Peter Ramsay had come down to spend the Christmas holidays at Plas Afon in a very bad temper, both with himself and his world.
He was perfectly aware that he had been over-hasty in his struggle with vested interests, but what irritated him most of all was the knowledge that he had, as it were, cut the ground from under his own feet, so that further fighting was impossible. He could, of course, go over to Vienna, and learn a great deal under Pagenheim; but he would only have to come home again and begin where he had left off; which was silly--intensely silly! There are few things more annoying than the knowledge that you have given yourself away needlessly, and that a very slight application of a drag might have prevented the apple-cart from being overturned. The whole affair seemed now almost childish in its crudity. What the deuce did it matter whether a hogshead or a pint of beer were drunk, or if one patient the more died, instead of living to die in due time of something worse!
He was glooming out of the window over such thoughts as these when Helen, after seeing Lady Smith-Biggs start--despite her lunch--in a terrible fuss lest she should be too late for tea, came back to the drawing-room. Aunt Em, as always, had discreetly retired to her room, whether for work or sleep none knew, so they were alone. It was for the first time, and Helen seized her opportunity, for she had something she wished to say to him. So she crossed to where he stood, his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets.
"Ned tells me you have made up your mind to Vienna," she said kindly. There was a sort of forlornness about this strong, capable man which always touched her.
"I have, Mrs. Tressilian," he replied somewhat defiantly. "I shall go to Pagenheim, and find out--things."
She smiled. "And come back, I suppose, to give No. 36 in the Queen's ward a chance of life?"
"If any one will provide me with a private hospital meanwhile, Mrs. Tressilian," he answered, "for I don't see my way to it otherwise."
She flushed a little eagerly, as if the conversation were taking the turn she had desired.
"I am so glad you say that, Dr. Ramsay," she replied, "for it helps me to say something. You know I have left the hospital--at least I am not going back. Now I have to live somewhere; where matters little. And--despite what you thought once--I am quite a decent nurse; a good one if--if I am keenly interested. If I were to take a small house outside Blackborough--or anywhere else--and--and make a regular surgical ward out of one room, would you--would you try that operation?"
He stared at her. "But why on earth----" he began.
"For many reasons!" she interrupted hastily. "Chiefly because I confess to feeling a responsibility."
"Or my lack of it!" he put in dryly. "I'm afraid not, Mrs. Tressilian; it would cost too much. To be frank--you haven't the money, neither have I."
"Money!" she echoed, a trifle scornfully. "Oh! it isn't a question of money. Ned would find that. I have spoken to him, and he is quite ready to help."
Peter Ramsay became very stiff. "That is extremely kind of him, and it is extremely kind of you also----"
"I am only thinking of No. 36," she interpolated warningly.
"I am perfectly aware of that fact," he replied; "but may I remind you of another--that No. 36 is only one out of, say, a million who are very possibly better dead and out of the way? My cutting him about might be a selfish pleasure; my duty might be--euthanasia!"
She looked at him vexedly. "I do not dictate to you a doctor's duty," she said with spirit, "but I know that a nurse's is 'to save life and defy death at all costs.' Have I got that quite pat?"
He smiled. "You have an excellent memory, Mrs. Tressilian," he replied, "and--and I am grateful for the suggestion, but it is quite out of the question. Perhaps when I return from Vienna I may be able to--to do my duty. At present I ought to be starting for my walk over the hills. Lord Blackborough has promised to pick me up at Dinas--the motor is to meet him there--and as this is my last day----"
"Are you leaving us to-morrow?" she asked quickly.
For an instant he felt inclined to confess that he had had no previous intention of departing before the New Year, but he swallowed his vexation at his own hasty decision, and said rather lamely, "I am afraid I must--I ought just to give a look round the London hospitals before I go abroad."
"I suppose it would be better," she assented sarcastically. "I have always understood that they are really not bad."
"Except for the beer," he answered coolly, and left her.
But though it was easy enough to dismiss Helen and her suggestions in this cavalier fashion, he could not dismiss a feeling of irritation at her implied disapproval. The faintest hint of it always roused resentment in him and a desire to make that disapproval utterly unreasonable. So, as he breasted the hills, intending to walk over their summits, and when time was up drop down on Dinas and the motor, his thoughts were busy with the possibility of fitting in No. 36 in the Queen's ward with his plans for the future.
There was always the hidden hundred pounds--if it still existed! He had a great mind to see if it did, since he was so close to its hiding-place.
Would he have time? He looked at his watch, and then gave a glance seaward. The estuary, now at flood tide, lay silver in the winter sunshine, and not more than halfway across it he could discern a slowly-moving black speck. The boat, of course. If that were so, he would have ample time, and for a smoke also. He sat down, and watched the small black speck, wondering what had delayed those three. It seemed to be going faster now; but even so, there was time and to spare. An hour and a half at least ere they could possibly crest those further hills and drop down into the valley. And then--then, by the computation of experience, it would be at least an hour ere Ned Blackborough would tear himself away!
Peter Ramsay had rather a contempt for love. It was to him a physiological disease, the violence of which argued a lack of self-control. And the beautiful girl who had never seen a sixpence, though very charming, appeared to him to be a most unsuitable wife for any man. For his idea of a wife was distinctly some one who could comfort and coddle, and--without open words--prevent one from making an ass of oneself.
Yes! he had made an ass of himself; but, concerning No. 36, there was no reason why he should not take his own way. After all, there was nothing but life. The metaphysicians would put thought first, but it was "Ergo sum, cogito," not the converse--at any rate to common-sense.
Nothing was susceptible to absolute proof except life and death, and they probably were mere conditions of matter.
As he looked out, the light waves from the faintly declining sun were turning the invisible vapour about the higher hills into a filmy mist-veil which seemed to hang between him and the distant view. His eye seemed to detect in it a ceaseless shimmer, an almost imperceptible vibration.
That was it, truly! The motes in a sunbeam--even he himself for that matter--were but transient aggregations of the atoms in their unending dance of life and death. What would they hive into, like swarming bees? A man or a mouse--who could tell? Only the master of the ceremonies in this dance macabre. So the question of life or death was already settled for No. 36, though, so far as he--Peter Ramsay--was concerned, it depended on the existence or non-existence of that miserable pittance of a hundred pounds. But all the sanctions, all the mental and moral backings of humanity, depended on something which could not be proved to exist.
He rose with a shrug of the shoulders, put out his pipe, and started on again. Life or death seemed to him to hang on that hundred pounds. He did not much care which; the odds were distinctly on death.
As he turned ere dipping down into the valley which lay between him and the gap, he gave a last look at the silver shield of the estuary. The boat must have reached the shelter of the further shadow--unless it had gone down! Life and Death--Death and Life! An even balance, despite the surgeon's skill; despite even money.
As a matter of fact, the boat had at last reached the opposite shore, and Ned Blackborough, feeling savage with himself and Fate, was standing by holding the rope taut, while Ted, visibly triumphant, was lifting Aura bodily from the boat across the intervening yards of slush and seaweed.
He set her down gently with a frank "That's all right," and she, looking up at him, smiled her thanks.
"I'm so sorry you hurt your arm," she said to Ned rather condescendingly. "It is lucky Ted could row so well, isn't it?"
"Very lucky," replied Ned, feeling aggrieved. He had gone on pulling against that miscounted tide till he positively could no more, and even now the pain of his ill-mended arm made him feel almost sick. He had been forced to give in, and though Ted had been perfectly within his rights in failing to let Aura know that the disability was--well! not absolutely blameworthy--he need not have sculled so confoundedly well.
He had been a picture to look at, bending easily to the long stroke while Ned was idly steering.
"We had better take the Crudel valley," said the latter as a bye-path showed up a lonely glen; "it isn't half as pretty as this, but it is shorter, and we haven't much time. I delayed you horribly."
Aura smiled tolerantly. "But we came along splendidly afterwards, didn't we?"
"You know this country awfully well," remarked Ted, feeling the urgent need of generosity. "I haven't an idea where we are."
But Ned was in no humour for patronage.
"I happen to hold the mineral rights of the Crudel valley in rather a queer, roundabout way," he replied. "They went with a property my uncle had bought in Shropshire--but that is beside the point. Naturally, with all the fuss there has been about the slate quarries lately, I have had to know something as to the lie of the land. When we first met, I was down to see it, so there is nothing wonderful in my knowledge."
Ted stared at him. "By George! Then it is you who put a spoke in the wheel of that new company?"
Aura looked at him also, and with quick disapproval. "Is it you who have thrown all the people out of work?" she asked. "Do you know some of the children haven't enough to eat,--at least," she added, her look having brought her, she scarcely knew why, a vague doubt, "Martha told me that the people were getting up a subscription for them."
Ned laughed derisively and shrugged his shoulders.
"You won't understand what I mean, but there is a general election due next year. The men have had other employment offered them; if they won't accept it, that is their own fault."
"But I don't understand your objection----" began Ted.
"Don't you?" interrupted Lord Blackborough. "I think that must be because you don't know good slate from bad."
They had passed on by this time into that most desolate of all places on God's earth, a valley of unworked slate quarries, a valley desecrated by man's needs, yet needed not by man. Seamed, scarred, riven until scarcely a blade of gracious grass remained on what had once been soft, sweet sheep-bite set with heather, shadowed by dense bracken thickets. Great moraines of débris, not rounded by long æons of slow yet certain grinding in the mill of God, but fresh, crude, angled, from the hand of man, usurped the valley now on this side, now on that, turning the very roadway, bordered by rusty rails, to their pleasure. A mountain stream, released from long slavery, sped--exultantly free--past the low congeries of differently pitched roofs supported by iron pilasters, beneath which cogwheels and bands, levers and distributors stood immovable, rusted into silence. Hanging halfway up a stiff incline of shale, an empty truck hung rusted to the rails. Another, full of split slate squared, holed, ready for homestead or granary, stood in the wide stacking-yard where thousands and thousands of these same leaves of slate, looking like huge books, were ranged in orderly piles. How many homes, how many churches, how many barns and factories might not have been roofed in by these piles waiting idly?
For what? For money.
Ned Blackborough stooped down and picked up a slate which had fallen on the truck-way. It snapped between his fingers, and with a laugh he flung it aside.
"Bad stuff!" he said, "and that is better than most. I tell you that this valley, which is a valley of desolation now, has been a valley of dishonesty from the very beginning."
His eyes seemed to catch fire, and he turned to Ted almost threateningly, "And you don't understand! Will you understand, I wonder, when I tell you that these quarries, like many another, have been in the hands of speculators from the very beginning? Some one who knew the slate was bad took to himself others who knew it also, and between them they floated a company. When the money had gone, some other rascal bought the bankrupt stock and started another company, and another, and another. And all the time, these workmen whom you commiserate were hewing and splitting and taking their wages, for what? For money, only for money! What was it to them that the slate was bad, that their labour was wasted and vain? They got their money. And now they wonder because, when the lease of the last company was up, I stepped in and said 'No.' This sham shan't go on. I claim my right, and I won't be bribed by anybody." He spoke almost passionately, then laughed, and, with a brief "I beg your pardon; these things irritate me," struck up a shady footpath which led over the hill.
"I don't exactly see how it could have been done," remarked Ted argumentatively. "If they went bankrupt they must have had a valuator, and then----"
"I've no doubt they had," broke in Ned impatiently, "but what I tell you is the long and short of it."
"Besides, I don't consider the workman is to be blamed at all," argued Ted. "So long as he does his work fairly and gets his pay for doing that work, no one has a right to find fault with him. Then think of the women and children."
Aura, whose face had grown keen over the discussion, looked swiftly at Ned, awaiting his answer. He, in one of his worst moods, gave it unhesitatingly: "My dear fellow, what is the use of breeding up a race of thieves and swindlers?"
With that he bent himself to take the hill at a gallop, leaving those two agreeing as to the women and children, agreeing also in a thousand superficial likings and dislikings born of youth, high spirits, and no small lack of thought.
But at a sharp turn amid the tumbled débris, they overtook Lord Blackborough opposed to a small boy seated disconsolately on the ground in a puddle of fresh milk, dotted with the remains of a broken jug, while an ill-looking collie dog yapped from the shelter of a more than usually large block of worthless slate.
"It wasn't my fault," explained Ned ruefully. "That brute of a dog upset him, trying to bark and run away at the same time."
The small boy, having now realised his misfortune, was blubbering in Welsh.
"I don't understand what he is saying," said Aura, looking up at Ted, after bending over the urchin with English consolation. "Do you?"
He shook his head. "That is the worst of wild Wales; one can't be compassionate."
Ned looked at them a trifle contemptuously.
"He's afraid. A boy never blubbers like that without cause, and he isn't hurt. Here, you!" he continued, hauling the child up incontinently, "don't howl. I go with you home--catre--do you understand?--catre--mam."
With which Welsh smattering, he dragged up the unwilling boy, still blubbering, towards a group of slate cottages which showed a few hundred yards away. Such desolate-looking cottages, only to be differentiated by their straight lines from the masses of débris about them.
"You go on," he called back. "It's straight over the brow of the hill, and then you can see. I'll pick you up in no time."
But when they looked back from the summit, there was no trace of him on the upward path.
"There is no use waiting," said Ted oracularly. "By George! what a relief this is."
He spoke in glad confidence as his eye travelled over God's good world untouched, undefiled, and yet in his heart of hearts he would not have scrupled at any desecration of Nature, provided it were in pursuit of gold.
Nevertheless, he responded at once to the fresh, bright breeze on the wide, undulating hill-tops, and the free, glad joy in life itself as life, came to him as they passed with springy step over grass-land and bog-land, all a-crackle with faint frost. What did they talk about? Not love, certainly--he was too wise for that--though love lay at the bottom of all his thoughts.
"How your hand trembles," she said laughingly, as he held hers in crossing a brook.
He flushed a little. "We've been going such a rate," he replied. "You're the best walker I know, for a girl."
There was something in the qualification which set her at her ease.
"I wonder what has become of Ned?" she said once, as they finally turned into the home valley and saw beneath them, spread out like a map, the familiar fields, the sloping lawn, the straight walks of the garden, the cosy, comfortable-looking chimneys all asmoke.
Ted pointed to the sky-line above them, where for an instant a dark something, which might have been a sheep, and might have been a man, showed, then disappeared.
"Up in the clouds, as usual," he laughed. "Ned is an awfully good chap, but I wish he wasn't quite so balloony."
Aura looked at him distastefully. "I like him best when he is in the clouds," she said firmly. "Of course," here she became slightly reflective, "I dare say his being so--so erratic, might put one out a good deal, and people like you would be more satisfactory to deal with; still--" here she dimpled all over--"come! let us race down the hill, and then we can be waiting tea for him when he turns up."
But there was no tea ready when Ned, whose ill humour had passed with his solitary walk, arrived.
"Thank Heaven!" cried Ted, who met him at the door. "Will you, like a good fellow, fetch the doctor; he lives beyond the hill? Mr. Smith is ill, as he was before. You can take the motor, can't you, from Dinas?"
"No need; Ramsay will be there. I'll be back in no time," was the reply.
So while Ted helped Martha with his experience and comforted Aura as best he could, thereinafter remaining to give Peter Ramsay a hand in getting the old man to bed, Ned kicked his heels in the drawing-room. Sickness, with its possibility of death, always made him a little disdainful, and he had but a few stereotyped words of regret when, the crisis having passed, the three came in, Aura looking pale and troubled.
"Was he as ill before?" she asked, her eyes seeking Ted's almost reproachfully.
Ted's sought the doctor's. "Not quite," replied the latter. "These attacks--it is as well to be prepared for them, Miss Graham--tend to become more serious. He may not, I hope he will not, have another for a long time, but you must try and avoid any excitement." He held out his hand to say good-bye. "There's no reason to be alarmed, I assure you; with care, he may not have another for--for months."
He clasped the girl's hand with strong, steady grip and smiled, but poor Aura, facing the one great reality for the first time, stood white and silent. Only when they had gone, she turned to Ted.
"I don't know what I should have done without you," she said gratefully.
Outside, as the motor disappeared in the darkness, Dr. Ramsay was saying nearly the same thing.
"It is lucky Cruttenden was there and had an idea of what to do; lucky too that I didn't give you up and go home."
"Sorry," responded Ned shortly. "Hope you had a good walk."
"Excellent," replied Peter Ramsay with a little laugh. "I satisfied myself that hills and dales, and the round world generally, were mere manifestations of matter, and the Providence didn't shape my steps anyhow."
Since the night on which poor Morris Pugh had sought in vain for God's Providence upon the mountain-top, he had not left his room; for rheumatic fever--that curse of Wales--had laid hold of him.
The mental shock also militated against recovery. It would be almost impossible to overestimate what that shock had been, surcharged as he was by religious exaltation. He had been dashed from high heaven to earth, and at first he lay stunned, absolutely maimed. Then, as feeling returned to his numb mind, the desire to slip away and so avoid the necessity for thought was the despair of his mother, who had come from the lonely hill-farm, where she still was mistress, to be his devoted nurse. She was a woman of the true saintly type, full to the brim of sympathies and sentimentalities; as such, not one to be burdened with the reality of doubt.
By degrees, however, chaos became order. The fiat, "Let there be light," went forth, and Morris Pugh, enthusiast by nature, began to creep towards it. What although the so-called miracles in which he and many others had believed were unreal, that could not be said of the effects of the revival. They were everywhere manifest, abundantly real. Thousands hitherto spiritually blind were now with open eyes following the straight and narrow way. Oh! there was proof enough to show what Power was at work. As the Reverend Hwfa Williams had said (he found such small jests no inconsiderable aid in his rough and ready missioning), there was proof enough for every Thomas in Wales.
And there was more work to be done; so what mattered it whether he, Morris Pugh, the man to do it, rose or did not rise to the height of sublime folly which had been his once? There was work to be done and he must do it. So on the last day of the old year, after a week's change at Aberystwith, he returned, eager for the big revival meeting which was to see the New Year in. It was to be a great occasion, for Merv, Gwen, and Alicia Edwards were back for a Christmas holiday from their arduous labour abroad. Their presence in the little village must surely awaken the few sleepers that remained; these would be gathered in, their names added to the already long list of the elect. Even Myfanwy Jones who, as usual, had come down for a long week-end laden with bandboxes, might follow the example of her father and come into the ranks of the saved.
That would be great gain, for though Myfanwy, being well-to-do, might dress as she pleased, the influence of that dress was not benign on poorer girls. And there were so many points besides drunkenness and open immorality which the undoubted increase of faith did not seem to touch. David Morgan had sold his mare at Wrexham for five-and-twenty pounds. An open market truly, and it was a good-looking beast, for all that it had the staggers. Then the hole in the hedge, through which Evan Rees' sheep were in the habit of pushing their way to graze on a water-meadow belonging to an absentee proprietor, was still unmended.
There were, in fact, many things which to Morris Pugh's sobered sight seemed ill advised, while some, such as the midnight meetings held by mere lads and lassies, could not be defended.
All these things must be combated. But on this eve of a new step towards Eternity (that quaint Eternity which apparently has not yet begun for the religious) the work must be to rouse every dead soul to life.
The chapel was packed from floor to ceiling. Taken simply as a sight, it was marvellous to think of the sordid lives lived from year to year, begun, continued, and ended in the cult of the ultimate sixpence (by which alone the struggle for existence could be maintained) that many of those present were leading; here, before the Lord, they were at least seeking a higher sanction.
And yet----
Morris Pugh's whole heart and soul went out in one vivid prayer for true guidance.
Gwen, on the platform, was looking dreadfully ill. She was wasted to a skeleton, her fever-bright eyes seemed larger than ever, but they were steadier, and her voice was even sweeter, despite the hollow hacking cough which assailed her at all times, save when she was singing.
Those same eyes of hers had learned the trick of fastening themselves on one face; but so had the eyes of all these practised missioners, and even Abel Parry, who was taking Hwfa Williams' part as bass, looked out steadily, earnestly.
Myfanwy Jones felt the thrill of this, though she was conscious that much of her physical sense of strain arose from the presence of Mervyn Pugh.
How very handsome he was, and what a gentleman he looked after his three months of touring about the country!
In truth he had changed. He was finer, more complex; for it had been impossible to lead the old simple village life in the hotels and boarding-houses where he had lodged. He was different in every way, and in becoming different he had almost forgotten his past self. Even the mental emotion of his first association with Gwen in this work of salvation had passed; he took it now as a matter of course. For the rest, seeing his way clear, and urged thereto by those who had heard him speak, he had almost made up his mind to the ministry.
Yet not quite so; and the sight of Myfanwy Jones robed in black samite, mystic, wonderful, in the very first row, roused recollections, almost regrets.
For there had been no harm in their holiday junketing at Blackborough; they had only enjoyed themselves immensely.
A sense of something electrical in the air disturbed him from recollections of a man in a music hall, who had ventured to comment on his companion's beauty, and he became conscious that Gwen and Alicia Edwards were both looking at him. There was a whole world of difference in the meaning of these looks, but Mervyn lumped them together as a control to his wandering thoughts.
He need not have felt that sudden sense of guilt so far as poor Gwen was concerned. Her limited mind had long since relegated the stormy past to the Devil. She shuddered at the thought of it, as she shuddered at the thought of Him.
But Mervyn was a soul which, mysteriously, she had saved.
In a measure this was true. All unknown to herself, she was largely responsible for the outburst of spiritual energy around her. There was that in her which, given freely as she gave it, without measure and without stint, was bound to force response. And to-night, wearied utterly, yet elated, singing against the doctor's orders, racked by a terrible pain when she drew her breath, she was at the flood-tide of her potentiality; and she knew it.
Beside this--the joy and rapture of the stigmatic--Alicia Edwards' jealousy of Myfanwy was trivial indeed. But though much that was trivial lingered in the minds of many in the chapel, there was a deadly earnestness in most of the faces which looked up to the missioners, almost as they might have looked at a veritable transfiguration of their Lord.
The toilworn, the smug, the rugged, the sensuous, the clever, on all these lay a supreme desire, yet a supreme content. Briefly, they had what they wanted, yet they wanted something more. What?
An analysis of the minds of most would, no doubt, have yielded a large percentage of purely personal sense of salvation, but there was more than that in the whole atmosphere of the little chapel as Morris Pugh stood up to give his first address since his vigil upon the mountain. What it was, who can say? Call it the Spirit of God, call it anything you please, all explanations resolve themselves into a still further away, "What is it?"
Now, all those days and nights of mental and physical torture through which Morris Pugh had passed, had left their unfailing mark on him. Before he could even creep back into the old straight way, it had been necessary for him to acknowledge that he had been at fault in seeking to dictate to the Greater Wisdom, in looking for a sign, when no sign would be given. It had been a bitter struggle for him to lay down these, his highest hopes, but he had laid them down, and he stood before his people humbled, patient, almost wistful.
But they were not attuned to this mood; so as he spoke, the electricity--thesomething--in the air failed, and silence passed to faint shiftings, to louder shufflings. Practised speaker as he was, he realised at once that he was not, as usual, holding his audience. With an almost convulsive inward prayer for guidance, he modulated his voice into the bardic "hwl," that marvellous maker of emotion amongst the Welsh.
A cough? Yes! a distinct cough! followed by another and another!
Mervyn looked anxiously at his brother. This would never do! Experience told him that the unknown force on which the professional missioner relies was oozing away, so without more ado, he gave the signal to Gwen, and straightway a hymn, softly, persuasively, sung in the perfect harmony of four exquisite voices, arrested the wavering attention of the crowded chapel.
Emotionally musical to then'th degree, the audience needed no more. In an instant the atmosphere changed and, as Morris Pugh resumed his seat, the waves of sweet sound seemed to stun him with a sense of failure.
Verse after verse, those waves grew to almost tumultuous chorus, seeming to monopolise with their vibration even the small amount of stifling air left to each pair of human lungs. So through that human chorus, half-drowned by the glad summons to Eternity, came the passing of Time as the church clock struck--
Twelve!!
The sound stilled the singing for a second, and Mervyn, a genius in emotion, seized on the propitious moment.
"Let us pray!" he cried, falling on his knees, "let us pray for our brothers and sisters who are still in bondage!"
Without an instant's hesitation the congregation of the elect followed suit, leaving the few standing, uncertain. Amongst them, Myfanwy Jones. Her face showed a sudden fear, not unmixed with resentment; but Mervyn had leapt from the platform and was beside her, his face brilliant, ere she could decide on either.
"Do not go!" he whispered passionately. "Listen! The door is open--we wait for you! we want you, Myfanwy!"
The girl turned to him. A faint tremor showed in her full, lithe figure; her lip trembled. Another moment and she would have given way, but that moment brought another factor to the equation of assent.
"Yes! We want you, Myfanwy! We wait for you!"
It was a girl's voice, and Myfanwy flashed round on it superbly self-possessed. "Thank you much, Alicia Edwards," she said in clear tones, "but there is no need for you to wait at all. I am going!"
And go she did, with her head held high, a sphinxlike calm of malice in her face, thefrou-frouof her silken skirts heard above the sudden silence which fell upon the chapel.
It had needed but this example to make other hesitants follow. The congregation, taken aback, looked for guidance and got it from Gwen.
"I will not let thee go!" she chanted in still clearer, higher tones as she threw out her hands to those retreating souls. "Yea, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. Where thou goest I will go. Thy God shall be my God! Follow! Follow!"
The cry was caught up readily, as all her cries were, when as now, her nervous equilibrium was disturbed. So on the heels of the retreating few, the many swept out into the chill, frost-bound moonlit night.
The utter peace of it, its cold indifference, disturbed by no questionings, struck like a knife to Morris Pugh's heart as he followed also, uncertain whether to accompany his flock on their midnight visitations, or go home to pray in secret for the salvation of sinners.
He chose the latter, and as he closed the door of his room the rousing chorus of a revival hymn echoed out under the stars of heaven, making him think sadly, how far away these were, for all their brightness.
They seemed so also to Aura, who at that moment--looking as if she might have stood as illustration to Keats' "St. Agnes' Eve"--was standing at her window in the moonlight. Four days had passed since her grandfather's sudden fainting fit, and he was quite himself again. He had even been able to see Mr. Hirsch, who had called in his motor; and Peter Ramsay, after delaying his departure a day or two, had left. There was nothing more to be feared for the present; and for the future, a peaceful, unemotional life was all that was required. So well, in fact, was he that Ted had obeyed an urgent summons from Mr. Hirsch, and, much against his will on this last night of the Old Year, had gone over to him at Aberafon. It was a bore, he felt; and yet the last few days of closer companionship with Aura, of her natural inevitable reliance on him, had made him leave her with a lighter heart.
"You will be sure and come home to-morrow," she had said, and the word "home" had brought a great tenderness in his reply, "Of course, I shall be sure."
She felt glad of the assurance as she stood there looking out on the hill-side, where everything in the midnight moonlight seemed as if carven out of stone; for her grandfather had been captious that evening, absolutely refusing to give up his annual habit of sitting up to see the New Year in. And he had been annoyed at Parkinson, the parlour-maid's, failure to appear, when, as the clock struck twelve, the personnel of the establishment were expected to wish and be wished long life and prosperity.
"Gone to a revival meeting," he had echoed querulously, "a singularly inadequate excuse! She might have read her Bible at home; but I will speak to her tomorrow."
To which Martha had replied austerely, "It ain't no good speaken', sir; I've spoke till I'm dumb. And it ain't her Bible she's wantin', but 'er best 'at; for she's that frivolous at forty in the dry, as beats me wot she must 'a bin' in the green. An' Bate 'ud a' gone too--oh yes! yer wu'd Bate, so it ain't no good speakin'--only I told 'im plain. 'Bate,' says I, 'you know as you're a deal too light-'earted to go cadgin' about with a 'orse and cart when there's liquor 'andy, an' that ain't in it for temptation with a midnight meetin' with the likes o' her for company, as makes me sick to cook for 'em. An' what is the shine in them hot stuffy revivals beats me. I wouldn't go to one of 'em. No! Not if I was 'anged for it. I'd just say to the cart, Drive on!'"
The dramatic finale had made Aura laugh. She smiled at the remembrance of it now; but then she smiled at the remembrance of many things in the last four days.
How kind the world had been to her!
A faint clatter in the back premises made her smile again. Martha must be waiting up till the light had gone from her room in order to play that ridiculous game with stockings on which Ned had insisted on this New Year's Day, which was her birthday also.
Oh! How kind they had all been. She could not spare one of them.
She blew out the light, and the pulsing of the stars seemed to find an echo in the pulsing of her heart. Suddenly she leant out to stretch her warm young hands into the frosty air, over the flower graves in the garden, over the whole wide glistening world.
"A Happy New Year to you all, dear people," she whispered. "Such a Happy New Year!"
Five minutes after, having smiled drowsily at the sound of Martha's stealthy footsteps outside her door, she was asleep, to wake again, however, as the birds wake in winter, long before the lingering dawn.
The moon was hanging like a silver shield before the window and sent a flood of light into the room, but far away in the east on the edge of the hill there was just that faint paling of the sky which tells that when the sun rises it will rise there.
Dawn or no dawn she was broad awake, and the next instant stood by her open door.
There was the stocking, crammed full, as Ned had threatened, with chocolate creams, and a pile of parcels on the floor. She picked them up, and putting them in the warm nest she had just left, began to undo them by the light of the moon. What had they given her, these kind people?
A white chiffon motor veil! That must be from Mrs. Tressilian, who had raised an outcry against a scarf of Mechlin being used to such shallow purpose. A silver ring tray, set round with every conceivable coin of the realm! She did not need the card slipped into the red morocco case to tell her this was from Mr. Hirsch. A book--her heart gave an answering throb to the starshine--was from Ted. He had promised her a Shelley. And this, what was it? It must be the semi-surgical instrument for pruning roses, of which Dr. Ramsay had told her.
And that was all, for neither Martha nor her grandfather would give in to stockings.
Yes, it was all. Another half-ashamed feel over the darkling floor of the passage assured her of this, and she turned to the Shelley. Even if Ned had considered the chocolate creams sufficient, she had this. Now she could read the context to the lines which Ned--yes! it was Ned--had quoted:
'Time like a many--coloured glassStains the white radiance of eternity.'
'Time like a many--coloured glassStains the white radiance of eternity.'
It was lighter at the window, she passed to it, and leaning the heavy volume on the sill, knelt down to search for the "Adonais."
But she turned no pages. For there, outside on the window-ledge, broad-faced, clear, open-eyed, aniris alatastared up at her from its carpet of saxifrage.
"The most beautiful thing!"
Yes! that was it--andhehad given it toher...
The poetry which another man had written slipped to the floor unheeded. She was absorbed in what this man had brought her.
She knelt quite still for a time, her hands slightly clasped, feeling dazed at something in herself which responded--which gave back--what?
What was the over-mastering desire to crush the unconscious flower to death with her kisses.
She rose suddenly and began with haste to dress herself. She must climb the mountain-tops, as she so often did in the dawn light, and find some answer.
As she slipped silently through the house, she paused once or twice wondering if she heard something. No! her grandfather's room was quite quiet; but once in the hall the sound became indubitable.
Some one was singing outside. Singing softly it is true, but still singing. The village children, no doubt; but they must be stopped--they must not disturb her grandfather.
The next instant she stood looking with amazed anger at a group of five people who, kneeling on the ground, were singing under their breath some wild Welsh hymn which rose and fell plaintively, persistently. One of these figures she recognised. It was the parlour-maid, Parkinson; this must, therefore, be the tail-end of the revival meeting, for she had heard that such visitations were not uncommon.
"Parkinson!" she called severely, her young blood in arms at the intrusion. "What are you doing there? Get up at once and go into the house."
Parkinson, whose prim face was blurred with tears, whose hat was awry, whose whole appearance betokened a stormy night of emotion, made a protest that this was an appointed time.
"Yes!" retorted Aura, with a swift stamp of her foot, "the appointed time for doing your work! Go! and clean the silver--it wants it--you foolish woman--go!"
The foolish woman rose and sneaked away, leaving Aura to face the remaining enthusiasts who had combined the seeing of the new convert home with the singing of a hymn at this stronghold of the Devil.
Until he felt Aura's clear eyes upon him, Mervyn Pugh had not remembered the possibility of recognition. It may be, indeed, that he scarcely knew who the girl was whom he had once mistaken for Gwen. But now at her first glance he knew all too well.
"So it is you!" she said slowly, as he rose, and feeling that his best chance lay in boldness, faced her. "Why--why have you dared to come here?"
"To plead--to pray for you," he began, but was stopped by the fire, the scorn of her.
"You dare to pray for me--you--you coward! Yes! I called it you once. I call you it again. Coward! And you too, Gwen," she continued, for warned by something in the youthful accusing voice, Mervyn's fellow in the past had risen also, and with large fever-bright eyes was eagerly scanning their faces in the hope of understanding what her limited knowledge of English did not allow her to follow. Then suddenly the sight of the poor wasted body, the recognition of the poor distraught soul, overbore Aura's anger, and she stretched out her hands passionately, "Oh, Gwen! Gwen, my dear," she cried, "Go home and forget all this. Go home and lay flowers on your dead child's grave, and think of it and pray that he, its father, may be forgiven his cowardice."
A little startled cry came from Alicia Edwards. Abel Parry sang on ignorant of English.
Gwen looked at Aura, then at Mervyn, giving to each the same slow patient smile of forgetful forgiveness.
And then in that high piercingly sweet voice of hers, she began in its Welsh version the hymn which had heralded her spiritual mission: