And then her arms held—and her despairing eyes looking down into his mocking ones—and the helpless sense of indignity and wrong—and of her own utter and criminal folly.
And through her memory there ran in an ugly dance those things, those monstrous things, he had said to her about the Scotch woman. It was not at all absolutely sure that she, Hester, was his wife. He had shown her those letters at St. Germains, of course, to reassure her; and the letters were perfectly genuine letters, written by the people they professed to be written by. Still Scotch marriage law was a damned business—one never knew. Hehopedit was all right; but if she did hate him as poisonously as she said, if she did really want to get rid of him, he might perhaps be able to assist her.
Had he after all tricked and ruined her? Yet as her consciousness framed the question in the conventional phrases familiar to her through newspapers and novels, she hardly knew what they meant, this child of eighteen, who in three short weeks had been thrust through the fire of an experience on which she had never had time to reflect. Flattered vanity, and excitement, leading up almost from the first day to instinctive and fierce revolt—intervals of acquiescence, of wild determination to be happy, drowned in fresh rebellions of soul and sense—through these alternations the hours had rushed on, culminating in her furtive and sudden escape from the man of whom she was now in mad fear—her blind flight for "home."
Thecommonnessof her case, the absence of any romantic or poetic element in it—it was that which galled, which degraded her in her own eyes. Only three weeks since she had felt that entire and arrogant belief in herself, in her power over her own life and Philip's, on which she now looked back as merely ludicrous!—inexplicable in a girl of the most ordinary intelligence. What power had girls over men?—such men as Philip Meryon?
Her vanity was bleeding to death—and her life with it. Since the revelation of her birth, she seemed to have been blindly struggling to regain her own footing in the world—the kind of footing she was determined to have. Power and excitement;notto be pitied, but to be followed, wooed, adored; not to be forced on the second and third bests of the world, but to have the "chief seat," the daintest morsel, thebeau rôlealways—had not this been her instinctive, unvarying demand on life? And now? If she were indeed married, she was tied to a man who neither loved her, nor could bring her any position in the world; who was penniless, and had only entrapped her that he might thereby get some money out of her relations; who, living or dead, would be a disgrace to her, standing irrevocably between her and any kind of honour or importance in society.
And if he had deceived her, and she were not his wife—she would be free indeed; but what would her freedom matter to her? What decent man would ever love her now—marry her—set her at his side? At eighteen—eighteen! all those chances were over for her. It was so strange that she could have laughed at her own thoughts; and yet at the same time it was so ghastly true! No need now to invent a half-sincere chatter about "Fate." She felt herself in miserable truth the mere feeble mouse wherewith the great cat Fate was playing.
And yet—after all—she herself had done it!—by her own sheer madness. She seemed to see Aunt Alice's plaintive face, the eyes that followed her, the lip that trembled when she said an unkind or wanton thing; she heard again the phrases of Uncle Richard's weekly letters, humorous, tender phrases, with here and there an occasional note of austerity, or warning.
Oh yes—she had done it—she had ruined herself.
She felt the tears running over her cheeks, mingling with the snow as it pelted in her face. Suddenly she realized how cold she was, how soaked. She must—must go back to shelter—to human faces—to kind hands. She put out her own, groping helplessly—and rose to her feet.
But the darkness was now much advanced, and the great snowstorm of the night had begun. She could not see the path below her at all, and only some twenty yards of its course above her. In the whirling gloom and in the fury of the wind, although she turned to descend the path, her courage suddenly failed her. She remembered a stream she had crossed on a little footbridge with a rail; could she ever see to recross it again?—above the greedy tumult of the water? Peering upward it seemed to her that she saw something like walls in front of her—perhaps another sheepfold? That would give her shelter for a little, and perhaps the snow would stop—perhaps it was only a shower. She struggled on, and up, and found indeed some fragments of walls, beside the path, one of the many abandoned places among the Westmoreland fells that testify to the closer settlement of the dales in earlier centuries.
And just as she clambered within them, the clouds sweeping along the fell-side lifted and parted for the last time, and she caught a glimpse of a wide, featureless world, the desolate top of the fells, void of shelter or landmark, save that straight across it, from gloom to gloom, there ran a straight white thing—a ghostly and forsaken track. The Roman road, no doubt, of which the shepherd had spoken. And a vision sprang into her mind of Roman soldiers tramping along it, helmeted and speared, their heads bent against these northern storms—shivering like herself. She gazed and gazed, fascinated, till her bewildered eyes seemed to perceive shadows upon it, moving—moving—toward her.
A panic fear seized her.
"I must get home!—I must!—"
And sobbing, with the sudden word "mother!" on her lips, she ran out of the shelter she had found, taking, as she supposed, the path toward the valley. But blinded with snow and mist, she lost it almost at once. She stumbled on over broken and rocky ground, wishing to descend, yet keeping instinctively upward, and hearing on her right from time to time, as though from depths of chaos, the wild voices of the valley, the wind tearing the cliffs, the rushing of the stream. Soon all was darkness; she knew that she had lost herself; and was alone with rock and storm. Still she moved; but nerve and strength ebbed; and at last there came a step into infinity—a sharp pain—and the flame of consciousness went out.
The February afternoon in Long Whindale, shortened by the first heavy snowstorm of the winter, passed quickly into darkness. Down through all the windings of the valley the snow showers swept from the north, becoming, as the wind dropped a little toward night, a steady continuous fall, which in four or five hours had already formed drifts of some depth in exposed places.
Toward six o'clock, the small farmer living across the lane from Burwood became anxious about some sheep which had been left in a high "intak" on the fell. He was a thriftless, procrastinating fellow, and when the storm came on about four o'clock had been taking his tea in a warm ingle-nook by his wife's fire. He was then convinced that the storm would "hod off," at least till morning, that the sheep would get shelter enough from the stone walls of the "intak," and that all was well. But a couple of hours later the persistence of the snowfall, together with his wife's reproaches, goaded him into action. He went out with his son and lanterns, intending to ask the old shepherd at the Bridge Farm to help them in their expedition to find and fold the sheep.
Meanwhile, in the little sitting-room at Burwood Catherine Elsmere and Mary were sitting, the one with her book, the other with her needlework, while the snow and wind outside beat on the little house. But Catharine's needlework often dropped unheeded from her fingers; and the pages of Mary's book remained unturned. The postman who brought letters up the dale in the morning, and took letters back to Whinborough at night, had just passed by in his little cart, hooded and cloaked against the storm, and hoping to reach Whinborough before the drifts in the roads had made travelling too difficult. Mary had put into his hands a letter addressed to the Rev. Richard Meynell, Hotel Richelieu, Paris. And beside her on the table lay a couple of sheets of foreign notepaper, covered closely with Meynell's not very legible handwriting.
Catharine also had some open letters on her lap. Presently she turned toMary.
"The Bishop thinks the trial will certainly end tomorrow."
"Yes," said Mary, without raising her eyes.
Catharine took her daughter's hand in a tender clasp.
"I am so sorry!—for you both."
"Dearest!" Mary laid her mother's hand against her cheek. "But I don't think Richard will be misunderstood again."
"No. The Bishop says that mysterious as it all is, nobody blames him for being absent. They trust him. But this time, it seems, hedidwrite to the Bishop—just a few words."
"Yes, I know. I am glad." But as she spoke, the pale severity of the girl's look belied the word she used. During the fortnight of Meynell's absence, while he and Alice Puttenham in the south of France had been following every possible clue in a vain search for Hester, and the Arches trial had been necessarily left entirely to the management of Meynell's counsel, and to the resources of his co-defendants, Darwen and Chesham, Mary had suffered much. To see his own brilliant vindication of himself and his followers, in the face of religious England, snuffed out and extinguished in a moment by the call of this private duty had been hard!—all the more seeing that the catastrophe had been brought about by misconduct so wanton, so flagrant, as Hester's. There had sprung up in Mary's mind, indeed, asaeva indignatio,not for herself, but for Richard, first and foremost, and next for his cause. Dark as she knew Meynell's forebodings and beliefs to be, anxiety for Hester must sometimes be forgotten in a natural resentment for high aims thwarted, and a great movement risked, by the wicked folly of a girl of eighteen, on whom every affection and every care had been lavished.
"The roads will be impassable to-morrow," said Catharine, drawing aside the curtain, only to see a window already blocked with drifted snow. "But—who can be ringing on such a night!"
For a peal of the front door bell went echoing through the little house.
Mary stepped into the hall, and herself opened the door, only to be temporarily blinded by the rush of wind and snow through the opening.
"A telegram!" she exclaimed, in wonder. "Please come in and wait. Isn't it very bad?"
"I hope I'll be able to get back!" laughed the young man who had brought it. "The roads are drifting up fast. It was noa good bicycling. I got 'em to gie me a horse. I've just put him in your stable, miss."
But Mary heard nothing of what he was saying. She had rushed back into the sitting-room.
"Mother!—Richard and Miss Puttenham will be here to-night. They have heard of Hester."
In stupefaction they read the telegram, which had had been sent fromCrewe:
"Received news of Hester on arrival Paris yesterday. She has left M. Says she has gone to find your mother. Keep her. We arrive to-night Whinborough 7.10."
"It is now seven," said Catharine, looking at her watch. "But where—where is she?"
Hurriedly they called their little parlour-maid into the room and questioned her with closed doors. No—she knew nothing of any visitor. Nobody had called; nobody, so far as she knew, had passed by, except the ordinary neighbours. Once in the afternoon, indeed, she had thought she heard a carriage pass the bottom of the lane, but on looking out from the kitchen she had seen nothing of it.
Out of this slender fact, the only further information that could be extracted was a note of time. It was, the girl thought, about four o'clock when she heard the carriage pass.
"But it couldn't have passed," Catharine objected, "or you would have seen it go up the valley."
The girl assented, for the kitchen window commanded the road up to the bridge. Then the carriage, if she had really heard it, must have come to the foot of the lane, turned and gone back toward Whinborough again. There was no other road available.
The telegraph messenger was dismissed, after a cup of coffee; and thankful for something to do, Catharine and Mary, with minds full of conjecture and distress, set about preparing two rooms for their guests.
"Will they ever get here?" Mary murmured to herself, when at last the two rooms lay neat and ready, with a warm fire in each, and she could allow herself to open the front door again, an inch or two, and look out into the weather. Nothing to be seen but the whirling snow-flakes. The horrid fancy seized her that Hester had really been in that carriage and had turned back at their very door. So that again Richard, arriving weary and heart-stricken, would be disappointed. Mary's bitterness grew.
But all that could be done was to listen to every sound without, in the hope of catching something else than the roaring of the wind, and to give the rein to speculation and dismay.
Catharine sat waiting, in her chair, the tears welling silently. It touched her profoundly that Hester, in her sudden despair, should have thought of coming to her; though apparently it was a project she had not carried out. All her deep heart of compassion yearned over the lost, unhappy one. Oh, to bring her comfort!—to point her to the only help and hope in the arms of an all-pitying God. Catharine knew much more of Meryon's history and antecedents—from Meynell—than did Mary. She was convinced that the marriage, if there had been a marriage, had been a bogus one, and that the disgrace was irreparable. But in her stern, rich nature, now that the culprit had turned from her sin, there was not a thought of condemnation; only a yearning pity, an infinite tenderness.
At last toward nine o'clock there were steps on the garden path. Mary flew to the door. In the porch there stood the old shepherd from the Bridge Farm. His hat, beard, and shoulders were heavy with snow, and his face shone like a red wrinkled apple, in the light of the hall lamp.
"Beg your pardon, miss, but I've just coom from helpin' Tyson to get his sheep in. Varra careless of him to ha' left it so long!—aw mine wor safe i't' fold by fower o'clock. An' I thowt, miss, as I'd mak bold, afore goin' back to t' farm, to coom an' ast yo, if t' yoong leddy got safe hoam this afternoon? I wor a bit worritted, for I thowt I saw her on t' Mardale Head path, juist afther I got hoam, from t' field abuve t' Bridge Farm, an' it wor noan weather for a stranger, miss, yo unnerstan', to be oot on t' fells, and it gettin' so black—"
"What young lady?" cried Mary. "Oh, come in, please."
And she drew him hurriedly into the sitting-room, where Catharine had already sprung to her feet in terror. There they questioned him. Yes—they had been expecting a lady. When had he seen her?—the young lady he spoke of? What was she like? In what direction had she gone? He answered their questions as clearly as he could, his own honest face growing steadily longer and graver.
And all the time he carried, unconsciously, something heavy in his hand, on the top of which the snow had settled. Presently Mary perceived it.
"Sit down, please!" she pushed a chair toward him. "You must be tired out! And let me take that—"
She held out her hand. The old man looked down—recollecting.
"That's noan o' mine, miss. I—"
Catharine cried out—
"It's hers! It's Hester's!"
She took the bag from Mary, and shook the snow from it. It was a small dressing-bag of green leather and on it appeared the initials—"H. F.-W."
They looked at each other speechless. The old man hastened to explain that on opening the gate which led to the house from the lane his foot had stumbled against something on the path. By the light of his lantern he had seen it was a bag of some sort, had picked it up and brought it in.
"Shewasin the carriage!" said Mary, under her breath, "and must have just pushed this inside the gate before—"
Before she went to her death? Was that what would have to be added? For there was horror in both their minds. The mountains at the head of Long Whindale run up to no great height, but there are plenty of crags on them with a sheer drop of anything from fifty to a hundred feet. Ten or twenty feet would be quite enough to disable an exhausted girl. Five hours since she was last seen!—and since the storm began; four hours, at least, since thick darkness had descended on the valley.
"We must do something at once." Catharine addressed the old man in quick, resolute tones. "We must get a party together."
But as she spoke there were further sounds outside—of trampling feet and voices—vying with the storm. Mary ran into the hall. Two figures appeared in the porch in the light of the lamp as she held it up, with a third behind them, carrying luggage. In front stood Meynell, and an apparently fainting woman, clinging to and supported by his arm.
"Help me with this lady, please!" said Meynell, peremptorily, not recognizing who it was holding the light. "This last little climb has been too much for her. Alice!—just a few steps more!"
And bending over his charge, he lifted the frail form over the threshold, and saw, as he did so, that he was placing her in Mary's arms.
"She is absolutely worn out," he said, drawing quick breath, while all his face relaxed in a sudden, irrepressible joy. "But she would come." Then, in a lower voice—"Is Hester here?" Mary shook her head, and something in her eyes warned him of fresh calamity. He stooped suddenly to look at Alice, and perceived that she was quite unconscious. He and Mary, between them, raised her and carried her into the sitting-room. Then, while Mary ministered to her, Meynell grasped Catharine's hand—with the brusque question—
"What has happened?"
Catharine beckoned to old David, the shepherd, and she, with David and Meynell, went across, out of hearing, into the tiny dining-room of the cottage. Meanwhile the horses and man who had brought the travellers from Whinborough had to be put up for the night, for the man would not venture the return journey.
Meynell had soon heard what there was to tell. He himself was gray with fatigue and sleeplessness; but there was no time to think of that.
"What men can we get?" he asked of the shepherd.
Old David ruminated, and finally suggested the two sons of the farmer across the lane, his own master, the young tenant of the Bridge Farm, and the cowman from the same farm.
"And the Lord knaws I'd goa wi you myself, sir"—said the fine-featured old man, a touch of trouble in his blue eyes—"for I feel soomhow as though there were a bit o' my fault in it. But we've had a heavy job on t' fells awready, an I should be noa good to you."
He went over to the neighbouring farm, to recruit some young men, and presently returned with them, the driver, also, from Whinborough, a stalwart Westmoreland lad, eager to help.
Meanwhile Meynell had snatched some food at Catharine's urgent entreaty, and had stood a moment in the sitting-room, his hand in Mary's, looking down upon the just reviving Alice.
"She's been a plucky woman," he said, with emotion; "but she's about at the end of her tether." And in a few brief sentences he described the agitated pursuit of the last fortnight; the rapid journeys, prompted now by this clue, now by that; the alternate hopes and despairs; with no real information of any kind, till Hester's telegram, sent originally to Upcote and reforwarded, had reached Meynell in Paris, just as they had returned thither for a fresh consultation with the police at headquarters.
As the sound of men's feet in the kitchen broke in upon the hurried narrative, and Meynell was leaving the room, Alice opened her eyes.
"Hester?" The pale lips just breathed the name.
"We've heard of her." Meynell stooped to the questioner. "It's a real clue this time. She's not far away. But don't ask any more now. Let Mrs. Elsmere take you to bed—and there'll be more news in the morning."
She made a feeble sign of assent.
A quarter of an hour later all was ready, and Mary stood again in the porch, holding the lamp high for the departure of the rescuers. There were five men with lanterns, ropes, and poles, laden, besides, with blankets, and everything else that Catharine's practical sense could suggest. Old David would go with the rest as far as the Bridge Farm.
The snow was still coming down in a stealthy and abundant fall, but the wind showed some signs of abating.
"They'll find it easier goin', past t' bridge, than it would ha' been an hour since," said old David to Mary, pitying the white anxiety of her face. She thanked him with a smile, and then while he marched ahead, she put down the lamp and leant her head a moment against Meynell's shoulder, and he kissed her hair.
Down went the little procession to the main road. Through the lane the lights wavered, and presently, standing at the kitchen window, Catharine and Mary could watch them dancing up the dale, now visible, now vanishing. It must be at least, and at best, two or three hours before the party reappeared; it might be much more. They turned from useless speculation to give all their thoughts to Alice Puttenham.
Too exhausted to speak or think, she was passive in their hands. She was soon in bed, in a deep sleep, and Mary, having induced her mother to lie down in the sitting-room, and having made up fires throughout the house, sent the servants to bed, and herself began her watch in Alice Puttenham's room.
Dreary and long, the night passed away. Once or twice through the waning storm Mary heard the deep bell of the little church, tolling the hours; once or twice she went hurriedly downstairs thinking there were steps in the garden, only to meet her mother in the hall, on the same bootless errand. At last, worn with thinking and praying, she fell fitfully asleep, and woke to find moonlight shining through the white blind in Alice Puttenham's room. She drew aside the blind and saw with a shock of surprise that the storm was over; the valley lay pure white under a waning moon just dipping to the western fells; the clouds were upfurling; and only the last echoes of the gale were dying through the bare, snow-laden trees that fringed the stream. It was four o'clock. Six hours, since the rescue party had started. Alack!—they must have had far to seek.
Suddenly—out of the dark bosom of the valley, lights emerged. Mary sprang to her feet. Yes! it was they—it was Richard returning.
One look at the bed, where the delicate pinched face still lay high on the pillows, drenched in a sleep which was almost a swoon, and Mary stole out of the room.
There was time to complete their preparations and renew the fires. When Catharine softly unlatched the front door, everything was ready—warm blankets, hot milk, hot water bottles. But now they hardly dared speak to each other; dread kept them dumb. Nearer and nearer came the sound of feet and lowered voices. Soon they could hear the swing of the gate leading into the garden. Four men entered, carrying something. Meynell walked in front with the lantern.
As he saw the open door, he hurried forward. They read what he had to say in his haggard look before he spoke.
"We found her a long way up the pass. She has had a bad fall—but she is alive. That's all one can say. The exposure alone might have killed her. She hasn't spoken—not a word. That good fellow"—he nodded toward the Whinborough lad who had brought them from, the station—"will take one of his horses and go for the doctor. We shall get him here in a couple of hours."
Silently they brought her in, the stalwart, kindly men, they mounted the cottage stairs, and on Mary' bed they laid her down.
O crushed and wounded youth! The face, drawn and fixed in pain, was marble-cold and marble-white; the delicate mire-stained hands hung helpless. Masses of drenched hair fell about the neck and bosom; and there was a wound on the temple which had been bandaged, but was now bleeding afresh. Catharine bent over her in an anguish, feeling for pulse and heart. Meynell, whispering, pointed out that the right leg was broken below the knee. He himself had put it in some rough splints, made out of the poles the shepherds were carrying.
Both Catharine and Mary had ambulance training, and, helped by their two maids, they did all they could. They cut away the soaked clothes. They applied warmth in every possible form; they got down some spoonfuls of warm milk and brandy, dreading always to hear the first sounds of consciousness and pain.
They came at last—the low moans of one coming terribly back to life.Meynell returned to the room, and knelt by her.
"Hester—dear child!—you are quite safe—we are all here—the doctor will be coming directly."
His tone was tender as a woman's. His ghostly face, disfigured by exhaustion, showed him absorbed in pity. Mary, standing near, longed to kneel down by him, and weep; but there was an austere sense that not even she must interrupt the moment of recognition.
At last it came. Hester opened her eyes—
"Uncle Richard?—Is that Uncle Richard?"
A long silence, broken by moaning, while Meynell knelt there, watching her, sometimes whispering to her.
At last she said, "I couldn't face you all. I'm dying." She moved her right hand restlessly. "Give me something for this pain—I—I can't stand it."
"Dear Hester—can you bear it a little longer? We will do all we can. We have sent for the doctor. He has a motor. He will be here very soon."
"I don't want to live. I want to stop the pain. Uncle Richard!"
"Yes, dear Hester."
"I hate Philip—now."
"It's best not to talk of him, dear. You want all your strength."
"No—I must. There's not much time. I suppose—I've—I've made you very unhappy?"
"Yes—but now we have you again—our dear, dear Hester."
"You can't care. And I—can't say—I'm sorry. Don't you remember?"
His face quivered. He understood her reference to the long fits of naughtiness of her childhood, when neither nurse, nor governess, nor "Aunt Alice" could ever get out of her the stereotyped words "I'm sorry." But he could not trust himself to speak. And it seemed as though she understood his silence, for she feebly moved her uninjured hand toward him; and he raised it to his lips.
"Did I fall—a long way? I don't recollect—anything."
"You had a bad fall, my poor child. Be brave!—the doctor will help you."
He longed to speak to her of her mother, to tell her the truth. It was borne in upon him that hemusttell her—if she was to die; that in the last strait, Alice's arms must be about her. But the doctor must decide.
Presently, she was a little easier. The warm stimulant dulled the consciousness which came in gusts.
Once or twice, as she recognized the faces near her, there was a touch of life, even of mockery. There was a moment when she smiled at Catharine—
"You're sweet. You won't say—'I told you so'!"
In one of the intervals when she seemed to have lapsed again into unconsciousness Meynell reported something of the search. They had found her a long distance from the path, at the foot of a steep and rocky scree, some twenty or thirty feet high, down which she must have slipped headlong. There she had lain for some eight hours in the storm before they found her. She neither moved nor spoke when they discovered her, nor had there been any sign of life, beyond the faint beating of the pulse, on the journey down.
The pale dawn was breaking when the doctor arrived. His verdict was at first not without hope. Shemightlive; if there were no internal injuries of importance. The next few hours would show. He sent his motor back to Whinborough Cottage Hospital for a couple of nurses, and prepared, himself, to stay the greater part of the day. He had just gone downstairs to speak to Meynell, and Catharine was sitting by the bed, when Hester once more roused herself.
"How that man hurt me!—don't let him come in again."
Then, in a perfectly hard, clear voice, she added imperiously—"I want to see my mother."
Catharine stooped toward her, in an agitation she found it difficult to conceal.
"Dear Hester!—we are sending a telegram as soon as the post-office is open to Lady Fox-Wilton."
Hester moved her hand impatiently.
"She's not my mother, and I'm glad. Where is—my mother?" She laid a strange, deep emphasis on the word, opening her eyes wide and threateningly. Catharine understood at once that, in some undiscovered way, she knew what they had all been striving to keep from her. It was no time for questioning. Catharine rose quietly.
"She is here, Hester, I will go and tell her."
Leaving one of the maids in charge, Catharine ran down to the doctor, who gave a reluctant consent, lest more harm should come of refusing the interview than of granting it. And as Catharine ran up again to Mary's room she had time to reflect, with self-reproach, on the strange completeness with which she at any rate had forgotten that frail ineffectual woman asleep in Mary's room from the moment of Hester's arrival till now.
But Mary had not forgotten her. When Catharine opened the door, it was to see a thin, phantom-like figure, standing fully dressed, and leaning on Mary's arm. Catharine went up to her with tears, and kissed her, holding her hands close.
"Hester asks for you—for her mother—her real mother. She knows."
"She knows?" Alice stood paralyzed a moment, gazing at Catharine. Then the colour rushed back into her face. "I am coming—I am coming—at once," she said impetuously. "I am quite strong. Don't help me, please. And—let me go in alone. I won't do her harm. If you—and Mary—would stand by the door—I would call in a moment—if—"
They agreed. She went with tottering steps across the landing. On the threshold, Catharine paused; Mary remained a little behind. Alice went in and shut the door.
The blinds in Hester's room were up, and the snow-covered fells rising steeply above the house filled it with a wintry, reflected light; a dreary light, that a large fire could not dispel. On the white bed lay Hester, breathing quickly and shallowly; bright colour now in each sunken cheek. The doctor himself had cut off a great part of her hair—her glorious hair. The rest fell now in damp golden curls about her slender neck, beneath the cap-like bandage which hid the forehead and temples and gave her the look of a young nun. At first sight of her, Alice knew that she was doomed. Do what she would, she could not restrain the low cry which the sight tore from the depths of life.
Hester feebly beckoned. Alice came near, and took the right hand in hers, while Hester smiled, her eyelids fluttering. "Mother!"—she said, so as scarcely to be heard—and then again—"Mother!"
Alice sank down beside her with a sob, and without a word they gazed into each other's eyes. Slowly Hester's filled with tears. But Alice's were dry. In her face there was as much ecstasy as anguish. It was the first look that Hester'ssoulhad ever given her. All the past was in it; and that strange sense, on both sides, that there was no future.
At last Alice murmured:
"How did you know?"
"Philip told me."
The girl stopped abruptly. It had been on her tongue to say—"It was that made me go with him."
But she did not say it. And while Alice's mind, rushing miserably over the past, was trying to piece together some image of what had happened, Hester began to talk intermittently about the preceding weeks. Alice tried to stop her; but to thwart her only produced a restless excitement, and she had her way.
She spoke of Philip with horror, yet with a perfectly clear sense of her own responsibility.
"I needn't have gone—but I would go. There was a devil in me—that wanted to know. Now I know—too much. I'm glad it's over. This life isn't worth while—not for me."
So, from these lips of eighteen, came the voice of the world's old despairs!
Presently she asked peremptorily for Meynell, and he came to her.
"Uncle Richard, I want to be sure"—she spoke strongly and in her natural voice—"am I Philip's wife—or—or not? We were married on January 25th, at the Mairie of the 10th Arrondissement, by a man in a red scarf. We signed registers and things. Then—when we quarrelled—Philip said—he wasn't certain about that woman—in Scotland. You might be right. Tell me the truth, please. Am I—his wife?"
And as the words dropped faintly, the anxiety in her beautiful death-stricken eyes was strange and startling to see. Through all her recklessness, her defiance of authority and custom, could be seen at last the strength of inherited, implanted things; the instinct of a race, a family, overleaping deviation.
Meynell bent over her steadily, and took her hand in both his own.
"Certainly, you are his wife. Have no anxiety at all about that. My inquiries all broke down. There was no Scotch marriage."
Hester said nothing for a little; but the look of relief was clear. Alice on the farther side of the bed dropped her face in her hands. Was it not only forty-eight hours since, in Paris, Meynell had told her that he had received conclusive evidence of the Scotch marriage, and that Hester was merely Philip's victim, not his wife? Passionately her heart thanked him for the falsehood. She saw clearly that Hester's mortal wounds were not all bodily. She was dying partly of self-contempt, self-judgment. Meynell's strong words—his "noble lie"—had lifted, as it were, a fraction of the moral weight that was destroying her; had made a space—a freedom, in which the spirit could move.
So much Alice saw; blind meanwhile to the tragic irony of this piteous stress laid at such a moment, by one so lawless, on the social law!
Thenceforward the poor sufferer was touchingly gentle and amenable. Morphia had been given her liberally, and the relief was great. When the nurses came at midday, however, the pulse had already begun to fail. They could do nothing; and though within call, they left her mainly to those who loved her.
In the early afternoon she asked suddenly for the Communion, and Meynell administered it. The three women who were watching her received it with her. In Catharine's mind, as Meynell's hands brought her the sacred bread and wine, all thought of religious difference between herself and him had vanished, burnt away by sheer heat of feeling. There was no difference! Words became mere transparencies, through which shone the ineffable.
When it was over, Hester opened her eyes—"Uncle Richard!" The voice was only a whisper now. "You loved my father?"
"I loved him dearly—and you—and your mother—for his sake."
He stooped to kiss her cheek.
"I wonder what it'll be like"—she said, after a moment, with more strength—"beyond? How strange that—I shall know before you! Uncle Richard—I'm—I'm sorry!"
At that the difficult tears blinded him, and he could not reply. But she was beyond tears, concentrating all the last effort of the mind on the sheer maintenance of life. Presently she added:
"I don't hate—even Philip now. I—I forget him. Mother!" And again she clung to her mother's hand, feebly turning her face to be kissed.
Once she opened her eyes when Mary was beside her, and smiled brightly.
"I've been such a trouble, Mary—I've spoilt Uncle Richard's life. But now you'll have him all the time—and he'll have you. You dear!—Kiss me. You've got a golden mother. Take care of mine—won't you?—my poor mother!"
So the hours wore on. Science was clever and merciful and eased her pain. Love encompassed her, and when the wintry light failed, her faintly beating heart failed with it, and all was still….
"Richard!—Richard!—Come with me."
So, with low, tender words, Mary tried to lead him away, after that trance of silence in which they had all been standing round the dead. He yielded to her; he was ready to see the doctor and to submit to the absolute rest enjoined. But already there was something in his aspect which terrified Mary. Through the night that followed, as she lay awake, a true instinct told her that the first great wrestle of her life and her love was close upon her.
On the day following Hester's death an inquest was held in the dining-room at Burwood. Meynell and old David, the shepherd, stood out chief among the witnesses.
"This poor lady's name, I understand, sir," said the gray-haired Coroner, addressing Meynell, when the first preliminaries were over, "was Miss Hester Fox-Wilton; she was the daughter of the late Sir Ralph Fox-Wilton; she was under age; and you and Lady Fox-Wilton—who is not here, I am told, owing to illness—were her guardians?"
Meynell assented. He stood to the right of the Coroner, leaning heavily on the chair before him. The doctor who had been called in to Hester sat beside him, and wondered professionally whether the witness would get through.
"I understand also," the Coroner resumed, "that Miss Fox-Wilton had left the family in Paris with whom you and Lady Fox-Wilton had placed her, some three weeks ago, and that you have since been in search of her, in company I believe with Miss Fox-Wilton's aunt, Miss Alice Puttenham. Miss Puttenham, I hope, will appear?"
The doctor rose—
"I am strongly of opinion, sir, that, unless for most urgent reasons, Miss Puttenham should not be called upon. She is in a very precarious state, in consequence of grief and shock, and I should greatly fear the results were she to make the effort."
Meynell intervened.
"I shall be able, sir, I think, to give you sufficient information, without its being necessary to call upon Miss Puttenham."
He went on to give an account, as guarded as he could make it, of Hester's disappearance from the family with whom she was boarding, of the anxiety of her relations, and the search that he and Miss Puttenham had made.
His conscience was often troubled. Vaguely, his mind was pronouncing itself all the while—"It is time now the truth were known. It is better it should be known." Hester's death had changed the whole situation. But he could himself take no step whatever toward disclosure. And he knew that it was doubtful whether he should or could have advised Alice to take any.
The inquiry went on, the Coroner avoiding the subject of Hester's French escapade as much as possible. After all there need be—there was—no question of suicide; only some explanation had to be suggested of the dressing-bag left within the garden gate, and of the girl's reckless climb into the fells, against old David's advice, on such an afternoon.
Presently, in the midst of David's evidence, describing his meeting with Hester by the bridge, the handle of the dining-room door turned. The door opened a little way and then shut again. Another minute or two passed, and then the door opened again timidly as though some one were hesitating outside. The Coroner annoyed, beckoned to a constable standing behind the witnesses. But before he could reach it, a lady had slowly pushed it open, and entered the room.
It was Alice Puttenham.
The Coroner looked up, and the doctor rose in astonishment. Alice advanced to the table, and stood at the farther end from the Coroner, looking first at him and then at the jury. Her face—emaciated now beyond all touch of beauty—and the childish overhanging lip quivered as she tried to speak; but no words came.
"Miss Puttenham, I presume?" said the Coroner. "We were told, madam, that you were not well enough to give evidence."
Meynell was at her side.
"What do you wish?" he said, in a low voice, as he took her hand.
"I wish to give evidence," she said aloud.
The doctor turned toward the Coroner.
"I think you will agree with me, sir, that as Miss Puttenham has made the effort, she should give her evidence as soon as possible, and should give it sitting."
A murmur of assent ran round the table. Over the weather-beatenWestmoreland faces had passed a sudden wave of animation.
Alice took her seat, and the oath. Meynell sitting opposite to her covered his face with his hands. He foresaw what she was about to do, and his heart went out to her.
Everybody at the table bent forward to listen. The two shorthand writers lifted eager faces.
"May I make a statement?" The thin voice trembled through the room.
The Coroner assured the speaker that the Court was willing and anxious to hear anything she might have to say.
Alice fixed her eyes on the old man, as though she would thereby shut out all his surroundings.
"You are inquiring, sir—into the death—of my daughter."
The Coroner made a sudden movement.
"Your daughter, madam? I understood that, this poor young lady was the daughter of the late Sir Ralph and Lady Fox-Wilton?"
"She was their adopted daughter. Her father was Mr. Neville Flood, and I—am her mother. Mr. Flood, of Sandford Abbey, died nearly twenty years ago. He and I were never married. My sister and brother-in-law adopted the child. She passed always as theirs, and when Sir Ralph died, he appointed—Mr. Meynell—and my sister her guardians. Mr. Meynell has always watched over her—and me. Mr. Flood was much attached to him. He wrote to Mr. Meynell, asking him to help us—just before his death."
She paused a moment, steadying herself by the table.
There was not a sound, not a movement in the room. Only Meynell uncovered his eyes and tried to meet hers, so as to give her encouragement.
She resumed—
"Last August the nurse who attended me—in my confinement—came home to Upcote. She made a statement to a gentleman there—a false statement—and then she died. I wished then to make the truth public—but Mr. Meynell—as Hester's guardian—and for her sake, as well as mine—did not wish it. She knew nothing—then; and he was afraid of its effect upon her. I followed his advice, and took her abroad, in order to protect her from a bad man who was pursuing her. We did all we could—but we were not able to protect her. They were married without my knowing—and she went away with him. Then he—this man—told her—or perhaps he had done it before, I don't know—who she was. I can only guess how he knew; but he is Mr. Flood's nephew. My poor child soon found out what kind of man he was. She tried to escape from him. And because Mrs. Elsmere had been always very kind to her, she came here. She knew how—"
The voice paused, and then with difficulty shaped its words again.
"She knew that we should grieve so terribly. She shrank from seeing us. She thought we might be here—and that—partly—made her wander away again—in despair—when she actually got here. But her death was a pure accident—that I am sure of. At the last, she tried to get home—to me. That was the only thing she was conscious of—before she fell. When she was dying—she told me she knew—I was her mother. And now—that she is dead—"
The voice changed and broke—a sudden cry forced its way through—
"Now that she is dead—no one else shall claim her—but me. She's mine now—my child—forever—only mine!"
She broke off incoherently, bowing her head upon her hands, her slight shoulders shaken by her sobs.
The room was silent, save for a rather general clearing of throats. Meynell signalled to the doctor. They both rose and went to her. Meynell whispered to her.
The Coroner spoke, drawing his handkerchief hastily across his eyes.
"The Court is very grateful to you, Miss Puttenham, for this frank and brave statement. We tender you our best thanks. There is no need for us to detain you longer."
She rose, and Meynell led her from the room. Outside was a nurse to whom he resigned her.
"My dear, dear friend!" Trembling, her eyes met the deep emotion in his. "That was right—that will bring you help. Aye! you have her now—all, all your own."
On the day of Hester's burying Long Whindale lay glittering white under a fitful and frosty sunshine. The rocks and screes with their steep beds of withered heather made dark scrawls and scratches on the white; the smoke from the farmhouses rose bluish against the snowy wall of fell; and the river, amid the silence of the muffled roads and paths, seemed the only audible thing in the valley.
In the tiny churchyard the new-made grave had been filled in with frozen earth, and on the sods lay flowers piled there by Rose Flaxman's kind and busy hands. She and Hugh had arrived from the south that morning.
Another visitor had come from the south, also to lay flowers on that wintry grave. Stephen Barron's dumb pain was bitter to see. The silence of spiritual and physical exhaustion in which Meynell had been wrapped since the morning of the inquest was first penetrated and broken up by the sight of Stephen's anguish. And in the attempt to comfort the younger, the elder man laid hold on some returning power for himself.
But he had been hardly hit; and the depth of the wound showed itself strangely—in a kind of fear of love itself, a fear of Mary! Meynell's attitude toward her during these days was almost one of shrinking. The atmosphere between them was electrical; charged with things unspoken, and a conflict that must be faced.
* * * * *
The day after Hester's funeral the newspapers were full of the sentence delivered on the preceding day, in the Arches Court, on Meynell and his co-defendants. A telegram from Darwen the evening before had conveyed the news to Meynell himself.
The sentence of deprivationab officio et beneficioin the Church of England, on the ground of heretical opinion and unauthorized services, had been expressed by the Dean of Arches in a tone and phraseology of considerable vehemence. According to him the proceedings of the Modernists were "as contrary to morality as to law," and he marvelled how "honest men" could consent to occupy the position of Meynell and his friends.
Notice of appeal to the Privy Council was at once given by the Modernist counsel, and a flame of discussion arose throughout England.
Meanwhile, on the morning following the publication of the judgment, Meynell finished a letter, and took it into the dining-room, where Rose and Mary were sitting. Rose, reading his face, disappeared, and he put the letter into Mary's hands.
It was addressed to the Bishop of Dunchester. The great gathering in Dunchester Cathedral, after several postponements to match the delays in the Court of Arches, was to take place within a fortnight from this date, and Meynell had been everywhere announced as the preacher of the sermon, which was to be the battle-cry of the Movement, in the second period of its history; the period of open revolt, of hot and ardent conflict.
The letter which Mary was invited to read was short. It simply asked that the writer should be relieved from a task he felt he could not adequately carry out. He desired to lay it down, not for his own sake, but for the sake of the cause. "I am not the man, and this is not my job. This conviction has been borne in upon me during the last few weeks with an amazing clearness. I will only say that it seems to represent a command—a prohibition—laid upon me, which I cannot ignore. There are of course tragic happenings and circumstances connected with it, my dear lord, on which I will not dwell. The effect of them at present on my mind is that I wish to retire from a public and prominent part in our great Movement; at any rate for a time. I shall carry through the Privy Council appeal; but except for that intend to refuse all public appearance. When the sentence is confirmed, as of course it will be, it will be best for me to confine myself to thinking and writing in solitude and behind the scenes. 'Those also serve who only stand and wait.' The quotation is hackneyed, but it must serve. Through thought and self-proving, I believe that in the end I shall help you best. I am not the fighter I thought I was; the fighter that I ought to be to keep the position that has been so generously given me. Forgive me for a while if I go into the wilderness—a rather absurd phrase, however, as you will agree, when I tell you that I am soon to marry a woman whom I love with my whole heart. But it applies to my connection with the Modernist Movement, and to my position as a leader. My old friends and colleagues—many of them at least—will, I fear, blame the step I am taking. It will seem to them a mere piece of flinching and cowardice. But each man's soul is in his own keeping; and he alone can judge his own powers."
The letter then became a quiet discussion of the best man to be chosen in the writer's stead, and passed on into a review of the general situation created by the sentence of the Court of Arches.
But of these later pages of the letter Mary realized nothing. She sat with it in her hands, after she had read the passage which has been quoted, looking down, her mouth trembling.
Meynell watched her uneasily—then came to sit by her, and took her hand.
"Dearest!—you understand?" he said, entreatingly.
"It is—because of Hester?" She spoke with difficulty.
He assented, and then added—
"But that letter—shall only go with your permission."
She took courage. "Richard, you know so much better than I, but—Richard!—did you ever neglect Hester?"
He tried to answer her question truly.
"Not knowingly."
"Did you ever fail to love her, and try to help her?"
He drew a long breath.
"But there she lies!" He raised his head. Through the window, on a rocky slope, half a mile away, could be seen the tiny church of Long Whindale, and the little graveyard round it.
"It is very possible that I see the thing morbidly"—he turned to her again with a note of humility, of sad appeal, that struck most poignantly on the woman's heart—"but I cannot resist it. What use can I be to any human being as guide, or prophet, or counsellor—if I was so little use to her? Is there not a kind of hypocrisy—a dismal hypocrisy—in my claim to teach—or inspire—great multitudes of people—when this one child—who was given into my care—"
He wrung her hands in his, unable to finish his sentence.
Bright tears stood in her eyes; but she persevered. She struck boldly for the public, the impersonal note. She set against the tragic appeal of the dead the equally tragic appeal of the living. She had in her mind the memory of that London church, with the strained upturned faces, the "hungry sheep"—girls among them, perhaps, in peril like Hester, men assailed by the same vile impulses that had made a brute of Philip Meryon. During the preceding months Mary's whole personality had developed with great rapidity, after a somewhat taciturn and slowly ripening youth. The need, enforced upon her by love itself, of asserting herself even against the mother she adored; the shadow of Meynell's cloud upon her, and her suffering under it, during the weeks of slander; and now this rending tragedy at her doors—had tempered anew the naturally high heart, and firm will. At this critical moment, she saved Meynell from a fatal step by the capacity she showed of loving his cause, only next to himself. And, indeed, Meynell was made wholesomely doubtful once or twice whether it were not in truth his cause she loved in him. For the sweet breakdowns of love which were always at her lips she banished by a mighty effort, till she should have won or lost. Thus throughout she showed herself her mother's daughter—with her father's thoughts.
It was long, however, before she succeeded in making any real impression upon him. All she could obtain at first was delay, and that Catharine should be informed.
As soon as that had been done, the position became once more curiously complex. Here was a woman to whom the whole Modernist Movement was anathema, driven finally into argument for the purpose of compelling the Modernist leader, the contriver and general of Modernist victory, to remain at his post!
For it was part of Catharine's robust character to look upon any pledge, any accepted responsibility, as something not to be undone by any mere feeling, however sharp, however legitimate. You had undertaken the thing, and it must, at all costs, be carried through. That was the dominant habit of her mind; and there were persons connected with her on whom the rigidity of it had at times worked harshly.
On this occasion it was no doubt interfered with—(the Spirit of Comedy would have found a certain high satisfaction in the dilemma)—by the fact that Meynell's persistence in the course he had entered upon must be, in her eyes, andsub specie religionis, a persistence in heresy and unbelief. What decided it ultimately, however, was that she was not only an orthodox believer, but a person of great common sense—and Mary's mother.
Her natural argument was that after the tragic events which had occurred, and the public reports of them which had appeared, Meynell's abrupt withdrawal from public life would once more unsettle and confuse the public mind. If there had been any change in his opinions—
"Oh! do not imagine"—she turned a suddenly glowing face upon him—"I should be trying to dissuade you, if that were your reason. No!—it is for personal and private reasons you shrink from the responsibility of leadership. And that being so, what must the world say—the ignorant world that loves to think evil?"
He looked at her a little reproachfully.
"Those are not arguments that come very naturally from you!"
"They are the right ones!—and I am not ashamed of them. My dear friend—I am not thinking of you at all. I leave you out of count; I am thinking of Alice—and—Mary!"
Catharine unconsciously straightened herself, a touch of something resentful—nay, stern—in the gesture. Meynell stared in stupefaction.
"Alice!—Mary!" he said.
"Up to this last proposed action of yours, has not everything that has happened gone to soften people's hearts? to make them repent doubly of their scandal, and their false witness? Every one knows the truth now—every one who cares; and every one understands. But now—after the effort poor Alice has made—after all that she and you have suffered—you insist on turning fresh doubt and suspicion on yourself, your motives, your past history. Can't you see how people may gossip about it—how they may interpret it? You have no right to do it, my dear Richard!—no right whatever. Your 'good report' belongs not only to yourself—but—to Mary!"
Catharine's breath had quickened; her hand shook upon her knee. Meynell rose from his seat, paced the room and came back to her.
"I have tried to explain to Mary"—he said, desperately—"that I should feel myself a hypocrite and pretender in playing the part of a spiritual leader—when this great—failure—lay upon my conscience."
At that Catharine's tension gave way. Perplexity returned upon her.
"Oh! if it meant—if it meant"—she looked at him with a sudden, sweet timidity—"that you felt you had tried to do for Hester what only grace—what only a living Redeemer—could do for her—"
She broke off. But at last, as Meynell, her junior by fifteen years—her son almost—looked down into her face—her frail, aging, illumined face—there was something in the passion of her faith which challenged and roused his own; which for the moment, at any rate, and for the first time since the crisis had arisen revived in him the "fighter" he had tried to shed.
"The fault was not in the thing preached," he said, with a groan; "or so it seems to me—but in the preacher. The preacher—was unequal to the message."
Catharine was silent. And after a little more pacing he said in a more ordinary tone—and a humble one—
"Does Mary share this view of yours?"
At this Catharine was almost angry.
"As if I should say a word to her about it! Does she know—has she ever known—what you and I knew?"
His eyes, full of trouble, propitiated her. He took her hand and kissed it.
"Bear with me, dear mother! I don't see my way, but Mary—is to me—my life. At any rate, I won't do in a hurry what you disapprove."
Thus a little further delay was gained. The struggle lasted indeed another couple of days, and the aspect of both Meynell and Mary showed deep marks of it by the end. Throughout it Mary made little or no appeal to the mere womanly arts. And perhaps it was the repression of them that cost her most.
On the third day of discussion, while the letter still lay unposted in Meynell's writing-case, he went wandering by himself up the valley. The weather was soft again, and breathing spring. The streams ran free; the buds were swelling on the sycamores; and except on the topmost crags the snow had disappeared from the fells. Harsh and austere the valley was still; the winter's grip would be slow to yield; but the turn of the year had come.
That morning a rush of correspondence forwarded from Upcote had brought matters to a crisis. On the days immediately following the publication of the evidence given at the inquest on Hester the outside world had made no sign. All England knew now why Richard Meynell had disappeared from the Arches Trial, only to become again the prey of an enormous publicity, as one of the witnesses to the finding and the perishing of his young ward. And after Alice Puttenham's statement in the Coroner's Court, for a few days the England interested in Richard Meynell simply held its breath and let him be.
But he belonged to the public; and after just the brief respite that decency and sympathy imposed, the public fell upon him. The Arches verdict had been given; the appeal to the Privy Council had been lodged. With every month of the struggle indeed, as the Modernist attack had grown more determined, and its support more widespread, so the orthodox defence had gathered force and vehemence. Yet through the length and breadth of the country the Modernist petition to Parliament was now kindling such a fire as no resistance could put out. Debate in the House of Commons on the Modernist proposals for Church Reform would begin after Easter. Already every member of the House was being bombarded from both sides by his constituents. Such a heat of religious feeling, such a passion of religious hope and fear, had not been seen in England for generations.
And meanwhile Meynell, whose action had first released the great forces now at work, who as a leader was now doubly revered, doubly honoured by those who clamoured to be led by him, still felt himself utterly unable to face the struggle. Heart and brain were the prey of a deadly discouragement; the will could make no effort; his confidence in himself was lamed and helpless. Not even the growing strength and intensity of his love for Mary could set him, it seemed, spiritually, on his feet.
He left the old bridge on his left, and climbed the pass. And as he walked, some words of Newman possessed him; breathed into his ear through all the wind and water voices of the valley:
Thouto wax fierceIn the cause of the LordTo threat and to pierceWith the heavenly sword!Anger and ZealAnd the Joy of the braveWho badetheeto feel—
Dejectedly, he made his way along the fatal path; he found the ruin where Hester had sheltered; he gradually identified the route which the rescue party had taken along the side of the fell; and the precipitous scree where they had found her. The freshly disturbed earth and stones still showed plainly where she had fallen, and where he and the shepherds had stood, trampling the ground round her. He sat down beside the spot, haunted by the grim memory of that helpless, bleeding form amid the snow. Not yet nineteen!—disgraced—ruined—the young body broken in its prime. Had he been able to do no better for Neville's child than that? The load of responsibility crushed him; and he could not resign himself to such a fate for such a human being. Before him, on the chill background of the tells, he beheld, perpetually, the two Hesters: here, the radiant, unmanageable child, clad in the magic of her teasing, provocative beauty; there, the haggard and dying girl, violently wrenched from life. Religious faith was paralyzed within him. How could he—a man so disowned of God—prophesy to his brethren?….
Thus there descended upon him the darkest hour of his history. It was simply a struggle for existence on the part of all those powers of the soul that make for action, against the forces that make for death and inertia.
It lasted long; and it ended in the slow and difficult triumph, the final ascendency of the "Yeas" of Life over the "Nays," which in truth his character secured. He won the difficult fight not as a philosopher, but as a Christian; impelled, chastened, brought into line again, by purely Christian memories and Christian ideas. The thought of Christ healed him—gradually gave him courage to bear an agony of self-criticism, self-reproach, that was none the less overwhelming because his calmer mind, looking on, knew it to be irrational. There was no prayer to Christ, no "Christe eleison" on his rips. But there was a solemn kneeling by the Cross; a solemn opening of the mind to the cleansing and strengthening forces that flow from that life and death which are Christendom's central possession; the symbol through which, now understood in this way, now in that, the Eternal speaks to the Christian soul.
So, amid "the cheerful silence of the fells," a good man, heavily, took back his task. From this wreck of affection, this ruin of hope, he must go forth to preach love and hope to other men; from the depths of his grief and his defeat he must summon others to struggle and victory.
He submitted.
Then—not till then—naked and stripped as he was of all personal complacency; smarting under the conviction of personal weakness and defeat; tormented still, as he would ever be, by all the "might have beens" of Hester's story, he was conscious of the "supersensual moment," the inrush of Divine strength, which at some time or other rewards the life of faith.
On his way back to Burwood through the gleams and shadows of the valley, he turned aside to lay a handful of green moss on the new-made grave. There was a figure beside it. It was Mary, who had been planting snowdrops. He helped her, and then they descended to the main road together. Looking at his face, she hardly dared, close as his hand clung to hers, to break the silence.
It was dusk, and there was no one in sight. In the shelter of a group of trees, he drew her to him.
"You have your way," he said, sadly.
She trembled a little, her delicate cheek close against his.
"Have I persecuted you?"
He smiled.
"You have taught me what the strength of my wife's will is going to be."
She winced visibly, and the tears came into her eyes.
"Dearest!—" he protested. "Must you not be strong? But for you—I should have gone under."
The primitive instinct of the woman, in this hour of painful victory, would have dearly liked to disavow her own power. The thought of ruling her beloved was odious. Yet as they walked on hand in hand, the modern in Mary prevailed, and she must needs accept the equal rights of a love which is also life's supreme friendship.
A few more days Meynell spent in the quiet of the valley, recovering, as best he could, and through a struggle constantly renewed, some normal steadiness of mood and nerve; dealing with an immense correspondence; and writing the Dunchester sermon; while Stephen Barron, who had already resigned his own living, was looking after the Upcote Church and parish. Meanwhile Alice Puttenham lay upstairs in one of the little white rooms of Burwood, so ill that the doctors would not hear of her being moved. Edith Fox-Wilton had proposed to come and nurse her, in spite of "this shocking business which had disgraced us all." But Catharine at Alice's entreaty had merely appealed to the indisputable fact that the tiny house was already more than full. There was no danger, and they had a good trained nurse.
Once or twice it was, in these days, that again a few passing terrors ran through Mary's mind, on the subject of her mother. The fragility which had struck Meynell's unaccustomed eye when he first arrived in the valley forced itself now at times, though only at times, on her reluctant sense. There were nights when, without any definite reason, she could not sleep for anxiety. And then again the shadow entirely passed away. Catharine laughed at her; and when the moment came for Mary to follow Meynell to the Dunchester meeting, it was impossible even for her anxious love to persuade itself that there was good reason for her to stay away.
* * * * *
Before Meynell departed southward there was a long conversation between him and Alice; and it was at her wish, to which he now finally yielded, that he went straight to Markborough, to an interview with Bishop Craye.
In that interview the Bishop learnt at last the whole story of Hester's birth and of her tragic death. The beauty of Meynell's relation to the mother and child was plainly to be seen through a very reticent narrative; and to the tale of those hours in Long Whindale no man of heart like the little Bishop could have listened unmoved. At the end, the two men clasped hands in silence; and the Bishop looked wistfully at the priest that he and the diocese were so soon to lose.