It was a rather tedious evening for Ella Linton after Phyllis had taken her departure. Why on earth, she asked herself, had she been such a fool as to lay out her plans to have this lonely evening? Then she remembered that two of her guests had meant to stay until Wednesday morning, but had received a letter necessitating their departure for town on Monday night. But this fact should not have condemned her to a solitary evening, Ella reflected. She should have been thoughtful enough to change her own plans to correspond with the change in the plans of her guests. A nice, quiet, contemplative evening beside the still waters may suit the requirements of some temperaments, but it was not just what Ella regarded as most satisfying to her mood of the hour. It was a long time since she had spent a lonely evening, and although she had now rather more food for contemplation than at any other period of her life, she did not feel contemplative.
Then it suddenly occurred to her to ask herself why, after all, should she be condemned to a contemplative evening? What was there to hinder her taking a train to town after she had dined? Once in town she knew that all prospect of contemplation would be at an end.
She rang her bell and told her maid that she had changed her mind in regard to staying another night at The Mooring; she would leave after dinner; wasn’t there a train about nine from Maidenhead?
It was when she was about to go down to dinner that she heard the sound of wheels upon the gravel walk. Was it possible that her newly made plans might also be deranged? Was this a fresh visitor arriving by a fly from Maidenhead—she saw that the vehicle was a fly.
There was no one in the room to hear the cry of delight that she gave when she saw Herbert at the porch of the house, the driver having deposited his portmanteau and Gladstone bag at his feet.
He had returned to her—he, whom she fancied to be far away; he who had forsaken her, as she thought, as she feared, as she (at times) hoped, forever. He had returned to her. There was no one now to stand between them. He was all her own.
She flung off the dress which she was wearing,—it was her plainest evening gown,—and had actually got on another, a lovely one that she had never yet worn, before her maid arrived at her dressing room.
“Louise,” she said, “send a message downstairs to show Mr. Courtland to his room, and mention that he will dine with me. Come back at once. I have got so far in my dressing without you; I can’t go much further, however.”
In a quarter of an hour she was surveying herself in her mirror just as Phyllis had been doing an hour sooner; only on her face was a very different expression from that which Phyllis had worn. Her eyes were brilliant as they never had been before, except once; her face was not pale, but full of soft color, as if she were standing beneath the shadow of a mighty rose-leaf with the sunlight above. Her neck and arms were of the same delicate tinge. Her smile she gave as she surveyed herself was a smile of triumph, very different from the expression on poor Phyllis’ features as she flung her hat across the room.
“Mine, mine, mine!” she whispered, nodding with a smile at the lovely thing so full of warm life that faced her with a smile. “He is mine—he has come back to me, I will keep him. I shall be able to keep him, I think.”
She had scarcely entered the drawing room before he was beside her, and he had scarcely entered before a servant announced that dinner was served. They were seated at the dinner table before they had exchanged half a dozen words—before she had time to ask him why he had returned.
And at the table, with a servant at each end, what could they say?
Well, she gave in detail, with the accuracy of a railway time-table, the hours of the departure of the various guests, down to the last departed guest, who chanced to be Miss Ayrton. Yes, she was obliged to go up to town to be present at that important function which was to be given in the presence of Royalty, though, she, Mrs. Linton, was convinced that Phyllis would much prefer remaining in the midst of that exquisite quietude which seemed to be found only up the river. She had wanted her dear Phyllis to stay until the morrow, but poor Phyllis’ sense of duty had been, as unfortunately it always was, too great for her inclination.
“Unfortunately?” said Herbert.
“Did I say unfortunately?” she cried. “How funny! I meant of course, unfortunately for her friends—for myself in this particular case. But, after all, we had a delightful week together. It has done us all good—even you.”
“Why the ‘even’?” he asked, with a laugh.
“Oh, well, because you are not expected to feel the fatigues of a London season. And then you must remember that you had a yachting cruise which must have done you a world of good,” she added, with a smile born of the mood which was on her—a mood of joy and laughter and daring. She felt that she could say anything she pleased to say to him now; she could have referred with a laugh to his running away on that strange cruise of his.
“Yes,” he said, “it did me a great deal of good.”
He spoke slowly, and her quick ear detected a tone of gravity in his voice. What could he mean? Oh, yes.
“I hope that that last phase of the mine will soon be settled,” said she. “It was that which curtailed your cruise, you will remember.”
“I certainly do remember.”
“I hope the business will soon be settled one way or another. I don’t think this running to Paris so frequently is good for Stephen. Haven’t you noticed how poorly he has been looking of late?”
“He didn’t seem to me to be particularly robust. But I think that he pulled himself together while he was here. Oh, yes! another week will see us free from this business.”
“And with an extra million or so in your pockets.”
“Well, something in that way.”
That was how they talked while the servants were present—about business and money and matters that may be discussed in the presence of servants.
Then they went together into the drawing room. It was not yet dark enough for the candles to be lighted. The exquisite summer twilight was hanging over the river and the banks opposite, wooded from the water’s edge to the summit. It was the hour of delicate blue touched with pink about the borders. The hour of purple and silver stars had not yet come.
She threw open one of the windows on its hinges, and in a moment the room was flooded with the perfume of the roses of the garden. She stood in the opening of the window and seemed to drink in the garden scents before they floated into the room. Then from some secret nestling place in the dark depths of the clipped hedge there came the even-song of a blackbird. It was replied to from the distance; and the silence that followed only seemed to be silence. It was a silence made vocal by the bending of a thousand notes—all musical. The blackbirds, the thrushes, the robins made up a chorus of harmony as soothing to the soul as silence. Then came the cooings of the wood pigeons. The occasional shriek of a peacock was the only note out of harmony with the feeling breathed by the twilight.
She stood at the open window, her back turned to him, for some time. He felt slightly embarrassed. Her attitude somehow suggested to him an imprisonment; he was captured; she was standing between him and the open air; she was barring his passage.
Suddenly she turned. With her movement there seemed to float into the room a great breath of rose-scent. It was only that the light showed him more clearly at that moment the glowing whiteness of her neck and shoulders and arms.
“Why have you come back?” she cried, almost piteously.
“Surely you know why, Ella,” said he.
“I know nothing: a man is one thing one day and quite the opposite the next day. How can I know anything of what is in your mind to-day—in your heart to-day?”
“I came back thinking to find her here still—I fancied that you said she would stay until you were returning to-morrow.”
“You came back for her?”
“I came back to see her—I find that I cannot live without seeing her.”
“You have only found that out since you left here yesterday morning?”
“Only since I left here. I told you that I was not sure of myself. That is why I went away.”
“You went away to make sure of yourself, and now you return to make sure of her?”
“Ah, if I could but think that! If I could only be as sure of her as I am of myself. But what am I that I should dare to hope? Oh, she is above all womankind—a crown of girlhood! What am I that I should ask to wear this crown of girlhood?”
“You are a king of men, Bertie. Only for the king of men is such a crown.”
She laughed as she stood looking at him as she leaned against the half open door of the window, one hand being on the framework above her head.
“Ella, you know her!” he cried, facing her. She began to swing gently to the extent of an inch or two, still leaning on the edge of the hinged window. She was looking at him through half-closed, curious eyes. “Ella, you know her—she has always been your friend; tell me if I should speak to her or if I should go back to the work that I have begun in New Guinea.”
“Would you be guided by me, Bertie?” she asked, suddenly ceasing her movement with the window and going very close to him indeed—so close that he could feel the gracious warmth of her face and bare neck and shoulders. “Would you be guided by me, I wonder?”
“Have I not been guided by you up to the present, Ella?” said he. “Should I be here to-night if it were not for your goodness? I laughed some time ago—how long ago it seems!—when you told me—you said it was your dearest wish—I did not then believe it possible——”
“And do you fancy that I believed it possible?” she asked, with some sadness in her voice.
“Great Heavens! Ella, do you mean to tell me that you——Oh, no, it is impossible! You knew me.”
“I fancied that I knew you, Bertie. I fancied that I knew myself.”
“Ella, Ella, for God’s sake don’t let us drift again. Have you no recollection of that terrible time through which we both passed—that ordeal by fire. Ella, we were plucked from the fire—she plucked us from the very fire of hell itself—oh, don’t let us drift in that direction again!”
He had walked away from her. He was beginning to recall too vividly the old days, under the influence of her gracious presence so close to him—not so close as it had been, but still close enough to bring back old memories.
“Come here and stand beside me, Bertie,” said she.
After a moment’s hesitation he went to her, slowly, not with the rapture of a lover—not with the old passion trembling in his hands, on his lips.
He went to her.
She put her hands behind her and looked at him in the face for a long time. The even-songs of the birds mixed with the scent of the roses; the blue shadow of the twilight was darkening over the trees at the foot of her garden.
“Do you remember the oleanders?” she said. “I never breathe in such a twilight as this without seeing before me the oleanders outlined against its blue. It was very sweet at that old place on the Arno.”
“Ella, Ella—for God’s sake——”
“You told me that terrible secret of your life—that you loved me. I wonder if I knew what it meant, Bertie? I told you that I loved you: that was more terrible still. I wonder if you knew what that meant, Bertie?”
He did not speak.
The bird’s songs outside were becoming softer and more intermittent.
She gave a sudden cry as if stung with pain, and started away from the window. She threw herself down on the couch, burying her face in the pillows—he could see through the dim room the whiteness of her arms. She was breathing convulsively; but she was not sobbing.
He remained beside the open window. He, too, was not breathing so regularly as he had breathed a short time before.
He heard the sigh that came from her as she raised her head from the pillow.
Then she said:
“I wonder if you ever really loved me, Bertie.”
“Oh, my God!”
“I wonder if you ever loved me; and I wonder if I ever loved you until this moment.”
There was a silence. Outside there was a little whisper of moving wings, but no voice of bird.
There was a silence, and out of it a low voice cried softly, softly:
“Bertie, Bertie, my love, come to me.”
He took a step toward her, a second step—and then he stood, rigid, breathless, for he heard another soft voice that said:
“His honor is the honor of his mother and his sister, upon which no stain must come.”
He heard that voice, and with a cry he covered his face with his hands, and turning, fled through the open window into the garden.
She lay there on her couch, that lovely white creature who had been saved so as by fire. There are two fires: the one is the fire that consumes the heart until all that is left of it is the dust of ashes; the other is the fire that purifies the soul even unto its salvation; and yet both fires burn alike, so that men and women know not which is burning within them.
Did she know that she was saved so as by fire?
She laughed as though he could still hear her; but after her laugh there came a few moments of overwhelming bitterness that sent her on her knees by the side of the couch in self-abasement.
“Kill me—kill me, O God!” she wailed. “Kill me, for I am not fit to live!”
But she was spared.
After a time she found strength to rise. She seemed surprised to find that the room was in darkness. She struck a light, and in a few minutes a dozen candles were flaring round the walls; and then she went mechanically to close the window. One side she had just fastened when it seemed to her that she heard the sound of voices approaching. She listened, her head bent forward through the side of the window that remained unclosed.
Yes, their voices were sounding clearly through the still night—his voice and—what trick was being played upon her by her hearing? Phyllis’ voice? How could it be Phyllis’ voice? Phyllis had returned to London. Oh, it was some trick! Her nerves were playing some trick upon her—they were out of order, they were beyond her control. Phyllis’ voice——Great Heavens! it was Phyllis herself who was walking through the garden by his side!
Ella stood at the open side of the window staring out at them. They stood at the foot of the half dozen steps that lead up to the window. Phyllis laughed,—was there a trace of mockery in her laugh?—but he was silent.
“I don’t wonder at your fancying that I am a ghost, Ella,” cried the girl. “I feel that I deserve to be treated as discourteously as most poor ghosts are treated when they visit their friends. You never yet heard of a ghost being asked to stay to dinner, did you, Mr. Courtland? But a ghost may fairly claim to be asked to enter the house of her dearest friend, especially after a double railway journey.”
Ella had not moved from her place at the open space of the window while Phyllis was speaking, but the moment that the girl’s laugh sounded, she too laughed. She ran down the steps and put her arms about Phyllis, kissing her on the face.
“This is more than the most exacting of ghosts could reasonable look for,” cried Phyllis. “Oh, Ella! I’m so glad that I followed my own impulse and came back to you. I thought you were here all alone—how could I know that Mr. Courtland would return in the meantime to complete his visit?—and when I looked out on the dust and the smoke of the town and thought of this—this—this exquisite stillness,—you can just hear the water of the weir,—this garden, this scent of roses, but chiefly when I thought of you sitting in your loneliness——Well, is it any wonder that I am here now?—you implored of me to stay, you know, Ella.”
“It is no wonder indeed, being what you are—a good angel, my good angel, Phyllis,” cried the woman. “Oh, dearest, you are welcome! Why did you leave me Phyllis? Why did you leave me? Oh, the good angels can never be trusted. You should not have left me to myself, dear. I am only a woman. Ah, you don’t yet know what a woman is. That is the worst of angels and men; they don’t know what a woman is. Come into the house, Phyllis. Come in, Herbert. How did you manage to meet?”
“You know I went out to the garden——” said the man.
“Yes; I knew that—you left me alone,” said the woman, and she gave a laugh.
“I strolled from the garden to the road—I had to ask the people at the Old Bell to keep a room for me, of course.”
“Of course.”
“And just outside the inn I came face to face with Miss Ayrton’s fly. Miss Ayrton was good enough to get out and walk with me, sending the fly on with her maid. I told the man to wait in order to take my portmanteau to the inn. It must be at the hall door now. We entered by the garden gate.”
“Nothing could be simpler,” said Ella. They had by this time walked up the steps into the drawing room. “Nothing could be simpler.” Then she turned to Phyllis. “But how did you contrive to evade the great function to-night?”
“Papa did not feel very well,” said Phyllis, “and I know that he was only too glad of an excuse to stay at home.”
“And you forsook your sick father to come to me? Oh, my dear Phyllis, what have you done?”
“If you ask me in confidence I should say that papa is not quite so ill as to stand in need of a nurse,” she whispered. “Oh, no! Make your mind easy. I have neglected no duty in coming to you.”
“Except your duty to yourself; you could not have had time to take any dinner at home. I shall have you a servants’ hall supper in ten minutes.”
“Please get nothing for me. I had a capital sort of dinner at home. But I should dearly like a cup of tea.”
“It will be ready for you the moment you return from taking off your hat. I’ll go up with you to your room; Mr. Courtland knows that even I make myself at home in this house. He will pardon us.”
“I mustn’t keep the fly waiting for my portmanteau,” said Mr. Courtland. “If you will allow me, I shall look to it now, and say good-night.”
“What! Oh, you mustn’t think of running off in this way,” said Ella. “What reason had you for returning at all if you run off at this hour?”
“It is getting quite late. I mustn’t keep the good people of the Old Bell up on my account,” said he. “Besides, a man represents a certain inharmonious element upon such an occasion as this. Miss Ayrton returned expecting to be with you alone. I know the disabilities of a man quite well. Yes, I must say good-night.”
“Nonsense! Pray talk to him, Phyllis,” cried Ella. “You may make him amenable to reason.”
But Phyllis stood mute with her hand on the handle of the door; she only smiled, and there is neither reason nor argument in a smile.
“Good-night!” said he.
“Oh, well, if you really have nothing to say to either of us,—to either Phyllis or me,—you had better go, I suppose,” said Ella, giving him her hand, but she did not look at him in the face while his hand was touching hers.
Curiously enough, neither did Phyllis look at him as was her wont.
And so he left them that night.
They seemed to have been parted for months instead of hours, so much had they to say to each other, and so rapidly did they say it. Rapidly?—feverishly rather. Phyllis had only to remove her hat and smooth her hair at places, disordering it at others, in order to be all right; but half an hour had gone by before they went downstairs, arm in arm, after the manner of girls who have been talking feverishly and kissing every now and again.
It was madness for Phyllis to think of tea at that hour of the night, Ella declared; but she knew Phyllis’ fancies in the past—she knew that what would set other girls’ nerves in motion, would only have the effect of soothing hers. So Phyllis drank her tea and ate her cake in the drawing room, and Ella lay back on the sofa and watched her with a curious interest in her eyes.
“I am so glad that we are spending together in this way the last night of our delightful week,” said Phyllis. “What a lovely week it has been! and the charm of it is, of course, to be found in the fact that it has been stolen from the best part of the season. In another month it would not be nearly so delightful—everyone will be hurrying off to the river or elsewhere.”
“Such a week is one of the incidents that a person plans but that rarely comes off according to one’s views,” said Ella. “I told you when I set my heart upon Hurley what my idea was.”
“And you have certainly realized it during this week. What a pity it is that this is our last night together!”
“Do you know, Phyllis, the way you said that suggested to me that you meant ‘What a pity it is that Herbert Courtland is not one of our party to-night’!”
Ella was still lying on the broad pillows of the couch, her hands clasped at the back of her head. She was still watching Phyllis through her half-closed eyes.
“I was not thinking about Mr. Courtland in the least when I spoke. How can you fancy that I should be so insincere? I say it is delightful for us, you and me only, mind, to be together to-night, because we can say just whatever occurs to us—I thought we could, you know; but since you made that horrid suggestion I think I must take back all that I said. It is, after all, not nearly so nice to be alone with you as one would imagine.”
“That was, I’m afraid, the conclusion that Herbert Courtland came to some time ago,” said Ella. “He was alone with me here—yes, for some minutes; but he left me—he left me and found you.”
“It was so funny!” cried Phyllis. “Who would have thought of seeing such a figure—bareheaded and in evening dress—on the road? I knew him at once, however. And he was walking so quickly too—walking as if—as if——”
“As if the devil were behind him—that’s how men put it,” said Ella. “It would never do for us to say that, of course, but in this particular case we might venture on it for the sake of strict accuracy; the devil was behind him. He escaped from it by the aid of his good angel. Didn’t he call you his good angel once, my Phyllis?”
“Yes, he called me so once,” said Phyllis. “But why should we talk about Mr. Courtland? Why should we talk about anybody to-night? Dearest Ella, let us talk about ourselves. You are of more interest to me than anyone in the world, and I know that I am of more interest to you than to anyone else. Let us talk about ourselves.”
“Certainly we shall talk about ourselves,” said Ella. “To begin, I should like very much to know if you were aware that Herbert had returned to this house after his day or two in town.”
Phyllis undoubtedly colored before she said, with a laugh:
“Didn’t you promise to talk solely about ourselves? I decline to talk on any other topic.”
She arose from where she had been sitting before a cup of tea at a little table that also held cake, and threw herself back in a fanciful seat shaped like a shell.
“That being so, I should like very much to know how you learned that he meant to return,” pursued Ella.
“You are becoming quite horrid, and I expected you to be so nice,” said Phyllis, pouting very prettily.
“And I expected you to confide in me,” said Ella reproachfully. “I have been watching you for some time—not merely during the past week, but long before; and I have seen—what I have seen. He could not have told you that he meant to return—you must have crossed each other in the trains. How did you know, my dear girl? Let me coax it out of you.”
Phyllis made no answer for some time; she was examining, with a newly acquired, but very intense interest, the texture of the sheen of the blouse which she was wearing. At last she raised her eyes, and saw how Ella was looking at her. Then she said slowly:
“I saw him in the train that was leaving when our train arrived.”
“Heavens! that is a confession!” cried Ella quite merrily.
“You forced it from me,” said Phyllis. “But why should there be any mystery between us? I’m sure I may tell you all the secrets of my life. Such as they are, you know them already.”
“They are safe in my keeping. My dear Phyllis, don’t you know that it has always been my dearest hope to see you and Herbert Courtland—well, interested in each other? I saw that he was interested in you long ago; but I wasn’t sure of you. That is just why I was so anxious for you to come down here for the week we have just passed. I wanted to bring you both together. I wanted to see you in love with each other; I wanted to see you both married.”
“Ella—Ella!”
“I wanted it, I tell you, not because I loved you, though you know that I love you better than anyone in the world.”
“Dearest Ella!”
“Not because I knew that you and he would be happy, but because I wished to snatch my own soul from perdition. I think it is safe now—but oh, my God! it is like the souls of many other mortals—saved in spite of myself! Phyllis, you have been my salvation. You are a girl; you cannot understand how near a woman may go to the bottomless pit through the love of a man. You fancy that love lifts one to the heaven of heavens; that it means purity—self-sacrifice. Well, there is a love that means purity; and there is a love that means self-sacrifice. Self-sacrifice: that is, that a woman is ready to sacrifice herself—her life—her soul—for the man whom she loves. I tell you—I, who know the truth—I, who have been at the brink. It is not that the pit is dear to us; it is that the man is dear to us, and we must go with him,—wherever he goes,—even down into hell itself with him.”
“Oh, Ella, Ella! this is the love of the satyr. It is not the love of the one who is made in the image of God.”
“Let it be what it is; it is a power that has to be reckoned upon so long as we remain creatures of the earth, earthy.”
“It is a thing that we should beat into the earth from which it came.” The girl had sprung to her feet, and was speaking with white face and clenched hands. “Down into the earth”—she stamped upon the floor—“even if we have to throw our bodies into the grave into which we trample it. Woman, I tell you that the other love,—the love which is the truth,—is stronger than the love of the satyr.”
“Is it? is it, Phyllis? Yes, sometimes. Yes; it was a word that you spoke in his hearing that saved him—him—Herbert—and that saved me that night when I came to you—when I waited for you—you did not know anything of why I came. I will tell you now—”
“No, no, no! Oh, Ella! for God’s sake, tell me nothing! I think I know all that I want to know; and I know that you had strength given to you by God to come to me that night. I had not to go to you. But I have come to you to-night. We are together, you and I; and we are the same as when we were girls together—oh, just the same! Who shall come between us, Ella?”
“Who? Who? You came here to save me. I knew it. But you had saved me before you came. Phyllis, in this very room I was alone with him. I was mad—mad with jealousy at the thought of losing him—though I knew that I had lost him—I was mad! The passion breathed from the roses—the twilight full of the memories of the spring we spent together in Italy—all took possession of my heart—my soul. I whispered to him to come to me—to come to me. And he came.”
The cry the girl gave, as she covered her face with her hands and dropped back into her chair, was very pitiful.
“He came to me—but only one step—one little step, Phyllis; then there came before his eyes a vision of your face—he felt your hand—cool as a lily—upon his wrist—he heard your voice speaking into his ear; he turned and fled—fled through that window—fled from the demon that had taken possession of this room—I said so to you.”
“Thank God—oh, Ella, thank God!”
“That is my cry—thank God—thank God; and yet—and yet—God help me! I feel ready to throw myself at your feet and say ‘Give him back to me! Give him back to me!’”
She had stood with her hands clasped above her head at her first utterance of that imploration—“Give him back to me!” Then she threw herself on her knees and passionately caught both the girl’s hands in her own, crying, “Give him back to me!”
Phyllis flung her arms about her neck, and bowed her own head down to the shoulder of the woman whom she loved and pitied.
And then——
Then through the silence of the house—the hour was almost midnight—there sounded the loud and continuous ringing of a bell.
It was only the usual visitors’ bell of the house; but its effect at that hour was startling—shocking!
The two women were on their feet, waiting in silence, but with wildly beating hearts, for what was coming—they felt that something terrible was coming. The bell had an ominous jangle. They heard the footsteps of the one servant who remained up to put out the lights, going to answer the summons of the bell—they heard a man’s voice speaking in a low tone in the hall—they heard a man’s steps approach the door of their room. The door opened, and Mr. Ayrton appeared before them.
He closed the door slowly, and stood there staring not at his daughter, but at Ella Linton. On his face was an expression that Phyllis had never seen on it before. It frightened her. She could not speak.
He stood there, with his eyes fixed upon Ella Linton—rigid—silent as a figure that symbolizes Death.
The silence became appalling.
“For God’s sake speak, if you are living!” cried Ella in a whisper tremulous with terror.
He did not speak—he stood there, staring at her.
“What does he mean? What does he mean?” said the woman, after another dreadful pause. “Why does he stand there, Phyllis, staring at me? Why——Oh, my God! I see it—I see it on his face—my husband—Stephen—dead—he is dead—you came to bring the news to me. Look, Phyllis, he cannot say ‘No’—he would say ‘No’ unless I had guessed the truth—he would say it—he would have some pity. Is it the truth? Man—speak—say yes, or no—for God’s sake! for God’s sake!”
She had taken half a dozen rapid steps to him and grasped him by the arm, gazing into his face.
He bowed his head.
She flung his arm from her, and burst into a laugh.
“Ah, Phyllis! I see it all now. He was the man I loved—I know it now—he was the man I loved. It was for him I cried out just now—‘Give him back to me—give him back to me!’”
The wild shriek with which she cried the words the second time rang through the house. She fell upon her knees, clutching at Phyllis’ hand as before, and then, making a motion as if about to rise, she fell back and lay with her white face turned to the ceiling, her white arms stretched limply out on each side of her like the arms of a crucified woman.
Servants came with restoratives.
“Poor creature! Poor creature!” said Mr. Ayrton. He had just returned from the room to which they had carried Ella. Phyllis was lying on the sofa with her face down to the pillow. “Poor creature! No one could have had any idea that she was so attached to him! She will be one of the richest women in England. He fell down in the club between nine and ten. His heart. Sir Joseph was not surprised. He said he had told him a short time ago that he had not six months to live. He cannot have let his wife know. Well, well, perhaps it was for the best. His man came to me in a terrible state. How was it to be broken to her? I just managed to catch the last train. He must have been worth over a million. She will be one of the richest women in England. Even in America a woman with three-quarters of a million is reckoned moderately well off. Poor creature! Ah! the shorn lamb!—the wind is tempered. ‘In the midst of life—’ Dear Phyllis! you must not allow yourself to break down. Your sympathetic nature is hard to control, I know, but still—oh, my child!”
But Phyllis refused to be comforted. She lay sobbing on the pillow, and when her father put his arm about her and raised her, she put her head on his shoulder, crying:
“He is gone from me forever—he is gone from me forever! Oh, I am the cruelest woman on earth! It is not for her terrible blow that I am crying, it is because I have lost him—I see it—I have lost him!”
Her father became frightened. What in the world could she mean by talking about the man being gone from her? He had never heard of a woman’s sympathy extending to such limits as caused her to feel a personal deprivation when death had taken another woman’s husband.
“Oh, I am selfish—cruel—heartless!” sobbed Phyllis. “I thought of myself, not of her. He is hers; he will be given back to her as she prayed—she prayed so to me before you appeared at the door, papa. ‘Give him back to me! Give him back to me!’ that was her prayer.”
“My dearest child, you must not talk that way,” said the father. “Come, Phyllis, your strength has been overtaxed. You must go to bed and try to sleep.”
She still moaned about her cruelty—her selfishness, until the doctor who had been sent for and had been with Ella in her room, appeared in order to let them know that Mrs. Linton had regained consciousness. The blow had, of course, been a terrible one: but she was young, and Nature would soon reassert herself, he declared, whatever he meant by that. He thought it strange, he said, that Mrs. Linton had not been aware of her husband’s weakness. To him, the physician, the condition of the unfortunate gentleman had been apparent from the first moment he had seen him. He had expected to hear of his death any day. He concluded by advising Phyllis to go to bed and have as long a sleep as possible. He would return in the morning and see if Mrs. Linton might travel to London.
Phyllis went to her room, and her father went to the one which had been prepared for him. For a minute or two he remained thoughtful. What could his daughter have meant by those self-accusations? After a short time, however, he smiled. The poor thing had been upset by the shocking news of the death of the husband of her dearest friend. She was sympathetic to quite a phenomenal degree. That sympathy which felt her friend’s loss as though it were wholly her own was certainly not to be met with every day.
In the morning Phyllis showed traces of having spent a bad night. But she spoke rationally and not in the wild way in which she had spoken before retiring, and her father felt that there was no need for him to be uneasy in regard to her condition. He allowed her to go to the side of her friend, Ella, and as he was leaving them together in each other’s arms, he heard Ella say:
“Ah, Phyllis, I know it now. He was the man who had all my love—all—all! Ah, if God would only give me another chance—one more chance!”
Mr. Ayrton had heard that passionate appeal for another chance upon more than one previous occasion. He had heard the husband who had tortured his wife to death make a passionate appeal to God to give him another chance. He knew that God had never given him another chance with the same wife; but God had given him another wife in the course of time—a wife who was not made on the spiritual lines of those who die by torture; a wife who was able to formulate a list of her own rights, and the rights of her sisters, and who possessed a Will.
The man who wanted another chance had no chance with such a woman.
He had heard the wife, who had deserted her husband in favor of the teetotal platform, cry out for another chance, when her husband had died away from her. But God had compassion upon the husband. She did not get him back.
He pitied with all his heart the poor woman who would be one of the richest women in England in the course of a day or two, and he said so to Mr. Courtland when he called early in the morning. Mr. Courtland did not remain for long in the house. It might have been assumed that so intimate a friend of Mr. and Mrs. Linton’s would be an acceptable visitor to the widow; but Mr. Courtland knew better. He hurried away to town without even asking to see her. He only begged of Mr. Ayrton to let him know if he could be of any use in town—there were details—ghastly; but he would take care that there was no inquest.
Phyllis went up to town with poor Ella, and remained by her side in that darkened house through all the terrible days that followed. Mr. Linton’s death had an appreciable influence upon the quarter’s revenue of the country. The probate duty paid by the executors was a large fortune in itself, and Ella was, as Mr. Ayrton had predicted she would be, one of the richest women in England. The hundred thousand pounds bequeathed to some unostentatious charities—charities that existed for the cause of charity, not for the benefit of the official staff—made no difference worth speaking of in the position of Mrs. Linton as one of the richest women in England.
But the codicil to the will which surprised most people was that which placed in the hands of Mrs. Linton and the Rev. George Holland as joint trustees the sum of sixty thousand pounds, for the building and endowment of a church, the character and aims of which would be in sympathy with the principles recently formulated by the Rev. George Holland in his book entitled “Revised Versions,” and in his magazine article entitled “The Enemy to Christianity,” the details to be decided by the Rev. George Holland and Mrs. Linton as joint trustees.
The codicil was, of course, a very recent one; but it was executed in proper form; it required two pages of engrossing to make the testator’s desires plain to every intelligence that had received a thorough training in legal technicalities. It was susceptible of a good deal of interpretation to an ordinary intelligence.
When it was explained to Mrs. Linton, she also was at first a good deal surprised. It read very like a jest of some subtlety: for she had no idea that her husband had the slightest feeling one way or another on the subject of the development of one Church or another; and as for the establishment of an entirely new Church—yes, it struck her at first that her solicitor was making a bold and certainly quite an unusual attempt to cheer her up in her bereavement by bringing under her notice a jest of the orderpachydermato.
But soon it dawned upon her that her husband meant a good deal by this codicil of his.
“I am getting to understand him better every day,” she said to Phyllis. “He knew that I loved him and him only. He has given me this work to do, and with God’s help I will do it thoroughly. You did not believe in the value of George Holland’s doctrines. Neither did I: I never thought about them. I will accept my husband’s judgment regarding them, and perhaps I may think about them later on. Our Church will be the most potent influence for good that the century has yet seen. Yes, I will throw myself heart and soul into the work. After all, it must be admitted that the Church has never done its duty as a Church.”
Phyllis said nothing.
But the Rev. George Holland had a good deal to say on the subject of the codicil, when he was alone with Mrs. Linton, a few days later. He had by no means made up his mind to sever his connection with the dear old mother Church, he said. He could not see that there was any need for his taking so serious a step—an irrevocable step. It was his feeling at that moment, he declared, that he might be able to effect the object of his life—which was, of course, the reform of the Church—better by remaining within its walls than by severing himself from it. He must take time to consider his position.
He left Mrs. Linton greatly disappointed. It had been her belief that Mr. Holland would jump at the chance—that was the phrase which she employed in expressing her disappointment to Phyllis—of becoming the founder of a brand-new religion.
She was greatly disappointed in Mr. Holland. If Buddha or Edward Irving, or some of the other founders of new religions had had such a chance offered to them in early life, would they not have embraced it eagerly? she asked.
And it was to be such a striking Church! She had made up her mind to that. It was to be a lasting memorial to the largeness of soul of her husband—to his appreciation of the requirements of the thinking men and women of the age. She had made up her mind already as to the character of the painted windows. The church would itself, of course, be the purest Gothic. As for the services, she rather thought that the simplicity of the Early Church might be effectively combined with some of the most striking elements of Modern Ritualism. However, that would have to be decided later on.
But when the bishop heard of the codicil he had another interview with George Holland, and imparted to that young cleric his opinion that he should avail himself of the opportunity offered to him of trying what would undoubtedly be a most interesting experiment, and one to the carrying out of which all true churchmen would look forward most hopefully. Who could say, he inquired, if the larger freedom which would be enjoyed by an earnest, sincere, and highly intellectual clergyman, not in immediate contact with the Establishment, might not avail him to perfect such a scheme of reform as would eventually be adopted by the Church?
That interview was very helpful to George Holland in making up his mind on the subject of the new Church. He resigned his pastorate, greatly to the regret of the churchwardens; though no expression of such regret was ever heard from the bishop.
But then a bishop is supposed to have his feeling thoroughly under control.
This happened three weeks after the death of Stephen Linton, and during these weeks Herbert Courtland had never once asked to see Ella Linton.