"Very well, then," he went on, "and after that—after my father had asked me to have a glass of whiskey with him—after I had refused and he had gone to bed and I was putting the spirit-case away without any idea of drinking again, one smell of the whiskey seemed to paralyse my whole mental force. It turned me from a sane man who had had a solemn warning into a madman who had only onefeeling—the craving for alcohol in some shape. I smelt again, and the smell of it went like fire through my veins. I tasted it, and then I drank. I drank again and again, until, as I suppose your mother has told you, I fell on the rug, no longer a man, but simply a helpless, intoxicated beast. I was utterly insensible to everything about me, I didn't care whether I lived or died. When I woke and thought about it I would a thousand times rather have been dead.
"It wasn't that I wanted the liquor. I didn't get drunk because I wanted to. I got drunk, Enid, because Ihadto; because there was a lurking devil in my blood which forced me to drink that whiskey just because it was alcohol, because it was drink, because it was the element ready to respond to that craving which I have inherited from this unhappy mother of mine.
"Do you know what that means, Enid? I don't think you do. It means that my blood has been poisoned from my very birth. Of course, you don't know this. Your parents don't know it, any more than they know that it is too late to redeem the ruin which has fallen upon me. That, at least, I can say with a clear conscience is no fault or sin of mine. Since then I have thrashed this miserable thing out in every way that I can think of. I have talked it over with my father, and he has talked it over with yours. I have been wandering about the park all night trying to find out what I ought to do—and I think I have found it."
"From which I suppose I am to understand," she replied, in a voice which was nothing like as firm as she intended it to be, "you mean, Vane—or perhaps I ought to say Mr. Maxwell now—that henceforth—I mean that we are not going to be married after all."
"What I mean is this, Enid," he replied, "that dearly as I love you, and just because I love you so dearly, because I would give all the world if I had it to have you for my wife, I wouldnotmake you the wife of a man who could become the thing that was lying on the hearthrug of the Den four nights ago—a man drunk against his own will, a slave to one of the vilest of habits—no, something much worse than a habit, a disease inherited with tainted, poisoned blood!
"What would you think of your parents and my father if they allowed you to marry a lunatic? Well, with that taint in my blood I am worse, a thousand times worse, than a lunatic, and I should be a criminal as well if I asked you or any other girl for whom I had the slightest feeling of love or respect to marry me.
"Think what the punishment of such a crime might be!" he went on even more vehemently. "Every hour of our married life I should be haunted by this horrible fear. Tempted by a devil lurking in every glass of wine or spirits that I drank, or even looked at—the same devil which had me in its grip the other night. Enid, if you could have seen me then, I think you would have understood better; but if, which God forbid, you could have gone through what I went through after I swallowed that first drink of whiskey, you would as soon think of marrying a criminal out of jail or a madman out of a lunatic asylum as you would of marrying me. I daresay all this may seem unreasonable, perhaps even heartless, to you; but, dear, if you only knew what it costs to say it——"
He broke off abruptly, for as he said this a note of tenderness stole for the first time into his voice, and found an instant echo in Enid's heart. So far she had borne herself bravely through a bitterlytrying ordeal, but as she noticed a change in his tone a swift conviction came to her that if she remained many more minutes in his company she would certainly break down and there would be "a scene," which, under the circumstances, was not to be thought of. So she stopped him by holding out her hand and saying in a voice which cost her a terrible effort to keep steady:
"No, Vane, we have talked quite enough. I see your mind is made up, and so there is, of course, nothing more to be said except 'good-bye.' I think we had better not meet again until we both have had more time to think about it all."
This was as far as she could get. They had by this time reached Sheen Gate again, and Enid took her bicycle from him. She did not look at him, and, indeed, could not even trust herself to say "thank you." She mounted and rode through the comparatively lonely roads in a sort of dream until the traffic at Hammersmith Bridge and Broadway mercifully compelled her to give her whole attention to the steering of her machine.
When she got home she gave her bicycle to the porter, went straight to her own room, took off her hat and gloves and jacket, and then dropped quietly on the bed and laid there, staring with tearless eyes up at the ceiling, wondering vaguely what it all meant, and if it was really true.
Vane stood and watched her until she swept round a bend in the road, and then walked on with the one thought echoing and re-echoing in the emptiness of his soul—the thought of the course which he was bound to follow by the dictates of both love and duty. He had reached the Surrey end of Hammersmith Bridge when the strong smell of alcoholic liquor coming through the open door of a public-house caused him to stop for a moment.Would a drink do him any harm after what had happened? He had passed a sleepless night in the open air, and felt almost fainting—surely a drop of brandy would do him no harm under the circumstances? Then he remembered the hearthrug in the Den, and turned towards the bridge with something between a sneer and a curse on his lips.
Was he always to be beset by temptation in this way—and would he always have strength to successfully combat the evil influence? If Fate had really marked him out for a dipsomaniac, was it any use his fighting against what must inevitably be his destiny? His thoughts were interrupted by the rumbling of a 'bus which was coming towards him, and, seeing that it was one which went through Kensington, he jumped on it and went home.
He alighted at Warwick Gardens, and on reaching the house found that his father had just come in for lunch.
"It's all right, dad," he said, anticipating his inevitable question. "I got shut in Richmond Park by accident, and did a night in the open. But I'll tell you all about it at lunch. I'm going to have a tub now."
Lunch was ready by the time Vane came downstairs, re-clothed and refreshed, and when they were alone he repeated to his father almost verbatim the conversation he had had with Enid.
"Well, my boy," he said when he had concluded. "I cannot but think that as far as you can see now you have acted rightly. It is terribly hard on you, but I will help you all I can. And perhaps, after all, the future may prove brighter than it looks now for all of us."
It was the end of Term, nearly two years after that interview in Richmond Park which, as both Vane and Enid had then believed, was for them the parting of the ways. Vane was sitting in a deep-seated, Russian wicker-chair in his cosy study, and opposite him, in a similar chair, was another man with whom he had been talking somewhat earnestly for about an hour.
To-morrow would be Commemoration Day—"Commem," to use the undergraduate's abbreviation. There would be meetings from far and wide of people gathered together, not only from all over the kingdom, but from the ends of the earth as well; men and women glorying, for their own sakes and their sons', in the long traditions of the grand old University, the dearly-loved Alma Mater, nursing-mother of their fathers and fathers' fathers. Here a man who had been a tutor and then a Fellow, and was now one of His Majesty's judges; there another, who walked with sober mien in the leggings and tunic of a Bishop, and who, in his time, had dodged the Proctor and his bull-dogs as nimbly as the most irresponsible undergraduate of the moment—and so on through the whole hierarchy of the University.
The Lists were just out. Vane had fulfilled the promise of his earlier career and had taken a brilliant double-first. He had read for Classics and History, but he had also taken up incidentally Mental Science and Moral Philosophy, and he had scored a first in all. If it had then been possible for him to have had a Treble-First, it would have been his. As it was he had won the most brilliant degree of his year—and there he was, sitting back in his chair, blowing cloud after cloud of smoke out of his mouth, and every now and then taking a sip out of a big cup of tea and looking with something more than admiration at the man opposite; a man who had only achieved a first, and who, if he had been some other kind of man, would have been very well contented with it.
It would not, however, have needed a particularly keen student of human nature to discover that this was not the kind of man who could rest contented with anything like a formal success; and, after all, even a double-first, to say nothing of a single, although a great achievement as the final triumph of an educational course, is still only the end of the beginning. That done, the student, armedcap-à-piein his intellectual armour, goes forth to face something infinitely sterner and more pitiless than tutors or proctors, ay, even than Masters and Chancellors themselves—the presiding genius of that infinitely greater University called the World, where taking your degree means anything that human fortune can give you, and where being plucked may mean anything from a clerkship in an office to selling matches in the gutter.
"Iamsorry you missed your double, old man!" said Vane, continuing the conversation after a pause that had lasted for two or three minutes. "Still, at any rate, you've got your first, and, afterall, a first in Classics and a second in History is not to be sneezed at, and I don't suppose it would have mattered a hang to you whether you had come out anywhere or not."
As he said this there was a sudden contraction of his companion's jaw, which resulted in the clean biting through of the vulcanite mouthpiece of his pipe. He spat the pieces out into the fireplace, and said in a perfectly smooth voice:
"I wonder what I did that for! I suppose that is one of the circumstances in which people say that it does a man good to swear."
"I should certainly have sworn under the circumstances," said Vane, "or at least, I should have said something that one would not say in the presence of one's maiden aunt, but then, of course, you Ernshaw—you're above all that sort of thing. You have your feelings so well under control that you don't even need to swear to relieve them. However, that's not quite the subject. What am I to do? Am I to go back to her, repenting of the evil of my ways, ask her to pardon a passing madness, and lay my academic honours at her feet—as God knows I would be only too glad to do——"
"Wait a moment, Maxwell. Don't say anything more just now, and let me think a bit. We have been over this subject a good many times already, but now we have come to the crisis, to the cross-ways, in fact. You have made me your confidant in this matter. The future of your life and hers depends upon what you decide to do now, and, not only that, but there is your father and her father and mother—the completion, that is to say, of three other lives. It is very, very serious. It is more than serious, it is solemn. Wait a moment, let me think."
Vane leant back in his chair, dropped his pipe quietly on the floor, and waited. He knew that Mark Ernshaw, his chum at Eton and his friend at Balliol—this tall, sparely-built man, with dark hair, high, somewhat narrow forehead, and big, deep-set, brown eyes, delicate features, and the somewhat too finely-moulded chin which, taken together, showed him to the eye that sees to be the enthusiast as well as the man of intellect, perhaps of genius—was not thinking in the ordinary meaning of the word. He was praying, and when he saw that this was so he folded his hands over his eyes, and for nearly ten minutes there was absolute silence, Vane was thinking and his friend was praying. Perhaps, in another sense, Vane was praying too, for the strong religious bias which he had inherited from his father had, since the great crisis of his life had been passed, and during his close intimacy with Mark Ernshaw, grown stronger than ever.
He had told him everything. They had gone over the whole of the dismal history again and again. They had thrashed out the problem in all its bearings, now arguing with and now against each other, and here was the last day. To-morrow in the Theatre they would receive the formal acknowledgment which would crown their academic careers. Vane's self-imposed probation would then be over, the crisis would be passed, and his life's course fixed for good and all.
"Well, old man," said Vane, at length, "have you settled it? Upon my word I feel almost like a man under sentence of death waiting for a reprieve. But, after all, why should I? I haven't touched a drop of alcohol for over a year. I needn't say anything about the work I have done, for you know as much about that as I do myself.I am as sane and healthy as any man of my age need want to be. Of course, as I have told you, it was mutually agreed between us, or rather, between her parents and my father, that we should not meet or correspond until after I had taken my degree. I've kept the bargain both ways. I haven't written to her or had a word from her all the time. And now, what is the future to be? Shall I take up the threads of the old life and marry and live happily ever afterwards, as they say in the story-books—or shall I——? No, I don't think I could do that. Don't you think I've shown strength of mind enough to counteract the weakness of that one night? For the sake of all you've ever loved, old man, don't look so serious. You're not going to tell me that it really is all over, and that I shall have to give her up after all?"
"Yes, you must," said Ernshaw. "If you have any faith worthy of the name in God or man, it is your duty, not only as a man but as a Christian, to say good-bye to her as man to woman. It is your duty, and you must."
"No, by God, I can't!" cried Maxwell, springing to his feet and facing him with clenched teeth, set features, and hands gripped up into fists as though he were facing an enemy rather than a friend.
Ernshaw rose slowly from his seat. His face seemed to Vane to be transfigured. He looked him straight in the eyes, and said, in a voice only a little above a whisper, and yet thrilling with an intense emotion:
"Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain! You have asked for my advice and my guidance, Maxwell. I have given them to you, but not before I have sought for advice and counsel from an infinitely higher Source. I believe I havehad my answer. As I have had it so I have given it to you. I have spent a good many hours thinking over this problem of yours—and a harder problem few men have ever had to solve—but my fixed and settled conviction is that during this last conversation of yours with Miss Raleigh you bore yourself like a man; you did your duty; you put your hand to the plough. You are not going to look back now, are you?"
Vane dropped back into his seat and folded his hands over his eyes again, and said with a note of weariness in his voice:
"Well, yes, old man, I suppose you're right, and yet, Ernshaw, it's very hard, so hard that it seems almost impossible. They're coming up to 'Commem' to-morrow—I was obliged to ask them, you know. I should only have to hold out my hand and feel hers in it and say that—well, that I'd thought better of it, and everything would be just as it was before. We could begin again just as ifthathad never happened.
"You know it's all I've thought about, all I've worked for, ever since we came back from India together. Honestly, old man, she really is—of course, with the exception of the Governor—everything there is in the world for me now. If I have to give her up, what else is there? You know what I was going to do. Now that I've got my degree I should have a splendid opening in the Foreign Office. The way would be absolutely clear before me—a mere matter of brains and interest—and I know I've got the interest—and I should be an Ambassador, perhaps a Prime Minister some day, and she would be my wife—and yet without her it wouldn't be worth anything to me. Ernshaw, isn't it a bit too much to ask a man on the threshold of his real life to give up allthat for the sake of an idea—well, a scientific conviction if you like."
"Strait is the Gate, and Narrow is the Way!" exclaimed Ernshaw. He seemed to tower above him as he stood over his chair; Vane looked up and saw that his eyes were glowing and his features set. His lips and voice trembled as he spoke. His whole being seemed irradiated by the light of an almost divine enthusiasm.
"Maxwell, will you be one of the few that find it, or one of the many that miss it, and take the other way? As a good Christian, as the son of a Christian man, you know wherethatone leads to.
"After all, Maxwell," he continued, more quietly, "the trials of life are like lessons in school. You needed this experience or you would not have got it. In every fight you must win or lose. In this one you can and must be the victor. I think, nay, I know, that I am pointing out to you the way to victory, the way to final triumph over all the evils that have forced you to a choice between following your own most worthy inclinations, and what you now think an intolerable misery and an impossible sacrifice."
He held out his hand as he spoke. Vane did not know it at the time, but in reality it was a hand held out to save a drowning man. It was a moment in which the fate of two lives was to be decided for right or wrong, for good or ill, and for all time—perhaps, even for more than Time. Vane gripped Ernshaw's hand, and, as the two grips closed, he looked straight into the deep-brown eyes, and said:
"Ernshaw, that will do. By some means you have made me feel to-night just as I did that day when I was talking with her the last time. Yes,you are right. You have shewn me the right way, and, God helping me, I'll take it. I suppose if she doesn't marry me she'll marry Garthorne; but still, I see she mustn't marry me. They are coming down for 'Commem' to-morrow. I shall see her then, and I'll tell her that I have decided that there must be an end of everything except friendship between us. Yes, that is the only way after all—and, now, one other word, old man."
"And that is?" said Ernshaw, smiling, almost laughing, in the sheer joy of his great triumph, as he so honestly believed it to be, over the Powers of Evil.
"Well, it's this," said Vane, "my own life is settled now. I can't marry Enid and, of course, I'll marry no one else. I shall do as you have often advised me to do—take Orders and do the work that God puts nearest to my hand. I know that the governor will agree with me when I put it to him in that way. But then there's some one else."
"Your sister, you mean," said Ernshaw.
"My half——"
"Your sister, I said," Ernshaw interrupted, quickly. "Well, what about her?"
"It's this way," continued Vane, somewhat awkwardly, "you see—of course, as you say, she is my sister in a way, but she has absolutely refused everything that the governor and I have offered her. We even asked her to come and live with us, we offered, in short, to acknowledge her as one of the family."
"And what did she say to that?"
"She simply refused. She said that she had not made her life, but that she was ready to take it as it is. She said that she wasn't responsible for the world as it's made, she'd never owed anyone a shilling since she left her mother—and mine—and she never intended to. We tried everything with her, really we did, and, of course, the governor did a great deal more than I did, but it wasn't a bit of use. It's a horrible business altogether, isn't it?"
"On the contrary, it is anything but that," replied Ernshaw, slowly and deliberately as though he were considering each word as he uttered it. "Maxwell, you have just decided to take Orders. I made up my mind to do that long ago. We are both of us fairly well off. I have eight or nine hundred a year of my own, and I daresay you have more, so we can go and do our work without troubling about the loaves and fishes."
"Yes," replied Vane, "certainly, but that's not quite answering my question, old fellow:—I mean about Carol."
"Quite so," he replied, "because I am going to ask you another. Do you think you know me and like me well enough to have me for a brother-in-law?"
"Good Heavens, you don't meanthat, Ernshaw, do you?"
"I do," he said, "that is if she likes me well enough. Of course, I haven't seen her yet, and she might refuse me; but from all that you've told me about her, I'm half in love with her already, and—well, we needn't say anything more about that just now. Take me up to Town with you after Commem., introduce me to her and leave the rest to me and her. If ever a girl was made for the wife of such a man as I hope to be some day, that girl, Maxwell, is your sister."
"But, Ernshaw, that is impossible. It may be only your good nature that prompted you to say this, or it may be that, without intention, I havesomehow led you to look upon her as part of my destiny; but you forget, or perhaps, I have not told you that we have lost her utterly for the time being at least, she disappeared quite suddenly. My father and I have made every effort to trace her, but without the slightest success."
"Then try again," replied Ernshaw, "and I will help in the search. At any rate, when we do find her, as I am sure we shall some day, if she will have me, I will ask her to be my wife."
It was the morning of Commemoration Day and Vane was dressing for the great ceremony in the Sheldonian Theatre, the conferring of honours and degrees, the placing of the Hall-mark of the University upon those who had passed its tests and proved themselves to be worthy metal. Over the end of the bed hung the brand-new bachelor's gown and silken hood, which, to-day, for the first time, he would be entitled to wear. They were the outward material symbols of the victory which he had won against all competitors.
He was looking far back into his school-boy days and recalling the dreams he had dreamt of the time when, if the Fates were very kind to him, he would have taken his degree and would be able to walk about in all the glory of cap and gown and hood as the masters did on Sundays and Saints' days.
And now it had come to pass. He had taken as good a degree as the best of them. In an hour or two he would appear capped and gowned and hooded on the closing scene of his University career. On one side of him would be the Chancellor and all the great dignitaries of the University; on the other the great audience—the undergraduates in the upper galleries; graduates,tutors and fellows, proud fathers and mothers, delighted sisters and other feminine relatives, including cousins and others, together with desperately envious younger brothers making the most earnest resolves to henceforth eschew all youthful dissipations, to foreswear idleness for ever, and to 'swat' day and night until they too had achieved this glorious consummation—vows, alas! to be broken ere the next school term was many days old, and yet, with not a few of them, to be renewed later on and honestly kept.
He knew that, to use a not altogether inappropriate theatrical simile, he would be playing a principal part that day. The cheers and the plaudits which would burst out from the throats of his fellow-students, and, indeed, from the whole audience, when he came on to doff his cap and kneel before the Chancellor to take from his hands the honours he had won, would be given in recognition of the most brilliant degree of the year.
Andshe, too, would be there with her father and mother, and his father, all sharing in his triumph, all glorying in his success, in this splendid fruition of the labours, which, for so many years, they had watched with such intensely sympathetic interest.
Under any other circumstances this would have meant to him even more than the mere formal triumph; for though he had worked honestly and single-heartedly for the prizes of his academic career, he had also worked for them as an athlete might have striven for his laurels in the Olympian Games, or a knight of the Age of Chivalry might have fought for his laurels to lay them at the feet of his lady-love.
Now he had won them—and after all what were they worth? This was not only to be a day oftriumph for him. It was to be a day of hardest trial and most bitter sacrifice as well; a trial which, as he knew even now, would strain his moral fibre very nearly to the breaking point. It was a struggle for which he had been bracing himself ever since that last conversation which he had had with Enid. From that day to this he had never clasped her hand or looked into her eyes.
That had been the agreement between them, and also between his father and her parents. They were not to meet again until he had finished his university career and taken his degree. That, as they thought, would give them both time enough to think—to remain faithful, or to think better of it, as the case might be—and, most important of all for Vane, to determine by the help of more deliberate thought and added experience, and by converse with minds older and more deeply versed in the laws of human nature than his own, whether or not that resolve, which he had taken when he first discovered that there was a taint of poison in his blood, should be kept or not.
But now it was all over—although it ought only to have been just beginning. This day, which ought to have been the brightest of his life, was, in reality, to be the darkest. The golden gates of the Eden of Love lay open before him, but, instead of entering them, he must pass by with eyes averted, and enter instead the sombre portals of his life's Gethsemane; there to take up his cross and to bear it until the time came to lay it down by the side of the grave.
He had thought it all out long and earnestly in solitary communion with his own soul, and during many long and closely-reasoned conversations with Ernshaw, and the one of the night before had decided him—or it might be more correct to saythat it had completed the sum of the convictions which had been accumulating in his soul for the last two years.
The path of duty—duty to her, to himself and to Humanity—lay straight and plain before him. He had nothing to do with the world now. He had come to look upon that taint in his blood as a taint akin to that of leprosy; an inherited curse which forbade him to mix with his kind as other men did. He must stand aloof, crying "unclean" in his soul if not with his voice. Henceforth he must be in the world and not of it—and this, as he thought, he had already proved by his resolve to renounce definitely and for ever the greatest treasure which the world could give him, a treasure which had been his so long, that giving it up was like tearing a part of his own being away with his own hands.
Still, it was all very hard and very bitter. Despite his two years' preparation, the stress of that last struggle all through the long hours of the night which should have been filled with brightest dreams of the morrow, had left him, not only mentally worn out, but even physically sick. He felt as though the scene which would mark the culminating triumph of his academic career, the end of his youth and the beginning of his manhood, was really an ordeal too great, too agonising, to be faced.
His scout had brought up an ample breakfast, with, of course, many congratulations on the coming honours of the day; but he had only drunk some of the coffee and left the food untouched. As he stood in front of the glass, putting on his collar, his face looked to him more like that of a man going to execution, than to take the public reward of many a silent hour of hard study. Hishands trembled so that he could hardly get his necktie into decent shape.
His coffee on the dressing-table. Would a teaspoonful of brandy in it do him any harm? For two years he had not tasted alcohol in any shape, though he had kept it in his rooms for his friends. He and Ernshaw, who was also a rigid teetotaler, had sat with them and seen them drink. He had smelt the fumes of it in the atmosphere of the room, first with temptation which he had fought against and overcome in the strength of the memory of that terrible night in Warwick Gardens. Then the subtle aroma had become merely a matter of interest to him, a thing to be studied as a physician might study the symptoms of a disease for which he has found the cure.
He had seen his friends leave his rooms somewhat the worse for liquor, and he had reasoned with them afterwards, not priggishly or sanctimoniously, but just as a man who had had the same weakness and had overcome it because he thought it necessary to do so, and they had taken it all very good-humoredly and gone away and done the same thing again a few nights afterwards, seeming none the worst for it.
But surely now he had conquered the deadly craving. Surely two years of hard mental study and healthy physical exercise—two years, during which not a drop of alcohol had passed his lips—must have worked the poison out of his blood. Henceforth he was entitled to look upon alcohol as a servant, as a minister to his wants, and not as a master of his weaknesses.
His mental struggle had so exhausted him that his physical nature craved for a stimulant, cried out for some support, some new life, new energy, if even for an hour or so, so imperiously, that hisenfeebled mental stamina had not strength enough left to say "no."
He had got his collar on and his tie tied, and his hands and fingers were trembling as though he were just recovering from an attack of malarial fever.
"It can't possibly do me any harm now," he said, as he moved away from the glass towards the door of his sitting-room. "I've conquered all that. I haven't the slightest desire for it as drink—I haven't had for over a year now—I only want it as medicine, as a patient has it from a doctor. I can't go on without it, I must have something or I shall faint in the Theatre or do something ridiculous of that sort, and as for meeting Enid—good heavens, how am I to do that at all! Yes, I think a couple of teaspoonsful in that coffee will do me far more good than harm."
He went towards the sideboard on which stood his spirit-case. He unlocked it and took out the brandy decanter. As he did so the memory of that other night came back to him, and he smiled. He had conquered now, and he could afford to smile at those old fears. He took the stopper out of the decanter and deliberately raised it to his nostrils. No, it was powerless. The aroma had no more effect upon him than the scent of, say,eau de Colognewould have had. That night in Warwick Gardens, it had been like the touch of some evil magician's wand. Then, in an instant, it had transformed his whole nature; but now his brain remained cool and calm, and his senses absolutely unmoved. Yes, he had conquered. He needed a stimulant, merely as an invalid might need a tonic, and he could take it with just as much safety.
He took the decanter into his bedroom andpoured a couple of teaspoonsful into his coffee, stirred it, lifted the cup, and, after one single priceless moment's hesitation, put it to his lips and drank it off.
"Ah, that's better!" he said, as he put the cup down and felt the subtle glow run like lightning through his veins. "Hallo, who's that? Confound it, I hope it isn't Ernshaw. I don't want to begin the day with a lecture on backsliding."
He put the stopper back, went into the sitting-room, and replaced the decanter in the stand before he said in answer to a knock at his door:
"Come in! Is that you Ernshaw?"
The door opened, and Reginald Garthorne came in.
"No, it's me. That's not quite grammatical, I believe, but it's usual. Good-morning, Maxwell," he went on, holding out his hand. "I've come round early for two reasons. In the first place I want to be the first to congratulate you, and in the second place I want you to give me a brandy and soda. I got here rather late last night with one or two other Cambridge men, and one of them took us to a man's rooms in Brazenose, and we had a rather wet night of it. Not the proper thing, of course, but excusable just now."
"As for the congratulations, old man," said Maxwell, "thanks for yours and accept mine for what you've done in the Tripos, and as for the brandy and soda, well, here you are. Open that cupboard, and you'll find some soda and glasses."
As he said this, he unlocked the spirit case again, and put the brandy decanter on the table.
"I've just been having a spoonful myself in my coffee," he went on, with just a little flash of wonder why he should have said this. "The fact is, I suppose, I've been overdoing it a bit lately, andthat, and the anxiety of the thing, has rather knocked me up. I felt as nervous as a freshman going in for his firstviva voce, when I got up this morning."
"I don't wonder at it," said Garthorne, helping himself. "You must have been grinding infernally hard. So have I, for the matter of that, although, I didn't aspire to a double first. You really do look quite knocked up. By the way," he continued, looking at Vane with a smile whose significance he might have seen had it not been for those two spoonsful of brandy, "I suppose you've quite got over that—well, if you'll excuse me saying so—that foolishness about inherited alcoholism and that sort of stuff, and therefore you'll lay all your laurels at the feet of the fair Enid without a scruple? Of course, you remember that juvenile hiding you gave me on the "Orient"? Quite romantic, wasn't it? Well, I must admit that you proved yourself the better boy then, and as you've taken a double first and I have only got a single, you've proved yourself the better man as well. Here's to you, Maxwell, won't you join me? You know you have quite an ordeal to go through to-day, and just one won't hurt you—do you good, in fact. You look as if you wanted a bracer."
Vane listened to the tempting words, so kindly and frankly spoken, as he might have listened to words heard in a dream. All the high resolves which had shaped themselves with such infinite labour during the past two years, seemed already to have been made by someone else—a someone else who was yet himself. He had made them and he was proud of them, and, of course, he meant to hold to them; but he had conquered that deadly fear which had held him in chains so long.He was a free man now, and could do as he liked with his destiny.
His long probation was over, and he had come through it triumphant. He was to see Enid again that day for the first time for two years. He would hear her voice offering him the sweetest of all congratulations, and when it was all over, there would be a little family gathering in his rooms, just their fathers and themselves, and he would tell them everything frankly, and they should help him to choose—for after all, it was only their right, and she, surely, had the best right of all to be consulted. Meanwhile, now that he had fought and conquered that old craving for alcohol, there would be no harm, especially on such a morning as this, in joining Garthorne in just one brandy and soda.
It never struck him how strangely inverted these thoughts were; what an utter negation of his waking thoughts, as they flashed through his mind while Garthorne was speaking. They seemed perfectly reasonable to him, and—so subtle was the miracle wrought by those two spoonsful of brandy—perfectly honest.
"Well, really, I don't see why I shouldn't," he said, taking up the decanter and pulling one of the two glasses which Garthorne had put on the table towards him. "I think I have got over that little weakness now. At any rate, for the last two years I haven't touched a drop of anything stronger than coffee, and I've sat here and in other men's rooms with fellows drinking in an atmosphere, as one might say, full of drink and tobacco smoke; and except for the smoking—of course I haven't dropped that—I've never felt the slightest inclination to join them, at least, after the first month or so—so I think I'm pretty safe now."
"Oh, of course you are!" said Garthorne. "As a matter of fact, you know, I never thought that there was anything serious in that idea of yours that you'd inherited the taint from some ancestor of yours. You got screwed one night for the first time in your life, and it gave you a fright. But the fact that you've been able to swear off absolutely for two years, is perfectly clear proof that the craving really existed only in your own imagination. If it had been real, you couldn't possibly have done it. Well, here's to us, old man, and to someone else who shall be nameless just now!"
Vane, in the recklessness of his new confidence, had mixed himself a pretty stiff dose. As he raised his glass with Garthorne's, something seemed to drag upon his arm, and something in his soul rose in revolt; but the old lurking poison was already aflame in his blood. He nodded to Garthorne and said:
"Thanks, old man. Here's to us and her!"
A few minutes before the words would have seemed blasphemy to him, now they sounded like an ordinary commonplace. He put the glass to his lips and emptied it in quick, hungry gulps.
"By Jove, that's good," he said, as he put the empty glass down and drew a long, deep breath. "You only really appreciate that sort of thing after a long abstinence like mine."
"I should think so," laughed Garthorne, putting down his own empty glass; "although good and all as a brandy and soda is, especially after a rather hot night, I should hardly think it was worth while to be T.T. for two years just to get the full flavour of it. If you don't mind I'll have another."
"Certainly, old fellow, help yourself," said Vane, pushing the decanter towards him. "That's made a new man of me. When I got up this morning I couldn't eat a scrap of breakfast, but that's made me absolutely hungry. The bacon's cold, of course, but there's a nice bit of tongue and some brawn, and there's some toast and brown bread and butter. Sit down and have a bite. The coffee's cold, but I can soon get up some hot if you'd like it."
"Oh, never mind about that," said Garthorne. "I'm getting a bit peckish myself, and I'll have a bite with you with pleasure; but I'm afraid hot coffee on the top of brandy and soda at this time of the morning would produce something of a conflict in the lower regions. I think another B. and S. would go ever so much better with it."
As he said this he helped himself and pushed thedecanter back towards Vane, saying, "and if you'll take my advice you'll do the same. It can't hurt you, especially if you're eating."
"Still, I think I'd better eat something first," said Vane, as he set out the breakfast things and began to carve. "The hot plates are cold, so there will be enough for both. By Jove, that stuff has given me an appetite!"
"Yes, I thought it would do you good," said Garthorne. "Get something solid inside you and have another drink, and you'll be able to face your most reverend Chancellor with as much confidence as though you were his father-in-law. I'll mix you another if you'll allow me while you're carving. Give me about half and half, please."
"But don't givemehalf and half," said Vane, with a laugh that sounded rather strangely in his own ears, and then, without looking round, he went on carving.
Garthorne poured a much more liberal quantity of brandy into Vane's glass than he had done into his own, and at once filled it up with soda-water from the syphon.
"I think you'll find that about right," he said, putting it down beside him.
"Thanks, old fellow," said Vane; "much obliged!" He put the knife and fork down, lifted the glass and took a sip. "Yes, that's about right, I think," he said, without even noticing the strength of the mixture. And then, with the unnatural appetite which the unaccustomed spirit had roused in him, he took up his knife and fork and began to eat ravenously, taking a gulp of the brandy and soda almost between each mouthful.
They laughed and chatted merrily over the old days as they went on eating and drinking; and as glass succeeded glass Vane became more and morecommunicative and Garthorne more and more cordial. He quickly learnt the truth of many things which so far he had only suspected, and at last he managed to lead the conversation adroitly up to a point at which Vane said in a somewhat thick, unsteady voice:
"By the way, Garthorne, yes, that reminds me. You remember that night at the Empire when we had a bit of a row, Boat-race night, you know—that girl that I got out of the crowd—pretty girl, wasn't she?"
"Yes," replied Garthorne, repressing a desire to laugh out openly. "I remember her quite well; a very pretty girl, and, if I may say so without paying you a compliment, very like your noble self. In fact, if such a thing hadn't been utterly impossible, she might almost have been——"
"My sister!" said Vane, as he drank off the remains of his fourth brandy and soda and put the glass down with a thump on the table. "Yes, that's it, my sister, or at least not quite my sister, but—at least—well, half-sister, you understand—my mother's daughter, but not my father's—see?"
"I see, I see," said Garthorne, and then, before he could get any farther, there was a quick knock at the door. Vane looked dreamily round, and said:
"Come in."
The door opened, and Ernshaw entered, followed by Sir Arthur Maxwell.
"Good heavens, Maxwell! what on earth does this mean?" exclaimed Ernshaw, with something like a gasp in his voice, as he saw Vane sitting at the table in his shirt-sleeves—the friend with whom he had sat in this same room the night before and had that long solemn talk—the friend who had given him such solemn pledges.
The table was littered and disordered, the coffee pot had got knocked over; there was a cup lying on its side in the saucer; a dish of bacon containing a couple of rashers and two eggs congealed in fat, and scraps of meat and broken bits of bread and butter lay about on the cloth.
This was like anything but one of the many orderly breakfasts which he had shared with Maxwell at the same table; but what startled Ernshaw more than anything else was the sight of the empty glass beside his friend's plate, the brandy decanter with less than a wine-glassful in it, and the two empty soda syphons on the table.
"Good morning, Ernshaw! Morning, dad! Jolly glad to see you. Come in and sit down and have a drink—I mean, a bit of breakfast. The coffee's cold, but I can get you some more if you wouldn't rather have brandy and soda—plenty more brandy in the cupboard, soda too. Get it out and help yourselves. Dad, you know Garthorne, of course. Ernshaw, you don't; let me introduce you—very good fellow—old rival of mine in love—you know who with, the fellow I had a fight with on the steamer—both kids—first man to come and congratulate me this morning. Admits that I licked him then as a boy, and have licked him since as a man—took better degree than he did. Still, nice of him to come, wasn't it? Come on, Ernshaw; don't stand there staring. Come on and have a drink, too, and congratulate, you old stick. Never mind about last night, I've got that all under now; fought it for two years and beaten it. Can take a drink now without fear of consequences. Taken lots this morning, and look at me, sober as the Chancellor. Why, dad, what's the matter?"
Sir Arthur Maxwell had come up to Oxford tosee his own old academic triumphs repeated with added brilliance by his son. He had fully approved of all that Vane had done during the two years' probation which he had set himself, and he had firmly believed that the end of it all would be, as he had many a time said to Enid's father, that the hard study, the strenuous mental discipline, and the stress of healthy emulation, would utterly destroy the germs of that morbid feeling which, for a time at least, had poisoned the promise of his son's youth. He had only arrived from Town, bringing Enid and her father, that morning, as they had found it impossible to get rooms in Oxford over night. He had met Ernshaw in the High, and they had come together to Vane's rooms to findthis!
Like a flash that other scene in Warwick Gardens came back to him. While his son was speaking he had looked into his eyes and seen that mocking, dancing flame which he had now a doubly terrible reason to remember, and to see it there in his eyes now on the morning of the crowning day of his youth, shining like a bale-fire of ruin through the morning sky of his new life. It was like looking down into hell itself.
As Vane came towards him he staggered back as though he hardly recognised him. Then, for the first time for nearly thirty years since a well-remembered night among the Indian Hills, the room swam round him and the light grew dark. He made a couple of staggering steps towards the sofa, tripped over the edge of a rug, and rolled over, half on and half off the sofa.
The sight sobered Vane instantaneously, though only for an instant.
"Dad, what's the matter?" he cried again. "My God, Ernshaw, what is it? Tell me, what is it—what have I done? Let me go and see what's wrong with him."
Then with stumbling steps he tried to get round the table. The corner of it caught his thigh. He lurched sideways and dropped to the floor like a man shot through the brain.
Garthorne was already kneeling by the sofa on to which he had lifted Sir Arthur's head and shoulders, and had loosened his tie and collar.
"Poor Vane," he said, looking round. "I'm afraid the excitement of this morning has been a bit too much for him. If we're going to get them round in time, perhaps you'd better ring up his scout and send him for a doctor."
"Yes," said Ernshaw, looking up from where he was kneeling by Vane. "I suppose that's about the best thing to do, since the crime which you have committed is unfortunately not one which warrants me in sending for a policeman as well."
"Crime, sir, what the devil do you mean?" cried Garthorne, springing to his feet.
"I mean," said Ernshaw slowly and without moving, "exactly what I say. I feel perfectly certain from what I know of Maxwell that this could not possibly have occurred unless he had been deliberately tempted to drink. Your motives, of course, are best known to yourself and to Him who will judge them."
"So that's it, is it?" said Garthorne, with a harsh laugh. "You think I made him drunk for some purpose of my own, a man that I've been friends with ever since we punched each other's heads as boys. Well, you've been a good chum to Maxwell, so for his sake I'll pass over that idiotic remark of yours, and tell you for your information that he had been drinking before I came into the room at all."
"It's a lie!" exclaimed Ernshaw, springing to his feet and going towards the bell. "Nothing on earth could make me believe that." And then he rang the bell.
"I'm not accustomed to being called a liar," said Garthorne very quietly, "without resenting it in practical form; but as you don't seem to be quite yourself, and as there is so much physical difference in my favour, I'll take the trouble to convince you that I am speaking the truth."
He went into the bedroom and brought out Vane's coffee-cup.
"Smell that," he said.
Ernshaw took the cup and raised it to his nose. The strong smell of brandy rising from the dregs was unmistakable. Then there came a knock at the door, and Vane's servant came in.
"Oh, good Lord, gentlemen, whatever is the matter?" he exclaimed, looking at Sir Arthur's prostrate form on the sofa and Vane's on the floor.
"Never mind about that just now," said Garthorne curtly; "help us to carry Mr. Maxwell to his room. Then you'd better undress him and get him to bed. I suppose you can see what's the matter, and I hope also that you've learnt to hold your tongue."
"Yes, sir," said the scout. "No man ever served a better master than Mr. Maxwell, and I hope I know my duty to him."
Then the three of them picked up Vane's limp, loose-jointed form from the floor and carried him into his bedroom and laid him on the bed.
"Now," Garthorne continued, "I want you to tell Mr. Ernshaw whether I came here after or before Mr. Maxwell had his coffee."
"A good half-hour after, I should say, sir," said the scout, looking a little mystified. "Yousee, I brought it up about a quarter past eight, and he was up then and half dressed. He must have drunk it soon after, because he never will drink coffee unless it's hot. If it had got cold he'd have had some more up, and you came a bit before nine, sir. He must have drunk it before then."
"Very well," said Garthorne. "Now, can you remember whether the decanters in the spirit-case were filled up last night?"
"No, sir," said the scout. "I filled them up the first thing this morning myself, thinking that Mr. Maxwell would have some friends come to see him on a day like this."
"Thank you," said Garthorne; "that'll do, I think. Now you'd better get Mr. Maxwell undressed."
"Yes," said Ernshaw. "But what about Sir Arthur? Surely we ought to get a doctor for him as soon as possible."
"I am going for a doctor at once," said Garthorne, "if you will tell me where I can find one. I have given him a spoonful of brandy, and I'm going to give him another. Just come in here for a moment, please. You can't do anything for Maxwell yet."
Ernshaw followed him into the sitting-room, and as he took up the decanter Garthorne went on, holding up the brandy decanter, which had only a few spoonfuls left in it:
"Look at that. You heard what his man said. Do you mean to tell me that I could have drunk even half of that since nine o'clock and be as sober as I certainly am? The idea is absurd."
Then he poured out a little into a wine-glass, put his hand under Sir Arthur's head, and let a few drops trickle between his lips. Sir Arthur, who had been gradually regaining consciousness, drewa deep breath which ended in a cough. Then he opened his eyes and said:
"What's the matter? Where am I? Where's Vane?"
"You have had a great shock, Sir Arthur," said Garthorne, in a tone so gentle and kindly that Ernshaw started at it. "Vane has been taken ill, too, and we are putting him to bed. I'm just going for a doctor."
Then he laid Sir Arthur's head back on the cushion and said, rising to his feet:
"Now, Mr. Ernshaw, I think that's about all I can do for the present. If you will tell me where I can find Maxwell's doctor I'll go and send him, and then I'll go on and tell Sir Godfrey, not what has really taken place, but that something has happened which may prevent Maxwell leaving his rooms to-day."
Ernshaw scribbled the name and address of the doctor on the back of an envelope and gave it to Garthorne, saying, rather hesitatingly:
"There it is, Mr. Garthorne. I'm afraid I've been too hasty in what I said to you, and I must confess that you've taken it as very few men would have done. But if you only knew all that Vane has been to me during the last two years, and how awful this seems to me——"
"My dear sir, don't say any more about it," Garthorne interrupted good-humouredly. "I know enough of poor Vane's story to see exactly what you mean. We'll consider it all unsaid, and now I must be off."
Ernshaw's first care, after Garthorne had left the room, was to see to the comfort of Sir Arthur, who had now quite recovered consciousness, but was still feeling faint and ill. He told him as much of the truth about Vane as he knew, and while he was doing so, Jepson, the scout, came in from the bedroom, and said with an air of deferential confidence:
"If you please, sir, I don't think there'll be any need for a doctor to Mr. Maxwell. He's come round a bit, and I think I know what his complaint is. Being excited, as he might well be on a morning like this, he's taken a drop too much on an empty stomach, and that led him to drink brandy and soda with his breakfast instead of sending for some more coffee. I've often seen this sort of thing before, sir, you see, and I've found the physic that will cure him on the mantelpiece. It's this."
He held up a little stoppered bottle full of strong ammonia, which Vane had got for cleaning up the bindings of some old books.
"Twenty drops of this," he went on, "in a wine-glassful of water, and he'll be as sober as ever he was in half an hour. Then I'll make him somestrong coffee, and he'll be as right as a trivet. Only you mustn't let him take any more drink afterwards, or he'll just bring his boots up. I suppose I may try, sir? At any rate it won't do him any harm."
"Certainly," said Ernshaw, "I've heard of it before. Do the best you can for him, Jepson."
Jepson shut the door with a "Thank you, sir," and proceeded to treat his patient.
Before the doctor arrived Sir Arthur had almost entirely recovered, and Vane was sitting up in bed, supported by the faithful Jepson's arm, gasping and coughing, but perfectly sober, and wondering dimly what had happened during the last hour or two—or was it weeks, or months, or what? He felt horribly sick and ill, and he was trembling in every limb, but the clouds of intoxication had cleared away from his mind; memory was returning to him, and he was asking Jepson disjointed questions as to what had happened.
"Never you mind about that, sir," said Jepson. "Everything's all right now. Sir Arthur is coming round nicely, and now you've got that down, you just lay back and keep quiet, and I'll go and make your coffee, and before an hour's over you'll be ready and fit to go to the Sheldonian and face the Chancellor as though you hadn't tasted a drop."
Vane, still wondering at his apparently miraculous recovery, did as he was told and lay back upon the pillows, and Jepson went off to brew him an "extra special" pot of coffee.
"It's very unfortunate for Mr. Maxwell," he said, when he got into his own den, "very unfortunate, and on Degree Day too, but if I know anything about him and Sir Arthur, and I can get him to the Theatre dressed andcompos mentisand all that sort of thing—well, it's a fiver at least in my pocket, so it's an ill wind that blows nobody good."
The doctor arrived while he was making the coffee. Ernshaw explained quickly what had happened. He went in and looked at Vane, felt his pulse, asked him in a kindly tone why he had made such a fool of himself on such a day, then he said that he couldn't improve on Jepson's treatment under the circumstances, and went in to look at Sir Arthur, who now, thanks to Ernshaw's care, was almost himself again.
"Curious business this," he said, after he had felt Sir Arthur's pulse and found that he was practically all right. "Your son's case, I mean. I've known him nearly all the time that he's been up, and I've always considered that he was a teetotaller from principle. Of course it would be simply absurd to attempt to conceal from you what has been the matter with him this morning. He's been drunk, dead drunk, by about half-past nine in the morning. At the same time we must remember that when a man has been in hard training for a boat race, or anything of that sort, or if he has been reading hard on tea, which is almost as vicious a habit as alcoholism, he can get drunk on very little alcohol when the strain is taken off. In fact, I have known a man get drunk on a pint of bitter and a beef-steak; but there doesn't seem any reason of that sort for what happened this morning. Still, fortunately, that man of his knew what to do, and he's done it—a rather heroic remedy certainly, but one can risk that with a good constitution.
"Still, I can't quite understand it, I must confess. If there was any taint of what we now call alcoholic insanity in his blood, it would, of course,be perfectly plain. However, we needn't go into that now. There can't be any idea of that, and I think when he's had his coffee, and you've had a mild brandy and soda, Sir Arthur, and kept quiet for half an hour or so, I think you will be able to go and see your son take the honours which he has won, and won very well, too. I suppose no idea of this has gone beyond these rooms?"
"I'm afraid they have," said Ernshaw. "Garthorne, a Cambridge man, the man, you know, Sir Arthur, who was here with Vane when you came in, the same man who went for you, Doctor, said that he would go on and tell Sir Godfrey that Vane had been taken ill and wouldn't be able to come out of his rooms to-day. In short, that he would have to receive his degree by proxy."
"The devil he did," said Sir Arthur, getting up from the sofa with the strength of a sudden access of anger and moving towards the bedroom door. "Look here, doctor, you have just said that Vane is getting round. Well, if he is, the old blood in him will tell, and he'll take his place and play his part with the rest of them. Mr. Ernshaw, I know your friendship for my son; I know what you have done for him, and how you have helped him. Now, will you do me another favour and take my compliments to Sir Godfrey Raleigh, and say that the matter is not anything like as serious as we thought it was, and that both Vane and myself will be ready to go through the day's programme as arranged. If you will be good enough to do that, the doctor and I will be able to arrange the rest, I think."
"I shall be only too glad," said Ernshaw, taking up his hat. "I shall just have about time to do it, and then get to my rooms and dress.Au revoir, then, until after the ceremony," and withthat, he opened the door just as Jepson knocked at it, bringing in the coffee.
Ernshaw found Garthorne already at Sir Godfrey's rooms in close conversation with Enid. He had, of course, heard much about her from Vane, but this was the first time he had seen her. She had more than fulfilled the promise of two years before, and Ernshaw, ascetic as he was, had still too strong an artistic vein in his temperament to be insensible to her beauty. In fact, as she rose to greet the closest friend of the man who had been her lover, and who, as she fondly hoped, would be so once more after to-day, he started and coloured ever so slightly. He had never seen anything like her before as she stood there with outstretched hand, gently-smiling lips, and big, soft, deep eyes, in all the pride and glory of her dawning womanhood.
It was this, then, that Vane had to give up. This was the priceless treasure which, if he kept his vow, he would have to surrender to another man. As the thought crossed his mind, he looked at Garthorne, and he saw the possibility that, after all, he might be the victor in that struggle which had begun years ago on the deck of the steamer.
Certainly, as far as physical conditions went, there could hardly be a better match; but as he looked back to Enid, a darker thought stole into his mind. Garthorne had, superficially at least, rebutted the charges he had made against him in Vane's rooms; but though he had apologised for what he had said, the conviction that he had deliberately tempted Vane to drink came back to him, now that he saw how great a temptation Garthorne had to commit such an infamy.
No doubt he knew perfectly well that Enid herself would overlook Vane's second lapse as shehad done his first, and would be quite content to marry him on the strength of his promise that he would never get drunk again; but he also knew that, after what had happened that morning, Vane's determination to give her up would be tenfold strengthened, and that, when once he had definitely done so, the psychological moment would have arrived for him to begin his own suit—at first, of course, from a deferential distance, from which he might hope to approach her heart through the avenue of her injured pride.
"Good morning, Mrs. Ernshaw!" she said, "I am glad to meet such an old and good friend of Vane's. I have heard a great deal about you, and, I need hardly say, nothing but good. I hope you have come to tell me that Vane is better and also that you will tell me what has really been the matter with him. Mr. Garthorne, here, has been very rude; he has absolutely refused to say anything about it, and I am quite offended with him. I really can't see why there should be any mystery about it. What is it?"
Ralph Ernshaw was one of those men who can no more tell a direct lie, or even prevaricate, than they can get outside their own skins. He held even the white lies of conventionality to be unworthy of anyone who held the truth as sacred, and yet for the life of him he could not look this lovely girl in the face and tell her that the man whom she had loved ever since she knew what love was, had been lying drunk on the floor of his room less than an hour before, and that the sight of him had shocked his father into a fainting fit.
"I think, Miss Raleigh," he said, after a little hesitation, "that Vane would rather tell you that himself. In fact, to be quite candid with you, it is not a subject upon which I should care to toucheven at your request, simply because I think that it is a matter which could be very much better discussed and explained between Vane and yourself; and I think Mr. Garthorne will agree with me in that view."
"Certainly I do," said Garthorne, "I think that is the most sensible way of putting it. Enid, if you'll take my advice you'll take Ernshaw's, and let Vane do his own explaining after Commem."
"Really, I think it's very horrid of both of you," said Enid. "I certainly can't see why there should be all this mystery. If it's anything really serious, surely I have a right to know. However, I suppose I must control my feminine impatience, at any rate it can't be anything very bad if he'll be able to be at the Theatre and Sir Arthur can come with him. I suppose I shall hear all about it at dinner to-night."
"I have no doubt that you will, Miss Raleigh," said Ernshaw, "and now, if you will excuse me, I must be off to my rooms to get ready for my own share of the proceedings. Good morning."
"Good morning, Mr. Ernshaw," replied Enid, a trifle stiffly. "That reminds me how rude I have been, I've not congratulated you yet."
"Oh, I haven't done anything," said Ernshaw, "at least, not in comparison with what Vane has done. You'll see the difference in the Theatre. Good morning again. Good morning, Mr. Garthorne."
"Good morning—we shall see you later, I suppose?" replied Garthorne, as the door closed, and then he turned to Enid and went on: "He's a thundering good fellow that Ernshaw. Quite a character, I believe, enthusiast, and all that sort of thing, but everyone here seems to think he'll be a shining light some day."
"Yes, he seems very nice," said Enid, "but, as a matter of fact, I can't say that I'm particularly fond of shining lights or people who are too good, and from what papa tells me, this Mr. Ernshaw has been making or trying to make Vane a great deal too good for me. I even hear that he has been trying to make Vane become a parson. Fancy Vane, with all his talents and prospects, a curate! The idea is absurd, even more absurd than this two years' probation idea."
"I quite agree with you," said Garthorne, "but still, think of the test of constancy and the delight of knowing that you have both stood it so well."
At this moment the door opened, and Sir Godfrey came in, not altogether to Garthorne's satisfaction, and so put an end to further developments of the conversation.
A couple of hours later Enid was sitting with her father, a unit of the vast audience which filled the Sheldonian Theatre. After Ernshaw's visit, neither she nor her father had received any message either from Vane or Sir Arthur. She had expected that Vane, at least, would have come to her before the beginning of the ceremonies, or that, at least, Sir Arthur would have come and told her something about him, but no, not a word; and there she sat between Garthorne and her father, angry and yet expectant, waiting for the moment of his appearance.
"Ah, here he is at last," whispered Garthorne, as his name and honours were called out in Latin.
Enid held her breath as the familiar figure, clad in the unfamiliar academic garb, walked towards the Chancellor's throne. She could see that he was deadly pale, and that his eyes were shining with an unnatural brightness. He never even once looked towards her. The wild outburst ofcheering which greeted his appearance seemed as utterly lost upon him as if he had been stone deaf and blind. He listened to the Chancellor's address with as little emotion as though it concerned some one else. Then he knelt down, the hood, the outward and visible sign of his intellectual triumph, was put over his shoulders; the Chancellor spoke the magic words without his hearing them. He never felt the three taps given with the New Testament on his head, and he rose from his knees and moved away from the scene of the crowning triumph of his youth as mechanically as though the proceedings had no more interest for him than if they had been taking place a thousand miles away.
All through the afternoon Enid and her father waited for them to come, but there was no sign from either of them until just before tea-time Jepson presented himself with two letters, one addressed to Sir Godfrey and one to Enid. Both were very short. Sir Godfrey's was from Sir Arthur, and ran as follows:
"My Dear Raleigh,"I hope that you and your daughter will forgive the apparent discourtesy of our absence from you this afternoon and evening. I find it necessary to take Vane to London at once. His letter to Enid will explain the reason."Faithfully yours,"Arthur Maxwell."
"My Dear Raleigh,
"I hope that you and your daughter will forgive the apparent discourtesy of our absence from you this afternoon and evening. I find it necessary to take Vane to London at once. His letter to Enid will explain the reason.
"Faithfully yours,"Arthur Maxwell."
"There is evidently something very serious the matter," said Sir Godfrey, as he handed the note to Enid. "Maxwell wouldn't write like that without good reason. That's from Vane, I suppose. What does he say?"
"Say," exclaimed Enid, with a flash of anger through her fast gathering tears. "That's what he says. It's too bad, too cruel—and after leaving me alone for two years—it's miserable!" And with that, she made a swift escape out of the room and shut the door behind her with an emphatic bang.
Sir Godfrey picked the note up from the table where she had flung it. There was no form of address. It simply began:
"I was drunk this morning. Drunk without meaning to be so, after being two years without touching alcohol and without experiencing the slightest craving for it. Last night I had finally come to the conclusion that it would be a sin to ask you to keep your promise to me. Now I am convinced that it would be absolute infamy to do so. I dare not even face you to tell you this, so utterly unworthy and contemptible am I in my own sight. Whatever you hear to the contrary, remember that what has happened this morning is no fault of anyone but myself. If ever we meet again I hope I shall find you the wife of a man more worthy of you than I am now, or, with this accursed taint in my blood, ever could be. Perhaps in those days we may be friends again; but for the present we must be strangers."Vane."
"I was drunk this morning. Drunk without meaning to be so, after being two years without touching alcohol and without experiencing the slightest craving for it. Last night I had finally come to the conclusion that it would be a sin to ask you to keep your promise to me. Now I am convinced that it would be absolute infamy to do so. I dare not even face you to tell you this, so utterly unworthy and contemptible am I in my own sight. Whatever you hear to the contrary, remember that what has happened this morning is no fault of anyone but myself. If ever we meet again I hope I shall find you the wife of a man more worthy of you than I am now, or, with this accursed taint in my blood, ever could be. Perhaps in those days we may be friends again; but for the present we must be strangers.
"Vane."