Sarah did not like the look in Dick Ransome's eye. She removed herself
from it to the seclusion of her bedroom. There she bathed her heated face
with toilette vinegar, steadied her nerves with a cigarette, lay down
on a couch and rested, and, pure from passion, revised the situation
calmly. She was an eminently practical, sensible woman, who knew the
facts of life, and knew, also, how to turn them to her own advantage.

Seen by the larger, calmer spirit that was Sarah now, the situation was
not as unpleasant as it had at first appeared. To be sure, the rumour in
which she had figured was fatal to the matrimonial vision, and to the
beautiful illusion of propriety in which she had once lived. But Sarah
had renounced the vision; she had abandoned the pursuit of the fugitive
propriety. She had long ago seen through the illusion. She might be a
deceiver, but she had no power to hoodwink her own indestructible
lucidity. Looking back on her life, after the joyous romances of her
youth, the years had passed like so many funeral processions, each
bearing some pleasant scandal to its burial. Then there had come the
dreary funeral feast, and then the days of mournful rehabilitation. Oh,
that rehabilitation! There had been three years of it. Three years of
exhausting struggle for a position in society, three years of crawling,
and pushing, and scrambling, and climbing. There had been a dubious
triumph. Then six years of respectable futility, ambiguous courtship,
and palpable frustration. After all that, there was something flattering
in the thought that, at forty-five, she should yet find her name still
coupled with Walter Majendie's in a passionate adventure.

It might easily have been, but for Walter's imbecile, suicidal devotion
to his wife. He had got nothing out of his marriage. Worse than nothing.
He was the laughing-stock of all his friends who were in the secret; who
saw him grovelling at the heels of a disagreeable woman who had made him
conspicuous by her aversion. Of course, it might easily have been.

Sarah's imagination (for she had an imagination) drew out all the
sweetness that there was for it in that idea. Then it occurred to her
sound, prosaic commonsense that a reputation is still a reputation, all
the more precious if somewhat precariously acquired; that, though you may
as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, hanging is very poor fun when for
years you have seen nothing of sheep or lamb either; that, in short, she
must take steps to save her reputation.

The shortest way to save it was the straight way. She would go straight
to Mrs. Majendie with her proofs. Her duty to herself justified the
somewhat unusual step. And, more than her duty, Sarah loved a scene. She
loved to play with other people's emotions and to exhibit her own. She
wanted to see how Mrs. Majendie would take it; how the white-faced,
high-handed lady would look when she was told that her husband had
consoled himself for her high-handedness. She had always been possessed
by an ungovernable curiosity with regard to Majendie's wife.

She did not know Majendie's wife, but she knew Majendie. She knew all
about the separation and its cause. That was where she had come in. She
divined that Mrs. Majendie had never forgiven her husband for his old
intimacy with her. It was Mrs. Majendie's jealousy that had driven him
out of the house, into the arms of pretty Maggie. Where, she wondered,
would Mrs. Majendie's jealousy of pretty Maggie drive him?

Though Sarah knew Majendie, that was more than she would undertake to
say. But the more she thought about it, the more she wondered; and the
more she wondered, the more she desired to know.

She wondered whether Mrs. Majendie had heard the report. From all she
could gather, it was hardly likely. Neither Mrs. Majendie nor her friends
mixed in those circles where it went the round. The scandal of the clubs
and of the Park would never reach her in the high seclusion of the house
in Prior Street.

Into that house Lady Cayley could not hope to penetrate except by guile.
Once admitted, straightforwardness would be her method. She must not
attempt to give the faintest social colour to her visit. She must take
for granted Mrs. Majendie's view of her impossibility. To be sure Mrs.
Majendie's prejudices were moral even more than social. But moral
prejudice could be overcome by cleverness working towards a formidable
moral effect.

She would call after six o'clock, an hour incompatible with any social
intention. An hour when she would probably find Mrs. Majendie alone.

She rested all afternoon. At five o'clock she fortified herself with
strong tea and brandy. Then she made an elaborate and thoughtful
toilette.

At forty-five Sarah's face was very large and horribly white. She
restored, discreetly, delicately, the vanished rose. The beautiful,
flower-like edges of her mouth were blurred. With a thin thread of rouge
she retraced the once perfect outline. Wrinkles had drawn in the corners
of the indomitable eyes, and ill-health had dulled their blue. That
saddest of all changes she repaired by hand-massage, pomade, and
belladonna. The somewhat unrefined exuberance of her figure she laced in
an inimitable corset. Next she arrayed herself in a suit of dark blue
cloth, simple and severely reticent; in a white silk blouse, simpler
still, sewn with innocent daisies, Maggie's handiwork; in a hat, gay in
form, austere in colour; and in gloves of immaculate whiteness.

Nobody could have possessed a more irreproachable appearance than Lady
Cayley when she set out for Prior Street.

At the door she gave neither name nor card. She announced herself as a
lady who desired to see Mrs. Majendie for a moment on important business.

Kate wondered a little, and admitted her. Ladies did call sometimes on
important business, ladies who approached Mrs. Majendie on missions of
charity; and these did not always give their names.

Anne was upstairs in the nursery, superintending the packing of Peggy's
little trunk. She was taking her away to-morrow to the seaside, by Dr.
Gardner's orders. She supposed that the nameless lady would be some
earnest, beneficent person connected with a case for her Rescue
Committee, who might have excellent reasons for not announcing herself
by name.

And, at first, coming into the low lit drawing-room, she did not
recognise her visitor. She advanced innocently, in her perfect manner,
with a charming smile and an appropriate apology.

The smile died with a sudden rigour of repulsion. She paused before
seating herself, as an intimation that the occasion was not one that
could be trusted to explain itself. Lady Cayley rose to it.

"Forgive me for calling at this unconventional hour Mrs. Majendie."

Mrs. Majendie's silence implied that she could not forgive her for
calling at any hour. Lady Cayley smiled inimitably.

"I wanted to find you at home."

"You did not give me your name Lady Cayley."

Their eyes crossed like swords before the duel.

"I didn't, Mrs. Majendie, _because_ I wanted to find you at home. I can't
help being unconventional--"

Mrs. Majendie raised her eyebrows.

"It's my nature."

Mrs. Majendie dropped her eyelids, as much as to say that the nature of
Lady Cayley did not interest her.

"--And I've come on a most unconventional errand."

"Do you mean an unpleasant one?"

"I'm afraid I do, rather. And it's just as unpleasant for me as it is for
you. Have you any idea, Mrs. Majendie, why I've been obliged to come?
It'll make it easier for me if you have."

"I assure you I have none. I cannot conceive why you have come, nor how I
can make anything easier for you."

"I think I mean it would have made it easier for you."

"For me?"

"Well--it would have spared you some painful explanations." Sarah felt
herself sincere. She really desired to spare Mrs. Majendie. The part
which she had rehearsed with such ease in her own bedroom was impossible
in Mrs. Majendie's drawing-room. She was charmed by the spirit of the
place, constrained by its suggestion of fair observances, high decencies,
and social suavities. She could not sit there and tell Mrs. Majendie that
her husband had been unfaithful to her. You do not say these things. And
so subdued was Sarah that she found a certain relief in the reflection
that, by clearing herself, she would clear Majendie.

"I don't in the least know what you want to say to me," said Mrs.
Majendie. "But I would rather take everything for granted than have any
explanations."

"If I thought you would take my innocence for granted--"

"Your innocence? I should be a bad judge of it, Lady Cayley."

"Quite so." Lady Cayley smiled again, and again inimitably. (It was
extraordinary, the things _she_ took for granted.) "That's why I've come
to explain."

"One moment. Perhaps I am mistaken. But, if you are referring to--to what
happened in the past, there need be no explanation. I have put all that
out of my mind now. I have heard that you, too, have left it far behind
you; and I am willing to believe it. There is nothing more to be said."

There was such a sweetness and dignity in Mrs. Majendie's voice and
manner that Lady Cayley was further moved to compete in dignity and
sweetness. She suppressed the smile that ignored so much and took so much
for granted.

"Unfortunately a great deal more _has_ been said. Your husband is an
intimate friend of my sister, Mrs. Ransome, as of course you know."

Mrs. Majendie's face denied all knowledge of the intimacy.

"I might have met him at her house a hundred times, but, I assure you,
Mrs. Majendie, that, since his marriage, I have not met him more than
twice, anywhere. The first time was at the Hannays'. You were there.
You saw all that passed between us."

"Well?"

"The second time was at the Hannays', too. Mrs. Hannay was with us all
the time. What do you suppose he talked to me about? His child. He talked
about nothing else."

"I suppose," said Mrs. Majendie coldly, "there was nothing else to talk
about."

"No--but it was so dear and naГЇf of him." She pondered on his naГЇvetГ©
with down-dropped eyes whose lids sheltered the irresponsibly hilarious
blue.

"He talked about his child--your child--to _me_. I hadn't seen him for
two years, and that's all he could talk about. _I_ had to sit and listen
to _that_."

"It wouldn't hurt you, Lady Cayley."

"It didn't--and I'm sure the little girl is charming--only--it was so
delicious of your husband, don't you see?"

Her face curled all over with its soft and sensual smile.

"If we'd been two babes unborn there couldn't have been a more innocent
conversation."

"Well?"

"_Well_, since that night we haven't seen each other for more than five
years. Ask him if it isn't true. Ask Mrs. Hannay--"

"Lady Cayley, I do not doubt your word--nor my husband's honour. I can't
think why you're giving yourself all this trouble."

"Why, because they're saying _now_--"

Mrs. Majendie rose. "Excuse me, if you've only come to tell me what
people are saying, it is useless. I never listen to what people say."

"It isn't likely they'd say it to you."

"Then why should _you_ say it to me?"

"Because it concerns my reputation."

"Forgive me, but--your reputation does not concern me."

"And how about your husband's reputation, Mrs. Majendie?"

"My husband's reputation can take care of itself."

"Not in Scale."

"There's no more scandal talked in Scale than in any other place. I never
pay any attention to it."

"That's all very well--but you must defend yourself sometimes. And when
it comes to saying that I've been living with Mr. Majendie in Scarby for
the last three years--"

Mrs. Majendie was so calm that Lady Cayley fancied that, after all, this
was not the first time she had heard that rumour.

"Let them say it," said she. "Nobody'll believe it."

"Everybody believes it. I came to you because I was afraid you'd be the
first."

"To believe it? I assure you, Lady Cayley, I should be the last."

"What was to prevent you? You didn't know me."

"No. But I know my husband."

"So do I."

"Not _now_" said Mrs. Majendie quietly.

Lady Cayley's bosom heaved. She had felt that she had risen to the
occasion. She had achieved a really magnificent renunciation. With almost
suicidal generosity, she had handed Majendie over intact, as it were, to
his insufferable wife. She was wounded in several very sensitive places
by the married woman's imperious denial of her part in him, by her
attitude of indestructible and unique possession. If _she_ didn't know
him she would like to know who did. But up till now she had meant to
spare Mrs. Majendie her knowledge of him, for she was not ill-natured.
She was sorry for the poor, inept, unhappy prude.

Even now, seated in Mrs. Majendie's drawing-room, she had no impulse to
wound her mortally. Her instinct was rather to patronise and pity, to
unfold the long result of a superior experience, to instruct this woman
who was so incompetent to deal with men, who had spoiled, stupidly, her
husband's life and her own. In that moment Sarah contemplated nothing
more outrageous than a little straight talk with Mrs. Majendie.

"Look here, Mrs. Majendie," she said, with an air of finely ungovernable
impulse, "you're a saint. You know no more about men than your little
girl does. I'm not a saint, I'm a woman of the world. I think I've had a
rather larger experience of men--"

Mrs. Majendie cut her short.

"I do not want to hear anything about your experience."

"Dear lady, you shan't hear anything about it. I was only going to tell
you that, of all the men I've known, there's nobody I know better than
your husband. My knowledge of him is probably a little different from
yours."

"That I can well believe."

"You mean you think I wouldn't know a good man if I saw one? My
experience isn't as bad as all that. I can tell a good woman when I see
one, too. You're a good woman, Mrs. Majendie, and I've no doubt that
you've been told I'm a bad one. All I can say is, that Walter Majendie
was a good man when I first knew him. He was a good man when he left me
and married you. So my badness can't have hurt him very much. If he's
gone wrong now, it's that goodness of yours that's done it."

Anne's lips turned white, but their muscles never moved. And the woman
who watched her wondered in what circumstances Mrs. Majendie would
display emotion, if she did not display it now.

"What right have you to say these things to me?"

"I've a right to say a good deal more. Your husband was very fond of me.
He would have married me if his friends hadn't come and bullied me to
give him up for the good of his morals. I loved him--" She suggested by
an adroit shrug of her shoulders that her love was a thing that Mrs.
Majendie could either take for granted or ignore. She didn't expect her
to understand it--"And I gave him up. I'm not a cold-blooded woman; and
it was pretty hard for me. But I did it. And" (she faced her) "what was
the good of it? Which of us has been the best for his morals? You or me?
He lived with me two years, and he married you, and everybody said how
virtuous and proper he was. Well, he's been married to you for nine
years, and he's been living with another woman for the last three."

She had not meant to say it; for (in the presence of the social
sanctities) you do not say these things. But flesh and blood are stronger
than all the social sanctities; and flesh and blood had risen and claimed
their old dominion over Sarah. The unspeakable depths in her had been
stirred by her vision of the things that might have been. She was filled
with a passionate hatred of the purity which had captured Majendie, and
drawn him from her, and made her seem vile in his sight. She rejoiced
in her power to crush it, to confront it with the proof of its own
futility.

"I do not believe it," said Mrs. Majendie.

"Of course you don't believe it. You're a good woman." She shook her
meditative head. "The sort of woman who can live with a man for nine
years without seeing what he's like. If you'd understood your husband as
well as I do, you'd have known that he couldn't run his life on your
lines for six months, let alone nine years."

Mrs. Majendie's chin rose, as if she were lifting her face above the
reach of the hand that had tried to strike it. Her voice throbbed on one
deep monotonous note.

"I do not believe a word of what you say. And I cannot think what your
motive is in saying it."

"Don't worry about my motive. It ought to be pretty clear. Let me tell
you--you can bring your husband back to-morrow, and you can keep him to
the end of time, if you choose, Mrs. Majendie. Or you can lose him
altogether. And you will, if you go on as you're doing. If I were you,
I should make up my mind whether it's good enough. I shouldn't think it
was, myself."

Mrs. Majendie was silent. She tried to think of some word that would end
the intolerable interview. Her lips parted to speak, but her thoughts
died in her brain unborn.

She felt her face turning white under the woman's face; it hypnotised
her; it held her dumb.

"Don't you worry," said Lady Cayley soothingly. "You can get your husband
back from that woman to-morrow, if you choose." She smiled. "Do you see
my motive now?"

Lady Cayley had not seen it; but she had seen herself for one beautiful
moment as the benignant and inspired conciliator. She desired Mrs.
Majendie to see her so. She had gratified her more generous instincts in
giving the unfortunate lady "the straight tip." She knew, perfectly well,
that Mrs. Majendie wouldn't take it. She knew, all the time, that
whatever else her revelation did, it would not move Mrs. Majendie to
charm her husband back. She could not say precisely what it would do.
Used to live solely in the voluptuous moment, she had no sense of drama
beyond the scene she played in.

"Your motive," said Mrs. Majendie, "is of no importance. No motive could
excuse you."

"You think not." She rose and looked down on the motionless woman. "I've
told you the truth, Mrs. Majendie, because, sooner or later, you'd have
had to know it; and other people would have told you worse things that
aren't true. You can take it from me that there's nothing more to tell.
I've told you the worst."

"You've told me, and I do not believe it."

"You'd better believe it. But, if you really don't, you can ask your
husband. Ask him where he goes to every week in that yacht of his. Ask
him what's become of Maggie Forrest, the pretty work-girl who made the
embroidered frock for Mrs. Ransome's little girl. Tell him you want one
like it for your little girl; and see what he looks like."

Anne rose too. Her faint white face frightened Lady Cayley. She had
wondered how Mrs. Majendie would look if she told her the truth about her
husband. Now she knew.

"My dear lady," said she, "what on earth did you expect?"

Anne went blindly towards the chimney-piece where the bell was. Lady
Cayley also turned. She meant to go, but not just yet.

"One moment, Mrs. Majendie, please, before you turn me out. I wouldn't
break my heart about it, if I were you. He might have done worse things."

"He has done nothing."

"Well--not much. He has done what I've told you. But, after all, what's
that?"

"Nothing to you, Lady Cayley, certainly," said Anne, as she rang the
bell.

She moved slowly towards the door. Lady Cayley followed to the threshold,
and laid her hand delicately on the jamb of the door as Mrs. Majendie
opened it. She raised to her set face the tender eyes of a suppliant.

"Mrs. Majendie," said she, "don't be hard on poor Wallie. He's never been
hard on you. He might have been." The latch sprang to under her gentle
pressure. "Look at it this way. He has kept all his marriage vows--except
one. You've broken all yours--except one. None of your friends will tell
you that. That's why _I_ tell you. Because I'm not a good woman, and I
don't count."

She moved her hand from the door. It opened wide, and Lady Cayley walked
serenely out.

She had said her say.




CHAPTER XXXII


Anne sat in her chair by the fireside, very still. She had turned out the
light, for it hurt her eyes and made her head ache. She had felt very
weak, and her knees shook under her as she crossed the room. Beyond that
she felt nothing, no amazement, no sorrow, no anger, nor any sort of
pang. If she had been aware of the trembling of her body, she would have
attributed it to the agitation of a disagreeable encounter. She shivered.
She thought there was a draught somewhere; but she did not rouse herself
to shut the window.

At eight o'clock a telegram from Majendie was brought to her. She was not
to wait dinner. He would not be home that night. She gave the message in
a calm voice, and told Kate not to send up dinner. She had a bad headache
and could not eat anything.

Kate had stood by waiting timidly. She had had a sense of things
happening. Now she retired with curiosity relieved. Kate was used to her
mistress's bad headaches. A headache needed no explanation. It explained
everything.

Anne picked up the telegram and read it over again. Every week, for
nearly three years, she had received these messages. They had always been
sent from the same post office in Scale, and the words had always been
the same: "Don't wait. May not be home to-night."

To-night the telegram struck her as a new thing. It stood for something
new. But all the other telegrams had meant the same thing. Not a new
thing. A thing that had been going on for three years; four, five, six
years, for all she knew. It was six years since their separation; and
that had been his wish.

She had always known it; and she had always put her knowledge away from
her, tried not to know more. Her friends had known it too. Canon Wharton,
and the Gardners, and Fanny. It all came back to her, the words, and the
looks that had told her more than any words, signs that she had often
wondered at and refused to understand. They had known all the depths of
it. It was only the other day that Fanny had offered her house to her as
a refuge from her own house in its shame. Fanny had supposed that it must
come to that.

God knew she had been loyal to him in the beginning. She had closed her
eyes. She had forbidden her senses to take evidence against him. She had
been loyal all through, loyal to the very end. She had lied for him. If,
indeed, she _had_ lied. In denying Lady Cayley's statements, she had
denied her right to make them, that was all.

Her mind, active now, went backwards and forwards over the chain of
evidence, testing each link in turn. All held. It was all true. She had
always known it.

Then she remembered that she and Peggy would be going away to-morrow.
That was well. It was the best thing she could do. Later on, when they
were home again, it would be time enough to make up her mind as to what
she could do. If there was anything to be done.

Until then she would not see him. They would be gone to-morrow before he
could come home. Unless he saw them off at the station. She would avoid
that by taking an earlier train. Then she would write to him. No; she
would not write. What they would have to say to each other must be said
face to face. She did not know what she would say.

She dragged herself upstairs to the nursery, where the packing had been
begun. The room was empty. Nanna had gone down to her supper.

Anne's heart melted. Peggy had been playing at packing. The little lamb
had gathered together on the table a heap of her beloved toys, things
which it would have broken her heart to part from.

Her little trunk lay open on the floor, packed already. The embroidered
frock lay uppermost, carefully folded, not to be crushed. At the sight of
it Anne's brain flared in anger.

A bright fire burned in the grate. She picked up the frock; she took a
pair of scissors and cut it in several places at the neck, then tore it
to pieces with strong, determined hands. She threw the tatters on the
fire; she watched them consume; she raked out their ashes with the tongs,
and tore them again. Then she packed Peggy's toys tenderly in the little
trunk, her heart melting over them. She closed the lid of the trunk,
strapped it, and turned the key in the lock.

Then, crawling on slow, quiet feet, she went to bed. Undressing vexed
her. She, once so careful and punctilious, slipped her clothes like a
tired Magdalen, and let them fall from her and lie where they fell. Her
nightgown gaped unbuttoned at her throat. Her long hair lay scattered on
her pillow, unbrushed, unbraided. Her white face stared to the ceiling.
She was too spent to pray.

When she lay down, reality gripped her. And, with it, her imagination
rose up, a thing no longer crude, but full-grown, large-eyed, and
powerful. It possessed itself of her tragedy. She had lain thus, nearly
nine years ago, in that room at Scarby, thinking terrible thoughts. Now
she saw terrible things.

Peggy stirred in her sleep, and crept from her cot into her mother's bed.

"Mummy, I'm so frightened."

"What is it, darling? Have you had a little dream?"

"No. Mummy, let me stay in your bed."

Anne let her stay, glad of the comfort of the little warm body, and
afraid to vex the child. She drew the blankets round her. "There," she
said, "go to sleep, pet."

But Peggy was in no mind to sleep.

"Mummy, your hair's all loose," she said; and her fingers began playing
with her mother's hair.

"Mummy, where's daddy? Is he in his little bed?"

"He's away, darling. Go to sleep."

"Why does he go away? Is he coming back again?"

"Yes, darling." Anne's voice shook.

"Mummy, did you cry when Auntie Edie went away?"

Anne kissed her.

"Auntie Edie's dead."

"Lie still, darling, and let mother go to sleep."

Peggy lay still, and Anne went on thinking.

There was nothing to be done. She would have to take him back again,
always. Whatever shame he dragged her through, she must take him back
again, for the child's sake.

Suddenly she remembered Peggy's birthday. It was only last week. Surely
she had not known then. She must have forgotten for a time.

Then tenderness came, and with it an intolerable anguish. She was smitten
and was melted; she was torn and melted again. Her throat was shaken,
convulsed; then her bosom, then her whole body. She locked her teeth,
lest her sobs should break through and wake the child.

She lay thus tormented, till a memory, sharper than imagination, stung
her. She saw her husband carrying the sleeping child, and his face
bending over her with that look of love. She closed her eyes, and let the
tears rain down her hot cheeks and fall upon her breast and in her hair.
She tried to stifle the sobs that strangled her, and she choked. That
instant the child's lips were on her face, tasting her tears.

"Oh, mummy, you're crying."

"No, my pet. Go to sleep."

"Why are you crying?"

Anne made no sound; and Peggy cried out in terror.

"Mummy--is daddy dead?"

Anne folded her in her arms.

"No, my pet, no."

"He is, mummy, I know he is. Daddy! Daddy!"

If Majendie had been in the house she would have carried the child into
his room, and shown him to her, and relieved her of her terror. She had
done that once before when she had cried for him.

But now Peggy cried persistently, vehemently; not loud, but in an agony
that tore and tortured her as she had seen her mother torn and tortured.
She cried till she was sick; and still her sobs shook her, with a sharp
mechanical jerk that would not cease.

Gradually she grew drowsy and fell asleep.

All night Anne lay awake beside her, driven to the edge of the bed, that
she might give breathing space to the little body that pushed, closer and
closer, to the warm place she made.

Towards dawn Peggy sighed three times, and stretched her limbs, as if
awakening out of her sleep.

Then Anne turned, and laid her hands on the dead body of her child.




CHAPTER XXXIII


The yacht had lain all night in Fawlness creek. Majendie had slept on
board. He had sent Steve up to the farm with a message for Maggie. He had
told her not to expect him that night. He would call and see her very
early in the morning. That would prepare her for the end. In the morning
he would call and say good-bye to her.

He had taken that resolution on the night when Gardner had told him about
Peggy.

He did not sleep. He heard all the sounds of the land, of the river, of
the night, and of the dawn. He heard the lapping of the creek water
against the yacht's side; the wash of the steamers passing on the river;
the stir of wild fowl at daybreak; the swish of wind and water among the
reeds and grasses of the creek.

All night he thought of Peggy, who would not live, who was the child of
her father's passion and her mother's grief.

At dawn he got up. It was a perfect day, with the promise of warmth in
it. Over land and water the white mist was lifting and drifting,
eastwards towards the risen sun. Inland, over the five fields, the drops
of fallen mist glittered on the grass. The Farm, guarded by its three
elms, showed clear, and red, and still, as if painted under an unchanging
light. A few leaves, loosened by the damp, were falling with a shivering
sound against the house wall, and lay where they fell, yellow on the
red-brick path.

Maggie was not at the garden gate. She sat crouched inside, by the
fender, kindling a fire. Tea had been made and was standing on the table.
She was waiting.

She rose, with a faint cry, as Majendie entered. She put her arms on his
shoulders in her old way. He loosened her hands gently and held her by
them, keeping her from him at arm's length. Her hands were cold, her
eyes had foreknowledge of the end; but, moved by his touch, her mouth
curled unaware and shaped itself for kissing.

He did not kiss her. And she knew.

Upstairs in the bedroom overhead, Steve and his mother moved heavily.
There was a sound of drawers opening and shutting, then a grating sound.
Something was being dragged from under the bed. Maggie knew that they
were packing Majendie's portmanteau with the things he had left behind
him.

They stood together by the hearth, where the fire kindled feebly. He
thrust out his foot, and struck the woodpile; it fell and put out the
flame that was struggling to be born.

"I'm sorry, Maggie," he said.

Maggie stooped and built up the pile again and kindled it. She knelt
there, patient and humble, waiting for the fire to burn.

He did not know whether he was going to have trouble with her. He was
afraid of her tenderness.

"Why didn't you come last night?" she said.

"I couldn't."

She looked at him with eyes that said, "That is not true."

"You couldn't?"

"I couldn't."

"You came last week."

"Last week--yes. But since then things have happened, do you see?"

"Things have happened," she repeated, under her breath.

"Yes. My little girl is very ill."

"Peggy?" she cried, and covered her face with her hands. Then with her
hands she made a gesture that swept calamity aside. Maggie would only
believe what she wanted.

"She will get better," she said.

"Perhaps. But I must be with my wife."

"You weren't with her last night," said Maggie. "You could have come
then."

"No, Maggie, I couldn't."

"D'you mean--because of the little girl?"

"Yes."

"I see," she said softly. She had understood.

"She will get better," she said, "and then you can come again."

"No. I've told you. I must be with my wife."

"I thought--" said Maggie.

"Never mind what you thought," he said with a quick, fierce impatience.

"Are you fond of her?" she asked suddenly.

"You know I am," he said; and his voice was kind again. "You've known it
all the time. I told you that in the beginning."

"But--since then," said Maggie, "you've been fond of me, haven't you?"

"It's not the same thing. I've told you that, too, a great many times.
I don't want to talk about it. It's different."

"How is it different?"

"I can't tell you."

"You mean--it's different because I'm not good."

"No, my child, I'm afraid it's different because I'm bad. That's as near
as we can get to it."

She shook her head in persistent, obstinate negation.

"See here, Maggie, we must end it. We can't go on like this any more. We
must give it up."

"I can't," she moaned. "Don't ask me to do that, Wallie dear. Don't ask
me."

"I must, Maggie. _I_ must give it up. I told you, dear, before we took
this place, that it must end, sooner or later, that it couldn't last very
long. Don't you remember?"

"Yes--I remember."

"And you promised me, didn't you, that when the time came, you
wouldn't--"

"I know. I said I wouldn't make a fuss."

"Well, dear, we've got to end it now. I only came to talk it over with
you. There'll have to be arrangements."

"I know. I've got to clear out of this."

She said it sadly, without passion and without resentment.

"No," he said, "not if you'd rather stay. Do you like the farm, Maggie?"

"I love it."

"Do you? I was afraid you didn't. I thought you hated the country."

"I love it. I love it."

"Oh, well then, you shan't leave it. I'll keep on the farm for you. And,
see here, don't worry about things. I'll look after you, all your life,
dear."

"Look after me?" Her face brightened, "Like you used to?"

"Provide for you."

"Oh!" she cried. "_That_! I don't want to be provided for. I won't have
it. I'd rather be let alone and die."

"Maggie, I know it's hard on you. Don't make it harder. Don't make it
hard for me."

"You?" she sobbed.

"Yes, me. It's all wrong. I'm all wrong. I can't do the right thing,
whatever I do. It's wrong to stay with you. It's wrong, it's brutally
wrong to leave you. But that's what I've got to do."

"You said--you only said--just now--you'd got to end it."

"That's it. I've got to end it."

She stood up flaming.

"End it then. End it this minute. Give up the farm. Send me away. I'll go
anywhere you tell me. Only don't say you won't come and see me."

"See you? Don't you understand, Maggie, that seeing you is what I've got
to give up? The other things don't matter."

"Ah," she cried, "it's you who don't understand. I mean--I mean--see me
like you used to. That's all I want, Wallie. Only just to see you. That
wouldn't be awful, would it? There wouldn't be any sin in that?"

Sin? It was the first time she had ever said the word. The first time, he
imagined, she had formed the thought.

"Poor little girl," he said. "No, no, dear, it wouldn't do. It sounds
simple, but it isn't."

"But," she said, bewildered, "I love you."

He smiled. "That's why, Maggie, that's why. You've been very sweet and
very good to me. And that's why I mustn't see you. That's how you make it
hard for me."

Maggie sat down and put her elbows on the table and hid her face in her
hands.

"Will you give me some tea?" he said abruptly.

She rose.

"It's all stewed. I'll make fresh."

"No. That'll do. I can't wait."

She gave him his tea. Before he tasted it he got up and poured out a cup
for her. She drank a little at his bidding, then pushed the cup from her,
choking. She sat, not looking at him, but looking away, through the
window, across the garden and the fields.

"I must go now," he said. "Don't come with me."

She started to her feet.

"Ah, let me come."

"Better not. Much better not."

"I must," she said.

They set out along the field-track. Steve, carrying his master's luggage,
went in front, at a little distance. He didn't want to see them, still
less to hear them speak.

But they did not speak.

At the creek's bank Steve was ready with the boat.

Majendie took Maggie's hand and pressed it. She flung herself on him, and
he had to loose her hold by main force. She swayed, clutching at him to
steady herself. He heard Steve groan. He put his hand on her shoulder,
and kept it there a moment, till she stood firm. Her eyes, fixed on his,
struck tears from them, tears that cut their way like knives under his
eyelids.

Her body ceased swaying. He felt it grow rigid under his hand.

Then he went from her and stepped into the boat. She stood still, looking
after him, pressing one hand against her breast, as if to keep down its
heaving.

Steve pushed off from the bank, and rowed towards the creek's mouth. And
as he rowed, he turned his head over his right shoulder, away from the
shore where Maggie stood with her hand upon her breast.

Majendie did not look back. Neither he nor Steve saw that, as they neared
the mouth of the creek, Maggie had turned, and was going rapidly across
the field, towards the far side of the spit of land where the yacht lay
moored out of the current. As they had to round the point, her way by
land was shorter than theirs by water.

When they rounded the point they saw her standing on the low inner shore,
watching for them.

She stood on the bank, just above the belt of silt and sand that divided
it from the river. The two men turned for a moment, and watched her from
the yacht's deck. She waited till the big mainsail went up, and the
yacht's head swung round and pointed up stream. Then she began to run
fast along the shore, close to the river.

At that sight Majendie turned away and set his face toward the
Lincolnshire side.

He was startled by an oath from Steve and a growl from Steve's father at
the wheel. "Eh--the--little--!" At the same instant the yacht was pulled
suddenly inshore and her boom swung violently round.

Steve and the boatswain rushed to the ropes and began hauling down the
mainsail.

"What the devil are you doing there?" shouted Majendie. But no one
answered him.

When the sail came down he saw.

"My God," he cried, "she's going in."

Old Pearson, at the wheel, spat quietly over the yacht's side. "Not she,"
said old Pearson. "She's too much afraid o' cold water."

Maggie was down on the lower bank close to the edge of the river.
Majendie saw her putting her feet in the water and drawing them out
again, first one foot, and then the other. Then she ran a little way,
very fast, like a thing hunted. She stumbled on the slippery, slanting
ground, fell, picked herself up again, and ran. Then she stood still and
tried the water again, first one foot and then the other, desperate,
terrified, determined. She was afraid of life and death.

The belt of sand sloped gently, and the river was shallow for a few feet
from the shore. She was safe unless she threw herself in.

Majendie and Steve rushed together for the boat. As Majendie pushed
against him at the gangway, Steve shook him off. There was a brief
struggle. Old Pearson left the wheel to the boatswain and crossed to the
gangway, where the two men still struggled. He put his hand on his
master's sleeve.

"Excuse me, sir, you'd best stay where you are."

He stayed.

The captain went to the wheel again, and the boatswain to the boat.
Majendie stood stock-still by the gangway. His hands were clenched in his
pockets: his face was drawn and white. The captain slewed round upon him
a small vigilant eye. "You'd best leave her to Steve, sir. He's a good
lad and he'll look after 'er. He'd give his 'ead to marry her. Only she
wuddn't look at 'im."

Majendie said nothing. And the captain continued his consolation.

"_She's_ only trying it on, sir," said he. "_I_ know 'em. She'll do nowt.
She'll do nubbut wet 'er feet. She's afeard o' cold water."

But before the boat could put off, Maggie was in again. This time her
feet struck a shelf of hard mud. She slipped, rolled sideways, and lay,
half in and half out of the water. There she stayed till the boat reached
her.

Majendie saw Steve lift her and carry her to the upper bank. He saw
Maggie struggle from his arms and beat him off. Then he saw Steve seize
her by force, and drag her back, over the fields, towards Three Elms
Farm.




CHAPTER XXXIV


Majendie landed at the pier and went straight to the office. There he
found a telegram from Anne telling him of his child's death.

He went to the house. The old nurse opened the door for him. She was
weeping bitterly. He asked for Anne, and was told that she was lying down
and could not see him. It was Nanna who told him how Peggy died, and all
the things he had to know. When she left him, he shut himself up alone in
his study for the first hour of his grief. He wanted to go to Anne; but
he was too deeply stupefied to wonder why she would not see him.

Later they met.

He knew by his first glance at her face that he must not speak to her of
the dead child. He could understand that. He was even glad of it. In this
she was like him, that deep feeling left her dumb. And yet, there was a
difference. It was that he could not speak, and she, he felt, would not.

There were things that had to be done. He did them all, sparing her as
much as possible. Once or twice she had to be consulted. She gave him a
fact, or an opinion, in a brief methodic manner that set him at a
distance from her sacred sorrow. She had betrayed more emotion in
speaking to Dr. Gardner.

But for these things they went through their first day in silence, like
people who respect each other's grief too profoundly for any speech.

In the evening they sat together in the drawing-room. There was nothing
more to do.

Then he spoke. He asked to see Peggy. His voice was so low that she did
not hear him.

"What did you say, Walter?"

He had to say it again. "Where is she? Can I see her?"

His voice was still low, and it was thick and uncertain, but this time
she understood.

"In Edie's room," she said. "Nanna has the key."

She did not go with him.

When he came back to her she was still cold and torpid. He could
understand that her grief had frozen her.

At night she parted from him without a word.

So the days went on.

Sometimes he would sit in the study by himself for a little while. His
racked nerves were soothed by solitude. Then he would think of the woman
upstairs in the drawing-room, sitting alone. And he would go to her. She
did not send him away. She did not leave him. She did nothing. She said
nothing.

He began to be afraid. It would do her good, he said to himself, if she
could cry. He wondered whether it was wise to leave her to her terrible
torpor; whether he ought to speak to her. But he could not.

Yet she was kind to him for all her coldness. Once, when his grief was
heaviest upon him, he thought she looked at him with anxiety, with pity.
She came to him once, where he sat downstairs, alone. But though she
came to him, she still kept him from her. And she would not go with him
into the room where Peggy lay.

Now and then he wondered if she knew. He was not certain. He put the
thought away from him. He was sure that for nearly three years she had
not known anything. She had not known anything as long as she had had the
child, when her knowing would not, he thought, have mattered half so
much. It would be horrible if she knew now. And yet sometimes her eyes
seemed to say to him: "Why not now? When nothing matters."

On the night before the funeral, the night they closed the coffin, he
came to her where she sat upstairs alone. He put his hand on her shoulder
and spoke her name. She shrank from him with a low cry. And again he
wondered if she knew.

The day after the funeral she told him that she was going away for a
month with Mrs. Gardner.

He said he was glad to hear it. It would do her good. It was the best
thing she could do.

He had meant to take her away himself. She knew it. Yet she had arranged
to go with Mrs. Gardner.

Then he was certain that she knew.

She went, with Mrs. Gardner, the next day. He and Dr. Gardner saw them
off at the station. He thanked Mrs. Gardner for her kindness, wondering
if she knew. The little woman had tears in her eyes. She pressed his hand
and tried to speak to him, and broke down. He gathered that, whatever
Anne knew, her friend knew nothing.

The doctor was inscrutable. He might or he might not know. If he did,
he would keep his knowledge to himself. They walked together from the
station, and the doctor talked about the weather and the municipal
elections.

Anne was to be away a month. Majendie wrote to her every week and
received, every week, a precise, formal little letter in reply. She told
him, every week, of an improvement in her own health, and appeared
solicitous for his.

While she was away, he saw a great deal of the Hannays and of Gorst. When
he was not with the Hannays, Gorst was with him. Gorst was punctilious,
but a little shy in his inquiries for Mrs. Majendie. The Hannays made no
allusion to her beyond what decency demanded. They evidently regarded her
as a painful subject.

About a week before the day fixed for Anne's return, the firm of Hannay &
Majendie had occasion to consult its solicitor about a mortgage on some
office buildings. Price was excited and assiduous. Excited and assiduous,
Hannay thought, beyond all proportion to the trivial affair. Hannay
noticed that Price took a peculiar and almost morbid interest in the
junior partner. His manner set Hannay thinking. It suggested the legal
instinct scenting the divorce-court from afar.

He spoke of it to Mrs. Hannay.

"Do you think she knows?" said Mrs. Hannay.

"Of course she does. Or why should she leave him, at a time when most
people stick to each other if they've never stuck before?"

"Do you think she'll try for a separation?"

"No, I don't."

"I do," said Mrs. Hannay. "Now that the dear little girl's gone."

"Not she. She won't let him off as easily as all that. She'll think of
the other woman. And she'll live with him and punish him for ever."

He paused pondering. Then he delivered himself of that which was within
him, his idea of Anne.

"I always said she was a she-dog in the manger."




CHAPTER XXXV


Anne was not expected home before the middle of November. She wrote to
her husband, fixing Saturday for the day of her return.

Majendie, therefore, was surprised to find her luggage in the hall when
he entered the house at six o'clock on Friday evening. Nanna had
evidently been waiting for the sound of his latchkey. She hurried to
intercept him.

"The mistress has come home, sir," she said.

"Has she? I hope you've got things comfortable for her."

"Yes, sir. We had a telegram this afternoon. She said she would like to
see you in the study, sir, as soon as you came in."

He went at once into the study. Anne was sitting there in her chair by
the hearth. Her hat and jacket were thrown on the writing-table that
stood near in the middle of the room. She rose as he came in, but made no
advance to meet him. He stood still for a moment by the closed door, and
they held each other with their eyes.

"I didn't expect you till to-morrow."

"I sent a telegram," she said.

"If you'd sent it to the office I'd have met you."

"I didn't want anybody to meet me."

He felt that her words had some reference to their loss, and to the
sadness of her home-coming. A sigh broke from him; but he was unaware
that he had sighed.

He sat down, not in his accustomed seat by the hearth, opposite to hers,
but in a nearer chair by the writing-table. He saw that she had been
writing letters. He pushed them away and turned his chair round so as to
face her. His heart ached looking at her.

There were deep lines on her forehead; and she was very pale, even her
small close mouth had no colour in it. She kept her sad eyes half hidden
under their drooping lids. Her lips were tightly compressed, her narrow
nostrils white and pinched. It was a face in which all the doors of life
were closing; where the inner life went on tensely, secretly, behind the
closing doors.

"Well," he said, "I'm very glad you've come back."

"Walter--have you any idea why I went away?"

"Why you went? Obviously, it was the best thing you could do."

"It was the only thing I could do. And I am glad I did it. My mind has
become clearer."

"_I_ see. I thought it would."

"It would not have been clear if I had stayed."

"No," he said vaguely, "of course it wouldn't."

"I've seen," she continued, "that there is nothing for me but to come
back. It is the right thing."

"Did you doubt it?"

"Yes. I even doubted whether it were possible--whether, in the
circumstances, I could bear to come back, to stay--"

"Do you mean--to--the house?"

"No. I mean--to you."

He turned away. "I understand," he said. "So it came to that?"

"Yes. It came to that. I've been here three hours; and up to the last
hour, I was not sure whether I would not pack the rest of my things and
go away. I had written a letter to you. There it is, under your arm."

"Am I to read it?"

"Yes."

He turned his back on her, and read the letter.

"I see. You say here you want a separation. If you want it you shall have
it. But hadn't you better hear what I have to say, _first_?"

"I've come back for that. What have you to say?"

He bowed his head upon his breast.

"Not very much, I'm afraid. Except that I'm sorry--and ashamed of
myself--and--I ask your forgiveness. What more can I say?"

"What more indeed? I'm to understand, then, that everything I was told is
true?"

"It _was_ true."

"And is not now?"

"No. Whoever told you, omitted to tell you that."

"You mean you have given up living with this woman?"

"Yes. If you call it living with her."

"You have given it up--for how long?"

"About five weeks." His voice was almost inaudible.

She winced. Five weeks back brought her to the date of Peggy's death.

"I dare say," she said. "You could hardly--have done less in the
circumstances."

"Anne," he said. "I gave it up--I broke it off--before that. I--I broke
with her that morning--before I heard."

"You were away that night."

"I was not with her."

"Well--And it was going on, all the time, for three years before that?"

"Yes."

"Ever since your sister's death?"

He did not answer.

"Ever since Edie died," she repeated, as if to herself rather than to
him.

"Not quite. Why don't you say--since you sent me away?"

"When did I ever send you away?"

"That night. When I came to you."

She remembered.

"Then? Walter, that is unforgivable. To bring up a little thing like
that--"

"You call it a little thing? A little thing?"

"I had forgotten it. And for you to remember it all these years--and to
cast it up against me--_now_--"

"I haven't cast anything up against you."

"You implied you held me responsible for your sin."