When the singing ended, Nevill looked up quickly into his companion's face, and cried in surprise,-- 'What, another change! Why, the weather-cock and the moon are fixed stars compared with you! All is right between you and Marie, and all is wrong between you and yourself. You are as unintelligible as a woman, and more inconstant. What is your difficultynow?' 'I have no difficulty now. All is clear and fair.' 'Then we'll make it a double marriage. I'll give you away, and you'll give me away. That will be impressive. It reminds me of the time when I wore a turban.' 'Now, Nevill, Alice isn't here to be amused. Let us talk like men.' 'Severe, but perhaps merited. I am so delighted with all I see and hear and feel that I am disposed to dry up and become sedate and middle-aged; at once. Come, Osborne, I'll be middle-aged; you can't help being. You were born middle-aged. You were intended for the patriarchal time. You ought to have flocks and herds, and a long white beard, and five wives. A man with a slow blue eye, like yours, is always a good judge of cattle. But, as you suggest, let us talk like men. What is the new position? How have you managed--reconciled your difficulties?' 'You may remember that day Marie, Kate, and I deserted you in London, and dined with the husband of a friend of Marie's?' 'Yes, I recollect. It was a case of most inhuman desertion.' 'Well, on that occasion we dined with a man named Parkinson, a very agreeable, well-read, and thoughtful man. Nothing could have been more pleasant than the host; the hostess and the two children of the house were simply charming. Yet, as I told you at the time, Parkinson had long ceased to occupy his thoughts with anything beyond the world around us.' 'And you have lately come to the conclusion that--' 'Since Parkinson, notwithstanding his faith or want of faith, could be a good husband and make a good woman happy, there was no reason why another man should not do likewise, and no reason why spiritual matters should stand in the way of earthly ties.' 'Some people look on those ties as more than merely earthly. However, I will not argue the question with you. But she knows of your new view, and approves of it?' 'I have not yet had an opportunity of speaking to her about it, but I am certain she will not make any difficulty.' 'You intend telling her before you are married?' 'Undoubtedly. You do not think me capable of deceiving her?' 'No; but I do think you capable of deceiving yourself unwittingly. How are you sure Marie will be content with the new departure?' 'I asked her if she would marry me supposing such a case arose, and she said she would.' 'Well, but, my dear Osborne, more people than Marie are uneasy about you. I think it would kill your poor mother if she thought your present condition likely to be permanent.' 'My dear Nevill, what is the good of such thoughts? If I am of opinion the sky is black at midday, the mere fact that another person is grieved because I will not alter my opinion can in no way affect my opinion itself. Neither my mother nor Marie can be more grieved than I am at my present state. But if I suffer from a defect of sight, which makes the sky seem black to me, how can the wishes of other people change my eyes? If I myself could change my eyes, I would.' 'But ten thousand people say the sky at noon is blue for the ten that say it's black. Has the weight of evidence no value for you?' 'No. Suppose, when we go to the drawing-room, all there gathered round you and assured you Marie was Kate, would you believe us?' 'Certainly not; but that is not a fair case. Cæsar tells us he conquered Gaul and Britain. But you have more than Cæsar's word for it. You have most of the intelligent people of to-day and of eighteen centuries believing Cæsar's word; and against his word, and the words of sixty generations, you have only your own individual doubt.' 'My dear fellow, I am familiar with that argument and a hundred others. Let us drop the subject. No one was ever yet convinced by an argument when something more than reason did not prompt belief. I have lost my faith, and can, of my own will, no more recover it than a child who has lost a parent in a crowd can by its mere will return to the guardianship of that parent.' 'There may be a good deal in what you say, Osborne. You know most of my life I was utterly careless of all religious matters. When I came right, I came right all at once; and you will too in the same way. Suddenly I felt a great surprise, as if I had lived all my life on the sea-shore, but had kept my face always towards the land, and believed there was nothing but land, until suddenly I turned round and saw the ocean. I am not a religious man like you, and, instead of being terribly overawed, I felt inclined to laugh out loud at my old foolish self and my old foolish thoughts. There was the sea as sure as the land had been.' 'That is a very striking way of illustrating it,' said Osborne sadly. 'If I am to adopt it, I feel as though I had all my life stood upon firm land and had seen the sea and firm land, but that all at once a dense fog fell, and I could see nothing.' 'By-the-way, you have never seen the sea?' 'No, never. I shall go there when we are married.' 'But I suppose, now that all is square between you two, you will be married before summer?' 'Before summer! Before spring, I hope. Why should we wait any longer than is now absolutely necessary? All is settled between us. My mother is content, I think, and no friend or relative of Marie's has to be consulted.' 'I am sorry things are not so far forward between Kate and me. We have not definitely arranged anything yet, and I have first of all to get a formal answer from your mother. For that answer I cannot press immediately--I mean for a week or so. Although I asked you to make it a double event, I fear I haven't the power to arrange about it now. Twenty-four hours ago I thought I was much more near the happy state than you; and now you seem to be on the point of entering it, and I, although on the road to it, a long way off. Well, we must only take our luck as it comes. But why do you choose the seaside for your winter honeymoon?' 'It is a whim of mine, a foolish whim, perhaps. I can't give you a reason for it. Don't you think all whims foolish?' 'My dear fellow, I am delighted you have a whim; no man can possibly be perfect without a whim. You have gone up fifteen per cent, in my esteem within the last two minutes. Think whims foolish? Not I! Why, they are the bouquet in the wine of a man's nature. A whim is something out of the common. What is genius but a bundle of whims? Up to a few moments ago I regarded you as an assemblage of all the cardinal virtues mixed up humbo-jumbo, mixed up anyway, anyhow, but without the cement of vice or weakness. Now you are to me like a vast cathedral, perfect in proportion, perfect in detail. I don't say a whim is a vice or a crime, but it's a thing an archbishop would think very little of. Your having a whim reminds me of the time when I was cast away on a coral island in the Pacific. Just as I rubbed the salt-water out of my eyes I saw coming towards me--' 'Nevill, you are growing young again. Little Alice is in the drawing-room, and she will be delighted to hear about that crocodile.' 'Bless my soul, Osborne, you are too bad! The only crocodile I ever had an encounter with was one that escaped from the Japanese village at the Alexandra Palace, and took to the reedy shores and uninhabited islands of the New River at Wood Green. They had been trying to catch him with a kedge-anchor baited with the flesh of bailiffs; but the beast would not bite. The reptile naturally had an objection to a man in possession. I called upon the Mayor of Wood Green--' 'No, no, no! Come on. You have been only playing with the wine, and I know you like coffee, and it has gone up by this time; and I'm sure Alice is most anxiously awaiting you.' 'But, my dear fellow, this is not a drawing-room story at all. It is full of awful language.' 'Well, go on.' '"D--n you!" said I to the man at my elbow (I told you it was not a drawing-room story, but that's nothing in the way of swearing like what's coming), "d--n you!" said I to the man at the wheel, "why don't you put your helm hard a-port and throw her aback!"' 'Who, the crocodile?' 'No, no; don't be absurd, Osborne. Throw a crocodile aback by porting the helm of a full-rigged ship! Did anyone but yourself ever conceive such an idea? Don't you see, it was a stern chase. We were leading. My object was to throw our vessel suddenly across his bows, and rake him fore and aft; and then up stick and away again before he knew where he was. But I fear the description of the fight would be unintelligible to you, as it is full of technical terms. Tell me honestly, Osborne, do you know what a spankerboom is?' 'I have not the least idea.' 'Ah, then, there is no use in my going on. You could not understand the story. I am very sorry for it, Osborne, but I fear there is nothing left us to do but to rejoin the ladies.' When they reached the drawing-room Osborne led Nevill to where Alice was sitting at a small table by herself, and said,-- 'Alice, Mr Nevill has a most amusing story to tell you. What is it about, Nevill?' 'Oh, about the spankerboom. You know nothing about sea terms?' 'I am sorry to say I do not. Should I know before I could understand the tale?' said Alice, with a smile. 'On the contrary. Nothing I know of embarrasses the narrator of a sea-story more than technical knowledge in the listener. For if I tell you we carried away our t'gallant backstay, and you asked me what we did then, did we splice it or cut it away, you interrupt the even and straightforward course of the tale--' At this point Osborne moved away, and went to the couch upon which Mrs Osborne and Marie sat. The drawing-room was large and of an L-shape. The shorter arm of the room was divided from the longer by thick curtains looped and held back so as to leave but a narrow opening between the curtains. At the rear of the back drawing-room was a small conservatory. Both rooms were lighted up, but the conservatory was not; it lay almost invisible, a place of warm, moist twilight. At the end of less than an hour Marie and George found themselves seated alone in this dim retreat. 'I think, George,' said Marie, after a long silence, 'this has been the happiest day of my life.' 'I am sure, my darling,' he said, pressing her hand, 'it has also been my happiest; and this is the happiest moment of my happiest day.' This was the first time they had been alone during the day. 'The change I saw come over you, George, in the train, after all the anxiety you and I have felt, would by itself have made this one of my happiest days. But the great kindness of your mother to me astonishes me, and pleases me more than I can tell.' 'Who could be anything else but kind to my darling?' 'But she was much more kind than anyone could expect or guess. I was wonderfully surprised. When she came with me to my room that time, she told me, George, all about your family and politics, until I felt I had been a great politician for years, ready to die for Church and State.' George kissed her and said,-- 'In fact, my Marie, she treated you as though you already were her daughter. Is that not so, my love?' She answered by pressing his hand. 'She told me how all your family had been Conservatives. I don't know exactly what Conservatives are. I believe they have something to do with the Government. Won't you tell me all about Conservatives--by-and-by?' 'Yes, love; but let us not talk of such things now. Nevill and I had a chat after dinner to-day, and I was telling him that now all obstacles had been cleared away, I hope very soon to have my first look at the sea, and I had made up my mind never to set eyes on it until I go on my honeymoon. So, love, as I am very anxious to get my first glance at the sea, I hope you will let me go there as soon as ever you can. Won't you?' He felt her tremble and sigh in his arms. She did not answer. He went on,-- 'You know, love, I told you of that awful dream I had in London of the sea, and of how I lost you. I am sure, not until this moment, not until now in this middle of peaceful and prosperous England, when my arm is safely round my own girl, did it occur to me why I had a whim to pass the honeymoon by the sea. The whim must have arisen in some way or the other from that dream. No doubt from a half-felt inclination to avoid the sea until nothing could take my Marie from me.' 'Not all the world, George. Not all the world could take me from you now, George.' She put her arm round him, and clung to him, and then ceased to cling, and simply leaned against him. 'George,' she continued, after a pause, 'I have travelled a good deal, and some might think me restless by nature. But I am not. I am quite content to rest here for ever. Won't you let me, George?' He pressed her closely to him. 'You shall never leave me, love. What moments these are, Marie!' 'I shall always think of this conservatory as the end of my wanderings. We did not feel quite sure, my love, did we, until your mother saw me?' 'I felt quite sure she could not but love my Marie.' 'George, suppose your mother had turned her back on me, would you have turned your back on me?' 'Why should we vex ourselves now with such questions? My mother likes you wonderfully well.' 'But suppose she had not received me well, would you have given me up?' 'Certainly not. Why do you ask such a question? Now that my mother has behaved so well, it is ungenerous to force such an answer from me.' 'I am not ungenerous, George. There is no harm in your telling me anything now, is there?' 'No, my love; you are quite right. You have a perfect right to my full confidence. I was utterly wrong to say you were ungenerous. Indeed, at the time I said the word, what I meant was that you forced me into saying an ungenerous thing when we think of how well my mother has treated me all my life, and especially on this occasion.' 'And if that change had not come over you in the train, if you had remained in the same state of mind as you were when you left London, would you, George, have given me up? Would you have sent poor Marie away from you some day?' 'I cannot tell. I do not know. I did not know. I was nearly mad, Marie. Cannot we forget all the bad past?' 'But, George, to think of the bad past while your arm is round me here makes the present more precious.' 'My darling! My darling! The past is nothing to me now! I think of only the present and the future.' 'Now, suppose you had promised your mother never to marry me if I became an infidel, would you, upon my becoming an infidel, give me up?' 'What earthly good can come of such strained and out-of-the-way suppositions? You are inventing difficulties for consideration just at the moment all difficulties have disappeared.' 'But there is no harm in your answering the question.' 'Well, I will make a bargain with you. If I answer you that question, will you promise to fix a day for our marriage?' 'I will.' 'Well, if I had promised my mother not to marry you if you became an infidel, I should keep my promise.' 'Oh, George, George, George! won't you be always as you are now? Won't you, love?' 'Yes, darling, I hope so. Now for your promise.' 'The promise I made to your mother?' 'No; the promise you made to me.' 'You said the sooner the better.' 'I said so, and mean it with all my soul, darling Marie.' 'I say so too.' 'God bless you! When shall it be?' 'When you please, George.' 'But you know, sweetheart, it is you who are to decide this matter.' 'I know; but will you do it for me? I am yours now; do with me what you think best. I will marry you any day you tell me; I will do everything you tell me from this time. I am yours, George, body and soul!' 'Hush, hush, sweet love! I am not worthy of this. Shall we say this day month, my Marie?' 'Ay; I am willing.' 'This day three weeks?' 'If you wish it, George. The sooner the better.' 'Heaven bless my love for ever!' 'And Heaven bless my lover for ever, and keep him as he now is!' 'Amen.' 'Marie, you spoke a moment ago as if you had made my mother some promise. Have you done so?' 'Yes, George.' 'What was the promise?' 'Not to fix the day for our wedding so long as you were not as you are now.' 'What do you mean?' 'I told her I knew, by your manner in the train, that you had no longer those horrible ideas about religion; and as I knew they had disappeared on the way down from London, I promised not to marry you while you held them. What--what is the matter, George? Don't leave me, George. Why did you take your arm away? Why did you stand up? George, won't you speak to me?' 'My God, girl, what have you done!' 'What have I done? George, speak to me! My George, my love, my lord, tell me--tell poor Marie what she has done.... George, will you not look down at me, and tell me what I have done? ... I am on my knees at your feet.... I am kneeling at your feet, George.... Will you not look down?... Oh, my heart will burst! Will you not look down at me--say a word to me?... You will not? Then I will go!' She rose from her knees, and walked a few paces towards the door of the conservatory; stood, laid her hand on one of the flower-stands for support; essayed again to walk, tottered, stood still; and then, with a weary sigh, sank to the floor. The sound of her fall roused Osborne from his lethargy; the sound of his own voice was the last that had reached his consciousness. He sprang to her side, raised her, and opening the conservatory door, cried out,-- 'Nevill, Kate, help! Marie has fainted.' When she opened her eyes she found herself lying on a couch in the drawing-room. 'With the door shut, the heat and closeness of the place were too much for her. George ought to know no girl could stand that place with the door shut,' said Mrs Osborne. 'I tried to get to the door, and then I remember no more,' said Marie feebly. 'It was all my fault,' said George, in a tremulous voice.
The mind of George Osborne was vigorous, fearless, and candid. He had the perception of the poet without the poet's mobility. Once he had built up an idea, he could not alter the parts without endangering the whole. He was in everything conservative, except when he was revolutionary. If corruption existed in an institution, rather than try to eradicate the evil he would abolish the institution itself. Without being wrong-headed or a bigot, he could not readily see how there might be two tolerably fair views to any subject. If he thought he was right, he felt himself to be entirely right. He would give perfect liberty to another man to differ from him, but he could not allow there existed any likelihood the other man was right. He saw all questions in their totality, not in detail. If it was morally wrong to hang a man for murder, why not abolish hanging to-morrow morning? If it was not morally wrong, and if it was necessary for the protection of the community that murderers should be hung, why, then it must be fools who could have any aversion from the office of hangman. He had been brought up in a small, rigid home, and in a dull, monotonous way. He had bean a student of books, those immutable echoes of eternal voices. He had been a lover of Nature, which week after week moves onward to well-ascertained stations, producing anticipated results. He had rarely been from home, and never far. He knew absolutely nothing of the world until mighty London surged round him. Even then he could not realise the magnitude of the great riddle of man being worked at and abandoned daily by the millions living round him. It was like giving a man sight for the first time in the middle of the Atlantic, and expecting him to be able to draw outlines of the American and European coasts. In the little town the ordinary affairs of man, the births, deaths, and marriages, went on in regular routine. No foreign armies camped in the tree-sheltered fields. To him the news of wars and battles sounded old-world and obsolete. There had been no sounds of fight here for many score years. No great famine visited the place, no great pestilence. Folk died in their beds, and had decent funerals. Neither great poverty nor great riches distinguished the inhabitants. As a rule, they went soberly through their lives, and usually left a little money behind them. There were no fleets arriving from wonderful climes. All the produce of the East was denationalised by the grocer or the druggist or the jeweller. For these people there was no place farther off than London, whence all exotic produce found its way to the town. As with all places possessing an ancient fame, which is much visited by strangers, the popular mind of Stratford was continually driven back to the days of its idol, when the house of Tudor held the sceptre of England, and the man of Stratford held the imperial baton in the universe of song. In the windows, as one walked along the street, appeared Shakespeare collars and Shakespeare cuffs, and Shakespeare drinking-cups, and Shakespeare plates, and Shakespeare chairs. Everything one looked upon drove the mind back to Queen Bess. But it was not to the weapon named after the virgin queen. Here was no compulsion to think of foreign wars or approaching Armada. No discords and bloody broils of armed men broke in upon the ears. This was a wayside village hard by the Forest of Arden. At the other side of that hill stood the 'wood not far from Athens.' No one was in haste here, not even American tourists. The town had plenty of time for all it had to do. Strangers, when they came to the place, assumed a grave and deliberate manner. They looked up and down streets with conciliatory eyes, as though embryo poets might be coming those ways, and it were only meet to show respect to those of Shakespeare's cloth. It was a place where the strangers listened and the inhabitants talked, and talked of little else than Shakespeare. It was the business of Stratford to do honour to all things which, in point of time, approach her great son, and to regard the things of to-day as mere shadows passing across that splendid background formed by the achievements of her immortal son. With such a mind and in such a place, George Osborne had reached the prime of manhood. Had he been dull, or vicious, or fond of pleasure, he might have braved all the dangers of a plunge from such a history into London. But he was intellectual rather than intelligent, as Marie had told him. He dwelt within himself rather than went forth to seek new things. He had no mastering evil passion, and consequently nothing which at once gave him an object of pursuit and a reason for darkening his conscience. He was not a frivolous man, and could not be put off with toys and bubbles. But he was religious, profoundly religious. In the presence of the object of his worship he felt pride in his manhood, diffidence in himself. He believed that if a man were thoroughly good, that man could worship worthily. He lifted his eyes and asked help or sympathy fearlessly when he thought of his manhood; when he thought of himself he bent his eyes upon the ground. He aspired with all his soul to rise above evil; the daily routine of petty cares and petty passions dragged him down. He would have given up his life freely any day for his fellow-man. Upon this man, when all the faculties of his intellect, all the sensibilities of his emotions, had come to their full development, had burst the passion of love. He was no raw school-boy, sighing after a pretty face or a neat figure, but a strong man of mature thought, overwhelmingly convinced by his intellect as well as by his emotions that this woman alone could save his future life from being a desert, could make it full of the richest, fullest, most abounding life. 'Drunk or mad,' as he had said--he did not care what it was called--drunk or mad, he wanted her; and, if he won her, he could walk through life with a triumphant tread; without her he could do nothing but shamble into the grave. He prospered in his love; and then came that spiritual upheaval, wherein the records of his life were swallowed up, and all the palaces he had built thrown down. He stood aghast before the awful ruin. He had never before conceived so stupendous a disaster. His nerves were shattered, his reason was shaken. As soon as he got a moment's respite, a returning ray of faith, he thought of this woman, for the lightest pain of whose body he would give up his life. He thought she had been careless once, and if ever she married a man like Parkinson she would lose all. So at their betrothal, he swore her never to wed outside the church. After this came his complete downfall; and then he stood face to face with the confounding problem: Should he lose his love to save her faith, or snatch at the woman he loved, and imperil the future happiness, perhaps, of one for whose sake he would die a thousand times? It was during this fierce struggle he had behaved so inexplicably, and asked her to give him time. At that point he had thought his reason would utterly break down. This day, on the journey, the question wholly lost its spiritual aspect. All through the day, at dinner, and during the early part of that interview in the conservatory, he had been more happy than ever in all his life before, as he told her. But in those few simple words, alluding to his infidel ideas, 'I promised not to marry you while you held them,' a key had been struck which had never been sounded before. The positions of her and him had been reversed. He had been trying to save her; now she was trying to save him. This situation caused all the old agony to flow in upon him, and he did not hear or see anything until she fell.
The next morning was bright, clear, crisp. Half-past nine was the hour for breakfast. At that time all but Miss Osborne and Miss Gordon were in the parlour. Presently Miss Osborne entered and said,-- 'I have just been in with Miss Gordon; she will not come down to breakfast. She is quite well, but a little tired; only tired.' 'I am sure,' said Mrs Osborne, 'she has been most unfortunate in her first evening here. I am exceedingly sorry for what happened last night. I will go up and see her myself.' 'She said, mother,' added Kate, 'that as she had got very little sleep last night, she would now try and get some. She also said we were not to put ourselves to the least inconvenience, and that no doubt she should be down for luncheon.' 'I really don't know, George, what possessed you to keep the poor girl in that conservatory so long. Even with the doors open, half-an-hour is as long as I could stand the place.' 'I am exceedingly sorry, mother. I was very thoughtless, I admit. Kate and Alice have often been in the place with the door shut for a much longer time, and I never thought that she might not be able to bear the place as well as they who are used to it. Kate, do you think a doctor had better see her?' 'Oh no,' answered Kate. 'She will be quite well again as soon as she has had a sleep.' 'Talking of the overwhelming smell of flowers reminds me,' broke in Nevill, who saw the conversation bore heavily on George, 'I have to thank the beautiful azalea-tree for my life. When I was once out West with my dear old friend Cross-Poll after buffaloes the thing happened. Cross-Poll was a most remarkable man. He was at least six feet high, fifty-four inches around the chest, with limbs in proportion. I have heard he could take a buffalo by the horns and swing the beast around his head. But, Mrs Osborne, we must not believe all we hear on our travels--' 'Nor, Mr Nevill,' said Alice, 'all we hear when we sit at home.' 'Nor, Miss Osborne, as you say, all we hear when we sit at home, except when we have the word of a credible eye-witness. In this case I would not dream of asking you to believe Cross-Poll caught a bull by the horns and swung the beast around his head, for I did not see it, and I make it a point never to accept as true wonders at second hand. If a thing isn't good enough to happen in my presence, I am not going to bother my friends or burden my memory with it. My theory is this: I am, as men go, blessed with a good memory for remarkable facts--' 'And fictions,' added Alice, with a demure smile. 'You may call a thing a fiction, I don't. Well, my theory is: If there is to be anything remarkable, and it does not go to the trouble of calling me as a witness, I am not going to bother myself with making out a report of the case. You, Osborne, remember Cross-Poll at school?' 'I do not,' said George gravely, 'recollect a boy or man of that name at any school I was at. He may have been at Rugby, and I forget his name.' Osborne answered the question seriously. Alice laughed. 'Don't you remember, George, when you were at school with Mr Nevill in America?' George smiled faintly. 'My dear Miss Alice Osborne, you are far too quick for a great dunderheaded porpoise of stupidity like me. What I meant to say was, that your brother must remember some of the recorded freaks of Cross-Poll when he was a boy. You do not, I hope, accuse me,' he asked sincerely, 'of implying for a moment that your brother and I were at school together? Why, we never met until we saw one another at Westpoint. When Cross-Poll was at school he was equally good at a cock-shot and a hen-roost. He could smash a bottle with a stone at forty yards, and rob a hen-roost howsoever well defended. From his fame as a robber of hen-roosts he acquired the familiar nickname of Chuck-chuck, which he took in good part. But any hint that he was liable to be called Cockadoodle-do drove him to fury. 'One day the boys asked him to bring them a couple of dozen eggs to play Blind Tom with. He was in a bad humour; hen-roosts were getting very shy and wild by this time. The boys set up a cry of "Cockadoodle-do!" His anger rose, and he went for the whole schoolful of boys. Before he was tired or satisfied he gave up and bolted for the West. That afternoon they filled the ward of the hospital out of what he left behind him in that school, besides sending home ever so many slight cases in wheelbarrows and trucks. Naturally after that Cross-Poll could not stay in the town, so he set out for fresh woods and pastures new.' 'But, Mr Nevill, I thought you were going to tell us how azaleas saved your life once. How was that?' 'So I was. You must know I was once hunting in Mexico with Cross-Poll. We had been very low in provisions for a few days, for although we had seen many buffaloes, we had never been able to get within range. Not a bird, beast, or fish could we get to eat. Cross-Poll had twice suggested we should draw lots as to which of us should kill and eat the other. But I would not hear of this. I said to him, "Cross-Poll, old man, I could not think of casting lots with you. With any other man I'm game. But I could not think of making game of you. I remember how you handled that school. But Cross-Poll, old man, you are welcome to make game of me. I always was a guy. I'll walk on before you, and, comrade, when you want me, sound upon the bugle-horn." In other words, old Cross-Poll, for I knew he was not like your brother, a student of poetry, "in other words, knock me on the head." He caught my hand, and I thought he'd wring it off as he said, "Son of the pale-face, never. I'd eat railway-station pork-pie first."' 'You see, Miss Osborne, I knew my man. If we had cast lots and he won, he'd have just let me gather some grass for my own funeral-pyre, and then shot me. If he lost he'd have shot me instantly in self-defence. In a few minutes after that we came upon water and a fine bull drinking at it. He fired. The bull turned over. We built a fire, and ate and drank until we were satisfied. As we lay back smoking our pipes, Cross-Poll said to me, after a long pause--' 'But, Mr Nevill, how about the azaleas saving your life?' 'Ah, little Alice, the impatience of youth! I remember when I was your age I was consumed by impatience. So impetuous was my curiosity, they called me Who-What-When-Where-How, as though I was a gorgon, or a bogie, or a giant in his castle.' 'Mr Nevill,' said Alice, with dignity, gathering her skirt close to her, and drawing herself up to her full height as she rose from breakfast, 'what age do you think I am? You treat me as if I was a child.' 'Fourteen? fifteen? sixteen? seventeen? eighteen?--' 'Yes, quite eighteen.' 'Bless my soul! so you are. I never noticed it until now. I never noticed before the crowsfeet, the puckers about the mouth, the feeble gait, the dim eye, the trembling hand, the silver threads among the gold: it isn't gold, by-the-way, but its nearly nicer than gold. Ah, madam, you will pardon the levity of your most humble slave. If by the sprightliness of your sallies and the vivacity of your air I have been misled into treating you with a lightness unbecoming in me to one of your age, forgive me. Permit me, revered madam, to lend you the support of my arm.' 'Now, Mr Nevill, don't be too ridiculous.' 'Do not refuse my arm, my apology, and my offer of future homage. Permit me to assist you to the conservatory, and while I am there waiting for your granddaughter Kate to get ready for a stroll I'll tell you all about the azaleas, and all about everything else I know, except one thing.' 'And what is the one thing you will not tell me?' 'How much I like my Kate's grandmother.' They were now ascending the stairs. 'If I spoke all day long, madam, I could not tell you that. You must know, madam, my Kate has a dainty little sister, who is to be my sister one of these days, and for whom I have the warmest possible affection; and I want to talk to you, madam, about her and about her brother George.' They were now in the little conservatory. 'You see, madam,' he continued, 'George's mother is very uneasy about George on religious subjects, and so is Marie, or anyway so she was. Now last night, after we had all gone to our rooms, George came to mine. We had a long chat, and George told me all.' 'Is "all" much?' the young girl asked apprehensively. 'I knew there was something wrong. I did not know what, and now I do not know how much. Tell me all about it.' 'Well, to be brief, George has been making a fool of himself over a few scientific books, until he has got his head, which is not at all suited to science any more than is yours, dear madam, into a muddle; and he thinks no one can reconcile or understand things he can't reconcile or understand; and he is unsettled in his mind about his faith just now. All thoughtful men are at one time or another. It is only women and asses who are quite sure of everything.' 'Mr Nevill, I will not stand and hear--' 'Excuse me, my dear madam, I completely forgot to offer you a chair. You will have the goodness, my dear madam, to call me, for the future, Bill.' 'I'll do nothing of the kind.' 'You will; you will, my dear madam, for if you don't, instead of telling you about George, I'll tell you about the time I conducted a travelling circus through the Antarctic Ocean.' 'I will not.' 'Well, you must know at that time I was under the impression that a fortune was to be made out of performing sea-lions--' 'Please, please don't tell me about the circus now--' 'Bill.' 'Bill.' 'Thank you, madam. May I kiss your hand as a token of my devotion?' 'Yes, if you like; but tell me about George.' 'Now that, dear madam, I have sworn eternal friendship on that hand, I can no longer call you dear madam. I will call you instead, Mistress Alice--' 'Don't mind about me, but tell me about George.' 'Tell me about George, Bill.' 'Tell me about George--Bill.' 'Yes; it is a little complicated. It is easy to understand, but not easy to work out to a satisfactory result. At the betrothal George made Marie promise most solemnly she would never marry any man who did not belong to the Church of England. After that those doubts I spoke of arose in his mind, and he now owes allegiance to no particular form of belief. When he found himself in this condition he explained matters to Marie. He then thought her promise would bar her marriage with him. She took another view, and said she would marry him still, and that the promise did not apply to him.' 'I think so too.' 'Bill.' 'I think so too, Bill.' 'Thank you, Mistress Alice. I like you better the more I see of you. Well, even now George was not satisfied; for, conscientiously believing the girl to be bound by the letter and not the spirit of her promise, he was loth to do anything which could seem to induce her to break that promise.' 'But George always was over-scrupulous.' 'Yes; and is still. However, on his way down from London to this place he changed his mind. He thought, like a sensible man, that his religious feelings, beliefs, or doubts ought to have nothing to do with his marrying or his subsequent treatment of a wife. He had been greatly troubled, not only by the fear of asking Marie to break her promise, but also by a terror of influencing prejudicially her faith: for, he says, no matter what his present state of belief may be, he would give all he has in the world to be back with the peaceful old times he knew before he left Stratford.' 'I wish he had never left Stratford,' she cried petulantly. 'What, Mistress Alice! Here is ingratitude! Why, only for George's going to London you would never have metme!Mistress Alice, you ought to be burned at the stake with green fagots.' 'I didn't mean that; I was thinking only of George.' 'Bill.' 'I was thinking only of George, Bill.' 'That's right. You shall call me dear Bill the day after to-morrow. But to get forward: you may remember your mother showed Marie to her room the day she came. Well, there and then she made Marie promise never to fix a day for the wedding while George had any stupid doubts.' 'Did she promise that?' 'Yes; for she was sure from George's manner in the train that all these foolish notions had gone away for ever, whereas they had not.' 'But that was a promise somewhat like the other.' 'Bill.' 'Somewhat like the other, Bill.' 'Yes, it is somewhat like the other, but more binding. Now, George and I had a long talk over the whole position last night. He is in a dreadful state of mind. It was not the heat of this place made her faint last night. He is so confused about all that happened here he cannot remember what caused her to faint, but it must have been something he said. Now, this won't do. We can't have George eating away his heart, and Marie dying by inches.' 'But what can be done?' 'Bill.' 'But what can be done, dear Bill?' 'No. I won't have you so familiar all at once. You must not call me "dear Bill" until the day after to-morrow, or I shall have to tell you how it came to be I was called Bill by the Emperor of Morocco. You must do just what you're told; no more, no less. Now I have made up my mind to a few things; first, that there is no chance of George coming round for a little while--a few months; second, that it would be a crime to let those two hearts be wrecked for ever because of a belief which went away yesterday and will come back to-morrow; and third, that Mistress Alice is the person who can smooth away all the difficulties.' 'I--I?' 'Yes, you. Kate is going out with me for a walk, when she comes down; George has some business in the town, and Marie will not be down till luncheon. Go you to your mother; you will know how to reason with her better than I can tell you. Get her to withdraw that promise from Marie, and all will be well. We will make two bridesmaids out of you at the same time, and I'll give you a present of one of the Pharaohs whom I dug up myself in Egypt, when I was commissioned by Ismail Pasha to invent a new source for the Nile, and find out if it could not be proved the so-called Lake Mœris had not been a huge skating-rink frozen by steam. I don't think I ever told you of that.' 'No. But I'll tell you what I would much rather hear. Why do you think I, of all of you, could influence my mother?' 'Because she can have less reason for being reserved with you than with any other of us. She cannot think you have any interest but the happiness of George at heart. You see she, who has been for many years so seldom out of her home-circle, must have a prejudice against strangers like Marie and me, and she would naturally have a suspicion, if Kate spoke, that it had been settled between Marie and me an attempt should be made to overcome her scruples. But you are free, and would have weight with her. You know, in my speaking to you thus, and suggesting you should do what I have said, I can have no interest but that in the happiness of George.' 'I am quite sure of that.' 'Well, then, you may urge her all you can. I would recommend you not to go too directly at the subject. Approach it gently, and I think you are sure to win.' 'I will do my best, and hope all may go well.' 'Hullo, here is Kate, Come on now, Kate. Alice, I wish you success. Kate, just as you came in I was telling Alice all about my first marriage, and about the beauty and amiability of the late Mrs Nevill. She positively worshipped me. She had copper heaters made for my slippers. These were filled with boiling water and thrust into my slippers five minutes before I--' Kate and Nevill had passed out of the drawing-room, and Alice could hear no more.
The chat which George Osborne had with Nevill the night before had eased and steadied his mind, but had in no way relieved his heart. There were less hurry and confusion in his thoughts, but his thoughts were far from pleasant. His mother had gone out of her way to extract this promise from Marie, and she must therefore attach a great deal of importance to it. Marie had attributed a cause quite opposite to the real one for the change which had come over him in the railway-carriage. If she had not noticed that change, or if she had not misinterpreted it, matters might not be in their present hopeless condition. Nevill had said last night that he would make an effort to mend the situation. But what could Nevill do? When he, Osborne, arrived at Stratford, he would have gladly shut his eyes to his own spiritual condition and married Marie. But this promise to his mother looked a fatal barrier. In that promise, extracted from Marie in the cathedral, he might, when the first shock had passed, have easily agreed that the pledge was never intended to apply to him, and that in keeping the letter she might break the spirit of that pledge. In the present case there was no such loophole. Marie had made a clear definite promise not to name the day for their marriage, should George return to the scepticism to which he had given way of late. It was true, if this were merely a legal question, there were two points which might make that promise inoperative. First, he had never abandoned his doubts, and therefore could not be said to go back to them. Second, the day had been fixed before he knew anything of Marie's promise. But of course, in conscience, neither of these points would hold for an instant. What should he do now? Could he do anything? Of course he could marry the girl, in spite of his mother. But could he marry her with ease to his own mind in spite of her promise? That was the question which perplexed him. Could he ask her to break her deliberate promise, in order that she might by his side run the risk of infidelity? He knew not one man in a thousand would hesitate a moment. He knew that in ordinary cases when a man wished to make a woman his wife he thought very little of anything else than attaining his object. But he, Osborne, was not a man of that kind. The mere dread that any shadow of doubt or difficulty lay between him and her would spoil all. His head was quite clear, but his heart was troubled sorely. What, he, for the sake of a few meaningless words, lose all the sunshine and the glory of his life! What, was his life to be marred for ever because Marie had uttered a few words to his mother? What right had words spoken by her to a third person to come between her and him? It was absurd to think of such a thing. No one out of Bedlam could dream of such a thing for a moment. Nothing of the kind should come between him and his love. Nothing. Mere words. What had mere words to do with him or her? What had mere words to do anywhere? Mere words, which once breathed disappeared for ever, to stand in the way of hearts drawn to one another as the moon draws the sea? What a humdrum thing breakfast had been without her! What a humdrum thing life had been until he met her! Now life would be simply intolerable without her. Without her? What nonsense! Promise or no promise, faith or no faith, he was not going to lose her; he was not going to lose the great melody of his life for ever. Come fair, come foul; come weal, come woe, he would make Marie Gordon his wife. It was a lucky thing he had business in the town. It would occupy him till luncheon, and then, as soon as he came back, he'd see his beautiful darling once more. What had she said last night in the conservatory after his cry? He had no more recollection than of what happened in the Great Desert at the time. Could he have muttered anything like a reproach, like words of farewell? 'Farewell! Ah, God, not that! No, no, no! Farewell, never! There shall be no farewell. I may be at liberty to break my own heart, but I am not at liberty to break hers. 'It never struck me in that way before. I have never gone farther than thinking what I ought to do so as to secure her against danger. If it would break her heart to part from me, it would be murder to let her go. Fancy my taking up a knife and killing Marie! Fancy my standing before her, and firing a loaded pistol at her head! Fancy the look in her eyes when she saw my arm upraised to strike, extended to fire! Suppose I said to her, this evening in the drawing-room,--"Marie, I have made up my mind that, owing to scruples of mine, you and I must be strangers for evermore. I leave Stratford to see you no more." I think she would laugh at first. But when she found out I was in earnest? Oh, I cannot look at her face as I see it now. No, no, no! I have no right to break her heart; and if she will marry me, nothing earthly shall induce me to give her up. Fancy her calling after me, saying, "George, will you not come back to me?" Oh, God, I cannot even think of it. I will not think of it. I am glad I have this business in the town. It will kill time and thought until I get back and see my own love once again.' He arose, and went into the hall. As he was putting on his overcoat, O'Connor tripped downstairs. 'Good morning, O'Connor. How is your mistress now?' 'She is in a nice quiet sleep now, sir.' George beckoned her into the parlour, which was now deserted. 'Was Miss Gordon very bad last night, O'Connor?' 'She was bad enough, sir. I slept in the dressing-room; and about an hour after she went to bed I heard her saying, "Don't! Oh don't! Don't send me away!" I thought she was awake at the time, so I went to her, and spoke to her. But she was fast asleep. I came out, and sat in her room; and all through the night she never stopped waking and falling asleep again; and as soon as she fell asleep she began moaning and crying in her sleep. I was wondering, sir, maybe Miss Osborne and you and Mr Nevill and my mistress went to some very mournful play in London by Shakespeare, and that coming into his native air, sir, may have made the mournfulness of the play come against her all at once; for I never saw Miss Gordon like that before.' 'Ay,' answered Osborne vaguely. 'O'Connor, I want you to wait a minute, while I scribble a few lines for her.' He took a pencil and wrote,--
'My Darling Marie,--I have no clear recollection of how that scene in the conservatory ended. O'Connor tells me you are now sleeping. God bless you! I have to go out on business. We shall meet at luncheon. I can hardly bear to leave the house where my only love is. I hope I did not say or do anything very bad in that conservatory. Whatever I then said or did, believe me, my darling Marie, nothing shall ever separate Marie from
'George.'