The darkness had settled down now. There was a fading light in the sky that could be seen here and there through the thick canopy of leaves, but beneath them only eyes that had grown used to the darkness could have descried anything.The boy lay stretched at length on the grass, his face to the ground, utterly weary and utterly miserable. He had no strength to tear himself from this unhappy spot and go home; he only wanted to lie there in his pain, which still had a little of sweetness in it as long as he lingered in the place where he had last seen her.He never moved. His body was as still as on that night in which he had kept his eager vigil, and at last been rewarded. But it was the stillness of exhaustion. No hope was left to him now.But his ears, trained since his childhood to catch the lightest whispers of nature, and to interpret them, alert in spite of himself, heard something that was not of the life sinking to rest around him. He raised himself suddenly, almost violently, and peered into the darkness, all his senses once more on edge.And out of the darkness she came, no more than a moth-glimmer flitting towards him. A wild joy filled him, down to the very depths of his being. He sprang up and ran towards her.She gave a little cry that was half a sob, and flew to his embrace. His arms were around her, and his lips on hers. In all the long hours through which he had yearned for her, and played with the thought of her sweetness, no such blissful end to his waiting had entered his mind as this.CHAPTER XIIITHE TEMPLEHer face was wet with her tears, but he could just see her smile glimmering through the darkness. His eyes were as hungry as his lips. That sweet flower-like face, with the tender eyes and the mouth a-quiver—would he ever be able to gaze his fill of it?She made no effort to draw herself from him, but nestled to him, and poured out a broken sobbing explanation of her absence to which he hardly listened. What did it matter how she had been prevented from coming to him, since she had longed for him as he had longed for her, and was with him now?He kissed away her tears; she had not returned his kisses since her first unconsidered impelled surrender, but was still sweetly receptive of them. "Oh, I ought not to," she said, smiling at him. "But I do love you, and I have wanted you so."Yes, this was love, of which he had never consciously, thought. She had spoken the word first, but he knew before she had spoken it that all his joy and all his pain had sprung from that source, and exulted in his new knowledge."I love you too—Viola," he said, lingering caressingly on her name. "Oh, how I love you!"He drew a long breath, and they gazed silently into one another's eyes, to find in them what no speech could utter. The melting sweetness of her gaze filled him with trembling rapture. The secret of life and all its beauty which he thought he had divined, now seemed to have depths beneath depths of meaning, beyond mental capacity to grasp, in their almost intolerable rapture. With a sigh they released each other, and speech flowed to their relief, broken and melodious, bearing them again to the surface of their bliss.They withdrew a little from the path where they had met, and told over the tale of their love. By and by they moved along it again, in a common impulse to escape from the thick darkness of the wood, and gain the freedom of the starry night.They passed the cottage where Viola dwelt and never gave it a thought. At a later time they confessed to one another that they had no recollection of passing it at all. They were so wrapped up in one another that nothing and nobody else in the wide world mattered to them at that moment. But when they had emerged from the wood they turned aside, instinctively perhaps, to escape prying eyes, and passed slowly along the path which they had taken the afternoon before.After the darkness of the wood, the sky, moonless, but lit by the innumerable lanterns of the stars, had the effect of brightness. Their young faces could be plainly seen in this soft radiance, and they stood to worship one another afresh."You're so beautiful, Viola! How beautiful you are! I must have been blind not to see it before.""I saw that you were from the very first."Here were two statements of surpassing interest. They had to be enlarged upon and explained, with new and immeasurable content gained from the disclosures that were made. Nothing had ever happened like it before. They were pioneers in the uncharted country of love, and the springs at which they refreshed themselves, and the flowers brushed by their feet as they wandered through it, had been waiting for them unseen and unguessed at since the world began. The wonder of it increased.They sat down on a low rock, jutting through the fern, and gave themselves up to the miracle of their discoveries. Harry held her hands in his, and his eyes were never off her face, except when he looked out into space as if trying to fathom something that passed his comprehension. Sometimes they drew together by an irresistible mutual impulse, but every kiss he gave her was a consecration. She was too beautiful and too sacred a thing not to be treated with high reverence. Instinctively he held himself back, though without cessation he thirsted for her sweetness, and her lips assuaged his thirst only so long as his were upon them.For more than an hour they sat there, and the time seemed as nothing. Then she sprang up suddenly and said she must go in. She had only meant just to run out and tell him why she had not been able to come in the afternoon. As she said it, a voice was heard calling: "Viola! Viola!" out of the darkness. She raised herself hurriedly to kiss him, of her own accord, and tearing her hands from his ran off without a word.Harry stood for a long time where she had left him, while the unhurrying stars marched on to their celestial music and looked down upon him, a creature of the moment, who had yet found his way into the courts of eternity. He looked up at them, and in the rapture of the revelation that had come to him worshipped anew in the temple whose gates he had besieged all his life. It was for this that he had been born; it was for this that the heavens were lit, and the earth put forth its beauty. At last he had been admitted into the innermost sanctuary of the temple, and the secret of life was his.He moved slowly towards the cottage which enshrined his love, unable to leave its hallowed precincts.There were lights in the lower windows, and presently in that upper one which he knew to be Viola's. Perhaps she knew that he would linger out there under the stars, for she came to the window and stood there for a long time, and before she left it she kissed the tips of her fingers and threw her message out into the darkness.Presently her light went out. Harry laid himself down on the warm turf. He would sleep there that night, as he had sometimes slept out in the open on warm summer nights before, but not with that sense of bliss enfolding him. He would keep guard over her, and perhaps, when the stars had paced onwards in their western march, and the moon had arisen, she would come to the window again, as she had come the night before. He had told her that he had seen her there. He thought she would come. And surely her presence would make itself felt through his dreams, and he would awake to see her! It was not possible that he should sleep while she was awake near him.He pillowed his head on the fern and slept, and for a long time there was silence, on the moor and in the cottage, while the stars watched over them and waited for their waking.It happened just as Harry had thought when he laid himself down to sleep. He awoke to find the moor flooded by the bright radiance of the moon, which shone also upon the front of the cottage and the window of Viola's room. And she was there, with her dusky hair about her face and on her shoulders, and with some dark wrap round her, so that her face alone, and her hands, were softly illumined.He arose and went towards her. She saw him coming, for she gave a little start, and then sat motionless again until he stood just beyond the garden fence, where he could see her face, though his was in shadow.He stood there; neither of them spoke and neither of them moved, but drank their fill of one another's presence. They made no motion of farewell when at last Harry moved away and his form was lost in the shadows of the wood.He could go home now and sleep, with his great happiness to bear him company. On the morrow he would see her again, and new happiness would be his lot.CHAPTER XIVBASTIANWilbraham picked his way along the woodland path, humming a tune. His only preoccupation for the moment was to preserve his shoes from getting wet, for much rain had fallen, and there were spongy patches to be avoided.Wilbraham disliked exercise of almost every sort. His bad times, in the winter, were when he felt impelled to go for a walk, which was for at least an hour every afternoon unless the weather absolutely forbade. In the summer he did not mind it so much, except when the heat tried him; but he would always have preferred to spend his leisure with a book in the library, or in the garden.He had long ceased to accompany Harry in any out of door expedition. They saw quite enough of one another indoors, and their respective preferences in the matter of pace were so in opposition that it was a pleasure to neither of them to take the air together. Mrs. Brent sometimes accompanied him in his constitutionals, but he seldom invited her to do so. They also saw enough of one another indoors, or at least he saw enough of her. He liked her, but she did not interest him in conversation, while she did expect him to interest her. He was quite capable of doing so, but the effort spoilt the mild refreshment that came from leaving his brain to wander where it would while his body was being gently exercised. He found abundant interest in the thoughts of his well-stored mind, and sometimes stayed out for longer than he had intended because he had fallen into such an absorbing train of speculation.Yet this man, who lived his monotonous life with books as his chief recreation and his intercourse with his fellows narrowed to the few with whom he lived, was very fond of company. His walk this afternoon, longer than he usually imposed upon himself in the heat of summer, was cheered by having an object other than that of keeping his liver from troubling him. He was going to make a new acquaintance. This artist, with the rather absurd name, who was lodging with Mrs. Ivimey, might possibly be a man of intelligence, with views upon the art he practised; or he might be a mere commercial dauber. If he proved to be a man of intelligence, it would be agreeable to exchange views with him, for after books Wilbraham liked pictures, better even than he liked music. Or rather, his taste for music had become a little atrophied, since he was cut off from enjoyment of it, while art could always be read about, and there were always pictures or reproductions of pictures to be seen.He reached the cottage on the outskirts of the wood, and looked about him with pleasure before he entered it. The great open space upon which it faced was a refreshment after the wooded environment of the Castle, and the few buildings that enlivened this point relieved it of the impression of loneliness which was unpleasing to a man of Wilbraham's fibre. It was half a mile further by the path he had taken than by the one he usually took if his humour led him towards the common, but he thought as he stood there with his hat off, so that the breeze could cool his brow, that he would come there more often, even if Mr. Bastian should not turn out to be the sort of person that he might want to come for.A well-satisfied gentleman he looked as he stood there leaning on his stick, his brow rather bald, his presence on the verge of portliness, though he was not otherwise of the habit of body that runs to flesh. The look of discontent that Grant had remarked about him on a first acquaintance was absent now. In his suit of dark grey flannel, with his black-ribboned straw hat, he had something of a clerical air, and as he turned towards the cottage his unusually sharp ears heard the sound of hurried movement through the open window of a downstairs room, and a voice uttering the words: "The parson come to call! Good Lord, I'm lost; I can't get out."He stood chuckling to himself as he waited for an answer to his knock. The door stood open. The artist could not have escaped him if his fears had been justified. This pleased his humour, especially as he anticipated the pleasure of bringing relief to him.Mrs. Ivimey did not respond to his summons, and as he was preparing to knock again, a door on the left of the little passage opened and the artist came out to him."I'm afraid Mrs. Ivimey is out at the back somewhere," he said. "Shall I go and call her for you?""Thanks, it's you I've come to see, if you're Mr. Bastian," said Mr. Wilbraham. "I'm tutor to young Sir Harry Brent at the Castle. We heard you were here, and as we don't get many visitors at Royd I came to look you up."Bastian's face changed. "That's very kind of you," he said. "Do come in."He led the way into the little sitting-room, and Wilbraham followed him with the feeling that his visit had justified itself.Bastian was a tall thin man with a shock of untidy grey hair, but a curiously young face. His eyes were very light blue. He had a half-whimsical, half-appealing look, as if he was in a constant state of amusement at himself and was begging not to be taken too seriously. The upper part of his face was firmly and delicately modelled, but his mouth was indeterminate and his chin weak. He was atrociously dressed, in an old discoloured suit of light grey flannel, and a pair of stained canvas shoes, and he wore no collar; but he did not apologize for his appearance. Wilbraham judged him to be about forty-five, but discovered later that he was three or four years younger.Mrs. Ivimey's parlour was furnished with the customary mixture of old good things and bad new ones. A few canvases stood with their faces against the wall, and a half-finished picture of a flaming sunset over the moor and the sea was propped on the mantelpiece. Wilbraham threw a glance at it as he entered, but could not make up his mind whether it was going to be a good picture or an exceptionally bad one. There were some books on the round table in the middle of the room, as well as some of the untidy paraphernalia of an artist. On a smaller table in the window was a bottle of whisky, a glass and a jug of water, and by the side of the table was a shabby but comfortable looking easy chair, upon which was a book face downwards. The room was full of the odour of strong tobacco."I'm afraid it's rather like a bar-parlour," said Bastian. "I have a horrible habit of smoking shag, which some people object to strongly. Will you have some whisky?"He looked sideways at Wilbraham as he spoke, with an engaging smile. There was something attractive and appealing about him; he was rather like a naughty child, caught in the act—indoors on a summer afternoon with his shag tobacco and his whisky and his advanced dishabille. Wilbraham was one of those who hated the reek of shag, but he forgave him for it readily and took out his own cigarette case. He did not reply to the offer of whisky."I'll go and get you a glass," said Bastian. "I'm afraid there's no soda-water, but it's good whisky and better with water."He went out of the room, and Wilbraham stood with his eyes fixed upon the whisky bottle, and a queer look in them, half of eagerness, half of repulsion.Bastian was away longer than it would have taken him to get a glass, and when he returned he had on a collar and a flowing brightly coloured tie. He now looked like an artist, and not so much like a broken-down gentleman-loafer."Say when!" he said, pouring out the whisky, and Wilbraham said when, but not immediately."I get tired of painting," said Bastian. "It's very hot out there on the moor, and I didn't bring a sketching umbrella with me. I thought I'd have a lazy time with a book. 'David Copperfield.' One of the best books, I consider." He held his head aside as he looked at Wilbraham.Wilbraham had taken his first sip of whisky. It was only a sip, but his face seemed to expand under it. His heart also expanded towards a Dickens enthusiast, and for a time they talked about Dickens, and found themselves always in encouraging agreement."It's a pleasure to have somebody to talk to," said Bastian. "I love being in the country and I hate being in London. I came down here to be as far away from London as possible, but there's no doubt one does want human intercourse. I'm devoted to my little girl, who's here with me; but one wants men to talk to.""Oh, you've got a daughter with you," said Wilbraham. He had been considering all the time, underneath the conversation, whether or not Bastian could be introduced to Royd. He was a gentleman: that was obvious. But it was equally obvious that he had shed some of the customs usually followed by gentlemen. Would his innate breeding carry him through, with women—with Lady Brent? With a man, or at least with one who prided himself on being able to see beneath the surface, the shocking old clothes and the shag tobacco would make no difference. Then there was the whisky. Wilbraham had rather more than a suspicion that Bastian's case was not so very different from his own: that whisky meant a good deal to Bastian. There were signs of it on his smooth child-like face—a lack of clearness in a skin that was meant to be unusually clear, a slackness of muscle, a look in the eye and in the droop of the mouth; and the second—or possibly the third—allowance that Bastian had poured into his glass had exceeded by a good half inch the not meagre allowance that Wilbraham had accepted in his own. Perhaps it might lead to complications to invite him to Royd. If Wilbraham should decide not to, the daughter might be made an excuse."She's a dear child," said Bastian. "Her mother's dead. She was one in a thousand." He sighed. "Viola and I are everything to one another. We're scarcely ever parted, except when we're at work. She has to earn money, poor child, and neither of us manages to earn very much. Still, we're happy together, and happiest of all when we leave the streets behind us and get out into the country."He was revealing himself as one of those people who like to pour themselves out about their own affairs, not so much out of egotism as from an impulse to show confidence towards their hearers, to establish relations which shall rest upon no misunderstanding, in which nothing shall be kept back.Wilbraham was without that impulse, but he was also without any large share of egotism. He was interested in other people, and usually preferred that they should talk about themselves, since few people are interesting upon any other subject. He had some curiosity about Bastian's history, which seemed to have had contradictions in it, when his refinement of speech and manner was compared with his confessed and apparent indigence, which was rather below that to which men of birth and breeding sink, even if they are without the earning capacity."How old is your daughter?" he asked, a little confused between the mention of her as a child and that of her work."Sixteen or seventeen," said Bastian. "I can't quite remember which, and I don't particularly want to. I don't suppose I shall keep her with me for many years. She's a very beautiful girl. So was her mother. And gentle and sweet and good too—both of them. Ah, whatever I've missed in life—whatever mistakes I've made—I've had that. There's nothing in this world like a good and beautiful woman,—'A lovely apparition, sent to be a moment's ornament'—how does it go on? I can't keep these things in my head."Wilbraham threw a look at Bastian's glass, of which the contents were now reduced by half. His speech showed no sign of deterioration—he was evidently one of those people who could "carry their liquor"—but Wilbraham recognized his state as one in which the ordinary dictates of reticence would be considerably relaxed.His own glass was nearly as full as before. He could quite easily have gone away and left it there. He felt that the small amount he had already drunk had done him a vast amount of good, enlightened his brain and stimulated his body. He had an impulse of pity towards Bastian, who was under the influence of the desire from which he had emancipated himself, and of self-congratulation at his own freedom. Thank God that he could drink what was good for him, and stop there. He was inclined to like Bastian exceedingly. It might be possible, if he got to know him better, to help him out of the morass into which he had fallen. It seemed probable that the state of poverty to which he had come was owing to habits of intemperance. A man who had had the same inclinations and might have been brought under by them, but had overcome them instead, would be the right man to help another, if he could gain his confidence. And Bastian seemed to be in the mood to give confidence."I'm afraid I don't know your name as an artist," said Wilbraham with a glance at the picture on the mantelpiece. "But it's years since I went to an exhibition. I'm interested in art, though, and have read a good deal about the modern movements.""Art!" echoed Bastian. "There's nothing like it, is there? The older I get the more I love it. Poetry, music, painting—everything. To tell you the truth, art has been my downfall."Wilbraham felt some surprise. He had thought that if Bastian had been through any experience that might be described as a downfall, it had been from other causes. "Well, if you've followed it when you might have been doing something else that would have brought you more money," he said, "I don't know that you're so much to be pitied. If I had the gift for painting, which I haven't at all, I'd rather do what you're doing now, than get rich."Bastian laughed. "I'm afraid I haven't much gift either," he said. "I'm a rotten artist, and I'm a rotten musician, and I'm a rotten poet. I've tried to make my living out of all three; but perhaps you might say that I haven't tried very hard. I love 'em all too much. It's rotten to have to make your living out of what you love. You want to enjoy it, not to practise it, unless you've got a turn that way. You don't have to be a singer yourself to enjoy other people's singing; it doesn't follow that you can paint good pictures because you know a bad one when you see it. There ought to be scholarships at the Universities for people with a genius for contemplation, and life fellowships to follow them up.""The holders of life fellowships have sometimes been known to practise contemplation to an excessive extent," said Wilbraham.Bastian laughed heartily. "That's rather good," he said. "But what a pleasant life, eh? These jolly places—and plenty of good company, and good wine! Why should that happy lot be reserved for people who happened to interest themselves in one or two subjects, out of all that there are to interest one, in their extreme youth? I suppose you were at Oxford or Cambridge in those happy days of long ago?""Cambridge," said Wilbraham. "I was at Christ's.""We must have been there about the same time. I was at Magdalene—a nice snug little college, and becoming quite an intelligent one, from what I've heard. But I haven't been there since I came down. They wouldn't be very proud of me now, I'm afraid. One or two touts or stablemen might recognize me perhaps. They had plenty of money out of me when I had it. I don't belong to that life any more."He had a sudden mournful droop, and drank what was left in his glass. Wilbraham had lost the impression that he was much affected by what he had drunk, but it returned now. That drop into self-pitying depression immediately after smiling excitement told its tale. His own sobriety was indicated by his glass, still two-thirds full. He had half a mind to remark upon Bastian's helping himself to another stiff peg, which he did with a perfectly steady hand. But he did not know him well enough yet; the time for that sort of sympathy had not yet come.But he was more than ever interested in him. His fall must have been from a higher social plane than he had suspected. Undergraduates whose money had been spent in connection with horse-flesh usually had more than the average to begin with, and Magdalene had been a super-sporting college in his day and Bastian's day."I was the son of a poor parson," he said. "I got my scholarship, and if I had worked I should probably have got my fellowship too. I did work at what interested me, but the devil of it was that it didn't interest the dons. Those prizes are reserved for the people who have the sense to stick at one thing till they've got them. Then they can do what they like. They're not necessarily the people who are best at their subjects. I've got a real love for the classics, and I probably know a good deal more about them than a lot of the people who got Firsts when I only got a Second. It's the concentration of those few years that counts."Bastian laughed again. "Firsts and Seconds!" he said. "I didn't take a degree at all. The smash had come before then, and I was tied up for life."Wilbraham was rather taken aback. It looked as if confidences were coming, and he had the gentleman's dislike to receiving them unless they are given with full intention. "Don't tell me anything you'll be sorry for afterwards," he said, with another look at Bastian's glass."Oh, my dear fellow, I'm not drunk," said Bastian. "I drink a lot, and no doubt it has had a good deal to do with keeping me where I am; but I don't get drunk. I don't often meet anybody like you, who belongs to the world I used to inhabit. It's a relief sometimes to unburden oneself. Besides, there's Viola. Viola doesn't often get the chance of talking to a gentleman. I think you'll open your eyes when you see Viola. I haven't been able to raise myself out of the muck, but it hasn't touched her. She's the flower that has grown out of it."Wilbraham still felt some discomfort. If it were true that Bastian never got drunk, he was none the less under the influence of drink now, or he wouldn't have talked about himself with quite that absence of control. He must have been referring to his wife when he had said that he had been tied up for life, and men don't talk to one another in that way about their wives on a first acquaintance when they are in full possession of themselves."I shouldn't let anything you told me go any further," Wilbraham said.Bastian did not seem to have heard this. He was looking down with a frown of concentrated purpose. To unburden himself was evidently imperative on him for the moment, and he was collecting his faculties to that end."I don't want to give you a false impression," he said. "My wife was a woman in a thousand. Never did I have one moment's regret that I had married her. I think, if she'd lived, she might have made a man of me still. Perhaps it was a fluke—I don't want to make myself out better than I was, and I was a rotten young fool in those days—perhaps it was a fluke that she was what she was, because it was only her beauty that I fell in love with, and I hadn't the sense then to see what there was behind it. But what I do say is that my people ought to have seen. I'll never forgive them for that, and I'll never let Viola have anything to do with them. She doesn't even know their name, and——""I don't quite understand," said Wilbraham, as he seemed to be off on another gallop. "Why did your people object to your marrying?""Oh, well of course it was a fool's trick. I wasn't even of age, and she was a girl off the stage, but one of the sweetest, kindest girls that ever stepped. I only had her for a few years, but I tell you I'm in love with her memory still. She's been dead seventeen years and I miss her as much as ever. Life's nothing to me, though I'm not old yet; I buried it all in her grave."It was curious, thought Wilbraham, that there should be a story here not dissimilar from the one that he had lived with for about the same length of time. But the girl whose father had made the same mistake as Harry's had not been shielded from its consequences as he had. She was hardly likely to have escaped the contamination of the rougher, harder world to which her father had descended. Wilbraham attributed Bastian's praise of his wife largely to the diffuse sentiment of the moment. He had not otherwise created the impression of a man living upon a life-long regret. His daughter, if she was the close companion of his poverty and the witness of his habits, could hardly be the rare and delicate flower that he painted her, though she was probably beautiful. At any rate it would be just as well to preserve Harry from contact with her. It would be an ironic stroke of fate if in this remote corner in which he had been brought up the glamour of the stage should obtrude itself once more."Is your daughter on the stage?" he asked outright, at this point in his reflections.Bastian roused himself, and seemed to shake off completely his mood of hopeless regret. "God forbid!" he said. "I wouldn't have risked that, though if I had I believe she'd have come through it. You must see Viola. I don't know where she is now. She's like a sweet young creature of the woods—roams about in them all day. That'll tell you what she is—a London girl, who can throw London off her altogether when she gets away from it. She's less bound to it even than I am. Come up to-morrow, will you? I'll tell her to be in to tea. She sometimes takes it out with her. Can you come about half-past four?"Wilbraham had been thinking rapidly. If this girl was in the habit of roaming the woods all day she might come across Harry, who was also in the habit of roaming the woods. All the ideas with which Wilbraham had lived for years past gathered themselves into the instinct to watch and guard. He must see this girl of Bastian's, and he must be prepared for what should come, so that he could deal with it without surprise and without hurry. Fortunately, he had not announced his intention of calling upon the artist that afternoon. He would say nothing about his visit at the Castle, but would announce one for the next day."Yes, I should like to come," he said, as he rose from his seat. "I must be getting back now."About a third of the whisky remained in his glass. He stood looking at it, as Bastian expressed his pleasure in having seen him, and then drained it off before he left the room.CHAPTER XVWILBRAHAMHarry and Viola were in the log cabin. They had varied their meeting-places. Best of them all they loved the secret pool, but that was only for very hot still weather. Rain was falling intermittently this afternoon, but every now and then the sun shone. The weather made little difference to their happiness, and the cabin, Harry's handiwork, provided them with a shelter when they needed it, which brought them also a grateful sense of seclusion and joint possession. The Rectory was empty; Sunday duty was performed by a visiting clergyman; nobody was in the least likely to disturb them in their retreat. Viola had got rid of her slight suspicion of Jane, which she had already confessed to Harry, with happy laughter. "She may not know it," she had said, "but of course she's in love with you, poor child! She couldn't help being, if she was only nine instead of thirteen. I was a little jealous of her being so much with you. But I love her for loving you, and of course I'm not jealous of anybody now."The log cabin was roughly furnished. Not much more would have been required if it had really been the home of a pioneer. Harry and Viola had played with the idea of living together in such a cabin, with a new beautiful world to be tamed all around them, and this as the nest of their love and companionship. So he had played with the children, but Viola's presence had given their cabin a wonderful romantic charm which it had never had and which it would never lose. Her presence would illumine every place in which she might rest. Harry's old castle was still in shadow because she had not yet visited it.It was the morning of the day upon which Wilbraham was to take tea with Bastian, and Viola was to be there to be exhibited to him. Harry had been concerned at hearing that he had already been to the cottage."He has said nothing about it at home," he said. "This morning at breakfast he did say that he had thought of going to see your father this afternoon, but that it looked like raining all day. What does it mean?""Nothing very dreadful," said Viola. "He and father seem to have got on very well together yesterday, but perhaps he wasn't quite sure enough of him to ask him to the Castle. Perhaps he wants to see what I'm like first."Harry threw her a quick loving look. They were sitting together on a bench underneath the eaves of the hut. They might not have been taken for lovers by anyone who had seen them; their caresses were rarer than might have been expected, fathoms deep in love with one another as they were; but looks and smiles flashed between them like summer lightning, and scarcely the lightest word was spoken without emotion."When he sees you," Harry began; but she interrupted him. "Father doesn't want to go if he does ask us," she said. "And I couldn't go, Harry dear. I love you so much that I couldn't keep it back. I'm afraid I shan't be able to keep it back this afternoon from Mr. Wilbraham, if he says anything about you.""I've asked myself sometimes," Harry said, thoughtfully, "whether it's right to keep it back. You're so much above everybody else in the world, Viola, that——"Again she interrupted him. "Harry darling," she said, "I've thought about it too. There are lots of things that I know about in the world that you don't. I only want to forget them while I'm here with you; and I can't if other people know how much I love you, and that you love me. They wouldn't let us forget them.""What sort of things, Viola dear? I'm not a child, though perhaps they have tried to keep me one for too long, at home. I'm going to take care of you, for all our lives. I ought to know as much as you do.""I hope you never will, darling," she said, a little sadly. "I know that the things I have learnt haven't spoilt me, or else I shouldn't feel so happy as I do in your loving me. But other people might not believe that. We're very young, both of us. We love as deeply as people who are older love, and we know we shall go on loving each other all our lives. But others wouldn't believe that. They would try to part us. They would part us, as long as I stayed here; and there's such a little time left. Oh, let us be happy together while it lasts, and keep our lovely secret.""Why should they try to part us, Viola? Who is there? My grandmother and my mother. If they only saw you!"She smiled at him. "It wouldn't be enough," she said, "whatever I was. And they wouldn't look at me with your eyes. Perhaps nobody else would. What was it made you love me so much, Harry?"He had told her a hundred times, and now told her again; and she told him that she had loved him the very first moment she had set eyes on him, riding up on his gallant horse with his dogs around him. "You were like a splendid young knight," she said. "No girl could have helped loving you. But I love you a thousand times more now than I did then, and I suppose I shall go on loving you more and more all my life."It was like the old stories of his childhood, which had to be told over and over again, and were better every time they were told. But now it was not as it had been then, when no variation must be admitted in the telling. There was always something new—some little discovery that deepened the sense of perfection and wonderment, some answering thought that showed them to have been close to one another, even in the hours in which they were parted and were pasturing on their sweet memories of one another.It was with a kind of solemnity of sweetness that Harry dwelt upon Viola's trust in him and his manhood. By a thousand little signs it had been made plain that she knew more of the world than he, but she put all that knowledge aside and looked up to him and submitted to him as if infinite wisdom and experience were his. And in truth he had grown greatly in mental stature since her love had come into his life to change it so completely. They must have remarked upon it at home if he had not taken such advantage of the freedom that was granted him and been so little at home at this time. His mother actually had told him that he was altered, after he had expressed himself with more than usual self-confidence when they had talked about the war over the dinner-table. She was always on the look-out for signs of something that might take him from her, and she feared the war and what might come of it with an unreasoning fear, considering the information at her command. Harry was thinking a great deal about the war now, which does not mean that there were any times at which he was not thinking about Viola. With the coming of love his sense of the deeper values of life had become strengthened. If he had felt himself borne along on a strong current that would carry him to whatever of action or duty or mere state of being that was laid down for him, then whatever happened to him was part of the whole, and nothing in his life would be dissociated from anything else. It was this sense of unity that lifted his fresh boy's adoration of a girl as young and as pure as himself into something bigger and more rooted than that, beautiful as it is. His love gave the divine note of joy to all his purpose, sweetened and solemnized it at the same time. It was not like a great happiness in which he could forget himself, and which he must also forget for a time if something more serious had to be faced.This morning, for the first time, influenced perhaps by the breath from outside which had come through Wilbraham's advent upon the scene, which, however, they put aside from them, they talked about the time when Viola should have gone away.Their extreme youth moved them to sadness, which was not wholly painful because the time was not near yet, and present bliss was only heightened by the thought of parting. They were so far unlike most young lovers that no mention was made of writing, or even of meeting again. It was as if the contact between them was so close and so sure that however far apart they might be in space, and for whatever time, they would still be together.Harry was serious about the future. "I don't know exactly what is going to happen," he said. "I'm supposed to be going to Sandhurst in January, but that's a long time ahead. I seem to see the war swallowing up everything. There's something to be done here about it, and perhaps it will be for me to do it. But there's nothing to show yet. I think there won't be till you go away, my darling. I think there's nothing that will come in the way of my being with you, and thinking about nothing but you.""Do you think you will have to go and fight, Harry? Oh, surely you're too young for that, darling!""I'm not too young to love you."She thought over this. It was one of the things he sometimes said that meant more than it seemed to. She loved those speeches of his, springing from something in him to which she could give all her faith and all her devotion. They helped her to plumb the depths in him, and she had never found anything there that did not make her glad and proud of loving him.This time her pride brought the tears close to her eyes. There was more than the sweetness of young love in this—to be loved as something in full alliance with all the biggest things that a man might be called upon to do in the world, and to which he must bring all that he was and all that he had, even his life itself if it should be required of him."I shouldn't want you not to, Harry," she said.He did not tell her of his conviction that the war would claim him. She was his to be protected, and some things she must be spared. When the time came, she would somehow be concerned in it, because she would be concerned in everything that he did, and whatever he should want of her then she would give him. He had as much confidence in her as she in him."The war is like a great shadow over everything," he said. "We're in the sunshine just now, you and I—the most glorious sunshine. I don't think that we need fear the shadow for ourselves. But for others—for some it's very deep."The shadow seemed to creep closer and touch her heart as he spoke. They were silent for a time, her hand resting in his. The contact strengthened them both, and the shadow passed away from her. For the rest of their time together that morning they made love and built their airy rainbow castles, almost as unsubstantial as those of children. In fact they played with the idea of having Jane and Pobbles to live with them. It hardly seemed fair to be using the cabin in which they had a proprietary share and leave them out of it. They would pass suddenly from grave to gay in this way, and there were many times when the children could have taken a full part in their conversation without being at all in the way.
The darkness had settled down now. There was a fading light in the sky that could be seen here and there through the thick canopy of leaves, but beneath them only eyes that had grown used to the darkness could have descried anything.
The boy lay stretched at length on the grass, his face to the ground, utterly weary and utterly miserable. He had no strength to tear himself from this unhappy spot and go home; he only wanted to lie there in his pain, which still had a little of sweetness in it as long as he lingered in the place where he had last seen her.
He never moved. His body was as still as on that night in which he had kept his eager vigil, and at last been rewarded. But it was the stillness of exhaustion. No hope was left to him now.
But his ears, trained since his childhood to catch the lightest whispers of nature, and to interpret them, alert in spite of himself, heard something that was not of the life sinking to rest around him. He raised himself suddenly, almost violently, and peered into the darkness, all his senses once more on edge.
And out of the darkness she came, no more than a moth-glimmer flitting towards him. A wild joy filled him, down to the very depths of his being. He sprang up and ran towards her.
She gave a little cry that was half a sob, and flew to his embrace. His arms were around her, and his lips on hers. In all the long hours through which he had yearned for her, and played with the thought of her sweetness, no such blissful end to his waiting had entered his mind as this.
CHAPTER XIII
THE TEMPLE
Her face was wet with her tears, but he could just see her smile glimmering through the darkness. His eyes were as hungry as his lips. That sweet flower-like face, with the tender eyes and the mouth a-quiver—would he ever be able to gaze his fill of it?
She made no effort to draw herself from him, but nestled to him, and poured out a broken sobbing explanation of her absence to which he hardly listened. What did it matter how she had been prevented from coming to him, since she had longed for him as he had longed for her, and was with him now?
He kissed away her tears; she had not returned his kisses since her first unconsidered impelled surrender, but was still sweetly receptive of them. "Oh, I ought not to," she said, smiling at him. "But I do love you, and I have wanted you so."
Yes, this was love, of which he had never consciously, thought. She had spoken the word first, but he knew before she had spoken it that all his joy and all his pain had sprung from that source, and exulted in his new knowledge.
"I love you too—Viola," he said, lingering caressingly on her name. "Oh, how I love you!"
He drew a long breath, and they gazed silently into one another's eyes, to find in them what no speech could utter. The melting sweetness of her gaze filled him with trembling rapture. The secret of life and all its beauty which he thought he had divined, now seemed to have depths beneath depths of meaning, beyond mental capacity to grasp, in their almost intolerable rapture. With a sigh they released each other, and speech flowed to their relief, broken and melodious, bearing them again to the surface of their bliss.
They withdrew a little from the path where they had met, and told over the tale of their love. By and by they moved along it again, in a common impulse to escape from the thick darkness of the wood, and gain the freedom of the starry night.
They passed the cottage where Viola dwelt and never gave it a thought. At a later time they confessed to one another that they had no recollection of passing it at all. They were so wrapped up in one another that nothing and nobody else in the wide world mattered to them at that moment. But when they had emerged from the wood they turned aside, instinctively perhaps, to escape prying eyes, and passed slowly along the path which they had taken the afternoon before.
After the darkness of the wood, the sky, moonless, but lit by the innumerable lanterns of the stars, had the effect of brightness. Their young faces could be plainly seen in this soft radiance, and they stood to worship one another afresh.
"You're so beautiful, Viola! How beautiful you are! I must have been blind not to see it before."
"I saw that you were from the very first."
Here were two statements of surpassing interest. They had to be enlarged upon and explained, with new and immeasurable content gained from the disclosures that were made. Nothing had ever happened like it before. They were pioneers in the uncharted country of love, and the springs at which they refreshed themselves, and the flowers brushed by their feet as they wandered through it, had been waiting for them unseen and unguessed at since the world began. The wonder of it increased.
They sat down on a low rock, jutting through the fern, and gave themselves up to the miracle of their discoveries. Harry held her hands in his, and his eyes were never off her face, except when he looked out into space as if trying to fathom something that passed his comprehension. Sometimes they drew together by an irresistible mutual impulse, but every kiss he gave her was a consecration. She was too beautiful and too sacred a thing not to be treated with high reverence. Instinctively he held himself back, though without cessation he thirsted for her sweetness, and her lips assuaged his thirst only so long as his were upon them.
For more than an hour they sat there, and the time seemed as nothing. Then she sprang up suddenly and said she must go in. She had only meant just to run out and tell him why she had not been able to come in the afternoon. As she said it, a voice was heard calling: "Viola! Viola!" out of the darkness. She raised herself hurriedly to kiss him, of her own accord, and tearing her hands from his ran off without a word.
Harry stood for a long time where she had left him, while the unhurrying stars marched on to their celestial music and looked down upon him, a creature of the moment, who had yet found his way into the courts of eternity. He looked up at them, and in the rapture of the revelation that had come to him worshipped anew in the temple whose gates he had besieged all his life. It was for this that he had been born; it was for this that the heavens were lit, and the earth put forth its beauty. At last he had been admitted into the innermost sanctuary of the temple, and the secret of life was his.
He moved slowly towards the cottage which enshrined his love, unable to leave its hallowed precincts.
There were lights in the lower windows, and presently in that upper one which he knew to be Viola's. Perhaps she knew that he would linger out there under the stars, for she came to the window and stood there for a long time, and before she left it she kissed the tips of her fingers and threw her message out into the darkness.
Presently her light went out. Harry laid himself down on the warm turf. He would sleep there that night, as he had sometimes slept out in the open on warm summer nights before, but not with that sense of bliss enfolding him. He would keep guard over her, and perhaps, when the stars had paced onwards in their western march, and the moon had arisen, she would come to the window again, as she had come the night before. He had told her that he had seen her there. He thought she would come. And surely her presence would make itself felt through his dreams, and he would awake to see her! It was not possible that he should sleep while she was awake near him.
He pillowed his head on the fern and slept, and for a long time there was silence, on the moor and in the cottage, while the stars watched over them and waited for their waking.
It happened just as Harry had thought when he laid himself down to sleep. He awoke to find the moor flooded by the bright radiance of the moon, which shone also upon the front of the cottage and the window of Viola's room. And she was there, with her dusky hair about her face and on her shoulders, and with some dark wrap round her, so that her face alone, and her hands, were softly illumined.
He arose and went towards her. She saw him coming, for she gave a little start, and then sat motionless again until he stood just beyond the garden fence, where he could see her face, though his was in shadow.
He stood there; neither of them spoke and neither of them moved, but drank their fill of one another's presence. They made no motion of farewell when at last Harry moved away and his form was lost in the shadows of the wood.
He could go home now and sleep, with his great happiness to bear him company. On the morrow he would see her again, and new happiness would be his lot.
CHAPTER XIV
BASTIAN
Wilbraham picked his way along the woodland path, humming a tune. His only preoccupation for the moment was to preserve his shoes from getting wet, for much rain had fallen, and there were spongy patches to be avoided.
Wilbraham disliked exercise of almost every sort. His bad times, in the winter, were when he felt impelled to go for a walk, which was for at least an hour every afternoon unless the weather absolutely forbade. In the summer he did not mind it so much, except when the heat tried him; but he would always have preferred to spend his leisure with a book in the library, or in the garden.
He had long ceased to accompany Harry in any out of door expedition. They saw quite enough of one another indoors, and their respective preferences in the matter of pace were so in opposition that it was a pleasure to neither of them to take the air together. Mrs. Brent sometimes accompanied him in his constitutionals, but he seldom invited her to do so. They also saw enough of one another indoors, or at least he saw enough of her. He liked her, but she did not interest him in conversation, while she did expect him to interest her. He was quite capable of doing so, but the effort spoilt the mild refreshment that came from leaving his brain to wander where it would while his body was being gently exercised. He found abundant interest in the thoughts of his well-stored mind, and sometimes stayed out for longer than he had intended because he had fallen into such an absorbing train of speculation.
Yet this man, who lived his monotonous life with books as his chief recreation and his intercourse with his fellows narrowed to the few with whom he lived, was very fond of company. His walk this afternoon, longer than he usually imposed upon himself in the heat of summer, was cheered by having an object other than that of keeping his liver from troubling him. He was going to make a new acquaintance. This artist, with the rather absurd name, who was lodging with Mrs. Ivimey, might possibly be a man of intelligence, with views upon the art he practised; or he might be a mere commercial dauber. If he proved to be a man of intelligence, it would be agreeable to exchange views with him, for after books Wilbraham liked pictures, better even than he liked music. Or rather, his taste for music had become a little atrophied, since he was cut off from enjoyment of it, while art could always be read about, and there were always pictures or reproductions of pictures to be seen.
He reached the cottage on the outskirts of the wood, and looked about him with pleasure before he entered it. The great open space upon which it faced was a refreshment after the wooded environment of the Castle, and the few buildings that enlivened this point relieved it of the impression of loneliness which was unpleasing to a man of Wilbraham's fibre. It was half a mile further by the path he had taken than by the one he usually took if his humour led him towards the common, but he thought as he stood there with his hat off, so that the breeze could cool his brow, that he would come there more often, even if Mr. Bastian should not turn out to be the sort of person that he might want to come for.
A well-satisfied gentleman he looked as he stood there leaning on his stick, his brow rather bald, his presence on the verge of portliness, though he was not otherwise of the habit of body that runs to flesh. The look of discontent that Grant had remarked about him on a first acquaintance was absent now. In his suit of dark grey flannel, with his black-ribboned straw hat, he had something of a clerical air, and as he turned towards the cottage his unusually sharp ears heard the sound of hurried movement through the open window of a downstairs room, and a voice uttering the words: "The parson come to call! Good Lord, I'm lost; I can't get out."
He stood chuckling to himself as he waited for an answer to his knock. The door stood open. The artist could not have escaped him if his fears had been justified. This pleased his humour, especially as he anticipated the pleasure of bringing relief to him.
Mrs. Ivimey did not respond to his summons, and as he was preparing to knock again, a door on the left of the little passage opened and the artist came out to him.
"I'm afraid Mrs. Ivimey is out at the back somewhere," he said. "Shall I go and call her for you?"
"Thanks, it's you I've come to see, if you're Mr. Bastian," said Mr. Wilbraham. "I'm tutor to young Sir Harry Brent at the Castle. We heard you were here, and as we don't get many visitors at Royd I came to look you up."
Bastian's face changed. "That's very kind of you," he said. "Do come in."
He led the way into the little sitting-room, and Wilbraham followed him with the feeling that his visit had justified itself.
Bastian was a tall thin man with a shock of untidy grey hair, but a curiously young face. His eyes were very light blue. He had a half-whimsical, half-appealing look, as if he was in a constant state of amusement at himself and was begging not to be taken too seriously. The upper part of his face was firmly and delicately modelled, but his mouth was indeterminate and his chin weak. He was atrociously dressed, in an old discoloured suit of light grey flannel, and a pair of stained canvas shoes, and he wore no collar; but he did not apologize for his appearance. Wilbraham judged him to be about forty-five, but discovered later that he was three or four years younger.
Mrs. Ivimey's parlour was furnished with the customary mixture of old good things and bad new ones. A few canvases stood with their faces against the wall, and a half-finished picture of a flaming sunset over the moor and the sea was propped on the mantelpiece. Wilbraham threw a glance at it as he entered, but could not make up his mind whether it was going to be a good picture or an exceptionally bad one. There were some books on the round table in the middle of the room, as well as some of the untidy paraphernalia of an artist. On a smaller table in the window was a bottle of whisky, a glass and a jug of water, and by the side of the table was a shabby but comfortable looking easy chair, upon which was a book face downwards. The room was full of the odour of strong tobacco.
"I'm afraid it's rather like a bar-parlour," said Bastian. "I have a horrible habit of smoking shag, which some people object to strongly. Will you have some whisky?"
He looked sideways at Wilbraham as he spoke, with an engaging smile. There was something attractive and appealing about him; he was rather like a naughty child, caught in the act—indoors on a summer afternoon with his shag tobacco and his whisky and his advanced dishabille. Wilbraham was one of those who hated the reek of shag, but he forgave him for it readily and took out his own cigarette case. He did not reply to the offer of whisky.
"I'll go and get you a glass," said Bastian. "I'm afraid there's no soda-water, but it's good whisky and better with water."
He went out of the room, and Wilbraham stood with his eyes fixed upon the whisky bottle, and a queer look in them, half of eagerness, half of repulsion.
Bastian was away longer than it would have taken him to get a glass, and when he returned he had on a collar and a flowing brightly coloured tie. He now looked like an artist, and not so much like a broken-down gentleman-loafer.
"Say when!" he said, pouring out the whisky, and Wilbraham said when, but not immediately.
"I get tired of painting," said Bastian. "It's very hot out there on the moor, and I didn't bring a sketching umbrella with me. I thought I'd have a lazy time with a book. 'David Copperfield.' One of the best books, I consider." He held his head aside as he looked at Wilbraham.
Wilbraham had taken his first sip of whisky. It was only a sip, but his face seemed to expand under it. His heart also expanded towards a Dickens enthusiast, and for a time they talked about Dickens, and found themselves always in encouraging agreement.
"It's a pleasure to have somebody to talk to," said Bastian. "I love being in the country and I hate being in London. I came down here to be as far away from London as possible, but there's no doubt one does want human intercourse. I'm devoted to my little girl, who's here with me; but one wants men to talk to."
"Oh, you've got a daughter with you," said Wilbraham. He had been considering all the time, underneath the conversation, whether or not Bastian could be introduced to Royd. He was a gentleman: that was obvious. But it was equally obvious that he had shed some of the customs usually followed by gentlemen. Would his innate breeding carry him through, with women—with Lady Brent? With a man, or at least with one who prided himself on being able to see beneath the surface, the shocking old clothes and the shag tobacco would make no difference. Then there was the whisky. Wilbraham had rather more than a suspicion that Bastian's case was not so very different from his own: that whisky meant a good deal to Bastian. There were signs of it on his smooth child-like face—a lack of clearness in a skin that was meant to be unusually clear, a slackness of muscle, a look in the eye and in the droop of the mouth; and the second—or possibly the third—allowance that Bastian had poured into his glass had exceeded by a good half inch the not meagre allowance that Wilbraham had accepted in his own. Perhaps it might lead to complications to invite him to Royd. If Wilbraham should decide not to, the daughter might be made an excuse.
"She's a dear child," said Bastian. "Her mother's dead. She was one in a thousand." He sighed. "Viola and I are everything to one another. We're scarcely ever parted, except when we're at work. She has to earn money, poor child, and neither of us manages to earn very much. Still, we're happy together, and happiest of all when we leave the streets behind us and get out into the country."
He was revealing himself as one of those people who like to pour themselves out about their own affairs, not so much out of egotism as from an impulse to show confidence towards their hearers, to establish relations which shall rest upon no misunderstanding, in which nothing shall be kept back.
Wilbraham was without that impulse, but he was also without any large share of egotism. He was interested in other people, and usually preferred that they should talk about themselves, since few people are interesting upon any other subject. He had some curiosity about Bastian's history, which seemed to have had contradictions in it, when his refinement of speech and manner was compared with his confessed and apparent indigence, which was rather below that to which men of birth and breeding sink, even if they are without the earning capacity.
"How old is your daughter?" he asked, a little confused between the mention of her as a child and that of her work.
"Sixteen or seventeen," said Bastian. "I can't quite remember which, and I don't particularly want to. I don't suppose I shall keep her with me for many years. She's a very beautiful girl. So was her mother. And gentle and sweet and good too—both of them. Ah, whatever I've missed in life—whatever mistakes I've made—I've had that. There's nothing in this world like a good and beautiful woman,—'A lovely apparition, sent to be a moment's ornament'—how does it go on? I can't keep these things in my head."
Wilbraham threw a look at Bastian's glass, of which the contents were now reduced by half. His speech showed no sign of deterioration—he was evidently one of those people who could "carry their liquor"—but Wilbraham recognized his state as one in which the ordinary dictates of reticence would be considerably relaxed.
His own glass was nearly as full as before. He could quite easily have gone away and left it there. He felt that the small amount he had already drunk had done him a vast amount of good, enlightened his brain and stimulated his body. He had an impulse of pity towards Bastian, who was under the influence of the desire from which he had emancipated himself, and of self-congratulation at his own freedom. Thank God that he could drink what was good for him, and stop there. He was inclined to like Bastian exceedingly. It might be possible, if he got to know him better, to help him out of the morass into which he had fallen. It seemed probable that the state of poverty to which he had come was owing to habits of intemperance. A man who had had the same inclinations and might have been brought under by them, but had overcome them instead, would be the right man to help another, if he could gain his confidence. And Bastian seemed to be in the mood to give confidence.
"I'm afraid I don't know your name as an artist," said Wilbraham with a glance at the picture on the mantelpiece. "But it's years since I went to an exhibition. I'm interested in art, though, and have read a good deal about the modern movements."
"Art!" echoed Bastian. "There's nothing like it, is there? The older I get the more I love it. Poetry, music, painting—everything. To tell you the truth, art has been my downfall."
Wilbraham felt some surprise. He had thought that if Bastian had been through any experience that might be described as a downfall, it had been from other causes. "Well, if you've followed it when you might have been doing something else that would have brought you more money," he said, "I don't know that you're so much to be pitied. If I had the gift for painting, which I haven't at all, I'd rather do what you're doing now, than get rich."
Bastian laughed. "I'm afraid I haven't much gift either," he said. "I'm a rotten artist, and I'm a rotten musician, and I'm a rotten poet. I've tried to make my living out of all three; but perhaps you might say that I haven't tried very hard. I love 'em all too much. It's rotten to have to make your living out of what you love. You want to enjoy it, not to practise it, unless you've got a turn that way. You don't have to be a singer yourself to enjoy other people's singing; it doesn't follow that you can paint good pictures because you know a bad one when you see it. There ought to be scholarships at the Universities for people with a genius for contemplation, and life fellowships to follow them up."
"The holders of life fellowships have sometimes been known to practise contemplation to an excessive extent," said Wilbraham.
Bastian laughed heartily. "That's rather good," he said. "But what a pleasant life, eh? These jolly places—and plenty of good company, and good wine! Why should that happy lot be reserved for people who happened to interest themselves in one or two subjects, out of all that there are to interest one, in their extreme youth? I suppose you were at Oxford or Cambridge in those happy days of long ago?"
"Cambridge," said Wilbraham. "I was at Christ's."
"We must have been there about the same time. I was at Magdalene—a nice snug little college, and becoming quite an intelligent one, from what I've heard. But I haven't been there since I came down. They wouldn't be very proud of me now, I'm afraid. One or two touts or stablemen might recognize me perhaps. They had plenty of money out of me when I had it. I don't belong to that life any more."
He had a sudden mournful droop, and drank what was left in his glass. Wilbraham had lost the impression that he was much affected by what he had drunk, but it returned now. That drop into self-pitying depression immediately after smiling excitement told its tale. His own sobriety was indicated by his glass, still two-thirds full. He had half a mind to remark upon Bastian's helping himself to another stiff peg, which he did with a perfectly steady hand. But he did not know him well enough yet; the time for that sort of sympathy had not yet come.
But he was more than ever interested in him. His fall must have been from a higher social plane than he had suspected. Undergraduates whose money had been spent in connection with horse-flesh usually had more than the average to begin with, and Magdalene had been a super-sporting college in his day and Bastian's day.
"I was the son of a poor parson," he said. "I got my scholarship, and if I had worked I should probably have got my fellowship too. I did work at what interested me, but the devil of it was that it didn't interest the dons. Those prizes are reserved for the people who have the sense to stick at one thing till they've got them. Then they can do what they like. They're not necessarily the people who are best at their subjects. I've got a real love for the classics, and I probably know a good deal more about them than a lot of the people who got Firsts when I only got a Second. It's the concentration of those few years that counts."
Bastian laughed again. "Firsts and Seconds!" he said. "I didn't take a degree at all. The smash had come before then, and I was tied up for life."
Wilbraham was rather taken aback. It looked as if confidences were coming, and he had the gentleman's dislike to receiving them unless they are given with full intention. "Don't tell me anything you'll be sorry for afterwards," he said, with another look at Bastian's glass.
"Oh, my dear fellow, I'm not drunk," said Bastian. "I drink a lot, and no doubt it has had a good deal to do with keeping me where I am; but I don't get drunk. I don't often meet anybody like you, who belongs to the world I used to inhabit. It's a relief sometimes to unburden oneself. Besides, there's Viola. Viola doesn't often get the chance of talking to a gentleman. I think you'll open your eyes when you see Viola. I haven't been able to raise myself out of the muck, but it hasn't touched her. She's the flower that has grown out of it."
Wilbraham still felt some discomfort. If it were true that Bastian never got drunk, he was none the less under the influence of drink now, or he wouldn't have talked about himself with quite that absence of control. He must have been referring to his wife when he had said that he had been tied up for life, and men don't talk to one another in that way about their wives on a first acquaintance when they are in full possession of themselves.
"I shouldn't let anything you told me go any further," Wilbraham said.
Bastian did not seem to have heard this. He was looking down with a frown of concentrated purpose. To unburden himself was evidently imperative on him for the moment, and he was collecting his faculties to that end.
"I don't want to give you a false impression," he said. "My wife was a woman in a thousand. Never did I have one moment's regret that I had married her. I think, if she'd lived, she might have made a man of me still. Perhaps it was a fluke—I don't want to make myself out better than I was, and I was a rotten young fool in those days—perhaps it was a fluke that she was what she was, because it was only her beauty that I fell in love with, and I hadn't the sense then to see what there was behind it. But what I do say is that my people ought to have seen. I'll never forgive them for that, and I'll never let Viola have anything to do with them. She doesn't even know their name, and——"
"I don't quite understand," said Wilbraham, as he seemed to be off on another gallop. "Why did your people object to your marrying?"
"Oh, well of course it was a fool's trick. I wasn't even of age, and she was a girl off the stage, but one of the sweetest, kindest girls that ever stepped. I only had her for a few years, but I tell you I'm in love with her memory still. She's been dead seventeen years and I miss her as much as ever. Life's nothing to me, though I'm not old yet; I buried it all in her grave."
It was curious, thought Wilbraham, that there should be a story here not dissimilar from the one that he had lived with for about the same length of time. But the girl whose father had made the same mistake as Harry's had not been shielded from its consequences as he had. She was hardly likely to have escaped the contamination of the rougher, harder world to which her father had descended. Wilbraham attributed Bastian's praise of his wife largely to the diffuse sentiment of the moment. He had not otherwise created the impression of a man living upon a life-long regret. His daughter, if she was the close companion of his poverty and the witness of his habits, could hardly be the rare and delicate flower that he painted her, though she was probably beautiful. At any rate it would be just as well to preserve Harry from contact with her. It would be an ironic stroke of fate if in this remote corner in which he had been brought up the glamour of the stage should obtrude itself once more.
"Is your daughter on the stage?" he asked outright, at this point in his reflections.
Bastian roused himself, and seemed to shake off completely his mood of hopeless regret. "God forbid!" he said. "I wouldn't have risked that, though if I had I believe she'd have come through it. You must see Viola. I don't know where she is now. She's like a sweet young creature of the woods—roams about in them all day. That'll tell you what she is—a London girl, who can throw London off her altogether when she gets away from it. She's less bound to it even than I am. Come up to-morrow, will you? I'll tell her to be in to tea. She sometimes takes it out with her. Can you come about half-past four?"
Wilbraham had been thinking rapidly. If this girl was in the habit of roaming the woods all day she might come across Harry, who was also in the habit of roaming the woods. All the ideas with which Wilbraham had lived for years past gathered themselves into the instinct to watch and guard. He must see this girl of Bastian's, and he must be prepared for what should come, so that he could deal with it without surprise and without hurry. Fortunately, he had not announced his intention of calling upon the artist that afternoon. He would say nothing about his visit at the Castle, but would announce one for the next day.
"Yes, I should like to come," he said, as he rose from his seat. "I must be getting back now."
About a third of the whisky remained in his glass. He stood looking at it, as Bastian expressed his pleasure in having seen him, and then drained it off before he left the room.
CHAPTER XV
WILBRAHAM
Harry and Viola were in the log cabin. They had varied their meeting-places. Best of them all they loved the secret pool, but that was only for very hot still weather. Rain was falling intermittently this afternoon, but every now and then the sun shone. The weather made little difference to their happiness, and the cabin, Harry's handiwork, provided them with a shelter when they needed it, which brought them also a grateful sense of seclusion and joint possession. The Rectory was empty; Sunday duty was performed by a visiting clergyman; nobody was in the least likely to disturb them in their retreat. Viola had got rid of her slight suspicion of Jane, which she had already confessed to Harry, with happy laughter. "She may not know it," she had said, "but of course she's in love with you, poor child! She couldn't help being, if she was only nine instead of thirteen. I was a little jealous of her being so much with you. But I love her for loving you, and of course I'm not jealous of anybody now."
The log cabin was roughly furnished. Not much more would have been required if it had really been the home of a pioneer. Harry and Viola had played with the idea of living together in such a cabin, with a new beautiful world to be tamed all around them, and this as the nest of their love and companionship. So he had played with the children, but Viola's presence had given their cabin a wonderful romantic charm which it had never had and which it would never lose. Her presence would illumine every place in which she might rest. Harry's old castle was still in shadow because she had not yet visited it.
It was the morning of the day upon which Wilbraham was to take tea with Bastian, and Viola was to be there to be exhibited to him. Harry had been concerned at hearing that he had already been to the cottage.
"He has said nothing about it at home," he said. "This morning at breakfast he did say that he had thought of going to see your father this afternoon, but that it looked like raining all day. What does it mean?"
"Nothing very dreadful," said Viola. "He and father seem to have got on very well together yesterday, but perhaps he wasn't quite sure enough of him to ask him to the Castle. Perhaps he wants to see what I'm like first."
Harry threw her a quick loving look. They were sitting together on a bench underneath the eaves of the hut. They might not have been taken for lovers by anyone who had seen them; their caresses were rarer than might have been expected, fathoms deep in love with one another as they were; but looks and smiles flashed between them like summer lightning, and scarcely the lightest word was spoken without emotion.
"When he sees you," Harry began; but she interrupted him. "Father doesn't want to go if he does ask us," she said. "And I couldn't go, Harry dear. I love you so much that I couldn't keep it back. I'm afraid I shan't be able to keep it back this afternoon from Mr. Wilbraham, if he says anything about you."
"I've asked myself sometimes," Harry said, thoughtfully, "whether it's right to keep it back. You're so much above everybody else in the world, Viola, that——"
Again she interrupted him. "Harry darling," she said, "I've thought about it too. There are lots of things that I know about in the world that you don't. I only want to forget them while I'm here with you; and I can't if other people know how much I love you, and that you love me. They wouldn't let us forget them."
"What sort of things, Viola dear? I'm not a child, though perhaps they have tried to keep me one for too long, at home. I'm going to take care of you, for all our lives. I ought to know as much as you do."
"I hope you never will, darling," she said, a little sadly. "I know that the things I have learnt haven't spoilt me, or else I shouldn't feel so happy as I do in your loving me. But other people might not believe that. We're very young, both of us. We love as deeply as people who are older love, and we know we shall go on loving each other all our lives. But others wouldn't believe that. They would try to part us. They would part us, as long as I stayed here; and there's such a little time left. Oh, let us be happy together while it lasts, and keep our lovely secret."
"Why should they try to part us, Viola? Who is there? My grandmother and my mother. If they only saw you!"
She smiled at him. "It wouldn't be enough," she said, "whatever I was. And they wouldn't look at me with your eyes. Perhaps nobody else would. What was it made you love me so much, Harry?"
He had told her a hundred times, and now told her again; and she told him that she had loved him the very first moment she had set eyes on him, riding up on his gallant horse with his dogs around him. "You were like a splendid young knight," she said. "No girl could have helped loving you. But I love you a thousand times more now than I did then, and I suppose I shall go on loving you more and more all my life."
It was like the old stories of his childhood, which had to be told over and over again, and were better every time they were told. But now it was not as it had been then, when no variation must be admitted in the telling. There was always something new—some little discovery that deepened the sense of perfection and wonderment, some answering thought that showed them to have been close to one another, even in the hours in which they were parted and were pasturing on their sweet memories of one another.
It was with a kind of solemnity of sweetness that Harry dwelt upon Viola's trust in him and his manhood. By a thousand little signs it had been made plain that she knew more of the world than he, but she put all that knowledge aside and looked up to him and submitted to him as if infinite wisdom and experience were his. And in truth he had grown greatly in mental stature since her love had come into his life to change it so completely. They must have remarked upon it at home if he had not taken such advantage of the freedom that was granted him and been so little at home at this time. His mother actually had told him that he was altered, after he had expressed himself with more than usual self-confidence when they had talked about the war over the dinner-table. She was always on the look-out for signs of something that might take him from her, and she feared the war and what might come of it with an unreasoning fear, considering the information at her command. Harry was thinking a great deal about the war now, which does not mean that there were any times at which he was not thinking about Viola. With the coming of love his sense of the deeper values of life had become strengthened. If he had felt himself borne along on a strong current that would carry him to whatever of action or duty or mere state of being that was laid down for him, then whatever happened to him was part of the whole, and nothing in his life would be dissociated from anything else. It was this sense of unity that lifted his fresh boy's adoration of a girl as young and as pure as himself into something bigger and more rooted than that, beautiful as it is. His love gave the divine note of joy to all his purpose, sweetened and solemnized it at the same time. It was not like a great happiness in which he could forget himself, and which he must also forget for a time if something more serious had to be faced.
This morning, for the first time, influenced perhaps by the breath from outside which had come through Wilbraham's advent upon the scene, which, however, they put aside from them, they talked about the time when Viola should have gone away.
Their extreme youth moved them to sadness, which was not wholly painful because the time was not near yet, and present bliss was only heightened by the thought of parting. They were so far unlike most young lovers that no mention was made of writing, or even of meeting again. It was as if the contact between them was so close and so sure that however far apart they might be in space, and for whatever time, they would still be together.
Harry was serious about the future. "I don't know exactly what is going to happen," he said. "I'm supposed to be going to Sandhurst in January, but that's a long time ahead. I seem to see the war swallowing up everything. There's something to be done here about it, and perhaps it will be for me to do it. But there's nothing to show yet. I think there won't be till you go away, my darling. I think there's nothing that will come in the way of my being with you, and thinking about nothing but you."
"Do you think you will have to go and fight, Harry? Oh, surely you're too young for that, darling!"
"I'm not too young to love you."
She thought over this. It was one of the things he sometimes said that meant more than it seemed to. She loved those speeches of his, springing from something in him to which she could give all her faith and all her devotion. They helped her to plumb the depths in him, and she had never found anything there that did not make her glad and proud of loving him.
This time her pride brought the tears close to her eyes. There was more than the sweetness of young love in this—to be loved as something in full alliance with all the biggest things that a man might be called upon to do in the world, and to which he must bring all that he was and all that he had, even his life itself if it should be required of him.
"I shouldn't want you not to, Harry," she said.
He did not tell her of his conviction that the war would claim him. She was his to be protected, and some things she must be spared. When the time came, she would somehow be concerned in it, because she would be concerned in everything that he did, and whatever he should want of her then she would give him. He had as much confidence in her as she in him.
"The war is like a great shadow over everything," he said. "We're in the sunshine just now, you and I—the most glorious sunshine. I don't think that we need fear the shadow for ourselves. But for others—for some it's very deep."
The shadow seemed to creep closer and touch her heart as he spoke. They were silent for a time, her hand resting in his. The contact strengthened them both, and the shadow passed away from her. For the rest of their time together that morning they made love and built their airy rainbow castles, almost as unsubstantial as those of children. In fact they played with the idea of having Jane and Pobbles to live with them. It hardly seemed fair to be using the cabin in which they had a proprietary share and leave them out of it. They would pass suddenly from grave to gay in this way, and there were many times when the children could have taken a full part in their conversation without being at all in the way.