Chapter Thirteen.

Chapter Thirteen.The Sanest Woman.During the remainder of the winter Piers Rendall paid frequent visits to Seacliff, appearing at unexpected moments, sometimes after but a week’s interval, sometimes but once in the month. The feeling that he might arrive at any moment brought an element of excitement into Vanna’s quiet life. It was delightful to awake in the morning and feel that there was something to which she could look forward—an object towards which to move. When he came there would be invigorating gallops across the downs, visits to the Happy Land, where each was bound to cast care to the winds; happy tea-parties in the dining-room; cosy chats round the fire, Miggles lying on her sofa, Vanna seated on the footstool by her side, Piers in his favourite position on the hearthrug, his long legs stretched out, his back resting against the wall. Sometimes he would recount the doings of the great city, and discuss politics up to date for the edification of the two women, who were keenly interested in the course of events. Sometimes he would read aloud from a book in which Miggles was interested; sometimes they would roast chestnuts, and laugh and jest and cap amusing anecdotes like a party of merry children. Looking at Piers’s face illumined by the firelight on one of these occasions, a sudden vision flashed before Vanna’s eyes of that face as she had seen it first. The tightly drawn skin, the down-turned lips, the hard brilliancy of the eyes, the nervous twitching of the features. This man smiling upon her looked strong, and happy, and glad. Whence had come the change?At Whitsuntide Jean and Robert came down for a three days’ visit—the first since their marriage, and the little cottage was filled with the atmosphere of spring and joy. Two people more utterly content, more beautiful in their happiness, it would be impossible to conceive. Jean was in her gayest, least responsible mood, full of histories of her own failures as housekeeper, her difficulty with bills, her hopeless exceeding of the weekly allowance—the which she recounted with triumphant amusement, while Robert sat looking on with an air of penitence and guilt. That he should dare to inflict petty economies upon this goddess among women!Towards her old friend Jean’s manner was composed of a mingling of tenderness and wonder.“There’s no question about this place suiting you, Vanna,” she said the last evening, as the two girls enjoyed a shorttête-à-têtein the garden. “I have never seen you look so well; nor so pretty. Robert says so, too. Somehow—I don’t know how it is, but you look different, I keep looking at you to see the cause. You have not changed your hair?”“No; my hair is as you last saw it. It won’t ‘go’ any other way. There’s no difference that I know of. It exists only in your imagination.”“No!” Jean was obstinate. “You look different. Dear old thing, it’s a comfort to see you so sweet and blooming. I was afraid I should find you all gone to pieces. Idoadmire you. When I think of your life, and mine! I should be such a beast. Miggles says you are an angel. So does Piers. Not in so many words, of course. Piers never says what he feels. He is such a silent, shut-up creature, but I could see that he was simply bursting with admiration of your life down here. Doesn’t he look well? I have never seen him so bright. Robert says he goes a great deal to the Van Dusens’. They have such a pretty daughter. I’ve wondered so often if he could be in love at last. That would account for it all. I hope he is—Old Piers! I should like him to be happy.”“Very probably it is. He is certainly changed,” said Vanna briefly.The next day the Gloucesters took their departure, and left behind a sense of loss and blank. Miggles struggled under a weight of depression at the thought that this might be the last time that she would ever behold her beloved child and pupil; the maid covered up the furniture of the guest-room with dull regret; Vanna was racked by an access of bitterness and jealousy. All the dearly won composure of the past eight months seemed swept aside. She was back again in the slough of despond which had followed the memorable visit to the doctor. Every sight, every sound, every word that was uttered seemed to press against her nerves with unbearable jar; she felt a sense of enmity against Miggles, the village, the whole human race; above all, against Jean and her husband. She shut herself within the walls of a cold and sullen reserve, never speaking unless spoken to, answering with the curtest of monosyllables. For three long days she hardened herself against the pleading of Miggles’s eyes and the tenderness in the feeble voice, but on the afternoon of the third day she brought her footstool to the side of the sofa, and laid her head against the old woman’s knee.“Comfort me, Miggles! My heart is so sore. I’m sad, and I’m bad, and I’ve made you miserable, and now I come to you for help. I’m sotired. Say something to help me along!”“What is it, dearie? Grieving after Jean, and feeling lonely to be left without your friend? It was such a short visit. So good of them to spare the time, but from our point of view it wasratheraggravating. You want her back again, as I do, and grieve that she’s so far away.”“No, I don’t! I don’t want to see her. I’m glad she’s in town. I hope she won’t come again. The contrast is too great. I can’t stand it. She has everything, and I have nothing. It’s not fair. She doesn’t deserve it any more than I do. Why should she be beautiful, and strong, and happy, and adored, while I am lonely, and sad, and tainted by disease? I can’t bear it. I wish she had never come.”Miggles’s face showed a network of lines of distress and bewilderment.“But—but I don’t understand! You love Jean; she is your best friend. You are notsorrythat she is happy? You don’t grudge her her good fortune? That wouldn’t be possible. You are far too sweet.”Vanna gave a short, despairing laugh.“No, I’m not sweet. I’m bitter, bitter to the core; and you might as well know the truth—at this minute Idogrudge her happiness. I grudge it so much that my very love seems changed to gall. You are an angel, Miggles, but you are old, and your life is over. I’m young, and it’s all ahead. It’s the most difficult lesson of all to stand aside and look at happiness through the eyes of others. It’s easy enough to weep with those that weep. If we are whole ourselves we are thankful that we have escaped; if we are under the ban, there’s a companionship in suffering. We understand each other, and help each other along; but to rejoice with those who rejoice demands a nobility of which at the moment I am simply incapable. This world is unfair and unjust. Things are too horribly uneven.”“Dear child, this world is not all. It’s only the beginning, and so soon over.”“Oh, no, Miggles, that’s not true. It may seem so from the standpoint of eternity; but we are human creatures, and from our standpoint it’s terribly, terribly long. Fourscore years, and how slow those years are in the passing! When I think I may have fifty more!... Besides, even eternity doesn’t right things. How can it? If we are all going to be happy in heaven, Jean will be as happy as I. There will be no difference between us, but she will have had the earth-joy which I have missed, the dear, sweet, simple, domestic joys for which I was made, for which my body was fashioned, for which I crave. They are gone—gone for ever! Eternity itself can’t make them up. There seems no compensation.”The old woman pressed her hand on the girl’s dark head, but for some minutes she did not speak. Into her placid, gentle nature, such upheavals had never come; she had been content to walk along the narrow way, taking each day as it came, without bitterness or repining, but the natural shrewdness which relieved her character from insipidity would not allow her to take the credit of this attribute to herself. “It’s because I was given that disposition,” she told herself humbly. “Vanna is clever and ambitious. It’s more difficult for her.” She shut her eyes, and prayed that the right words might be sent to her feeble lips.“But, dearie, I’m not so sure that weshallall be equally happy in heaven, any more than on earth. I never could believe that just because your body died you were going to wake up a perfected saint. We’ve got to learn our lessons, and perhaps happiness isn’t the quickest way. I can’t argue—never could; the dear boys found that out, and used to lay traps for me, asking me to explain; but life is only a little voyage—a trial trip, as the papers say. You may have fine weather, or you may have storms; the only thing that matters is to get safe to the haven. Sometimes when we’ve been down here for the summer it has rained persistently; 1861 was one year—the time Pat broke his leg! We’ve been cross and disappointed, and at the time it has seemed hard, but looking back after a few years it has faded into nothing. ‘Wasn’t it wet?’ we say, and laugh. It was only for a month—such a little time! Who would think of looking back and grizzling over a little disappointment twelve years old! And perhaps, dear, just because we couldn’t go out in the sunshine to pick the dear flowers, because we had to stay indoors and be quiet and patient, we learnt something, found out something, that helped us along, and made us fitter for the haven. I’m very stupid—I can’t explain—”“Dear Miggles, you are very wise! I am fortunate to have you. Be patient with me, and love me a little bit in spite of my naughty words.”“A little bit! Indeed, my dear, I have grown to love you with all my heart. After Jean, I really believe you are my dearest on earth.”After Jean! That stung. Jean had so much. She might surely have spared the first place in one old woman’s heart; and what a sweetness it would have been to come first to just one person in the world! Vanna’s sense of justice pointed out that it was not reasonable to expect a few months’ devotion to eclipse the association of a lifetime; but though reason may convince the brain, it leaves the heart untouched.Jean had Robert; Miggles had a whole family of adopted children; Mrs Rendall had her son; Piers had—a sharp stab of pain penetrated through the dull misery of her mood, a stab which had pierced her at every recollection of Jean’s light words—“Always at the Van Dusens’—such a pretty daughter—I believe he is in love.”Was it true? and if so, how did it affect herself? Vanna went out into the garden and seated herself in her favourite seat, at the edge of the cliff, whence the winding steps cut out in the face of the chalk descended steeply to the shore. The tide was out, and a few village children scrambled barefoot over the slippery boulders, searching for treasures in the pools between; the sound of their happy voices floated up to her ears.What was it to her if Piers Rendall loved and wedded another woman? He was her friend; during the last few months he had given a hundred signs of his care for her, his anxiety to help and cheer her life. She in return must be equally generous. She must rejoice over his happiness, and pray for its coming. Why not? It was no loss to her. She herself might never marry. Piers Rendall could be nothing to her. Vanna threw back her head and burst into a peal of high, unnatural laughter. The children playing on the rocks glanced up in amaze, and stood staring at the strange spectacle of “The Cottage Lady” laughing all to herself, and Vanna laughed on and on, with ever harder, higher notes. Piers could be nothing to her. No, nothing! nothing but life, and sun, and air, and food, and raiment, and hope, and comfort. Nothing but that. Everything in the world, and nothing more. Unutterable joy, unfathomable loss. She knew now. The scales had fallen from her eyes. In a blinding flash of light she saw her own heart, and knew that it held but one thought, one image, one hope.How long had she loved him? She recalled their first meeting, when he had frowned at the sight of her, and she had watched him walk along the shore by Jean’s side with resentment in her heart. Their acquaintance had begun with prejudice and dislike, yet almost at once her sympathy had gone out towards him; almost from the first it had distressed her to see his depression; that nervous twitch of the features had been a positive pain, she had turned away her head to avoid the sight. Later on, when Jean was engaged, he had drawn nearer, and looking back on the day of the wedding, she knew that it had been for his sake that she had taken an interest in her costume, from a desire to appear fair in his eyes. At the moment of entering the church it had been his face which had stood out from all the rest. She had been so thankful to see his smile. All that afternoon and evening he had been quietly, unostentatiously attentive, as if divining her sense of loss, and striving, in so far as might be, to fill the gap. Twice again she had seen him before leaving town, and then had come the morning when he had appeared at the Manor House window, and she had seen her own transfigured face in the glass. That was the day when the last barrier had broken down, and friendship had finally made place for love.Nature, which had decreed that she might never marry, had not at the same time been merciful enough to take away the power of loving; rather had it bestowed it upon her in a deeper, fuller fashion than is possessed by nine women out of ten. Every power of her being surged towards this man in a passion of love and longing. She stretched out her hands as if to grasp him, and sobbed to feel them empty. Laughter turned to tears—the slow, difficult tears of a breaking heart. For ever and ever these hands must remain empty. As if the present were not sufficiently painful, Vanna then projected herself into the future. In imagination she saw Piers engaged to this pretty, strange girl; listened to his mother’s endless prattle concerning her beauty, his happiness, the coming wedding; saw him located at the Manor with his bride by his side, bringing her over to the Cottage, sitting beside her in the Happy Land. The future was desolated; and the past? The past also crumbled to nothingness before this shock of self-revelation. Where now was the peace and conquest on which she had congratulated herself during the last few months? Not only had they disappeared, but it appeared that they had never existed. That lightsome frame of mind, which she believed to have been gained as a reward for duty well done, had in reality been nothing more or less than the dawnings of love; the deep undercurrent of joy and hope which had lain beneath the surface of her life.Vanna hid her face in her hands. At that moment the sight of the gay, smiling scene seemed but to mock her grief. She felt a wild longing for winter, for the stormy sky and sea, the frowning cliff, which would be a fit setting for her life. How could she go on tending Miggles, sitting quietly in the house, separated from Piers, seeing him with another?The sound of footsteps startled her from her trance—ascending footsteps, scaling upwards from the beach. She straightened herself, thrust back her hair, and struggled to compose her features. It seemed part of the same dull trance that it should be Piers’s face which rose into sight, his dark eyes which turned anxiously to her face. She had not known of his coming, but she was not surprised; a stupor of indifference had succeeded the passion of despair; she felt no surprise, no embarrassment, but sat watching him stonily, until he reached the last step and stood by her side.“Was thatyoulaughing just now? I heard you as I came along the shore. Itwasyou?”“Yes, it was I.”“And now you are crying!” His tone was quick and tense with anxiety. “What is the matter? You are not well. Something has been troubling you. It is not like you to be hysterical.”Vanna’s lips curled, her eyes stared steadily into his. A sudden impulse seized her, and she gave herself no time to pause.“And why not? On the contrary, it is just what you might expect. There is no counting on what I may do. My moods are very variable, but you must make excuses for me. There is madness in my family. My father died in an asylum, and my grandmother, and two aunts. I have been warned that I may have the same fate in store. You can hardly expect me to behave like a normal creature. It is no wonder if I wax hysterical at times. It’s not exactly a pleasant prospect to look forward and picturethatfate in store. You must make allowances for occasional outbursts.”He stood above her, looking down with dark, intent eyes as though he would see into the very heart of her being.“When were you warned? Lately? Since I was here last? Is that what is troubling you now?”“I saw the doctor last summer. He warned me then, but I had known the facts for two years before that. They had been hidden from me, but I found them out, and went to the doctor for advice.”“A year ago! You have known all these months when you have been happy and gay? Then this has nothing to do with to-day. What is troubling you to-day?”She looked at him blankly. On his face was a great sympathy, a great tenderness, but no sign of the horror and amazement which she had expected. The great tragedy of her family seemed to weigh as nothing as compared to her grief of to-day. The tears rose in her eyes, but they were tears of relief. Her voice faltered in pitiful, childlike fashion.“I was lonely, and I remembered, and I was afraid—afraid to look forward...”He bent down and took her hands in his with a firm but gentle pressure.“Get up! You are not lonely any more. My horse is in the village. Go and get ready, and we will have a ride.” He strengthened his grasp, looking deep into her eyes. “What does it matter to me if every soul belonging to you were mad? You are the sweetest, thesanestwoman I have ever met.”

During the remainder of the winter Piers Rendall paid frequent visits to Seacliff, appearing at unexpected moments, sometimes after but a week’s interval, sometimes but once in the month. The feeling that he might arrive at any moment brought an element of excitement into Vanna’s quiet life. It was delightful to awake in the morning and feel that there was something to which she could look forward—an object towards which to move. When he came there would be invigorating gallops across the downs, visits to the Happy Land, where each was bound to cast care to the winds; happy tea-parties in the dining-room; cosy chats round the fire, Miggles lying on her sofa, Vanna seated on the footstool by her side, Piers in his favourite position on the hearthrug, his long legs stretched out, his back resting against the wall. Sometimes he would recount the doings of the great city, and discuss politics up to date for the edification of the two women, who were keenly interested in the course of events. Sometimes he would read aloud from a book in which Miggles was interested; sometimes they would roast chestnuts, and laugh and jest and cap amusing anecdotes like a party of merry children. Looking at Piers’s face illumined by the firelight on one of these occasions, a sudden vision flashed before Vanna’s eyes of that face as she had seen it first. The tightly drawn skin, the down-turned lips, the hard brilliancy of the eyes, the nervous twitching of the features. This man smiling upon her looked strong, and happy, and glad. Whence had come the change?

At Whitsuntide Jean and Robert came down for a three days’ visit—the first since their marriage, and the little cottage was filled with the atmosphere of spring and joy. Two people more utterly content, more beautiful in their happiness, it would be impossible to conceive. Jean was in her gayest, least responsible mood, full of histories of her own failures as housekeeper, her difficulty with bills, her hopeless exceeding of the weekly allowance—the which she recounted with triumphant amusement, while Robert sat looking on with an air of penitence and guilt. That he should dare to inflict petty economies upon this goddess among women!

Towards her old friend Jean’s manner was composed of a mingling of tenderness and wonder.

“There’s no question about this place suiting you, Vanna,” she said the last evening, as the two girls enjoyed a shorttête-à-têtein the garden. “I have never seen you look so well; nor so pretty. Robert says so, too. Somehow—I don’t know how it is, but you look different, I keep looking at you to see the cause. You have not changed your hair?”

“No; my hair is as you last saw it. It won’t ‘go’ any other way. There’s no difference that I know of. It exists only in your imagination.”

“No!” Jean was obstinate. “You look different. Dear old thing, it’s a comfort to see you so sweet and blooming. I was afraid I should find you all gone to pieces. Idoadmire you. When I think of your life, and mine! I should be such a beast. Miggles says you are an angel. So does Piers. Not in so many words, of course. Piers never says what he feels. He is such a silent, shut-up creature, but I could see that he was simply bursting with admiration of your life down here. Doesn’t he look well? I have never seen him so bright. Robert says he goes a great deal to the Van Dusens’. They have such a pretty daughter. I’ve wondered so often if he could be in love at last. That would account for it all. I hope he is—Old Piers! I should like him to be happy.”

“Very probably it is. He is certainly changed,” said Vanna briefly.

The next day the Gloucesters took their departure, and left behind a sense of loss and blank. Miggles struggled under a weight of depression at the thought that this might be the last time that she would ever behold her beloved child and pupil; the maid covered up the furniture of the guest-room with dull regret; Vanna was racked by an access of bitterness and jealousy. All the dearly won composure of the past eight months seemed swept aside. She was back again in the slough of despond which had followed the memorable visit to the doctor. Every sight, every sound, every word that was uttered seemed to press against her nerves with unbearable jar; she felt a sense of enmity against Miggles, the village, the whole human race; above all, against Jean and her husband. She shut herself within the walls of a cold and sullen reserve, never speaking unless spoken to, answering with the curtest of monosyllables. For three long days she hardened herself against the pleading of Miggles’s eyes and the tenderness in the feeble voice, but on the afternoon of the third day she brought her footstool to the side of the sofa, and laid her head against the old woman’s knee.

“Comfort me, Miggles! My heart is so sore. I’m sad, and I’m bad, and I’ve made you miserable, and now I come to you for help. I’m sotired. Say something to help me along!”

“What is it, dearie? Grieving after Jean, and feeling lonely to be left without your friend? It was such a short visit. So good of them to spare the time, but from our point of view it wasratheraggravating. You want her back again, as I do, and grieve that she’s so far away.”

“No, I don’t! I don’t want to see her. I’m glad she’s in town. I hope she won’t come again. The contrast is too great. I can’t stand it. She has everything, and I have nothing. It’s not fair. She doesn’t deserve it any more than I do. Why should she be beautiful, and strong, and happy, and adored, while I am lonely, and sad, and tainted by disease? I can’t bear it. I wish she had never come.”

Miggles’s face showed a network of lines of distress and bewilderment.

“But—but I don’t understand! You love Jean; she is your best friend. You are notsorrythat she is happy? You don’t grudge her her good fortune? That wouldn’t be possible. You are far too sweet.”

Vanna gave a short, despairing laugh.

“No, I’m not sweet. I’m bitter, bitter to the core; and you might as well know the truth—at this minute Idogrudge her happiness. I grudge it so much that my very love seems changed to gall. You are an angel, Miggles, but you are old, and your life is over. I’m young, and it’s all ahead. It’s the most difficult lesson of all to stand aside and look at happiness through the eyes of others. It’s easy enough to weep with those that weep. If we are whole ourselves we are thankful that we have escaped; if we are under the ban, there’s a companionship in suffering. We understand each other, and help each other along; but to rejoice with those who rejoice demands a nobility of which at the moment I am simply incapable. This world is unfair and unjust. Things are too horribly uneven.”

“Dear child, this world is not all. It’s only the beginning, and so soon over.”

“Oh, no, Miggles, that’s not true. It may seem so from the standpoint of eternity; but we are human creatures, and from our standpoint it’s terribly, terribly long. Fourscore years, and how slow those years are in the passing! When I think I may have fifty more!... Besides, even eternity doesn’t right things. How can it? If we are all going to be happy in heaven, Jean will be as happy as I. There will be no difference between us, but she will have had the earth-joy which I have missed, the dear, sweet, simple, domestic joys for which I was made, for which my body was fashioned, for which I crave. They are gone—gone for ever! Eternity itself can’t make them up. There seems no compensation.”

The old woman pressed her hand on the girl’s dark head, but for some minutes she did not speak. Into her placid, gentle nature, such upheavals had never come; she had been content to walk along the narrow way, taking each day as it came, without bitterness or repining, but the natural shrewdness which relieved her character from insipidity would not allow her to take the credit of this attribute to herself. “It’s because I was given that disposition,” she told herself humbly. “Vanna is clever and ambitious. It’s more difficult for her.” She shut her eyes, and prayed that the right words might be sent to her feeble lips.

“But, dearie, I’m not so sure that weshallall be equally happy in heaven, any more than on earth. I never could believe that just because your body died you were going to wake up a perfected saint. We’ve got to learn our lessons, and perhaps happiness isn’t the quickest way. I can’t argue—never could; the dear boys found that out, and used to lay traps for me, asking me to explain; but life is only a little voyage—a trial trip, as the papers say. You may have fine weather, or you may have storms; the only thing that matters is to get safe to the haven. Sometimes when we’ve been down here for the summer it has rained persistently; 1861 was one year—the time Pat broke his leg! We’ve been cross and disappointed, and at the time it has seemed hard, but looking back after a few years it has faded into nothing. ‘Wasn’t it wet?’ we say, and laugh. It was only for a month—such a little time! Who would think of looking back and grizzling over a little disappointment twelve years old! And perhaps, dear, just because we couldn’t go out in the sunshine to pick the dear flowers, because we had to stay indoors and be quiet and patient, we learnt something, found out something, that helped us along, and made us fitter for the haven. I’m very stupid—I can’t explain—”

“Dear Miggles, you are very wise! I am fortunate to have you. Be patient with me, and love me a little bit in spite of my naughty words.”

“A little bit! Indeed, my dear, I have grown to love you with all my heart. After Jean, I really believe you are my dearest on earth.”

After Jean! That stung. Jean had so much. She might surely have spared the first place in one old woman’s heart; and what a sweetness it would have been to come first to just one person in the world! Vanna’s sense of justice pointed out that it was not reasonable to expect a few months’ devotion to eclipse the association of a lifetime; but though reason may convince the brain, it leaves the heart untouched.

Jean had Robert; Miggles had a whole family of adopted children; Mrs Rendall had her son; Piers had—a sharp stab of pain penetrated through the dull misery of her mood, a stab which had pierced her at every recollection of Jean’s light words—“Always at the Van Dusens’—such a pretty daughter—I believe he is in love.”

Was it true? and if so, how did it affect herself? Vanna went out into the garden and seated herself in her favourite seat, at the edge of the cliff, whence the winding steps cut out in the face of the chalk descended steeply to the shore. The tide was out, and a few village children scrambled barefoot over the slippery boulders, searching for treasures in the pools between; the sound of their happy voices floated up to her ears.

What was it to her if Piers Rendall loved and wedded another woman? He was her friend; during the last few months he had given a hundred signs of his care for her, his anxiety to help and cheer her life. She in return must be equally generous. She must rejoice over his happiness, and pray for its coming. Why not? It was no loss to her. She herself might never marry. Piers Rendall could be nothing to her. Vanna threw back her head and burst into a peal of high, unnatural laughter. The children playing on the rocks glanced up in amaze, and stood staring at the strange spectacle of “The Cottage Lady” laughing all to herself, and Vanna laughed on and on, with ever harder, higher notes. Piers could be nothing to her. No, nothing! nothing but life, and sun, and air, and food, and raiment, and hope, and comfort. Nothing but that. Everything in the world, and nothing more. Unutterable joy, unfathomable loss. She knew now. The scales had fallen from her eyes. In a blinding flash of light she saw her own heart, and knew that it held but one thought, one image, one hope.

How long had she loved him? She recalled their first meeting, when he had frowned at the sight of her, and she had watched him walk along the shore by Jean’s side with resentment in her heart. Their acquaintance had begun with prejudice and dislike, yet almost at once her sympathy had gone out towards him; almost from the first it had distressed her to see his depression; that nervous twitch of the features had been a positive pain, she had turned away her head to avoid the sight. Later on, when Jean was engaged, he had drawn nearer, and looking back on the day of the wedding, she knew that it had been for his sake that she had taken an interest in her costume, from a desire to appear fair in his eyes. At the moment of entering the church it had been his face which had stood out from all the rest. She had been so thankful to see his smile. All that afternoon and evening he had been quietly, unostentatiously attentive, as if divining her sense of loss, and striving, in so far as might be, to fill the gap. Twice again she had seen him before leaving town, and then had come the morning when he had appeared at the Manor House window, and she had seen her own transfigured face in the glass. That was the day when the last barrier had broken down, and friendship had finally made place for love.

Nature, which had decreed that she might never marry, had not at the same time been merciful enough to take away the power of loving; rather had it bestowed it upon her in a deeper, fuller fashion than is possessed by nine women out of ten. Every power of her being surged towards this man in a passion of love and longing. She stretched out her hands as if to grasp him, and sobbed to feel them empty. Laughter turned to tears—the slow, difficult tears of a breaking heart. For ever and ever these hands must remain empty. As if the present were not sufficiently painful, Vanna then projected herself into the future. In imagination she saw Piers engaged to this pretty, strange girl; listened to his mother’s endless prattle concerning her beauty, his happiness, the coming wedding; saw him located at the Manor with his bride by his side, bringing her over to the Cottage, sitting beside her in the Happy Land. The future was desolated; and the past? The past also crumbled to nothingness before this shock of self-revelation. Where now was the peace and conquest on which she had congratulated herself during the last few months? Not only had they disappeared, but it appeared that they had never existed. That lightsome frame of mind, which she believed to have been gained as a reward for duty well done, had in reality been nothing more or less than the dawnings of love; the deep undercurrent of joy and hope which had lain beneath the surface of her life.

Vanna hid her face in her hands. At that moment the sight of the gay, smiling scene seemed but to mock her grief. She felt a wild longing for winter, for the stormy sky and sea, the frowning cliff, which would be a fit setting for her life. How could she go on tending Miggles, sitting quietly in the house, separated from Piers, seeing him with another?

The sound of footsteps startled her from her trance—ascending footsteps, scaling upwards from the beach. She straightened herself, thrust back her hair, and struggled to compose her features. It seemed part of the same dull trance that it should be Piers’s face which rose into sight, his dark eyes which turned anxiously to her face. She had not known of his coming, but she was not surprised; a stupor of indifference had succeeded the passion of despair; she felt no surprise, no embarrassment, but sat watching him stonily, until he reached the last step and stood by her side.

“Was thatyoulaughing just now? I heard you as I came along the shore. Itwasyou?”

“Yes, it was I.”

“And now you are crying!” His tone was quick and tense with anxiety. “What is the matter? You are not well. Something has been troubling you. It is not like you to be hysterical.”

Vanna’s lips curled, her eyes stared steadily into his. A sudden impulse seized her, and she gave herself no time to pause.

“And why not? On the contrary, it is just what you might expect. There is no counting on what I may do. My moods are very variable, but you must make excuses for me. There is madness in my family. My father died in an asylum, and my grandmother, and two aunts. I have been warned that I may have the same fate in store. You can hardly expect me to behave like a normal creature. It is no wonder if I wax hysterical at times. It’s not exactly a pleasant prospect to look forward and picturethatfate in store. You must make allowances for occasional outbursts.”

He stood above her, looking down with dark, intent eyes as though he would see into the very heart of her being.

“When were you warned? Lately? Since I was here last? Is that what is troubling you now?”

“I saw the doctor last summer. He warned me then, but I had known the facts for two years before that. They had been hidden from me, but I found them out, and went to the doctor for advice.”

“A year ago! You have known all these months when you have been happy and gay? Then this has nothing to do with to-day. What is troubling you to-day?”

She looked at him blankly. On his face was a great sympathy, a great tenderness, but no sign of the horror and amazement which she had expected. The great tragedy of her family seemed to weigh as nothing as compared to her grief of to-day. The tears rose in her eyes, but they were tears of relief. Her voice faltered in pitiful, childlike fashion.

“I was lonely, and I remembered, and I was afraid—afraid to look forward...”

He bent down and took her hands in his with a firm but gentle pressure.

“Get up! You are not lonely any more. My horse is in the village. Go and get ready, and we will have a ride.” He strengthened his grasp, looking deep into her eyes. “What does it matter to me if every soul belonging to you were mad? You are the sweetest, thesanestwoman I have ever met.”

Chapter Fourteen.The Company of Saints.From that day forward Vanna deliberately shut her eyes to the barriers which blocked her life, and gave herself up to the joy of the present. Piers knew her dread secret, and the knowledge would surely be sufficient to put any thought of her as a wife out of his mind, if indeed such a thought had existed. Her conscience being clear that he at least would not suffer through a continuance of their intimacy, she for her own part was ready to pay the price of future suffering for the rich joy of the present. The joy would not, could not last, but it was better, a thousand times better, to taste the full flavour of life, even if but for a few short months, than to drag on to old age ignorant of the deepest experiences which can stir the human soul. If suffering must come, knowledge would come with it—comprehension, sympathy, and to the end of time the memory of golden hours.Piers’s visits increased in number, and he was unceasing in his efforts for all that concerned the welfare of the two inmates of the Cottage. In his presence Vanna expanded like a flower in the sun. Love, the magician, worked his spell upon mind and body, so that beholding her own likeness in the glass she would often blush again, as she had blushed on the afternoon of Piers’s first visit. Her pale cheeks were tinged with colour, her eyes shone, her very hair showed rich russet gleams as she wandered bare-headed in the sun. The sound of her own laugh, the aptness of her own words, astonished and delighted no one so much as herself: it was as if a hundred unsuspected beauties and charms, after lying latent all her life, had sprung suddenly to birth. There were moments when, from sheer pride and self-congratulation, she came near following Gwendoline Harleth’s historic example, and kissing her own reflection in the glass. “I am happy!” she told herself triumphantly. “This is happiness—the best I shall ever know. I must realise it, enjoy every moment, enjoy it to the full. I must guard it preciously, shut my eyes and ears to all the little jars and frets, and notallowthem to interrupt. It is my golden time. In years to come, I must be able to look back and remember that I made the most of it when it was mine. It would be madness to waste an hour...”Meanwhile the two old ladies looked on with silent understanding. Mrs Rendall had been in her own way an ardent admirer of Vanna in the earlier days of their acquaintance; but a mother looks with changed eyes upon a girl whom she suspects her son of honouring with his love. No one is worthy of that honour, and it is rarely indeed that an element of coolness and jealousy does not tinge the former affection. Mrs Rendall pursed her lips at the mention of Vanna Strangeways, and no longer pressed for repetitions of the weekly visits.To Miggles it was unalloyed joy to behold the growing attachment between the two young people whom she loved so dearly. Never by word or deed did she hint at her desire; but as the months passed by and her health steadily declined, she hugged the thought that when her hour came the dear child who had comforted her last days would find another and a sweeter home. An ever-increasing feebleness warned her that her days were numbered, though so far she had been spared severe suffering. The local doctor confided in Vanna that such immunity could not be expected to the end, for in such cases violent paroxysms of pain were almost inevitable. Vanna shrank with fear from the prospect; but the God in whom Miggles so sweetly trusted had decreed an easier release for His child. Sitting beside an open window in the second spring of her sojourn at the Cottage, Miggles contracted a chill, which quickly developed into bronchitis. The attack did not appear serious to onlookers; but some premonition of the end seemed to visit the invalid herself, for she called Vanna to her bedside, and whispered an eager request:“My keys, dear! On the ring! I want them here.”Vanna brought the big, jingling bunch from its place in the work-basket with its red silk linings. Miggles had the slavish devotion to locking up which characterised her time, and it was seldom indeed that any of her possessions could be reached without the aid of at least two keys. Now with feeble fingers she separated two from the rest, and held them out for the girl’s inspection.“This big one with the red thread, that’s for the cupboard in the spare room. This little one—the smallest but two—that’s for the bottom drawer inside. If I die this time—one can never tell—go at once and open that drawer.At once! To save you trouble.”Vanna nodded, and put back the bunch in the basket. She herself had no fear that this illness would end fatally, until in the still hours of the night she crept to the bedside and beheld on her friend’s face the grey shadow which, once seen, can never be mistaken. The doctor was summoned, with Piers Rendall, who by good providence was staying at the Manor, and the dread sentence was pronounced in the little sitting-room in which so many peaceful hours had been spent.“Slipping away! Heart failure! The heart is too weak to stand the extra strain caused by this oppression on the lungs. She will not last out the day. Don’t grieve, Miss Strangeways. It’s a merciful release. If she had lived she would have had great suffering. We must be thankful for her sake.”Vanna and Piers sat together by the bedside during the long hours of that morning. A telegram of warning had been dispatched to Mr and Mrs Goring, but it was not possible that they could reach the secluded village before late in the afternoon. Miggles lay with closed eyes, breathing heavily, but without further sign of distress. For the most part she seemed to sleep, but once, when Piers bent over her, she opened her eyes and essayed to smile.“How are you now, dear? How do you feel?” asked the young man anxiously; and Miggles struggled bravely to reply.“Quite—well!” said the feeble voice; and after a moment’s pause—“And very happy!”After that she sank ever deeper and deeper into unconsciousness, while the watchers sat on either side, watching the still face.It was just as the clock struck five, and the sun passing beyond the barrier of the cliff left the little room grey and dull, that with a movement of surprise, as if wakened by the touch of an invisible hand, Miggles suddenly lifted her lids and gazed around. The heavy, bulging cheeks had wasted away, and the eyes, which in health had appeared small and insignificant, now stared out, large and wide from the hollow sockets. As she looked, the first surprise was superseded by a great and incredulous joy. She turned her head from side to side, the faint smile deepening to rapture, while her panting lips gasped out the same word—once, a second time, and again a third:“Angels! Angels! Angels!”The two who looked on bowed their heads, and were still. To them it was a small, dull room, prosaic in furnishing, grey, with the shadow of night and death, but Miggles’s opening eyes beheld therein the company of saints.Piers and the faithful maid turned Vanna out of the room. She had done enough, they said. It was not for her to be pained by the last sad rites. She allowed herself to be led on to the little landing; but when Piers tried to lead her downstairs she refused to move. Remembrance had come to her of Miggles’s request with respect to the keys, and the search which was to be made “at once.” She had no idea what she was to find as she knelt beside that bottom drawer, while Piers stood watchfully at her side; it was the impulse of obedience pure and simple which guided her movements. The first glance brought no illumination, for a strip of muslin hid the contents from view. With its removal came the scent of lavender, and there, neatly ranged in order, lay a pair of fine linen sheets with pillow cases to match, a nightgown, and a cap with a border of pleated lace, its muslin strings neatly folded and secured in place with a pin.Miggles’s burial clothes! prepared long since with her own hands, and put aside to “save trouble” to those left behind. Vanna bowed her head, and burst into a passion of tears.

From that day forward Vanna deliberately shut her eyes to the barriers which blocked her life, and gave herself up to the joy of the present. Piers knew her dread secret, and the knowledge would surely be sufficient to put any thought of her as a wife out of his mind, if indeed such a thought had existed. Her conscience being clear that he at least would not suffer through a continuance of their intimacy, she for her own part was ready to pay the price of future suffering for the rich joy of the present. The joy would not, could not last, but it was better, a thousand times better, to taste the full flavour of life, even if but for a few short months, than to drag on to old age ignorant of the deepest experiences which can stir the human soul. If suffering must come, knowledge would come with it—comprehension, sympathy, and to the end of time the memory of golden hours.

Piers’s visits increased in number, and he was unceasing in his efforts for all that concerned the welfare of the two inmates of the Cottage. In his presence Vanna expanded like a flower in the sun. Love, the magician, worked his spell upon mind and body, so that beholding her own likeness in the glass she would often blush again, as she had blushed on the afternoon of Piers’s first visit. Her pale cheeks were tinged with colour, her eyes shone, her very hair showed rich russet gleams as she wandered bare-headed in the sun. The sound of her own laugh, the aptness of her own words, astonished and delighted no one so much as herself: it was as if a hundred unsuspected beauties and charms, after lying latent all her life, had sprung suddenly to birth. There were moments when, from sheer pride and self-congratulation, she came near following Gwendoline Harleth’s historic example, and kissing her own reflection in the glass. “I am happy!” she told herself triumphantly. “This is happiness—the best I shall ever know. I must realise it, enjoy every moment, enjoy it to the full. I must guard it preciously, shut my eyes and ears to all the little jars and frets, and notallowthem to interrupt. It is my golden time. In years to come, I must be able to look back and remember that I made the most of it when it was mine. It would be madness to waste an hour...”

Meanwhile the two old ladies looked on with silent understanding. Mrs Rendall had been in her own way an ardent admirer of Vanna in the earlier days of their acquaintance; but a mother looks with changed eyes upon a girl whom she suspects her son of honouring with his love. No one is worthy of that honour, and it is rarely indeed that an element of coolness and jealousy does not tinge the former affection. Mrs Rendall pursed her lips at the mention of Vanna Strangeways, and no longer pressed for repetitions of the weekly visits.

To Miggles it was unalloyed joy to behold the growing attachment between the two young people whom she loved so dearly. Never by word or deed did she hint at her desire; but as the months passed by and her health steadily declined, she hugged the thought that when her hour came the dear child who had comforted her last days would find another and a sweeter home. An ever-increasing feebleness warned her that her days were numbered, though so far she had been spared severe suffering. The local doctor confided in Vanna that such immunity could not be expected to the end, for in such cases violent paroxysms of pain were almost inevitable. Vanna shrank with fear from the prospect; but the God in whom Miggles so sweetly trusted had decreed an easier release for His child. Sitting beside an open window in the second spring of her sojourn at the Cottage, Miggles contracted a chill, which quickly developed into bronchitis. The attack did not appear serious to onlookers; but some premonition of the end seemed to visit the invalid herself, for she called Vanna to her bedside, and whispered an eager request:

“My keys, dear! On the ring! I want them here.”

Vanna brought the big, jingling bunch from its place in the work-basket with its red silk linings. Miggles had the slavish devotion to locking up which characterised her time, and it was seldom indeed that any of her possessions could be reached without the aid of at least two keys. Now with feeble fingers she separated two from the rest, and held them out for the girl’s inspection.

“This big one with the red thread, that’s for the cupboard in the spare room. This little one—the smallest but two—that’s for the bottom drawer inside. If I die this time—one can never tell—go at once and open that drawer.At once! To save you trouble.”

Vanna nodded, and put back the bunch in the basket. She herself had no fear that this illness would end fatally, until in the still hours of the night she crept to the bedside and beheld on her friend’s face the grey shadow which, once seen, can never be mistaken. The doctor was summoned, with Piers Rendall, who by good providence was staying at the Manor, and the dread sentence was pronounced in the little sitting-room in which so many peaceful hours had been spent.

“Slipping away! Heart failure! The heart is too weak to stand the extra strain caused by this oppression on the lungs. She will not last out the day. Don’t grieve, Miss Strangeways. It’s a merciful release. If she had lived she would have had great suffering. We must be thankful for her sake.”

Vanna and Piers sat together by the bedside during the long hours of that morning. A telegram of warning had been dispatched to Mr and Mrs Goring, but it was not possible that they could reach the secluded village before late in the afternoon. Miggles lay with closed eyes, breathing heavily, but without further sign of distress. For the most part she seemed to sleep, but once, when Piers bent over her, she opened her eyes and essayed to smile.

“How are you now, dear? How do you feel?” asked the young man anxiously; and Miggles struggled bravely to reply.

“Quite—well!” said the feeble voice; and after a moment’s pause—“And very happy!”

After that she sank ever deeper and deeper into unconsciousness, while the watchers sat on either side, watching the still face.

It was just as the clock struck five, and the sun passing beyond the barrier of the cliff left the little room grey and dull, that with a movement of surprise, as if wakened by the touch of an invisible hand, Miggles suddenly lifted her lids and gazed around. The heavy, bulging cheeks had wasted away, and the eyes, which in health had appeared small and insignificant, now stared out, large and wide from the hollow sockets. As she looked, the first surprise was superseded by a great and incredulous joy. She turned her head from side to side, the faint smile deepening to rapture, while her panting lips gasped out the same word—once, a second time, and again a third:

“Angels! Angels! Angels!”

The two who looked on bowed their heads, and were still. To them it was a small, dull room, prosaic in furnishing, grey, with the shadow of night and death, but Miggles’s opening eyes beheld therein the company of saints.

Piers and the faithful maid turned Vanna out of the room. She had done enough, they said. It was not for her to be pained by the last sad rites. She allowed herself to be led on to the little landing; but when Piers tried to lead her downstairs she refused to move. Remembrance had come to her of Miggles’s request with respect to the keys, and the search which was to be made “at once.” She had no idea what she was to find as she knelt beside that bottom drawer, while Piers stood watchfully at her side; it was the impulse of obedience pure and simple which guided her movements. The first glance brought no illumination, for a strip of muslin hid the contents from view. With its removal came the scent of lavender, and there, neatly ranged in order, lay a pair of fine linen sheets with pillow cases to match, a nightgown, and a cap with a border of pleated lace, its muslin strings neatly folded and secured in place with a pin.

Miggles’s burial clothes! prepared long since with her own hands, and put aside to “save trouble” to those left behind. Vanna bowed her head, and burst into a passion of tears.

Chapter Fifteen.Vanna’s Kingdom.Miggles was buried at Seacliff by her own written request. A letter addressed to Mr Goring was discovered after her death, in which her wishes were expressed with the simple candour and consideration for others which had ever characterised her utterances.“I wish to be buried here at Seacliff. It will be less trouble than taking me to town, and I have always loved the little place. I don’t wish money wasted on an elaborate coffin, but I should love all the flowers which people find it in their hearts to send. I don’t wish any one to wear mourning, or to give up their pleasures or amusements because of my death. I always loved to see you dear ones happy and gay, and if I can still see you from the other world, it would grieve me to see you sad. I want you to go on with your lives in the usual way, and not think it necessary to mourn for me. But I should like to be remembered. I hope you will still let me share your lives. Talk of me sometimes when you are together—not sadly, but quite cheerfully and happily. Say sometimes, ‘Miggles would like that!’ ‘Miggles would say that!’ ‘how Miggles would laugh!’ just as if I were in another room. I may be even nearer, and it seems to me now that even heaven itself could not make me happy if I saw you sad...”Mr and Mrs Goring, the two schoolboys, Piers Rendall, his mother, and Vanna were the chief mourners. Jean was expecting a baby, and had been somewhat alarmingly delicate during the last months, so that it was impossible for her to travel to Seacliff, and Robert refused to leave her even for a day. The little burial-ground lay inland, nearer the Manor House than the cottage on the cliff, and after the service was over the mourners returned to lunch with Mrs Rendall.Piers and Vanna followed slowly after the others until a side gate was reached leading into the grounds, when Piers produced a key from his pocket, and, entering, led the way, not towards the house, but down hill in the direction of the glen, but Vanna stood still in the path, looking at him with surprised, reproachful eyes.“To-day?”“To-day! Why not? She is happy; it was her great wish for us that we should be happy, too. Come!”He took her hand in his, and she made no attempt to withdraw it. Worn out as she was with the strain and grief of the last few days, the firm clasp seemed to bring with it strength and comfort. Hand-in-hand they descended the sloping path and stood beneath the shelter of the trees. As on the day of their first visit together, the delicate beauty of early summer surrounded them on every side. The foliage still retained the fresh green of springtime, the grass was dotted over with patches of fragrant violets and anemones, the water of the stream babbled musically over the mossy stones. As Piers gazed around there was on his face an expression which Vanna had never seen before—an expression of exaltation, of almost incredulous content.“Vanna,” he cried breathlessly, “it istrue! All my life I have feared and doubted. Even as a child, when my mother taught me at her knee, the doubts arose in my mind, and the questions. You have wondered why I never went to church. It would have been a mockery when I could not believe. I have read, and listened, and discussed; and out of it all came only more doubt, more confusion. It is my nature to mistrust—wasmy nature, till I met you.” His hand tightened on hers with almost painful pressure. “You have taught me the reality of goodness and truth, and now, through you, this has come—this revelation. It is true! There is another life. This world is not all. I have doubted all other evidence, but I cannot doubt what I haveseen. They were there, Vanna, close around us, the spirits—the ‘angels’ of Miggles’s sweet old faith! We were too blind to see, but they were there, and she saw them. That light in her eyes! Can you ever forget? That was not death—it was life—the coming of life! Oh, my darling, my darling, what this means to me! A new heaven—a new earth. The falling of the scales!”He lifted his quivering face to the sky as though asking forgiveness of the God whom he had denied; but the woman by his side had no thought at that moment for anything in heaven or earth but himself. Amazement of joy following so hard upon grief seemed to sap the last remnant of strength. She trembled violently, and gripped at Piers’s arm. He turned in alarm, but the face looking up to his was quivering with joy, not pain.“Vanna! What is it?”“You called me—you called me—” She broke off, trembling, shaking, blushing to the roots of her hair. “Whatdid you call me?”For a moment he stared bewildered; then remembrance came—the echo of his own words throbbed in his ear, bringing with them a second revelation, the revelation of his own heart. He seized her in a grasp violent in its intensity, and drew her towards him, gazing deep into her eyes.“Vanna, my beloved! This too! My love, and yours! A new earth indeed. The words said themselves, darling; they have lived so long in my heart that they slipped from my lips before I had realised my wealth. I who thought I could never love, to have walked into it, step after step, deliberately, blindly, until I found myself so deep down, so engulfed, that I could not be free if I would. Vanna, I have only lived since I knew you. It was you I needed all those empty years: you have given me life, joy, hope; you must give me the last thing, too—your love! After this vision I can’t live without it. You are mine, Vanna; I can’t give you up.” He drew her head to his shoulder and pressed passionate kisses on her lips, her hair, her white, closed lids, and she clung to him, forgetting everything in the bliss of certainty, the intoxicating nearness, the touch of his lips on her own.“Vanna! Was itthisyou felt—a foretaste of this joy—when you walked into your kingdom and read its message? It’s in your Happy Land, my dearest, you have found your love. May it be an omen of the future! Speak to me!... Tell me in words. I have never heard a woman’s lips speak to me of love.”Vanna looked up at him, a wealth of devotion in the depths of her eloquent eyes, but her lips trembled over the words:“What can I say? The words won’t come. I was lonely, too, and you are everything—everything. From the very first day you filled my mind. I thought it was friendship. When I found out, I struggled, but it was no use, so I gave in, and let myself love you more and more. It was my best happiness—the only happiness I could look for. I never ventured to hope that you could love me.”He laughed, a low, tender laugh, and framing her face between his hands, lifted it towards his own.“Was I blind and deaf? Could I see you, and talk to you, and listen to your praises from far and near, and keep my head? Do you know in the least what you are like? I’ll carry a little mirror in my pocket and let you see yourself some time when you are animated and happy. I’ll make you admire yourself.”“Have you fallen in love with me for my looks?”“Partly. Certainly. I love your looks, and I won’t have them depreciated. And with your goodness, and sweetness, and strength, and your unreasonableness, and temper, and weaknesses—and which I love the most I really can’t say. There’s not a bit of you I don’t love, or would have altered if I could.”Vanna shivered. Already the golden moment had passed, and a shadow fell across her joy. This climax of bliss—what could it be but a presage of the end? She drew herself away from Piers’s encircling arms.“Ah, what have I done? Piers, what have I done? I have forgotten—we have both forgotten. I told you my secret that day on the cliff when you heard me cry. Do you knowwhyI cried? Because Jean had spoken of a girl in town, with whom she thought you were in love. It tortured me; I was nearly wild with jealousy and despair. And then you came, and I blurted it all out. No! it was not noble. I was thinking of myself. I wanted to get the weight off my mind, that I might enjoy you with an easy mind. I felt that if you knew the worst, and cared to be with me after that, the responsibility was yours, not mine; and I tried—Itriedto make you care! I deluded myself, but I know now that Ididtry. I thought I could not help it, but it was selfish—cowardly. I should have thought of your good. Piers, I can never be your wife; you can never marry me. I have only brought fresh trouble. Can you ever forgive me?”He smiled at her, and, disregarding the outstretched hands, drew her back into his arms.“Forgive you, my best of blessings! For the moment I can think of nothing but love. My mind isn’t big enough to grasp anything beyond that tremendous fact. The present is ours, darling; be content in that. We are here together in our Happy Land—you and I. Nothing can rob us of this hour. If it ended here, this minute, I should still bless God for His goodness. To know you love me, to hold you here in my arms—it’s worth living for, Vanna. But it’s not going to end. Trust to me. I will go up to town. I will interview the doctor. I will find a way. You are mine, and all the world shall not keep you from me.”Vanna smiled in his face with happy, love-lit eyes. He was a god in her eyes, and the gods are omnipotent. If Piers willed a thing it did not seem possible that he could fail. Reason fled discomfited. She loved, and was blind.

Miggles was buried at Seacliff by her own written request. A letter addressed to Mr Goring was discovered after her death, in which her wishes were expressed with the simple candour and consideration for others which had ever characterised her utterances.

“I wish to be buried here at Seacliff. It will be less trouble than taking me to town, and I have always loved the little place. I don’t wish money wasted on an elaborate coffin, but I should love all the flowers which people find it in their hearts to send. I don’t wish any one to wear mourning, or to give up their pleasures or amusements because of my death. I always loved to see you dear ones happy and gay, and if I can still see you from the other world, it would grieve me to see you sad. I want you to go on with your lives in the usual way, and not think it necessary to mourn for me. But I should like to be remembered. I hope you will still let me share your lives. Talk of me sometimes when you are together—not sadly, but quite cheerfully and happily. Say sometimes, ‘Miggles would like that!’ ‘Miggles would say that!’ ‘how Miggles would laugh!’ just as if I were in another room. I may be even nearer, and it seems to me now that even heaven itself could not make me happy if I saw you sad...”

“I wish to be buried here at Seacliff. It will be less trouble than taking me to town, and I have always loved the little place. I don’t wish money wasted on an elaborate coffin, but I should love all the flowers which people find it in their hearts to send. I don’t wish any one to wear mourning, or to give up their pleasures or amusements because of my death. I always loved to see you dear ones happy and gay, and if I can still see you from the other world, it would grieve me to see you sad. I want you to go on with your lives in the usual way, and not think it necessary to mourn for me. But I should like to be remembered. I hope you will still let me share your lives. Talk of me sometimes when you are together—not sadly, but quite cheerfully and happily. Say sometimes, ‘Miggles would like that!’ ‘Miggles would say that!’ ‘how Miggles would laugh!’ just as if I were in another room. I may be even nearer, and it seems to me now that even heaven itself could not make me happy if I saw you sad...”

Mr and Mrs Goring, the two schoolboys, Piers Rendall, his mother, and Vanna were the chief mourners. Jean was expecting a baby, and had been somewhat alarmingly delicate during the last months, so that it was impossible for her to travel to Seacliff, and Robert refused to leave her even for a day. The little burial-ground lay inland, nearer the Manor House than the cottage on the cliff, and after the service was over the mourners returned to lunch with Mrs Rendall.

Piers and Vanna followed slowly after the others until a side gate was reached leading into the grounds, when Piers produced a key from his pocket, and, entering, led the way, not towards the house, but down hill in the direction of the glen, but Vanna stood still in the path, looking at him with surprised, reproachful eyes.

“To-day?”

“To-day! Why not? She is happy; it was her great wish for us that we should be happy, too. Come!”

He took her hand in his, and she made no attempt to withdraw it. Worn out as she was with the strain and grief of the last few days, the firm clasp seemed to bring with it strength and comfort. Hand-in-hand they descended the sloping path and stood beneath the shelter of the trees. As on the day of their first visit together, the delicate beauty of early summer surrounded them on every side. The foliage still retained the fresh green of springtime, the grass was dotted over with patches of fragrant violets and anemones, the water of the stream babbled musically over the mossy stones. As Piers gazed around there was on his face an expression which Vanna had never seen before—an expression of exaltation, of almost incredulous content.

“Vanna,” he cried breathlessly, “it istrue! All my life I have feared and doubted. Even as a child, when my mother taught me at her knee, the doubts arose in my mind, and the questions. You have wondered why I never went to church. It would have been a mockery when I could not believe. I have read, and listened, and discussed; and out of it all came only more doubt, more confusion. It is my nature to mistrust—wasmy nature, till I met you.” His hand tightened on hers with almost painful pressure. “You have taught me the reality of goodness and truth, and now, through you, this has come—this revelation. It is true! There is another life. This world is not all. I have doubted all other evidence, but I cannot doubt what I haveseen. They were there, Vanna, close around us, the spirits—the ‘angels’ of Miggles’s sweet old faith! We were too blind to see, but they were there, and she saw them. That light in her eyes! Can you ever forget? That was not death—it was life—the coming of life! Oh, my darling, my darling, what this means to me! A new heaven—a new earth. The falling of the scales!”

He lifted his quivering face to the sky as though asking forgiveness of the God whom he had denied; but the woman by his side had no thought at that moment for anything in heaven or earth but himself. Amazement of joy following so hard upon grief seemed to sap the last remnant of strength. She trembled violently, and gripped at Piers’s arm. He turned in alarm, but the face looking up to his was quivering with joy, not pain.

“Vanna! What is it?”

“You called me—you called me—” She broke off, trembling, shaking, blushing to the roots of her hair. “Whatdid you call me?”

For a moment he stared bewildered; then remembrance came—the echo of his own words throbbed in his ear, bringing with them a second revelation, the revelation of his own heart. He seized her in a grasp violent in its intensity, and drew her towards him, gazing deep into her eyes.

“Vanna, my beloved! This too! My love, and yours! A new earth indeed. The words said themselves, darling; they have lived so long in my heart that they slipped from my lips before I had realised my wealth. I who thought I could never love, to have walked into it, step after step, deliberately, blindly, until I found myself so deep down, so engulfed, that I could not be free if I would. Vanna, I have only lived since I knew you. It was you I needed all those empty years: you have given me life, joy, hope; you must give me the last thing, too—your love! After this vision I can’t live without it. You are mine, Vanna; I can’t give you up.” He drew her head to his shoulder and pressed passionate kisses on her lips, her hair, her white, closed lids, and she clung to him, forgetting everything in the bliss of certainty, the intoxicating nearness, the touch of his lips on her own.

“Vanna! Was itthisyou felt—a foretaste of this joy—when you walked into your kingdom and read its message? It’s in your Happy Land, my dearest, you have found your love. May it be an omen of the future! Speak to me!... Tell me in words. I have never heard a woman’s lips speak to me of love.”

Vanna looked up at him, a wealth of devotion in the depths of her eloquent eyes, but her lips trembled over the words:

“What can I say? The words won’t come. I was lonely, too, and you are everything—everything. From the very first day you filled my mind. I thought it was friendship. When I found out, I struggled, but it was no use, so I gave in, and let myself love you more and more. It was my best happiness—the only happiness I could look for. I never ventured to hope that you could love me.”

He laughed, a low, tender laugh, and framing her face between his hands, lifted it towards his own.

“Was I blind and deaf? Could I see you, and talk to you, and listen to your praises from far and near, and keep my head? Do you know in the least what you are like? I’ll carry a little mirror in my pocket and let you see yourself some time when you are animated and happy. I’ll make you admire yourself.”

“Have you fallen in love with me for my looks?”

“Partly. Certainly. I love your looks, and I won’t have them depreciated. And with your goodness, and sweetness, and strength, and your unreasonableness, and temper, and weaknesses—and which I love the most I really can’t say. There’s not a bit of you I don’t love, or would have altered if I could.”

Vanna shivered. Already the golden moment had passed, and a shadow fell across her joy. This climax of bliss—what could it be but a presage of the end? She drew herself away from Piers’s encircling arms.

“Ah, what have I done? Piers, what have I done? I have forgotten—we have both forgotten. I told you my secret that day on the cliff when you heard me cry. Do you knowwhyI cried? Because Jean had spoken of a girl in town, with whom she thought you were in love. It tortured me; I was nearly wild with jealousy and despair. And then you came, and I blurted it all out. No! it was not noble. I was thinking of myself. I wanted to get the weight off my mind, that I might enjoy you with an easy mind. I felt that if you knew the worst, and cared to be with me after that, the responsibility was yours, not mine; and I tried—Itriedto make you care! I deluded myself, but I know now that Ididtry. I thought I could not help it, but it was selfish—cowardly. I should have thought of your good. Piers, I can never be your wife; you can never marry me. I have only brought fresh trouble. Can you ever forgive me?”

He smiled at her, and, disregarding the outstretched hands, drew her back into his arms.

“Forgive you, my best of blessings! For the moment I can think of nothing but love. My mind isn’t big enough to grasp anything beyond that tremendous fact. The present is ours, darling; be content in that. We are here together in our Happy Land—you and I. Nothing can rob us of this hour. If it ended here, this minute, I should still bless God for His goodness. To know you love me, to hold you here in my arms—it’s worth living for, Vanna. But it’s not going to end. Trust to me. I will go up to town. I will interview the doctor. I will find a way. You are mine, and all the world shall not keep you from me.”

Vanna smiled in his face with happy, love-lit eyes. He was a god in her eyes, and the gods are omnipotent. If Piers willed a thing it did not seem possible that he could fail. Reason fled discomfited. She loved, and was blind.

Chapter Sixteen.The Second Best.Piers lost no time in going to town to interview Dr Greatman, but the result was not encouraging. He came back to Vanna with a worn face, and the restless discontent of older days eclipsing the happiness of his eyes.“If it were only my own risk, I would take it a thousand times over,” he declared; “but when he tells me that it would be worse for you, that I should be increasing your danger, there is nothing to be said. I would kill myself rather than do that. I have racked my brain, I paced the floor the whole of last night, but no inspiration will come. There seems no way out.”“There is no way,” said Vanna quietly. They were sitting in the morning-room in the Cottage, that little room which seemed so empty without the familiar figure on the sofa by the window. In deference to Miggles’s wishes, Vanna was wearing a simple white dress; but although the melancholy aspect of mourning robes was removed, her face also looked bleached and wan. The waiting hours had been terribly long to the woman whose fate hung on the verdict. “There is no way! You made me hope in spite of myself, for it seemed impossible that any one could refuse you what you wished; but nothing is changed since I saw him last. There was no reason why he should alter his opinion. I can see now that he spoke to me so plainly just to try to avoid this crisis; but it has come, and it is my fault. I ran away from another man who was beginning to love me, but when it came to my own turn my courage gave way. I knew that the day would come when I should have to suffer for every hour of joy, but I was prepared to pay the price. I am prepared still. I have had my day. I know what happiness is—the greatest happiness which a human soul can know; and nothing can take that away. I never dared to think that you would love me, but you do; and it’s such perfect bliss to know that, and to feel your arms round me, and to be able to say all I feel, instead of bottling it up in my heart as I have had to do all these months, that for my own sake I can’t regret. Only for yours, dearest; only for yours!”“What do you think it means to me? Before I met you I was lonely and dissatisfied—you know what I was like! People talk ofjoie de vivre. I never knew it—never until this last year, since I have known you. When we have been together I’ve wanted nothing. I’ve been more than happy: I’ve been content. When we have been apart I have lived for the time when I should see you again. If you love me, how can you regret having given me the great joy of my life?”“If it could last! If it could last! But when it is only to bring a worse pain upon you, how can I help regretting? Oh, it is hard. To think what this moment means to other couples, and that we should be shut out. I feel like you—my own risk is nothing; it is the dread of its consequences for you that weighs, and he said—he said, that the worst time, the time of the worst danger lay ahead. Piers, howcanyou love me with that knowledge in your mind? I thought when I told you, I honestly thought that it would stop every possibility of your caring.”“Nothing could have stopped me. I told you then, as I tell you now, that you are the sweetest, the sanest woman I have ever met, and you are mine. I will never give you up; never to my dying day.”“Piers, Piers, we have no choice.”He drew her towards him, a hand on each arm; drew her roughly, passionately, his dark face twitching with emotion.“No! It is true. We have no choice. You have said it, and it is the truth. We belong to each other, and nothing that any one can say or do can alter that. For better or worse we belong; till death us do part. There is no choice. You can’t get away—Vanna, does it strike you that we are doing a wrong, a wicked thing? We are killing our golden hour almost as soon as it is born. Those other lovers that you speak of, do they trouble their heads about marriage the first moment they are alone with their love? I don’t believe they do. I don’t believe it is even mentioned. It is enough joy, enough wonder, to realise the present. Can’t we follow their example? Can’t we be content just to be together—like this? Isn’t the present rich enough to content us? It is more, a hundred times more than I ever dared to expect. You could not be so cruel, Vanna, as to take it from me.”“If it could last! If it could last!” moaned Vanna once more. “Oh, Piers, it is heaven just to sit here, with my head on your shoulder, and your arms around me; but I must go away, far away to the other end of the world. We can’t even be ‘engaged’ like other people, and have the right to meet and be alone. How could we be engaged when we can never marry?”“How could we not? If we cannot have the best thing, we must take the next. Do all engaged lovers marry and live happily ever after? You know they don’t. They can’t see what is waiting one day ahead. There are a hundred risks. At the last moment death may divide them. The only thing that is secure is the present; they grasp that, and are happy. That’s the philosophy of life, darling; that must be our philosophy. You are mine. I am not going to give up my rights. We must be able to meet, to see each other when we wish. If to do that and satisfy conventions, we must call ourselves ‘engaged,’ engaged we will be. I shall tell my mother to-night, you must tell the Gorings. We are engaged, and we adore one another, and are gloriously happy. Do you remember Jean when she was engaged? Weren’ttheygloriously happy?”“For three months!” Cruel memory flashed back echoes of impatient words and sighs which had escaped the lovers’ lips even during that short period: “These eternal good-byes, these eternal interruptions! When shall we be alone?”—“For three months! If it had been three years—thirteen—thirty! I can’t imagine Robert waiting for long indefinite years. Oh, Piers, you would grow tired—impatient—”He pressed her to him with a groan of anguish.“Of course I shall be tired; of course I shall be impatient. Don’t torture me, darling—and yourself. It’s a second best, and it must be hard; but it is all that’s left, and for a time at least it will be bliss. One never knows what may happen. We are not particularly strong people, you and I; we may not have long to live. Vanna, knowing the uncertainty of life, dare you,dareyou refuse me my joy? You say this has come upon us by your fault; then surely you feel your responsibility also. You owe me something, and you must pay. Vanna, is it so hard?”“Hard! Do you think I want to refuse? Do you think it would not be bliss to me to give way too? For myself it would be all gain—your love, your companionship, your help; but for you it would be a barrier, shutting out better things—a wife, children, a home. You need them, Piers; you are not made for solitude. As you grow older you will need them more. How dare I shut them out?”He did not answer. Vanna felt his cheek twitch against her own, heard the sharp indrawing of the breath. Her words had gone home; she felt a wild surge of anger against herself—against the morbid conscientiousness which had sought to wreck her own joy. The gods had thrust a gift into her hands, and because it was not pure gold she had thrust it aside, leaving herself to starve. The slackening of Piers’s arms brought with it a stab of anguish. Had she convinced him against his will? Was he about to take her at her word?But instead of turning away he drew her to her feet, holding her by both hands so that they stood face to face.“Vanna, you remember what I said to you about Miggles? The lesson of her death? You believe—I believe that this world is not all; that it is only a beginning—the portal of life. Can’t we lift our love above the ordinary human conception? Can’t we be content to wait—to suffer if it must be, in the hope of all that is to come? I don’t pretend that it will be easy; but we have no choice. The love has come; we can’t alter it; we don’t want to alter it. We belong to each other for life and eternity; we must help each other to live on the heights. We must not allow ourselves to regret and to pine for what we cannot have; we must be thankful, and look forward. You are so good, so strong; you must help me! We must go on with our lives; but if this love is worth anything, it will be a strength to us—not a bar. It would be folly to part. Should we think of each other any the less because we were at opposite ends of the world? Vanna! surely you of all women should be the last to deny the possibility of a spiritual love.”But Vanna did not answer. Her head fell forward until her face was hidden from sight; her hands burned within his. She was a woman, and for the moment there was no place in her heart for Piers’s lofty self-abnegation. A spiritual love—self-sacrifice and suffering in the hope of future bliss! And she was to be strong and brave, and help him when he failed; she, who was filled with a passion of longing for the dear, human, everyday joys; to whom for the moment they towered above the far-off, spiritual gain. The woman’s birthright of intuition revealed the future with flashlight clarity. Her heart was torn with a presage of the pangs which would rend it afresh, as she beheld happy wives, rich in home, husband, and children, while she wandered outcast, unsatisfied, athirst. The man, with shorter vision, could content himself in the present, and in the fulness of love’s revelations delude himself that joy would remain; but to the woman, for whom the love of him was an aching longing of body and soul, the sharpest pang of all came from the certainty of his mistake. She looked forward and beheld him restless and rebellious, chafing against his chains—the old, irritable discontent on lips and eyes. He would suffer; of a certainty he would suffer. So surely as he was made in man’s image, the day would dawn when his joy would be changed into despair. A wild longing seized Vanna to give her lover happiness while she might; to give him such a summer of joy and content that when the winter came he should look back and feel the price well paid.Her fingers tightened on his arm, her eyes sought his in feverish entreaty.“Piers! if I do give in—I have no strength to oppose you—if I give in, swear to me that if the time comes when you regret—when you feel bound, because there is some one”—she gulped painfully—“some one else whom you could take for a wife—swear that you will be honest with me; that you will not let me spoil your life! Swear that you will tell me the truth.”He smiled into her troubled face, taking possession of her hands in a close, comforting grasp.“What would you think if I asked the same promise of you? Can’t you give me credit for as much consistency as yourself? Is it possible that I could grow tired ofyou?”But at that moment Vanna had no ears for the sweet protestations of love. Her grasp grew but the tighter, her gaze the more distressed.“Swear to me! Swear!”Piers gave a short, half-impatient laugh.“I swear it. Now are you content?”

Piers lost no time in going to town to interview Dr Greatman, but the result was not encouraging. He came back to Vanna with a worn face, and the restless discontent of older days eclipsing the happiness of his eyes.

“If it were only my own risk, I would take it a thousand times over,” he declared; “but when he tells me that it would be worse for you, that I should be increasing your danger, there is nothing to be said. I would kill myself rather than do that. I have racked my brain, I paced the floor the whole of last night, but no inspiration will come. There seems no way out.”

“There is no way,” said Vanna quietly. They were sitting in the morning-room in the Cottage, that little room which seemed so empty without the familiar figure on the sofa by the window. In deference to Miggles’s wishes, Vanna was wearing a simple white dress; but although the melancholy aspect of mourning robes was removed, her face also looked bleached and wan. The waiting hours had been terribly long to the woman whose fate hung on the verdict. “There is no way! You made me hope in spite of myself, for it seemed impossible that any one could refuse you what you wished; but nothing is changed since I saw him last. There was no reason why he should alter his opinion. I can see now that he spoke to me so plainly just to try to avoid this crisis; but it has come, and it is my fault. I ran away from another man who was beginning to love me, but when it came to my own turn my courage gave way. I knew that the day would come when I should have to suffer for every hour of joy, but I was prepared to pay the price. I am prepared still. I have had my day. I know what happiness is—the greatest happiness which a human soul can know; and nothing can take that away. I never dared to think that you would love me, but you do; and it’s such perfect bliss to know that, and to feel your arms round me, and to be able to say all I feel, instead of bottling it up in my heart as I have had to do all these months, that for my own sake I can’t regret. Only for yours, dearest; only for yours!”

“What do you think it means to me? Before I met you I was lonely and dissatisfied—you know what I was like! People talk ofjoie de vivre. I never knew it—never until this last year, since I have known you. When we have been together I’ve wanted nothing. I’ve been more than happy: I’ve been content. When we have been apart I have lived for the time when I should see you again. If you love me, how can you regret having given me the great joy of my life?”

“If it could last! If it could last! But when it is only to bring a worse pain upon you, how can I help regretting? Oh, it is hard. To think what this moment means to other couples, and that we should be shut out. I feel like you—my own risk is nothing; it is the dread of its consequences for you that weighs, and he said—he said, that the worst time, the time of the worst danger lay ahead. Piers, howcanyou love me with that knowledge in your mind? I thought when I told you, I honestly thought that it would stop every possibility of your caring.”

“Nothing could have stopped me. I told you then, as I tell you now, that you are the sweetest, the sanest woman I have ever met, and you are mine. I will never give you up; never to my dying day.”

“Piers, Piers, we have no choice.”

He drew her towards him, a hand on each arm; drew her roughly, passionately, his dark face twitching with emotion.

“No! It is true. We have no choice. You have said it, and it is the truth. We belong to each other, and nothing that any one can say or do can alter that. For better or worse we belong; till death us do part. There is no choice. You can’t get away—Vanna, does it strike you that we are doing a wrong, a wicked thing? We are killing our golden hour almost as soon as it is born. Those other lovers that you speak of, do they trouble their heads about marriage the first moment they are alone with their love? I don’t believe they do. I don’t believe it is even mentioned. It is enough joy, enough wonder, to realise the present. Can’t we follow their example? Can’t we be content just to be together—like this? Isn’t the present rich enough to content us? It is more, a hundred times more than I ever dared to expect. You could not be so cruel, Vanna, as to take it from me.”

“If it could last! If it could last!” moaned Vanna once more. “Oh, Piers, it is heaven just to sit here, with my head on your shoulder, and your arms around me; but I must go away, far away to the other end of the world. We can’t even be ‘engaged’ like other people, and have the right to meet and be alone. How could we be engaged when we can never marry?”

“How could we not? If we cannot have the best thing, we must take the next. Do all engaged lovers marry and live happily ever after? You know they don’t. They can’t see what is waiting one day ahead. There are a hundred risks. At the last moment death may divide them. The only thing that is secure is the present; they grasp that, and are happy. That’s the philosophy of life, darling; that must be our philosophy. You are mine. I am not going to give up my rights. We must be able to meet, to see each other when we wish. If to do that and satisfy conventions, we must call ourselves ‘engaged,’ engaged we will be. I shall tell my mother to-night, you must tell the Gorings. We are engaged, and we adore one another, and are gloriously happy. Do you remember Jean when she was engaged? Weren’ttheygloriously happy?”

“For three months!” Cruel memory flashed back echoes of impatient words and sighs which had escaped the lovers’ lips even during that short period: “These eternal good-byes, these eternal interruptions! When shall we be alone?”—“For three months! If it had been three years—thirteen—thirty! I can’t imagine Robert waiting for long indefinite years. Oh, Piers, you would grow tired—impatient—”

He pressed her to him with a groan of anguish.

“Of course I shall be tired; of course I shall be impatient. Don’t torture me, darling—and yourself. It’s a second best, and it must be hard; but it is all that’s left, and for a time at least it will be bliss. One never knows what may happen. We are not particularly strong people, you and I; we may not have long to live. Vanna, knowing the uncertainty of life, dare you,dareyou refuse me my joy? You say this has come upon us by your fault; then surely you feel your responsibility also. You owe me something, and you must pay. Vanna, is it so hard?”

“Hard! Do you think I want to refuse? Do you think it would not be bliss to me to give way too? For myself it would be all gain—your love, your companionship, your help; but for you it would be a barrier, shutting out better things—a wife, children, a home. You need them, Piers; you are not made for solitude. As you grow older you will need them more. How dare I shut them out?”

He did not answer. Vanna felt his cheek twitch against her own, heard the sharp indrawing of the breath. Her words had gone home; she felt a wild surge of anger against herself—against the morbid conscientiousness which had sought to wreck her own joy. The gods had thrust a gift into her hands, and because it was not pure gold she had thrust it aside, leaving herself to starve. The slackening of Piers’s arms brought with it a stab of anguish. Had she convinced him against his will? Was he about to take her at her word?

But instead of turning away he drew her to her feet, holding her by both hands so that they stood face to face.

“Vanna, you remember what I said to you about Miggles? The lesson of her death? You believe—I believe that this world is not all; that it is only a beginning—the portal of life. Can’t we lift our love above the ordinary human conception? Can’t we be content to wait—to suffer if it must be, in the hope of all that is to come? I don’t pretend that it will be easy; but we have no choice. The love has come; we can’t alter it; we don’t want to alter it. We belong to each other for life and eternity; we must help each other to live on the heights. We must not allow ourselves to regret and to pine for what we cannot have; we must be thankful, and look forward. You are so good, so strong; you must help me! We must go on with our lives; but if this love is worth anything, it will be a strength to us—not a bar. It would be folly to part. Should we think of each other any the less because we were at opposite ends of the world? Vanna! surely you of all women should be the last to deny the possibility of a spiritual love.”

But Vanna did not answer. Her head fell forward until her face was hidden from sight; her hands burned within his. She was a woman, and for the moment there was no place in her heart for Piers’s lofty self-abnegation. A spiritual love—self-sacrifice and suffering in the hope of future bliss! And she was to be strong and brave, and help him when he failed; she, who was filled with a passion of longing for the dear, human, everyday joys; to whom for the moment they towered above the far-off, spiritual gain. The woman’s birthright of intuition revealed the future with flashlight clarity. Her heart was torn with a presage of the pangs which would rend it afresh, as she beheld happy wives, rich in home, husband, and children, while she wandered outcast, unsatisfied, athirst. The man, with shorter vision, could content himself in the present, and in the fulness of love’s revelations delude himself that joy would remain; but to the woman, for whom the love of him was an aching longing of body and soul, the sharpest pang of all came from the certainty of his mistake. She looked forward and beheld him restless and rebellious, chafing against his chains—the old, irritable discontent on lips and eyes. He would suffer; of a certainty he would suffer. So surely as he was made in man’s image, the day would dawn when his joy would be changed into despair. A wild longing seized Vanna to give her lover happiness while she might; to give him such a summer of joy and content that when the winter came he should look back and feel the price well paid.

Her fingers tightened on his arm, her eyes sought his in feverish entreaty.

“Piers! if I do give in—I have no strength to oppose you—if I give in, swear to me that if the time comes when you regret—when you feel bound, because there is some one”—she gulped painfully—“some one else whom you could take for a wife—swear that you will be honest with me; that you will not let me spoil your life! Swear that you will tell me the truth.”

He smiled into her troubled face, taking possession of her hands in a close, comforting grasp.

“What would you think if I asked the same promise of you? Can’t you give me credit for as much consistency as yourself? Is it possible that I could grow tired ofyou?”

But at that moment Vanna had no ears for the sweet protestations of love. Her grasp grew but the tighter, her gaze the more distressed.

“Swear to me! Swear!”

Piers gave a short, half-impatient laugh.

“I swear it. Now are you content?”

Chapter Seventeen.A False Position.Vanna begged a month’s grace before the announcement of her engagement was made public, and before half that time had passed, had said good-bye to the seaside cottage in which she had known such peaceful, happy days, and, in response to an urgent invitation, had gone to pay a long visit to Jean.“You said the time would come when I should need you,” wrote Jean, in a long pencilled scrawl, “and it has arrived! I need you badly, dear; I crave for you. At this moment I feel I must either have a kind, understanding woman near me, or die! I am so ill, Vanna, and so weak, and so frightened! It has been such a long, long time, and I never knew before what it was like to be ill. One does not grow used to it—it grows harder and harder, and the days are so eternally long. I don’t apologise for asking you to exchange one invalid for another; another person might think it hard, but not you, you dear angel—it will be an inducement to you. And you’ll stay until it is over, won’t you, and keep house, and look after Robert, when I’m upstairs? Oh, the joy, and the ease, and the comfort it would be to see you walk in at this moment, and to know that you’d come to stay! I want you more than I’ve ever wanted you before; and if you say no, I’ll collapse at once, and it will be your fault, and you’ll repent for ever after. Wire your reply.”Vanna smiled happily as she read the characteristic words. Yes, her time had come. She had waited to a good purpose. Jean needed her, and she needed Jean; she was longing eagerly for long, heart-to-heart talks with her only woman friend. Except those few short days at Seacliff, the two friends had not met since the day of the wedding, and there would be so much to hear, so much to say. What would Jean have to say to her great news? She recalled Jean’s face of dismay as, kneeling on the ground, she had listened to Dr Greatman’s verdict; heard again the tremble in her voice as she asked, “Is there no escape?” Surely Jean would not blame her, because when happiness had been placed into her hand she had not had strength to thrust it away? Surely out of the riches of her own wealth she would rejoice that some crumbs had fallen to her friend? What would Robert say? He was a man: he would judge from a man’s standpoint, with his head rather than with his heart. Vanna shrank nervously from Robert’s disapproval. He was one of the simple, upright men who are apt to be hard judges. To them there are but two courses in life—a right and a wrong. They have neither sympathy nor understanding for those who pitifully essay to find byways by which to escape the rigours of the path. Yet when love had seized Robert in its grip he had made short work of obstacles—had laughed to scorn Vanna’s prudent advice. When she had condemned him, and refused her help, he had replied that it was not needed. He required no help from outside. Well! Vanna lifted her chin with proud resolve; she herself could be equally independent. It would make the future more difficult if Robert and Jean adopted a disapproving attitude, but for the moment she need not trouble herself about such a contingency. She would allow Jean time for the discussion of her own affairs before seizing a quiet opportunity for telling her own great news.The tall town house, with its narrow staircase, and high, box-like rooms, felt close and stuffy after the wind-swept cottage, but it glowed with the colour dear to the heart of its mistress, and was refreshingly different from the ordinary houses of that most inartistic age. Jean had copied her interior from pictures rather than from upholsterers’ catalogues, and her principal furniture had been made from her own designs. Robert had placed no limit on her expenditure; he could not afford a large house, but she was to have “everything she wanted” for the small one which she had graciously consented to occupy. Such were his instructions, and Jean had proceeded to carry them into effect with a literal interpretation of the words. Being one of the happy people who always know exactly what they want, no time was wasted in discussion, the only difficulty being to procure fabrics as beautiful and artistically tinted as those which were pictured in her fertile brain. When the last treasure had been discovered, and fitted into its niche, the completed whole was a triumph of good taste, beautiful and restful; a home of which any man might be proud. Robert was proud of it because it was Jean’s doing, and spectators waxed enthusiastic in Jean’s praise. For himself, he would have been as well satisfied with a walnut suite and moreen curtains, perhaps more so, for he felt uneasily that he should never be able to smoke comfortably in such fine surroundings, nor to cross a floor without pausing to rub his boots. Neither of the two had a glimmering of an idea of what it cost to furnish a house; but when the bills came in Robert had a disagreeable shock. The sum which he had laid aside was ludicrously inadequate, and he was obliged to have recourse to “selling a share or two,” and so reduce his already slender capital. But Jean was content. Jean was proud of her house; all other considerations were second to that.Vanna met her friend in the drawing-room, which, being situated at the back of the house, with a depressing outlook, had the ordinary window replaced by one of rich stained glass. Gas jets had been arranged outside the window, which, being lit at dusk, served to show the glowing colours of the design through the evening hours. On this summer afternoon the mellowed light, and absence of prospect, combined to give the room the aspect of a shrine, and Jean moving slowly forward was certainly beautiful enough for a high-priestess. She wore a wonderful flowing robe of a dull blue, softly falling silk, the long open sleeves hanging almost to the ground, and showing her slim arms encased in some thin metallic substance, in which gold shot into silver, and silver back to gold. The folds at the neck were caught together with a metal clasp and chains, and slippers of the same colour peeped out beneath the sweeping skirts. The first glance at her face, however, brought with it a thrill of fear, for suffering and weariness were written there with an eloquence beyond the power of words. The eyes were haggard and encircled with violet shadows, the cheeks had lost their curves, the lips drooped, yet, as ever, Jean’s beauty rose triumphant over all drawbacks. Vanna asked herself if she were not more beautiful than ever, for the childlike pathos of expression added the needed touch of softness to her features.“Oh, Vanna, you blessing! You have come at last.”“I’ve come, darling. Come to stay! As long as you want me.”Jean kissed her again and again, the tears gathering in the lovely eyes, but she dashed them away, and in another minute was laughing and chattering in her old gay voice.“Bring tea, bring tea! And I’m engaged, remember! Not a soul is to disturb me this afternoon. Vanna, you look sweet. If you go on improving at this rate, you’ll soon beat me hollow. Sit here, opposite, where I can see you. Oh, you look so fresh, and happy, and well! You are like a breath of sea air. I’ve been stifling for months in this stuffy room, with not even a tree to look at, to remind me that it’s spring.” She threw an impatient glance at the stained-glass window which had made such a deep hole in Robert’s purse. “Robert goes out at nine, and gets home at seven. Oh, my dear, such days! I’ve had such a dose of my own society that I’m sickened. If there’s a person on earth I detest at this moment, it’s Jean Gloucester.”Vanna smiled whimsically.“It doesn’t look like it. You seem to me to take a very fair amount of interest in her still. You look as charming as ever, you wonderful person. What a marvellous gown! Where in the name of mystery did you evolve it? and how many coffers of gold did you squander in the purchase?”Jean had the grace to blush.“Oh, well! one must be respectable. Itisrather a marvel. It was designed for me by an artist woman who has gone in for gowns; but no earthly inducement will ever make me tell what it cost. It’s so soothing to have something becoming that it’s been as good as medicine. Looked at in that way, it’scheap! And I have been so good about money all the year. Rob balanced our books last week, and we were only a hundred out. Very good, I call it, when you remember that I hadnoexperience. The first time we had asparagus for dinner I couldn’t eat a bit. I just sat staring at every stick. You have always to pay for experience. Besides, as I said to Rob, you are only newly married once, and it would be a sin to rub off the bloom worrying about pennies. It’s silly to spoil the present for the sake of what may happen in a dozen years. We may be dead, or if we are not, we shall probably be better off. Rob’s position will be improved, the boys’ education will be finished, and father can allow me more. Men are so fussy about capital... Vanna, do you realise that it is a whole year since I’ve seen you? You have told me very little about yourself in your letters. There’s so much I want to hear. Not about Miggles to-day—we’ll leave that. I don’t want to cry. Tell me about yourself!”“Oh, not yet! One thing at a time. I’ve not half finished with you,” said Vanna with a thrill of nervousness, which she tried her best to conceal. “There are a hundred things that I am longing to hear. But first about Robert. How is he? Well—flourishing—giving satisfaction—as nice as ever?”“Nice!” Jean tossed her head in disdain. “What a paltry word. He is the best man out of Heaven, my dear. That is the only description forhim. I’ve lived with him for eighteen months, and have not discovered one single, solitary fault. That’s simple truth, not exaggeration. I honestly believe he is perfect.”“And with you for a wife! You are a darling, Jean; but method was never your strong point, and by your own account your housekeeping hasn’t always been a success. Does he continue to smile through all the upsets, and forgettings, and domestic crises, such as you described to us at Seacliff? I can’t believe it of a mere man!”“Oh, I didn’t mean to say that he preserves a dead-level calm. I should hate him if he did. He is rather irritable in small ways. You can excite him to frenzy—comparatively speaking—by moving the matches from his dressing-room, or mislaying his sponge or nail scissors; but then it is the servants who get blamed—never me; and in big things he is great! If he became paralysed to-morrow, or lost every penny he possessed, or if!”—Jean’s face sobered—“died, he might suffer tortures, but he would not speak one word of rebellion, and he would keep his interest in other people, and be truly, unfeignedly, ungrudgingly glad that they were so much more fortunate than himself. Oh, he is a marvel! I adore him. I would give worlds to be like him. I am bursting with pride at being the woman he has chosen out of all the world; but he spoils me so, that it’s becoming second nature to want all my own way, so I keep falling farther and farther behind.”“Robert wouldn’t admit that! No doubt he thinks himself the laggard, and you just such another paragon as you have described.”Jean pursed her lips in a whimsical grimace.“No! The droll part of it is, he doesnot. He doesn’t understand me one bit; I’m a continual enigma to him. Half the time he is puzzled out of his wits, and the other half he is—shocked. Such eyes! You should see them staring at me, growing bigger and bigger, when I let myself go, and grumble or rage. He disapproves, but he makes excuses, because I am I, and he loves me, and wouldn’t change me for the greatest paragon alive.” She was silent, smiling mischievously to herself for several minutes, then burst out suddenly:“Can you imagine it, Vanna? I sometimes wish he were not quite so good! It’s aggravating for a sinner like me to be shown up continually against such a contrast. And sometimes it lands one in such fixes... I could tell you such stories of this year!” She snuggled back against her cushions. “Ah, itisgood to have you here. I have so longed for a girl to talk to... The first six months we went about a great deal, paying visits to his friends. The first time I asked him to describe the people, as I knew them only by name. ‘Oh, Meg!’ he said, ‘Meg is the simplest of creatures: kindly, and easy-going as you find ’em. You’ll feel at home in five minutes. No fuss, no ceremony. The sort of house where you feel absolutely at home.’ Well, what wouldyouexpect from that description? I saw a vision of a suburban villa, and a stout, frumpy woman with a fat smile, and packed a modest little semi-evening frock to let her down gently. My dear! it was a mansion, and she was the very smartest creature I have ever beheld. The first glimpse of her in afternoon clothes took away my breath; but there was worse to come. She had asked a dozen people to dinner to meet us, and while we were dressing—it was a summer evening, and quite light—I saw carriages bowling up to the door, and visions in satin dresses trailing up the steps. There was nothing for it; I put on my wretched little frock, eating my heart out the while at the thought of all my trousseau grandeurs lying useless at home, and descended—the bride, the guest of honour—the worst dressed woman in the room! Can you imagine my suffering?”Vanna smiled. She could; and also the manner in which Jean would upbraid her husband after the fray.“And Robert? What had he to say? How did he look when he first saw you alone?”“Radiant, my dear. Beaming! Absolutely, utterly content. Blankly astonished and dismayed to find that I was not the same. Utterly unconscious that my dress had been any different from the rest. Blindly convinced that there had not been one in the room to touch it!”They both laughed, a tender indulgence shining in their eyes. It was the look with which women condone the indiscretion of a child; but Jean was still anxious to expound her own side of the situation.“Yes! It’s charming; but you’ve no idea how trying it can be at times. Other women lament because their husbands complain of their meals. I wish to goodness Robertwouldcomplain. It would make things easier with the maids. Good plain cooks need so much keeping up to the mark, and I never get a chance of grumbling. When the things are unusually bad, and I am mentally rehearsing what I shall say in the kitchen next morning—‘you really must make the soup stronger. The gravy was quite white... Why did the pudding fall to pieces?’—you know the kind of thing—Robert will lean back with a sigh, and say, ‘Ihavehad a good dinner. You’ve eclipsed yourself to-night. I am getting quite spoiled.’ I glare at him, but it’s no use. He says, ‘What is the matter, dear?’ and I see a smug smile on Brewster’s face, and know she will go straight into the kitchen and repeat the whole tale. How can I grumble after that? The wind is taken completely out of my sails. Sometimes I think that for practical, everyday life a saint is even more trouble than a sinner. Then the friends he brings here! You never knew such a motley throng. It may be any one from a duke (figuratively a duke. He has met all sorts of bigwigs, ‘east of Suez’) to a vagrant with broken boots, and not an ‘h’ in his composition. And it’s always the same description: ‘do you mind if I bring a man home to dinner to-night? I met him at —’ some outlandish place—‘and he was awfully decent to me. He is passing through town, and I should like to have him here. Such a good fellow!’ Then, of course, if I have rice pudding, it’s the duke; or if I order in an ice, it’s the vagrant. Once or twice I’ve tried cross-questioning, but it’s no use. If I ask, ‘is he a gentleman, Robert?’ he looks at me with his biggest eyes, and asks, ‘would I ask any one to meetyou, who was not?’ But, bless him! his ideas and mine on that point donotagree. So here, my dear, you behold the novel spectacle of a woman who has only one complaint to make of her husband, that he istoogood! But he loves me, Vanna, more than ever. We haven’t grown a bit stodgy, only just lately I’ve been so ill and depressed. It will be better now you are here... Now tell me about yourself. You’ve had a sad time, but you don’t look sad. You look happy and well. Vanna! you are blushing. What is it? Tell me. There is something—I know there is. Tell me at once!”“Yes, there is something.” Vanna braced herself against the chair, a thrill of nervous foreboding coursing through her veins. She drew off her left glove, which she had purposely left on during tea, and held out the hand, on the third finger of which sparkled a large square diamond. “There is that!”“Vanna! A ring? On your engagement finger! Who gave you that?”“Piers Rendall!”The colour rushed in a crimson flood over Jean’s face; her lips parted in breathless, incredulous surprise.“Piers! Vanna! Youmeanit? Piers? Piers and you? You are engaged? When? Where? For how long?”“At Seacliff. A fortnight ago. But we have loved each other from the first.”“And you never told me; you never said a word.”“No. I have not seen you; but even if I had I could not have spoken. Remember howyoufelt! Could you have discussed Robert with me while you were waiting? I asked Piers not to announce the engagement until I had told you. No one has been told so far, except his mother.”“Mrs Rendall? She knows? It is settled then? Really absolutely settled?”“Certainly. I told you so. A fortnight ago.”A little chill of offence sounded in Vanna’s voice. Jean’s congratulations were a trifle too long delayed; her surprise too blank to be flattering. “Aren’t you going to congratulate me, Jean?”“But—but—You told me—you said—the doctor said—”“That I should never marry. Just so! That fact remains. Piers knows; I did not deceive him; he knew months ago. He came up to interview Dr Greatman himself. We know that we can never marry, but we love each other, and mean to take what happiness remains. No one ever forbade me to be engaged.”“How can you be engaged? What for? Engagednotto be married? It’s absurd. What could you say? How could you explain? What would people think?”Vanna laughed—a short, hard laugh. Still Jean had not congratulated her, nor said one loving word.“If it is a false position, it is just those ‘people’ of whom you speak who force us into it. The conventions of society don’t allow a man and a woman to enjoy each other’s society undisturbed. To be engaged is the only way in which they can gain the liberty. Therefore that is the way we must take. There is nothing else to be done.”“And—when youdon’tmarry? You are both well off, and not too young. People will expect you to marry at once, and when you don’t—”“That is our own affair. They will be told at the beginning that it will be a long engagement, and however much they may wonder among themselves, they will hardly have the impertinence to question us on the subject. I imagine they will be polite, and kind, and congratulate us. I don’t think there will be many who will hear the news without speakingonekind word.”The inference was undisguised—was intended to be undisguised. Jean flushed again, and knitted her delicate brows.“I don’t mean to be unkind, but it sounds so wild, so impracticable, so utterly unlike you, Vanna. Where will you live? How can you meet? You are only twenty-five. People are so ready to talk. What do you propose todo?”“To go on with our lives. I have money, thank goodness. I must have a little house—it won’t be rich and luxurious like yours—just a little corner where I can put my things, and feel at home. I must make a sacrifice to convention and have a sheep dog, too, I suppose—some lonely woman like myself, who will be thankful for a home. She can look after the servants, and the cleaning, and understand from the first that she leavesmealone. Then I shall find some work. I have an idea working out in my head which I hope will bring interest and occupation. And Piers shall come to see me. We shall have a place where we can meet in peace and comfort.”“Vanna, you won’t have peace—it’s impossible. Oh, I know it’s hard that your life should be spoiled, terribly, terribly hard; but remember what the doctor said—that you had no right to spoil the man’s life also. When you repeated that to me that afternoon you said there was no fighting against it. If you hold Piers to you now, you will steal his chance of wife and home and children.”“Ah, there they are again—those children!” Vanna’s lip curled in bitter passion. “Those visionary children who are for ever cropping up to block the way. No legal form can make a wife and home. I am more to Piers than any other woman, despite all my limitations; his home is where I am. Why should I be sacrificed, a live woman, with all my powers strong within me, for the sake of problematic infants who may never arrive? And if they did, is it all joy to be a father? Are you sure that the joy equals the pain? Your father was broken-hearted that day when you left him with a smile. You did not trouble about him; why should I give up everything for the sake of possible children?”There was silence for several moments; then Jean spoke:“Vanna, you talk as if I did notwantyou to be happy. Ask Robert! He’ll tell you how often I have spoken about you; how I’ve cried in the midst of my own happiness to think you could never have the same. But this! Oh, it’s a mistake, dear; it’s a mistake; it will land you in worse trouble. Piers will never be content; you won’t be content yourself; it won’t be happiness, but a long, long fret.”“Other people—married people, happy married people—look back and call the years of their engagement the happiest time of their lives. I’ve heard them. You’ve heard them yourself.”“Yes. But why? They lived in the future, building castles, the castles in which they were to live. If you could have heard them talking when they were alone, you would have found that it was almost always about the future—When shall we be married? Where shall we go for our honeymoon? Where shall we live? They imagined it all sunshine, all joy; and when the reality came, and its shadows, and ups and downs, they looked back, and realised how happy and unburdened they had been. But, Vanna dear, if you take away the future—if there is no looking forward—a dread, instead of a hope—”Vanna shivered, but she held herself erect, and took no heed of the hand held out towards her. She looked round the beautiful, luxurious room, at the glowing stained-glass window, which shut out the grey aspect of the outer world, and as she did so, bitterness arose. Once more the knife-edged question cleft her heart. Why should the ugliness of life be turned into colour and beauty for one traveller, while the other might not even take to herself a crumb of life’s feast without reproach and misgiving? A moment before she had craved for Jean’s sympathy; now she felt cold, and hard, and resentful, unwilling to accept such sympathy if it were offered. Jean was too happy to understand. She was one of fortune’s favourites, for whom life had always been smooth and easy. How could she realise the hunger of one who had stood continually outside the feast? Of what use were sweet words if understanding were lacking? Her voice when she spoke again sounded chill and aloof:“You need not enlarge. Piers and I realise too well that our lot is different from other happy lovers, but we have both known what it is to feel lonely and sad, and we believe that we shall find consolation in each other’s love. We mean to try, at least. Our minds are firmly made up on that point, whatever our friends may think. If you wish to cast me off, Jean—I shall be sorry—but, I tell you frankly, it will make no difference.”“Vanna,don’t! Don’t be so bitter; don’t speak to me in that voice; I can’t bear it,” cried Jean with gasping breath. The sound of her voice brought Vanna’s eyes upon her in startled inquiry, and at the sight of her face resentment vanished, in a spasm of love and fear. So white she looked, so spent, so pitifully frail and broken. Jean was ill: this was no moment to trouble her with exhausting mental problems. Vanna felt a swift pang of penitence at the thought that she who had arrived in the character of nurse and consoler had already contrived to bring about a crisis of weakness.In a trice her arms were supporting the lovely head, her lips pressed to the white cheek, her lips cooing out tenderest reassurements.“There, darling, there! I was a brute, a mean, bitter, grudging brute. Forgive me, and we’ll never quarrel again. I know it, Jean! All you have said, andmorelI did make a stand; I refused to listen, but I love him so; I’m so hungry for happiness—I couldn’t stand out! Whatever comes, whatever happens in the future, we shall havesometime together. Think how you would feel in my place, and you’ll understand. You and Robert mean so much to us both, youmustwish us well.”Jean cried, and clung to Vanna’s hands with feverish protests of love and fealty; but she allowed herself to be soothed and petted and waited upon with a docility as new as it was touching. When Vanna skilfully led the conversation to brighter topics, she slowly regained her composure, and some of her old brightness, but her face still showed signs of her distress, and Vanna inwardly quailed at the thought of Robert’s wrath when he returned and discovered the manner in which she had inaugurated her arrival.For every one’s sake she considered it wise to avoid a second argument that night, and returned to her own room to unpack before Robert arrived, leaving Jean to break the news to him as she pleased. The sound of his cheery whistle came up to her from the hall; she heard the doors open and shut, and flushed and paled as she followed in imagination the conversation in the room below. A quarter of an hour passed, then came footsteps, and a tap at the door.“Vanna! It’s I! May I speak to you for a moment?”The voice was cordial, with its old cheery note. At the sound of it Vanna dropped the bundle of clothes which she was holding, and hurried to fling open the door. Robert was standing before her, pale and, if possible, thinner than ever, but with a great tenderness shining in his eyes. Without preamble he took both her hands in his, and said:“Jean has told me. She is your oldest friend. We want you to feel that this is your home until you have one of your own. Ask Piers whenever you like. He will always be welcome. There’s the little den; it is at your service. We’ll do everything we can for you, Vanna.”But he did not congratulate her, and the lack smote on Vanna’s heart.“Thank you, Robert,” she said wistfully. “That’s like you. I am very grateful, but, but can’t you say you areglad? Piers and I love each other very much, and we have been very lonely. Robert, you, of all people, ought to be able to understand the possibility of a spiritual love!”But Robert only flushed, and looked distressed.“We are not spiritual beings yet, Vanna. That’s the trouble. I understand the temptation. I don’t presume to judge. Piers is a better man than I. He may be able to rise where I should sink.”“What wouldyoudo if you were in our place? If Jean were like me, and you loved her, but could not marry?”Robert’s eyes craved pardon, but his lips did not hesitate:“I should take a passage in the first boat, and put the width of the world between us.”

Vanna begged a month’s grace before the announcement of her engagement was made public, and before half that time had passed, had said good-bye to the seaside cottage in which she had known such peaceful, happy days, and, in response to an urgent invitation, had gone to pay a long visit to Jean.

“You said the time would come when I should need you,” wrote Jean, in a long pencilled scrawl, “and it has arrived! I need you badly, dear; I crave for you. At this moment I feel I must either have a kind, understanding woman near me, or die! I am so ill, Vanna, and so weak, and so frightened! It has been such a long, long time, and I never knew before what it was like to be ill. One does not grow used to it—it grows harder and harder, and the days are so eternally long. I don’t apologise for asking you to exchange one invalid for another; another person might think it hard, but not you, you dear angel—it will be an inducement to you. And you’ll stay until it is over, won’t you, and keep house, and look after Robert, when I’m upstairs? Oh, the joy, and the ease, and the comfort it would be to see you walk in at this moment, and to know that you’d come to stay! I want you more than I’ve ever wanted you before; and if you say no, I’ll collapse at once, and it will be your fault, and you’ll repent for ever after. Wire your reply.”

Vanna smiled happily as she read the characteristic words. Yes, her time had come. She had waited to a good purpose. Jean needed her, and she needed Jean; she was longing eagerly for long, heart-to-heart talks with her only woman friend. Except those few short days at Seacliff, the two friends had not met since the day of the wedding, and there would be so much to hear, so much to say. What would Jean have to say to her great news? She recalled Jean’s face of dismay as, kneeling on the ground, she had listened to Dr Greatman’s verdict; heard again the tremble in her voice as she asked, “Is there no escape?” Surely Jean would not blame her, because when happiness had been placed into her hand she had not had strength to thrust it away? Surely out of the riches of her own wealth she would rejoice that some crumbs had fallen to her friend? What would Robert say? He was a man: he would judge from a man’s standpoint, with his head rather than with his heart. Vanna shrank nervously from Robert’s disapproval. He was one of the simple, upright men who are apt to be hard judges. To them there are but two courses in life—a right and a wrong. They have neither sympathy nor understanding for those who pitifully essay to find byways by which to escape the rigours of the path. Yet when love had seized Robert in its grip he had made short work of obstacles—had laughed to scorn Vanna’s prudent advice. When she had condemned him, and refused her help, he had replied that it was not needed. He required no help from outside. Well! Vanna lifted her chin with proud resolve; she herself could be equally independent. It would make the future more difficult if Robert and Jean adopted a disapproving attitude, but for the moment she need not trouble herself about such a contingency. She would allow Jean time for the discussion of her own affairs before seizing a quiet opportunity for telling her own great news.

The tall town house, with its narrow staircase, and high, box-like rooms, felt close and stuffy after the wind-swept cottage, but it glowed with the colour dear to the heart of its mistress, and was refreshingly different from the ordinary houses of that most inartistic age. Jean had copied her interior from pictures rather than from upholsterers’ catalogues, and her principal furniture had been made from her own designs. Robert had placed no limit on her expenditure; he could not afford a large house, but she was to have “everything she wanted” for the small one which she had graciously consented to occupy. Such were his instructions, and Jean had proceeded to carry them into effect with a literal interpretation of the words. Being one of the happy people who always know exactly what they want, no time was wasted in discussion, the only difficulty being to procure fabrics as beautiful and artistically tinted as those which were pictured in her fertile brain. When the last treasure had been discovered, and fitted into its niche, the completed whole was a triumph of good taste, beautiful and restful; a home of which any man might be proud. Robert was proud of it because it was Jean’s doing, and spectators waxed enthusiastic in Jean’s praise. For himself, he would have been as well satisfied with a walnut suite and moreen curtains, perhaps more so, for he felt uneasily that he should never be able to smoke comfortably in such fine surroundings, nor to cross a floor without pausing to rub his boots. Neither of the two had a glimmering of an idea of what it cost to furnish a house; but when the bills came in Robert had a disagreeable shock. The sum which he had laid aside was ludicrously inadequate, and he was obliged to have recourse to “selling a share or two,” and so reduce his already slender capital. But Jean was content. Jean was proud of her house; all other considerations were second to that.

Vanna met her friend in the drawing-room, which, being situated at the back of the house, with a depressing outlook, had the ordinary window replaced by one of rich stained glass. Gas jets had been arranged outside the window, which, being lit at dusk, served to show the glowing colours of the design through the evening hours. On this summer afternoon the mellowed light, and absence of prospect, combined to give the room the aspect of a shrine, and Jean moving slowly forward was certainly beautiful enough for a high-priestess. She wore a wonderful flowing robe of a dull blue, softly falling silk, the long open sleeves hanging almost to the ground, and showing her slim arms encased in some thin metallic substance, in which gold shot into silver, and silver back to gold. The folds at the neck were caught together with a metal clasp and chains, and slippers of the same colour peeped out beneath the sweeping skirts. The first glance at her face, however, brought with it a thrill of fear, for suffering and weariness were written there with an eloquence beyond the power of words. The eyes were haggard and encircled with violet shadows, the cheeks had lost their curves, the lips drooped, yet, as ever, Jean’s beauty rose triumphant over all drawbacks. Vanna asked herself if she were not more beautiful than ever, for the childlike pathos of expression added the needed touch of softness to her features.

“Oh, Vanna, you blessing! You have come at last.”

“I’ve come, darling. Come to stay! As long as you want me.”

Jean kissed her again and again, the tears gathering in the lovely eyes, but she dashed them away, and in another minute was laughing and chattering in her old gay voice.

“Bring tea, bring tea! And I’m engaged, remember! Not a soul is to disturb me this afternoon. Vanna, you look sweet. If you go on improving at this rate, you’ll soon beat me hollow. Sit here, opposite, where I can see you. Oh, you look so fresh, and happy, and well! You are like a breath of sea air. I’ve been stifling for months in this stuffy room, with not even a tree to look at, to remind me that it’s spring.” She threw an impatient glance at the stained-glass window which had made such a deep hole in Robert’s purse. “Robert goes out at nine, and gets home at seven. Oh, my dear, such days! I’ve had such a dose of my own society that I’m sickened. If there’s a person on earth I detest at this moment, it’s Jean Gloucester.”

Vanna smiled whimsically.

“It doesn’t look like it. You seem to me to take a very fair amount of interest in her still. You look as charming as ever, you wonderful person. What a marvellous gown! Where in the name of mystery did you evolve it? and how many coffers of gold did you squander in the purchase?”

Jean had the grace to blush.

“Oh, well! one must be respectable. Itisrather a marvel. It was designed for me by an artist woman who has gone in for gowns; but no earthly inducement will ever make me tell what it cost. It’s so soothing to have something becoming that it’s been as good as medicine. Looked at in that way, it’scheap! And I have been so good about money all the year. Rob balanced our books last week, and we were only a hundred out. Very good, I call it, when you remember that I hadnoexperience. The first time we had asparagus for dinner I couldn’t eat a bit. I just sat staring at every stick. You have always to pay for experience. Besides, as I said to Rob, you are only newly married once, and it would be a sin to rub off the bloom worrying about pennies. It’s silly to spoil the present for the sake of what may happen in a dozen years. We may be dead, or if we are not, we shall probably be better off. Rob’s position will be improved, the boys’ education will be finished, and father can allow me more. Men are so fussy about capital... Vanna, do you realise that it is a whole year since I’ve seen you? You have told me very little about yourself in your letters. There’s so much I want to hear. Not about Miggles to-day—we’ll leave that. I don’t want to cry. Tell me about yourself!”

“Oh, not yet! One thing at a time. I’ve not half finished with you,” said Vanna with a thrill of nervousness, which she tried her best to conceal. “There are a hundred things that I am longing to hear. But first about Robert. How is he? Well—flourishing—giving satisfaction—as nice as ever?”

“Nice!” Jean tossed her head in disdain. “What a paltry word. He is the best man out of Heaven, my dear. That is the only description forhim. I’ve lived with him for eighteen months, and have not discovered one single, solitary fault. That’s simple truth, not exaggeration. I honestly believe he is perfect.”

“And with you for a wife! You are a darling, Jean; but method was never your strong point, and by your own account your housekeeping hasn’t always been a success. Does he continue to smile through all the upsets, and forgettings, and domestic crises, such as you described to us at Seacliff? I can’t believe it of a mere man!”

“Oh, I didn’t mean to say that he preserves a dead-level calm. I should hate him if he did. He is rather irritable in small ways. You can excite him to frenzy—comparatively speaking—by moving the matches from his dressing-room, or mislaying his sponge or nail scissors; but then it is the servants who get blamed—never me; and in big things he is great! If he became paralysed to-morrow, or lost every penny he possessed, or if!”—Jean’s face sobered—“died, he might suffer tortures, but he would not speak one word of rebellion, and he would keep his interest in other people, and be truly, unfeignedly, ungrudgingly glad that they were so much more fortunate than himself. Oh, he is a marvel! I adore him. I would give worlds to be like him. I am bursting with pride at being the woman he has chosen out of all the world; but he spoils me so, that it’s becoming second nature to want all my own way, so I keep falling farther and farther behind.”

“Robert wouldn’t admit that! No doubt he thinks himself the laggard, and you just such another paragon as you have described.”

Jean pursed her lips in a whimsical grimace.

“No! The droll part of it is, he doesnot. He doesn’t understand me one bit; I’m a continual enigma to him. Half the time he is puzzled out of his wits, and the other half he is—shocked. Such eyes! You should see them staring at me, growing bigger and bigger, when I let myself go, and grumble or rage. He disapproves, but he makes excuses, because I am I, and he loves me, and wouldn’t change me for the greatest paragon alive.” She was silent, smiling mischievously to herself for several minutes, then burst out suddenly:

“Can you imagine it, Vanna? I sometimes wish he were not quite so good! It’s aggravating for a sinner like me to be shown up continually against such a contrast. And sometimes it lands one in such fixes... I could tell you such stories of this year!” She snuggled back against her cushions. “Ah, itisgood to have you here. I have so longed for a girl to talk to... The first six months we went about a great deal, paying visits to his friends. The first time I asked him to describe the people, as I knew them only by name. ‘Oh, Meg!’ he said, ‘Meg is the simplest of creatures: kindly, and easy-going as you find ’em. You’ll feel at home in five minutes. No fuss, no ceremony. The sort of house where you feel absolutely at home.’ Well, what wouldyouexpect from that description? I saw a vision of a suburban villa, and a stout, frumpy woman with a fat smile, and packed a modest little semi-evening frock to let her down gently. My dear! it was a mansion, and she was the very smartest creature I have ever beheld. The first glimpse of her in afternoon clothes took away my breath; but there was worse to come. She had asked a dozen people to dinner to meet us, and while we were dressing—it was a summer evening, and quite light—I saw carriages bowling up to the door, and visions in satin dresses trailing up the steps. There was nothing for it; I put on my wretched little frock, eating my heart out the while at the thought of all my trousseau grandeurs lying useless at home, and descended—the bride, the guest of honour—the worst dressed woman in the room! Can you imagine my suffering?”

Vanna smiled. She could; and also the manner in which Jean would upbraid her husband after the fray.

“And Robert? What had he to say? How did he look when he first saw you alone?”

“Radiant, my dear. Beaming! Absolutely, utterly content. Blankly astonished and dismayed to find that I was not the same. Utterly unconscious that my dress had been any different from the rest. Blindly convinced that there had not been one in the room to touch it!”

They both laughed, a tender indulgence shining in their eyes. It was the look with which women condone the indiscretion of a child; but Jean was still anxious to expound her own side of the situation.

“Yes! It’s charming; but you’ve no idea how trying it can be at times. Other women lament because their husbands complain of their meals. I wish to goodness Robertwouldcomplain. It would make things easier with the maids. Good plain cooks need so much keeping up to the mark, and I never get a chance of grumbling. When the things are unusually bad, and I am mentally rehearsing what I shall say in the kitchen next morning—‘you really must make the soup stronger. The gravy was quite white... Why did the pudding fall to pieces?’—you know the kind of thing—Robert will lean back with a sigh, and say, ‘Ihavehad a good dinner. You’ve eclipsed yourself to-night. I am getting quite spoiled.’ I glare at him, but it’s no use. He says, ‘What is the matter, dear?’ and I see a smug smile on Brewster’s face, and know she will go straight into the kitchen and repeat the whole tale. How can I grumble after that? The wind is taken completely out of my sails. Sometimes I think that for practical, everyday life a saint is even more trouble than a sinner. Then the friends he brings here! You never knew such a motley throng. It may be any one from a duke (figuratively a duke. He has met all sorts of bigwigs, ‘east of Suez’) to a vagrant with broken boots, and not an ‘h’ in his composition. And it’s always the same description: ‘do you mind if I bring a man home to dinner to-night? I met him at —’ some outlandish place—‘and he was awfully decent to me. He is passing through town, and I should like to have him here. Such a good fellow!’ Then, of course, if I have rice pudding, it’s the duke; or if I order in an ice, it’s the vagrant. Once or twice I’ve tried cross-questioning, but it’s no use. If I ask, ‘is he a gentleman, Robert?’ he looks at me with his biggest eyes, and asks, ‘would I ask any one to meetyou, who was not?’ But, bless him! his ideas and mine on that point donotagree. So here, my dear, you behold the novel spectacle of a woman who has only one complaint to make of her husband, that he istoogood! But he loves me, Vanna, more than ever. We haven’t grown a bit stodgy, only just lately I’ve been so ill and depressed. It will be better now you are here... Now tell me about yourself. You’ve had a sad time, but you don’t look sad. You look happy and well. Vanna! you are blushing. What is it? Tell me. There is something—I know there is. Tell me at once!”

“Yes, there is something.” Vanna braced herself against the chair, a thrill of nervous foreboding coursing through her veins. She drew off her left glove, which she had purposely left on during tea, and held out the hand, on the third finger of which sparkled a large square diamond. “There is that!”

“Vanna! A ring? On your engagement finger! Who gave you that?”

“Piers Rendall!”

The colour rushed in a crimson flood over Jean’s face; her lips parted in breathless, incredulous surprise.

“Piers! Vanna! Youmeanit? Piers? Piers and you? You are engaged? When? Where? For how long?”

“At Seacliff. A fortnight ago. But we have loved each other from the first.”

“And you never told me; you never said a word.”

“No. I have not seen you; but even if I had I could not have spoken. Remember howyoufelt! Could you have discussed Robert with me while you were waiting? I asked Piers not to announce the engagement until I had told you. No one has been told so far, except his mother.”

“Mrs Rendall? She knows? It is settled then? Really absolutely settled?”

“Certainly. I told you so. A fortnight ago.”

A little chill of offence sounded in Vanna’s voice. Jean’s congratulations were a trifle too long delayed; her surprise too blank to be flattering. “Aren’t you going to congratulate me, Jean?”

“But—but—You told me—you said—the doctor said—”

“That I should never marry. Just so! That fact remains. Piers knows; I did not deceive him; he knew months ago. He came up to interview Dr Greatman himself. We know that we can never marry, but we love each other, and mean to take what happiness remains. No one ever forbade me to be engaged.”

“How can you be engaged? What for? Engagednotto be married? It’s absurd. What could you say? How could you explain? What would people think?”

Vanna laughed—a short, hard laugh. Still Jean had not congratulated her, nor said one loving word.

“If it is a false position, it is just those ‘people’ of whom you speak who force us into it. The conventions of society don’t allow a man and a woman to enjoy each other’s society undisturbed. To be engaged is the only way in which they can gain the liberty. Therefore that is the way we must take. There is nothing else to be done.”

“And—when youdon’tmarry? You are both well off, and not too young. People will expect you to marry at once, and when you don’t—”

“That is our own affair. They will be told at the beginning that it will be a long engagement, and however much they may wonder among themselves, they will hardly have the impertinence to question us on the subject. I imagine they will be polite, and kind, and congratulate us. I don’t think there will be many who will hear the news without speakingonekind word.”

The inference was undisguised—was intended to be undisguised. Jean flushed again, and knitted her delicate brows.

“I don’t mean to be unkind, but it sounds so wild, so impracticable, so utterly unlike you, Vanna. Where will you live? How can you meet? You are only twenty-five. People are so ready to talk. What do you propose todo?”

“To go on with our lives. I have money, thank goodness. I must have a little house—it won’t be rich and luxurious like yours—just a little corner where I can put my things, and feel at home. I must make a sacrifice to convention and have a sheep dog, too, I suppose—some lonely woman like myself, who will be thankful for a home. She can look after the servants, and the cleaning, and understand from the first that she leavesmealone. Then I shall find some work. I have an idea working out in my head which I hope will bring interest and occupation. And Piers shall come to see me. We shall have a place where we can meet in peace and comfort.”

“Vanna, you won’t have peace—it’s impossible. Oh, I know it’s hard that your life should be spoiled, terribly, terribly hard; but remember what the doctor said—that you had no right to spoil the man’s life also. When you repeated that to me that afternoon you said there was no fighting against it. If you hold Piers to you now, you will steal his chance of wife and home and children.”

“Ah, there they are again—those children!” Vanna’s lip curled in bitter passion. “Those visionary children who are for ever cropping up to block the way. No legal form can make a wife and home. I am more to Piers than any other woman, despite all my limitations; his home is where I am. Why should I be sacrificed, a live woman, with all my powers strong within me, for the sake of problematic infants who may never arrive? And if they did, is it all joy to be a father? Are you sure that the joy equals the pain? Your father was broken-hearted that day when you left him with a smile. You did not trouble about him; why should I give up everything for the sake of possible children?”

There was silence for several moments; then Jean spoke:

“Vanna, you talk as if I did notwantyou to be happy. Ask Robert! He’ll tell you how often I have spoken about you; how I’ve cried in the midst of my own happiness to think you could never have the same. But this! Oh, it’s a mistake, dear; it’s a mistake; it will land you in worse trouble. Piers will never be content; you won’t be content yourself; it won’t be happiness, but a long, long fret.”

“Other people—married people, happy married people—look back and call the years of their engagement the happiest time of their lives. I’ve heard them. You’ve heard them yourself.”

“Yes. But why? They lived in the future, building castles, the castles in which they were to live. If you could have heard them talking when they were alone, you would have found that it was almost always about the future—When shall we be married? Where shall we go for our honeymoon? Where shall we live? They imagined it all sunshine, all joy; and when the reality came, and its shadows, and ups and downs, they looked back, and realised how happy and unburdened they had been. But, Vanna dear, if you take away the future—if there is no looking forward—a dread, instead of a hope—”

Vanna shivered, but she held herself erect, and took no heed of the hand held out towards her. She looked round the beautiful, luxurious room, at the glowing stained-glass window, which shut out the grey aspect of the outer world, and as she did so, bitterness arose. Once more the knife-edged question cleft her heart. Why should the ugliness of life be turned into colour and beauty for one traveller, while the other might not even take to herself a crumb of life’s feast without reproach and misgiving? A moment before she had craved for Jean’s sympathy; now she felt cold, and hard, and resentful, unwilling to accept such sympathy if it were offered. Jean was too happy to understand. She was one of fortune’s favourites, for whom life had always been smooth and easy. How could she realise the hunger of one who had stood continually outside the feast? Of what use were sweet words if understanding were lacking? Her voice when she spoke again sounded chill and aloof:

“You need not enlarge. Piers and I realise too well that our lot is different from other happy lovers, but we have both known what it is to feel lonely and sad, and we believe that we shall find consolation in each other’s love. We mean to try, at least. Our minds are firmly made up on that point, whatever our friends may think. If you wish to cast me off, Jean—I shall be sorry—but, I tell you frankly, it will make no difference.”

“Vanna,don’t! Don’t be so bitter; don’t speak to me in that voice; I can’t bear it,” cried Jean with gasping breath. The sound of her voice brought Vanna’s eyes upon her in startled inquiry, and at the sight of her face resentment vanished, in a spasm of love and fear. So white she looked, so spent, so pitifully frail and broken. Jean was ill: this was no moment to trouble her with exhausting mental problems. Vanna felt a swift pang of penitence at the thought that she who had arrived in the character of nurse and consoler had already contrived to bring about a crisis of weakness.

In a trice her arms were supporting the lovely head, her lips pressed to the white cheek, her lips cooing out tenderest reassurements.

“There, darling, there! I was a brute, a mean, bitter, grudging brute. Forgive me, and we’ll never quarrel again. I know it, Jean! All you have said, andmorelI did make a stand; I refused to listen, but I love him so; I’m so hungry for happiness—I couldn’t stand out! Whatever comes, whatever happens in the future, we shall havesometime together. Think how you would feel in my place, and you’ll understand. You and Robert mean so much to us both, youmustwish us well.”

Jean cried, and clung to Vanna’s hands with feverish protests of love and fealty; but she allowed herself to be soothed and petted and waited upon with a docility as new as it was touching. When Vanna skilfully led the conversation to brighter topics, she slowly regained her composure, and some of her old brightness, but her face still showed signs of her distress, and Vanna inwardly quailed at the thought of Robert’s wrath when he returned and discovered the manner in which she had inaugurated her arrival.

For every one’s sake she considered it wise to avoid a second argument that night, and returned to her own room to unpack before Robert arrived, leaving Jean to break the news to him as she pleased. The sound of his cheery whistle came up to her from the hall; she heard the doors open and shut, and flushed and paled as she followed in imagination the conversation in the room below. A quarter of an hour passed, then came footsteps, and a tap at the door.

“Vanna! It’s I! May I speak to you for a moment?”

The voice was cordial, with its old cheery note. At the sound of it Vanna dropped the bundle of clothes which she was holding, and hurried to fling open the door. Robert was standing before her, pale and, if possible, thinner than ever, but with a great tenderness shining in his eyes. Without preamble he took both her hands in his, and said:

“Jean has told me. She is your oldest friend. We want you to feel that this is your home until you have one of your own. Ask Piers whenever you like. He will always be welcome. There’s the little den; it is at your service. We’ll do everything we can for you, Vanna.”

But he did not congratulate her, and the lack smote on Vanna’s heart.

“Thank you, Robert,” she said wistfully. “That’s like you. I am very grateful, but, but can’t you say you areglad? Piers and I love each other very much, and we have been very lonely. Robert, you, of all people, ought to be able to understand the possibility of a spiritual love!”

But Robert only flushed, and looked distressed.

“We are not spiritual beings yet, Vanna. That’s the trouble. I understand the temptation. I don’t presume to judge. Piers is a better man than I. He may be able to rise where I should sink.”

“What wouldyoudo if you were in our place? If Jean were like me, and you loved her, but could not marry?”

Robert’s eyes craved pardon, but his lips did not hesitate:

“I should take a passage in the first boat, and put the width of the world between us.”

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