CHAPTER II"I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano;A stage where every man must play a part,And mine a sad one."—SHAKESPEARE.The great decisions of our lives are generally made in very undramatic settings. There is no stage music to carry us through the dreaded moment; we live through a crisis, and take up the thread of ordinary life again without a pause.Morning dawned dull and grey, inclined to be rainy. Breakfast was served at eight-thirty as usual; at nine o'clock Evelyn interviewed her cook-general. Half-an-hour later she was hard at work upon the ordinary duties of the day. There was household linen to mend, silver to clean, china to be dusted; we have to go on with our daily work until the heavens mercifully fall.There was no item of regular routine which she omitted: not even that of prayer. Yet Evelyn was no hypocrite. She knew quite well what the Church would say of her decision; she knew that she was risking her hold even on Christ's all-embracing pity. For the wantons and sinners He had forgiven had come to Him in shame and penitence, meaning to sin no more. In the one Biblical incident where He was brought in contact with a woman who expressed no remorse for the past, He Himself had given His injunctions solemnly—even while forbidding others to condemn her—"Go thou and sin no more."Evelyn, of her own deliberate choice and will, from whatever motive, was setting out upon the path which religion and the world alike call iniquitous. The point of difference between the two judgments lies in this alone, that whereas the Catholic Church tries to stamp out and does actually condemn deeds which may for ever be concealed from those about us, the world condones all sin that clokes itself attractively, until the cloak is torn away. Then it is prompt to give sentence.Those who, like Evelyn, make their choice in something of the spirit of a martyr, neither shirk nor evade the details of their fall. She was offering herself to Farquharson as the alternative of worldly fame. Had he retained his post in the Ministry she would, little by little, have drifted away from his life. But as things stood, this was impossible. Last night she had seen him shorn of every ambition, every hope, bereft of power and honour, shamed and broken, disappointed and disillusioned, forced to live with a woman who, once only uncongenial, was now actively abhorrent; stricken to the core of his being by the loss of the little son whose tender breath upon the waters of life had turned its gall and bitterness into sweetness and solace.Now, having made her decision, there would be no turning back, no failure in carrying out the least of the many arrangements which it demanded.Mechanically, she set about her task of tidying the house, of setting in more precise order that which was always orderly. She had withdrawn what little money she had in her banking account, and left it in the table drawer; Brand should not be pecuniarily the worse for her absence. She wrote to various friends offering them the flat for the season; she told them to deal direct with her solicitor, at 88 New Square, Lincoln's Inn, as she was going away shortly. She would not saddle her husband with the rent of a flat when he could live in bachelor quarters far more cheaply and conveniently.There were a few personal possessions of her own, too, which were of value—an old diamond pendant, a pearl necklace which her grandmother had left her, a sapphire bracelet her godmother had given her at her marriage, and a few other wedding presents which were marketable. She telephoned to a jeweller whom she could trust, and interviewed him in the afternoon. The result exceeded her expectations; she was able to leave over two hundred and fifty pounds in bank-notes and cash in the table drawer, for her husband to dispose of as he chose.Five o'clock struck before Evelyn had time to think of herself. And then it was only a very ordinary incident that recalled her. In her bedroom, on her mantelpiece, there stood a plaster cross which she had bought in Italy some years before. It was unusual in its way, the work of a man she had rescued from starvation. The cross was shaped conventionally enough, but the Figure upon it was clumsy and distorted. It looked like a travesty of suffering, an almost grotesque image of the sublime sacrifice. Of late, she had noticed that the pedestal on the right side of the cross had worn away a little; in her hurried dusting, the maid had perhaps given it a knock which made it likely to overbalance. Evelyn came into the room suddenly, and the Image fell, shattered, at her feet—crushed into so many pieces that nothing would mend it. She lifted it up with a little cry of dismay; one may renounce one's creed, in action, yet worship it in the temple of the heart.She did not often enter Brand's dressing-room, so full was it of little things which jarred. Over his bed there was the figure of a satyr chasing a nude figure; water dripped from the woman's limbs, surprised while bathing. The walls had been distempered in a pale green tone which gave significance to the frames of the other pictures, mostly reproductions of French impressionist studies, types of the art of Claude Monet and his followers. One showed a naked woman lying on a bed with black sheets and black pillows; round her neck was a narrow band of black velvet. Another was the picture of a ballet-dancer, done by a leading member of the New English Art Club, a clever study in its way. In the foreground was the flare of footlights, concentrating their illumination upon the bare boards of a Paris music-hall stage. The central figure was that of a ballet-girl with whirling skirts and disordered hair; she was leaning forward, smiling, as she danced, at an audience roused to the utmost pitch of frenzy by the suggestion of pose and gesture. Another was the copy of an old French print, called in simple language, "Le Bouquet." A woman was lying in a wood, her head resting on a mound; her lover was kneeling beside her, looking down; he was crushing a bunch of roses against her breast and its disordered drapery.The writing-table was in the window. Evelyn crossed to it; it was dusty. She cleaned and tidied this room herself, remaking the bed, which the servant had made carelessly; washing the glasses of the pictures, and the frames; tidying the dressing-table and polishing the wardrobe. When all was done she stopped to look back at her work, to see if anything was forgotten. The waste-paper basket was still full.She slipped off her apron and emptied the contents of the basket in the folds. She was just gathering the bundle up when a stray word caught her eye. She glanced back at it, puzzled, suddenly suspicious. "Concession?"—that was not a term of which one made general use. She took up the torn slip of paper—"...garding the terms of the concession."The first word was broken, but it was obvious enough: "Regarding the terms of the concession." What did that mean? The note was in Brand's handwriting; to what concession did he refer? Forgotten words and acts returned to her; the terrible suspicion raised by Lady Wereminster's innocent words—the scene in the hall, now some time back.She stood for a moment looking down, bewildered; then bolted the door and prepared slowly to sift, one by one, the contents of the basket. Brand was a careful man. He had disposed of the torn-up pieces of his notes of the Treaty which he had stolen from Farquharson in various channels. Some had been thrown from the window; others scattered in the wind on his way to the Strand; there were but a few pieces of the original paper upon which he had scrawled his first rough translation of the cypher in the waste-paper basket, which Evelyn's careless maid-servant had left there for more than a week, because it was not noticeably full.She had set out upon the table certain familiar words and phrases in an unfamiliar shape. As yet she did not take in their full force. Yet they rang, with curious insistence, at the door of her heart; she was sure that in some way they affected the welfare both of herself and him she loved. Fate—rather, God—had decreed that she should find them and act upon her knowledge.She looked at them again, amazed and stupefied. They had been written in a hurry, and blotted, seemingly, upon soiled blotting-paper; the words, even the separate words, were blurred and almost unintelligible. Yet some stood out, clear and distinct: "Treaty—concession—negotiations," the very name of the Power involved. And all these she recalled; she had read them on the morning after the great scene in the House; they were the terms of the Treaty which Farquharson was supposed to have sold to the Power that coveted England's supremacy.Why should Brand have copied them when he could have cut out the more concise account that was printed in the daily papers? ... And this work showed signs of obliteration and change, as though translated by an unaccustomed hand; there were many erasures and corrections. In one case, for instance, there was the revision of a complete sentence which had obviously been misunderstood at first by a reader unversed in the code.Evelyn had caught up the heap of scattered fragments in her hurry. Such portions as had been destroyed had evidently been chosen in haste, picked at random from a number of torn pieces; for occasionally one could put together half a consecutive line, while often again whole lines were missing. The notes and letters were in various handwritings. White to the lips, her face set and stern, dreading she knew not what, she separated those which were not written by Brand from those which were. Pausing a moment to reflect, she went back to these, and patiently grouped them into little heaps, piecing them together with infinite care. Amongst others there was a note from Dora—this was the first time she had learned that Mrs. Farquharson was in communication with her husband.Dora's note—oh, the rashness of women!—was dated two days before these inexplicable notes of Brand's. "I don't see how I can do what you want," she had written; then a few lines were missing, "should you press me ... can't hold up against ... too strong ... as you wish ... time is short ... we have ... hurry. Cruel of ... he has never done much for me ... should think ... his piece of mind? ... Miserable ... unhappy ..."A few odd fragments of note-paper were still left in the basket, written in a strange hand. Evelyn took these out. They contained a brief message arranging an immediate interview, signed with the name of the man through whose hands it was suspected, failing Von Kirsch, that the stolen notes had passed.The envelope was addressed to Henry Brand."To-day at four-thirty—Meningen." And the date upon the letter was one never to be forgotten."To-day at four-thirty—Meningen." Evelyn repeated the words aloud. The sound reached her meaninglessly, in confused vibrations, as sounds reach the ears of the deaf. For the moment reason swayed; how could she grapple with the difficulties that faced her? with all that the little scraps of paper involved?Cold, stern, pitiless, Evelyn stood beside the table, looking down at her work. How clear things seemed now, and yet—could they be clear? Would any Englishman, however poor, be treacherous to his country where her honour was imperilled, where her safety was threatened? Would any wife betray her husband to save herself? Her heart answered her. Only a man like Brand—the man with whose life she had been linked indissolubly; only a woman like Dora—without heart or imagination.This must be given to the world—at once. Her heart leapt. Farquharson would be saved—by her—his character re-established. Once reinstated he would hold his own; the stronger for the seeming fall, he would go on from strength to strength.But what of her? He would not need her now. And what of Brand? Shamed and broken, proved a traitor, forced perhaps to pay the penalty of his crime, how could she desert him now?Yet—how to stay? She shuddered. No, to stay was impossible. But she must safeguard Brand as far as possible. There was no one she could take into her confidence, no one to help her. And again there was so much to do, so little time to do it in!Evelyn knew something of official methods in dealing with secret agents; the country which had benefited by Brand's betrayal of the negotiations would be the last to help him. Yet he must be got away at once, to another country under another name. He was staying at Seaford; from there it would be easy to get to Newhaven; if she wrote at once, he would get her letter by the second post at latest, he could in all probability take the morning boat to Dieppe, and from thence journey inland. There was a little village she knew of, a few miles from Paris, where he would be secure until he had arranged his plans. Or he could ship straight to Marseilles; there were no towns more easy to be lost in than Marseilles and Barcelona, hotbeds of cosmopolitan intrigue.Her brain cleared. She would arrange to meet Brand at Marseilles, to give him the money which she dared not trust by post. A cheque was, of course, too dangerous to be thought of for a moment; notes even might be traced, so could money orders and drafts upon foreign banks. It would take an hour or two at least to change so large a sum of money into the English gold which alone was secure.So much for the practical side; what of the human?How could she go back to her old life now, when the new life had been within her very grasp? Hourly to spend oneself for others, to wake in the morning with no thought but how best to equip relations and friends with armour to shield them from the world's slings and arrows, to be a sort of model housekeeper with no wages, is doubtless excellent and useful, but it is not life.She went into the little sitting-room and stood where she had stood a few hours before, her lover's arms about her, his kiss on her hair. It was the hour of her life, all she would ever have. Other people talked of love; she knew what it was. There was a difference. She had always known it in her heart; known what it might be to surrender herself utterly, in the way which most human beings cannot realize, bending will and mind and heart in joyous service, one with her husband, as Lady Wereminster had meant when she said that only in the later days of marriage was its summit reached—because to the right man and the right woman custom only deepens the tenderness of first tremulous ties and changes their promise to fulfilment.Her love and Farquharson's was born of conflict and sacrifice. It is the only love which survives. For years her life had been actively paralyzed; the frozen blood in her veins had warmed at his touch. When, at parting, she had seen his eyes kindle at the reflection of the light in her own, her heart had leapt radiantly, as though for the first time conscious of its power. Yet now at the very moment when life had opened out limitlessly, she must turn her back upon it, must shut out the glowing picture.Must she shut it out? Must she? Would he wish it? She could give him the human happiness which he craved, peace and oblivion.Peace, when he had left his wife? And what of Evelyn herself? Before her stretched two paths. Which should she take?There were voices in her ear; the voice of her director, stern, implacable; the voice of conscience, loud and shrill; Cummings' voice, grieved and pitiful."Marriage is a sacrament," said one; "how have you observed it?" "You have abandoned yourself to sin; you have renounced your safeguards of salvation, abjuring the help of your creed for the sake of a passing illusion," said another. "Alas! because of you, Christ is crucified daily," said the third. "Not a wound of His but bleeds afresh when you sin." "How can there be aught but eternal damnation for him who sets his hand to the plough and turns back?" asked the first. "Faith encompassed you as a garment," said the second. "You have rent its mantle. You have stripped yourself to stand in voluntary wantonness before the eyes of men, you who were made in the image of your Maker, upon whose brow there has been set the seal which for ever places you apart from your fellow's—the mark of God by which He knows His own, that you are ready to sear now and efface.""You plead love as your excuse," said the third sadly. "But is it love to drag down the soul of another into eternal conflict? A mother refuses her child what it wants, although it hurts her to deny him, because she knows he cannot take the thing he would without harm. God knows best.""It is the eleventh hour," said the first; "but the Church has spoken and you must obey. Therein lies her power; she does not plead, but she demands. You subscribed to her irrevocable tenets as a child; they hold you still. No merely human power is mighty enough to withstand her, because she rests upon unshakable foundations, and you, unstable and derelict as you are, still know that from afar the beacon of light shines, that although you have strayed now from your Mother, she will guide you to the end."A derelict—a human derelict. Yes, it was true—the words described her.She fell down on the floor of the little sitting-room, sobbing great tearless sobs and beating fruitlessly at the air. Useless to fight the most perfect, the most complete, the most unanimous system that has been since the world began. The Catholic Church is like a wonderful machine; unlike that made by man, it cannot break down. Evelyn was its child, bred in obedience. Once, many years ago in Liverpool, she had seen some wonderful invention which revolved at the rate of some hundreds of turns in thirty seconds. Unluckily for her, she entered the room just after a serious accident. A careless workman standing near had been caught by the wheels and cut to pieces before it could be stopped. The invention itself was beyond praise; it had done incalculable good to humanity. Only a few comparatively worthless lives had been sacrificed to it. That was all. It had helped millions. Was that not also true of the Church?She rose wearily. Time was passing.She took up her pen and wrote to Brand, sealing the letter."I hope that this will reach you in time, that you may catch the morning train to Marseilles. I have found the absolute proof in your own handwriting that you stole the Treaty. I am withholding these proofs for twenty-four hours; that will give you time to leave the country. You will, of course, change your name. If you go at once, on receipt of this, to the Hôtel de Londres, I will meet you as soon as possible, within twenty-four hours or forty-eight, as the case may be, with about two hundred pounds in English gold. That should make your position clear until I have time to carry through my intention—which is to make over to you, under whatever name you permanently assume, the hundred pounds a year which I received from my father."At the Hôtel de Londres I shall ask for Mr. Hendry. See that your name is booked as that in the hotel register."Evelyn fastened the letter deliberately. No very difficult task this. But—what of her letter to Farquharson?For here—how many sides took arms against her? Nature—cowardice—physical frailty, even. They were so mighty an array, these almost visible temptations which struck at the very root of her being, which surrounded her and weighed her down with a solid panoply of strength. And to meet them she had but her piteous array of threadbare honour and tottering faith.For Farquharson it was different. Those who have fame cannot reasonably expect love; life is as best a compromise. Farquharson's career was wide and high. The fate of nations lay in his hand; nations, like individuals, move mechanically to a set tune. The average man deals in small issues; his view is bounded by his neighbour's fences. But Farquharson's boundaries were limitless; they stretched from empire to empire."I send you these enclosures," she wrote at last, "they explain themselves. I trust to your honour to keep them back for two and a half days from your receipt of this letter. You have borne so much already; you will bear this for me. This alters everything, of course. You won't need me now. Had I been able to atone in the smallest degree for your shame and betrayal, you know that I would have given myself gladly, without a moment's hesitation. But your career is opening out again before you. You are not mine really, you see; you never were mine in the biggest sense. Men like you are too big to be bound down by a woman's love; you will reach your goal the quicker because you haven't me beside you. Everything is settled; my husband's escape and my own. It will tell in his favour if I too seem involved in the inevitable scandal. We shall have to stand or fall together in this. Such help as I can give him by identifying myself with his interests must be his—is, in fact, his due, considering that in my heart I violated every law of God's that bound us."Don't try to find me; I have to take my courage in both hands as it is. There are some things beyond expression."Good-bye. That's a cold word to say. I doubt if it ever has been said with a more profound sense of farewell. We shall never meet again in the future; we have met too often in the past. Yet how sweet it has been, some of it—worth every pang, every wound. How sweet it might have been, you and I know.... But we cannot stand against God's will."I could write on for ever—what's the use? We know the truth. We belong to each other, now and always. The two lives which stand between us now are shadows, which once in eternity will disappear."She folded the two letters, addressed them, and went down-stairs to post them herself. There was a letter with a foreign postmark in the box; she recognized the handwriting as Hare's, although so weak and tremulous. She held it for a moment in her hand, wondering what it contained; Hare was an infrequent correspondent. She decided to post her letters first, and read his message afterwards. There was so much still to be done that night. She had still to arrange her own plans of escape. To Marseilles she must inevitably go—but afterwards? That lay on the knees of the gods. When once she had seen Brand, she would take the next train out to the unknown.CHAPTER III"They kill me, they cut my flesh ... what then? ... In matter of death carry thyself scornfully ... either the gods can do nothing for us, or they can allay the distemper of thy mind. If they can do nothing, why dost thou pray?"—MARCUS AURELIUS.To overwrought nerves there is occasionally something soothing in the movement of a train. Evelyn, on her way to Marseilles, looked back to the rush of events of the last few days with amazement and wonder. By the same post as Hare's letters there had come one from his solicitor; a brief announcement of the fact that he had received instructions from his client authorizing him to communicate with Mrs. Brand immediately upon his death. The solicitor wished to see Mrs. Brand, if possible, within the next twenty-four hours, as she, amongst others, benefited by the will. Would she telephone to 8431, Central, at once to fix a meeting?She had met him then and there, in view of her sudden departure abroad. It was necessary to make a fresh will; having disposed of Hare's legacy in charity, the solicitor obeyed her instructions regarding her husband, without restriction. An hour later found Evelyn ready to leave England, to start a new life under new conditions. Through the train windows she watched village after village flit by, as though she was looking at the shifting scenes of a biograph. Only dimly aware of beauty, she whirled through the kaleidoscope of colour, of full and fragrant orchards, of fields of daffodils, by vineyards and woods, until at last she reached the coast, and before her the view of the Mediterranean stretched, in its eternal blue. She had gone through the hours of travel oblivious and stupefied, hardly conscious even of the occasional stoppages of the train.Brand was awaiting her, he had arrived twelve hours before. Their interview was brief. He took the money, and promised what she asked. He would never trouble her again; this was the end.She did not take his hand; she could not. At the last he turned."You're a good woman, Evelyn," he said suddenly.That chapter of her life was closed, and she set out for the unknown.She was bending her steps towards a radiant vision—Monserrato. Years before, on a night's journey from Barcelona, she had come upon it unexpectedly in the dawn. Her fellow-travellers in the compartment had departed; she was just then alone with her companion, a portly lady of uncertain age, who would have slept profoundly through an earthquake. Tired and over-wrought, Evelyn had for some time been looking at the landscape with eyes which scarcely took in its significance. Suddenly, on her right, there rose a vision so startling, so mysterious, that for a moment she believed it to be the image of her brain, a supernatural vision. Spire upon spire showed before her, serrated hills, bare and austere, grey and cold in the first gleam of the morning. She saw their outlines distinctly for a full half-minute; then, as the railway line swerved, they were lost to sight, and for a little while she thought they were a dream. They looked so like hills of illusion, behind which lay God's gift of eventual peace. But as the train converged towards the station the hills came suddenly close again, and she knew them to be real.So near at hand, they almost terrified her. One realized in face of them how Ignatius Loyola had toiled, barefoot, every step of the way across those rugged paths. They were an obviousviâ crucis. To step across them in shoes, with the ordinary trappings of civilization, was sacrilege; they compelled renunciation, the absolute denial of all that life held dear, before a believer dared set foot on that sacred pathway.Well, she had proved her right to stand there, to walk in the way of the martyr. The bleeding of human feet is, after all, a temporary small inconvenience; when the soul bleeds, God tests its loss and gain.Hour after hour went by; she was too tired to think or read. Now and again a sharp pain at her heart, like a blow, brought her to herself, and she had to raise herself from the cushions against which she had fallen, limp and lifeless, absolutely apathetic, to gasp for breath. The little physical interruption cleared her brain; she looked quite clearly at the future, and knew what its ensuing hours would bring. In time, probably, she would take up old threads again. Habit is strong, and friends assertive; bury herself as she would, some one would find her out and come inevitably for help or pity. But she would have to draw now upon the well of bitterness instead of a sacred fount. No matter. The water looked as crystal clear; those who sipped it would not know from what source it had sprung.Before her interminable days, immeasurable nights. The nights were the worst. Already terror seized her in its grip. She had awakened to find herself calling upon Farquharson with passionate frenzy; shrieking to him to come and help her bear what could not be borne alone; to drive away, if it were but for an instant, the host of shapes that threatened her, the inward foes that tore at every bleeding fibre, and mocked her as they bathed themselves in the blood of her heart. When she was awake, she longed for sleep; when sleep came, she prayed for wakefulness.That way lay mania; better death. Ah, but death comes so seldom to him who craves it as a boon; it only robs the mother of her son, the husband of the wife he cherishes, the little, helpless baby of his mother's care!——She fell into a troubled sleep.She woke to find the beauty of the Mediterranean on her left, its exquisite coast-line soft with the flush of evening. Leaning back in hopeless weariness, she wondered how, had she come face to face with her Maker at that moment, she would have justified her existence. For a short while before she had asked herself, in all gravity, why she should give up all that life held dear for the sake of what might be after all, the beautiful dream of a young Nazarene, who died for the sake of His philosophy, as many others did before his time?Yes, love had been her betrayer, the seducer of her soul. In the old legends the gift of love was always made by the good godmother. Treasure as it was thought to be, it had sharp facets which wounded the heart of her who pressed it to her bosom.Looking at life now with that sense of curious detachment which comes to some of us when we stand on the brink of a moral precipice, it seemed to her that God had given His Great Gift of Love for this, and this alone—to show by the mutability of earthly things—even by the very highest passion which human love can attain—the necessity of leaving all for eternity, of tearing every human chord and tie to shreds, that from the broken strands we might weave a tiny ladder upon which wearily to climb into God's Kingdom.One compensation had been given her. She had helped the man she loved. She had made him forget the bitter memories of his childhood; she had rejoiced at his success, and mourned with him in pain; she had reinstated him in the eyes of the world he loved, and made it possible that he should leave behind an honoured name. Only one thing was wanting.... But suddenly a vision formed; her life was full of visions now—she could not tell reality from dreams. She saw the open door of a little church on the hillside, far away in a distant land, but full of the presence of God. She saw the light of faith issue from it in a visible stream, pouring like a mountain torrent down the hillside, giving life to flowers which sprung up on the way. Up the steep hill a traveller came; he moved faintly and wearily, the light had gone from his eyes; she recognized him. Slowly Farquharson came to the door, there to stand blinded in the transfiguring light shed from the jewelled monstrance high upon its throne. And a man came forward, a man with outstretched hands, whose look was very welcoming—Cummings. She heard his voice ring out with a great gladness: "This is what she wished; it was for this that she laid down her life...."Now she was nearing her goal—had come, indeed, almost within range of Monserrato's message. But there was Barcelona to go through first; that wild hell of intrigue and rebellion, the threshold of unbelief. Its noise, its tumult, its gaiety, its dissipation, lay visibly before her as the train crept slowly in, on its long pause in the station. She got out wearily—it was strange how her limbs had dragged these last few days—and took her breakfast in the littlefonda. She sat there motionless, watching the hurrying cosmopolitan crowd of passengers go swiftly to and fro. Barcelona harbours the refuse of many nations, and of itself breeds anarchy and terror. But on beyond—not very far the great pinnacles of Monserrato were raised high in the heavens. Barcelona might lie and cheat and steal and vomit infamy; nothing could break the force of those eternal hills beyond, and nothing sully them.She had still a journey of three hours before her. The train came at last and she got in. This was not the season for tourists; in all probability she would be alone in the convent. She knew what she had to expect: a bare room, with its plain bed and chair, a crucifix upon the wall, the mere necessities of life—more, after all, than had been offered to the Mother of God at Bethlehem.It seemed to her as she approached the little station that she caught an echo of faint Gregorian music, the only music that such mountains could give back. It rang like a distant chant. Sometimes she seemed to catch a word or two, a kind ofNunc dimittis, the song of the soul from which all earthly trappings had fallen away, which was setting out, weary and travel-stained, on its last journey.The train slowed down. She rose. The breath of the mountains was upon her now, solemn and mystic. Above her, in the dusk, they loomed massive and upright, like great giants. Past their base the footsteps of at least one saint had gone; the way was wet with the blood of pilgrims.The place of suffering—made by sufferers. Well, she had earned her right of entry.CHAPTER IV"The perfect beauty of the body and soul thou savedIn thy passion for God's sake, He who is Pity.Was the trial sore?—temptation sharp? Thank God a second time.Why comes temptation but for man to meetAnd master and make crouch beneath his foot,And so be pedestaled in triumph?"—R. B. BROWNING.A night of stupor, in which Evelyn lay wide-eyed, staring out into the darkness, feeling the close presence of the mountains, whose solemn force penetrated even her bare bedroom. A day of comparative peace followed; of quiet detachment. The tranquil life was broken only by the sound of the convent bell.At the back of the convent was a garden of roses which reminded her of the Valley of Vision in the Bible—roses, miraculously brought, said the legend, from a great distance. They had once bloomed white, but a drop of our Lord's blood, flowing from the Cross at Calvary, had stained them red. The rosery was backed by long lines of hills, each separate hill converged to a point; there were terraces full of perfume and colour, supernatural in their silence. Everything about her breathed prayer and sacrifice. In the chapel, of course, the twin forces concentrated; one expected as much—but they were visible, too, in the quietude of the deep ravines, bordered with ilex and box, the huge gorges, and in the little hermitage, to which a way was found by means of a path most perilous. Here—at the Cueva de Garin—she found a painted figure on the wall depicting a hermit who, having travelled there on hands and knees, lived on in that position till his death.Only the greatest love, only the greatest suffering can be laid on the altar of Monserrato. It is like the corridor of Eternity; immortal life is only just beyond.The hours crawled by sluggishly, wearily; Evelyn scarcely knew how. The monks offered the actual lodging free, but near at hand there was afondawhere simple fare could easily be obtained. It was not easy to think of the little ordinary conveniences of life in Monserrato; they scarcely seemed to matter; and Evelyn, setting out early next afternoon, began to make her pilgrimage towards the summit of the mountains, with labouring breath and faltering footsteps, unmindful of the fact that she had not tasted food for many hours.She reached her goal only when sunset had painted the very ground she stood upon with roseate colours. Between herself and the highest heaven there stretched a gossamer veil of gold. And here at last was the reality for which she longed. She felt as though, had she but faith enough, she could have been carried through the whirling spaces upwards and onwards to a place of rest whose beauties were undreamed of by even the purest saint in the little monastery below.She stayed there for a long while—longer even than she knew. The light failed. She rose slowly to her feet. Descent was difficult; she knew now how weak she was. Now and again she stumbled. Over her eyes there was a strange dimness, the gradual decay of thought. Presently limbs and brain alike refused their offices. She felt as though she were being taken up bodily into the grip of some great grey, mocking Shape that held her to itself and paralyzed her. But she pressed on, guided by some unswerving instinct, to the door of the convent. There, and there only, she dropped in the act of pulling at the bell.Some one came; some one carried her into her room. She revived when water was poured on her forehead and her hands were laved. They left her. After a while she recovered sufficiently to undress. Presently all was still.There was no sound in the convent now, not even in the chapel; the dull droning of monks in their lonely cells, chanting offices of penitence and remorse, did not reach her. And now in this infinitely lonely hour, alike afar from friend and foe, a kinder form seemed to come close, one which she did not recognize, yet which made clear those hidden things about which she still feared to ask.Away in the distance, very far away, as she passed swiftly through those grey shadows of oblivion which so many of us would welcome as friends, she saw the figure of her lover up to the last standing erect and triumphant on his little pinnacle of fame, the living symbol of that for which she had come near renouncing every hope of the hereafter which held her at that very moment in its grip. The vision dispersed. Through the room, very slowly, she thought she felt little streams of cold air filtering; they made a dull rhythm, like the running water of a Highland burn. She tried to listen to their music, but could not; in the hour of death the brain, last servant to escape from the house of a powerful master, mocks our call. She struggled desperately to come back from the long passage down which her weakened spirit was being compelled—the last effort of one who was born a fighter. Over her body an icy sweat had broken, in her limbs there was no longer warmth or life. She listened to the beats of her heart striking dimly like the hammer of a clock that was running out. This, then, was death—the truce to struggle.She was too tired even to be glad. But suddenly light broke.At the beginning of life there had been offered to her, as there is offered to each one in turn, the choice of many banners, one of which she was bound to uphold until the end—fame, wealth, peace, honour, and love and sacrifice, which go together.She had chosen the banner of love and sacrifice. Very feebly she sought to grasp it now; it seemed to her a visible fragment which she must wave as her breath died. She fell back. And suddenly out of the darkness she seemed to smell the perfume of a rose, a pure white flower that turned deep red before her eyes.Was it fancy, or did the Figure on the wall, the crucified Christ, turn His head? All was blurred and indistinct, but once again she thought she heard Farquharson's saddened voice in her ears, and Farquharson's touch laid tenderly on her brow. She tried to say his name, but her stiffening lips would not frame it. She tried to grasp her rose, but it fell in dust.In his cell below, an old monk, weeping, lifted his voice in passionate appeal."Oro supplex et acclinisCor contritum quasi cinis,Gere curam mei finis."In the morning they found her still and quiet, in the possession of the one good gift which life had brought her. Her face was turned, her fingers pointing towards, but not grasping, the little wooden crucifix upon the wall. So they unhung it and laid it on her breast.THE ENDRICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,BREAD STREET HILL, E.C., ANDBUNGAY, SUFFOLK.*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOKFARQUHARSON OF GLUNE***
CHAPTER II
"I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano;A stage where every man must play a part,And mine a sad one."—SHAKESPEARE.
"I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano;A stage where every man must play a part,And mine a sad one."—SHAKESPEARE.
"I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano;
A stage where every man must play a part,
And mine a sad one."—SHAKESPEARE.
The great decisions of our lives are generally made in very undramatic settings. There is no stage music to carry us through the dreaded moment; we live through a crisis, and take up the thread of ordinary life again without a pause.
Morning dawned dull and grey, inclined to be rainy. Breakfast was served at eight-thirty as usual; at nine o'clock Evelyn interviewed her cook-general. Half-an-hour later she was hard at work upon the ordinary duties of the day. There was household linen to mend, silver to clean, china to be dusted; we have to go on with our daily work until the heavens mercifully fall.
There was no item of regular routine which she omitted: not even that of prayer. Yet Evelyn was no hypocrite. She knew quite well what the Church would say of her decision; she knew that she was risking her hold even on Christ's all-embracing pity. For the wantons and sinners He had forgiven had come to Him in shame and penitence, meaning to sin no more. In the one Biblical incident where He was brought in contact with a woman who expressed no remorse for the past, He Himself had given His injunctions solemnly—even while forbidding others to condemn her—"Go thou and sin no more."
Evelyn, of her own deliberate choice and will, from whatever motive, was setting out upon the path which religion and the world alike call iniquitous. The point of difference between the two judgments lies in this alone, that whereas the Catholic Church tries to stamp out and does actually condemn deeds which may for ever be concealed from those about us, the world condones all sin that clokes itself attractively, until the cloak is torn away. Then it is prompt to give sentence.
Those who, like Evelyn, make their choice in something of the spirit of a martyr, neither shirk nor evade the details of their fall. She was offering herself to Farquharson as the alternative of worldly fame. Had he retained his post in the Ministry she would, little by little, have drifted away from his life. But as things stood, this was impossible. Last night she had seen him shorn of every ambition, every hope, bereft of power and honour, shamed and broken, disappointed and disillusioned, forced to live with a woman who, once only uncongenial, was now actively abhorrent; stricken to the core of his being by the loss of the little son whose tender breath upon the waters of life had turned its gall and bitterness into sweetness and solace.
Now, having made her decision, there would be no turning back, no failure in carrying out the least of the many arrangements which it demanded.
Mechanically, she set about her task of tidying the house, of setting in more precise order that which was always orderly. She had withdrawn what little money she had in her banking account, and left it in the table drawer; Brand should not be pecuniarily the worse for her absence. She wrote to various friends offering them the flat for the season; she told them to deal direct with her solicitor, at 88 New Square, Lincoln's Inn, as she was going away shortly. She would not saddle her husband with the rent of a flat when he could live in bachelor quarters far more cheaply and conveniently.
There were a few personal possessions of her own, too, which were of value—an old diamond pendant, a pearl necklace which her grandmother had left her, a sapphire bracelet her godmother had given her at her marriage, and a few other wedding presents which were marketable. She telephoned to a jeweller whom she could trust, and interviewed him in the afternoon. The result exceeded her expectations; she was able to leave over two hundred and fifty pounds in bank-notes and cash in the table drawer, for her husband to dispose of as he chose.
Five o'clock struck before Evelyn had time to think of herself. And then it was only a very ordinary incident that recalled her. In her bedroom, on her mantelpiece, there stood a plaster cross which she had bought in Italy some years before. It was unusual in its way, the work of a man she had rescued from starvation. The cross was shaped conventionally enough, but the Figure upon it was clumsy and distorted. It looked like a travesty of suffering, an almost grotesque image of the sublime sacrifice. Of late, she had noticed that the pedestal on the right side of the cross had worn away a little; in her hurried dusting, the maid had perhaps given it a knock which made it likely to overbalance. Evelyn came into the room suddenly, and the Image fell, shattered, at her feet—crushed into so many pieces that nothing would mend it. She lifted it up with a little cry of dismay; one may renounce one's creed, in action, yet worship it in the temple of the heart.
She did not often enter Brand's dressing-room, so full was it of little things which jarred. Over his bed there was the figure of a satyr chasing a nude figure; water dripped from the woman's limbs, surprised while bathing. The walls had been distempered in a pale green tone which gave significance to the frames of the other pictures, mostly reproductions of French impressionist studies, types of the art of Claude Monet and his followers. One showed a naked woman lying on a bed with black sheets and black pillows; round her neck was a narrow band of black velvet. Another was the picture of a ballet-dancer, done by a leading member of the New English Art Club, a clever study in its way. In the foreground was the flare of footlights, concentrating their illumination upon the bare boards of a Paris music-hall stage. The central figure was that of a ballet-girl with whirling skirts and disordered hair; she was leaning forward, smiling, as she danced, at an audience roused to the utmost pitch of frenzy by the suggestion of pose and gesture. Another was the copy of an old French print, called in simple language, "Le Bouquet." A woman was lying in a wood, her head resting on a mound; her lover was kneeling beside her, looking down; he was crushing a bunch of roses against her breast and its disordered drapery.
The writing-table was in the window. Evelyn crossed to it; it was dusty. She cleaned and tidied this room herself, remaking the bed, which the servant had made carelessly; washing the glasses of the pictures, and the frames; tidying the dressing-table and polishing the wardrobe. When all was done she stopped to look back at her work, to see if anything was forgotten. The waste-paper basket was still full.
She slipped off her apron and emptied the contents of the basket in the folds. She was just gathering the bundle up when a stray word caught her eye. She glanced back at it, puzzled, suddenly suspicious. "Concession?"—that was not a term of which one made general use. She took up the torn slip of paper—"...garding the terms of the concession."
The first word was broken, but it was obvious enough: "Regarding the terms of the concession." What did that mean? The note was in Brand's handwriting; to what concession did he refer? Forgotten words and acts returned to her; the terrible suspicion raised by Lady Wereminster's innocent words—the scene in the hall, now some time back.
She stood for a moment looking down, bewildered; then bolted the door and prepared slowly to sift, one by one, the contents of the basket. Brand was a careful man. He had disposed of the torn-up pieces of his notes of the Treaty which he had stolen from Farquharson in various channels. Some had been thrown from the window; others scattered in the wind on his way to the Strand; there were but a few pieces of the original paper upon which he had scrawled his first rough translation of the cypher in the waste-paper basket, which Evelyn's careless maid-servant had left there for more than a week, because it was not noticeably full.
She had set out upon the table certain familiar words and phrases in an unfamiliar shape. As yet she did not take in their full force. Yet they rang, with curious insistence, at the door of her heart; she was sure that in some way they affected the welfare both of herself and him she loved. Fate—rather, God—had decreed that she should find them and act upon her knowledge.
She looked at them again, amazed and stupefied. They had been written in a hurry, and blotted, seemingly, upon soiled blotting-paper; the words, even the separate words, were blurred and almost unintelligible. Yet some stood out, clear and distinct: "Treaty—concession—negotiations," the very name of the Power involved. And all these she recalled; she had read them on the morning after the great scene in the House; they were the terms of the Treaty which Farquharson was supposed to have sold to the Power that coveted England's supremacy.
Why should Brand have copied them when he could have cut out the more concise account that was printed in the daily papers? ... And this work showed signs of obliteration and change, as though translated by an unaccustomed hand; there were many erasures and corrections. In one case, for instance, there was the revision of a complete sentence which had obviously been misunderstood at first by a reader unversed in the code.
Evelyn had caught up the heap of scattered fragments in her hurry. Such portions as had been destroyed had evidently been chosen in haste, picked at random from a number of torn pieces; for occasionally one could put together half a consecutive line, while often again whole lines were missing. The notes and letters were in various handwritings. White to the lips, her face set and stern, dreading she knew not what, she separated those which were not written by Brand from those which were. Pausing a moment to reflect, she went back to these, and patiently grouped them into little heaps, piecing them together with infinite care. Amongst others there was a note from Dora—this was the first time she had learned that Mrs. Farquharson was in communication with her husband.
Dora's note—oh, the rashness of women!—was dated two days before these inexplicable notes of Brand's. "I don't see how I can do what you want," she had written; then a few lines were missing, "should you press me ... can't hold up against ... too strong ... as you wish ... time is short ... we have ... hurry. Cruel of ... he has never done much for me ... should think ... his piece of mind? ... Miserable ... unhappy ..."
A few odd fragments of note-paper were still left in the basket, written in a strange hand. Evelyn took these out. They contained a brief message arranging an immediate interview, signed with the name of the man through whose hands it was suspected, failing Von Kirsch, that the stolen notes had passed.
The envelope was addressed to Henry Brand.
"To-day at four-thirty—Meningen." And the date upon the letter was one never to be forgotten.
"To-day at four-thirty—Meningen." Evelyn repeated the words aloud. The sound reached her meaninglessly, in confused vibrations, as sounds reach the ears of the deaf. For the moment reason swayed; how could she grapple with the difficulties that faced her? with all that the little scraps of paper involved?
Cold, stern, pitiless, Evelyn stood beside the table, looking down at her work. How clear things seemed now, and yet—could they be clear? Would any Englishman, however poor, be treacherous to his country where her honour was imperilled, where her safety was threatened? Would any wife betray her husband to save herself? Her heart answered her. Only a man like Brand—the man with whose life she had been linked indissolubly; only a woman like Dora—without heart or imagination.
This must be given to the world—at once. Her heart leapt. Farquharson would be saved—by her—his character re-established. Once reinstated he would hold his own; the stronger for the seeming fall, he would go on from strength to strength.
But what of her? He would not need her now. And what of Brand? Shamed and broken, proved a traitor, forced perhaps to pay the penalty of his crime, how could she desert him now?
Yet—how to stay? She shuddered. No, to stay was impossible. But she must safeguard Brand as far as possible. There was no one she could take into her confidence, no one to help her. And again there was so much to do, so little time to do it in!
Evelyn knew something of official methods in dealing with secret agents; the country which had benefited by Brand's betrayal of the negotiations would be the last to help him. Yet he must be got away at once, to another country under another name. He was staying at Seaford; from there it would be easy to get to Newhaven; if she wrote at once, he would get her letter by the second post at latest, he could in all probability take the morning boat to Dieppe, and from thence journey inland. There was a little village she knew of, a few miles from Paris, where he would be secure until he had arranged his plans. Or he could ship straight to Marseilles; there were no towns more easy to be lost in than Marseilles and Barcelona, hotbeds of cosmopolitan intrigue.
Her brain cleared. She would arrange to meet Brand at Marseilles, to give him the money which she dared not trust by post. A cheque was, of course, too dangerous to be thought of for a moment; notes even might be traced, so could money orders and drafts upon foreign banks. It would take an hour or two at least to change so large a sum of money into the English gold which alone was secure.
So much for the practical side; what of the human?
How could she go back to her old life now, when the new life had been within her very grasp? Hourly to spend oneself for others, to wake in the morning with no thought but how best to equip relations and friends with armour to shield them from the world's slings and arrows, to be a sort of model housekeeper with no wages, is doubtless excellent and useful, but it is not life.
She went into the little sitting-room and stood where she had stood a few hours before, her lover's arms about her, his kiss on her hair. It was the hour of her life, all she would ever have. Other people talked of love; she knew what it was. There was a difference. She had always known it in her heart; known what it might be to surrender herself utterly, in the way which most human beings cannot realize, bending will and mind and heart in joyous service, one with her husband, as Lady Wereminster had meant when she said that only in the later days of marriage was its summit reached—because to the right man and the right woman custom only deepens the tenderness of first tremulous ties and changes their promise to fulfilment.
Her love and Farquharson's was born of conflict and sacrifice. It is the only love which survives. For years her life had been actively paralyzed; the frozen blood in her veins had warmed at his touch. When, at parting, she had seen his eyes kindle at the reflection of the light in her own, her heart had leapt radiantly, as though for the first time conscious of its power. Yet now at the very moment when life had opened out limitlessly, she must turn her back upon it, must shut out the glowing picture.
Must she shut it out? Must she? Would he wish it? She could give him the human happiness which he craved, peace and oblivion.
Peace, when he had left his wife? And what of Evelyn herself? Before her stretched two paths. Which should she take?
There were voices in her ear; the voice of her director, stern, implacable; the voice of conscience, loud and shrill; Cummings' voice, grieved and pitiful.
"Marriage is a sacrament," said one; "how have you observed it?" "You have abandoned yourself to sin; you have renounced your safeguards of salvation, abjuring the help of your creed for the sake of a passing illusion," said another. "Alas! because of you, Christ is crucified daily," said the third. "Not a wound of His but bleeds afresh when you sin." "How can there be aught but eternal damnation for him who sets his hand to the plough and turns back?" asked the first. "Faith encompassed you as a garment," said the second. "You have rent its mantle. You have stripped yourself to stand in voluntary wantonness before the eyes of men, you who were made in the image of your Maker, upon whose brow there has been set the seal which for ever places you apart from your fellow's—the mark of God by which He knows His own, that you are ready to sear now and efface."
"You plead love as your excuse," said the third sadly. "But is it love to drag down the soul of another into eternal conflict? A mother refuses her child what it wants, although it hurts her to deny him, because she knows he cannot take the thing he would without harm. God knows best."
"It is the eleventh hour," said the first; "but the Church has spoken and you must obey. Therein lies her power; she does not plead, but she demands. You subscribed to her irrevocable tenets as a child; they hold you still. No merely human power is mighty enough to withstand her, because she rests upon unshakable foundations, and you, unstable and derelict as you are, still know that from afar the beacon of light shines, that although you have strayed now from your Mother, she will guide you to the end."
A derelict—a human derelict. Yes, it was true—the words described her.
She fell down on the floor of the little sitting-room, sobbing great tearless sobs and beating fruitlessly at the air. Useless to fight the most perfect, the most complete, the most unanimous system that has been since the world began. The Catholic Church is like a wonderful machine; unlike that made by man, it cannot break down. Evelyn was its child, bred in obedience. Once, many years ago in Liverpool, she had seen some wonderful invention which revolved at the rate of some hundreds of turns in thirty seconds. Unluckily for her, she entered the room just after a serious accident. A careless workman standing near had been caught by the wheels and cut to pieces before it could be stopped. The invention itself was beyond praise; it had done incalculable good to humanity. Only a few comparatively worthless lives had been sacrificed to it. That was all. It had helped millions. Was that not also true of the Church?
She rose wearily. Time was passing.
She took up her pen and wrote to Brand, sealing the letter.
"I hope that this will reach you in time, that you may catch the morning train to Marseilles. I have found the absolute proof in your own handwriting that you stole the Treaty. I am withholding these proofs for twenty-four hours; that will give you time to leave the country. You will, of course, change your name. If you go at once, on receipt of this, to the Hôtel de Londres, I will meet you as soon as possible, within twenty-four hours or forty-eight, as the case may be, with about two hundred pounds in English gold. That should make your position clear until I have time to carry through my intention—which is to make over to you, under whatever name you permanently assume, the hundred pounds a year which I received from my father.
"At the Hôtel de Londres I shall ask for Mr. Hendry. See that your name is booked as that in the hotel register."
Evelyn fastened the letter deliberately. No very difficult task this. But—what of her letter to Farquharson?
For here—how many sides took arms against her? Nature—cowardice—physical frailty, even. They were so mighty an array, these almost visible temptations which struck at the very root of her being, which surrounded her and weighed her down with a solid panoply of strength. And to meet them she had but her piteous array of threadbare honour and tottering faith.
For Farquharson it was different. Those who have fame cannot reasonably expect love; life is as best a compromise. Farquharson's career was wide and high. The fate of nations lay in his hand; nations, like individuals, move mechanically to a set tune. The average man deals in small issues; his view is bounded by his neighbour's fences. But Farquharson's boundaries were limitless; they stretched from empire to empire.
"I send you these enclosures," she wrote at last, "they explain themselves. I trust to your honour to keep them back for two and a half days from your receipt of this letter. You have borne so much already; you will bear this for me. This alters everything, of course. You won't need me now. Had I been able to atone in the smallest degree for your shame and betrayal, you know that I would have given myself gladly, without a moment's hesitation. But your career is opening out again before you. You are not mine really, you see; you never were mine in the biggest sense. Men like you are too big to be bound down by a woman's love; you will reach your goal the quicker because you haven't me beside you. Everything is settled; my husband's escape and my own. It will tell in his favour if I too seem involved in the inevitable scandal. We shall have to stand or fall together in this. Such help as I can give him by identifying myself with his interests must be his—is, in fact, his due, considering that in my heart I violated every law of God's that bound us.
"Don't try to find me; I have to take my courage in both hands as it is. There are some things beyond expression.
"Good-bye. That's a cold word to say. I doubt if it ever has been said with a more profound sense of farewell. We shall never meet again in the future; we have met too often in the past. Yet how sweet it has been, some of it—worth every pang, every wound. How sweet it might have been, you and I know.... But we cannot stand against God's will.
"I could write on for ever—what's the use? We know the truth. We belong to each other, now and always. The two lives which stand between us now are shadows, which once in eternity will disappear."
She folded the two letters, addressed them, and went down-stairs to post them herself. There was a letter with a foreign postmark in the box; she recognized the handwriting as Hare's, although so weak and tremulous. She held it for a moment in her hand, wondering what it contained; Hare was an infrequent correspondent. She decided to post her letters first, and read his message afterwards. There was so much still to be done that night. She had still to arrange her own plans of escape. To Marseilles she must inevitably go—but afterwards? That lay on the knees of the gods. When once she had seen Brand, she would take the next train out to the unknown.
CHAPTER III
"They kill me, they cut my flesh ... what then? ... In matter of death carry thyself scornfully ... either the gods can do nothing for us, or they can allay the distemper of thy mind. If they can do nothing, why dost thou pray?"—MARCUS AURELIUS.
To overwrought nerves there is occasionally something soothing in the movement of a train. Evelyn, on her way to Marseilles, looked back to the rush of events of the last few days with amazement and wonder. By the same post as Hare's letters there had come one from his solicitor; a brief announcement of the fact that he had received instructions from his client authorizing him to communicate with Mrs. Brand immediately upon his death. The solicitor wished to see Mrs. Brand, if possible, within the next twenty-four hours, as she, amongst others, benefited by the will. Would she telephone to 8431, Central, at once to fix a meeting?
She had met him then and there, in view of her sudden departure abroad. It was necessary to make a fresh will; having disposed of Hare's legacy in charity, the solicitor obeyed her instructions regarding her husband, without restriction. An hour later found Evelyn ready to leave England, to start a new life under new conditions. Through the train windows she watched village after village flit by, as though she was looking at the shifting scenes of a biograph. Only dimly aware of beauty, she whirled through the kaleidoscope of colour, of full and fragrant orchards, of fields of daffodils, by vineyards and woods, until at last she reached the coast, and before her the view of the Mediterranean stretched, in its eternal blue. She had gone through the hours of travel oblivious and stupefied, hardly conscious even of the occasional stoppages of the train.
Brand was awaiting her, he had arrived twelve hours before. Their interview was brief. He took the money, and promised what she asked. He would never trouble her again; this was the end.
She did not take his hand; she could not. At the last he turned.
"You're a good woman, Evelyn," he said suddenly.
That chapter of her life was closed, and she set out for the unknown.
She was bending her steps towards a radiant vision—Monserrato. Years before, on a night's journey from Barcelona, she had come upon it unexpectedly in the dawn. Her fellow-travellers in the compartment had departed; she was just then alone with her companion, a portly lady of uncertain age, who would have slept profoundly through an earthquake. Tired and over-wrought, Evelyn had for some time been looking at the landscape with eyes which scarcely took in its significance. Suddenly, on her right, there rose a vision so startling, so mysterious, that for a moment she believed it to be the image of her brain, a supernatural vision. Spire upon spire showed before her, serrated hills, bare and austere, grey and cold in the first gleam of the morning. She saw their outlines distinctly for a full half-minute; then, as the railway line swerved, they were lost to sight, and for a little while she thought they were a dream. They looked so like hills of illusion, behind which lay God's gift of eventual peace. But as the train converged towards the station the hills came suddenly close again, and she knew them to be real.
So near at hand, they almost terrified her. One realized in face of them how Ignatius Loyola had toiled, barefoot, every step of the way across those rugged paths. They were an obviousviâ crucis. To step across them in shoes, with the ordinary trappings of civilization, was sacrilege; they compelled renunciation, the absolute denial of all that life held dear, before a believer dared set foot on that sacred pathway.
Well, she had proved her right to stand there, to walk in the way of the martyr. The bleeding of human feet is, after all, a temporary small inconvenience; when the soul bleeds, God tests its loss and gain.
Hour after hour went by; she was too tired to think or read. Now and again a sharp pain at her heart, like a blow, brought her to herself, and she had to raise herself from the cushions against which she had fallen, limp and lifeless, absolutely apathetic, to gasp for breath. The little physical interruption cleared her brain; she looked quite clearly at the future, and knew what its ensuing hours would bring. In time, probably, she would take up old threads again. Habit is strong, and friends assertive; bury herself as she would, some one would find her out and come inevitably for help or pity. But she would have to draw now upon the well of bitterness instead of a sacred fount. No matter. The water looked as crystal clear; those who sipped it would not know from what source it had sprung.
Before her interminable days, immeasurable nights. The nights were the worst. Already terror seized her in its grip. She had awakened to find herself calling upon Farquharson with passionate frenzy; shrieking to him to come and help her bear what could not be borne alone; to drive away, if it were but for an instant, the host of shapes that threatened her, the inward foes that tore at every bleeding fibre, and mocked her as they bathed themselves in the blood of her heart. When she was awake, she longed for sleep; when sleep came, she prayed for wakefulness.
That way lay mania; better death. Ah, but death comes so seldom to him who craves it as a boon; it only robs the mother of her son, the husband of the wife he cherishes, the little, helpless baby of his mother's care!——
She fell into a troubled sleep.
She woke to find the beauty of the Mediterranean on her left, its exquisite coast-line soft with the flush of evening. Leaning back in hopeless weariness, she wondered how, had she come face to face with her Maker at that moment, she would have justified her existence. For a short while before she had asked herself, in all gravity, why she should give up all that life held dear for the sake of what might be after all, the beautiful dream of a young Nazarene, who died for the sake of His philosophy, as many others did before his time?
Yes, love had been her betrayer, the seducer of her soul. In the old legends the gift of love was always made by the good godmother. Treasure as it was thought to be, it had sharp facets which wounded the heart of her who pressed it to her bosom.
Looking at life now with that sense of curious detachment which comes to some of us when we stand on the brink of a moral precipice, it seemed to her that God had given His Great Gift of Love for this, and this alone—to show by the mutability of earthly things—even by the very highest passion which human love can attain—the necessity of leaving all for eternity, of tearing every human chord and tie to shreds, that from the broken strands we might weave a tiny ladder upon which wearily to climb into God's Kingdom.
One compensation had been given her. She had helped the man she loved. She had made him forget the bitter memories of his childhood; she had rejoiced at his success, and mourned with him in pain; she had reinstated him in the eyes of the world he loved, and made it possible that he should leave behind an honoured name. Only one thing was wanting.... But suddenly a vision formed; her life was full of visions now—she could not tell reality from dreams. She saw the open door of a little church on the hillside, far away in a distant land, but full of the presence of God. She saw the light of faith issue from it in a visible stream, pouring like a mountain torrent down the hillside, giving life to flowers which sprung up on the way. Up the steep hill a traveller came; he moved faintly and wearily, the light had gone from his eyes; she recognized him. Slowly Farquharson came to the door, there to stand blinded in the transfiguring light shed from the jewelled monstrance high upon its throne. And a man came forward, a man with outstretched hands, whose look was very welcoming—Cummings. She heard his voice ring out with a great gladness: "This is what she wished; it was for this that she laid down her life...."
Now she was nearing her goal—had come, indeed, almost within range of Monserrato's message. But there was Barcelona to go through first; that wild hell of intrigue and rebellion, the threshold of unbelief. Its noise, its tumult, its gaiety, its dissipation, lay visibly before her as the train crept slowly in, on its long pause in the station. She got out wearily—it was strange how her limbs had dragged these last few days—and took her breakfast in the littlefonda. She sat there motionless, watching the hurrying cosmopolitan crowd of passengers go swiftly to and fro. Barcelona harbours the refuse of many nations, and of itself breeds anarchy and terror. But on beyond—not very far the great pinnacles of Monserrato were raised high in the heavens. Barcelona might lie and cheat and steal and vomit infamy; nothing could break the force of those eternal hills beyond, and nothing sully them.
She had still a journey of three hours before her. The train came at last and she got in. This was not the season for tourists; in all probability she would be alone in the convent. She knew what she had to expect: a bare room, with its plain bed and chair, a crucifix upon the wall, the mere necessities of life—more, after all, than had been offered to the Mother of God at Bethlehem.
It seemed to her as she approached the little station that she caught an echo of faint Gregorian music, the only music that such mountains could give back. It rang like a distant chant. Sometimes she seemed to catch a word or two, a kind ofNunc dimittis, the song of the soul from which all earthly trappings had fallen away, which was setting out, weary and travel-stained, on its last journey.
The train slowed down. She rose. The breath of the mountains was upon her now, solemn and mystic. Above her, in the dusk, they loomed massive and upright, like great giants. Past their base the footsteps of at least one saint had gone; the way was wet with the blood of pilgrims.
The place of suffering—made by sufferers. Well, she had earned her right of entry.
CHAPTER IV
"The perfect beauty of the body and soul thou savedIn thy passion for God's sake, He who is Pity.Was the trial sore?—temptation sharp? Thank God a second time.Why comes temptation but for man to meetAnd master and make crouch beneath his foot,And so be pedestaled in triumph?"—R. B. BROWNING.
"The perfect beauty of the body and soul thou savedIn thy passion for God's sake, He who is Pity.Was the trial sore?—temptation sharp? Thank God a second time.Why comes temptation but for man to meetAnd master and make crouch beneath his foot,And so be pedestaled in triumph?"—R. B. BROWNING.
"The perfect beauty of the body and soul thou saved
In thy passion for God's sake, He who is Pity.
Was the trial sore?—temptation sharp? Thank God a second time.
Why comes temptation but for man to meet
And master and make crouch beneath his foot,
And so be pedestaled in triumph?"—R. B. BROWNING.
A night of stupor, in which Evelyn lay wide-eyed, staring out into the darkness, feeling the close presence of the mountains, whose solemn force penetrated even her bare bedroom. A day of comparative peace followed; of quiet detachment. The tranquil life was broken only by the sound of the convent bell.
At the back of the convent was a garden of roses which reminded her of the Valley of Vision in the Bible—roses, miraculously brought, said the legend, from a great distance. They had once bloomed white, but a drop of our Lord's blood, flowing from the Cross at Calvary, had stained them red. The rosery was backed by long lines of hills, each separate hill converged to a point; there were terraces full of perfume and colour, supernatural in their silence. Everything about her breathed prayer and sacrifice. In the chapel, of course, the twin forces concentrated; one expected as much—but they were visible, too, in the quietude of the deep ravines, bordered with ilex and box, the huge gorges, and in the little hermitage, to which a way was found by means of a path most perilous. Here—at the Cueva de Garin—she found a painted figure on the wall depicting a hermit who, having travelled there on hands and knees, lived on in that position till his death.
Only the greatest love, only the greatest suffering can be laid on the altar of Monserrato. It is like the corridor of Eternity; immortal life is only just beyond.
The hours crawled by sluggishly, wearily; Evelyn scarcely knew how. The monks offered the actual lodging free, but near at hand there was afondawhere simple fare could easily be obtained. It was not easy to think of the little ordinary conveniences of life in Monserrato; they scarcely seemed to matter; and Evelyn, setting out early next afternoon, began to make her pilgrimage towards the summit of the mountains, with labouring breath and faltering footsteps, unmindful of the fact that she had not tasted food for many hours.
She reached her goal only when sunset had painted the very ground she stood upon with roseate colours. Between herself and the highest heaven there stretched a gossamer veil of gold. And here at last was the reality for which she longed. She felt as though, had she but faith enough, she could have been carried through the whirling spaces upwards and onwards to a place of rest whose beauties were undreamed of by even the purest saint in the little monastery below.
She stayed there for a long while—longer even than she knew. The light failed. She rose slowly to her feet. Descent was difficult; she knew now how weak she was. Now and again she stumbled. Over her eyes there was a strange dimness, the gradual decay of thought. Presently limbs and brain alike refused their offices. She felt as though she were being taken up bodily into the grip of some great grey, mocking Shape that held her to itself and paralyzed her. But she pressed on, guided by some unswerving instinct, to the door of the convent. There, and there only, she dropped in the act of pulling at the bell.
Some one came; some one carried her into her room. She revived when water was poured on her forehead and her hands were laved. They left her. After a while she recovered sufficiently to undress. Presently all was still.
There was no sound in the convent now, not even in the chapel; the dull droning of monks in their lonely cells, chanting offices of penitence and remorse, did not reach her. And now in this infinitely lonely hour, alike afar from friend and foe, a kinder form seemed to come close, one which she did not recognize, yet which made clear those hidden things about which she still feared to ask.
Away in the distance, very far away, as she passed swiftly through those grey shadows of oblivion which so many of us would welcome as friends, she saw the figure of her lover up to the last standing erect and triumphant on his little pinnacle of fame, the living symbol of that for which she had come near renouncing every hope of the hereafter which held her at that very moment in its grip. The vision dispersed. Through the room, very slowly, she thought she felt little streams of cold air filtering; they made a dull rhythm, like the running water of a Highland burn. She tried to listen to their music, but could not; in the hour of death the brain, last servant to escape from the house of a powerful master, mocks our call. She struggled desperately to come back from the long passage down which her weakened spirit was being compelled—the last effort of one who was born a fighter. Over her body an icy sweat had broken, in her limbs there was no longer warmth or life. She listened to the beats of her heart striking dimly like the hammer of a clock that was running out. This, then, was death—the truce to struggle.
She was too tired even to be glad. But suddenly light broke.
At the beginning of life there had been offered to her, as there is offered to each one in turn, the choice of many banners, one of which she was bound to uphold until the end—fame, wealth, peace, honour, and love and sacrifice, which go together.
She had chosen the banner of love and sacrifice. Very feebly she sought to grasp it now; it seemed to her a visible fragment which she must wave as her breath died. She fell back. And suddenly out of the darkness she seemed to smell the perfume of a rose, a pure white flower that turned deep red before her eyes.
Was it fancy, or did the Figure on the wall, the crucified Christ, turn His head? All was blurred and indistinct, but once again she thought she heard Farquharson's saddened voice in her ears, and Farquharson's touch laid tenderly on her brow. She tried to say his name, but her stiffening lips would not frame it. She tried to grasp her rose, but it fell in dust.
In his cell below, an old monk, weeping, lifted his voice in passionate appeal.
"Oro supplex et acclinisCor contritum quasi cinis,Gere curam mei finis."
"Oro supplex et acclinisCor contritum quasi cinis,Gere curam mei finis."
"Oro supplex et acclinis
Cor contritum quasi cinis,
Gere curam mei finis."
In the morning they found her still and quiet, in the possession of the one good gift which life had brought her. Her face was turned, her fingers pointing towards, but not grasping, the little wooden crucifix upon the wall. So they unhung it and laid it on her breast.
THE END
RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,BREAD STREET HILL, E.C., ANDBUNGAY, SUFFOLK.
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOKFARQUHARSON OF GLUNE***