Chapter Twelve.

Chapter Twelve.An Air with Variations.The day had passed with little to mark it to Wareham, to whom events meant a word from Anne. They met at early dinner as they had met at breakfast, and again he had to content himself with indirect speeches. In the afternoon theCeyloncame in and anchored; Wareham went off and secured three berths. He felt himself a model friend, but this did not prevent his looking forward eagerly to the evening. Colonel Martyn was the next to arrive.At six o’clock came the Gudvangen steamer, which was to take them to Fjaerland. Anne and Colonel Martyn were the last to come on board, Hugh fuming impatiently until they appeared. He surrounded her with solicitude.“I almost gave you up. I thought you had changed your mind.”“If I had?”She tossed the words at him as she passed.“We might have taken a boat and repeated yesterday,” said Hugh daringly.“I hate repetitions.”Wareham heard and chuckled. But where is your woman’s consistency? The next moment she had given her young lover a smile which put the other man’s blood into a fever. Hugh looked round at him radiantly. Mrs Martyn eyed him with an experienced glance expressive to Wareham of “You see!” He walked away.When he came back the group had been enlarged by several of the other people from the inn, who were making the same little voyage. An elderly man, with a keen clever face, held forth to Mrs Martyn, and Wareham was not ill-pleased to note that the lady showed signs of discomfiture. He interrogated her closely, would have chapter and verse with her statements, and ruthlessly fastened on the futility of certain vague expressions in which she took refuge. Wareham stood for a minute receiving broken sentences from the group, except when Anne spoke, upon which the other voices faded into indistinctness.“Nothing in Norway to compare with Scotland.”“Well, I don’t know. There’s good—”“Didn’t you hear? She is expected to-morrow, and great preparations—”“Horrible food!”Then a voice like a bell.“I half wish we were going home in her, she looks so big and so roomy.”Only the foolishness of love could make music out of this every-day remark, but to his ear it sounded in sweet relief to the clatter of the others. So sad is the eclipse of friendship before the greater light, that he was conscious of a wish to swing Hugh out of his place by her side, and stand there himself. Had not he had his chance and failed? To be swaggering round, and playing dog in the manger, was an unworthy solace. To be compelled to hover near with a heart full of yesterday, was to munch ashes. For let philosophers say what they will, the past is at best unsatisfying food, but a past which has no more substance than hope unfulfilled, chokes you with its dusty remembrances. Wareham went restlessly about the vessel, talking to the red-faced burly captain of theKommodoren, to any one: wherever he went he saw Hugh’s spirited figure, Anne’s pale clear-cut profile, and these two only. At last, as he was speaking to an elderly lady with a sweet kind face, he surprised her by quitting her suddenly. Opportunity had come, and he flew to Anne’s side.“At last!” he cried, and had to check his exultation. “I thought I should never be allowed to speak to you alone!”“After yesterday you could scarcely complain of that difficulty.” Anne was smiling, her eyes were half-shut.“Yesterday!” He made an impatient gesture.She asked whether it was so long ago?“Half a lifetime,” he answered boldly, and had a wild fancy that a tremulous colour just crept into her cheek. But she hastened to inquire whether he did not find the scenery very fine?“I have not seen it.”“Where have your eyes been?”“On my heart,” would have been a true answer. He pressed it back and muttered, “I have been wanting to say a word, but Hugh monopolised you.”“Your friend. You should have been satisfied. But tell me what you wanted so much to say?”“You heard his greeting. Did you imagine that I had told him to come out?”“It surprised me.”“Pray let me hear that you thought better of me than to believe it.”“Better? Do you not present yourself as a symbol of friendship? And friendship is held to condone blunders.” She spoke teasingly.“No, no. I telegraphed—” Suddenly he found it hard to explain why he had telegraphed. “He had a right to an explanation.” The words came out apologetically.“And you were thedeus ex machinâ. I told you you were a symbol of friendship.”Coldness was in her voice, and Wareham, reader of hearts, believed he understood why she was dissatisfied.“I have offended you. I read it in your eyes when you saw Hugh,” he said dismally.“Oh, Hugh, Hugh!” She made the exclamation with impatience, and frowned.He would have given worlds to ask why, if she were displeased, she did not dismiss her young lover, but dared not. Then she slowly let drop four words which set his blood leaping in wild bounds. “You might help me.”Heavens, what did the words, the look she turned on him, mean? Reproach, encouragement, were both there. He stood stupidly, stunned by the delicious shock; conscience faltered, passion rushed to the attack. This appealing to him, this, as it were, holding out her hand—bliss!—ecstasy! Conscience panted out desperately, “And Honour?” and, once having thrust in her word, stood firm.Wareham felt as if in that minute he had lived a year. When he spoke his voice was hoarse, his face white.“I cannot,” he said. “It rests with yourself.”She was looking at him, and her face did not change, nor did she speak. They stood silent, fronting the mountains, and presently Hugh’s voice sounded cheerfully behind them.“I can’t find your parasol, Miss Dalrymple. Mrs Martyn thinks you must have left it behind.”“Ask her whether it is not her umbrella she wants,” had been Mrs Martyn’s exact words, for neither sun nor rain was likely to trouble them. These he did not repeat. He was sharp enough to guess that he had been disposed of for a motive, but hugged the thought that it was merely caprice which had served this purpose. For caprice he was prepared, resolved that it should not put him out of countenance. An indefinite presentiment kept Wareham on the watch. It was a nothing, yet it had fallen on a crucial moment. How would she behave to Hugh? The next moment, Anne turned, smiling carelessly.“I am ashamed to have troubled you, and for what seemed an absurdity. Who wants a parasol at such an hour? It is that I am a baby, and like something in my hand.” Hugh was for starting off again. “No, no, no more errands. You may sit here and tell me about the Standishs’. When did you see them? Have they gone abroad? Mary wrote a line to me before we left England, but she told me nothing of their plans.”“And they knew nothing of yours,” stammered Hugh the happy, afraid of uttering anything which carried the ghost of a reproach. Mary Standish was to have been their bridesmaid.Wareham would hear no more. He wheeled round and departed, with not a word of thanks to cast at conscience, though she had saved him from a scrape. Going forward, he stood moodily watching the pallor creep over the vast snowfield which runs along the western side of the fjord, and from which glaciers like pale ghosts crawl down to the water. At Fjaerland itself there was a short stoppage, people came on board who had tramped to the Suphelle glacier, and were enthusiastic over its beauties to those who had not seen it.And now, in going back, the glories of the sunset touched each opening fjord with strange variety of effect and contrast. One had wild and menacing clouds sweeping on with threat of storm; in another the mountains lay in indescribable calm against a clear daffodil sky; a third again was radiant with light, and crowned with floating rosy clouds. Voices hushed themselves, the ripple of the water grew more insistent, lovely reflections trembled downwards. By and by a green promontory was passed, and Balholm stood hospitably alight.“Nine o’clock,” sighed Colonel Martyn, with disconsolate acceptance of his fate, the high tea which he hated. Meantime the professor had asked Mrs Martyn—who piqued herself upon her facts—if she knew the number of square miles covered by the snow-area at which they had been gazing.She had an impression it was five hundred.“An impression!” He was scornful. Women’s knowledge invariably consisted of impressions. Mrs Martyn, who liked to be rude herself, was always crushed by retaliation in the same coin. She escaped, and clung to Mrs Ravenhill.“My dear, protect me! That man is a bear. He can never have been used to any society at all. Everything that I say to him he contradicts flatly, and comes out with the most disagreeable speeches! I daren’t say a word. He frightens me. And why does he choose me—poor, inoffensive me?”Anne, as she walked up from the landing-place, got hold of Millie.“You are really going to break away to-morrow? I envy you.”“I am sorry,” Millie said simply. “There is so much more which I want to see.”Anne answered her abruptly—“It is like everything else. Life is just an air with variations, and you get sick of the air. I am tired of mountains and fjords. More tired of hearing people cry, ‘How beautiful!’”“When they say it of yourself?”“Most of all. Yet when it doesn’t come, I miss it.” She laughed.“Ah, I can’t help you,” Millie returned.“What is it you want?”“To be what I am not—what I never shall be.”They were at the door. Anne ran up-stairs, Millie dropped her defensive armour with a sigh. She had somehow expected, and dreaded, that when Anne spoke of their leaving, she would allude to Wareham. Now that she had not done so, she was disappointed.Wareham was caught by Hugh Forbes as he went out of the saal.“Come for a turn, old fellow,” he besought. “There are a hundred things I want to say to you.”“Hadn’t you better go after Miss Dalrymple?” said Wareham sharply.“She won’t let me. Says she’s had enough of me for to-day.”Hugh laughed, and Wareham hesitated. Self-flattery murmured that possibly she had intended this half-hour for him, and the thought fell sweet as honey drops. But away from her charm, her beauty, conscience was not to be beguiled. Avaunt, tempter! Step forth, honour! Dull paths are safest, and the dullest of all dull paths appeared this walk with Hugh, Anne left behind in a balcony overlooking shining waters.They were out, with Hugh anxiously asking why he must go to-morrow?“Its an awful nuisance,” he burst out, “and I do think it’s hard on a fellow to be left unsupported just at this ticklish point. You could be of untold good—you have been already, of that I’m certain. Anne likes you, and likes to talk of you. Now a great blundering fellow might have done a lot of mischief. Crammed me down her throat, or tried to cut me out. I vow I wouldn’t have trusted any one but you yesterday in the boat. When I heard that she was coming along with some man, I was awfully cut up, I can tell you; and Mrs Martyn never let out who it was. Just like the woman! It was Miss—what’s she called?—Ravenstone who cleared me up. Why don’t you take to that little girl? A good soul, with a heart of gold, and a dimple. I’ve heard you say you loved dimples, and, upon my soul, I never saw a prettier.”Wareham’s irritated exclamation was restrained by the recollection that here was the very suggestion which he had intended for Hugh himself, presented topsy-turvily. He was forced to laugh.“Arrange matters for yourself, only leave me out of the pattern, for I don’t harmonise.”Hugh rushed into farther confidences, but owned that he was in a funk.“If I could but imagine what upset the coach last time,” he complained, “I’d take good care to avoid it again; but I give you my word you know as much as I do. She won’t speak of it, won’t listen, won’t so much as drop me a hint; and to think of her bolting again puts me in such a devil of a fright that I daren’t hold on to the subject. Now, Dick, if you’d stay and sound her a bit, I should be awfully obliged to you.”That or any other subject. His heart jumped like a hungry dog, grateful for a bone. He had to recall himself to his resolve.“Can’t.”“Don’t tell me you’re not your own master.”“No man is his own master that has set his shoulder to the wheel.”“Well”—Hugh walked on, revolving—“there are twenty-four hours yet; you may get a chance in that time.”Wareham was stung into exclamation.“You don’t know what you’re asking!”“I know exactly; and it isn’t much for a clever fellow like you. You can understand that when I go pottering round, she sees exactly what’s coming, and shies. As likely as not, she doesn’t want to hurt my feelings—”“Oh, your feelings! She didn’t show much regard for your feelings when she flung you over!” cried Wareham savagely.“No, but look here, old fellow, you mustn’t be so prejudiced. It was natural enough when you didn’t know her, and I shan’t forget what you did for me in those black days, but I did think that once you were thrown with her you would have your eyes opened, and appreciate her.”Wareham looked queerly at him.“How do you know I don’t?”“Because then you wouldn’t blame her. And I believe you’d stick to me now. At first I could think of nothing but that I was near her again, and could look at her; but finding out how gingerly I’ve got to move, makes me uneasy. If you were here you’d give me a wrinkle or two. Come, Dick, think better of it.” Hugh decapitated an inoffensive ox-daisy as he spoke. “You needn’t expect to put me off with talk of business. Don’t I know most of your affairs?”“Not all.” Wareham’s voice had grown gentler. “Hugh, do you remember my telling you that I had written a letter?”“To me?”“Yes.”“I recollect. It had slipped my memory.”“I wish I could prevent its ever reaching you.”Hugh burst into his cheery laugh.“That’s what I feel sometimes when I’ve sent off an epistle to the pater. But you don’t suppose anything you said to me would make me cut up rough?”“When you’ve got it you’ll understand why I go,” the other went on, unheeding.“Mysteries, mysteries!”It must be owned that Wareham thought his speech would have thrown a little light. He breathed hard, and his face flushed. Hugh went on—“I know you’ve thought hard things of Anne. But, old fellow, you’ve never failed me yet; and that’s why I want you now. You could say what I can’t say myself.”“What one can’t say oneself had better remain unsaid.” Something in the tone penetrated, and gave the young man a tinge of uneasiness.“You don’t mean that you think—” He stopped aghast.Wareham answered with a hand on the valve. If his words were to fly, it should not be on a wrong tack.“What?”“That, after all, I’ve no chance?”“Heavens, man, how should I think such a thing! I know nothing of what you have said to her, or she to you. You’ve got your opportunity—what more do you want? Go in, and win.”“All right, old fellow,” Hugh said good-humouredly. “May you be a true prophet. Anyway, don’t be put out about your letter. I’ve a thick skin, as you’ve proved before now. And if it bores you to stop, go. Only if you do get the chance before leaving, and if you can get her to give you a bit of explanation, it may make matters smoother. Isn’t there some old Viking or other buried about here? Well, we’ll go back.”As they returned they found signs of festivity about the rival inn; Balholm sat round the walls of the saal, and in the centre a picturesque musician played the Hardanger fiddle; the wild piercing sounds, half savage, half plaintive, penetrated the night. Wareham stood at the door after Hugh had left him, held by some spell for which he could not account. The music conjured up strange imaginings—the silence of the mountains encompassed lonely fjords; pallid snowflakes chased each other into clefts, where they lay shrouding the rock; winds whistled through cowering trees, and in a moment the cruel howl of a wolf rose menacingly above the other sounds. The tragedies of the country had found a voice in the wild, almost discordant, instrument. Wareham stood absorbed, staring at the ground. When the music stopped, he looked up uncertainly. Hay sweetened the air, golden light still lingered in the sky, yet he shivered. The landlord came out. Wareham gave him a gulden for the musician, and walked slowly back to his own quarters.

The day had passed with little to mark it to Wareham, to whom events meant a word from Anne. They met at early dinner as they had met at breakfast, and again he had to content himself with indirect speeches. In the afternoon theCeyloncame in and anchored; Wareham went off and secured three berths. He felt himself a model friend, but this did not prevent his looking forward eagerly to the evening. Colonel Martyn was the next to arrive.

At six o’clock came the Gudvangen steamer, which was to take them to Fjaerland. Anne and Colonel Martyn were the last to come on board, Hugh fuming impatiently until they appeared. He surrounded her with solicitude.

“I almost gave you up. I thought you had changed your mind.”

“If I had?”

She tossed the words at him as she passed.

“We might have taken a boat and repeated yesterday,” said Hugh daringly.

“I hate repetitions.”

Wareham heard and chuckled. But where is your woman’s consistency? The next moment she had given her young lover a smile which put the other man’s blood into a fever. Hugh looked round at him radiantly. Mrs Martyn eyed him with an experienced glance expressive to Wareham of “You see!” He walked away.

When he came back the group had been enlarged by several of the other people from the inn, who were making the same little voyage. An elderly man, with a keen clever face, held forth to Mrs Martyn, and Wareham was not ill-pleased to note that the lady showed signs of discomfiture. He interrogated her closely, would have chapter and verse with her statements, and ruthlessly fastened on the futility of certain vague expressions in which she took refuge. Wareham stood for a minute receiving broken sentences from the group, except when Anne spoke, upon which the other voices faded into indistinctness.

“Nothing in Norway to compare with Scotland.”

“Well, I don’t know. There’s good—”

“Didn’t you hear? She is expected to-morrow, and great preparations—”

“Horrible food!”

Then a voice like a bell.

“I half wish we were going home in her, she looks so big and so roomy.”

Only the foolishness of love could make music out of this every-day remark, but to his ear it sounded in sweet relief to the clatter of the others. So sad is the eclipse of friendship before the greater light, that he was conscious of a wish to swing Hugh out of his place by her side, and stand there himself. Had not he had his chance and failed? To be swaggering round, and playing dog in the manger, was an unworthy solace. To be compelled to hover near with a heart full of yesterday, was to munch ashes. For let philosophers say what they will, the past is at best unsatisfying food, but a past which has no more substance than hope unfulfilled, chokes you with its dusty remembrances. Wareham went restlessly about the vessel, talking to the red-faced burly captain of theKommodoren, to any one: wherever he went he saw Hugh’s spirited figure, Anne’s pale clear-cut profile, and these two only. At last, as he was speaking to an elderly lady with a sweet kind face, he surprised her by quitting her suddenly. Opportunity had come, and he flew to Anne’s side.

“At last!” he cried, and had to check his exultation. “I thought I should never be allowed to speak to you alone!”

“After yesterday you could scarcely complain of that difficulty.” Anne was smiling, her eyes were half-shut.

“Yesterday!” He made an impatient gesture.

She asked whether it was so long ago?

“Half a lifetime,” he answered boldly, and had a wild fancy that a tremulous colour just crept into her cheek. But she hastened to inquire whether he did not find the scenery very fine?

“I have not seen it.”

“Where have your eyes been?”

“On my heart,” would have been a true answer. He pressed it back and muttered, “I have been wanting to say a word, but Hugh monopolised you.”

“Your friend. You should have been satisfied. But tell me what you wanted so much to say?”

“You heard his greeting. Did you imagine that I had told him to come out?”

“It surprised me.”

“Pray let me hear that you thought better of me than to believe it.”

“Better? Do you not present yourself as a symbol of friendship? And friendship is held to condone blunders.” She spoke teasingly.

“No, no. I telegraphed—” Suddenly he found it hard to explain why he had telegraphed. “He had a right to an explanation.” The words came out apologetically.

“And you were thedeus ex machinâ. I told you you were a symbol of friendship.”

Coldness was in her voice, and Wareham, reader of hearts, believed he understood why she was dissatisfied.

“I have offended you. I read it in your eyes when you saw Hugh,” he said dismally.

“Oh, Hugh, Hugh!” She made the exclamation with impatience, and frowned.

He would have given worlds to ask why, if she were displeased, she did not dismiss her young lover, but dared not. Then she slowly let drop four words which set his blood leaping in wild bounds. “You might help me.”

Heavens, what did the words, the look she turned on him, mean? Reproach, encouragement, were both there. He stood stupidly, stunned by the delicious shock; conscience faltered, passion rushed to the attack. This appealing to him, this, as it were, holding out her hand—bliss!—ecstasy! Conscience panted out desperately, “And Honour?” and, once having thrust in her word, stood firm.

Wareham felt as if in that minute he had lived a year. When he spoke his voice was hoarse, his face white.

“I cannot,” he said. “It rests with yourself.”

She was looking at him, and her face did not change, nor did she speak. They stood silent, fronting the mountains, and presently Hugh’s voice sounded cheerfully behind them.

“I can’t find your parasol, Miss Dalrymple. Mrs Martyn thinks you must have left it behind.”

“Ask her whether it is not her umbrella she wants,” had been Mrs Martyn’s exact words, for neither sun nor rain was likely to trouble them. These he did not repeat. He was sharp enough to guess that he had been disposed of for a motive, but hugged the thought that it was merely caprice which had served this purpose. For caprice he was prepared, resolved that it should not put him out of countenance. An indefinite presentiment kept Wareham on the watch. It was a nothing, yet it had fallen on a crucial moment. How would she behave to Hugh? The next moment, Anne turned, smiling carelessly.

“I am ashamed to have troubled you, and for what seemed an absurdity. Who wants a parasol at such an hour? It is that I am a baby, and like something in my hand.” Hugh was for starting off again. “No, no, no more errands. You may sit here and tell me about the Standishs’. When did you see them? Have they gone abroad? Mary wrote a line to me before we left England, but she told me nothing of their plans.”

“And they knew nothing of yours,” stammered Hugh the happy, afraid of uttering anything which carried the ghost of a reproach. Mary Standish was to have been their bridesmaid.

Wareham would hear no more. He wheeled round and departed, with not a word of thanks to cast at conscience, though she had saved him from a scrape. Going forward, he stood moodily watching the pallor creep over the vast snowfield which runs along the western side of the fjord, and from which glaciers like pale ghosts crawl down to the water. At Fjaerland itself there was a short stoppage, people came on board who had tramped to the Suphelle glacier, and were enthusiastic over its beauties to those who had not seen it.

And now, in going back, the glories of the sunset touched each opening fjord with strange variety of effect and contrast. One had wild and menacing clouds sweeping on with threat of storm; in another the mountains lay in indescribable calm against a clear daffodil sky; a third again was radiant with light, and crowned with floating rosy clouds. Voices hushed themselves, the ripple of the water grew more insistent, lovely reflections trembled downwards. By and by a green promontory was passed, and Balholm stood hospitably alight.

“Nine o’clock,” sighed Colonel Martyn, with disconsolate acceptance of his fate, the high tea which he hated. Meantime the professor had asked Mrs Martyn—who piqued herself upon her facts—if she knew the number of square miles covered by the snow-area at which they had been gazing.

She had an impression it was five hundred.

“An impression!” He was scornful. Women’s knowledge invariably consisted of impressions. Mrs Martyn, who liked to be rude herself, was always crushed by retaliation in the same coin. She escaped, and clung to Mrs Ravenhill.

“My dear, protect me! That man is a bear. He can never have been used to any society at all. Everything that I say to him he contradicts flatly, and comes out with the most disagreeable speeches! I daren’t say a word. He frightens me. And why does he choose me—poor, inoffensive me?”

Anne, as she walked up from the landing-place, got hold of Millie.

“You are really going to break away to-morrow? I envy you.”

“I am sorry,” Millie said simply. “There is so much more which I want to see.”

Anne answered her abruptly—

“It is like everything else. Life is just an air with variations, and you get sick of the air. I am tired of mountains and fjords. More tired of hearing people cry, ‘How beautiful!’”

“When they say it of yourself?”

“Most of all. Yet when it doesn’t come, I miss it.” She laughed.

“Ah, I can’t help you,” Millie returned.

“What is it you want?”

“To be what I am not—what I never shall be.”

They were at the door. Anne ran up-stairs, Millie dropped her defensive armour with a sigh. She had somehow expected, and dreaded, that when Anne spoke of their leaving, she would allude to Wareham. Now that she had not done so, she was disappointed.

Wareham was caught by Hugh Forbes as he went out of the saal.

“Come for a turn, old fellow,” he besought. “There are a hundred things I want to say to you.”

“Hadn’t you better go after Miss Dalrymple?” said Wareham sharply.

“She won’t let me. Says she’s had enough of me for to-day.”

Hugh laughed, and Wareham hesitated. Self-flattery murmured that possibly she had intended this half-hour for him, and the thought fell sweet as honey drops. But away from her charm, her beauty, conscience was not to be beguiled. Avaunt, tempter! Step forth, honour! Dull paths are safest, and the dullest of all dull paths appeared this walk with Hugh, Anne left behind in a balcony overlooking shining waters.

They were out, with Hugh anxiously asking why he must go to-morrow?

“Its an awful nuisance,” he burst out, “and I do think it’s hard on a fellow to be left unsupported just at this ticklish point. You could be of untold good—you have been already, of that I’m certain. Anne likes you, and likes to talk of you. Now a great blundering fellow might have done a lot of mischief. Crammed me down her throat, or tried to cut me out. I vow I wouldn’t have trusted any one but you yesterday in the boat. When I heard that she was coming along with some man, I was awfully cut up, I can tell you; and Mrs Martyn never let out who it was. Just like the woman! It was Miss—what’s she called?—Ravenstone who cleared me up. Why don’t you take to that little girl? A good soul, with a heart of gold, and a dimple. I’ve heard you say you loved dimples, and, upon my soul, I never saw a prettier.”

Wareham’s irritated exclamation was restrained by the recollection that here was the very suggestion which he had intended for Hugh himself, presented topsy-turvily. He was forced to laugh.

“Arrange matters for yourself, only leave me out of the pattern, for I don’t harmonise.”

Hugh rushed into farther confidences, but owned that he was in a funk.

“If I could but imagine what upset the coach last time,” he complained, “I’d take good care to avoid it again; but I give you my word you know as much as I do. She won’t speak of it, won’t listen, won’t so much as drop me a hint; and to think of her bolting again puts me in such a devil of a fright that I daren’t hold on to the subject. Now, Dick, if you’d stay and sound her a bit, I should be awfully obliged to you.”

That or any other subject. His heart jumped like a hungry dog, grateful for a bone. He had to recall himself to his resolve.

“Can’t.”

“Don’t tell me you’re not your own master.”

“No man is his own master that has set his shoulder to the wheel.”

“Well”—Hugh walked on, revolving—“there are twenty-four hours yet; you may get a chance in that time.”

Wareham was stung into exclamation.

“You don’t know what you’re asking!”

“I know exactly; and it isn’t much for a clever fellow like you. You can understand that when I go pottering round, she sees exactly what’s coming, and shies. As likely as not, she doesn’t want to hurt my feelings—”

“Oh, your feelings! She didn’t show much regard for your feelings when she flung you over!” cried Wareham savagely.

“No, but look here, old fellow, you mustn’t be so prejudiced. It was natural enough when you didn’t know her, and I shan’t forget what you did for me in those black days, but I did think that once you were thrown with her you would have your eyes opened, and appreciate her.”

Wareham looked queerly at him.

“How do you know I don’t?”

“Because then you wouldn’t blame her. And I believe you’d stick to me now. At first I could think of nothing but that I was near her again, and could look at her; but finding out how gingerly I’ve got to move, makes me uneasy. If you were here you’d give me a wrinkle or two. Come, Dick, think better of it.” Hugh decapitated an inoffensive ox-daisy as he spoke. “You needn’t expect to put me off with talk of business. Don’t I know most of your affairs?”

“Not all.” Wareham’s voice had grown gentler. “Hugh, do you remember my telling you that I had written a letter?”

“To me?”

“Yes.”

“I recollect. It had slipped my memory.”

“I wish I could prevent its ever reaching you.”

Hugh burst into his cheery laugh.

“That’s what I feel sometimes when I’ve sent off an epistle to the pater. But you don’t suppose anything you said to me would make me cut up rough?”

“When you’ve got it you’ll understand why I go,” the other went on, unheeding.

“Mysteries, mysteries!”

It must be owned that Wareham thought his speech would have thrown a little light. He breathed hard, and his face flushed. Hugh went on—

“I know you’ve thought hard things of Anne. But, old fellow, you’ve never failed me yet; and that’s why I want you now. You could say what I can’t say myself.”

“What one can’t say oneself had better remain unsaid.” Something in the tone penetrated, and gave the young man a tinge of uneasiness.

“You don’t mean that you think—” He stopped aghast.

Wareham answered with a hand on the valve. If his words were to fly, it should not be on a wrong tack.

“What?”

“That, after all, I’ve no chance?”

“Heavens, man, how should I think such a thing! I know nothing of what you have said to her, or she to you. You’ve got your opportunity—what more do you want? Go in, and win.”

“All right, old fellow,” Hugh said good-humouredly. “May you be a true prophet. Anyway, don’t be put out about your letter. I’ve a thick skin, as you’ve proved before now. And if it bores you to stop, go. Only if you do get the chance before leaving, and if you can get her to give you a bit of explanation, it may make matters smoother. Isn’t there some old Viking or other buried about here? Well, we’ll go back.”

As they returned they found signs of festivity about the rival inn; Balholm sat round the walls of the saal, and in the centre a picturesque musician played the Hardanger fiddle; the wild piercing sounds, half savage, half plaintive, penetrated the night. Wareham stood at the door after Hugh had left him, held by some spell for which he could not account. The music conjured up strange imaginings—the silence of the mountains encompassed lonely fjords; pallid snowflakes chased each other into clefts, where they lay shrouding the rock; winds whistled through cowering trees, and in a moment the cruel howl of a wolf rose menacingly above the other sounds. The tragedies of the country had found a voice in the wild, almost discordant, instrument. Wareham stood absorbed, staring at the ground. When the music stopped, he looked up uncertainly. Hay sweetened the air, golden light still lingered in the sky, yet he shivered. The landlord came out. Wareham gave him a gulden for the musician, and walked slowly back to his own quarters.

Chapter Thirteen.Persuasion.The next day the wreathing mists which lightly swept the mountains had gathered moisture enough to descend in thick rain. It fell continuously, but was still so vapourish that there was as much white as grey everywhere, and the sun behind the clouds suffused them with dazzling light.The broad fjord presented enchantingly ethereal and aerial effects. A grey veil blurred the heights on its other side, but here and there a mysterious gleam of whiteness shot out from their snowy summits, radiantly piercing the gloom. Silvery lights fell across the faint grey of the waters, which changed to opal nearer shore, and took in places a clear transparent emerald-green. A rough ridge of stone walled in a small harbour, and here were boats drawn up, black, green, white, sharp points of contrast to the delicate half-tones beyond.The covered balconies of the inn were thronged with dissatisfied travellers, casting gloomy glances at the falling rain.“Detestable climate,” muttered Colonel Martyn, pulling up his coat collar. He added to Wareham, “You’re a lucky fellow to be getting out of it. I wish I could.”“Don’t be absurd, Tom,” his wife retaliated. “The weather at home is infinitely worse.”“I don’t see it.”“You are like the ostrich. You bury your head.”The professor lifted his from a newspaper, with the sniff of a war-horse.“My dear Mrs Martyn, you don’t credit that ridiculous fable?”She raised her hands imploringly.“Take it. I yield. The professor has got possession of a hundred harmless illustrations, which he puts to the torture, and then gibbets.”“To be worth anything an illustration should be accurate.”Anne went to the rescue.“We may struggle after truth, but accuracy—! Half-an-hour hence, and unprepared, I defy the professor to repeat this conversation without an error.”“Facts, facts!”“Facts come to us thick with paint. Who will describe the view before us? One person says ‘Beastly weather,’ another is eloquent on the loveliness of silver-grey. What, then?”“The fact remains that it rains,” said the professor, with a bow. He was forbearing to Anne.“Not a drop.” Hugh turned round from contemplation, his laugh vigorous and infectious.“The ostrich is forfeit,” confessed the professor gallantly. “To some eyes it appears that he buries his head, others behold him running upright. He is gone, and science with him. Am I forgiven?”“You never asked me that question,” said Mrs Martyn.“My dear lady, you never gave me the opportunity.”While they laughed, Anne made a scarcely-perceptible sign to Wareham. He came close.“What takes you back in such a hurry to England?”He hesitated.“Is it business which I should not understand?”“Business which I can’t explain, would be nearer the truth.”She leaned forward, dropping her eyes.“Mr Forbes says that all his endeavours to keep you have been in vain. Are you inexorable? I believe we are going to the finest part of Norway. But perhaps you are afraid of anothercontretempssuch as that of Monday?”His head whirled; he dared not look at her. In an odd, strained voice he muttered something which sounded like “Perhaps.” She took no notice, but went on lightly—“You need not have any fear. You will be amply protected. With Colonel Martyn of the party, I defy any one to be late for anything.”He kept his eyes fixed on the opal waters, and stood up as stiffly as if he had to receive the shock of a charge. Who to look at him would have guessed that he felt as if all were lost? The ages have at least taught man to keep his face like a mask.“You are very good. Hugh will—will look after you. It is impossible for me to stay.”He stammered, he did not know what he said, but he had not yielded, he was sure he had not yielded.The victor is too often represented as a fine fellow, marching away self-contentedly to the sound of his own trumpets. Much more frequently he is bruised and battered, nobody giving him so much as a cheer; while his own discontented ideal scornfully holds up a mirror that he may not deceive himself with vain imaginings. This a hero!—Poor mud-bespattered figure! Just scraped through a conflict without utter overthrow, standing upright, it may be, but in what condition! Nothing to be proud of here. No subject for triumphal arches or laurel wreaths, which, indeed, became ludicrous even in imagination. Fit only to creep away, bind up his wounds as best he may, and cleanse himself from the mud-stains, and say as little as possible of what has happened. And yet a victor.Wareham wandered about that day, seeing little of the others, and especially avoiding Hugh. The misty rain continued, grey and silver predominated everywhere about the fjord, but the mountains behind the little village reared purple glooms into the cloud regions, and the greens were vivid. The whole party were to go on board the steamer which came in at seven or eight in the evening, and to separate at Vadheim at one in the morning.By the time they started the rain had ceased, and there were clear lights about, though no gorgeous pomp of sunset. A chill was in the air, suggesting wraps, and if adventurous spirits made excursions to the upper deck, they soon retreated to the heap of luggage which offered seats and comparative shelter. Anne had taken up a position between the professor and the elderly lady. Hugh could not get at her, and mooned about disconsolate. He went to Mrs Martyn, at last, in sheer despair; she laughed at him.“How many days has your satisfaction lasted, Mr Forbes? And do not copy-books assure us that happiness is a shy goddess? Be indifferent. That is your only chance of cajoling her to stay.”“As well say, be some one else. Won’t you help me?”“I would not if I could. Anne is charming as she is. Married, I don’t know which would be the most miserable—she or her husband.”“I would risk it.”“Of course. Because you have lost your head. I should not wonder if the professor would risk it too.”Hugh began to laugh.“You will be saying as much of Wareham in a minute.”“Do you mean that he owns to it?” asked Mrs Martyn innocently.His laugh grew hilarious.“No, no, no. The bare idea is too comic. I have never known him smitten. He will not even consent to stay on with us, though Anne asked him herself.”“And you have asked him also, no doubt?”“In vain, though! I have never known him so stiff. If it had been any one else, I should have suspected the attraction of Miss Ravenhill’s dimple.”Mrs Martyn gazed at him admiringly.“How clear-sighted you men are!” she cried.Hugh disclaimed modestly.“Not we, for you women often puzzle us. But if I didn’t know Wareham, I don’t know who should. He’s been better than a brother to me, stuck by me, and pulled me through a lot. Oh, hang that old man! If he’s going to monopolise Anne, I’ll have a smoke meanwhile. You’re coming down to the feed, Mrs Martyn? May I choose your places?”“Leave that to Mr Wareham,” she called after him, with a laugh.Wareham sat with the Ravenhills at the other table of the narrow cabin. Anne’s voice behind him sounded in his ears, so that he heard little else, and gave himself the luxury of silence that he might listen to the dear sounds. Mrs Ravenhill found him a dull companion, and raised her eyebrows to Millie to indicate her opinion while she praised the salmon. Youth had ousted age, and Hugh was at Anne’s elbow, with irreverent jests upon the professors dread of the cabin. The steamer had anchored off a little village, to disembark a company of unkempt soldiers, and was rolling steadily, to the discomfort of more than one.“I looked into the ladies’ cabin,” said Anne. “It is not to be faced, and I shall spend the night on deck.”“I too. But the night is not very long.”“True. I had forgotten. We land at one. Are you really coming with us?”“What else on earth should I do?”“That is easily answered. Go home with your friend. Are you not hisfidus Achates? Don’t you think it base to desert him?”He dropped his voice into rapture.“You don’t expect me to prefer his society to yours!”Mrs Martyn, who had quick ears, bestowed a mental smile on the one-sidedness of friendship. Anne looked at him calmly, and remarked—“You are an extraordinary boy.”He flushed and asked her not to call him a boy. She answered that she thought him younger now than ever before. “It is only a boy that would have shown so much rashness.”“How?”“In hurling yourself upon us, as you have done. Unasked, except by your faithful friend.”Threat lurked in her voice, and terrified him into instant humbleness.“Forgive me.”“If I do, it is because you are what you disclaim, and not quite responsible. The real offender should have remained to take care of you.”“I don’t need him, if you won’t laugh at me too cruelly. Besides, do you know that Dick is only three years my senior! Upon my honour, that’s all.”She made no remark on this, but changed her note to one more serious, and therefore more alarming.“Your coming with us is certain to revive talk—hush!—and I do not wish that to happen. While you were here with another the fact was not so pointed, but I did not realise that Mr Wareham proposed to leave you altogether on our hands, and I do not like it.”“He will go,” Hugh said gloomily. He began to see Wareham’s departure in a menacing light. “You know he told you so!”“Oh, me, me!—Am I his friend? When he gave you wise advice, did he not treat me in the light of a baleful ogress? However, there is no more to be said, for if he will not make so small a concession for you—”Her tones betrayed annoyance. Hugh’s heart descended to his boots, and he mentally resolved upon another and stronger argument with Wareham.His path would not be strewn with roses, he began to see; at any rate, if the roses were there, thorns also gave plentiful promise. And he could not understand Wareham, on whom he would have counted for staunch support in these prickly ways. Poor Hugh, whose lights were steady but not brilliant, felt himself unable to comprehend either his friend or Anne. At times she suffered his hope to sail like a kite, straining at its cord, then with a jerk down came the poor flutterer, and dragged helplessly on the ground. Up again, he forgot the downfall, and was as unprepared as ever for disaster.It was cold, sharply cold, on deck. People began to prepare for sleep. Mrs Martyn betook herself to the ladies cabin; Mrs Ravenhill and Millie stretched themselves on the ground in a small corner at the head of the companion ladder. Anne barricaded herself amongst the small luggage, and warned off Hugh, who wandered round disconsolate.There was still clear light in the sky, though the horizontal layer of clouds had grown dark, almost black. Black, too, were the low hills which rose on either side of the broad Sogne; here and there a single light gleamed out of the solitude; now and then a bubble of laughter broke from a group on the deck. Hugh went in pursuit of Wareham, and found him in the forepart of the vessel talking to a Norwegian gentleman on the politics which were causing upheaval in the country. When he at last walked away, Wareham remarked to his friend—“Individually they are a strong nation, but our overgrown world now requires quantity at the back of quality. Besides, they have no young men.”“Why?”“Emigration. The passion for their country remains, but only as a sentiment. It does not bring them back to starve for her.”“They would be fools if it did,” commented Hugh.“True. But it requires fools to do great things. However, my Norwegian is not quite of my opinion. He thinks the struggle with nature’s physical forces so tremendous that it exhausts the energy of the people. In old days it flung them southward to conquer more promising lands. This is no longer possible, and he holds that they must for the present content themselves with crossing the seas and growing rich by the work of their brains. The worst is that the men who return do not bring back the fine qualities they took.”“You are interested in them?”“They seem to me among the best people in the world.”“But you have seen so little!”“One day I must come back.”“Look here, Dick, what a fellow you are!” Hugh exclaimed remonstrantly. “There’s nothing to take you home, and you won’t stop, when you might be of the greatest possible use to me. Anne is beginning to cut up rough, because she thinks my staying on with them alone looks marked. Do think better of it. You’re not tied to those other people.”“I can’t be uncivil to them.”“I claim you before them.”Wareham sighed wearily.“Haven’t we gone through it all? I tell you I know what I am about.”“That letter. It has something to do with that letter, I’ll swear it has! And what rubbish! As if anything you said could ever come between us. Out with it, man; let’s hear this mighty matter. Then perhaps you’ll stay and study your Norwegian in peace.”“My Norwegian must wait. TheCeylonhas me fast booked.”Hugh was put out.“I never knew you so stiff!” he cried, with vexation in his tone.“You must take my word that I have reasons.”“At any rate, you might give me one.” Wareham was silent. Hugh kicked at a rope.“What on earth can I say to Anne?”“You might be satisfied with your position,” the other man went on, disregarding. “A week ago you would have thought it bliss.”“So it is.” Hugh rose on wings. “But if ever you’d been in love, you’d understand that the uncertainty is awfully trying. After what happened once, I shan’t have a minute’s peace until we’re married. Now, when she might have let me say something, she has sent me off.”Wareham was understood to mutter that no one could assist Hugh but Hugh himself.“Oh, I know, I know! Only I want to keep her pleased.”Three weeks before his friend would have flung out that if he couldn’t effect this preliminary he had better step aside and leave the lady to please herself. Three weeks, however, had changed, if not his opinions, at least his power of advancing them. Silence was again his refuge. And Hugh meandered on.“Perhaps old Martyn will say a good word for me. Suppose Anne says I am not to go on with them!”“Can’t you take your dismissal?”“No!” Hugh flung out the word with such energy that a passing sailor looked round to see whether the quarrel was serious. Wareham recognised and admired the tenacity.“You’ve grip,” he admitted. “It would take less to put me off.”The young man made no answer. They were nearing a landing-place, the usual group stood there, only that at this hour they were dark shadows, now and then flashed upon by a moving light; two boys in fur caps carried great plates of wild strawberries. Hugh bought a couple, with promise that the steamer should bring back the plates. He dashed off with them to Anne, and was back in a moment.“Happy hit, she likes them! But she wants you to come, too.”Wareham hesitated—went—with a shrug at his own weakness. Anne pushed a camp stool in front of her.“Sit there. Mr Forbes, please carry some to Mrs Ravenhill. They are delicious.”As he went off obediently, Wareham said—“You are unkind.”“No; he is pleased. He thinks you are sure to say something in his favour, and jumps at the opportunity.”“Is that why you sent for me?”“To hear your counsel—yes. As it is you who have planted me in this quandary, you had better at least tell me what you would advise?”“That I leave to your own heart.” He was conscious that prudence would have touched the string more lightly.“You are so uncomplimentary as to have forgotten what I told you, and not so long ago. I don’t own the thing. At all events, it is of the smallest.”“So is what we see of the moon,” said Wareham, pointing to a slender crescent.Anne smiled, for a woman who talks of heartlessness does so to be contradicted.“Well, it appears to me that you put forth little on behalf of your friend.”“One doesn’t praise the people one loves.” He dared not look at her, but her nearness thrilled him, and he had not thought to be thus together again in the mysterious dusk of a northern night. She was silent for a time; when she spoke it was to say slowly—“If you tell me that you honestly wish it, I may—perhaps—”But he had started up impatiently.“Good heavens, am I your guide? I have nothing to do with it. I wash my hands of all!” He added with a strong effort, “Let me say that you could not choose a better fellow, and that he loves you with his whole heart.”“How big is that?” Anne demanded, in a mocking tone.The question jarred. He loved, but did not like her so well as before. “You, at any rate, have no reason to doubt its generosity,” he answered gravely. “And one thing I will ask of you—do not cause unnecessary pain.”“The situation is none of my creating. Give me credit at least for having done my utmost to avoid painful positions. You, or fate, have baffled me, yet now you refuse to interfere, and I do not pretend to answer for myself.”She pushed away the plate of strawberries, and leaned back among the rugs and furs, her face pale in the half light, her voice cold. Wareham was still standing, when Hugh came back and glanced from one to the other.“Have you persuaded him?” he inquired.“Mr Wareham?” said Anne carelessly. “I should not venture to attempt it.”“Time’s nearly up,” Hugh announced. “In a quarter of an hour we shall be at Vadheim, and Colonel Martyn wants to know if you have seen the brown rug?”“Tell him it is here,” she said, with a little eagerness; and Hugh was turning away when Wareham stopped him.“Stay,” he said. “I will go.”He did not return. Lights shone out ahead of them, and there was a stir in the vessel, and an uprising of sleepers, for this is the point where those bound for Northern Norway leave the Sogne. The professor’s voice was heard, acutely insistent. Colonel Martyn came to look for Anne and his rug. The lights resolved themselves into illuminated windows of a square inn, and, with no movement about it, this midnight illumination had an almost spectral effect.A procession of good-byes followed.“Good-bye, Mr Wareham,” said Mrs Martyn, with a laugh. “High ideals may be very fine things, but they don’t pay, and you had better have stayed.”“Lucky man, with a tender chop in sight!” muttered her husband.As Anne passed out she turned a smiling face towards Wareham, but if he had feared or hoped for a farewell word, he was disappointed. She said no more than “Good-night,” and put a warm hand into his. He had prepared himself for words, but silence knocked aside his defences.“We are friends?” he asked eagerly.She lifted her eyebrows, still smiling.“I should never reach your ideal of friendship. Keep it for Mr Forbes.”Hugh pressed in from behind, laden with bundles.“Here’s everything, as far as I can see, but if you find anything, Dick, leave it with Bennett in Bergen. You’re a villain, not to come along with us.” Then, in a whisper, “Wish me well, old fellow!”He had only time to spring on shore, the vessel backed slowly away from the pier, the figures faded into darkness, the spectral inn presented its squares of steady light. Wareham stood watching, then, with something like a groan, turned away, and flung himself down where Anne had sat among the luggage.

The next day the wreathing mists which lightly swept the mountains had gathered moisture enough to descend in thick rain. It fell continuously, but was still so vapourish that there was as much white as grey everywhere, and the sun behind the clouds suffused them with dazzling light.

The broad fjord presented enchantingly ethereal and aerial effects. A grey veil blurred the heights on its other side, but here and there a mysterious gleam of whiteness shot out from their snowy summits, radiantly piercing the gloom. Silvery lights fell across the faint grey of the waters, which changed to opal nearer shore, and took in places a clear transparent emerald-green. A rough ridge of stone walled in a small harbour, and here were boats drawn up, black, green, white, sharp points of contrast to the delicate half-tones beyond.

The covered balconies of the inn were thronged with dissatisfied travellers, casting gloomy glances at the falling rain.

“Detestable climate,” muttered Colonel Martyn, pulling up his coat collar. He added to Wareham, “You’re a lucky fellow to be getting out of it. I wish I could.”

“Don’t be absurd, Tom,” his wife retaliated. “The weather at home is infinitely worse.”

“I don’t see it.”

“You are like the ostrich. You bury your head.”

The professor lifted his from a newspaper, with the sniff of a war-horse.

“My dear Mrs Martyn, you don’t credit that ridiculous fable?”

She raised her hands imploringly.

“Take it. I yield. The professor has got possession of a hundred harmless illustrations, which he puts to the torture, and then gibbets.”

“To be worth anything an illustration should be accurate.”

Anne went to the rescue.

“We may struggle after truth, but accuracy—! Half-an-hour hence, and unprepared, I defy the professor to repeat this conversation without an error.”

“Facts, facts!”

“Facts come to us thick with paint. Who will describe the view before us? One person says ‘Beastly weather,’ another is eloquent on the loveliness of silver-grey. What, then?”

“The fact remains that it rains,” said the professor, with a bow. He was forbearing to Anne.

“Not a drop.” Hugh turned round from contemplation, his laugh vigorous and infectious.

“The ostrich is forfeit,” confessed the professor gallantly. “To some eyes it appears that he buries his head, others behold him running upright. He is gone, and science with him. Am I forgiven?”

“You never asked me that question,” said Mrs Martyn.

“My dear lady, you never gave me the opportunity.”

While they laughed, Anne made a scarcely-perceptible sign to Wareham. He came close.

“What takes you back in such a hurry to England?”

He hesitated.

“Is it business which I should not understand?”

“Business which I can’t explain, would be nearer the truth.”

She leaned forward, dropping her eyes.

“Mr Forbes says that all his endeavours to keep you have been in vain. Are you inexorable? I believe we are going to the finest part of Norway. But perhaps you are afraid of anothercontretempssuch as that of Monday?”

His head whirled; he dared not look at her. In an odd, strained voice he muttered something which sounded like “Perhaps.” She took no notice, but went on lightly—

“You need not have any fear. You will be amply protected. With Colonel Martyn of the party, I defy any one to be late for anything.”

He kept his eyes fixed on the opal waters, and stood up as stiffly as if he had to receive the shock of a charge. Who to look at him would have guessed that he felt as if all were lost? The ages have at least taught man to keep his face like a mask.

“You are very good. Hugh will—will look after you. It is impossible for me to stay.”

He stammered, he did not know what he said, but he had not yielded, he was sure he had not yielded.

The victor is too often represented as a fine fellow, marching away self-contentedly to the sound of his own trumpets. Much more frequently he is bruised and battered, nobody giving him so much as a cheer; while his own discontented ideal scornfully holds up a mirror that he may not deceive himself with vain imaginings. This a hero!—Poor mud-bespattered figure! Just scraped through a conflict without utter overthrow, standing upright, it may be, but in what condition! Nothing to be proud of here. No subject for triumphal arches or laurel wreaths, which, indeed, became ludicrous even in imagination. Fit only to creep away, bind up his wounds as best he may, and cleanse himself from the mud-stains, and say as little as possible of what has happened. And yet a victor.

Wareham wandered about that day, seeing little of the others, and especially avoiding Hugh. The misty rain continued, grey and silver predominated everywhere about the fjord, but the mountains behind the little village reared purple glooms into the cloud regions, and the greens were vivid. The whole party were to go on board the steamer which came in at seven or eight in the evening, and to separate at Vadheim at one in the morning.

By the time they started the rain had ceased, and there were clear lights about, though no gorgeous pomp of sunset. A chill was in the air, suggesting wraps, and if adventurous spirits made excursions to the upper deck, they soon retreated to the heap of luggage which offered seats and comparative shelter. Anne had taken up a position between the professor and the elderly lady. Hugh could not get at her, and mooned about disconsolate. He went to Mrs Martyn, at last, in sheer despair; she laughed at him.

“How many days has your satisfaction lasted, Mr Forbes? And do not copy-books assure us that happiness is a shy goddess? Be indifferent. That is your only chance of cajoling her to stay.”

“As well say, be some one else. Won’t you help me?”

“I would not if I could. Anne is charming as she is. Married, I don’t know which would be the most miserable—she or her husband.”

“I would risk it.”

“Of course. Because you have lost your head. I should not wonder if the professor would risk it too.”

Hugh began to laugh.

“You will be saying as much of Wareham in a minute.”

“Do you mean that he owns to it?” asked Mrs Martyn innocently.

His laugh grew hilarious.

“No, no, no. The bare idea is too comic. I have never known him smitten. He will not even consent to stay on with us, though Anne asked him herself.”

“And you have asked him also, no doubt?”

“In vain, though! I have never known him so stiff. If it had been any one else, I should have suspected the attraction of Miss Ravenhill’s dimple.”

Mrs Martyn gazed at him admiringly.

“How clear-sighted you men are!” she cried.

Hugh disclaimed modestly.

“Not we, for you women often puzzle us. But if I didn’t know Wareham, I don’t know who should. He’s been better than a brother to me, stuck by me, and pulled me through a lot. Oh, hang that old man! If he’s going to monopolise Anne, I’ll have a smoke meanwhile. You’re coming down to the feed, Mrs Martyn? May I choose your places?”

“Leave that to Mr Wareham,” she called after him, with a laugh.

Wareham sat with the Ravenhills at the other table of the narrow cabin. Anne’s voice behind him sounded in his ears, so that he heard little else, and gave himself the luxury of silence that he might listen to the dear sounds. Mrs Ravenhill found him a dull companion, and raised her eyebrows to Millie to indicate her opinion while she praised the salmon. Youth had ousted age, and Hugh was at Anne’s elbow, with irreverent jests upon the professors dread of the cabin. The steamer had anchored off a little village, to disembark a company of unkempt soldiers, and was rolling steadily, to the discomfort of more than one.

“I looked into the ladies’ cabin,” said Anne. “It is not to be faced, and I shall spend the night on deck.”

“I too. But the night is not very long.”

“True. I had forgotten. We land at one. Are you really coming with us?”

“What else on earth should I do?”

“That is easily answered. Go home with your friend. Are you not hisfidus Achates? Don’t you think it base to desert him?”

He dropped his voice into rapture.

“You don’t expect me to prefer his society to yours!”

Mrs Martyn, who had quick ears, bestowed a mental smile on the one-sidedness of friendship. Anne looked at him calmly, and remarked—

“You are an extraordinary boy.”

He flushed and asked her not to call him a boy. She answered that she thought him younger now than ever before. “It is only a boy that would have shown so much rashness.”

“How?”

“In hurling yourself upon us, as you have done. Unasked, except by your faithful friend.”

Threat lurked in her voice, and terrified him into instant humbleness.

“Forgive me.”

“If I do, it is because you are what you disclaim, and not quite responsible. The real offender should have remained to take care of you.”

“I don’t need him, if you won’t laugh at me too cruelly. Besides, do you know that Dick is only three years my senior! Upon my honour, that’s all.”

She made no remark on this, but changed her note to one more serious, and therefore more alarming.

“Your coming with us is certain to revive talk—hush!—and I do not wish that to happen. While you were here with another the fact was not so pointed, but I did not realise that Mr Wareham proposed to leave you altogether on our hands, and I do not like it.”

“He will go,” Hugh said gloomily. He began to see Wareham’s departure in a menacing light. “You know he told you so!”

“Oh, me, me!—Am I his friend? When he gave you wise advice, did he not treat me in the light of a baleful ogress? However, there is no more to be said, for if he will not make so small a concession for you—”

Her tones betrayed annoyance. Hugh’s heart descended to his boots, and he mentally resolved upon another and stronger argument with Wareham.

His path would not be strewn with roses, he began to see; at any rate, if the roses were there, thorns also gave plentiful promise. And he could not understand Wareham, on whom he would have counted for staunch support in these prickly ways. Poor Hugh, whose lights were steady but not brilliant, felt himself unable to comprehend either his friend or Anne. At times she suffered his hope to sail like a kite, straining at its cord, then with a jerk down came the poor flutterer, and dragged helplessly on the ground. Up again, he forgot the downfall, and was as unprepared as ever for disaster.

It was cold, sharply cold, on deck. People began to prepare for sleep. Mrs Martyn betook herself to the ladies cabin; Mrs Ravenhill and Millie stretched themselves on the ground in a small corner at the head of the companion ladder. Anne barricaded herself amongst the small luggage, and warned off Hugh, who wandered round disconsolate.

There was still clear light in the sky, though the horizontal layer of clouds had grown dark, almost black. Black, too, were the low hills which rose on either side of the broad Sogne; here and there a single light gleamed out of the solitude; now and then a bubble of laughter broke from a group on the deck. Hugh went in pursuit of Wareham, and found him in the forepart of the vessel talking to a Norwegian gentleman on the politics which were causing upheaval in the country. When he at last walked away, Wareham remarked to his friend—

“Individually they are a strong nation, but our overgrown world now requires quantity at the back of quality. Besides, they have no young men.”

“Why?”

“Emigration. The passion for their country remains, but only as a sentiment. It does not bring them back to starve for her.”

“They would be fools if it did,” commented Hugh.

“True. But it requires fools to do great things. However, my Norwegian is not quite of my opinion. He thinks the struggle with nature’s physical forces so tremendous that it exhausts the energy of the people. In old days it flung them southward to conquer more promising lands. This is no longer possible, and he holds that they must for the present content themselves with crossing the seas and growing rich by the work of their brains. The worst is that the men who return do not bring back the fine qualities they took.”

“You are interested in them?”

“They seem to me among the best people in the world.”

“But you have seen so little!”

“One day I must come back.”

“Look here, Dick, what a fellow you are!” Hugh exclaimed remonstrantly. “There’s nothing to take you home, and you won’t stop, when you might be of the greatest possible use to me. Anne is beginning to cut up rough, because she thinks my staying on with them alone looks marked. Do think better of it. You’re not tied to those other people.”

“I can’t be uncivil to them.”

“I claim you before them.”

Wareham sighed wearily.

“Haven’t we gone through it all? I tell you I know what I am about.”

“That letter. It has something to do with that letter, I’ll swear it has! And what rubbish! As if anything you said could ever come between us. Out with it, man; let’s hear this mighty matter. Then perhaps you’ll stay and study your Norwegian in peace.”

“My Norwegian must wait. TheCeylonhas me fast booked.”

Hugh was put out.

“I never knew you so stiff!” he cried, with vexation in his tone.

“You must take my word that I have reasons.”

“At any rate, you might give me one.” Wareham was silent. Hugh kicked at a rope.

“What on earth can I say to Anne?”

“You might be satisfied with your position,” the other man went on, disregarding. “A week ago you would have thought it bliss.”

“So it is.” Hugh rose on wings. “But if ever you’d been in love, you’d understand that the uncertainty is awfully trying. After what happened once, I shan’t have a minute’s peace until we’re married. Now, when she might have let me say something, she has sent me off.”

Wareham was understood to mutter that no one could assist Hugh but Hugh himself.

“Oh, I know, I know! Only I want to keep her pleased.”

Three weeks before his friend would have flung out that if he couldn’t effect this preliminary he had better step aside and leave the lady to please herself. Three weeks, however, had changed, if not his opinions, at least his power of advancing them. Silence was again his refuge. And Hugh meandered on.

“Perhaps old Martyn will say a good word for me. Suppose Anne says I am not to go on with them!”

“Can’t you take your dismissal?”

“No!” Hugh flung out the word with such energy that a passing sailor looked round to see whether the quarrel was serious. Wareham recognised and admired the tenacity.

“You’ve grip,” he admitted. “It would take less to put me off.”

The young man made no answer. They were nearing a landing-place, the usual group stood there, only that at this hour they were dark shadows, now and then flashed upon by a moving light; two boys in fur caps carried great plates of wild strawberries. Hugh bought a couple, with promise that the steamer should bring back the plates. He dashed off with them to Anne, and was back in a moment.

“Happy hit, she likes them! But she wants you to come, too.”

Wareham hesitated—went—with a shrug at his own weakness. Anne pushed a camp stool in front of her.

“Sit there. Mr Forbes, please carry some to Mrs Ravenhill. They are delicious.”

As he went off obediently, Wareham said—“You are unkind.”

“No; he is pleased. He thinks you are sure to say something in his favour, and jumps at the opportunity.”

“Is that why you sent for me?”

“To hear your counsel—yes. As it is you who have planted me in this quandary, you had better at least tell me what you would advise?”

“That I leave to your own heart.” He was conscious that prudence would have touched the string more lightly.

“You are so uncomplimentary as to have forgotten what I told you, and not so long ago. I don’t own the thing. At all events, it is of the smallest.”

“So is what we see of the moon,” said Wareham, pointing to a slender crescent.

Anne smiled, for a woman who talks of heartlessness does so to be contradicted.

“Well, it appears to me that you put forth little on behalf of your friend.”

“One doesn’t praise the people one loves.” He dared not look at her, but her nearness thrilled him, and he had not thought to be thus together again in the mysterious dusk of a northern night. She was silent for a time; when she spoke it was to say slowly—

“If you tell me that you honestly wish it, I may—perhaps—”

But he had started up impatiently.

“Good heavens, am I your guide? I have nothing to do with it. I wash my hands of all!” He added with a strong effort, “Let me say that you could not choose a better fellow, and that he loves you with his whole heart.”

“How big is that?” Anne demanded, in a mocking tone.

The question jarred. He loved, but did not like her so well as before. “You, at any rate, have no reason to doubt its generosity,” he answered gravely. “And one thing I will ask of you—do not cause unnecessary pain.”

“The situation is none of my creating. Give me credit at least for having done my utmost to avoid painful positions. You, or fate, have baffled me, yet now you refuse to interfere, and I do not pretend to answer for myself.”

She pushed away the plate of strawberries, and leaned back among the rugs and furs, her face pale in the half light, her voice cold. Wareham was still standing, when Hugh came back and glanced from one to the other.

“Have you persuaded him?” he inquired.

“Mr Wareham?” said Anne carelessly. “I should not venture to attempt it.”

“Time’s nearly up,” Hugh announced. “In a quarter of an hour we shall be at Vadheim, and Colonel Martyn wants to know if you have seen the brown rug?”

“Tell him it is here,” she said, with a little eagerness; and Hugh was turning away when Wareham stopped him.

“Stay,” he said. “I will go.”

He did not return. Lights shone out ahead of them, and there was a stir in the vessel, and an uprising of sleepers, for this is the point where those bound for Northern Norway leave the Sogne. The professor’s voice was heard, acutely insistent. Colonel Martyn came to look for Anne and his rug. The lights resolved themselves into illuminated windows of a square inn, and, with no movement about it, this midnight illumination had an almost spectral effect.

A procession of good-byes followed.

“Good-bye, Mr Wareham,” said Mrs Martyn, with a laugh. “High ideals may be very fine things, but they don’t pay, and you had better have stayed.”

“Lucky man, with a tender chop in sight!” muttered her husband.

As Anne passed out she turned a smiling face towards Wareham, but if he had feared or hoped for a farewell word, he was disappointed. She said no more than “Good-night,” and put a warm hand into his. He had prepared himself for words, but silence knocked aside his defences.

“We are friends?” he asked eagerly.

She lifted her eyebrows, still smiling.

“I should never reach your ideal of friendship. Keep it for Mr Forbes.”

Hugh pressed in from behind, laden with bundles.

“Here’s everything, as far as I can see, but if you find anything, Dick, leave it with Bennett in Bergen. You’re a villain, not to come along with us.” Then, in a whisper, “Wish me well, old fellow!”

He had only time to spring on shore, the vessel backed slowly away from the pier, the figures faded into darkness, the spectral inn presented its squares of steady light. Wareham stood watching, then, with something like a groan, turned away, and flung himself down where Anne had sat among the luggage.

Chapter Fourteen.“Over the Water wi’ Ane.”As the fjord widens into open sea, the hills sink into insignificance, and the steamer makes her way between clustering islands, rocky and barren; but on nearing Bergen the scenery again gains dignity, and Bergen itself, lying on a promontory between two harbours, and overshadowed by fine mountains, is strikingly picturesque. There is an air of vigorous life about it; oddly-rigged and brightly-painted vessels scud along before a wind which catches the waves, and tears them into foam; against the beautiful shadowy hills stands a jumble of red-roofed houses, pierced, as it were, by a forest of masts.Mrs Ravenhill, sitting on the upper deck, swept the scene with what Millie called her air of hungry enjoyment.“She sees points, effects, and is perfectly happy. What I foresee,” added the girl, laughing, “is a struggling crowd, from which I shall have to defend her.”“Norwegians are never rude,” announced Mrs Ravenhill.“Not often. But what of that girl at Stalheim, who demanded money because you had sketched her cottage?”“Oh, Stalheim! Stalheim is a spoilt place. I do not count Stalheim.”“You will find points enough and to spare,” said Wareham, “and if you can get on board a steamer, you may have peace also. I suppose Smeby’s will do as well as any other hotel?”So it was settled, only, as Smeby’s was full, Mrs Ravenhill and Millie went across the street, and had rooms at the house of a kindly, funny little woman, who told them long Norwegian stories, which she found it impossible to conceive were not understood. The days were bright, but chilly, with a spirited wind blowing in from the sea, and ruffling the harbour. The Ravenhills attempted no demands upon Wareham’s hours; he was free to come and go, join them or leave them alone, whether Mrs Ravenhill sketched or made regulation purchases of spoons, furs, or photographs at the shops. This liberty pleased him, it allowed him to live with Anne in thought, and to be miserable over the combinations he foresaw. When two and two must drive together, would not Hugh contrive to be with Anne? No one would prevent it if Anne suffered the arrangement. And to be near her—to look into her eyes! Now that the victory was won, he gave himself the luxury of imagining what a defeat would have brought him: he might have been in Hugh’s place, and his heart leaped with the conviction that he would have been preferred. He walked hurriedly, urged, goaded, by this thought; over his head clouds were flying, gulls screamed to each other, flashing white wings against the grey. He walked long, seeing nothing; when he wheeled round at last, it was more from instinct than intention, and after supper he went out again.Mrs Ravenhill was not quite pleased.“No one invited Mr Wareham,” she said to Millie that night. “If he chose to come with us, he might take more trouble to be entertaining.”Millie stood at the window, her back to her mother.“Never mind,” she said at last. “You have earned his gratitude.”“Why?”“He is not very happy, so he likes to be alone.”Mrs Ravenhill laid down the photographs she was examining, and stared.“Not happy? Millie, you catch up absurd fancies! The man eats, drinks, talks, as usual. He has not been confiding in you?”—quickly.The “No” came with a sigh.Her mother heard the “No,” and not the sigh, and took up the photographs again.“Then I wouldn’t waste my pity. I will tell you what I think. Mr Wareham has lived in his own interests till he has grown selfish; the large party and the little rubs did not please him, and he came away. He is welcome to go where he likes. All that I complain of is that he seems to think he owes nothing to us. You see what I mean?”“Yes.”“And don’t you think he was glad to break away?”“Perhaps,” said Millie untruthfully.“Oh, he was.” The mother was persuaded that Millie never flung a thought in the direction of Wareham, yet, mother-like, would not believe that he could have been attracted by another when her girl was there. Descent such as that ranks with the incredible. Yet if—if Millie were not so entirely heart-whole as she believed, she yearned to offer comfort. She said, with a smile—“Miss Dalrymple has too much of the bearing of a conqueror to please a man not easily subdued.”The girl’s heart was trembling lest the secret it held should escape. She praised Anne on purpose to be quit of all suspicion of jealousy.“She is one of the women who has a right to such a bearing. If I were a man, I should fall in love with her a dozen times over.”Mrs Ravenhill’s momentary suspicion fled.“He could have stayed if he had wished it, I suppose,” she said cheerfully, and slipped into other talk.A newspaper had given them moderately late news of their country, and when they met at breakfast, Wareham alluded to it.“At home, if you miss theTimesfor a day, you become a hopeless laggard in the world. It is amazing how soon the feeling wears off.”“By the way, I see the professor mentioned for an appointment,” said Mrs Ravenhill. “Our professor?”“Mrs Martyn’s.” They laughed.“Whatever it may be,” said Wareham, “he will not be troubled by the misgiving that a worthier man might have been found.”Millie remarked that he had a very accurate mind.“From which he shoots out poor Mrs Martyn’s facts as rubbish.”“But in Miss Dalrymple’s hands he is a lamb,” said Mrs Ravenhill. “I think she might even venture on a statistic unquestioned.” Wareham made no answer, he turned to ask something of the long landlord. Millie spoke to a pale-faced girl, who was still shuddering from the crossing she had just gone through, and unwilling to believe that anything in Norway could be worth its preliminary horrors. Mrs Ravenhill got up.“Which is the way to the fish-market?” she asked.“I will go with you, if you will allow me,” Wareham answered.“Don’t let us trouble you.”Millie was conscious of a touch of stiffness in her mother’s manner, but he showed no signs of noticing it.“You should have gone earlier,” he said. “Seven or eight o’clock is a better time. However, you will gain some idea of its picturesqueness even now, and from there you can have a look at the Hanseatic House. There is a general museum, too, and a good one.”The one important street in Bergen runs directly through the town. Here and there desolate open spaces break away, the safe guards from the ever-dreaded enemy fire; here and there cellars yawn, heaped with gaily-paintedtine; here and there again you catch sight of the dancing waters of the harbour, and a jumble of shipping. It is at the end of the harbour that the fish-market is held; the boats are jammed together, the buyers stand and lean over the railings; women in thickly-plaited black dresses with close black caps, a rim of white round the face, and one spot of white behind, are sprinkled among the more ordinary costumes. More remarkable were the fishermen in the boats. Old and young, the hardy faces caught and held attention; you looked at men. As Wareham had said, the great throng was over, but even yet there were plenty of purchasers, and a penny would gain a plateful of little fish.And here, in the heart of old Bergen, is the house of the Hanseatic League, unchanged since the time of the traders. It is the past, fossilised, for some; for others it is the means by which to drift back themselves into the past, and join the ghosts. Away with the crowd of laughing sight-seers! here sits the merchant in fur cap and gown, his account-book before him. Check the entries if you will, it lies open. Here is the eating-room for the apprentices, lads who, taught to sweep and cook, should make good husbands by and by. But as their dignities would not put up with bed-making, and woman was not admitted, all the beds are provided with a sliding panel, whereby that useful but dangerous appendage, standing outside, could insert her arms and head—no more!—and arrange for masculine comfort. And here is the great lantern which, fixed on a pole, the trader carried in the funeral processions of his guild. From youth to old age it is all here.“The outer circumstances of life, outliving life,” said Wareham, as they emerged. “Now, will you come to the other museum, and plunge still farther back into the age of flint implements?”Mrs Ravenhill shook her head.“Any stone would do as well for me. My mind refuses to leap those distances, and I look at them foolishly unimpressed.”“Is it only flint implements?” Millie asked. “I don’t object to them, but I believe it is because I am so ignorant that I can’t gauge my own ignorance.”It appeared that with many other collections, there were old Norwegian curiosities, and a fine set-out of wooden bowls, which attracted Mrs Ravenhill, bent on taking home trophies of that description. Passing the fish-market again, Millie bought a basketful of cherries from a boat laden with nothing else. The small events of this day came back to her afterwards with a curious distinctness, and yet there was nothing especially to mark it to her, nor at the time did it seem blessed. Certainly not deserving the golden aureole which set it apart. She said little, but let her thirsty heart drink in what tasted like delicious draughts, and thrust aside the consciousness that soon thirst would be on her again. Whatever Wareham had done the day before, to-day he was all kindness. Mrs Ravenhill, never, indeed, exacting, had no reason to utter a complaint. Five o’clock saw them in the launch of theCeylon, red-roofed Bergen curving behind them, and it was not long before they steamed out of the harbour. The wind was fresh, but for a long time they were under the lee of the shore, and even through the next day most of the passengers kept fairly on deck. But by Sunday the vessel was rolling heavily, and Millie appeared alone. The usual service could not be held, and only one or two ladies left their cabins. It was natural that Wareham should be much with the girl. They talked of Norway. From that they fell to talking of those who had been their companions, of all, at least, except Anne. But a question was so close to Millie’s lips, that at last it flew out.“Was it Mr Forbes of whom you once spoke?”“Did I speak.”“At Stavanger,” she said reproachfully. He had forgotten the confidence. “Before you knew Miss Dalrymple.”“Ah, yes, it was before I knew,” he acquiesced, and went off in a dream.She supposed the “Yes” was intended for an answer to her question, but it was not clear enough fur her burning longing to be certain.“They were once engaged?”“Yes.” He forced himself to add with a smile—“The sphinx was a woman.”“To have followed shows that he must love her,” said Millie thoughtfully.“Why not?”She hugged her pain.“Why not, indeed! But if she is as unchanged as he, will he not suffer?”“Fortunes of war,” returned Wareham briefly, and dropped the conversation; from which, however, he drew the consolation that Millie’s pity showed what she thought was in store for the young man. For this he forgave her the questioning which he might otherwise have resented. He had not a suspicion that she saw any further than her words told him, the childish dimple in her cheek belying such a thought. What he read was as much curiosity as belongs to a daughter of Eve, joined to a kindly sympathy for the young fellow whose perseverance perhaps touched kindly romance. If adverse fate could have flung these two together! He talked to her, reaching further into her mind than ever before, and the more he probed its innocent depths, the more he blamed fate for its dilatoriness. And Millie, all unconscious of this dream, suffered a lurking fancy of possible contingencies to brighten her eyes and deepen the pretty colour in her cheek. The sun shone, but the wind was cold. Wareham felt that he was responsible for her comfort, and saw that her deck-chair was placed at a right angle, and moved when necessary; he helped her when she moved, and sat next her at meals. On his own account he was glad of the companionship, for to be alone was to think, not of Anne, but of Anne and Hugh.By the next morning they were in smooth water, and Mrs Ravenhill came on deck. She thanked Wareham for his care of her daughter.“I was helpless myself, and I couldn’t condemn her to the cabin. But I am glad to be up again, if only to see the mouth of the Thames.”“A yawning mud-bank. Our coast doesn’t compare well with Norway.”Mrs Ravenhill’s patriotism led her to declare that one looked for something beyond beauty in the Thames, and Wareham owned, in spite of his speech, to ardent cockneyism.“Which means that you will soon be out of London.”“In a few days. And you?”“We shall stay. This has been our holiday. When you come back, I hope you will find us out.”“I shall come, and ask you to show me your sketches, so as to be carried back again.” He said it warmly, and Millie’s heart beat. Afterwards came landing, train, and a grimy plunge into London. At the station they parted.End of Volume One.

As the fjord widens into open sea, the hills sink into insignificance, and the steamer makes her way between clustering islands, rocky and barren; but on nearing Bergen the scenery again gains dignity, and Bergen itself, lying on a promontory between two harbours, and overshadowed by fine mountains, is strikingly picturesque. There is an air of vigorous life about it; oddly-rigged and brightly-painted vessels scud along before a wind which catches the waves, and tears them into foam; against the beautiful shadowy hills stands a jumble of red-roofed houses, pierced, as it were, by a forest of masts.

Mrs Ravenhill, sitting on the upper deck, swept the scene with what Millie called her air of hungry enjoyment.

“She sees points, effects, and is perfectly happy. What I foresee,” added the girl, laughing, “is a struggling crowd, from which I shall have to defend her.”

“Norwegians are never rude,” announced Mrs Ravenhill.

“Not often. But what of that girl at Stalheim, who demanded money because you had sketched her cottage?”

“Oh, Stalheim! Stalheim is a spoilt place. I do not count Stalheim.”

“You will find points enough and to spare,” said Wareham, “and if you can get on board a steamer, you may have peace also. I suppose Smeby’s will do as well as any other hotel?”

So it was settled, only, as Smeby’s was full, Mrs Ravenhill and Millie went across the street, and had rooms at the house of a kindly, funny little woman, who told them long Norwegian stories, which she found it impossible to conceive were not understood. The days were bright, but chilly, with a spirited wind blowing in from the sea, and ruffling the harbour. The Ravenhills attempted no demands upon Wareham’s hours; he was free to come and go, join them or leave them alone, whether Mrs Ravenhill sketched or made regulation purchases of spoons, furs, or photographs at the shops. This liberty pleased him, it allowed him to live with Anne in thought, and to be miserable over the combinations he foresaw. When two and two must drive together, would not Hugh contrive to be with Anne? No one would prevent it if Anne suffered the arrangement. And to be near her—to look into her eyes! Now that the victory was won, he gave himself the luxury of imagining what a defeat would have brought him: he might have been in Hugh’s place, and his heart leaped with the conviction that he would have been preferred. He walked hurriedly, urged, goaded, by this thought; over his head clouds were flying, gulls screamed to each other, flashing white wings against the grey. He walked long, seeing nothing; when he wheeled round at last, it was more from instinct than intention, and after supper he went out again.

Mrs Ravenhill was not quite pleased.

“No one invited Mr Wareham,” she said to Millie that night. “If he chose to come with us, he might take more trouble to be entertaining.”

Millie stood at the window, her back to her mother.

“Never mind,” she said at last. “You have earned his gratitude.”

“Why?”

“He is not very happy, so he likes to be alone.”

Mrs Ravenhill laid down the photographs she was examining, and stared.

“Not happy? Millie, you catch up absurd fancies! The man eats, drinks, talks, as usual. He has not been confiding in you?”—quickly.

The “No” came with a sigh.

Her mother heard the “No,” and not the sigh, and took up the photographs again.

“Then I wouldn’t waste my pity. I will tell you what I think. Mr Wareham has lived in his own interests till he has grown selfish; the large party and the little rubs did not please him, and he came away. He is welcome to go where he likes. All that I complain of is that he seems to think he owes nothing to us. You see what I mean?”

“Yes.”

“And don’t you think he was glad to break away?”

“Perhaps,” said Millie untruthfully.

“Oh, he was.” The mother was persuaded that Millie never flung a thought in the direction of Wareham, yet, mother-like, would not believe that he could have been attracted by another when her girl was there. Descent such as that ranks with the incredible. Yet if—if Millie were not so entirely heart-whole as she believed, she yearned to offer comfort. She said, with a smile—“Miss Dalrymple has too much of the bearing of a conqueror to please a man not easily subdued.”

The girl’s heart was trembling lest the secret it held should escape. She praised Anne on purpose to be quit of all suspicion of jealousy.

“She is one of the women who has a right to such a bearing. If I were a man, I should fall in love with her a dozen times over.”

Mrs Ravenhill’s momentary suspicion fled.

“He could have stayed if he had wished it, I suppose,” she said cheerfully, and slipped into other talk.

A newspaper had given them moderately late news of their country, and when they met at breakfast, Wareham alluded to it.

“At home, if you miss theTimesfor a day, you become a hopeless laggard in the world. It is amazing how soon the feeling wears off.”

“By the way, I see the professor mentioned for an appointment,” said Mrs Ravenhill. “Our professor?”

“Mrs Martyn’s.” They laughed.

“Whatever it may be,” said Wareham, “he will not be troubled by the misgiving that a worthier man might have been found.”

Millie remarked that he had a very accurate mind.

“From which he shoots out poor Mrs Martyn’s facts as rubbish.”

“But in Miss Dalrymple’s hands he is a lamb,” said Mrs Ravenhill. “I think she might even venture on a statistic unquestioned.” Wareham made no answer, he turned to ask something of the long landlord. Millie spoke to a pale-faced girl, who was still shuddering from the crossing she had just gone through, and unwilling to believe that anything in Norway could be worth its preliminary horrors. Mrs Ravenhill got up.

“Which is the way to the fish-market?” she asked.

“I will go with you, if you will allow me,” Wareham answered.

“Don’t let us trouble you.”

Millie was conscious of a touch of stiffness in her mother’s manner, but he showed no signs of noticing it.

“You should have gone earlier,” he said. “Seven or eight o’clock is a better time. However, you will gain some idea of its picturesqueness even now, and from there you can have a look at the Hanseatic House. There is a general museum, too, and a good one.”

The one important street in Bergen runs directly through the town. Here and there desolate open spaces break away, the safe guards from the ever-dreaded enemy fire; here and there cellars yawn, heaped with gaily-paintedtine; here and there again you catch sight of the dancing waters of the harbour, and a jumble of shipping. It is at the end of the harbour that the fish-market is held; the boats are jammed together, the buyers stand and lean over the railings; women in thickly-plaited black dresses with close black caps, a rim of white round the face, and one spot of white behind, are sprinkled among the more ordinary costumes. More remarkable were the fishermen in the boats. Old and young, the hardy faces caught and held attention; you looked at men. As Wareham had said, the great throng was over, but even yet there were plenty of purchasers, and a penny would gain a plateful of little fish.

And here, in the heart of old Bergen, is the house of the Hanseatic League, unchanged since the time of the traders. It is the past, fossilised, for some; for others it is the means by which to drift back themselves into the past, and join the ghosts. Away with the crowd of laughing sight-seers! here sits the merchant in fur cap and gown, his account-book before him. Check the entries if you will, it lies open. Here is the eating-room for the apprentices, lads who, taught to sweep and cook, should make good husbands by and by. But as their dignities would not put up with bed-making, and woman was not admitted, all the beds are provided with a sliding panel, whereby that useful but dangerous appendage, standing outside, could insert her arms and head—no more!—and arrange for masculine comfort. And here is the great lantern which, fixed on a pole, the trader carried in the funeral processions of his guild. From youth to old age it is all here.

“The outer circumstances of life, outliving life,” said Wareham, as they emerged. “Now, will you come to the other museum, and plunge still farther back into the age of flint implements?”

Mrs Ravenhill shook her head.

“Any stone would do as well for me. My mind refuses to leap those distances, and I look at them foolishly unimpressed.”

“Is it only flint implements?” Millie asked. “I don’t object to them, but I believe it is because I am so ignorant that I can’t gauge my own ignorance.”

It appeared that with many other collections, there were old Norwegian curiosities, and a fine set-out of wooden bowls, which attracted Mrs Ravenhill, bent on taking home trophies of that description. Passing the fish-market again, Millie bought a basketful of cherries from a boat laden with nothing else. The small events of this day came back to her afterwards with a curious distinctness, and yet there was nothing especially to mark it to her, nor at the time did it seem blessed. Certainly not deserving the golden aureole which set it apart. She said little, but let her thirsty heart drink in what tasted like delicious draughts, and thrust aside the consciousness that soon thirst would be on her again. Whatever Wareham had done the day before, to-day he was all kindness. Mrs Ravenhill, never, indeed, exacting, had no reason to utter a complaint. Five o’clock saw them in the launch of theCeylon, red-roofed Bergen curving behind them, and it was not long before they steamed out of the harbour. The wind was fresh, but for a long time they were under the lee of the shore, and even through the next day most of the passengers kept fairly on deck. But by Sunday the vessel was rolling heavily, and Millie appeared alone. The usual service could not be held, and only one or two ladies left their cabins. It was natural that Wareham should be much with the girl. They talked of Norway. From that they fell to talking of those who had been their companions, of all, at least, except Anne. But a question was so close to Millie’s lips, that at last it flew out.

“Was it Mr Forbes of whom you once spoke?”

“Did I speak.”

“At Stavanger,” she said reproachfully. He had forgotten the confidence. “Before you knew Miss Dalrymple.”

“Ah, yes, it was before I knew,” he acquiesced, and went off in a dream.

She supposed the “Yes” was intended for an answer to her question, but it was not clear enough fur her burning longing to be certain.

“They were once engaged?”

“Yes.” He forced himself to add with a smile—“The sphinx was a woman.”

“To have followed shows that he must love her,” said Millie thoughtfully.

“Why not?”

She hugged her pain.

“Why not, indeed! But if she is as unchanged as he, will he not suffer?”

“Fortunes of war,” returned Wareham briefly, and dropped the conversation; from which, however, he drew the consolation that Millie’s pity showed what she thought was in store for the young man. For this he forgave her the questioning which he might otherwise have resented. He had not a suspicion that she saw any further than her words told him, the childish dimple in her cheek belying such a thought. What he read was as much curiosity as belongs to a daughter of Eve, joined to a kindly sympathy for the young fellow whose perseverance perhaps touched kindly romance. If adverse fate could have flung these two together! He talked to her, reaching further into her mind than ever before, and the more he probed its innocent depths, the more he blamed fate for its dilatoriness. And Millie, all unconscious of this dream, suffered a lurking fancy of possible contingencies to brighten her eyes and deepen the pretty colour in her cheek. The sun shone, but the wind was cold. Wareham felt that he was responsible for her comfort, and saw that her deck-chair was placed at a right angle, and moved when necessary; he helped her when she moved, and sat next her at meals. On his own account he was glad of the companionship, for to be alone was to think, not of Anne, but of Anne and Hugh.

By the next morning they were in smooth water, and Mrs Ravenhill came on deck. She thanked Wareham for his care of her daughter.

“I was helpless myself, and I couldn’t condemn her to the cabin. But I am glad to be up again, if only to see the mouth of the Thames.”

“A yawning mud-bank. Our coast doesn’t compare well with Norway.”

Mrs Ravenhill’s patriotism led her to declare that one looked for something beyond beauty in the Thames, and Wareham owned, in spite of his speech, to ardent cockneyism.

“Which means that you will soon be out of London.”

“In a few days. And you?”

“We shall stay. This has been our holiday. When you come back, I hope you will find us out.”

“I shall come, and ask you to show me your sketches, so as to be carried back again.” He said it warmly, and Millie’s heart beat. Afterwards came landing, train, and a grimy plunge into London. At the station they parted.

End of Volume One.

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