CHAPTER XIX—FERMENT

Is all this true?” asked Yvonne, mournfully.

“Yes, worse luck,” replied Joyce, looking up from his Sunday newspaper.

“It is very dreadful,” said Yvonne.

She was finishing “The Wasters,” Joyce’s lately published novel. It was not a success. Its cultivated style received recognition everywhere, but the unrelieved pessimism, powerfully as it was presented, repelled most readers. He was inclined to be depressed at its reception. To Yvonne, however, it was a revelation. She closed the book with a sigh, and remained for some time gazing absently at the cover. Then she rose in her quick way.

“Let us go out—into the sunshine—or I shall cry. I feel miserable, Stephen.”

“On account of that wretched book?”

“That and other things. Take me to Regent’s Park—to see the flowers.”

He assented gladly and Yvonne went to put on her things. Shortly afterwards they were side by side on the garden seat of a westward bound omnibus.

“I feel better,” said Yvonne, breathing in the summer air. “Don’t you?”

“It is nice,” answered Joyce. “I shall be better pleased when we are out of these joyless streets. The Pentonville Road on a Sunday is depressing. I haven’t seen a smile on a human face since we have been out. What grey lives people lead.”

“But they can’t all be unhappy,” she said.

The ’bus stopped for a moment. Three or four young roughs, in Sunday clothes, with coarse, animal faces and discordant speech passed by below on the pavement, and noisily greeted a couple of quiet-looking girls, evidently acquaintances.

“These seem cheerful enough,” said Yvonne.

Joyce shrugged his shoulders.

“Did it ever occur to you what misery men of that type work in the world? By the laws of their class they will all marry—and marry young. Fancy a woman’s life in the hands of any of those fellows.”

The ’bus moved on. Yvonne was silent.

His tone was that of the book she had just been reading. She stole a side glance at him. His face in repose was always sad and brooding. To-day she seemed to read more clearly in it the lines that the breaking of the spirit had caused. She identified him with the characters in the sordid scenes he had described. Presently she laid her hand lightly on his arm.

“Do you think we live a very grey life—now?”

“You have a very hard, dull, monotonous life,” he replied.

“I don’t,” said Yvonne stoutly. “I am very pleased and contented. I only want one thing to make me perfectly happy.”

“So does every one. The one thing just makes the difference. It’s the one thing we can’t possibly get.”

“It is n’t what you imagine,” said Yvonne. “You are thinking of money and all that.”

“No. It’s your voice.”

“It is n’t!” cried Yvonne, with a touch of petulant earnestness. “It is to see you bright and happy—as you used to be long, long ago. You might have known.”

“It is very dear of you,” he answered, after a pause. “I am selfish—and can’t understand your sweet spirit. Sometimes I seem to have a stone heart, like the man in the German story.”

“You have a warm, generous heart, Stephen. What other man would have done what you have for me?”

“It was pure selfishness on my part,” he replied. “The loneliness was too appalling. And then, further, I am never quite sure I have acted rightly by you.”

“I am,” she said. “And I’m the best judge, I think.”

But Joyce was correct in his bitter self-analysis. Now and then his sensitive fibres vibrated. But generally the weight of the past years was on his heart, and repressed continuous emotion. To live on these intimate terms with Yvonne and never consider the possibility of loving her, after the way of men, was absurd. The chivalrous instincts awakened by her implicit trust in him, and the double barrier which forbade a love that could result in marriage, made him dismiss such considerations. But often, in gloomy introspective moods, his self-contempt denied these instincts as arrogant pretensions, and attributed the absence of warmer feelings towards Yvonne to the petrifaction of all emotional chords. Of late, however, he had ceased to speculate, taking his insensibility for granted.

When they arrived at the Regent’s Park, they proceeded for some distance northwards up the great avenue. It was crowded. Joyce looked about him, with a fidgeted air, at the stream of passers-by.

“Let us get away from the people and sit under a tree,” he said at length.

Yvonne slipped her hand impulsively through his arm.

“I wish you knew how proud I am of you,” she said.

“It’s for your sake, too, Yvonne, dear,” he replied in a touched voice.

She made one of her magnificent little gestures with the hand holding her sunshade.

“I have never done anything to be ashamed of yet,” she said proudly, and glanced from Joyce to a pompous elderly couple with an air of defiance. Then she brought him abruptly to a stand before a flower-bed bright in its summer glory.

“Oh, how lovely! Look!”

She broke into little joyous exclamations. Colour affected her like music. A glow came into her cheek. She became again the thing of warmth and sunshine that had gladdened him four years before, when his degradation lay heavy on him.

“Itisa beautiful world, Stephen.”

“You are right, dear. It is. And you are the most beautiful thing in it.”

The glow deepened on her face, and a bright moisture appeared in her eyes as she glanced upwards.

“That’s very, very foolish. But you said it as if you meant it.”

“I did indeed, Yvonne.”

“Let us go and find a place under the trees,” she said softly.

They left the main avenue and wandered on over the green turf, seeking for a long time a piece of shade untenanted by sprawling men, or lovers, or heterogeneous families. At last they found a lonely tree and sat down beneath it.

“Are you happier here?” she asked.

“Much. It is so peaceful. When I was in South Africa I yearned for civilisation and men and women. Now I am in London, I am happiest away from them. Men are funny animals, Yvonne.”

Yvonne looked down at the ground and nervously plucked at the grass. Then she raised her eyes quickly.

“When are you going to be quite happy, Stephen?”

“I am happy enough now.”

“But when you get home, the black mood may come over you again. Can’t you forget all the horrid past—the prison—and all that?” It was the first time she had ever alluded to it directly; her voice quavered on the word.

“No, I can never forget it,” he replied in a low tone. “If I live to be a hundred, I shall remember it on my deathbed.”

“You seem to feel it—just like a woman does—who has been on the streets—as if nothing could wipe it away.”

He was startled. Signs had not been wanting of a change coming over Yvonne, but he had never heard a saying on her lips of such perceptive earnestness. It was strange, too, that she had hit upon a parallel that had been in his mind since the night he had met Annie Stevens.

“Nothing can wipe it away, Yvonne. It is like a woman’s sense of degradation—just as you say.”

“I would give anything—my voice over again, if I had it—to help you. You have never told me about it—the dreadful part of it—I want to know—every bit—tell me now, will you?”

“You would loathe me, as much as I loathe myself, if I told you.”

He was lying on one elbow, by her side. She ventured a gossamer touch upon his forehead.

“You don’t know much about a woman, although you do write books,” she said.

The touch and the tone awoke a great need of expansion. He struggled for a few moments, and at last gave way.

“Yes, I ’ll tell you—from the very beginning.” And there in the quasi-solitude of their tree—one of innumerable camping-spots for recumbent figures, that met the eye on all sides—he gave, for the first time, definite utterance to the horrors that had haunted him for six years. He told her the old story of the earthenware pot careering down the stream in company with the brazen vessels; of his debts, staring ruin, and his yielding to the great temptation; of his trial, his sentence rendered heavier by the fact that his malversations had brought misery into other lives. He described to her in lurid detail just what the prison-life was, what it meant, how its manifold degradation ate into a man’s flesh, became infused in his blood and ran for ever through his veins. He spared her nothing of which decency permitted the telling. Now and then Yvonne shivered a little and drew in a quick breath; but her great eyes never left his face—save once when he showed her his hands still scarred by the toil from which delicate fingers never recover.

He had spoken jerkily, in hard, dry tones; so he ended abruptly. There was silence. Yvonne’s little gloved hand crept to his and pressed it. Then, with a common impulse, they rose to their feet.

“Thank you for telling me,” she said, coming near to him and taking his arm. “I did not know how how terrible it has been—and I never realised what a brave man you are.”

“I—brave, Yvonne?” he cried with a bitter laugh.

“Yes—to have gone through that and to be the loyal, tender, true-hearted gentleman that you are.”

He looked down at her and saw her soft eyes filled with tears and her lips quivering.

“You still feel the same to me, Yvonne, now that you know it all?” he asked, bending forward on his stick.

“More,” she answered. “Oh,—much more.”

They walked back to the Park gates in a happy silence, drawn very near to one another, since both hearts were very full. So close together did they walk, so softened was the man’s face, and so sweetly proud the woman’s, that they might have been taken for lovers. But if love was hovering over them, he touched neither with an awakening feather. And so they passed on their way untroubled.

That day was, in a certain sense, a landmark in their lives. Yvonne never referred to the prison again, but she learned to know when its shadow was over him and at such times her nature melted in tenderness towards him.

The days wore on. The second novel, over whose pages Yvonne had cast gleams of sunshine, was finished and disposed of to the same publishers. His source of income from occasional journalism showed signs of becoming steadier. But all the same, the struggle with poverty continued hard. Yvonne fell ill again and lost her music-lessons. It took some time after her recovery to pay off the debts incurred for doctor, medicine, and invalid necessaries. To obtain funds to take her to the seaside for a few days, Joyce was forced to ask his publishers for an advance. However, the trip restored Yvonne to health again, and their uneventful life pursued its usual course.

One day a strange phenomenon occurred. A visitor was announced. It was the sister who had tended Yvonne in the hospital. Once before, while Yvonne was living in the Pimlico lodgings, she had paid a flying visit. On this occasion she stayed for a couple of hours with Yvonne, who, happy as she was with Joyce, felt a wonderful relief in talking again familiarly with one of her own sex. She poured forth the little history of all that had befallen her since she had left the hospital.

“Do you mean to tell me,” the sister said at last, “that you keep house together on this romantically Platonic basis?”

Yvonne regarded her, wide-eyed.

“Of course. Why should n’t we?”

The sister was a woman of the world. When she had entered the room and perceived the unmistakable signs of a man’s general presence, she had drawn her own conclusions.

That these were erroneous, Yvonne’s innocent candour most clearly proved. Yet she was astonished, perhaps a little disappointed. The offending Eve lingers in many women, even after much self-whipping—for the greater comfort of their lives.

“But how can a man look at you and not fall in love with you?” she asked downright.

Yvonne laughed, and ran to the kettle that was boiling over on the gas-stove—she was making tea for her visitor.

“Oh, you can’t think of the number of people who have said those same words to me! Why, that is why I am so happy with Stephen—he has never dreamed of making love to me; never once—really. And, do you know, he’s the only man I ’ve ever had much to do with who has n’t.”

“He looks like a man who has seen a great deal of trouble,” said the sister.

Yvonne’s laugh faded, and a great seriousness came into her eyes.

“Awful trouble,” she said in a very low and earnest voice.

“Perhaps that makes him different from other men,” said the sister, taking her hand and smoothing it.

“Perhaps,” replied Yvonne.

It was a new light, quick and clear, flashed upon their relations. Her woman’s instinct clamoured for confirmation.

“Do you think that if he had not this great trouble, he would necessarily have fallen in love with me, like the others?”

“It stands to reason,” replied the elder woman gently—“if he’s a man at all. And he is a man—one, too, that many women could love and be proud of.”

“Oh, thank you for saying that!” cried Yvonne, impulsively. “I am proud of him.” An imperceptible smile played over the sister’s plain, pleasant face. Her calling had brought her a certain knowledge of human nature, and taught her to judge by suppressions. This side-light on the inner lives of the two beings whose fortunes had long ago interested her, quickened her sympathies for them. She determined to keep them in view for the future—and with this intention she offered Yvonne opportunities for continuing the friendship.

“So you ’ll come and see me often,” she said at last. “I have n’t very many friends.”

“And I haven’t any at all,” said Yvonne, smiling. “And oh! you don’t know what a comfort it would be to have a woman to go to now and then!”

The visit left Yvonne thoughtful and happy. A new feeling towards Joyce budded in her heart and the process was accompanied by tiny shocks of tender resentment. So conscious was she of this, that that evening whilst Joyce was working in the armchair opposite to her, she suddenly broke into a little musical laugh. He looked up and caught the reflection of her smile.

“What is amusing you, Yvonne?”

She still smiled, but a deep red flush showed beneath her dark skin.

“My thoughts,” she said, in a tone that admitted of no further question.

Yet she would have liked to tell him. It was so humorous that she should feel angry because he did not fall in love with her.

Sometimes light moods are delicate indexes to far-away, unknown commotions. Afterwards, in the serious moments, when the birdlike inconsequence fled away from her and she realised herself as a grown woman to whom had come the knowledge of life, this that she had laughed and blushed over appeared sad and painful. It kept her awake sometimes at nights. Once she got out of bed, lit her candle, and looked closely at her face in the glass. But she returned comforted. She was not getting old and unattractive.

Yet a vague ferment in her nature began to puzzle her sorely. Her mind, that was once as simple as a child’s and as clear as spring water, seemed now tangled with many complexities; she saw into it, as in a glass, darkly. Life, for the first time appeared to her incomplete. She was weighed down with a sense of failure. The very facts that had caused the happy possibility of her comradeship with Joyce smote her as proofs of the inadequacy of her own womanhood. The essential fierce vanity of sex was touched.

Once only before had she used her sex as a weapon—on that miserable day at Ostend, to keep Everard by her side. Then she had felt the fire of shame. Now she was tempted to use it again, and the shame burned deeper.

And Joyce, familiarised with the daily sweetness of her companionship, did not notice the gradually stealing increase of tenderness in her ways.

It was late in the afternoon. The old man had gone away to Exeter, to bury his sister, his only surviving relative. Joyce was alone in the shop busily sorting a job lot of books that had come in during the morning. They were stacked in great piles at the further end, forming a barrier between himself and the doorway, where the falling light was creeping in upon the neatly-arranged shelves. Above him flared a gas-jet. It was warm and dusty work, and Joyce had taken off his coat and collar and rolled up the sleeves of his flannel shirt. Some of the worthless books he threw on two piles on the floor, to be placed in the twopenny and fourpenny boxes outside. Others he priced and catalogued. Others, again, in good bindings, or otherwise obviously of value, he dusted with a feather brush and put aside for the old man’s inspection. Now and again space failed for the assorted lots, and he would carry great strings of volumes supported under his chin to convenient stacking-spaces on the shelves. Then he would proceed with his sorting, cataloguing, and cleansing.

Presently the back-parlour door opened and Yvonne appeared. Joyce paused, with a grimy volume in his hand, in the midst of a cloud of dust that rose like incense, and his heart gave a little throb of gladness. She looked so fresh and sweet as she stood there, daintily aproned, in the darkness of the doorway, with the light from the gas-jet falling upon her face.

“Tea’s ready,” she remarked.

“Let me finish this lot,” he said, pointing to a pile, “and then I ’ll come.”

She nodded, advanced a step and took up a great in-folio black-letter.

“What silly rubbish,” she said, with a superior little grimace, as she turned over the pages. “Fancy any one wanting to buy this.”

“You had better put it down, if you don’t want to cover yourself with dirt,” said Joyce.

She dropped the book, looked at her soiled hands with a comic air of disgust.

“Horrid things! Why did n’t you tell me?”

Joyce laughed for answer. It was so like Yvonne. After she had withdrawn, with a further reminder about the tea, he went on smiling to himself.

It was very sweet, this brother and sister life of theirs, in spite of its isolation. There seemed no reason why it should not continue for ever. Indeed, he scarcely thought of change. Now that his small earnings seemed practically assured and Yvonne could contribute from her singing lessons something to the household expenses, the wolf was kept pretty far from the door.

He was in one of his lighter moods, when Yvonne’s sunshine “scattered the ghosts of the past,” and illuminated the dark places in his heart. He hummed a song, forgetful of the gaol and his pariahdom, and thought of Yvonne’s face awaiting him at the tea-table, as soon as he had completed his task.

A hesitating step was heard in the shop. He thought it was the boy returning from an errand.

“Another time you are sent out round the corner, don’t take a quarter of an hour,” he cried, without turning round.

An irritated tap of the foot made him realise that it was a customer. He sprang forward with apologies, and, as it had grown dusk, he seized a taper and quickly lighted the gas in the shop.

Then he looked at the man and started back in amazement; and the man looked at him; and for a few seconds they remained staring at one another. The visitor wore apron and gaiters and a bishop’s hat, and his dignified presence was that of Everard Chisely. He surveyed Joyce’s grimy and workaday figure with a curl of disgust on his lip. The glance stung Joyce like a taunt. He flushed, drew himself up defiantly.

“You are the last person I expected to meet here,” said the Bishop, haughtily.

“Your lordship is the last person I desired to see,” retorted Joyce.

“Doubtless,” replied the Bishop. “And now we have met, I have only one thing to say to you. I have traced Madame Latour to this house. Where is she?”

“She is here—upstairs.”

“In this—” began the Bishop, looking round and seeking for a word expressive of distaste.

“—hovel?” suggested Joyce. “Yes.”

“Under your protection?”

“Under my protection.”

Then Joyce noticed that his lips twitched, and that the perspiration beaded on his forehead, and that an agony of questioning was in his eyes.

“Have you been villain enough—?” he began in a hoarse, trembling voice.

But Joyce checked him with a sudden flash and an angry gesture.

“Stop! She is as pure as the stars. Let there be no doubt about that. I tell you for her sake, not for yours.”

The Bishop drew a long breath and wiped his forehead. Joyce took his silence for incredulity.

“If I were a villain,” he continued, “do you think it would matter a brass button to me whether you knew it? I should say ‘yes,’ and you would walk away and I should never see you again.”

He thrust his hands in his pockets and faced his cousin. All the pariah’s bitter hatred arose within him against the man who stood there, the representative of the caste that had disowned and reviled him; conscious, too, as he was, of standing for the moment on a higher plane.

“I believe you. Oh—indeed—I believe you,” replied Everard, hurriedly. “But why is she here? Why has she sunk as low as this?”

“Your lordship should be the last to ask such a question.”

“I don’t understand you.”

“I should have thought it was obvious,” said Joyce, with a shrug of his shoulders.

The sarcasm sounded in the Bishop’s ears like cynicism.

“Do you mean that you have inveigled Madame Latour into supporting you?” he asked in a tone of disgust.

Joyce laughed mirthlessly.

“Listen,” he said. “Let us come to some understanding. I am a member of the criminal classes, and you are a bishop of the English church. Perhaps the God you believe in may condescend to judge between us. The woman who was once your wife appealed to you when she was sick and penniless, and you disregarded her appeal. I, a poverty-stricken outcast supported her, gave her a home, and reverenced her as a sacred trust. 'Whether of them twain did the will of his father?’”

Everard stared at him in wide-eyed agitation. A customer entered with a book he had selected from the stall outside. Joyce went forward, received the money and returned to his former position by the Bishop.

“I received no appeal from her,” said the latter.

“You did, through me. She was too ill to write.”

“When was this?”

“Last November, a year ago.”

Everard reflected for a moment and then a sudden memory flashed upon him, and an expression of deep pain came over his face.

“God forgive me! I threw your letter into the fire unopened.”

“Might I ask your reason?” asked Joyce, feeling a grim joy in his cousin’s humiliation.

“I had been warned that you had gone to Fulminster on a begging errand—”

“Did the Rector have the iniquity to write you that?” burst in Joyce fiercely.

“It was not the Rector.”

“Who, then? I saw no one but him. I was simply seeking Madame Latour.”

“I name no names,” replied the Bishop, stiffly. “I am merely explaining. The letter, in fact, came by the same mail as yours. Little suspecting that you could address me on any subject unconnected with yourself, and keeping to my resolution to hold no further communication with you, I destroyed, as I say, your letter unopened. Believe me, the apology I tender to you—”

“Is neither here nor there,” said Joyce, coldly. “I am past feeling such slights. I suppose your correspondent was that she-devil Emmeline Winstanley. I congratulate you.” The Bishop made no reply, but paced backwards and forwards two or three times with bent head, along the book-lined shelves. Then he stopped and said abruptly:—

“Tell me the facts about Yvonne.”

The conciliatory mention of her by her Christian name thawed Joyce for the moment. He rapidly sketched events, while Everard listened, looking at him rigidly from under bent brows.

“I would have given the last drop of my blood rather than she should have suffered so.”

“So would I,” replied Joyce.

“Would to God I had known of it!”

“It was your own doing.”

“You are right. My uncharitableness towards you has brought its punishment.”

“I cannot say I am sorry,” said Joyce, grimly.

There was a short silence, compelled by the struggling emotions in each man’s heart. In Joyce’s there was war, a sense of victory, of the sweetness of revenge. He felt, too, that now Yvonne would indubitatively reject the Bishop’s offer of help. He had won the right to support her.

Suddenly her voice was heard from the back-parlour door.

“Do come. The tea is getting quite cold.”

Both men started. A quick flash came into Everard’s eyes and he made a hasty step forward. But Joyce checked him with a gesture.

“I had better prepare her for the surprise of seeing you.”

The Bishop nodded assent. Joyce ran to the street door to see that the boy had returned to his post, and, satisfied, left the Bishop and went to join Yvonne in their little sitting-room upstairs.

She had just entered, was lifting a plate of hot toast from the fender. She held it out threateningly with both hands.

“If it’s all dried up it is not my fault,” she scolded. “And oh! you know I don’t allow you to sit down in your shirt-sleeves!”

He made no reply, but took the plate mechanically from her and placed it on the table.

“What is the matter, Stephen?” she asked suddenly, scanning his face.

“Some one has called to see you, Yvonne.”

“Me?”

She looked at him for a puzzled moment. Then something in his face told her. She caught him by his shirt-sleeve.

“It can’t be Everard?” she cried, agitated.

“Yes. It is Everard.”

She grew deadly pale and her breath came fast.

“How has he managed to find me?”

“I don’t know. Possibly he will explain.”

Yvonne sat down by the table and put her hand to her heart.

“It is so sudden,” she said deprecatingly.

“Perhaps you would rather put off seeing him,” suggested Joyce.

“Oh no, no. I will see him now—if you don’t mind, Stephen, dear. I am quite strong again. Tell him to come. And don’t be unhappy about me.”

She smiled up at him and held out her hand. He took it in his and kissed it.

“My own brave, dear Yvonne,” he said impulsively. A flush and a grateful glance rewarded him.

He found the Bishop scanning the book backs.

“Will you let me show you up to the sitting-room?” said Joyce.

The Bishop bowed and followed. At the foot of the stairs he paused.

“I think it right to tell you,” he said, “that I have received authentic news of the death of Madame Latour’s first husband. The object of my sudden visit to England is to take her back with me as my wife.”

The unexpectedness of the announcement smote Joyce like a blast of icy air. The loftiness of the Bishop’s assurance dwarfed him to insignificance. As at previous crises of his life, the sudden check cowed the spirit yet under the prison yoke. His defiance vanished. He turned with one foot on the stair and one hand on the baluster and stared stupidly at the Bishop. The latter motioned to him to proceed. He obeyed mechanically, mounted, turned the handle of the sitting-room door in silence, and descended again to the shop.

No sooner was he alone than a swift consciousness of his moral rout made him hot with shame and anger. His heart rose in fierce revolt. Yvonne was free. Free to marry whom she liked. What right over her had this man who had cast her off, spent two whole years at the other end of the world without once troubling to enquire after her welfare? What right had the man to come and rob him of the one blessing that life held for him?

The prospect of life alone, without Yvonne, shimmered before him like a bleak landscape revealed by sheet-lightning. A panic shook him. A second flash revealed him to himself. This utter dependence upon Yvonne, this intense need of her that had gone on strengthening, week by week, and day by day, was love. Use, self-concentration, the mere unconcealed affection of daily life had kept it dormant as it grew. Now it awakened under the sudden terror of losing her. A thrill ran through his body. He loved her. She was free. This other set aside, he could marry her. He paced among the piles of books in strange excitement.

The boy, who had been rapping his heels against his box-seat by the door, strolled in to see what was doing. Joyce abruptly ordered him to put up the shutters and go home.

Meanwhile he made pretence to continue his work of cataloguing. But his brain was in a whirl. His eyes fell upon the marks of Yvonne’s hands and arms on the dust of the folio she had been handling. The mute testimony of their intimacy eloquently moved him. She was part and parcel of his life. He would not give her up without fierce fighting.

Then, in the midst of the glow came the fresh memory of his collapse. He sat down by the little deal table, where he was wont to write, and buried his face in his hands, and shivered. His manhood had gone. Nothing could ever restore it. Its semblance was liable to be shattered at any moment by an honest man’s self-assertion. It had perished during those awful years; not to be revived, even by the pure passion of love that was throbbing in his veins.

Too restless to sit long, he rose presently and walked about the shop, among the books. The close, dusty air suffocated him. He longed to go out, walk the streets, and shake off the burden that was round his neck. But the feeling that he ought, for Yvonne’s sake, to remain until the Bishop’s departure kept him an irritable prisoner. The minutes passed slowly. Outside was the ceaseless hum and hurry of the street: within, the flare of the gas-jets and the sound of his own purposeless tread. And so for two hours he waited, running the gamut of his emotions with maddening iteration. The terror of losing Yvonne brought at times the perspiration to his forehead. With feverish intensity he argued out his claim upon her. She could not throw him over to go and live with that proud, unsympathetic man who must for ever be to her a stranger. Then his jealous wrath burst forth again, and again came the old hated shiver of degradation. How dare he match himself against one who, with all his faults, had yet lived through his life a stainless gentleman?

“Yes, he is dead,” said the Bishop, gravely. “You are a free woman. I have come from the other end of the world to tell you so.” Yvonne, sitting opposite him, looked into the red coals of the fire, and clasped her hands nervously. His presence dazed her. She had not yet recovered from the shock of his sudden embrace. The pressure of his arms was yet about her shoulders. The change wrought in her life by the loss of her voice was almost like a change of identity. It was with an effort that she realised the former closeness of their relations. He seemed unfamiliar, out of place, to have dropped down from another sphere. The oddity of his attire struck a note of the unusual. The dignity of his title invested him with remoteness. His face too, did not correspond with her remembered impression. It was thinner, more deeply lined. His hair had grown scantier and greyer.

She had listened, almost in a dream, to the story of his coming. How, to his bitter regret, he had destroyed Joyce’s letter. How, later, growing anxious about her, he had written for news of her welfare. How his letter had been returned to him through the post-office. How, meanwhile, the detective whom he had employed for the purpose in Paris, had sent him proofs of Bazouge’s death. How he had been unable to rest until he had found her, and, impatient of the long weary posts, he had left New Zealand; and lastly, how he had obtained her present address from the musical agents, who had informed him of her illness and the loss of her voice.

“You are free, Yvonne, at last,” repeated the Bishop.

The tidings scarcely affected her. She had counted Amédée so long as dead, even after his disastrous resurrection, that now she could feel no shock either of pain or relief. It was not until the after-sound of Everard’s last words penetrated her consciousness, that she realised their import. She started quickly from her attitude of bewilderment, and looked at him with a dawning alarm in her eyes.

“It can make very little difference to me,” she said.

“I thought it might make all the difference in the world to me,” said Everard. “Do you think I have ever ceased to love you?”

There was the note of pain in his voice which all her life long had had power to move her simple nature. She trembled a little as she answered:—

“It is all so long ago, now. We have changed.”

“You have not changed,” he said, with grave tenderness. “You are still the same sweet flower-like woman that was my wife. And I have not changed. I have longed for you all through these bitter, lonely years. Do you know why I left Fulminster?”

“No,” murmured Yvonne.

“Because it grew unbearable—without you. I thought a changed scene and new responsibilities would fill my thoughts. I was mistaken. And added to my want of you was remorse for harshness in that terrible hour.”

“I have only thought of your kindness, Everard,” said Yvonne, with tears in her eyes. His emotion impressed her deeply with a sense of his suffering.

He rose, came forward and bent over her chair.

“Will you come back with me, Yvonne?”

She would have given worlds to be away; to have, at least, a few hours to consider her answer. He expected it at once. Feminine instinct desperately sought evasion.

“I shall be of no use to you. I can’t sing any more. Listen.”

She turned sideways in her chair, and drawing back her head far from him, began, with a smile, the “Aria” of the Angel in the Elijah. The grave man drew himself up, shocked to the heart. He had not realised what the loss of her voice meant. Instead of the pure dove-notes that had stirred the passion of his manhood, nothing came from her lips but toneless, wheezing sounds. She stopped, bravely tried to laugh, but the laugh was choked in a sob and she burst into tears.

“Come back with me, my darling,” he said, bending down again. “I will love you all the more tenderly.”

Yvonne dried her eyes in her impulsive way.

“I am foolish,” she said. “Crying can’t mend it.”

“I will devote the rest of my life to making compensation,” said the Bishop. “Come, Yvonne.”

“Oh, give me time to answer you, Everard,” she cried, driven to bay at last. “It is all so strange and sudden.”

He left her side, with a kind of sigh, and resumed his former seat. He was somewhat disappointed. He had not contemplated the chance of her refusal. A glance, however, round the shabby, low-ceilinged room reassured him. The coarse, not immaculate tablecloth, the homely crockery, the half-emptied potted-meat tins on the table, the threadbare hearthrug at his feet—all spoke, if not of poverty, at least of very narrow means. She could not surely hesitate. But she did.

“Take your time—of course,” he said, crossing his gaitered legs. There was a short silence. At last she said, with a little quiver of the lip:—

“I promised you, I know. But things have altered so since then. I thought I should always be free. But now I am not, you see.”

“What do you mean?” he cried, startled.

“It is Stephen,” Yvonne explained. “He saved me from starvation, gave me all he had, to make me well again, and has been staying all this time to support me. You don’t know how nobly he has behaved to me—yes, nobly, Everard, there is no other word for it. He has rights over me that a brother or father would have—I could not leave him without his consent. It would be cruel and ungrateful. Don’t you see that it would be wicked of me, Everard,” she added earnestly.

His face clouded over. Pride rose in revolt. He crushed it down, however, and suffered the humiliation.

“It would lift a responsibility from his shoulders,” he said. “I myself am willing to take him by the hand again, and help him to rise from his present position.”

“You will let bygones be bygones—quite?”

“With all my heart,” replied Everard.

“He suffers dreadfully still,” said Yvonne.

“I will do my best to heal the wound,” replied the Bishop. “I own I have judged him too harshly already.”

A flush of pleasure arose in Yvonne’s cheeks, and her eyes thanked him. Then she reflected, and said somewhat sadly:—

“Perhaps if you help him in that way, he won’t miss me.”

“I will guarantee his prosperity,” he answered, with dignified conviction. And then, changing his manner, after a pause, and leaning forward and looking at her hungeringly, “Yvonne,” he said, “you will come and share my life again—in a new world, where everything is beautiful—? I have been growing old there, without you. You will make me young again, and the blessing of God will be upon us. I must have you with me, Yvonne. I cannot live in peace without your smile and your happiness around me. My child—”

His voice grew thick with emotion. He stood up and stretched out his arms to her. Yvonne rose timidly and advanced toward him, drawn by his pleading. But just as his hands were about to touch her, she hung back.

“You must ask Stephen for me,” she said, in her serious, simple way.

His hands fell to his sides, in a gesture of impatience.

“Impossible. How can I do such a thing? It would be absurd.”

“But I can’t,” she said.

Her tiny figure, the plaintiveness of her upturned face, the wistfulness of her soft eyes, brought back to him a flood of memories. She was still the same sweet, innocent soul. The lines about his lips relaxed into a smile, and he took her, yielding passively, into his arms and kissed her cheek.

“I will do what you like, dear,” he said, in a low voice. “Anything in the world to win you again. I will ask him. It will be making reparation. And then you will marry me?”

“Yes,” murmured Yvonne faintly, “I promised you.”

“Why did you not write to me again?” he asked, still holding her hands.

“I was going to write when the answer came,” she said, looking down. “But no answer did come. And then, I was content to help Stephen.”

“You could have helped Stephen, all the same.”

“Oh, no!” she cried, with a swift look upwards. “Don’t you understand?”

The Bishop saw the delicacy of the point, and motioned an affirmative. But he regarded Stephen with mingled feelings. It was intensely repugnant to him to find his once reprobated cousin a barrier between himself and Yvonne. An uneasy suspicion passed through his mind. Might not Stephen be even a more serious rival?

“You are not marrying me merely on account of that promise years ago, Yvonne?” he asked.

“Oh, no, Everard,” she replied gently. “It is because you want me—and because it’s right.”

He kissed her good-bye.

“I shall not visit you here again, Yvonne,” he said. “When I receive the final answer I shall make suitable arrangements. We shall be married quietly, by special licence. Will that please you?”

“Yes,” said Yvonne. “Thank you.”

At the door he turned for a parting glance. Then he descended the stairs, with the intention of broaching the matter to Joyce then and there. But although he found lights burning in the shop, Joyce was nowhere to be seen. Nor were there any apparent means of ascertaining his whereabouts. The Bishop bit his lip with annoyance. He did not wish to procrastinate in this affair. Suddenly his eye fell upon an old stationery-rack against the wall, in which were visible the paper and envelopes used for the business. With prompt decision the Bishop took what was necessary, sought and found pen and ink, and wrote at Joyce’s table a letter, which he addressed and left in a conspicuous position. Then he found with some difficulty the street-door of the house and let himself out.

Joyce, whom a longing for air had at last driven outside, was walking up and down the pavement, keeping his eye on the door. As soon as he witnessed Everard’s departure, he entered and went through the passage into the shop. The letter attracted his attention. He opened it and read:—

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