 Book 3, Chapter 12 of The Heavenly Twins This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Laura Riley. The Heavenly Twins by Sarah Grand. Book 3, Chapter 12 When he spent eighteen months in Malta without going from the island for a change, but at the end of her second cold season she went to Switzerland with the Malcomsons and Syllingers, and Colonel Calhoun went on leave at the same time alone to some place which he vaguely described as the Continent. When they met again Avadne noticed a change in him, and she feared it was a change for the worse. He was out of health, out of temper, and depressed. He had spent most of his leave at Monte Carlo, but he did not say so at first. He was waiting for her to question him. Had she done so, he would have said something snappy about feminine curiosity. As she did not do so, he lost his temper, went off to the mess, and drank too much. It is a terrible thing for a man to be brought into constant association with a woman who never does anything, in a small way, that he can carpet, or says a word he can contradict. She robs him of all his most cherished illusions. She shakes his confidence in his own infallible strength, discernment, knowledge, judgment, and superiority, generally. She outrages his prejudices on the subject of what a woman ought to be, and leaves him nothing with which to compare himself to his own advantage. This is the miserable state to which Avadne was rapidly reducing poor Colonel Calhoun, not, certainly, of malice pretense, but with the best intentions. He did not like her opinions, therefore she seized to express opinions in his presence. He took exception to many of her observations, and so she let the words, I think, fall out of her vocabulary, and confined her talk to a clear narrative of occurrences uninterrupted by comments. It was an art which she had to acquire, for she had no natural aptitude for it, her faculty of observation having hitherto served as an instrument with which she could extract lessons from life, a lens used for the purpose of collecting data on exact scientific principles as a matter from which to draw conclusions. But with practice she became an adept in the art of describing the one, while at the same time withholding the other, so that her conversation interested Colonel Calhoun without, however, giving him anything to cavill at. It was like a dish exactly suited to his taste, but delicate to incipidity, because his palate was hardened to pepper. When she returned from Switzerland she gave him details of her own doings which were interesting enough to take him out of himself until one day, when, unfortunately, it occurred to him that she was making an effort to entertain him, and he determined that he would not be entertained, like a child indeed. She might be a doosed, clever woman, and all that, but he wasn't going to have those femininaires of superiority, so he snubbed her into silence, and having succeeded he became exceedingly annoyed because she would not talk. It was opposition, he wanted, not acquiescence, but she was not clever enough with all her cleverness, this straightforward nineteenth-century young woman, to understand such subtleties. She had always heard that the contrariness of women was a cause of provocation, and she could never have been made to comprehend that the removal of the cause would be even more provoking than the contrariness. The great endeavor of her life had been to cultivate or acquire the qualities in which she understood that women are wanting, and when she succeeded she expected to please, but she found Colonel Calhoun as peculiar on the subject as her father had been when she proved that, although of the imbecile sex, she could do arithmetic. Colonel Calhoun waited a week to snap at her for asking him how he had spent his leave, but he was obliged at last to give up all hope of being questioned, and then he felt himself aggrieved. She certainly took no interest in him whatever, he reflected. She didn't care a rap if he went to the dogs altogether. In fact, she would probably be glad, because then she would be free. She would waste a world of attention and care upon any dirty little child she picked up in the street, but for him she had neither thought nor sympathy. Clearly it was all her fault, and she should know it. He had treated her with every possible consideration. She had never had the slightest cause for complaint. He had even stuck up for her against his own interest with her old ass of a father. And by Jove, while she was treating him, Colonel Calhoun, commanding a crack-core and one of the smartest officers in her majesty's service, with studied indifference, she was thinking affectionately of the same dear old pompous portly papa, to whom, in fact, she had never borne the slightest ill-will, Colonel Calhoun was sure, although he had done her the injury of allowing her to marry herself to the kind of man whom it was against her principles even to countenance. But at this point his irritation overflowed. He could contain himself no longer. Do you know where I spent most of my leave? He asked one morning at breakfast. No, Avadney answered innocently. At Monte Carlo, he said with emphasis, I hope you enjoyed it. I have always heard it is a very beautiful place. She responded tranquilly. Its effect on my ex-checker has not been beautiful. He observed grimly. Indeed, she answered, is it so expensive? Gambling is, when you lose, he declared. Ah, yes, I forgot the tables at Monte Carlo. She remarked quite cheerfully. I suppose you can lose a great deal there. You can lose all you possess. Well, yes, of course you could if you liked, but I am quite sure you would never do anything quite so stupid. He looked at her curiously. You don't disapprove of gambling, then? He asked. I? Oh, of course, I disapprove. But then, you see, I have no taste for it. This was apologetically said to signify she did not in the least mean to sit in judgment upon him. You have a fine taste for driving people to such extremities, then. He asserted. She looked at him inquiringly. What I mean is this, he explained, that if I could have been with you, I should not have gone to Monte Carlo. Avadne kept her countenance, with some difficulty, for just as Colonel Calhoun spoke, she recollected a conversation they had had at breakfast one morning under precisely similar circumstances. That is to say, each in their accustomed place and temper, she, placidly content, he politely striving to bottle up the chronic form of irritation from which he suffered at that time of the day, so as to keep it nice and hot for the benefit of his officers and men. For Colonel Calhoun in the presence of a lady was one person, but Colonel Calhoun in his own orderly room or on parade was quite another. While in the barracks he was in the habit of swearing with the same ease and as unaffectedly as he made the responses in church, he probably did it from a sense of duty because he had been brought up in that school of Colonel, and in the course of years would naturally come to consider that a volley of votes on parade, although not laid down in the drillbook, was as much a part of his profession of arms as, good Lord deliver us, is of the church service. At all events he did both punctually at the right time and place and never mixed his weekday oaths with his Sunday responses, which was creditable. In fact he seemed to have the power of changing his frame of mind completely for the different occasions and would be prepared in advance, as was evident from the fact that if a glove went wrong just as he was starting for church he would send up for another pair amiably. But if a similar accident happened when he was on his way to parade he would swear at his man till he surprised him, the man not being a soldier-servant. But what very nearly made Avadne small was the distinct recollection she had of having asked him earnestly to join her party in Switzerland when he went on leave, and of his answering, no, he should not care about that, and suggesting that she should meet him at Monaco instead. She fancied he must have a bad memory, but of course she said nothing. What is the use of saying anything? She thought, however, that had she been under his orders the invitation to go to Monaco would have been a command, and the present implied reproach a direct accusation. She was most anxious that he should understand perfectly that she quite shrank from interfering with him in any way. One night, not knowing if he were at home or not, she had occasion to go downstairs for a book she had forgotten. There was no noise in the house, and consequently when she opened the drawing-room door she was startled to find that the room was brilliantly lighted, and that there was a party assembled there, consisting of three strange ladies, loud in appearance, one or two men she knew, and some she had not seen before. The majority were seated at a card table, playing, while the rest stood round looking on, and they must have reached a momentous point in the game, for Avadne had not heard a sound to warn her of their presence before she saw them. Colonel Calhoun was one of those looking on at the game, and one of the first to see her. He changed countenance, and came forward hastily, conscious of the strange contrast she presented to those women, flushed with wine and horrid excitement, gambling at the table, as she stood there, rooted to the spot with surprise, in her gold embroidered ivory white draperies, with a half-enquiring, happy-wildered look on her sweet, grave face. There was a vision of holiness breaking in upon a scene of sin, and his one thought was to get her away. There was always that saving grace of the fallen angel about him. He never depreciated what he had lost, but sometimes sighed for it sorrowfully. I beg your pardon for this intrusion, Avadne said, looking at him pointedly, so as to ignore the rest of the party, I did not even know that you were at home. I had forgotten a book and came for it. Will you kindly give it to me? It is called—she hesitated. But it does not matter. She added quickly, I will read something else. Good night. And she turned, smiling, without seeming to have seen anyone but Colonel Calhoun, and calmly swept from the room. And Monica the complacent, I should say, one of the men suggested. Or vengeance, smiling with murder in her mind, said another. No, a saint for certain, jeered one of the women. Why not say an angel at once, cried another. I shouldn't have thought Calhoun could keep either upon the premises, laughed the third. The lady you are pleased to criticize is my wife, gentlemen. Did Colonel Calhoun, lashing out at them suddenly, his face blazing with rage? The women tried not to be abashed. The men apologized, but the game was over for that night, and the party broke up abruptly. When they had gone, Colonel Calhoun looked about for a Vodny's book and found it. Not a difficult matter, for she had a bad habit of leaving the book she was reading open and face downward on any piece of furniture not intended to hold books. By preference, a chair where somebody might sit down upon it. This one happened to be upon the piano stool. Colonel Calhoun glanced at the title as he picked it up, and reading, a vision of sin, understood why she had shrunk from naming it. He appreciated her delicacy, but he feared the discernment which had shown her the necessity for it, and he determined to disarm her resentment next day by making her a proper apology at once. He went down late to breakfast, expecting black looks at least, and was surprised to find her calm and equitable, as usual, and busy keeping his breakfast hot for him. I wish to apologize to you for the scene you witnessed last night. He began ceremoniously. I think I owe you an apology for taking you on a wears like that. She interrupted cheerfully, giving her best attention to a very full cup of coffee she was carefully carrying round the table to him. But I hope you understand it was an accident. I quite understand, he answered sullenly, but I want to explain that those people were also here by accident. At least I was not altogether responsible for their presence. They were a party from one of the yachts in the harbor. I met them here at the door, just as I was coming in last night, and they forced themselves in uninvited. I hope you believe that I would not willingly bring anyone into the house whom I could not introduce to you. Oh, I quite believe it, she answered cordially. You are always most kind, most considerate. But I fear, she added, with concern, that my being here must inconvenience you at times. Pray, pray, do not let that be the case. I should regret it infinitely if you did. When Avadne left Colonel Calhoun, he threw himself into a chair, and sat, chin on chest, hands in pockets, legs outstretched before him, giving way to a fit of deep disgust. He had always had a poor opinion of women, but now he began to despair of them altogether. And this comes of letting them have their own way and educating them. He reflected, the first thing they do when they begin to know anything is to turn round upon us and say we aren't good enough. And by Jove, if we aren't, isn't it their fault? Isn't it their business to keep us right? When a fellow has had too good a time in his youth and suffered for it, what is to become of him if he can't find some innocent girl to believe in him and marry him? But there soon won't be any innocent girls. Here I am now, a most utter bad lot, and Avadne knows it, and what does she do? Apologizes for appearing at an inopportune time. Now Festin's wife would have brought the house about his ears if she'd caught him with that precious party I had here last night, and that's what a woman ought to do. She ought to care. She ought to be jealous, and cry her eyes out. She ought to go down on her knees and take some trouble to save a fellow's soul. It may be mentioned, by the way, that if Avadne had done so, Colonel Calhoun would certainly have sworn at her for meddling with things she'd no business to know anything about. It was, however, not what he would, but what she should have done, that he was considering just then. That's the proper thing to do, he concluded, and I don't see what's to be gained by this cursed, cold-blooded indifference. Articulation seized here, because the startling theory that a vicious, dissipated man is not a fallen angel easily picked up, but a frightful source of crime and disease recurred to him, with the charitable suggestion that a repentant woman of his own class would be the proper person to reform him. Because which settled upon his soul and silenced him, being full fraught for him with the cruel certainty that the end of all true womanliness is at hand. CHAPTER XIII. Calhoun's first interest in Avadne lasted longer than might have been expected, but the pleasure of hanging about her pawed on him at last, and then he fell off in his kind attentions. This did not happen, however, as soon as it would have done, by many months, had their relations been other than they were. It began in the usual way. Little acts to which she had become accustomed were omitted, exhumed again, and once more omitted, intermittently, then finally allowed to drop altogether. When the change had set in for certain, Avadne regretted it. The kindly feeling for each other which had come to exist between them was largely due to her appreciation of the numberless little attentions which had pleased him to pay her at first. They had not pawed upon her, and she missed them. Not as a wife would have done, however, and that she knew. So that when the fact that there was to be a falling off became apparent, she found in it yet another cause for self-congratulation, and one that was great enough to remove all sting from the regret. What she was prepared to resent, however, was any renewal of the gush after it had once seized. She required to be held in higher estimation than a toy which could be dropped and taken up again upon occasion, and Colonel Calhoun gave her an opportunity, and what was worse provoked her into saying so to her intense mortification when she came to reflect. There was to be a ball at the palace one night, a grand affair, given in honor of that same fat, foreign prince who had stayed with her people at Fraylingay, just before she came out, and had been struck by the promise of her appearance. In the early days of their acquaintance, Colonel Calhoun had given her some very beautiful antique ornaments of Egyptian design, and she determined to wear them on this occasion for the first time. But when she came to try them with a modern ball-dress, she found that they made the latter look detestably vulgar. She therefore determined to design a costume, or to adapt one, which should be more in keeping with the artistic beauty of her jewels, and this idea, with the help of an excellent maid, she managed to carry out to perfection, which, by the way, was the accident that led her, finally, to adopt a distinctive style of dress. Always a dangerous experiment, but in her case, fortunately, so admirably successful that it was never remarked upon as strange by people of taste, only as appropriate. Colonel Calhoun dined at mess on the night of the ball, and did not trouble himself to come back to escort her. He said he would meet her at the palace, and if he missed her in the crowd, there were sure to be plenty of other men only too glad to offer her an arm. He had been most particular never to allow her to go anywhere alone at first, rather inconveniently so, sometimes. But that she had endured. She was reflecting upon the change as she sat at her solitary dinner that evening, and she concluded by cheerfully assuring herself that she really was beginning to feel quite as if she were married. But afterward, when she found herself in the drawing-room, it seemed big and bare, and all the more so for being brilliantly lighted, and suddenly she felt herself a very little body, all alone. There was no bitterness in the feeling, however, because there was no one neglecting her whose duty it was to keep her heart up. But it threatened to grow upon her all the same, and in order to distract herself, she went downstairs to choose a bouquet. She had several sent her for every occasion, and they were always arranged on a table in the hall, so that she might take the one that pleased her best as she went out. There were more than usual this evening. There was one from the Grand Duke, which she put aside. There was one from Colonel Calhoun. He always ordered them by the dozen for the different ladies of his acquaintance. She picked it up and looked at it. It was beautiful in its way, but sent at the florist's discretion, not chosen to suit her gown, and it did not suit it, so that she could not have used it in any case. Yet she put it down with a sigh. The next was of yellow roses, violets, and maiden-hair-furn. Very sweet. With Lord Groom's compliments, she read on the card that was tied to it. He is back then, I suppose. She thought, funny old man, very sorry, but you won't do. The next was from one of the survivals, a man she loathed. She thought it an impertinence for him to have sent her flowers at all, and she threw them under the table. The rest she took up one after the other, reading the cards attached, and admiring or disapproving of the different combinations without gratitude or sentiment. She knew that self-interest prompted all of the offerings that were not merely sent just because it was the right thing to do. There was one unconventional bunch, however, that caught her eye. It was a mere handful of scarlet flowers tied loosely together with ribbons of their own color and the same tint of green as their leaves. It was from a young subaltern in the regiment, a boy whom she had noticed first because he was the same age and somewhat resembled her brother Bertram, and had grown to like afterward for himself. His flowers were the first to arouse her to any expression of pleasure. The arrangement was new at the time, but it has since become common enough. He has done that for me himself, she thought. The boy respects me. I shall wear his flowers. They are beautiful, too. She added, holding them off at arm's length, to admire them. The most beautiful of them all. Almost immediately after she returned to the drawing-room, Mr. Price was shown in. He was the person of all others at that moment in Malta, whom she would have most liked to see. But she had chosen, and her face brightened at once when he entered. I have been dining with your husband's regiment tonight, he explained, and I found that he could not come back for you to take you to the ball, and that therefore you would have to go alone, and so I ventured to come myself and offer you my escort. Ah, how good you are! Avadne cried, feeling fully for the first time how much she had, in heart, been dreading the ordeal of having, perhaps, to enter the ball-room alone. The old gentleman surveyed her some seconds in silence. That's original, he said at last, with several nods, approvingly. And that is a glorious piece of color you have in your hand. Is it not? She said. More beautiful, I think, than all my jewels. Yes, he agreed, the flowers are the finishing touch. The ball had begun when Avadne arrived, and the first person she encountered was the Grand Duke, who baked for a dance and took her to the ball-room. A dance was just over, however, when they entered. The great room was pretty clear, and the prince led her toward the further end where their hostess was sitting. There also was Colonel Calhoun, and some other men, with Mrs. Guthrie Brimstone. He had forgotten Avadne for the moment, and she was so transformed by the beautiful lines of her dress that he had looked at her hard and admiringly before he recognized her. Who's the lady with the Grand Duke, Major Livingston exclaimed? Someone with a figure by Jove! said Old Lord Groom. Royal Egypt herself, said Mrs. Guthrie Brimstone, always apt at analogy. Why, it's Avadne, said Colonel Calhoun. Didn't know his own wife by Jove, Lord Groom exclaimed. Well, I hope I may be pardoned at that distance, rejoined Colonel Calhoun, confused. Royal Egypt is more audacious than ever, Mrs. Guthrie Brimstone observed. This is a new departure. The reign of ideas is over, I fancy, and a season of social success has begun. Avadne danced till daylight, unconscious of the sensation she had made, and rose next morning fresh for the usual occupations of the day, but her success of the night before had so enhanced her value in Colonel Calhoun's estimation that he was inclined to be effusive. He returned to lunch and hung about her the whole afternoon, much to her inconvenience, because he had not been included in her arrangements for some months now, and she could not easily alter them all at once just to humor a whim of his. But where for the whim? A very little reflection explained it. Looks and tones and words of her partners of the previous night, not heeded at the time, recurred to her now, and made her thoughtful. But she could not feel flattered, for it was obviously not her whom Colonel Calhoun was worshiping, it was success, and the perception of this truth suggested a possible parallel which made her shudder. It was a terrible glimpse of what might have been, what certainly would have been, had not the dear Lord vouchsafed her the precious knowledge which had preserved her from the ultimate degradation and the insult which such an endeavor as that of a woman she had in her mind to win back a wandering husband would have resulted in. I do not care was her happy thought when she began to see less of Colonel Calhoun, but a wife would feel differently, and it would have been just the same had I been his wife. He was not surprised to find her submit to his extra attentions in silence that afternoon, because that was her way, but he found her looking at him once or twice with an expression of deep thought in her eyes which provoked him at last to ask what it was all about. I was thinking, she answered, of that painful incident in La Femme de Trentins, where Julie so far forgot her self-respect as to try to reawaken her husband's admiration for her by displaying her superior accomplishments at the house of that low woman, Mademoiselle discrisse. You remember, she made quite a sensation by her singing. Et son mari, revelé par l'aventure qui venait de jour, va y ut la naire d'une fataste, et la frie engarde comme il est fait d'une actrice. I was thinking, when she became aware of what she had done of the degradation of the position in which she had placed herself, how natural it was that she should despise herself, cursing marriage which had brought her to such a pass and wishing herself dead. Colonel Calhoun became moody upon this. My having stayed at home with you this afternoon suggests a parallel, I suppose, after your success of last night, he inquired, and you have been congratulating yourself all day. He proceeded, summing up judiciously, upon having escaped the degradation of being the wife de facto of a man whose admiration for you could cool under any circumstances and be revived again by a vulgar success in society. She was silent, and he got up and walked out of the house. From where she sat she saw him go, twirling his blonde mustache with one hand and viciously flipping at the flowers as he passed with the stick he carried in the other, a fine soldier-like man in appearance, certainly, and not wanting in intelligence since he could comprehend her so exactly. But oh, how oppressive, when in an admiring mood! This was her first feeling when she got rid of him. But a better frame of mind supervened, and then she suffered some mortification for having weakly allowed herself to be betrayed into speaking so plainly. Yet it proved in the long run to have been the kindest thing she could have done, for Colonel Calhoun was enlightened at last, and they were both the better for the understanding. But the house seemed full of him still after he had gone that day, and she therefore put on her things and, hurrying out into the fresh air, walked quickly to the house of a friend where she knew she would find a fresh moral atmosphere also. She was so sick and depressed. Life felt like the end of a ball, all confusion, and every carriage up but her own. She found gowns, worn contenances, spiteful remarks, ill-natured evident that were want to be concealed, disillusioned generally, and headache-threatening. But fortunately she found a friend at home to whom she instinctively went for a moral tonic. This was a new friend, Lady Clan, the widow of a civil-servant official who wintered all over the world as a rule, but had passed that year at Malta. She was a cheery old lady, masculine in appearance, but with a great, kind, womanly heart, full of sympathetic insight, and a good friend to Advadne, whom she watched with fear as well as with interest, doubting much what would come of all that was unaccustomed about the girl. The sweet-grave face and half-shut eyes appealed to her pathetically, that afternoon in particular, as Advadne sat silently beside her, busy with the piece of work she had brought. Lady Clan thought her lips too firm. As she grew older, she feared her mouth would harden in expression if she were not happy, and the old lady inwardly prayed heaven that she might be saved from that, prayed that little arms might come to clasp her neck, and warm little lips shower kisses upon her lips to keep them soft and smiling, lest they settled into stony coldness and forgot the trick. Book 3 Chapter 14 of The Heavenly Twins This is a liverbox recording. All liverbox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit liverbox.org. Recording by Judy Guinan. The Heavenly Twins by Sarah Grant. Book 3, Chapter 14. Malta was enlivened that winter by a joke which misses Gough 3 Brimstone made without intending it. Mrs. Malkimson had written a book. She was thirty years of age and had been married to a military man for ten, and in that time she had seen some things which had made a painful impression upon her, and suggested ideas that were only to be got rid of by publishing them. Ideas cease to belong to an author as soon as they are made public, if they are new at all somebody else appropriates them, and if they are old, as alas, both of them must be at this period of the world's progress. The mistaken reproducer is relieved of the horrid responsibility by kindly critics promptly. Blessed is the man who never flatters himself with a delusion that he can do anything original. For verily he shall not be disappointed. Mrs. Malkimson may know such vain pretension. She was quite clever enough to know her own limitations exactly, out of every day experiences every day thoughts had come to her, and when she began to embody such thoughts in words, she did not suppose that their every day character would be altered by that process. She had not met any of those perfect beings who inhabit the realms of ideal prose fiction, and make no mistakes, but such as are necessary to keep the story going, nor any of the terrible demons without a redeeming characteristic, who haunt the dim confines of the same territory for purposes invariably and benign, but it never occurred to her to pretend that she had. She was a simple artist, educated in the life-school of the world, and desiring above everything to be honest, a naturalist, in fact, with positive ideas of right and wrong, and incapable of the confusion of minor laxity of conscience which denies, on the one hand, that wrong may be pleasant in the doing, or claims on the other, with equal untruth that because it is pleasant it must be, if not exactly right, at all events excusable. So she endeavored to represent things that she saw them, things real, not imaginary, and when her characters spoke they talked of the interests which were daily discussed in her presence, and expressed themselves as human beings do. She was too independent to be conventional, and it was therefore inevitable that she should bring both Yelp and Bari upon herself, and be much misunderstood, when asked why she had written the book she answered candidly, for my own benefit, of course, which caused a perfect howl of disapprobation, for if that were her object, there could be no doubt that she would attain it, as the book had been a success from the first, but as people had hastily concluded that she was setting up for a social reformer, and would fail, they were naturally disgusted. They had been prepared to call the supposed attempt great presumption on her part, but when they found that she had merely her own interests in view, and had not let their moral welfare cost her a thought, they said she was not right minded, whereupon she observed, I don't mind having my morals attacked, but I should object to be pulled up for my grammar, meaning that she was sure of her morals, but was half afraid that her grammar might be shaky. As is inevitable, however, under such circumstances, this obvious interpretation was rejected, and the most uncharitable construction put upon her words. It was said, among other things, that she evidently could not be moral at heart, whatever her conduct might be. Because she made mention of immorality in her book, her manner of mentioning the subject was not taken into consideration, because such sheep cannot consider, they can only criticize. The next thing they did, therefore, was to take out the incident in the book which was most likely to damage her reputation, and declare that it was autobiographical. There was one man who knew exactly when the thing had occurred, who the characters were, and all about it. Nunk Demetis, said Mrs. Malcomson when she heard the story. For the same thing had been said of the author of any book of consequence that has ever appeared, and naturally she was somewhat puffed up. But it remained for Mrs. Guthrie Brimstone to cap the criticisms. Her smoldering antagonism to Mrs. Malcomson was kept alight by a strong suspicion she had that Mrs. Malcomson was want to ridicule her, and as a matter of fact, the best jokes of that winter were made by Mrs. Malcomson at the expense of Mrs. Guthrie Brimstone, who was not likely, therefore, that the latter would spare Mrs. Malcomson if she ever had an opportunity of crushing her, and she watched and waited long for a chance until at last one night, at a dinner party. She thought the auspicious moment had arrived, and hastened to take advantage of it. But unfortunately for her she chose a weapon she was unaccustomed to handle, and in her awkwardness she injured herself. Mr. Price was giving the dinner, and Mrs. Malcomson was not there. But the Cochran's and Syllinger's were, and other friends of hers kindly disposed cultivated people who spoke well of her and were all agreed in their praise of her work. Mrs. Guthrie Brimstone stiffened as she listened to the remarks, but held her peace for a time, with thin lips compressed and rising ire apparent. I cannot class the books at Colonel Syllinger. It does not claim to be fact exactly, and yet it is not fiction. Not a novel, but a novelty, Major Guthrie Brimstone put in, clasping his hands on his breast, twiddling his thumbs and setting his head on one side, the business, with which he usually accompanied one of his facetious sallies. What I admire most about Mrs. Malcomson is her courage, said Mr. Price. She ignores no fact of life which may be usefully noticed and commented upon, but gives each in its natural order without affectation. Do you not agree with me? he asked, turning to Mrs. Guthrie Brimstone, who was standing beside him. Her nostrils flapped. If you mean to say that you like Mrs. Malcomson's book, I do not agree with you, she answered decidedly. I consider it improper, simply. There was a momentary silence, such as sometimes precedes a burst of applause at a theater, and then there was laughter. Such an objection from such a quarter was considered too funny, and when it became known, there was quite a run upon the book, for Mrs. Guthrie's Brimstone stories were familiar to the members of all the messes, naval and military. In and about the island, not to mention the club men and the curiosity to know, what she did consider an objectionable form of impropriety and narrative made Mrs. Malcomson's fortune. From that time forward, however, Mrs. Guthrie Brimstone's influence was perceptibly upon the wane. Even Colonel Cochrane worried of her to Evidine's great regret, for Mrs. Guthrie Brimstone's vulgarity and coarseness of mine were always balanced by her undoubted propriety of conduct, and her faults were altogether preferable to the exceeding polish and refinement which covered the absolutely corrupt life of a new acquaintance Colonel Cochrane had made at this time. A Mrs. Drinkworthy, who would not have lingered alone with him anywhere in public, but dressed suspiciously at his expense the whole season. The different estimation in which he held the two ladies and his respect for Evidine herself was emphasized by the fact that he never brought Mrs. Drinkworthy to the Cochrane house, nor encouraged Evidine to associate with her, as he had always encouraged her to associate with Mrs. Guthrie Brimstone. And there can be no doubt that the latter's influence was restraining for, after his allegiance to her relaxed, Evidine noticed new changes for the worse in him, and regretted them all the more because she feared that a chance remark of her own had had something to do with weaning him from the Guthrie Brimstone's. She had been having tea with him there one day. And on their way home Colonel Cochrane said something to her about the Guthrie Brimstone's bang been unusually amusing. They only seemed unusually talkative to me, she answered, but I always come away from their house depressed, and with a very low estimate of human nature generally. I feel that their mockery is essentially the fume of little minds, and when they are particularly facetious at other people's expense, I leave them with the pleasing certainty that our own peculiarities will be put under the microscope as soon as we are out of your shot, a species of inquisition from which no human being can escape with dignity. Colonel Cochrane reflected upon this, his whore of being made to appear ridiculous may have hitherto blinded him to the possibility of such a thing, there is no knowing. But at all events it was from that time forward that he began to go less to the Guthrie Brimstone's. He was just at the age, however, when the manners of certain men begin to deteriorate, especially in domestic life, their capacity for pleasure has been lessened by abuse, and they have to excite it with stimulants. They become less careful in their appearance, are not particular in their choice of words before the ladies of their own families, nor nice in their manners at table. If not already married, they look about for something young and docile, on which to inflict their ill-humors, and expect to have their maladies of mind and body tenderly cared for in return for such aesthetic joy as young wives find in the sober certainties of bored and lodging. Should they be married already, however, heaven be good to their wives, for they will have no comfort upon earth. But doubtless in the good time coming, all esteemable wives will subscribe to keep up asylums to which their husbands can be quietly removed for treatment, so soon after the honeymoon, as their manners show signs of deterioration. When they begin to be greedy, forget to say please, thank you and I beg your pardon, show no consideration for any one's comfort with their own, no natural affection, and lose control of their tempers, the best thing that can be done for them, and the kindest, is to place them under proper restraint at once. They cannot be treated at home, opposition irritates them, and humoring such dreadful propensities submissively only confirms them. The deterioration of Colonel Cochran had certainly been delayed by the arrangement which in honor bound him to treat Evident as a young lady, and not as a wife, but that issue it set in eventually was inevitable. When it did begin, however, it was less in manner for the same reason that had delayed it. That in pursuits, and therefore Evident's position was not affected by it, and she continued to have a kindly affectionate feeling for him, and to pity him still without bitterness. He began to stay out late at night at this time, and she would hear him occasionally in the small hours of the early morning, returning from a bachelor dinner party, or a big guest night at mess, wreaking doubtless of tobacco and stimulants. Verliolida knows what she is writing about when she invariably adds essences to the toilet of her dissipated men. Evident would wake with a start in the gray of the dawn sometimes, and hearing Colonel Cochran pass her door with unsteady step on his way, to his own room, would shudder to think what his wife must have suffered, and it was not as if the sacrifice of herself would have made any difference to him either. If she could have done any good in that way she might have tried, but his habits were formed and they were the outcome of his nature. Nothing would have changed him. And the longer she lived with him, the more reason she had to be convinced of this, and to be sure that her decision had been a right and wise one. But Colonel Cochran did not agree with her. He cherished the vain delusion that although her influence as a young lady whom he admired and respected had not availed to elevate him, her presence as a wife, whose feelings he certainly would not have felt bound to consider, and whose opinion he would not have cared or rapped for, would have made all the difference. They drifted into a discussion of this subject one hot afternoon when he happened to find evidence, idly for a wonder with a fan at an open window. You might have made anything you liked of me had you adopted a different course, he said. He had been carousing the night before and was now mistaking nausea and depression for a naturally good disposition perverted by ill treatment. No, she answered gently, I do not flatter myself that I should have succeeded where Mrs. Besten and half a dozen other ladies I could name even here, in a little place like Malta, all more lovable, esteemable, and stronger and womanly attributes generally than I am, have failed. Colonel Besten is always with your particular clique and she is very unhappy. She makes herself miserable, then said Colonel Cochrane, the natural man reappearing as the malaise passed off or was forgotten. What business is it of hers where he goes or what he does so long as he is nice to her when he is at home? Just reverse the position and consider what Colonel Besten's feelings would be if she took to amusing herself as he does and maintained that he had no business to interfere with her private pursuits. Would he be satisfied so long as she was nice to him at home, Evident asked. Colonel Cochrane's continents lowered. That is nonsense, he said. Women are different, they must behave themselves. Evident smiled. I am beginning to know that phrase, she said. It puzzled me at first, because it is neither reason nor argument, but merely an assertion somewhat in the nature of the command and equally applicable to either sex, if the other chose to use it. But I know that what you have just said with regard to Mrs. Besten having no occasion to make herself miserable is your true feeling on the subject, and therefore I am convinced that if I had adopted a different course it would not have been to your advantage in any way, and it would certainly have been very much to the reverse of mine. We are excellent friends, as it is, because we are quite independent of each other, but had it been otherwise I shuddered to think of the hopeless misery of it. Cochrane was silent. There is no hope for me, then, he said at last, lamely. I suppose the truth of the matter is you never cared for me at all. You just thought you would get married and accepted me because I was the first person to propose and your friends considered me eligible. I think you are cold-hearted, Evident. I've watched you since you came out here, and I've never seen you fancy any man even for a moment. Evident flushed angrily. It is one thing to consider ethical questions in relation to their bearing upon the future of the world at large, and another to have it suggested that you have been under observation yourself with a view to discovering if you found it possible to live up to your own ideas. It was a fact, however, that no man attracted Evident during this period, as Colonel Cochrane himself had done. The shock of the discovery which had destroyed her passion for him had caused a revulsion of feeling great enough to subdue off further possibilities of passion for years to come, and even if she had been free to marry, she would not have done so. All the energy of her nature had flashed from her heart to her brain in a moment, and every instinct of her womanhood was held in check by the superior power of intellect. Since the day of the marriage ceremony she had been a child in her pleasures and only mature in the capacity for thought, her senses had been stunned and still slept heavily. But there remained to her a vivid recollection of the entrancing period which had followed their first awakening, and so she answered Colonel Cochrane's last remark decidedly. You are mistaken, she said, if you imagine that I did not care for you, that I was merely marrying you for the sake of marrying, and would have been quite as content with anyone else who my friends might have considered eligible. My mother was very much disappointed because I did not accept an offer I had before I saw you from a man who was certainly eligible in every way. I think you said my father had told you of it. I could not care for him, but I think my passion for you was blinder and more headlong. If anything, then is usually the case in very young girls. If it says me from the moment I saw you in church the first time, you pleased my eyes as no other man has ever done, and I was only too glad to take it for granted that your career and your character were all that they ought to have been. But of course I did not love you, for passion you know, is only the introduction to love. It is a flame that may be blown out at any time by a difference of opinion, and mine went out the moment I learned that your past had been objectionable. I really care more for you now than I did in the days when I was in love with you, for you have been very good to me, very kind in every possible way. So much so indeed that I have more than once felt the kindest regret, I have wished that there was no barrier between us. There is no hope for me, then, he again suggested, but with hope in his heart as he spoke, she shook her head sadly. It is what might have been that I regret, she answered, but that does not change what has been and is. I suppose you consider that I have spoiled your life, he said. Oh no, she exclaimed. I don't think that. Don't blame yourself, I have never blamed you since I was cool enough to reflect. It is the system that is at fault. The laxity which permits anyone, however unfit, to enter upon the most sacred of all human relations, saints should find a reward for sanctity and marriage. But the church with that curious want of foresight for which it is peculiar, induced the saints to put themselves away in barren celibacy so that their sameness could not spread, while it encouraged sinners satiated with advice to transmit their misery-making propensities from generation to generation. I believe firmly that marriage, when those who marry are of such character as to make the contract holy matrimony, is a perfect state fulfilling every law of our human nature, and making earth with all its drawbacks a heaven of happiness. But such marriages, as we see contracted every day, are simply a degradation of all the higher attributes which distinguish men from beasts, for there is no contract more carelessly made, more ridiculed, more lightly broken, no sacred subject that is oftener blasphemed, and nothing else in life affecting the dignity and welfare of man which is oftener attacked with vulgar verbality in public, or outraged and private by the secret conduct of it. No, you are not to blame, nor am I. It is not our fault that we form the junction of the old abuses and the new modes of thought. Some two people must have met as we have for the benefit of others, but it has been much better with us than it might have been thanks to your kindness. I have been quite happy here with you, much happier than I should have been at Frelingay, I think, all this time. You have never interfered with my pursuits or endeavour to restrict my liberty in any way, and consequently my occupations and interests have been more varied, and my content greater than it would have been at home after my father had discovered how very widely we differ in opinion. I am grateful to you, George, and I do hope that it has been as well with you as it has been with me since I came to Malta. Oh yes, I have been all right, he answered, in a quite dissatisfied tone, however, but presently that passed, and then he slid into a bitter frame of mind. You are a good woman, evident, he said. You have played me a very nasty trick, and I don't agree with you, and I don't believe there are a dozen men in the world at the present moment who would agree with you. But apart from your peculiar opinions, you are about one of the nicest girls I ever knew. Everything you do is well done. You're never out of temper. You don't speak much as a rule, but you're always ready to respond cheerfully when you're spoken to. And you don't interfere. I wish from the bottom of my soul you had never been taught to read and write, and then you would have had no views to come between us. But since you think you cannot care for me, I shall not persecute you. I gave you my word of honor that I never would, and I hope I have kept it. Yes, indeed, you have been goodness itself, she answered. I wrote and told your father how very well we get on, he continued, and tried to persuade him to make it up with you, but the old gentleman is obstinate. He has his own notion of a wife's duty, and he sticks to it. But I did my best, because I know you feel the separation from your own family, although you never complain. He can't get over your wanting a Christ-like man for a husband. He says he laughs every time he thinks of it. The first time he laughed at that idea of yours, I was there, and a very unpleasant laugh it was. I got my back up somehow and made me feel ready to take your part against him. It isn't a compliment, you know, to have your father-in-law laugh outright at the notion of your ever being able to come up to your wife's idea of what a man should be. And when he came down raging about your books, it was the recollection of that laugh I believe that made me determined to get them for you. I asked your mother to show me your old rooms, and I just took all the books I could find, and then I thought it would be a good idea to make your new rooms look as much like the old ones as possible. It was a very kind thought, evident answered. I don't pretend to have been a saint, very much the contrary, Colonel Cochrane preceded. With that assumption of humility, often apparent in the repentant, sinner who expects to derive both credit and importance from his past when he frankly confesses it was wicked, but I hope I have always been a gentleman. With her saint and gentleman were synonymous terms. And what I want to say is, he continued, I don't quite see how to put it, but you have just expressed yourself satisfied with the arrangements I have made for you so far. Well, if you really think that I have done all I can to make your life indurable, will you do something for me? I am a good deal older than you are, and all human probability you all live me. Will you promise me that during my lifetime you will not mix yourself up publicly, will not join societies, make speeches or publish books, which people would know you had written on the social subjects you are fond of? fond of, she ejaculated. Well, perhaps that is not the right expression, he conceded. No, very far from the right expression, she answered gently. Social subjects seem to be forcing themselves on the attention of every thoughtful and right-minded person just now, and it would be culpable cowardice to shun them, while there is the shadow of a hope that some means may be devised to put right what is so very wrong. Ignoring an evil is tantamount to giving it full license to spread. But I am thankful to say I have never known anyone who found the knowledge of evil anything but distressing except Mrs. Guthrie Brimston, as she only delights in it so long as it is made a jest of. But they are all alike in that set she belongs to. Their ideas of propriety are bounded by their sense of pleasure. So long as you talk flippantly they will listen and laugh. But if you talk seriously on the same subject you make the matter disagreeable, and then they call it improper. Colonel Cochran was standing with his arms folded on the parporate of the veranda, looking down a vista of yellow houses at a glimpse there was of the sea, dotted with boats, hazy with heat, intensely blue, and sparkling back reflections of the glaring sun. From where evidence sat she saw the same scene through the open bolstered over the tops of the Orlanders, growing in the garden below, and gradually the heat and stillness and beauty stole over her melting her mood to tenderness and filling her mind with sadly sweet memories of the days of delight which preceded all this. She thought of the yellow gorse on the common recalling as peculiar fragrance of the misty cobwebs stretched from bush to bush and decked with dazzling drops of dew, of the healthy happy health creatures peeping out of her shyly, hear a rabbit in their hair, a vealock that sprang up singing and was lost to sight in a moment of a thrust that paused to reflect as she passed. She thought of the little church on the high cliffs, the borne of her morning walks, of the long stretch of sand and of the sea, and she felt the fresh free air of those open spaces rouse her again to a gladness in life, not often known to ladies idling on languid afternoons in the sickly heat essential to the well-being of sutron, orange, and myrtle. Beloved are the mythical fawn, but fatal to the best energies of the human race, and by a very natural transition her mind meaped on to that morning in church, when the sense of loneliness which comes to all young creatures that have no mate resolved itself into the silent supplication, the petition which it is a part of the joy of life and youth to present to a heaven which is willing enough to hear, and she recalled the thrill of delight that trembled through every nerve of her body when she looked up and found her answer. When she saw and recognized what she saw in the glance which flashing between them was the spark that first fired the train of her blind passion for Colonel Cochran, she thought then that her prayer was answered at that moment, and she believed still that it had been answered so, but for a special purpose which she had not then perceived. Colonel Cochran was not the husband of her heart, but the rod of chastisement for her rash presumption. He had not been given to her for her own happiness, but that she might act as she had done to set an example by which she should have the double privilege of expediting a fault of her own, and at the same time securing the peace in life of others. It was in this way, there hummed in her brain, on that hot afternoon results of the faith which had been held by her ancestors, of the teaching which she had herself received directly with a curious glimmering of truth that were already half apparent to her own acute faculties, and incongruous jumble all leavened by the natural instincts of a being rich in vitality and wholesome physical force, with a recollection of the old days came back, the shadow of the old sensation. The interval was forgotten for the moment. She saw before her the man whose very glance and word had thrilled her with pleasurable emotion, whom it had been a joy just to be with and see. It was the same man leaning there, finer form and feature, with a dreamy look in his blue eyes, softening the glitter, which was apt to be hardened stony. If only at that moment Colonel Cochrane looked round at her, hesitated, although his face flushed, and then exclaimed, Evident, you do love me. I did love you, she answered. He sat down beside her, close to her. Will you forget all this? He said. Will you forget my past? Will you make me a different man? Will you? You can. He half stretched out his hand to take hers. But then drew back a gentleman always in that he would not force her inclinations in any way. If I do not change, we can be again as we are now. And there would be no harm done. Will you consent, Evident? Will you, my wife, will you? He leaned forward so close that her senses were troubled, too close where she pushed her chair back to relieve herself of the oppression, and the act irritated him another moment, a little more persuasion and caressing of the voice, which he could use so well to that effect, and she might have given in to that kind of fascination, which he had felt in his presence from the first. But when she moved, he drew back, too. His continents clouded and her own momentary yearning to be held close, close, to be kissed, till she could not think. To live the intoxicating life of the senses only and not care was over. We could never be again as we are now, she answered. There would be no return for me. A wife cannot feel as I do, and you, you would not change. Or at least you would only change your habits. The consequence of them you will carry to your grave with you, and I doubt if you could ever change your habits once for all. You were a different man for a while when I first came out, but you soon relapsed. No, I can never regret my present attitude, but I have seen several times already how much reason I should have to regret a different arrangement. You make light of love, he said. Many a girl has died of a disappointment. Many a girl is a fool, she answered placently. And what can love offer me in exchange for the calm content of my life just now? For my perfect health, for my freedom from care. A reconciliation with your family, he suggested. She sighed and sat silent, a little lost in thought. I do not live with my family now, she answered at last. They have all their own interests, their own loves apart from mine. Would a letter or two a year from them make up after all for the risk of misery I should be running for the terrible, helpless, hopeless, incurable misery of an unhappily married woman, if I should become one? He rose and returned to his old position, leaning over the veranda, looking down to the sea. You are cold-blooded, I think, evident, he derated. She said nothing, but rested her head on the back of her chair and smiled. She was not cold-blooded, and he knew it as well as she did. She was only a nineteenth-century woman of the higher order was since his so refined that if her moral, as well as her physical being were not satisfied in love, both would revolt. They were silent some time after that, and then he turned to her once more. Will you promise me that one thing, evident he answered, promise me that during my lifetime you will never mix yourself up, never take part publicly in any question of the day? It would be too deused, ridiculous for me, you know, to have my name appearing in the papers in connection with measures of reform and all that sort of thing. I promise to spare you that kind of annoyance and at all events she answered without hesitation, making the promise, not because she was in firm of purpose, but because she was indefinite. She had no impulse at the time to do anything, and no notion that she would ever feel impelled to act in opposition to this wish of his. Thank you, he said, and there was another little pause, which he was again the first to break. You would have loved me, then, if I had lived a different life, he said. Yes, she answered simply, I should have loved you. No other man has made me feel for a moment what I felt for you. Well, I believe that you are all that a man should be who proposes to marry, and I don't think any other man ever will. You were born for me. Why oh why did you not live for me? I wished to God I had, he answered. She rose impulsively and stretched out her hands to him. It was a moment of pain and pity, sorrow and sympathy, and he understood it. You meant to marry always, she said. You treasured in your heart your ideal of a woman. Why could you not have lived so that you would have been her ideal, too, when at last you met? He took her two little outstretched hands and held them a moment in his, looking down at them. I wished to God I had, he repeated. Did it ever occur to you that a woman has her ideal as well as a man, she said, that she loves purity and truth and loves degradation and vice more than a man does? Theoretically, yes, he answered, but you find practically that women will marry anyone. If they were more particular, we should be more particular, too. Ah, that is our curse, said Evident, yours and mine. If women had been more particular in the past, you would have been a good man, and I should have been a happy wife today. He raised her hands which he was still holding, placing them palm to palm, took them in one of his, and clasped them to his chest, bringing her very close to him, and then he looked into her upturned face, considering it with that curious set expression on his own, which always came at a crisis. Her lips were parted, her cheeks were pale, she still panted from the passion of her last utterance, and her eyes, as he looked down into them, were pained in expression and fixed. He let her hands drop, and once more returned to his old position, meaning upon the bull-stread, with his back to her, looking out over the sea, if it had been possible to have obtained the mastery he had dreamed of over her, mere animal mastery the thought would have repelled him now. He might have dominated her senses, but her soul would only have been the more confirmed in his loathing of his life. He knew the strength of her convictions, knew that so long as they were a few yards apart, she could always have ruled both herself and him, and life has lived a few yards apart. It was the best side of his nature that was under evidence influence, and he had now some saving grace of manhood in him, which enabled him to appreciate the esteem with which she had begun to repay his consideration for her, and to admire the consistent self-respect which had brought her triumphantly out of all her difficulties, and won her a distinguished position in the place. He thought that he ought to be satisfied and knew that he would have to be. She remained standing as he had left her, and presently he turned to her again. Forgive me, he said, for provoking a discussion which has pained you needlessly. If repentance and remorse could wipe out the past, I should be worthy to claim you this minute. But I know you are right. There might have been hours of intoxication, but there would have been years of misery also for you as my wife. Your decision was best for both of us. It was our only chance of peace. He looked at her wistfully and approached a step. She met him more than halfway. She put her hands on his shoulders, and looked up at him. But we are friends, George, she said with emotion. I seem to have nobody now, but you belonging to me. And I should be lonely indeed if, she suddenly burst into tears. Yes, yes, he said huskily, of course we are friends, the best friends. We shall always be friends. I have never let anyone say a word against you, and I never will. I am proud to think that you are known by my name. I only wish that I could make it worthy of you, and perhaps some day, in the field. Poor fellow, the highest proof of borough worth he knew was to be able to take a prominent part in some great butchery of his fellow men, without exhibiting a symptom of fear. Evident had recovered herself, and now smiled up at him with wet eyelashes. Not there, I hope, she answered. Going to war and getting killed is not a proof of affection and respect which we modern women care about. I would rather keep you safe at home and quarrel with you. Colonel Cochran smiled. Here's tea, he said, seeing a servant enter the room behind them. Shall we have it out here? We shall be cooler. Yes, by all means, she answered. And then they began to talk of things indifferent. But with a new and happy consciousness of an excellent understanding between them. End of Book 3, Chapter 14, Recording by Judy Guinen Book 3, Chapter 15, of the Heavenly Twins This is a liverbox recording. All liverbox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit liverbox.org. Recording by Judy Guinen. The Heavenly Twins by Sarah Grand. Book 3, Chapter 15 The following day, as Colonel Cochran went out in the afternoon, he met Evident coming in with Mrs. Malcomson and Mrs. Selinger. Evident was leaning on Mrs. Malcomson's arm. She looked haggard and pale, and the other two ladies were evidently also much distressed. Has anything happened? Cochran asked with concern. Are you ill, Evident? I am sick at heart. She answered bitterly. We have had bad news, Mrs. Malcomson said significantly. Colonel Cochran stood aside and let them pass in. Then he went on to the club, wondering very much what the news could be. There he found Captain Bellard, Colonel Bestin, and a few more of his particular friends all discussing something in tones of righteous ignigination. Mr. Price and Mr. St. John were there also. A male had just arrived, bringing the details of Edith's illness from Morning Quest. Mr. St. John turned from the group, and as he did so, Colonel Cochran noticed that his gait was uncertain, and his face was white and distorted, as if with physical pain. His impulse was to offer him a restorative and see him to his rooms. But Mr. Price anticipated the kind intention. It was Mrs. Orton Begg who had written to Evident, and she had brought Mrs. Silinger and Mrs. Malcomson into here the letter read. Edith is quite, quite mad, she said, unconsciously, choosing the poor girl's own expression, and the most horrible part of it is she knows it herself. She wants to do the most dreadful things, and all the time she feels as much horror of such Ediths as we should. My aunt says her sufferings are too terrible to describe, but she was growing gradually weaker with the letter left. How awful, Mrs. Silinger ejaculated, to think of her as we knew her so beautiful and so sweet and good, and true in every way, and her magnificent physique, and now not a soul that loves her when they hear that she is growing gradually weaker would wish it otherwise. My aunt concludes her letter by saying I am telling you the state of the case exactly, evident continued, because I did not agree with you when you were here. I have been so shielded from the evil myself that I could not believe in the danger to which all women in their weakness are exposed, but I agree with you now perfectly. We must alter all this, and we can. Put me into communication with your friends. And you will join as yourself, evident, Mrs. Malcomson exclaimed. Certainly I shall, she answered emphatically. Then all at once something flashed through her mind. Heaven, she exclaimed, I had forgotten. I cannot. I cannot join you. I have given my word to do nothing so long as Colonel Cochran is alive. Up to this time, evident in her home life had been serene and healthy-minded, but now suddenly there came a change. She began to ask, why should she trouble herself? Nobody who had a claim upon her wished her to do anything but dress well and make herself agreeable. And that was what most of the people about her were doing to the best of their ability. The church enjoined that she should do her duty. What was her duty? Clearly to acquiesce, as everybody else was doing, to refuse to know of anything that might distress her, to be pleased and to give pleasure, that was all that heaven itself had to offer her, and if she could make heaven upon earth now, with a fan and a book and a few congenial friends, she would. This was the first consequence of her promise to Colonel Cochran. It had cramped her into a narrow groove wherein to struggle would only have been to injure herself ineffectively. There comes a time when every intellectual being is forced to choose some definite pursuits. Evident had been formed for a life of active usefulness, but now she found herself reduced to an existence of objectless contemplation and she suffered acutely until she had recourse to St. Paul and the pulpit from which barren fields she succeeded at last connecting samples enough to make up a dose of the time honored Anondine, sacred to her sex. It is a delicious opiate which gives immediate relief, but it soothes without healing and is, in the long run, delacterious, and this was the influence under which Evident entered upon a new phase of life altogether. She gave up reading and, by degrees, there grew upon her a perfect whore of disturbing emotions. She burnt any books she had with repulsive incidents in them. She would not have them about even, lest they should remind her. There were some pictures also in her rooms which depicted scenes of human suffering, a battle-piece, a storm at sea, a caravan lost in the desert, and a prison scene. And though she had removed, she would have ended all such whores if she could, but as that was impossible, she would not even think of them. And accordingly, she had those pictures replaced by soothing subjects, moonlit spaces, sun-bright seas, clear brown riverlets, lakes that mirrored the placate mountains, and flowers and birds and trees. She would look at nothing that was other than restful. She would read nothing that harrowed her feelings. She would listen to nothing that might move her to indignation and reawaken the fertile, impulse to resist. And she banished all thought or reflection that was not absolutely tranquilizing in effect or otherwise enjoyable. But all this was extremely innervating. She had owed her force of character to her incessant intellectual activity which had also kept her mind pure in her body in excellent condition. Had she not found an outlet for her super-furious vitality as a girl in the cultivation of her mind, she must have become morbid and hysterical, as is the case with both sexes when they remain in the unnatural state of celibacy with mental energy unapplied. We are like running water bright and sparkling so long as the course is clear, but divert us into unprogressive shallows where we lie motionless and very soon we stagnate and every particle of life within us becomes a fence. This was the fate that threatened evidence. As her mind grew sluggish, her body, health decreased and the climate began to tell upon her. Malta has a pet fever of its own, of a dangerous kind from which she had hitherto escaped, but now quite suddenly she went down with a bad attack and hovered for weeks between life and death. Colonel Cochran made arrangements to take her home as soon as she was sufficiently strong to be moved. But just at that time a small war broke out and his regiment was one of the first to be ordered to the front. He was able to see her off, however, with other ladies of the regiment, and he telegraphed to her friends begging them to meet her at Southampton. The hope of seeing them sustained evidence during the voyage, but when she arrived only Mrs. Orton Begg appeared. The latter was shocked by the change in evidence. Her hair had been cut short, her eyes were sunken, her cheeks were hollow, she was skin and bone and the color of death. Mrs. Orton Begg had gone on board the steamboat and evidence had been brought up on deck, supported by one of the ladies and her own maid. She looked at her aunt and then she looked beyond her, as my mother not come to meet me, she asked. Mrs. Orton Begg looked at her compassionately. Is she ill? Evident added. No dear, her aunt replied. Evident burst into tears. It was a bitter disappointment and she was very weak and it suffered a great deal. After her arrival her pompous papa continued firm, as he called it. And as she was equally firm herself, he would not have her at Fraylingay. He repeated that if there were one human weakness which is more reprehensible than another, it is obscenacy and he told Mrs. Frayling that she must choose between himself and Evident. If she preferred the latter she might go to see her but she should not return to him. He meant to be master in his own house and so on. At the top of his voice with infinite bluster to which it was that Mrs. Frayling submitted she never could bear a noise. Evident therefore saw nothing of her mother or brothers or sisters and must have been lonely indeed, had it not been for Mrs. Orton Begg who took charge of her and nursed her and brought her around and remained with her until Colonel Cochran returned. They spent most of their time in the Western Highlands but stayed also in London and Paris. Colonel Cochran was absent a year and made them both serve every opportunity to distinguish himself. At the end of the war he was made CB and promoted to the rank of Colonel. And this time with his regiment having expired he was further honored by being immediately appointed to the command of the depot at morning quest. Evident was glad to see him again and she had missed him and had waited anxiously for his return. She had no one to care for in his absence no one that is to say who was specially her charge to be attended to and made comfortable. He had narrowed her sphere of usefulness down to that by the promise he had exacted. And in his absence she had what to her was a useless purposeless existence wandering about from place to place. During this period she made few notes in the commonplace book but the few all bore witness to one thing vis her ever increasing horror of unpleasantness in any shape or form. End of book 3 Chapter 15 Recording by Judy Guinen Book 4 Chapter 1 Of the Heavenly Twins This is a labor box recording. All labor box recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit laborbox.org The Heavenly Twins by Sarah Grand Book 4 The Tenor and the Boy and Interlude His words are bonds His oaths are oracles His love sincere His thoughts immaculate His tears pure messengers sent from his heart His heart as far from fraud as heaven from earth. To gentlemen of Verona Chapter 1 Morning Quest with the sunset glow upon it might have made you think of Arthur's dim, rich city but Morning Quest had already flourished a thousand years longer than K. Erlon and was just as many times more wicked and it was known to be so although not a tithe of the crimes committed in it were ever brought to light. But even of those which were known and recorded no man could have told you the half so great was their number. Of course as the place was wicked the doctors were well to the fore combating the wages of sin gallantly and the lawyers also needless to say were busy and so too were the clergy in their own way. Ecclesiasticism being well worked Christianity however was much neglected so that for the most part the devil went unmolested in Morning Quest and had a good time. There were 75 churches besides the cathedral within the city boundary and a large sprinkling of religious acts of all denominations which caused ferment enough to prevent stagnation and of course where so many churches were the clergy swarmed and were made the subject of the unusual well worn pleasantries. If you asked what good they were doing you would hear that nobody knew but you would also be assured that at all events they were as a rule too busy about candles investments and whatnot of that kind of thing. Discussing such questions with heed enough to convince anyone that the Lord in heaven cares greatly about the use of one God more or less in his service to do much harm but upon the whole the attitude of the citizens toward the clergy was friendly and unexacting. If nobody hated them much nobody opposed them much either so that as in any other profession they enjoyed the liberty of earning their livelihood in their own way. The people considered them without reverence as part of the population merely their services were accepted as a necessity in the regular routine of life as bread and butter was and doubtlessly did good in some such way although the one was as much forgotten as the other before it was well assimilated if the citizens mentioned their teaching at all it was merely to repeat what they said of the clergy themselves that it did no harm. This was a pleasantry of which they never wearied but sometimes they would add to it another article of their faith the Lord is gracious they would declare and when he sends dull preachers he mercifully sends sleep also to comfort his afflicted people. So the preachers preached and their congregations slumbered tranquilly and everybody was satisfied if the clergy squabbled amongst themselves and with their church wardens their fellow citizens were rather grateful to them than otherwise for varying the monotony so that they were encouraged to wage their internees sign on bats to their hearts content and when these lapsed and they let each other alone it was always interesting to see how they turned upon the bishop but nobody was disturbed for in such a sleepy old place and the respectable part of it was sleepy. Men habitually viewed the vagaries of their friends with smiling tolerance and if they comment upon them at all it is without bitterness. In general history there are always events as there are people that take prominent places and attract attention long after similar events are buried and forgotten. They owe their vitality less to their importance perhaps than to some gleam of poetry, pathos, or romance which distinguishes the actors in them and most old places have a pet tragedy amongst their traditions but Morning Quest was an exception to this rule for although it had its particular tragedy it was quite a new one from the first however it was easy enough to foresee that this one event of all the sorrowful things which had happened in that bad old place having as it were every desirable requirement of time setting and person to invest it with a proper permanent and most pathetic interest was the likeliest one to be remembered. Morning Quest was a city of singers and the citizens were proud of their cathedral choir which was chiefly recruited from amongst themselves there being a succession of exquisite boy voices constantly forthcoming to awaken the slumbering echoes in the ancient pile and the sweet old sentiments in the people's hearts. Some of the lake lurks had been choristers themselves and amongst them was one who had been especially noted as a boy for his birdlike trouble. It seemed a thousand pitties when it broke but as he reached maturity he found himself able to sing again and eventually he developed a very true if not very powerful tenor voice and rose in time to be the leading tenor in the choir. People had flocked to hear him sing in his childhood and as they still came it was natural that he should continue to think himself the attraction and also natural that he should be somewhat puffed up in consequence. He wore a mustache, he wore a ring, he put on airs, he scented his pocket handkerchiefs, he ogled the pretty ladies in the cannons pew like an officer but he was an orphan and had a poor old kinswoman depending upon him and kept her well. He was harmless, he never did anyone an ill turn nor said an evil thing and he could sing so that, taken all round, his good qualities outweighed his weaknesses and he was duly allowed the measure of praise and respect which he earned but his rings and his sense and his affectations generally covered a secret ambition. He wanted to be more than a tenor in the choir. He wanted to be an opera singer and he entered into negotiations with a London impresario. He did so secretly being fearful of discouragement and also because he wished to surprise his friends and when a personal interview became necessary he did not ask for the means to make the journey. He had the management of the choir funds and there being a surplus in his hands at the moment. He made use of the money borrowing it in perfect good faith and honestly sure that he would be able to repay it before it was required of him. Had he succeeded the money would have been returned at once but alas he did not succeed. The money was spent. His hopes were shattered and his honest career was at an end. If only he had come to me the matter might have been put right, the Dean said and he publicly reproached himself for not knowing the hearts of his people better so that he might have entered with sympathy into their lives and won their confidence. The tenor ought to have trusted him but he never thought of such a thing. He was a poor crushed creature and had abandoned hope. But he went back to Morning Quest nevertheless. Indeed, where else could he go? He knew no other place and had never a friend elsewhere in the world so he went back mechanically and he went to the cathedral and there he hid himself and there three times a day for three days he looked down from the clear story. Himself on scene looked into the faces he knew so well faces which had been friendly faces eyes that had watched him kindly all his life and out there in the cold he followed the surfaces at which he had been want to assist taking a leading part almost so long as he could remember and there in the grim solitude by day and the added horror of ghostly darkness by night he lived on thought and suffered his agony of remorse and the minor miseries of cold and hunger and thirst till the need of endurance ceased to be felt and then amid the misty morning grayness of the fourth day he hanged himself from a ladder left by some workmen engaged in repairs by whom his body was afterward found desecrating the sacred precincts. These are the materials out of which Morning Quest wolf its pet tragedy. The event happened at the beginning of that important year which the heavenly twins spent with their grandfather at Morn and doubtless they heard all about it but being very much occupied with a variety of absorbing interests at the time it did not make any particular impression upon them it was brought home to them eventually however when it might have been considered an old story but it had not become so then in anybody's estimation nor has it since because of the pity of it which lent the pathetic interest that makes the story deathless and ageless the subtle something which influences to better moods and from which the years as they pass do not detract but rather pay at the tribute of an occasional addition there too by which its hope of immortality is greatly strengthened after the tenor's death the difficulty had been who should succeed him there was nobody immediately forthcoming and this had put the dean and chapter in a fix for it happened that there were services of particular importance going on in the cathedral at the time to which strangers flocked from a distance and it was felt that it would never do to disappoint them of their music so on the morning of the great day of all after the early service the dean the precentaur and the organist having doff their surpluses returned to the choir and stood for some time beside the brazen lectern discussing the subject while they were so engaged a gentle man came up to the dean and after making a graceful apology for the intrusion explained that he had heard of their difficulty and begged to be allowed to sing the tenor part and a solo at the afternoon service the dean looked doubtful the precentaur judging by the stranger's appearance and tone that he might be somebody was inclined to be obsequitous the organist struck a neutral attitude and stood by ready to agree to anything I can sing the applicant said modestly answering the doubt he saw in the dean's demeanor although I confess that I have not been doing so lately I think I may venture to promise however that I shall not at all events spoil the surface well sir the dean replied if you can help us you will really be putting us under a great obligation for we are in a most awkward dilemma what do you say Mr. Precentaur I should say as the organist is here if this gentleman would try his part this morning that is what I was about to suggest the stranger interposed the precentaur found the music the organist retired to his instrument the dean took a seat and the stranger sang when he paused the dean arose I thank you sir he said with effusion and I gratefully accept your offer the stranger bowed to his little audience returned the music and left the building he was a young man tall and striking in appearance clean shaven with delicate features dark dreamy gray eyes and a tumbled mop of golden hair innocent of parting he was well dressed but his clothes hung upon him loosely as if he had grown thinner since they were made his face was pale too and pinched in appearance and his movements were languid giving him altogether the air of a man just recovering from some serious illness that he was a gentle man no one would have doubted for a moment nor would they have been surprised to hear that he was a great man in the sense of being a peer or something of that kind for there was that indefineable something in his look and bearing which people call aristocratic and his manner was calm and assured like that of a well-bred man of the world accustomed to good society the people who flocked to the afternoon surface that day regarded him with much curiosity and he was certainly unlike anyone whom they had hitherto seen in the choir a surplus had been found for him and the dead white contrasted well with the brightness of his hair and made the refined beauty of his face even more remarkable than it had been in his morning dress sitting with the lay clerks behind the choristers he looked like the representative of another and a higher race and even those of them whose personal attractions had hitherto been considered more than merely passable when they appeared beside him were suddenly seen to be hopelessly commonplace but although the interest he excited was evident enough it was equally evident that he himself remained quite unaware of it in his whole bearing there was not the slightest assumption he entered with the choir and might have been in the habit of doing so all his life so perfectly unconscious did he seem of anything new or strange in the position as soon as he was seated without even glancing at the people he had taken up his music and continued lost in the study of it until the service opened and then he sang his part with ease and precision which however attracted less attention at the moment than his appearance the rest of the choir animated by his presence exerted themselves to the utmost but were too delighted with their own performances to think much of his before the solo began then however they awoke the first note he entered was a long crescendo of such rich volume and so sweet that the people had their breath and looked up this world recedes it disappears heaven opens my eyes my ears with sounds seraphic ring lend lend your wings I mount I fly oh grave where is thy victory oh death where is thy sting it was as if a delicious spell had been cast upon the congregation which held them bound until the last note of the exquisite voice even the last reverberation of the organ accompaniment had trembled into silence and then there was a movement a flutter a great sigh of relief heaved so to speak as if the pleasure had been too great and nerves and senses were glad to be released from the tension of it the tenor was lightly flushed when he resumed his seat but otherwise his face was as serenely impassive as ever it is some great singer from abroad the people whispered to each other he is used to every kind of success and does not even trouble himself to see if we are pleased he has sung doubtless to gratify some whim of his own such artists are capricious folk to which the answer was long may such whims continue after the service the dean hastened to thank the stranger he shook his hand with emotion and congratulated him upon his marvelous gift may I ask if you are a professional singer the old gentleman said not yet was the answer but I wish to offer myself for the vacant post of tenor in the choir if you are satisfied with my attainments the dean stared at him oh, uh, he stammered in his surprise and then he added something apologetically about references and being obliged to ask a few questions if you have the time to spare I think I can satisfy you now the stranger answered the dean, perceiving that he wished to speak to him alone bowed courteously and requested the applicant to accompany him to the denary the pre-center who had assisted at the interview up to this point now watched them depart and as he did so he pursed up his lips significantly the stranger had sunk in his estimation from the possible rank of a Russian prince to that of a simple singer a considerable drop but the pre-center was a musician and he asserted that the voice was of the finest quality and trained to perfection he wanted to know, however what could bring a man with a fortune like that in his throat to bury himself alive in mourning quest and he ventured to predict that it must be something fishy the stranger had a long private interview with the dean but what transpired there at was never made public it was known, however, that when he left the denary the dean himself accompanied him to the door and there shook hands with him cordially and it was immediately afterward announced that Mr. Jones was to be the new tenor Mr. Jones indeed set mourning quest sarcastically as much Jones as the bishop and the pre-center was sure that the dean had been taken in by a clever imposter which would not have been the case he asserted if the matter had been referred to him as it ought to have been but mourning quest declared that there was no imposition about that voice and as to antecedents why? it was absurd to be too particular when everything else was so entirely satisfactory there happened to be a tiny tenement in the clothes vacant when the new lay clerk began his duties as tenor in the choir and this he took it was a detached house one of a row which faced the apse on the south side of the cathedral one step led down from the road into the little front garden and another from that into the house which was thus two steps below the road in front but was level with the garden at the back the passage ran right through the house the garden door being opposite the front door the kitchen was behind a little sitting room on the right as you entered and on the left were two other rooms when the tenor took the house the one looking into the back garden the other into the front but these two rooms he immediately turned into one by having the dividing wall removed and together they made a long low but comfortably proportioned apartment with a french window at either end the tenor spent all his spare time when he first arrived in decorating this room making work for himself as the people said and indeed that was just what he seemed to be doing for he worked as a man does who feels that he ought to be occupied but he takes no pleasure and finds no relief in any occupation he frescoed the walls and ceiling of his room with admirable taste and skill making it look twice the size by cunning divisions of the pattern on the walls and by the well devised proportions of dado and cornice the dean often went to watch him at his work and sat on a packing case the only article which the room contained at the time by the hour together talking to him a circumstance which taken with the fact that other gentlemen in the neighborhood also called upon him and lingered long on the premises greatly exercised the inquisitive minds of the multitude especially when it was perceived that the tenor instead of being elated by their condescension accepted it as a matter of course and continued always the same sad preoccupied impassive seldom smiling never surprised taking no healthy interest in anything when the painting was finished furniture began to arrive and this was another surprise for the clothes where houses were not adorned with the designs of any one period but were filled with a heterogeneous collection of articles generally aged and remarkably uncouth everything in the tenor's long little room on the contrary even down to the shape of the brass coals guzzle and including the case of the grand piano was in harmony with the color and design of the frescoes on the walls and ceiling the floor which was polished being adorned here and there with rugs which suggested dim reflections of the tint and tone above it was a luxurious apartment but not effeminate the luxury was masculine luxury refined and significant there was no meaningless feminine fripperies about nor was there any evidence of sensuous self-indulgence it was the abode of a cultivated man but of one who was essentially manly with all the fame of this apartment having been noised abroad the pre-center came one day to inspect it there is no need to describe this pre-center one knows exactly what a man must be who calls things fishy he was an ordained clergyman but not at all benevolent neither was he a Christian for he did not love his neighbor as himself and his visit on this occasion was anything but friendly in intention he was determined to know something more about the tenor he said and he meant to question him his theory was that the tenor had been a public singer but had disgraced himself and was unable to appear again in consequence and on this supposition he intended to proceed he found the tenor with his hat in his hand on the point of leaving the house but the pre-center was not delicate about detaining him he walked into the sitting room without waiting to be asked bride impertently into everything and then sat down the tenor meantime had remained standing with his hat in his hand patiently waiting and he still stood but the pre-center did not take the hint you are an opera singer i think you said he remarked as soon as he was seated the tenor looked at him inquiringly or was it concerts he suggested a trifle disconcerted the tenor looked gravely amused it was not the music halls of course the presenter persuasively insinuated well hardly said the tenor fixing his steady eyes upon the man in a way that made him wince i have some business to attend to in the town he added pray make yourself at home so long as it pleases you to remain with which he brushed his hand back over his glossy hair put on his hat and sauntered out leaving his gentle gas to ruminate the interest which the tenor had begun by exciting in the breasts of the quiet inhabitants of morning quest did not diminish all at once as might have been expected he was only a lay clerk to be sure but then he was so utterly unlike any other lay clerk he was always so carefully dressed for one thing and maintained so successfully that suggestion of good breeding which had been their first impression of him was altogether so distinguished in appearance that it was a pleasure to hear strangers exclaim who is that and to be able to surprise them with the off hand rejoiner oh that is only our tenor then he was a stranger from nobody knew where he went by the name of jones which was not believed to be his he had a magnificent voice and he remained in morning quest in an obscure position making nothing of it true he must have means but what after all were the means which he appeared to possess compared with the means which he might be enjoying and further and this was considered the most extraordinary circumstance of all there was his attitude in the cathedral he followed the surfaces devoutly and such a thing as attention let alone devotion on the part of a lay clerk had never been heard of in morning quest there was not even a remote tradition in existence to prepare anybody's mind for such a contingency so that altogether the man was a mystery a mystery however toward which the kindly people were well disposed and no wonder for the tenor's manners were as attractive as his appearance and his ways were not at all mysterious when considered apart from the points already indicated but on the contrary simple in the extreme the ways of one who is kindly courteous and considerate on all occasions paying proper respect to every man and also rigorously exacting from each the respect that was due to himself he would always see people who called upon him and though it was believed that he would rather not have been disturbed he was too much of a gentleman to show it in fact it was agreed that he was a gentleman before everything and not at all like a jones and therefore acting on some instinctive perception of the fitness of things the citizens dropped the offensive appellation all together and called him the tenor simply as they might have called him the Duke there was at first a good deal of wonder as to where the money came from with which he furnished his little house in the clothes how did he manage to buy so many books and pictures and how could he afford to give so much away in charity for it was no one beyond a doubt that he had on more than one occasion relieved the families of the other singers and had relieved them too in a most substantial way it was evident that he had means but if he had means why did he sing in the choir this question was the alpha and omega of ale that concerned him it was asked everywhere and by everybody but no one could answer it save the dean who was not to be approached upon the subject finally however people grew tired of forming conjectures which were neither denied nor affirmed and becoming accustomed to the tenor's presence amongst them they ceased as a regular thing to discuss his affairs but this was not the case until a story had been circulated about him which was generally believed although nobody knew from whence it emanated he was according to the story the illegitimate son of an actress and some great in the sense of having a title man from whom he inherited his aristocratic appearance and a small income his mother it was said had been an opera singer which accounted for his voice and shame they declared on the discovery of his birth had driven him into his present retirement and caused him to renounce the world as this story accounted in the most satisfactory manner for all that was strange about him it was regarded in every respect as authentic and after the wickedness of titled men and the frailty of acting women had been freely commented upon with much sage shaking of the head as if only titled men were wicked and acting women frail and morning quest itself was a saintly city innocent of any deed not strictly in accordance with its word the matter was allowed to drop and the tenor was left to go ganging his aim gate which he would have done in any case probably but which he continued to do in a quiet earnest regular way that one him a friendly feeling from most men and more than a share of sympathy and attention from the good women who had not self love enough to be wounded by his indifference unsophisticated little maidens just budding into womanhood would peep after him shyly from the old-fashioned houses sometimes and would feel in their tender little hearts a gentle pity for one who was so handsome and so unfortunate like the true hero of romance he was believed by them to be supremely unhappy and all they asked was to be allowed to comfort him but he noticed none of them and so the little maidens flushed at first for having thought of him at all and then forgot him for somebody else or if the somebody else did not come quickly they began to regard the tenor with a totally different feeling almost as if he had wronged them in some way but the tenor continued to ganging his aim gate and was alike indifferent to their pity or their spite his little house like most of those in the clothes had an old walled garden behind it a large garden for the size of the house and so sheltered that many things grew there which would not grow elsewhere in the open the house itself was picturesque on that side having a bright south aspect favorable to the growth of creepers with which it was thickly covered jasmine climatis honeysuckle and roses exceeding each other in their regular order and the garden was always full of flowers it was here that the tenor spent much of his time hard at work he had evidently a passion for flowers and was a most successful gardener the conservatory and orchid house which he had built soon after his arrival being always lovely even in the winter the building of these two houses was considered an extravagance and it caused the clothes to point the finger at him for a while but when someone declared that the unfortunate tenor had probably inherited much of his mother's recklessness and was not therefore responsible as other people were the suggestion was considered reasonable enough and from that time forward the tenor's expensive tastes were held to be separate matter for commiservation the truth being that morning quest could not bear to be on bad terms with the tenor and would have found an excuse for him had he outraged the best preserved prejudices it ever held it was only necessary to glance at the tenor's books to perceive that he was a student many valuable works and many languages were scattered about his house and it was a well-known fact that he spent much of his leisure in pouring over these to what end his studies might be directed no one of course could tell but it was assumed that he had acquired a respectable amount of knowledge from the fact that the dean himself a learned man delighted not a little in his conversation when this fact had been fully ascertained by careful observation smoldering curiosity blazed up afresh and surmise was once more busy with the tenor's name did he write for the magazines they wondered it seemed likely enough for it was notorious in morning quest that people who did that kind of thing were not like the rest of the world and it soon came to pass that certain articles relating to various things such as drainage deep sea fishery the coinage of Greece competitive examinations in china and essays on other subjects likely to interest an artistic man or confidently assumed to be his and the shy little girls in the old-fashioned houses who never looked at anything in the magazines but the pictures and the poetry were want to credit him with certain passionate lays from which they got quite new ideas of eyes and dies and sighs and other striking rhymes to the musical meters which made their little hearts throb pleasurably but nothing more definite was no one of the tenor's labors than was no one of anything else concerning him and fortunately for himself there was that in his bearing which preserved him from being personally annoyed by impertinent curiosity so that he was most probably pretty nearly the only person in the city who had no idea of the interest he himself excited two years had glided by in great apparent tranquility since the day the tenor entered the choir two years during which he had trodden the path of life so uprightly and so purely that not even a suspicion of wrongdoing was ever breathed against him by gentle or simple good or bad it was a calm and passionless existence that he led the life of an ascetic but of a cultivated ascetic devoted to the highest intellectual pursuits and actuated by the belief that their value consisted not in their market price nor in the amount of attention called fame which they might attract to himself but in the pleasure they gave and in the good they did many a weary man whose life had been wasted in the toil of bringing himself before the world when he had reached the summit of his ambition might well have envied the tenor his placid countenance an untroubled lot some might even have perceived that there was more of poetry than of commonplace in the quiet life which glided on so evenly soothed by the cathedral services cheered by the chime and guarded by the shadow of its gray protecting walls the tenors cheeks had been haggard and worn when he first settled in morning quest and dark circles round his eyes had be tokened sleepless nights and the ceaseless gnawing ache of a great grief but all that had passed as the days were on giving place to a settled expression of peace peace tinged with a certain sadness but dignified by resignation gradually too although he remained slender he ceased to be emaciated and his cheeks assumed a healthy hue that very well became them end of book four chapter one