CHAPTER V.A HUNTING MORNINGOn such a morning as hunting folk live for, some ten days after the conversation between Stapledon and Mr. Endicott, Christopher, who did not himself hunt, drove Honor to a meet of the Mid Devon. Taking his dog-cart down a mossy by-path at the spinney-side, he stopped not fifty yards distant from where a patch of scarlet marked the huntsman's standpoint. Above was a race of broken clouds and gleam of sunshine from pale blue sky; below spread opaline air and naked boughs, save where great tods of ivy shone; while underneath nervous tails twitched among brown fern and wintry furzes. Then a whimper came from the heart of the wood, and two old hounds threw up their heads, recognised the sound for a youngster's excitement, and put nose to earth again. A minute later, however, and a full bay echoed deep and clear; whereupon the pair instantly galloped whence the music came.Honor and her companion sat in Christopher's dog-cart behind a fine grey cob."They know that's no young duffer," said Yeoland, as the melody waxed and the hounds vanished; "he's one of their own generation and makes no mistake. If the fox takes them up to the Moor, sport is likely to be bad, for it's a sponge just now, and the field won't live with the hounds five minutes. Ah! he's off! And to the Moor he goes."Soon a business-like, hard-riding, West Country field swept away towards the highlands, and silence fell again.Christopher then set out for Little Silver, while conversation drifted to their personal interests and the prosperity in which each now dwelt—a thing foreseen by neither three short years before. They had no servant with them and spoke openly."My touchstone was gold; yours a husband of gold," said Christopher. "Money he possessed too, but it is the magic man himself who has made Endicott's what it is now.""Yes, indeed—dear Myles. And yet I'm half afraid that the old, simple joy in natural things passes him by now. It seems as though he and I could never be perfectly, wholly happy at the same time. While I went dismal mad and must have made his life a curse, he kept up, and never showed the tribulation that he felt, but was always contented and cheerful and patient. Now that I am happier, I feel that he is not. Yes, he is not as happy as I am. He has told me a thousand times that content is the only thing to strive for; and certainly he proved it, for he was well content once; but now our positions are reversed, and I am contented with my life, while daily he grows less so.""He's a farmer, and a contented farmer no man ever saw, because God never made one.""It isn't that; the work never troubles him. He looks far ahead and seems to know, like a wizard, long before the event just what is going to be successful and what a failure. I think I know him better than anybody in the world, but I can't fathom him just now. Something is worrying him, and he tries hard not to let it worry him and not to show that it does. Partly he is successful, for I cannot guess the trouble; but that there is a trouble he fails to hide. I must find it out and take my share. Sometimes I think——"She broke off abruptly."What? Nothing that involves me? We're the best, truest friends now, thank heaven.""No, no. Time will reveal it."For a moment or two they were silent with their thoughts. It struck neither that such a conversation was peculiar; it occurred to neither the man nor the woman that in the very fact of their friendship—of a friendship so close that the wife could thus discuss her husband's trouble—there existed the seed of that trouble.Christopher mused upon the problem, and honestly marvelled before it."I suppose nobody can be happy really, and he's no exception to the rule. Yet, looking at his life, I should account him quite the luckiest man I ever heard of. Consider the perfection that he has crammed into his existence. He prospers in his farm; he has Nestor under his roof in the shape of your wiseacre of an uncle; and he has you! Providence must have been puzzled to find a way to hurt him. And she hasn't hit him under the belt either, for never a man enjoyed finer health. Now where can he have come across melancholy? I suppose it's his hereafter, or non-hereafter, that's bothering him. Yet I should judge that the man was too sane to waste good time in this world fretting because he doesn't believe in another.""It's a cloud-shadow that will pass, I hope.""I hope so heartily—such a balanced mind as he has. Now if I began to whine—one who never did carry any ballast—you could understand it. Look ahead and compare our innings. His will end gloriously with children and grandchildren and all the rest of it. And I—but if I painted the picture you'd probably say I was a morbid, ungrateful idiot.""Very likely; and I should probably be quite right. There's a great duty staring you in the face now, Christo, and nobody who cares for you will be contented or happy until you've tackled it like a man. Don't look so innocent; you know perfectly well what I mean.""Indeed I do not. I am doing my duty to Godleigh—that's my life's work henceforth, and all anybody can expect.""But that is just what you are not doing. You're not everybody, remember; and even if you think you are, you won't live for ever. You'll have to go and sleep in real earnest under the skulls with bats' wings, poor Christo, some day, and Myles and I shall be outside under the grass.""Who is morbid now?""Don't evade the point. I want you to think of the thing you love best in the world—Godleigh.""Well?""Godleigh has got to go on. It won't stop because you do—Godleigh's immortal. When a tree falls there, Nature will plant another. Then what is to become of the dearest, loveliest place in Devon after you are gathered to your fathers?""I'm going to leave it to you and Myles and your heirs for ever.""Don't be ridiculous, Christo; you're going to leave it to a rightful heir, and it's high time you began to devote a little thought to him. Don't wait until you're a stupid, old, middle-aged thing of half a century. Then you'll probably die in the gloomy conviction that you leave your children mere helpless infants.""So much the better for them, for they'd escape the example of their father. But, as a matter of fact, I'm not going to marry. Godleigh's my mother and sister and brother and wife and family.""Then you'll leave your family unprovided for, and that's a very wicked thing to do. We're growing old and sensible nowadays, and there'll be plain speaking between us as long as we live; so I tell you now that I've thought of this very seriously indeed, and so has Myles. He quite agees with me; and my opinion is that you ought to marry; the sooner the better.""Don't," he said; "don't go in for having opinions. When anybody begins to cultivate and profess opinions their sense of humour must be on the wane. Keep your mind free of rooted ideas. You were wont to love the rainbow play of change, to welcome sudden extremes as a sign of health and mental activity. Before you married you hated opinions.""That was before I grew happy, I think. Happiness runs one into a groove very quickly; it steadies our ideas. Now, you won't be perfectly happy until you marry.""To find her.""Why, that's not so difficult.""Never, Honor. There was only one possible mother for my children. You are going over ground that I travelled centuries ago; at least it seems centuries. I told my fib and looked ahead, quite like a son of wisdom for once, and counted the cost, or tried to. Let all that sleep. I shall never know to my dying day how I brought it off, but I did. Perhaps a generous sympathy for unborn boys and girls had as much to do with it as anything else. Candidly and without sentiment, it is time we Yeolands came to an end. For my part I shall die easier knowing that I'm the last of them. I never was very keen about living for the mere sake of living, even in old days, and now I care less than ever. Not that I want to die either; but I go wandering through this great, roaring, rollicking, goose-fair of a world, stopping at a booth here, shooting for nuts or something equally valuable there; and when Dustman Death surprises me, pottering about and wasting my money,—when he puts out his grey claws and asks for his own again, I shall welcome him with perfect cheerfulness.""Nonsense—and wicked nonsense! You—what?—thirty-two, or some absurd age—trying to talk like Uncle Mark! And Godleigh free! I won't have it, Christo. If ever you loved me, you must obey me in this and find a wife.""Can't; won't; too small-hearted. I've got nothing to give a girl; and all your fault. Some of me really died, you know, when I pretended that all of me did.""Then I suppose that it's my turn to go away and perish now? Would you feel equal to marrying anybody if I was dead?""Not a parallel instance at all. For you there was a grand chap waiting—a man worth having; else I should not have died, I assure you. In my case there's no grand woman waiting; so if you expire, you will merely be bringing a great deal of trouble upon many excellent people and doing nobody the least good—not even my nebulous prospective lady. No, Myles and I would merely share a mile of crape and live in black gloves for ever. You die! What a thought!""Sometimes I wish I had long ago.""No; you must live to brighten these dull Devonshire winters and strew flowers upon your husband and me when our turns come. Dear old Stapledon! I'm really bothered to know that something is troubling him. I'd tackle him myself, only if you cannot win the truth, I certainly should not. I wish he'd be confidential; I do like confidential men. For my part I haven't got a secret from him in the world.""He works too hard.""He does. The man has a horrible genius for making work. It knocks the vitality out of him. I hate this modern gospel that sets all of us poor little world-children to our lessons as a panacea for every evil under the sun. Just look what dull dogs all the hard workers are.""Well, you've played truant from your youth up.""Deliberately, as an example to others. But I'm doing any amount of work now. Brain-work too; which is easily the most hateful sort of work. And all for my Godleigh. Yet she doesn't thank me. I see poor Mother Nature stealing about miserably and suspiciously when I go into the woods. She liked me better a pauper. She doesn't know that I'm helping her to make this little corner of earth more and more perfect. She doesn't look ahead and judge how much toil and trouble I am saving her with the ruins of things that must be cleared away—either by her method or my quicker one. She hates axes and ploughs and pruning-hooks, old stick-in-the-mud that she is.""Treason!""No treason at all. Common sense I call it. I'm weary of this nonsense about going straight to Nature. Australia taught me to suspect. She's a bat, a mole; she doesn't know her best friends. She'll sink a saint in mid-ocean—a real saint with an eighteen-carat halo—and let a pirate come safely and happily to some innocent merchantman stuffed with the treasures of honest men, or her own priceless grains and seeds. She'll put back the hand of progress at the smallest opportunity; she'll revert to the primitive if you turn your back on her for an instant; she'll conjure our peaches into wild plums, our apples into crabs, man into—God knows what—something a good deal lower than the angels, or even the cave-dwellers. If we let her, she would hunt for and polish up the missing link again, and huddle the world backwards faster than we spin round the sun. Nature is a grand fraud, Honor. Take the personal attitude, for instance. What has she ever done for me? Did she show me any of her hoarded gold during the month I nearly killed myself exploring in New South Wales? Did she lead me to the water-holes when I was thirsty, or lend me a cloud to hide the sun when I was hot? Has she opened a flower-bud, or taught a bird to sing, or painted a dawn, or ever led the wind out of the east, that I might be the happier? We fool ourselves that we are her favourites. Not so. She is only our stepmother, and behaves accordingly. She knew that the advent of conscious intelligence must be a death-blow to her, and she has never forgiven man for exhibiting it.""So I'm not the only one in Little Silver who is developing opinions, I see," laughed Honor. "You're growing egotistical, Christo; you're expecting almost too much, I fear. Nature has something better to do than plan your private fortune and convenience, or arrange the winds of heaven to suit a cold in that silly head of yours! Never in my most dead-alive moment did I grow so dull as that. To be cross with poor Nature—as if she had not to do what she is told, like everybody else. To blame her!""I don't blame her. I know where to throw the blame of things perfectly well.""Then you're the only man in the world who does, and you ought to tell everybody and so make yourself famous."Thus they prattled in the old manner, and, unconscious of difficulty or danger, passed upon their way. Much each saw of the other; much frank delight each took in the other's company; and through the passage of winter to the advent of spring they progressed, coming nearer and nearer to discovery of the secret tribulation in Stapledon's heart that each now innocently, honestly mourned and misunderstood.CHAPTER VI.LOVE OF MANMr. Gregory Libby, to whom circumstance denied any opportunity of close investigation, at length came upon a conclusion respecting the daughters of Jonah Cramphorn, and allowed his judgment to be unconsciously influenced by his desire. That is to say he arrived at a mistaken decision because the balance of his feeble, physical emotions weighed toward Sally. She was the eldest and the fairest; he concluded, therefore, that she enjoyed the greater proportion of her parent's regard, and must the more materially benefit under his will in time to come. He braced himself for the crucial question, and it happened that he did so but two days after a very significant symposium at Endicott's, during which Mr. Cramphorn occupied the position of chief speaker, and his daughters were the principal theme of conversation. From discussion upon these primitive maids, and their father's opinion concerning them, discourse had truly ranged to higher subjects; but not before Jonah made definite statements of a sort that deeply moved one among his listeners.Behind the obscurity blown from a clay tobacco-pipe, Henry Collins sat, round-eyed and wretched. He gasped with most unselfish sorrow for the girl he loved, and committed to memory certain surly assertions of Mr. Cramphorn concerning her, with a purpose to forewarn Sally of the fate her future held. For Jonah spoke definitely and doggedly. He weighed the merits of his own daughters with Spartan frankness, and, arriving at judgment, declared Margery's filial conduct a lesson to Little Silver, regretted Sally's indifference and independence of manners, and concluded with complacent hints that his knowledge of human nature was not wont to be at fault, and that she best able to administer wisely his worldly wealth should have it as a just reward, when he passed beyond need of cottage or savings bank.These utterances Libby heard too late, but Cramphorn's elder daughter became acquainted with them immediately after they were spoken, thanks to the enterprise of Henry Collins. He felt it his duty to the woman that she should be put in possession of such gloomy predictions, while yet power might lie with her to falsify them."Afore the whole comp'ny he said it," declared Henry; "an' he'm a man as knaws no shadder of turning most times. An' he haven't got the wisdom of a mouse neither—not in this matter; so it'll surely happen, onless you fall in wi' his ways more an' knock onder oftener than what you do.""I've seed it comin', an' he'm a cruel wretch," answered Sally with many pouts. "An' her's worse—my sister, I mean. Sly minx, she've plotted an' worked for it wi' low onderhand ways—cooing to un; an' glazin' at un when he talked, as if he was King Solomon; an' spendin' her pence in pipes for un; an' findin' his book-plaaces to church—'Struth! I could wring her neck, an' 'tis more'n likely I shall do it wan day.""But he doan't knaw—Libby, I mean—though he's sartain to hear soon; an' your faither won't tell Margery for fear she should give awver fussin' 'bout arter un, when she knaws his will's writ an' signed an' can't be called back. So I comed to say that I doan't care a feather for all his money, an' I loves you better'n ever—better'n better now he'm set against 'e.""Ess, I knaw all that; and doan't 'e tell this tale to nobody else; an' bid them others, as heard my auld beast of a faither, to keep it in an' tell nobody. Wance Libby knaws, 'tis——""All up. Ess, so 'tis, Sally; an' doan't that shaw 'e what fashion o' dirt the man's made of? Do 'e want a chap to marry you for what you take to un in your hand? Do 'e——""Doan't ax no more questions now, theer's a dear sawl. I ban't in no fettle to answer 'em, an' I be sore hurt along o' this. A gude darter as I've been tu. An' her—no better'n a stinging long-cripple—a snake as'll bite the hand that warms it. I wish I was dead, I do. Go away, caan't 'e? I doan't want your 'ankersher. Let my tears alone, will 'e? I wish they was poison. I'd mingle 'em wi' her food—then us would see. Go—go away! Be you deaf? I'll scream my heart out in a minute if you bide theer!"Collins, desiring no such catastrophe, made haste to disappear; and such is the rough-and-tumble of things that chance willed this dramatic moment for the entrance of Gregory Libby. Big with fate he came from hedge-trimming, and shone upon Sally's grief like the sun of June upon a shower. She was sobbing and biting her red lips; and he, with the dignity of toil yet manifested about him, dropped his sickle, flung off his gloves, led Sally behind a haystack, and bid her sit down and relate her sorrow."Just gwaine to take my bit of dinner," he said; "so you can tell while I eat. What's the matter? You'm wisht, an' your butivul cheeks be all speckly-like wi' cryin'."She swallowed her tears, sucked her lips, and smiled through the storm."Nought—a flea kicked me. Sit here an' I'll pull down a bit o' dry out o' the stack for 'e.""Ban't awften them wonnerful butcher-blue eyes o' yourn shed tears, I'm sure," he mumbled with his mouth full; "but we've all got our troubles no doubt. An' none more'n me. I'm that lonesome wi'out mother to do for me. I never thought as I'd miss her cookin' an' messin' 'bout the house so much. An' what's money wi'out a woman to spend it—to spend it on me, I mean?" he added hastily. "I want a wife. A gude woman stands between a man an' all the li'l twopenny-ha'p'ny worrits as his mind be tu busy tu trouble 'bout. I want a useful gal around me, an' wan as'll take the same view of me what mother done.""You'm a marryin' man for sartain.""I be. An' I've thought an' thought on it till I got the 'eadache; an' my thoughts doan't go no further'n you, Sally.""Lard, Gregory dear!""True's I'm eatin' onions. I've been figuring you up for years. An' now I knaw we'm likely to be a very fitting man an' wife. You knawed mother; and you knaw me, as ban't a common man ezacally, so say the word.""Oh, Gregory! An' I thought you was after my sister!""She'm a very gude gal, an' a very nice gal tu," said Mr. Libby with his usual caution. "No word against her would I say for money. An' if you wasn't here, I'd sooner have her than any other. A brave, bowerly maiden wi' butivul hands to her, an' a wonnerful onderstandin' way, an'——""Ess, but 'tis me you love—me—not her?""Ban't I tellin' you so? I say it in cold blood, after thinkin' 'pon it, to an' from, for years. An' I'll tell you how mother treated me, for you couldn't do no better'n what she did. She onderstood my habits perfect.""God knaws I'll make 'e a gude wife, Greg. An' no call to tell me nothin' of that 'bout your mother, 'cause I'll be more to 'e than she; an' I'll think for 'e sleepin' an' wakin', an' I'll work for 'e to my bones, an' love the shadow of 'e.""I'm glad to hear you say so, Sally, though mother's ways was very well considered. The thing be to make up your mind as I'm in the right all times, as a thinking man mostly is.""I knaw you will be; an' a gude husband, as'll stand up for me against all the world, an' see I ban't put upon or treated cruel.""I will do so. An' 'tis odds if I'll let 'e do any work at all arter you'm wedded to me—work 'cept about my house, I mean.""No, for 'twill take me all my time workin' for 'e, an' makin' your home as it should be.""Kiss me," he said suddenly, "an' kiss me slow while I take my full of it. Theer's blood 'pon your lips! You've bited 'em. What's fretted 'e this marnin'? Not love of me, I warn 'e?""'Twas, then—just love of you, Greg; an' fear that the fallin' out of cruel things might make 'e turn away from me."He patted her cheek and stroked it; then her neck; and then her plump bosom."So butivul an' fat as a pattridge you be! An' I'm sure I love 'e tremenjous; an' nothin' shall never part us if you say so.""Then all my tears was vain, an'—an' I'll grow a better woman an' say longer prayers hencefarrard—for thanksgivings 'cause I've got 'e.""'Tis a gude match for you, Sally; an' I do trust as you'll never make me to regret I spoke.""Never, never; an' you'll never love nobody else, will 'e?""Not so long as you'm a gude wife an' a towser to work. My mind was always temperate 'an sober towards petticoats, as be well knawn.""Oh, I could sing an' dance for sheer joy, I could! An' so chapfallen just afore you comed. But what's a faither to a lover—'specially such a sour faither as mine?""Doan't you quarrel wi' Cramphorn, however," said Gregory; "he'm the last man as I'd have you fall out with.""Quarrel! I never quarrel with nobody. But he ban't like you—even-tempered an' fair. A wan-sided, cranky man, faither. I be his eldest, yet Margery's put afore me. He can't see through her dirty, hookem-snivey tricks an' lying speeches. I be straight an' plain, same as you, an' he hates me for it."Mr. Libby's heart sank low."Hates you? D'you say your faither hates you?""Well, the word ban't big enough seemin'ly. I can tell you now, because we'm tokened, an' my heart shan't never have no secret from you. But he likes Margery best because she foxes him, an' fules him, an' tells him he's a wonder of the world; an' he believes it. An' Collins says as he've awpenly gived out that she'm to have all his gudes an' his money. Why for do 'e give awver lovin' me?"For Mr. Libby's arm, which was round Sally's waist, fell away from that pleasant circumference, and an expression of very real misery spread over his face to the roots of his yellow hair."'His gudes an' his money'?" he asked, in a faint voice, that sounded as though he had been frightened."Ess. Why, you'm as if somebody had suddenly thrawed a bucket of water awver 'e! Doan't think I care 'bout his money now. You'll have to make him chaange his mind bimebye. When you'm my husband, you'll have to tackle faither an' see he doan't cut me away."The man's brain went cold. Desire had vanished out of his eyes, and Sally might have been a stone beside him. He flung away the remainder of his luncheon, and uttered a hearty oath or two."'Tis a damned oncomely thing, an', as it takes two to a quarrel, theer's some fault your side as well as his, I reckon. What be the reason as Margery's more to him than you—his eldest?""Because she'm a lyin' slammockin' female twoad—that's the reason; an' he caan't see through her."There was a moment of heavy silence; then Gregory Libby spoke."Doan't say nothin' 'bout what we've planned out to-day. Doan't tell nobody. Time enough come Spring.""Say nought! I'd like to go up 'pon top the hill an' sing out my gude fortune for all ears to hear!""No, bide quiet. Us'll let 'em have the gert surprise of it in church. None shall knaw till we'm axed out some Sunday marnin'.""'Twill bust upon 'em like thunder. I lay Margery will faint if she'm theer.""An' us'll have the laugh of 'em all.""'Tis as you please, Greg.""An' you'll take your oath not to tell?""Not even mistress?""Certainly not she.""Nor yet Missis Loveys?""So soon tell all Little Silver.""You might let me just whisper it to my awn sister. 'Twill be a cruel stroke if her hears it fust afore all the people to church.""If you say a syllable of it to Margery, 'tis off!" declared Mr. Libby, and with such earnestness did he speak that the girl was alarmed, and made hasty assurances."Very well, I promise an' swear, since I must. But how long be I to go dumb? Remember, 'tis tu gert a thing for a woman to keep hid for long. You'm cruel, Greg, lovey, to ax it. I'll have to blaze it out soon or bust with it.""Wait my time. It ban't to be awver-long, that I promise 'e.""Kiss me again, Greg; an' cuddle me.""You take your dyin' oath?""Ess, I said so.""Very well; now I must go back to my work."Presently they separated, and Sally, full of her secret, walked upon air through a golden world, with her hot heart's core aglow, while Mr. Libby bit his hare-lip, employed many coarse words for the benefit of the hedge he hacked at, and put a spite and spleen into each stroke that soon blunted his bill-hook. He was now faced with a problem calling for some ingenuity. He yearned to know how he might retrieve his error, and get well free of Sally before approaching her sister upon the same errand. Where to turn for succour and counsel he knew not. "If mother was awnly alive for ten minutes!" he thought. As for another ancient dame, Charity Grepe, she—publicly exposed as a fraud and delusion by Jonah Cramphorn—had found her occupation gone in earnest, and now reposed at Chagford poor-house. There was none to help the unhappy orphan in his trouble. The matter looked too delicate for masculine handling; and even Gregory had sense to perceive that it would be easy for others to take a wrong attitude before his dilemma and judge him harshly. Then came an inspiration to this lack-lustre son of the soil."No pusson else but she heard me tell her," he reflected. "Theer's awnly her word for it, an' I'll up an' say 'tis a strammin' gert lie, an' that she was mazed or dreamin', an' that I wouldn't marry her for a hunderd sovereigns! I'll braave her to her faace, if it comes to that. Folks'll sooner believe a man than a woman most times; an' if I ban't spry enough to awver-reach a fule of a outdoor farm-gal on such a matter, 'tis pity."CHAPTER VII.LAPSESDuring early spring a new experience came to Myles Stapledon. Physically perfect, he had known no ache or ill until now; but chance for once found him vulnerable. From a heavy downpour upon the land he returned home, found matters to occupy him immediately, and so forgot to doff wet clothes at the earliest opportunity. A chill rewarded his carelessness, and a slight attack of pneumonia followed upon it. For the first time within his recollection the man had to stop in bed, but during the greater part of his illness Myles proved patient enough. Honor ministered to him untiringly; Mr. Endicott was much in the sick-room also; and from time to time, when the master was returning towards convalescence, Cramphorn or Churdles Ash would enter to see him with information concerning affairs.Then, during one of the last wearisome days in his bed-chamber, at a season when the invalid was somewhat worn with private thoughts and heartily sick of such enforced idleness, an unfortunate misunderstanding threw him off his mental balance and precipitated such a catastrophe as those who knew Stapledon best had been the least likely to foresee. He was in fact forgotten for many hours, owing to a common error of his wife and uncle. Each thought the other would tend the sick man, so Honor departed to Newton Abbot with Christopher Yeoland, and Mark, quite ignorant of his niece's plans, was driven by Tommy Bates to Okehampton. The pitiful mistake had not dwelt an hour in Stapledon's memory under ordinary circumstances, but now, fretted by suffering and as ill able to bear physical trouble as any other man wholly unfamiliar with it, his lonely hours swelled and massed into a mountain of bitter grievance. He brooded and sank into dark ways of thought. Temptations got hold upon him; the ever-present thorn turned in his flesh and jealousy played with his weakness, like a cat with a mouse. Upon Honor's return the man afforded his wife, a new sensation and one of the greatest surprises that experience had ever brought to her.Unaware of his lonely vigil, she returned home in high good humour, kissed him, complimented him on the fact that this was to be his last day in bed, and remarked upon the splendour of the sunset."'At eventide it shall be light,'" she said; "and Christo was so rapt in all the glory of gold and purple over Cosdon, as we drove home from Moreton, that he nearly upset me and his dog-cart and himself. Yet I wish you could see the sky. It would soothe you.""As winter sunshine soothes icicles—by making their points sharper. Nature's softest moods are cruellest if your mind happens to be in torment.""My dear! Whatever is the matter? And your fire out—oh, Myles, how wrong!""Is it? Then blame yourself. Since my midday meal and before it I have seen no soul this day, and heard no voice but the clock. Here alone, suffering and chewing gall for six hours and more. But what does it matter so you were pleased with the sunset and your company?""Then where is uncle? Surely——? Iamso sorry, dear one. We've muddled it between us, and each thought you were in the keeping of the other.""Don't be sorry. What do I matter? Where have you been?""To Newton with Christo. And he sent you these lovely black grapes. I'm afraid I ate a few coming home, but I haven't spoiled the bunch.""Eat the rest, then, or fling them into the fire. I don't want them.""You're angry, Myles; and you have a right to be; yet it was only a dismal accident. We must light the fire, and I'll get you your tea, poor ill-used fellow. It was a shame, but I'm very, very penitent, and so will uncle be.""I wish I could get out of your way. Such a bother for you to come back to a sick-room; and a sick animal in a house is a bore always—especially to you, who don't love animals."The woman's eyes opened wide and she stared at him."Whatever do you mean?""You know well enough. I'm so exacting and my cough keeps you awake at night, and these drives in the fresh air behind Yeoland's big trotter must be such a relief to you. Why don't you ask him to drive you right away—to hell, and have done with it?"Honor looked at him, then turned her back and knelt down by the fire. Presently she spoke."Your thoughts have been ugly company I'm afraid. This is a terrible surprise, Myles, for I know so well how much you must have suffered before you could say such things to me. Will you never understand your own wife?""I think I do—at last.""You'll be sorry—very sorry that you could speak so, and let an unhappy accident be the spark to this. If you had but heard what Christopher said of you this very day driving home——""Don't begin that folly. That he slights me enough to praise me—and you listen to him and pretend to think he is in earnest!"She did not answer; then he sat up in bed and spoke again."I'm glad that weakness has torn this out of me. I shall be sorry to-morrow, but I'm glad to-night. Leave the fire and come here. I don't want to shout. You see what you've dragged me down to; you see what a snarling cur with his bone stolen I look now. That's your work. And I'll thank you to put a period to it. I don't live any longer in this purgatory, however greatly your fool's paradise may please you. I'm weary of it. It's poisoning me. Either you see too much of this man or not enough. That is what you have to determine. If too much, end it; if not enough, mend it, and go to him, body and soul, for good—the sooner the better.""Myles! You, of all men, to be so coarse! Are you mad? Are you dreaming to speak to your wife so? God knows that I've never done, or said, or thought anything to anger you to this, or shadow your honour for a second—nor has he.""'He!' Always 'he—he—he'—rooting at your heart-strings, I suppose, like a ——. What do you know of his thoughts and dreams? How comes it that you are so read in his life and mind that you can say whether my honour is so safe with him? I'd sooner trust it with my dogs. Then it would be safe. Who are you to know what this man's mind holds?""I ought to know, if anybody does.""Then go back to him, for God's sake, and let me come to the end of this road. Let all that is past sink to a memory, not remain a raw, present wound, that smarts from my waking moment until I sleep again.""You are weary of me?""I'm weary of half of you, or a quarter of you, or what particular proportion of you may still be supposed to belong to me.""I am all yours—heart and soul—and you know it; or if you do not, Christopher Yeoland does.""You love him too.""That question was answered years ago. I love him, and always shall. His welfare is much to me. I have been concerned with it to-day.""Yet you dare to say you belong heart and soul to me.""It is the truth. If you don't understand that, I cannot help you. He does understand.""I lack his fine intellect. You must endeavour to sink to my level and make this truth apparent to your husband's blunter perceptions. I must have more than words. Acts will better appeal to me. After to-day I forbid you to see or speak with Yeoland; and may you never suffer as you have made me suffer.""I will do what you wish. If you had only spoken sooner, Myles, some of this misery might have been escaped. I wish I had seen it.""Any woman who loved honestly would have seen it," he said, hard to the end. Then, without answering, she left him; and while he turned restlessly upon himself and regret presently waxed to a deep shame at this ebullition, she went her way and came to tears leisurely along a path first marked by frank amazement. Honor's surprise was unutterable. Never, since the moment of their meeting, had she dreamed or suspected that any imaginable disaster could thus reduce the high standard by which Myles conducted his mental life and controlled his temperament. That physical suffering and a sharp illness should have power to discover and reveal such a secret much surprised her. She remained incredulous that she had heard aright. It was as though she had dreamed the meeting and some nightmare Myles—grotesque, rude, a very Caliban—had taken shape while her mind ran riot in sleep. Yet it was true, for the measure of his lapse from customary high courtesy, was the measure of the months that he had suffered in silence, and the measure of his wrongs. Wholly imaginary she held them; all he had said was the outcome of a nature fretted by sickness and reduced below itself, like a drunken man—this Honor believed; but even so she remained in a stupor of astonishment. To see such a man with his armour off, to hear strange words in his mouth, to watch passion on his face, was an experience unutterably painful. And yet surprise transcended sorrow. She was almost stunned and dazed by this storm of thunder and lightning from a mind whose weather had never promised such a tempest. Now the moody fits and evasive humours could be read a little, for light fell every way. And Honor sat an hour with her thoughts; then passed from first emotions to others deeper and truer. She began to regret the past and blame her blindness. Unconventional enough, she had acted with no thought of any special significance being read into her actions—least of all by her husband. A woman of more common mind and nature had seen the danger and doubtfulness of such relations; but this was her first revelation of it; and the sudden, somewhat brutal disclosure opened her eyes widely indeed. She set herself to see and estimate from her husband's standpoint, to gauge the extent of the justice that had launched his pent-up outburst, and, upon a paltry misunderstanding, loosed these tremendous charges, hugged up and hidden within his heart till now. She ignored the cruel manner of his assault, and felt her heart beat in fear at this shadow of a master passion. Jealousy was its name, and an accident of lonely hours with the demon had suffered it to overwhelm him, tear him, dominate him thus.The thread of the woman's thoughts need not be traced as she strove with these tangles, and slowly restored the ravelled skein. That Myles would regret this hurricane she knew; that he would ask her forgiveness, and probably desire her to disregard his demands she suspected. Self-control was a garment that her husband could scarcely discard for long, even in sickness; the amazing thing was that it should have proved a garment at all; for Honor always believed it as much a part of Myles as his other characteristics. Meantime she asked herself her duty, and justice spoke, while the woman listened without impatience.She understood in some degree the strenuousness of many male characters upon the subject of ethics; she conceded that men of her husband's stamp thought and felt more deeply than most women; and she knew that her own sense of proportion, or sense of humour—which often amounts to the same thing—had inclined her, rightly or wrongly, to view all relations of life from an impersonal standpoint, including even those affairs in which she herself participated.She knew the absolute innocence of her inmost soul with respect to Christopher, and her face flamed here at the thought that her husband had dared to fear for her honour and his own. But she resolutely identified her thoughts with his attitude; she reminded herself that Myles was a bad student of character, and quite unable to see the real nature of Christopher Yeoland, or understand him as she did. Her brain grew tired at last, and pity led to tears; but the nature of the pity was uncertain, and whether she cried for herself, for her husband, or for both, Honor could not have declared with any certainty.That evening, while Mark Endicott was with Myles and his wife sat alone in her parlour, Christopher Yeoland strolled up to the farm with a parcel forgotten and left in his vehicle. The master of Godleigh stayed for a brief chat, made inquiries after Stapledon, and very quickly discovered that his companion laboured under some secret emotion. Honor thereupon changed her mind. She had not intended to whisper a hint of her tragic discovery, but the other's ready sympathy proved too much for her reserve. Moreover, there was a thought in her that perhaps the sooner Yeoland knew the truth the better. She told him a little of what had happened and attributed it to her husband's great present weakness; yet the thing sounded graver spoken aloud, even in her very guarded version, and Christopher's forehead showed that he, too, held it serious."Of course he didn't mean it," she concluded; "and to-morrow he will be sorry for having spoken so. But I'm afraid that dear Myles will never understand that we are different from other people.""You think we are?""I know we are. Surely we have proved that to one another, if not to the world.""We can't expect people to take us at our own valuation. This row comes appositely in a way. God knows the truth, but all the same, perhaps the position is impracticable. The world would say that Myles was right, and that we were too—too original. Only what's to be done? Of course he can't forbid us to speak to one another—that's absurd. But, for some reason, our friendship makes him a miserable man. He's let that out to-night, poor dear chap.""I wish I could understand his attitude; but I must make myself understand it, Christo. It is my duty.""I believe I do know what he feels. It's pride more than jealousy. His mind is too well hung to be jealous, but pride is the bait to catch all big natures. He doesn't like to feel any other man has the power to please you.""But remember the basis of our friendship. It must make a difference. And I have always been so frank. He knew—none better—what we were each to the other once; and he knows that I am fond of you and always must be so.""Exactly; and that's not knowledge to make him particularly happy. We have accentuated it of late, and hurt him. He sees perils and troubles ahead that don't really exist—mere phantoms—yet, from his point of view, they look real enough. He cannot see, and so there's probably a growing inclination on his part to kick me out of Little Silver, if such a thing could be done. Yes, I appreciate his attitude, though he can't appreciate mine. It comes to this: my deep content in your society is making him very angry—and worse than angry. He's turning by slow degrees into a volcano. To-day came the first little eruption—a mere nothing. Myles will regret it, and to-morrow bank up the fire again in his usual Spartan way; but he is powerless to prevent the sequel. There may be a regular Pompeii and Herculaneum presently. Your husband is built that way, though I never guessed it. If you were mine, and he was in my position, I should not turn a hair, knowing you and knowing him; but he is different. He doesn't know me at all, and he doesn't know you as well as I do. He must be blind to a nature like yours by the accident of his own personal temperament.""He understands me, I am sure—at least, I think so.""Not all round. But that's beside the mark. The question is, What next?""No question at all. My whole life and soul must be devoted to making him happy in spite of himself.""And what must I do?"She did not answer, and before need of a definite decision and the necessity for action, Christopher fell back upon his customary methods."Obviously I must do nothing. Least done soonest mended—a proverb quite as wise as the one I found it on; for deeds make more bother in the world than the loudest words. I shall let Time try his hand. It will probably come out all right when Myles gets well. He's so sane in most things—only there's my volcano theory, I tell you what; I'll speak to your uncle and ask him if he sees any difficulty.""Can't you make up your mind yourself?""No—unless you express a wish. Otherwise I shall go on as I am going. I'll see Mr. Endicott, and when Myles is fit again I'll see him. Yes, that's the road of wisdom. I'll meet him and say, 'Now, old chap, explode and give me the full force of the discharge. Tell me what you mean and what you want.'"Honor, for her part, found loyalty wakened rather than weakened by her husband's remonstrances. She desired to return to him—to get back to his heart. Christopher wearied her just now, and when Mark Endicott entered from the sick-room, Honor bid Yeoland farewell and hastened to Myles.Yeoland chatted awhile, shared some spirit and water with the blind man, and then, on a sudden, after private determination to do no such thing, broached the problem in his mind."Look here," he said; "I've had a nasty jar to-night, Mr. Endicott, and I'm in no end of a muddle. You know that I'm a well-meaning brute in my way, even granted that the way is generally wrong. But I wouldn't really hurt a fly, whereas now, in blissful ignorance, I've done worse. I've hurt a man—-a man I feel the greatest respect for—the husband of my best friend in the world. It's jolly trying, because he and I are built so differently. There's an inclination on his part to turn this thing into the three-volume form apparently. It's such ghastly rot when you think of what I really am. In plain English, Stapledon doesn't like his wife to see so much of me. She only discovered this deplorable fact to-day, and it bewildered her as much as it staggered me. Heaven's my judge, I never guessed that he was looking at me so. Nor did Honor. Such kindred spirits as we are—and now, in a moment of weakness, the man bid her see me no more! Of course, he's too big to go in for small nonsense of that kind, and he'll withdraw such an absurd remark as soon as he's cool again; but straws show which way the wind blows, and I want to get at my duty. Tell me that, and I'll call you blessed.""What is Honor to you?""The best part of my life, if you must know—on the highest plane of it.""Don't talk about 'planes'! That's all tom-foolery! You're a wholesome, healthy man and woman—anyway, other people must assume so. I'll give you credit for believing yourself, however. I'll even allow your twaddle about planes does mean something to you, because honestly you seem deficient—degenerate as far as your flesh is concerned. All the same, Stapledon is right in resenting this arrangement with all his heart and soul. His patience has amazed me. Two men can't share a woman under our present system of civilisation.""Which is to say a wife may not have any other intellectual kindred spirit but her husband. D'you mean that?""No, I don't. I mean that when a man openly says that a woman is the best part of his life, her husband can't be blamed for resenting it.""But what's the good of lying about the thing? Surely circumstances alter cases? It was always so. He knew that Honor and I loved each other in our queer way long before he came on the scene. She can't stop loving me because she has married him.""It isn't easy to argue with you, Yeoland," answered Mark quietly; "but this I see clearly: your very attitude towards the position proclaims you a man of most unbalanced mind. There's a curious kink in your nature—that is if you're not acting. Suppose Honor was your wife and she found greater pleasure in the society of somebody else, and gradually, ignorantly, quite unconsciously slipped away and away from you; imperceptibly, remember—so subtly that she didn't know it herself—that nobody but you knew it. How much of that would you suffer without a protest?""I shouldn't bother—not if she was happy. That's the point, you see: her happiness. I constitute it in some measure—eh? Or let us say that I contribute to it. Then why need he be so savage? Surely her happiness is his great ambition too?""Granted. Put the world and common sense and seemliness on one side. They don't carry weight with you. Her happiness then—her lasting happiness—not the trumpery pleasure of to-day and to-morrow.""Is it wise to look much beyond to-morrow when 'happiness' is the thing to be sought?""Perhaps not—as you understand it—so we'll say 'content.' Happiness is a fool's goal at best. You love Honor, and you desire for her peace of mind and a steadfast outlook founded on a basis strong enough to stand against the storms and sorrows of life. I assume that.""I desire for her the glory of life and the fulness thereof.""You must be vague, I suppose; but I won't be, since this is a very vital matter. I don't speak without sympathy for you either; but, in common with the two of you—Myles and yourself—this silly woman is uppermost in my mind—her and her good. So, since you ask, I tell you I'm disappointed with you; you've falsified my predictions of late, and your present relations with Honor have drifted into a flat wrong against her husband, though you may be on a plane as high as heaven, in your own flabby imagination. This friendship is not a thing settled, defined, marked off all round by boundaries. No friendship stands still, any more than anything else in the universe. Even if you're built of uncommon mud, lack your share of nature, and can philander to the end of the chapter without going further, or thinking further, that is no reason why you should do so. The husband of her can't be supposed to understand that you're a mere curiosity with peculiar machinery inside you. He gives you the credit of being an ordinary man, or denies you the credit of being an extraordinary one, which you please. So it's summed up in a dozen words: either see a great deal less of Honor, or, if you can't breathe the same air with her apart from her, go away, as an honourable man must, and put the rim of the world between you. Try to live apart, and let that be the gauge of your true feeling. If you can bide at Godleigh happy from month to month without sight of her or sound of her voice, then I'll allow you are all you claim to be and give you a plane all to yourself above the sun; but if you find you can do no such thing, then she's more to you by far than the wife of another man ought to be, and you're not so abnormal as you reckon yourself. This is going right back upon your renunciation in the beginning—as pitiful a thing as ever I heard tell about.""Stay here and never see her! How would you like it? I mean—you see and hear with the mind, though your eyes are dark. Of course I couldn't do that. What's Godleigh compared to her?""And still you say that sight of her and sound of her voice is all you want to round and complete your life?"Emphatically.""You're a fool to say so.""You don't believe it?""Nor would any other body. Least of all her husband.""A man not soaked in earth would.""Find him, then. Human nature isn't going to put off its garment at your bidding. If you're only half-baked—that's your misfortune, or privilege. You'll have to be judged by ordinary standards nevertheless.""Then I must leave the land of my fathers—I must go away from Godleigh because a man misunderstands me?""You must go away from Godleigh because, on your own showing, you can't stop in it without the constant companionship of another man's wife.""What a brute you'd make me! That's absolutely false in the spirit, if true in the letter. The letter killeth. You to heave such a millstone!""You're a poorer creature than I thought," answered Mark sternly, "much poorer. Yet even you will allow perhaps that it is to her relations with her husband, not her relations with you, that Honor Endicott must look for lasting peace—if she's to have it.""Yet I have made her happier by coming back into her life.""It's doubtful. In one way yes, because you did things by halves—went out of her life and then came back into it at the wrong moment. I won't stop to point out the probable course of events if you had kept away altogether; that might not be fair to you perhaps, though I marvel you missed the lesson and have forgotten the punishment so soon. Coming back to her, ghost-haunted as she was, you did make her happier, for you lifted the horror of fear and superstition from her. But now her lasting content is the theme. How does your presence here contribute to that?""It would very considerably if Stapledon was different.""Or if he was dead—or if—a thousand 'ifs.' But Stapledon is Stapledon. So what are you going to do with the advice I've given you?""Not use it, I assure you. Consider what it means to drive me away from Godleigh!""For her lasting content.""I don't know about that. Of course, if it could be proved.""You do know; and it has been proved.""Not to my satisfaction. I resent your putting me in a separate compartment, as if I was a new sort of beast or a quaint hybrid. I'm a very ordinary man—not a phenomenon—and there are plenty more people in the world who think and act as I do.""Go and join them, then," said Mr. Endicott, "for your own peace of mind and hers. Get out of her life; and remember that there's only one way—that leading from here. I'm sorry for you, but you'll live to know I've spoken the truth, unless your conscience was forgotten, too, when the Lord fashioned you."Yeoland grumbled a little; then he brightened up."My first thought was best," he said. "I should not have bothered you with all this nonsense, for it really is nonsense when you think of it seriously. I should have stuck to my resolve—to see Myles himself and thrash this out, man to man. And so I will the moment he's up to it. The truth is, we're all taking ourselves much too seriously, which is absurd. Good-night, my dear sir. And thank you for your wisdom; but I'll see Stapledon—that is the proper way."
CHAPTER V.
A HUNTING MORNING
On such a morning as hunting folk live for, some ten days after the conversation between Stapledon and Mr. Endicott, Christopher, who did not himself hunt, drove Honor to a meet of the Mid Devon. Taking his dog-cart down a mossy by-path at the spinney-side, he stopped not fifty yards distant from where a patch of scarlet marked the huntsman's standpoint. Above was a race of broken clouds and gleam of sunshine from pale blue sky; below spread opaline air and naked boughs, save where great tods of ivy shone; while underneath nervous tails twitched among brown fern and wintry furzes. Then a whimper came from the heart of the wood, and two old hounds threw up their heads, recognised the sound for a youngster's excitement, and put nose to earth again. A minute later, however, and a full bay echoed deep and clear; whereupon the pair instantly galloped whence the music came.
Honor and her companion sat in Christopher's dog-cart behind a fine grey cob.
"They know that's no young duffer," said Yeoland, as the melody waxed and the hounds vanished; "he's one of their own generation and makes no mistake. If the fox takes them up to the Moor, sport is likely to be bad, for it's a sponge just now, and the field won't live with the hounds five minutes. Ah! he's off! And to the Moor he goes."
Soon a business-like, hard-riding, West Country field swept away towards the highlands, and silence fell again.
Christopher then set out for Little Silver, while conversation drifted to their personal interests and the prosperity in which each now dwelt—a thing foreseen by neither three short years before. They had no servant with them and spoke openly.
"My touchstone was gold; yours a husband of gold," said Christopher. "Money he possessed too, but it is the magic man himself who has made Endicott's what it is now."
"Yes, indeed—dear Myles. And yet I'm half afraid that the old, simple joy in natural things passes him by now. It seems as though he and I could never be perfectly, wholly happy at the same time. While I went dismal mad and must have made his life a curse, he kept up, and never showed the tribulation that he felt, but was always contented and cheerful and patient. Now that I am happier, I feel that he is not. Yes, he is not as happy as I am. He has told me a thousand times that content is the only thing to strive for; and certainly he proved it, for he was well content once; but now our positions are reversed, and I am contented with my life, while daily he grows less so."
"He's a farmer, and a contented farmer no man ever saw, because God never made one."
"It isn't that; the work never troubles him. He looks far ahead and seems to know, like a wizard, long before the event just what is going to be successful and what a failure. I think I know him better than anybody in the world, but I can't fathom him just now. Something is worrying him, and he tries hard not to let it worry him and not to show that it does. Partly he is successful, for I cannot guess the trouble; but that there is a trouble he fails to hide. I must find it out and take my share. Sometimes I think——"
She broke off abruptly.
"What? Nothing that involves me? We're the best, truest friends now, thank heaven."
"No, no. Time will reveal it."
For a moment or two they were silent with their thoughts. It struck neither that such a conversation was peculiar; it occurred to neither the man nor the woman that in the very fact of their friendship—of a friendship so close that the wife could thus discuss her husband's trouble—there existed the seed of that trouble.
Christopher mused upon the problem, and honestly marvelled before it.
"I suppose nobody can be happy really, and he's no exception to the rule. Yet, looking at his life, I should account him quite the luckiest man I ever heard of. Consider the perfection that he has crammed into his existence. He prospers in his farm; he has Nestor under his roof in the shape of your wiseacre of an uncle; and he has you! Providence must have been puzzled to find a way to hurt him. And she hasn't hit him under the belt either, for never a man enjoyed finer health. Now where can he have come across melancholy? I suppose it's his hereafter, or non-hereafter, that's bothering him. Yet I should judge that the man was too sane to waste good time in this world fretting because he doesn't believe in another."
"It's a cloud-shadow that will pass, I hope."
"I hope so heartily—such a balanced mind as he has. Now if I began to whine—one who never did carry any ballast—you could understand it. Look ahead and compare our innings. His will end gloriously with children and grandchildren and all the rest of it. And I—but if I painted the picture you'd probably say I was a morbid, ungrateful idiot."
"Very likely; and I should probably be quite right. There's a great duty staring you in the face now, Christo, and nobody who cares for you will be contented or happy until you've tackled it like a man. Don't look so innocent; you know perfectly well what I mean."
"Indeed I do not. I am doing my duty to Godleigh—that's my life's work henceforth, and all anybody can expect."
"But that is just what you are not doing. You're not everybody, remember; and even if you think you are, you won't live for ever. You'll have to go and sleep in real earnest under the skulls with bats' wings, poor Christo, some day, and Myles and I shall be outside under the grass."
"Who is morbid now?"
"Don't evade the point. I want you to think of the thing you love best in the world—Godleigh."
"Well?"
"Godleigh has got to go on. It won't stop because you do—Godleigh's immortal. When a tree falls there, Nature will plant another. Then what is to become of the dearest, loveliest place in Devon after you are gathered to your fathers?"
"I'm going to leave it to you and Myles and your heirs for ever."
"Don't be ridiculous, Christo; you're going to leave it to a rightful heir, and it's high time you began to devote a little thought to him. Don't wait until you're a stupid, old, middle-aged thing of half a century. Then you'll probably die in the gloomy conviction that you leave your children mere helpless infants."
"So much the better for them, for they'd escape the example of their father. But, as a matter of fact, I'm not going to marry. Godleigh's my mother and sister and brother and wife and family."
"Then you'll leave your family unprovided for, and that's a very wicked thing to do. We're growing old and sensible nowadays, and there'll be plain speaking between us as long as we live; so I tell you now that I've thought of this very seriously indeed, and so has Myles. He quite agees with me; and my opinion is that you ought to marry; the sooner the better."
"Don't," he said; "don't go in for having opinions. When anybody begins to cultivate and profess opinions their sense of humour must be on the wane. Keep your mind free of rooted ideas. You were wont to love the rainbow play of change, to welcome sudden extremes as a sign of health and mental activity. Before you married you hated opinions."
"That was before I grew happy, I think. Happiness runs one into a groove very quickly; it steadies our ideas. Now, you won't be perfectly happy until you marry."
"To find her."
"Why, that's not so difficult."
"Never, Honor. There was only one possible mother for my children. You are going over ground that I travelled centuries ago; at least it seems centuries. I told my fib and looked ahead, quite like a son of wisdom for once, and counted the cost, or tried to. Let all that sleep. I shall never know to my dying day how I brought it off, but I did. Perhaps a generous sympathy for unborn boys and girls had as much to do with it as anything else. Candidly and without sentiment, it is time we Yeolands came to an end. For my part I shall die easier knowing that I'm the last of them. I never was very keen about living for the mere sake of living, even in old days, and now I care less than ever. Not that I want to die either; but I go wandering through this great, roaring, rollicking, goose-fair of a world, stopping at a booth here, shooting for nuts or something equally valuable there; and when Dustman Death surprises me, pottering about and wasting my money,—when he puts out his grey claws and asks for his own again, I shall welcome him with perfect cheerfulness."
"Nonsense—and wicked nonsense! You—what?—thirty-two, or some absurd age—trying to talk like Uncle Mark! And Godleigh free! I won't have it, Christo. If ever you loved me, you must obey me in this and find a wife."
"Can't; won't; too small-hearted. I've got nothing to give a girl; and all your fault. Some of me really died, you know, when I pretended that all of me did."
"Then I suppose that it's my turn to go away and perish now? Would you feel equal to marrying anybody if I was dead?"
"Not a parallel instance at all. For you there was a grand chap waiting—a man worth having; else I should not have died, I assure you. In my case there's no grand woman waiting; so if you expire, you will merely be bringing a great deal of trouble upon many excellent people and doing nobody the least good—not even my nebulous prospective lady. No, Myles and I would merely share a mile of crape and live in black gloves for ever. You die! What a thought!"
"Sometimes I wish I had long ago."
"No; you must live to brighten these dull Devonshire winters and strew flowers upon your husband and me when our turns come. Dear old Stapledon! I'm really bothered to know that something is troubling him. I'd tackle him myself, only if you cannot win the truth, I certainly should not. I wish he'd be confidential; I do like confidential men. For my part I haven't got a secret from him in the world."
"He works too hard."
"He does. The man has a horrible genius for making work. It knocks the vitality out of him. I hate this modern gospel that sets all of us poor little world-children to our lessons as a panacea for every evil under the sun. Just look what dull dogs all the hard workers are."
"Well, you've played truant from your youth up."
"Deliberately, as an example to others. But I'm doing any amount of work now. Brain-work too; which is easily the most hateful sort of work. And all for my Godleigh. Yet she doesn't thank me. I see poor Mother Nature stealing about miserably and suspiciously when I go into the woods. She liked me better a pauper. She doesn't know that I'm helping her to make this little corner of earth more and more perfect. She doesn't look ahead and judge how much toil and trouble I am saving her with the ruins of things that must be cleared away—either by her method or my quicker one. She hates axes and ploughs and pruning-hooks, old stick-in-the-mud that she is."
"Treason!"
"No treason at all. Common sense I call it. I'm weary of this nonsense about going straight to Nature. Australia taught me to suspect. She's a bat, a mole; she doesn't know her best friends. She'll sink a saint in mid-ocean—a real saint with an eighteen-carat halo—and let a pirate come safely and happily to some innocent merchantman stuffed with the treasures of honest men, or her own priceless grains and seeds. She'll put back the hand of progress at the smallest opportunity; she'll revert to the primitive if you turn your back on her for an instant; she'll conjure our peaches into wild plums, our apples into crabs, man into—God knows what—something a good deal lower than the angels, or even the cave-dwellers. If we let her, she would hunt for and polish up the missing link again, and huddle the world backwards faster than we spin round the sun. Nature is a grand fraud, Honor. Take the personal attitude, for instance. What has she ever done for me? Did she show me any of her hoarded gold during the month I nearly killed myself exploring in New South Wales? Did she lead me to the water-holes when I was thirsty, or lend me a cloud to hide the sun when I was hot? Has she opened a flower-bud, or taught a bird to sing, or painted a dawn, or ever led the wind out of the east, that I might be the happier? We fool ourselves that we are her favourites. Not so. She is only our stepmother, and behaves accordingly. She knew that the advent of conscious intelligence must be a death-blow to her, and she has never forgiven man for exhibiting it."
"So I'm not the only one in Little Silver who is developing opinions, I see," laughed Honor. "You're growing egotistical, Christo; you're expecting almost too much, I fear. Nature has something better to do than plan your private fortune and convenience, or arrange the winds of heaven to suit a cold in that silly head of yours! Never in my most dead-alive moment did I grow so dull as that. To be cross with poor Nature—as if she had not to do what she is told, like everybody else. To blame her!"
"I don't blame her. I know where to throw the blame of things perfectly well."
"Then you're the only man in the world who does, and you ought to tell everybody and so make yourself famous."
Thus they prattled in the old manner, and, unconscious of difficulty or danger, passed upon their way. Much each saw of the other; much frank delight each took in the other's company; and through the passage of winter to the advent of spring they progressed, coming nearer and nearer to discovery of the secret tribulation in Stapledon's heart that each now innocently, honestly mourned and misunderstood.
CHAPTER VI.
LOVE OF MAN
Mr. Gregory Libby, to whom circumstance denied any opportunity of close investigation, at length came upon a conclusion respecting the daughters of Jonah Cramphorn, and allowed his judgment to be unconsciously influenced by his desire. That is to say he arrived at a mistaken decision because the balance of his feeble, physical emotions weighed toward Sally. She was the eldest and the fairest; he concluded, therefore, that she enjoyed the greater proportion of her parent's regard, and must the more materially benefit under his will in time to come. He braced himself for the crucial question, and it happened that he did so but two days after a very significant symposium at Endicott's, during which Mr. Cramphorn occupied the position of chief speaker, and his daughters were the principal theme of conversation. From discussion upon these primitive maids, and their father's opinion concerning them, discourse had truly ranged to higher subjects; but not before Jonah made definite statements of a sort that deeply moved one among his listeners.
Behind the obscurity blown from a clay tobacco-pipe, Henry Collins sat, round-eyed and wretched. He gasped with most unselfish sorrow for the girl he loved, and committed to memory certain surly assertions of Mr. Cramphorn concerning her, with a purpose to forewarn Sally of the fate her future held. For Jonah spoke definitely and doggedly. He weighed the merits of his own daughters with Spartan frankness, and, arriving at judgment, declared Margery's filial conduct a lesson to Little Silver, regretted Sally's indifference and independence of manners, and concluded with complacent hints that his knowledge of human nature was not wont to be at fault, and that she best able to administer wisely his worldly wealth should have it as a just reward, when he passed beyond need of cottage or savings bank.
These utterances Libby heard too late, but Cramphorn's elder daughter became acquainted with them immediately after they were spoken, thanks to the enterprise of Henry Collins. He felt it his duty to the woman that she should be put in possession of such gloomy predictions, while yet power might lie with her to falsify them.
"Afore the whole comp'ny he said it," declared Henry; "an' he'm a man as knaws no shadder of turning most times. An' he haven't got the wisdom of a mouse neither—not in this matter; so it'll surely happen, onless you fall in wi' his ways more an' knock onder oftener than what you do."
"I've seed it comin', an' he'm a cruel wretch," answered Sally with many pouts. "An' her's worse—my sister, I mean. Sly minx, she've plotted an' worked for it wi' low onderhand ways—cooing to un; an' glazin' at un when he talked, as if he was King Solomon; an' spendin' her pence in pipes for un; an' findin' his book-plaaces to church—'Struth! I could wring her neck, an' 'tis more'n likely I shall do it wan day."
"But he doan't knaw—Libby, I mean—though he's sartain to hear soon; an' your faither won't tell Margery for fear she should give awver fussin' 'bout arter un, when she knaws his will's writ an' signed an' can't be called back. So I comed to say that I doan't care a feather for all his money, an' I loves you better'n ever—better'n better now he'm set against 'e."
"Ess, I knaw all that; and doan't 'e tell this tale to nobody else; an' bid them others, as heard my auld beast of a faither, to keep it in an' tell nobody. Wance Libby knaws, 'tis——"
"All up. Ess, so 'tis, Sally; an' doan't that shaw 'e what fashion o' dirt the man's made of? Do 'e want a chap to marry you for what you take to un in your hand? Do 'e——"
"Doan't ax no more questions now, theer's a dear sawl. I ban't in no fettle to answer 'em, an' I be sore hurt along o' this. A gude darter as I've been tu. An' her—no better'n a stinging long-cripple—a snake as'll bite the hand that warms it. I wish I was dead, I do. Go away, caan't 'e? I doan't want your 'ankersher. Let my tears alone, will 'e? I wish they was poison. I'd mingle 'em wi' her food—then us would see. Go—go away! Be you deaf? I'll scream my heart out in a minute if you bide theer!"
Collins, desiring no such catastrophe, made haste to disappear; and such is the rough-and-tumble of things that chance willed this dramatic moment for the entrance of Gregory Libby. Big with fate he came from hedge-trimming, and shone upon Sally's grief like the sun of June upon a shower. She was sobbing and biting her red lips; and he, with the dignity of toil yet manifested about him, dropped his sickle, flung off his gloves, led Sally behind a haystack, and bid her sit down and relate her sorrow.
"Just gwaine to take my bit of dinner," he said; "so you can tell while I eat. What's the matter? You'm wisht, an' your butivul cheeks be all speckly-like wi' cryin'."
She swallowed her tears, sucked her lips, and smiled through the storm.
"Nought—a flea kicked me. Sit here an' I'll pull down a bit o' dry out o' the stack for 'e."
"Ban't awften them wonnerful butcher-blue eyes o' yourn shed tears, I'm sure," he mumbled with his mouth full; "but we've all got our troubles no doubt. An' none more'n me. I'm that lonesome wi'out mother to do for me. I never thought as I'd miss her cookin' an' messin' 'bout the house so much. An' what's money wi'out a woman to spend it—to spend it on me, I mean?" he added hastily. "I want a wife. A gude woman stands between a man an' all the li'l twopenny-ha'p'ny worrits as his mind be tu busy tu trouble 'bout. I want a useful gal around me, an' wan as'll take the same view of me what mother done."
"You'm a marryin' man for sartain."
"I be. An' I've thought an' thought on it till I got the 'eadache; an' my thoughts doan't go no further'n you, Sally."
"Lard, Gregory dear!"
"True's I'm eatin' onions. I've been figuring you up for years. An' now I knaw we'm likely to be a very fitting man an' wife. You knawed mother; and you knaw me, as ban't a common man ezacally, so say the word."
"Oh, Gregory! An' I thought you was after my sister!"
"She'm a very gude gal, an' a very nice gal tu," said Mr. Libby with his usual caution. "No word against her would I say for money. An' if you wasn't here, I'd sooner have her than any other. A brave, bowerly maiden wi' butivul hands to her, an' a wonnerful onderstandin' way, an'——"
"Ess, but 'tis me you love—me—not her?"
"Ban't I tellin' you so? I say it in cold blood, after thinkin' 'pon it, to an' from, for years. An' I'll tell you how mother treated me, for you couldn't do no better'n what she did. She onderstood my habits perfect."
"God knaws I'll make 'e a gude wife, Greg. An' no call to tell me nothin' of that 'bout your mother, 'cause I'll be more to 'e than she; an' I'll think for 'e sleepin' an' wakin', an' I'll work for 'e to my bones, an' love the shadow of 'e."
"I'm glad to hear you say so, Sally, though mother's ways was very well considered. The thing be to make up your mind as I'm in the right all times, as a thinking man mostly is."
"I knaw you will be; an' a gude husband, as'll stand up for me against all the world, an' see I ban't put upon or treated cruel."
"I will do so. An' 'tis odds if I'll let 'e do any work at all arter you'm wedded to me—work 'cept about my house, I mean."
"No, for 'twill take me all my time workin' for 'e, an' makin' your home as it should be."
"Kiss me," he said suddenly, "an' kiss me slow while I take my full of it. Theer's blood 'pon your lips! You've bited 'em. What's fretted 'e this marnin'? Not love of me, I warn 'e?"
"'Twas, then—just love of you, Greg; an' fear that the fallin' out of cruel things might make 'e turn away from me."
He patted her cheek and stroked it; then her neck; and then her plump bosom.
"So butivul an' fat as a pattridge you be! An' I'm sure I love 'e tremenjous; an' nothin' shall never part us if you say so."
"Then all my tears was vain, an'—an' I'll grow a better woman an' say longer prayers hencefarrard—for thanksgivings 'cause I've got 'e."
"'Tis a gude match for you, Sally; an' I do trust as you'll never make me to regret I spoke."
"Never, never; an' you'll never love nobody else, will 'e?"
"Not so long as you'm a gude wife an' a towser to work. My mind was always temperate 'an sober towards petticoats, as be well knawn."
"Oh, I could sing an' dance for sheer joy, I could! An' so chapfallen just afore you comed. But what's a faither to a lover—'specially such a sour faither as mine?"
"Doan't you quarrel wi' Cramphorn, however," said Gregory; "he'm the last man as I'd have you fall out with."
"Quarrel! I never quarrel with nobody. But he ban't like you—even-tempered an' fair. A wan-sided, cranky man, faither. I be his eldest, yet Margery's put afore me. He can't see through her dirty, hookem-snivey tricks an' lying speeches. I be straight an' plain, same as you, an' he hates me for it."
Mr. Libby's heart sank low.
"Hates you? D'you say your faither hates you?"
"Well, the word ban't big enough seemin'ly. I can tell you now, because we'm tokened, an' my heart shan't never have no secret from you. But he likes Margery best because she foxes him, an' fules him, an' tells him he's a wonder of the world; an' he believes it. An' Collins says as he've awpenly gived out that she'm to have all his gudes an' his money. Why for do 'e give awver lovin' me?"
For Mr. Libby's arm, which was round Sally's waist, fell away from that pleasant circumference, and an expression of very real misery spread over his face to the roots of his yellow hair.
"'His gudes an' his money'?" he asked, in a faint voice, that sounded as though he had been frightened.
"Ess. Why, you'm as if somebody had suddenly thrawed a bucket of water awver 'e! Doan't think I care 'bout his money now. You'll have to make him chaange his mind bimebye. When you'm my husband, you'll have to tackle faither an' see he doan't cut me away."
The man's brain went cold. Desire had vanished out of his eyes, and Sally might have been a stone beside him. He flung away the remainder of his luncheon, and uttered a hearty oath or two.
"'Tis a damned oncomely thing, an', as it takes two to a quarrel, theer's some fault your side as well as his, I reckon. What be the reason as Margery's more to him than you—his eldest?"
"Because she'm a lyin' slammockin' female twoad—that's the reason; an' he caan't see through her."
There was a moment of heavy silence; then Gregory Libby spoke.
"Doan't say nothin' 'bout what we've planned out to-day. Doan't tell nobody. Time enough come Spring."
"Say nought! I'd like to go up 'pon top the hill an' sing out my gude fortune for all ears to hear!"
"No, bide quiet. Us'll let 'em have the gert surprise of it in church. None shall knaw till we'm axed out some Sunday marnin'."
"'Twill bust upon 'em like thunder. I lay Margery will faint if she'm theer."
"An' us'll have the laugh of 'em all."
"'Tis as you please, Greg."
"An' you'll take your oath not to tell?"
"Not even mistress?"
"Certainly not she."
"Nor yet Missis Loveys?"
"So soon tell all Little Silver."
"You might let me just whisper it to my awn sister. 'Twill be a cruel stroke if her hears it fust afore all the people to church."
"If you say a syllable of it to Margery, 'tis off!" declared Mr. Libby, and with such earnestness did he speak that the girl was alarmed, and made hasty assurances.
"Very well, I promise an' swear, since I must. But how long be I to go dumb? Remember, 'tis tu gert a thing for a woman to keep hid for long. You'm cruel, Greg, lovey, to ax it. I'll have to blaze it out soon or bust with it."
"Wait my time. It ban't to be awver-long, that I promise 'e."
"Kiss me again, Greg; an' cuddle me."
"You take your dyin' oath?"
"Ess, I said so."
"Very well; now I must go back to my work."
Presently they separated, and Sally, full of her secret, walked upon air through a golden world, with her hot heart's core aglow, while Mr. Libby bit his hare-lip, employed many coarse words for the benefit of the hedge he hacked at, and put a spite and spleen into each stroke that soon blunted his bill-hook. He was now faced with a problem calling for some ingenuity. He yearned to know how he might retrieve his error, and get well free of Sally before approaching her sister upon the same errand. Where to turn for succour and counsel he knew not. "If mother was awnly alive for ten minutes!" he thought. As for another ancient dame, Charity Grepe, she—publicly exposed as a fraud and delusion by Jonah Cramphorn—had found her occupation gone in earnest, and now reposed at Chagford poor-house. There was none to help the unhappy orphan in his trouble. The matter looked too delicate for masculine handling; and even Gregory had sense to perceive that it would be easy for others to take a wrong attitude before his dilemma and judge him harshly. Then came an inspiration to this lack-lustre son of the soil.
"No pusson else but she heard me tell her," he reflected. "Theer's awnly her word for it, an' I'll up an' say 'tis a strammin' gert lie, an' that she was mazed or dreamin', an' that I wouldn't marry her for a hunderd sovereigns! I'll braave her to her faace, if it comes to that. Folks'll sooner believe a man than a woman most times; an' if I ban't spry enough to awver-reach a fule of a outdoor farm-gal on such a matter, 'tis pity."
CHAPTER VII.
LAPSES
During early spring a new experience came to Myles Stapledon. Physically perfect, he had known no ache or ill until now; but chance for once found him vulnerable. From a heavy downpour upon the land he returned home, found matters to occupy him immediately, and so forgot to doff wet clothes at the earliest opportunity. A chill rewarded his carelessness, and a slight attack of pneumonia followed upon it. For the first time within his recollection the man had to stop in bed, but during the greater part of his illness Myles proved patient enough. Honor ministered to him untiringly; Mr. Endicott was much in the sick-room also; and from time to time, when the master was returning towards convalescence, Cramphorn or Churdles Ash would enter to see him with information concerning affairs.
Then, during one of the last wearisome days in his bed-chamber, at a season when the invalid was somewhat worn with private thoughts and heartily sick of such enforced idleness, an unfortunate misunderstanding threw him off his mental balance and precipitated such a catastrophe as those who knew Stapledon best had been the least likely to foresee. He was in fact forgotten for many hours, owing to a common error of his wife and uncle. Each thought the other would tend the sick man, so Honor departed to Newton Abbot with Christopher Yeoland, and Mark, quite ignorant of his niece's plans, was driven by Tommy Bates to Okehampton. The pitiful mistake had not dwelt an hour in Stapledon's memory under ordinary circumstances, but now, fretted by suffering and as ill able to bear physical trouble as any other man wholly unfamiliar with it, his lonely hours swelled and massed into a mountain of bitter grievance. He brooded and sank into dark ways of thought. Temptations got hold upon him; the ever-present thorn turned in his flesh and jealousy played with his weakness, like a cat with a mouse. Upon Honor's return the man afforded his wife, a new sensation and one of the greatest surprises that experience had ever brought to her.
Unaware of his lonely vigil, she returned home in high good humour, kissed him, complimented him on the fact that this was to be his last day in bed, and remarked upon the splendour of the sunset.
"'At eventide it shall be light,'" she said; "and Christo was so rapt in all the glory of gold and purple over Cosdon, as we drove home from Moreton, that he nearly upset me and his dog-cart and himself. Yet I wish you could see the sky. It would soothe you."
"As winter sunshine soothes icicles—by making their points sharper. Nature's softest moods are cruellest if your mind happens to be in torment."
"My dear! Whatever is the matter? And your fire out—oh, Myles, how wrong!"
"Is it? Then blame yourself. Since my midday meal and before it I have seen no soul this day, and heard no voice but the clock. Here alone, suffering and chewing gall for six hours and more. But what does it matter so you were pleased with the sunset and your company?"
"Then where is uncle? Surely——? Iamso sorry, dear one. We've muddled it between us, and each thought you were in the keeping of the other."
"Don't be sorry. What do I matter? Where have you been?"
"To Newton with Christo. And he sent you these lovely black grapes. I'm afraid I ate a few coming home, but I haven't spoiled the bunch."
"Eat the rest, then, or fling them into the fire. I don't want them."
"You're angry, Myles; and you have a right to be; yet it was only a dismal accident. We must light the fire, and I'll get you your tea, poor ill-used fellow. It was a shame, but I'm very, very penitent, and so will uncle be."
"I wish I could get out of your way. Such a bother for you to come back to a sick-room; and a sick animal in a house is a bore always—especially to you, who don't love animals."
The woman's eyes opened wide and she stared at him.
"Whatever do you mean?"
"You know well enough. I'm so exacting and my cough keeps you awake at night, and these drives in the fresh air behind Yeoland's big trotter must be such a relief to you. Why don't you ask him to drive you right away—to hell, and have done with it?"
Honor looked at him, then turned her back and knelt down by the fire. Presently she spoke.
"Your thoughts have been ugly company I'm afraid. This is a terrible surprise, Myles, for I know so well how much you must have suffered before you could say such things to me. Will you never understand your own wife?"
"I think I do—at last."
"You'll be sorry—very sorry that you could speak so, and let an unhappy accident be the spark to this. If you had but heard what Christopher said of you this very day driving home——"
"Don't begin that folly. That he slights me enough to praise me—and you listen to him and pretend to think he is in earnest!"
She did not answer; then he sat up in bed and spoke again.
"I'm glad that weakness has torn this out of me. I shall be sorry to-morrow, but I'm glad to-night. Leave the fire and come here. I don't want to shout. You see what you've dragged me down to; you see what a snarling cur with his bone stolen I look now. That's your work. And I'll thank you to put a period to it. I don't live any longer in this purgatory, however greatly your fool's paradise may please you. I'm weary of it. It's poisoning me. Either you see too much of this man or not enough. That is what you have to determine. If too much, end it; if not enough, mend it, and go to him, body and soul, for good—the sooner the better."
"Myles! You, of all men, to be so coarse! Are you mad? Are you dreaming to speak to your wife so? God knows that I've never done, or said, or thought anything to anger you to this, or shadow your honour for a second—nor has he."
"'He!' Always 'he—he—he'—rooting at your heart-strings, I suppose, like a ——. What do you know of his thoughts and dreams? How comes it that you are so read in his life and mind that you can say whether my honour is so safe with him? I'd sooner trust it with my dogs. Then it would be safe. Who are you to know what this man's mind holds?"
"I ought to know, if anybody does."
"Then go back to him, for God's sake, and let me come to the end of this road. Let all that is past sink to a memory, not remain a raw, present wound, that smarts from my waking moment until I sleep again."
"You are weary of me?"
"I'm weary of half of you, or a quarter of you, or what particular proportion of you may still be supposed to belong to me."
"I am all yours—heart and soul—and you know it; or if you do not, Christopher Yeoland does."
"You love him too."
"That question was answered years ago. I love him, and always shall. His welfare is much to me. I have been concerned with it to-day."
"Yet you dare to say you belong heart and soul to me."
"It is the truth. If you don't understand that, I cannot help you. He does understand."
"I lack his fine intellect. You must endeavour to sink to my level and make this truth apparent to your husband's blunter perceptions. I must have more than words. Acts will better appeal to me. After to-day I forbid you to see or speak with Yeoland; and may you never suffer as you have made me suffer."
"I will do what you wish. If you had only spoken sooner, Myles, some of this misery might have been escaped. I wish I had seen it."
"Any woman who loved honestly would have seen it," he said, hard to the end. Then, without answering, she left him; and while he turned restlessly upon himself and regret presently waxed to a deep shame at this ebullition, she went her way and came to tears leisurely along a path first marked by frank amazement. Honor's surprise was unutterable. Never, since the moment of their meeting, had she dreamed or suspected that any imaginable disaster could thus reduce the high standard by which Myles conducted his mental life and controlled his temperament. That physical suffering and a sharp illness should have power to discover and reveal such a secret much surprised her. She remained incredulous that she had heard aright. It was as though she had dreamed the meeting and some nightmare Myles—grotesque, rude, a very Caliban—had taken shape while her mind ran riot in sleep. Yet it was true, for the measure of his lapse from customary high courtesy, was the measure of the months that he had suffered in silence, and the measure of his wrongs. Wholly imaginary she held them; all he had said was the outcome of a nature fretted by sickness and reduced below itself, like a drunken man—this Honor believed; but even so she remained in a stupor of astonishment. To see such a man with his armour off, to hear strange words in his mouth, to watch passion on his face, was an experience unutterably painful. And yet surprise transcended sorrow. She was almost stunned and dazed by this storm of thunder and lightning from a mind whose weather had never promised such a tempest. Now the moody fits and evasive humours could be read a little, for light fell every way. And Honor sat an hour with her thoughts; then passed from first emotions to others deeper and truer. She began to regret the past and blame her blindness. Unconventional enough, she had acted with no thought of any special significance being read into her actions—least of all by her husband. A woman of more common mind and nature had seen the danger and doubtfulness of such relations; but this was her first revelation of it; and the sudden, somewhat brutal disclosure opened her eyes widely indeed. She set herself to see and estimate from her husband's standpoint, to gauge the extent of the justice that had launched his pent-up outburst, and, upon a paltry misunderstanding, loosed these tremendous charges, hugged up and hidden within his heart till now. She ignored the cruel manner of his assault, and felt her heart beat in fear at this shadow of a master passion. Jealousy was its name, and an accident of lonely hours with the demon had suffered it to overwhelm him, tear him, dominate him thus.
The thread of the woman's thoughts need not be traced as she strove with these tangles, and slowly restored the ravelled skein. That Myles would regret this hurricane she knew; that he would ask her forgiveness, and probably desire her to disregard his demands she suspected. Self-control was a garment that her husband could scarcely discard for long, even in sickness; the amazing thing was that it should have proved a garment at all; for Honor always believed it as much a part of Myles as his other characteristics. Meantime she asked herself her duty, and justice spoke, while the woman listened without impatience.
She understood in some degree the strenuousness of many male characters upon the subject of ethics; she conceded that men of her husband's stamp thought and felt more deeply than most women; and she knew that her own sense of proportion, or sense of humour—which often amounts to the same thing—had inclined her, rightly or wrongly, to view all relations of life from an impersonal standpoint, including even those affairs in which she herself participated.
She knew the absolute innocence of her inmost soul with respect to Christopher, and her face flamed here at the thought that her husband had dared to fear for her honour and his own. But she resolutely identified her thoughts with his attitude; she reminded herself that Myles was a bad student of character, and quite unable to see the real nature of Christopher Yeoland, or understand him as she did. Her brain grew tired at last, and pity led to tears; but the nature of the pity was uncertain, and whether she cried for herself, for her husband, or for both, Honor could not have declared with any certainty.
That evening, while Mark Endicott was with Myles and his wife sat alone in her parlour, Christopher Yeoland strolled up to the farm with a parcel forgotten and left in his vehicle. The master of Godleigh stayed for a brief chat, made inquiries after Stapledon, and very quickly discovered that his companion laboured under some secret emotion. Honor thereupon changed her mind. She had not intended to whisper a hint of her tragic discovery, but the other's ready sympathy proved too much for her reserve. Moreover, there was a thought in her that perhaps the sooner Yeoland knew the truth the better. She told him a little of what had happened and attributed it to her husband's great present weakness; yet the thing sounded graver spoken aloud, even in her very guarded version, and Christopher's forehead showed that he, too, held it serious.
"Of course he didn't mean it," she concluded; "and to-morrow he will be sorry for having spoken so. But I'm afraid that dear Myles will never understand that we are different from other people."
"You think we are?"
"I know we are. Surely we have proved that to one another, if not to the world."
"We can't expect people to take us at our own valuation. This row comes appositely in a way. God knows the truth, but all the same, perhaps the position is impracticable. The world would say that Myles was right, and that we were too—too original. Only what's to be done? Of course he can't forbid us to speak to one another—that's absurd. But, for some reason, our friendship makes him a miserable man. He's let that out to-night, poor dear chap."
"I wish I could understand his attitude; but I must make myself understand it, Christo. It is my duty."
"I believe I do know what he feels. It's pride more than jealousy. His mind is too well hung to be jealous, but pride is the bait to catch all big natures. He doesn't like to feel any other man has the power to please you."
"But remember the basis of our friendship. It must make a difference. And I have always been so frank. He knew—none better—what we were each to the other once; and he knows that I am fond of you and always must be so."
"Exactly; and that's not knowledge to make him particularly happy. We have accentuated it of late, and hurt him. He sees perils and troubles ahead that don't really exist—mere phantoms—yet, from his point of view, they look real enough. He cannot see, and so there's probably a growing inclination on his part to kick me out of Little Silver, if such a thing could be done. Yes, I appreciate his attitude, though he can't appreciate mine. It comes to this: my deep content in your society is making him very angry—and worse than angry. He's turning by slow degrees into a volcano. To-day came the first little eruption—a mere nothing. Myles will regret it, and to-morrow bank up the fire again in his usual Spartan way; but he is powerless to prevent the sequel. There may be a regular Pompeii and Herculaneum presently. Your husband is built that way, though I never guessed it. If you were mine, and he was in my position, I should not turn a hair, knowing you and knowing him; but he is different. He doesn't know me at all, and he doesn't know you as well as I do. He must be blind to a nature like yours by the accident of his own personal temperament."
"He understands me, I am sure—at least, I think so."
"Not all round. But that's beside the mark. The question is, What next?"
"No question at all. My whole life and soul must be devoted to making him happy in spite of himself."
"And what must I do?"
She did not answer, and before need of a definite decision and the necessity for action, Christopher fell back upon his customary methods.
"Obviously I must do nothing. Least done soonest mended—a proverb quite as wise as the one I found it on; for deeds make more bother in the world than the loudest words. I shall let Time try his hand. It will probably come out all right when Myles gets well. He's so sane in most things—only there's my volcano theory, I tell you what; I'll speak to your uncle and ask him if he sees any difficulty."
"Can't you make up your mind yourself?"
"No—unless you express a wish. Otherwise I shall go on as I am going. I'll see Mr. Endicott, and when Myles is fit again I'll see him. Yes, that's the road of wisdom. I'll meet him and say, 'Now, old chap, explode and give me the full force of the discharge. Tell me what you mean and what you want.'"
Honor, for her part, found loyalty wakened rather than weakened by her husband's remonstrances. She desired to return to him—to get back to his heart. Christopher wearied her just now, and when Mark Endicott entered from the sick-room, Honor bid Yeoland farewell and hastened to Myles.
Yeoland chatted awhile, shared some spirit and water with the blind man, and then, on a sudden, after private determination to do no such thing, broached the problem in his mind.
"Look here," he said; "I've had a nasty jar to-night, Mr. Endicott, and I'm in no end of a muddle. You know that I'm a well-meaning brute in my way, even granted that the way is generally wrong. But I wouldn't really hurt a fly, whereas now, in blissful ignorance, I've done worse. I've hurt a man—-a man I feel the greatest respect for—the husband of my best friend in the world. It's jolly trying, because he and I are built so differently. There's an inclination on his part to turn this thing into the three-volume form apparently. It's such ghastly rot when you think of what I really am. In plain English, Stapledon doesn't like his wife to see so much of me. She only discovered this deplorable fact to-day, and it bewildered her as much as it staggered me. Heaven's my judge, I never guessed that he was looking at me so. Nor did Honor. Such kindred spirits as we are—and now, in a moment of weakness, the man bid her see me no more! Of course, he's too big to go in for small nonsense of that kind, and he'll withdraw such an absurd remark as soon as he's cool again; but straws show which way the wind blows, and I want to get at my duty. Tell me that, and I'll call you blessed."
"What is Honor to you?"
"The best part of my life, if you must know—on the highest plane of it."
"Don't talk about 'planes'! That's all tom-foolery! You're a wholesome, healthy man and woman—anyway, other people must assume so. I'll give you credit for believing yourself, however. I'll even allow your twaddle about planes does mean something to you, because honestly you seem deficient—degenerate as far as your flesh is concerned. All the same, Stapledon is right in resenting this arrangement with all his heart and soul. His patience has amazed me. Two men can't share a woman under our present system of civilisation."
"Which is to say a wife may not have any other intellectual kindred spirit but her husband. D'you mean that?"
"No, I don't. I mean that when a man openly says that a woman is the best part of his life, her husband can't be blamed for resenting it."
"But what's the good of lying about the thing? Surely circumstances alter cases? It was always so. He knew that Honor and I loved each other in our queer way long before he came on the scene. She can't stop loving me because she has married him."
"It isn't easy to argue with you, Yeoland," answered Mark quietly; "but this I see clearly: your very attitude towards the position proclaims you a man of most unbalanced mind. There's a curious kink in your nature—that is if you're not acting. Suppose Honor was your wife and she found greater pleasure in the society of somebody else, and gradually, ignorantly, quite unconsciously slipped away and away from you; imperceptibly, remember—so subtly that she didn't know it herself—that nobody but you knew it. How much of that would you suffer without a protest?"
"I shouldn't bother—not if she was happy. That's the point, you see: her happiness. I constitute it in some measure—eh? Or let us say that I contribute to it. Then why need he be so savage? Surely her happiness is his great ambition too?"
"Granted. Put the world and common sense and seemliness on one side. They don't carry weight with you. Her happiness then—her lasting happiness—not the trumpery pleasure of to-day and to-morrow."
"Is it wise to look much beyond to-morrow when 'happiness' is the thing to be sought?"
"Perhaps not—as you understand it—so we'll say 'content.' Happiness is a fool's goal at best. You love Honor, and you desire for her peace of mind and a steadfast outlook founded on a basis strong enough to stand against the storms and sorrows of life. I assume that."
"I desire for her the glory of life and the fulness thereof."
"You must be vague, I suppose; but I won't be, since this is a very vital matter. I don't speak without sympathy for you either; but, in common with the two of you—Myles and yourself—this silly woman is uppermost in my mind—her and her good. So, since you ask, I tell you I'm disappointed with you; you've falsified my predictions of late, and your present relations with Honor have drifted into a flat wrong against her husband, though you may be on a plane as high as heaven, in your own flabby imagination. This friendship is not a thing settled, defined, marked off all round by boundaries. No friendship stands still, any more than anything else in the universe. Even if you're built of uncommon mud, lack your share of nature, and can philander to the end of the chapter without going further, or thinking further, that is no reason why you should do so. The husband of her can't be supposed to understand that you're a mere curiosity with peculiar machinery inside you. He gives you the credit of being an ordinary man, or denies you the credit of being an extraordinary one, which you please. So it's summed up in a dozen words: either see a great deal less of Honor, or, if you can't breathe the same air with her apart from her, go away, as an honourable man must, and put the rim of the world between you. Try to live apart, and let that be the gauge of your true feeling. If you can bide at Godleigh happy from month to month without sight of her or sound of her voice, then I'll allow you are all you claim to be and give you a plane all to yourself above the sun; but if you find you can do no such thing, then she's more to you by far than the wife of another man ought to be, and you're not so abnormal as you reckon yourself. This is going right back upon your renunciation in the beginning—as pitiful a thing as ever I heard tell about."
"Stay here and never see her! How would you like it? I mean—you see and hear with the mind, though your eyes are dark. Of course I couldn't do that. What's Godleigh compared to her?"
"And still you say that sight of her and sound of her voice is all you want to round and complete your life?
"Emphatically."
"You're a fool to say so."
"You don't believe it?"
"Nor would any other body. Least of all her husband."
"A man not soaked in earth would."
"Find him, then. Human nature isn't going to put off its garment at your bidding. If you're only half-baked—that's your misfortune, or privilege. You'll have to be judged by ordinary standards nevertheless."
"Then I must leave the land of my fathers—I must go away from Godleigh because a man misunderstands me?"
"You must go away from Godleigh because, on your own showing, you can't stop in it without the constant companionship of another man's wife."
"What a brute you'd make me! That's absolutely false in the spirit, if true in the letter. The letter killeth. You to heave such a millstone!"
"You're a poorer creature than I thought," answered Mark sternly, "much poorer. Yet even you will allow perhaps that it is to her relations with her husband, not her relations with you, that Honor Endicott must look for lasting peace—if she's to have it."
"Yet I have made her happier by coming back into her life."
"It's doubtful. In one way yes, because you did things by halves—went out of her life and then came back into it at the wrong moment. I won't stop to point out the probable course of events if you had kept away altogether; that might not be fair to you perhaps, though I marvel you missed the lesson and have forgotten the punishment so soon. Coming back to her, ghost-haunted as she was, you did make her happier, for you lifted the horror of fear and superstition from her. But now her lasting content is the theme. How does your presence here contribute to that?"
"It would very considerably if Stapledon was different."
"Or if he was dead—or if—a thousand 'ifs.' But Stapledon is Stapledon. So what are you going to do with the advice I've given you?"
"Not use it, I assure you. Consider what it means to drive me away from Godleigh!"
"For her lasting content."
"I don't know about that. Of course, if it could be proved."
"You do know; and it has been proved."
"Not to my satisfaction. I resent your putting me in a separate compartment, as if I was a new sort of beast or a quaint hybrid. I'm a very ordinary man—not a phenomenon—and there are plenty more people in the world who think and act as I do."
"Go and join them, then," said Mr. Endicott, "for your own peace of mind and hers. Get out of her life; and remember that there's only one way—that leading from here. I'm sorry for you, but you'll live to know I've spoken the truth, unless your conscience was forgotten, too, when the Lord fashioned you."
Yeoland grumbled a little; then he brightened up.
"My first thought was best," he said. "I should not have bothered you with all this nonsense, for it really is nonsense when you think of it seriously. I should have stuck to my resolve—to see Myles himself and thrash this out, man to man. And so I will the moment he's up to it. The truth is, we're all taking ourselves much too seriously, which is absurd. Good-night, my dear sir. And thank you for your wisdom; but I'll see Stapledon—that is the proper way."