"I don't want to be too hard on the Row, though. It has a right, after all, to its little prejudices. Only you see for those who, poor souls, are different to other people it becomes of such supreme importance to keep in touch with the average. I have found that out in practice. And so I refuse to shut my waste humanity away. They must neither hide themselves nor be hidden, be spared seeing how much other people enjoy from which they are debarred, or grow over-conscious of their own ungainliness. That is why I've planted them and their gardens, and their pigs and their poultry—we'll have a lot of live stock, a second generation, even of chickens, offers remarkable consolations!—on the highroad, at the entrance of the little town, where, on a small scale at all events, they'll see the world that's straight-backed and has its proper complement of limbs and senses, go by. Envy, hatred, and malice, and the seven devils of morbidity are forever lying in wait for them—well—for us—for me and those like me, I mean. In proportion as one's brought up tenderly—as I was—one doesn't realise the deprivation and disgust of one's condition at the start. But once realised, one's inclination is to kill. At least a man's is. A woman may accept it more quietly, I suppose."
"Richard," Honoria said slowly, "are you sure you don't greatly exaggerate all—all that?"
He shook his head.
"Thirty years' experience—no, I don't exaggerate! Each time one makes a fresh acquaintance, each time a pretty woman is just that bit kinder to one than she would dare be to any man who was not out of it, each time people are manifestly interested—politely, of course—and form a circle, make room for one as they did at that particularly disagreeable Grimshott garden party yesterday, each time—I don't want to drivel, but so it is—one sees a pair of lovers—oh! well, it's not easy to retain one's philosophy, not to obey the primitive instincts of any animal when it's ill-used and hurt, and to revenge oneself—to want to kill, in short."
"You—you don't hate women, then?" Honoria said, still slowly.
Richard stared at her for a moment.
"Hate them?" he said. "I only wish to goodness I did."
"But in that case," she began bravely, "why——"
"This is why," he broke in.—"You may remember my engagement to Lady Constance Quayle, and the part you, very properly, took in the canceling of it? You know better than I do—though my imagination is pretty fertile in dealing with the situation—what instincts and feelings prompted you to take that part."
The young lady turned to him, her arms outstretched, notwithstanding bridle-reins and whip, her face, and those strange eyes which seemed so integral a part of the fair green-wood, full of sorrowful entreaty and distress.
"Richard, Richard," she cried, "will you never forgive me that? She didn't love you. It was horrible, yet in doing that which I did, I believed—I believe so still—I did what was right by you both."
"Undoubtedly you did right—and that justifies my contention. In doing that which you did you gave voice to the opinion of all wholesome-minded people. That's exactly where it is. You felt the whole business to be outrageous. So it was. I heartily agree."—He paused, and the trees talked softly together, bending down a little to listen and to look.—"As you say, she wasn't in love. Poor child, how could she be? No woman ever will be—at least not in love of the nobler sort—of the sort which, if one cannot have it, one had a vast deal better have no love at all."
"But I am not so sure of that," Honoria said stoutly. "You rush to conclusions. Isn't it rather a reflection on all the rest of us to take little Lady Constance as the measure of the insight and sensibility of the whole sex? And then she had already lost all her innocent, little heart to Captain Decies. Indeed you're not fair to us.—Wait——"
"Like Ludovic Quayle?"
Miss St. Quentin straightened herself in the saddle.
"Oh! dear no, not the least like Ludovic Quayle!" she said.
Which enigmatic reply produced silence for a while on Dickie's part. For there were various ways in which it might be interpreted, some flattering, some eminently unflattering, to himself. And from every point of view it was wisest to accept that last form of interpretation. The whole conversation had been perilous in character. It had been too intimate, had touched him too nearly, taking place here in the clear glooms of the green-wood moreover which bore such haunting kinship to those singularly sincere, and yet mysterious, eyes. It is dangerous to ride across the floor of ocean with the whispering tide sweeping overhead, and in such gallant company, besides, that to ride thus forever could hardly come amiss!—Richard, in his turn, straightened himself up in the saddle, opened his chest, taking a long breath, carried his head high, said a stern "get thee behind me, Satan," to encroaching sentiment and emotion, and to those fair visions which his companion's presence and her somewhat daring talk had conjured up. He defied the earth-magic, defied those sylvan deities who as he divined, sought to enthral him. For the moment he confounded Honoria's influence with theirs. It was something of a battle, and not the first one he had fought to-day. For the great, white road which leads onward to Perfection looked dusty and arid enough—no reposeful shadow, no mystery, no beguiling green glooms over it! Stark, straight, hard, it stretched on endlessly, as it seemed, ahead. To travel it was slow and tedious work, in any case; and to travel it on crutches!—But it was worse than useless to play with such thoughts as these. He would put a stop to this disintegrating talk. He turned to Honoria and spoke lightly, with a return of self-mockery.
"Oh! your first instinct was the true one, depend upon it," he said. "Though I don't deny it contributed, indirectly, to giving me a pretty rough time."
"Oh! dear me!" Honoria cried, almost piteously. Then she added:—"But I don't see, why was that?"
"Because, I suppose, I had a sort of unwilling belief in you," he said, smiling.—Oh! this accursed conversation, why would it insistently drift back into intimacy thus!
"Have I justified that belief?" she asked, with a certain pride yet a certain eagerness.
"More than justified it," Dickie answered. "My mother, who has a touchstone for all that is of high worth, knew you from the first. Like the devils, I—I believed and trembled—at least that is how I see it all now. So your action came as a rather searching revelation and condemnation. When I perceived all that it involved—oh, well! first I went to the dogs, and then——"
The horses walked side by side. Honoria stretched out her hand impulsively, laid it on his arm.
"Richard, Richard, for pity's sake don't! You hurt me too much. It's terrible to have been the cause of such suffering."
"You weren't the cause," he said. "Lies were the cause, behind which, like a fool, I'd tried to shelter myself. You've been right, Honoria, from first to last. What does it matter after all?—Don't take it to heart. For it's over now—all over, thank God, and I have got back into normal relations with things and with people."—He looked at her very charmingly, and spoke with a fine courtesy of tone.—"One way and another you have taught me a lot, and I am grateful. And, in the future, though the conditions will be altered, I hope you'll come back here often, Honoria, and just see for yourself that my mother is content; and give my schemes and fads a kindly look in at the same time. And perhaps give me a trifle of sound advice. I shall need it safe enough. You see what I want to get at is temperance—temperance all round, towards everything and everybody—not fanaticism, which, in some respects, is a much easier attitute of mind."
Richard looked up into the whispering, green tide overhead.
"Yes, one must deny oneself the luxury of fanaticism, if possible," he said, "deny oneself the vanity of eccentricity. One must take everything simply, just in the day's work. One must keep in touch. Keep in touch with your world, the great world, the world which cultivates pleasure and incidentally makes history, as well as with the world of the dust-cart—I know that well enough—if one's to be quite sane. You see loneliness, a loneliness of which I am thankful to think you can form no conception, is the curse of persons like myself. It inclines one to hide, to sulk, to shut oneself away and become misanthropic. To hug one's misery becomes one's chiefest pleasure—to nurse one's grief, one's sense of injury. Oh! I'm wary, very wary now, I tell you," he added, half laughing. "I know all the insidious temptations, the tricks and frauds, and pitfalls of this affair. And so I'll continue to go to Grimshott garden parties as discipline now and then, while I gather my disabled and decrepit family very closely about me and say words of wisdom to it—wisdom derived from a mature and extensive personal experience."
There was a pause before Miss St. Quentin spoke. Then she said slowly.
"And you refuse to let any one help? You, you refuse to let any one share the cares of that disabled family?"
Again Dickie stared at her, arrested by her speech and doubtful of the intention of it. He could have sworn there were tears in her voice, that it trembled. But her face was averted, and he could see no more than the slightly angular outline of her cheek and chin.
"Isn't that a rather superfluous question?" he remarked. "As you pointed out a little while ago, mine is not a super-abundantly cheerful programme. No one would volunteer for such service—at least no one likely to be acceptable to my mother, or indeed likely to satisfy my own requirements. I admit, I'm a little fastidious, a little critical and exacting, when it comes to close quarters and—well—permanent association, even yet."
"I am very glad to hear that," Honoria said. Her face remained averted, but there was a change in her attitude, a decision in the pose of her figure, suggestive both of challenge and of triumph.
Richard was nonplussed, but his blood was up. This conversation had gone far enough—indeed too far. Very certainly he would make an end of it.
"But God forbid," he exclaimed, "that I should ever fall to such a depth of selfishness as to invite any person who would satisfy my taste, my demands, to share my life! I mayn't amount to very much, but at least I have never used my personal ill luck to trade on a woman's generosity and pity. What I have had from women, I've paid for, in hard cash. In that respect my conscience is clear. It has been a bargain, fair and square and above board, and all my debts are settled in full. You hardly think at this time of day I should use my proposed schemes of philanthropy as a bait?"
Richard sent his horse forward at a sharp trot.
"No, no, Honoria," he said, "let it be understood that side of things is over forever."
But here came relief from the green glooms of the green-wood and the dangerous magic of them. For the riders had reached the summit of the hill, and entered upon the levels of the great table-land at the head of which Brockhurst House stands. Here was the open, the fresh breeze, the long-drawn, sighing song of the fir forest—a song more austere, more courageous, more virile, than ever sung by the trees of the wood which drop their leaves for fear of the sharp-toothed winter, and only put them forth again beneath the kisses of soft-lipped spring. Covering all the western sky were lines of softly-rounded, broken cloud, rank behind rank, in endless perspective, the whole shaped like a mighty fan. The under side of them was flushed with living rose. The clear spaces behind them paved with sapphire at the zenith, and palest topaz where they skirted the far horizon.
"How very beautiful it is!" Honoria cried, joyously. "Richard let us see this."
She turned her horse at the green ride which leads to the white Temple situate on that outstanding spur of hill. She rode on quickly till she reached the platform of turf before the Temple. Richard followed her with deliberation. He was shaken. His calm was broken up, his whole being in tumult. Why had she pressed just all those matters home on him which he had agreed with himself to cast aside and forget? It was a little cruel, surely, that temptation should assail him thus, and the white road towards Perfection be made so difficult to tread, just when he had re-dedicated himself and renewed his vows? He looked after her. It was here he had met her first, after the time when, as a little maid, she had proved too swift of foot, leaving him so far behind that it sorely hurt his baby dignity and caused him to see her depart without regret. She was still swift of foot. She left him behind now. For the moment he was ready to swear that, not only without regret, but with actual thankfulness he could again witness her departure.—Yes, he wanted her to go, because he so desperately wanted her to stay—that was the truth. For not only Dickie the natural man, but Dickie "the wild bull in a net," had a word to say just then.—God in heaven, what hard work it is to be good!
Miss St. Quentin kicked her left foot out of the stirrup, threw her right leg over the pommel, turned, and slipped straight out of the saddle. She stood there a somewhat severely tall, dark figure, strong and positive in effect, against the immense and reposeful landscape—far-ranging, purple distance, golden harvest-fields, silver glint of water in the hollows, all the massive grandeur of the woods, and that superb pageant of sunset sky.
The groom rode forward, took her horse, led it away to the far side of the grass platform behind the Temple. Those ranks of rosy cloud in infinite perspective, with spaces of clearest topaz and sapphire light between, converged to the glowing glory of the sun, the rim of which now touched the margin of the world. They were as ranks of worshippers, of blessed souls redeemed and sainted, united by a common act of adoration, every form clothed by reflection of His glory, every heart, every thought centred upon God.—Richard looked at all that, but it failed to speak to him. Then he saw Honoria resolutely turn her back upon the glory. She came directly towards him. Her face was very thin, her manner very calm. She laid her left hand on the peak of his saddle. She looked him full in the eyes.
"Richard," she said, "be patient a minute and listen.—It comes to this, that a woman—your equal in position, of your own age, and not without money—does volunteer to share your work. It's no forlorn hope. She is not disappointed. On the contrary she has, and can have, pretty well all the world's got to give. Only—perhaps very foolishly, for she doesn't know much about the matter, having been rather coldblooded as yet—she has fallen in love."
There was a silence, save that the wind came out of the west, out of the majesty of the sunset, and with it came the calling of the sea—not only of the blue water, or of those green tides that sweep above wandering mortals in the magic green-wood; but of the sea of faith, of the sea of love—love human, love divine, love universal—which circles not only this, but all possible states of being, all possible worlds.
Presently Richard spoke hoarsely, under his breath.
"With whom?" he said.
"With you——"
Dickie went white to the lips. He sat absolutely still for a little space, his hands resting on his thighs.
"Tell her to think," he said, at last.—"She proposes to do that which the world will condemn, and rightly, from its point of view. It will misread her motives. It won't spare disagreeable comment. Tell her to think.—Tell—tell her to look.—Cripple, dwarf, the last, as he ought to be, of an unlucky race—a man who's carried up and down-stairs like an infant, who's strapped to the saddle, strapped to the driving seat—who is cut off from most forms of activity and of sport.—A man who will never have any sort of career—who has given himself, in expiation of past sins, to the service of human beings a degree more unfortunate than himself.—No, no, stop—hear me out.—She must know it all!—A man who has lived far from cleanly, who has evil memories and evil knowledge of life—no—listen!—A man whom you,—yes, you yourself, Honoria,—have condemned bitterly, from whom, notwithstanding your splendid nerve and pluck, so repulsive is his deformity, you have shrunk a hundred times."
"She has thought of all that," Honoria answered calmly. "But she has thought of this too,—that, going up and down the world to find the most excellent thing in it, she has found this thing, love. And so to her, Richard, your crippling has come to be dearer than any other man's wholeness. Your wrong-doings—may God forgive her—dearer than any other man's virtue. Your virtues so wholly beautiful that—that——"
The tears came into her eyes, her lips quivered, she backed away a little from rider and horse.
"Richard," she cried fiercely, "if you don't care for me, if you don't want me, be honourable, tell me so straight out and let us have done with it! I am strong enough, I am man enough, for that. For heaven's sake don't take me out of pity. I would never forgive you. There's a good deal of us both, one way and another, and we should give each other a hell of a time if I was in love and you were not. But"—she put her hand on the peak of that very ugly saddle again—"but, if you do care, here I am. I have never failed any one yet. I will never fail you. I am yours body and soul. Marry me," she said.
CHAPTER XI
IN WHICH RICHARD CALMADY BIDS THE LONG-SUFFERING READER FAREWELL
The midsummer dusk had fallen, drawing its soft, dim mantle over the face of the land. The white light walked the northern sky from west to east. A nightingale sang in the big, Portugal laurel at the corner of the troco-ground, and was answered by another singer from the coppice, across the valley, bordering the trout stream that feeds the Long Water. A fox barked sharply out in the Warren. Beetles droned, flying conspicuously upright, straight on end, through the warm air. The churring of the night-jars, as they flitted hither and thither over the beds of bracken and dog-roses, like gigantic moths, on quick, silent wings, formed a continuous accompaniment, as of a spinning-wheel, to the other sounds. And Dick Ormiston laughed consumedly, doubling himself together now and again and holding his slim sides in effort to moderate his explosive merriment. He was in uproarious spirits.—Back from school to-day, and that nearly a month earlier than could by the most favourable process of calculation have been anticipated, thanks to development of measles on the part of some much-to-be-commended school-fellows. How he blessed those praiseworthy young sufferers! And how he laughed, watching the two heavy-headed, lolloping, half-grown, bull-dog puppies describe crazy circles upon the smooth turf in the deepening dusk. Seen thus in the half-light they appeared more than ever gnome-like, humorously ugly and awkward. They trod on their own ears, tumbled over one another, sprawled on the grass, panting and grinning, until their ecstatic owner incited them to further gyrations. To Dick this was a night of unbridled licence. Had he not dined late? Had he not leave to sit up till half-past ten o'clock? Was he not going out, bright and early, to-morrow morning to see the horses galloped? Could life hold greater complement of good for a brave, little, ten-year-old soul, and slender, serviceable, little, ten-year-old body emulous of all manly virtues and manly pastimes?
So the boy laughed; and the sound of his laughter reached the ears both of the elder and the younger Lady Calmady, as they slowly paced the straight walk between the gray balustrade and the edge of the turf. On their left the great outstretch of valley and wood lay drowned in the suave uncertainties of the summer night. Before them was the whole terrace-front of the house, its stacks of twisted chimneys clear cut against the sky. Bright light shone out from the windows of the red drawing-room, and from those of the hall, bringing flowers, sections of gray pavement, and like details into sharp relief. There were passing lights in the range of windows above, suggesting cheerful movement within the great house. At the southern end of the terrace, just below the arcade of the garden-hall—which showed pale against the shadow within and brickwork above—two men were sitting. Their voices reached the ladies now and then in quiet yet animated talk. A spirit of peace, of security, of firmly-planted hope, seemed to pervade all the scene, all the place. Waking or sleeping, fear was banished. All was strong to work to-morrow, so to-night all could calmly yield itself to rest.
And it was a sense of just this, and a tender anxiety lest the fulness of the gracious content of it should be in any degree marred to her dear companion, which made Honoria Calmady say presently:—
"You don't mind little Dick's racketting with those ridiculous puppies, do you, Cousin Katherine? If it bothers you I'll stop him like a shot."
But Katherine shook her head.
"My dearest child, why stop him?" she said. "The foolishnesses of young creatures at play are delicious, and laughter, so long as it is not cruel, I reckon among the good gifts of God."—She paused a moment. "Dear Marie de Mirancourt tried to teach me that long ago, but I was culpably dull of hearing in those days where spiritual truth was concerned, and I failed to grasp her meaning. I believe we never really love, either man or Almighty God, until we can both laugh ourselves and let others laugh. Of all false doctrines that of the sour-faced, joyless puritan is the falsest. His mere outward aspect is a sin against the Holy Ghost."
And Honoria smiled, patting the hand which lay on her arm very tenderly.
"How I love your heavenly rage!" she said. They moved on a few steps in silence. Then, careless of all the rapture its notification of the passing of time might cut short, the clock at the house-stables chimed the half-hour. Honoria paused in her gentle walk.
"Bedtime, Dick," she cried.
"All right," the boy returned. He pursued, and laid hold of, the errant puppies, stowing them, not without kickings and strugglings on their part, one under either arm. They were large and heavy, just as much as he could carry, and he staggered across the grass with them, presenting the effect of a small, black donkey between a pair of very big, white panniers.
"I say, they are awfully stunning though, you know, Honoria," he said rather breathlessly as he came up to her.
"Very soul-satisfying, aren't they, Dick?" she replied. "Richard foresaw as much. That is why he got them for you."
"If I put them down do you suppose they'll follow? Carrying them does make my arms ache."
"Oh, they'll follow fast enough," Honoria said.
He lowered the puppies circumspectly on to the gravel.
"They'll be whoppers when they're grown," he remarked.
"What shall you call them?"
"Adam and Eve I think, because they're the first of my lot. They're pedigree dogs—and later I may want to show, don't you see."
"Yes, I see," Honoria said.
He came close to her, putting his face up half shyly to be kissed. Then as young Lady Calmady, somewhat ghostly in her trailing, white evening dress, bent her charming head, the boy, suddenly overcome with the manifold excitements of the day, flung his arms round her.
"Oh! oh!" he gasped, "how awfully ripping it is to be back here again with you and Cousin Richard and Aunt Katherine! I wish number-four dormitory would get measles the middle of every term!—Only I forgot—perhaps I ought not to touch you, Honoria, after messing about with the dogs. Do you mind?"
"Not a bit," she said.
"But, Honoria,"—he rubbed his cool cheek against her bare neck—"I say, don't you think you might come and see me, just for a little weeny while, after I'm in bed to-night?"
And young Lady Calmady, thus coaxed, held the slight figure close. She had a very special place in her heart for this small Dick, who in face, and as she hoped in nature also, bore such comfortable resemblance to that elder, and altogether well-beloved, Dick who was the delight of her life.
"Yes, dear, old chap, I'll come," she said. "Only it must really be for a little, weeny while, because you must go to sleep. By the way, who's going to valet you these holidays? Clara or Faulstich?"
"Oh, neither," the boy answered. "I think I'm rather old for women now, don't you know, Honoria."—At which statement she laughed, his cheek being again tucked tight into the turn of her neck. "I shall have Andrews in future. I asked Cousin Richard about it. He's a very civil-mannered fellow, and he knows about yachts and things, and he says he likes being up before five o'clock."
"Does he? Excellently veracious young man!" Honoria remarked.
But thereupon, exuberance of joy demanding active expression, the boy broke away with a whoop and set off running. The puppies lolloped away at his heels. And young Lady Calmady—whom such giddy fancies still took at times, notwithstanding nearly three years of marriage—flew after the trio, the train of her dress floating out behind her to most admired extravagance of length as she skimmed along the path. Fair lady, boy, and dogs disappeared, with sounds of merriment, into the near garden-hall; reappeared upon the terrace, bearing down, but at sobering pace, upon the occupants of the chairs set at the end of it. One man rose to his feet, a tall, narrow, black figure. The other remained seated. The light shining forth from the great bay-window of the hall touched the little group, conferring a certain grandeur upon the graceful, white-clad Honoria. Her satin dress shimmered as she moved. There was, as of old, a triumph of high purity, of freedom of soul, in her aspect. Her voice came, with a fine gladness yet soft richness of tone, across that intervening triangular space of sloping turf upon which terrace and troco-ground alike looked down. The nightingale, who had fallen silent during the skirmish, took up his passionate singing again, and was answered delicately, a song not of the flesh but of the spirit, by the bird from across the valley.
Katherine Calmady stood solitary, watching, listening, her hands folded rather high on her bosom. The caressing suavity of the summer night enfolded her. And remembrance came to her of another night, nearly four-and-thirty years ago, when, standing in this same spot, she, young, untried, ambitious of unlimited delight, had felt the first mysterious pangs of motherhood, and told her husband of that new, unseen life which was at once his and her own. And of yet another night, when, after long experience of sorrow, solitude, and revolt, her husband had come to her once again—but come even as the bird's song came from across the valley, etherealised, spiritualised, the same yet endowed with qualities of unearthly beauty—and how that strange and exquisite communion with the dead had fortified her to endure an anguish even greater than any she had yet known.—She had prayed that night that she might behold the face of her well-beloved, and her prayer had been granted. She had prayed that, without reservation, she might be absorbed by, and conformed to, the Divine Will. And that prayer had, as she humbly trusted, been in great measure granted also. But then the Divine Will had proved so very merciful, the Divine Intention so wholly beneficent, there was small credit in being conformed to either!—Katherine bowed her head in thanksgiving. The goodness of the Almighty towards her had been abundant beyond asking or fondest hope.
She was aroused from her gracious meditation by the sound of footsteps—measured, a little weary perhaps—approaching her. She looked up to see Julius March. And a point of gentle anxiety pricked Katherine. For it occurred to her that Julius had failed somewhat in health and energy of late. She reproached herself lest, in the interest of watching those vigorous, young lives so dear to her, participating in their schemes, basking in the sunshine of their love, she had neglected Julius and failed to care for his comfort as she might. To those that have shall be given even of sympathy, even of strength. In that there is an ironical as well as an equitable truth; and she was to blame perhaps in the ironical application of it. It followed therefore, that she greeted him now with a quickening both of solicitude and of affection.
"Come and pace, dear Julius, come and pace," she said, "as in times past. Yet not wholly as in the past, for then often I must have distressed and troubled you, since my pacings were too often the outcome of restlessness and of unruly passion, while now——"
Katherine broke off, gazing at the little company gathered upon the terrace.
"Surely they are very happy?" she said, almost involuntarily.
And he, smiling at his dear lady's incapacity of escape from her fixed idea, replied:—
"Yes, very surely."
Katherine tied the white, lace coif she wore a little tighter beneath her chin.
"In their happiness I renew that of my own youth," she said gently, "as it is granted to few women, I imagine, to renew it. But I renew it with a reverence for them; since my own happiness was plain sailing enough, obvious, incontestable, whilst theirs is nobler, and rises to a higher plane. For its roots, after all, are planted in very mournful fact, to which it has risen superior, and over which it has triumphed."
But he answered, jealous of his dear lady's self-depreciation:—
"I can hardly admit that. To begin in unclouded promise of happiness, to decline to searching and unusual experience of sorrow, and then, by self-discipline and obedience, to attain your present altitude of tranquillity and assurance of faith, is surely a greater trial, a greater triumph, than to begin with difficulties, with much, I admit, to overcome and resist, but to succeed as they are succeeding and be granted the high land of happiness which they even now possess? They are young, fortune smiles on them. Above all, they have one another——"
"Ah, yes!" she said, "they have one another. Long may that last. It is a very perfect marriage of true minds, as well as true hearts. I had, and they have, all that love can give,"—Lady Calmady turned at the end of the walk. "But it troubles me, as a sort of emptiness and waste, dear Julius, that you have never had that. It pains me that you, who possess so noble a power of disinterested and untiring friendship, should never have enjoyed that other, and nearer relation, which transcends friendship even as to-morrow's dawn will transcend in loveliness the chastened restfulness of this evening's dusk."
Katherine moved onward with a certain sweet dignity of manner.
"Tell me—is she still alive, Julius, this lady whom you so loved?"
"Yes, thank God," he said.
"And you have never tried to elude that vow which—as you once told me—you made long ago before you knew her?"
"Never," he replied. "Without it I could not have served her as I have been able to serve her. I am wholly thankful for it. It made much possible which must have otherwise been impossible."
"And have you never told her that you loved her—even yet?"
"No," he replied, "because, had I told her, I must have ceased to serve her, I must have left her, Katherine, and I did not think God required that of me."
Lady Calmady walked on in silence, her head a little bent. At the end of the path she stood a moment, listening to the answering songs of the two nightingales.
"Ah!" she said softly, "how greatly I have under-rated the beauty of the dusk! To submit to dwell in the border-land, to stand on the dim bridge, thus, between day and night, demands perhaps the very finest courage conceivable. You have shown me, Julius, how exquisite and holy a thing it is.—And, as to her whom you have so faithfully loved, I think, could she know, she would thank you very deeply for never telling her the truth. She would entreat you to keep your secret to the end. But to remain near her, to let her seek counsel of you when in perplexity or distress, to talk with her both of those you and she love, and have loved, and of the promise of fair things beyond and above our present seeing—pacing with her at times—even as you and I, dear friend, pace together here to-night—amid the restrained and solemn beauty of the dusk. Would she not do this?"
"It is enough that you have done it for her, Katherine," he answered. "With your ruling I am wholly, unendingly content."
"Perhaps Dickie and Honoria's dear works of mercy and the noonday tide of energy which flows through the house, have caused us to see less of each other than of old," Lady Calmady continued with a charming lightness. "That is a mistake needing correction. The young to the young, dear Julius. You and I, who go at a quieter pace, will enjoy our peaceful friendship to the full. I shall not tire of your company, I promise you, if you do not of mine. Long may you be spared to me. God keep you, most loyal friend. Goodnight."
Then Lady Calmady, deeply touched, yet unmoved from her altitude of thankfulness and calm, musing of many matters and the working out of them to a beneficent and noble end, slowly went the length of the terrace to where, at the foot of the steps of the garden-hall, Richard still sat. As she came near he held out his hand to her.
"Dear, sweet mother," he said, "how I like to see you walk in that stately fashion, the whole of you—body, mind, and spirit, somehow evident—gathered up within the delicious compass of yourself! As far back as I can remember anything. I remember that. When I watched you it always made me feel safe. It seemed more like music heard, somehow, than something seen."
"Dickie, Dickie," she exclaimed, flushing a little, "don't make me vain in my old age!"
"But it's true," he said. "And why shouldn't one tell the pretty truths as well as the plain ones?—Isn't it a positively divine night? Look at the moon just clearing the top of the firs there! It is good to be alive. Mother—may I say it?—I am very grateful to you for having brought me into the world."
"Ah! but, my poor darling——" Katherine cried.
"No, no," he said, "put that out of your dear head once and for all. I am grateful, being as I am, grateful for everything, it being as it is. I don't believe I would have anything—not anything save those four years when I left you—altered, even if I could. I've found my work, and it enlarges its borders in all manner of directions; and it prospers. And I have money to put it through. And I have that boy. He's a dear little chap, and it is wonderfully good of Uncle Roger and Mary to give him to me. But he's getting a trifle too fond of horses. I can't break poor, old Chifney's heart; but when his days are numbered, those of the stables—as far as training racers goes—are numbered likewise, I think. I'll keep on the stud farm. But I grow doubtful about the rest. I wish it wasn't so, but so it is. Sport is changing hands, passing from those of romance into those of commerce.—Well, the stables served their turn. They helped to bring me through. But now perhaps they're a little out of the picture."
Richard drew her hand nearer and kissed it, leaning back in his chair, and looking up at her.
"And I have you—" he said, "you most perfect of mothers.—And—ah! here comes Honoria!"