laurence.  Such a delightful boy; and Mr. Seldon, an Indian civilian.
Came over as a despatch-rider----"

"Seldon?  From India?"  It was enough.  Sheila knew now that the wild
possibility was true.  "A thin dark man, is he?  Clever and rather
good-looking?"

"Yes.  Have you been in India?"

Sheila looked round now, curious to see if Bel were the least put out
by the reappearance of a lover she had cruelly hurt and deceived.  On
the contrary she seemed interested and rather amused.  "No.  I met
him on leave in Cornwall, some years ago.  Odd he should turn up
again here!"

"Not so very," Sheila said with her small smile.  "You see, he's a
friend of mine.  I met him in India and we've corresponded ever
since.  Then he came over to France: and I found him one day among
the wounded at Boulogne."

"Oh, _you_ know him too!"  Bel's amusement increased visibly.  "D'you
like him?  I thought him rather a poor specimen."

"The war has brought out all the best in him," Sheila remarked.
Every moment she grew angrier with Bel; angrier, and more resolute to
get at the truth--in good time.  For months she had been sitting down
severely on her own deep-seated jealousy and pain; and this final
proof of Bel's utter unworthiness, coming at such a moment, seemed to
shake the foundations of things.

Some women, it appeared, were privileged to go about the world sowing
pain and reaping adulation: and Sheila, whose creed was acceptance,
was still young enough to be badly tripped up, on occasion, by the
bewildering injustices of life.  It was her private opinion that Bel
deserved to be hurt, and probably never would be.  Not that she
consciously sat in judgment.  There was nothing of the prig in her
composition.  But, because her heart was the biggest thing about her,
she held peculiarly sacred the hearts of men, that, for Bel and her
kind, are so many counters on the gaming-tables of life.  Small,
contained creature though she was, sins of passion or emotion were
the sins she could most readily understand and condone.  It was Bel's
smiling, unassailable selfishness that alienated and enraged her.
And Mark, with his fiery sensitive spirit, at the mercy of such an
one for life!  The thought of it was almost more than she could bear.

For Bel, herself, Sheila was simply a rather sweet person who did not
count in the least.  Nothing counted much, at the moment, except Mark
and his unbelievable resurrection.  Yet she had no intention of going
out with Lady Forsyth.  That was not her way.  Certain of his coming,
she could wait.  Meantime her resurgent spirit, hungry for enjoyment,
saw possibilities in the Seldon coincidence that might serve to pass
the time.

She turned smilingly to the suppressed volcano at her side.

"I say, Sheila, does Mr. Seldon know I'm coming?  Does he know ...
I'm engaged to Mark?"

"Yes.  We spoke of it last night."

"Did he say anything about meeting me before?"

"He seemed to remember the name," Sheila answered casually.  It was
the truth, if not the whole truth; and she could not resist the
chance of administering a flick to Bel's omnivorous vanity.  The
flick told.  It also goaded Bel into further revelations than she had
intended.

"I fancy he'll remember more than my name when we meet," she
remarked, looking out over the sodden December landscape.  "Not so
very long ago I was accused of having spoilt his life and broken his
heart: a tougher organism than sentimental people care to admit!"

Sheila betrayed no surprise.  She would not condescend to feign
ignorance.  "You could hardly expect him to parade a broken heart in
the circumstances," was all she said.

Bel laughed.  "Well hit!  What a practical person you are.  I merely
thought he might have told you, as you correspond and are evidently
great friends."

Sheila did not answer.  She was skilfully manipulating a sharp turn
into the town.  Bel watched her in frank admiration.

"How awfully well you drive!  Who taught you?"

"Mr. Macnair."

"Oh!  _I_ always feel that man being horribly critical underneath.
But you're evidently privileged!  Is _he_--another great friend?"

"Yes."

"Mark, too!  You've quite a talent in that line."

Sheila felt the light scratch under the velvet tone, and turned her
clear eyes full on Bel.

"You mean--they don't fall in love with me?  Well, sometimes
friendship is the higher compliment."

"Sour grapes!" reflected Bel.  Aloud she said sweetly: "It's a
compliment no man has ever paid me yet.  And I can do very well with
... the other thing.  Even if it results in only seeming to remember
my name!"

That was all for the moment.  But it set Sheila thoroughly on edge;
nor were matters improved by Bel's behaviour throughout the evening.

Seldon she greeted without a shadow of embarrassment; asked after
mutual acquaintances in Cornwall; smilingly held his gaze a moment;
then, as it were, consigned him to Sheila, who missed no item of the
by-play between them.

Later on, though ostensibly devoting herself to Lady Forsyth and
young Laurence, Bel never for a moment allowed Seldon to be unaware
of her.  It was a situation that appealed to all the actress in her;
and the whole performance was a piece of finished coquetry, perfect
of its kind.

As for Seldon, he clung to Sheila with nervous tenacity, as a man
might cling to a talisman against witchcraft; but his eyes and ears
and the back of his mind were intent on Bel.  He talked in spasms and
his self-consciousness was more pronounced than ever.  Painfully he
recalled the Seldon of Indian days: and before the evening was over
Sheila had arrived at wondering could he, with open eyes, revert to
the girl who had used him so ill?  Were his love and friendship for
herself such mere card-houses that they could tumble to earth at a
flicker of Bel's long eyelashes, a careless word from her lips?

The bare supposition was unflattering to say the least.  More; it was
a shock to her young, ardent faith in human nature.  She had seen
this man rise--in a measure through love of her--above his lesser
self.  She had been proud of him and for him.  Though he could marry
neither of them, he was hers in a very special sense; and Bel had no
right to him whatever.  But the heart, like the tongue, can no man
tame; and Seldon's whole manner to Sheila that evening conveyed the
mute attestation: "I am yours.  Yet, if she beckons, I follow in
spite of myself."

It was not a heroic confession.  It angered Sheila, even while it
moved her to pity.  She hated the whole distracting affair: and felt
thankful that Lady Forsyth was incapable of perceiving anything but
the one supreme fact: thankful, even, that she would soon be gone.


Next day came a telegram from Keith bidding her get a passport to
Boulogne whither he would bring Mark--Authority permitting--in the
Forsyth-Macnair ambulance car.  And for the time being, all lesser
matters were in abeyance.

Bel decided not to go; and Lady Forsyth was too relieved to press the
point.  Sheila did most of the packing and dropped a few secret,
rebellious tears into Mark's valise.  It hurt her bitterly that she
could not go too and complete the old happy quartet that had seemed
linked indissolubly till Bel stepped into the picture and upset
everything.  She had a knack of unsettling things whenever she
appeared; and that without seeming to lift a finger.  In a minor way,
she was doing it again; doing it admirably; while Sheila anointed
Mark's familiar ties and shirts with her tears.

Quite incidentally it occurred to Lady Forsyth that five young people
could not, without scandalising the proprieties, be left entirely to
themselves.

"It's ridiculous nonsense," she declared with a touch of impatience.
"And everyone's far too busy to be bothered.  Bel, how about your
Harry?  Not married, of course, but still----"

Bel smiled.  "The more the safer, I suppose?  It's quite a pretty
problem in arithmetic: how many women, unmarried, equal one woman,
married?  Harry could come to-morrow, I think, for a few days."

"Good.  And Mrs. Laurence might manage the week end.  Wire at once,
dear, will you?  Say I leave this afternoon.  I can't put off going
for any Propriety-bogey in creation."

So that afternoon she set out on her glad errand, armed with letters
and messages of welcome to him who, for five weeks, had been counted
dead by all except two brave women in England and the two men who
sought him in France.

Harry wired that she would come next day, and throughout that
evening, Propriety--even in the person of Mrs. Clutterbuck--could
have found nothing to cavil at in the behaviour of the five young
people left temporarily unshepherded at Wynchcombe Friars.

Only Sheila became increasingly aware of the effect wrought upon
Seldon by Bel's discreetly veiled coquetry.  Beneath his restlessness
and his half-defiant flippancy, she discerned the man's inner
flutterings that affected her like the sight of a live butterfly
impaled by a pin.  She herself was quieter than usual; but under the
still surface her anger was rising steadily; and before dinner was
over, she knew that she could not sleep to-night, till she had spoken
her mind to Bel.




CHAPTER IV

"It is the worst of crimes to feel life so cheap, and make it so
expensive for other people."--MARY A. HAMILTON.


Punctually at ten she made a move; and as she bid Seldon good night
his eyes clung to her face with a pathetic mixture of apology and
appeal.  It needed only that look to stiffen her resolve; though the
last thing she wanted at the moment was a quarrel with Bel.  She
hoped it might not amount to that; but she felt half afraid of her
own inner tumult as she knocked lightly at Bel's door.

She found the girl already half undressed, sitting before her glass
in a cream-coloured wrapper, her pale hair falling to her waist.  Her
face so framed, looked engagingly young.  She was smiling frankly at
her own image; and an aftermath of the same smile served as greeting
to her unexpected visitor.

"Come for a talk?  How nice of you!"

She indicated a chair near the fire; and Sheila, glad of the warmth,
set one silver-shod foot on the fender.  But she remained standing--a
slim grey figure with a knot of turquoise blue at her waist and a
blue fillet threaded through the dark cloud of her hair.

So, for the first time, they seriously confronted one another, these
two----

"I'm not so sure," said Sheila slowly, "that you'll think it nice of
me when you hear what I have to say."

Bel's eyes expressed polite enquiry.

"Nothing very formidable, I hope?  And, for Heaven's sake, don't be
tragic.  I've had enough tragedy, all these weeks, to last me a
lifetime."

"So have ... most of us," Sheila put in quietly.  "And there's no
question of tragedy, for any one, if you'll only leave poor Mr.
Seldon alone."

"Oh, that's all, is it?  Hands off your property, in fact?"

"Nothing of the sort."  Sheila's temper flared up, do what she would.
"Hands off a man who has suffered _more_ than enough on your account
already.  I think if you realised how much----"

"Suffered--has he?  And poured it all into your sympathetic ears?  I
rather suspected he was gone on you."

"Well, then--why can't you let him be?  Isn't one splendid lover
enough for you?"

"To possess--certainly," Bel answered with her invincible
good-humour.  "That man Seldon's a mere invertebrate.  But he's
clever, in his own way; and he amuses me.  If you don't want him for
yourself, why in the world d'you bother about him?"

"Simply because he's a human being and he's made a plucky fight
against things, and--he's my friend."

"Why not mine too?"

"Friendship is not one of your gifts, Bel.  The only kindness you can
do him is--what I said: let him alone.  He mayn't be worth very much.
But he is worth something ... now.  Even you'd admit that if you'd
seen him as I did, last autumn: a wretched cynical man with no heart
in his work.  Drinking too, from sheer loneliness and ill-health.
And so obviously needing a woman in his life that it was hard to
refuse him.  In the end--that I mightn't think too badly of him--he
told me about that summer in Cornwall.  And ... to think it should
have been you!"

Something in her tone drew Bel's eyes to her face.

"Well, what harm?  I didn't commit murder.  I refused him--as you
did.  That's all."

"It's _not_ all," Sheila flashed out.  "Bel--don't prevaricate.  He
... he told me everything."

Bel started and a faintly hostile gleam showed in her eyes.  Then,
very deliberately, she combed back a lock that had fallen half over
her face.

"May I ask--what 'everything' amounted to?"

Sheila moistened her lips.  "Well ... the way you simply made use of
him to secure that other man ... the married one.  Mr. Seldon heard
afterwards that you--went away with him.  That he didn't believe,
except when he felt bitter enough to believe anything.  Bel--_is_ it
true?  Any of it?  I _must_ know."

She spoke with unguarded urgency; and Bel turned clear hard eyes upon
her.  The hostile gleam was no longer faint.

"Why must you know what is entirely my own affair?  In order to tell
Lady Forsyth, or Mark, and make trouble between us, after all I've
just been through?  Model of virtue though you are, I believe you'd
give your beautiful violet eyes to put Mark out of love with me.  But
you never will.  Men don't easily leave off loving me.  Mr. Seldon's
a case in point.  I understand one side of them.  And I understand it
thoroughly.  Mark's a bit straight-laced about some things.  But he's
tremendously a man.  And he'll love _me_--worthless me--to the end of
the chapter, whatever I may have done, or do!"

Sheila--amazed, disgusted and angrier than ever--had listened so far
without interruption, simply because she could not trust herself to
speak.  At that moment she hated Bel, as she had never hated any
fellow-being; and her white Northern anger would rather have vented
itself in blows than words.  But, by this time, she had herself in
hand.

"_I_ tell Mark?" she said, on a note of concentrated scorn, ignoring
the implication of her motive.  "It's for you to tell him--whatever
there is to tell."

Bel let out a breath of relief.  "Then he'll remain in blessed
ignorance.  Men don't bore us with a recital of their pre-nuptial
peccadilloes.  They've too much sense.  So why the dickens should we
inflict ours on them?  I'm a modern woman, Sheila.  You're not: for
all you're the younger.  And Mark himself isn't quite modern enough
for my taste.  It's my only quarrel with him."

She had quite recovered her complacence now.  Tilting her head, she
swept the brush through her long fine hair: and Sheila stood watching
her a moment, fascinated unwillingly.

Then with a small sigh she sat down.

"I rather think," she said slowly, "that, if this war goes on long
enough, it is you up-to-date people who will end in being
out-of-date.  But Bel--" she hesitated.  Fuller knowledge would serve
no purpose save to increase her own secret misery.  Yet, perversely,
she still wanted to know.  "Are you admitting that what Mr. Seldon
heard was true?"

"Just true enough to be a spiteful lie," Bel answered enigmatically,
discarding her brush and resting her bare arms on the table.  "What
are you getting at, you determined little person?"

"The truth--if I can.  I don't want to be unjust to you."

"Very scrupulous!"

Bel paused a moment, smiling at her own image ... considering....

She was not given to verbal indiscretions, but she had her reckless
impulses: and with Sheila she instinctively knew herself safe; knew
that the truth demanded of her by this gentle, inexorable girl would
hurt the more because--for very love of Mark and his mother--Sheila
could be trusted to keep silence.  Hidden knowledge of that kind
rankles and pricks, as Bel had learnt from experience; and her own
galling sense of Sheila's finer loyalty and courage made the impulse
to hurt and startle her irresistible.

"Well," she said at length, turning from the glass, just as Sheila
had given up hope of hearing more, "as you evidently won't play the
sneak, I don't mind admitting that I had every intention of going off
with that other man to Australia.  I was at a loose end: in the mood
for any escape from humdrum England and sufficiently in love to be
tempted.  It was Harry, with her awkward genius for rescue-work, who
upset the apple-cart.  So my 'going off' with him amounted to no more
than a week end together at the Lizard----"

"Bel!"

"Don't look so scarified, my dear innocent!  Heaps of the smartest
girls do that sort of thing;--or rather did, in happier days than
these.  And properly modern-minded men condoned it.  If you're for
giving women freedom you can't tie them by the leg to the
conventional moralities; and I wasn't going to take such a big risk
without due consideration.  So he found rooms in a wee cottage at the
Lizard and we went there--as temporary brother and sister--to do the
considering.  He behaved beautifully; and, in the end, we decided to
take the plunge.  Harry happened to be in Cornwall just then,
tackling a troublesome 'case'.  So I arranged to go to her and join
him in London when he wired.  But somehow, she suspicioned what was
up: and as she believes in the emancipation of woman, I thought she'd
take it reasonably.  However--she didn't; and there was the devil to
pay.  I stood out against her; but she got at him and worked him up
over his precious children.  So the great adventure fizzled out.  And
Harry, having rescued me, has stuck to me ever since.  I suppose some
of the fools at Bude heard we'd been to the Lizard and invented the
rest.  There!  That's the extent of my villainy.  The whole thing's
dead and gone, and you must admit I'd be a prize fool to tell Mark.
He'd worry needlessly; and distrust me.  Also needlessly.  If any man
can hold a woman, it's Mark.  Of course you think I'm not fit to
black his boots.  I'm not.  I've told him so.  But it's me he wants,
my dear,--good or bad.  Look here, though; not a word of all this to
your 'Mums.'  She'd never forgive me."

"No.  Never."  Sheila's cheeks were flushed and her lips set.  "I'm
not sure that ... Mark would either.  I simply can't understand...."

"Didn't suppose you would."  Bel smiled sweetly.  "You're too
limited.  That's the trouble with you good people----"

"Mark's not limited," Sheila broke out with sudden passion.  "No more
is Mums.  Oh--and to think I told her, without knowing it ... the
very day you two were out in the yacht----"

"That day?  Really, this approaches the dramatic!  But never you give
her the key to your story.  Promise!"

Sheila sighed.  "I'm not likely to--for her sake; though it isn't
easy keeping anything from Mums.  We're so close to each other all
through."

"Well, you must manage it somehow," Bel said with decision.  "And I
expect you have your reserves even from her.  Have you ever, I
wonder, let her realise that you're dead in love--with Mark?"

"How _dare_ you!" Sheila broke in low and fiercely, "when I've tried
to do you justice--to be friends----"

She checked herself, rose, and turned her back on Bel, grasping the
mantelpiece with her small fine hands.

The girl surveyed her in genuine surprise.

"I'm sorry," she said good-naturedly.  "One would think I'd accused
you of stealing!  It's no sin!"

Sheila swung round in an access of sheer impatience.  "This time it's
_you_ who don't understand!  If that sort of thing's not sacred to
you, it is to me----"

Bel faintly raised her brows.  "No," she said, "I don't understand
people who mix up falling in love with religion.  To me, it's simply
the most thrilling amusement on earth.  Still, I'm sorry----"

"You're not," Sheila retorted, unappeased.  "And I'd like you better
if you said so, honestly.  _I'm_ sorry I ever came in here at all.
Good night."

She moved to the door; but softly and swiftly as a cat Bel sped after
her and took her by the shoulder.

"Sheila, my dear, don't be a high-flown little fool," she said in her
seductive voice that was seldom wasted on a woman.

"Oh, let me alone, I'm tired," Sheila murmured, and shook off the
detaining hand, only to find it slipped through her arm.

"Come and make it up.  Then I'll let you go," Bel cooed invitingly.

It was detestable; but Sheila was genuinely tired and too disgusted
for further argument.  Unresisting, and unresponsive, she allowed
herself to be drawn back to the fire and gently pulled down into the
chair.

"You're such a lovesome morsel of dignity and reserve," Bel went on,
kneeling beside her and warming her hands.  "It's quite an
achievement to have drawn you out a little.  I can't let you shut up
again with a click.  Besides, we must be friends _now_!"

Sheila, who was hardly attending, did not grasp the import of that
last remark.

"I'm not altogether depraved, you know."

"I never said you were."

"But you thought so."

Sheila merely shook her head.  She had no further desire to discuss
Bel or her very mixed attributes; but, for Bel, there was no more
congenial subject on earth.

"You _did_ think so," she insisted, with untroubled conviction.  "But
I do try to be decent, up to my lights.  Can't help it--can I?--if
mine are candles and yours are stars?  And I admit this beastly war
has demoralized me badly.  Your Mums talks of it as a 'refiner's
fire'; but ... I don't know.  That sort of thing doesn't agree with
everyone.  It may exalt the good; but ... I rather think it makes the
bad worse."

Sheila nodded.  "It finds us all out.  It's burning away the husks of
life and forcing us to be our real selves.--_My_ real self, at this
moment," she added lightly, "is a mere log of weariness.  I must go
now."

"Very well--go.  Good night, dear."

Bel put up her face for a kiss; but Sheila was on her feet again.
"_Will_ you leave Mr. Seldon alone?" she said returning to her
original attack.

"I'll try--just to please you!  But you can't blame _me_ if the man's
a mere weather-cock."

"I do blame you--all along the line," Sheila answered with quiet
obstinacy; and at last effected her escape.

But for all her weariness, sleep was long in coming.  Though her lids
were heavy, her brain was wide awake and haunted distractingly by
visions of Bel; her smiling self-complacence, her graceful, studied
poses, her serene assurance--cruelly emphasised--that no revelation
of her intrinsic worthlessness would affect her dominion over Mark.

Was that true, Sheila wondered, feeling of a sudden very ignorant and
limited--as Bel had said?  Would it make no difference even if he
knew all?  Was a man's love so entirely a mixture of infatuation and
passion that the soul of a woman counted for next to nothing?

Personally, Sheila did not believe it; but she was too young, too
untravelled in the heart's byways, to feel secure in that belief.
She only saw Mark, her god among men, lured and held by this
elf-maiden of a girl; fair without, hollow within.  Mr. Seldon,
too--in spite of all he had suffered, in spite of genuine love for
herself--seemed powerless to hold his own against Bel.  And was it
only Bel?  Was it only Mark and Seldon?  Or, was their private tangle
simply part of the cruel, primitive essence of things?  Sheila lying
there in the dark, pictured hundreds of Bels dragging down hundreds
of Marks and Seldons; and her protective, mother-tenderness for the
masculine half of creation, raged impotently against it all.  One
heard so much, in these outspoken days, about men ruining women.  Was
there not fully as much to be said about women ruining men?  Between
sleep and waking her mind dwelt long on this side of a question that
touched her so nearly.  The mixed emotions of the last few days and
the need to keep them hidden, had put a severe strain on her.  And
closer contact with Bel seemed to have rubbed the bloom off life; to
have shaken her faith in the nature of things----

Her heart, in its loneliness, yearned for the dear comrade-woman;
mother, sister, and friend in one; who could light up even the dark
places of life with the fire of her brave enthusiasm.  Soon they
would all be together, they three: while she, who was intrinsically
one with them, remained out in the cold; and must so remain--as Bel
had smilingly assured her--to the end of the chapter.




CHAPTER V

  "And the land shall leave me or take, and the Woman shall
        take me or leave me....
  But Life shall hold me alive, and Death shall never deceive me,
  As long as I walk in England, in the lanes that let me pass."
                                                    CHESTERTON.


It was accomplished.  The faith and courage of Helen Forsyth had
reaped their due reward; and they three were together at last.  But
not yet under one roof.  The instant Mark emerged from supposed
extinction, Authority claimed him; and Helen rebelled a little,
inevitably against cast-iron regulations that withheld her from
taking immediate possession of her own.

Meanwhile she was thankful, on reaching the hospital, to find him in
a small room with two other empty beds.  Ignoring the chair that had
been set for her, she knelt beside him, her face radiating a silent
benediction.

Prostrate, paralysed, his reddish hair almost hidden by the cap-like
bandage, he lay there smiling his queer, crooked smile and his lashes
were wet with tears.  When one or two of them escaped and ran down
his cheek, she wiped them away with her handkerchief and leaning over
him kissed his eyelids.

He frowned as if vexed at his own weakness, but she shook her head.

"We needn't think shame of them," she said, for her own were falling.
"It's natural.  Just the blessed reaction.  Don't you remember your
favourite bit of Blake?  '"Damn" braces, "bless" relaxes.'"

He smiled and pressed the hand he was clinging to in a fashion that
recalled nursery days when some nightmare had so shaken him that he
must hold her to make sure she was really there.  And to-day in this
first, incredible hour of reunion, both felt unashamedly the childish
need of that same reassurance.

As his hand clung to hers, so her eyes clung to his face; and she saw
now that he was making a desperate effort to speak.

"No, no.  Bad for you, beloved," she said.  "I understand."

But he would not be baulked of achievement; so strong was the current
of new life in his veins.  And the words came at last; though, till
they were out, he could not be sure whether sense or nonsense would
emerge.

"M-Mother--Mums--Home!"

He brought them out, one by one; the last with triumphant emphasis
and a stronger grip on her hand.

"Yes--home the first possible minute," she assured him.  "A Nursing
Home first, I'm afraid, for some time.  We've been wondering if we
could put off the operation till we get across, as it's been delayed
so long already.  The doctor here will see your head to-night and
decide.  Of course half our best men are on the spot.  But it might
keep us here weeks; and it's England you want, isn't it,
darling,--and Bel?"

He nodded, then suddenly releasing her hand, he put his left arm
round her drawing her down to him....

He was still holding her thus when the inexorable knock sounded on
the door.


That night it was decided that no harm would arise from a few days'
delay: and Authority made arrangements accordingly; thrusting its
ruthless arm once again between Helen and her son.

For Mark, the mere exigencies of travelling emphasised his own
vexatious helplessness, so that he understood, for the first time,
something of the monkish attitude towards the body as a despised and
hampering burden, rather than the beautiful disciplined servant of
the spirit: but he was cheered beyond measure, by the sight and smell
of the sea and the faint salt of it on his lips.  For the sea spelt
England: and England--Bel; haloed and idealised, by this time, beyond
the height of mortal woman.  While he lay on deck, delighting in
wind-driven clouds and wind-tossed waters, memories crowded thick
upon him....

He hated losing sight of Keith and his mother even for a few hours:
but his spirits rose steadily as the steamer, mysteriously
safe-guarded, nosed her way toward the cliffs of Home.  It was still
something of a wonder simply to be back again in the world of men; to
see papers, as a matter of course, and to know more or less what was
happening in that complex maze of trenches that now cleft France from
the Vosges to the sea and changed the whole character of the War.
Wounded officers, who had heard his story, came up to congratulate
him and stayed to tell their own experiences.  It was good to hear
them, though conversation was a distractingly one-sided affair: good
to see, at last, the white cliffs of Kent, lit by a frail ray of
winter sunshine; to glide up alongside the familiar quay with its
cheering crowd, and to hear the rough speech of his own people.  It
was better still to watch Keith pushing his way through them all,
with a new uprightness and a squarer set of his shoulders, though the
weeks of anxious search had left their mark on his rugged face.  And
there, at his elbow, was "Mums" looking out eagerly for her "boy."

His glimpse of them was brief but reassuring.  Then it was: "See you
again in London": and for all he longed to speed straight to
Wynchcombe Friars, the spell of the great grey city, throned upon its
grey river, under a shifting pall of fog, penetrated, as never
before, to the deep places of his imagination and his heart.

The squalor of her back alleys was shrouded in darkness.  Her great
thoroughfares were dimmed and emptier than of old.  As they drove
away from the station, ragged flakes of snow and sleet were falling,
and sharp against a blurred background loomed the stately splendour
of the Abbey, the Houses, and Big Ben.  For him that shadowy mass of
architecture possessed something of the sublimity and the aloofness
of a great mountain range: and to-night, above all, it was a vision
to lift the heart of one mere Englishman in thankfulness and
praise....

His destination was a Nursing Home for Officers in Park Lane--a
paradise of ordered comfort and spotlessness and peace, where the hum
of London's unresting voice sounded scarcely louder than the breaking
of waves upon a stony shore.  Here his mother reappeared to bid him
welcome and good night.  She had found rooms, she told him, in a
hotel close by: and--yes, Bel was downstairs waiting for permission
to come up.

A quarter of an hour--no longer, the Nurse decreed.  And presently
she came--a vision supremely satisfying to the eye.  Her simple,
costly-looking coat and skirt were only a few shades darker than her
hair.  On the brim of her beaver hat rested one yellow velvet flower;
and she wore her amber beads over a yellow blouse.  Every detail had
been carefully thought out; and the result, as she swiftly perceived,
was very much to his taste.

But this new Mark, who in a few short months had plumbed the heights
and depths of human experience, craved more from the woman he had
been sedulously glorifying than perfect finish of colour and form.
And he could neither utter that craving nor appraise her with the
sugar-plum compliments she loved.  He could only hold out his left
hand and smile his crooked smile.

An attempt to speak her name produced only such a strange, unnatural
sound that she winced, ever so slightly, and the blood mounted to his
face.

Pricked with genuine pity and remorse she swept to him and caught his
hand in both her own.

"Darling--darling, don't try," she said in her cooing voice of
tenderness.  "All in good time.  You're a wonder and a miracle to be
here at all."

Then--conquering his sudden painful shyness--he pulled her nearer;
and, as she stooped to kiss him, captured her with his arm.  For the
moment he asked nothing on earth but the sense of her living
presence, the soft surrender of her lips.  Ecstasy flowed through
him: short-lived, but fiery sweet----

Loosening his hold, he pulled at her hat.  She sat back on the low
chair facing him, removed the hat, and considered it with critical
approval.

"Bought for the occasion!" she explained.  "Rather a gem, isn't it?"

He nodded, smiling, and fingering her beads; and she, suddenly
slipping on to her knees, hid her face against him.

Comforted exceedingly, he caressed her hair, and found courage for a
fresh effort to speak.  This time he succeeded.

"Beautiful--my Bel," he said slowly.

She lifted her face and smiled at him: flushed but dry-eyed.
"Yes--your Bel.  And you're going to shake off this horror as soon as
possible; so that we can stick to our original date in spite of the
war and its abominations.  There--I _must_ go.  I hear Nurse coming."

She picked up the precious hat and stood before the over-mantel
pinning it on.  Then she sighed.

"Oh, _won't_ I be thankful when to-morrow's well over.  Sleep sound,
darling, and I'll hope to see you in the morning."

She kissed him again and vanished with a parting wave of the hand.
And he lay a long while brooding on the day's events: his body too
tired and his brain too full of impressions for coherent thought....


Next morning, before the operation, he had a brief glimpse of her.
Then his mother came, with Sheila--graver, paler, and, in some
indefinable fashion, lovelier than he seemed to remember her.  But of
late her image had been kept well in the background of his brain: and
it smote him now the more poignantly as if in revenge.

His hand closed firmly on hers and kept it imprisoned, while she
stood there smiling at him through tears.  Yesterday's failure made
him shy of attempting her name.  His gaze travelled from her face to
his mother's and back again: and at last he spoke.

"All my thanks--for Mums," he said and with an abrupt movement
pressed her fingers to his lips.

Then he released them and her pale face glowed.

"Mark, don't thank me," she murmured.  "It was simply ... we were
everything to each other, and it helped us to pull through.  Some day
when she's not there, I'll tell you just how splendid she was.  And I
want to hear about the Nun who wrote that letter.  She must be a
jewel.  When all this is well over, we'll have a real long talk!"

And Mark, more than ever enamoured of her musical voice, felt
ridiculously elated at the prospect.

Even this unsatisfactory lop-sided talk was over too soon: the
eminent surgeon had arrived; and they must surrender him to the
saving mercy of chloroform and the knife.  Is the whole enlightened
race of man ever anything but ungrateful to these grim agents of
salvation--at least until the beloved is safe out of the toils?

Lady Forsyth's heart failed her badly as she stooped to kiss her son.
But seeing the tense set of his lips, she spoke more bravely than she
felt.

"We've no reason at all to feel nervous, darling," she said low in
his ear.  "I have Dr. Norton's word for it.  He says your condition's
excellent and it ought to be quite plain sailing.  Keith is
downstairs; and we won't leave till everything is well over.  God
keep you safe--till I see you again."




CHAPTER VI

    "... No longer can I cast
  A glory round about this head of gold.
  Glory she wears, but springing from the mould;
  Not like the consecration of the past."
                                        MEREDITH.


Dr. Norton proved no false prophet.

Ten days later a very much revived Mark lay propped up in bed, while
his mother sat by him, reading aloud, with emphatic relish, an
outspoken article from the _National Review_.

The loyal, universal confidence accorded, in August, to a Government
mainly responsible for the failure to save Belgium, was already on
the wane.  The political leopard, it appeared, could not change his
spots even to preserve the British Empire from ruin.  Increasingly
the note of criticism replaced the note of confidence: and to none
did the change seem more ominous than to Helen Forsyth and her son.
But for Mark, at the moment, no larger anxieties could cloud the joy
of regaining his grip on life; of watching his mother's expressive
face as she snapped the thread of a sentence to acclaim here or
denounce there; till he longed for command of speech to lure her into
one of their arguments that, for her, were at once an exasperation
and a delight.

Words came more readily now; but still at times, they played him
ludicrous and disconcerting tricks, that were not always matter for
mirth.  Bel--whose sense of humour was an uncertain quantity--too
often winced at them; and then they covered him with confusion or
pricked him to momentary irritation with her.  They would pass, he
assured her, as the brain reasserted its full control.  The fact that
it had proved to be slightly torn would retard things a little; but
already he began to move his right hand; and in time recovery would
be complete.  They must have patience: that was all.

She proclaimed herself a miracle of patience; but there were days
when he suspected her of being faintly bored; when her cheerfully
persistent injunction to "hurry up and get well" had, to his
sensitive ear, an almost metallic ring.  Work and the war and the
strain of real suffering had wrought inner changes of which he became
gradually aware.  The fine film of hardness, that dismayed Lady
Forsyth, had not been altogether dissolved even by those first
wonderful days of reunion; and now when she spoke of painful things,
it was fatally apparent to Mark.

He was, in fact, beginning to perceive the woman beneath the glamour;
yet the glamour remained, in spite of disillusion.  Only when he
looked into the future, or was tired and alone, the old distracting
doubts assailed him.  For purposes of love-making she was inimitable.
To that end, she was born.  For the larger purposes of wifehood,
motherhood, companionship:--well, he had chosen her and he must take
his chance----

And all the while, he tried not to be aware that he was watching for
one face, waiting for the "real long talk" she had promised him.
Others came with increasing frequency; but she never reappeared.
What was wrong?  The uncertainty grew distracting; but he felt
reluctant to speak of her, these days; and when at last, he achieved
a casual question to his mother, nervousness made it one of his
failures.

"Where is--become--Colette?" was the conundrum that emerged.

"I wrote to her, dear," Lady Forsyth answered, pleased at his
remembering.  "But I haven't heard yet."

He frowned impatiently.  "D-damn it!  I mean--Sheila?"

Then he learnt that her mother had claimed her for work at Westover
Court, where a number of half convalescent nervous cases were in need
of massage and Mrs. Melrose was short of skilled hands.

"Sheila is quite wonderful at it," Lady Forsyth added.  "A genuine
gift.  More magnetism than massage, I verily believe."

Mark smiled at her enthusiasm, but asked no more questions.  His
belated discovery must not be suffered to get out of hand....

So far, he had been a very saint for patience.  But as vigour
increased, irritability increased also.  In certain moods, the
monotony, the dependence, the rubber-tyred routine of the hospital
existence irked him to exasperation; and if he were alone with Keith
he would let off steam, in an outburst of wholesome profanity.

He did his best not to upset the women; but when a rare fine day
flung panels of sunshine across the carpet and a frolic wind set the
blind-tassels tap-tapping on the windows he felt like a caged thing.
No garden here, as in France, where at least he could commune with
trees and sky: and it was no garden he wanted now.  It was the road
or the heather underfoot; the wilds of Hampshire, the rolling hills
of his native Argyll; the sea-salt and heather-fragrant air that, for
him, was like no other air on earth.  He wanted simply to walk and
walk, world without end; only Bobs for company; Bobs, who most
certainly was not forgetting his master, though he was accepting with
true canine philosophy the homage paid him by the house of Russell.

One night he dreamed of a kingly tramp among the hills and glens
beyond Inveraig: Keith walked beside him, while Bobs put the fear of
God into rabbits, visible and invisible.

So vivid was the dream that he awoke with the dog's bark and Keith's
voice sounding in his ears--woke to find he could scarcely shift
himself in bed without help.  The contrast jarred so painfully that
he cursed that delusive dream and decided to ask a few straight
questions when Dr. Norton came, if his unruly member would permit.

They had subjected him to a thorough overhauling the day before: but
of information not a crumb could he extract from them, beyond vague
encouragement and counsels of patience.  And this morning he fared
very little better at Dr. Norton's hands.

Norton was a lean tall man, with a humorous grey-green eye and, on
occasion, a slightly caustic tongue.  He had taken a great liking to
this virile, sensitive patient of his; who could thoroughly enjoy a
joke at his own expense.  But, for all that, even Mark's direct
demand for enlightenment failed to entice him from the cautious
reserve of his kind.

"My dear Sir Mark," he said, a gleam of sympathy in his grave eye,
"it's hardly fair to fling leading questions at men whose reputation
might not be worth an hour's purchase if they took to scattering
inaccurate prophecies among their patients!  The damage to your brain
was slight considering what it might have been.  With that
well-seasoned puttee for a first aid bandage, it's a miracle you
didn't die of septic meningitis within a week.  The main thing to
guard against now is nerve trouble: if you let yourself get worried
or uncontrolled.  With luck we shall have you out of bed in a week.
But it may be more like a month before we can let you out of this."

"Oh--_damn_!"  The "good old word of sin" seldom failed him at
command.

"Quite so," Norton remarked in his even voice.  "It's beastly having
to lie up when you don't feel ill.  At the same time----"

"Yes, of course--all those other chaps," Mark broke in, feeling
suddenly very much ashamed of himself.  "Lucky enough getting
away--intact.  I won't worry.  I'll--what's it they say out
there--carry on!"


But for some reason--whether because of his dream or because of Dr.
Norton's guarded statement, that morning marked a point from which
his hopefulness flagged; and the atmosphere about him seemed to
suffer some indefinable change that gave Norton's injunction not to
worry a slightly satirical tang.

He became too keenly conscious of sympathy in the air; and the more
tactfully it was implied, the worse it jarred.  His kind, attentive
Nurse seemed suddenly kinder, more attentive.  His mother's lively
humour sounded, at times, a trifle strained.  More than once he
caught his mother gazing at him with a yearning wistfulness that he
had either not noticed or not encountered before.  She managed to
laugh it off; but it haunted him afterwards.

Worse than all, he detected a fine shade of difference in Bel: at
times a hint of constraint in her manner that he tried to dismiss as
pure fantasy; at times, a passion of affection, very rare with her.
There was less of mere lovers' talk between them now: and in the
intervals, a paucity of common interests was revealed.  Very often
she would read to him; and her visits were growing less regular.
Some days she did not come at all; but sent a hurried affectionate
note of excuses, lean diet for a man who needed companionship as
never before.

And Sheila, except for an occasional letter, appeared to have
deserted him utterly.

He put up with this state of things for a week: during which time his
arm and speech made good progress towards recovery.  Then, suddenly,
his patience gave out and he decided to tackle Keith, the only one
whose bearing had suffered no perceptible change.

Keith had been away for a few days at Montrose; but he was due in
Town that morning: and he came straight from the station to Park Lane.

He looked noticeably tired and worn: but Mark, just then, was
fiercely intent on his own determination to be rid of half truths.

"You--you damned lucky devil!" he broke out, holding on to Keith's
hand and searching his eyes hungrily for knowledge withheld.
"Scotland--mountains--the sea!  And I lie here--cursing.  How much
taller--" the word eluded him and gesture failed--"Oh, _you_ know ...
yard measure--longer?  They won't tell me.  Those infernal doctors.
I'm--no coward.  Let's have the damage straight.  My legs ... rotten,
useless.  Don't improve."

Keith shook his head, pain unconcealed in his eyes.  Then he sat down
by the bed and faced the ordeal thrust upon him.

"The chances are--they won't--improve," he said slowly.  "That's the
damage, Mark.  Your spine."

Mark set his teeth and was silent.  The breath of tragedy had clean
blown out the rushlight of impatience.  Keith hoped that Helen would
never see him look as he looked then.

"I gather they didn't mend matters ... dragging you to that farm,"
Keith went on in his low, contained voice.  "Not their fault, poor
fellows.  Very bad ground, Macgregor said; and they were wounded and
under fire.  But the result is--a lesion----"

"Lesion," Mark repeated frowning with the effort of thought.
"Medical stuff.  In plain English ... I'm done for ... physically.
That it?"

Keith was silent a moment.  "That's ... about it: so far as they can
tell at present.  But there's just a possibility of gradual
improvement.  A very slow business.  And, at best, Dr. Norton fears
recovery would only be partial----"

"Thanks very much."

The quiet courtesy of his tone pierced Keith to the heart.  He would
infinitely sooner have heard Mark swear.  The swearing was bound to
come, soon or late, and it would be a relief for both.

At present, he merely closed his eyes and lay silent a long, long
while, facing naked and unlovely facts with his vivid,
forward-looking artist's brain....

Some fool had once said: "_Never_ is a long word"; but no word ever
coined was interminable enough to suggest the unnumbered army of days
that threatened him--that was the literal effect--between seven and
twenty and the merciful end of all.  Try as he would, he could not
believe in it--yet.

And the others--they had known it a week or more.  It must have been
hell for them; and it explained everything.  Most startlingly, it
explained--Bel.  If she had seemed, on occasion, to weary of an
invalid lover, what manner of use would she have for a husband
chained to a wheeled chair?  Had he any shadow of right to hold
her--now?

Unable to endure the torment of thought, he opened his eyes.  Keith
still sat there, one elbow on the bed; his hand across his forehead
shutting out the vision of Mark's face.

"Keith, old man," he said, and Keith looked up with a start.  "Don't
you worry.  I can--stick it.  Others, worse off--eh?  Half a
life--half a loaf--"  He struggled to complete the connection; and
failing, tried to smile.  "Mother?" he asked sharply and Keith drew
in his lips.

"No thought of herself.  Only you!"

Then came the word he hardly dared speak.  "Bel?  She knows too?"

"Yes.  She knows."

Another long pause: but he forced himself to go on.

"Keith--can I?  Ought I--?  Must I lose _every_ thing?"

The words came out in a sudden rush.

"That depends--" Keith answered with slow emphasis--"on her.
Naturally--she is free, if she chooses.  But she has every right to
refuse freedom; to wait ... on the chance....  Picture your mother in
such a case."

Mark pictured her; and knew very well that no lover of hers, so
placed, would have need to fear the double loss.  But Bel--?  How
imperfectly he knew her, how utterly unsure he was of her even now.

"Why did they keep it from me?" he asked irrelevantly.

"They were afraid for your head, till the three weeks were up."

"Weeks?--what are weeks?" Mark murmured.  "Look here--they must leave
me alone a bit.  Tell them.  An hour or two.  I'll ring."

"Very well.  I will come again, this afternoon."

Keith held out his hand and their mutual grasp supplied all racial
disabilities.


They left him alone the greater part of that morning; alone with the
news that had come down on him like a guillotine snapping his life in
two.  It struck him, in his first access of bitterness, that the
guillotine would have been the more merciful fate----

But the one practical problem of the moment was Bel.  It amazed and
hurt him to realise how little he could foretell her line of action
in this cruel dilemma.  Almost, he could see her rising,
dramatically, superbly, to the heroic plane.  The difficulty was to
see her keeping it up.  Throughout all her past "phases" he detected
that same incapacity running like a fatal thread.  Though it pleased
her to pose as a rebel, her instinctive skill lay, rather, in
graceful evasion of circumstances that threatened to prove too strong
for her.  Would she regard a crippled husband as a circumstance that
called for graceful evasion?  That question she alone could answer.
And how--and when was he to ask it?

He could not yet write; and, like all strong natures, he inclined to
the spoken word if anything unpleasant must be done; but he still
felt quite unfit for the strain of a scene that might end
disastrously.  He would of a certainty be tripped up by egregious
verbal lapses, that, at such a moment, would be intolerable.

If she came, however, he must see her and take his chance.

She did not come; and the uncertainty, following on the shock of
knowledge, was none too good for his nerves.  Dr. Norton advised a
sleeping draught that afternoon and another at night.

These gave him brief and merciful respite from the torment of
thought: but morning brought fresh realisation, fresh perplexity.  It
also brought a letter from Bel.

He scarcely dared open it.  Did she know that he knew?  And was she
too great a coward to face his pain?

Her short note answered neither question.


"Darling Man," she wrote, "this is to tell you that Harry and I must
run down to Folkestone for three or four days on account of her work.
A big meeting, for one thing; and she wants me to speak.  I'm rather
keen about it.  Not so sure I haven't found my real vocation at last.
I looked in yesterday evening to say good-bye: but Nurse said you
were asleep and not on any account to be disturbed.  So the kisses
must be stored up for a few days.  Forgive this hurried scrawl.  I'll
write again from Folkestone.  Always your so loving Bel."


He read that "hurried scrawl" several times over without arriving at
any clear conclusion, except the obvious one that matters must stand
over till her return; unless he could bring himself to write through
his mother, an expedient that did not commend itself, except as a
last resort.




CHAPTER VII

        "God's own gifts
  Have a devil for the weak.
  Yea the very force that lifts
  Finds the vessel's secret leak."
                                    MEREDITH.


Bel's maiden speech at Folkestone proved an unqualified success.  Her
sweet, well-modulated voice, hardly suitable for platform purposes,
carried well enough in Mrs. Langton's double drawing-room where some
sixty ardent feminists and pacifists, of both sexes, were gathered
together mainly for the glorification of woman--as martyr in chief of
man's recurrent lust for slaughter, and as the normal promoter of
peace between nations, whose eyes were blinded with blood and wrath.

Characteristically, she had concealed from Mark the real nature of
the meeting and the subject-matter of her own speech.  This last, as
may be supposed, emanated from Harry, though declaimed and decorated
by Bel.  The Utopian vision of universal peace had caught hold of her
imagination.  The fact that the world's harmony spelt comfort and
material prosperity made a direct appeal to her practical brain: and
now the shadow of her own private tragedy seemed more than ever to
justify her leaning towards those who denounced as criminal the
ruthless indefinite prolongation of war.

"Woman and War";--the antithesis lent itself to a rhetorical opening,
a study in contrasts: and Bel made the most of it.  War destroys
life; woman creates and beautifies it.  War is brutality and
coarseness _in excelsis_; woman is all tenderness and grace.  War
stands for hate; woman for love.  War degrades; woman lifts and
inspires.  The scope for contrast was infinite if not always exact.
It would quite spoil the effect to admit that there were scores of
women who had neither the will nor the power to lift and inspire:
scores, like herself, for whom love was war, as fierce and unsparing
as any conflict on earth.  Her concern was not with awkward
realities, but with the success of her speech; and from these lofty
opening flourishes, she swung downward to more practical
considerations.  She reminded them that the patriotic spirit in which
the women of England had worked and endured, through these first
bewildering and terrible months of war, must assuredly win for them
the all-round equality, economic and political, out of which they had
been cheated for so long....

There spoke the soul of Harry through the voice of Bel, vitiating
fine service rendered by a perpetual eye on the ballot-box of the
future.  But, for the moment, even the obsession of years paled
before her consuming admiration of Bel in a new rôle.  Her address
had been reserved as the finishing touch to a great occasion, the
inauguration of a movement that promised far-reaching results.  For
three quarters of an hour she held her audience--their eyes no less
than their brains; and the culminating burst of applause was fully as
much a tribute to the speaker as to the speech: of which fact Bel was
radiantly aware.

A select company of the audience remained for tea and talk.  Fads and
theories flourished.  Compliments rained.  And Bel was never happier
than in the limelight of uncritical praise.  Between Harry's open
adoration and the joy of achievement, she was swept for the time
being, right away from the perplexities and tragic issues of her
lover's return.

It needed only the unexpected appearance of Rex Maitland, and his
discreet adulation, to complete her enjoyment.  But his polite
enquiries about Mark elicited brief and evasive answers.  She had not
yet found courage to tell any one the truth, only excepting Harry,
whose honest sympathy for the man in no way affected her inevitable
opinion as regards Bel.

Maitland was among the still further selected few whom Mrs. Langton
entertained at dinner: and Bel--in an apricot-yellow gown and her
leopard-skin cloak was admittedly the heroine of the evening.  The
whole affair was an experience after her own heart; marred only by
that hovering shadow of tragedy that waited to engulf her when
solitude and darkness left her at its mercy.

Alone at last in her bedroom, it engulfed her very thoroughly,
blotting out her tinsel triumphs, thrusting her in upon herself,
demanding decisions.

For nearly two weeks she had deliberately evaded the issue.  Now the
time for evasion was over.

Mark must already know his fate: and for the last few days she had
been half hoping, half fearing that he would write, through his
mother, offering to release her from their engagement.  Not a word
had come; and to-morrow....

Mechanically discarding her robe of triumpn, she slipped on a padded
dressing-gown and sank into a comfortable chair by the fire to
confront the situation.  No comfort there; look whichever way she
would, it was all cruel and horrible: fresh proof that the Fates were
in league against her, as always.  In her case, pity for the broken
or imperfect creatures of earth was not akin to love, but to
repulsion.  It was one of the chief horrors of this horrible war that
it would fill the world with hundreds of maimed and disfigured men;
perpetual reminders of an event which all sane people must surely
crave to forget.

And now--Mark would be one of them: Mark, her strong, splendid lover!

To marry him would be to live with a perpetual reminder of the thing
she abhorred: to spend her days either uncompanioned or tied to his
chair.  No seasons in Town: no social triumphs.  She could not see
Mark submitting to an invalid existence in London.  He would cling
more obstinately than ever to Wynchcombe Friars.  So would the very
position and affluence she craved be robbed of its chief attraction.
She had enough imagination to foresee it all far too clearly; and the
more she looked at the prospect the less she liked it.  The hope of
gradual improvement held out by Dr. Norton, was too distant, too
uncertain to mitigate the tragic actuality that lay like a stone upon
her heart.  For the great man had told her plainly that if, in six
months, there was no change of condition, the case would be hopeless.
He considered improvement possible; but was too cautious to say more,
or to, prophecy how far it might ultimately go.  And vague
possibilities were not enough for Bel.  Suppose she did wait six
months and then...?

With a shiver of misery she leaned forward, covering her face; and
tears, that came so rarely, fell from between her fingers.  Too well
she knew that the compound of passion and sentiment which she called
"love," would never stand the strain; and, genuinely though she
sorrowed for Mark, she was many degrees more sorry for herself.  The
root of her own tragedy lay in the fact that now--for the first time
in her varied dealings with men--her heart was seriously involved;
and its promptings did not agree with the promptings of her brain.

Hitherto it had been an underling; obedient to the dictates of
self-interest, more becomingly designated common-sense.  It had
played no leading part in her swift, dramatic conquest of Mark; in
the keen pleasure, known only to her kind, of luring him from a girl
lovelier and worthier than herself, and with hardly a grain of
coquetry in her composition.  Lady Forsyth's obvious disapproval had
been but one stimulus the more: and, her head having guided her into
a delectable harbour, she had felt, at last, sufficiently secure to
let her heart have its way--with disastrous result.

For, in her own fashion, she loved Mark now, more deeply and
genuinely than she would have believed possible that day at Inveraig,
when she had rejoiced mainly in the capture of a strong man, against
his mother's wish and probably against his own cooler judgment.  Her
triumph had been complete.  She had done more than capture him; she
had held him; and now--no denying it--he very certainly held her.

In his case, absence, and the letters that revealed unsuspected
heights and depths in him, had served to strengthen that hold; while
her own letters were having the opposite effect on him.  Nor had Mark
been mistaken in thinking that she might rise, momentarily to the
heroic plane.  For a few exalted days she had seen herself in the
grand rôle; and had almost believed in her power to carry it through.
But Nemesis pursued her: the Nemesis of her own nature.  Invariably
her high impulses had been short-lived; rootless things, like seeds
dropped on stony ground: and this one had proved no exception to the
rule.

Hovering to-night at the cross-roads, vowed to a decision before she
slept, Bel discovered to her cost that this, the one great choice of
her life, was decided already by the hundreds of minor, careless
decisions that had gone before.  Since she had never yet, in small
matters, chosen the path of hardness or unselfishness, so she could
not choose it now.  The Greeks, as usual, were in the right of it:
character is fate.

For years, unconsciously, and with keen enjoyment, Bel Alison had
been building up her own tragedy.  Now it turned and overwhelmed her.

But she did not long indulge in the futility of tears.  Very soon her
practical mind was at work again devising pleas that would throw a
becoming light on her quite justifiable, if unheroic, refusal to face
marriage with a husband who must either hamper her at every turn, or
be a cipher in her life.  The main points in her eyes were to do the
thing gracefully, to preserve at least a semblance of being in the
right, and, if possible, to avoid witnessing the pain she could not
choose but inflict.  For that reason, his silence troubled her.  It
implied either that he meant to do the thing personally or--not to do
it at all.  In which case, she would be driven to take the
initiative.  That unpleasant possibility swung her back to her
original lament.  It was all cruel and horrible: no escape any where
from pain for herself or him.  She felt helpless, like a squirrel in
a revolving cage.

At least she must see him to-morrow and chance the result.


"Better write and be done with it, Mavourneen," was Harry's counsel
next day, when Bel suggested a train that would allow time to "look
up Mark."  "It's a bitter business for the poor fellow losing
everything at a stroke; and I can't believe he's the man to try and
hold you in spite of all.  But if he gets making love to you--well!
there's no knowing what might happen.  And there's only one end to
the business that's fair on you.  Short and sharp's the kindest way
of it, Bel.  It'll only be worse for the both of you if you let
things drag on.  Cruel hard enough as it is."

Bel admitted the hardship--and the risk: but she insisted on the
earlier train; and wired to Mark her probable time of arrival at the
Home.  Marriage or no marriage, she wanted simply to feel his arms
round her, his lips on hers again.

At first sight of him, her heart contracted so sharply that she had
need of Harry's warning and vehement conviction to fortify her own
resolve.  They had dressed him and moved him into an arm-chair by the
fire.  A fur rug covered his legs.  The bandage had given place to a
velvet football cap that hid the shaven patch on his head.
Altogether, he looked more normal than she had seen him yet.  But the
change that smote her was in his face; the look of his eyes as if
some inner light had gone out.

Those first few days of awful realisation as regards himself and
bewildering uncertainty as regards Bel had told upon him visibly.
The strong outline of his chin and jaw seemed sharper.  When he was
not talking or smiling the strained expression of his lips was
pitiful to see.  And his greeting, for the moment, unnerved her
utterly.

"Bel,--at last!" he cried, a queer ring in his voice, and held out
his hand.

She came to him swiftly and half flung herself on him kneeling beside
his chair.  Very seldom in her life had she felt tongue-tied: but
just then speech seemed the last impossibility.  And when she closed
her eyes the feel of his rough Norfolk coat against her cheek carried
her sharply back to days of cool, assured conquest at Inveraig.  If
_only_ she had known!----

Very sorely she began to wish that she had followed Harry's advice.
For, though head governed heart, she was, like most egoists, a
sentimentalist at the core.  Evenly balanced on the knife-edge
between pain and pleasure, she leaned against her lover, expecting,
yet half dreading the word that he, poor man, was doing his utmost to
speak.

So far he had said nothing to any one of the facts wrung from Keith a
few days ago.  With his mother there had been no need.  Neither could
have borne it: and their understanding was complete.  The mute
sympathy of his Nurse no longer jarred: and his few recent visitors
had continued to maintain a tactful silence.  Detailed talk on the
subject would hurt like salt on an open wound.  It would also involve
the inevitable scene, so distressful to his shaken nerves; and still,
at critical moments, there lurked the dread of making ludicrous
mistakes.

But the main stumbling-block was Bel herself.  Her flight to
Folkestone--he did not believe in the importance of that meeting--had
convinced him that retreat was simply a prelude to graceful
acceptance of her freedom.  Yet here she was, incalculable as ever,
making passionate love to him: her lips mutely attesting, "I am
yours, in spite of all!"

Every minute of silence, every fresh kiss, made things harder for
Mark.  The mere glamour of her most strangely out-lasted his own
clearer vision.  After four of the worst days he had ever lived
through, it was undeniably refreshing, if only because it made no
demands on the higher centres of his brain and soul.  But it
engendered neither true emotion nor response.  It was a pure anodyne;
and as such he frankly recognised it.

Conversely, Bel's emotion had so genuine a ring that it set him
wondering had he after all, misjudged her?  Were there hidden deeps
in her that this sharp test might reach and bring to light?  In that
case it were hard to put her aside in the hour of his own greatest
need for the best that woman can give; harder still to resist her in
an appealing vein.

He was mentally unstrung--and he knew it.  Not otherwise could her
mere genius for love-making override his deep and real conviction
that in freedom from her spell lay his sole chance of salvation.
That very conviction made resistance seem unchivalrous; and he felt
utterly unfit for the emotional strain of a dramatic scene, such as
she would instinctively make out of a noble resolve to devote herself
to a crippled husband.  By one of life's ironic twists their
positions appeared to be reversed.

It was not in him to conceive that she was merely indulging herself
to the full because this must be the end; because, with the innate
perversity of her kind she had never loved him better than now, when
her will was set to give him up.

Mark himself, with the deeper, ingrained perversity of human nature,
felt a sudden distaste for this exuberance of sentiment, which
thwarted his fixed intent and seemed tacitly to rebuke the secret
defection of his heart.  He began to think the thing would have to be
written after all.  In any case he needed time to readjust his mind
in view of her possible refusal to be set free.

To-morrow--perhaps.  Any idea of speaking to-day was "off." ...

She released him at last, and sat back in his mother's low chair; her
ringed hand resting close to his arm.

"Well, fire away," he said in his natural manner.  "I want to
know--all that--" a gesture filled the gap.  "Is the latest thing in
... vocations going to be a thundering success?"

She smiled at the recollection.

"It started well anyway.  Compliments were flying."

"What subject?"

"Harry's pet subject, of course!  Chiefly glorification of ourselves.
But we women _do_ get the kicks in war time and precious few of the
ha'pence!"  Though she spoke lightly, a shade of bitterness crept
into her tone.  "What harm if we make little tinsel crowns for
ourselves just to keep up our spirits!"

Then, sheering away as from the edge of a precipice she entertained
him with thumb-nail sketches of Mrs. Langton and her friends and with
a judicious selection of their flying compliments to herself.  The
longer she stayed, the harder it became to get up and leave him--for
the last time.  She felt convinced now, that he would not speak; and
she did not mean to see him again.

At last, somehow, she was on her feet, saying she must go; and when
she stooped to kiss him, he looked searchingly into her eyes.

"Badly bored--are you?--by your invalid lover?" he asked, probing her
on impulse; but she managed to laugh it off.

"Boring people is not one of his talents!" she said lightly, and
leaned her head against him.

"To-morrow?" he said in her ear.  And she, humanly
inconsistent--could not bear that her last word to him should be a
lie.  So, for answer, she kissed him lingeringly, and made haste to
be gone.

On the threshold she turned, for a last look.  But sudden tears
blinded her; and, with a flutter of her hand she left him.


Arrived at the flat, she found supper ready and Harry impatient, more
from anxiety than anything else.  Even now she did not feel quite
secure about Bel.  No one ever did.  It was perhaps half the secret
of her power.

"Well?" she asked abruptly.  Bel shook her head.

"He never said a word."

Crouching on the hearth-rug she drew off her gloves and held her
chilled hands to the blaze.

Harry's eyes scrutinised her fire-lit face.  "Perhaps he doesn't mean
to."

"Oh--I don't know.  But--I _can't_ go on----"

"Of course you can't.  It's horribly unfair on you.  You must write
yourself, Mavourneen.  Do it to-night; and get it over."

Bel shivered.  "I suppose--I must.  But it seems so ungracious coming
from me.  And ... it's not only him.  It's the whole thing----"

Her voice broke suddenly and she sank on to the floor, sobbing
passionately, her face hidden in the empty arm-chair.

Quick as thought Harry was beside her, removing her hat, clinging to
her, murmuring endearments; to all of which Bel submitted without
response.

"You're tired, my precious, and the strain of it all has upset your
nerves.  It won't feel half so bad once you've got it over.  You
shall have this room to yourself after supper and I'll post it the
minute it's written.  Cheer up and eat something before it all gets
cold.  Your poor old Harry will be ever so good to you----"

Bel raised her head suddenly and shook off the clinging hands.  "Oh,
let me alone!  You're not a bit sorry really.  You only want me for
yourself.  But I'm bound to marry--I _must_ marry.  You know that.
Yet you always try to prevent me.  If you hadn't made such an unholy
fuss about Geoffrey, we might have been quite happy together now in
Australia.  He was a good fellow anyway; and I would have been
spared--_all this_.  Now I've tasted the best and I'll have to
swallow the second best, with my eyes open and my heart locked up.
It's evidently not safe, even to fall in love with one's affianced
husband.  God knows I've had enough of tragedy----"

With a superbly dramatic gesture she swept to her feet and left the
discomfited Harry kneeling ignominiously by an empty chair.

But if Harry's devotion was deep, her temper was short.  "And
sometimes I think I've had enough of you, Bel," she flung out,
scrambling ungainly from her knees.  "I, that have loved you and
slaved for you--goodness knows why.  For all your sweetness, you're
selfish, heartless, ungrateful----"

She broke off, for Bel had vanished into her room and locked the door.

In her own time, she reappeared--dignified, unapproachable and
polite.  But before their half-cold meal was over, dignity had
thawed; Harry's temper had evaporated and Bel had talked herself into
the belief that her latest evasion was mainly prompted by
consideration for Mark.  Since she could not rise to his level, it
were kinder to leave him than to drag him down.  It was a singularly
sustaining belief and it made her ungracious letter much easier to
write.

Harry, as good as her word, took a bundle of pamphlets to read by the
kitchen fire, leaving her alone.

After a little preliminary pacing and framing of sentences, Bel sat
down to her task, steeled outwardly and composed.  Harry was right.
Once the thing was done, past undoing, the worst wrench would be over.


"My darling Mark," she began in her firm, clear hand.  "I can write
that truthfully, in spite of what I am going to say.  It's not lack
of love that forces me to do this hateful thing.  It's lack of
something much bigger, which you possess and I most certainly don't.
I knew, the minute I saw your face, that they had told you.  It's the
cruelest, bitterest blow that could have fallen on a man like you.
To say I'm sorry would be simply a travesty of what I feel about it.
And you'll understand now what sort of a purgatory _I've_ been going
through this last two weeks.  Let that be my excuse--if you admit any.

"Mark--I didn't properly love you at Inveraig, but I do now.  And
yet--I _can't_ marry you.  No use pretending.  I couldn't go through
the pain and strain of it even for the finest man I've ever known.

"I told you, when first this Inferno began, that you were too big for
a mere Bel; that in spite of it I couldn't let you go.  Now,
_because_ of it, I must.  This war has shrivelled up all I ever
possessed in the way of a soul.  But it seems to have made you stand
out bigger than before.  I believe that even this fiendish stroke of
Fate will only crush you for a time.  You'll override it.  You and
your astonishing mother.  Perhaps even wring some good out of it.
That would simply drive me to the other extreme.  People ought _not_
to accept and glorify horrors like this.  It's all wrong.  Simply
encourages Kings and politicians to wallow in wholesale murder for
their own ends.

"But this is heresy to you; so no more.  If you hate reading this
letter, please believe I've hated writing it.  I thought you might
speak this afternoon.  But I expect it was too hard for you, poor
boy.  And it's really kinder on my part to do it this way, even
though it _seems_ to put me in an ungracious position.  If I saw you
again, I might give way after all, in spite of myself.  But it
_wouldn't last_.  A worse tragedy for you.  At least I'm sparing you
that.  And I'm not returning your ring.  I feel sure you would like
me to keep it with your letters, as a remembrance of the one real
phase in my rather artificial life.

"Will you miss me tremendously, I wonder?  But it's no use thinking
of that now.  It's all cruel and horrible for both of us.

"If you ever hear of me marrying, you'll know it is simply a business
arrangement--and no doubt you'll be very sorry for the man.  Enough
of this.  Good-bye.  Your unworthy but not unloving Bel."


There--it was done, even to the straight thick line under her
signature with a loop at one end.  She forced herself to read it
through, with a critical detachment, and decided that it could not
well be improved upon.  Even the ungraceful thing, she had managed to
do gracefully.  There was a gleam of comfort in that.  She felt half
tempted to show it to Harry; but refrained.  Harry was allowed to run
out with it, however, though her cough was troublesome and a fine
cold rain was falling.

Alone again, Bel sat down by the fire and tried not to be aware of a
chill emptiness at her heart....

It was a sharp pang, this parting: the sharpest she had yet known.
But she could and would live it down.  Her invincible common-sense
assured her that, after all, there were other men in the world,
moneyed and titled; that a woman between thirty and thirty-five was
at the zenith of her charm.  But something else told her that men of
Mark's quality do not grow on bramble bushes.  Though he could not
lift her to his level, he had raised her standard, if only for a
time.  The sort of husband who might have done very well six months
ago would, now, not do at all.  More and more she saw herself as the
chief sufferer in this double calamity.  Mark had his own fineness to
uphold him.  He had a beautiful home, devoted friends, a mother who
worshipped him, Mr. Macnair, Sheila----

Though Bel put Sheila last, the thought of her had come first: and in
the private corner of her heart she was glad that her loss could not
be Sheila's gain.  Though Mark might hesitate to set her free, she
could not see him proposing marriage to another woman.  It was her
one crumb of consolation.

At the sound of the latch-key in the lock she rose and went hurriedly
to her own room.  Harry's jealous devotion seemed to her suddenly a
thing intolerable----




CHAPTER VIII

  "There never was to God such worship sent
  By any angel in the heavenly ways
  As this, that Life has uttered for God's praise:--
  This girlhood--as the service of Life said
  In the beauty and the manners of this maid."
                                      L. ABERCROMBIE.


But Mark Forsyth had still a long black road to travel before he
could arrive at mastering calamity, or even at recognising the very
real ameliorations which Bel had enumerated for her own justification.

During those first staggering days, realisation bit into him like a
corrosive acid, that he had lost, at a stroke, all the manlier side
of life; all free, independent movement, and the right to hold his
promised wife, even if she willed.  More and more he doubted this
last, in spite of recent proof that her love had been growing deeper
precisely as his own had begun to wane.  That was during her absence
at Folkestone, which, in the circumstances, looked like a prelude to
rejection.

And all the while, locked in the depths of his being, lay the hidden
knowledge that he had jettisoned the real woman for the sake of the
tinsel sham and had discovered the truth too late.  He knew now why
his feeling for Sheila had been so curiously unaffected by his
passing passion for Bel.  It belonged to the depths; and there it had
lain hidden, like a jewel in a mine.  Once he was blind.  Now he saw.
War and its vicissitudes had effectually burnt away the husks and
left the real man--battered, enlightened, enlarged....

His sole ray of light, since the blow fell, had been one of Sheila's
rare letters, written directly she heard that he knew the truth.
Short and simple as it was, Mark found in every line of it the
inexpressible fragrance of her spirit, the sure delicate touch of the
healer on his hidden wound.  It had given him a passing uplift, a
glimpse of what life might be when the fog had cleared.  At present,
it seemed to be choking the life out of him, converting all his
strength to weakness, his blood to gall.

Sheila wrote that she was still very much tied with work at Westover.
Mr. Nacnair had been angelic about coming down and giving her
first-hand news; but the moment it was possible, she would fly up to
London for a glimpse of them both.

And on the morning after Bel's return--just as Mark was beginning to
wonder at her non-appearance--the door opened to admit Lady Forsyth
and Sheila, in squirrel furs, with a bunch of violets in her coat.

"Sheila!" he exclaimed, startled, yet frankly overjoyed.  "Lord--it's
like--seeing you suddenly--like a breath of Hampshire in this
confounded London.  I'd pretty well given you up."

"I've been trying to come for nearly a week.--True."  She nodded,
beaming on him and unfastening her violets while she talked.  "It
seemed hopeless.  Then suddenly, to-day, I saw a free space ahead.
There was no time to cry, 'Look out!'  So I just flew off and nipped
into a kind train.  And these"--she held out her violets--"are for
you.  I wanted to bring a sheaf of Father's special chrysanthemums.
But I'd have lost the train."

"I prefer these," he said, and under pretence of sniffing them he
touched them with his lips.  "Fasten them--will you?  I'm no better
than an overgrown infant."

She shook her head at the faint note of bitterness.  "A very capable
infant!  And your precious right hand's ever so much better.  There!
They look lovely."

For answer, he merely glanced from the flowers to her face.  Lady
Forsyth, standing near the window?  watched the little scene with a
yearning ache at her heart.  Now she came forward and patted Mark's
shoulder.

"You shall have her to yourself," she said, "for a real long talk.
I'll do dragon downstairs and keep Londoners at bay!"

"That's good."

Mark's tone was gravely content.  Reaching out, he drew a low chair
nearer to the fire and to himself.  "Sit--Mouse," he said, as his
mother moved away.  "Take off your coat.  Look as if--you'd come to
stay."

She obeyed, more gladly than he knew, and, sitting down by him, drew
a khaki sock out of her bag.  "You must excuse," she said smiling.
"We're as bad as the French Revolution, these days!  I'm more or less
responsible for Ralph's men.  They feel the cold cruelly, poor dears!
And I don't get overmuch time now.  Mums looks rather strained and
tired, doesn't she?"

Mark nodded.  "It's been cruel hard on her--this business.  But she's
come through it all ... 'm what's the confounded word?--a heroine.
Has she said much to you?"

"Not much.  She knows I understand.  We came very close together ...
before."

Mark leaned forward.

"You know, you promised you'd tell me ... all that.  And then--you
never came!"

"Dear, I couldn't," she said very low to the heel of her sock.

He watched her a while in silence; approving the clear, delicate
outline of her profile, the soft-toned blue of her blouse, and the
old lace collar he had given her two years ago.  He knew now how
impermissibly he had been craving to see her....

"Well, as you _have_ turned up, at last,"  he said, abruptly breaking
the silence, "tell ... all about it now.  I'm dead sick of myself."

And she told...

For nearly an hour they were left in peace.  Not since that long-ago
talk on the terrace, when she had surprised him by denouncing Bel,
had they talked so intimately or at such length; and for Mark it was
the most satisfying hour he had known since his return.  Both of
them, unsuspected by each other, clung rather desperately to "Mums"
as the one topic on which they could safely draw near together.  Then
Sheila wanted to hear about Sœur Colette.  This was not easy
matter for Mark, but he achieved it, after a fashion.  He was
describing his own abortive attempt to thank the devoted little nun
at parting, when there came a knock at the door.

It was the maid with two letters for Mark.  With a start--half
relief, half vexation--he recognised Bel's writing.

"May I?" he asked.

And Sheila, rising casually, went over to the window that looked
across the Park.  This quiet hour together had been so rare and
perfect a gift from the blue that she could hardly endure to watch
him read a love-letter from Bel.  That the girl could dream of
leaving him in his helplessness never so much as entered her head.

A smothered curse startled her and she turned sharply.

"Mark!" she cried, an irrepressible ring of tenderness in her tone;
but he scarcely heard her.

The Mark of five minutes earlier--her Mark--had vanished.  The man
she confronted was of Bel's making.  He had tossed his letter on to
his elbow-table.  He sat looking straight before him, his face set
and stern.

"Oh--_what_ is it?" she asked, rooted to the spot by a feeling that
she ought not to be there.  No one ought to see him suffering so.
But Mark, dashed from his haven of content by a great wave of anger
and disgust, was past troubling about any human presence.

"She ... has no further use for me.--That's all," he said, as if he
were speaking into vacancy.  "And yesterday I was fool eno' ... Quite
a ... masterly composition!"

Could Bel have heard that last she would have felt punished indeed.
But it was Sheila who heard it--Sheila who stood grasping the
window-sill, swept by a tempest of anger scarcely less than his own.

"Oh--she's a coward--a coward!"  The words flashed out involuntarily;
and he seemed suddenly to be aware of her.

"You tender-hearted Mouse," he said, in a changed voice.  "You ...
don't understand, eh?  But ... it's natural enough.  Inevitable.  No
one ... but Mums could be expected ... to have any use for me--now."

To that tragic remark Sheila could find no answer.  Besides, she was
fighting back her tears and wondering desperately, ought she perhaps,
to speak of what she knew?  Would it give him the smallest
consolation?  Was it fair to kick even Bel when she was down--Bel,
who had taken her all?  Fair, or not, the thing was not in Sheila's
nature.  She was human enough to wish that Mark could know--now.  But
she was not the one to tell him.

"Thank God--for Mums," she said softly, after a long pause; and he
bowed his head in heartfelt acquiescence.

The strained hardness had gone from his face.  But the irony of the
whole situation was piercing his heart.  Sheila--who would have been
staunch through thick and thin--here alone with him, almost within
arm's length, yet irrevocably, eternally out of reach; lost to him
through his own blind folly.  If ever mortal man endured the torment
of Tantalus it was Mark Forsyth in that hour of bewildered anger and
pain.

Sheila, believing him heart-broken, remained near the window, seeking
some inadequate word of comfort, and finding none.  Instinct told her
that, for the moment, silence was best.  Probably he was not even
aware of her: while she, startled out of her stoic self-repression,
had never been so intimately, so poignantly aware of him.

Unconsciously he had clenched his left hand until the knuckles stood
out sharp and white.  He sat staring into the fire with a fixed
unseeing look.  At intervals his eyebrows twitched nervously; and
sudden fear seized her lest this blow had fallen on him before he was
fit for the strain.

"Mark," she said at last, very gently, and came closer to him now.
"It simply ... bewilders me; and it has come at such a cruel moment.
But you mustn't let--things upset you too much.  Would you rather be
alone?"

To her surprise he flung out his hand and grasped her wrist.

"No--no.  Don't _you_ leave me!"

Was it fancy,--or was there an under-note of fear in his tone?  The
mere possibility pierced her heart.

"Sit down--please," he said abruptly, and released her.  "You've come
all this way and I've been simply----"

He checked himself, and was thankful that she would suppose he had
forgotten a word.  "I've been--looking forward to it for so long.
I'll be rotten company.  But do stay...."

He let out a great sigh and she sat by him as before; but the spell
of their happy intercourse was broken.  Bel had come upon the scene,
and, as usual, had spoilt everything.

"I think," she said, "you ought to lie back and rest a little.  Would
you prefer ... shall I read?"

"Do.  I'd love it."

"What have you got here? ... Roman Rolland?"

"Yes: a new one--the '_Michel Ange_.'  It's splendid."

He indicated the page; but first she must arrange his chair and
cushions at a restful slope.  Leaning back he gazed up at her.  For a
mere instant his eyes lingered in hers, that had the clear depth and
quiet of a mountain lake.

"Clever Mouse!" he said, in a voice of lazy content.  "And look here,
not a word to Mums.  She'd rage.  We'll have our afternoon in peace;
and I'll tell her to-night.  Go ahead."

Pocketing Bel's letter, he closed his eyes; and Sheila, between the
sentences, could scrutinise his face.  Cheek-bones and jaw and the
fine strong curve of the eye-bone still stood out too sharply; and
she noted with a pang the strained corners of his mouth.  Beneath his
surface composure she detected unmistakable signs of jarred
nerves--signs she was learning to know too well--and a great longing
came over her to soothe him with the touch of her skilled fingers
over his forehead and head.  But the very intensity of her feeling
made her shrink from an offer that would otherwise have been a mere
matter of course.

Meantime she must give her attention to Michael Angelo----

And it was so that Lady Forsyth found them when she came to carry
Sheila off for lunch.

After his prescribed rest, they returned and had their afternoon in
peace.  Though Mark's natural cheerfulness was still shadowed by his
calamity, Sheila--seeing what she had seen--marvelled at the
controlled ease of his manner.  And few could estimate better the
manifold difficulties of self-control.

The moment of parting put an almost equal strain on both.

"Come again soon, Mouse," he said, with a brave show of lightness
that wrung her heart.  "It's done me good--a breath of country air."

She promised to come, when stress of work allowed, and she frankly
returned the pressure of his hand.

Then--she was gone: and for Mark it was as if the sun had fallen out
of the sky.  Alone--with the haunting sense of her presence, the
empty chair, and that letter in his pocket, a chill conviction crept
through him that life--real life--was over and done with--that he had
reached the dead end of everything.


His mother, when she reappeared, found him lying listless and
unoccupied, staring into space.  As she came to the fire and drew off
her gloves, he glanced up at her without a word of greeting: a glance
that would normally have hurt her.  But, in those days, thought and
feeling were altogether concentrated on him.

"Darling," she said, in a voice that tried not to sound over-anxious,
"you look horribly done up.  It was lovely, wasn't it?  But I'm
afraid it's all been a little too much for you."

His answer, spoken in a vehement undertone, jarred all through her.

"You're right.  The whole cursed situation is just a little too much
for me."  Then, seeing the startled pain in her eyes, he handed her
Bel's envelope, adding more gently: "I'm not going off my head.  That
came this morning."

She read it slowly, with very mixed feelings, and Mark's eyes never
left her face.  The breeze of her thoughts rippled over it like wind
over a pool.  But she did not "rage" as he had anticipated.  She was
at once too thankful and too profoundly angered by the girl's
invincible coolness and selfishness to find relief in mere explosives.

"Well?" he asked, seeing that she had reached the end.

"_Well!_" she echoed, with eloquent brevity.  Then, after a pause:
"No wonder that took the virtue out of Sheila's visit.  It's Bel
through and through.  I can make no severer comment.  And, after all,
one detects a touch of poetic justice.  She did it ... before to hurt
you deliberately for her own ends.  Now she's compelled to do it,
being what she is.  Of course----"

"Mother, be _quiet_!"  Mark's eyebrows twitched and he raised a
commanding hand.  "She's in the right of it.  But yesterday ... she
never gave me a chance....  Not likely I should dream of holding her
to...  Oh Lord!"  He clenched his hand and closed his eyes, as if to
shut out the intolerable truth.  But the enemy was within.

And his mother stood there watching him.  Every nerve in her quivered
with his pain as well as her own; and two great tears rolled unheeded
down her cheeks.

Suddenly Mark opened his eyes; and at sight of her mute controlled
misery, his heart smote him.

"_Mother_ ... I'm a graceless beast," he said slowly.  "Thank
God--there's _you_----"

"Yes--there's me--always!"  With a sharp sob she fell on her knees
beside him and pressed her lips upon his hand.




CHAPTER IX

"Suffer not woman in her tenderness to sit near him in the darkness.
Banish the frailties of hope, wither the relenting of love, scorch
the fountain of tears...."--DE QUINCEY.


Next morning they could speak of it all more calmly.  Mark had slept
little and had done some unpleasantly lucid thinking in the small
hours.

"Now--it must be business to-day," he said, when his mother appeared
after breakfast, to read or to write for him according to his mood.
"And first, we must answer _this_."

He brought his hand down sharply on Bel's letter.

"Need you?" she asked.

"Yes--I need.  I've ... one or two things to say.  My left-hand
scrawl's not legible yet; so--you must write them for me.  She won't
like that."

It was the first time Helen Forsyth had heard a vindictive note in
her son's voice.

"No," she said quietly; and, opening his despatch-case, she laid out
her materials, while he sat worrying his moustache.

When she was ready, he dictated in a low, impersonal tone the "one or
two things" that he had thought out in the small hours.

"Bel, I have your letter.  Of course you are free.  I had no other
intention.  I meant to tell you on Thursday, but ... I was a weak
fool----"

"Mark!" his mother remonstrated; and he frowned sharply.

"I was a weak fool," he repeated with emphasis.  "Written it?"

"Yes."

"As it's hard on you losing everything, I am instructing my
solicitors to pay you the £5000 I told you about.  Money is always
useful."

At that, his mother laid down her pen.

"My dear boy, it's out of the question.  Walker will think you've
gone mad."

"Walker may think what he pleases.  He will get his instructions
before he knows the engagement is off."

The set of Mark's face warned her that she was knocking her head
against a wall; but she could not give in without further protest.

"Darling, do be reasonable," she pleaded.  "It's not fair----"

"Not fair--on whom?" he blazed round at her.  "I'm not despoiling
Wynchcombe Friars.  And it isn't as if ... there was any
chance--Marriage is out of the question.  And ... it's a bit hard on
Bel.  After all, she's lost her husband through the war.  I'm simply
treating her as if she was my widow.  And it may save some other
luckless chap from ... the 'business arrangement' she proposes to
ratify at the altar.  Anyway, Mother, the money's mine, and I don't
feel fit to argue the point.  If you won't write what I want, I must
do it through Keith--that's all."

She bit her lip to keep back the futile retort.  He was plainly not
himself this morning.  Dr. Norton had warned her of possible nerve
complications.  Opposition was useless; probably harmful.  And what
did a little money matter after all?

"Of course I'll write what you want, Mark," she said quietly. "But
... wouldn't three thousand be enough?"

"Oh, all right, three thousand," he agreed listlessly, to her
complete surprise.  All the fire seemed to have gone out of him.
"Let's get it over.  Have you written everything?  Thanks.  Give it
here."

He read it through, while his mother watched him with troubled eyes,
then slowly, laboriously he scrawled with his left hand: "Good-bye.
Mark Stuart Forsyth."

"There--that's done," he said, pushing the paper across the table.
"Write instructions to Walker in my name, will you?  I feel fagged
out.  This cursed lying up saps all one's energy."

Though her heart yearned over him, she answered nothing.  He needed
no cheap word of sympathy from her.  They were one in suffering; and
he knew it.  All she could do for him was to be untiring in his
service.

While she went on with her writing, he lay silent and inert, not even
troubling to fill his pipe--an achievement that had delighted him a
few days ago.

Mechanically Helen's pen travelled over the paper; but she scarcely
knew what she wrote, so harassed was her brain with perplexity and
foreboding.  She had hoped much from Sheila's visit, but Bel had
stepped in and spoilt the effect.  Just when the first realisation of
his fate was blackening everything, she must needs rub salt into his
wound by dwelling on the pain and strain which she could not endure.
And Mark responded by heaping coals of fire on her head.  It was
maddening of him; but at the moment every minor consideration was
dwarfed by the discouraging state of his nerves.  His alterations
between listlessness and irritability alarmed her.  Mercifully, Dr.
Norton was coming to-morrow; and she hoped Keith would arrive soon.

At the first, far-off sound of his footstep she laid down her pen.
"I'll be back in a minute, darling," she said, and hurried away.

In the midst of all her anxiety and sorrow, it was a very real
blessing to have Keith back again; and, as regards Mark, her reliance
on him was absolute.  To her, their relation seemed a singularly
perfect thing.  She had almost forgotten--in her concentration on
Mark--that he was supposed to be in love with her.

"What's wrong now?" he asked: she was so obviously thankful to see
him.

"Oh, everything.  Come in here a minute."

She led him into the empty ante-room where visitors waited; and there
told him, in a few trenchant phrases, the tale of Bel's defection, of
Sheila's visit, and of Mark's change for the worse.

"I suspect he didn't sleep much last night, and I'm afraid I ...
rather ... get on his nerves," she concluded, with a pitiful quiver
of her lip.  "Something fresh is hurting him terribly--something
bigger, I think, than the loss of Bel.  Keith ... I'm afraid ... for
his precious brain."

"Don't get thinking that, Helen."  Keith's eyes were gentler than his
tone.  "How about another drive?  The first was a success.  We'll ask
Nurse."

"Yes, do."  Her face cleared.  "But I think--unless he asks for me--I
won't come.  He can feel my anxiety--just as I feel his pain.  And it
worries him."

"Well--perhaps you're right.  You mothers are the standing miracles
of creation."

She shook her head; but his quietly spoken tribute cheered and
comforted her, as he had meant that it should.

"Nurse" approved the suggestion of a drive, and Mark assented without
enthusiasm.  He also accepted without comment the fact that his
mother was not coming; and she, from the window, watched them go in a
mood of bewildered misery that came very near despair.  Could she
have broken down the wall of Mark's reserve and probed the depths of
his hidden pain, even her fine courage might altogether have given
way.  But mercifully man "goes upon his long business like a blind
child...."


To-day's drive was quite conspicuously not a success.  The first one
had come at a happy moment.  But Mark was slipping steadily down into
the dark places of the soul where happy moments are not, where he
would have to fight with beasts--quite as real and terrible as the
beasts at Ephesus--before he could win again to daylight and sanity
and acceptance.

To-day, though the sun shone fitfully and the sky showed frail
patches of blue, his soul was unresponsive, utterly, to the still
small voice of hope.  To-day the mere sight of whole men and women,
walking, riding free to come and go, to feel the good earth under
their feet, stirred him suddenly to such a fury of rebellion that he
felt as if his brain would burst.

Bombs!  That was what he wanted.  Bombs to hurl right and left into
that complacent crowd, that talked "war" and "atrocities" and "the
Christmas truce," and knew nothing about it all--nothing whatever.
Why were there no bombs?  It was scandalous mismanagement----

By some queer freak, the taxi had become a trench and the complacent
Londoners were Germans--swarms of them.  One couldn't imagine Germans
otherwise than in swarms.  And there was only one way to prevent
these swarms from overrunning the earth:--shells and guns, unlimited
shells and guns.  When the deuce would Home Authorities even begin to
wake up...?

At this point the Germans vanished; the trench was a taxi again, and
Mark glanced furtively at Keith as if to see whether he had noticed
the transformation.  But Keith had merely seen the outer Mark sunk in
an unnatural apathy that seemed to confirm his own worst forebodings;
and now, in response to that questioning glance, he smiled his
tranquil, rather tired smile.

"A nice change getting out into the open, eh, old man?" he said.  "In
a few months' time you may be handling your own car."

"Think so?"  A flicker of interest sounded in Mark's tone.

"Quite possible, I should say.  When that day comes we'll go round
recruiting again--you and I."

Then, having caught Mark's attention, he dilated a little upon that
vexed question, and ventured a pious hope that some day,
something--perhaps Zeppelin bombs in Downing Street--would convince a
Government, presumably anxious for victory, that, in war, time spelt
not merely money but infinitely precious human lives.

Mark gave the matter his polite consideration, though it seemed to
him curiously remote.  Keith was doing his best.  They all were; but
none of them had a glimmering idea of the Sheila complication, or of
what the whole thing meant--for him.  Just as well, perhaps.

He felt half ashamed, now, of the sudden rage that had possessed him;
and that brief vivid delusion had startled him not a little.  He must
"hang on to things" firmly or it might recur.

He hung on, accordingly, till the drive ended and they carried him up
to his room, haunted now by Sheila's presence.  His mother was out;
and Keith, as luck would have it, began to talk of Sheila and to sing
her praises, till Mark could endure it no more.  His brows twitched
and he hung on to things with desperate tenacity.  But it was
useless.  Keith, in the kindness of his heart, was jabbing nails into
him: driving them home----

For a time Mark bore it in semi-silence: then, to Keith's
consternation, he suddenly and very completely let himself go....

For close on half an hour he cursed everything and everyone, more
especially the devoted Macgregor, whose superfluous zeal had saved
him from extinction.  He raged against his dependence on others,
against the broken life ahead of him, with a terrible fluency and
command of language that Keith had not heard from him since full
power of speech returned.

To interrupt or reason with him were worse than useless: moreover,
Macnair knew that, for a man of Mark's passionate nature, some such
explosion was inevitable, and he devoutly hoped it might bring
relief.  Much of it, both in manner and matter, was so foreign to the
true Mark, that Keith found it all unendurably painful.  Yet he
endured; and at intervals said what he could, which was little
enough; first, because he was a tongue-tied Scot; second, because
Mark was in no condition just then for comfort of any kind.

Slowly the storm died down to disconnected mutterings of apology and
self-disgust; and the sound of his mother's footstep without silenced
him altogether.

"Oh Lord!  Here's Mums," he murmured, and Keith did not fail to
notice the worried look in his eyes.  "Don't go, old man.  And for
God's sake--don't give me away."

"_Is_ it likely?" Keith asked, with a reproachful look.  "She has
more than enough to bear."

Words and tone had their intended effect.  When his mother appeared,
Mark achieved a smile.

She came to him and kissed his forehead.

"Had a nice drive?"

"Oh, a damned delectable drive!" he answered with a short laugh.
"Beastly unfair on Keith, dosing him with an hour of my society."

"You shut up," Keith commanded sternly; and Helen, seeing that
something had gone wrong, made haste to change the subject.

Keith took her out to lunch and had a good deal to say about the
political situation.  Then, the day being Saturday, he insisted on a
Symphony Concert.  He further insisted on ringing up Sir John
Forsyth--who happened to be in town--and asking him to look in on
Mark for tea.  Helen never liked him better than in these occasional
autocratic moods.  Too often nowadays the one thing she prayed to be
delivered from was a decision, no matter how trifling; and at such
times the masculine note of command was restful beyond belief.

So she went with him to the Queen's Hall; and Beethoven's music
flowed like a river of healing over the bruised places of her heart;
and when they returned to Park Lane, Sir John began insisting also.

This, though she never guessed it, was equally Keith's doing.

Laura, he said, had given him strict injunctions to bring Helen back
for dinner.  "Quite quiet," the Admiral assured her, seeing
hesitation on her face.  "Only ourselves and the Desmonds.  He's up
on some recruiting business.  Age cannot wither him.  Wonderful
fellow!"

"But--Mark," Helen murmured, glancing at her son, who seemed lost in
his own reflections.

"I'll spend the evening with him," Keith struck in.  "Nothing I
should enjoy better."

Mark, who was listening fitfully, greeted that statement with a
grimace and a faint, very faint, twinkle in his eye.  The eclipse of
his humour was, to those who loved him, a bitter thing; and, in
Keith's opinion, a bad sign.

It was certainly not in evidence that evening.  The afternoon's
explosion seemed to have flung him to the other extreme.  He smoked
pipe after pipe without volunteering a word; and Keith, watching him
unobserved, grew more anxious than ever.  Towards the end, after a
long silence, he suddenly leaned forward and gave Keith a straight
look.

"I've got it!" he said, with decision.

"Got what, old chap?" Keith asked, feeling seriously alarmed.

"A priceless sentence of Robert Louis'--rather apt for the occasion,"
Mark answered; and Keith broke into a low laugh of relief.  "It's
been wandering in my head, bits of it.  Couldn't piece them together.
Now it's come straight.  'When we have fallen through storey after
storey of our vanity and aspiration, and sit rueful among the ruins,
it is then that we begin to measure the stature of our friends.'
Struck me I'd been ... measuring yours to-day.  Understand?"

"I do understand."  Keith was too deeply moved to say more.

"Not quite so crazy, am I, as I sounded this afternoon," Mark went
on, with a pathetic pride in his own achievement.

"Not a bit of it!  If you can quote R.L.S. verbatim, you'll do all
right, in time."

"Yes--in time."  Mark let out his breath and leaned back against his
cushions.  "Meanwhile I--'sit rueful among the ruins.'  And you must
make allowances, you ... people."

At that, Keith rose abruptly; it was time to be gone.

"My dear fellow," he said, and laid a hand on Mark's shoulder, "we're
ready to make all the allowances on earth.  Only--" a pause--"as far
as you can ... be merciful to your mother."

Mark sighed.  "Mums?  Yes--that's the difficulty.  Women are the
deuce."

"A few of them," Keith remarked with quiet emphasis, "are about all
the visible guarantee we have that--there's a God in heaven!"

Then he took his leave, feeling a shade less anxious, but determined
to be on the spot next morning and to see Dr. Norton when he came.


"Sleep sound, old chap," was his parting injunction; but the brief
snatches of sleep that came to Mark in the early hours of the night
were robbed of all healing influence by dreams--hideous dreams, such
as he had not suffered from since his earlier days in the Red Cross
barn.  Vividly he saw again that mound of earth, in the moonlight,
and the leg that would not be still; and again, in imagination, he
crept out into the open, caring nothing for risks if only he could
quiet that leg or release its owner.

Up to this point, the dream was always the same.  It varied only in
its culmination.  And to-night there sprang from behind the mound a
colossal German with nails like talons and eyes like live coals.  But
when Mark would have sprung at him he found himself paralysed; while
the Thing under the mound whimpered for help, and the Creature--a
very Apollyon--loomed nearer every moment....

Miraculously, he shook off that nightmare rigidity.  He was locked in
a suffocating death-grapple.  The Creature's breath scorched his
face; and, with a start, he awoke, shivering, beads of cold sweat
upon his forehead.

"My God!" he breathed, between horror and relief, and promptly
switched on the light.  It was just after one o'clock; but sleep and
the desire of sleep were gone from him.

To quiet his mind and cleanse it of fear he tried reading a few pages
of _Michel Ange_.  It was useless.  His eyes followed the words but,
although he understood them, they made no connected impression on his
brain.

With a sigh he gave it up, switched off the light and lay there,
open-eyed, hour after hour, watching two panels of moonlight shift
slowly across the carpet, climb the wall, lessen and vanish as the
moon swung westward.  Outside, the companionable hum of traffic grew
fainter; ceased altogether; and left him at the mercy of his
increasingly bitter thoughts.

Too clearly he foresaw the peculiar trials of his hampered,
restricted life; devoid of freedom, devoid of movement, save such as
he could accomplish in a wheeled chair, or a motor--perhaps.  To a
man of independent spirit and immense physical vigour, the prospect
was intolerable; and the glimmer of hope on the horizon was too dim
to pierce the fog that shrouded his spirit.  Better a shattered limb,
that could have been replaced, than this hulk of useless bone and
sinew.  Even now he could not grasp the fact that in all probability,
he would never stand squarely on his feet again----

And that was only a part of the tragedy: the rest was entirely of his
own making, which did not mend matters--rather the reverse.

In the silence, one reiterate sentence kept hammering at his brain:
"All along, I have been a fool--worse than a fool.  All along, Mums
has been right."

Forcing himself to travel backward through the years, he saw, now,
how obviously it had been Sheila from the very beginning; so
obviously, that he had taken things almost too much for granted.  She
and Mums were his life.  He had asked nothing better; and having them
constantly with him, he had scarcely given a thought to marriage.  On
the whole, he had preferred his freedom.  Marriage could wait.

It was her sudden departure from his horizon and her charming
letters--she was fairly communicative on paper--that had set him
thinking seriously of her, dreaming of her, longing to see her again.
That year of her absence had seemed a rather blank year.

Then--she had come back....

He remembered very well that moment of meeting; the stir in his
veins; the new touch of shyness between them, and the light in his
mother's eyes.  He understood it all now.  She had been watching her
dearest dream come true.

Soon after that he had found himself wondering--did Sheila, by any
chance, care?  Or was it chiefly Mums?  And was he no more to her
than Ralph?

At that point--with a suddenness, a swiftness of which he now felt
half ashamed--Bel happened to him.  There is no other word for it.
She came, smiled, conquered; and for a time he was translated; no
longer master of his destiny and very hardly master of himself.

Living again through those plays, he began to suspect that from the
first her effect on him had been conscious, deliberate.  There was no
true simplicity in her.  Yet with what engaging charm she could
affect simplicity, the better to secure her hold on him.

Since his return, since he had been able to see her as she was, he
had perceived that she represented, in subtle gracious guise, an
appeal which, in its more obvious forms, he had successfully
withstood.  For this, for the glamour, the unsatisfying charm of the
mere courtesan--so he labelled her in his bitterness--he had flung
aside a real woman; one of the few, as Keith had said, who are a
visible guarantee of God.  He had dropped the substance to catch at a
shadow: and now, too late, the horrors and splendours of war, the
shining faith and saintliness of one small French nun, had renewed a
right spirit within him and opened his eyes to the truth.

It was the cruelest knowledge of his life.  Even the crippling of his
manhood seemed a small thing beside that other loss for which he
alone was to blame.

Strange how vivid was the feel of her in absence!  How near she had
drawn to him in France!  And Bel, not seen, eluded him utterly.
Proof--he knew it now--that she was but the fair semblance of
reality; while Sheila, like the King's daughter, was "all glorious
within."  Six months ago, she might have been his for the asking.
And she would have stood by him, stood by him to the end----


Towards morning, he slept heavily for an hour; and woke with a dead
weight on heart and brain: a weight, beyond his power to shift, that
seemed steadily pressing him down, down into the depths----

In this state Dr. Norton found him; and, after some fifteen minutes
of very lop-sided talk, he said decisively: "Sir Mark, I've come to
the conclusion we can't keep you here your full time.  The sooner we
get you out of Town the better."

"Home?" Mark asked, a glimmer of hope in his voice.

"I'm afraid--not yet.  But a move in that direction.  'Mavins,' in
Surrey; a beautiful old place.  Perhaps you know it?"

Mark nodded.

"Sir Howard Meredith has given it over to convalescents like
yourself, who need mental as well as physical healing.  I'll ring
them up.  Move you to-day, if possible.  You'll go quite comfortably
by motor ambulance."

"Thanks."

The veil of indifference had fallen again.  "Anything's
preferable--to this."

"Cheer up, then, and give yourself a chance," Norton commanded
briskly; but he walked down the passage with an anxious line between
his brows.

He found Macnair and Lady Forsyth in the sitting-room, and wasted no
words in vain preliminaries.

"My patient's all to pieces," he announced bluntly.  "Nerves in a
rotten state.  What have you been doing to him these two days?"

Helen briefly explained the situation and Bel's latest move.

As the doctor listened, anxiety gave place to anger.

"Good Lord!  As if he hadn't enough against him!  I've distrusted
that young lady and her silky manners from the start.  Seen too many
of her kind, in hospitals, smoking cigarettes with wounded officers,
under the impression that they are doing their 'bit' for their
country.  He's well rid of her; but this is a critical moment for any
fresh upset."

He proceeded to unfold his plan; and to them he explained more fully
that "Mavins" was more a home for nerve-shattered officers.  There
Sir Mark would be in the best possible hands; noted specialists,
professors of psychology; and there was no reason to suppose that he
might not pull round completely, in time.

"We'll move him to-day if we can," Norton concluded, addressing Lady
Forsyth.  "His best chance just now is to get right away from
everything and everyone associated with this business;
especially--from you!"

She managed to smile.  "Oh, I know, I'm the fatal one----"

"Because he cares for you most," Norton reminded her in a gentler
tone.  Then he went off to make the necessary arrangements.

After a good deal of telephoning, matters were settled.  Mark would
leave in the early afternoon.  Dr. Norton, meanwhile, had discovered
that Macnair was a personal friend of Professor Langton, the great
psychologist.  On the strength of this he proposed that Keith should
go down with Mark and stay a few days till he felt settled in his new
surroundings.

Mark, himself, took no visible interest in it all.  He seemed to have
slipped hopelessly out of reach.

After lunch his mother came in for a few minutes to say good-bye; and
there on his table lay an open note in Bel's handwriting.  For a
moment it startled her: then she remembered his quixotic gift.

"May I?" she asked, and he nodded.

Bel's acknowledgment was brief and, as usual, effective.


"Coals of fire on my head.  How exactly like you!  And--what can one
say, except that my utter unworthiness is the measure of my
gratitude.--BEL."


"Posing to the last!" was Lady Forsyth's enraged reflection.  "That's
the best place for it," she said aloud; and tearing it across, she
flung it in the fire.

Mark, leaning back against his cushions watched it burn.

Helen was watching his face.  It showed no glimmer of feeling.  Then,
anxiety and curiosity so pricked her that she ventured a question.

"Darling," she said, a hand on his shoulder, "I'm puzzled.  Is this
fresh trouble--altogether Bel?"

"N--no.  Not the way you mean.  Still--she's responsible----"

His brows twitched.  He seemed to force the words out, frowning at
the fire.

Then, unexpectedly, he looked up at her, a strange, wild light in his
eyes.  "Mums, it's--oh God! ... It's _everything_!"

To that heart-piercing cry there could be only one answer.  Stooping
over him, she kissed him, holding him close; and he, with sudden
fervour, returned her kiss, clutching her hand as if he could not
bear to let it go.

So they parted, with never a word; and her question remained
unanswered;--the puzzle still unsolved.

Keith went with him, as arranged.  Sheila was presumably chained to
Westover; and Helen, with heart and hope near breaking-point, was
left utterly alone.




BOOK IV

VIA LUCIS



CHAPTER I

"So shall he read elder truths, grand truths, fearful truths.  And so
shall our mission be accomplished, that from God we had--to plague
his heart till we had unfolded the capacities of his spirit."--OUR
LADY OF SORROWS.


Mavins, like Wynchcombe Friars, was set upon a ridge; but the house
was comparatively modern and here was no falling and rising sea of
pine-tops splashed in dark foam against the sky.  Lawns and
shrubberies ended in a low brick wall matted with arabis and
aubretia.  And beyond the wall lay Surrey, and again more Surrey,
merging into Sussex: gentle undulations, interlacing ridges and, in
the clear weather, the sweeping line of the Downs, mistily blue along
the horizon.  When the wind was in the south, Sir Howard Meredith
would call upon his visitors to note the whiff of sea-salt in the
air: and those who were sufficiently imaginative would scent that
phantom whiff with enthusiasm.

But there was, now, no host at Mavins, though there were many guests.
For Sir Howard had entirely devoted his beautiful place to those
that--excepting prisoners--were perhaps the saddest aftermath of war
as conceived and waged by modern Germany: men broken in nerve and
spirit; strong men, shaken by dreams and delusions, who dreaded the
night and cried out in their sleep; men, who sat alone and wept,
quietly, hopelessly, because their manhood was gone from them, and
with it, their power of self-control.  One there was, a mere boy of
two and twenty, crazed permanently, the doctors feared, because he
had seen a lad of his own platoon crucified with indignity by German
soldiers; and--he could not forget.  That was the secret torment of
so many who came out of the trenches seemingly unscathed:--they could
not forget.  Mark knew.  It had been the chief of his own troubles in
that backwater in France.

Yet now, for a time, under the deadening influence of nervous
depression, he lived and moved among these tragic fellow-sufferers
almost as though they were not.  The first few weeks of isolation
from all he loved, drifted by like a timeless, colourless dream.  He
seldom opened a paper or troubled to read his letters.  He wrote
none, and hardly a trace remained of his keen interest in the war.
He learnt with blank indifference, that the Russian "steam-roller"
was rolling to some purpose through Galicia, that the first Zeppelins
had arrived in England and dropped bombs on the east coast.  Even the
more personal news of Ralph's gallant death in action scarcely seemed
to reach him.

It was the crazed boy and his story that gave him the first sharp
twinge of pain--herald of returning life.

He heard it from Honor Lenox, Maurice's elder sister.  She was at
Mavins that winter, doing V.A.D. work, to which she had devoted
herself unremittingly since the outbreak of war.  As hospital
orderly, she had been through the siege of Antwerp and the retreat
upon Ostend.  She had ministered to stunned and starving refugees,
had earned conspicuous distinction in advance ambulance work, and had
lately been decorated by the King.  A brief collapse, following on
those strenuous months in Flanders, obliged her for the moment, to be
content with lighter work at home: and Mark, on arrival, had been
practically given into her charge.

She was a tall, plain girl, strikingly plain: with her father's
rough-cut features and clear northern eyes.  The two were already
acquainted: and Mark, in his present mood, found refreshment in her
bluntness and dry humour and strong, unbeautiful face.  The normal
Mark did not suffer plain women gladly.  But at the moment it was
Honor's chief asset that she was neither fair, fascinating nor
conspicuously a woman.  The revulsion--as Keith had prophesied--was
complete.

There was virtue also in her sane, soldierly attitude towards the
war.  She neither denounced it as "devilish and senseless," nor
harped morbidly on horrors.  She had seen both sides of the shield.
She knew--as he knew--that from the pains of hell spring the
splendours of sacrifice and devotion: that the true peace which
passes understanding is not the prerogative of the shirker and the
pacifist; that in the trenches and even in the shambles of a modern
battlefield, "Death rages but he does not reign."  There you have,
perhaps, the main distinction between those who have been in the
firing line and those who have not: between the soldiers who have
resisted unto blood, and the ineffectives--willing and
unwilling--obsessed by casualty lists, atrocities and shattered men.
That spirit Mark chiefly associated with Bel: and he was the more
thankful to find no trace of it in the daughter of Sir Eldred Lenox.

Not that she soothed him with fairy tales.  On the contrary, she
recounted, purposely and in plain terms, many of her worst
experiences; probing him with stiletto pricks of pain sharper than
his own; if so be that she might stab his spirit broad awake.

It was his unnatural indifference to Ralph's death that had prompted
her to tell him in full the pitiful tale of that crazed subaltern: a
brilliant Oxford scholar, whose brain had been unhinged not by the
normal rigours of war but by the abnormal cruelty of scientifically
dehumanised German soldiers.  The telling of it pained her horribly;
and the hearing of it hurt Mark as nothing had hurt him yet since
that night when the sword of realisation pierced his soul.

Manlike, pain vented itself in anger.  Why the dickens did she talk
about such beastliness? he demanded irritably: and she knew she had
touched a vulnerable spot.

"I don't--as a rule," she said without apology.  "But, now and then,
something goads me to remind myself and others that this isn't an
ordinary war.  It's a crusade against organised powers of evil.  It
makes vengeance almost a sacred duty.  And we've got to realise
things like that--however much we shrink from them--in order to crush
out, absolutely, the spirit that makes them possible."

There was no fervour, no touch of the didactic in her quiet, rather
flat voice.  It spoke, with deep conviction, the very thoughts that
had burned in his own brain after hearing the story of "la petite
Pauline"; and for the first time the real Mark looked with real
interest at Maurice's sister.

"That's so," he agreed gruffly.  "Not much use though for the poor
crocked-up devils who can't help any more."

She looked back at him in her direct, masculine fashion.  A smile
hovered in her eyes.  "There are crocks _and_ crocks!" she said.
"And there are other ways besides fighting.  Think them over.  You'll
find it as good as a tonic."

He did think them over: and it was as good as a tonic.  He reverted
more than once to the subject of young Carmichael.  Was there no
hope?  A shadow of hope, Honor told him.  His mother--who came at
intervals--was heart-broken.

That last bit of information took effect, as intended.  Mark began to
talk of his own mother.  He also began to think about Ralph and
Sheila.  He wondered....  He wanted to know....

By slow degrees, light was breaking through the fog that shrouded his
spirit.  Then came Sheila's letter about Ralph, that let in quite a
painful flood of sensation.


"I wonder, have they told you," she wrote, "that my Ralph has had the
honour of dying for his country?  It was an honour he coveted with
all his heart; and they say he came by it splendidly.  I promised him
long ago that, if this happened, I would not grieve nor wear
mourning.  But, oh Mark (if you are really waking up again), you will
know, better than any one but Mums, how blank everything feels some
days when pride seems no prop at all and there is simply the
emptiness--the longing----.

"He was the one bit of home that seemed really to belong.  I know to
the outside world he seemed just a very ordinary subaltern
overburdened with brains.  But I'm sure England need think no shame
of her very ordinary subalterns judging from their record in war.

  'To sacrifice she prompts her best,
  She reaps them as the sower reaps.'

That's Meredith, isn't it?  It has the sound of him.  Mother has
really been wonderful in refusing to let our private sorrow interfere
with her work.  She says we are all dedicated--with an extra big D.
You know her way.  But it is not all talk.  She's proved that these
last few weeks.  Dear Mark, forgive if my letter makes you sad.  It's
only to you two I can say a little of what I feel--on the bad days.
In between, I can go quietly on and be grateful for my gift, such as
it is, and pray that you may soon be home again to cheer the brave
Mums in her great loneliness!  I go to her whenever I can.  Mr.
Macnair is ambulance driver in France again.  I do wish he would come
back.  And oh--a fresh trouble.  My dear Mona is very ill with
typhoid at Boulogne.  I long to go to her.  But I'm badly wanted
here.  Isn't your right arm well enough yet to manage a letter?  Mums
tells me she hasn't heard.  Half a dozen lines, the merest scrawl
even, would cheer her ever so.  Do try.  Yours always, Sheila."


That letter gave him a sudden blessed sense of enlargement; as if a
window had been opened in his brain.  It also pricked his awakening
conscience: and he did try, with very fair success.

Surely and steadily his right hand regained its cunning: and even the
tentative return of power feelingly persuaded him that this skilled
servant of his brain, was worth all the rest of his body put
together.  After all, he had willed to risk everything; to give
everything.  He had recognised that the price of patriotism might be
a very long price: but he had never dreamed of paying it in this form.

He tried to express some of these thoughts in a long outpouring to
that brave lonely mother he had treated so ill.  He also attempted a
letter to Sheila: but the only thing he really wanted to tell her was
the one thing that must never be told.

Having written the words: "My dear Sheila," he sat there, pen in
hand, cursing the fate that forbade him to add, "I love you--I love
you--I love you."  Simply that.  The sheer relief of it!

Suppose he did--what would her answer be?

Oh--coward and fool!  Apart from every other disability how could he
account for Bel?

In the end he wrote to her at some length of Ralph and Mona and Mums.
It frightened him afterwards to realise how near he had come to the
cliff's edge.

Sheila's mention of Mona set him thinking of Maurice.  Queer that
Miss Lenox had never mentioned him.  Next time they were alone
together he spoke of Mona's illness and asked after her brother.

Honor's face clouded a little.

"My poor Maurice," she said, "was not made for great days or terrible
events.  He has had a bitter bad time.  It has broken him to pieces.
And Father, who is always rather down on him, takes it very hard.
There are the Desmond boys winning decorations--and his own eldest
son----"

"How about his eldest daughter?" Mark asked smiling.

"Oh--she's a faint consolation!  But not quite the same thing.
Dick's doing good work in the Flying Corps, which is much more to the
point."

"But Maurice--where is he, poor chap?  There's good stuff in him if
he isn't a fighter.  I'd like to hear more."

So she told him more; glad of his increasing concern for others;
though it went hard with her to speak freely of anything so near her
heart.  Maurice, it seemed, had returned to the Front after a
fortnight in the hospital where Mona worked and a week at home.

"In love with her--is he?" Mark asked.

"Yes.  Very much so.  That made a fresh jar with Father.  He's
devoted to Colonel and Mrs. Laurence.  But he could not bear the idea
of Dr. Videlle's daughter marrying his son; though he wouldn't have
Mrs. Laurence know that for the world.  It was a most awkward tangle.
Father objected and Maurice insisted; and it quite spoilt the poor
boy's crumb of leave.  Then he had an awful spell in the trenches.
His letters to me--" she paused to steady her lips.  "I think--he was
thankful when he got hit.  But it's his right hand--badly damaged----"

"Oh Lord!  D'you mean--he may lose it?"

"I'm not sure.  They still hope to save it--partially.  He's back at
Boulogne.  The same hospital.  His poor nerves worse than ever.
Mother's out there too."

"And Mona?"

Honor was silent a moment; then she said in a quiet, toneless voice:
"Mona ... is dead.  I only heard yesterday!"

"Good God!"  Mark's voice was hushed also.  He wanted to say more.
Miss Lenox was evidently upset.  But before he found the adequate
word, she was speaking again in the same level tone.

"It is sometimes difficult, in these days, to go on believing that
God is good.  Maurice knew--she cared.  He spoke to her a few days
before she fell ill.  It gave him such a lift.  And now--he's half
crazed, Mother says.  They talk of sending him here.  I hope they
will.  Professor Langton is working marvels."

They did send him to Mavins, with the remains of his right hand in a
sling.  The bulk of it had been saved.  Only the little finger and
half the forefinger were gone: so that eventually, with practice, he
would draw and paint again.  But at present no word of comfort could
reach his half-distracted brain.  All day long he talked wildly and
rapidly of Mona; and at night he could not sleep for dreams.  A
troublesome case; not an obstinate one, the friendly Professor of
Psychology told Honor; but it was not advisable at present to let him
see much of his sister or his friend.

Meanwhile the girl devoted herself to Sir Mark, and found no small
comfort in his gradual progress toward a saner, happier mood of mind.

Keith--definitely back from France--came to see him oftener now, and
they talked of Sheila.  To Mark the mere sound of her name was like
the music of running water in a barren land.  It struck him that
Keith seemed to be a good deal at Westover Court; and he fell to
wondering about "Mums."  Because he, Mark, had not been knocked out,
did the queer fellow mean to keep silence for ever?

It also struck him as strange that his mother had never been to see
him.  At last he asked for her; and she came, straightway, on the
wings of the first available express.  Resolutely she had held to her
hard resolve not to go near him till he needed her; and now she had
her reward.  He said little, but his hand clutched hers; and his
eyes, that had a gleam of the old light in them, followed her
wherever she moved.

"Come again soon,"  he said at parting; and she came again soon....


So February slipped by; and light increased without and within.  Far
away, in the Mediterranean, by way of prelude to the splendid and
terrible Gallipoli adventure, British warships were lobbing shells
into the forts along the Narrows: and cheerful prophets predicted the
fall of Constantinople within a month.  And still, across the
Channel, the interminable underground war dragged on.  And still a
sanguine Government did its casual best to defeat the frankly
malignant German with the maximum of polite consideration; to which
end, Ministers temporised, fatally, over conscription and enemy
aliens and high explosives and other awkward trifles that involved
the removal of kid gloves.  And the voice of criticism and
division--hushed in the inaugural days of 1914--was once more heard
in the land.

And still, week after week, War--that is no respecter of
Governments--exacted its inexorable toll of the young and the
incomparably brave; and the fearful also: and from Germany came the
cry of the prisoners--starved, tortured, yet unbroken--"How long, O
Lord, how long!"

Each dawn brought some new shock of grief to hundreds of hearts;
brought also its golden grain of healing to those already stricken----

At Mavins, as the days grew longer and milder, healing came gradually
both to Maurice and Mark.

Maurice's mercurial nature had responded more rapidly to both
atmosphere and treatment than the doctors had dared to hope.  He
talked less and slept more.  The strange, unseeing stare went out of
his eyes; and there came a day when Langton--who looked favourably on
Miss Lenox--declared that it rested with her to complete his cure.

Events justified him; and Mark found a new interest not untinged with
envy, in watching the two together.  The very qualities that made for
discord between Maurice and his father, seemed to link the brother
and sister in a bond closer than common.  It set Mark thinking of
Ailsa and wondering--would he eventually arrive at accepting Sheila
in that relation, the only one now possible between them.
Increasingly he longed to see her.  But she did not come and he would
not ask.

In this fashion February drew to an end and Dr. Norton came down to
inspect his former patient.  In his old guarded manner, he expressed
himself satisfied with Mark's general condition; and confirmed the
opinion of his colleague at Mavins that improvement, slight yet
unmistakable, had already begun.  But how far it might ultimately go,
not a doctor among them would venture to prophesy yet.  Mark's
nerves, at all events, were obviously on the mend.  For a time, they
told him, he must "go softly" and keep clear of worry or strain.  The
more normal his life and surroundings, the better his chance of
complete mental readjustment; and there was talk of going home before
long.

That, unquestionably, was a move in the right direction: and yet--he
felt half afraid.  Coward selfishness whispered that, in this
peaceful backwater, "things" were easier to bear.  Manhood urged that
he had been long enough on the shelf.  It was high time to rouse
himself and give his country such service as he could; to conquer a
certain morbid dread of facing his own world--in a wheeled chair.

He did some hard and wholesome thinking on the subject while Maurice,
in the transition stage, claimed the chief part of Honor's attention;
and he discovered that here was the secret of his faint reluctance to
go home, though well he knew that his mother was counting the days to
his return.

He made that unheroic discovery on the last day of February, a day of
fugitive, appealing beauty.

With the help of the despised wheeled chair--that gave him a small
measure of freedom--he had established himself in his special corner
of the grounds, at the far end of the long low wall looking southward
across Surrey and Sussex to the sea.  The February sun was warm as
April.  Close to him loomed a wide-spreading yew, centuries old.  In
the shadow of its blackness snowdrops gleamed; and on its uppermost
branch sat a thrush, pouring out a torrent of song.  Almost, in
response to that brave music, Mark could feel the earth stirring in
her sleep, even as his own benumbed spirit was stirring within him
after the darkest winter he had ever known.  A light breeze blew from
the south.  Stately masses of cloud drifted across the heavens; the
Downs--grey-blue, against a toneless horizon--seemed astonishingly
near....

Mark, brooding on them, recalled Meredith's phrase: "The Downs have
swiftness."  They set a man longing for a winged horse or for the
Seven-League boots.  At first he had hardly been able to bear the
sight of them.  He was learning to bear it now; even as he was
learning to accept cheerfully, almost gratefully, quite a number of
things that in the beginning had seemed unendurable.  He was
discovering, at first hand, the amazing adaptability of the human
organism and the native resilience of his own spirit.  There were
black moods still, when the curses came.  But these were increasingly
offset by moods of high-hearted resolve to fling into his art all the
energy and passion of his stultified life: moods far truer to his
essential self; likelier therefore to endure.

And on this February day of drifting cloud and snowdrops and a
jubilant thrush, the more normal Mark held the field.

For an hour and a half, to his great satisfaction, he had been left
alone with his sketch-book and Meredith's _Nature Poems_--a
favourite, illustrated edition--and his own resurgent thoughts.  He
knew now, definitely, that his time at Mavins was nearing an end.
Dr. Carstairs had spoken yesterday of a week or ten days.  That fact
alone served to stiffen his manlier resolves.

And there was also another fact; quite unlooked-for, decidedly
stimulating.  Miss Lenox had discovered it in the _Times_ that
morning under the heading of "Army Honours."  It notified the award
of the Distinguished Service Order to Lieut. Sir Mark Stuart Forsyth:
and, from the bone-dry record appended, Mark made the surprising
discovery that on two occasions he had "exhibited conspicuous
coolness and courage."  Once, by his intrepid leading, he had carried
a full trench against overwhelming odds: an unpleasant business, he
remembered it very well.  Another time during a retreat, when one
flank of the battalion had been left in the air, he had, it seemed,
held on tenaciously to a critical position and saved the regiment
from annihilation.  That must have been on the terrible last day of
his recollection, when he had himself been annihilated for his pains.

Baldly set down, it struck him as very ordinary average behaviour in
the circumstances.  Quite likely poor old Maurice had been just as
sporting now and then.  Only no one happened to notice.  It was all a
matter of luck and partiality.  A war that rained shells, rained
decorations--naturally enough.  It was very gratifying all the same,
to have "stopped one": to possess a lasting memento of his own brief
strenuous flash of effort.

And what did it amount to after all?  For sixty days--whether in
billets or trenches, or in the stress of actual fighting--he had
lived at the full stretch of his being.  He had quailed and suffered
and exulted.  He had seen with his eyes that, in nature and in human
nature, beauty shines out undimmed, though all the devils of hell are
leagued for its extinction.  He had proved, in his own body and soul,
that "in war man values the power which it affords to life of rising
above life."

And now--this!

He glanced ruefully at the fur rug over his knees.  Well, it was just
a question whether those sixty days were not worth a lifetime of
limitation.  But--the loss of Sheila!  There was the rub....

With a deliberate wrench he shifted his thoughts back to their
starting-point--those three proud letters after his name.  He must
write to the Colonel--and to "Mums."  No doubt she had been secretly
watching that list for weeks!  And now there would be no holding her.
A wonder she had not wired already.  She would need repressing badly;
or goodness knew what manner of fool she would make of him.  He had
been a beast to her all these weeks.  He would atone for it when he
got home.  Then days seemed suddenly an intolerable time to wait.
Impatience stirred in him: the best possible sign.  He shook himself
mentally--he had been mooning long enough;--and picked up his book
again.

It was open at "The Thrush in February."  Nothing like Meredith for
tuning up the strings of a man's spirit: and this particular poem
vibrates with the morning quality of his genius; his sane loyalty to
Earth--Mother and Slayer in one.

He read on, now, from the point at which his personal affairs had
intruded on the poet's thought.

  "She, judged of shrinking nerves, appears,
  A Mother whom no cry can melt;--
  A slayer, yea, as when she pressed
  Her savage to the slaughter-heaps.
  To sacrifice she prompts her best;
  She reaps them as the sower reaps.
  But read her thought; to speed the race--
  And stars rush forth of blackest night...."

Again Mark paused, pondering those vigorous lines that might well
have been written in this year of turmoil; of evil, self-exposed and
rampant, that it may be the more squarely smitten.  "To speed the
race," at no matter what cost of individual life, individual pain:
there you have the hard paradox of Nature, underlying every form of
human activity; but focused, intensified, and poignantly realised
when "God holds his assizes and hurls the nations on one another."

If a cog in the machinery is broken, what matter?  There are scores
of others available.  It has given its mite of service toward the
progress of the whole.  But this particular cog was not altogether
useless even now; for the which compensation God be praised.

To that mountain-top of philosophy Mark had clambered painfully
enough: and to-day he caught an echo of it, clear and heartening, in
the song of the poet and the song of the thrush----

At this point he became aware of approaching footsteps and voices.
The thrush became aware of them also and took flight.

They drew nearer; and their owners came into view: Keith, Mums,
Sheila,--all three of them, with Maurice and his sister.  Now he knew
why there had been no telegram.  Just like her.  He might have
guessed.

Closing his book, he waved a welcome and his mother hurried forward.

"A surprise visit of congratulation, darling," she explained
superfluously.  "Well done!"

And she kissed him, unashamedly, before them all.  There were moments
when the Irish streak in her carried the day.  There were also
moments when even a son could not find it in his heart to be
repressive.

Mark had enough ado to repress himself, when Sheila stood before him,
her soft, cool hand in his; and Keith demanded gravely what the
dickens he meant by giving his family such a shock: and Maurice, the
born talker, looked on enviously and said nothing.

The happy event, the sunshine and the smell of spring in the air went
to their heads like wine.  It was as if some tension within had
snapped.  They talked nonsense once again with zeal and fluency; and
Mark himself was as foolish as any of them.  It was a vast relief,
after those endless grey weeks when humour--the star of life--had
dwindled to a farthing dip in the outer dark.  Now it sparkled again,
clear as ever: and Mark found it very good....

Then, quite casually, in the middle of it all, Keith slipped in his
own surprise contribution, that had been kept a profound secret
during its incubation.  It consisted of a small motor car, specially
designed, light and easy to handle, in which--Mark with Keith's
help--could drive about his beloved country, and regain a measure of
the independent movement so dear to his heart.  Keith himself was
responsible for the thought, but the car was to be a combined gift
from all three; the outward and visible sign of their joy in his
return.

Mark--too overwhelmed for mere thanks--could only evince the
liveliest interest in the "little beauty" and her manifold
perfections.  From car talk they drifted naturally to ambulance
driving and an exchange of experiences between Honor and Keith.  Even
Maurice revived considerably under Lady Forsyth's sympathetic
handling.

And through it all, Mark's inner self was chiefly aware of Sheila's
voice, too seldom heard, and Sheila's eyes--their twilight colour
intensified by the grey-violet hat and gown that she wore in place of
conventional mourning.

She sat on the low wall, a little apart from the group round his
chair; her sweet, serious face shadowed by the double loss of brother
and friend.  The shadow lifted a little at sight of Mark's
sketch-book.  With a glance at him for permission, she opened it and
went through it slowly, lingering a long while over each page.

He wanted her to himself so urgently that he wished the others at
Jericho.  Now and again he contrived an exchange of glances.  Then he
would hold her gaze a minute and reluctantly let her go.  He had no
business whatever to do this: and he knew it.  But to-day he felt
like a schoolboy out of bounds.  He refused to look beyond the
sunshine into the waiting dark.

Honor Lenox, he found, had planned a semi-secluded tea-party in a
corner of the wide verandah,--the real Indian article; added by Sir
Howard, who declared he would as soon live without shaving-soap as
without a verandah.  And Mark enjoyed it all consumedly, though not
five minutes' talk did he get with Sheila alone.  Suddenly and
surprisingly, life had righted itself in defiance of tragic
limitations.  The good minute would pass; but the fact that it had
come at all was of hopeful augury.  And while it lasted, Mark could
forget everything except that he had not lost his art; and that
Sheila, however unattainable, was part of the vital fabric of his
life.

"Will you still be at home when I come?" he asked her at parting; and
she shook her head.

"'Fraid not.  I go back on Friday, when 'Mums' goes to Lady John.
But I'm to get leave for a visit soon, she says----"

"_I_ say--" he corrected, under his breath; and again there passed
between them that flash of understanding; a direct contact of spirit
with spirit, never achieved in all his passionate courtship of Bel.

Oh, that he could banish her from his memory as though she had never
been!

But Bel would not let herself be so easily forgotten.  Though
disenchantment was complete, she could still reassert herself, at
inopportune moments, to tarnish a love so different in quality that
there was need of some other name to call it by.


These thoughts visited him much later on that same evening, as he sat
beside his fire reviewing the events of a day that marked a definite
step towards the recovery of his spiritual balance; of a normal, if
tempered, thankfulness for all that still remained to him of joy in
life.

Lately Maurice had taken to looking in at this time for a talk; and
he very soon appeared, with the inevitable cigarette and a rather
doleful countenance.

For a while he sat smoking moodily, staring at the fire.  Then, to
Mark's surprise, he said in a constrained voice: "I suppose Honor
told you--about Mona."

"Yes."  Mark did his best to convey his own dumb depth of
fellow-feeling in that one word.  Maurice let out a great sigh.

"She--cared.  She'd have married me, Father or no.  Seeing Miss
Melrose brought it all back again.  She ... Mona ... understood.
_She_ didn't think me a hopeless rotter because I've been a bit
broken up by this cursed, inhuman war."

That tone towards the world's greatest crusade against machine-made
tyranny and brutality jarred Mark always.  And it savoured too much
of Bel.

"Not a bit of use cursing the war, old chap," he said kindly.
"Nearer the mark to curse the apostles of cheapness for cheapness'
sake, who thwarted Joe Chamberlain, killed our economic independence,
and delivered the Empire into the tentacles of the German octopus.
But it's all done now; and we've just got to put our backs into it
and pull things through.  You've done your level best, Maurice, and
no one thinks you a hopeless rotter.  _I_ don't.  Your sister
doesn't.  Your mother----?"

Maurice frowned.  "I'm hanged if I know what Mother thinks.  She's
awfully fond of me.  But she's not the soft kind.  And she hugely
admires the genuine man of action; which accounts for my splendid but
rather formidable father.  _He_ thinks me the out and outest rotter
that ever stepped.  If it wasn't for Honor, God knows where I'd be at
this moment.  And, as for going home--I believe a week of it would
simply smash me up again.'

"'M.  I know what you mean.  Why not come along to my place when
you're quit of this?  We've both got to make a fresh start somehow;
and I've still to complete your conversion to Beauty and the
Classics!"

"D'you _mean_ that?" Maurice asked in genuine delight.

"Rather.  It would give me a spurt.  And your sister could come for
weekends.  She's a rare good sort."

"Wish I had half her pluck.  She ought to have been the soldier.  I
believe she'd give her eyes to take my place; and here am
I--wondering if they've lopped and chopped my precious hand enough to
keep me out of those unholy trenches for good."

Mark, scanning his friend's rueful profile, decided that mere
sympathy was not the tonic for his complaint.

"You can't shoot without your trigger finger," he remarked in
practical tones.  "But that's no matter, now they've given you a
commission."

Maurice grimaced.

"You don't want to go back--in any capacity, eh?" Mark asked casually.

"No.  I'm damned if I do.  Honestly, d'you suppose any man does who
has a grain of sensibility in his composition?"

Mark was silent a moment, considering.

"I don't know.  Hard to say.  In either case, they wouldn't shout it
from the housetops.  Personally, I was keen to get back.  Sheer
perversity, perhaps: but it's true.  God knows, killing and getting
killed, the way it's done now, is a pretty gruesome business.  But
exterminating Prussianised Germans is a service to the civilised
world; not to mention a man's first duty to his country.  And to me
there's beauty everywhere, Maurice, even on a battle-field.  And, oh
Lord, it's big.  It's _real_--overpoweringly real."  He paused and
set his teeth hard.  "I simply hate being out of it all--shelved.
Wish to God I was in your case!  And you can't have the face to
pretend you'd sooner be--as I am."

Maurice was lighting a fresh cigarette.

"Honour bright," he said, "I was thinking out there, this afternoon,
what a lucky devil you were!"

Mark flashed round on him.  "Lucky--_me_?"

"Yes: as things go these days.  You're through with the worst of it.
You've done jolly well.  Your people think no end of you and you'll
probably do thundering big things once you get started again.  As for
me----"

"As for _you_," Mark's friendly tone had a touch of sternness,
"you're a graceless ingrate.  Your hand's been saved.  You've
everything before you and your spurs still to win.  Strikes me, the
sooner I get on with your conversion, all round, the better!"


But later, when Maurice had gone, those astonishing words "lucky
devil" returned and walked to and fro in his brain and flashed light
into dark corners, where for weeks no light had been.  His own
tragedy had seemed to him a thing so absolute that he had forgotten
in his misery, the relative nature of all sensation: and he frankly
admitted, now, that "as these times go" a worse fate might have
befallen him.  On the wings of imagination, he had explored the long
unchanging road ahead of him--and had found it too hard to travel.
And again he had forgotten that the actual journey must be taken day
by day, mile by mile; that, imperceptibly, the face of that road
would change, in response to his own unconquered spirit and the
healing influence of time.

Life, that is more inexorable than death, cannot away with that
crowning mercy.  The veiled hours come to us single file.  Were it
not so, which of us would find courage to face them at all?  In war,
and in the anguish of blows that shatter faith and courage, it is
perhaps this crowning mercy that withholds tortured humanity from
running headlong down a steep place into the sea----

Mark sat late that night over the red embers of his fire, smoking ...
pondering....




CHAPTER II

  "Even the wise man's feet are turned astray
      by tumult of the soul."
                                          PINDAR.


On a certain afternoon of March, Lady Forsyth sat in a third-class
carriage of a certain casual train that loafed along the line, these
disorganised days, between Waterloo and Westover.  She religiously
travelled third now, and as religiously put the difference into her
war-purse for prisoners.  Mark was not told, lest he prove
unmanageable: and Keith's objections had been overruled with a high
hand.

This particular train was the slowest in the day.  Helen never
patronised it except from force of circumstances; and she
irreverently christened it "the British Government"--not altogether
without provocation.  For, as the War dragged inconclusively on, and
Germans continued to flourish in forbidden areas, in the City, and
even in harbours of the first importance, she found herself growing
more critical, more intolerant towards that sacrosanct institution.
If she could be said to dislike, whole-heartedly, anything in the
nature of a human being, it was certain supple, self-regarding
phrase-mongers who had been overlong predominant in the Mother of
Parliaments.

Hers was not the only heart, in those anxious times, that cried out
for a Triumvirate: a sailor, a soldier, and a genuine statesman to
organise all the resources of a great and willing Empire for the
salvation of the world.  But the cry went up in vain.  And still
politicians talked and soldiers prayed for the Great Offensive, and
the war of trenches and sectors went lumbering on.  Constantinople
had not fallen within the given month.  A feeling hovered in the air
that something had gone wrong with this very great adventure; that
arrangements had been sketchy; action premature.  And there were
uncomfortable rumours about the King of Greece----

Then, suddenly, the West had leaped to life.  "Victory at last!" sang
the posters and the headlines.  And the journalists, given a freer
hand this time, vied with each other in chronicling Homeric feats and
"enormous enemy losses." ...

That was a week ago.  And now it appeared there had been some mistake
about this "great and glorious victory."  One indisputable fact stood
out--the casualty lists.  It began to look as if, after all, they
were likely to prove the biggest thing about it.  Helen Forsyth had
heard talk in London that she tried to dismiss as mere pessimism; but
her instinct told her it was probably true.

The train groaned and jolted to a standstill:--Little Franton.  It
was far too courteous to overlook even the smallest thing in
stations.  Another hour to Westover.  Lady Forsyth leaned back and
closed her eyes.  She had had two strenuous days in town.  She was
very tired and longing to get home--to Mark.  It was still a strange
and wonderful fact that home should also mean Mark.  He was her
private reason for courting the present infliction.  She had failed
to catch an earlier express and refused to wait for a later one.  It
was sufficiently distracting being called away for a night so soon
after his return.  How they would laugh at her when she got back!
And how good it was to be laughed at again: even if, in between,
there were still moods of gloomy silence or of irritability, that
kept her anxiety at stretch.

The first few days of their frank joy in each other had been
flawless.  And for her, there was the secret satisfaction of having
him all to herself again, with no superfluous Bel to claim the lion's
share of his thoughts and heart: a forgivable form of selfishness
that perhaps only a mother can condone.  But the necessary intrusion
of the world at large marked the beginning of trouble.  It was plain
that he would not easily overcome a certain sensitive shrinking from
outside people; though, in his more normal moods, he spurned this
weakness and overrode it ruthlessly.

For this reason, visitors--with the exception of Dr. Warburton and
the Sinclairs--were not very welcome.  Warburton was on the "sick
list" combating a severe bout of rheumatism and Sir Nevil, like Mark,
was knocked out of the actual fighting, with a frost-bitten foot and
his left forearm gone to save the spread of blood poisoning from a
septic wound.  Wynchmere tenants and workers, eager to come and do
him homage, would not be denied; and Mark himself, touched to the
heart, was yet consumed with shyness at the prospect of facing the
music.  A few days ago, with Keith's diplomatic help, Lady Forsyth
had persuaded him to summon an informal afternoon gathering--the
gamekeeper, the manager of their handicrafts colony, his better class
tenants and their wives.  And he had been at his best: friendly,
sympathetic, full of humorous talk.  She had only discovered the
effort it cost him by the reaction that followed: and had reproached
herself not a little for having pressed the point.

Keith, however, insisted rightly that the sooner Mark did violence to
his natural shrinking the sooner he would conquer it: and conquer it
he must.  But his recurrent headaches troubled her.  She had made a
point of seeing Dr. Norton while in town.  Her faith in him was
implicit and his encouraging view of things had comforted her
considerably.

"Give him plenty of fresh air.  A little gentle massage.  And avoid
friction over trifles."  That had been the great man's final
injunction, heartily endorsed by Helen.

Privately she had feared that the massage part of it might produce
friction straightaway: and at lunch, in Mrs. Laurence's war-work flat
(Colonel Laurence was serving in France) that fear had been
confirmed.  Honor Lenox and Sheila, who had struck up a friendship,
were lunching there too; and Honor bore witness that, when massage
was prescribed at Mavins, Mark had proved intractable.

"I believe if I could have done it myself," she added, "I might have
persuaded him.  But nothing would induce him to let 'a strange woman
maul his head.'  And they thought it unadvisable to press the point.
But now--why not Sheila?  The very person."

Naturally that had been Helen's first thought, and Sheila's also.
But the older woman--because of her secret hope--had felt a
scrupulous hesitancy about volunteering the suggestion; and the girl
had her own private qualms to overcome.  Both were proportionately
grateful for Honor's blunt directness, and common-sense, professional
point of view.  She saw only a man in need of healing and the one
acceptable healer happily on the spot: and on the whole, Lady Forsyth
felt justified in taking the same view.  It had finally been decided
that she should sound Mark on the subject and let Sheila know the
result.

After all, his complete recovery was a matter of the first
importance.  She had no sure knowledge of Sheila's heart; and, as
regards her own son, she was altogether in the dark.  Since that day
at the Nursing Home, he had never mentioned Bel: and she devoutly
hoped he never gave a thought to that devastating young woman.

Only to-day, she had heard from Lyndsay Laurence that, in January,
Bel had deserted Harry O'Neill and gone upon a protracted visit to
friends in the west of England where Zeppelins were not.  She wasn't
afraid of them, Mrs. Laurence had explained with a gleam in her
serious blue eyes, she merely objected to living in a Zeppelin area
when there were other areas available.  Further, it appeared that
some casual word let fall by Harry had given Mr. Maitland an inkling
of Mark's generosity.  Certainly he had spent his holidays in the
west of England; had duly proposed to a Bel no longer penniless--and
been rejected.  Helen was exceedingly glad to hear it.  She wondered
if Mark would appreciate the humour of it, but dared not risk telling
him--yet.

His uncertain moods put a severer strain upon her than she would
admit even to herself.  Even her longing to get back to him was
secretly tinged with dread lest something should upset him and spoil
the whole evening.  Lately, she had persuaded him to sing again; and
sometimes, with that or her own music, she could exorcise the fiends
that tormented him.  But if any one could spirit them away
permanently it would be Sheila: and ... supposing things went farther
still--well, why not?  The question had a touch of defiance, as
though some unseen mentor had ventured a rebuke.  Mentor or no, she
could not, or would not see any cause or just impediment.  For once
in a way, she--who set such store by truth in the inward parts, was
not altogether honest with herself: a pardonable lapse, in the
circumstances.

Could Mark once be made to realise that a woman loved him enough to
marry him, disabled as he was, all his uncertain moods and
irritations would vanish into air.  In time, she felt convinced, this
cruel paralysis would loosen its hold on him; and if Sheila cared
sufficiently to take all risks, whose business was it to come between
them?

But as usual she was racing ahead miles too fast.  Possibly neither
of them cared--in that way.  Probably Mark would snub the massage
idea.  More than probably he would now refuse to marry Sheila even if
he loved her to distraction.  So she swung round again to those
jarring uncertainties that threatened, almost, to spoil the joy of
getting him back....

At this point her attention was distracted from personal worries by
women's voices opposite.  One of them she recognised: Mrs. Beck,
proprietor of the Post Office and sweet shop at Wynchmere.  It was
the War, of course.  People of all grades and classes could still
talk of little else: and Helen, keeping her eyes shut, dismissed her
own anxieties and listened.

It was a compensation for the occasional discomforts of travelling
third that one caught glimpses of the War through the eyes of working
men and women who neither painted it all red nor garnished it with
false sentimentalities; but accepted it--cheerfully, sullenly or
doggedly--as one more item among the many bewildering puzzles of life.

Said the voice that was not Mrs. Beck's: "Your son 'as 'e gone back
yet to them trenches?"

"No.  'E's not near fit: never was," came Mrs. Beck's emphatic tones.
"But 'e'll be goin' sure 'nough before long."

"Frettin' to get back, is he?  My word, it's no pantomime.  I got a
brother been out since Christmas.  Up to his blessed middle in water.
Matches an' fags too damp for strikin'.  You do 'ear some tell they
want to go back.  An' it makes yer wonder----"

"Want to go back?  O' _course_ they don't: not my boy, nor any of
'em.'  Mrs. Beck's voice was angry now as well as emphatic.  "'Oo
could?  Them that talks that way says it to hearten their woman
folks.  But 'tis on'y fools as believes 'em.  And most on 'em says
nothing.  They knows it's _djuty_.  So they shuts their teeth an'
goes, wonderin' if they'll ever see 'ome again.  But they _says
nothing_--not they.  It's 'ow they're made.  There was jest one o'
mine did--once.  Pore Alf!  'E come clean through Monsse, and all
them 'orrors without a scratch.  An' when 'e was leavin' 'ome again,
I says to 'im, I says: '_You'll_ come back for sure.  You've a
charmed life.'  But 'e shook 'is 'ead.  'Their turn last time.  Mine
next,' 'e said jokin'-like.  'E knew 'e'd be took--and 'e woz.'

Followed a sympathetic silence from the mere sister, and Helen--who
remembered Alf and all the circumstances--thought shame of herself
for allowing Mark's moods to blur the supreme fact that she had him
safe--permanently safe--from jagged bayonets, explosive bullets, and
all the scientific barbarities that still hurt her soul.

Her one remaining treasure had not been "took."  It was enough.

The leisurely train was nearing home now.  She sat up and greeted
Mrs. Beck; and they talked Neuve Chapelle till the name-board said
"Westover" at last.

And there was Keith on the platform and Mark awaiting her in the car,
brown and vigorous looking; quite himself again in motor-coat and
cap.  And she felt more than ever ashamed of fitful repinings.

Mark evinced his joy at her return by keeping a hand on her knee
under the fur rug and ragging her mercilessly all the way home.  At
dinner he was quieter, with the brooding look in his eyes that Helen
had learnt to dread.  Afterwards Keith settled them in the
drawing-room and went off to the library leaving them together.

He had now definitely given up his ambulance work on the other side
and divided his time between local recruiting, a committee for the
welfare of prisoners, and a deeply thought-out treatise on the
psychological effects of war.  Underlying all these obvious
activities, was the cherished conviction that Helen had need of him;
more especially in these first difficult days ... when Mark must
learn, slowly and painfully, the art of adapting himself to his
limited conditions of life.  He had never said another word about her
to Mark; nor had he found the opportune moment for speaking to her
himself.  He was hyper-fastidious in respect of that critical moment.
Life had, so far, given him no lovelier gift than her frank
confidence and comradeship; and he was in no hurry to risk putting
them out of gear, even for the sake of that greater gift for which
Mark had encouraged him to hope.  Moreover, when a lover--and that
lover, a Scot--has kept silence for fifteen years, it is almost
easier to go on keeping silence than to speak: and Keith Macnair was
essentially of those who know how to wait.


The two he had left in the drawing-room fell silent after a little
desultory talk.  Helen could think of nothing but Sheila.  Mark's
reviving soul was shadowed by ominous signs of failure at Neuve
Chapelle.  Names of officers in his own battalion had been painfully
prominent in the Roll of Honour: men he had lived with, fought with,
and loved.  He was girding at his own inability to go out and replace
one of them: picturing the welcome they would give him:--Mackail,
Fordyce, the Colonel.  _His_ name was not in the list, thank God.
Quite recently the battalion had been made up to strength and given a
well-earned rest--only to be decimated afresh.  And no victory to
show for it: nothing but a costly failure.  A bad omen for the Great
Offensive that was to sweep the Germans back to the Rhine.

It all hurt him so acutely that he could not manage to talk of it
even to his mother: so he fell back on silence.

His quietness was deceptive: his frown might merely mean headache.
Helen could not know that the devil within was making peculiarly
malignant remarks to him just then: and her very anxiety to choose
the right moment made her almost certain to stumble on the wrong one.

"Mums, will you play a little," he said at last, "if you're not too
tired?"

She was too tired and she wanted to talk about Sheila: but she did
not say so.  If he was "brooding," music might be a wise prelude to
speech.

For a quarter of an hour or so, she played without her notes; slow
soft music.  Preludes and Largoes.  Then she came back to the fire
determined to hesitate no longer.  She still remained standing, one
foot on the fender-stool.

"I saw Dr. Norton to-day," she remarked casually.  "He wanted to hear
about you--and the headaches.  Swears by two simple remedies; plenty
of fresh air--and massage:--the nerves of the head and neck.  And
afterwards, at the flat, Honor suggested Sheila----"

Mark's frown deepened unpromisingly.

"My dear Mother, _I'm_ all right.  For God's sake, don't fuss!"

"Darling, I'm not fussing.  Dr. Norton prescribed it.  And Sheila did
wonders for me--after Boulogne."

"I can well believe it.  But I won't have her bothered on my account.
She's overworked as it is."

"But, Mark, she delights in it," Helen persisted fatally.  "And for
you, of all people----"

"Yes--for _me_ of all people!" Mark flung out with a sudden
uncontrollable bitterness that effectually silenced her.  Startled by
his vehemence, she could only stand gazing at him, pain and
bewilderment in her eyes.  But his own pain blinded him to hers and
he sharply turned away his head.

"Oh--_don't_ look at me like that," he muttered.  "You make too much
of things.  All those poor chaps killed and wounded out there and
you're worrying over my twopenny headaches.  Let Sheila come--if
she's willing and if it'll make you happy."

His mother compressed her lips.  "Nothing will make me happy, Mark,"
she said quietly, "till I see you more nearly your old self again."

"Well, I'll _never_ be my old self again--if I live to be eighty:
which God forbid!"

The moment the words were out he realised their cruelty.  He felt as
if he had struck her; and impulsively he put out his hand.

But she had turned from him swiftly to hide her tears--and she was
gone.

Helpless to follow her he sat there alone with his bitterness and his
shame and his desperate longing for Sheila, that had instinctively
prompted him to veto his mother's tempting plan....

Presently the door opened and Keith came in.  He looked grave, almost
stern.

"What have you been saying to upset Helen?" he asked bluntly.
"Couldn't you see she was tired out?"

Beneath the reproof Mark detected the unconscious, possessive note of
the lover and responded to it straightway, incurable lover that he
was.  His faint annoyance at being taken to task evaporated.  If any
one had hurt Sheila as he had just hurt Mums he would have wanted to
commit murder.

"Where is she?  What's she doing?" he asked, patently contrite yet
vouchsafing no explanation.

"In the library.  She _thinks_ she's writing letters."

"Did she say anything?"

"Is it likely?  What did _you_ say?  That's the point."

Mark frowned.  "Nothing would induce me to repeat it.  It was
only--she got worrying over my confounded head.  Massage and that
sort of rot.  She's keen for Sheila to come and try her hand on me."

"Well--what's wrong with Sheila?"

"There's nothing wrong with Sheila," Mark answered; and this time the
lover's note was in his own voice.  "But--at the moment, everything
was wrong with me.  And, like a coward, I let fly at Mums."

Keith's eyes lightened strangely.  "Well, no matter how bad things
are with you--and I don't belittle them--I can't have you hurting
_her_ like that.  She's suffered more this winter than you, or any of
us, will ever know.  Sheila's been no less than an angel of
consolation; and if Helen wants her here, let her come.  She would
probably do you a deal of good.  And anyway she'd be a healing
influence in the house, which is precisely what you're both needing
just now.  Mark, old chap, I'm not down on you.  But--_you_
understand?"

"Yes.  I understand."

A pause.  Mark felt suddenly tempted, by Keith's change of tone, to
break through his own reserve.  It would be a vast relief to tell
Keith about Sheila and discover his unbiased view of things.  But
Bel, though no longer loved, still left her trail over his life.
Three months ago she was presumably all the world to him: and now--to
make parade of his love for Sheila would seem but a poor compliment:
an insult, almost.  Hard to make another understand that the two
emotions had as little in common as the girls themselves.  Still
harder to explain that strange, spiritual awakening in France.
Obviously, the Fates had decreed that she should come.  Let her come
then,--and chance the result.  They could have devised no finer test
for his power of self-mastery.

Keith, who shrewdly suspected the truth, adjusted a blazing log with
his foot and said nothing.

"I say, go and tell Mums I want her," Mark said suddenly; and Keith,
with a nod of approval, went back to the library.

Mark had time to grow impatient before she reappeared.  And, when she
did come, he was tongue-tied.  He could only hold out his arms----




CHAPTER III

      "Through such souls alone
  God stooping shows sufficient of his light
  For us i' the dark to rise by."
                                          BROWNING.


So Sheila came again to Wynchcombe Friars--the real Wynchcombe
Friars; no longer an empty shrine lit by twin lamps of memory and
hope.  How gladly, how thankfully she answered that summons no one
guessed, Mark least of all: and that fact alone made it possible to
come.  Neither did she herself guess that Keith knew.  Her secret was
as safe with him as in a tomb: and he it was who, three days later,
drove out to fetch her in Mark's two-seater car, in which he was just
beginning to reconnoitre his property and look up his tenants as of
old.

"If there was a third seat, for the inevitable attendant, I could
have fetched her myself," he remarked casually.

"We'll contrive a third seat--for these little emergencies," Keith
promised him.  "Till then, the privilege must be mine."

Mark and his mother were in the studio when sounds of arrival whisked
Helen to her feet.  Her natural instinct was to run downstairs and
greet them: but she was learning to restrain many such impulses that
Mark might not too acutely feel his minor disabilities.

Presently the door opened and Sheila appeared, glowing from her
drive, violet-gowned as on the day he had seen her last: a bunch of
violets in her squirrel cap, and distinctly dewy violets in her eyes.
The long low room with its restful blue tones and dark oak panelling
was flooded with March sunlight, fragrant with the scent of hyacinths
that stood about in bowls: and to Mark, the small gallant figure of
his first and last allegiance seemed in tune with it all, visibly and
vitally, as Bel had never been.

Sheila, for her part, would have summed up her own mixed emotions in
the one word "home": the home of her spirit and her heart.

After a swift survey of the room, her eyes rested smiling on Mark in
his wheeled chair by the window.

"The quartette complete again, at last, under one roof!" she said, a
thrill of gladness in her low voice.  Then the underlying tragedy
caught at her heart and she took refuge in her Viking.  "_He_ must be
glad to have you back again.  Hasn't he told you so?"

"Yes--lately he has," Mark answered, looking at her, not at the
Viking, whom it pleased them to regard as a member of the family.
"He was a bit reticent at first.  But the gladdest of all was Bobs,
here.  No blooming reticence about him!"

"The darling!"  And crouching down Sheila stroked the chestnut head.

The devoted creature lay close pressed against his master's legs,
using Mark's feet for a chin-rest; an endearing form of caress.  But
Mark could not feel it any more.  He sometimes wondered--did the
others realise?  He hoped they did not.

"I thought the poor little chap would go crazy, the first day," he
said.  "Kept flinging himself against me with his little shivering
squeals, tearing up and down the room, sending the rugs to blazes;
asking me, plain as speech, to get up and play the fool with him.
Now--he understands and he's just glued to my chair.  Won't even go
for a walk with Keith.  Yes, old man, I'm telling tales of you."
This last to Bobs, who glanced upward without shifting his position.

Sheila's eyes were so dewy by this time that she had to make the most
of Bobs, who wanted to go to sleep again and found her attentions
rather superfluous.  He was a man's dog, first and last.

They lunched at the far end of the long room.  It was a convenient
arrangement for Mark and it economised coal.  Every penny that could
be saved at Wynchcombe Friars went to help Mark's poorest cottagers
and war-increasing colony of refugees, through that first hard winter
of war;--a prelude, merely, to the gigantic struggle ahead.  Yet
there was still a certain amount of loose, comforting talk about the
worst being over by the autumn.  A good deal of it emanated from
those who were resolved to avert conscription at any price--to
others.  "Traitors' talk," Mark called it bluntly: and in essence it
was no less.

Lunch was a brief and cheerful meal: Keith for a wonder being the
principal talker.  He had gleaned some inside information, from a
wounded officer at Winchester, of the dispositions at Neuve Chapelle,
and he proceeded to demonstrate them, for Mark's benefit, with the
toast rack, the muffineers, the cake, and several apples, blandly
ignoring murmurs from Helen about "the geography of the table."

The meal ended, he retired to the library and his treatise; and Helen
went down to interview a refugee dressmaker; a forlorn and pathetic
creature in whom she took a very special interest.

"I'll be back soon, my lambs," she said as she went.

There was a perceptible moment of embarrassment; but Sheila swiftly
conquered her shyness.

"I don't see anything new here yet," she remarked, glancing round his
sanctuary.  "And you know I'm expecting--great things!"

Mark shook his head.  "I've not touched a bit of clay or plasticine
since I got back.  But in that folio, there's a big rough crayon of a
charging Highlander on a bit of brown board, if you'd care to make
his acquaintance."

No need to answer that.  She had him out instantly and propped him on
an antique table against the wall.  Rough he certainly was, but of a
vigour and vitality that went far to justify her expectation of great
things.  No artist by temperament, like Bel, Sheila could neither
appraise nor criticise technically: but she had an unerring eye for
motive, for the underlying spirit of art in all its manifestations.
Certain sketches she had seen at Mavins and this barbaric figure that
sprang yelling from the parapet--bayonet fixed, head back, kilt
flying--told her that Mark's idealism had gained rather than lost by
contact with the uglier, more staggering aspects of life and death.
And there can be no sharper test of its quality.  Cruel things,
tragic things, seen and suffered, had drawn his Muse closer to earth;
had imparted a certain ruthlessness both to his manner and matter:
but exultingly she knew that he belonged, and would unfailingly
belong, to the great company for whom there is always a window that
looks to the sky.

"I saw him--just like that."  Mark explained to her silence.  "Five
minutes afterwards a shell came our way--" an expressive gesture
filled the hiatus.  "And somehow he stuck in my brain."

"Yes--he would," she said, still dwelling upon him.  "Why not make a
small statue of him?  He is simply--Scotland for ever!"

Mark's eyes were on her face and her low tone thrilled through him.

"He shall be yours--if I ever get him into clay.  At present ... that
side of things seems dead."

"Not dead--but sleeping," she said in her softest voice.  "It will
all come back--bigger and more splendidly alive--when you've struck
root again in this dear deserted place."

He sighed.  "Hope you're right.  I'll need it more than ever I did,
once I'm ... renewed mentally.  It isn't an altogether painless
process.  And I'm no stoic----"

"I expect Mums would tell a different tale," she put in gently.

"Mums would glorify me--from sheer habit!  Yet it's she who gets the
full benefit of my lapses from stoicism--bless her.  It'll be a real
service to her if you succeed in exorcising the devil!"

The light in her eyes was enough to banish all the devils in
creation--for the moment, "_I_ don't believe in him," she said
softly.  "I'm going to concentrate on waking up the other thing----"

At this point Lady Forsyth reappeared with her knitting and her
_National Review_.  She knitted for her war orphans now that spring
had smiled upon the sodden trenches "out there."

"Very fine, isn't it?" she said indicating the Highlander, and Sheila
nodded.

"He's going to be my first own statue: a bronze."

Then they arranged Mark's invalid table and set a cushion on it.
"There," said his mother shaking it up.--"Bow your head upon your
arms and try not to feel heart-broken!"

"Try not to feel a fool would be more like it," he grumbled
ungratefully.  As a matter of fact he found no difficulty in obeying
her last injunction.  But Bobs, who had been taking stock of these
mysterious doings, had his own private opinion on the subject.

Springing up, paws on the table, he anxiously investigated Mark's
bowed head and tried to thrust a moist loving nose under his forehead.

"Down, old boy, lie down," Mark muttered; and for the minute he
obeyed.  But no self-respecting dog could submit to see his master so
humiliated.  The call for championship was obvious.  With little
snarling sounds, he sprang up again, snapped at Sheila's hands and
nibbled at her ankles half playful, half vicious, and wholly
determined to rescue his helpless owner, till Mark flung up his head
and laughed.  "Officious little beggar!  Turn him out, please, Mums."
He glanced at Sheila.  "I won't have you bullied.  He tried to eat
Macgregor and Keith first time he saw them handle me."

"Macgregor--your sergeant----?"

"Yes.  He's knocked out too, poor chap!  Lost his foot, after all.
But he's a sturdy fellow, so I secured him for my bodyguard and he
was no end pleased."

It was a very chastened and reproachful Bobs who at last suffered
himself to be forcibly removed from the scene.  Mark patted his head
by way of explanation: but the rank injustice of the whole proceeding
must have galled his faithful soul.

"Now," said Mark the ungrateful, as the door closed on his defender.
"Go ahead.  It's not half bad!"

In his heart he found in her unerring discovery and manipulation of
each sensitive nerve little short of magic.  But that sort of thing
could not be said.  Since his mother's concern was entirely for
himself, his own concern must be entirely for Sheila.  His will, too
long in abeyance, must stand between him and the temptation to
discover, by imperceptible means, whether his defection had killed
outright the shy response he was just beginning to discern when Bel
appeared on the scene.  By some means he must contrive to keep the
lover's note out of their intercourse.  He was glad at least that a
deeper expression of brotherly tenderness had crept into his letters
from France.  It would make things a trifle easier now.

This renewal of intimacy would, he perceived, be no light ordeal; so
closely interwoven were the strands of joy and pain.  But it was the
price of her sweet companionship; and he would pay it willingly, just
so long as it involved no risk for her.

To-day, while her fingers made magical passes across his forehead, or
fluttered over his head like soft, strong wings, he had need to
reaffirm his resolve: and his best chance of keeping it, though he
guessed it not, lay less in the strength of his own will than in
Sheila's simplicity and singleness of heart.

For nearly an hour he surrendered himself to the healing influence of
her spirit and her touch, till definite thought was stilled and peace
flowed through him, as in the days when Sœur Colette had kneeled
and prayed beside his bed....

Then it was over; and he was bidden to be quiet till tea-time, while
his mother and Sheila strolled on the terrace in the sun.  Helen
tilted back his adjustable chair, rearranged his cushion and lightly
kissed his forehead.

"Didn't I do well to insist?" she asked smiling; and he smiled back
at her without a word.

Keith came in for tea; and before it was over, Dr. Warburton
appeared.  The illusion of old times was strong upon them all.
Except for war-talk and Mark's wheeled chair, it was almost as if
their summer and winter of tragic memory had never been.  But the
fact that Sheila must leave them broke the spell.

"Till Wednesday," Mark said at parting.  "And one of these days I
swear I'll kick over the traces and come for you myself."

To that announcement she had no ready-made answer at command.

"It's lovely to be home again--and spoilt again," she remarked
irrelevantly to whom it might concern.  "And remember,--_I_ expect to
find something begun if it's only a terra-cotta trifle."


On Wednesday she returned to find the terra-cotta trifle awaiting her
on his modelling table that had stood empty since the outbreak of
war.  It was a rugged and very vital study of Bobs in a gamesome
mood; hindquarters in the air, shoulders down, head laid sideways
between outflung paws and an upward glance of appeal from his only
visible eye.

Beneath him, on the pedestal, Mark had scratched the words: "St.
Roberts the Blest.  An invitation to play the fool!"

"Yours," he said as she stood before it, entranced.

"Mark!  You don't mean it!"  But she knew very well that he did, and
her heart sang for joy.

"Done to order," he explained gravely.  "The first fruits of your
magic."

At that she took it up between her hands and held it for a moment
against her cheek.

"It's a lovesome thing.--And there'll be bigger fruits still in a few
weeks' time."

"I'm ... not so sure," he said slowly.  "It was mostly my long tramps
that brought the big inspirations."

He was forcing himself, these days, to speak naturally and casually
of his tragic disability; but he had not yet been so frank with
Sheila and she winced in spite of herself.  Too well she remembered
his boyish delight when he persuaded his father to lengthen the
studio by throwing two rooms into one, and how he had declared that
merely from the extra space for prowling there would spring a
masterpiece.  And he had always worked standing.  In absence she
instinctively pictured him on his feet.  Even now----

Yet, if he could face things and speak of it all like this, she must
face them too....

"I believe when ... genius really comes alive again, it will override
everything," she said in a voice of subdued conviction.  "I'm not
just prophesying smooth things.  I'm confessing ... the faith that is
in me."

Mark was silent.  He dared not speak.  He dared hardly look at her,
lest she read the worship in his eyes.

Lady Forsyth, being in no wise hampered, impulsively held out her
hands.

"Darling, you and I are of one faith," she said: and Sheila swept to
her and kneeled beside her, glad to hide her face a moment against
the shoulder of Mark's mother.


After that, she came again and again, and the effect on Mark's temper
and spirits was obvious to all.  She was not merely a healing
influence, but a source of inspiration; an incentive to renewed
effort, to a more purposeful grip on the far from futile activities
that still remained to him.

Inevitably he found himself contrasting the high felicity of this
girl's companionship with that other who had led him hopelessly
astray from the path of true happiness.  On the one hand a spell, a
desire, a troubled unsatisfying charm: on the other, a real woman's
heart,--gracious, consoling, understanding, that rang true to every
testing touch, and would, he felt convinced, could he test her to the
uttermost.  If, at times, Sheila seemed narrow where Bel was
diffused, she had the higher merit of being deep where Bel was
shallow.  While there was scarcely a surface in life or art that Bel
had not skimmed, she had penetrated nowhere.  Sheila--ignorant of
much that the modern girl deems essential to her equipment for
life--was yet profoundly versed in the eternal lore of the heart.
Bel could never let a man forget he was primarily a man and she
primarily a woman: whereas, some finer quality in Sheila enabled Mark
to rest content--almost--with the enchantment of her voice, her eyes
and the fellowship of her spirit.  For all that, there were moments
when he wondered how much longer he could keep it up----

And again Sheila, though he did not guess it, was his best safeguard.
She had come, simply and gladly, without after-thought, convinced
that she could heal his hurt spirit, though his body was beyond her
help.

For the moment, it sufficed that she was privileged through her own
gift of healing, to revive his greater gift of creation: and to that
end she marshalled all the forces of her still, strong nature.
Self-dedicated to his service, the unspoken prayer of her spirit was
the prayer of Theodolind, the mystic: "Give me wings of great desire,
lest I look within and fail."  And gradually, unconsciously, she
imparted something of her exalted mood to Mark.  A growing conviction
that this blessed state of things involved no danger to her, gave him
fresh courage to control his own emotion lest he lose the best he had
any right to ask of her now.

So, for awhile, things went well at Wynchcombe Friars: and for Lady
Forsyth those last two weeks of March were the happiest, the most
hopeful, she had known since Mark's return from France.

He had reverted, by now, to his old keen interest in the management
of his property; and began to enjoy driving with Russell through his
woods and farmlands, and supervising his handicrafts colony, chiefly
given over to French and Flemish refugees.  Since no son of his would
ever reign at Wynchcombe Friars, he was the more zealous to do his
utmost--while time and opportunity were given him--for the people and
the land he loved.  In this way he grew to be aware that his tenants
and workers regarded him with a new and peculiar devotion, often
touchingly exhibited, inexpressive creatures though they were by
heritage and habit.  He was even persuaded to put in an appearance at
a big recruiting demonstration at Winchester, where he called upon
Jevons, the bootmaker, to the old man's huge delight.  He read
voraciously and played chess with his mother; though in their case,
it was apt to become a prolonged argument rather than a game.  He
also started a bust of Keith, who quarrelled with his undiscerning
choice of a subject and in secret was mightily pleased at the
compliment.

Mark did not fail to note his mother's eager interest in this new
venture: or the pains she was at not to let it be suspected.  It set
him wondering what on earth the dear good fellow was up to--he that
was free to go in and win the woman of his heart.


March departed lamblike; and April came in with primroses and violets
and dappled skies; with coral buds on the wild almond at the end of
the terrace, and the gleam of young leaves on black boughs.

April was Mark's own month and for him there was none like it in all
the year.  He too felt the leap of new life and hope within him: and
Sheila began to talk of getting leave for her promised visit.

But, before her dream came true, that stir of new life, within and
without, precipitated a crisis--almost inevitable between unavowed
lovers, using the language of friendship and thinking the thoughts of
love.  It came precisely when and precisely because increasing
confidence and intimacy had thrown them a little off their guard.

Upon the afternoon of Sheila's seventh visit they were left
practically alone.  Keith had driven Lady Forsyth over to Bramleigh
Beeches to meet a distinguished Indian poetess, who had expressed
admiration of Helen's small volume of French and Belgian War poems.
These she had translated during the winter to keep her mind from
brooding on Mark and to raise extra money for their refugees.  Helen
was eager to meet the little lady who had written so charmingly about
her work; and they left early that Keith might be back in time to
drive Sheila home.

Mark's elation should have warned him that there was peculiar need
for caution and control.  But the wine of spring sparkled in his
veins.  The air was full of love-songs and Te Deums.  Daffodil buds
were breaking and the first butterflies were out.  All the morning he
had been scouring the country with Keith in the little car that was
now the joy of his life: and an afternoon alone with Sheila fittingly
crowned his content.

When massage was over, he voted for tea at the south-west corner of
the terrace where they would secure the last of the sun.

"A Japanese tea-party," said Sheila, "to worship the almond blossom!"

Mark privately added another object of worship, no less emblematic of
spring.  For Sheila, happy in her devotion and in her power of
healing, was emerging from the shadow of her double loss; shyly
watching, at last, the dawning of her secret hope.  Her eyes and skin
were clearer, her cheeks less pale, her beauty and her spirit seemed
visibly to blossom with the blossoming year.  Her delight in the day
and the occasion was no less than Mark's, but it was of a stiller
quality.

They carried him down to the terrace, chair and all; and there,
established in the sunny corner, watched over by the almond tree, she
made tea for him and told stories of her other patients, whom she was
neglecting a little these days.

More by instinct than design, they kept their talk in a lighter vein
than usual; and Bobs, as gay as either of them, proved very
serviceable in this respect.

Suddenly there flashed on Mark a memory of that other picnic on the
shore of Loch Etive: the love-making, the conscious coquetry; the
first intimation of underlying rocks that would have wrecked their
ship of marriage.  Summarily he dismissed the intrusive reminder,
that made him angry with himself, angrier still with Bel and her
shallow witchery.  Yet the indelible shadow of what had been lay
right across his path.  Painfully he was learning that "the whole
life is mixed; the mocking Past will stay."

But this afternoon he would have none of it----

Hester had come out to remove the tea-things and she brought a letter
for Mark from Colonel Munro.  When he looked up from reading it,
Sheila sat lost in thought, one elbow on the empty tea-table, looking
away across the valley, where a gap in the pine woods revealed a
glimpse of blue distance clear against the evening sky.

For a space he watched her, till he dared watch no longer.  Then:
"Mouse," he said very quietly, "what are you brooding on so deeply?"

And she answered him, as quietly, in one word.  "Ralph."

Her tone in speaking of that very ordinary, very brave and beloved
brother gave Mark always a sense of standing on sacred ground.  He
said nothing; and after a pause she sighed and sat upright in her low
straightbacked chair resting her arms on the table, her hands loosely
clasped.

On the middle finger of her left hand she wore a curious, antique
ring; a Christmas present from her absentee father.

"A day like this is double-edged, isn't it?  It seems to stir all the
deeps--joy and pain.  He was such a dear simple thing.  So close to
earth, loving it all so.  And yet--the other was what he wished.
Just when you spoke I was thinking of that wonderful Roumanian
ballad, the dead soldier who was content: the last lines--you know,
when he asks the passers-by are they remembering him?

  '"Not so, my hero," the lovers said,
  "We are those who remember not.
  For the Spring has come and the Earth has smiled
  And the dead must be forgot."
  And the soldier spake from the deep dark grave--
            "I am content!"'"


At the last, her voice shook so that there was a moment of silence
before she added: "I believe that's what most of them would say--our
'noble army of martyrs'--if only we could hear----"

"Yes: most of them," Mark answered slowly, with quiet conviction.
"And on the whole, I'm not sure ... they haven't the best of it."

She turned quickly and met his direct gaze.  "You mustn't say that."

"I don't--to the others.  But I feel it--pretty acutely ...
sometimes."

"Not so often--now."

It was a statement rather than a question.

"Not nearly so often.  That's your doing."

Her deep blush so startled him that he promptly took refuge in
generalities:--the effect of the war on character, national and
individual: which tendency would prevail on the whole, the spiritual
exaltation of a high purpose and tragedy nobly borne; or
demoralisation from sheer horror and strain?  Maurice Lenox, for
instance, how would he and his type eventually emerge from the war?
And even where there had been a genuine uplift, would it last?  Or,
would the pendulum swing back farther than ever, if the struggle
dragged endlessly, sullenly on?

Sheila admitted reluctantly that the pendulum had to be reckoned
with.  She was thinking of Seldon and of Bel: and some hidden channel
of communion conveyed her thought to Mark.  He had heard of Seldon
from Ralph at Inveraig and again, lately, from his mother.  But he
had no idea how far things had ever gone between them and he very
much wanted to know.  He had no business whatever to be jealous of
the man; but he was fiercely jealous, none the less.

"How about that particular friend of yours, Seldon?" he asked
casually.  "Mums told me you had him here.  Quite regenerate.  All
your achievement--what d'you think?  Will it last?"'

She started and looked up.  "How odd you should speak of him.  He was
in my mind."

"_Why_ was he in your mind?"

Jealousy flashed out in spite of him: and she smiled.

"Isn't he allowed to be?"

"I'm not sure.  Depends how he's going to behave himself!"  The
chaffing tone was deliberately assumed.  "As a patient----"

"Oh, he's not my patient any more," she put in quickly.  "But I'm
bothered about him all the same."

"Why?  _Isn't_ it going to last?"

"He'll go out again.  At least, I believe he will," she answered
evasively.  "Motor transport, he says.  He can't do despatch riding
any more."

"Still writes to you, does he?"

"Not very often--now."  She paused; longing to tell him everything;
yet doubtful, still, whether any shred of feeling remained for Bel.

"And ... he doesn't want to marry you?" Mark asked irrelevantly.  He
simply had to know.

"He did.  That was the beginning of it."

"Of what?--The drink?  Because you wouldn't have him?"

"Mark--that's an insult!"  But it was useless pretending to be angry.
The discovery that he could be jealous, even half in joke, sent her
spirits up with a run.  "Someone else was responsible for that, thank
goodness.  And unluckily, he's come across her again.  I'm not at all
happy about it; and I don't think he is either."

"Wrong sort, is she?"

"M-yes.  I don't believe she wants him.  Yet--she's holding him in
spite of himself."

"Poor devil!"  Mark was quite ready now to extend the hand of
sympathy.  "_I_ know--all about that."  He spoke slowly and with
emphasis.  He had decided, on the spur of the moment, to break
through his misleading silence about Bel; to explain frankly the
process and the completeness of his disenchantment.  She must know.
She had the right to know: she, whom he had so cavalierly deserted,
after their names had been coupled by relatives and friends.  Though
power to make reparation was denied him, he felt imperatively that
she must know.

So, after a pause, he went on, with the same slow emphasis: "You
see--perhaps you did see--Miss Alison was that sort."

The formal name, so casually spoken, sounded very strange on his
lips; and her heart, that was now in a troublesome state of
commotion, rejoiced to hear it.  "Yes: I did see--afterwards," she
said in her quietest voice.  "Not at first."

"Nor did I--at first.  In fact, not clearly, till I got out to
France.  Machine-guns and high explosives play havoc with more than
the landscape and the human envelope.  They smash up unrealities and
readjust all the values.  Oh yes, out there one saw things
clear--horrid clear.  Her letters too..." he paused.  "And all those
weeks, when ... I was dead, when I seemed to have no real link with
anything, any one but that devoted little nun.  Her saintliness, her
simplicity ... made things clearer than ever.  I saw--" he paused,
looking down into the heart of the wood; tempted beyond measure to
defy Fate and iron decrees and tell her all he had seen in those
strange days, when his lips were closed and his eyes were dazzlingly
opened to the truth.  The one thing he did not see at that moment,
fortunately perhaps, was Sheila's face, bright with the dawn of
realisation, of an almost incredible hope.  "I saw," he repeated in a
low, impersonal tone, as if talking to himself, "how rootless our
whole relation was and always had been.  She never reached the
depths.  Didn't want to.  She had no earthly use for them.  Her
effect on me was an artificial stimulus all along.  Mind, I'm not
excusing myself.  It's no credit to me that she could and did take
such a hold.  And I came very near marrying her before I went out.
Makes me shiver now to think of it: for her sake as much as my own.
Dangerous things, these war marriages.  I've heard of some painful
cases.--Then, when I came back, there she was--irresistible as ever.
But the something in me that couldn't resist her had been burnt
away--out there.  Then they told me I was a permanent crock....  No
choice--after that.  Marrying days were over."  A pause.  "Perhaps,
after all, it's worth being smashed up, like this, to save one's soul
alive.  There--now you know.  I've been wanting to tell you ... all
that this long while."

"And I've been badly ... wanting to know," she admitted very softly;
but his quick ear caught a new vibration in her voice.  Startled out
of his passing relief, he turned swiftly and was confronted by a
transfigured Sheila, gifts in her eyes, the colour rising in her
cheeks.  For her there was no iron decree.  Heart and soul she was
ready.  And Mark, for one measureless moment, sat there tongue-tied,
realising what he had done, realising still more acutely what he
dared not do....  With a supreme effort he forced himself to look
away from her.

"I was _right_ when I said ... just now ... the dead have the best of
it," he muttered in a tone of concentrated bitterness.

Sheila sat silent, motionless.  It was as if with one hand he had
lifted her to heaven and with the other had flung her back into the
dust--Her eyes were blinded so that she could not see the pain in his
face: and suddenly her ears caught the purr of the motor coming down
the drive.

"Ah--there they are!"  It was Mark who spoke.

Sheila heard the note of relief in his voice and it cut her to the
heart.

Without a word she rose and went to meet them----




CHAPTER IV

  "A seed of fire is in the human soul
  That tears can quench not...."
                                  F. W. B.


Helen, herself, had seen at a glance that something was wrong: very
wrong indeed.  When the two were gone, she returned to Mark with a
flutter of trepidation at her heart.

Sheila cared.  By this time she was convinced of it.  And Mark?  Once
already, in his blindness, he had flung aside this jewel of a girl.
Did he mean to do it a second time open-eyed, because his body had
suffered shipwreck in the service of his country?  If he had got that
resolve in his brain, she foreknew the futility of argument.
Yet--given the chance and the facts--she was prepared to fight it out
with him, for Sheila's sake no less than his own.

But it was for him to speak first; and she feared his silence.

During her absence he had wheeled himself along the terrace and back
again to that fatal corner, where a ghostly Sheila still sat in the
empty chair, her arms resting on the table, a light of unearthly
beauty in her eyes.  His face wore the hard closed-up look that his
mother had not seen for weeks.  Casual talk about Bramleigh Beeches
was sheerly impossible.

"My darling, what _has_ gone wrong?" she made bold to ask.

He frowned and set his teeth.  "Everything.  Too perfect to last.  I
might have known it."  He looked about him uneasily.  "We can't talk
out here.  Let's get indoors."

They proceeded to get indoors accordingly; and there by the freshly
crackling drawing-room fire it was possible to talk.  Mark lit a
cigarette to steady himself.  Lady Forsyth sat in her favourite small
chair, warming her hands, that always went cold under stress of
emotion.

"Mark, did you speak to her?" she asked quietly.

"I came within an ace of it--God forgive me!"

Those three words confirmed her worst fears.  But she could say
nothing yet.  Her heart was beating fast.  It was a distressing
symptom, greatly increased by months of anxiety and the ceaseless
strain of the war.

So she remained silent, awaiting further revelations.  And after a
pause Mark went on:--"I deserve a thorough good kicking.  Wish I'd a
father to give it me.  Perhaps Keith will.  I'm not blaming you,
Mums.  This massage business has done me no end of good.  But in
every other respect it's been the very devil.  As for _her_--she's
the most perfect thing God ever made.  And I'm afraid ... I'm
horribly afraid ... she cares.  The look in her eyes dumbfounded me.
There was no choice between a clean cut ... and surrender...."

"And why _not_ surrender?" his mother ventured, fearful yet
undaunted.  "Honestly I believe--it would be better and happier for
us all."

At that the stifled flame in him leaped out even as she had feared.

"Better for _me_ ... for you.  That's the extent of your honest
belief.  Mums, you're not facing this business straight: though you
think you are.  You're just a dear devoted mother-woman.  Whatever
your son cries for, from a Noah's ark to a wife, you'll move heaven
and earth to get it for him at any cost--to any one.  And I love you
for it.  But you can't expect me, always, to see it the same way.
I'm considering Sheila and no one but Sheila----"

"My dear boy, _I'm_ considering her too!" his mother cried out,
unable to endure that last reproach.  "I've been doing so a good deal
longer than you have; and, believe it or not, my understanding of her
goes deeper than yours.  I'm a woman.  She's a woman----"

"_There_ you are!"  Mark fairly took the word out of her mouth.
"It's because she's so divinely a woman that I refuse to let her in
for ... a travesty of a marriage.  A girl like that was created for
better things than dancing attendance on a broken man.  It would be a
sin.  You know that as well as I do."

She was silent a moment, recognising that he spoke the truth: one
side of it.  But even while she loved and honoured him for his
refusal, conviction remained that Sheila, if she really cared, would
recognise no obstacles.

"But, dear, after all, things aren't quite past mending," she urged
in a quieter tone.  "Surely Sheila has the right to know you love
her, and to make her own choice."

Mark shook his head.  "She wouldn't think things out.  And she'd be
too tender-hearted to refuse.--As for me, there probably will be
improvement, of sorts.  But, so far as I can see, the chances are
I'll never be a whole man again: and I don't see myself marrying
Sheila, on the off chance----"

"Oh--you're hopeless!  And _she's_ helpless, poor darling!  Why must
we wretched women always be dumb on this matter that concerns us
above everything else?  She ought to be allowed to take the
initiative in a case like this."

"Just as well for me that she isn't," Mark muttered grimly.  But she
detected in his voice the mere ghost of a vibration, and a wild hope
leaped in her heart.  Sheila might move him, or Keith----

At this point Mark leaned forward suddenly and flung away his
cigarette.

"Don't let's talk of this again, Mums," he said, more gently than he
had spoken yet.  "It hurts us both too much.  Also it's futile.
Nothing on earth would induce me to offer Sheila--damaged goods:
damaged in every sense.  I'm the sinner first and last.  When I ought
to have been at her feet, I was wasting my substance on ... Miss
Alison.  Oh yes ... you knew ... you're welcome to your private
triumph.'

"My son--it's no triumph," she broke out bitterly.  "It's torment.  I
would sooner have been entirely wrong and that Bel should have turned
out worthy of your chivalrous love----"

"Well, _I_ wouldn't," he contradicted her inevitably.  "I wouldn't
sooner anything that might have robbed me of discovering Sheila as
I've been discovering her these few weeks; even though it's made
things in general ten times harder to bear.  She's a perpetual
inspiration.  A light of earth.  If she were only that--!  But she's
more.  And so ... she's not for me.  Possibly I was mistaken this
afternoon.  It might have been ... just her heavenly sympathy.  I
hope to God it was!  We'll run no more risks, anyway.  If she gets
this leave of hers, I'd better go off on some sort of tour with
Keith:--doctor's orders!  If he's too busy, the Sinclairs might put
up with me for a bit, or Uncle John down at Weymouth.  The farther
the better.  We must furbish up some sort of presentable excuse.
It's pretty detestable, just when things in general seemed to be
taking a real lift all round."

And his mother sat listening to it all, mute and miserable,
envisaging the spring and summer--that had seemed to promise
resurrection--darkened by this fresh tragedy.  She knew, now, just
how high hope had risen of late.

"And is this sort of thing ... to be permanent?" she asked, with a
sigh of utter weariness.

He turned and regarded her reproachfully, the faintest flicker of
humour in his grave eyes. "My dear Mums, I sometimes wonder if you
really have walked this earth for fifty years!  Is anything ever
permanent--except change?  I suppose ... we shall both shake down in
time and accept the horrid fact.  But at present, as things stand,
the less she sees of me the better.  She ought--to marry.  And she
probably will.  Oh _God_!"

The last words were no more than a fierce whisper, and his hand
closed sharply on the arm of his chair.

His mother neither moved nor spoke.  She leaned forward over the
fire, her face half turned away from him, thankful the lights were
not switched on.

But although no sob escaped her, Mark knew very well that she was
crying.  In other circumstances he would have been on his knees
beside her.  As it was, he sat there dumb; chained to the accursed
chair, raging at his helplessness; raging still more at his very
belated readiness to fulfil her heart's desire.

Soon she rose hurriedly, murmured something about coming back soon,
and left him....


They were alone that evening.  Keith was dining at Wynchmere and
speaking afterwards at the Working Man's Club on ambulance driving in
France.  They missed him badly, both of them.  It is often the way
with such quiet, unobtrusive natures.  Keith and Sheila were alike in
that respect: and all through dinner, both were vividly present to
the minds of mother and son.  But their talk in the main was of
Bramleigh Beeches, Indian genius, and the poetry of Tagore.

After dinner Mark asked for _Sadhāna_ and music.  He wanted
to escape from talk that could not, just then, be anything but a mere
makeshift between them: a state of things unnatural and intolerable
to both.  While his mother played Grieg and Beethoven, he opened his
book haphazard at the poet's exquisite clear-eyed discourse on
"Realisation in Love."

"Our individual soul," he read, "has been separated from the Supreme
Soul not from alienation, but from fulness of love.  It is for this
reason that untruths, sufferings, and evil are not at a standstill:
the human soul can defy them, can overcome them; nay, can altogether
transform them into new power and beauty...."

Mark pondered that sentence a long while.  It was like a light
flashed upon the dark path before him; like the voice of God in his
own soul, saying, "This do and thou shalt live."  His faith in the
Unseen was, like that of most Britons, an inarticulate and very
hidden thing.  But his brief, strenuous spell of service, followed by
weeks of intimate, yet unspoken communion with the passionate soul of
one small French nun, had intensified his inner vision and deepened
the measure of faith that was in him.  To-night he recognised and
accepted the task assigned him; recognised also that, just in so far
as he fulfilled it, he would be still able to serve his country and
his own people, in defiance of his handicap.  The struggle between
spirit and matter, that had hitherto been the keynote of his art,
must now become the keynote of his life....  "Unconquering, yet
unconquered...."  Stevenson knew.

Yet still his desolate, rebellious heart cried out that _with Sheila_
any achievement were possible: without her the future loomed dark and
formless, a night devoid of stars....

Punctually at ten he asked to be taken up to bed.  When he was gone,
the house felt so silent and empty that Helen fled for refuge to her
own room and her own fire.  Anxious and disheartened by this fresh
trouble, she clung to the thought of Keith as a shipwrecked man to a
spar.  Her own pleading was vitiated--no denying it--by the mere fact
of her motherhood.  Keith could speak more impartially, more frankly,
as one man to another.  She wanted to see him, and unburden her heart
to him before she slept.  But he expected to be late and had begged
her not to sit up.  Besides, he would be tired and it would not be
fair on him.  She must have patience till the morning.  Her rebel
spirit was being drilled into patience these days.

The door into Mark's room was shut.  It most often had to be, now.
But she heard no sound of footsteps.  The men had evidently left him.
Should she go in and say good night?  Her heart yearned over him; and
it was hateful to feel unsure of her welcome.  Did he guess how
acutely she missed his casual wanderings in and out; the arguments,
the "ragging," and the dear delights of their ancient comradeship,
that almost seemed to belong to another life?

Latterly, under Sheila's reviving influence, the old happy relation
had been renewed with a difference.  It was she who now went in to
him for early tea, when he did not peremptorily order her back lest
she catch cold; and the "hair-brush interview" often took place
beside his bed.  Being dependent on the men, he could not sit up till
all hours.  Now, to-day--just as hope was sending green shoots into
the sunshine--she felt jerked back into the miseries and
uncertainties of a winter that she would fain wipe clean out of her
memory.

Finally, she decided to go in to him and chance the result.

The comfort of finding she was welcome would be worth the risk.

His room was in darkness: curtains drawn back, windows flung open,
revealing a strip of starry sky and black pine branches blotting out
a constellation or two.  The light from her own room guided her to
his bed.

He said not a word.  But his arms came out to greet her; and he drew
her down, clinging to her, as he had never done in the days before
War had crippled his strong, shapely body and shaken his nerves.

"I thought--you had forgotten," he said at last.

"And _I_ thought perhaps--you would rather not."

He tightened his hold.  "I forbid you to think that, ever.  No matter
what the devil inside me may say or do.  A nice sort of curse I am to
you, little Mums."

"You're the dearest blessing of my life," she answered, her cheek
against his.

It was some time before he let her go: but neither of them spoke the
word uppermost in their minds.

She left him at last, with his fervent "God bless you" in her ears
and hope renewed in her heart.  Sheila--if she loved him
sufficiently--must win in the end.




CHAPTER V

"Yea, there shall be a time that shall lay hold on a man unaware and
shall give him one thing beyond his hope."--PINDAR.


She woke late, after a restless night, to find letters already on her
tray and the housemaid at her washing-stand.

In her room, as in Mark's, there was never any need for drawing back
curtains or opening windows to let in the morning.  Winter and summer
she performed both offices herself before going to sleep.  For her,
boxed-up bedrooms, stuffily curtained, were anathema.  Nature's night
was a thing of brooding beauty; and the stars were her friends.  If
she woke in the small hours, a frequent event, she liked to find them
looking in on her, to see them glimmering like Christmas candles
through the blackness of her sentinel pines.

Now the birds were making music in their branches, and the stars had
long since been blown out by the sun.

"Has Sir Mark had his tea?" she asked, as the maid went out.

"No, my lady: he's still asleep."

"Tell Macgregor not to disturb him."

That meant--a bad night: for he was an early waker.  And, for all her
devotion, she could do practically nothing to ease his misery.  It is
one of the hardest though perhaps not the least salutary laws of life.

She lit her spirit lamp and took up her letters.  One of them was
from Mrs. Melrose: an unusual event.  In spite of the link between
their children, and the natural inference that some day Sheila would
marry Mark, these two were not friends.  They were merely life-long
acquaintances.  But Mrs. Melrose, like many of her kind, could slip
on the cloak of friendship when it happened to serve her purpose.
And it served her purpose now.


"My dear Lady Forsyth," she wrote--"I've been feeling rather
concerned lately about our Sheila and her future prospects.  I say
'our,' because, by her own choice, she seems to belong almost as much
to you as to her father and me.  But--after all--she is mine.  I am
responsible for her welfare.  And as we are such very old friends, I
am going to write to you quite frankly on the subject of her possible
marriage.  Of course I know how you discourage gossip in every shape
and form, but you are, no doubt, aware that for a long time Sheila's
name was coupled with Mark's all over the neighbourhood.  Quite
natural--you must admit.  And if Mark had not suddenly gone off at a
tangent in another direction, I wouldn't have given the matter a
thought.  I am far too busy to worry over trifles."


("Too busy to win your daughter's confidence or her heart!" was
Helen's mental interjection.)


"But even in these casual days, it does not improve a girl's chances
if her name is bandied about, coupled with this man and that.  Last
autumn there was that Mr. Seldon.  Now I hear _he_ is running after
Miss Alison.  She seems a dangerous young woman.

"But what chiefly worries me is this.  I discovered the other day
that people round here are again speculating about Sheila and Mark.
And I am sure, dear Lady Forsyth, you will agree with me that this
won't do at all.  Mind, I am not saying a word against Mark.  But I
do think that, for Sheila's sake, he should be careful not to set
people talking again in that way, as he would not, I feel sure, think
of asking her to marry him, now.  To be quite frank, neither her
father nor I would wish it.  And I feel sure you would not wish it
either----"


At this point Helen flushed furiously.  Those velvety phrases barely
concealed the direct hit at herself: but the next few sentences so
startled her that she almost forgot to be angry.


"Personally, in strict confidence, I am convinced that Mr. Macnair is
seriously _épris_ with our little girl.  Surely you must have noticed
it yourself?  And nothing would delight me more.  He is clever,
charming, eligible in every way.  I thought of it first when he began
teaching her to drive.  And it has been very marked since his return
from France.  I have said nothing yet, to Sheila herself.  She is
difficult about such things; so shut in.  Her Melrose grandmother all
over.  And Mr. Macnair is so modest.  The sort of man who needs a
certain amount of _discreet_ encouragement.  But darling Sheila is
rather a little fool in that way.  I've told her more than once her
pride will be her ruin!  Now she talks about spending her leave at
Wynchcombe Friars.  This would be _such_ a good chance to complete
matters and put an end to all this gossip, that I hope I am not
presuming on our friendship, if I ask you to give them both a
_little_ push in the right direction--quite unobtrusively, as only an
older woman can.  It's all they need, dear foolish creatures, and I
may add you would earn my eternal gratitude.  Forgive me if I have
written too frankly.  But being a mother yourself, I am _sure_ you
will understand.  So glad to hear from Sheila that Mark is really
better in every way.

  "Yours most sincerely,
              "ADELA MELROSE.


It is hardly too much to say that before Helen Forsyth reached the
end of that amazing burst of confidence, she had a sudden dizzying
sensation of seeing the world, her familiar home-world, the wrong
side up.  Keith and Sheila--whom she had always regarded as belonging
respectively to herself and Mark!  And she--with her tragic knowledge
of her son's belated awakening--was to give those two the "little
push" that would send them into each other's arms!

Once or twice, at Boulogne, she remembered, this very idea had dimly
occurred to her.  But now--coming from Mrs. Melrose of all
people--she found it intolerable.  She resented it vehemently; and
not on Mark's account alone.  Yet the disconcerting fact remained
that Keith might hold other views on the subject.  She had always
been sceptical over Mark's nonsense about herself.  At least--until
this bewildering moment--she had honestly believed in her own
scepticism.  She had put the idea away from her and thanked God for
the treasure of Keith's devoted friendship.  But this morning she
perceived, for the first time, that she was not at all prepared for
his falling in love elsewhere.

Was she fundamentally given to self-deception, without knowing
it--she who set such store by sincerity of soul?  Only last night
Mark had turned another of her "honest beliefs" inside out.  What
would he say to this?

And Sheila herself?  Incredible!

Distracted by conflicting emotions and utterly perplexed, she leaned
back among her pillows.  There could be no peace, on her own account
or Mark's, till she had got at the truth.  But--a gleam of humour
flashed through her dismay--how was it to be done?  Wire to Sheila:
"Are you in love with Keith?"?  Ask Keith over his coffee and
newspaper: "Are you in love with Sheila?"?  Confront each with the
other on Wednesday, and say point-blank: "Look here, if you two want
to marry, Mark and I have no objections to make"?

Perhaps they were hesitating on that score.  It would be just like
them.  And as to Keith, there was no denying that Mrs. Melrose had a
case.  He had never disguised his admiration for Sheila.  Words and
incidents, unnoticed at the time, came crowding back to her memory----

It was mainly to Sheila that Helen looked for reprieve, especially
after last night.  Yet, if she went to Mark now, with this Melrose
fantasy, he would simply say: "What did I tell you?  The real mother
has a natural eye to Sheila's real interests.  If there's a ghost of
a chance for Keith, let the whole man win her if he can."

Yes.  Mark would say that: and he would be right.

Of a sudden, she felt heartily ashamed of herself.  What was it she
had said to Sheila at Inveraig?--"Be as kind as you please to your
poor things so long as you stop short of marrying them."  Yet when it
came to her own son, she was ready to eat her counsel without
compunction.  But then--Mark was Mark.  And if Sheila loved him--if
she preferred mothering her one disabled hero----?

If--if!  She was simply back again at her argument of last night.
Till she knew the facts, speculation was futile.  And until she did
know, she would certainly say nothing to Mark.  Keith, as usual, was
her city of refuge.  After breakfast she would get him away alone and
tell him everything.  If necessary, she would even show him that
detestable letter.....


At breakfast in the study they talked war news and Government delays
and the Great Offensive, that appeared to have been slain either by
bad Staff work, or by lack of ammunition and shells.  And while they
talked, Helen was surreptitiously watching Keith's lean, thoughtful
face, with awakened eyes; listening to the even quiet of his voice
with new ears.  And all the time she was telling herself sternly that
perhaps this very Keith, her own peculiar property, was in love with
Sheila.

When at last he went down to the library, she followed him at a
casual distance.  He had just grasped the door-handle when she
reached the last of the stairs.

"Keith," she called; and he turned quickly.  "I've had a letter that
puzzles me rather.  Can you spare me a few minutes?"

"The whole morning if you like."

There was no fervour in his tone.  He simply stated an obvious fact.

"Well, come out on the terrace and bask in this lovely day.  When the
sun is kind enough to take notice of England we ought to give him
every encouragement!"

She talked on rather rapidly for the sake of saying something and
keeping nervousness at bay.  She had a deep respect for the reserves
of her men-folk: and now, too late, she shrank from laying a finger
on the curtain that hid the real Keith from her.  Outside on the
terrace she fell silent till they reached the far corner, where Mark
and Sheila had parted so abruptly the day before.

"Well--what about your letter?" he asked, an amused note in his
voice.  It was so like Helen to ask for an urgent few minutes and
then talk about April sunshine.  It was the sort of thing that made
her at once so aggravating and so lovable.

No escape now; and she plunged headlong.

"It's from Mrs. Melrose.  She has an idea ...  she says ... you and
Sheila...."  Quite useless.  She could get no further.  "I think,"
she added, handing him that innocuous-looking bombshell, "you'd
better read it for yourself."

Mystified by her manner and mildly curious, he obeyed: and she,
feeling uncomfortably shaky, half sat on the edge of the stone
balustrade, watching his face for some sign of confirmation or
reprieve.  She saw his eyebrows go up, then draw together in a sharp
frown.  Then there leaped a flame in his grey eyes such as she had
seen once or twice at Boulogne when he came into collision with
immobile Authority.  Finally she saw a dull flush creep into his
face:--anger or emotion?  It was hard to tell.  The curtain was not
lifted--yet.

Quite suddenly, he looked up and caught her eyes on him.

"Has the woman taken leave of her senses?" he asked, in a dazed
voice.  "Sheer insolence--all that twaddle about Mark.  As for the
rest--"  He paused, and his flush deepened.  "Sheila and I are quite
capable of managing our own affairs without her inspired assistance."

"Precisely what I thought," Helen murmured.  That "Sheila and I"
produced a horrid sinking at her heart.

"_You_?  What have you been thinking?"

"A good deal ... since I read that letter."  And the pang she had no
business to feel gave her courage to go on: "Keith, if it's true ...
what Mrs. Melrose says, I want to say ... on my own account, that you
need have no hesitation in this matter, because of Mark.  He ... he
only spoke of it yesterday.  He feels ... he has no right.  I confess
I had hoped--but ... we both care so immensely for you two...."

"That you are graciously willing to fling us at each other's heads,"
Keith broke out angrily, "at the instigation of this impertinent
woman.  Upon my word, Helen, I stand confounded----!"

She also stood confounded.  Anger from Keith was more than she had
bargained for: and she was further inconvenienced by an ignominious
impulse to weep.

This gave Keith a distinct advantage: and he went on speaking with
the same phenomenal vehemence.  "I gave you credit for a better
understanding of us both.  Sheila and I, let me tell you, know our
own minds very thoroughly, and have done so for years.  You say Mark
spoke of this yesterday?  I'll warrant _he_ never coupled Sheila's
name with mine."

"No.  He was speaking of himself.  He feels ... it isn't fair on
her...."

"A good deal fairer, in my opinion, than sending her home crumpled up
as she was last night.  Something happened, while we were out, that
broke her all to pieces.  Obviously, from the way you are both
behaving, neither of you have a glimmering notion of what that girl
feels for Mark.  It's my belief that, through long repression, her
love has reached a height of almost sacrificial devotion; and that's
not the sort of thing a man can afford to fling aside for a
scruple--even an honourable scruple."

"Would you say the same," she ventured--secretly overjoyed that he
shared her opinion--"if you ... were in Mark's position?"

Keith smiled.  His anger had spent itself.

"Most likely I should be as cruelly considerate as he is being now.
But standing outside, I can get a clearer view of things.  Helen, if
he persists in holding back, it's she that will suffer most: and I
wouldn't mind telling him so in very plain English.  But it would be
infinitely better, for her own chances, if Sheila could be induced to
speak for herself."

"Keith!  By whom?"

"By me."

"Would you do it--really?"

"I would, if only to refute that woman's fairy tale...."

"But--when?"

"To-day, if possible."

Helen's eyebrows were eloquent.  It was not the first time, since war
awakened him, that she had been taken aback by his quiet swiftness of
thought and decision.

Before she had recovered from her surprise, he was speaking again.
"So much for Mark and Sheila--good luck to them!  As for yourself--"
He paused, gazing at her steadfastly.  "You ... blessed woman, has
the truth never once dawned on you ... in all these years...?"

It was visibly dawning on her now, half blinding her with its
brightness.  She had thought to lift a corner of the curtain, and
here he was flinging back the whole of it that she might see and know
the depth of her misunderstanding.  Confronted thus by the real,
hidden Keith, she found it amazingly difficult to say even a word in
reply.

"Mark did write something once," she admitted lamely, "in his last
letter from the trenches."

He could smile now at the tragic memory.

"That accounts for the missing sheet?"

"Yes."

"And you didn't believe him?"

"No.  Somehow it seemed ... preposterous."

"_Why_ preposterous?"

His laconic bluntness told her how deeply he was moved.

"Keith, I'm eight years older than you.  And ... I felt as if it
ought to be Sheila.  And--"  A still longer pause.  Her heart was
beating in jerks.  "I wasn't altogether sure ... of myself.  Then
when you came back, you gave no sign----"

"'He either fears his fate too much, or his deserts are small,'"
Keith quoted, still watching her sunlit face.  "A little of both--in
this case.  My dear ... it's more than fifteen years now that I've
loved you.  I've never given a thought to any other woman.  And I've
never entertained a shred of hope----"

She tried to speak.  It was useless: but the quiver of her lips
emboldened him.

"Helen--was I wrong?"

"Partly wrong."

"Does that mean ... would you--could you marry me?"

"I think it's rather ... could _you_," she said very low; and if her
words were faintly discouraging, he had the tender assurance of her
eyes.  "I must be frank with you, Keith.  What I have to give--though
I give it with all my heart--is not the same thing ... quite.  I
can't be--you understand?"

"Of course I understand....'

"But that's only half," she interposed, smiling.  "And I had to say
it.  The other half is ... I love you dearly.  I need you ... at
every turn.  We seem to belong in a very special way to each other.
And this morning I wanted to murder Mrs. Melrose.  If that's
confession enough...?"

"_If_?" he echoed: and she had never heard his expressive voice
condense so much feeling into a single word.

She had risen in speaking, and now she stood before him in the clear
sunlight, that made her eyes look bluer than ever, and discovered
gleams of silver in her red-brown hair.  But Keith had no concern for
these, or for the lines pencilled by sorrow and strain.  He looked
beyond them to the springs of eternal youth within her.  Frankly, and
in a manner delightfully her own, she had confessed her need of him;
yet he made no move towards her.  They simply stood there, a foot of
space between them, their spirits linked in closest
communion--satisfied.

Even had they been indoors it is doubtful whether Keith would have
done otherwise.  The truth penetrated slowly; and for him that moment
had a sacredness, an exaltation----

A touch, a word, would have brought them down to earth.

Yet it was he who first became aware of the "scarlet spider" skimming
down the drive.  "Sheila," he said quietly.  "I'm certain of it."

And he was right.  The telegram was addressed to Helen, and it ran:
"Cannot come Wednesday.  Please forgive.--SHEILA."

She handed it to Keith.  He read it without comment and put out his
hand for a form.

Helen stood close to him, almost touching his elbow, while he wrote:
"Arrange to be free to-day.  I am coming this morning.
Urgent.--MACNAIR."

"Be off with that double quick," he said to the boy.  Then, as the
red wheels vanished, he turned to Helen.  "Just a chance it may get
there before me and pave the way.  I've business first in Wynchmere
that can't wait."

He spoke so completely in his ordinary manner that Helen felt almost
as if their wonderful moment must have been a dream.  But it was no
dream.  He was talking of it now in the same calm fashion.

"We won't tell Mark--yet," he said.

"No.  It would be cruel.  I may not even go up till you come back.
He said he might work this morning and wanted to be alone.  Afraid, I
suspect, of my returning to the attack!  Oh, Keith, I _hope_ you
succeed."

"I mean to.  I hope she will.  That's more to the point."

Helen sighed.  "He simply adores her.  One sees the difference--after
Bel.  But he's hopelessly obstinate about it.  I was quite angry with
him last night."

"Poor old chap!"  His eyes dwelt upon her tenderly.  "Sometimes I
wonder which of your two children you love best."

"And I've sometimes wondered which of them _you_ loved best!" was her
counter-thrust to that impermissible remark.  "Go soon.  And ... come
back soon.  Mrs. Melrose will never forgive me!"

"We'll survive that.  And she'll have me to reckon with now...."

Before leaving, he came to her in the drawing-room, where she was
filling a bowl with daffodils.  Silently he held out his hands, and
she gave him both her own.

"Rather wet!" she said, to cover a troublesome feeling of confusion.

He smiled and drew her nearer.  Then, very quietly, as if it were an
act of consecration, he stooped and kissed her.

Afterwards she came out and waved to him from the doorstep as he
drove away: the same Keith to whom she had played elder sister for
years; and yet so strange a Keith that it was as if she had barely
known him till to-day.

Putting on her garden hat, she wandered out into the pinewood,
dappled with sun and shadow, jewelled with patches of moss.  Letters
were waiting to be written.  Let them wait.  She had a consuming need
to be alone with her amazing knowledge and her so strangely
reawakened heart.

Fifteen years!  What was she, to deserve such love from two such men
as Richard and Keith?  Deliberately she linked their names in her
mind.  Deliberately she stood still with uplifted face and closed
eyes.

"Richard, _do_ you understand?" she whispered just above her breath.

Only the pine branches rustled overhead.




CHAPTER VI

  "You yourself know not how beautiful is your gift."
                            SIR RABINDRANATH TAGORE.


It was Mrs. Melrose who opened Keith's telegram, and her elation may
be conceived.  Sheila was engaged, at the moment, on a new arrival;
but directly she was free, her mother beckoned her mysteriously into
the passage and handed her the envelope.

"I opened it, just to see if there was any answer," she explained
with repressed eagerness, while Sheila stood frowning at the cryptic
message that might mean ... anything, everything.

"I _wish_ you wouldn't open telegrams addressed to me, Mother," she
said, none too graciously.  It was the second time lately that Mrs.
Melrose had been guilty of that dire offence; and she was one of the
very few people who knew that Sheila could snap on provocation: a
sufficiently illuminating comment on their relation.

"Well, really, dear, one doesn't _expect_ a wire to be a love-letter
in disguise!"  Sheila, who could be dense at times, missed the
delicate implication that Keith's message amounted to a proposal of
marriage.  "Of course you must be free.  I'll arrange it with Sister
Nelson."

"Oh, please don't trouble.  _I_ can arrange things all right."

And she did.

Some twenty minutes later, Mark's car drew up before the spacious,
flat-fronted Georgian house; and Keith sprang out of it.  To-day all
his movements had a new alertness.  He looked and felt five years
younger.

Three shallow steps led up to the front door; and just as he reached
these, Sheila came out in hat and coat, plainly prepared to join him.
She looked paler than usual, but entirely mistress of herself.

"You got my wire?" he asked superfluously.

"Yes.  Very mysterious!  So I thought ... better be prepared for
emergencies.  Nothing wrong with Mums?"

"No.  Mums is particularly well this morning.  It's not on _her_
account I'm here."

The emphasised word brought a faint glow to her cheeks.

"Mark?" she asked, almost under her breath.

"Yes--Mark."

"You mean--he sent you?"

"No.  The impulse was altogether my own.  I am here because I believe
in you, Sheila.  Come for a stroll down the garden before we start
back."

She came--bewildered, palpitating; prepared for almost anything but
the actual event.

From the house of many windows, park-like grounds sloped gently down
to the Wynch, broader and lazier here than at Wynchcombe Friars.  The
grass was bright with crocuses and early daffodils; and on the bare
boughs overhead, half-opened leaf-buds gleamed like jewels in the sun.

Keith, as he turned, caught sight of Mrs. Melrose at an upper window,
watching them go.

"Your mother has her eye on us," he remarked casually.  "I believe
she thinks I've come tearing over to make you an offer of marriage!"

"_You_!"  Sheila confronted him in blank surprise.

"Don't be alarmed," Keith reassured her, with his whimsical smile.
"I've already been guilty of it once this morning."

At that her eyes opened wider than ever, and he saw light dawn in
their depths.

"Mums?"

He nodded.

"How simply splendid!  It's been my pet, private dream for ages.  But
I was afraid...."

"So was I.  Horribly afraid.  Without reason, I am thankful to say."

A pause.

"I want ... to congratulate you," she said softly.  "There's no one
on earth like Mums.  She's the youngest of us all.  And ... Mark?
Isn't he glad?"

"Mark's in no mood to be glad about anything," Keith answered, with a
straight look.  "That's why I am here.  We haven't told him.  We
can't tell him ... yet.  And we can't help him, either of us.  Only
you can do that."

She flushed hotly and looked down at the crocuses.

"I'm afraid you overestimate my powers.  I've done all ... I can.'

"No, you've _not_ done all," he corrected her gently.  "Or I should
not be standing here.  I take it that you ... care for Mark: that you
have always cared."

She drew in her lips and answered nothing.  Then she looked up at
him, her secret unveiled.  Strangely, it did not hurt her that he
should know.

"I thought so," he remarked to her silence.  "And on the strength of
that conviction, I've come over to put the whole truth before you.
It's no easy thing I'm going to ask of you, Sheila.  But I believe in
you--as I said."

He moved on in speaking, and she moved on beside him--wondering,
fearing, yet longing to know all.

Plainly and straightforwardly he told of her mother's letter;
quieting, with a tactful hand, her incidental burst of indignation.
Personally, he assured her, he felt quite grateful to Mrs. Melrose,
who, in trying to do him one good turn, had inadvertently done him
another.  That consideration calmed her a little and touched up her
sense of humour.

"If she's been any help to you and Mums, I forgive her ... for that
part of it," she said in a voice that quivered between a laugh and a
sob.  "But I won't forgive her ... about Mark ... _ever_."

And when Sheila said that, she meant it.  She had never forgiven Bel.
It was the streak of Northern granite in her disposition.  Keith had
purposely included those remarks that had roused his own anger.  He
had reckoned them his strongest cards.  He now perceived them to be
stronger than he had supposed, and he suffered a passing twinge of
conscience.  But the matter at stake was too vital to be tripped up
by side issues: and he went on to tell her, in quiet forcible
phrases, of Helen's distress, of Mark's devotion that appeared to
confirm rather than weaken his flat refusal to sacrifice her on the
altar of his own supreme need.

And Sheila heard him out in an unbroken silence.  He could only gauge
the effect of his revelation by her uneven breathing and an
occasional movement of her lips.

When he had told all, he stood still and confronted her.  "There, my
dear," he said, a deep note of feeling in his voice.  "It's a tragic
tangle.  And, for love of Mark and you ... and Helen, I'd go almost
any length to unravel it.  But there's only one who can do that.  And
now perhaps you can guess what it is I came to say."

She still remained silent, studying a patch of crocuses, realising
acutely all that his request implied; shrinking, yet passionately
longing to go in and win that which was her own.  She had gone very
pale again.  But as realisation deepened, her face became one burning
blush.

"Do you mean ... that I must offer ... myself?" she asked at length,
addressing her question to the crocuses.  "I--I almost did it
yesterday.  At least ... I'm sure he saw it in my eyes.  And ... he
slipped away."

"Yes.  He would.  I am afraid--if you really want to convince him,
you must put aside all the conventionalities, all your natural
reluctance, and ... show him your heart.  _Make_ him believe.  He
only hesitates, remember, from the highest motives and because he has
no conception how deeply you care.--Now, will you come along with me
and put everything right for the four of us?"

There fell another tremendous silence.  Keith knew well that he could
scarcely have asked a harder thing of her.  Second after second she
stood there, her hands clenched, wrestling with her pride, her
dumbness....

Then she said slowly, as if speaking to herself: "I can't ... I
_can't_.  It's against my whole nature.  The words would never come.
Oh _why_ ... won't he understand?"

"Because he is a very chivalrous gentleman," Keith answered with
significant emphasis.  "And if you really can't bring yourself to
make a move, well ... I must go back alone and confess I was
mistaken.  Of course, _I_ can speak to him myself.  But if I failed,
I should fail fatally.--It is strange.  I felt absolutely certain of
you, Sheila.--Is that your final, considered answer?  Am I to go?"

By a wise intuition he refrained from pleading or further argument,
and his stern quietness stung her as no reproach would have done.

Suddenly she felt Mark himself tugging at her heart.  She saw the
look in his eyes, heard again those terrible words that haunted her
brain.  And was this to be the end?  Were they all to be made
miserable because there were bounds that her pride could not pass, a
limit beyond which she could not or would not go?

Against that arbitrary decree all her deeper, truer nature rose up in
revolt.  There were no bounds ... no limits.  In that critical moment
of decision her childhood's creed of courage came timely to her aid.

She looked up at last: and Keith saw that he had prevailed.

"No.  You are _not_ going back alone," she said, steadfastly meeting
his gaze.  "I was a coward to say ... I couldn't speak to him.  I
can.  And I will."

"Ah--that's more like it!"  There was vast relief in Keith's tone.
"You've saved my reputation for omniscience.  Now, come and save Mark
from himself."

"_If_ I can," she murmured, with a catch in her breath; and they
hurried back up the slope towards the house.

There on the steps they descried, afar off, the severely repressed
figure of Mrs. Melrose radiating congratulations.  Keith, the
resourceful, felt suddenly nonplussed.

"Sheila, look there!  We're done for."

"Not a bit of it," Sheila replied in her most matter-of-fact tone.
"We're in a mortal hurry and we don't happen to notice her till we're
in the car."

"Capital!  Lucky I backed it well away from the entrance."

It was done--and neatly done.  Keith was just turning the car when he
ostentatiously caught sight of his would-be mother-in-law.

"Good morning, Mrs. Melrose," he called out cheerfully.  "I'm sorry I
can't stop.  So good of you to spare her.  She's badly wanted over
there."

Mrs. Melrose, completely mystified and very much annoyed, fluttered a
perfunctory hand and went back into the house wondering irritably
what on earth had happened to Mr. Macnair.

That Lady Forsyth could have happened to him never so much as entered
her head.  There had been a good deal of talk at one time; but it had
fizzled out for want of fuel.  Her chief concern at the moment was to
prevent Sheila from becoming entangled again with Mark.  When he
would have been a really suitable match, she had muddled things.
Just like her!  But now--position or no position--it wouldn't do at
all----


And Sheila, with never a word of her intent, was speeding through the
April sunshine, bent upon a permanent entanglement with Mark: one
that no mother in creation could undo.

As the little car lightly tossed the miles aside, he?  courage and
purpose rose steadily.

Keith, for all his own eagerness, drove at a low speed.  He knew
well, from experience, how rushing through the air scatters and
paralyses thought.  They had but seven miles to cover; and he guessed
rightly that Sheila needed a quiet breathing space to mobilise her
spiritual forces for the brave adventure in hand.  So they drove
leisurely between woods and fields and uplands, quick with new life
and young desires.  And throughout that most companionable drive they
scarcely exchanged a word.

Only when Keith handed Sheila out of the car, he retained her hand a
moment in his own.

"Luck follows pluck," he said, smiling.  "_I_ have no fear.  But
first we must find Helen."

They found her basking on the terrace with an open book in her lap.
As a matter of fact, she had not read two pages.  She had done
literally nothing but await their arrival.

"Well, here she is," Keith said, as Helen sprang up to greet them.
"My private trophy.  How's Mark?"

"I haven't been near him.  I began to think you would never come."

"Ungrateful!" he reproached her gravely.  "We've done it all in
record time.  We deserve congratulation.  Now--give her your blessing
and don't keep her long."

While the blessing was in progress he left them.  His own turn would
come in time.

"Dearest one," Sheila murmured between her kisses, "I _do_
congratulate you with all my soul.  He's a treasure.  This
morning....  But you shall hear all that ... afterwards."  Then she
stood back a little, blushing and smiling.  "Mums, tell me true.  Am
I being very unspeakable ... after yesterday?"

"Very unspeakable!"  The older woman slipped an arm round her and
drew her through the open French window into the house.  "God bless
you, child," she added gravely, kissing her again.  "You're being
angelically a woman.  But, darling ... are you quite, _quite_
sure...?"  Her eyes completed the question.  "I've had pricks of
conscience, waiting here.  Have you realised ... _every_thing?"

"Yes.  Everything.  Long ago," Sheila answered steadily, a hot wave
of colour in her cheeks.  "It simply doesn't count.  Nothing counts
... except him."

"In that case I'm satisfied.  But I couldn't forget what you said
once at Inveraig."

"Oh, that!  Fancy your remembering.  But now--it's Mark.  He's my
share of the War.  And ... gospel truth, Mums--I'd sooner 'mother'
him than anything else on earth."

"Oh--if you can only make him understand _that_!"  Tears stood in
Helen's eyes.  "It was not for nothing I christened you 'Queen of the
Poor Things.'"

"Mums, how _dare_ you!"  For a moment Sheila was really angry.  "He's
_not_ a poor thing.  He's the most glorious thing that was ever
made.--Now, let me fly upstairs.  'Valour will come and go!'"

Her low laugh had a break in it, and she hurried from the room.

Outside the studio, she paused to steady herself.  No sound came from
within; and she opened the door an inch or two.

"Mark," she called softly.  "It's Sheila.  Can I come in?"

"_Sheila!_"  Amazement and smothered passion sounded in his voice.
But there was fear in it also.

"Come in, of course," he added hastily, as if to cover both.

She found him by the open window, sitting at his easel, crayon in
hand: and on the easel stood a delicate pastel study of herself.  If
courage had wavered a moment, it revived at that.  She looked from
him to the picture with lifted brows.

"Quite good," she said, slipping past the awkward explanation of her
presence.

"It isn't.  It's a wretched travesty!'" he answered bluntly.  "But
one must do something ... to keep going."  He paused and scanned her
face searchingly.  She did not attempt to avoid his gaze.  Her eyes
were radiant, as if the windows of her soul were flung open to the
sunrise.

Sudden fear came upon him and sudden remembrance of his mother's
words.  He had not fortified himself to resist this.  Yet resist it
he must.

"_Why_ have you come again so soon ... like this?" he asked, going
straight to the point in his usual fashion.

"Because ... after yesterday..."  She hesitated and drew in her lips.
"There could be only one way to put things straight between us and
make you unsay that bitter thing about the dead having the best of
it.  Mark, it haunted me.  But ... I couldn't have brought myself to
come, like this, so soon, except for Mr. Macnair and Mother's
extraordinary letter to Mums."

"What letter?  Has Mums anything to do with this?" Mark flashed out.

And Sheila was thankful she could answer truthfully: "No.  It was all
Mr. Macnair.  He came over because of that letter--I'll tell you
afterwards--and I found he knew ... about my caring.  He was
splendid.  He made me see ... there was only this one way.  He
said--'Come!'  And he encouraged me...."

"Keith encouraged you?  It was no business of his."  Mark had found
his voice at last.  He had forgotten the mysterious letter.  There
was only room in him for one hope, one fear.  "Sheila ... what does
it all mean?  Are you----?"

"Yes, Mark"--her voice took its deepest, tenderest tone--"I am ...
asking you to marry me, because I know, now, that you will never do
it yourself.  And I know, now, that you do ... care...."

"'_Care_?' ... I simply worship you.  And, for that very reason, I
will not take advantage of your heavenly impulse of devotion; though
God knows I honour you for it.  Broken things appeal so strongly to
your heart.  You have to make allowance for that."

"I have to make allowance for nothing."

Her tone was repressed now and her eyes veiled.  Was she to repeat
yesterday's ordeal, with aggravations?

"You don't understand," he forced himself to say.  "You can't
understand all it would mean.  Sheila ... a man in my case has no
right to offer, or to accept, marriage: and I ... I refuse to snatch
happiness at your expense.  Keith ought to have known me better by
now....  You, of all people, tied to a cripple ... a sort of
glorified hospital nurse!  If I shrank from sacrificing a worthless
woman like Miss Alison, is it likely I would sacrifice you...?"

But Sheila had endured enough.

"Oh, Mark, can't you see?  Are you determined not to see?" she cried,
her low voice tremulous with passion, her twilight blue eyes full of
pain.  "For her, it would have been a sacrifice.  For me ... I--I
can't find the word that's big enough.  It's not that I don't
understand--and admire your reluctance.  But you have to understand
too.  Mark ... must I say all?  Must I tell you that from the very
beginning, since I was sixteen, there's been no one ... but you.
There will never be.  You are all I want on earth.  You say ... you
have no right.  But remember, there's every hope....  Dr. Norton says
so.  And even if there was ... no hope, if you were three times as
helpless as you are, I would still rather be _your_ hospital nurse
than any other man's ... wife."

At that, with an abrupt movement, he turned away and hid his face in
his hands.

"Oh, leave me ... leave me," he murmured desperately.  "How _can_ I
see clear, think clear, when you stand there ... tempting me----"

His voice broke.  Silence fell--and lasted.

Sheila continued to stand there.  Her hands were cold, her limbs
shaking.  If she left him now, his strong will would reassert itself.
She could not go through this again.  And there an end.

Pride argued: "In the face of flat refusal, you can go no further."
But she saw Mark's shoulders heave ... once; and there could be no
more argument; no more pride----

Without a word she went close up to him, slipped a hand round his
head and drew it against her breast.

In that fashion she gave him her answer.  Yet he made no sign, till
two tears fell upon his hands that hid him from her.  Then he
uncovered his face and looked up into hers, as an earth-bound soul
may look into heaven.

"Beloved," he whispered, "it's a desperate risk.  You've no right ...
I've no right...."  But his arms were round her; and his head, that
still leaned against her, felt the glad leap of her heart.

"We have the right, if we choose," she whispered, and stooped her
face to his....


At last he drew her down on to his knee and set her a little away to
reassure himself that the impossible had actually come to pass.

And she sat there smiling at him: too purely exultant to do anything
but smile.

"You little thing--you little lovely thing!" he said in a low voice
of rapture.  "You're the first person that's ever cut right across my
will and bowled me over.  I swore to poor Mums last night that
nothing would induce me----"

"And you were conquered by a little thing!"

Very tenderly she laid her cheek against his.  "Most wholesome for
you--and a triumph for me!"  She paused, dwelling on him ...
realising in her turn.  "Mark, I wish I wasn't quite so small, then I
could help you more, my own self.  Lifting you--and that."

"Lifting me!"  His eyes were misty with tenderness.  "You've lifted
me clean out of the nethermost hell.  Isn't that enough in the way of
assistance?"

"Yes--if I could believe----!"

"Well, you may believe.  I'm not given to high-flown talk.  You've
saved me from being a curse to myself and every one belonging to me.
That's the way Sheila-people are made!"

Then his face grew grave and the arm that was round her tightened its
hold.  "Mouse, it's difficult to speak of ... the hidden things.  But
I do want you to know what it means to me that you should have come,
like this, refusing to let convention or my own limitations stand in
the way of our great reality.  It's readjusted the whole perspective
of things, that was in great danger of getting out of gear
altogether."

"Yes, I saw that," she answered, her eyes filling.

"Of course you did, angel of wisdom.  And you've made me see--no end
of things.  There'll be some talk, no doubt, among the kind of people
who must talk--or perish.  But, when all's said, if you and I choose
not to regard this irksome disability, no one else has any call to
make a howl about it.  After all it's nothing--less than nothing--in
to-day's vast sum of tragedy.  And there remains the great
outstanding fact that it has saved me, so as by fire, from a woman
whose love would have wrecked my life.  Also--it has given me you,
which is a long sight more than I deserve."

"No--_no_," she protested low and passionately.

"I say 'Yes!'  And I mean it.  But--there's one thing I wanted to
tell you yesterday and couldn't, for fear of telling ... all the
rest."

"You were very cruel yesterday."  A quiver crossed her face, and he
held her closer still.

"My darling, how could I dream you cared--like that!  It knocked me
to pieces.  And now--I can only thank God all my days for Keith's
insight and your courage.  But ... what I'm trying to tell you is
this.  The deepest and best in me, that was yours in the beginning,
_has been_ yours all along--buried under rubbish, but alive and
untarnished by any contact with _her_.  That's what I meant when I
said she never touched the depths.  Mouse--are you glad to know that?"

She only sat there gazing at him, mute homage in her eyes.  "It's too
much.  I can't say it," she murmured at last.  "And now--there's poor
Mr. Seldon torn in two.  Perhaps ... it's the same with him----"

"Seldon!  Was it _her_ you were talking of?  Poor devil!  Is she
going to marry him?"

"I don't even know if he's asked her.  They seem to have talked round
it all.  She says ... you raised her standard.  He implies ... I've
done the same for him.  That seems to make complications.  So there
they are----"

"And here _we_ are--God be praised!" Mark broke in, a note of triumph
in his deep voice.  "And we're going to achieve something between us,
you and I, now you've made a live man of me again.  There's a deal of
work I can still do with a Sheila-wife to help me.  How about
dedicating the arts and crafts colony entirely to our own fellows
disabled in this war.  And those who are fit for it shall be put on
to the land.  My own disablement won't hamper me there.  It's a
mustard-seed of a notion.  It may grow into a tree.  There's a
programme for you.  All your doing!  You've been my real source of
inspiration from the first.  And you always will be.--Don't cry about
it, Beloved.  It's too splendid for anything."

"Yes--that's why," she answered lucidly--and could no more.  The
great wave of joy that swelled up within her broke softly in a shower
of tears.  It was the pent-up emotion of months.  And Mark drew her
head against his shoulder, comforted and caressed her; kissed away
her tears and held her to him without a word till she had regained
her lost control.

Then: "You're not going back to-night; don't you think it!" he said
in her ear.

"I don't think it," she answered, with a small shiver of happiness.
"Mother would bite me to pieces."

"Well, that settles it.  You're under my orders now: and you take
your leave from to-day.  You must write a note to explain.  Macgregor
can handle the little car.  She almost drives herself, and he can
bring any scrap of luggage you're wanting."

"Listen to the autocrat!"  She sat upright now, beaming on him.  "And
I've got to write a note of explanation.  And _you_ don't realise yet
what that means."

"Why?  Where's the mystery?  That letter?"

"Yes.  Interfering people are quite useful sometimes--by accident!"

"Well--let's hear.  What's she been up to now?"

Thus invited, Sheila gave him a revised version of the letter that
had achieved precisely what it set out to prevent.  She omitted the
most egregious remarks and skimmed lightly over the talk about
herself and him; but before she had finished her recital, Mark's
quick brain perceived whither it led.

"Of course, Mums took it straight to Keith," he broke in, exultantly,
"and of course the good fellow had to blurt out the truth in
self-defence.  Well played, Mrs. Melrose!  But why the dickens didn't
they come straight up and tell me.  Here I've been left in the dark
for hours: and I'm supposed to be master of this house!"

"Well, you see," Sheila explained, dimpling, "Mr. Macnair was too
busy rushing off to fetch me.  And Mums couldn't bear to tell you
when you were so unhappy."

Mark's eyes softened at that.  "Just like her.  How the woman spoils
me!  And I'm afraid you'll be as bad."

"I'm not so sure.  I can be sterner than Mums.  Mr. Macnair could
tell you that...."

"Could he?  I'll ask him.  And he carried you off, like an elderly
Lochinvar, under your mother's very eyes!  Splendid chap, Keith!"

"Yes.  But he ought to know you better by now," she reminded him
gravely.  "And he had no business to encourage me!  But with Mother
flinging me at his head, you can't blame the poor man if he was in a
hurry to account for me by foisting me on to you.--And I'm going to
tell Mother the whole truth," she concluded, colouring a little at
thought of the ordeal.  "That I knew you wanted me and wouldn't ask,
so I came over and proposed to you ... and I'm not ashamed of the
fact!--Oh, look, there they are on the terrace, too pleased with each
other to bother about us."

For a few minutes Mark sat watching them with a very full heart.
Keith was talking in his grave quiet fashion, and Helen walked close
beside him, listening--absorbed.

"Seems a shame to interrupt them," Mark said softly.  "But I want
her.  She's had worry enough on my account, bless her!  And this is
going to atone for it all."

Then at the top of his voice, he called out: "Hullo, Mother!  Mums!
Come along and report yourself at headquarters."

She stopped, turned, and stood a moment smiling up at him.  His
voice, his face told her all she needed to know.

"Come on--quick!" he repeated; and she came, as always, obedient to
his summons.



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