May waited within the gates of the Lodgings for some moments. She did not open the door and enter the house. She walked up and down on the gravelled court. She wanted to be alone, to speak to no one just now; her heart was full of weariness and loneliness.
When she felt certain that Boreham was safely away, she went to the gates and out into the narrow street again, where she could hear subdued sounds of the evening traffic of the city.
The dusky streets had grown less dim; the shining overhead was more luminous as the moon rose.
The old buildings, as she passed them on her solitary walk, looked mysterious and aloof, as if they had been placed there magically for some secret purpose and might vanish before the dawn. This was the ancient Oxford, the Oxford of the past, the Oxford that was about to pass away, leaving priceless memories of learning and romance behind it, something that could never be again quite what it had been. Before dawn would it vanish and something else, still called Oxford, would be standing there in its place?
May was tempted to let her imagination wander thus, and to see in this mysterious Oxford the symbol of the personality of a single man, a personality that haunted her when she was alone, a personality which, when it stood before her in flesh and blood, seemed to fill space and obliterate other objects.
She had, in the chapel, re-affirmed over and overagain her resolution to overcome this obsession, and now, as she walked that evening, her heart cried out for indulgence just for one brief moment, for permission to think of this personality, and to read details of it in every moonlit façade of old Oxford, in every turn of the time-worn lanes and passages.
The temptation had come upon her, because it was so dreary to be loved by Boreham. His talk seemed to mark her spiritual loneliness with such poignant insistence; it made it so desperately plain to her that those sharp cravings of her heart could not be satisfied except by one man. It had made her see, for the first time, that the sacred dead, to whom she had raised a shrine, was a memory and not a present reality to her; and this thought only added to her confusion and her grief.
What was there to hold on to in life?
"O, put thy trust in God!" came the answer.
"Help me to make the mischance of my life a motive for greater moral effort. Help me to be a willing sacrifice and not an unwilling victim." And as she uttered these words she moved with more rapid steps.
Shadows were visible on the roadway; roofs glimmered and the edges of the deep window recesses were tinged with a dark silver. She passed under the walls of All Souls and emerged again into the High. A figure she recognised confronted her. She tried to pass it without appearing to be aware of it, and she hurried on with bent head. But it turned, and Bingham's voice spoke to her.
"Mrs. Dashwood," he called softly.
She was forced to slacken her pace. "Oh, Mr. Bingham!" she said, and he came and walked by her, making pretence that he was disturbing her solitude because he had never been told the dinner-hour at the Lodgings, when Lady Dashwood invited him, and, whatwas more important, he had forgotten to say that he would be very glad if Mrs. Dashwood would make use of him as a cicerone if she wanted any more sight-seeing in Oxford and the Warden was unable to accompany her. This was the pretence he put before her.
Then, when he had said all this and had walked a few yards along the street with her, he seemed to forget that his business with her ought to be over, and remarked that he had been trying to save Boreham's soul.
"His soul!" said May, with a sigh.
"I've been trying to make him work."
"Doesn't he work?" asked May.
"No, he preaches," said Bingham. "If he had a touch of genius he might invent some attractive system of ethics in which his own characteristics would be the right characteristics; some system in which humility and patience would take a back seat."
May could not help smiling a little, Bingham's voice was so smooth and soft; but she felt Boreham's loneliness again and ceased smiling.
"Or he might invent a new god," said Bingham, "a sort of composite photograph of himself and the old gods. He might invent a new creed to go along with it and damn all the old creeds. But he is incapable of construction, so he merely preaches the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, which is a soft job. Wherever he is, there is Sodom and Gomorrah! You see my point? Egotism is always annoyed at egotisms. An egotist always sees the egotism of other people. The egotism of those round him, jump at him, they get on his nerves! He has to love people who are far, far away! You see my point? Well, I've been trying to make him take on a small bit of war work!"
"And will he take it?" asked May.
"I don't know," said Bingham; "I've just left him, a prey to conflicting passions."
May was silent.
"Are you going back to King's?" asked Bingham.
She and Bingham were walking along, just as she and Boreham had been walking along the same street, past these same colleges not an hour ago. Was she going back to the Lodgings? Yes, she thought, in fact she knew she was going back to the Lodgings.
"May I see you to the Lodgings?" asked Bingham.
There seemed no alternative but to say "Yes."
"There are many things I should like to talk over with you, Mrs. Dashwood," said Bingham, stepping out cheerfully. "I should like to roam the universe with you."
"I'm afraid you would find me very ignorant," said May.
"I would present you with facts. I would sit at your feet and hold them out for your inspection, and you, from your throne above, would pronounce judgment on them."
"It is the ignorant people who always do pronounce judgment," said May. "So that will be all right. You spoke of Mr. Boreham preaching. Well, I've just been preaching. It's a horrid habit."
Bingham gave one of his surprising and most cultured explosions of laughter. May turned and looked at him with her eyebrows very much raised.
"I am laughing at myself," he explained. "I thought to buy things too cheaply."
May looked away, pondering on the meaning of his words. At last the meaning occurred to her.
"You mean you wanted to flatter me, and—and I began to talk about something else. Was that what made you laugh?" she asked.
"That's it," said Bingham. "I wanted to flatter you because it is a pleasure to flatter you, and I forgot what a privilege it was."
"Ah!" said May, quietly.
"Cheap, cheap, always cheap!" said Bingham. "Cheapness is the curse of our age. The old Radical belief in the right to buy cheaply, that poison has soaked into the very bone of politics. It has contaminated our religion. The pulpit has decided in favour of cheap salvation."
May looked round again at Bingham's moonlit profile.
"No more hell!" he said, "no more narrow way, no more strait gate to heaven! On the contrary, we bawl ourselves blue asserting that the way is broad, and that every blessed man Jack of us will find it. Yes," he went on more slowly, "we have no use now for a God who can deny to any one a cheap suburban residence in the New Jerusalem. And so," he added, "I flatter you, stupidly, and—and you forgive me."
They walked on together for a moment in silence.
"I don't deserve your forgiveness," he said. "But I desire your forgiveness. I desire your toleration as far as it will go. Perhaps, if you were to let me talk on, I might go too far for your toleration," and now he turned and looked at her.
"You would not go too far," said May. "You are too much detached; you look on——" and here she hesitated.
"Oh, damn!" said Bingham, softly; "that is the accursed truth," and he stared before him at the cracks in the pavement as they stood out sharply in the moonlight.
"You mustn't mind," said May, soothingly.
"I do mind," said Bingham; "I should like to be able to take my own emotions seriously. I should like to feel the importance of my being highly strung, imaginative, a lover of beauty and susceptible to the charms of women. Instead of which I am hopelessly critical of myself. I see myself a blinking fool, amongother fools." Bingham's lips went on moving as if he were continuing to speak to himself.
"When a woman takes you and your emotions seriously, what happens then?" asked May very softly, and she looked at him with wide open eyes and her eyebrows full of inquiry.
"Ah!" sighed Bingham, "that was long ago. I have forgotten—or nearly." Then he added, after a moment's silence: "May I talk to you about the present?"
"Yes, do," said May.
"There!" said Bingham, resentfully, "see how you trust me! You know that if I begin to step on forbidden ground, you have only to put out your finger and say 'Stop!' and I shall retire amiably, with a jest."
"That is part of—of your—your charm," said May, hesitatingly.
"My charm!" repeated Bingham, in a tone of sarcasm.
"I'm sorry I used the word charm," said May. "I will use a better term, your personality. You are so alarming and yet so gentle."
Bingham turned and gazed at her silently. They were now very near the Lodgings.
"Thanks," he said at last. "I know where I am. But I knew it before."
A great silence came upon them. Sounds passed them as they walked; men hurried past them, occasionally a woman, a Red Cross nurse in uniform. The sky above was still growing more and more luminous. All the rest of the way they walked in silence, each thinking their own thoughts, neither wishing to speak. When they reached the Lodgings Bingham walked into the court with her.
"Won't you come in?" she asked, but it was a mere formality, for she knew that he would refuse.
"It's too late," he said.
"And you are coming to dinner to-morrow at eight?" She laid emphasis on the hour, to hide the fact that she was really asking whether he meant to come at all, after their talk about his personality.
"Yes, at eight," he said. "Good-bye."
As he spoke the moon showed full and gloriously, coming out for a moment sharply from the fine gauzy veil of grey that overspread the sky, and the Court was distinct to its very corners. The gravel, the shallow stone steps at the door, the narrow windows on each side of the door, the sombre walls; all were illumined. And Bingham's face, as he lifted his cap, was illumined too. It was a very dark face, so dark that May doubted if she really had quite grasped the details of it in her own mind. His eyes seemed scarcely to notice her as she smiled, and yet he too smiled. Then he went back over the gravel to the gate without saying another word. She did not look at his retreating figure. She opened the door and went in. Other people in the world were suffering. Why can't one always realise that? It would make one's own suffering easier to bear.
The house seemed empty. There was not a sound in it. The dim portraits on the walls looked out from their frames at her. But they had nothing to do with her, she was an outsider!
She walked up the broad staircase. She must endure torture for two—nearly three more days! The hours must be dealt with one by one, even the minutes. It would take all her strength.
At the head of the stairs she paused. Her desire was to go straight to her room, and not to go into the drawing-room and greet her Aunt Lena. Gwendolen would very likely be there in high spirits—the future mistress of the house—the one person in the world to whom the Warden would have to say, "May I? Can I?"
"Don't be a coward! Other people in the worldare suffering besides you," said the inner voice; and May went straight to the drawing-room door and opened it.
The room was dark except for a glimmer from a red fire. May was going out again, and about to close the door, when her aunt's voice called to her, and the lights went up on each side of the fireplace. May pushed the door back again and came inside.
"Aunt Lena!" she called.
Lady Dashwood had been sitting on the couch near it. She was standing now. It was she who had put up the lights. Her face was pale and her eyes brilliant.
"May, it's all over!" she called under her breath.
May stood by the door. It was still ajar and in her hand.
"All over! What is all over?" she asked apprehensively.
"Shut the door!" said Lady Dashwood, in a low voice.
May shut the door.
"Gwendolen has broken off her engagement!" said Lady Dashwood, controlling her voice.
May always remembered that moment. The room seemed to stretch about her in alleys fringed with chairs and couches. There was plenty of room to walk, plenty of room to sit down. There was plenty of time too. It was extraordinary what a lot of time there was in the world, time for everything you wanted to do. Then there was the portrait over the mantelpiece. He seemed to have nothing to do. She had not thought of that before. He was absolutely idle, simply looking on. And below these trivial thoughts, tossed on the surface of her mind, flowed a strange, confused, almost overwhelming, tide of joy.
"Oh!" was all that May said.
Lady Dashwood looked at her and looked again. She put out her hand and rested it on the mantelshelf, and still looked at May. May was taking off one of her gloves. When she had unfastened the buttons she discovered that she was wearing a watch on her wrist, and she wound it up carefully.
Lady Dashwood was still looking, all her excitement was suppressed for the moment. What was May thinking of—what had happened to her?
"For how long?" asked May, and she suddenly perceived that there had been a rigid silence between them.
"For how long?" exclaimed Lady Dashwood.
"Yes," said May.
"The engagement is broken off!" said Lady Dashwood. "Broken off, dear!"
"Not permanently?" said May, as if she were speaking of an incident of no particular importance.
Lady Dashwood's eyes gleamed. "For ever," she said.
May looked at her watch again and began to wind it up again. It refused to be wound any more. May looked at it anxiously.
"Gwendolen goes to-morrow," said Lady Dashwood. "It is she who has broken off the engagement, and she is going away before Jim returns. It is allover, May, and I have been waiting for half an hour to tell you the news. I have scarcely known how to wait."
May went up and kissed her silently.
"You are the only person I can speak to," said Lady Dashwood. "May, I feel as if this couldn't be true. Will you read this?" And she put a letter into May's hands. As she did so she saw, for the first time, that May's hands were trembling. She drew the letter back and said quietly: "No, let me read Marian Potten's letter to you. I want to read it again for my own sake, though I have read it half a dozen times already."
"Mrs. Potten!" said May. "Aunt Lena, you'll think me stupid, but I haven't grasped things."
"Of course not," said Lady Dashwood. "And I am too much excited to explain properly. I suppose my nerves have been strained lately. I want to hear Marian's letter read aloud. Listen, May! Oh, my dear, do listen!"
Lady Dashwood turned the letter up to the light and began to read in a slow, emphatic, husky voice—
"Dear Lena,"Certain things have happened of which I cannot speak, and which necessitated a private interview between Gwendolen and myself. But what I am going to tell you now concerns you, because it concerns the Warden. In our interview Gwendolen confided to me that she had serious misgivings about the wisdom of her engagement. They are more than misgivings. She feels that she ought not to have accepted the Warden's offer. She feels that she never considered the responsibilities she was undertaking, and she had nobody to talk the matter over with who could have given her sensible advice. She feels that neither her character nor her education fit her to be a Warden'swife, and she shrinks from the duties that it involves. All this came out! I hope that you and the Warden will forgive the fact that all this came out before me, and that I found myself in the position of Gwen's adviser. She has come to the conclusion that she ought to break off this engagement—so hastily made—and I agree with her that there should not be an hour's delay in breaking it off. She is afraid of meeting the Warden and having to give him a personal explanation. It is a natural fear, for she is only a silly child and he is a man of years and experience. She does not feel strong enough to meet him and tell him to his face that she cannot be his wife. You will understand how unpleasant it would be for you all. So, with my entire approval and help, she has taken the opportunity of his absence to write him a decisive letter. She will hand you over this letter and ask you to give it to the Warden on his return home. This letter is to tell him that she releases him from his promise of marriage. And to avoid a very serious embarrassment I have invited her to come to Potten End to-morrow morning and stay with me till I have heard from Lady Belinda. I am writing myself to Lady Belinda, giving her full details. I am sure she will be convinced of the wisdom of Gwendolen so suddenly breaking off her engagement. I will send the car for Gwendolen to-morrow at ten o'clock, and meanwhile will you spare her feelings and make no reference to what has taken place? The poor child is feeling very sore and very much ashamed of all the fuss, but feels that she is doing the right thing—at last.
"Dear Lena,
"Certain things have happened of which I cannot speak, and which necessitated a private interview between Gwendolen and myself. But what I am going to tell you now concerns you, because it concerns the Warden. In our interview Gwendolen confided to me that she had serious misgivings about the wisdom of her engagement. They are more than misgivings. She feels that she ought not to have accepted the Warden's offer. She feels that she never considered the responsibilities she was undertaking, and she had nobody to talk the matter over with who could have given her sensible advice. She feels that neither her character nor her education fit her to be a Warden'swife, and she shrinks from the duties that it involves. All this came out! I hope that you and the Warden will forgive the fact that all this came out before me, and that I found myself in the position of Gwen's adviser. She has come to the conclusion that she ought to break off this engagement—so hastily made—and I agree with her that there should not be an hour's delay in breaking it off. She is afraid of meeting the Warden and having to give him a personal explanation. It is a natural fear, for she is only a silly child and he is a man of years and experience. She does not feel strong enough to meet him and tell him to his face that she cannot be his wife. You will understand how unpleasant it would be for you all. So, with my entire approval and help, she has taken the opportunity of his absence to write him a decisive letter. She will hand you over this letter and ask you to give it to the Warden on his return home. This letter is to tell him that she releases him from his promise of marriage. And to avoid a very serious embarrassment I have invited her to come to Potten End to-morrow morning and stay with me till I have heard from Lady Belinda. I am writing myself to Lady Belinda, giving her full details. I am sure she will be convinced of the wisdom of Gwendolen so suddenly breaking off her engagement. I will send the car for Gwendolen to-morrow at ten o'clock, and meanwhile will you spare her feelings and make no reference to what has taken place? The poor child is feeling very sore and very much ashamed of all the fuss, but feels that she is doing the right thing—at last.
"Yours ever,"Marian Potten."
Lady Dashwood folded up the letter and put it back into its envelope. She avoided looking at May just now.
"Marian must feel very strongly on the subjectto offer to send her own car," she said. "I have never known her do such a thing before," and Lady Dashwood smiled and looked at the fire. "So the whole thing is over! But how did it all come about? What happened? I've been thinking over every possible accident that could have happened to make Gwen change her mind in this sudden way, and I am still in the dark," she went on. "Do you think that Gwendolen had any misgivings about her engagement when she left this house after lunch, May? I'm sure she hadn't." Here Lady Dashwood paused and looked towards May but not at her. "It all happened at Potten End! I'm certain of it," she added.
May, having at last completely drawn off both her gloves, was folding and unfolding them with unsteady hands.
"It's a mystery," said May.
"But I don't care what happened!" said Lady Dashwood, solemnly; "I don't really want to know. It is over! I can't rest, I can't read, I can't think coherently. I can only be thankful—thankful beyond words."
May walked slowly in the direction of the door. "Yes, all your troubles are over," she said.
"Do you remember, May," went on Lady Dashwood, "how you and I stood together just here, under the portrait, when you arrived on Monday? Well, all that torment is over. All that happened between then and now has been wiped clean out, as if it had never been."
But all had not been wiped out. Some of what happened had been written down in May's mind and couldn't be wiped out.
"Don't go this moment; sit down for a little, before you go and dress," said Lady Dashwood, "and I'll try and sit, for I must talk, I must talk, and, May dear, you must listen. Come back, dear!"
Lady Dashwood sat down on one side of the fireplace and looked at May, as she came back and seated herself on the opposite side. There was the fireplace between them.
"Aren't you glad?" asked Lady Dashwood. "Aren't you glad, May?"
"I am very glad," said May. "I rejoice—in your joy."
Lady Dashwood leaned back in her chair, and let her eyes rest on May's face.
"I can't describe to you what I felt when Gwendolen came in half an hour ago. She came in quietly, her face pale and her eyes swollen, and said quite abruptly: 'I have broken on my engagement with Dr. Middleton. Please don't scold me, please don't talk about it; please let me go. I'm miserable enough as it is,' and she put two letters into my hand and went. May, I took the letter addressed to Jim and locked it up, for a horrible fear came on me that some one might destroy that letter. Besides, I had also the fear that because the thing was so sudden it might somehow not be true. Well, then I came down here again and waited for you. I waited in the dark, trying to rest. You came in very late. I scarcely knew how to wait. I suppose I am horribly excited. I am feeling now as Louise feels constantly, but I can't get any relief in the way she does. A Frenchwoman never bottles up anything; her method is to wear other people out and save her own strength by doing so. From our cradles we are smacked if we express our emotions; but foreigners have been encouraged to express their emotions. They believe it necessary and proper to do so. They gesticulate and scream. It is a confirmed habit with them to do so, and it doesn't mean much. I dare say when you or I just say 'Oh!' it means more than if Louise uttered persistent shrieks for half an hour. But she is a good soul——" And Lady Dashwood ran on in thishalf-consequent, half-inconsequent way, while May sat in her chair, busy trying to hide the trembling of her knees. They would tremble. She tried holding them with her hands, but they refused to stop shaking. Once they trembled too obviously, and Lady Dashwood said, in a changed tone, as if she had suddenly observed May: "You have caught cold! You have caught a chill!"
"Perhaps I have," said May, and her knees knocked against each other.
"You have, my dear," said Lady Dashwood; and as she pronounced this verdict, she rose from her chair with great suddenness. There was on her face no anxiety, not a trace of it, but a certain great content. But as she rose she became aware that her head ached and she felt a little dizzy. What matter!
"I may have got just the slightest chill," said May, rising too, "but if so, it's nothing!"
"Most people like having chills, and that's why they never take any precautions, and refuse all remedies," said Lady Dashwood, making her way to the door with care, and speaking more slowly and deliberately; "but I know you're not like that, and I'm going to give you an infallible cure and preventive. It'll put you right, I promise. Come along, dear child. I ought to have known you had a chill. I ought to have seen it written on your brow 'Chill' when you came in; but I've been too much excited by events to see anything. I've been chattering like a silly goose. Come upstairs, I'm going to dose you."
And May submitted, and the two women went out of the drawing-room together up the two or three steps and into the corridor. They walked together, both making a harmless, pathetic pretence: the one to think the other had a chill, the other to own that a chill it was, indeed, though not a bad chill!
What was Gwendolen doing now? Was she crying?"Poor thing, poor little neglected thing!" thought Lady Dashwood.
"Marian can be very high-handed," she whispered to May. "I have known her do many arbitrary things. She would be quite capable of—— But what's the good! Poor Gwen! I couldn't pity her before, I felt too hard. But now Jim is safe I can think reasonably. I'm sorry for her. But," she added, "I'm not sorry for Belinda."
Now that they had reached May's room, May declared that she was not as sure as she had been that she had got a chill.
But the chill could not be dropped like that. Lady Dashwood felt the impropriety of suddenly giving up the chill, and she left the room and went to search for the infallible cure and preventive. As she did so she began to wonder why she could not will to have no headache. She was so happy that a headache was ridiculous.
When she returned, May was in her dressing-gown and was moving about with decision, and her limbs no longer trembled.
"I don't pity Belinda," said Lady Dashwood, pretending not to see the change. "I don't pity her, though I suppose that she, too, is merely a symptom of the times we live in." Here she began to pour out a dose from the bottle in her hand. "It can't be a good thing, May, for the community that there should be women who live to organise amusement for themselves; who merely live to meet each other and their men folk, and play about. It can't be good for the community? We ought all to work, May, every one of us. Writing invitations to each other to come and play, buying things for ourselves, seeing dressmakers isn't work. There, May!" She held out the glass to May. Each kept up the pretence—pretending with solemnity that May had been trembling because shehad possibly got a chill. It was a pretence that was necessary. It was a pretence that covered and protected both of them. It was a brave pretence. "No," said Lady Dashwood again, and firmly, as she released the glass. "It isn't good for the community to have a class of busy idlers at the top of the ladder."
May had taken the glass, and now she tipped it up and drank the contents. They were hot and stinging!
Then May broke her silence, and imitating a voice that Lady Dashwood knew well, uttered these words:
"Oh, damn the community!"
"Was it very nasty?" said Lady Dashwood, laughing. "Ah, May, I can laugh now at Belinda! Alas! I can laugh!"
What stung Gwendolen, what made her smart almost beyond endurance, was that she had exchanged the Warden for an umbrella. The transaction had been simple, and sudden, and inevitable. The Warden was in London, a free man, and there was the umbrella in the corner of the room, hers. It was looking at her, and she had not paid for it. The bill would be sent to the Lodgings, the bill for the umbrella and the gloves. The bill would be re-directed and would reach her—bills always did reach one, however frequently one changed one's address. Private letters sometimes got misdirected and mislaid, but never bills. Friends sometimes say, "We couldn't write because we didn't know your address." Tradespeople never say this, they don't omit to send their bills merely because they don't know your address. If they don't know your address, they search for it!
The pure imbecility of her behaviour at Christ Church about that ten-shilling note was now apparent to Gwendolen. She could not think, now, how she could have done anything so inconceivably silly, and so useless as to put herself in the power of Mrs. Potten. She would never, never in all her life, do such a thing again. Another time, when hard up and needing something necessary, she would borrow, or she would go straight to the shop and order "the umbrella" (as after all, she had done), and she would take the sporting chance of being able to pay the bill some time.But never would she again touch notes or coins that belonged to people she knew, and especially those belonging to Mrs. Potten! Oh, what a wickedly cruel punishment she had to bear, merely because she had had a sort of joke about ten shillings belonging to Mrs. Potten.
One thing she would never forgive as long as she lived, and that was Mrs. Potten's meanness. She would never forget the way in which Mrs. Potten took advantage of her by getting her into Potten End alone, with nobody to protect her.
First of all Mrs. Potten had pretended to be merely sorry. Then she spoke about Mr. Harding and Mr. Bingham being witnesses and made the whole thing appear as a sort of crime, and then she ended up with saying: "The Warden must not be kept in ignorance of all this! That is out of the question. He has a right to know." That came as an awful shock to Gwendolen, and made her burst into tears.
"Are you afraid, child, he will break off the engagement?" was all that Mrs. Potten said, and then the horrid old woman asked all sorts of horrid questions, and wormed out all kinds of things: that the Warden had not actually said he was in love, that he had scarcely spoken to her for three days, and that he had not said "good-bye" that morning when he left for London. How Mrs. Potten had managed to sneak it out of her Gwendolen did not know, but Mrs. Potten gave her no time to think of what she was saying, and being so much upset and so much afraid of Mrs. Potten lots of things came out. And yet all the time she knew things were going wrong because of the wicked look on Mrs. Potten's face.
However, Gwendolen had all through stuck to it (and it was the truth) that she had never intended to do more than "sort of joke" with the note, and this Mrs. Potten simply wouldn't understand. And whenshe, Gwendolen, promised, on her honour, to make it "all right," by wiring to her mother to send her a postal order for ten shillings by return, Mrs. Potten sprang like a tiger on her: "Why wire for it? Why not return it now?" Oh, the whole thing was awful!
After this Mrs. Potten's voice had changed to ice, and she put on a perfectly beastly tone.
"Gwendolen, you shock me beyond words, and oblige me to take a very decided step in the matter."
Then she stopped, and Gwendolen could recall that horrible moment of suspense. Then came words that made Gwendolen shudder to think of.
"I have a very great respect for the position of a Warden—it is a position of trust; and I have also personally a very great respect for the Warden of King's. I give you an alternative. Break off your engagement with him at once, quietly, or I shall make this little affair of the note known in Oxford, so that the Warden will have to break the engagement off. Which alternative do you choose?"
The very words repeated themselves over and over in Gwendolen's memory, and she flung herself on her bed and gave way to a passion of tears. No, she would never forgive Mrs. Potten.
When the bell sounded for dinner, Gwendolen struggled off the bed and went to look at herself in the glass. She couldn't possibly go downstairs looking like that, even if she were dressed. Yet pangs of hunger seized Gwendolen. She had eaten one wretched little slice of bread and butter at Potten End, moistening it with her tears, and now she wanted food. Several minutes passed.
"They won't care even if I'm dead," moaned Gwendolen, and she listened.
A knock came at her door, and Louise entered.
"Ifmademoisellehas a headache would she like to have some dinner brought up to her?"
"Yes, thanks," said Gwendolen, and she kept her face away from the direction of the door so that Louise could not see it.
"What wouldmademoisellelike? Some soup?"
Oh, how wretched it all was! And when all might have been so different! And soup—only soup!
"I don't care," said Gwendolen, "some sort of dinner—any dinner."
"Ah, dinner!" said Louise.
When she had gone, Gwendolen tied two handkerchiefs together and fastened them round her forehead to look as if she had a headache—indeed, she had a headache—and a heartache too!
Presently dinner was brought up, and Gwendolen ate it in loneliness and sadness. She did not leave anything. She had thought of leaving some of the meat, but decided against it. After she had finished, and it had been cleared away, she had sat looking at the fire for a few minutes with eyes that were sore from weeping. Then she got up and began to undress. Life was a miserable thing! She got into bed and laid her hot head down on the cool pillow and tried not to think. But she listened to every sound that passed her door. It was horrible to be alone and forgotten. She had asked to be left alone, but she had not meant to be alone so long. Then there suddenly sprang into her mind the recollection of the strange form she thought she had seen in the library. She really had thought she had seen him. Were such things true?
What about the disaster? Perhaps it washerdisaster he had come to warnherabout and that was whyshesaw him. Perhaps God sent him! This thought thrilled her whole being, and she lay very still. Perhaps God had meant to tellherthat she must be careful, and she had not been careful. But then how could she have guessed?
Gwendolen had been confirmed only two years ago. She remembered that the preparation for confirmation had been a bore, and yet had given her a pleasant sensation of self-approbation, because she was serving God in a manner peculiarly agreeable to Him by being in the right Church, especially now in these times of unbelief and neglect of religion. She had a pleasant feeling that there were a great many people disobeying Him; and that heaps of priggish people who fussed about living goody-goody lives, were not really approved of by Him, because they didn't go to church or only went to wrong churches.
Then she recalled the afternoon when she was confirmed. She was at school and there were other girls with her, and the old bishop preached to them, and went on and on and on so long, and was so dull that Gwendolen ceased to listen. But she had gone through it all, and had felt very happy to have it over. She felt safe in God's keeping. But now she was alone and miserable, and felt strangely unprotected by God, as if God didn't care!
Was that strange form she had seen in the library sent not by God but by the devil to frighten her? If the Warden had been in the house she would have felt less frightened, only now—now she was so horribly alone. Even if he had been in the house, though she couldn't speak to him, she would have been less frightened.
Gwendolen listened for footsteps in the corridor—would any one come to her? Why had she spoken to Lady Dashwood as if she didn't want to be disturbed? Suppose nobody came? And what about the devil? Should she ring?
At last, unable to bear herself and her thoughts any longer she rose from her bed and put on her dressing-gown. She opened her door and peeped out into the corridor. There was just a glimpse of light,and she could see pretty clearly from end to end. She could hear what sounded like a person near the head of the staircase. Gwendolen darted forwards towards the curtained end of the corridor. But when she reached the curtain she saw old Robinson going down the staircase.
Gwendolen went back a few steps along the corridor and returned to her room. She pushed the door open. It was too silent and too empty, it frightened her. Should she ring the bell? If she rang the bell what would she say? The dinner had been cleared away. What should she ask for if she rang?
With a groan of despair she went outside again and again listened. Somebody was approaching the corridor. Somebody was coming into the corridor. She stood where she was. It was Mrs. Dashwood who was coming. She had mounted the steps, and here she was walking towards her. Gwendolen stood still and waited.
May saw the figure of the girl, clutching her dressing-gown round her, and staring with large distended eyes like a hunted animal.
"What is it?" asked May. "Do you feel ill, Gwen?"
"Oh!" said the girl, with a shiver, "I'm so glad you've come! I can't go into my bedroom alone. Oh, I am so wretched!"
"I'll take you into your bedroom," said May, and she led Gwen in and closed the door behind them.
"You were in bed," she said. "Get in again and I will straighten you up." She helped Gwendolen to take off her dressing-gown.
"You can't stay with me a little?" demanded Gwen, and her lips trembled. "I've such a headache."
The handkerchiefs were still bound round her head, and were making her hot and uncomfortable.
"Poor Gwen!" said May. "Yes, I'll stay a little.I dare say someEau-de-Colognewould help your headache to go."
"I haven't got any. I've only got scent," said Gwen, as she stepped into bed.
"I have some," said May. "I'll go and fetch it. I'll be back in a moment."
Gwendolen sat up in bed, drawing the clothes up to her neck, waiting. The moment she was alone in the room, the room seemed so dismal, and the solitude alarming. There was always the devil——
"Sitting up?" said May, when she came back with theEau-de-Colognein her hand.
Gwendolen sank down in the bed. How comforting it was to have Mrs. Dashwood waiting on her and talking about her and being sympathetic. She had always loved Mrs. Dashwood. She was so sweet. Now, if only, only she had not made that horrible blunder, she would have had the whole household waiting on her, talking about her and being sympathetic! Oh!
May brought a chair to the bed, and began to smooth the dark hair away from Gwen's face.
"I think you would be cooler with those handkerchiefs off," she said. "I can't get to your forehead very well with theEau-de-Cologne."
Gwen signified her consent with a deep sigh, and May slipped the bandage off and put it away on the dressing-table.
Then she dabbed some of theEau-de-Colognesoftly on to the girl's forehead.
"I suppose youknow," whispered Gwen, as the scent of the perfume came into her nostrils.
"Yes," said May.
"I hope the servants don't know," groaned Gwen.
"I don't think any one knows, but just ourselves," said May, in a soothing voice; "and no one but ourselves need know about it."
"Oh, it's horrible!" groaned Gwen again. "I can't bear it!"
"It is hard to bear," said May, as she smoothed the girl's brow.
After a little silence Gwendolen suddenly said—
"You don't believe in that ghost?"
"The ghost?" said May, a little surprised at this sudden deviation from the cause of Gwendolen's grief.
"You thought it was silly?" said Gwen, tentatively.
"Not silly, but fanciful," said May.
Gwendolen moved her head. "I think I was; but I still see him, and I don't want to. I have begun to think about him, now, this evening. I had forgotten before——"
"You must make up your mind not to think of it. It isn't a real person, Gwen."
Gwendolen still kept her head slightly round towards May Dashwood, though she had her eyes closed so as not to interfere with the movements of May's hand on her brow.
"Do you think the devil does things?" she asked in an awed voice.
May hesitated for a moment and then said: "We do things, and some of us call it the devil doing things."
"Then you don't believe in the devil?" asked Gwendolen, opening her eyes.
"I don't think so, Gwen," said May. "But God I am sure of."
Gwendolen lay still for a little while. She was thinking now of her troubles.
"You don't do any wrong things?" asked Gwendolen, tentatively.
"We all do wrong things," said May.
"I mean wrong things that people make a fuss about," said Gwendolen, thinking of Mrs. Potten, and the drawing-room at Potten End.
"Some things are more wrong than others," saidMay. "It depends upon whether they do much harm or not."
Gwendolen pondered. This was a new proof of Mrs. Potten's meanness. What she, Gwen, had done had harmed nobody practically.
"I'm miserable!" she burst out.
"Poor Gwen!" murmured May.
Gwendolen lay still. Her heart was full. When she had once left the Lodgings, and was at Mrs. Potten's she would be among enemies. Now, here, at least she had one friend—some one who was not mean and didn't scold. She must speak to this one kind friend—she would tell her troubles. She must have some one to confide in.
"I didn't want to break off the engagement," she said at last, unable to keep her thoughts much longer to herself.
"You didn't want to!" said May gently. It was scarcely a question, but it drew Gwendolen to an explanation of her words.
"Mrs. Potten made me," she said.
"No one could make you," said May, quietly. "Could they?"
"She did," said Gwen, with a burst of tears. "I wanted to make it all right, and she wouldn't let me. If only I could have seen the Warden, he would have taken my side, perhaps," and here Gwen's voice became less emphatic. "But Mrs. Potten simply made me. She was determined. She hates me. I can't bear her."
"Had you done absolutely nothing to make her so determined?" asked May wondering.
"Nothing—except a little joke——" began Gwen. "It was merely a sort of a joke."
"A joke!" said May, and her voice was very low and strange.
The umbrella standing in the corner of the room inthe shadow seemed to make faces at Gwen. Why hadn't she put the horrid thing in the wardrobe?
"It was only meant as a sort of joke," she repeated, and then the overwhelming flood of bitter memory coming upon her, she yielded to her instinct and poured out to May, bit by bit, a broken garbled history of the whole affair—a story such as Belinda and Co. would tell—a story made, unconsciously, all the more sordid and pitiful because it was obviously not the whole truth.
And this was a story told by one who might have been the Warden's wife! May went on soothing the girl's hair and brow with her hand.
"And Mrs. Potten wouldn't let me make it all right. She refused to let me, though I begged her to, and gave her my word of honour," wept Gwen, indignantly. Then she suddenly said, "Oh, the fire's going out and perhaps you're cold!" for she was fearful lest her visitor would leave her. "When my dinner was taken away too much coal was put on my fire, and I was too miserable to make a fuss."
"I'm not cold," said May. "But I will stir up the fire." She rose from her chair and went to the fire, and poked it up into a blaze.
"I'm afraid, Gwen, that you couldn't make it all right with Mrs. Potten, except by——"
"By what?" asked Gwen, becoming suddenly excited. "If only Dr. Middleton had not been away, I might have borrowed from him. Do you mean that?"
"No," said May, with a profound sigh, as she came back to the bedside. "It was a question of honour, don't you see? You couldn't have made it right, except by being horrified at what you had done and feeling that you could never, never make it right! Do you understand what I mean?"
Gwen was trying to understand.
"That would have made Mrs. Potten worse," she said hoarsely.
"No," said May, with a quiet emphasis on the word. "If you had really been terribly unhappy about your honour, Mrs. Potten would have sympathised! Don't you see what I mean?"
"But how could I be so terribly unhappy about such a mere accident?" protested Gwen, tearfully. "I might have returned the money. I very nearly did twice, only somehow I didn't. It just seemed to happen like that, and it was such a little affair."
May sat down again and put her cool hand on the girl's brow. It was no use talking about honour to the child. To Belinda and Co. honour was, what was expected of you by people who were in the swim, and if Mrs. Potten had made no discovery, or had forgiven it when it was made, Gwendolen's "honour" would have remained bright and untarnished. That was Gwendolen's sense of the moral situation! Her vision went no further. Still May's silence was disturbing. Gwendolen felt that she had not been understood, and that she was being reproved by that silence, though the reproof was gentle, very different from the kind of reproof that would probably be administered by her mother. On the other hand, the reproof was not merited.
"Would you," said Gwendolen, with a gulp in her throat, "would you spoil somebody's whole life because they took some trifle that nobody really missed or wanted, intending to give it back, only didn't somehow get the opportunity? Would you?"
"Your whole life isn't spoiled," said May. "If you take what has happened very seriously you may make your life more honourable in the future than it has been. Don't you see that if what you had done had not been discovered you might have gone ondoing these things all your life. That would have spoiled your life!"
"But my engagement!" moaned Gwen. "I shall have to go to that horrid Stow, unless mother has got an invitation for me, and mother will be so upset. She'll be so angry!"
What could May say to give the girl any real understanding of her own responsibilities? Was she to drift about like a leaf in the wind, without principles, with no firm basis upon which she could stand and take her part in the struggle of human life?
What was to be done?
May did her best to put her thoughts into the plainest, simplest words. She had to begin at the beginning, and speak as to a child. As she went on May discovered that one thing, and one thing only, really impressed Gwen, and that was the idea of courage. Coward as she was, she did grasp that courage was of real value. Gwen had a faint gleam of the meaning of honour, when it was a question of courage, and upon this one string May played, for it gave a clear note, striking into the silence of the poor girl's moral nature.
She got the girl to promise that she would try and take the misfortune of her youth with courage and meet the future bravely. She even induced Gwendolen then and there to pray for more courage, moral and physical, and she did not leave her till she had added also a prayer for help in the future when difficulties and temptations were in her path. They were vague words, "difficulties and temptations," and May knew that, but it is not possible in half an hour to straighten the muddle of many years of Belinda and Co.
"Have courage," she said at last, "I must go, Gwen. Good-night," and May stooped down to kiss the dark head on the pillow. "God protect you; God help you!"
"Good-night," sighed Gwen; "I'll try and go to sleep. But could you—could you put that umbrella into the wardrobe and poke up the fire again to make a little light?"
And May put the umbrella away in the wardrobe and poked up the fire.
The one definite thought in May's mind now was that she must leave Oxford before the Warden's return. A blind instinct compelled her to take this course.
It was not easy for her to say to Lady Dashwood quite unconcernedly: "You won't mind my running away to-morrow, will you? You won't mind if I run off, will you? All your troubles are over, and I do want to get back to-morrow. I have lots of things to do—to get ready before Monday."
It was not easy to say all this, but May did say it. She said it in the corridor as they were bidding each other good night.
Lady Dashwood's surprise was painful. "I do mind your running off," she said, and she looked a little bewildered. "Must you go to-morrow? Must you? To-morrow!"
Lady Dashwood had talked a great deal, both before May went into Gwendolen's room and afterwards, when May came back again to the drawing-room. May had told the reason for her long absence from the drawing-room, but in an abstracted manner; and Lady Dashwood, observing this, looked long and wistfully at her, but had asked no questions. All she had said was, "I'm glad you've been with the child," and she spoke in a low voice. Then she had begun talking again of things relevant and irrelevant, and in doing so had betrayed her excitement. It was indeed May now whowas calm and self-contained, all trace of her "chill" gone, whereas Lady Dashwood was obviously over-excited.
It was only when May said good night, and made this announcement about going away on the following day, that Lady Dashwood's spirits showed signs of flagging.
That moment all her vivacity suddenly died down and she looked no longer brisk and brilliant, but limp and tired, a hollow-eyed woman.
"I do mind," she repeated. But she gave no reason for minding, she merely added: "Don't go!" and stared at her niece pathetically.
But May was firm. She kissed her aunt very affectionately, and was very tender in her manner and voice, but she was immovable.
"I must go, dear," she said; and then she repeated again: "Your troubles are over! Seriously, Aunt Lena, I want to go!"
Lady Dashwood sighed. "You have done a great deal for me, May," she said, and this gratitude from her Aunt Lena shook May's courage more than any protest.
"I don't want to go," she said, "but I must go." That was her last word.
And May wanted to go early. Everything must be ready. She wanted to get away as soon as Gwendolen had gone. She must not risk meeting the Warden! He might return to lunch, she must go before lunch. She must not see him come back. She could not bear to be in the house when he read the letter from Gwendolen.Thatwas what made her fly. To stay on and witness in cold blood his feelings at being rescued, to witness his humiliation, because he was rescued, would be an intrusion on the privacy of a human soul. She must go. So May packed up over night, slept uneasily and in snatches, conscious of Oxford all the time, conscious of all that it meant to her!
It was a grey morning when she got up and lookedout of narrow window's on to the quiet, narrow grey street. She heard no one moving about when she came down the broad staircase and into the hall, prepared to go, hardening herself to go, because to stop would be impossible.
In the breakfast-room she found Lady Dashwood. The two women looked at each other silently with a smile only of greeting. They could hear steps outside, and Gwendolen came in with swollen eyes and smiled vaguely round the room.
"Good morning," she said, and then gulped. Poor girl! She was making an effort to be brave, and May gave her a glance that said plainly her approval and her sympathy.
Lady Dashwood was almost tender in her manner.
Gwen ate hurriedly, and once or twice made spasmodic faces in trying not to break down.
Of course, no reference was made to anything that had happened, but it was necessary to talk a little. Silence would have made things worse. So Lady Dashwood praised Potten End, and said it was more bracing there than at Oxford; and May said she had not seen Potten End. Then both ladies looked at each other and started some other subject. They spoke at great length about the weather. At last breakfast was over, and Lady Dashwood rose from her chair and looked rather nervously across at Gwendolen.
"I'm ready," said Gwendolen, bravely. "At least, I've only got to put my hat on."
"There is no hurry, dear," said Lady Dashwood. "Let me see, you have nearly an hour." The car was to come at ten—an unearthly hour except in Oxford and at Potten End.
Gwendolen disappeared upstairs, and the two ladies lingered about in the breakfast-room, neither able to attend to the papers, though both read ostentatiously. At last the car was announced and they went into the hall.
Gwendolen came downstairs hastily. That horrible umbrella was in her hand, in the other hand was a handkerchief. She was frowning under her veil to keep herself from crying.
"Well, good-bye, Gwen," said Lady Dashwood, and she kissed the girl on both cheeks. "Good-bye, dear; give my love to Mrs. Potten."
"Thanks——" began Gwen, but her voice began to fail her. "Thanks——"
"My love to Mrs. Potten," repeated Lady Dashwood hurriedly, and Gwendolen turned away without finishing her sentence.
May kissed Gwendolen and murmured in her ear: "Brave girl!" "Good-bye," she said aloud.
"Good-bye," said Gwen.
There was the familiar hall, its great bevelled doors, its oak panelling and its wide oak staircase. There was the round table in the middle under the electric chandelier and the dim portraits on the walls. All was familiar, and all had been thought of as hers for a time, all too short; for a day that now seemed as if it could never have been; for a dream and no part of the reality of Gwen's life.
There outside was the car which was to take her away for ever. Robinson Junior was holding open the door, his snub nose well in the air, his cheeks reddened by the chill autumn wind. He was waiting for her to get in. Then he would bang the door to, and have done with her, and the Lodgings would never again have anything to do with her—nor Oxford.
Oh, it was too wretched, but brave she would be, and Mrs. Dashwood at least would pity her and understand. What Lady Dashwood thought she did not care so very much.
Gwen went down the steps and got into the car. Robinson Junior did bang the door. He banged it and caught a piece of Gwendolen's skirt. Then heopened the door with ferocity as if it was somebody else's fault. Gwendolen pulled her skirt and he banged the door to again. This time it shut her out from the Lodgings. The last moment had come. The car moved. The two ladies waved their hands. Robinson Junior raised his finger to his ear. The car turned and went out of the Court into the narrow street.
It was all over! Robinson Junior did not come in. He slipped somewhere round at the back with mysterious swiftness, and Lady Dashwood shut the door herself. It was like closing a book at "The End" or writing a last Will and Testament. It was all over!
Then Lady Dashwood, who had been so composed that May had been deceived into thinking that she had almost recovered from her excitement and fatigue, suddenly leaned against the hall table. "May!" she called.
May did not hear her name called, she was already retreating up the staircase to her room as hastily as she dared. There was not much time, and yet she had not told her Aunt Lena yet that she meant to leave that very morning; she had mentioned no hour.
Her luggage was packed and labelled. Her hat and coat and gloves, exactly the things she had arrived in from Malvern, were there waiting for her to put them on and go away. Meanwhilehewas in Town, little dreaming of what was happening. He would be back soon. It would be horrible if he arrived before she left, and there was still an hour before she must start for the station! She would put on her hat and then go down, tell her Aunt Lena that she must go in an hour, and talk to her, give herself up to her till the taxi came. No, it would be impossible for him to arrive before she left; she was foolish to worry about it. It was pure nonsense—merely a nervous fear.
When she had put on her hat, it flashed into her mind that Mr. Bingham was coming to dinner, ostensiblyto meet her. After their talk together she must write to him. She must scribble a little note and get it taken to All Souls. She must tell him that she had to leave Oxford quite unexpectedly.
She sat down at her writing table and took up a pen. She wrote a few words, and thought the words too cold and too abrupt. She must begin again, and she tore up the letter and threw it into the waste-paper basket. She wanted to write sympathetically and yet not to appear to think he needed sympathy. She wanted to write as if she was very much disappointed at not meeting him again, but without putting it into words that would sound self-assured—as if she knew and counted on his being grateful at her disappointment. And indeed, she thought, he was not much in love with her. Why should he be? That was a question May always asked herself when a man professed to be in love with her. Why? Why in the name of all——, etc. May always failed to see why.
This lack of vanity in May had led many people, who did not understand her, to accuse her of flirting.
But May, in writing to Bingham, realised to the fullhisattractions. He was too interesting a personality to be going about unclaimed. He ought to make some woman happy—some nice woman—not herself.
She began a fresh letter and was at the first sentence when a knock came at the door.
"Come in," she called.
In came Louise, looking full of sinister importance. Her hair, which was never very tidy, looked as if it had taken an intelligent interest in some crisis.
Louise glanced round the room at the luggage, at the coat, at the hat on May's head.
"Oh,Madame, what a desolation!" cried Louise, and she wrung her hands.
"I have packed very well, Louise," said May Dashwood. "I am accustomed to do it—I have no maid."
"Oh, what a desolation!" repeated Louise, as she advanced further into the room. Then she stopped and announced, with an affectation of horrible composure: "I come to informMadamethat it is impossible for her to depart."
May put down her pen. "What is the matter, Louise?"
Louise drew in her breath. "My lady suffers," she began, and as she proceeded her words flowed more and more quickly: "whileMadameprepares to forsake her, my lady faints upon the floor in the breakfast parlour, she expires."
May rose, her heart beating.
"She now swallows a glass of brandy and a biscuit brought by Mrs. Robinson, who is so slow, so slow and who understands nothing, but has the keys. I call and I call,eh bien, I call—oh, but what slowness, what insupportable delay."
May put her letter inside the writing case and moved away from the writing-table. She was composed now.
"Is she very ill?" she asked quietly.
"My lady has died every day for two weeks," continued Louise; "for many days she has died, and no one observes it but myself and the angels in heaven.Madameagonises, over what terrible events I know not. But they know, the spirits of the dead—they know and they come. I believe that, for this house, this Lodgings is gloomy, this Oxford is so full of sombre thought. My Lady Dashwood martyrs herself for others. I see it always withMonsieur leGeneral Sir John Dashwood, excellent man as he is, but who insists on catching severe colds in the head—colds heavy, overpowering—he sneezing with a ferocity that is impossible. At last old Robinson telephones for a doctor at my demand, oh, how I demand! It was necessary to overcome the phlegm and the stupidity of the Robinson family. I say! I demand! It is only when Mrs. Robinson comesto assist at this terrible crisis, that I go to rush upstairs forMadame. I go to rush, but I am detained! 'Stay!' cries my lady, 'I forbid you to speak of it. I am not ill—it is an indisposition of the mildest.' You see,Madame, the extraordinary generosity of my Lady Dashwood! Her soul full of sublime resignation! 'I go to preventMadameMrs. Dashwood's departure,' I cry! My lady replies with immense self-renunciation, like that of the blessed saints: 'Say nothing, my poor Louise. I exist only to do good on this earth. I ask for nothing for myself. I suffer alone. I endure without complaint. I speak not of my extreme agony in the head. I do not mention the insupportable nausea of the stomach. I subdue my cries! I weep silently, alone in the presence of my God.'"
Louise paused for a second for breath.
Nothing at this moment could have made May smile. She looked at Louise with gravity.
"But," continued Louise, with the same vehement swiftness, "a good moment arrives. The form too full of Mrs. Robinson hides me as I escape from the room. I come toMadamehere.Eh bien!" Here Louise broke off and, glancing round the room, made a gesture that implied unpacking May's luggage and putting everything back in the proper place. "I unpack forMadame, immediately, while Madame descends and assures my lady that she does not forsake her at the supreme moment."
Louise's eyes now seemed to pierce the space in front of her, she defied contradiction.
"I will go and see Lady Dashwood," said May, calmly. "But don't unpack yet for me. I shall put her ladyship to bed, Louise. Go and see that everything is ready, please."
"I go to countermandMadame'staxi," said Louise, astutely.
"You can do that," said May; "I shall wait tillthe doctor comes—anyhow. Ask Robinson to telephone at once."
May went down to the breakfast-room, and found Mrs. Robinson's stout form coming out of the door. Within Lady Dashwood was seated in a chair by the fire.
"I am perfectly well, May," said Lady Dashwood, lifting up a white face to her niece as she came up to her. "I have sent Mrs. Robinson away. That silly old fool, Louise, has made Robinson telephone for a doctor."
"Quite right of her," said May, quietly, "and I shall stop till he has come and gone."
"You didn't mean to go before lunch?" murmured Lady Dashwood.
"I can go after lunch," said May.
Lady Dashwood leaned her head back in a weak manner.
"Not so convenient to you perhaps, dear," she murmured, but in a voice that accepted the delay to May's departure. She accepted it and sighed and stared into the fire, and said not one word about the Warden, but she said: "I'm not going to bed. The house will be empty enough as it is;" and May knew she was thinking of the Warden's return.
"You must go to bed," May replied.
"I can't go to bed, child. I shall stay up and look after things," said Lady Dashwood, and she knew she was speaking with guile. "You forget, dear, that—the house will be so empty!"
"I shall put you to bed," said May.
"How do you know I shall remain?" said Lady Dashwood. "The doctor will say that there is nothing wrong." She looked white and obstinate and clung to her chair.
Then at last May said: "I am going to stay on till the doctor comes. Like all managing people, you are absolutely irresponsible about yourself, Aunt Lena. I shall have to stay and make you obey me."
"Oh, I didn't know I was so wicked!" sighed Lady Dashwood, in a suddenly contented voice. Now she allowed herself to be helped out of her chair and led upstairs to her room. "And can youreallystay, May?Really, dear?"
"I must," said May. "You are so wicked."
"Oh dear, am I wicked?" said Lady Dashwood. "I knew my dear old John was very tiresome, but I didn't know I was!"
So May remained. What else could she do? She left Lady Dashwood in Louise's hands and went to her room. What was to be done about Mr. Bingham? May looked round the room.
Her boxes had disappeared. Her clothes were all put away and the toilet table carefully strewn with her toilet things. Louise had done it. On the little table by the bed stood something that had not been there before. It was a little plaster image of St. Joseph. It bore the traces of wear and tear from the hands of the pious believer—also deterioration from dust, and damage from accidents. Something, perhaps coffee, had been spilt upon it. The machine-made features of the face also had shared this accidental ablution, and one foot was slightly damaged. The saint was standing upon a piece of folded paper. May pulled out the paper and unfolded it. Written in faultless copper-plate were the words: "Louise Dumont prays for the protection ofMadameevery day."