 Chapter forty of the shuttle, the Slippery-Vox recording is in the public domain, the shuttle by Francis Hodgson Burnett, Chapter forty, don't go on with this. Of these things, as of others, she had come to her solitude to think. She looked out over the marshes, scarcely seeing the wandering or resting sheep, scarcely hearing the crying plover, because so much seemed to confront her, and she must look at all well in the face. She had fulfilled the promise she had made to herself as a child. She had come in search of Rosie. She had found her as simple and loving of heart as she had ever been. The most painful discoveries she had made had been concealed from her mother until their aspect was modified. Mrs. Vanderpool need now feel no shock at the sight of the restored Rosie. Lady Anstruthers had been still young enough to respond both physically and mentally to love companionship, agreeable luxuries, and stimulating interests. But for Nigel's antagonism there was now no reason why she should not be taken home for a visit to her family and her long-earned for New York, no reason why her father and mother should not come to Stornham and thus establish the customary social relations between their daughters' home and their own. That this seemed out of the question was owing to the fact that at the outset of his married life Sir Nigel had allowed himself to commit errors in tactics. A perverse egotism, not wholly normal in its ranker, had led him into deeds which he had begun to suspect of having cost him too much even before Betty herself had pointed out to him their own business like in discretion. He had done things he could not undo, and now to his mind his only resource was to treat them boldly as having been the proper results of decision founded on sound judgment which he had no desire to excuse. A sufficiently arrogant loftiness of bearing would he hoped carry him through the matter. This Betty herself had guessed, but she had not realised that this loftiness of attitude was in danger of losing some of its effectiveness through his being increasingly stung and spurred by circumstances and feelings connected with herself, which were at once exasperating and at times almost overpowering. When in his mingle dislike and admiration he had begun to study his sister-in-law, and the half-amused weaving of the small plots which would make things sufficiently unpleasant to be used as factors in her removal from the scene if necessary, he had not calculated to have her so remotely on the chance of that madness besetting him which usually besets men only in their youth. He had imagined no other results to himself than a subtly exciting private entertainment such as would give spice to the dullness of virtuous life in the country. But despite himself and his intentions he had found the situation alter. His first uncertainty of himself had risen at the Dunham ball when he had suddenly realised that he was detesting men who, being young and free, were at liberty to pay gallant court to the new beauty. Perhaps the most disturbing thing to him had been his consciousness of his sudden leap of antagonism toward Mount Dunstan, who despite his obvious lack of chance somehow especially roused in him the rage of warring male instinct. There had been admissions he had been forced at length to make to himself. Could not it appear live in the house with a splendid creature like this one, with her brilliant eyes, her beauty of line and movement, before you every hour, her bloom, her proud fineness holding themselves wholly in their own keeping, without there being the devil to pay. Lately he had sometimes gone hot and cold in realising that, having once told himself that he might choose to decide to get rid of her, he now knew that the mere thought of her sailing away of her own choice was maddening to him. There was the devil to pay. It sometimes brought back to him that hideous shakiness of nerve which had been a feature of his illness when he had been on the Riviera with Teresita. Of all this, Betty knew only the outward signs which taken at their exterior significance were detestable enough, and drove her hard as she mentally dwelt on them in connection with other things. How easy if she stood alone to defy his evil insolence to do its worst and leaving the place at an hour's notice to stale away to protection, or if she chose to remain in England, to surround herself with the bodyguard of the people in whose eyes his disrepute relegated a man such as Nigel Anstruthers to powerless non-entity. Alone she could have smiled and turned her back upon him. But she was here to take care of Rosie. She occupied a position something like that of a woman who remains with a man and endures outrage because she cannot leave her child. That thought in itself brought Utrid to her mind. There was Utrid to be considered as well as his mother. Utrid's love for and faith in her were deep and passionate things. He fed on her tenderness for him and had grown stronger because he spent hours of each day talking, reading, and driving with her. The simple truth was that neither she nor Rosalie could desert Utrid, and so long as Nigel managed cleverly enough the law would give the boy to his father. You are obliged to prove things, you know, in a court of law, he had said as if with casual amiability on a certain occasion. Taking things is the devil. People lose their tempers and rush into rows which end in lawsuits and then find they can prove nothing. If I were a villain, slightly showing his teeth in an agreeable smile, instead of a man of blameless life, I should go in only for that branch of my profession which could be exercised without leaving stupid evidence behind. Since his return to Stornham the outward decorum of his own conduct had entertained him, and he had kept it up with an increasing appreciation of its usefulness in the present situation. What so ever happened in the end, it was part of discretion to present to the rural world about him an appearance of upright behaviour. He had even found it amusing to go to church, and also to occasionally make amiable calls at the vicarage. It was not difficult at such times to refer delicately to his regret that domestic discomfort had led him into the error of remaining much away from Stornham. He knew that he had been even rather touching in his expression of interest in the future of his son and the necessity of the boys being protected from uncontrolled hysteric influences, and in the years of Rosalie's unprotected wretchedness he had taken excellent care that no stupid evidence should be exposed to view. Of all this, Betty was thinking and summing up definitely point after point. Fair was the wise and practical course of defence. The most unthinkable thing was that one could find oneself in a position in which action seemed inhibited. What could one do? Descend for her father would surely end the matter, but at what cost to Rosie, to Utreg, to Foliott, before whom the fair path to dignified security had so newly opened itself? What would be the effect of sudden confusion, anguish and public humiliation upon Rosalie's carefully rebuilt health and strength upon her mother's new hope and happiness? At moments it seemed as if almost all that had been done might be undone. She was beset by such a moment now, and felt for the time at least like a creature tied hand and foot while in full strength. Certainly she was not prepared for the event which happened. Roland stiffened his ears, and beginning a rumbling growl, ended it suddenly, realizing it had unnecessary precaution. He knew the man walking up the incline of the mound from the side behind them. So did Betty know him. It was Sir Nigel looking rather glowering and pale and walking slowly. He had discovered where she had meant to take refuge, and had probably ridden to some point where he could leave his horse and follow her at the expense of taking a short cut which saved walking. As he climbed the mound to join her, Betty rose to her feet. My dear girl, he said, don't get up as if you meant to go away. It has cost me some exertion to find you. It will not cost you any exertion to lose me, was her lied answer. I am going away." He had reached her and stood still before her with scarcely a yards distance between them. He was slightly out of breath and even a trifle livid. He leaned on his stick, and his look at her combined leaping bad temper with something deeper. Look here, he broke out. Why do you make such a point of treating me like the devil? Betty felt her heart give a hastened beat, not of fear, but of repulsion. This was the mood and manner which subjugated Rosalie. He had so raised his voice that two men in the distance, who might be either labourers or sportsmen, hearing its high tone glanced curiously towards them. Why do you ask me a question which is totally absurd, she said? It is not absurd, he answered. I am speaking of facts, and I intend to come to some understanding about them. After a reply, after meeting his look a few seconds, she simply turned her back and began to walk away. He followed and overtook her. I shall go with you, and I shall say what I want to say, he persisted. If you hasten your pace, I shall hasten mine. I cannot exactly see you running away from me across the marsh, screaming. You wouldn't care to be rescued by those men over there who are watching us. I should explain myself to them in terms neither you nor Rosalie would enjoy. There! I knew Rosalie's name would pull you up. Good God! I wish I were a weak fool with a magnificent creature protecting me at all risks. If she had not had blood and fire in her veins, she might have found it easy to answer calmly. But she had both, and both, leapt and beat furiously for a few seconds. It was only human that it should be so. But she was more than a passionate girl of high and trenchant spirit, and she had learned, even in the days at the French school, what he had never been able to learn in his life—self-control. She held herself in as she would have held in a horse of too great fire and action. She was actually able to look as the first Reuben van der Poel would have looked at her capital of resource, but it meant taut holding of the reins. "'Will you tell me,' she said, stopping, what it is you want? "'I want to talk to you. I want to tell you truths you would rather be told here than on the high road where people are passing or at Stornham where the servants would over here and Rosalie be thrown into hysterics. You will not run screaming across the marsh, because I should run screaming after you, and we should both look silly. Here is a rather scraggly tree. Will you sit on the mound near it, for Rosalie's sake?' "'I will not sit down,' replied Betty, but I will listen, because it is not a bad idea that I should understand you. But to begin with I will tell you something.' She stopped beneath the tree and stood with her back against its trunk. I pick up things by noticing people closely, and I have realized that all your life you have counted upon getting your own way, because you saw that people, especially women, have a horror of public scenes, and will submit to almost anything to avoid them. That is true very often, but not always. Her eyes, which were well-opened, were quite the blue of steel, and rested directly upon him. I, for instance, would let you make a scene with me anywhere you chose, in Barn Street, in Piccadilly, on the steps of Buckingham Palace as I was getting out of my carriage to attend a drawing-room, and you would gain nothing you wanted by it, nothing. You may place entire confidence in that statement." He stared back at her, momentarily half-magnetized, and then broke forth into a harsh, half-laugh. You were so damned handsome that nothing else matters, I'm hanged if it does. And the words were an exclamation. He drew still nearer to her, speaking with a sort of savagery. Can't you see that you could do what you pleased with me? You are too magnificent a thing for a man to withstand. I have lost my head and gone to the devil through you. That's what I came to say. In the few seconds of silence that followed, his breath came quickly again, and he was even paler than before. You came to me to say that, Ask Betty. Yes, to say it before you drove me to other things. Her gaze was for the moment even slightly wondering. He presented the curious picture of a cynical man of the world for the time being ruled and impelled only by the most primitive instincts. To a clear-headed modern young woman of the most powerful class, he, her sister's husband, was making threatening love as if he were a savage chief and sheer savage beauty of his tribe. All that concerned him was that he should speak and she should hear, that he should show her he was the stronger of the two. Are you quite mad, she said? Not quite, he answered, only three parts, but I am beyond my own control. That is the best proof of what has happened to me. You are an arrogant piece, and you would defy me if you stood alone, but you don't. And by the Lord I have reached a point where I will make use of every lever I can lay my hand on, yourself, Rosalie, Utrid, Follyott, the whole lot of you. The thing which was hardest upon her was her knowledge of her own strength, of what she might have allowed herself of flaming words and instant action, but for the memory of Rosie's ghastly little face as it had looked when she cried out, You must not think of me, Betty, go home, go home. She held the white desperation of it before her mental vision and answered him even with a certain interested deliberateness. Do you know, she inquired, that you are talking to me as though you were the villain in the melodrama? There is an advantage in that, he answered, with an unholy smile. If you repeat what I say, people will only think you are indulging in hysterical exaggeration. They don't believe in the existence of melodrama in these days. The cynical absolute knowledge of this revealed so much that nerve was required to face it with steadiness. True, she commented, now I think I understand. No, you don't, he burst forth. You have spent your life standing on a golden pedestal, being cow-towed to, and you imagine yourself immune from difficulties because you think you can pay your way out of anything, but you will find that you cannot pay your way out of this, or rather, you cannot pay Rosalie's way out of it. I shall not try, go on, said the girl. What I do not understand, you must explain to me. Don't leave anything unsaid. Good God, what a woman you are, he cried out bitterly. He had never seen such beauty in his life as he saw in her as she stood with her straight young body flat against the tree. It was not a matter of deep colour of eye, or high spirit of profile, but of something which burned him. Still as she was, she looked like a flame. She made him feel old and body-worn, and all the more senselessly furious. I believe you hate me, he raged, and I may thank my wife for that. Then he lost himself entirely. Why can't you behave well to me? If you will behave well to me, Rosalie, she'll go her own way, if you even looked at me as you look at other men, but you do not. There is always something under your lashes which watches me as if I were a wild beast you were studying. Don't fancy yourself adopters, I am not your man. I swear to you that you don't know what you're dealing with. I swear to you that if you play this game with me, I will drag you too down if I drag myself with you. I have nothing much to lose. You and your sister have everything." Go on, Bitty said briefly. Go on. Yes, I will go on. Rosalie and Folly at I hold in the hollow of my hand. As for you, do you know that people are beginning to discuss you? Gossip is easily stirred in the country where people are so bored that they chatter in self-defence. I have been considered a bad lot. I have become curiously attached to my sister-in-law. I am seen hanging about her, hanging over her as we ride or walk alone together. An American young woman is not like an English girl. She is used to seeing the marriage ceremony juggled with. There's a trifle of prejudice against such young women when they are too rich and too handsome. Don't look at me like that, he burst forth with maddened sharpness. I won't have it." The girl was regarding him with the expression he most resented, the reflection of a normal person watching an abnormal one, and studying his abnormality. Do you know that you were raving, she said with quiet curiosity, raving? Suddenly he sat down on the low mound near him, and as he touched his forehead with his handkerchief she saw that his hand actually shook. Yes, he answered panting, but where, my ravings, they mean what they say. You do yourself an injury when you give way to them, steadily, even with a touch of slow significance, a physical injury. I have noticed that more than once. He sprang to his feet again. Every drop of blood left his face. For a second he looked as if he would strike her. His arm actually flung itself out, and fell. You devil, he gasped, you count on that, you she-devil! She left her tree and stood before him. Listen to me, she said. You intimate that you have been laying maledramatic plots against me which will injure my good name. That is rubbish. Let us leave it at that. You threaten that you will break Rosie's heart and take her child from her. You say also that you will wound and hurt my mother to her death and do your worst to ruin an honest man. And by God I will, he raged, and you cannot stop me if I do not know whether I can stop you or not, though you may be sure I will try, she interrupted him. But that is not what I was going to say. She drew a step nearer, and there was something in the intensity of her look which fascinated and held him for a moment. She was curiously grave. Nigel, I believe in certain things you do not believe in. I believe black thoughts breed black ills in those who think them. It is not a new idea. There is an old oriental proverb which says, curses like chickens come home to roost. I believe also that the worst, the very worst, cannot be done to those who think steadily, steadily, only of the best. To you that is merely superstition to be laughed at. That is a matter of opinion. But don't go on with this thing. Don't go on with it. Stop and think it over. He stared at her furiously, tried to laugh outright and failed because a look in her eyes was so odd in its strength and stillness. You think you can lay some weird spell upon me, he jeered sardonically. No, I don't, she answered. I could not, if I would. It's no affair of mine. It's your affair only, and there is nothing weird about it. Don't go on, I tell you. Think better of it." She turned about without further speech and walked away from him with light swiftness over the marsh. Oddly enough he did not even attempt to follow her. He felt a little weak, perhaps because a certain thing she had said had brought back to him a familiar touch of the horrors. She had the eyes of a falcon under the odd soft shade of the extraordinary lashes. She had seen what he thought no one but himself had realised. Having watched her a treating figure for a few seconds, he sat down as suddenly as before on the mound near the tree. Oh, damn her, he said, his damp forehead on his hands. Damn the whole universe! When Betty and Rowland reached Stornham, the wickerwork pony shays from the vicarage stood before the stone entrance steps. The drawing-room door was open, and Mrs. Brent was standing near it, saying some last words to Lady Anstrother's before leaving the house after a visit evidently made with an object. This Betty gathered from the solemnity of her manner. Betty, said Lady Anstrother's, catching sight of her, do come in for a moment. When Betty entered, both her sister and Mrs. Brent looked at her questioningly. You look a little pale and tired, Miss Vanderpool, Mrs. Brent said, rather as if in haste to be the first to speak. I hope you're not at all unwell. We need all our strength just now. I have brought the most painful news. Malignant typhoid fever has broken out among the hop-pickers on the Mount Dunstan estate. Some poor creature was evidently sickening for it when he came from London. Three people died last night. CHAPTER 41 The Nigel's face was not a good thing to see when he appeared at the dinner-table in the evening, as he took his seat the two footmen glanced quickly at each other, and the butler at the side-board furtively thrust out his underlip. Not a man or woman in the household but had learned the signal to noting the moment when no service would please, no word or movement be unobjectionable. Lady Anstler's face unconsciously assumed its propitiatory expression, and she glanced at her sister more than once when Betty was unaware that she did so. Until the soup had been removed, her Nigel scarcely spoke, merely making curt replies to any casual remark. This was one of his simple and most engaging methods of at once enjoying an ill-humour and making his wife feel that she was in some way to blame for it. Mark Dunstan is in a ducidly unpleasant position, he condescended at last. I should not care to stand in his shoes. He had not returned to the court until late in the afternoon, but having heard in the village the rumour of the outbreak of fever, he had made inquiries and gathered detail. You are thinking of the outbreak of typhoid among the hop-pickers, said Lady Anstler's others. Mrs. Brent thinks it threatens to be very serious. In an epidemic without a doubt, he answered, in a wretched unsanitary place like Dunstan Village the wretches will die like flies. What will be done? inquired Betty. He gave her one of the unpleasant personal glances and laughed erisively. Done! The county authorities, who call themselves guardians, will be frightened at death, and will potter about and fuss like old women, and profess to examine and protect and lay restrictions. But every one will manage to keep at a discreet distance, and the thing will run right and do its worst. As far as one can see there seems no reason why the whole place should not be swept away. No doubt Mount Dunstan has wisely taken to his heels already. I think that on the contrary there would be much doubt of that, Betty said. He would stay and do what he could. Sir Nigel shrugged his shoulders. Would he? I think you'll find he would not. Mrs. Brent tells me, rosally broke in somewhat hurriedly, that the huts for the hoppers are in the worst possible condition. They are so dilapidated that the rain pours into them. There is no proper shelter for the people who are ill, and Lord Mount Dunstan cannot afford to take care of them. But he will, he will, broke forth Betty. Her head lifted itself, and she spoke almost as if through her small, shut teeth. A wave of intense belief, high, proud and obstinate, swept through her. It was a feeling so strong and vibrant that she felt as if Mount Dunstan himself must be reached and upborn by it, as if he himself must hear her. Rosally looked at her half startled, and for the moment held fascinated by the sudden force rising in her, and by the splendid spark of light under her lids. She was reminded of the fierce little Betty of long ago, with her delicate, indomitable small face, and the spirit which even at nine years old had somehow seemed so strong and strictly keen of sight that one had known it might always be trusted. Actually in one way she had not changed, she saw the truth of things. The next instant, however, inadvertently glancing towards her husband, she caught her breath quickly. Across his heavy-featured face had shot the sudden gleam of a new expression. It was as if he had at the moment recognized something which filled him with a rush of fury he himself was not prepared for. That he did not wish it to be seen, she knew by his manner. There was a brief silence in which it passed away. He spoke after it with disagreeable precision. He has had an enormous effect on you, that man, he said to Betty. He spoke clearly so that she might have the pleasure of being certain that the men's servants heard. They were close to the table, handing fruit, professing to be automatons, eyes down, faces expressing nothing, but as quick of hearing as it is said that blind men are. He knew that if he had been in her place and a thing as insultingly significant had been said to him he should promptly have hurled the nearest object, plate, wine-glass or decanter, in the face of the speaker. He knew, too, that women cannot hold projectiles without looking like varagos and fools. The weakly feminine might burst into tears or into a silly rage and leave the table. There was a distinct breath-space of pause, and Betty, cutting a cluster from a bunch of hot-house grapes presented by the footman at her side, answered as clearly as he had spoken himself. He is strong enough to produce an effect on any one, she said. I think you feel that yourself. He is a man who will not be beaten in the end. Fortune will give him some good thing. He is a fellow who knows well enough on which hand of him good things lie, he said. He will take all that offers itself. Why not, Betty said impartially. There must be no riding or driving in the neighbourhood of the place, he said next, I will have no risks run. He turned and addressed the butler. Jennings tell the servants that those are my orders. He sat over his wine but a short time that evening, and when he joined his wife and sister-in-law in the drawing-room he went at once to Betty. In fact, he was in the condition when a man cannot keep away from a woman, but must invent some reason for reaching her whether it is fatuous or plausible. What I said to Jennings was an order to you as well as to the people below stairs. I know you're particularly fond of riding in the direction of Mount Dunstan. You are in my care so long as you are in my house. Orders are not necessary, Betty replied. The day is past when one rushed to smooth pillows and give the wrong medicine when one's friends were ill. If one is not a properly trained nurse it is riser not to risk being very much in the way. He spoke over her shoulder, dropping his voice, though Lady Anstra the sat apart, appearing to read. Don't think I'm full enough not to understand. You've kept yourself under magnificent control, but a woman passionately in love cannot keep a certain look out of her eyes. He was standing on the hearth. Betty swung herself lightly round, facing him squarely. Her full look was splendid. If it is there, let it stay, she said. I would not keep it out of my eyes if I could, and you are right. I could not if I would. If it is there, if it is, let it stay. The daring, throbbing human truth of her made his brain whirl. To a man young and clean and fit to count as in the lists, to have her to say the thing of a rival would have been hard enough, but base the generate and of the world behind her day to hear it while frenzied for her was intolerable. And it was Mount Dunstan she bore herself so highly for. Whether melodrama is out of date or not there are occasionally some fine melodramatic touches in the enmities of today. You think you will reach him, he persisted, you think you will help him in some way, you will not let the thing alone. Excuse my mentioning that whatsoever I take the liberty of doing will encroach on no right of yours, she said. But alone in her room after she went upstairs the face reflecting itself in the mirror was pale and its black brows were drawn together. She sat down at the dressing-table and seeing the paled face drew the black brows closer confronting a complicating truth. If I were free to take Rosalie and Utrid home tomorrow, she thought, I could not bear to go, I should suffer too much. She was suffering now. The strong longing in her heart was like a physical pain. No word or look of this one man had given her proof that his thoughts turned to her, and yet it was intolerable, intolerable, that in his hour of stress and need there was wholly a part as if worlds rolled between them. At any dire moment it was mere nature that she should give herself in help and support. If on the night at sea when they had first spoken to each other, the ship had gone down, she knew that they too, strangers though they were, would have worked side by side among the frantic people and have been among the lost to take to the boats. How did she know? Only because he being he and she being she, it must have been so in accordance with the law's ruling entities, and now he stood facing a calamity almost as terrible, and she with full hands sat still. She had seen the hop pickers huts and had recognized their condition, mere brick sheds in which the pickers slept upon bundles of hay or straw in their best days, in their decay they did not even provide shelter. In fine weather the hop-gatherers slept well enough in them cooking their food in gypsy fashion in the open. When the rain descended it must run down walls and drip through the holes in the roofs in streams which would soak clothes in bedding. The worst that Nigel and Mrs. Brent had implied was true. Illness of any order under such circumstances would have small chance of recovery, but malignant typhoid without shelter, without proper nourishment or nursing, had not one chance in a million. And he, this one man, stood alone in the midst of the tragedy responsible and helpless. He would feel himself responsible as she herself would if she were in his place. She was conscious that suddenly the event of the afternoon the interview upon the marshes had receded until it had become an almost unmeaning incident. What did the degenerate melodramatic folly matter? She had restlessly left her chair before the dressing table and was walking to and fro. She paused and stood looking down at the carpet though she scarcely saw it. Nothing matters but one thing, one person, she owned to herself aloud. I suppose it is always like this. Rosie, who tried even father and mother, everyone seems less near than they were. It is too strong, too strong. It is, the words dropped slowly from her lips, the strongest thing in the world. She lifted her face and threw out her hands a lovely young half sad smile curling the deep corners of her mouth. Sometimes one feels so disdained, she said, so disdained with all one's power. Perhaps I'm an unwanted thing. But even in this case there were aids one might make an effort to give. She went to her writing-table and sat thinking for some time. Afterward she began to write letters. Three or four were addressed to London. One was to Mr. Penzance. Mount Dunstan and his vicar were walking through the village to the vicarage. They had been to the hot pickers huts to see the people who were ill of the fever. Both of them noticed that cottage doors and windows were shut, and that here and there alarmed faces looked out from behind lattice panes. They're in a panic of fear, Mount Dunstan said, and by way of safeguard they shut out every breath of air and stifle in doors. Something must be done. Catching the eye of a woman who was peering over her short white dimedy blind, he beckoned to her authoritatively. She came to the door and hesitated there, curtsying nervously. Mount Dunstan spoke to her across the hedge. You need not come out to me, Mrs. Binner. You may stay where you are, he said. Are you obeying the orders given by the guardians? Yes, my lord, yes, my lord, with more curtsies. Your health is very much in your own hands, he added. You must keep your cottage and your children cleaner than you have ever kept them before, and you must use the disinfectant I sent you. Keep away from the huts and open your windows. If you don't open them, I shall come and do it for you. Bad air is infection itself, do you understand? Yes, my lord, thank you, lordship. Go in and open your windows now, and tell your neighbours to do the same. If any one is ill, let me know at once. The vicar and I will do our best for every one." By that time curiosity had overcome fear and other cottage doors had opened. Mount Dunstan passed down the row and said a few words to each woman or man who looked out. Questions were asked anxiously, and he answered them. That he was personally unafraid was comfortingly plain, and the mere sight of him was on the whole an unexplainable support. We heard said your lordship was going away, put in a stout mother with a heavy child on her arm, a slight testiness scarcely concealed by respectful good manners. She was a matron with a temper, and that Mount Dunstan should avoid responsibility seemed highly credible. I shall stay where I am, Mount Dunstan answered, my place is here." They believed him, Mount Dunstan, though he was. It could not be said that they were fond of him, but gradually it had been born in upon them that his word was to be relied on, though his manner was unalluring, and they knew he was too poor to do his duty by them or his estate. As he walked away with the vicar, windows were opened, and in one or two untidy cottages a sudden flourishing of mops and brooms began. There was dark trouble in Mount Dunstan's face. In the huts they had left two men stiff on their straw, and two women and a child in a state of collapse. Added to these were others stricken helpless. A number of workers in the hop gardens on realizing the danger threatening them had gathered together bundles and children, and leaving the harvest behind had gone on the tramp again. Those who remained were the weaker or less cautious, or were held by some tie to those who were already ill of the fever. The village doctor was an old man who had spent his blameless life in bringing little cottages into the world, attending their measles and whooping-coffs, and their fathers and grandfathers' romantics. He had never faced a village crisis in the course of his seventy-five years, and was aghast and flurried with fright. These methods remained those of his youth, and were mocked chiefly by readiness to prescribe kalamal in any emergency. A younger and stronger man was needed, as well as a man of more modern training. But even the most brilliant practitioner of the hour could not have provided shelter and nourishment, and without them his skill would have counted as nothing. For three weeks there had been no rain which was a condition of the barometer not likely to last, or ready gray clouds were gathering and obscuring the blueness of the sky. The vicar glanced upwards anxiously. When it comes, he said, there will be a downpour and a persistent one. Yes, Mount Dunstan answered. He had lain awake, thinking throughout the night, how was a man to sleep? It was, as Betty Vanderpool had known it would be. He, who begger though he might be, was the Lord of the land, was the man to face the strait of these poor workers on the land as his own. Some action must be taken. Not action. As he walked by his friend's side from the huts where the dead men lay, it revealed itself that he saw his way. They were going to the vicarage to consult a medical book, but on the way there they passed a part of the park where, through a break in the timber, the huge white, blind-faced house stood on view. Mount Dunstan laid his hand on Mr. Penzance's shoulder and stopped him. Look there, he said, there are weathertight rooms enough. A startled expression showed itself on the vicar's face. For what, he exclaimed, for a hospital, brusquely, I can give them one thing, at least, shelter. It's a very remarkable thing to think of doing, Mr. Penzance said. It is not so remarkable as that labourers on my land should die at my gate, because I cannot give them decent roofs to cover them. There is a roof that will shield them from the weather. They shall be brought to the mount. The vicar was silent a moment, and a flush of sympathy warmed his face. You're quite right, Fergus, he said, entirely right. Let us go to your study and plan how it shall be done," Mount Dunstan said. As they walked toward the vicarage he went on talking. When I lie awake at night there is one thread which always winds itself through my thoughts hot so ever they are. I don't find that I can disentangle it. It connects itself with Ruben S. Vanderpool's daughter. You would know that without my telling you, if you had ever struggled with an insane passion. It is not insane, I repeat, but in Penzance unflinchingly. Thank you, whether you're right or wrong, answered Mount Dunstan, striding by his side. When I am awake she is as much a part of my existence as my breath itself. When I think things over I find that I'm asking myself if her thoughts would be like mine. She is a creature of action. Last night as I lay awake I said to myself, she would do something, what would she do? She would not be held back by fear of comment or convention. She would look about her for the utilizable and she would find it somewhere and use it. I began to sum up the village resources and found nothing until my thoughts led me to my own house. There it stood, empty and useless. If it were hers and she stood in my place she would make it useful. So I decided. You are quite right, Mr. Penzance said again. They spent an hour in his library at the vicarage arranging practical methods for transforming the great ballroom into a sort of hospital ward. It could be done by the removal of pieces of furniture from the many unused bedrooms. There was also the transportation of the patients from the huts to be provided for. But when all this was planned out each found himself looking at the other with an unspoken thought in his mind. Mount Dunstan first expressed it. As far as I can gather the safety of typhoid fever patients depends almost entirely on scientific nursing and the caution with which even liquid nourishment is given. The woman, whose husband died this morning, told me that he had seemed better in the night and had asked for something to eat. She gave him a piece of bread and a slice of cold bacon because he told her he fancied it. I could not explain to her, as she sat sobbing over him, that she had probably killed him. When we have patients in our ward, watch who we feed them on and who will know how to nurse them. They do not know how to nurse each other and the women in the village would not run the risk of undertaking to help us. But even before he had left the house the problem was solved for them. The solving of it lay in the note Miss Vanderpool had written the night before at Stornham. When it was brought to him Mr. Penzance glanced up from certain calculations he was making upon a sheet of note paper. The accumulating difficulty has made him look worn and tired. He opened the note and read it gravely. And then as gravely, though with a change of expression, handed it to Mount Dunstan. Yes, she is a creature of action. She has heard and understood at once, and she has done something. It is immensely practical. It is fine. It is lovable. And do you mind my keeping it, Mount Dunstan asked, after he had read it? Keep it by all means, the vicar answered, it is worth keeping. But it was quite brief. She had heard of the outbreak of fever among the hop-pickers and asked to be allowed to give help to the people who were suffering. They would need prompt aid. She chanced to know something of the requirements of such cases and had written to London for certain supplies which would be sent to them at once. She had also written for nurses who would be needed above all else. Might she ask Mr. Penzance to kindly call upon her for any further assistance required? Tell her we're deeply grateful, Mount Dunstan said, and that she has given us greater help than she knows. Why not answer her note yourself, Penzance suggested? Mount Dunstan shook his head. No, he said shortly. No. CHAPTER 42 Though Dunstan village was cut off by its misfortune from its usual intercourse with its neighbours, in some mystic manner villagers even at twenty miles distance learned all it did and suffered, feared or hoped. They did not hope greatly, the rustic habit of mine tending towards a discouraged outlook and cherishing the drama of impending calamity. As far as Youngford and Marling, inmates of cottages and farmhouses were inclined to think it probable that Dunstan would be swept away, and rumours of spreading death and disaster were popular. Tread, the advanced blacksmith at Stornham, having heard in his bygone better days of the great plague of London, was greatly in demand as a narrator of illuminating anecdotes at the clock in. Among the parties gathered that the large houses Mount Dunstan himself was much talked of. If he had been a popular man he might have become a sort of hero. As he was not popular he was merely a subject for discussion. The fever-stricken patients had been carried in carts to the mount and given beds in the ballroom which had been made into a temporary ward. Nurses and supplies had been sent for from London, and two energetic young doctors had taken the place of old Dr. Fenwick, who had been frightened and overworked into an attack of bronchitis which confined him to his bed. Where the money came from which must be spent every day under such circumstances it was difficult to say. To the simply conservative of mind the idea of filling one's house with dirty east and hoppickers infected with typhoid seemed too radical. Surely he could have done something less extraordinary. Would everybody be expected to turn their houses into hospitals in case of village epidemics now that he had established a president? But there were people who were proved and were warm in their sympathy with him. At the first dinner-party where the matter was made the subject of argument the beautiful Miss Vanderpool, who was present, listened silently to the talk with such brilliant eyes that Lord Dunham, who was in an elderly way her staunch admirer, spoke to her across the table. Tell us what you think of it, Miss Vanderpool, he suggested. She didn't hesitate at all. I like it, she answered in her clear, well-heard voice. I like it better than anything I have ever heard. So do I, said old Lady Allenby shortly. I should never have done it myself, but I like it just as you do. I knew you would, Lady Allenby, said the girl, and you too, Lord Dunham. I like it so much that I shall write and ask if I cannot be of assistance, Lord Dunham answered. Betty was glad to hear this. The quickness of thought prevented her from the error of saying thank you as if the matter were personal to herself. If Mount Dunstan was restive under the obviousness of the fact that help was so sorely needed, he might feel less so if her offer was only one among others. It seems rather the duty of the neighbourhood to show some interest, put in Lady Allenby, I shall write to him myself. He is evidently of a new order of Mount Dunstan. It is to be hoped he won't take the fever himself and die of it. He ought to marry some handsome, well-behaved girl and refund the family. Nigel Hanstother spoke from his side of the table, leaning slightly forward. He won't if he doesn't take better care of himself. He passed me on the road two days ago, riding like a lunatic. He looks frightfully ill, yellow and drawn and lined. He has not lived the life to prepare him for settling down to a fight with typhoid fever he would be done for if he caught the infection. I beg your pardon, said Lord Dunham, with quiet decision. Unpredigious inquiry proves that his life has been entirely respectable. As Lady Allenby says, he seems to be of a new order of Mount Dunstan. No doubt you are right, said Sir Nigel Swarvely. He looked ill, notwithstanding. As to looking ill, remarked Lady Allenby to Lord Dunham, who sat near her. That man looks as if he were going to pieces pretty rapidly himself. An unpredigious inquiry would not prove that his past had nothing to do with it. Betty wondered if her brother-in-law were lying. It was generally safest to argue that he was. But the fever burned high at Mount Dunstan, and she knew by instinct what its owner was giving of the strength of his body and brain. A young unmarried woman cannot go about, however, making anxious inquiries concerning the welfare of a man who has made no advance towards her. She must wait for the chance which brings news. The fever, having ill cared for and habitually ill-fed bodies to work upon, wrought fiercely, despite the energy of the two young doctors and the trained nurses. There were many dark hours in the ballroom wood, hours filled with groans and wild ravings. The floating Terpsichorean goddesses upon the lofty ceiling gazed down with wandering eyes at haggard faces and plucking hands, which sometimes, behind the screen drawn around their beds, ceased to look feverish and grew paler and stiller until they moved no more. But at least none had died through want of shelter and care. The supplies needed came from London each day. Lord Dunham had sent a generous check to the aid of the sufferers, and so also had old Lady Allenby. But Miss Fandipool, consulting medical authorities and hospitals, learned exactly what was required and necessities were forwarded daily in their most easily utilisable form. You generously told me to ask you for anything we found we had required, Mr. Penzance wrote to her in his note of thanks. My dear and kind young lady, you leave nothing to ask for. Our doctors, who are young and enthusiastic, are filled with the light in the completeness of the resources placed in their hands. She had, in fact, gone to London to consult an eminent physician, who was an authority of worldwide reputation. Like the head of the legal firm of Townlinson and Shepard, he had experienced a new sensation in the visit paid him by an undubitably modern young beauty, who wasted no word, and whose eyes, while he answered her amazingly clear questions, were as intelligently intent as those of an ardent and serious young medical student. What a surgical nurse she would have made! It seemed almost a pity that she evidently belonged to a class the members of which are rich enough to undertake the charge of entire epidemics, but who do not usually give themselves to such work, especially when they are young and astonishing in the matter of looks. In addition to the work they did in the ballroom ward, Mount Dunstan and the Vicar found much to do among the villagers. Ignorance and alarm combined to create dangers, even where they might not have been feared. Daily instruction and inspection of the cottages and their inmates was required. The knowledge that they were under control and supervision was a support to the frightened people and prevented their lapsing into careless habits. Also they began to develop among them a secret dependence upon and desire to please his lordship, as the existing circumstances drew him nearer to them, and unconsciously they were attracted and dominated by his strength. The strong man carries his power with him, and when Mount Dunstan entered a cottage and talked to his inmates, the anxious wife or surly depressed husband was conscious of feeling a certain sense of security. It had been a queer enough thing this he had done, bundling the infected hoppers out of their leaking huts and carrying them up to the mount itself for shelter and care. At the most gentle folk generally gave soup or blankets or hospital tickets and left the rest to luck. But gentry way or not a man who did a thing like that would be likely to do other things if they were needed and gave folk a feeling of being safer than ordinary soup and blankets and hospital tickets could make them. But where did the money come from was asked during the first days. Guards and doctors, nurses and medicine, fine brandy and unlimited fowls for broth did not come up from London without being paid for. Pounds and pounds a day must be paid out to get the things that were delivered regular in hampers and boxes. The women talked to one another over their garden palings, the men argued together over their beer at the public house. Was he running into more debt? But even the village knew that Mount Dunstan credit had been exhausted long ago, and there had been no money at the mount within the memory of man, so to speak. One morning the matron with the sharp temper found out the truth, though the outburst of gratitude to Mount Dunstan which resulted in her enlightenment was entirely spontaneous and without intention. Her doubt of his Mount Dunstan blood had grown into a sturdy liking, even for his short speech and his often drawn-down brows. We've got more to thank your lordship for than common help, she said. God almighty knows where we'd all have been but for what you've done, those poor souls you've nursed and fed. I've not done it, you broke in promptly, you're mistaken, I could not have done it, how could I?" Well, exclaimed the matron, frankly, we was wondering where things came from. You might well wonder, have any of you seen Lady Anstra the sister, Miss Vanderpool, ride through the village? She used sometimes to ride this way, if you saw her you'll remember it. An American young lady, in a jaculatory delight, my words, yes, a fine young woman with black hair, that rich they say as millions wouldn't cover it. They won't, grimly. Lord Dunham and Lady Allenby of Dole kindly sent checks to help us, but the American young lady was first in the field. She sent both doctors and nurses and has supplied us with food and medicine every day. As you say, Mrs. Brown, God almighty knows what would have become of us but for what she has done. Mrs. Brown had listened with rather open mouth. She caught her breath heartily as a sort of approving exclamation. God bless her, she broke out, girls, isn't generally like that, their heads is too full of finery. God bless her, American or no American, that's what I say. Mount Dunstan's red-brown eyes looked as if she had pleased him. That's what I say too, he answered, God bless her. There was not a day which passed in which he did not involuntarily say the words to himself again and again. She had been wrong when she had said in her musings that they were as far apart as if worlds rolled between them. Something stronger than sight or speech drew them together. The thread which wove itself through his thoughts grew stronger and stronger. The first day her gifts arrived and he walked about the ballroom directing the placing of hospital cots and hospital aides and comforts, the spirit of her thought and intelligence, the individuality and cleverness of all her methods brought her so vividly before him that it was almost as if she walked by his side and as if they spoke together, as if she said, I have tried to think of everything, I want you to miss nothing, have I helped you, tell me if there is anything more. The thing which moved and stirred him was his knowledge that when he had thought of her she had also been thinking of him or of what deeply concerned him. When he had said to himself, tossing on his pillow, what would she do? He had been planning in such a way as answered his question. Each morning when the day's supplies arrived it was as if he had received a message from her. As the people in the cottages felt the power of his temperament and depended upon him, so also did the patients in the ballroom ward. The feeling had existed from the outset and increased daily. The doctors and nurses told one another that his passing through the room was like the administering of a tonic. Patients who were weak and making no effort were lifted upon the strong wave of his will and carried onward toward the shore of greater courage and strength. Young Dr. Thwaite met him when he came in one morning and spoke in a low voice. There's a young man behind the screen there who's very low, he said. He's had an internal hemorrhage towards morning and has lost his pluck. He has a wife and three children. We've been doing our best for him with hot water-bottles and stimulants, but he has not the courage to help us. You have an extraordinary effect on them all, Lord Mount Dunstan. When they're depressed they always ask when you're coming in, and this man, Patten, his name is, has asked for you several times. Upon my word I believe you might set him going again. Mount Dunstan walked to the bed and, going behind the screen, stood looking down at the young fellow, lying, breathing pantingly. His eyes were closed as he laboured, and his pinched white nostrils threw themselves in and puffed out at each breath. A nurse on the other side of the cot had just surrounded him with fresh hot water-bottles. Suddenly the sunken eyelids flew open and the eyes met Mount Dunstan's in imploring anxiousness. Here I am, Patten, Mount Dunstan said, you need not speak. But he must speak. Here was the strength his sinking soul had longed for. Crawl back, going fast, my lord, he panted. Mount Dunstan made a sign to the nurse who gave him a chair. He sat down close to the bed and took the bloodless hand in his own. No, he said, you're not going, you'll stay here, I'll see to that. The poor fellow smiled wanly. Faye Guernings had led him sometimes in the past to wander into chapels or stop and listen to street-preachers, and orthodox platitudes came back to him. God's will! he trailed out. It's nothing of the sort, it's God's will that you pull yourself together. A man with a wife and three children has no right to slip out. A yearning look flickered in the lad's eyes. He was scarcely more than a lad having married at seventeen and had a child each year. She's a good girl. Keep that in your mind while you fight this out, said Mount Dunstan. Say it over to yourself each time you feel yourself letting go. Hold on to it. I'm going to fight it out with you. I shall sit here and take care of you all day, all night if necessary. The doctor and the nurse will tell me what to do. Your hand is warmer already, shut your eyes. He did not leave the bedside until the middle of the night. By that time the worst was over. He had acted throughout the hours under the direction of nurse and doctor. No one but himself had touched the patient. When Patton's eyes were open they rested on him with a weird growing belief. He begged his lordship to hold his hand and was uneasy when he laid it down. Keeps me up, he whispered. He pours something into them, vigor, magnetic power, life, is like a charged battery, Dr. Thwait said to his co-workers. He sat down by Patton just in time. It sets one to thinking. Having saved Patton he must save others. When a man or woman sank or had increased fever they believed that he alone could give them help. In delirium patients cried out for him. He found himself doing hard work, but he did not flinch from it. The adoration for him became a sort of passion. Haggered faces lighted up into life at the sound of his footstep and heavy heads turned longingly on their pillows as he passed by. In the winter days to come there would be many an hour's talk in East End courts and alleys of the queer time when a score or more of them had lain in the great room with the dancing and floating goddesses looking down at them from the high painted ceiling and the swell who was a lord walking about among them working for them as the nurses did and sitting by some of them through awful hours, sometimes holding burning or slackening and chilling hands with a grip whose steadiness seemed to hold them back from the brink of the abyss they were slipping into. The mere ignorantly childish desire to do his prowess credit and to play him fair saved more than one man or woman from going out with the tide. It is the first time in my life that I have fairly countered among men. It is the first time I have known human affection other than yours, Penzance. They want me, these people, they are better for the sight of me. It's a new experience and it's good for a man's soul," he said. CHAPTER 43 Betty walked much alone upon the marshes with Rowland at her side. At interval she heard from Mr. Penzance, but his notes were necessarily brief, and at other time she could only rely upon report for news of what was occurring at Mount Dunstan. Lord Mount Dunstan's almost military supervision now often command over his villagers had certainly saved them from the horrors of an uncontrollable epidemic. His decision and energy had filled the alarmed guardians with respect, and this respect had begun to be shared by many other persons. A man as prompt in action and as faithful to such responsibilities as many men might have found plausible reasons enough for shirking inevitably assumed a certain dignity of aspect when all was said and done. Lord Dunham was most clear in his expressions of opinion concerning him. Lady Ellen B. of Dole made a practice of speaking of him in public frequently, always with admiring approval, and in that final manner of hers to whose authority her neighbours had so long submitted. It began to be accepted as a fact that he was a new development of his race, as her ladyship had put it, a new order of Mount Dunstan. The story of his power over the stricken people and of their passionate affection and admiration for him was one likely to spread far and be immensely popular. The drama of certain incidents appealed greatly to the rustic mind, and by cottage firesides he was represented with rapturous awe as raising men, women and children from the dead by the mere miracle of touch. Mrs. Weldon and old Doby reveled in thrilling, almost biblical versions of current anecdotes when Betty paid her visits to them. It's like the scripture what he'd done for that young man as the last breath had gone out of him, and him lying stiffen in fast. Young man arise, he says, the Lord Almighty calls, you've got a young wife and three children to take care of, take up your bed and walk. Not as he wanted him to carry his bed anywheres, but it was a manner of speaking. And up the young man got, in a sensible way, said old Mrs. Weldon frankly, for the Lord to look at it, for I am my same, as if I was struck down for it, though I suppose it's only my sinful ignorance, that there's times when the Lord seems to think no more of sweep and away a steady eighteen shillings a week, and perhaps seven in family and one at the breast, and another on the way, than as if it were nothing. But lightly enough, eighteen shillings a week, and confinements does seem paltry to the maker of heaven and earth. But to the girl walking over the marshland the humanness of the things she heard gave to her the sense of nearness, of being almost within sight and sound, which Mount Dunston himself had felt when each day was filled with the result of her thought of the needs of the poor souls thrown by fate into his hands. In these days, after listening to old Mrs. Weldon's anecdotes, through which she gathered the simpler truth of things, Betty was able to construct for herself a less scriptural version of what she had heard. She was glad, glad in his sitting by a bedside and holding a hand which lay in his, hot or cold, but always trusting to something which his strong body and strong soul gave without stint. There would be no restraint there. Yes, he was kind, kind, kind, with the kindness a woman loves, and which she of all women loved most. Sometimes she would sit upon some mound, and while her eyes seemed to rest on the yellowing marsh and its birds and pools, they saw other things, and their colour grew deep and dark as the marsh water between the rushes. The time was pressing when a change in her life must come. She frequently asked herself if what she saw in Nigel Anstrother's face was the normal thinking of a sane man which he himself could control. There had been moments when she had seriously doubted it. He was haggard, ageing, and restless. Sometimes he, always as if by chance, followed her as she went from one room to another, and would seat himself and fix his miserable eyes upon her for so long a time that it seemed he must be unconscious of what he was doing. Then he would appear suddenly to recollect himself and would start up with a muttered exclamation and stalk out of the room. He spent long hours riding or driving alone about the country or wandering wretchedly through the park and gardens. Once he went up to town, and after a few days absence came back looking more haggard than before and wearing a hunted look in his eyes. He had gone to see a physician, and after having seen him he had tried to lose himself in a plunge into deep and turbid enough waters, but he found that he had even lost the taste of high flavors for which he had once had an Epicurean palette. The effort had ended in his being overpowered again by his horrors, the horrors in which he found himself staring at that end of things when no pleasure had spiced, no debauchery, the sting of life, and men such as he stood upon the shore of time, shuddering and naked souls, watching the great tide bearing its treasures recede for ever and leave them to the cold and hideous dark. During one day of his stay in town he had seen Teresita, who had at first stared half frightened by the change she saw in him, and then had told him truths he could have wrung her neck for putting into words. "'You look an old man,' she said with the foreign accent he had once found deliciously amusing, but which now seemed to add a sting. "'And some thing is eating you up. You are mad in love with some beautiful one who will not look at you. I have seen it in man's before. It is she who eats you up, your evil thinkings of her. It serves you right, your eyes look mad.' He himself at times suspected that they did and cursed himself because he could not keep cool. It was part of his horrors that he knew his internal furies were worse than folly, and yet he could not restrain them. The creeping suspicion that this was only the result of the simple fact that he had never tried to restrain any tendency of his own was maddening. His nervous system was a wreck. He drank a great deal of whisky to keep himself straight during the day, and he rose many times during the black waking hours in the night to drink more because he obstinately refused to give up the hope that if he drank enough it would make him sleep. As through the thoughts of Mount Dunstan, who was a clean and healthy human being, there ran one thread which would not disentangle itself, so there ran through his unwholesome thinking a thread which burned like fire. His secret ravings would not have been good to hear. His passion was more than half-hatred and a desire for vengeance, for the chance to reassert his own power, to prove himself master, to get the better in one way or another of this arrogant young outsider and her high-handed pride. The condition of his mind was so far from normal that he failed to see that the things he said to himself, the plans he laid, were grotesque in their folly. The old cruel dominance of the man over the woman thing, which had seemed the mere natural working of the law among men of his race in centuries past, was awake in him amid the limitations of modern days. My God! he said to himself more than once, I would like to have had her in my hands a few hundred years ago. Men were kept in their places then. He was even frenzied enough to think over what he would have done if such a thing had been of her utter helplessness against that which raged in him of the grey thickness of the walls where he might have held and wrought his will upon her, insult, torment, death. His alcohol-excited brain ran riot, but when it did its foolish worst he was baffled by one thing. Damn her! he found himself crying out, if I had hung her up and cut her into strips she would have died staring at me with her big eyes without uttering a sound. There was a long reach between his imaginings and the time he lived in. America had not been discovered in those decent days, and now a man could not even beat his own wife or spend her money without being meddled with by fools. He was thinking of a New York young woman of the nineteenth century who could actually do as she hanged pleased and who pleased to be damned high and mighty. For that reason in itself it was incumbent upon a man to get even with her in one way or another. High and mightiness was not the hardest thing to reach. It offered a good aim. His temper, when he returned to Stornham, was of the order which in past years had set Rosalie and her child shuddering and had sent the servants about the house with pale or sullen faces. Betty's presence had the odd effect of restraining him, and he even told her so with sneering resentment. There would be the devil to pay if you were not here, he said. You keep me in order by, Jove. I can't work up steam properly when you watch me." He himself knew that it was likely that some change would take place. She would not stay at Stornham, and she would not leave his wife and child alone with him again. It would be like her to hold her tongue until she was ready with her infernal plans and could spring them on him. Her letters to her father had probably prepared him for such action as such a man would be likely to take. He could guess what it would be. They were free and easy enough in America in their dealings with the marriage tie. Their idea would doubtless be a divorce with custody of the child. He wondered a little that they had remained quiet so long. There had been American shudness in her coming boldly to Stornham to look over the ground herself and actually set the place in order. It did not present itself to his mind that what she had done had been no part of a scheme but the mere result of her temperament and training. He told himself that it had been planned beforehand and carried out in hard-headed commercial American fashion as a matter of business. The thing which most enraged him was the implied cool practical realisation of the fact that he, as inheritor of an entailed estate, was but owner in charge, and not young enough to be regarded as an insurmountable obstacle to their plans. He could not undo the greater part of what had been done, and they were calculating, he argued, that his would not be likely to be a long life, and if, if anything happened, Stornham would be uterates and the whole vulgar lot of them would come over and take possession and swagger about the places if they had been born in it. As to divorce or separation, if they took that line he would at least give them a good run for their money. They would wish they had let sleeping dogs lie before the thing was over. The right kind of lawyer could bully Rosalie into saying anything he chose on the witness's stand. There was not much limit to the evidence a man could bring if he was experienced enough to be circumstantial and knew whom he was dealing with. The very fact that the little fool could be made to appear to have been so sly and sanctimonious would stir the gall of any jury of men. His own condoning the matter for the sake of his sensitive boy, deformed by his mother's unrestrained and violent hysteria before his birth, would go a long way. Let them get their divorce. They would have paid for it the whole lot of them. The beautiful Miss Vandepool and all. Such a storious the newspapers would revel in would not be a recommendation to Englishmen of unsmarched reputation. Then his exultation would suddenly drop as his mental excitement produced its effect of inevitable physical fatigue. Even if he made them pay for getting their own way, what would happen to him afterwards? No morbid vanity of self-bolstering could make the outlook anything but unpromising. If he had not had such diabolical luck in his few investments he could have lived his own life. As it was, old Vandepool would possibly condescend to make him some insufficient allowance, because Rosalie would wish that it might be done, and he would be expected to drag out to the end the kind of life a man pensioned by his wife's relatives inevitably does. If he attempted to live in the country he should blow out his brains. When his depression was at its worst he saw himself aging and shabby, rambling about from one cheap continental town to another, blackballed by good clubs, cold-shouldered even by the terracedas, cut off from society by his limited means and the stories his wife's friends would spread. He ground his teeth when he thought of Betty. Her splendid vitality had done something to life for him, had given it savor. When he had come upon her in the avenue his blood had stirred, even though it had been maliciously, and there had been spice in his very resentment of her presence, and she would go away. He would not be likely to see her again if his wife broke with him. She would be swept out of his days. It was hideous to think of, and his rage would overpower him and his nerves go to pieces again. What are you going to do? He broke forth suddenly one evening, when he found himself temporarily alone with her. You're going to do something, I see it in your eyes. He had been for some time watching her from behind his newspaper, while she, with an unread book upon her lap, had in fact been thinking deeply and putting to herself serious questions. Her answer made him stir rather uncomfortably. I'm going to write to my father to ask him to come to England. So this is what she had been preparing to spring upon him. He laughed insolently. To ask him to come here. With your permission. With mine, does an American father-in-law wait for permission? Is there any practical reason why you should prefer that he should not come? He left his seat and walked over to her. Yes, your sending for him is a declaration of war. It need not be so. Why should it? In this case I happen to be aware that it is, the choice is your own, I suppose, as Reddy Bravado, that you and he are prepared to face the consequences, it is Rosalie and is your mother. My father is a businessman and will know what can be done, he will know what is worth doing, she answered, without noticing his question, but, she added the words slowly, I have been making up my mind, before I write to him, to say something to you, to ask you a question. He made a mock sentimental gesture. To ask me to spare my wife to remember that she is the mother of my child. She passed over that also. To ask you if there is no possible way in which all this unhappiness can be ended decently. The only decent way of ending it would be that there should be no further interference. Let Rosalie supply the decency by showing me the consideration due from a wife to her husband. The place has been put in order, it was not for my benefit, and I have no money to keep it up. Let Rosalie be provided with means to do it." As he spoke the words he realized he had opened a way for embarrassing comment. He expected her to remind him that Rosalie had not come to him without money. But she said nothing about the matter, she never said the things he expected to hear. You do not want Rosalie for your wife, she went on, but you could treat her courteously without loving her. You could allow her the privilege as other men's wives are allowed. You need not separate her from her family. You could allow her father and mother to come to her and leave her free to go to them sometimes. Will you not agree to that? Will you not let her live peaceably in her own simple way? She is very gentle and humble and would ask nothing more. She is a fool, he exclaimed furiously, a fool! She will stay where she is and do as I tell her. You knew what she was when you married her. She was simple and girlish and pretended to be nothing she was not. You chose to marry her and take her from the people who loved her. You broke her spirit and her heart. You would have killed her if I had not come in time to prevent it. I will kill her yet if you leave her," his folly made him say. You are talking like a feudal lord holding the power of life and death in his hands, she said. Power like that is ancient history. You can hurt no one who has friends without being punished. It was the old story. She filled him with the desire to shake or disturb her at any cost, and he did his utmost. If she was proposing to make terms with him, he would show her whether he would accept them or not. He let her hear all he had said to himself in his worst moments, all that he had argued concerning what she and her people would do and what his own actions would be, all his intentions to make them pay the uttermost farthing in humiliation if he could not frustrate them. His methods would be definite enough. He had not watched his wife and folly it for weeks to no end. He had known what he was dealing with. He had put other people upon the track, and they would testify for him. He poured forth unspeakable statements and intimations, going as usual further than he had known he should go when he began. Under the spur of excitement his imagination served him well. At last he paused. Well, he put it to her, what of you to say? I, with the remote intent curiosity growing in her eyes, I have nothing to say. I am leaving you to say things. You will, of course, try to deny, he insisted. No, I shall not, why should I? You may assume your error of magnificence, but I am dealing with uncomfortable factors. He stopped in spite of himself and then burst forth in a new order of rage. Before trying some confounded experiment on me, what is it? She rose from her chair to go out of the room and stood a moment holding her book half open in her hand. Yes, I suppose it might be called an experiment, was her answer. Perhaps it was a mistake. I wanted to make quite sure of something. Of what? I did not want to leave anything undone. I did not want to believe that any man could exist who had not one touch of decent feeling to redeem him. It did not seem human. White Dince showed themselves about his nostrils. Well, you have found one, he cried. You have a lashing tongue by God when you choose to let it go. But I could teach you a good many things, my girl, and before I have done you will have learned most of them. But though he threw himself into a chair and laughed aloud as she left him, he knew that his arrogance and bullying were proving poor weapons, though they had done him good service all his life. And he knew, too, that it was mere simple truth that as a result of the intellectual ethical vagaries he scathingly derided she had actually been giving him a sort of chance to retrieve himself, that if he had been another sort of man he might have taken it. CHAPTER 44 It was cold enough for fires in halls and bedrooms, and Lady Anstra thus often sat over hers and watched the glowing bed of coals with a fixed thoughtfulness of look. She was so sitting when her sister went to her room to talk to her, and she looked up questioningly when the door closed and Betty came towards her. You've come to tell me something, she said. A slight shade of anxiousness showed itself in her eyes, and Betty sat down by her and took her hand. She had come because what she knew was that Rosalie must be prepared for any step taken and the time had arrived when she must not be allowed to remain in ignorance, even of things it would be unpleasant to put into words. Yes, she answered, I want to talk to you about something I have decided to do. I think I must write to Father and ask him to come to us. She turned white, but though her lips parted as if she were going to speak, she said nothing. Do not be frightened, Betty said. I believe it's the only thing to do. I know, I know." Betty went on holding the hand a little closer. When I came here you were too weak physically to be able to face even the thought of a struggle. I saw that. I was afraid it must come in the end, but I knew that at the time you could not bear it. It would have killed you and might have killed mother if I had not waited. And until you were stronger I knew I must wait and reason coolly about you, about everything. I used to guess sometimes, said Lady Anne Struthers. I can tell you about it now. You are not as you were then, Betty said. I did not know Nigel at first, and I felt I ought to see more of him. I wanted to make sure that my child hatred of him did not make me unfair. I even tried to hope that when he came back and found the place in order and things going well, he might recognize the wisdom of behaving with decent kindness to you. If he had done that I know father would have provided for you both, though he would not have left him the opportunity to do again what he did before. No businessman would allow such a thing as that. But as time has gone by I have seen I was mistaken in hoping for a respectable compromise. Even if he were given a free hand he would not change. And now she hesitated, feeling it difficult to choose such words as would not be too unpleasant. How was she to tell Rosie of the ugly morbid situation which made ordinary passiveness impossible? Now there is a reason, she began again. To her surprise and relief it was Rosalie who ended for her. She spoke with the painful courage which strong affection gives a weak thing. Her face was pale no longer but slightly reddened and she lifted the hand which held hers and kissed it. You shall not say it, she interrupted her. I will. There is a reason now why you cannot stay here, why you shall not stay here. That was why I bet you to go, you must go, even if I stay behind alone. Never had the beautiful Miss Vanderpool's eyes worn so fully their look of being blue bells underwater, that this timid creature should so stand at bay to defend her was more moving than anything else could have been. Thank you, Rosie, thank you, she answered, but you shall not be left alone. You must go too, there is no other way. Difficulties will be made for us but we must face them. Father will see the situation from a practical man's standpoint. Men know the things other men cannot do, women don't. Generally they know nothing about the law and can be bullied into feeling that it's dangerous and compromising to inquire into it. Daniel has always seen that it was easy to manage women. A strong businessman who has more exact legal information than he has himself will be a new factor to deal with, and he cannot make objectionable love to him. It is because he knows these things that he says that my sending for father will be a declaration of war. Did he say that? A little breathlessly. Yes, and I told him that it need not be so, but he would not listen. And you are sure father will come? I am sure. In a week or two he will be here. Lady Anstra's lips shook, her eyes lifted themselves to Betty's in a touchingly distressed appeal. At her momentary courage fled beyond recall. If so, that would be the worst coming to the worst indeed. Yet it was not ordinary fear which expressed itself in her face but a deeper piteousness, a sudden hopeless pain, baffling because it seemed a new emotion or perhaps the upheaval of an old one long and carefully hidden. You will be brave, Betty appealed to her. You will not give way, Rosie. Yes, I must be brave. I'm not ill now. I must not fail you. I won't, Betty, but—she slipped upon the floor and dropped her face upon the girl's knees sobbing. Betty bent over her, putting her arms around the heaving shoulders and pleading with her to speak. Was there something more to be told, something she did not know? Yes, yes. Oh, I ought to have told you long ago, but I've always been afraid and ashamed. It has made everything so much worse. I was afraid you would not understand and would think me wicked, wicked. It was Betty who now lost a shade of colour, but she held the slim little body closer and kissed her sister's cheek. What have you been afraid and ashamed to tell me? Do not be ashamed any more. You must not hide anything, no matter what it is, Rosie. I shall understand. I know I must not hide anything, now that all is over and father is coming. It is—it is about Mr. Follyott. Mr. Follyott, repeated Betty, quite softly. Lady Anstrother's face, lifted with desperate effort, was like a weeping child's. So much so in its tear-wet simpleness and utter lack of any effort at concealment, that after one quick look at it, Betty's hastened pulses ceased to beat a double quick time. Tell me, dear, she almost whispered. Mr. Follyott himself does not know, and I could not help it. He was kind to me when I was dying of unkindness. You don't know what it was like to be drowning in loneliness and misery, and to see one good hand stretched out to help you. Before he went away—oh, Betty, I know it was awful, because I was married. I began to care for him very much, and I have cared for him ever since. I cannot stop myself caring, even though I'm terrified." Betty kissed her again with a passion of tender pity. Poor little simple Rosie, too. The tide had crept around her also, and had swept her off her feet, tossing her upon its surf like a wisp of seaweed, and bearing her each day further from firm shore. Do not be terrified, she said. You need only be afraid if—if you had told him. He will never know, never, once in the middle of the night, there was anguish in the delicate face, pure anguish. A strange loud cry wakened me, and it was I myself who cried out, because in my sleep it had come home to me that the years would go on and on, and at last some day he would die and go out of the world, and I should die and go out of the world, and he would never, never know, even know. Rosie's clasp of her loosened, and she sat very still, looking straight before her into some unseen place. Yes, she said involuntarily, yes, I know, I know, I know. Lady Anstruthers fell back a little to gaze at her. You know, you know, she breathed. Betty? But Betty at first did not speak, her lovely eyes dwelt on the far away place. Betty, whispered Rosie, do you know what you've said? The lovely eyes turned slowly towards her, and the soft corners of Betty's mouth deepened in a curious unsteadiness. Yes, I did not intend to say it, but it is true, I know, I know, I know. Do not ask me how. Rosie flung her arms around her waist, and for a moment hit her face. You, you, she murmured, but stopped herself almost as she uttered the exclamation. I will not ask you, she said when she spoke again, but now I shall not be so ashamed. You are a beauty and wonderful, and I am not, but if you know, that makes us almost the same. You will understand why I broke down. It was because I could not bear to think of what will happen. I shall be saved and taken home, but Nigel will wreak revenge on him, and I shall be the shame that has put upon him, only because he was kind, kind. When father comes, it will all begin." She wrung her hands, becoming almost hysterical. Hush, said Betty, Hush, a man like that cannot be heard, even by a man like Nigel. There is a way out, there is. Oh, Rosie, we must believe it. She soothed and caressed her and led her on to relieving her long-locked-up misery by speech. It was easy to see the ways in which her feeling had made her life harder to bear. She was as inexperienced as a girl and had accused herself cruelly. When Nigel had tormented her with evil, carefully chosen taunts, she had felt half guilty and had colored scarlet or turned pale, afraid to meet his sneeringly smiling face. She had tried to forget the kind voice, the kindly understanding eyes, and had blamed herself as a criminal because she could not. I had nothing else to remember but unhappiness, and it seemed as if I could not help but remember him. She said as simply as the Rosie who had left New York at nineteen might have said it. I was afraid to trust myself to speak his name. When Nigel made insulting speeches I could not answer him, and he used to say that women who had adventures should train their faces not to portray them every time they were looked at. Oh! broke from Betty's lips, and she stood up on the hearth and threw out her hands. I wish that for one day I might be a man and your brother instead of your sister. Why? Betty smiled strangely, a smile which was not amused, which was perhaps not a smile at all. Her voice, as she answered, was at once low and tense. Because then I should know what to do. When a male creature cannot be reached through manhood or decency or shame, there is one way in which she can be punished. A man, a real man, should take him by his throat and lash him with a whip, while others look on, lash him until he howls aloud like a dog. She had not expected to say it, but she had said it. Lady Anstra thus looked at her fascinated, and then she covered her face with her hands, huddling herself in a heap as she knelt on the rug, looking singularly small and frail. Betty, she said presently in a new awful little voice, I will tell you something. I never thought I should dare to tell anyone alive. I have shuddered at it myself. There have been days, awful, helpless days, when I was sure there was no hope for me in all the world. When deep down in my soul I understood what women felt when they murdered people, wrapped up to them in their wicked sleep, and struck them again and again, like that. She sat up suddenly, as if she did not know what she was doing, and uncovering her little ghastly face, struck downwards three fierce times at nothingness, but as if it were not nothingness, and as if she held something in her hand. There was horror in it. Betty sprung at the hand and caught it. No, no, she cried out, poor little Rosie, darling little Rosie, no, no, no. That instant Lady Anstruthers looked up at her, shocked and awake. She was Rosie again, and clung to her, holding to her dress, piteous and panting. No, no, she said, when it came to me in the night, it was always in the night, I used to get out of bed and pray that it might never, never come again, and that I might be forgiven, just forgiven. It was too horrible that I should even understand it so well. A woeful, wry little smile twisted her mouth. I was not brave enough to have done it. I could never have done it, Betty, but the thought was there, it was there. I used to think it had made a black mark on my soul. The letter took long to write. It led a consecutive story up to the point where it culminated in a situation which presented itself as no longer to be dealt with by means at hand. The words of the story previous letters had related, though some of them it had not seemed absolutely necessary to relate in detail. Now they must be made clear, and Betty made them so. "'Because you trusted me, you made me trust myself,' was one of the things she wrote. For some time I felt that it was best to fight for my own hand without troubling you. I hoped perhaps I might be able to lead things to a decorous sort of issue. I saw that secretly Rosie hoped and prayed that it might be possible. She gave up expecting happiness before she was twenty, and mere decent peace would have seemed heaven to her, if she could have been allowed sometimes to see though she loved and longed for. Now that I must give up my hope, which was perhaps a rather foolish one, and now that I cannot remain at Stornham, she would have no defence at all if she were left alone. Her condition would be more hopeless than before, because Nigel would never forget that we had tried to rescue her and had failed. If I were a man, or if I were very much older, I need not be actually driven away. But as it is, I think that you must come and take the matter into your own hands." She had remained in her sister's room until long after midnight, and by the time the American letter was completed and sealed, a pale touch of dawning light was showing itself. She rose and going to the window drew the blind up and looked out. The looking out made her open the window, and when she had done so she stood feeling the almost unearthly freshness of the morning about her. The mystery of the first faint light was almost unearthly too. Trees and shrubs were beginning to take form and outline themselves against the still pallor of the dawn. Before long the waking of the birds would begin, a brief chirping note here and there breaking the silence and warning the world with faint insistence that it had begun to live again and must bestow itself. She had got out of her bed sometimes on a summer morning to watch the beauty of it, to see the flowers gradually reveal their color to the eye, to hear the warmly nesting things begin their joyous day. There were fewer bird sounds now and the garden beds were autumnal. But how beautiful it all was! How wonderful life in such a place might be if flowers and birds and sweep of sword and massive stately broad-branched trees were parts of the home unloved and which surely would in its own way love one in return. But soon all this phase of life would be over. Rosalie, once safe at home, would look back remembering the place with a shudder. As Utreet grew older the passing of years would dim miserable child memories and when his inheritance fell to him he might return to see it with happier eyes. She began to picture to herself Rosie's voyage in the ship which would carry her across the Atlantic to her mother and the scenes connected in her mind only with the girl's happiness. What so ever happened before it took place the voyage would be made in the end. And Rosalie would be like a creature in a dream, a heavenly, unbelievable dream. Betty could imagine how she would look wrapped up and sitting in her steamer chair gazing out with rapturous eyes upon the racing waves. She will be happy, she thought, but I shall not. No I shall not. She drew in the morning air and unconsciously turned toward the place where, across the rising and falling lands and behind the trees, she knew the great White House stood far away, with watches like showing dimly behind the line of ballroom windows. I do not know how such a thing could be. I do not know how such a thing could be, she said. Could not. And she lifted a high head, not even asking herself what remote sense in her being so obstinately defied and threw down the glove to fate. Sounds gain a curious distinctness and meaning in the hour of the break of the dawn. In such an hour they seem even more significant than sounds heard in the dead of night. When she had gone to the window she had fancied that she heard something in the corridor outside her door, but when she had listened there had been only silence. Now there was a sound again—that of a softly moved, slippered foot. She went to the room centre and waited. Yes, certainly something had stirred in the passage. She went to the door itself. The dragging step had hesitated. Stopped. Could it be Rosalie who had come to her for something? For one second her impulse was to open the door herself. The next she had changed her mind with a sense of shock. Someone had actually touched the handle and very delicately turned it. It was not pleasant to stand looking at it and see it turn. She heard a low, evidently unintentionally uttered exclamation, and she turned away, and with no attempt at softening the sound of her footsteps walked across the room, hot with passionate disgust. As well as if she had flung the door open she knew who stood outside. It was Nigel and Stothers, haggard and unseemly, with burned-out sleepless eyes and bitten lip. Bad and mad as she had at last seen the situation to be, it was uglier and more desperate than she could well know. End of Chapter forty-four Chapter forty-five of The Shuttle The Slippery Vox recording is in the public domain. The shuttle by Francis Hodgson Burnett. Chapter forty-five The Passing Bell The following morning St Nigel did not appear at the breakfast-table. He breakfasted in his own room, and it became known throughout the household that he had suddenly decided to go away, and his man was packing for the journey. What the journey, or the reason for its being taken, happened to be with things not explained to any one but Lady Ann Stothers at the door of whose dressing-room he appeared without warning just as she was leaving it. Rosalie started when she found herself confronting him. His eyes looked hot and hollow with feverish sleeplessness. You look ill, she exclaimed involuntarily. You look as if you had not slept. Thank you, you always encourage a man. I'm not in the habit of sleeping much, he answered. I'm going away for my health. It is as well you should know. I'm going to look up old Broadmorelands. I want to know exactly where he is, in case it becomes necessary for me to see him. I also require some trifling data connected with Follyott. If your father is coming, it will be as well to be able to lay my hands on things. You can explain to Betty. Good morning. He waited for no reply, but wheeled about and left her. Betty herself wore a changed face when she came down. A cloud had passed over her blooming as clouds pass over a morning sky and dimmit. Rosalie asked herself if she had not noticed something like this before. She began to think she had. Yes, she was sure that at intervals there had been moments when she had glanced at the brilliant face with an uneasy and yet half-unrealising sense of looking at a glowing light temporarily waning. The feeling had been unrealisable because it was not to be explained. Betty was never ill, she was never low-spirited, she was never out of humour or afraid of things. That was why it was so wonderful to live with her. But yes, it was true, there had been days when the strong fine light of her had waned. Lady Anstra, this comprehension of it, arose now from her memory of the look she had seen the night before in the eyes which suddenly had gazed straight before her, as into an unknown place. Yes, I know, I know, I know—and the tone in the girl's voice had been one Rosalie had not heard before. Slight wonder, if you knew, at any outward change which showed itself though in your own most desperate despite. It would be so, even with Betty, who in her sister's eyes was unlike any other creature. But perhaps it would be better to make no comment. To make comment would be almost like asking the question she had been forbidden to ask. While the servants were in the room during breakfast they talked of common things, resorting even to the weather and the news of the village. Afterwards they passed into the morning-room together, and Betty put her arm around Rosalie and kissed her. Nigel has suddenly gone away, I hear, she said. Do you know where he is gone? He came to my dressing-room to tell me. Betty felt the whole slim body stiffen itself with the determination to seem calm. He said he was going to find out where the old Duke of Broadmorelands was staying at present. There is some forethought in that, was Betty's answer. He is not on such terms with the Duke that he can expect to be received as a casual visitor. It will require apt contrivance to arrange an interview. I wonder if he will be able to accomplish it. Yes, he will, said Lady Anstruthers. I think he can always contrive things like that. She hesitated a moment and then added. He said also that he wished to find out certain things about Mr. Follyott, trifling data, he called it, that he might be able to lay his hands on things if father came. He told me to explain to you. That was intended for a taunt, but it's a warning, Betty said, thinking the thing over. We are rather, like ladies, left alone to defend a besieged castle. He wished us to feel that. She tightened her enclosing arm. But we stand together, together. We shall not fail each other. We can face siege until father comes. You wrote to him last night. A long letter which I wish him to receive before he sales. He might decide to act upon it before leaving New York to advise with some legal authority he knows and trusts to prepare our mother in some way, to do some wise thing we cannot foresee the value of. He has known the outline of the story, but not exact details, particularly recent ones. I have held back nothing it was necessary he should know. I'm going out to post the letter myself. I shall send a cable asking him to prepare to come to us after he has reflected on what I have written. Rosalie was very quiet, but when having left the room to prepare to go to the village, Betty came back to say a last word, her sister came to her and laid her hand on her arm. I have been so weak and trodden upon for years that it would not be natural for you to quite trust me, she said, but I won't fail you, Betty, I won't." The winter was drawing in. The last autumn days were short and often gray and dreary. The wind had swept the leaves from the trees and scattered them over parklands and lanes, where they lay a mellow, huge rustling carpet shifting with each chill breeze that blew. The buried briny garlands clung to the bed hedges, and here and there flared scarlet, still holding their red defiantly, until hard frost should come to shrivel and blacken them. The rare hours of sunshine were amber hours instead of golden. As she passed through the park gate, Betty was thinking of the first morning on which she had walked down the village street between the irregular rows of red-tailed cottages and the ragged little enclosing gardens. Then the air and sunshine had been of the just awakening spring. Now the sky was brightly cold, and through the small-paint window she caught glimpses of fire-glow. A bent old man walking very slowly, leaning upon two sticks, had a red-brown woolen muffler wrapped around his neck. Seeing her, he stopped and shuffled the two sticks into one hand, that he might leave the other free to touch his wrinkled forehead stiffly, his face stretching into a slow smile as she stopped to speak to him. Good morning, Marlowe, she said. How was the rheumatism today? He was a deaf old man whose conversation was carried on principally by guesswork, and it was easy for him to gather that when her ladyship's handsome young sister had given him greeting, she had not forgotten to inquire respecting the romantics, which formed the greater part of existence. Morning, miss, morning, he answered in the high-cracked voice of rural ancientry, winter be nigh, and the damp days be full of rheumatism. Tint easy to get about on my old legs, but I be main thankful for the warm things you sent, miss. This ear, fumbling at his red-brown muffler proudly, does a comfort on windy day, so tis, and warmth be a good thing to a man when he be going downhill in years. All of you who are not able to earn your own fire should be warm this winter, her ladyship's handsome sister said, speaking closer to his ear. You shall all be warm. Do not be afraid of the cold days coming. He shuffled his sticks and touched his forehead again, looking up at her admiringly and chuckling. To all be a new tale for Stonham Village, he cackled, to all be a new tale. Thank ye, miss, thank ye. As she nodded smilingly and passed on, she heard him cackling still under his breath as he hobbled on his slow way, comforted and elate. How almost shamefully easy it was! A few loads of coal and faggots here and there, a few blankets and warm garments whose cost counted for so little when one's hands were full, could change a gruesome village winter into a season during which labour stiffened and broken old things, closing their cottage doors, could draw their chairs round the hearth and hover luxuriously over the red glow, which in its comforting fashion of seeming to have understanding of the dull dreams of old eyes, was more to be loved than any human friend. But she had not needed her passing speech with Marlowe to stimulate realisation of how much she had learned to care for the mere living among these people, to whom she seemed to have begun to belong, and whose comfortably lighting faces when they met her showed that they knew her to be one who might be turned to in any hour of trouble or dismay. The centuries which had trained them to depend upon their betters had taught the slowest of them to judge with keen sight those who were to be trusted, not alone as power and wealth-holders, but as creatures humanly upright and merciful with their kind. Work and folk all as knows Gentry, old Dobie had once shrill to her. Gentry's Gentry in us knows them wheresoever they be. Better than they know their selves, so astute. Yes, they knew, and though they accepted many things as being merely their natural rites, they gave an unsentimental affection and appreciation in return. The patriarchal note in the life was loveable to her. Each creature she passed was a sort of friend who seemed almost of her own blood. It had come to that. This particular existence was more satisfying to her than any other, more heart-filling and warmly complete. Though I am only an imposter, she thought, I was born in Fifth Avenue, yet since I have known this I shall be quite happy in no other place than an English village, with a Norman church tower looking down upon it, and rows of little gardens, with spears of white and blue lupins, and candabre bells standing guard before cottage doors. And Rosalie, on the evening of that first strange day when she had come upon her piteous figure among the heather under the trees near the lake, Rosalie had held her arm with a hot little hand and had said feverishly, If I could hear the roar of Broadway again, do the stage's rattlers they used to betty, I can't help hoping that they do. She carried her letter to the Post and stopped to talk a few minutes with the Postmaster, who transacted his official business in a small shop where sides of bacon and hams hung suspended from the ceiling, while groceries, flannels, dress prints, and glass bottles of sweet stuff filled the shelves. Mr. Tueson's was the central point of Stornham in a commercial sense. The establishment had also certain social qualifications. Mr. Tueson knew the secrets of all hearts within the village radius, also the secrets of all constitutions. He knew by some occult means who had been taken bad, or who had taken a turn, and was aware at once when any one was sinking fast. With such differences of opinion as occasionally arose between the vicar and his church wardens, he was immediately familiar. The history of the fever among the hoppickers at Dunston Village had been able to relate in detail from the moment of its outbreak. It was he who had first dramatically revealed the truth of the action Ms. Vanderpool had taken in the matter, which revelation had aroused such enthusiasm as had filled the clock into overflowing and given an impetus to the sale of beer. Tread, it was said, had even made a speech which he had ended with vague but excellent intentions by proposing the joint healths of her ladyship sister and the President of America. Mr. Tueson was always glad to see Ms. Vanderpool cross his threshold. This was not alone because she represented the custom of the court, which since her arrival had meant large regular orders and large bills promptly paid, but that she brought with her an exotic atmosphere of interest and excitement. He had mentioned to friends that somehow a talk with her made him feel set up for the day. Betty was not at all sure that he did not prepare and hoard up choice remarks or bits of information as openings to conversation. This morning he had thrilling news for her and began with it at once. Dr. Fenwick at Stornham is very low, Ms. he said. He is very low. You'll be sorry to hear. The worry about the fever upset him terrible and his bronchitis took him bad. He's an old man, you know. Ms. Vanderpool was very sorry to hear it. It was quite in the natural order of things that she should ask other questions about Dunston Village and the munt and she asked several. The fever was dying out and pale convalescence was sometimes seen in the village or strolling about the park. His lordship was taking care of the people and doing the best for them until they should be strong enough to return to their homes. But he's very strict about making it plain that it's you, Ms., they have to thank for what he does. That is not quite just, said Ms. Vanderpool. He and Mr. Pen's aunts fought on the field. I only supplied some of the ammunition. The county doesn't think of him as it did even a year ago, Ms., said Tueson rather smugly. He was very ill thought of then among the gentry. It's wonderful the change that's come about. If he should fall ill there'll be a deal of sympathy. I hope there's no question of his falling ill, said Ms. Vanderpool. Mr. Tueson lowered his voice confidentially. This was really his most valuable item of news. Well, miss, he admitted, I have heard he's been looking very bad for a good bit, and it was told me quite private, because the doctors and the vicar don't want the people to be upset by hearing it, that for a week he's not been well enough to make his rounds. Oh! the exclamation was a faint one, but it was an exclamation. I hope that means nothing really serious, Ms. Vanderpool added. Everyone will hope so. Yes, miss, said Mr. Tueson, deftly twisting the string around the package he was tying up for her. A sad reward it would be if he lost his life after doing all he's done—a sad reward, but there'd be a good deal of sympathy. The small package contained trifles of sowing and knitting materials she was going to take to Mrs. Weldon, and she held out her hand for it. She knew she did not smile quite naturally, as she said her good morning to Tueson. She went out into the pale amber sunshine and stood a few moments glad to find herself bathed in it again. She suddenly needed air and light—a sad reward. Sometimes people were not rewarded. Brave men were shot dead on the battlefield when they were doing brave things. Brave physicians and nurses died of the plagues they faithfully wrestled with. Here were dread and pain confronting her, Betty Vanderpool, and while almost everyone else seemed to have faced them, she was wholly unused to their appalling clutch. What a life hers had been that in looking back over it she should realise that she had never been touched by anything like this before. They came back to her the look of almost awed wonder in G. Seldon's honest eyes when he said, What it must be to be you, just you. He had been thinking only of the millions and of the freedom from all everyday anxieties the millions gave. She smiled faintly as the thought crossed her brain—the millions, the rolling up of them year by year because millions were breeders, the newspaper stories of them, the wonder at and belief in their power. It was all going on just as before, and yet here stood a Vanderpool in an English village street of no more worth as far as power to aid herself went than Joe Buttle's girl with the thick waist and round red cheeks. Jenny Buttle would have believed that her ladyship's rich American sister could do anything she chose, open any door, command any presence, sweep aside any obstacle with a wave of her hand. But of the two Jenny Buttle's path would have laid straighter before her. If she had had a young man who had fallen ill, she would have been free if his mother had cherished no objection to their walking out, to spend all her spare hours in his cottage making brawl and poultices, crying until her nose and eyes were red, and pouring forth her hopes and fears to any neighbour who came in or out or hung over the dividing garden hedge. If the patient died, the deeper her mourning and the louder her sobs at his funeral, the more respectable and deserving of sympathy and admiration which Jenny Buttle have been countered. Her ladyship's rich American sister had no young man. She had not at any time been asked to walk out. Even in the dark days of the fever, each of which had carried thought and action of hers to the scene of the trouble, there had reigned unbroken silence except for the vicar's notes of warm and appreciative gratitude. "'You are very obstinate, Fergus,' Mr. Benzance had said, and Mount Dunstan had shaken his head fiercely and answered, "'Don't speak to me about it, only obstancy will save me from behaving like other blaggards.' Mr. Benzance, carefully polishing his eyeglasses as he watched him, was not sparing in his comment. "'This is pure folly,' he said, pure bull-necked stubborn folly, charging with its head down. Before it is done with you it will have made you suffer quite enough.' "'Be sure of that,' Mount Dunstan had said, setting his teeth, as he sat in his chair, clasping his hands behind his head and glowering into space. Mr. Benzance, quietly, speculatively, looked him over, and reflected aloud, or so it sounded. It is a big-boned and big-muscled characteristic, but there are things which are stronger. Some one minute will arrive just one minute which will be stronger, one of those moments when the mysteries of the universe are at work. "'Don't speak to me like that, I tell you,' Mount Dunstan broke out passionately, and he sprang up and marched out of the room like an angry man.' Miss Fanderpool did not go to Mrs. Weldon's cottage at once, but walked past its door down the lane, where there were no more cottages, but only hedges and fields on either side of her. Not well enough to make his rounds might mean much or little. It might mean a temporary breakdown from over fatigue, or a sickening for deadly illness. She looked at a group of cropping sheep in a field and at a flock of rooks which are just alighted near it, with coring and flapping of wings. She kept her eyes on them merely to steady herself. The thought she had brought out with her had grown heavier and were horribly difficult to control. One must not allow oneself to believe the worst will come. One must not allow it. She always held this rule before herself, and now she was not holding it steadily. There was nothing to do. She could write a mere note of inquiry to Mr. Penzance, but that was all. She could only walk up and down the lanes and think whether he lay dying or not. She could do nothing, even if a day came when she knew that a pit had been dug in the clay, and he had been lowered into it with creaking ropes, and the clod shoveled back upon him where he lay still, never having told her that he was glad that her being had turned to him, and her heart cried aloud his name. She recalled, with curious distinctness, the effect of the steady toll of the church bell—the passing bell. She could hear it as she had heard it the first time it fell upon her ear, and she had inquired what it meant. Why did they call it the passing bell? All had passed before it began to toll. All had passed. If it told at Dunstan and the pit was dug in the churchyard before her father came, would he see the moment they met that something had befallen her, that the Betty he had known was changed, gone? Yes, he would see—affection such as his always saw. Then he would sit alone with her in some quiet room and talk to her, and she would tell him the strange thing that had happened. He would understand—perhaps better than she. She stopped abruptly in her walk and stood still, the hand holding her package was quite cold. This is what one must not allow oneself, but how the thoughts had raced through her brain. She turned and hastened her steps towards Mrs. Weldon's cottage. In Mrs. Weldon's tiny backyard there stood a coal lodge suited to the size of the domicile, and already stacked with a full winter supply of coal. Therefore the well-polished and cleanly little grate in the living-room was bright with fire. Old Dopey, who had tottered around the corner to pay his fellow-gossip a visit, was sitting by it, and old Mrs. Weldon, cleanest to cap an apron and small purple shoulder shawl, had evidently been allaying his natural anxiety as to the conduct of foreign sovereigns, by reading in a loud voice the print under the pictures in an illustrated paper. This occupation had, however, been interrupted a few moments before Miss Vandepool's arrival. Mrs. Bester, the neighbour in the next cottage, had stepped in with her youngest on her hip and was talking breathlessly. She paused to drop her curtsy as Betty entered, and old Dopey stood up and made his salute with a trembling hand. She'll know, he said. Gentry knows the ins and outs of gentry fuss. She'll know the rights. What has happened? Mrs. Bester unexpectedly burst into tears. There was an element in the female village's temperament which Betty had found was frequently unexpected in its breaking forth. He's done, Miss, she said. He's done with it cruel, bad. There'll be no saving of him, none. Betty laid her package of sewing cotton and knitting wool quietly on the blue and white checked tablecloth. Who is he, she asked? He's lordship, and him just saved all Dunstan Parish from death to go like this. In Stornham Village, and in all others of the neighbourhood, the feminine attitude toward Mount Dunstan had been one of strongly emotional admiration. The thwarted female longing for romance, the desire for drama and a hero had been fed by him. A fine big young man, one that had been spoke ill of, and regarded as an outcast, had suddenly turned the tables on fortune and made himself the central figure of the county, the talk of gentry in their grand houses, of cottage women on the doorsteps, and labourers stopping to speak to each other by the roadside. Magic stories had been told of him befloured with dramatic detail. No incident could have been related to his credit which would not have been believed and improved upon. Shut up in his village, working among his people and unseen by outsiders, he had become a popular idol. Any scrap of news of him, any rumour, true or untrue, was seized upon and excitedly spread abroad. Therefore Mrs. Bester wept as she talked, and if the truth must be told, enjoyed the situation. She was the first to tell the story to her ladyship sister herself, as well as to Mrs. Weldon and Lord Doby. It's Thomas brought it in, she said. He's my brother, Miss, and he's one of the ringers. He heard it from Jem Westcott, and he heard it at Toomey's Farm. They've been keeping it at the mount because the people at Zill hangs on his lordship, so that the doctors don't let them know the truth. They've been told he had to go to London and may come back any day. What Tom was saying, Miss, is that we'd all know when it was over, for we'd hear the church bell toll here, same as it'll toll at Dunstan, because they ringers have talked it over, and they're going to talk it over today with the other parishes, Yangford and Meltham and Dunham and them. Tom says Stornham ringers met just now at the clock, and said that for a man that stood by laboring folk like he has, toll they will, and so ought the other parishes, same as if he was royalty, for he's made himself nearer. They'll toll the minute they hear it, Miss. Lord helpers, with the fresh outburst of crying, it don't seem like it's fair it should be. When we hear the bell toll, Miss, don't, said her ladyship's handsome sister suddenly, please don't say it again. She sat down by the table and resting her elbows on the blue and white check cloth covered her face with her hands. She did not speak at all. In this tiny room with these two old souls who loved her, she need not explain. She sat quite still, and Mrs Weldon, after looking at her for a few seconds, was prompted by some sublimely simple intuition, and gently sidled Mrs Bester and her youngest into the little kitchen where the copper was. Her help in and like that makes it come near, she whispered, dare say it seems as if he was almost like a relation. Old Dobie sat and looked at his goddess. In his slowly moving old brain stirred far-off memories like long dead things striving to come to life. He did not know what they were, but they wakened his demise to a new seeing of the slim young shape leaning a little forward, the soft cloud of hair, the fair beauty of the cheek. He had not seen anything like it in his youth, but it was youth itself, and so was that which the ringers were soon to toll for, and for some remote and unformed reason to his scores of years they were pitiful and should be cheered. He bent forward himself and put out his ancient feigned and knotted knelt and trembling hand to timorously touch the arm of her he worshipped and adored. God bless ye! he said, his high cracked voice even more shrill and thin than usual. God bless ye! and as she let her hand slip down, and turning gently looked at him, he nodded to her speakingly, because out of the dimness of his being some part of nature's working had strangely answered and understood. End of Chapter 45