An interlude of happiness, six weeks of almost uninterrupted enjoyment, followed for Rose after she went on board Sir Edmund's yacht.
Edmund Grosse had most distinctly made up his mind that during those weeks he would not betray any ulterior motive whatever. They were all to be amused and to be happy. There is no knowing when an interlude of happiness will come in life; it is not enough to make out perfect plans, the best fail us. But sometimes, quite unforeseen, when all the weather signs are contrary, there come intervals of sunshine in our hearts, in spite of any circumstances and the most uninteresting surroundings. Harmony is proclaimed for a little while, and we wonder why things were black before, and have to remember that they will be black again. But when such a truce to pain falls in the happiest setting, and the most glorious scenery, then rejoice and be glad, it is a real truce of God. So did Rose night by night rejoice without trembling. It wanted much skill on Edmund's part to ward off any scruples, any moments of consciousness. He showed great self-command, surprising self-discipline in carrying out his tactics. There were moments when their talk had slid into great intimacy, when they were close together in heart and in mind, and he slipped back into the commonplace only just in time. There were moments, especially on the return journey, when he could hardly hide his sense of how gracious and delicious was her presence, how acute her instincts, how quaintly and attractively simple her mind, how big her spiritual outlook. But before she could have more than a suspicion of his thoughts Edmund would make any consciousness seem absurd by a comment on the doings of the very young people on board.
"The child does look happy," he said in his laziest voice one evening when he knew his look had been bent for a rashly long moment on Rose. "Happy and pretty," he murmured to himself, and he watched his youngest guest with earnestness. Then he sat down near Rose on a low deck-chair, and put away the glasses he held in his pocket. "I'm not sure I don't get as much pleasure out of the hazy world I see about me as you long-sighted people do; the colours are marvellous." Rose looked at him in surprise.
"But Edmund, don't you see more than haze?"
"Oh, yes, I can see a foreground, and then the rest melts away. I don't know what is meant by a middle distance—that's why I can't shoot."
Rose sat up with an eager look on her face. "I never knew that; I only thought you did not care for shooting."
There was a silence of several minutes, and neither looked at the other. At last Edmund rose and went to the side of the boat and looked over at the water, and then, turning half-way towards her, said: "Why does it startle you so much?"
"Oh, I don't know."
"But you do know perfectly well."
"Indeed, Edmund." Her face was flushed and her voice a little tremulous.
"You shall tell me." He spoke more imperiously than he knew.
"I can't, indeed I can't."
"No," he said; "it would be a difficult thing to say, I admit."
"Couldn't we read something?" said Rose.
"No, no use at all. I am going to tell you why you are so glad I am short-sighted."
"But I am not glad."
"I repeat that you are, and this is the reason why."
"You shall not say it," said Rose, now more and more distressed and embarrassed.
"It's because you never knew before why I did not volunteer for the war, that is why you are so glad." "Yes," he thought in anger, "she has had this thing against me all the time; it is one of the defences she has set up." But he was hurt all the same—hurt and angry; he wanted to punish her. "So all the time you have thought this of me?"
"No, indeed, indeed, Edmund, it wasn't that. I never meant that; I knew you were never that, do believe me."
"Well, if I do believe you so far, what did you think?"
Rose let her book lie on her knee and leant over it with her hands clasped. "I thought that perhaps," she faltered, "you had been too long in the habit of doing nothing much, and that you had grown a little lazy—at least, I didn't really think so, but that idea has struck me."
She came and stood by him. "Oh, Edmund, why do you make me say things when I don't want to, when I hate saying them, when they are not really true at all." She was deeply moved, and he felt that in one sense she was in his power. He gave a bitter sigh.
"Can I make you say whatever I like?" Her face flushed and a different look, one of fear he thought, came into her troubled eyes. "Then say after me, 'I am very sorry I did not understand by intuition that you were too blind to shoot the Boers, and that I was so silly as to think for a moment that you had ever wasted your time or been the least little bit lazy.'"
"No, I won't say anything at all"—she held out both hands to him—"except what the children say, 'let us just go on with the game and pretend that that part never happened.'"
And though Rose was still embarrassed, still inclined to fear she had hurt him, what might have been a little cloud was pierced by sunshine. "How ridiculously glad she is that I'm not a coward!" He, too, in spite of annoyance, felt more hopeful than he had been for a long time.
At Genoa they got long delayed letters and papers. In one of these a short paragraph announced the death of Madame Danterre. "It is believed," were the concluding words, "that she has left her large fortune to her daughter, Miss Mary Dexter." That was the first reminder to Rose that the interlude of mere enjoyment was almost over. She was not going to repine; it had been very good. Coming on board after reading this with a quiet patient look, a look habitual to her during the last two years, but which had fadedunder the sunshine of happy days, Rose saw Edmund Grosse standing alone in the stern of the boat with a number of letters in his left hand pressed against his leg, looking fixedly at the water. The yacht was already standing out to sea, but Edmund had not glanced a farewell at beautiful and yet prosperous Genoa, a city that no modern materialism can degrade. Like a young bride of the sea, she is decked by things old and things new, and her marble palaces do not appear to be insulted by the jostling of modern commerce. All things are kept fresh and pure on that wonderful coast. Something had happened, of that Rose was sure; but what?
Edmund did not look puzzled; he was deciding no knotty question at this moment. Nor did he look simply unhappy: she knew his expression when in sorrow and when in physical pain or mere disgust. He looked intensely preoccupied and very firm. Perhaps, she fancied, he too had a deep sense of that passing of life, of something akin in the swift movement of the water passing the yacht and the swift movement of life passing by the individual man. Was he, perhaps, feeling how life was going for him and for Rose, and by the simple fact of its passing on while they were standing passive their lives would be fixed apart?—passing, apart from what might have been of joy, of peace, of company along the road? There are moments when, even without the stimulus of passion, human beings have a sort of guess at the possibilities of helping one another, of giving strength, and gaining sweetness, that are slipping by. There are many degrees of regret, between that of ships that pass in the night, and that of those who have voyaged long together. There are passages of pleasure sympathy, and passages of sympathy in fight, and passages of mutual succour, and passages of intercourse when incapacity to help has in itself revealed the intensity of good-will in the watcher. But whenever the heart has been fuller than its words, and the will has been deeper than its actions, there is this beauty of regret. There has been a wealth of love greater than could be given or received—not the love of passion, but the love of the little children of the human race for one another. This regret is too grave to belong to comedy, and too happy to belong to tragedy. Rose's heart was full with this sorrow, if it be a real sorrow. These are the sorrows of hearts that are too great for the occasions of life, whereas the pain is far more common of the hearts that are not big enough for what life gives them of opportunity.
Rose was oppressed by feelings she could not analyse, a sense of possibilities of what might have been after these perfect weeks together. But her feelings were dreamy; she had no sense of concrete alternative; she did not now—he had been too skilful—expect Edmund to ask her, nor did she wish him to ask her, to draw quite close to him. She only felt at the end of this interlude they had spent together a suspicion of the infinite reach of the soul, and the soul not rebelling against its bonds, but conscious of them while awaiting freedom.
"Only I discern infinite passion and the painOf finite hearts that yearn."
"Only I discern infinite passion and the painOf finite hearts that yearn."
"Only I discern infinite passion and the pain
Of finite hearts that yearn."
Such were the moments when a man might be pardoned if he called Rose's beauty angelic—angelic of the type of Perugino's pictured angels, a figure just treading on the earth enough to keep up appearances,but whose very skirts float buoyantly in the fresh atmosphere of eternity. They stood a few paces apart, Rose with her look bent vaguely towards the shore, Edmund, still reading his letters, apparently unaware of her presence. He was thus able to take a long exposure sun-picture of the white figure on a sensitive memory that would prove but too retentive of the impression.
But he had to speak at last. "Is it you?"
Edmund thought he spoke as usual, but there was a depth of pain and of tenderness revealed in the face that usually betrayed so little. He held out his hand unconsciously and then drew it back half closed, and looked again at the flowing water. It was a moment of temptation, when love was fighting against itself. Then, with the same half movement of the hand towards her:
"I have had a bolt from the blue, Rose. That man, Hewitt, whom I trusted as I would myself, has absconded. It is thought he has been playing wildly with my money, and that this crisis in South America has been the last blow. I shan't know yet if I am ruined completely or not."
"Oh, Edmund, how dreadful!"
"Don't pity me, dear, it's not worth while. It only means that one of the unemployed will get to work at last. That is, if he can find a job. But I must hurry home at once and leave you to follow. If I put back into Genoa now I can leave by the night express. And you and your mother had better go on to Marseilles in the yacht after you have dropped me."
Mr. Murray Junior's step sounded heavy, and his head was a little more bent than usual, as he passed down the passage into his sanctum. The snow, turning to rain and then reasserting itself and insisting that it would be snow, was dreary enough already when the fog set in firmly and without compromise. There was a good fire in the sanctum; the electric light was on, and the clean sheet of blotting-paper, fresh every morning, lay on the table.
But Mr. Murray, Junior, was struggling for a few moments to realize where he was, for his mind was in such different surroundings. In his thoughts it was June—not June sweltering in London, but June gone mad with roses in a tiny Surrey garden; and with true realism his memory chose just one rose-tree out of them all, which best implied the glory of the others. And one branch of this tree was bent down by a girl's hand; her arm, from which a cotton sleeve had fallen back, was wonderfully white, and the roses wonderfully red.
And the office boy, slowly pulling off one damp, well-made boot and then the other over the gouty toes, was the only person who noticed that "the governor" was awfully down in the mouth.
But no one knew that in Mr. Murray Junior'spocket was a letter from a great specialist, who had seen Mr. Murray Junior's wife the day before,—and what that letter said has nothing to do with this story.
Sir Edmund called about mid-day, and noticed nothing unusual in the heavy face; only it struck him that Murray was looking old, and he wondered on which side of seventy the lawyer might be.
Grosse's visit was the first real distraction the older man had that day. It was impossible for the solicitor not to be interested in the probability that Edmund Grosse had lost a great fortune. The affair teemed with professional interest, and then he liked the man himself. He had a taste for the type, for the man who knows how to cut a figure in the great world without being vulgar or ostentatious. He liked Edmund's manner, his tact, his gift for putting people at their ease. Rumour said that the baronet had shown pluck since the news had come, and had behaved handsomely to underlings. Most men become agitated, irritable, and even cruel when driven into such a position.
It never entered into Murray's imagination to appear to know that Edmund had any cause for care: he was not his solicitor, and he knew that his visitor had not come about his own affairs. But he could not conceal an added degree of respect, and liking even, under the impenetrable manner which hid his own aching sense of close personal suffering. Grosse answered the firm hand-grip with a kindly smile.
"I only heard of Madame Danterre's death when I got to Genoa on our return journey."
"And she died just before you left London," said Murray.
"Yes; I must have overlooked the paper in which it was announced, although I thought I read up all arrears of news whenever we went into port. I wonder no one mentioned it in Cairo; there were several people there who seemed posted up in Lady Rose's affairs. What do you know about Madame Danterre's will?"
"Very little but rumour; nothing is published. Miss Dexter was too ill to attend to business until about two weeks ago; she only saw her lawyer at the end of January. Anyhow, Madame Danterre having died abroad makes delays in this sort of business. But I have been wanting to see you," he said.
Something in his manner made Grosse ask him if he had news.
"Nothing very definite, but things are moving in your direction; and something small, but solid, is the fact that old Akers's son, and the other private, Stock, who witnessed some deed or other for Sir David, are coming home. The regiment is on its way back in theJumna."
Edmund, watching the strong, heavy face, could see that this interested him less than something else as yet unexpressed.
Murray leant back in the round office chair, and crossed his legs in the well of the massive table before him. Edmund bent forward, his face sunburnt and healthy after the weeks on the yacht, but the eyes seemed tired.
"I don't know that it comes to much," Murray went on slowly, "but three days after Madame Danterre's death a foreigner asked to see me who refused to give his name to my clerk. I had him shown in, and thought him a superior man—not, perhaps, a gentleman, but a man with brains. He asked in rather queer English whether I would object to giving him all the information I could, without betraying confidence, as to Sir David Bright and his wife. I thought for a moment that he was your Florentine detective, but then I reflected that the detective would have no object in disguising himself from me as he knew that you trusted me entirely. I told my visitor that he might ask me any questions he liked, and I can assure you he placed his shots with great skill. He wanted first to know if there had been any scandal connected with their married life, in order, of course, to find out why Sir David had not left his money to Lady Rose; and whether no one had been disposed to dispute the will. I let him see that the affair had been a nine days' wonder here, and I gave him some notion of my own opinion of Madame Danterre. He did not give himself away, and I thought he had some honest reason for anxiety in the matter. Well! he left without letting me know his name or address, but there is no doubt that he is Dr. Larrone. I wrote at once to your detective, Pietrino, in Florence, and a letter from him crossed mine saying that Dr. Larrone had left Florence within a few hours of Madame Danterre's death, and that, by her desire, he had taken a small box to Miss Dexter. There was evidently a certain sense of mystery and excitement among the nurses and servants as to the box and the sudden journey. It seems that Madame Larrone was angry at his taking this sudden journey, and said to a friend that she only 'hoped he wouldn't get his fingers burnt by meddling in other people's affairs.'
"Then Pietrino, in answering my letter, said that my description was certainly the description ofLarrone. He says the doctor is exceedingly upright and sensitive as to his professional honour, and has been known to refuse a legacy from a patient because he thought it ought not to have been left out of the family. Since that, Pietrino has written that Larrone is taking a long holiday, and that people are wondering if he will have any scruples as to the large legacy that is said to have been left to him by Madame Danterre. So it is pretty clear who my reticent visitor was. Now, I don't know that we gain much from that so far, but I think it may mean that Larrone could, if he would, tell some interesting details. I will give you all Pietrino's letters, but I should just like to run on with my own impressions from them first. It seems that, since Madame Danterre's death, there has been a good deal of wild talk against her in Florence, which was kept down by self-interest as long as she was living and an excellent paying-machine. You will see, when you read the gossip, that very little is to the point. But, on the other hand, Pietrino has valuable information from one of the nurses. She is a young woman who is disappointed, as she has had no legacy; evidently Madame Danterre intended to add her name in the last codicil, but somehow failed to do so. This woman is sure that Madame Danterre had an evil conscience as to her wealth. She also said that she was always morbidly anxious as to a small box. Once, when the nurse had reassured her by showing her the box, which was kept in a little bureau by the bed, she said, with an odd smile: 'If I believed in the devil I should be very glad that I can pay him back all he lent me when I don't want it any more.' At another time she asked for the box and took out some papers, and told the nurse to light a candle close to her as shewas going to burn some old letters. Then she began to read a long, long letter, and as she read, she became more and more angry until she had a sudden attack of the heart. The nurse swept the papers into the box and locked it up, knowing that she could do nothing to soothe the patient while they were lying about. That night the doctors thought Madame Danterre would die, but she rallied. She did not speak of the papers again until some days later. The nurse described how, one evening, when she thought her sleeping, she was surprised to find her great eyes fixed on the candle in a sconce near the bed. 'The candle was burnt half way down, but the paper was not burnt at all,' the nurse heard her whisper; 'I shall not do it now. I cannot be expected to settle such questions while I am ill. After all, I have always given her a full share; she can destroy it herself if she likes, or she can give it all up to that woman—it shall be her own affair.'
"She did not seem to know that she had been speaking aloud, and she muttered a little more to herself and then slept.
"The nurse heard no further allusion to the box for weeks. She said the old woman was using all her fine vitality and her iron will in fighting death. Then came the last change, and her torpid calm turned into violent excitement. While she thought herself alone with Dr. Larrone she implored him to take the box to England the moment she died, and put it into her daughter's hands. 'No one knows it matters,' she said more than once. But when she found that he did not wish to go, and said it was impossible for him to go at once, her entreaties were terrible. 'She had always had her ownway, and she had it to the end,' was the nurse's comment.
"Dr Larrone, coming out of the room, realised that the nurse must have known what passed, and told her he was glad she was there. He put a box on a table with a little bang of impatience.
"'It's delirium, delusion, madness!' he said, 'but I've given my word. I never hated a job more; she wouldn't have the morphia till I had taken my oath I would go as soon as she was dead.'"
Grosse was absorbed by the pictures feebly conveyed through the nurse's words, through the detective's letters, through the English lawyer's translation and summary. He could supply what was missing. He had seen Madame Danterre. He could so well imagine the frightful force of the woman, a tyrant to the very last moment. He could guess, too, at the reaction of those about her when once she was dead, and they were quite out of her reach. There is always a reaction when feebler personalities have to fill the space left by a tyrant. He could realise the buzz of gossip, and the sense of courage with which servants and tradesmen would make wild, impossible stories of her wicked life. He came back from these thoughts with a certain shock when he found Murray saying:
"I can't say there is anything approaching to proof. But supposing, just for the sake of supposing, that you were right in your wild guess as to the will, then we should next go on to suppose that the real will was in the box conveyed by Dr. Larrone to Miss Dexter."
Edmund's face was very dark, but he did not speak for some moments.
"No," he said, "she is incapable of such a crime. She would have given it up at once."
"At once?" Murray said. "Miss Dexter was too ill to do anything at once. She was down with influenza, of which she very nearly died, but she pulled through, and then went away for a month. She only got back to London two weeks ago. Her affairs are in the hands of a very respectable firm. We know them, and they began this business with her a very short time before she came up. Now Sir Edmund, think it well over. You may be right in your opinion of this young lady, but just fancy the position. There is a fortune of at least £20,000 a year on the one hand, and on the other, absolute poverty. For do you suppose that, if it were in the last will which Akers and Stock witnessed on board ship, and there were any provision in it for Madame Danterre, Sir David Bright would have left capital absolutely in her possession? No: the probability is—I am, of course, always supposing your original notion to be true—that the girl has this choice of immense wealth practically unquestioned by the world which has settled down to the fact that Sir David left his money to Madame Danterre; or, on the other hand, extreme poverty (she inherited some £2,000 from her father) and public disgrace. Mind you, she would have to announce that her mother was a criminal, and she would, in this just and high-minded world of ours, pass under a cloud herself. A few, only a very few, would in the least appreciate her conduct."
Sir Edmund was miserably uncomfortable, intensely averse to the results of what he had done. In drawing his mesh of righteous intrigue round the mother he had never realised this situation.For the moment he wished himself well out of it all.
"There is one other point," he said. "Are we quite sure that Dr. Larrone did not know what was in the box? Is it not just possible that something was taken out of it before it was given to Miss Dexter? He must have known there was a large legacy to himself; it was against his interests that Madame Danterre's will should be set aside. Also, it would not be a very comfortable situation for him if it turned out that he had been the intimate friend and highly-paid physician of a criminal."
"That last motive fits the character of the man, according to Pietrino, better than the first," said Mr. Murray. "Well, we must see; we must wait and see whether he accepts his legacy. But before that must come the publication of Madame Danterre's will."
Edmund drove back from the city absorbed in the thought of Molly, in comparing his different impressions of her at different stages of their acquaintance. He had spoken so firmly and undoubtingly to Murray. His first thought had been one of simple indignation, and yet—But no! he remembered her simplicity in speaking of her mother's letter; he could see her now with the gentle, pathetic look on her face as she told him of her offering to go out to the wicked old woman, and how her poor little advance had been rejected.
Edmund had thought it one of the advantages of the expedition on the yacht that it would make it impossible for many weeks to call again at Molly's flat. He had often before felt uncomfortable and annoyed with himself when he had been too friendly with Molly. Not that he felt her attraction to be a temptation to disloyalty to Rose. He knew he was incurable in his devotion to his love. But he did feel it mean to enjoy this pleasant, philosopher-and-guide attitude, towards the daughter of Madame Danterre. That Molly could hold any delusion about his feelings had never dawned on his imagination as a possibility until the night when she confided in him her forlorn attempt at doing a daughter's duty. He had never liked her so well; never so entirely dissociated her from her mother, and from all possibilities of evil.
And now the situation was changed; now there was this hazy mass of suspicion revealed in Florence, and this most detestable story of Larrone and the box.
How differently things looked when it was a question of suspecting of a crime the woman he had seen in the Florentine garden, and of that same suspicion regarding poor little graceful, original, Molly Dexter!
Within two or three days Edmund became still more immersed in business. He began to realise his own ignorance as to his own affairs, and he went through the slow torture of understanding how blindly he had left everything in his solicitor's hands. He was beginning to face actual poverty as inevitable, when he heard from Mr. Murray that Madame Danterre's will was proved in London, and that her daughter was her sole heir.
"The income cannot be less than £20,000 a year, and the whole fortune is entirely at Miss Dexter's disposal," wrote Mr. Murray without any comment whatever.
Edmund was not sorry that Rose and her mother were staying on in Paris. They would escape thefirst outburst of gossip as to the further history of Sir David Bright's fortune. Nor was he sorry that they should also miss the growing rumours as to the disappearance of the fortune of Sir Edmund Grosse. Of Rose herself he dared not let himself think; but every evil conclusion which he had to face as to his own future, every undoubted loss that was discovered in the inquiry which was being carried on, seemed as a heavy door shut between him and the hopes of those last days on the yacht.
"Don't you think I might get up and sit by the window and look at the sea, Carey?"
Miss Carew hesitated, and then summoned the nurse.
"Miss Dexter was to have one whole day in bed after the journey."
The nurse, looking into Molly's eager eyes, compromised for one half hour, in which Miss Dexter might lie on the sofa in a fur cloak.
It was a big sofa befitting the largest bedroom in the hotel, and Molly lay back on its cushions with the peculiar physical satisfaction of weakness, resting after very slight efforts. Yesterday she had been too exhausted for enjoyment, but this afternoon her sensations were delightful.
The short afternoon light was ruddy on the glorious brown sails of the fishing-boats, and drew out all their magnificent contrast to the blue water. But the sun still sparkled garishly on the crest of the waves, and the milder glow of the sunset had not begun.
Weakness was sheltered and at rest within, while without was the immense movement of wind and water, and the passing smile of the sun on the great,unshackled forces of winter. Molly's rest was like a child's security in the arms of a kindly giant. Her mind had been absorbed by illness—an illness that had had her completely in grip, the first serious illness she had ever known. There had been a struggle in the depths of her life's forces such as she had never imagined; but now life had conquered, and she was at rest. In that time there had been awful delirium: horrible things, guilty and hideous, had clung about her, all round her. One wicked presence especially had taken a strange form, a face without a body, and yet it had hands—it must have had hands because the horror of it was that it constantly opened the doors of the different cupboards, but most often the door of the big wardrobe, and looked out, and that although Molly had had the wardrobe locked and the key put under her pillow. And this face was very like Molly's, and the question she had to settle was whether this face was her mother's or her own. At times she reasoned—and the logical process was so deadly tiring—that it must be her mother, for she could not be Molly herself being so unkind to herself; whereas, if the face had had any pity for her it might have been herself looking at herself. But was that not nonsense? There was surely a touch of hysteria in that. Did the face really come out of her own brain? And if so, from what part of her brain? She felt sure there was a sort of empty attic, a large one, in the top part of her right brain, it felt hollow, quite terribly hollow. Probably the face came out of that. But then, how did it get inside the wardrobe? and once inside the wardrobe, how did it get out again when Molly really had the key?
She longed to speak to Miss Carew about this, butMiss Carew never could follow a chain of reasoning. The nurse was more sensible, but she thought that reasoning was too tiring for Molly—so silly! If only she could be allowed to explain it all quietly and reasonably! And oh! why did they leave her alone? She hated to be left alone, and she was sure she told them so; and yet they went away. And then she began to work her brain again as soon as the was alone, and she would be happy for a few minutes with a new plan for shutting the face into the large empty attic in her right brain and locking the door, when quite suddenly the face opened the door of the wardrobe with its loose hands and looked out again and jeered at her.
Even now, lying resting, and looking at the sun, Molly was glad that there was no hanging wardrobe in the room; only one full of shelves. She would certainly not use the same room when she went back to London. She would only be in that flat for a short time, as she must now take a big house.
As her eyes rested on the sails and the water, and were filled with the joy of colour, she had a sort of delicious idea of her new house. It should be very beautiful, most exquisite, quite unlike anybody else's house; it should be Molly's own special triumph. It must have the glamour of an old London house, its dignity, its sense of a past. It should have for decoration gloriously subdued gilding and colour, and old pictures, which Molly could afford to buy.
"And"—she smiled to herself—"as long as it is a house in the air it shall have a great outlook on the sea and the sunset." The fancy that had been so cruel in her sickness was a sycophant now that life was victorious; it flattered and caressed and soothed her now.
Within a few days two theories were growing in the background of her consciousness, not acknowledged or questioned while they took possession. They took turns to make themselves gradually, very gradually, and imperceptibly familiar to her. The first was founded on the idea that she had been very ill a little sooner than was supposed, and that she had imagined a great deal that was torturing and absurd as to her mother's papers. She had been delirious that evening, and, what was still more important, she was actually very hazy now as to what she had seen and read of the contents of that box.
"I can't remember if that's true," she could honestly say to herself when some fact of the horrible story came forward and claimed attention. Once she caught herself thinking how very common it was for people to forget entirely what had happened just before or during an illness. For instance, Sir David Bright had never been able to remember what happened on the day on which Madame Danterre declared he had married her. But how did Molly know that? And suddenly she said to herself that she could not remember; perhaps she had fancied that, too.
At another time she began almost to think that she had imagined the black box altogether. Was it square or oblong? and how shallow was it? Sometimes while she was ill she had seen a black box as big as a house; sometimes it was a little tiny cash box.
Meanwhile, under cover of so many uncertainties, the other theory was getting a firm footing. It was simply that the fact of the will being sent to her mother was undoubted proof of Sir David's having repented of having made it. If Sir David had not sent her this will, who had? It was absurd and romantic tosuppose that her mother had carried on an intrigue in South Africa in order to get possession of this will. That might have done in a chapter of Dumas, or have been imagined in delirium, but it was not possible in real life. The only puzzle was—and the theory must be able to meet all the facts of the case—why had he not destroyed the will himself? The probability was that he had not been able to do so at the last moment. When dying he must have repented of the last will just too late to destroy it. She could quite imagine his asking a friend, almost with his last words, to send Madame Danterre the papers. It would look more natural than his asking the friend to destroy them. And then the officer would have addressed the papers, of course not reading them. And thus the theory comfortably wrapped up another fact, namely, that the registered envelope had not been addressed by the hand that had written its contents. Finally, all that the theory did for the will, it did also for the letter to Rose, for the two things evidently stood or fell together. So the theories grew and prospered without interfering with each other as Molly's health and strength returned, except that the delirium theory insisted at times on the other theory being purely hypothetical; as, for instance, it had to be "Even supposing I was not delirious, and the will had been there, it is still evident that——"
Molly's recovery did not get on without a drawback, and the day on which the lawyer came down to see her she was genuinely very unwell. She seemed hardly able to understand business. She was ready to leave all responsibility to him in a way that certainly saved much trouble, but he hardly liked to see her quite so passive.
After he left, Miss Carew found her looking faint and ill.
"He must think me a fool," she said, in a weak voice. "I have left everything on his shoulders, poor man. I'm afraid if he is asked about me, as he's a Scotchman he will say I am 'just an innocent'! I really ought not to have seen him to-day."
But in a few days she was better, and the house agent found her quite business-like. The said house agent had come down with one secret object in his heart. It was now nine months since the bankruptcy of a too well-known nobleman had thrown a splendid old house on the market. It had been in the hands of all the chief agents in London, and they had hardly had a bite for it. Even millionaires were shy of it so far, the fact being that the house was more beautiful than comfortable, the bedrooms having been thought of less importance than the effectiveness of the first floor. Then, perhaps, it was a little gloomy, though artists maintained that its share of gloom only enhanced its charm.
After mentioning several uninteresting mansions, the agent observed that, of course, there was Westmoreland House still going, and Molly's eyes flashed. She had been at the great sale at Westmoreland House; she had been absolutely fascinated by the great well staircase and by the music-room, by the square reception-rooms, and above all by the gallery with its perfection of light moulding, a room of glass and gold, but so spiritualised, so subdued and reticent and dignified, that ghosts might live there undisturbed.
Molly trembled with eagerness as she asked the vital questions of cost, of repairs, of rates and taxes. Yes, it was possible—undoubtedly possible. Therewas a very large sum of money in a bank in Florence which possibly Madame Danterre had accumulated there with a view to a sudden emergency. Molly's lawyer had not been certain of the amount, but he had mentioned a sum larger than the price of Westmoreland House.
By the time Molly was fit to go back to London, and while the theories just described were still in possession of her mind, Westmoreland House was bought. Molly said it was a great relief to get it settled.
"One feels more settled altogether," she said to Miss Carew, "when a big question like that is done with."
She strolled with Miss Carew on the smooth sand by the water's edge on the last evening before leaving, and looked up at the white cliffs growing bright in the light of the sunset.
"It has been very restful," she said. "I am almost sorry to go."
"Then why not stay a little longer, my dear?"
"Oh, no, Carey! it would soon become quite intolerable; it isn't real life, only a pause; and now, Carey, I am going to live!"
The sun presently set lower and more grey than they had expected; the wind felt sharper, and Molly shivered. Nature was unbearable without its gilding.
Mrs. Delaport Green had been to Egypt for the winter, and came back, refreshed as a giant, for life in London. She was really glad to see Tim, who was unfeignedly pleased to see her, and they spent quite an hour in the pleasantest chat. Of course he had not much news to give of his wife's acquaintances as he did not live among them, but one item of information interested her extremely.
"Miss Dexter has bought Westmoreland House in Park Lane!"
Mrs. Delaport Green's eyes sparkled with excitement and the green light of envy, and she determined to call on Molly at once. Happily there had been no open quarrel, which only showed how wise it was to forget injuries, for certainly the girl had been most disgracefully rude.
Molly's new abode stood back from the street, and had usually an immensely dignified air of quiet, but there was a good deal of noise and bustle going on when Adela reached the door. Several large pieces of furniture, a picture, and a heavy clock, might have been obstacles enough to keep out most visitors, but Adela persevered, and the dusty and worried portersaid that Molly was at home before he had a moment for reflection.
Adela advanced with outstretched hands to greet her "dear friend" as she was shown into a large drawing-room on the first floor.
Molly was standing in the middle of the room with an immense hat on, and a long cloak that woke instant enthusiasm in the soul of her visitor. There was perhaps, even to Adela something too emphatic, too striking, too splendid altogether in the total effect of the tall, slim figure. She had never thought that Molly would turn out half so handsome, but she saw now that she had only needed a little making-up. While thinking these things she was chattering eagerly.
"How are you? I was so sorry to hear you had been ill, but now you look simply splendid! I have had a wonderful winter. I feel as if I had laid in quite a stock of calm and rest from the desert, as if no little thing could worry me after my long draught—of the desert, you know! Well! one must get into harness again." She gave a little sigh. "But to think of your having Westmoreland House! How everybody wondered last season what was to become of it! and what furniture, oh! what an exquisite cabinet! You certainly have wonderful taste." Molly did not interrupt her visitor to explain that the said cabinet had belonged to Madame Danterre. "I adore that style; I do so wish Tim would give me a cabinet like that for my birthday. I really think he might."
She was so accustomed to Molly's silences that it was some time before she realised that this one was ominous. She might have seen that that young lady was looking over her head, or out of the window,or anywhere but at her. Suddenly it struck her that not a sound interrupted her own voice, and she began to perceive the absurd airs that Molly was giving herself. Prompted by the devil she, therefore, instantly proceeded to say:
"When we were at Cairo Sir Edmund Grosse came for a few days with Lady Rose Bright."
"From the yacht?" said Molly, speaking for the first time.
"Yes; they said in Cairo that the engagement would be announced as soon as they got back to England. And really my dear, everyone agreed that without grudging you her money, one can't help being glad that that dear woman should be rich again!"
It was about as sharp a two-edged thrust as could have been delivered, and Molly'sdistraitair and undue magnificence melted under it.
"No one could be more glad than I am," she said, with a quiet reserve of manner; and after that she was quite friendly, and took Adela all over the house, and pressed her to stay to tea, and that little lady felt instinctively that Molly was afraid of her, and smacked her rosy lips with the foretaste of the amusements she intended to enjoy in this magnificent house.
While they were having tea, Molly, leaning back, said quietly:
"I see from what you said before we went over the house that you have not heard that Sir Edmund Grosse is ruined?"
Mrs. Delaport Green gave a little shriek of excitement.
"He trusted all his affairs to a scoundrel, and this is the result." Molly's tone was still negative.
"Well, that does seem a shame!"
"I don't know; if a man will neglect his affairs he must take the consequence."
"Oh! but I do think it is hard; he used his money so well."
"Did he?" Molly raised her eyebrows.
"Well, he was a perfect host, and was so awfully good-natured, don't you know?"
In the real interest in the news, Adela had, for the moment, forgotten that Molly might be especially interested in anything concerning Edmund Grosse. She was reminded by the low, thundery voice in which Molly began to speak quite suddenly, as if her patience had been tried too far.
"You are just like all the others! It's enough to make one a radical to listen to it. After all, what good has Sir Edmund Grosse done with his money? He gave dinners that ruined people's livers—I suppose that was good for the doctors! He gave diamonds to actresses, and I suppose that was for the good of art. He has never done a stroke of work; he has wallowed in luxury, and now his friends almost cry out against Providence because he will have to earn his bread. Probably several hundreds a year will be left, and many men would be thankful for that. Then other people say it is such a pity that now he cannot marry Lady Rose Bright. They have the effrontery to say that to me, as if £800 a year were not enough for them to marry on if they cared for each other!"
All this tirade seemed to Adela the very natural outpouring of jealousy, and, as she fully intended to be an intimate friend of Molly's she sympathised and agreed, and agreed and sympathised till she fairly, roused Molly's sense of the ludicrous.
"I don't mean," Molly said, half angry and halfamused, "that I shall spend my money so very much better;—I quite mean to have my fling. Only I do so hate all this cant."
At last Adela departed, crying out that she had promised to be in Hoxton an hour ago, and Molly was left alone. It was too late to go to the shops, she reflected, and she sank back into a deep chair with a frown on her white forehead.
What did it matter to her if they were engaged or not? It made no sort of difference. She was not going to allow her peace of mind to be upset on their account; she had done with that sentimental nonsense long ago. Her illness had made a great space between her present self and the Molly who had been so foolishly upset by the discovery of Edmund Grosse's treachery. Curiously enough Molly had never doubted of that treachery, although it was one of the horrors that had come out of the doubtful, and probably mythical, tin box.
By the way, there was a little pile of tin boxes in a small unfurnished room upstairs, next to Molly's bedroom, of which she kept the key. She had had no time to look at them yet. Some of them came from Florence, and two or three from her own flat. They were of all shapes and sizes, and piled one on another. But from the moment when Molly turned that very ordinary key in the lock of the unfurnished dressing-room she never let her thoughts dwell for long on the possible delusions of delirium. Her mind had entered into another phase in which it was of supreme importance to think only of the details of each day as they came before her.
If any of us, going to dress quietly in an ordinary bedroom, were told: "It is the last time you will have just that amount of comfort, that degree of luxury, to which you have been accustomed; it is the last time you will have your evening clothes put out for you; the last time your things will be brushed; the last time hot water will be brought to your room; the last time that your dressing-gown will have come out of the cupboard without your taking it out"—we might have an odd mixture of sensations. We might be very sad—ridiculously sad—and yet have a sense of being braced, a whiff of open air in the mental atmosphere.
Edmund Grosse did not expect in future to draw his own hot water, or put out his own dressing-gown, but he did know that he had come to the last night of having a valet of his own, the last night in which the perfect Dawkins, who had been with him ten years, would do him perfect bodily service. Everything to-night was done in the most punctilious manner, and it seemed appropriate that this last night should be a full-dress affair.
Sir Edmund was going to Court (the first Court held in May), and his deputy lieutenant's uniform waslaid on the bed. Edmund might not have taken the trouble to go, but a kindly message from a very high place as to his troubles had made him feel it a more gracious response to do so. The valet was a trifle distant, if any shade of manner could have been detected in his deferential attitude towards his master. Dawkins was not pleased with Sir Edmund; he felt that his ten years of service had been based on a delusion; he had not intended to be valet to a ruined man. Happily he had been careful. He had not trusted blindly to Providence, and, with a rich result from enormous wages and perquisites, and an excellent character, he could face the world with his head high, whereas Sir Edmund—well, Sir Edmund's position was very different. Sir Edmund had let himself be deceived outrageously, and what was the result?
Edmund was as particular as usual about every detail of his appearance. It would have been an education to a young valet to have seen the ruined man dressed that evening.
Next day Dawkins was to leave, and the day after that the flat was to be the scene of a small sale. The chief valuables, a few good pictures, and some very rare china, had already gone to Christie's. The delicatepâteof his beloved vases had seemed to respond to the lingering farewell touch of the connoisseur's fingers. Edmund was trying to secure for some of them homes where he might sometimes visit them, and one or two of his lady friends were persuading their husbands that these things ought to be bought for love of poor Edmund Grosse. Edmund was quite ready to press a little on friendship of this sort, being fully conscious of its quality and its duration. For thenext few weeks he would be welcomed with enthusiasm—and next year?
But all the same there was that subconscious sense of bracing air—something like the sense of climax in reaching a Northern station on a very hot day. We may be very hot, perhaps, at Carlisle or Edinburgh, but it is not the climate of Surrey.
Edmund mounted the stairs at Buckingham Palace with a certain unconscious dignity which melted into genial amusement at the sight of a pretty woman near him evidently whispering advice to a fairdébutante. The girl was not eighteen, and her whole figure expressed acute discomfort.
"Keep your veil out of the way," her mother warned her.
"I've had two dreadful pulls already; I'm sure my feathers are quite crooked. Oh! mother, there's Sir Edmund Grosse; he will tell me whether they are crooked. You never know."
"I could see if you would let me get in front of you," murmured her mother.
"But you can't possibly in this crowd. Oh! how d'ye do, Sir Edmund; have I kept my veil straight?"
"Charming," said Edmund, with a low bow. The child really looked very pretty, though rather like a little dairymaid dressed up for fun, and her long gloves slipped far enough from the shoulders to show some splendidly red arms.
"Charming," he said again in a half-teasing voice. "Only I don't approve of such late hours for children."
It amused him that this was one of the presentations that would be most noted in the papers, and this funny, jolly little girl would probably gain a gooddeal of knowledge and lose a great deal more of charm in the next three months.
Walking by the mother and daughter, he had come close to the open doors of a long gallery, and stood for a moment to take in the picture. It was not new to him, but perhaps he felt inclined to the attitude of an onlooker to-night, and there was something in this attitude slightly aloof and independent. Brilliant was the one word for the scene; a little hard, perhaps, in colouring, and the women in their plumes and veils were too uniform to be artistic. There was too much gold, too much red silk, too many women in the long rows waiting with more or less impatience or nervousness to get through with it. The scene had an almost crude simplicity of insistence on fine feathers and gilding the obvious pride of life. Yet he saw the little fair country girl near him look awe-struck, and he understood it. For a fresh imagination, or for one that has, for some reason, a fresh sensitiveness of perception, the great gallery, the wealth of fair women, the scattered men in uniform, the solemn waiting for entrance into the royal presence, were enough. And there really is a certain force in the too gaudy setting. It blares like a trumpet. It crushes the quiet and the repose of life. It shines in the eye defiantly and suddenly, and at last it captures the mind and makes the breath come quickly, for, like no other and more perfect setting to life, it makes us think of death. It is too bald an assertion of the world and all its works and all its pomps, not to challenge a rebuke from the grisly tyrant.
Edmund had not analysed these impressions, but he was still under their power when he turned to let others pass, for the crowd was thickening. And as hedid so, a little space was opened by three or four ladies turning round to secure places for some friends on the long seats against the walls.
Across this space he saw a woman, whom, for a moment only, he did not recognise. It was a tall figure in white satin with a train of cloth of silver thrown over her arm. There was nothing of the nervousdébutantein the attitude, nor was there the half-truculent self-assertion of the modern girl. When people talked afterwards of her gown and her jewels, Edmund only remembered the splendour of her pearls, and when he mentioned them, a woman added that the train had been lined with lace of untold value. What he felt at the time was the enormous triumph of the eyes. Grey eyes, full of light, full of pride. He did not ask himself what was the excuse for this "haughty bearing," and the old phrase, which has now sunk from court manners into penny novelettes, was the only phrase that seemed quite a true one.
Why did she stand so completely alone? It made no difference to this sense of loneliness that she received warm greetings in the crowd, or that Lady Dawning was fidgeting and maternal. Evidently (and he was amused at the combination) she was going to present her cousin, John Dexter's daughter. Did she remember now how she had advised Mrs. Carteret to hide Molly from the public eye?
But Molly's figure was always to remain in his mind thus triumphant without absurdity, and thus alone in a crowd. The blackness of her hair had a strange force from the white transparent veil flowing over it, and a flush of deep colour was in the dark skin. Edmund had several moments in which to look at her and to realise that Molly was walking in a dream of greatness. The little country girl he had seen just now had been brought up to hear kindly jokes about Courts and their ways; not so Molly. To her it was all intensely serious and intensely exciting. Could he have known the chief cause of the intense emotion that filled Molly's slight figure with a feverish vitality would he have believed that she was happy? And yet she was, for no pirate king running his brig under the very nose of a man-of-war ever had more of the quintessence of the sense of adventure than Molly had, as Lady Dawning led her, the heiress of the year, into the long gallery.
For one moment she saw Edmund Grosse, and she looked him full in the face very gravely. She did not pretend not to know him; she let him see the entirely genuine contempt she felt for him, and she meant him to understand that she would never know him again.
As the season went on Edmund Grosse did not understand himself. Everything had gone against him, his fortune had melted, his easy-going luxurious life was at an end. He had no delusions; he knew perfectly well the value of money in his world. His position in that world was gone in fact, if not quite in seeming. The sort of conversation that went on about him in his own circles had the sympathy, but would soon have also the finality, of a funeral oration. There would soon be a tone of reminiscence in those who spoke of him. It would be as if they said gently: "Oh, yes! dear old Grosse, we knew him well at one time, don't you know; it's a sad story." He could have told you not only the words, but even the inflection of the voices of his friends in discussing his affairs. He did not mean that there were no kindly faithful hearts among them. Several might emerge as kind, as friendly as ever. But the monster of human society would behave as it always does in self-defence. It would shake itself, dislodge Edmund from its back, and then say quite kindly that it was a sad pity that he had fallen off. Every organism must reject what it can no longer assimilate, and a rich society by the law of its being rejects a poor man.
And yet the idea that poor Grosse must be half crushed, horribly cut up and done for, was not in the least true. This was what he did not understand himself. It is well known that some people bear great trials almost lightly who take small ones very heavily. Grosse certainly rose to the occasion. But that a great trial had aroused great courage was not the whole explanation by any means. Curiously enough ill-fortune with drastic severity had done for him what he had impotently wished to do for himself. It had made impossible the life which, in his heart, he had despised; it absolutely forced him to use powers of which he was perfectly conscious, and which had been rusting simply for want of employment. It is doubtful whether he could have roused himself for any other motive whatever. Certainly love of Rose had been unable to do it. The will might seem to will what he wished to do, but the effort to will strongly enough was absent. Now all the soft, padded things between him and the depths of life had been struck away at one rude blow; hemustswim or sink. And so he began to swim, and the exercise restored his circulation and braced his whole being.
It was not, perhaps, heroic exertion that he was roused into making. But it wanted courage in a man of Edmund's age to begin to work for six hours or more a day at journalism. He also produced two articles on foreign politics for the reviews, which made a considerable impression. It was important now that Edmund had read and watched, and, even more important, listened very attentively to what busier men than himself had to say during twenty years of life spent in the world. Years afterwards, when Grosse had in the second half of his life done as muchwork as many men would think a good record for their whole lives, people were surprised to read his age in the obituary notices. They had rightly dated the beginning of his career from his first appearance as an authority on foreign politics, but they had not realised that Grosse had begun to work only in the midstream of life. Many brilliant springs are delusive in their promise, but rarely is there such achievement after an unprofitable youth.
Love is not the whole life of a man, but, in spite of new activities, in spite of a renewed sense of self-respect, Edmund had time and space enough for much pain in his heart.
Rose was still in Paris taking care of her mother, who was very unwell. Edmund had hinted at the possibility of going over to see them at Easter, but the suggestion had met with no encouragement. He had felt rebuffed, and was in no mood to be smoothed or melted by Rose's written sympathy. He was, no doubt, harder as well as stronger than before his financial troubles. He let Rose see that he could stand on his feet, and was not disposed to whine. Meanwhile Molly had provoked him to single combat. The decided cut she gave him at the Court was not to be permitted; he was too old a hand to allow anything so crude. He meant to be at her parties; he meant to keep in touch; indeed he meant to see this thing out.
"Sir Edmund, will you take Miss Dexter in to dinner?"
Edmund looked fairly surprised and very respectful as Mrs. Delaport Green spoke to him. Molly's bearing was, he could see, defiant, but she was clearly quiteconscious of having to submit and anxious to do nothing absurd.
They ate their soup in silence, for Molly's other neighbour had shown an unflattering eagerness to be absorbed by the lady he had taken down. Edmund turned to her with exactly his old shade of manner, very paternal, intimate and gentle.
"And you are not bored yet?"
Molly could have sworn deep and long had it been possible.
"No; why should I be?"
She stared at him for a moment indifferently, as at a stranger, but he could see the nervous movement of her fingers as she crumbed her bread.
"It is more likely," he answered, "that I should remember what I allude to than that you should. We once had a talk about being bored. I said I had never been bored while I was poor. Now I am poor again, so I naturally remember, and, as you are trying the experience of being very rich, I should really like to know if you are bored yet."
Molly might have kept silent, but she did not want Adela, who was certainly watching them, to think her embarrassed.
"I suppose every one has moments of being bored."
Edmund leant back and turned round so as to allow of his looking fully at her. He muttered to himself: "Young, beautiful, wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice—and bored! What flattering unction that is to the soul of a ruined man."
In spite of her anger, her indignation, her hurt pride, Molly was softened. She writhed under the caress of his voice; it had power still.
"Are you not bored any more?" She spoke unwillingly.
"No," he said, "suffering does not bore; discomfort does not bore; knowledge of your fellow-creatures does not bore. But, of course, I am tasting the pleasures of novelty. And I have not disappeared yet. I think a boarding-house in Bloomsbury may prove boring. How prettily our hostess will pity me, then. But I don't think I shall meet you here at dinner, and have the comfort of seeing for myself that you, too, are bored."
Molly felt that he was putting her hopelessly in the wrong. She was the one bitterly aggrieved and deeply injured. But he made her feel as if coldness on her part would be just the conduct of any rich heartless woman to a ruined man.
"I calculate," he said, "on about fifty more good dinners which I shall not pay for, and then, of course, I shall think myself well fed at my own expense in an Italian café somewhere. I think Italian, don't you? Dinner at two shillings! There is an air ofspagghettiand onions that conceals the nature or age of the meat; and the coffee is amazingly good. One might be able to find one with a clean cloth."
Most of these remarks were made almost to himself.
"You know it isn't true," Molly said angrily; "you know you will get a good post. Men like you are always given things."
Edmund helped himself very carefully to exactly the right amount of melted butter. "Don't you eat asparagus?" he interjected, and, without waiting for an answer, went on:
"I thought so too, but I can't hear of a job. There are too many of the unemployed just now. However,no doubt, as you say, I shall soon be made absolute ruler of some province twice the size of England."
He laughed and smoothed his moustache with one hand.
"Down with dull care, Miss Dexter; let us make a pact never to be bored—in Bloomsbury, or West Africa, or Park Lane. I suppose you found a great deal to do to that dear old house?"
After that their other neighbours claimed them both; but during dessert Molly, against her will, lost hold of the talk on her right, and had to listen to Edmund again.
"I hear that you have got the old Florentine looking-glasses from my sale."
"I don't think they were from your sale," said Molly hastily.
"Well, Perks told me so."
"Perks never told me," muttered Molly.
"I should think they must suit the house to perfection. Where have you put them?"
"In the small dining-room."
"Yes; they must do admirably there. I should like to see them again." He looked at her with a faintly sarcastic smile. She knew what he intended her to say, and, against her will, she said hastily:
"Won't you come and see them?"
"With great pleasure."
Molly saw that Adela had risen, and sprang up and turned away in one sudden movement. She was very angry with him for forcing her to say that, and she could not conceive what had made her yield.
"'The teeth that bite; the claws that scratch,'" he thought to himself, "but safely chained up—andthe movements are beautiful." He stood looking after her.
"I did as you told me," said the hostess, pausing for a moment as she followed her guests to the door. "If Molly blames me, shall I say that you asked to take her in?"
"Say just what you like; I trust you entirely." He did not attempt to speak to Molly after dinner, or when they met again at a ball that same night. All her burning wish to snub him could not be gratified. He seemed not to know shat she was still in the room. But she knew instinctively that he watched her, and she was not sorry he should see her in the crowd, and be witness, however unwillingly, to her position in the world he knew so well. It added to the sense of intoxication that often possessed her now. "Be drunken," says Baudelaire, "be drunken with wine, with poetry, with virtue, with what you will, only be drunken." And that Molly could be drunken with flattery, with luxury, with movement, with music, with a sense of danger that gave a strong and subtle flavour to her pleasures, was the explanation (and the only one) of how she bore the hours of reaction, of the nausea experienced by that spiritual nature of hers which she had been so surprised to discover. It was not the half-shrinking, half-defiant Molly Edmund had talked to in the woods of Groombridge, whom he watched now. That Molly was gone, and he regretted her.