Suspense

“Brenda, what are you thinking about?”

It was hardly a question. The intonation of Mrs. Wylie’s voice was by no means interrogative, and she returned placidly to the perusal of her novel without awaiting a reply. The ladies had been reading silently for at least an hour, until the younger of the two allowed her book to lie unheeded on her knee, while the pages fluttered in the breeze.

The remark called forth by this action was accepted literally and as a question.

“I was thinking of Theo Trist,” replied the girl gravely. She did not meet her companion’s gaze, but looked wistfully across the fjord towards the bleak dismal cliffs.

Mrs. Wylie closed her novel on one white plump finger and drummed idly upon the back of it with the other hand. In movement and repose alike this lady was essentially comfortable. Her presence suggested contentment and prosperity amidst the most unpropitious environments. The Hermione, her temporary home, a broad, slow-sailing schooner-yacht, was, below decks, conducted on the principles of a luxurious, roomy house. She had a wonderful way with her, this plump and smiling lady, of diffusing into the very atmosphere a sense of readiness to meet all emergencies. The elements, even, seemed to bow to her. Overhead the winds might roar and moan aloud through stay and rigging⁠—all around the waves might leap and throw themselves against the staunch low bulwarks of the yacht⁠—but in the cabin was warm comfort; and with it, dainty womanly ways. Mrs. Wylie proved most effectually that at sea, in fair weather and in foul, a woman can be a woman still.

She now reopened her book, but instead of reading, sat gazing thoughtfully at the young girl. Presently she laughed musically and turned resolutely to the open page.

“Yes,” she murmured⁠—confessing, as it were, that her thoughts had on former occasions been drawn in the same direction. “Yes. But, Brenda⁠—I⁠—should not advise you⁠—to⁠—think⁠—of Theo Trist.”

There are in the lives of most of us passing moments which leave a distinct impression upon the mind. Of all the million words we hear there are some trivial remarks which hold fast to the inner sinews of the great machine we call memory⁠—a machine which rests not by night or day, in health or sickness, in prosperity or woe. Often it is a jest, or some weighty saying spoken in jest. There is no apparent reason why some words should be so distinctly remembered while others pass away from recollection; and yet small observations, interesting only in the passing moment, catch as it were in the mental wheel, and, adhering to the spokes, spin round with them, just as a mere muddy piece of paper may cling to the wheel of an emperor’s carriage and flutter through the cheering crowd, calling for universal attention.

Brenda Gilholme listened to Mrs. Wylie’s laughing caution in a vague way, and there seemed to come into her mind an indefinite recollection. Certain it was that she had never heard the words before, but yet they were forebodingly familiar. The semi-bantering ring of the lady’s voice, the soft hum of the breeze through the rigging overhead, the ripple of the awning stretched tautly, and the regular plash of tiny wavelets beneath and all around, formed an entire harmony of sound which was instantaneously graved on her memory, never to leave it from that day forth.

Mrs. Wylie, having married happily herself, was of the firm opinion that marriages are made in heaven. (We of course know better. The manufactory is situated, my brothers, in another quarter where fuel is cheap and steam-power readily obtainable.) She was too kindhearted and too merciful to the human race to think of interfering in the work. Perhaps she felt that if heaven turned out such poor work, hers could not well be satisfactory. Be that, however, as it may, Mrs. Wylie was no matchmaker. She held strange views⁠—alas! too rarely fostered⁠—that if a man be worthy of a woman and love her truly, he should be able to win her for himself; and that if he cannot do this unaided he is better without her. A bold theory most assuredly, and one worthy of consideration.

Of course she knew that Theo Trist and Brenda were great friends. She was well aware that in some future time the friendship might turn to something else. With most young men and maidens the word “would” could well be substituted for “might.” But these two were not of that human material which is woven upon a common web. Brenda Gilholme was not one of the crowd⁠—she had the misfortune of an intellect. As existence is managed in these days, a woman with a mind must not expect too much happiness. It is lamentable, but true, that the brain has little to do with earthly joy. In these aesthetic days we talk a great quantity of nonsense about “soul,” and inner consciousness, and feeling. In fact, we are getting too clever, and our minds are running away from our bodies. Our existence is material, talk as we may about abstract idealisms; and our joys are material. Eating, drinking, working, sleeping⁠—this is human life, and those among us who perform those functions well are undoubtedly the happiest.

A superior intellect, more especially in woman, is not conducive to happiness. Indeed, it is directly opposed to that impossible state. It was this possession that made Brenda Gilholme somewhat different from her fellows.

Theo Trist, again, had his peculiarities, but these must perforce be allowed to transpire hereafter; and besides such individual matters there were several facts known to Mrs. Wylie which raised doubts as to what the end of this friendship might be. Trist was twenty-eight and Brenda was nineteen, while both were in manner and appearance older than their years could warrant. Also was there another matter of some weight. Brenda had a sister, a lovely unscrupulous coquette, two years older than herself.

Alice Gilholme had been pleased to change her name and state in St. George’s, Hanover Square, earlier in the year, while the Hermione was yet in dry dock. Three weeks after the wedding, Theo Trist returned from abroad with his bland broad forehead tanned and brown. He expressed no surprise. In fact, he vouchsafed no opinion whatever. Had he met Captain Huston, the happy bridegroom? Oh yes! They had met in South Africa. That was all! He never related details of that part of a difficult campaign which they had passed together. The laconic praise contained in the two words “good soldier,” such as had been applied to many of his acquaintances, was not forthcoming.

From a lady’s point of view, Alfred Woodruff Charles Huston was the beau-ideal of a soldier. Tall, straight and square shouldered, he carried his small head erect. His clear brown eyes were quick enough, his brown clean-cut face almost perfect in its outline. Indefatigable at Sandown, Hurlingham, Goodwood, Ascot⁠—in the Grand Stand bien entendu⁠—he had a pleasant way of appearing to know something about everyone and everything. But Theo Trist had not met him at any of these places or in fashionable London drawing-rooms later in the day. They had come together in South Africa in the course of a campaign, when both had laid aside the accessories of pleasure and were hard at work, each in his chosen groove. It was somewhat strange that he should never offer to discuss Captain Huston as a military man.

“That fellow Huston,” a general officer had once said in an unguarded moment⁠—“that fellow Huston, Trist, is the biggest duffer in the British Army!”

And Trist’s answer, given after careful consideration, was laconically severe: “Yes, I am afraid so.”

But Alice Gilholme omitted to consult the general officer; and after all, if Captain Huston was no soldier, he was at least a gentleman, with elegant high-bred ways, and an empty high-bred head, containing just enough brain to find out the enjoyment of existence. The happy couple were now in India, where we will leave them.

Whether the marriage of Alice Gilholme had been a severe blow to Theo Trist or no, it were hard to say. Mrs. Wylie even could give no opinion on the subject, and Brenda never mentioned it. There was no perceptible change in the man’s strange incongruous face when the news was broken to him without premonition in a crowded room. His life was essentially ruled by chance; good or bad tidings were therefore no new things to him.

The Hermione rose and fell slightly, almost imperceptibly, to the waves, and backwards and forwards across the spotless deck Brenda Gilholme walked pensively. She was motherless, and her father was entirely absorbed in political strife, being an English Home Ruler. This thoughtful girl had grown up in the shade of her sister’s beauty, and, like many a fair young flower, had perhaps suffered from the contiguity. She was pleased to consider herself a plain uninteresting girl, which was a mistake. Her face, small and proud, was in profile almost perfect; but her eyes were set too close together, which caused a peculiar disappointment to those meeting her face to face.

Perhaps she was a discontented little person. Her expression certainly warranted such a belief. Undoubtedly she thought too little of herself. In personal charms she compared unfavourably with her sister Alice, and in that small fact lay the secret of it all. Glory of any description unfortunately casts a reflection which is sure to be unpleasant either to the reflector or to the friends of that person. The sister of a celebrated man, his cousins, and also his aunts, are usually disagreeable people; or, if by chance they be coloured with the same brush and possess in a slight degree his talent, they are discontented and unhappy. The second fiddler will be found less companionable than the eager timeserver who plays the triangle in the dark corner near the stage-box.

Had Brenda Gilholme been launched upon the troubled waters of society alone, she would probably have made a better place for herself there than her sister Alice ever reached; but unfortunately she started the world as Alice Gilholme’s sister. In a thousand ways clumsy and well-meaning men allowed her to define her own situation. With that sweet charity which warms the fair bosoms of our sisters and female cousins, girls took every opportunity of lamenting Alice’s backslidings and social sins in the hearing of her sister. There are some who will say that these lamentations were the fruit of jealousy and petty female spite, but this assuredly could not be, because these same guileless maidens were never tired of praising and upholding their dear friend’s beauty. Now, would they do that if they were jealous? Oh no!

“Brenda,” Admiral Wylie used to say, with a loving twinkle of his intensely blue eyes, “Brenda is a brick.” She was true and loyal; a devoted sister, and a staunch friend. Had she loved her sister less, she would have carried a lighter heart through many a gay ballroom. She would have suffered less from⁠—let us call it the mistaken kindness of her sister’s friends. She would have thought more of herself and less of Alice. And yet there was in this little maiden a strange touch of pride. She carried her neat little head very high, although she failed to recognise the rare beauty of the brown soft hair nestling there. As she walked up and down the deck she trod firmly, with a certain smooth strength, although she was pleased to ignore the possession of the daintiest little feet ever shod by Pinet. Her small and beautiful person was adorned with a simple severity which was almost defiant. It seemed to throw the glove down before the face of human weakness⁠—to defy opinion. Alice had always been the beauty; to her had been relegated the fine dresses and fascinating hats, and Brenda had played second fiddle. Now that Alice had left her life, the little maiden went on her way with apparent serenity; but beneath the quietly thoughtful exterior, behind the sad, questioning eyes, there was that curse, the bitter sorrow of a superior intellect placed within a woman’s brain.

Brenda Gilholme knew too much. Her estimate of human existence at the age of nineteen was truer and deeper than that of her grandmother at the age of ninety. And around us, my brothers, there are many Brendas⁠—many women and young maidens who know us too well. Human nature has been scraped, and probed, and stripped until the gilt and glamour are quite lost. Moreover, the fault is chiefly ours. We have probed and analyzed with our pens most foolishly. Urged on by the spirit of competition, we have searched deeper into man’s heart and woman’s motive, each trying to get nearer to the core, until at last the subject has become almost repulsive.

The analyst soon discovers that many substances are the mere outcome of a few components variously mingled. Men and women can no more bear analysis with dignity than can the common ruck of everyday food. There are certain component parts capable of nourishing the human frame, but we mix them up into many dishes. He who dissects his meat will have small appetite, and those who study their fellow men and women too closely will learn to despise their own parents.

Women are, in this respect, worse off than men. Their greater insight and quicker divination enable them to judge mercilessly and with unfortunate accuracy. Since they have joined us in the great work of analysis (with but poor results from a literary point of view, but mighty profits to the printer), the seamy side has been held up to inquiring eyes with the veriest shamelessness. Surely we know the worst of human nature now, and most certainly those who are running behind us in the race, those little children and soft-eyed maidens, can read even as they run.

Brenda Gilholme was a living protest against mental cultivation as it is understood today. Her exceptionally capable mind was the victim of over-education and a cheap literature. Beneath that soft brown hair was a fund of classical knowledge sufficient for the requirements of an Oxford professor, theology enough for a deacon, geometry mixed up with political economy, geography and algebra, general knowledge, and no arithmetic worth speaking of. All this, forsooth, added to a taste for music, and an innate power of making it very sweetly. And all for what? To be wisely forgotten as soon as possible⁠—let us hope. The best woman and the truest lady I know has never seen an examination paper in her life. At least, I believe she has not. Filial respect withholds my question.

It is rather disappointing to come freshly into a world of men and women and find it sorely wanting. This Brenda had done. The women appeared to her affected and ignorant, because with her they were not quite at ease by reason of her deep education. The men were trivial or narrow. This one knew more geometry than she did, but of classics and theology he knew nothing. Another was well versed in theology, while of political economy he could speak but haltingly, and so on. Each was in his narrow sphere; she knew too much for all, and could apply it to nothing because she was a woman. She had been taught that knowledge was power⁠—that the whole world passed the Cambridge examinations⁠—that women were born to muddle their sweet inconsistent brains over deep questions relative to semi-preserved languages, to weary their young eyes over imperfectly printed algebraical problems, and to learn many things which they are best without.

But with it all Brenda Gilholme was a woman. Instead of puzzling her daring brains over questions which have never yet been approached with safety, she would have done better had she knelt down and thanked God for that same womanliness. And being a woman, she weakly thought that all men are not alike. She fondly imagined that an exception had been especially created and placed within her own sphere.

Presently she stopped walking, and stood beside the low rail, grasping an awning-stanchion with one hand. The wistful, discontented look left her eyes, which were clear and blue, with long dark lashes, and in its place came an interested, keen expression.

“I think,” she said aloud, “I see him coming. There is a small sail away down the fjord.”

Mrs. Wylie looked up vaguely.

“Yes,” she answered absently; “I dare say you are right!”

The Hermione lay at the head of that small branch of the sea called the Heimdalfjord. This long and narrow inlet is an insignificant branch of a greater fjord where steamers ply their irregular traffic; where British tourists gaze up with weary eyes at the towering rocks and bleak cliffs; and where, during the long silent twilight winter, the winds howl and roar round the bare crags. On either side of the Heimdalfjord the gray hopeless cliffs rose a sheer two thousand feet, while the blue deep water lapped their base with scarce a ripple. The fjord lay between the mighty barriers with a solemn sense of profundity in the stillness of its bosom. One could almost picture to one’s self the continuation of the steep incline into a great dark valley beneath the superficial ripple, where mighty marine growths reared their brown branches up towards the dim light, never swaying to the ocean swell⁠—where strange northern fishes and slow crawling things lived on unknown, unclassified.

Amid such surroundings, upon the face of so large a nature, the Hermione looked incongruous. Her clean long spars, her white awning, the yellow gleam of her copper beneath the clear water, all suggested another world where comfort and small refinement live. Here all is of a rougher, larger stamp. Here man and his petty tastes are as nothing. The bleak and dismal mountains were not created for his habitation, for nothing grows there, and human ingenuity, human enterprise, can do naught with such stony chaos.

On the entire Heimdalfjord there are but two boats⁠—mere pinewood craft heavily tarred. One is owned by Hans Olsen, who lives far away at the point where the Sognfjord begins, and the other belongs to Christian Nielsen, who farms the two acres of poor soil at the head of the Heimdalfjord. No steamer has ever churned the still waters; few yachts have ventured up to the head of the inlet, where there is no attraction to the sightseer. But Nielsen looked every year for the white sails of the Hermione, and with native conscientiousness refrained from netting the river that ran past his brown log-hut.

The river brought him in more money than his farm, and even at this out-of-the-world corner of the Heimdalfjord money and the lust of it are the chief movers of men’s hearts. Five hundred crowns a year was a sum worth thinking about, worth depriving one’s self of a little salmon for, which, after all, was plentiful enough when once the Hermione had cast anchor.

Four miles down the fjord there was another break in the great wall of mountains, and a second river danced gaily down its narrow barren valley to the sea. From this river-mouth a small boat was now making its way under sail up the fjord. A tiny speck of white was all the girl could distinguish from the deck of the yacht, and she stood silently watching its approach until the form of the sailor sitting low in the bow of the small brown craft was discernible.

The sun had set some time before, so that the water was in shadow, deep and blue; but up on the hills and away to the south upon the distant snow-clad mountains a warm pink glow lay hazily. Deep purple vales of shade broke the line of cliffs abutting the water here and there. Where the hills closed together, five miles away (so that the fjord appeared to be a lake), there was a rich background of blue transparency through which the broken crags loomed vaguely. It was nearly nine o’clock, and this clear twilight was all the darkness that would come to the Heimdal that July night.

The breeze held its own bravely against the soporific influence of Arctic sunset, and with full taut sail the dinghy splashed and gurgled through the waters. The steersman was invisible by reason of the reefless sail, but his handiwork was apparent and very good. A wonderfully straight course had he steered from the mouth of the river, such a course as a purposeful man will steer when he is without companion beyond his own thoughts.

“He’s driving her along!” muttered the steward, as he stood for a moment at the galley-door.

“The driving is like unto the driving of Jehu,” answered old Captain Barrow, who was smoking his evening pipe upon his own small piece of deck between the galley and the after-companion.

Captain Barrow rarely missed an opportunity of throwing at the head of the steward, who (like most good cooks) was a godless person, a Biblical quotation more or less correct.

Before the silence had again been broken the dinghy came rushing on. Down went the tiller, and with shivering canvas the little boat swung round alongside.

Beside the after-rail Brenda stood motionless; her eyes were resting on the dreary, lifeless scene which was nothing but a still blending of hazy blues now that the small white sail no longer gave life to it. She did not even turn when the sound of wet splashy footsteps upon the deck came to her ears. The newcomer had kicked off his brogues amidships, and was coming aft in wet waders and soaking outer socks, out of respect for the Hermione’s deck.

There was a vague suggestion of respectful familiarity in his movements. One could tell instinctively that he had known these ladies for many years. Nor did he apologize for the informality of his pedal attire.

This man was clad du reste disgracefully. His old tweed coat was baggy and most lamentably worn. One sleeve was very wet, while the other was muddy. The gray waders were discoloured, and he had apparently been kneeling in green slime. And yet withal Theo Trist was undoubtedly a gentleman⁠—unmistakably, undeniably so. The manner in which he set his shoeless feet upon the deck betrayed it. His very silence confirmed it.

He came beneath the awning, and raised from his close-cropped head a most lamentable hat of gray cloth, with a vague brim and no independent shape. All round it were gaudy salmon-flies and a coil of gleaming gut.

As he stood there beneath the awning in the gray twilight with his head bared, the strange incongruity of his person was very noticeable. A sturdy, lightly-built body spoke of great activity. It was the frame of a soldier. But the face was of a different type. In itself it was inconsistent, because the upper part of it had no sympathy with the lower. A forehead which receded slightly in a kindly curve to strong curled hair could only be described as bland, while beneath straight thick brows there smiled a pair of gray eyes as meek as human eyes were ever made. It was in these same meek eyes that all the world misread this man. In brow and eyes he was a softhearted philanthropist, such as are easily misled and gulled with exaggerated tales of woe. A man to take up some impossible scheme to alleviate the sorrows of a class or kind, to busy himself unprofitably in a crusade against class privileges and uphold the so-called rights of a victimized working population. But from the eyes downwards this was all lost, and there were other signs instead. The nose was straight and somewhat small, while the lips, though clean-shaven, were entirely devoid of any suggestion of coarseness, such as one may read upon the mouths of most men past the age of twenty-five, unless a moustache charitably hide such failing. The mouth was almost too severe in its clean curve; in repose it was Napoleonic, in gaiety it lost all hardness. The chin, again, was square and slightly prominent. To judge from nose and lips and chin, this newcomer had been intended for a soldier, but the meek eyes disturbed this theory.

His face was brown, of a complexion which by reason of its unchangeableness never betrayed thought, emotion, or physical pain. That his life had been chiefly spent in the open air was discernible from his bearing and appearance, yet his manner (more especially with ladies) was that of a polished courtier. Judging from outward things, one could not help feeling that Theodore Trist was an exceptional man in some way or other, in sport or work, in deed or thought. His broad pensive brow would seem to indicate a literary or poetic tendency, while the meek eyes spoke of a great love for Nature and her unfathomable ways. The man might easily have been a naturalist or a vague daydreamer, dabbling in the writer’s art. Certain it was that he could only be a specialist of some description. No universality could exist behind those gentle eyes. Certain also, it would seem, that he trod in the paths of peace where’er he went. His gentle movements, his calm soft speech, were almost womanlike. But then these indications ran full tilt against the soldierly frame and the still hard lips. The most discerning physiognomist would not have dared to say that those gentle eyes had looked upon more bloodshed, than any warrior of the day; that the brown ears had been torn by more human shrieks of utter agony than any army-surgeon has ever listened to. This man of peace was the finest, ablest, truest chronicler of a battle that ever scribbled notes amidst the battle smoke. Few of us find the exact groove for which we were created, and Trist was no more fortunate than the rest. Many a good soldier has spent his life in the countinghouse, while there are numbers wearing a red coat today whose place is in the pulpit. Theodore Trist was a born soldier, if ever man was born with military genius in his soul. Had his natural turn of intellect been in any other direction, he could, in later life, have followed it, but the British army is constructed upon a system which forces a child to grasp the sword (metaphorically, if not in deed) before his fingers have learnt the shape of hilt, or pen, or brush. Consequently, our forces are officered by a fine stalwart body of gentlemen, who are, some of them, parsons⁠—some artists, some farmers, some sailors, some soldiers⁠—and a good many mere idlers. This is no cheap sarcasm, nor is it the ready complaint of the British universalist, who writes on the least provocation to the newspapers, upon subjects of which his knowledge is culled from other newspapers. I am not finding fault, nor would I suggest offhand a complete scheme for reorganizing what I have always been taught to consider the finest military force in the world. It is merely an observation, made with the view of rendering obvious the reason why Theodore Trist was not a soldier. He found out his groove too late in life, voilà tout. Moreover, he found that it was like the queue at the pit-door of a French theatre. One cannot enter in the middle, and it is of little use taking the last place if the door be open, and others crowding on in front.

Far from this humble pen be it to libel the gentlemen who have professed themselves ready to lay down their lives for the rights of their country. They are good soldiers, brave men, and what is tersely called upon the Continent hardy companions; but sometimes I have found inside a redcoat a parson, an artist, a farmer or a sailor. Whatever dreams may have flitted through the boy’s head, the man Theo Trist never spoke of his unfortunate mistake. It would be better termed a mishap, because he made no choice of the Church, but was urged into it by a zealous and shortsighted mother. He did not, however, reach ordination. Before that final step was taken his mother died, and all Europe stood hushed in the presence of a mighty war impending. The war-clouds rolled up and gathered force. Men spoke in lowered voices of the future; women trembled and concealed the newspapers from their children. A dread thirst for blood seemed to parch the throats of soldiers, and statesmen hesitated upon the brink of a terrible responsibility. Commerce was hindered, and sailors went to sea with uneasy hearts. Then arose in the soul of Theo Trist⁠—the Oxford undergraduate⁠—a strange, burning unrest. As a dog raises his head with quick glance and parted fangs at the approach of game, so leapt this man’s heart in his breast. But no one knew of this: his benevolent brow and gentle eyes misled them all.

When at last the quick defiance was hurled from one nation to another, Theodore Trist disappeared. The sound of battle drew him away from peaceful England to that fair country by the Rhine where blood has been sucked into the fertile earth to grow again into deadly hatred. The din and roar and fury of battle was this mild-eyed man’s element. The sulphureous smoke of cannon was the breath of life to him. His walk was upon the sodden, slippery field of blood. And yet through it all there went the strange incongruity of his being. In the wild joy of fighting (which carries men out from themselves and transforms them into new strange beings), Trist never lost his gentle demeanour. The plucky Frenchmen, with whom he spent that terrible winter, laughed at him, but one and all ended their merriment with upraised finger and grave, assuring eyes.

“Mais,” they said compensatingly, “d’un courage⁠ ⁠…” and the sentence finished up with a shrug and outspread hands, indicating that the courage of “ce drôle Trist” was practically without bounds.

And yet he did not actually fight with sword and rifle. The pen was his arm and weapon. In two languages he wrote through all that campaign the brave record of a losing fight. While endeavouring to give a somewhat unchivalrous enemy his due, he made no denial of partisanship. The ease and fluency with which he expressed himself in French excluded all hope of that, and Trist frankly arrayed himself on the side of the losing nation. Finally, he occupied with perfect serenity the anomalous position of a noncombatant who ran a soldier’s risk⁠—a neutral totally unprotected, and unrecognised as such⁠—an English war-correspondent who, of his own free will, refused to lay himself under the obligations entailed by protection.

Thus this half-fledged parson feathered his wings. Destined to preach peace, he suddenly turned and taught war. In two countries simultaneously he made a brilliant name, proving that if he could not fight, because the possession of a fighting soul had become known to him too late in life, he could at least watch others battling as no man of his age could watch.

When at length Paris had fallen, an emaciated, pale-faced Englishman turned his back upon the demoralized capital and sought his native land. His groove in life had been found. Theodore Trist was a born chronicler of battlefields, a subtle strategist, a lost general⁠—in three words, an ideal war-correspondent. His great knowledge of his subject, his instinctive divination of men’s motives, and his exceptional good-breeding, saved him from the many pitfalls that usually lie concealed in the path of all who follow an army-corps without occupying a post therein. He was never in the way, never indiscreet, never inquisitive, and, above all, never self-opinionated. He watched war as a lover of war, not as a self-constituted representative of a hypercritical nation. The spirit of competition did not with him override the sense of patriotism, simply because such a spirit in no wise affected him. He went his own way, and struck out a line of his own, never seeking to be before his compeers with news or guesses. Consequently his position was unique⁠—midway between a war-correspondent and a warlike historian, for his writings on the battlefield were nothing less than history.

So Trist returned to England and found himself famous. Upon every bookstall in the kingdom he found a small red volume of his letters collected from the columns of the journal he had represented during the great unfinished war.

In the course of a few days he called upon his various friends⁠—Mrs. Wylie among the first, Alice and Brenda Gilholme, at the residence of their aunt, Mrs. Gilholme, shortly afterwards. It was about this time that Brenda conceived the idea that Theo Trist loved her sister. He was only one among many, but he was different from the rest, and the young girl, for the first time, blamed her sister seriously. She kept these things in her heart, however, and said nothing, because there was nothing tangible; nothing to authorize her speaking to Alice. If Trist had fallen a victim to the fascinations of the lighthearted coquette, he certainly concealed his feelings most jealously.

Brenda fully recognised that the fact of his being less lighthearted, less cheerful than of old, might easily be accounted for by the horrors through which he had passed during the late months; but there was something else. There was another change which had come over him since his return.

While she was still watching and wondering, Theo Trist suddenly vanished, and soon afterwards there broke out a small war in the Far East. Like a vulture he had scented blood, and was on the spot by the time that the news of hostilities had reached England. He never wrote private letters, but his work in the new field of battle was closely watched by the small circle of friends at home. As usual, his letters attracted attention, and people talked vaguely of this wonderful war-correspondent⁠—vaguely because he was personally unknown. His individuality was nothing to the warlike host of men who follow events quietly at home with a half-defined thrill of envy in their hearts⁠—for every Englishman has a secret love of war, a well-concealed longing to be fighting something or someone.

When he returned, Alice Gilholme was married, and Brenda had to tell him of it. No surprise, no signs of discomfiture were visible in the man’s incongruous face, where strength and weakness were strangely mixed. He inquired keenly and practically about settlements, expressed a gentle hope that Alice would be happy, and changed the subject.

Trist approached Mrs. Wylie with slow and almost timid steps, yet there was nothing apologetic in his demeanour, for he was perfectly self-possessed, and even reposeful, with that quiet assurance which only comes with innate good-breeding.

In his two hands he carried a fine stout salmon with a sharp snout. Its dark lips curled upwards with an evil twist, and even in death its eyes were full of fight.

The lady dropped her book upon her lap, and looked up with a smile. In her eyes there was a kindly and yet scrutinizing look which was almost motherly in its discernment. This young man was evidently more to her than the rest of his kind. She knew his impassive face so well that she could read where others saw an unwritten page.

“Ah,” she said, with some interest (for she was a sportsman’s wife), “that is a good fish, Theo!”

“Yes,” he acquiesced in a soft and rather monotonous voice, harmonizing with his eyes. “He is a fine fellow. We had a desperate fight!”

As if to prove the severity of the struggle, he looked down at his knees, which were muddy, and then held out his right hand, which was streaked with blood.

“Ah, how nasty!” exclaimed Mrs. Wylie pleasantly. “Is it yours or his?”

“Mine, I think. Yes, it must be mine.”

Brenda had approached slowly, and was standing close to him. She stooped a little to examine the fish, which he held towards her with his left hand, and even deigned to poke it critically on the shoulder with her straight white finger.

“Are you hurt?” she inquired casually, without looking up.

A slow gleam of humour lighted up Trist’s soft and melancholy eyes as he looked down at her.

“He cannot answer for himself,” he said suggestively. “But I think I can volunteer the information that he is not hurt now. He died the death of a plucky fish, and did not flinch.”

“I meant you.”

“I? Oh no, I am not hurt, thank you. Only very dirty, very sanguinary, and quite happy.”

At this moment the steward, a dapper and noiseless man with no appearance of a sailor, came up and took the fish from Trist’s hands. Mrs. Wylie returned to her book, and the two young people stood silently in front of her. Presently they moved away as if with one accord, farther aft, beside the wheel. Here Brenda seated herself sideways with one arm round the white awning-stanchion.

She looked up, and, as he happened to be gazing gently down at her, their eyes met. There was no instant withdrawal, no change of expression. These two were evidently very old friends, because a young man and a maiden rarely look into each other’s eyes for any appreciable space of time without some slight change of expression supervening.

Theo Trist smiled at length, and looked away for a moment. Then he glanced down at her face again.

“Well?” he said interrogatively. “You are going to make one of those deep remarks which would take away the breath of some people.”

She smiled, but did not turn away in maidenly reserve. Indeed, she continued to watch his face, wonderingly and absently.

“What a peculiar man you are, Theo!”

He bowed politely, and slipping the ends of his fingers into either trouser-pocket, he stood defiantly before her, with his unshod feet set well apart.

“And you, Brenda⁠ ⁠… I have never met anyone in any way like you.”

But she had no intention⁠—this independent little person⁠—of being led away thus from the original question.

“Sometimes I almost dislike you⁠ ⁠… and at other moments I admire your character very much.”

She was quite grave, and looked up at him anxiously, as if the character of some third person very near and dear to them both were under discussion.

“When do you dislike me?” he asked in his monotonous, gentle way.

To this she made no answer for some moments, but sat looking thoughtfully across the deep-bosomed water, which was now almost glassy, for the breeze had dropped with the setting sun. She was frowning slightly, and leant her chin upon her hand, which action gave additional thoughtfulness to her well-read face. She might have been solving some great problem. Indeed, she was attempting to find an explanation to the greatest problem we have to solve. This foolish little maiden, with all her great and mistaken learning, her small experience and deep, searching mind, was trying to explain human nature. Not in its entirety, but one small insignificant example taken from the whole. She was trying to reduce this man to an orderly classification of motives, desires, and actions; and he stood defying her to do so. She wanted to understand Theo Trist. In faith, she did not ask for much! An educated and refined gentleman, an experienced and time-hardened man. A philosopher without a creed. A soldier without a sword. A soft heart that sought bloodshed. Brenda had undertaken a very large task. She might have begun upon the simplest, most openhearted sailor-man in the forecastle, and yet I am sure that she would have failed. With Theo Trist she could do nothing. Does any one of us understand his brother, his sister, his mother or his wife? Scarcely, I think. This only I know, that I have never yet quite understood any human being. There are some⁠—indeed, there are many⁠—whom I have been pleased to consider as an open book before my discerning gaze, but Time has changed all that. He has proved that I knew remarkably little about the printed matter in that open book.

Trist repeated his question:

“When do you dislike me, Brenda?”

Her reply was somewhat indirect.

“At times,” she said, without looking towards him, “you attempt wilfully to misrepresent yourself, and I cannot quite see why you should wish to do so. You said just now that you were very sanguinary and quite happy. You meant to convey a deeper meaning, I know, because you glanced involuntarily towards me to see if I had caught it. Now, why should you pretend to be a hard-hearted, cruel and cold-blooded man? That is what I do not understand.”

She shook her small head despairingly, and looked up at him with a very shadowy smile. There was no question implied in the tone of her voice. She showed clearly that she expected no answer. It was merely her recital of a difficulty encountered in the study of a problem. This problem was the character of the man standing before her, the only man of her own age, and among her friends, to whose intellect her own was content to bow. To him she talked of many strange undiscussed matters, and together they had waded very deeply into questions which were opened centuries ago, and are now no nearer their solution. It was not that Theo Trist was a supernaturally grave man, but Brenda felt instinctively that he would never laugh at her. He was a good and careful listener; moreover, she had never yet propounded a question, in her vague, half-wistful way, about which he did not know something; upon which he could not put forward, in his gentle and suggestive way, an opinion which was either the result of his own thoughts or of those of other men.

“Everything is a matter of habit,” said the mild-eyed sportsman vaguely.

He knew that she was not thinking about salmon-fishing and its cruelty at all, but of the strange incongruity of his profession. He was well aware that Brenda Gilholme, in her brave little heart, disapproved of his calling. Of war and its horrors she rarely spoke, for she felt that his existence was necessarily bound to such things. It was a gift vouchsafed with a reckless disregard for incongruity which could only be providential⁠—this gift of a warlike pen. He stood alone, far above his compeers, the one man who could write, in French and English alike, of war; and while respecting his undoubted intellect, she would fain have brought all the force of her will to bear upon him and urge him from the exercise of it on the field of battle. She was influenced by the strong horror of a refined and gentle woman for all things akin to violence and bloodshed, and she could not believe that in his heart of hearts the soft-eyed, quiet man loved the sight of blood and the smoky grime of battle.

“Yes,” she answered. “Endurance may be a matter of habit, but why seek that which requires endurance?”

He attempted to keep the question within the bounds of a sporting matter.

“Every living thing in creation is by the laws of creation expected to prey upon some other living thing. By a merciful provision we men cannot quite look at the question from the salmon’s point of view. It is a fight⁠—an unfair fight, I admit⁠—but still there is no wanton cruelty in killing salmon.”

He ceased abruptly, and held up his arm, looking at it critically. There was a deep scratch across the wrist from which the blood had trickled in several rivulets and congealed upon the back of his slim brown hand. Looking up, he saw that she was gazing at the wounded limb, and with a slight apologetic smile he put it behind his back so as to conceal it from her eyes.

“The actual sight of blood,” he continued, “whether it be cold from the salmon or warm from one’s own veins, is a mere technical unpleasantness which soon loses its horror⁠ ⁠… for men.”

“I was not thinking of salmon-fishing.”

“Nor I,” he replied with cool audacity.

There was another long pause, during which neither moved. It was noteworthy that Trist, who had been on his legs in rough water, and over rocky country, since early morning, showed no sign of fatigue. If he had so desired, it would have been easy enough for him to bring forward one of the low chairs standing near the skylight, but he appeared to prefer standing.

“But in losing that sense of horror,” asked Brenda presently, “do not men become brutalized?”

He shrugged his shoulders perceptibly.

“Do you think so?” he inquired significantly.

The question was cleverly thrown back upon her, but Brenda intended to get her answer. She looked up with a passing smile, and made him a little pout with her pretty lips.

“You are no criterion. You are different altogether. I was speaking generally.”

“Speaking generally, I should still be of opinion that men are not affected in any harmful way by seeing⁠ ⁠… unpleasant sights.”

“From a sportsman’s point of view only?”

“No.”

“From a war-correspondent’s point of view?” she persisted.

“Yes.”

“And if anybody on earth should know,” she murmured half to herself, “I think you should.”

He turned away a little, and then looked down in an absently interested manner at the wet impression of his own waders on the white deck.

“Yes,” he acquiesced with a little checked sigh; “if anybody on earth should know, I am the man.”

“I wonder why you do it, Theo?”

“Who knows? I suppose it is because I cannot help it. I am a vulture, Brenda! The smell of⁠ ⁠… of battle draws irresistibly.”

“It is a fault in your character,” she said judicially.

This he denied by a shake of his head.

“It is a fault in human nature.”

She said nothing, but expressed her desire to differ by an incredulous look. Her knowledge of mankind was very limited, after all, or she would never have doubted the truth of his assertion. She did not know then (how should she so soon?) that men are naturally cruel, that women are naturally crueller. In her innocence she imagined that the majority of us are brave but gentle, strong but forbearing, kind, chivalrous, unselfish. While speaking in generalities she was making the common foolish mistake we make every day. She fondly imagined that her thoughts were general, whereas they were lamentably individual. Human nature⁠—the broad classification so glibly falling from her lips⁠—was nothing more important, nothing wider in its compass, than the two words Theo Trist.

“You will admit,” he argued, “that war is a necessary evil.”

“Yes.”

“Then, so am I. After my name I ought by rights to put the two letters N.E.⁠—Theo Trist, necessary evil.”

“But,” she said with unconscious flattery, “you make it something more than a necessary evil. You turn it into a glorious thing. You teach that fighting is the noblest calling a man can take up. You make men into soldiers against their will, and⁠ ⁠… and you make women long to be men that they might be soldiers.”

A strange look came into the gentle eyes that watched her then⁠—a look that was almost pain; but it vanished again instantly, and the bland face was cold and impassive at once. She was so desperately in earnest that there was a little thrilling catch in her voice. She seemed to be half ashamed of her own sincerity, and did not raise her eyes.

“I am afraid,” he said, after a short pause, “that I consider soldiering the finest life a man can lead.”

“And yet,” she answered with unerring memory, “you once wrote that a man is never quite the same again when he has once been under fire.”

Trist moved restlessly. Whenever she made mention of his work, that dull restlessness seemed to come over him. The knowledge that his writing had remained engraved upon her memory seemed to work some subtle change in the man. It would only have been natural for him to feel some pride in this fact whenever she betrayed it; but this was not pride: it was nearer akin to pain or regret.

“Yes,” he admitted; “but I did not insinuate that the change was one for the worse. In many cases the effect is distinctly beneficial; in a few it is brutalizing. In all it is saddening. A man who has seen much war is hardly an acquisition in a drawing-room.”

He moved away a few paces, and leaning out beneath the awning, looked towards the head of the fjord, where the river came bowling down the valley past Nielsen’s house.

“There is the Admiral,” he said, “coming off in Nielsen’s boat. I wonder what sport he has had.”

Brenda also left her seat upon the rail and looked across the water. In doing so she came nearer to her companion, and her dress touched his wounded hand.

“Are you sure,” she said, as if reminded of his mishap, “that you are not hurt? Shall I sponge your hand? I am not afraid of⁠ ⁠… of it.”

He laughed in a pleasant and heartless way.

“Oh no, thanks! I will wash it in the ordinary way. It is only a scratch; I ought to have washed it before presenting myself to you.”

She looked at him speculatively, and made a little hopeless movement with her shoulders.

“You are sometimes most aggravatingly independent.”

“Yes,” he answered, in a hard, practical way. “Independence is a necessity. If I have the gift of it, I cannot cultivate it too assiduously. Without independence I should be nowhere.”

“And yet it can be carried to undue excess. A man should sometimes pretend, I think, to be a trifle dependent upon others, and especially upon women. It is the least he can do for them, possessing, as he does, the advantage in existence. One could almost tell from your little ways and habits of thought, Theo, that your mother died long ago.”

“You mean that we should ask our womenfolk to do little things for us which we know quite well we could do better ourselves.”

“Yes.”

“And thus,” he suggested, “satisfy their personal vanity.”

Brenda did not answer him at once. The question required consideration.

“Yes,” she replied at length, “and thus satisfy their personal vanity. There is no object to be gained by concealing the fact that our happiness in life is merely a question of satisfied vanity, from the very beginning to the very end.”

“From a new pair of woollen boots to a long funeral procession of empty carriages?” added Trist, with meek interrogation.

“Women do not as a rule go to their graves before a number of bored coachmen and empty broughams.”

“Most of them would like to.”

“Yes; I am afraid you are right. But we seem to take it for granted that men allow us a monopoly of vanity.”

“Oh no!” Trist hastened to correct; “you only possess the monopoly of one description. Yours is a thirsty vanity which knows no slaking; ours is satisfied. Of the two, yours, mademoiselle, is less objectionable. I suppose independence or self-dependence is my pet vanity.”

“Yes, Theo, it is.”

“And yours?”

“I am all vanity.”

Trist laughed derisively⁠—a laugh, however, which was inaudible across the deck.

She turned and walked slowly forward to meet the Admiral, whose boat was dropping alongside.

“Don’t laugh,” she said, almost angrily; “it is true.”

“Then,” he said gravely, “I will endeavour to satisfy you by asking you to sew on the very next button that comes off.”

For a moment she lost her gravity, and was a simple, sweetly coquettish girl.

“And I will refuse flatly,” she observed saucily.

The short northern night lay over the peaceful fjord. There was no sound in the air except the soft murmurous voice of the river and the distant prattle of a tiny waterfall.

The Hermione, wrapt in utter darkness (for the Admiral would allow no riding-light, having had enough of red-tape routine during his service beneath the white ensign), lay motionless upon the glassy water.

From the open portholes came light and a sound of music. In the comfortable and homelike saloon Brenda was at the piano; Mrs. Wylie worked placidly, and the two men smoked in restful silence. That sweet fatigue and utter sense of peacefulness which is the reward of a hard, unsparing day had come over them. The Admiral had caught his two fish over again, and his pleasant, garrulous voice was still. He was now inclining to slumber, lying back drowsily in his deep chair.

Trist, a model of cleanliness, and broadcloth over the whitest linen, was in a less easy pose, for he was seated at the cabin-table before a huge volume of travel. His brown hands lay quiescent upon the open pages; his eyes were riveted on the printed lines. Although he was to all appearances immersed in his study, he was the first to hear a difference in the sounds of night outside. He raised his head and looked towards the porthole, half hidden by a tiny muslin curtain scarcely moving in the draught. Without, in the semidarkness, there was now a long continuous whisper, like the voice of a summer breeze amidst half-formed leaves. This was the ripple of a newborn breath upon the waters, and within it there was the hum of air rushing through taut rigging. The breeze was a fresh one. Brenda continued playing, unconscious of these signs. Her fingers wandered over the keys dreamily, while her upright form swayed in no slightest degree to the rhythm of her music. It would seem that she could wring from the old piano plaintive harmonies full of sadness and suggestive melancholy without becoming in any way affected by their influence. For a woman she was exceptionally self-contained and undemonstrative.

Trist continued gazing through the open porthole. It was now quite dark outside⁠—darker than the thin veil of night in such a latitude would account for during July. Presently the reason of it was apparent and audible. There came a rushing sound like the approach of a train in a deep cutting, and the Hermione was enveloped in it.

“Rain!” exclaimed Brenda, swinging round on the music-stool. The Admiral was asleep, and Trist merely nodded his head in acquiescence. Mrs. Wylie ceased working, and listened. In a few moments there was a slight creak of timber, and the small vessel heaved perceptibly beneath their feet. The muslin curtains on either side of the small portholes fluttered, and the lamp hanging beneath the open skylight flickered repeatedly.

Trist rose and closed the ports. His movements awoke Admiral Wylie, who sat up in his deep chair with a hand on either knee.

“A squall?” he inquired.

“Yes,” returned Trist, without moving away from the porthole. “A squall⁠—rain⁠—and thunder, I think.”

Even while he spoke a green light flashed out and lighted up his face for a moment. The thunder soon followed⁠—a long, low growl, dying away into distant echoes.

“It will be rather fine in this narrow fjord,” suggested Trist to no one in particular. “I think I will go on deck.”

Mrs. Wylie looked towards Brenda before replying.

“I prefer something more solid than an awning between me and a thunderstorm,” she said decisively.

Brenda rose from her seat and looked round for a shawl. It somehow occurred that, wherever Mrs. Wylie happened to be, a warm shawl was invariably to be found somewhere in proximity.

“I think I will go,” said the girl simply. It did not seem to occur to her that there could be any reason why she should not go on deck with Trist, nor did she appear to think it strange that he should fail to suggest it.

He came to her side and dropped the shawl deftly on to her small, square shoulders, and then they passed out of the saloon together. He climbed the narrow companionway first, and turned to assist her over the brass-plated combing. They were welcomed on deck by a blinding flash, which for a second lighted up every nook and corner of the fjord. The darkness that followed was almost stunning in its utter opaqueness. Brenda hesitated for a moment, and they stood side-by-side during the crackle of the thunder. When the rumble and echo of it had died away, Trist held out his hand.

“Come,” he said, “I will guide you⁠—I know all the ring-bolts on the deck.”

Then, seeing that her two hands were wrapped in the shawl, he took hold of her wrist through the soft wool and led her aft. When they were halfway across the deck towards the skylight, where there was a seat, there came a tremendous crash. A blinding yellow flame appeared to leap from the summit of the mountain above them⁠—a flame so brilliant, so sudden, and so grand, that it seemed to burn into their eyes, and for a moment paralyzed their brains. It was impossible to indicate the exact spot whence came that wild electric fire, and whither it went no man could tell. Simultaneously the heavy atmosphere burst and vibrated into such a confusion of crackle, and rumble, and distant roar, that even Theo Trist staggered and caught his breath convulsively. The Hermione quivered beneath their feet, and for some moments they could not hear the steady reassuring splash of the cold rain.

When Trist recovered himself he found Brenda clinging to him. She had abandoned the shawl, and her bare arms were upon his sleeve.

The first sound that she heard was a laugh. Her first sensation was one of warmth, as her companion drew the soft wrap round her shoulders. The thunder was silent for a moment, but a low murmur seemed to run through the mountains. Again Trist laughed in a reassuring way, as men laugh when they are still standing after the first volley of an enemy, when the memory of the grim serrated flash of a thousand rifles is fresh upon their minds.

She made no attempt to help him with the shawl, which fluttered and flapped audibly in the breeze, but stood with idle, hanging arms awaiting and dreading a repetition of the wild anger of heaven, while he held the warm shawl round her throat.

“It is rather grander than we bargained for,” he said at length, and the sound of his voice awoke her.

She drew the wrap closer round her, and made a little movement as if to continue their way aft.

“I have never seen or heard anything like that!” she said at length, half apologetically, when they were seated.

Before he could answer, another peal of thunder broke over the mountains; and, immediately after, a brilliant flash of lightning darted down the bare face of the cliff opposite to them. The sharp, detonating thunder was simultaneous, and all nature seemed to quiver and vibrate. This time Brenda showed no sign of fear, but sat motionless, with her arms folded beneath the shawl. Strange to say, the air was intensely cold, while at short intervals a warmer breath came roaring down the valley. With the colder puffs there fell a torrent of rain, which seethed on the water and beat with a dull, continuous rattle on the soaked awning. Where they were seated, however, no splash or spray could reach them.

And now the storm began to move away down the fjord. In an incredibly short space of time the heavy black clouds rolled aside, and the stars began to twinkle. There was in the air a subtle scent of refreshed verdure, and the atmosphere was less variable. It was a wonderful sight, to watch the clouds creep along the summits of the mountains of which the bare, unlovely outline was every now and then revealed against distant widespread lightning. At intervals there arose low, subsidiary grumbles, as if the elements were partly appeased, though still dangerous to trifle with. The Hermione seemed ridiculously small and helpless amidst these great works of creation. Her sturdy spars, standing up boldly in the semidarkness, were of no height whatever against such towering cliffs.

At length Brenda spoke. She was by no means ashamed of her momentary terror during the first wild assault of the storm. Her feeling was nearer akin to surprise than fear, and the act of clinging to her companion in such a moment did not present itself to her in a very heinous light. It was a natural womanly instinct: she was half blinded by the lightning, almost suffocated by the heavy electricity of the atmosphere. Besides, they were such old friends. In bygone years they had been as brother and sister, exchanging a fraternal kiss at meeting or parting; but that was long, long ago.

“Courage,” observed Brenda thoughtfully, “would be a difficult thing to define.”

She turned and looked into his face with grave, questioning eyes. For a few moments he was silent, as if endeavouring to follow out her train of thought.

“You cannot reduce that to a science,” he said at length conclusively.

“I think most things in life can be reduced to a science.”

“I know you do⁠—but you are mistaken. You would reduce life itself to a science, and make it quite unworth the living. Courage can no more be spoken of generally than other strictly human qualities, because no two minds are quite alike. I suppose you think that personal bravery is a mere matter of habit.”

“Not entirely.”

“Scarcely at all, Brenda. A brave man is a brave man on shore, at sea, and in a balloon. A foxhunter may be nervous in a boat. If so, I say he is at heart a coward, despite his foxhunting. When a sailor is uncomfortable in a dogcart he is not naturally a brave man, though at sea he borrow a false confidence from familiarity with what landsmen take to be danger.”

“What suggested the idea to me,” said the girl after a pause, “was that flash of lightning just now⁠—when we first came on deck. I was not really frightened. I know that one never sees the flash by which one is struck.⁠ ⁠…”

“Scientific courage,” interrupted Trist gently.

“But I was startled. You never stirred excepting a mere physical motion caused by the brilliancy of the flash. Where was the difference then?”

“I think that was habit. It is easy enough to acquire the self-control necessary to prevent one’s self being startled by anything whatsoever. It is after the shock of surprise that courage is required. I have watched men of different constitutions in moments of danger, and have found that the mere act of jumping back or bobbing the head is a physical effect caused by surprise as much as fear. I have seen a man who was distinctly startled act, and act wisely, as well as rapidly, sooner than one who betrayed no sign of being moved.”

“I have often wondered,” murmured Brenda reflectively, “how certain people would act at a crisis. I have often longed to see you, for instance, on a battlefield.”

“I cannot return the compliment. Much as I enjoy your society, I would much rather not see you on a battlefield.”

The girl laughed at his gravity, and then continued, in her thoughtful, analytical way:

“I cannot picture you at work⁠—at all! What are you like?”

He shrugged his shoulders and presently answered, in a slow, indifferent way, such as most men acquire at sea, where time is of comparatively small value:

“Just like other men. Much the same as in a drawing-room. Men do not change so much as you imagine. Not so much perhaps as women. There is a lamentable monotony about us: we behave at a funeral as at a wedding.”

“Women don’t do that. They overdo the smiling, and exaggerate the weeping, while between times they take note of each other’s bonnets, and mentally measure the depth of crape trimmings.”

“There is more good in the world, Brenda, than you are aware of.”

“And,” said the girl, “more courage. Excuse my returning to the subject; but it is one which is full of interest, and I think you must know something about it.”

He turned and looked at her, and in the twilight his meek eyes were as soft as any woman’s⁠—softer than Brenda’s, which were habitually wistful and much too grave.

“I do,” he said simply.

“And⁠ ⁠… ?” she murmured interrogatively.

“And I think there can be no doubt that there is more courage in the world now than there has ever been. We are the bravest generation that has ever lived⁠—though our bravery is of a different type. All brutal attributes are expunged, and it is purely mental. There is no excitement in it, and therefore it is pure, independent courage. The Crusades were marvellous campaigns: we never try to realize now what it must have been for those men⁠—most of whom had never even set foot on the deck of a ship⁠—to go to sea in small ill-found vessels on a mere wild-goose chase, to a country of which they knew absolutely nothing. But the Crusades have been outdone; greater knowledge has told us of greater dangers, and yet men are ready to face them.”

“Without the incentive of religion.”

“Yes.”

“Then, Theo, you consider that religion has nothing to do with personal bravery?”

“Absolutely nothing.”

“That is a bold theory. Do you mean to say that a man will not fight the better for possessing a strong faith in a future life which will in every way be better than this⁠—that his present existence will be of less value owing to the possession of that faith, and that, therefore, he will be readier to risk losing his life.”

“It is not a theory,” urged the man in his strange gentle way, which was crudely out of keeping with his words. “It is an experience. Fanaticism undoubtedly generates courage; religion does not. On a battlefield, and on a sinking ship, I have found that a future existence, and all the unending questions that it arouses, occupy a very small place in men’s minds.”

“Then of what are they thinking? What emotion do they show?”

“They are thinking of trifles, which we all do, all through life; and they generally either laugh or swear!”

“Then I give up attempting to understand human nature!”

“I gave that up years ago, Brenda.”

She did not answer him, but sat gazing across the dark waters with an unsatisfied expression upon her sweet, intellectual face. Even as that gray, hopeless sheet of water, life lay before her⁠—a surface, and nothing else; a knowledge that there was something beneath that surface, a hot, fierce thirst to drink deeper of the cup of knowledge; to know more and find a reason for many things which to our minds are quite unreasonable: and no means of satisfying what is, after all, a natural and legitimate craving.

“It is no use,” continued Trist in a lighter tone, “attempting to understand anything, because sooner or later you will find yourself confronted by a great wall which no knowledge can surmount.”

“We either know too much or too little,” said the girl discontentedly.

“Too much,” he affirmed without any hesitation. “Fortunately, we have learnt to acquire a mental courage with our knowledge, or else we never would be able to face life at all.”

After this there was a pause of some duration. It would be impossible to hazard a guess at what thoughts were passing through the man’s brain as he sat there blandly indifferent, placid and utterly inscrutable. His meek eyes wore no far-off, absent look. He seemed merely to be noting the shadows upon the water.

With her it was different. Plainly, she was thinking of him, for her eyes were fixed upon his face, endeavouring to decipher something there. At last, as with a sudden effort, she spoke, and in the inconsistency, the utter irrelevancy of her speech, there was the history of a woman’s world.

“Either,” she said in a dull voice, “you are on the verge of atheism, or you love Alice. Only one of those⁠ ⁠… calamities could account for the utter hopelessness of your creed.”

At this moment Mrs. Wylie appeared on deck, and playfully chided them for staying away so long.

With the utmost unconsciousness of an unanswered question, Trist rose and crossed the deck to meet her.

“It has blown over,” said Trist softly, as the little lady came towards him.

“Yes,” replied Mrs. Wylie with obvious abstraction. She was not thinking of the weather at all. In Trist’s monotonous voice there had been an almost imperceptible catch. Slight though it had been, the acute little matron detected it, and she looked keenly through the semidarkness into her companion’s face. His meek eyes met hers, softly, suavely, aggravatingly innocent as usual.

“And,” she added as an afterthought, “how beautifully fresh it is now!”

She took a seat beside Brenda, glancing at her face as she did so. The girl welcomed her with a little smile, but said nothing. The silence was characteristic. Most young maidens would have considered it necessary to make an inane remark about the weather, just to show, as it were, that that subject had been under discussion before the arrival of this third person.

There was something very pleasant and homelike in the very movements of Mrs. Wylie’s arms and hands, as she settled herself and drew her shawl closer round her. Trist seated himself on the rail near at hand, and relighted his pipe. Thus they remained for some time in silence.

“What a strange couple they are!” the matron was reflecting, as she looked slowly from one unconscious face to the other.

“There were one or two terrible flashes of lightning,” she said aloud in a conversational way; “I was quite nervous, but the Admiral slept placidly through it all.”

Trist moved slightly, and shook the ash from his pipe over the side.

“Brenda was terrified,” he said resignedly.

“I was startled,” admitted the girl, “that was all. And the result was a very learned discourse on courage, its source and value, by Theo.”

“I always thought,” said he to Mrs. Wylie, in a mildly disappointed tone, “that she was plucky.”

Mrs. Wylie laughed, and then with sudden gravity nodded her head significantly.

“So she is⁠—very plucky.”

“I think,” suggested Brenda, “that it would be better taste, and more natural, perhaps, to discuss me behind my back.”

Trist laughed.

“I never discuss anyone,” he said. “That is a lady’s privilege and monopoly. Men are usually fully occupied in talking about themselves, and have no time to devote to the study of their surroundings.”

“I generally find that men say either too much or too little about themselves,” observed Mrs. Wylie. “There is no medium between the super-egotistical and the hyper-reserved. Among my young men, and I have a great number, there are some who tell me everything, and others who tell me nothing. The former appear to think that the universe revolves round them, that they are superlatively interesting, and that their relations are the same in ratio to the closeness of their connection with the axis of the social world⁠—that is, to themselves. Consequently I hear all sorts of confidences, and many totally pointless stories.”

“Which,” suggested Trist, “never go any further.”

“Which never go any further, because their specific gravity is of such trifling importance that they make absolutely no impression upon the tenderest of sympathetic hearts.”

Brenda, who had been listening in a semi-interested way, now made a remark. She was not a brilliant conversationalist, this thoughtful little person, and rarely contributed anything striking or witty to a general intercourse. Her ideas needed the security of a tête-à-tête to coax them forth.

“I think,” she said to Mrs. Wylie, “that you must be gifted with a wonderful amount of patience, or you would never bother with your young men. The obligation and the pleasure must be all on their side.”

“It is,” put in Trist cynically, “a sort of mother’s agency. We ought to issue a circular for the benefit of provincial parents: ‘Young men’s morals looked after; confidences received and kindly forgotten. Youths without dull female relatives preferred. Address, Mrs. Wylie, Suffolk Mansions, London, and Wyl’s Hall, Wyvenwich.’ ”

Mrs. Wylie laughed comfortably.

“I must confess,” she said, “that the female relatives are a drawback. There are a good many stories to be listened to about hopelessly dull sisters and incapable mothers; but my young men are not so bad on the whole, and I know I do a little good occasionally. Of course there are some who require snubbing at times, and some who are not interesting; but the silent ones are my favourites, and there is only one type of talkative I really object to⁠—a young Scotchman with hard lashless eyes, a square bony jaw, a very small nose, no complexion, and an accent.”

“I know the type,” said Trist; “he has a theory for everything, including life. Is a hard business man, a keen arguer, and never makes a good soldier.”

“Altogether a most pleasing and fascinating young man,” interrupted Brenda, with a low laugh. “You are both terribly cynical, I believe, beneath a gentle suavity. It only comes to the surface when you get together and lay aside the social mask. I never met this ideal Scotchman at your house, Mrs. Wylie.”

“No, my dear,” was the decisive reply, “and I do not think you ever will.”

“You prefer young men who take but do not grab,” suggested Trist.

“Mine,” replied the lady, with tolerant complacency, “are not brilliant youths. Some of them may get in front of the crowd, but they will do so in a quiet and gentlemanly way, without elbowing or pushing too obviously, and without using other men’s shoulders as levers to help themselves forward.”

She looked straight into the young fellow’s face with her pleasantly keen smile, for he was the first and the foremost of her young men, and she was justly proud of him. He had passed beyond the dense mediocrity of the crowd, and stood alone in a place which he had won unaided. He was one of those who said too little⁠—one of the silent ones whom she loved above the others who told her everything. In her cheery, careless way, with all her assumed worldliness, she did a vast deal of good amongst these unattached young men who were in the habit of dropping in during their spare evenings at the cosy little drawing-room on the second-floor of Suffolk Mansions.

There was usually some connecting-link, some vague and distant introduction between the young men and the cheerful, worldly, childless lady who chose to make all waifs and stragglers welcome. These were generally provincial men living in chambers and working out their apprenticeships under the different styles of their different professions. Articled clerks, medical students, art students, somethings in the City, and a journalist or so. She never invited them to come, and so they came when they wanted to, often to find her out, for she was a gay little soul, and then they came again. There was always a box of cigarettes on the mantelpiece, and the broad polished table was invariably littered with the latest magazines, books, and periodicals. Mrs. Wylie was always broad awake, and the Admiral usually fell asleep as soon as the conversation waxed personal.

In the matter of confidences Mrs. Wylie possessed real genius. She forgot things so conveniently, and never smiled when given to understand that some youthful heart was broken for the third time in one season. She never preached and rarely advised, but merely listened sympathetically. There were men who came to her and never mentioned themselves, sought no advice, made no confidences, and these she made most welcome, for she loved to study them, and wonder indefinitely over their projects, their ambitions, and their motives. Above all, she loved to watch Theo Trist. This young man was a mine of human interest to her, and with Brenda Gilholme she sought to discover its inmost depths. I believe there is a delicate instrument which betrays the presence of precious metals in the earth when brought into proximity with its surface. Mrs. Wylie had perhaps heard of such an instrument, but whether that be so or no, she deliberately used Brenda to detect the good that lay in Theo Trist. You will say that this was matchmaking pure and simple; but such it certainly could not be, for Mrs. Wylie knew full well that Brenda Gilholme and Theo Trist were people who knew their own minds, who would never be forced into anything by a third person. And treating the great question generally, she was of the comforting opinion that each individual is best left to manage his or her own affairs unaided. The matchmaker⁠—the third person, in fact⁠—has remarkably little to do with most marriages, though many of us are pleased to remember after the event that we had something to do with its earlier career.

If it was not matchmaking, Mrs. Wylie’s conduct was, to say the least of it, unscrupulous; but then, my brothers, who amongst us knows a perfectly scrupulous woman? Not I, par Dieu. Charming, intelligent, fascinating, superior (ahem!), but scrupulous⁠—no. I have not yet met her. Be it the shape of a hat or the heart of a lover, she will get it, taking it as a German clerk will take your business from you, by the means that are surest of success, without stopping to consider the silly question of an overstrained point of honour.

Trist was not, strictly speaking, merely one of Mrs. Wylie’s young men. His mother was her first cousin, and she it was who had gone down to Windsor to bring home a little round-faced Eton boy to the house of sickness when Mrs. Trist’s earthly pilgrimage was thought to be at an end. Since that day she had never quite lost sight of the boy, and years later she chaperoned Alice and Brenda Gilholme through an Oxford Commemoration at the undergraduate’s request.

It was at her house, and through her instrumentality, that the friendship between these motherless young people was chiefly kept up. The respective fathers knew nothing of each other, and cared likewise. One was a Parliamentary monomaniac; the other a worn-out Indian Civil-servant, tottering on his last legs at Cheltenham. There had never been an interchange of pretty sentiments; such things were not in Mrs. Wylie’s line of country at all. She had not wept silent tears over Brenda’s bowed head, and promised to fill the place of that vague and shadowy mother whom the girl had never known. Tears of any description were unfamiliar to the comfortable, brave little lady. Some of us profess, and some there are who act without professing: of these latter was Mrs. Wylie. It is so easy to talk of filling that vacant place, and so utterly impossible to cast the faintest shadow upon the walls of the empty chamber.

With Trist it had been the same. Unquestioned he had come and gone, only to come again. Mrs. Wylie never sought to entice confidences by a kindly show of interest, and what he chose to tell (which was little enough) she listened to with small comment. If she had in any slight degree influenced his strangely-blended character, her influence had been all and entirely beneficial.

Such, briefly, was the social relationship existing between these three persons brought together upon the deck of the Hermione beneath the magic of an Arctic night. Amidst such vast and grandiose scenery the trim yacht looked petty and insignificant; but these three persons had no appearance of being out of place. They were of that adaptable material which appears to yield to its environments and takes the shape of the receptacle in which it finds itself. Yet is it, like certain boneless marine animals, independent of its surroundings, having a perfect shape of its own, into which it invariably returns when left alone.

A brilliantly capable woman, an intellectual girl, and a gifted man could not well be in their social element in a deserted fjord, amidst gloomy mountains which weigh down men’s minds and keep back all mental growth; but there was no sign of discomfort, no suspicion of boredom. This world was theirs, and with it they were content.

The stillness that had come over them was broken at length by the voice of Admiral Wylie, raised in the cabin below and heard through the open skylight.

“Brenda⁠—little woman! Brenda⁠—ahoy! Come and play to me!” cried the pleasantly raucous tones.

The girl rose from her seat at once, and passed down the little stairway with a light responsive laugh, leaving the other occupants of the deck in silence.

Presently the sound of her playing reached them. It was characteristic of herself: so perfectly trained, so technically faultless, and yet as innately and pathetically sweet, was it.

Trist moved restlessly at the sound of it, and Mrs. Wylie, watching him, saw the blue puffs of smoke follow each other with unnatural rapidity from his lips. She leant back, and drew her shawl cosily around her.

At length Trist spoke, busying himself with his pipe and giving it his full attention.

“Brenda,” he remarked conversationally, “has been lecturing me upon the evils attending an excessive spirit of independence.”

“I have no doubt that her remarks were worthy of your consideration.”

“They were. Brenda’s remarks generally are worthy of consideration.”

“Were they of a personal nature?” inquired Mrs. Wylie, with a slight suggestion of mischief in her tone.

“Decidedly so. She has a pleasant way of telling me my faults. But I like it, because she is invariably right. Perfect sincerity is a rare thing in these times.”

Mrs. Wylie did not reply to this melancholy truth. She was looking past her companion across the glassy water, with her eyelids slightly contracted and her rather thin lips pressed closely together. It was an expression very familiar to Theo Trist, and he waited silently. Presently she made a little movement, and looked at him with a faint suggestion of surprise, as if she had just landed on firm earth after a long, long mental voyage.

“She was quite right, Theo!” was the result.

He smiled vaguely, and looked obstinate.

“If,” said Mrs. Wylie in an explanatory way, “I were a different sort of woman to what I am, I should consider myself very much ill-used at being deprived of a fuller confidence. I should strive, and nag, and persist until I had wormed out of you your ambitions, your joys, your sorrows, and your possible motives. That is what Brenda means, I think. Theoretically, she is right; practically and personally she is wrong.”

“Is it not,” suggested the young fellow in self-defence, “the height of egoism to inflict thoughtlessly upon other people one’s petty, temporary, and often imaginary woes?”

“Not always, Theo. There is one case where it is real kindness to be a little selfish, and to speak openly of one’s feelings and thoughts. I once had a little boy of my own, though it was years ago, when I was quite a different person to⁠ ⁠… to what I am now, so I can hardly pretend to know much of a mother’s feelings; but I am convinced that it is truer kindness to tell one’s mother too much than too little. She knows⁠—her mere natural instinct tells her⁠—that there is something wrong, and in the intensity of her love and anxiety she exaggerates things unduly.”

They were both speaking lightly and only half gravely, but there was something pathetic in their ignorance, however indifferent and conversational their tones might be. Both were speaking vaguely and speculatively of something they had never known, something they never could know from personal experience.

“Perhaps it is better.⁠ ⁠…” Trist began, and then he stopped suddenly, withheld by a quick remembrance of the utter misery that weighed down the heart of the little Eton boy who had gazed stupidly out of the cab window as he passed over Windsor bridge fifteen years ago. He could hear again the rattle of the shaky wheels, the vibration of the windows; and again the sound of this kindly woman’s voice, lovingly lowered, came to his recollection.

“No,” he said, correcting himself, “it cannot be better, but as things have turned out, perhaps it is as well that there is no one at home listening too eagerly to the cry of the paperboy when I am away.”

“You forget poor me,” said Mrs. Wylie merrily. She had a wonderful way of slipping round a grave subject.

“Not at all. But I should imagine that you generally look at the births, deaths, and marriages before studying the list of killed and wounded.”

“Invariably. I look upon you as a person eminently capable of taking care of himself. And I should hope that if there were anything wrong you would have the good grace to let me know before the penny papers shriek it forth to the world.”

“That sounds inconsistent.”

“Nevertheless, it is not so. I am not an anxious person, Theo. I never lie awake on stormy nights at Wyl’s Hall and think of you⁠—probably sleeping peaceably in tropic calms⁠—but I like to hear occasionally of your movements, and I like to hear people talk of you, because I can say, ‘I know him’⁠—that is all.”

“Then.⁠ ⁠… Brenda is wrong?” murmured Trist with a suggestion of relief in his manner.

“Yes, Brenda is wrong, because I am not your mother, and have no desire to pretend to that doubtful felicity. It is an honour which I distinctly decline.”

“I am sorry.⁠ ⁠…”

“Oh, don’t mention it. You are hardly to blame. But I imagine that you would make a very bad son.”

Trist laughed and rose to his feet. His pipe was empty, and having knocked the ashes out against the rail, he dropped it into his pocket. Then he stood before her waiting until she should make a movement to go below.

“Nevertheless,” said Mrs. Wylie casually, without looking up as she drew her shawl comfortably around her previous to rising’⁠—nevertheless, I should like you to understand that if ever I can be of use to you (for an old woman might on occasions be useful to the most independent of young men, Theo), I am ready to do anything for you. Any little odd maternal jobs without pretending to the maternal honour, you understand.”

She rose and stepped to the side of the vessel, looking round the fjord and over the mountains in a practical, weather-wise way. Trist followed her, and stood a little behind, in his still unemotional manner, with his meek eyes raised to a distant snowfield, where the pink reflection of the northwestern sky hovered yet.

“It need not be a one-sided transaction,” he said in the same worldly, hopelessly everyday tone of voice. “There may be little odd filial jobs without acknowledging the filial ties, you understand.”

Mrs. Wylie laughed her easy, flowing laugh, and walked briskly forward; for the Admiral was calling her now in his genial, tyrannical autocracy.

“Yes,” she said cheerily. “It may be so.”

And so this compact was made at last⁠—a compact of which his share was to be commenced rudely and suddenly within twenty-four hours, while hers was harder perhaps, and infinitely sadder, extending into years yet unopened and unthought of.

The two fishermen went off in opposite directions again the next day, the Admiral taking the gig and sailing down the fjord to the distant river, while Trist went ashore in Nielsen’s boat to fish the stream that ran past the little mountain homestead.

It was a dull foreboding day; for the clouds had fallen over the summits and all was gray. The gorges were darksome, and over everything there seemed to have come a sudden gloomy melancholy. Without actually raining, the gray mist overhead dissolved softly into a falling dampness which was more subtly penetrating than driving rain itself. The sea was of a dull gray, and looked muddy. Those Arctic fjords can make a wondrous show when the sun shines, and fleecy white clouds nestle upon the shoulders of the grim mountains, but when a gray pall hangs motionless one thousand feet above the sea, there is no more dismal prospect on earth. It seems as if the rain would softly fall forever and a day⁠—as if nothing could ever brush aside the heavy vaporous veil, and let the gay blue sky peep through again.

But it was a grand fishing-day, despite a chill breeze too weak to move the clouds, and the fishermen went off in high feather. The ladies stood on deck and waved departing wishes for good luck. Before the breeze Admiral Wylie scudded away, while Trist’s progress in the heavier boat was slower, owing to the northern deliberation of Nielsen’s movements. They saw him land, and immediately he was surrounded by a skipping, dancing bevy of little white-haired children⁠—merry little boys who begged him in their monotonous Norse to throw a stone far, far across the sea. Willingly he obliged them, while eager hands were outstretched to hold his rod and gaff. Then the little maidens had to be attended to, notably one quaint little figure in a dress made upon the same lines as her mother’s, reaching to her heels, with true golden hair, plaited and pressed close against her tiny head in gleaming coils, who looked up into his face with a wondrous pair of blue eyes, which seemed to speak some deep unearthly language of their own.

This little one went up the path towards the river in triumph, standing upon the lid of his creel with her little fingers closely clutching the collar of his coat, while the boys and older girls ran by his side chattering gaily.

“And that,” said Mrs. Wylie in her semi-sarcastic way as she turned to go below with the view of consulting the steward about dinner, “is the man whose element is war.”

She waited a moment, but Brenda made no reply beyond a short, mirthless laugh.

During that day the clouds never lifted. It was twilight from morning till night. At times it drizzled in a silent, feathery way, and occasionally it rained harder. The temperature grew hot and cold, unaccountably, at intervals, and the roar of the river was singularly noticeable.

At six o’clock in the evening Nielsen’s boat dropped alongside, and Trist clambered on board the Hermione. The ladies, having heard the sound of oars, came on deck to meet him.

“Ah,” said Brenda; “you are the first home again.”

“Yes. I have three, so I am content,” was his reply. “Is there no sign of the Admiral?”

“Not yet.”

As they spoke they moved aft and stood beneath the awning, looking down the deserted fjord. There was no sail, no suggestion of life to break the monotony of its waters. Presently Trist took a pair of binoculars from a small covered box screwed to the after-rail, and gazed steadily at a certain point on the southern shore where there was a gap in the bleak wall of mountain.

“The boat,” he said, “seems to be lying there still; I can just see something yellow near the large rock overhanging the river.”

Mrs. Wylie looked at her watch. In half an hour dinner would be ready, and the boat was five miles away. Even with a stiff breeze the Admiral, whose punctuality was proverbial, could not hope to be in time. She turned, and, looking forward, perceived the steward standing at the open galley door, telescope in hand, wearing upon his keen North-country face a look of holy resignation.

“That old gentleman,” said Mrs. Wylie in an undertone, as she looked towards the distant boat, “is going to get himself into trouble. The steward is annoyed.”

Presently Trist went below to change his clothes, and when he returned, twenty minutes later, the ladies were still on deck, standing near the after-rail, looking down the fjord towards the river. It was nothing alarming for a salmon-fisherman to be an hour late for dinner, and there was no display of anxiety on the part of Mrs. Wylie. She was not, as I have endeavoured to explain, a worrying woman, and she was, moreover, a sailor’s wife, endowed with a brave, cheery heart, and well accustomed to wait for wind, weather, or mishap. She appeared to be more afraid of the steward’s displeasure than of anything else, laughing at it with mock foreboding, after the manner of ladies who feel that they are beloved by their inferiors.

About half-past seven a fresh breeze sprang up, blowing across the fjord fitfully, and consequently favourable to sailing either way. Brenda had been watching Mrs. Wylie and Theo furtively, for she was of a somewhat anxious temperament, and could not understand the levity with which they were pleased to treat Admiral Wylie’s prolonged absence.

She now noticed a subtle change in Trist’s manner. His meek eyes acquired a strange quickness of movement, and for the first time she saw him glance sideways, or, to be more explicit, she perceived that he turned his eyes in a certain direction without turning also his head. This direction was invariably down the fjord towards the river. There was no actual change in his manner, for he walked backwards and forwards beside them, upright yet humble, firmly yet softly, as usual; but there seemed to be a new influence in his presence. It was one of command. The girl suddenly and unaccountably felt that this soft-spoken man was no longer a mere guest on board the Hermione. In the absence of Admiral Wylie the actual command of the ship fell upon his shoulders, and in his gentle, passive way he had assumed the responsibility, almost unconsciously, without ostentation.

Brenda was in no manner surprised when he presently turned to Mrs. Wylie and said:

“It is no use waiting any longer. I think you and Brenda had better go down to dinner, while I take the longboat and sail down to see what is delaying them.”

The hostess made no attempt to combat his decision, but amended it hospitably.

“You must have some dinner first,” she said decisively. There was no interchange of anxious doubts, no alleviating suggestions of obvious worthlessness, such as timid people proffer readily to persons suffering from suspense; and Brenda felt that there was a great courage behind the smiling woman’s face at her side.

Trist went forward to where Captain Barrow was standing, smoking his evening pipe just abaft the mainmast.

“Will you get out the longboat, please,” the ladies heard him say, “with mast, and sail, and one man?”

Presently he joined them in the saloon, where they were pretending to dine, and hurriedly drank some soup. No one spoke, and the sound of the sailors’ movements as they lowered the longboat was the only break in an uncomfortable silence. The steward moved noiselessly and lithely, as behoved his calling.

“Your oilskins are in your stateroom, sir,” he whispered presently to Trist, who soon afterwards passed through the narrow doorway into his little apartment.

When he came out he was fully clad against the fine cold rain which was falling now. Even in heavy sea-boots he managed to walk smoothly.

The lamp had been lighted in the saloon, and he stood for a moment within its rays, looking at the two ladies. It was an incongruous and unconsciously dramatic picture thus formed in the refined little saloon, the two gracious women smiling wistfully at the straight, slim man in gleaming waterproofs. The very contrast between their delicate evening-dresses and his seamanlike attire was a shock. The white tablecloth, adorned with polished silver and odorous flowers, seemed a mockery, because there were two empty chairs beside it.

He leant over the back of his chair, and, reaching his wineglass, which stood half full, he emptied it.

“Do not be anxious,” he said; “I expect we shall be back before you have finished dinner.”

And he passed out of the saloon, swinging his sou’-wester by its strings.

“We will keep some dinner warm for you both,” called out Mrs. Wylie cheerfully, and from a distance he answered:

“Thank you!”

While continuing their homeopathic meal they heard the sound of men’s voices, the creak of a block, and immediately afterwards the rush of the longboat through the water under heavy sail.

It was very cold that evening, and, owing to the heavy clouds, almost dark. Nevertheless the ladies went on deck immediately after the farce of dinner had been carried to an end. At first they talked in a scrappy, strained way, and then lapsed into silence. Wrapped closely in their cloaks, they walked side-by-side fore and aft. Owing to the fine drizzle which blew across the fjord, it was now impossible to distinguish any object more than a mile away from the yacht, and the two women were enveloped in a silent gray veil of suspense.

Until ten o’clock they continued their vigil⁠—alone on the deck except for the watchful steward standing within the galley-door. Then Brenda espied a sail looming through the gray mist.

“There is one of the boats,” she said gently, but there was a faint thrill of dread in her voice.

Mrs. Wylie made no answer, but walked to the after-rail, out from beneath the awning, into the rain. Brenda followed, and there they stood waiting.

“It is the gig,” said the elder woman half to herself, otherwise the horrible moments passed mutely by.

There was but one man in the boat. Trist had undoubtedly sent for help. Contrary to etiquette, the sailor did not make for the steps hanging amidships, but came straight beneath the counter of the Hermione, lowering his sail deftly, and standing up to touch his dripping sou’-wester as the boat fell alongside.

The sailor was young and impulsive. He did not think much of yachtsman etiquette just then, but stood up in his boat, holding on to the rail of the vessel with both hands.

“Please, marm,” he said hurriedly and unevenly, “I waited at the mouth of the river as the Admiral told me to do until seven o’clock, and he never came. Then I landed, and clambered up a bit to look for him. When a’ was a bit up I saw the longboat comin’ and Mr. Trist steering her, so I went down again. Mr. Trist’s gone up the river, marm, and me and Barker waited for two hours and heard nothin’. Then Barker says I’d better come on board an’ tell yer, marm.”

“You did quite right, Cobbold,” replied Mrs. Wylie, in a singularly monotonous voice. “You had better come on board and get something to eat; you look tired.”

But the man did not move. He shook his head.

“No, marm,” he said bashfully, “I’m not wantin’ anything t’eat. And I’m not tired⁠ ⁠… only I’m a bit⁠ ⁠… scared! I should like to go back, marm, at once to the river.”

Mrs. Wylie thought for a moment deeply.

“I will go back with you,” she said at length. Then she went forward to where Captain Barrow stood with the rest of the crew, now thoroughly aroused to anxiety, grouped behind him.

“Captain Barrow,” she said, in a tone slightly raised, so that all might hear her, “the Admiral has not come back yet. I am afraid that he has either hurt himself or is lost in the mist. I will go back with Cobbold in the gig. But⁠ ⁠… it will not be necessary to keep the men up.”

In the meantime, Brenda had not been idle. She ran down below and found the steward already in the saloon procuring waterproofs. He was kneeling before an open locker when she entered the little cabin, and, turning his head, he saw her.

“Are you going too, miss?” he asked.

“Yes, Clarke, I am going.”

“Then will you put this flask of brandy into your pocket, miss? I don’t like to give it to the missus. It’s kinder suggestive like.”

She took the little bottle, and while he helped her on with her waterproof cloak he spoke again in his kindly Northumbrian familiarity:

“It’s a good thing we’ve got Mr. Trist with us this night, that it is! He’s what Captain Barrow would call a strong tower.”

Brenda smiled rather wanly as she hurried away.

“Yes,” she answered; “I am very glad we have him to rely upon.”

Mrs. Wylie seemed scarcely to notice that Brenda stepped into the boat and sat down beside her. The little lady was making a brave fight against her growing anxiety. She even laughed when the sail filled with a loud flap, and nearly precipitated Cobbold into the water. Crouching low, the two women sat in silence. It was now blowing stiffly, and perhaps Cobbold would have done better to take a reef in the light sail; but in his anxiety to reach the river without delay he risked the lives of his two passengers more freely than he would have dared to do in a cooler moment. As is usually the case, his confidence was greater under excitement, and no mishap befell the little boat.

When they reached the mouth of the river they found the longboat lying alongside the huge shelving rock used as a landing-stage on account of its convenience during all varieties of tide.

The man watching there had heard or seen nothing of Mr. Trist or Admiral Wylie. The ladies sat for some time in the stern of the gig, wrapped in their waterproof cloaks, without speaking. Then Brenda begged to be landed. She was shivering with cold and anxiety. She walked slowly up the smooth surface of the rock and disappeared. Once out of sight of the two boats which lay heaving softly on the bosom of the rising tide, she quickened her pace, keeping to the narrow path trodden on the peaty soil by Admiral Wylie and Theo Trist in turn. It was probable that the human beings who had passed along that scarcely visible track, from the days of the Flood down to the time that this little English maiden pressed her way through the silver-birch trees, could be counted upon the fingers of two hands. There was nothing to attract the curious up the deep gorge formed by this unknown stream. Far inland, over impassable rocks, lay the corner of a huge glacier from whence the river received its chill waters. There was no natural beauty to draw thither the artist, no animal life to attract the naturalist, no vast height to tempt the mountaineer. Here century after century the trout had lain, head up stream, to catch what God might send them. In the lower waters, year after year, the sturdy salmon had pressed past each other through rill and whirlpool, with gills flattened to the fresh cool waters of the snowfield.

In all human probability no woman’s footprint had impressed itself upon that turf before.

The valley took a turn westward round a great sloping forest of pine and silver-birch, harmoniously mingled, about half a mile from the sea, and soon afterwards the hills closed menacingly over the noisy river. The water here was very rough and broken. At times a great smooth pool, half an acre in extent, twenty feet in depth, would lie at the foot of a series of roaring waterfalls of no great height, but infinite variety. Again, there were long broken rapids, which only a salmon could expect to stem, and here and there smooth runs almost navigable for a boat.

Regardless of peaty pool and treacherous rivulets running over brilliant turf, Brenda hurried on. The mere bodily fatigue was a comfort to her, the very act of breaking the small branches in her way a solace. It was now nearly midnight, and already on the snowfield above her the pearly pink light of morning crept on its glistening way. The twilight was no longer lowering, but full of fresh promise. A new day softly smiled upon the silent land which had known no night; but to the solitary girl it brought little hope.

Suddenly she stopped and listened intently. A distant crackle of dry wood beneath a human tread repeated itself. Someone was approaching rapidly.

A moment later Theo Trist stood before her, but she scarcely recognised him. Her first feeling was one of utter surprise that his meek eyes could look so resolute. The man’s face was changed, and he who stood before Brenda was not the well-bred, quiet gentleman, but the lost soldier. She did not realize then that he had been fifteen hours on his feet with hardly any food. She scarcely noticed that his clothes were wet, and clinging to his limbs, and that he was without his waterproof. All she saw, all she had eyes for, was that strange incongruous face where resolution dominated so suddenly.

He it was who broke the silence, and he was forced to shout, because they were so close to the river.

“Where is Mrs. Wylie?” he asked.

“She is at the mouth of the river,” replied Brenda⁠—“in the boat, waiting.”

“Come away!” he shouted, beckoning with his head, and they moved through the pinewood further inland, where the brawl of the stream was less disagreeable.

Then he took her hand in his, and looked down into her face with unconscious scrutiny.

“You must go back to her, Brenda,” he said, “and tell her that Admiral Wylie is dead. I found him in a whirlpool about half a mile above here.”

“When was that?” asked the girl mechanically.

“Oh, an hour ago. I have been all this time in the water recovering⁠ ⁠… getting him ashore.”

“Was he quite dead?”

“Quite dead. It must have happened early in the day, for his lunch was still in his creel.”

“Where is he⁠ ⁠… now?” whispered Brenda, looking through the trees from which Trist had emerged.

“Through there, on the bank. I began carrying him down to the boat, but had to give it up.”

She said nothing, but moved a step or two towards the spot indicated. Then he took her hand within his and led the way. Presently they came out of the thicker wood on to the rocky ground near the river, and soon afterwards came into sight of a still form lying on the turf beneath Trist’s waterproof. There were stones on the corners of the mackintosh to prevent it being blown away, but the wind penetrated between them and the stuff rippled with a slight sound. The upper part of the body only was covered, and there was, in the wet waders and misshapen brogues, a suggestion of simple pride. In bad weather the Admiral had always fished in an old black sou’-wester, and this lay by his side with his creel and rod. The old sportsman had died in harness, with the quick burr-r-r of the reel sounding in his ears and a “taut line” bending his rod; for Trist found the gut broken.

The man who had looked on death so often, who had slept amidst the groans of the dying and the heartrending cries of the sore-wounded, now knelt and simply drew back the covering from the still gray face. Death was so familiar to him that the sight of it brought no shock, and he scarcely realized what he was doing. Mechanically Brenda knelt down on the turf, her dress touching the dead man’s hand. For some moments she remained thus, while the rosy light of dawn crept down the mountain side. Behind her stood Trist, silently watching. Presently he looked round and noted the increase of daylight; then he touched her shoulder.

“Come, Brenda,” he said. “The day is breaking. We must go. I will walk back with you to the boat.”

She rose and shook her head decisively.

“No,” she answered. “You must stay here⁠—beside him. I will go back alone. It is better for me to tell Mrs. Wylie.”

“You are not afraid?” he inquired.

“No. I am not afraid.”

She spoke in her simple, quiet way, which was not without a certain force, despite her gentle voice. It was no boast of courage that she was making, but a plain statement of fact. She was not afraid, because she felt that it was her duty, and no soldier ever possessed a clearer, braver sense of duty than did Brenda Gilholme.

Trist walked by her side a few paces.

“I wish,” he said, “that I could have spared you some of this.”

“Do not think of me,” she replied. “You seem to consider me, Theo, a weak, foolish girl, who should be spared every little pain and trouble.”

“I should like⁠ ⁠…” he began, and then he stopped abruptly, so much so as to cause an awkward silence. “Well,” he added at length in a different tone, “I will wait here⁠—but you must not come back. Send one of the men⁠—the stronger of the two: Cobbold.”

“I think both the men had better come,” she suggested. They were now standing beneath the small, stunted pines upon a silent carpet of dead sweet-scented needles. As she spoke, she looked up into his face with a quiet scrutiny which was full of suggestive anxiety.

“Why?” he asked, with a faint smile.

“Because you must be completely exhausted. You have been on your feet for nearly twenty-four hours. Besides, you are wet through, and dragged down by the weight of your clothes.”

“I am wet,” he admitted, “but not tired. It is my profession to ignore fatigue. Send Cobbold, Brenda! The other man must stay with you.”

He drew back some branches for her to pass unscratched through the thicket, but did not offer to accompany her any further.

“Will you not let me come?” he asked again as she passed him. “This is a horrible task you have set yourself.”

She stood beside him for a moment beneath his upraised arm, looking straight in front of her. Her shoulder was almost touching his wet coat, which hung loosely. All around them the trees dripped mournfully, while, through the low entanglement, the voice of the mournful river sang its ancient dirge.

“It is only my share of the task,” she answered. “Why should you have it all to do⁠—Theo? Besides⁠ ⁠… I never expected life to be all sunshine.”

He answered nothing, and she went forward slowly, almost reluctantly, from beneath the branches he was holding up. To them both there seemed something pleasant, some vague suggestion of comfort, in her thought that this was a task they had to perform in common, each doing a worthy share. At a later period there came another task for them to perform, and the mutual trust which was now planted grew into an upright tree. They did not know that the burden of it was to fall chiefly on the weaker shoulders, as they parted, after having tacitly apportioned the work that lay before them.

The girl went her way, revolving in her quick and capable brain all that she was so suddenly called upon to do; while the man, left by the still form that lay upon the turf, was already organizing things in an experienced, practical way. It happened that he was never to carry out his own plans, but he did not suspect this at the time; he had no presentiment that he was to be called away to other work⁠—nobler, braver work⁠—leaving this sorrowful task half done in the hands of her who had volunteered to be his lieutenant.

Before the sun’s rays had crept down the bare mountain side to the sea, the two boats moved away from the rock that seemed to guard the mouth of the river.

In the gig⁠—the first boat to get away⁠—were seated Mrs. Wylie and Brenda, while the sailor Cobbold steered. Trist followed in the longboat, steering himself, while the sailor crouched down forward. Between the two men lay, beneath the thwarts, the genial, kindhearted old sportsman, who would never hear the glad rattle of the reel again, who would no more watch, with keen dancing eyes, the straining line. Never again would he recount his day’s adventures in the cosy cabin, giving the salmon his full due, throwing in here and there a merry little detail to his own discomfiture. Now he lay, with his waders slowly drying, his eyes peacefully closed, his brown, weather-beaten hands limply clenched. Trist had reeled in the severed line, divided the useless rod, and laid aside the empty creel, all in his silent, emotionless way, with no look of horror in his soft eyes.

To him the suddenness of Admiral Wylie’s death was no shock. He had seen the Reaper at work before, and this was ripe corn, ready for the sickle⁠—a pleasing contrast to the brave young stalks he had seen mown down in thousands. He had a strange, semi-Biblical contempt for death in itself. The mere ceremony of dying was for him, as it was for the Apostles and writers of old, a matter of small interest. They tell of lives, and not of deaths. Trist loved to watch men live and strive and fight; to see them die caused him small emotion; to hear them speak last explanatory words, full of repentance, perhaps, or pharisaical self-exoneration, moved him to gentle pity, but altered in no whit or jot his estimate of the life that was done.

Admiral Wylie’s life had been a success. His death had been a worthy finish to a quiet, homely tale⁠—the only dramatic point of interest in a long uneventful course of daily incidents. He died, as Trist said later to an old soldier, in his waders. Most men would prefer to die in their boots; it is a more manly way of taking that last step over the brink into the unfathomable waters of eternity. And waders, sea-boots, or Hessians will hamper no man’s tread upon the Silent Shore, if he have only picked his steps through the mud that lies on this side.

In the gig the two women sat without speaking, while the water, surging and bubbling beneath bow and stern, seemed to chatter garrulously. Mrs. Wylie leant back against the cushions with her arms folded beneath her cloak. The rain had ceased, and great white clouds hovered far above the mountains. All around was fresh and fair, like a maiden smiling with tears still on her lashes.

Brenda sat upright, ready, as it were, for anything. She had told Mrs. Wylie simply and straightforwardly that Theo Trist had found the Admiral⁠—dead; and the news had been received quietly and composedly. Mrs. Wylie was one of those rare women who are really and truly independent of outside opinion. She passed through her joys and sorrows as seemed best to her own judgment, and left the world to form its own opinion.

Many there are who have the courage to face a great grief with bold front and unflinching eyes, but they fear to be considered hard and heartless. Happy is the man or woman who can look back to a period of sorrow without having to regret an excess of some description⁠—excess of demonstration or excess of reserve. Mrs. Wylie was not a demonstrative woman. She laughed readily, in her cheery, infectious way, because she found that laughter is wanted in the world; but she rarely wept, because she knew that tears are idle. And so no tears came to her eyes when Brenda laid her soft warm hands upon her arm and told her the news. The two men had stood a little way off, respectfully, so that they were practically alone, but if Mrs. Wylie ever shed tangible, visible tears for her husband, she shed them in solitude, and spoke her thoughts to none.

All through that terrible journey up the fjord (for the wind was light at dawn, as it mostly is in Arctic seas), Brenda waited for those tears that never came⁠—listened for the words that were never spoken. She stared straight in front of her towards the Hermione, and never actually looked into her companion’s face; but she knew the expression that was there: the slightly raised lower lids, the close-pressed lips, and the far-off speculation in the eyes.

A little way behind them the longboat was forging through the water. Brenda could hear the plashing of the divided waves round its curved stern; but the sound neither approached nor receded, and she never turned her head to see how it might fare with the mournful freight. For the first time in her life this little maid was realizing that there was earnest work in the world for her to do, that there was a place which, but for her, must needs remain vacant, because none other could fill it. She knew and recognised that Mrs. Wylie needed someone in her great sorrow⁠—needed a woman, needed her⁠—Brenda Gilholme. No one else could satisfy this vague craving for a silent sympathy; not even Theo Trist, with his man’s strength and his woman’s tact.

And so Brenda was content to be in the house of mourning, because she felt that her rightful place was there, and the feeling quenched in a small degree that feverish thirst to be doing something⁠—some good in the world⁠—which burnt her brave young soul, parched by the acrid aftertaste of the fruit of the tree of knowledge.

There was work for Theo Trist⁠—tangible, honest work⁠—and there was also labour for Brenda’s hands and heart: a thousand little alleviating attentions, delicate shy sympathies, and a constant companionable courage; none of which she had learnt in Latin, Greek or Hebrew; which cannot be defined by Euclid, summed up by algebra, nor valued by arithmetic. In fact, Brenda Gilholme was verging on the discovery that the most important part of her dainty anatomy was her heart, and not her head.

The gig ran alongside, and Brenda, stepping on deck, first said a few hurried words to Captain Barrow and the steward, who were standing together at the companion. Then the smaller boat moved away, and the longboat took its place.

“The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away; blessed be the name of the Lord!” said Captain Barrow, looking severely at the steward, with the honest salt tears running down his cheeks as the two men received the cold burden from the arms of Trist and Barker.

Brenda turned slowly and looked into Theo Trist’s face, on which there was even now no sign of fatigue. He had raised his eyes to hers on hearing Captain Barrow’s simple words, and now they looked at each other in a strangely wondering way. Neither had thought of the Hand whose work this was until that moment.

So the joint command of the Hermione lapsed into new hands⁠—the man’s command above decks, and the woman’s rule below.

In both regions the new director stepped into the vacant place quietly, unostentatiously and confidently. Old Captain Barrow was as the potter’s clay in Trist’s gentle yet firm hands. The young fellow’s strange subtle influence soon made itself felt upon the men. The Admiral had ruled by genial heartiness, coupled with the force of past experience implied by his title; the young journalist (who did not pretend to be a sailor) enforced obedience by the magnetic attraction of his implacable will.

Mrs. Wylie uttered no complaint, sued for no sympathy⁠—she was simply stunned⁠—and, in her imperious little way, Brenda took over all the smaller household duties, assumed all minor responsibilities, and gave the widow no rest.

She forced her to take an interest in smaller things, and allowed no time for thought. She herself literally put her to bed by the light of the morning sun, and calmly announced her intention of sharing the stateroom. The Admiral was carried below, and laid on Trist’s bed, and the latter moved, next day, into the room vacated by Brenda.

For him there was no rest that night. He did not even change the clothes in which he had been swimming a few hours before, while bringing ashore the dead man. By seven o’clock in the morning the Hermione was ready for sea⁠—awning furled, stanchions stowed away, and the great sails shaken out.

About this time Brenda came on deck. She looked round for a moment in utter surprise at the changed appearance of the ship; then she walked aft, to where Trist was standing near the rail talking in a low voice to Nielsen, who, hurriedly summoned, had come on board to pilot the yacht down the Heimdalfjord.

The Englishman’s back was turned towards her, and he did not hear her light tread upon the deck, but his companion raised his rough sable hat respectfully, and Trist turned round at once. Brenda saw that he noticed her black dress, and involuntarily glanced down at his own shabby tweed suit, which was discoloured and wrinkled.

“Have you had any rest?” were his first words.

“Yes; thank you. I slept for at least two hours.” She smiled a little as she looked at him, and his glance rested on her faultlessly-dressed head, her dainty form, and proud little face.

“And Mrs. Wylie?” he inquired softly.

“She is sleeping now.”

He nodded his head, and they both turned, standing side by side, looking forward to where the men were at work with the anchor. Nielsen had left them, and was talking to Captain Barrow on the forecastle.

“Captain Barrow,” he explained, in a tone which in some way implied a joint-control, “has got all ready for sea. The tide begins to run down at half-past seven, when we will get in the anchor and go.”

She nodded her head wisely and gravely, like a field-officer receiving a brother-commander’s report⁠—receiving it, moreover, with satisfaction.

“You have been very prompt,” she murmured frankly, as she looked round and mentally noted the work that had been done.

He turned his head hastily, as if about to begin some lengthy explanation or to assign a reason for his promptitude, but seemed to change his mind, for he stood looking at her vaguely for a moment, and then turned his eyes away.

At this moment the steward came towards them with his gliding, noiseless steps. He was carrying two mugs of coffee⁠—not the thin cups used in the cabin, but rough stout mugs intended for deck use. Moreover, he brought them in the lid of the biscuit-box, with some biscuits lying round them, as he brought early coffee every morning to whosoever might be keeping the last watch.

He stood silently in front of Brenda, and made no attempt to apologize for the seamanlike roughness of the repast, while she took her mug and biscuit.

Even when the steward had left them, Trist made no remark respecting this tacit treatment of Brenda as an officer of the ship; and she it was who broke the silence, speaking slowly and suggestively, as if waiting for him to approve or propose an amendment. It was absurdly like the report of a junior departmental commander to his senior.

“Oh, Theo,” she said, “I have moved most of my things into the large stateroom, as I think it will be better for me to sleep with Mrs. Wylie. You can go into my cabin as soon as you like now⁠—the steward and I have put it all right for you.”

“Thank you!” he said, sipping his coffee.

“Will you not go and change now? It cannot be good to keep on those clothes.”

“Not yet,” he answered, with a smile. “They are quite dry now, and the sun is shining, so I am warm. Besides, there are one or two things I want to ask your opinion about, and we may not have the chance later on.”

He moved a little, and she, falling into his step, walked by his side. Thus they paced backwards and forwards slowly in the early morning splendour⁠—she neat, trim, and lightsome; he weary, worn, untidy, but strong and restful⁠—until they had consulted mutually upon certain points requiring immediate decision. When they had finished their coffee and biscuit, each swung the empty mug idly, one finger curled through the handle, with unconscious youthfulness of gesture.

“The nearest village,” he began in his meek way, “is Fjaerholm; we shall be there by this time tomorrow with a fair breeze. There is a church there and a churchyard, although the village itself is a tiny place, almost surrounded by glaciers, and rarely visited. It will hardly do, perhaps, to approach the question yet, but if we can find out before we leave the Heimdalfjord what Mrs. Wylie’s opinion is, it will simplify matters. Whether, I mean, we are to make for Fjaerholm, with the view of burying him there, or to go down the Sognfjord, catch a steamer to Bergen, and so home.”

There was a short pause when he had finished speaking. Brenda appeared to be lost in a reverie. At length she spoke.

“Which course do you recommend, Theo?” she asked.

“My opinion can be of little value. It is a matter of personal feeling which only Mrs. Wylie can decide.”

“Yes. But she may be in that frame of mind where a decided opinion⁠—your opinion⁠—might be a comfort to her.”

As she made this suggestion she turned her head and looked up to see whether he had fully grasped her meaning, and he nodded his head slightly, admitting that her argument might very well be of value.

“I am afraid, Brenda,” he said apologetically, “that I am rather hard and practical in these matters. My opinion is that Fjaerholm churchyard is as good as any other. It would be a horrible journey home for her and⁠ ⁠… for you.”

“I think Fjaerholm would be best.”

“I am sure of it. Of course, Mrs. Wylie may have decided feelings on the subject, and if so we must give in, and leave the Hermione; though I think she will be better here among her own surroundings than on board a crowded passenger steamer⁠—an object of curiosity and ostentatious sympathy.”

“I do not think,” said the girl, after a short pause, “that she will be influenced by any mistaken sentiment.”

“Nor I. And of course it is mere sentiment. We English have a way of leaving our dead all over the world, and no doubt there are more of us in the sea than of any other nation.”

She looked at him in a vague, wistful way. At times she failed to understand him. There were certain humours which came over him at odd times⁠—hard practical humours of which the heartlessness seemed assumed and unnatural⁠—and of these she could not detect the motive.

“I will try,” she said, “to find out Mrs. Wylie’s feelings on the subject.”

“Yes, Brenda, do!” he murmured, in a way which seemed to imply that the matter was safe in her hands.

They continued to walk up and down in silence⁠—each wrapt in individual thought. There was a little frown on the girl’s face, an almost imperceptible contraction of the eyelids, forming a slight perpendicular wrinkle which might deepen and grow permanent with sorrow or years. The clear, heavenly-blue eyes were wide open and somewhat restless, and in the whole face there was that intangible, indescribable presence which we call intellect, because we dare not call it soul.

Suddenly Trist stopped and looked down at her so persistently that she was forced to raise her eyes.

“Don’t!” he said ambiguously, with his slow, deprecating smile.

She laughed in a short curious tone, and changed colour.

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t think about me,” he said with sudden earnestness.

For a moment an expression of pain rested in her eyes, and she opened her lips as if about to speak; but he bade her keep silence with an admonishing shake of the head, and she stood with slightly parted lips looking up into his unreadable face.

“Don’t!” he murmured again, and moved forward decisively. They continued to walk in silence for some moments.

“How did you know that I was thinking of you?” she asked quietly, at length.

“I can always tell. There is a peculiar stony silence which comes over you at times, and I always feel its presence. Very often you remain without speaking for some time, but that is a different silence, and then without looking towards you I feel suddenly that the other has come⁠—that the other has come⁠ ⁠… Brenda, and that you are thinking about me!”

“You ought to be highly gratified!” she observed with a lamentable attempt at playfulness.

“And,” he continued in his gently deliberate way, “when I look at you the same expression is always there. You are always striving to say something which is difficult. Don’t say it, Brenda! If it is a question, don’t ask it.”

“Why not?”

“Because those things are better left unsaid⁠—those questions are better left unasked. The answer cannot be satisfactory.”

“Then you advocate going through life without ever understanding our fellow-creatures, without ever attempting to enter into each other’s joys and sorrows, without pitying, sympathizing, or admiring?”

“No, I do not go so far as that. But I have no patience with people who are constantly fishing for sympathy, constantly confiding imaginary woes to others who have their own affairs to worry them. You should never seek trouble, Brenda. It comes only too naturally of its own free will,” he said in a quick anxious way, endeavouring to keep the conversation in a safe and general channel.

“It seems to me,” she answered after a long pause, “that stoicism is your aim and creed. To endure, and simply to endure, is your estimate of life. He who endures best, who carries the brightest face before the world, utters the fewest complaints, and deceives most successfully his fellow-creatures, has lived the best life. You never try to see a meaning in it all⁠—you never seek an ulterior motive which is only and solely for our good.”

“My dear Brenda,” said Trist with animation, “am I a cripple? Am I blind or dumb, or halt⁠—that I have aught to endure?”

“You have something,” was the grave rejoinder. “There is something, but I do not know what it is, and I would sooner see you openly miserable⁠—cynical, heartless, anything but what you are.”

He laughed aloud, and she shrugged her shoulders with a little smile.

“You should really devote your energies to novel-writing,” he said gaily. “You see romance where none exists. For you, indigestion is nothing else than a broken heart. An unfortunate gravity of demeanour (like mine) means a cankering sorrow, and every smile is hollow.”

No answering smile came over her face, and she seemed suddenly to remember that Mrs. Wylie might be awake and requiring her presence.

She moved away a little, and stood watching the men at work forward at the windlass. Then she turned and looked past him across the sea.

“I cannot help feeling,” she said, “that in some way you must owe me a grudge. Of course I had nothing to do with it in reality; but she was my sister, and despite your denial, despite your forbearance and wonderful charity, you must, in your inmost heart, blame Alice.”

He turned his meek eyes towards her face with a patient smile.

“My dear Brenda,” he said remonstratingly, “what firm convictions you have! Once before⁠—long ago⁠—you hinted at this⁠ ⁠… matter, and in reply I insinuated that Alice was nothing to me. Her influence has no weight on my actions; it in no way affects my coming or my going. Please don’t think of me and my affairs.”

She moved away slowly, reluctantly, without replying, gliding across the deck with noiseless tread, and so the strange interview terminated with a curious questioning silence on both sides. There was something that she did not dare to ask, something he dreaded, for his eyes were dull with a great suspense as he stood watching her go away from him.

Then he pushed back from his forehead the black sou’-wester he still wore, despite the brilliant sunshine, and somewhat wearily wiped his brow.

There was about this man a strange uncanny quiet. His calm eyes were not devoid of intellect, as most calm eyes are; his mouth and chin were not those of a sensuous, self-indulgent person. In a word, his repose was unnatural. There was in his being a vague suggestion of endurance, as Brenda had discovered. Had he been a parson, one would have said, with that careless, casual judgment of our fellows which is so often terribly correct, that he was conscious of an utter unfitness for priesthood. Had he been a soldier, one would have assigned to him a nervous hatred towards bloodshed and the means of shedding blood. But he had chosen his own profession, and in it had made a decided mark. It was one of those peculiar callings for which peculiar men are specially created by Providence⁠—men endowed with incongruous talents, and contradictory habits of thought and action. Into such callings men are never forced: they force their own way, or they drift into some other means of making a livelihood, and, possessing no peculiar gifts, make no peculiar impression upon the moral and mental sands of their time.

Theodore Trist was undoubtedly created for a special purpose, and so distinct was the destination, that he had, without the aid of circumstance or environment, drifted into the peculiar line of life for which his talents were intended. He was a war-correspondent, and nothing else (unless it were a soldier, in which profession one most important gift would have been lost⁠—that of writing critically and brilliantly). In a few years he had climbed the unsteady ladder of fame, and was now firmly planted on its uppermost rungs. He possessed health, strength, and energy⁠—there was war brooding in the East⁠—he was not blind, nor dumb, nor halt, so what could man wish for more? Yet Brenda Gilholme told him to his face, in her thoughtful, convincing way, that there was something in his life that called for a stoical endurance, and he, failing to laugh scornfully, denied the accusation with visible discomfort.

After she had left the deck, he continued to pace slowly fore and aft by himself. Presently the tide turned, and the anchor came clanking up from its rocky lodging. The huge mainsail spread its broad white bosom to the breeze, and the Hermione began to rise and fall almost imperceptibly. The breeze was light, but the vast expanse of sail caught every passing breath, and steerageway was soon acquired. Silently, graciously as she had arrived, the yacht left the little forgotten corner of this Northern world, rippling through the foamless waters with stately deliberation. Trist took no part in the well-drilled hurry that attended the departure. He was no sailor: his command was not the loud-voiced autocracy of the master mariner. It was subtle, indefinite, immeasurable.

On the bosom of the receding tide the Hermione left those still waters. Soon she passed the mouth of the river where Admiral Wylie had met his sportsman’s fate. So close was she to the high land, that the flow of the river swung her round a little. All who were on deck instinctively ceased their occupations, and stood with idle hands gazing thoughtfully up the deserted gorge. They could hear the breeze whispering among the still pines, murmuring through the fairy silver birches; and behind, in a perspective of sound, the echoing laughter of the river in its rocky bed.

Theo Trist stood alone, apparently emotionless, but when the mouth of the gorge had been shut out of view by the brown slope of a huge hill, Captain Barrow came and stood beside him.

“And now, Mr. Trist,” said the old sailor, “you’ll need some rest. There’s a time for all things⁠—a time for tears and a time for laughter, a time for work and a time for sleep.”

Trist looked at the old man in a vague, semi-stupid way.

“And you would suggest that this is a time for sleep, Captain Barrow?”

“Yes⁠—I would that.”

Then he took the young man’s arm, and gently forced him to leave the deck.

Trist found the saloon deserted. He passed into his new stateroom, and there he mechanically proceeded to make some sort of a toilet. A suit of blue serge was the darkest he possessed, and this he donned, toning it down with a black necktie. He shaved and bathed in a dull, dignified way, as a condemned criminal might do upon the morning of his execution⁠—after a sleepless night.

Then he returned to the saloon. The steward was setting the breakfast-table in the forward part of the cabin near the mainmast, where the dining-room was tacitly understood to be. Further aft were low chairs, a sofa, a piano, and other furniture, constituting a drawing-room.

Trist sank into a low chair, and watched the man’s quick, noiseless movements with perfunctory interest. The steward glanced towards him, and his movements became, if possible, more supernaturally silent than before. Then suddenly his long sallow face relaxed into a satisfied smile, and, for his own edification, he nodded his head in a pleased, told-you-so sort of manner.

Trist was asleep.

“Theo! Theo! I am sorry to wake you!”

Trist was a man who threw aside the heaviest sleep at a moment’s notice, and was in full possession of his faculties⁠—probably making active use of them⁠—while others were still rubbing their eyes. The touch of a soft, warm little hand upon his wrist had awakened him before the words imprinted themselves upon his brain. Somehow he remembered them afterwards, the syllables themselves, and the manner in which they were uttered.

He looked up with a smile, and met Brenda’s eyes. She was leaning over his chair, and when he looked up she stood erect with her white hands hanging before her against the soft black dress. She had learnt something at Mrs. Wylie’s school of womanliness, for everything about her was as neat and trim and dainty as if there was naught else to think of than the braiding and coiling of the bright brown hair, and the pinning of the snowy collar round her throat.

“I am sorry to disturb you, Theo,” she repeated.

“Not at all,” he said. “Why should you be? It is ten o’clock; I have been asleep two hours. What more could I require?”

“I have kept some breakfast warm for you,” she said, turning towards the table; “but I awakened you because of these. There are four telegrams and a number of letters for you. Hans Olsen brought them off just now. He got them yesterday from the Bergen boat. We are out of the Heimdalfjord now, and Nielsen has gone. I⁠ ⁠… only hope⁠ ⁠… it is not war, Theo!”

He stood up and took the telegrams and letters from her hands. Then he crossed the saloon towards the table.

“It looks rather like it,” he said coolly.

He raised the cover of the dish which the steward had just placed upon the table, and Brenda, taking the hint, poured out his coffee.

She walked away from him a little and stood quite motionless, with her back turned towards him, while he tore open the thin white telegraph envelopes. One⁠ ⁠… two⁠ ⁠… three⁠ ⁠… four of them, spreading the paper out upon the tablecloth. Her quick ears caught each sound, and enabled her to picture every movement made by this indifferent man.

“Yes, Brenda, it⁠ ⁠… is⁠ ⁠… war!”

She turned slowly and approached the table. Bending over it, she attended to his requirements in a deftly graceful way, grouping round him the toast, butter, and marmalade. He was studying a telegram spread out before him, but his fixed eyes did not appear to be taking in the purport of words written in uneven type. Furtively he looked towards her hands, and then slowly upward, terminating in one scrutinizing glance into her face.

“Where?” she asked, sitting down rather hastily opposite to him.

“Serbia and Montenegro have declared war against Turkey,” he replied, busying himself with his plate.

“And you must go?”

He stirred his coffee very deliberately, and, raising the cup to his lips, took a long critical sip.

“Yes, Brenda. I must go!”

There are few more silent places than the cabin of a sailing yacht on a calm day. In a steamer it is different, for there is the ever-beating throb of life down below, in the engine-room, which is half heard and half felt. But on a sailing yacht, when the rudder-chains are taut and the breeze steady, there is no noise whatever. In the pretty saloon of the Hermione there was a singular absence of sound when Trist finished speaking. He turned again to the telegrams, neglecting his breakfast. Brenda thought that she had never experienced such an utter, breathless silence. Her ears seemed to tingle with the intensity of it, and in her brain there was a sudden vacuous sensation. She could think of nothing to say, although she strained her mind to discover some means of breaking this dreadful pause.

Furtively she raised her eyes, and at the same moment Trist looked across the table in a hurried, shifty way. Their eyes met for a brief agonizing second.

“I hope,” said Brenda sweetly, “that your coffee is not very cold.”

“Oh no! Oh no, thank you! It is very nice,” he replied awkwardly, looking into the cup with absorbing interest.

Her question appeared to call him back from some vague, far-off dream, for he resolutely began to eat; while she hovered round, playing the hostess in a shy, constrained way. Presently he handed the open telegrams across the table to her.

“You may as well read them,” he said conversationally. “They are very characteristic of the man who wrote them.”

She took the papers and read in a semitone:

War⁠—Serbia, Turkey⁠—imminent. Come.

Number two was longer:

Where on earth are you? War. Look sharp. Montenegro is in it, too.

The third was more serious:

Two messages without reply. Are you coming?

Then number four:

They are at it already. It will be a bad business. Come at once.

She returned them without a word; and he, seeing the necessity of saying something, remarked pleasantly:

“It is my misfortune to be required in two places at once, or not at all.”

She stood by the table and looked at the date of the latest telegram. The four messages had been despatched within two days.

“Are you not,” she asked innocently, “too late? It may be all over now.”

He glanced up at her in a curious, laughing way.

“No⁠—I am afraid not. War in these semi-barbaric countries is like an illness in a young person. It is only half healed beneath a deceptive surface, and breaks out in a fresh place.”

Again she took up the telegrams. It seemed as if there were a fascination in the flimsy papers which she could not resist.

“This man seems to look upon it as rather a good joke. He takes the matter jovially.”

“Yes! He takes most things in that way. It is a good thing for him, you see. Brings up the circulation of his paper.”

“That,” she said quietly, “is a very practical way of looking at war.”

Trist appeared to ignore, purposely, the slight reproach conveyed by her remark.

“War is a practical thing,” he replied. “This is a splendid chance for me, and one I should be sorry to miss. It is not a surprise, Brenda. We all knew that it might come at any time, but I did not mention it, because the knowledge would only have been unsettling, and I did not think⁠ ⁠… then⁠ ⁠… that my sudden departure would have made much difference.”

She looked at him calmly and thoughtfully before replying, with an indifference which was not quite complimentary:

“You must not allow this⁠ ⁠… this calamity to make any difference. I quite understand the position you are in. Of course you are pledged to this man?⁠ ⁠…”

Trist nodded a brief acquiescence.

“Then you must go. I can manage quite well alone. Mrs. Wylie is much better this morning, though she is still dull and horribly apathetic. We will go home as quickly as we can.”

There was something in her voice, a slight catch, which he could not understand, and of course he misread it. The last few words were spoken in a peculiar monotone, with feverish haste.

“I feel horribly selfish,” he said, “thinking of my own affairs at this time. No, Brenda. I cannot go and leave you in such a fix⁠—alone.”

“I want you to go, Theo; I do really. It would never do for you to miss this chance. You are pledged to this man (who sits comfortably at home), and I would never forgive myself if I thought that you stayed here on my account. Besides, you are a sort of public servant; it is your duty to go.”

“Yes,” he said, catching at the phrase uneasily; “it is certainly my duty. It is my duty⁠ ⁠… to go.”

She stood beside him quite still. Then she moved a step nearer to him and laid her hand upon his shoulder.

“Theo,” she pleaded, “you must go. To please me, pack up and go.”

He smiled suddenly, but did not look up into her face, which was very pale, while her lips remained red. There was a slight quiver of her chin whenever her mouth remained for a second unclenched. It needed an effort on her part to prevent his hearing the chattering of her teeth. Involuntarily he shrunk a little away from her light touch, and glanced furtively at the white fingers on his shoulder.

Thus they remained for some moments while the yacht heaved gently onwards. The lamps swayed a little, but beyond that there was no motion in the pretty cabin. At last Trist reached out his hand and took the envelope from which he had torn one of the telegrams. He bent it over and smoothed it very carefully, while she watched the movements of his fingers.

“When is there a steamer to England?” she asked suddenly.

“The day after tomorrow, from Bergen, at nine o’clock in the evening.”

His answer was laconic and concise as Bradshaw.

Brenda knew then that he had expected war all along, and war was his element; she could not forget that, despite the wild incongruity of it.

“How can you manage it?” she asked simply and practically.

It would appear that he had foreseen everything, provided for every possible contingency. While she moved away from him and sat down near a small table, he answered her without a moment’s thought.

“If we have the funeral tomorrow morning, I can start immediately afterwards in a small boat, and row or sail to Gudvangen, reaching there early next morning. Drive to Vossevangen, and catch the afternoon train down to Bergen.”

“It sounds very simple, but it means thirty hours without sleep.”

“I can sleep all the way across the North Sea. Don’t think of me, Brenda; I’m outside the question altogether.”

He stopped, with a worried look upon his face, but did not raise his eyes. Had he done so he would inevitably have noticed a heightened colour in her cheeks, although she turned aside and gazed at nothing in particular.

“What bothers me,” he continued, “is you and Mrs. Wylie and the Hermione. What will you do?”

“I will take the Hermione home,” she said with gentle confidence. “You can safely leave Mrs. Wylie to me.”

“I know I can, but I do not want to leave you to Mrs. Wylie. It is putting too much on your shoulders.”

She shrugged the graceful members in question, and gave a little short laugh.

“They are strong,” she answered carelessly. “Besides, there is no choice in the matter. I simply must be left in charge because there is no one else. It seems to me that the matter in question is⁠ ⁠…” she glanced towards the closed door of Trist’s late stateroom, where Admiral Wylie kept his silent watch⁠—“is whether Mrs. Wylie will consent to Fjaerholm or not.”

“Can I see her?”

“No⁠ ⁠… no, Theo. I think it is better not. She is so strange and natural that I am afraid the sight of you might have some serious effect. Even in her dreams she is constantly recalling the sight of you⁠ ⁠… coming down the little path⁠ ⁠… with him in your arms. You remember⁠—just beside the big rock where it was too narrow for you both to carry him.”

“Yes,” he replied in a voice that might well have been rendered purposely careless. “Yes, I remember.”

“I have not dared,” the girl continued, “to say anything about⁠ ⁠… about Fjaerholm. I have never seen anyone in grief like this before, Theo, and it frightens me a little.”

He had left the table, forsaking the farce of breakfast, and was now walking noiselessly backwards and forwards. At the sound of her voice, timid and deprecating, when she spoke the last words he stopped short before her.

“Then I must see her,” he said⁠—“I must see her before I go. I have seen a good deal of⁠ ⁠… of grief, Brenda⁠—in other people, I mean⁠—and know its symptoms. Some people are stunned for a time, like a man who has been thrown from a gun-carriage, but it ought not to last very long, not more than twenty-four hours. And then they usually become nervously active. If Mrs. Wylie is like that, you must employ her somehow. Tire her out if you can. But we must take it upon ourselves, now, to have the Admiral buried at Fjaerholm. She is not taking it as I thought she would, and the voyage home, or back to Bergen even, with him on board would send her mad. When he is buried it will be different; she will recover then, under your care.”

“Yes,” replied the girl. “Yes, we must take it upon ourselves, Theo. I thought of it before.”

“If at any time,” he murmured in his gently suggestive way, “the matter is discussed⁠—when I am away, I mean⁠—you can say that the whole responsibility rests with me.”

She raised her head and looked at him with a sudden light in her blue eyes.

“I am not afraid of responsibility,” she said tersely.

“No, I think you are afraid of nothing!”

She received this statement as it was made, simply, half playfully, and quite without afterthought.

After a pause he rose, collected his letters, and went on deck, leaving her seated near the small table. She also had letters, and there was a packet of magazines and journals lying unopened near at hand. But she showed no desire to learn news from the outer world. All her interests were centred within four wooden walls just then, and she sat thinking far into the forenoon. Over her head, on the lightly-built deck, the regular tread of Theo Trist acted as an accompaniment to her thoughts. It was so light, that footstep, and yet so steady, seeming to tell of a gentle force which never swerved, never turned back, and never halted.

“I wonder,” she meditated, “if he would have gone at all events. I wonder if I have the slightest influence upon his motives or his actions. Sometimes it seems as if anyone could lead him like a child, and then suddenly there comes a conviction that no human force can move him.”

At the upper end of the fjord of the same name lies the small village of Fjaerholm. A white wooden church of conventional architecture is the most prominent, and at the same time the most unsightly, feature in the landscape. Around this edifice are clustered a few wooden houses, mostly painted white or yellow with a sparing brush, because paint is heavy freight, and can be bought only in Bergen or Christiania. Houses and church alike are roofed with red tiles of a bright and cleanly hue, which will be preserved much longer than the memory of the tiler. There is no smoke in Fjaerholm, and a long cold winter kills any moss-like growth, so everything looks clean and new.

Across the fjord, which is white and milky from the glaciers, is one farm, or what is by courtesy called a farm⁠—a mere matter of ten acres or so divided into patches of potato, hay and wheat. Fjaerholm, like most Norwegian villages, hamlets, and homesteads, suggests a question. One cannot help wondering why it ever came there. The tillable soil is of sufficient area to nourish a single family, but no more, and yet a whole village manages to wrest a frugal sustenance from it. There is a post-office, and a postmaster who wears the inevitable spectacles and brown linen jacket; and he again suggests a question. With one mail a week, in and out on the same day⁠—namely, Friday⁠—what employment can he find during the other six? Yet he is as grave and busy as a young bank clerk in the presence of his manager. He is constantly walking backwards and forwards across the single unpaved street from his home to his office, from his office to his home, with two pieces of official paper held between his finger and thumb, his pen in his mouth, his elbow officially squared, and his linen jacket fluttering, all with an air of intense preoccupation. Poor postmaster! It is mean to fire off cheap sarcastic fireworks from a safe distance. There are others among us who wear a preoccupied air over nothing, and flourish our flimsy official papers with intense self-satisfaction.

Theo Trist found him to be the only intelligent man in the village (with the exception, perhaps, of an absorbed artist whose personal apparel spoke lamentably clear language upon the monetary prospects of Scandinavian art), and official dignity was tempered by a kindly, simple heart full of sympathy for the wandering sailor whose last resting-place was to be beneath the shadow of the ugly white church. The old minister, whose bleached and wrinkled face bore a faint and indefinite resemblance to his own sacerdotal ruff, simply obeyed Trist and the postmaster in every detail.

The arrival of the Hermione was a matter of no small wonder in this mountain fastness, but in a few minutes the story was known throughout the village, for the very good reason that every inhabitant possessing means of locomotion was on the small wooden pier to meet Trist and Captain Barrow when they landed. Norway is a taciturn country, and the matter was soon talked over in a mumbling, half-plaintive way.

At midday there was a simple funeral. Four bareheaded sailors bore their late chief from the pier to the scantily-tenanted churchyard. The British ensign fluttered for the first time in the cold breeze that steals down from the glacier into the Fjaerholm Valley, and the old white-haired minister, clad in his quaint Lutheran robes, read unintelligible phrases over the coffin. Then the stony earth fell heavily, for it was still damp, and Theo Trist turned in his philosophically calm way and smothered a sigh of relief.

There was something to be written in a book in the vestry of the church, a few homeopathic fees to be paid, an exchange of names and addresses to be effected with the preoccupied postmaster, and Admiral Wylie was left to his rest amidst the simple Northerners. Today, as on that day years ago, the little village stands by the side of the silent milky fjord with its white church, yellow houses, and clean red tiles. The tide steals up as of yore to the very wall of the churchyard, but in God’s garden there are more seeds sown to grow in peace and holiness till the great spring-tide calls them to flower. At the head of every short valley round the Fjaerholm fjord there is still the blue wonder of the glacier which extends in one vast field of unexplored snow and ice over the broken tableland. From its edge the same stream trickles down in white confusion, gaining strength and volume in its progress, until it runs past the church and beneath the narrow wooden bridge, a veritable river. So, even in his sleep, the old salmon-fisherman may hear perchance the sweet murmurous voice of running water, the gurgle of the rapid, and the plash of the fall.

The old minister is dead. Many years ago he joined the silent ones of Fjaerholm. The postmaster also has been removed to another sphere, where, we are told, there are no wrinkled brows, no official papers, no sealing-wax and weekly mailbags. But many there are who remember and speak still in a wondering way of the beautiful English vessel which came and went within twelve short hours⁠—the only yacht whose anchor has stirred up the mud of the fjord. And among the wooden crosses, amidst the unlabelled mounds, there stands today a simple marble cross with strange English writing on it.

Soon the story will be forgotten; and perhaps in future years, not so very far distant, after all, some member of the great wandering British army, some taciturn mountaineer, or rough-clad fisherman, will ask in vain how a seafaring countryman came to be buried here.

There is a picture in a Frenchman’s study in Paris⁠—a small untidy apartment reeking of cigarette-smoke, littered with manuscript and proof-sheet, for the owner is a giant among journalists. It is a rough watercolour drawing of a peculiar school, semi-Parisian, semi-Scandinavian, and full of a bright hard vigour. There is a wonderful strength, a subtle dramatic force, in this rough picture, which draws one to study it more closely. The scene is evidently Scandinavian, but among the figures there are unmistakable Englishmen⁠—notably one who, standing bareheaded in the foreground, seems to look into one’s face with meek, scrutinizing eyes.

“What is this picture? who is that man?” Again and again the journalist has looked up from his table, and laid aside his discoloured, odorous cigarette-end to answer such questions.

“Ah,” he replies with quick gesture, “I know not. But it seems that it must be a funeral⁠—the funeral of some Englishman in Norway. I bought the picture at an exhibition of Scandinavian art, at Copenhagen; and I bought it on account of the man standing in the middle⁠—he with the brow of an angel and the mouth of Napoleon.”

“Who is he?”

“I think it must be a man I once knew. A wonderful fellow. The Philosopher, they called him in Plevna.”

The Hermione moved gracefully away while the postmaster stood hat-in-hand gravely saluting. A little further back a lean ill-clad figure leant against a post sketching. This was the impecunious artist who had hovered watchfully in the background since Trist and Captain Barrow first landed. There was a fair breeze, and all that day the Hermione crept down the narrow fjord and into broader waters. Among the low brown mountaintops white clouds hung heavily, but there was blue sky overhead, and the sun shone gaily at intervals. The Hermione was the quickest craft in those waters, so Trist determined to stay on board as long as the breeze held good. Mrs. Wylie never appeared on deck, and Brenda reported no change. The cheerful little lady seemed to have lost heart altogether, but Brenda kept her fears to herself as only women can. At lunch she attempted a little cheerfulness, and Trist promptly assisted her, but cheerfulness à deux, when it is forced, cannot be long-lived. The solemn steward moved round them with his grave face set at zero, and the meal was soon despatched. It was already known on board that the Hermione was bound for home, and that Mr. Trist was going on by steamer⁠—called away most inopportunely to an Eastern war.

It needed a cleverer woman than Brenda Gilholme to wear a smiling face amidst these solemn surroundings. The very elements were grave and foreboding, for there is no more melancholy scenery on earth than a narrow Norwegian fjord. It has all the grim, patient silence of the Arctic world without the Polar splendour of light and shade and colour; unrelieved by Arctic life. Lifeless, treeless hills, which rise sheer from the dead water without snow or herbage; a dull sea, often glassy, never rippling into green and silver shades like open ocean, and betraying no sign of life within its bosom.

While all goes well, the utter hopelessness is not noticed; but as soon as illness, or an anxiety, or, worst of all, dread death should come, the great solitude strikes one with a chill. All human aid, human science, human comfort, is so far and so obviously unattainable. To this Brenda was about to be left, with feelings naturally shaken by the Admiral’s sudden and lonely death, for she did not possess a tittle of Theo Trist’s superb nerve⁠—a woman practically alone with men, kind enough, and very willing, but of a different grade, thinking different thoughts, and endowed with other feelings. Added to this, she was about to take upon her shoulders the sole responsibility of a lady usually cheery and independent, now apathetic, helpless and incomprehensible.

All this Theo Trist must have recognised as he paced by Brenda’s side when the evening shadows crept down into the deeper valleys. The sun was hidden by a high range of hills to the northwest, and everything on the northern shore of the fjord was softly wrapt in a shimmering blue haze. The sea was very dark and lonesome, scarce rippled by the dying wind. Heavy gray clouds were catching on the mountaintops all round, and seemed to cling sullenly to the land, creeping lower with the shadows. It could not be that Trist was ignorant of the girl’s position. It was not thoughtlessness, because whatever this man’s faults may have been, no one could, or ever did, accuse him of want of consideration for the feelings of others. But for some reason he never uttered one word of sympathy to Brenda. Already some vague shadow of war seemed to have fallen over his softer manner. He had learnt to respect the call of duty at the best school; in this respect he was a true soldier, with all a soldier’s blind uncomplaining obedience to orders.

Years afterwards, when Brenda recalled the memory of that evening (and every detail of it was as clear as day), there came to her an indefinite understanding. In her own heart she had knowledge then of his motive, and she wondered a little over it. Few men, reflected she, would have divined that sympathy was the only thing she could not have borne just then. That it was not thoughtlessness she knew at the time, although she moved and lived and acted in a mechanical, unthinking way, without pausing to seek motives or assign reasons. There was sufficient evidence of Trist’s forethought at every turn, and silent testimony to his powers of organization. Captain Barrow was a good sailor and an honest man⁠—an ideal sailing-master for Admiral Wylie’s yacht⁠—but beyond that the old man’s capabilities were limited. The clearest brain and brightest male intellect on board lived behind the steward’s grave eyes, and to these two men Trist gave, in his gentle way, such instructions as he thought they needed.

During the voyage home Brenda was, so to speak, always running against Theo Trist. In her intercourse with Captain Barrow or the steward, she invariably found herself in some degree forestalled by the man who was already many miles away. “Yes, miss, Mr. Trist said we was to do that if⁠ ⁠…” etc., etc., or, “Ay, Miss Brenda, Mr. Trist thought the same.” Such remarks were the common reception offered to her most brilliant strokes of management, and, strange to say, she did not appear to resent this preconceived interference. This was the first vessel she had commanded, and there was a certain sense of comfort in meeting, as it were, with this opinion which coincided with her own. In a sense the responsibility was still shared, and if the result seemed to insinuate that another course might in some cases have been wiser, there was always the satisfaction of looking back and laying a share of the blame upon that silent acquiescence. This was something of the same spirit (an intensely human one it is) that prompts the cook to refer triumphantly to the work of Mrs. Beeton when the pudding turns out a failure.

But Trist did not consider it necessary to tell her of his arrangements made for her future benefit. Such reference would naturally have led to the question of his approaching departure for the seat of war, and this question was untasteful to him just then.

“And now, Brenda,” he said about eleven o’clock that evening, when the Hermione was creeping onward between the dismal ranges of bare hill and rock that border the Sognfjord⁠—“and now, Brenda, go to bed. You have had a hard time of it since Wednesday. We cannot reach Gudvangen before two o’clock tomorrow morning, and it is mere folly for you to stay up any longer. Say⁠ ⁠… goodbye⁠ ⁠… and go to bed!”

In the gray twilight her sweet face changed suddenly. Her cheeks lost all colour, and a peculiar ashen-gray hue fell upon her motionless features, while into her eyes there came such a look of horror that Trist, seeing it, was struck dumb. In a peculiar mechanical way they continued to walk side by side. She seemed to experience some difficulty in breathing, for the muscles of her round white throat moved hurriedly at short intervals. He stared straight in front of him with a dull, vacant expression in his eyes, while his stern mouth was twisted slightly to one side.

At last, just as they were turning amidships to walk aft, she spoke without raising her eyes, and her articulation was slightly muffled.

“I would rather stay on deck, but⁠ ⁠… do you want me to go?”

“No.⁠—Stay!”

After a short silence she spoke again, in quite a different tone.

“I suppose,” she said, “that you can form no idea yet of what you are going to⁠—how long it will last, and who will be victorious.”

“Turkey,” he replied guardedly, “will probably win. I do not imagine that there will be much for me to do. It all depends upon how soon Turkey gets to work. What is wanting in strategical skill will be made up in bloodthirstiness, I should imagine.”

She shuddered, but made no reply.

“I may be back in a fortnight,” he added coolly, “and if Russia gets dragged into it, I may not get home for a year or two.”

“At all events, it will be a horrible war.”

“Probably.”

She laughed in a short, sarcastic way.

“You have already assumed the first coat of your mental and moral war-paint.”

“It is my trade, Brenda.”

“Then do not let us talk shop,” she said sharply. At times this learned little person was intensely womanly. As soon as the words were spoken she seemed to repent of them, for she added in a softer tone, “Though I am afraid I began it.”

He looked down at her with meek, questioning eyes.

“Yes,” he said softly; “you began it.”

“I had a reason for doing so.”

“I know you had.”

This remark made her laugh in a slightly embarrassed way.

“I wanted,” she then explained, “to request you to take care of yourself⁠—Theo.”

“I always do that,” he answered with some gravity; “I am not the sort of person to expose myself to unnecessary danger.”

“I am not quite sure of that,” she said in her searching way. “But, still, I should like to be able to tell Mrs. Wylie⁠—later⁠—that you promised to be careful. You see, her nerves will perhaps be a little shaken; she may be anxious.”

“I hope not,” he replied. “It would never do for anyone to be anxious about me. It is a thing I have always tried to avoid, and Mrs. Wylie says that she never troubles about me. It would spoil my nerve, Brenda⁠ ⁠… if I thought that there was somebody at home watching and waiting for news.”

She laughed suddenly in an almost defiant way, and the sound of her laughter was discordant in the silence only broken by a whispering breeze.

“And you would be nothing without nerve.”

“No,” he answered stupidly; “I should be nothing without nerve.”

“Although you never expose yourself to unnecessary danger?⁠ ⁠…”

She turned suddenly and left him. There was a boat slung high up on the davits, and, passing round it, she went and stood beside the rail with her hands resting on it. The boat hid her from the eyes of anyone on deck.

Trist walked aft, and stood for a moment beside the steersman in an indifferent attitude, with his hands in his pockets, looking aloft.

“I am afraid the wind is dropping,” he said.

“Yessir⁠—it’s slackening a bit,” replied the man.

Then Trist slowly followed Brenda.

For a moment or two he stood behind her, and there seemed to be a dull tension in the very atmosphere. Then at last he spoke, in his soft, emotionless way.

“The wind is dropping,” he said; “and we cannot expect it to rise again before the sun comes up. Let us be practical and have some rest. Go to your stateroom and try to sleep. I will lie down for a couple of hours in the saloon.”

She did not answer at once. Then she turned and passed round the boat in the other direction, so that he did not see her face. Moving towards the companion, she answered him quietly.

“Yes⁠—it will be better.”

No other word passed between them. She went below, and presently Trist followed her. He lay down on the cabin sofa, but did not sleep. He took up a novel instead, and read assiduously.

By three o’clock in the morning Theo Trist was on deck again. The sun was already high up in the heavens; the morning air was fresh and invigorating.

Captain Barrow now did a strange thing. He took all sail off the Hermione and allowed her to drift on the rising tide towards Gudvangen. There was noticeable about the movements of the men a singular desire to avoid any noise whatsoever. Trist and the Captain moved about among them, here and there, helping noiselessly. The Captain gave his orders in a lowered voice. The carpenter was at his post forward by the cathead, but he awaited the order to let go the anchor in vain. All this was the result of instructions imparted by Trist to Captain Barrow.

“Put me ashore,” he had said, “before you let go the anchor. The ladies must not be awakened on any account. Let the men make as little noise as they can in lowering the boat and taking in sail.”

To a yacht’s crew such instructions were easy of comprehension. These are of different construction to the hardy mariners who man our passenger steamers. The latter gentry can not deign to lay a coil of rope or the brass nozzle of a hosepipe on the deck, at five a.m. All such things are cast violently and dragged backwards and forwards over the heads of the sleeping passengers in a frank, sailor-like way. Again, such members of the crew as possess a taste for mechanical engineering are at perfect liberty to take the cover off the donkey-engine and indulge in a few experimental and spasmodic revolutions during the smaller hours of the morning. These sounds impart a hearty and nautical feeling to the sleepers below decks, and serve to remind them that they are nationally of a seafaring turn. Being of a commercial spirit, I shall someday start a line of passenger steamers, carrying crews who do not wear sea-boots in tropical and dry latitudes, who can stoop to lay things down on deck, and do not work violently from five to six o’clock in the morning, so that the rest of the day may be spent in graceful leisure.

Captain Barrow had directed his mental researches more towards the vagaries of fickle ocean and wayward weather than to the question of human motives. Through a long and somewhat monotonous life the old mariner had not hitherto found the necessity of studying his fellow-men very closely. Able-bodied seamen are a class of beings who vary little in mental accomplishment or bias. Their bodies must be able; their minds are of secondary importance. Nevertheless, it occurred to him that Theo Trist was singularly anxious to get ashore without disturbing the ladies.

The boat was lowered noiselessly, and into it were thrown the young fellow’s portmanteau, creel and rods. Then Trist shook hands with the crew, the steward, and finally with Captain Barrow himself. This ceremony being performed with due solemnity, he threw his leg over the rail and prepared to jump into the boat, which was already manned. At this moment Brenda appeared on deck. She was still dressed in black, which sombre attire suited her dainty style of face and form to perfection. Du reste, she looked as bright and fresh as Aurora.

Captain Barrow glanced beneath his shaggy eyebrows at Trist, and saw on his face⁠—nothing: absolutely nothing. The man was simply impenetrable.

Brenda came towards them with a smile. She leant over the rail, for Trist was now in the boat, and held out her small hand steadily.

“Goodbye, Theo.”

“Goodbye⁠ ⁠… Brenda.”

And with his own hands he shoved off.

So the Hermione never dropped anchor at Gudvangen. Before the boat reached the pier there was a man waiting for her. In Norway, persons connected in any way with the hire of horses or carriols do not appear to sleep at all. Even in this peaceful land the spirit of competition disturbs men’s rest.

Brenda, standing on the deck of the Hermione, saw Trist shake hands with the boat’s crew and climb on to the wooden pier. Then he turned, and evidently directed the men to return to the yacht. The wind was fair, so Captain Barrow set sail as soon as the boat came alongside; and before the sails were fairly filled, Brenda saw Trist mount his carriol and drive away at a smart trot into the narrow, darksome gorge of the Nerodal. To her ears came the sound of his horse’s feet upon the hard road, and she turned away with dull anguish in her eyes.

On the evening of the third day Theo Trist was seated in a train that glided smoothly into King’s Cross Station. It was five o’clock, and in three hours the war-correspondent intended to leave London again. As time goes and new things grow up around us, our constitutions become more adaptable. The human frame endures today fatigues and hardships of a description undreamt of three hundred years ago. I believe that it would have been hard to find in the reign of Queen Bess a man ready to undertake an unbroken journey by carriol, steamer, train, steamer, train, and train again from a Norwegian station to the pretty little town of Belgrade on the Danube. To Theo Trist this undertaking was of no great matter, and there are plenty of men around who would smile at the hardship.

Whatever speed may be attained by our fastest express the human brain can outvie. During the first hour or so our thoughts lag behind, we are still living the life that is left there, thinking of the people who dwell there, feeling the emotions experienced there. But presently our thoughts come racing along and overtake the material body. An interest is taken in passing stations; the scenery acquires beauty, and for a time mind and body travel together. After another space our thoughts start away again, in front this time, and the coming alteration in daily routine becomes a reality. We anticipate the change that is approaching, and thus the shock of it is broken. Anyone who has made a long and rapid journey will understand me, and those who have left behind them something dear, some bright period of their existence, will, with me, bless this wise provision.

To Theo Trist nothing seemed more natural than to find himself amidst an excited crowd of porters on the platform. To be hustled on all sides by human forms, to have to push his way through an overcrowded humanity, brought to his mind no thought of contrast. Three days before he had lived in a world almost devoid of life. Here he forced his way through life in a world too small for it.

All around him greetings were being exchanged⁠—hands pressed hands, and lips touched lips. In and out, the porters forced their hurried passage. Cabmen shouted, and porters called. Everyone was smiling at or abusing someone else. Only Trist was alone. No one sought his face amidst the new ones on the platform⁠—no one smiled at him. Here, as at the edge of the Norwegian river, he was alone, in a studied, cultivated solitude. In three hours he would leave Charing Cross, still alone, still unheeded. Amidst this noise and confusion he sought his light baggage, and his was the first cab to leave the station.

Through the dusty streets he drove, looking calmly on the well-known sights, listening vaguely to the well-known sounds and cries. His life had been a kaleidoscope, and in all places, all situations, and all circumstances, he unconsciously made a place for himself.

In late July London is supposed to be empty, but as Trist drove through the narrow thoroughfares down towards Oxford Street, the pavement was crowded. Oxford Street was gay, dusty, noisy. Seven Dials, in those days, innocent of model-lodging houses, reeked of fever. Through all these the war-correspondent drove indifferently; but when the cab rattled down Wellington Street he sat forward. In the Strand he was at home, recognised of many, recognising some. The cab drew up before a large stone house, labelled by a single diminutive brass-plate on the door⁠—and waited. A minute later Trist entered a small room at the back of the building. A gray-haired man of square build with an enormous head rose to greet him.

“At last!” said this man. “If you remember, Trist, I did not want you to go so far away while this Eastern Question was unsettled.”

“I remember perfectly,” said Trist almost inaudibly, as he laid aside his hat and looked up towards a clock suspended on the wall, with the air of a man knowing his surroundings well.

“And still you went⁠—you ruffian!” said the other, courteously indicating a chair and reseating himself.

Trist smiled sweetly and said nothing.

“I suppose,” continued the large-headed man jovially, “that there was a distinct and irresistible attraction.”

“There was!” said Trist, with impenetrable gravity.

“And how did you leave that jolly old boy, the Admiral?”

“Dead!”

“Ah! Dead?”

The editor leant forward and pressed a small white button at the side of his desk. Simultaneously the door opened, and a man in livery stood silently waiting.

“Send Mr. Deacon!”

“Yessir.”

“Dead, is he?” continued the editor, in a different tone. “I am sorry to hear that. It must have been sudden. Just give me a few details.”

While speaking he had taken a pencil and paper. Trist told him in a few words what had taken place in the Heimdalfjord, and as he spoke the editor wrote. A minute later Mr. Deacon, a small man, who looked incapable of taking the initiative in anything whatsoever, appeared.

“Sudden death of Admiral Wylie,” said the editor in a monotone, as he held out the paper towards Mr. Deacon, without looking, however, in his direction. “Short paragraph⁠—look up details of career.”

“Nothing sensational and nothing very personal,” put in Trist with gentle severity.

“No,” added his companion, “nothing of that sort. Admiral Wylie was a personal friend of my own.”

Mr. Deacon vanished, and closed the door behind him with scrupulous noiselessness.

“When can you go?” asked the editor.

“Eight-twenty from Charing Cross,” was the reply, given in Trist’s most soothing way. He leant back in his deep chair, and passed his hand round his clean-shaven chin in a thoughtful, almost indolent, manner. Then he waited for his companion to continue the conversation.

“It was rather a risky thing waiting for you; but I heard from Lloyd’s this morning that your boat arrived at Hull in time for you to be here by five-thirty. If that boat had been late, my boy, I should have sent another man.”

Again Trist smiled.

“I very nearly did not come at all.”

This remark appeared to have rather a peculiar effect upon the editor. He received it with unsympathetic gravity, and, resting his heavy arms upon his desk, he leant forward. While playing with a pencil in an easy, thoughtful way, he fixed his eyes upon Trist’s face with a kindly scrutiny. Gray eyes they were, of a shade merging on green, with at times a suggestion of brown. Such eyes have a singular power of expressing kindness of heart, in which they differ greatly from the gray of a blue shade, such as Trist’s, which have gentleness but no loving-kindness. It is usual to hold in abhorrence all shades of green in respect to human orbs, but this is mere prejudice. There is no such thing⁠—despite Thackeray⁠—as a green eye; and the noblest character, the truest gentleman and kindest-hearted being who has crossed the present writer’s path possesses eyes of a gray shade slightly tinged with green. Again, there is another person I know. She⁠ ⁠… well⁠—she is herself; and her eyes are of a deep gray, which assume at times a distinctly green hue.

Before speaking the editor shook his massive head incredulously.

“My impression of you, Trist, is that you are a man who never ‘very nearly’ does anything. While actually reading my telegram you made up your mind whether you were going or not, and after that no power on earth would have altered your decision. Of course, it sometimes pays (especially with ladies) to appear vacillating, and desirous of placing the deciding vote in someone else’s hands. No doubt you practise this amiable fraud at times. I am sorry, but I don’t believe that you ‘very nearly’ did not come, seeing that you are here.”

Trist laughed without denying this insinuation.

“And now,” he said, “that I am here, perhaps it would be wiser to get to business, and leave my personal failings for discussion behind my back when I am gone.”

“Yes,” answered the other briskly, “let us get to business. You must leave in two hours. Now about terms. Are they to be the same as for the Franco-Prussian?”

“No!” answered Trist.

“Ah!”

“Your terms were generous for the Franco-Prussian War,” replied the correspondent, “but now they would be miserly.”

The editor raised his august eyebrows and waited in quizzical silence. He appeared to be amused.

“I was a young man then, and a beginner. You did me a great kindness, and I am not going to repay it by such a mean ruse as working below the market price. I am worth more now, and I expect more. It is only natural that my health will give in someday, or my reputation may die, in either of which cases I shall have little to live upon. During this war and the disturbances of some description which will undoubtedly follow, I mean to make money.”

The great man laughed aloud.

“Capital!” he exclaimed⁠—“capital! What a head for business! My dear Trist, you are worth four times as much money as we gave you in ’70, and I am authorized to offer you that sum.”

“I think that is too much.”

“Not at all. It is merely a businesslike speculation. You risk your life, and we pay you. Your life goes up in market-value; we pay you more. Do you accept?”

“Yes.”

“That is right. I have the agreement ready in my desk for you to sign. Personally speaking, I think they might have offered you more, but you have the publishers clamouring for a book, and I suppose you will represent Le Pays as well as ourselves.”

“Yes; I telegraphed to them from Hull. But I am quite content; in fact, it is more than I expected. I will make a good thing out of it.”

“We shall,” observed the editor, with a keen smile, “be having you on the turf when you come back, or launching into⁠ ⁠… matrimony.”

“Both amusements,” suggested Trist coolly, “being so eminently calculated to forward the career of a special war-correspondent.”

The editor was busy collecting various papers that lay in apparent disorder on his desk⁠—telegrams, foreign and English; “flimsies” from the news agencies and Lloyd’s; printed matter and manuscript.

“No, Trist,” he said, without looking up; “we cannot have you marrying yet. The warlike public cannot do without you, my boy.”

“It is wonderful,” murmured Trist ambiguously, “what we can do without when we try. I am not, however, going to do without something to eat. I will go along to the club and dine now. You will be here when I come back?”

“I shall be here until two in the morning,” returned the journalist.

If Theo Trist had hoped to pass through London without meeting anyone except the editor of the mighty journal, from whose coffer he was soon to draw the income of a Continental prince, he was disappointed. It would seem, however, that he was upon this point, as on many, broadly indifferent. He went to a club, where he was almost certain of meeting some of his friends⁠—a club of which the members never leave town because the calendar bids them do so; never quite lay aside their labour; and appear to sleep when others are awake, working while others sleep.

He went there because it was conveniently near at hand, and he was sure of having rapid attention given to his desires. As he entered the dining-room a young man rose from one of the small square tables with dramatic surprise.

“Theodore Trist, by all that’s sacred!” exclaimed this youth. He was of medium height with a fair moustache, such as lady novelists delight to write about. This manly adornment was the prominent thing about him. But for it, his face was that of a fair and somewhat weak-minded girl. It curled away from either side of his full red lips (usually moist), with a most becoming languor. Its golden hue completed perfectly the harmony of his delicately tinted pink and white face. A shade lighter than his hair, it was itself of delicate texture, and the bewitching curl was in need of constant attention on the part of a long white finger and thumb. The top joint of the finger bent backwards with a greater suppleness than a manly person would perhaps admire. There was always an abundance of cuff and deep turndown collar, of which the points overlapped the flap of a wide-cut waistcoat. In the matter of necktie, a soft silken material of faded hue rivalled the golden moustache in obtruding itself before the public gaze. Dark-blue eyes devoid of depth, and a slightly aquiline nose, complete the picture. This man was no ordinary being. Had he been dressed like an ordinary being⁠—like, let us say, a tea-broker⁠—men and women would still have looked at him twice. Kensington lion-hunters would still have kept him in touch, so to speak, on the chance of his developing from puppyhood into cubhood, and so on to the maturity of a London lion. But he made the most of such personal peculiarities as Providence had thought fit to assign to him. His tailor thought him slightly eccentric. “Bit orf ’is chump,” that sartorial artist was wont to observe in his terse, clipping way; and he charged something extra for padded shoulders; and continuations, baggy from waist to ankle. Sundry small singularities of dress purchase a cheap notoriety, and to these the wise tailor gave his full consent with an eye to advertisement. It is an easy matter to trim with silk braid a coat of material usually worn without trimming, and the effect is most satisfactory to a man desirous of being looked at in public places. Again, the additional cost of a broad braid down the outer seam of one’s dress-unmentionables is trifling, while the possession of it “stamps a man, don’t cher know.” Personally I do not know how it stamps a man, but on good authority I have it. A peculiar cut of collar is obtainable for the mere trouble of asking and running up a bill. But chiefest of all is a name. In such a thing there is today much more than in Shakespeare’s time, and in this one most aggravating point the young man who rose to greet Theodore Trist as he entered the club dining-room failed most ignominiously. His name was William Hicks. In order to battle successfully against such a heavy handicap, the young man was forced, like a good general, to spare no expense in his outfit. This most commonplace association of two good English names cost their possessor as much per annum as would enable a thrifty maiden lady (or four German clerks) to live comfortably.

He would have given much to be labelled by such a nomenclature as “Theodore Trist”⁠—a poetic assimilation of letters quite unnecessary for the war-correspondent, and even wasted upon him. His work would have been equally popular if signed William Hicks, whereas the artist, who was someday going to surprise the old world and make the spirits of its ancient masters shake in their ethereal shoes, was dragged down and held back by the drysalting name of Hicks. For certain reasons, to which even the unmercenary soul of William was forced to bow, there was no hope of ever changing it for something more poetic. Certain it was (and perhaps the artist knew it) that there were many houses to which Theodore Trist had an ever-welcome entry, while he⁠—William Hicks⁠—was excluded. It could only be the name that drew this line, and, indeed, it was in many cases nothing else; for the name of Trist is rare, and in a certain county, far away from town, very powerful, whereas the milkman who supplies me with an opaque fluid of more or less nourishing qualities is called Hicks, and from the number of little Hickses who require everlasting boots, there is no present fear of the poetic surname becoming extinct.

Without any great show of cordiality, Trist shook the long, nerveless hand extended to him. He even went so far as to nod familiarly over Hicks’ shoulder to a servant who, having drawn back a chair, fulfilled his immediate duty by waiting.

“Where have you come from, old man?” asked the artist. “You look as if you had been sleeping in your shirt for a week.”

Like many of his tribe, Hicks had a great notion of being all things to all men. He prided himself exceedingly upon his powers of adaptability to environment. With men he was, therefore, slangy; with women tender and poetic. With the former he could not be manly, and for this quality he substituted an inordinate use of language more descriptive than that usually employed by gentlemen in the presence of ladies. Not possessing the slightest vein of humour, he assumed with women the poetic mantle, and surrounded himself for the time being with a halo of melancholy. There are people who, while endeavouring to be all things, are nothing⁠—while seeking to render themselves valuable to the many, are of use to none.

“I have not been sleeping much in anything,” replied Trist, “and just at the moment a wash is what I require. After that some dinner.”

This served as an answer to Hicks, and an order to the waiter at the same time; and with a nod Trist passed on to the dressing-rooms.

“Where will Mr. Trist dine?” asked Hicks, turning to the waiter, and speaking somewhat sharply, as people do who fear the ridicule of their inferiors.

“At my table, sir!” with a certain air of possession.

“Then just move my plate⁠ ⁠… and things⁠ ⁠… to the same, will you?”

When the war-correspondent returned to the dining-room, he found Hicks established at the table where he invariably sat, and the waiter holding a chair in readiness for him with a face of the most complete stolidity. Without betraying either pleasure or annoyance, he took the proffered chair and attacked his soup in a businesslike way, which did not promise conversational leisure.

“In a deuce of a hurry, old man!” suggested the artist.

“Yes. Have to catch a train.”

“Going off to the East, I suppose?” asked Hicks carelessly.

With his shallow blue eyes persistently fixed on Trist’s face, he stroked his moustache daintily.

“Yes.”

“Tonight?”

“At eight-twenty,” replied Trist, meeting his gaze with gentle impatience.

“Ah! Lady Pearer was asking me the other day if you were there, or on the way to the seat of war.”

“Lady Pearer? Don’t know her,” observed Trist, with his mouth full of bread.

“She seemed to know you.”

The suggestion of a smile flickered across Trist’s face, but his entire attention was absorbed just then by a bony piece of turbot. He made no answer, and silently shelved the subject in a manner which was not strictly complimentary to Mr. Hicks’ fair and aristocratic friend.

The artist was one of those exceedingly pleasant persons who can never quite realize that their presence and conversation might, without serious inconvenience, be dispensed with. The mere fact of being seen in friendly intercourse with a person of his social distinction was, in his own simple heart, worthy of the consideration of greater men than Theodore Trist. In recounting the fact later, of his having dined with the celebrated war-correspondent on the eve of his departure for Bulgaria, he took exceeding great care to omit the mention of certain details. Moreover, he allowed it to be understood that the farewell feast was organized by Trist, and that there was some subtle political meaning in the hurried interview thus obtained.

“Trist,” he said, with a suggestion of melancholy, to Lady Pearer and other of his friends, “is a strange fellow. He has a peculiar repelling manner, which causes people to imagine that he is indifferent to them. Now, when I dined with him at the ‘Press’ the other night,” etc., etc.

Trist continued his dinner with that tranquillity of demeanour which marked his movements upon all occasions, but more especially, perhaps, when he was displeased or very much on the alert. The silence which followed the collapse of the Lady Pearer incident did not appear in the least irksome to him, whatever it may have been to his companion.

Hicks toyed with the rind of his late cheese, and wondered whether the novel bow of his voluminous dress-tie was straight.

“By the way,” he said at length, “have you not been in Norway with the Wylies?”

The young artist had at one time been a protégé of Mrs. Wylie’s, but her protection had been gradually withdrawn.

“The fair Brenda was with them, n’est-ce pas?”

Trist broke his bread with grave deliberation and looked stolid. After a momentary pause he raised his eyes to his companion’s face.

“Eh?” he murmured softly.

“Miss Gilholme,” explained the other, with an involuntary change of manner.

“Yes, she was there.”

“I thought,” reflected Hicks aloud, as he stroked his moustache contentedly, “that I remembered her telling me that she was going to Norway. How is she?”

“Very well, thank you.”

“Is she any stouter?” with affectionate interest.

“I don’t know,” replied Trist suavely.

“Because,” continued the other in his best “private-view-of-the-Academy” style, “that is the only fault I have to find with her. Her figure is perfect, except that she is a trifle too slight⁠—if you understand.”

“Indeed,” very gently.

“From an artistic point of view, of course,” explained Hicks with a graceful wave of his hand, full of modest deprecation. For some unknown reason a sudden sense of discomfort had come over him.

“Ah, I am not an artist⁠ ⁠… thank goodness!”

Hicks glanced uneasily across the table at his companion. There was something in the calm tone of his voice that was not quite natural, a peculiar thrill as if of some suppressed emotion which might have been laughter, but was more probably anger. William Hicks was not endowed with that species of brute courage which enables its possessor to enter boldly into controversy, wordy or otherwise. He was eminently a lover of peace, and for its gentle sake was ever ready to suppress pride, honour, or any other inconvenient passion likely to prove inimical to its preservation.

He had mixed with men and women of all shades and tastes. They were mostly affected, hypocritical, insincere, and utterly wearisome; but there is one virtue which we cannot help acquiring from contact with our fellow-beings, however silly, however shallow and profitless, their influence may be. This virtue is tact, and William Hicks possessed a sufficiency of it to smooth his own path through life. If he failed to use it for the benefit of others, neglected to render the footsteps of others less stony and less difficult, he was, perhaps, no worse in such respect than the majority of us.

He now began to perceive that he had taken the wrong road towards gaining the esteem (or perhaps the toleration) of this plainspoken, honest student of war.

Trist was not to be impressed by the social position of this dilettante dabbler in the fine arts. Soul, pure unvarnished soul, had no effect upon his mental epidermis. Poetry in curious dress-clothes, behind a singular cambric tie, failed to touch his inmost being. Then a brilliant inspiration came to this ambitious youth who attempted to be all things to all men. For once he would be natural. On this one occasion sincerity should grace his actions and his wondrous thoughts.

“I say, Trist,” he remarked almost earnestly, “I met Martin of the Royal Engineers the other day, and he told me that it is common mess-room gossip in Ceylon that Alice Huston is having a miserable life of it out there.”

Trist had almost finished his dinner. He looked up gravely, and there was in his eyes a worried expression, which, however, the artist (who, like most self-satisfied people, was not observant) failed to see.

“I am sorry to hear that,” quietly, almost indifferently.

“Yes,” continued the other in the perfunctorily sympathetic tone which we all assume while revelling in the recital of evil tidings. “They say that Huston drinks, that he is madly jealous and coldly indifferent by turns. He always was a brute. I remember when he was young he was a gourmand, and professed to be a great judge of claret. Now a boy who thinks of his interior when he ought to be hardening his muscles will, in all human probability, turn out a drinker.”

While Hicks was giving the benefit of his opinion, Trist had risen from the table, and now stood with his two hands upon the back of his chair looking down thoughtfully at his companion. The artist was peeling an early pear with great delicacy of fingering. Before the war-correspondent had time to say anything, he continued:

“I suppose,” he said somewhat pathetically, “that you and I are more interested in the Gilholmes than most people. To a certain extent they rely upon us as old friends. That is why I tell you this. I never repeat gossip, you know.”

The last addition was made in a deprecating way, as if to apologize for a celebrity which placed certain personal peculiarities within public reach. Trist had not heard that reticence was one of his companion’s characteristics, and he treated the remark with silent contempt. He did not even smile in response to the sympathetic glance of the soulless blue eyes.

“If,” he observed, “they rely upon us, they will expect us to hold our tongues. The truest friendship is shown in talking of anything but one’s friends. I must go now. Good night!”

The artist rose and held out his delicate hand. Within Trist’s brown and sunburnt fingers the shapely limb looked small and frail and very useless. The very manner in which Hicks stood was in strong contrast to the sturdy deportment of his companion. If Brenda Gilholme should at any future day be forced to rely upon one of these strikingly dissimilar men, the choice would surely be no hard task; for one was all latent energy, quiet, reserved, and manly force, while the other was a mere creature of drawing-room and boudoir, a lady’s knight, a dandy, an effeminate egoist.

And the stronger man, Theo Trist, went out from the brilliant chamber down the broad and silent stairs, out of the huge door, wrapt in his own thoughts as in a cloak which shielded him from men’s eyes, for he saw no one, heard no sound, and was sensible of no definite feeling.

This great stone building was as a home to him⁠—the only home he had ever known. The faces of the servants were pleasantly familiar; the stillness of the vast rooms, the very softness of the rich carpet beneath his feet, were distinct pleasures, and imparted a pleasant feeling of homeliness. And from this he passed out in the bright August evening alone and absorbed. To the war he gave no thought, neither meditated over the ripening fruits of his pen. There was before his meek and pensive eyes a vision which would not be cast aside. He saw a yacht rolling gently on the still waters of a northern fjord. The sails were hastily clewed up or lowered, hanging idle in the soft breeze. Away behind, clear and hard in the morning light, were brown hills rising sheer from the water⁠—bleak rocks of unlovely contour. But the soul of the whole picture looked from the eyes of a slight young girl, clad in sober black, standing bareheaded, so that the sun gleamed on her soft brown hair, beside the stern rail, smiling bravely.

He had left Brenda alone in the midst of sorrow, and now he knew that she was on her way home to England to meet more of it. There is nothing so sad in human life as the bitter realization of human helplessness. Alice Huston was miserable, and Trist knew that he could do nothing. He was fully aware that misery with her meant misery to others. She was too impulsive⁠—too selfish, perhaps⁠—to keep her sorrows to herself, and Brenda would sooner or later be dragged into the trouble. He smiled to himself at the remembrance of William Hicks’ words. The idea of Brenda Gilholme⁠—the gifted, the capable, the learned⁠—seeking the aid of this exalté artist was ludicrous, and yet Trist did not smile over it for long. He wished that there had been another man⁠—such a man as himself, he unconsciously decided⁠—near Brenda at this time.

Accustomed as he was to act alone, he perhaps assigned to the spirit of independence a greater importance in the average nature of men and women than such spirit really occupies. Independence or self-dependence is a quality which, being possessed, brings with it a certain blindness. A man such as Theodore Trist, whose every action and thought receives its motive from a calm, straightforward independence, cannot quite realize that there are people to whom the necessity of thinking and acting on their own responsibility is little short of agony. He was sensible in a vague manner that Brenda Gilholme was an exceptional girl in many ways, but he never through all his life quite understood that she was one in a thousand. His life and work brought him into contact with men, and men exceptionally ignorant of women and their ways. In his dreamy, chivalrous way, he gave women credit for a much greater self-dependence and self-sufficiency than they possess⁠—bless them all! In leaving Brenda to bring home Mrs. Wylie, and in a sense to take command of the Hermione, he acted somewhat in the spirit of a soldier who, leaving his subordinate behind while he goes forth to other work, feels that his late duties are made over to hands and brain in all probability as competent as his own, but merely wanting in opportunity. And he started on his flying journey across Europe without the knowledge that Brenda was quietly assuming responsibilities from which many older women would have shrunk aghast.

Now that this news of further trouble coming to meet her, as it were, from the East, touched him in passing, he never for one moment doubted Brenda’s capability to meet it, and act in the quickest and wisest manner. But there was a vague apprehension, nevertheless, and he thought with discomfort of the girl’s utter loneliness.

An hour later, Theo Trist was again seated in the editor’s room. The large-headed man himself was also present at his desk, amidst a chaos of newspaper-cuttings and manuscripts.

“And now, Trist,” he was saying in his terse, businesslike way, “suppose anything should go wrong. If you are killed, who shall I tell, and how shall I tell it?”

The war-correspondent looked pensively into the flame of the gas, which was already lighted because the editor’s room gathered little light from heaven. It was a single burner, and a green-glass shade cast the clear white light down upon the table, leaving the rest of the room in shadow. Men who live and work by artificial light must needs have the appliances perfect. Trist, however, was within the radius of illumination, being seated on a low chair. He raised his meek eyes, turned his bland, expressionless face towards the editor, and smiled speculatively.

“There is,” he answered, “an old gentleman called Trist living at No. 4, The Terrace, Cheltenham. Will you take down the address? He is a very nice old gentleman, and extremely courteous to ladies. He is my father, and the news of my untimely demise would cause him considerable annoyance. You see, he would not be able to get his usual rubber in the evening for a few days.”

“No. 4, The Terrace, Cheltenham,” interrupted the journalist somewhat abruptly. “How shall I tell him if it is necessary to do so?”

“Regret to announce death of Theodore Trist, your son⁠—or something of that description. Don’t exceed the shilling’s worth.”

The editor passed his strong white hand thoughtfully across his chin with a rasping sound.

“Is there no one else?” he asked indifferently.

Trist thought deeply for a moment.

“Ye-es,” he murmured, in the manner of a man who makes an effort to remember some small social debt.

The editor opened again the small leather-bound book wherein he had noted the address of the nice old gentleman living in the West Country. He passed his pen over the page and waited silently.

“Miss Brenda Gilholme,” Trist dictated slowly, in order that his hearer might write, “care of Mrs. Wylie, Suffolk Mansions, W., or Wyl’s Hall, Wyvenwich.”

These items having been duly inscribed, the journalist closed the book methodically and locked it away in a drawer.

“And how,” he inquired, “shall I break it to⁠ ⁠… Miss Brenda Gilholme?”

“Oh⁠—you need not trouble to beat round the bush. There will be no hysterics.”

As he spoke, he rose and looked significantly at his watch.

“But,” he added, after a moment’s pause, “if Mrs. Wylie is in town, you might, perhaps, go up to Suffolk Mansions yourself. The little attention would be kindly taken.”

“I will,” answered the editor heartily. He rose also, and took his hat from a peg behind the door. “But we will, of course, take it for granted that the necessity will never arise. I don’t like to feel as if I were sending a fellow where I would not go myself⁠ ⁠… and paying him for it.”

“No,” said Trist in his gently confident way. “The necessity will never arise, you need not fear that! I must be going⁠—the Strand will be crowded with theatregoers.”

He held out his hand, but the great journalist waved it aside.

“I am going,” he said, “to Charing Cross with you. Unless you object⁠—?”

“I shall be very glad,” was the unemotional reply, delivered as a mere matter of mechanical politeness. At times Theo Trist betrayed that his indifference to the smaller sentiments of social intercourse was cultivated and slightly artificial.

“There is no one else going to see you off?” inquired the editor.

“No one.”

“Then I will go with you.”

So these two men passed out of the huge building together. Each was in his way a power in the world. Each stood at the top of his own particular tree. Passing through the crowded thoroughfare, they could not fail to attract some attention, and yet they walked on in sublime unconsciousness. Conceit is a growth that flourishes only in the spring of life, unless it be a singularly noxious and hardy weed. In summer, and before the autumn, it usually dies down. Neither of these men was young⁠—each had, years ago, given up thinking of his own person. To both the work placed in their hands was fully absorbing, and a busy man has little leisure to contemplate his own manifold advantages and points of superiority over the common herd.

Each was in his sphere a genius, and there is something about genius that attracts the eye, although the possessor be clad in modesty. I have seen genius clad in something much more common than modesty⁠—namely, rags⁠—and have recognised it with no difficulty. The editor of the great newspaper was in appearance a somewhat remarkable man: broad of shoulder, with a massive head and huge limbs, he was one of those exceptional beings whom men turn in the streets to look at again. His companion was less likely to attract an observant eye. Although he was taller, he seemed to require less space to move and breathe in than his companion. His movements were smooth and quick, while in passing people on the pavement he touched no one, and never got in the way, as did the absorbed journalist at his side. There was no special physical peculiarity about Theodore Trist to stamp him in men’s minds as someone apart. As has already been stated, he carried his head and shoulders with the uprightness of a soldier, and it was only the keener eyes around that, looking into his face, detected the incongruity of his physiognomy.

“Where is your luggage?” inquired the editor suddenly, as they walked along.

From his manner it would appear that he feared that Trist had forgotten this necessary item. Under similar circumstances he would no doubt have done so himself.

“It is waiting for me at the station,” was the reply; “I went to my rooms after dinner and packed up.”

“It cannot have taken you long,” abstractedly.

“No; I am not taking much.”

The journalist seemed suddenly to return to practical things.

“But,” he inquired, “I suppose you are prepared to stay some time if necessary?”

“Oh yes!”

“How long?”

“As long as I am needed,” replied the war-correspondent very deliberately. There was no ring of doubt or hesitation in his voice.

“You are an ideal special,” said the other.

“It is best to be consistent even in trifles,” observed Trist, and the editor made no reply. Presently he continued, as if speaking his own thoughts aloud:

“I don’t like the look of things in the East. Russia is seething; Turkey is ready, and⁠ ⁠… and hell is brewing.”

“Let it brew!” said the philosophic Trist.

“While you stand on the edge of the vat and watch things through the smoke.”

“Exactly.”

“Then, Trist, mind you do not fall in. No fighting, my boy. You must keep in the background this time.”

“If,” replied the other, “I kept in the background, you would be the very first man to recall me.”

“Yes,” meditatively; “I suppose I should. But you can duck your head when you hear things whistling⁠ ⁠… when the music begins.”

Trist shrugged his shoulders, and smiled.

“My ducking days are done. One is just as likely to duck into bullets as out of their way. If, as you poetically put it, hell is brewing, I shall stay out there and watch the process as long as I am wanted; but if it is all the same to you, I should like to be with the Turks.”

“I thought you would. In case of war between Russia and Turkey, I have secured Steinoff to go with the Russians. With Steinoff on one side and you on the other, there will not be a newspaper in the world to come near us. The thought of it almost makes one pray for war.”

“I don’t think you need do that,” murmured Trist, selecting a fresh cigar.

The journalist glanced at him with some keenness.

“You think it will come?”

“I do.”

The great journalist smiled slowly, and as Trist did not continue, he fell into a long reverie which lasted until they reached Charing Cross Station.

It was Monday night, and the mails were light, but there were a great many passengers. Mostly pleasure-seekers, these travellers, hurrying away from London into clearer atmospheres, and across to lands where the art of enjoying life is better understood. The great train was ready, standing next to that right-hand middle platform we all know so well⁠—a very ordinary erection of brick covered with large slabs of sandstone, encumbered with a few heavy wooden seats, backless, comfortless; lighted (in 1876, when Trist went off to the first Turkish war) with round-globed lamps. No spot this for sentiment⁠—no place for thought. And yet what scenes have been illuminated by those round-globed lamps! what tears have fallen unheeded on the sandstone pavement! what feet have pressed the dust and covered up the tears! Countless men have stepped from that platform, literally, into a new life. Here have nameless waifs looked their last upon London haste, before turning to other lands where they have found naught else but a nameless grave. From these dumb stones men have gone forth unknown, unheeded, unwept, to return even as Theodore Trist had returned, with their name on all men’s lips. And⁠—saddest thought⁠—brown-faced wanderers have walked mechanically out of this same station into a world where they have no friends left. Returning from a life misspent in selfish absorption, they have passed out beneath those three-armed lamps with a faint sickening thought that this is home⁠—old England at last, with naught but graves and memories to seek.

Trist soon saw his luggage into the hands of the guard. The ticket was taken, and more than one fussy tourist at the booking-office window turned to look again at the quiet, unobtrusive man whose destination was so far afield as Bucharest.

The little tragedies of real life differ in one important point from those represented on the stage for our amusement and instruction. This point is the lamentable lack of stage management. On the boards we have appropriate scenery⁠—a bosky glade, and far away up the stage a shimmering calm sea with moonlight cleverly thrown upon it. There is also slow music⁠—piano, pianissimo⁠—and lowered footlights and pretty dresses. But in real life there are none of these accessories. In my time I also have dabbled a little in tragedy, as most of us are, sooner or later, likely to do; and there was no soft music, no distant shimmering sea, no whispering pine-trees and sighing glades. When I look back (with a peculiar sensation in the region of the collar), there are only memories of railway-stations, and brief moments at the head of the staircase, in brilliant ballrooms, with laughter all round us. On the platform, in the midst of hurrying porters and unsentimental trunks, I have no recollection of neatly punctuated periods or flowery observations respecting an impossible future. (Ah, that timeworn platitude about meeting hereafter, and living an impossible earthly life in heaven, how sickening it is!) A quick touch of nervous fingers, an instantaneous glance full of vague fear, that is all I remember. There was a singular lack of that hesitating, “pauseful” eloquence which makes the well-fed old ladies in the stalls snivel again. But if there is fault to be found I must be to blame, because the histrionic school of pathos appears to be universally accepted.

After Trist had secured his seat and lighted his cigar, there were still five minutes to spare. The two men walked backwards and forwards, smoking placidly, and observing the excited manoeuvres of the British tourist with a slight cynicism.

“I do not,” said the editor, “see anyone I know.”

“Nor I,” replied Trist; “and I am not sorry. Travelling with casual acquaintances is not an unmixed pleasure. Besides, I want to read all the way to Vienna. My ignorance regarding the political intricacies of Montenegro, Serbia, and Bulgaria is positively appalling.”

“What a practical beast you are, Trist!”

“In some things. And even in those it is merely a matter of exercising common sense as against popular sentiment.”

The editor raised his thoughtful gray eyes, and looked round him. There were last greetings in the very atmosphere, and to his ears came snatches of conversation⁠—promises, most of them, and certain of unfulfilment, to write and think of those left behind or going afield; half-shed tears, heaving bosoms, wan smiles, and convulsively crushed handkerchiefs.

“This sort of thing?” inquired the journalist, with a comprehensive wave of his cigar.

“Yes; cultivated sorrow. Tears carefully forced and brought on by artificial fertilization or cheap sentiment. With some people, more especially among women, sorrow is nothing else than a cult⁠—almost a religion. They look upon it as their bounden duty to spin out to the utmost limit of agony their farewells and their wearisome troubles. All these people would be better employed in reading the evening paper at home. They only get in the way of the porters, and puzzle the ticket-collectors at the barrier.”

The editor laughed in a tolerant way. He was a much older man than Trist.

“There seems,” he said suggestively, “to be more of it round the third-class carriages than here.”

“The result, perhaps, of cheap port-wine at home. The poor people are nowhere in the higher walks of sentiment without port-wine.”

The journalist laughed in a somewhat perfunctory way.

“I suppose,” he said, after a pause, “that you would, if you were a railway director, advocate closing the gates of the platform to all tearful relations?”

“Certainly. Seeing people off is an amusement which ought never to have been instituted.”

“Perhaps, then⁠ ⁠… I had better go.”

It was Trist’s turn to laugh.

“Not at all,” he said, flipping the ash off his cigar with a backward jerk of the hand⁠—“not at all. I do not anticipate that you will stand snivelling at the carriage-window, and, when the train moves away, wave a limp hand and a damp handkerchief, smiling feebly through your tears.”

The older man looked up at the clock, of which the pointers now indicated the hour for starting.

“No,” he answered abstractedly, “I do not recognise in your pleasing picture a portrait of myself. Come! it is time to get in.”

No more words passed between them. Trist stepped into the carriage and closed the door after him. At the same moment the guard signalled, and the heavy train moved slowly away into the darkness. All within the great arched roof was light and life; beyond lay darkness and silence. A turn in the way could be easily followed by watching the glowing red light at the rear of the train, and this presently disappeared.

Then the journalist turned on his heels and walked down the platform.

“That man,” he murmured to himself in his absorbed way, “is in love.”

Thus, without drum or trumpet, Theodore Trist left England, and set forth to meet the horrors of a campaign of which the record will in future history be a red and sanguinary blot upon the good name of a so-called civilized Continent.

One fine day late in the autumn of eighteen hundred and seventy-six, a steamer emerged from the haze that lay over the Atlantic and the northern waters of the Bay of Biscay. Those who were working in the fields behind the lighthouse of the Pointe de Raz saw her approach the land, sight the lighthouse, and then steer outwards again on a course due north through the channel dividing the Île de Sein from the rocky headland jutting out from this most western point of Europe into the Atlantic.

Those on board the steamer, looking across the blue waters, saw the faint outline of a high broken coast, and all round them a sea divided into races and smooth deep pools large enough to anchor a whole fleet had there been bottom within reach. Islands, islets, and mere rocks; some jutting high up, some nestling low. A dangerous coast, and a splendid fishing-ground.

There were further points of interest on the waters; namely, a whole fleet of sardine-boats from Douarnenez and Audierne, scudding here and there with their bright brown sails, sometimes glowing in the sun, sometimes brooding darkly in the shadow. It was a beautiful picture, because the colours were brilliant; the blue sea gradually merged into bright green, and finished off in the distance with yellow sand or deep-brown cliff. The hills towards Breste, to the north, were faintly outlined in a shadowy haze of blue, while close at hand the long Atlantic sweep came bounding in and broke into dazzling white over the rocks.

On the deck of the steamer the passengers paused in their afternoon promenade, and, leaning their arms on the high rail, contemplated the bright scene with evident satisfaction. The small fishing-boats were of a more British build than most of them had seen for some years. The brown lugsails were like the sails of an English fishing-boat, and many of these swarthy-faced wanderers had recollections of childhood which came surging into their minds at the sight of a blue sea with a brown sail on it. The high rocky land might well be England, with its neat yellow lighthouse and low-roofed cottages nestling among the scanty foliage and careful cultivation. It was so very different from Madras, so unlike Bombay, so infinitely superior to Hong Kong. The breeze even was different from any that had touched their faces for many a day, and some of them actually felt cold⁠—a sensation almost forgotten.

The captain of this splendid steamer was a gentleman as well as a good sailor, and he endeavoured to make his passengers feel at home while under his care. Therefore he now walked aft and stood beside the chair of a beautiful woman who was always alone, always indifferent, always repelling.

“This is a pretty sight, Mrs. Huston,” he said pleasantly, without looking down at her, but standing beside her chair. He gazed across the water towards the Pointe de Raz, with the good-natured patience of a man who does not intend to be snubbed. Once, during his first voyage as commander, a woman had disappeared from the deck one dark night, and since then the shrewd “passenger” captain had kept his eye upon pretty women who neither flirted nor quarrelled at sea.

“Yes,” was the indifferent answer; and the sailor’s keen gray eyes detected the fact that the fair lashes were never raised.

“It brings the fact before one,” he continued, “that we are getting near home.”

“Yes,” with pathetic indifference. She did not even make the pretence of looking up, and yet there was no visible interest in the book that lay upon her lap.

The sailor moved a little, and leant his elbows upon the rail, looking round his ship with a critical and all-seeing eye.

“I hope,” he said cheerily, “that there is no one on board to whom the sight of Eddystone will not give unmitigated pleasure. We shall be there before any of us quite realize that the voyage is drawing to an end.”

Then the beautiful woman made a little effort. The man’s kindness of heart was so obvious, his disinterested desire to cheer her voluntary solitude was so gentlemanly in its feeling and so entirely free from any suggestion of inquisitiveness, that she, as a lady, could no longer treat him coldly. All through the voyage this same quiet watchfulness over her comfort (which displayed itself in little passing acts, and never in words) had been exercised by the man, whose most difficult duties were not, perhaps, connected solely with the perils of the sea. She raised her head and smiled somewhat wanly, and there was in the action and in the expression of her eyes a sudden singular resemblance to Brenda Gilholme. But it was a weak copy. There was neither the invincible pluck nor the unusual intellectuality to be discerned.

“I shall be glad,” she said, “to see England again. Although the voyage has been very pleasant and very⁠ ⁠… peaceful. Thanks to you.”

“Not at all,” he answered with breezy cheerfulness; “I have done remarkably little to make things pleasant. It has been a quiet voyage. We are, I think, a quiet lot this time. Invalids mostly⁠—in body, or mind!”

At these last words the lady looked up suddenly into the captain’s pleasant face. In her manner there was a faint suggestion of coquetry⁠—so faint as only to be a very pleasing suggestion. Women who have been flirts in former years have this glance, and they never quite lose it. Personally speaking, I like it. There comes from its influence an innocent and very sociable sensation of familiarity with old and young alike. Someday I shall write a learned disquisition on the art and so-called vice of flirting. Look out for it, reader. Mind and secure an early copy from your stationer. From its thoughtful pages you cannot fail to glean some instructive matter. And ye, oh flirts! buy it up and show it to your friends; for it will be a defence of your maligned species. Flirts are the salt of social existence. A girl who cannot flirt is⁠ ⁠… is⁠ ⁠… well⁠ ⁠… is not the girl for me.

The mariner looked down into the sad face, and smiled in a comprehensive way which seemed in some inexplicable manner to bring them closer together.

“Then,” said the lady, “as I am in the enjoyment of rude health and likely to last for some years yet, I may infer that you know all about me.”

The captain looked grave.

“I know,” he answered, “just little enough to be able to reply that I know nothing when people do me the honour of inquiring; and just sufficient to feel that your affairs are better left undiscussed by us.”

She nodded her head, and sat looking at her own hands in a dull, apathetic way. Womanlike, she acted in direct opposition to his most obvious hint.

“I suppose,” she murmured, “that gossips have been thrashing the whole question out with their customary zest.”

“Ceylon is a hotbed of gossips. Everyone is up in his neighbour’s affairs, and a fine voyage in a comfortable steamer is not calculated to still busy tongues!”

She shrugged her shoulders indifferently, and looked up at him with a slight pout of her pretty lips.

“Who cares?” she asked with well-simulated levity. He, however, did not choose to appear as if he were deceived, which simple feat was well within his histrionic capabilities; for his life was one long succession of petty diplomatic efforts.

“I think,” he said coolly, “that you have done perfectly right in keeping yourself quite apart from the rest of them.” He looked round upon the other passengers, seated or lolling about the deck, with a fatherly tolerance. “And if I may suggest it, you cannot do better than to continue doing so for the next day or two. Avoid more particularly the older women. The jealousy of a young girl is dangerous, but the repelled patronage of an older woman, bristling with the consciousness of her own wearisome irreproachability, is infinitely more to be feared!”

This remark from the lips of a man who undoubtedly knew more than is usually known of the feminine side of humanity appeared to suggest material for thought to the somewhat shallow brain of his hearer. She dropped the lightly reckless style at once, and the thought that this honest and simple-hearted sailor was in love with her slowly died a natural death. There followed, moreover, upon its demise an uncomfortable suggestion that, although he was probably honest, he was not consequently simple-hearted⁠—that he was, in fact, a match for her, and, knowing it, was not at that moment disposed to measure mental blades with her.

“I am glad,” she said humbly, “that my sister will be at Plymouth to meet me.”

“Did you,” inquired the sailor, “write from Port Said to Miss Gilholme?”

She raised her head with a questioning air, but did not look up.

“Miss Gilholme,” she repeated⁠—“how do you know her name?”

“Oh,” laughed the captain, “I am a sort of walking directory. There is a constant procession of men and women passing before me. Many of them turn aside and say a few words. Sometimes we find mutual acquaintances, sometimes only mutual interests. Sometimes they pass by again, and on occasion we become friends.”

“Then you have not met her?”

“No⁠—I have not had that pleasure.”

“It is a pleasure,” said the beautiful woman very earnestly. Had she only known it, her face was infinitely lovelier in grave repose than in most piquante bouderie.

“I can quite believe it,” replied the sailor, with a gallantry which even Mrs. Huston could not take as anything more than conventional.

“She is my guardian angel!” murmured she pathetically.

Her companion smiled slightly, in a very unsympathetic way. His opinion of “guardian angels” was taken from a practical and lamentably unpoetical point of view. Having played the part himself on several occasions with more or less conspicuous success, he inclined to a belief that the glory of guardian angelism is of a negative description. There are certain people in the world who will accept all and any service, and to whom the feeling of indebtedness is without a hint of shame. In time they come to consider such service as has previously and hitherto been rendered them in the light of a precedent. Gradually the debt seems to glide from the shoulders of the debtor to those of the creditor, and having once rendered a service, the renderer has simply placed himself under an obligation to continue doing so.

When Mrs. Huston, therefore, mentioned the fact that her sister was her guardian angel, the pathos of the observation was somewhat lost upon her hearer; who, moreover, was slightly prejudiced against Brenda because such guardian angels as had crossed his path were of a weak and gullible nature. He never made her acquaintance, but the impression thus conceived⁠—though totally erroneous⁠—was never dispelled by such small details of her story as came to his knowledge in later years.

“I hear,” the captain went on to explain, in his cheery impersonal way, “scraps of family histories here and there, and then am rather surprised to meet members of these families, or persons connected with them.”

Mrs. Huston bravely quelled a desire to talk of her own affairs, and smiled vaguely.

“I have no doubt,” she said with mechanical pleasantness, “that we have a great many mutual acquaintances⁠—if we only knew how to hit upon the vein.”

“Of course we have⁠—the world, and especially the Indian world, is very small.”

“I wonder who they are?” murmured Mrs. Huston, raising her eyes to her companion’s face.

“Mention a few of your friends,” he suggested, looking down into her eyes somewhat keenly.

“No⁠—you begin!”

He changed his position somewhat, and stood upright, free from the rail, but his glance never left her face.

“Theodore Trist!”

Instantly she averted her eyes. For a moment she was quite off her guard, and her fingers strayed in a nervous, aimless way among the pages of her open book. To her pale cheeks the warm colour mounted as if a glowing ruby reflection had suddenly been cast upon the delicate skin.

She expressed no surprise by word or gesture, and there was a pause of considerable duration before at length she spoke.

“Where is he now?” she asked in a low voice.

The captain stroked his grizzled moustache reflectively. He acted his part well, despite her sudden and lamentable failure.

“Let me think⁠ ⁠… He is in Constantinople to the best of my knowledge. He is engaged in watching Eastern affairs. It seems that Turkey and Russia cannot keep their hands off each other’s throats much longer. At present there is an armistice, but Trist has been through the late war between Serbia and Turkey.”

“Do you know him well?” she asked at length, after a second pause.

“Yes. He is a friend of mine.”

“A great friend?”

“I think I may say so.”

“He is also a friend of ours⁠—of my sister and myself,” said Mrs. Huston calmly.

She had quite recovered her equanimity by now, and the pink colour had left her cheeks.

“I have known him,” said the captain conversationally, “for many years now. Soon after he made his name he went out to the East with me, and we struck up a friendship. He is not a man who makes many friends, I imagine.”

“No,” murmured Mrs. Huston, in a voice which implied that the subject was not distasteful to her, but she preferred her companion to talk while she listened.

“But,” continued the sailor, “those who claim him as a friend have an unusual privilege. He is what we vaguely call at sea a ‘good’ man⁠—a man upon whom it is safe to place reliance in any emergency, under all circumstances.”

“Yes,” said the lady softly.

“He has been doing wonderful work out in the East since the beginning of the insurrection. We have a set of men out there such as no nation in the world could produce except England⁠—fellows who go about with their lives literally in their hands, for they’re virtually unprotected⁠—men who are soldiers, statesmen, critics, writers and explorers all in one. They run a soldier’s risk without the recompense of a soldier’s grave. A statesman’s craft must be theirs, while they are forced to keep two diplomatic requirements ever before their eyes. England must have news; the army authorities (whose word is law) must be conciliated. Travelling by day and night alike, never resting for many consecutive hours, never laying aside the responsibility that is on their shoulders, they are expected to write amidst the din of battle, on a gun-carriage perhaps, often in the saddle, and usually at night when the wearied army is asleep; they are expected, moreover, to write well, so that men sitting by their firesides in London, with books of reference at hand, may criticise and seek in vain for slip or error. They are expected to criticise the stratagem of the greatest military heads around them without the knowledge possessed by the officers who dictate their coming and their going, throwing them a piece of stale news here and there as they would throw a bone to a dog. All this, and more, is done by our war-correspondents; and amidst these wonderful fellows Theodore Trist stands quite alone, immeasurably superior to them all.”

The vehement sailor was interrupted by the sound of the first dinner-bell, and a general stir on deck. At sea, mealtimes are hailed with a more visible joy than is considered decorous on land, and no time is lost in answering the glad summons.

Mrs. Huston rose languidly from her seat and moved forward towards the spacious saloon staircase.

“Yes,” she answered thoughtfully; “Theo must be very clever. It is difficult to realize that one’s friends are celebrated, is it not?”

The captain walked by her side, suiting his crisp, firm step to her languid gait, which was, nevertheless, very graceful in its rhythmic ease. Her voice was clear, gentle, and somewhat indifferent. On her face there was no other expression than the customary suggestion of pathetic apathy.

“I suppose,” she continued in a conventional manner, “that he will not be home for some time.”

“No. There will be a big war before this question is settled, and Trist will be in the thick of it.”

With a slight inclination of the head she passed away from him and disappeared down the saloon stairs. The captain turned away and mounted the little brass ladder leading to the bridge with sailor-like deliberation.

“And, young woman,” he muttered to himself, “you had better go down to your cabin and thank your God on your bended knees that Theodore Trist is not in England, nor likely to cross your path for many months to come.”

He looked round him with his habitual cheery keenness, and said a few words to the second officer who was on duty. Could he have seen Theodore Trist standing at that moment on the deck of a quick despatch-boat, racing through the Bosphorus and bound for England, he would not, perhaps, have laughed so heartily at a very mild joke made by his subordinate a few moments later.

“And yet,” he reflected as he made his way below in answer to the second dinner-bell⁠—“and yet she does not seem to me to be the sort of woman for Trist⁠—not good enough! Perhaps the gossips are wrong after all, and he does not care for her!”

More than one idler in Plymouth Station, one morning in October, turned his head to look again at two women walking side by side on the platform near to the London train. One, the taller of the two, was exceptionally beautiful, of a fair delicate type, with an almost perfect figure and a face fit for a model of the Madonna, so pure in outline was it, so innocent in its meaning. The younger woman was slightly shorter. She was clad in mourning, which contrasted somewhat crudely with the brighter costume of her companion. It was evident that these two were sisters; they walked in the same easy way, and especially notable was a certain intrepid carriage of the head, which I venture to believe is essentially peculiar to highborn Englishwomen.

By the side of her sister, Brenda Gilholme might easily pass unnoticed. Mrs. Huston was, in the usual sense of the word, a beautiful woman, and such women live in an atmosphere of notoriety. Wherever they go they are worshipped at a distance by those beneath them in station, patronized by those above them, respected by their equals, because, forsooth, face and form are moulded with delicacy and precision. The mind of such a woman is of little importance; the person is pleasing, and more is not demanded. Only her husband will someday awaken to the fact that worship from a distance might have been more satisfactory. The effect of personal beauty is a lamentable factor which cannot be denied. All men, good and bad alike, come under its influence. A lovely woman can twist most of us round her dainty finger with a wanton disregard for the powers of intellect or physical energy.

Brenda was not beautiful; she was only pretty, with a dainty refinement of heart which was visible in her delicate face. But her prettiness was in no way tainted with weakness, as was her sister’s beauty. She was strong and thoughtful, with a true woman’s faculty for hiding these unwelcome qualities from the eyes of inferior men. She had grown up in the shadow of this beautiful sister, and men had not cared to seek for intellect where they saw only a reflected beauty. She had passed through a social notoriety, but eager eyes had only glanced at her in passing. She had merely been Alice Gilholme’s sister, and now⁠—here on Plymouth platform⁠—Alice Huston was assuming her old superiority. My brothers, think of this! It must have been a wondrous love that overcame such drawbacks, that passed by with tolerance a thousand daily slights. And Brenda’s love for her sister accomplished all this. Ah, and more! In the days that followed there was a greater wrong⁠—a wrong which only blind selfishness could have inflicted⁠—and this also Brenda Gilholme forgave.

The sisters had met on the steamboat landing a few moments previously. A rattling drive through the town had followed, and now they were able to speak together alone for the first time. There had been no display of emotion. The beautiful lips had met lightly, the well-gloved fingers had clasped each other with no nervous hysterical fervour, and now it would seem that they had parted but a week ago. Emotion is tabooed in the school through which these two had passed⁠—the school of nineteenth-century society⁠—and, indeed, we appear to get along remarkably well without it.

“My dear,” Mrs. Huston was saying, “he will be home by the next boat if he can raise the money. We cannot count on more than a week’s start.”

“And,” inquired Brenda, “can he raise the money?”

“Oh yes! If he can get as far as the steamboat office without spending it.”

Brenda looked at her sister in a curious way.

“Spending it on what⁠ ⁠… Alice?”

“On⁠—drink!”

Mrs. Huston was not the woman to conceal any of her own grievances from quixotically unselfish motives.

Brenda thought for some moments before replying.

“Then,” she said at length, with some determination, “we must make sure of our start, if, that is, you are still determined to leave him.”

Mrs. Huston was looking down at her sister’s neat black dress, about which there was a subtle air of refined luxury, which seems natural to some women, and part of their being.

“Yes, yes, I suppose we must. By the way, dear, you are in mourning⁠ ⁠… for whom?”

“For Admiral Wylie,” replied Brenda patiently.

“But it is two months⁠—is it not?⁠—since his death, and he was no relation. I think it is unnecessary. Black is so melancholy, though it suits your figure.”

“I am living with Mrs. Wylie,” Brenda explained with unconscious irony. “Are you still determined that you cannot live with your husband, Alice?”

“My dear, he is a brute! I am not an impulsive person, but I think that if he should catch me again, it is very probable that I should do something desperate⁠—kill myself, or something of that sort.”

“I do not think,” observed Brenda serenely, “that you would ever kill yourself.”

The beautiful woman laughed in an easy, lightsome way, which was one of her many social gifts. It was such a pleasantly infectious laugh, so utterly lighthearted, and so ready in its vocation of filling up awkward pauses.

“No, perhaps not. But in the meantime, what is to become of me? Will Mrs. Wylie take me in for a day or two, or shall we seek lodgings? I have some money, enough to last a month or so; but I must have two new dresses.”

“Mrs. Wylie has kindly said that you can stay as long as you like. But, Alice, it would never do to stay in London. You must get away to some small place on the seacoast, or somewhere where you will not be utterly bored, and keep in hiding until he comes home, and I can find out what he intends to do.”

“My dear, I shall be utterly bored anywhere except in London. But Brenda, tell me⁠ ⁠… you have got into a habit of talking exactly like Theo Trist!”

Brenda met her sister’s eyes with a bright smile.

“How funny!” she exclaimed. “I have not noticed it.”

“No, of course; you⁠—would not notice it. When will he be home?”

The girl stopped and looked critically at an advertisement suspended on the wall near at hand. It was a huge representation of a coloured gentleman upon his native shore, making merry over a complicated pair of braces. She had never seen the work of art before, and for some unknown reason in the months⁠—ay, and in the years that followed⁠—her dislike for it was almost nauseating in its intensity.

“I don’t know,” she replied indifferently.

“We,” continued Mrs. Huston, following out her own train of thought, “are so helpless. We want a man to stand by us. Of course papa is of no use. I suppose he is spouting somewhere about the country. He generally is.”

“No,” replied Brenda, with a wonderful tolerance. “We cannot count on him. He is in Ireland. I had a postcard from him the other day. He said that I was not to be surprised or shocked to hear that he was in prison. He is trying to get himself arrested. It is, he says, all part of the campaign.”

Again Mrs. Huston’s pretty laughter made things pleasant and sociable.

“I wonder what that means,” she exclaimed, smoothing a wrinkle out of the front of her jacket for the benefit of a military-looking man, with a cigar in his mouth, who stared offensively as he passed.

Brenda shrugged her shoulders slightly, and said nothing. She did not appear to attach a very great importance to her father’s political movements, in which culpable neglect she was abetted by the whole of England.

“What we require,” continued Mrs. Huston, “is an energetic man with brains.”

“I am afraid that energetic men with brains have in most cases their own affairs to look after. It is only the idle ones with tongues who have time to devote to other people’s business.”

“The ‘brute,’ my dear, is clever; we must remember that. And he is terribly obstinate. There is a sort of stubborn bloodhoundism about him which makes me shiver when I think that he is even now after me, in all probability.”

“We must be cool and cunning, and brave to fight against him,” said Brenda practically.

At this moment the guard came forward, and held the door of their compartment invitingly open. They got in, and found themselves alone. They were barely seated, opposite to each other, when the train glided smoothly away.

Brenda sat a little forward, with her gloved hand resting on the window, which had been lowered by the guard. They were seated on the landward side of the train, and as she looked out her eyes rested on the rising hills to the north with a vague, unseeing gaze.

A slight movement made by Mrs. Huston caused her at length to look across, and the two sisters sat for a second searching each other’s eyes for the old heartwhole frankness which never seems to survive the death of childhood and the birth of separate interests in life.

“Theo,” said the elder woman significantly at last, “is brave and cool and cunning, Brenda.”

The girl made an effort, but the old childish confidence was dead. From Theo Trist, the disciple of stoicism, she had perhaps learnt something of a creed which, if a mistaken one, renders its followers of great value in the world, for they never intrude their own private feelings upon public attention. That effort was the last. It was a beginning in itself⁠—the first stone of a wall destined to rise between the two sisters, built by the gray hands of Time.

“But,” suggested Brenda, “Theo is in Bulgaria.”

Mrs. Huston smiled with all the conscious power of a woman who, without being actually vain, knows the market value and the moral weight of her beauty.

“Suppose I telegraphed to him that I wanted him to come to me at once.”

Brenda fixed her eyes upon her sister’s face. For a second her dainty lip quivered.

“You must not do that,” she said, in such a tone of invincible opposition that her sister changed colour, and looked somewhat hastily in another direction.

“I suppose,” murmured the elder woman after a short silence, “that it is quite impossible to find out when he may return?”

“Quite impossible. This ‘Eastern Question,’ as it is called, is so complicated that I have given up trying to follow it⁠—besides, I do not see what Theo has to do with the matter. We must act alone, Alice.”

“But women are so helpless.”

Brenda smiled in a slightly ironical way.

“Why should they be?” she asked practically. “I am not afraid of Captain Huston. He is a gentleman, at all events.”

“He was!” put in his wife bitterly.

“And I suppose there is something left of his former self?”

“Not very much, my dear. At least, that phase of his present condition has been religiously hidden from my affectionate gaze.”

Brenda drew her gloves pensively up her slim wrists, smoothing out the wrinkles in the black kid. There was in her demeanour an air of capable attention, something between that accorded by a general to his aide-de-camp on the field of battle, and the keen watchfulness of a physician while his patient speaks.

“Theo,” she said conversationally, “would be a great comfort to us. He is so steadfast and so entirely reliable. But we must do without him. We will manage somehow.”

“I am horribly afraid, Brenda. It has just come to me; I have never felt it before. You seem to take it so seriously, and⁠ ⁠… and I expected to find Theo at home.”

“Theo is one of the energetic men with brains who have their own affairs to attend to,” said Brenda, in her cheery way. “We are not his affairs; besides, as I mentioned before, he is in Bulgaria⁠—in his element, in the midst of confusion, insurrection, war.”

“But,” repeated Mrs. Huston, with aggravating unconsciousness of the obvious vanity of her words, “suppose I telegraphed for him?”

Brenda laughed, and shook her head.

“I have a melancholy presentiment that if you telegraphed for him he would not come. There is a vulgar but weighty proverb about making one’s own bed, which he might recommend to our notice.”

“Then Theo must have changed!”

Brenda raised her round blue eyes, and glanced sideways out of the window. She was playing idly with the strap of the sash, tapping the back of her hand with it.

“Theo,” she observed indifferently, “is the incarnation of steadfastness. He has not changed in any perceptible way. But he is, before all else, a war-correspondent. I cannot imagine that anyone should possess the power of dragging him away from the seat of war.”

Mrs. Huston smiled vaguely for her own satisfaction. Her imagination was apparently capable of greater things. It was rather to be deplored that, when she smiled, the expression of her beautiful face was what might (by a true friend behind her back) be called a trifle vacuous.

“He wrote,” continued the younger sister, “a very good article the other day, which came just within the limits of my understanding. It was upon the dangers of alliance; and he showed that an ally who, in any one way, might at some time prove disadvantageous, is better avoided from the very first. It was apropos of the Turkish-Christian subjects welcoming a Russian invasion. It seems to me, Alice, that our position is rather within the reach of that argument.”

“Being a soldier’s wife, I do not know much about military matters; but it seems to me that a retreat should be safely covered at all costs.”

“Not at all costs,” said Brenda significantly. Her colour had changed, and there was a wave of pink slowly mounting over her throat.

Mrs. Huston smiled serenely, and shrugged her shoulders.

“I do not see,” she expostulated frankly, “what harm there can be in calling in the aid of an old friend.”

“I would rather work alone!” was Brenda’s soft reply.

And in those two casual remarks there lay hidden from the gaze of blinder mortals the story of two lives.

In her pleasant room on the second-floor of Suffolk Mansions, Mrs. Wylie awaited the arrival of the two sisters.

From without there came a suggestion of bustling life in the continuous hum of wheel-traffic and an occasional cry, not unmelodious, from enterprising news-vendors. Within, everything spoke of peaceful, pleasant comfort. There was a large table in the centre of the room literally covered with periodical and permanent literature⁠—a pleasant table to sit by, for there was invariably something of interest lying upon it, a safe stimulant to conversation. The dullest and shyest man could always find something to say to the ready listener who sat in a low cane-chair just beyond the table, near the fire, with her back to the window. There were many strange ornaments about, and a number of curiosities such as women rarely purchase in foreign lands; also sundry small impedimenta suggestive of things nautical.

Withal there was in the very atmosphere a sense of womanliness. The subtle odours emanating from wooden constructions, conceived and executed by dusky strangers, were overpowered by the healthier and livelier smell of flowers. Heliotrope nestled modestly in low vases from Venice. There was also mignonette, and on the mantelpiece a great snowy bunch of Japanese anemones thrust into a bronze vase from that same distant land, all looking, as it were, in different directions, each carrying its graceful head in a different way, no two alike, and yet all lovely, as only God can make things.

I cannot explain in what lay the charm of Mrs. Wylie’s drawing-room, though it must have emanated from the lady herself. There is no room like it that I know of, where both men and women experience a sudden feeling of homeliness, an entire sense of refined ease. The surroundings were not too fragile for the touch of a man, and yet there was in them that subtle influence of grace and daintiness which appeals to the more delicate fibres of a woman’s soul, and makes her recognise her own element.

The widowed lady herself was little changed since we last met her in the Far North. But those who knew her well were cognizant of the fact that the outward signs of late bereavement so gracefully worn were no cynical demonstration of a conventional grief. The white-haired old man sleeping among the nameless sons of an Arctic land was as truly mourned by this cheerful Englishwoman as ever husband could desire. There was perhaps a smaller show of cultivated grief, such as the world loves to contemplate, than was strictly in keeping with her widow’s cap. No lowered tones pulled up a harmless burst of hilarity. No smothered sighs were emitted at inappropriate times in order to impress upon a world, already full enough of sorrow, the presence of an abiding woe.

But Brenda Gilholme knew that the cure was incomplete. She had carried through, to the end, the task left her by Theo Trist. The Hermione lay snugly anchored by the oozy banks of a Suffolk river, and Mrs. Wylie was, so to speak, herself again⁠—that is to say, she was once more a woman full of ready sympathy, gay with the gay, sorrowing with the afflicted. If Brenda in her analytical way saw and acknowledged the presence of a difference, it was perhaps nothing more than an overstrained feminine susceptibility. At all events, the general world opined that Mrs. Wylie was as jolly as ever. Moreover, they insinuated in a good-natured manner that the Admiral was, after all, many years her senior, and that she in all human probability had some considerable span of existence to get through yet, which he could not have shared owing to advance of infirmity.

One admirable characteristic had survived, however, this change in her life. The cheery independence of this lady was untouched by the hand of sorrow. It was her creed that at all costs a smile should be ready for the world. Regardless of criticism, she trod her own path through a hypercritical generation; and by seeking to cast the light of a brave hopefulness upon it, she illuminated the road on which her near contemporaries held their way. One great secret of her method was industry. In her gentle womanliness she sought work, not afar, but in her own field, and found it as all women can find work if they seek truly.

Even while she was awaiting the arrival of the sisters, she was not idle. On her lap there lay a huge scrapbook, and with scissors and paste she was busy collecting and arranging in due order sundry newspaper cuttings. That scrapbook will in after-years be historical, for it contained every word ever printed from the handwriting of Theodore Trist up to the date of the day when Mrs. Wylie sat alone in her drawing-room. From its pages more than one book on the art of making war has since been compiled, and from those printed words more than one general of many nationalities would confess to having learnt something.

The lady’s quick ear detected the sound of a cab suddenly stopping, and when a bell rang a few moments later she laid aside her scissors and rose from her seat with no sign of surprise.

“I wonder,” she said, “of what tragedy or comedy this may be the beginning.”

There was a certain matronly grace in her movements as she opened the door and drew Brenda Gilholme to her arms.

“Alice has come with me!” said the girl.

“Yes, dear,” replied Mrs. Wylie, and she proceeded to greet the taller sister with a kiss also, but of somewhat less warmth.

Then the three ladies passed into the drawing-room together. There was a momentary pause, during which Mrs. Huston mechanically loosened the strings of her smart little bonnet and looked round the room appreciatively.

“How perfectly delicious,” she exclaimed, “it is to see a comfortable English drawing-room again! I almost kissed the maid who opened the door; she was such a pleasant contrast to sneaking Sinhalese servants.”

Mrs. Wylie smiled sympathetically, but became grave again instantaneously. Her eyes rested for a second on Brenda’s face.

“Alice,” explained Brenda, coming forward to the fireplace and raising one neatly shod foot to the fender, “does not give a very glowing account of Ceylon.”

“Nor,” added Mrs. Huston with light pathos, “of the blessed state of matrimony.”

Mrs. Wylie drew forward a chair.

“Sit down,” she said hospitably, “and warm yourselves. We will have some tea before you take your things off.”

“And now Alice,” she resumed, after seating herself in the softly lined cane chair near the literary table, “tell me all⁠ ⁠… you wish to tell me.”

“Oh,” replied the beautiful woman, removing her gloves daintily, “there is not much to tell. Moreover, the story has not the merit even of novelty. The raw material is lamentably commonplace, and I am afraid I cannot make a very interesting thing of it. Wretched climate, horribly dull station, thirsty husband. Voilà tout!”

“To which, however,” suggested Mrs. Wylie with a peculiar intonation, “might perhaps be added military society and Indian habits.”

The younger woman shrugged her shoulders and laughed.

“Oh no!” she exclaimed irresponsibly. “But all that is a question of the past, and the present is important enough to require some attention.”

She extended her feet to the warmth of the fire, and contemplated her small boots with some satisfaction.

“Yes⁠ ⁠… ?”

“I have bolted,” she said, replying to the inferred query, “and he is in all probability after me.”

Mrs. Wylie turned aside the screen which she was holding between her face and the fire. Her intelligent eyes rested for a moment on the speaker’s face, then she transferred her attention to Brenda, who stood near the mantelpiece with her two gloved hands resting on the marble. The girl was gazing down between her extended arms into the fire, and a warm glow nestled rosily round her face. The eyes were too sad for their years.

“I am very sorry to hear it,” said the widow with conviction.

“There was no alternative. I could not stand it any longer.”

“How did you manage it?” asked Mrs. Wylie quietly, almost too quietly.

“Oh, I got rid of some jewellery, and there was a Captain Markynter who was kind enough to get my ticket and see me off!”

A peculiar silence followed this cool remark. Mrs. Wylie sat quite still, holding the palm screen before her face. Brenda stood motionless as a statue. Mrs. Huston curved her white wrist, and looked compassionately at a small red mark made by the button of her glove. At length the uneasy pause was broken. Without moving, Brenda spoke in a cool, clear voice, almost monotonous.

“Alice,” she explained, “is a great advocate for masculine assistance. She considers us totally incapable of managing our own affairs, and powerless to act for ourselves. She has been regretting all day that Theo should be away, and consequently beyond our call.”

Mrs. Huston laughed somewhat forcedly, and drew in her feet.

“It is like this,” she explained. “If my husband catches me I think I shall probably kill myself! Theo is so strong and reliable, and somehow⁠ ⁠… so capable, that I naturally thought of him in my emergency.”

“Naturally,” echoed Mrs. Wylie mechanically.

At that moment she was not thinking whether her monosyllabic remark was cruelly sarcastic or simply silly. Her whole mind was devoted to the study of Brenda’s face, upon which the firelight glowed; but in the proud young features there was nothing legible⁠—nothing beyond a somewhat anxious thoughtfulness.

“I think,” continued Mrs. Huston, “that we may count on a week’s start. My affectionate husband cannot be here before then.”

To this neither lady made reply. The servant came in, and in a few moments tea was served. Brenda presided over the little basket table, and prepared each cup with a foreknowledge of the several tastes. During this there was no word spoken. From the nonchalance of the ladies’ manner one might easily have imagined that the younger couple had just come in from a long day’s shopping.

“Have you,” asked the widow at length, as she stirred her tea placidly, “thought of what you are doing?”

“Oh yes!” was the laughing rejoinder, in which, however, there was no mirth. “Oh yes! I have thought, and thought, and thought, until the subject was thrashed out dry. There was nothing else to do but think, and read yellow-backed novels, all the voyage home.”

“Then,” murmured the widow, with gentle interrogation, “this Captain Parminter did not come home with you?”

Mrs. Huston changed colour, and her lips moved slightly. She glanced towards Mrs. Wylie beneath her dark lashes, and answered with infinite self-possession:

“No! And his name is Markynter.”

The palm-leaf did not move. Presently, however, Mrs. Wylie laid it aside, and asked for some more tea.

“Well,” she said cheerily, “I suppose we must make the best of a very bad bargain. What do you propose to do next?”

In the most natural and confiding way imaginable, Mrs. Huston looked up towards her sister, who was still standing. There was an almost imperceptible shrug of her shoulders.

“Brenda,” she answered, “says that I must run away and hide in some small village, which is not exactly a cheerful prospect.”

“It would hardly do,” said Brenda, as if in defence of her own theory, “to go down to Brighton and stay at the Bedford Hotel, for instance.”

“If,” added Mrs. Wylie in the same tone, “you really want to avoid your husband, you must certainly hide; but I do not see what you can gain by such a proceeding. It can never be permanent, and you will soon get tired of chasing each other round England.”

“Perhaps he will get tired of it first.”

“If he does, what will your position be? Somewhat ambiguous, I imagine.”

“It cannot be worse than it is at present.”

“Oh yes,” replied the widow calmly. “It can!”

She set her empty cup on the tray, and sat with her two hands clasped together on her lap. She had not come through fifty years of life, this placid lady, without learning something of the world’s ways, and she recognised instantly what Alice Huston’s position was. It was the old story which is told every day in all parts of the world, more especially, perhaps, in India⁠—the wearisome tale of a mistaken marriage between a man of small intellect and a woman of less. If both husband and wife be busy, the one with his bread-winning, the other with her babies, such unions may be a near approach to animal happiness⁠—no more can be hoped for. The very instincts of it are animal, and as such it is safe. But if one or both be idle, the result is simply “hell.” No other expression can come near it.

Captain Huston’s military duties were not such as occupied more than a few hours of the week, and during the rest of his existence he was actively idle. His mind was fallow; he was totally without resource, without occupation, without interest. There is no man on earth to beat the ordinary British military officer in downright futile idleness. The Spanish Customhouse official runs a close race with the Italian innkeeper in this matter, but both enjoy their laziness, and are never bored. When our commissioned defender is naturally of an idle turn of mind, he is intensely bored; his existence is one long yawn, and the faculty of enjoyment dies a natural death within his soul. I can think of no more despicable sample of humanity than a man who cannot find himself something to do under all circumstances, and in all places; and surely no one can blame his Satanic majesty for a proverbial readiness to supply the deficiency from his own store of easy tasks.

If Alice Gilholme had searched through the entire army-list, she could scarcely have found a man less suitable to be her husband than Captain Huston. Petty, shortsighted jealousy on his part, vapid coquetry on hers, soon led to the inevitable end, and the result was thrown upon the hands of Brenda and Mrs. Wylie with easy nonchalance by the spoilt child of society.

It was no sudden disillusionment for Brenda, but merely one more wretched curtain torn aside to display the hideous reality of human existence and human selfishness. No thought of complaint entered the girl’s head. With a pathetic silence she simply applied herself to the task set before her, with no great hope of reaching a satisfactory solution.

Before the three ladies had spoken further upon the subject chiefly occupying their thoughts, the drawing-room door was thrown open, and with studied grace William Hicks crossed the threshold.

The hat that he carried daintily in his left hand was not quite the same in contour as those worn by his contemporaries. To ensure this peculiarity, the artist was forced to send to Paris for his headgear, where he paid a higher price and received an inferior article. But the distinction conferred by a unique hat is practically immeasurable and without price. Mr. Hicks’ gloves were also out of the common; likewise his strangely-cut coat and misshapen continuations.

The tout ensemble was undoubtedly pleasing. It must have been so, because he was obviously satisfied, and the artistic eye is the acknowledged arbitrator in matters of outward adornment, whether it be of mantelshelves or human forms divine.

The three ladies turned to greet him with that ready feminine smile which is ever there to lubricate matters when the social wheel may squeak or grate.

“Oh, bother!” whispered Brenda to herself, as she held out her hand.

“What?” exclaimed Hicks, with languid surprise and visibly deep pleasure. “Mrs. Huston! I am delighted. When I left my studio and plunged into all this mist and gloom this afternoon, I never thought that both would be dispelled so suddenly.”

“Is it dispelled?” asked Mrs. Huston, glancing playfully towards the window.

“In here it is. But then,” he added, as he shook hands with Mrs. Wylie, “there is never any mist or gloom in this room.”

With a pleasant laugh, as if deprecating his own folly, he turned to greet Brenda, who had stood near the mantelpiece with her gloved hand extended. Then his manner changed. Moreover, it was a distinctly advantageous alteration. One would have imagined, from the expression of his handsome but thoroughly weak face, that if there was anybody on earth whom he respected and admired, almost as much as he respected and admired William Hicks, that person was Brenda.

For her he had no neatly-turned pleasantry⁠—no easy, infectious laugh.

“I did not know you were coming home, Mrs. Huston,” he said, turning again to that lady. Then his social training enabled him to detect unerringly that he might be on a dangerous trail, and with ready skill he turned aside. “This is not the best time of year,” he continued, “to return to your native shores. Personally I am rather disgusted with the shore in question, but we must surely hope for some more sunshine before we finally bid farewell to the orb of day for the winter. We poor artists are the chief sufferers, I am sure.”

“At all events,” put in Mrs. Wylie easily, “you take it upon yourselves to grumble most. There is always something to displease you⁠—the want of daylight, the scarcity of buyers, or the hopeless stupidity of the hanging-committee.”

“I think I confine my observations to the weather,” murmured Hicks, gazing sadly into the fire, towards which bourne Brenda’s glance was also apparently directed, for she presently pressed the glowing coals down with the sole of her dainty boot, and quite lost the studied poesy of the artist’s expression. “I am, I think,” he continued humbly, “independent of buyers and hanging-committees. I do not exhibit at Burlington House, and you know I never sell.”

“Indeed,” said Mrs. Huston, with slight interest, for the elder lady had turned away and was busy with her second cup of tea, which was almost cold.

“No,” answered Hicks, with the eagerness that comes to egotistical talkers when they are sure of a new listener. “No. I don’t care to enter into competition with men who depend more upon conventional training than natural talent. The Royal Academy is only a human institution, and, perhaps, it is only natural that their own students should be favoured before all others. I am not an Academy student, you know!”

Mrs. Huston contented herself with no more compromising affirmative than a gracious inclination of the head. It is just possible that, fresh from Ceylon, and consequently deplorably ignorant of artistic affairs as she was, the knowledge that William Hicks was not an Academy student had been denied her. This most lamentable fact, however, if it existed, she concealed with all the cleverness of her sex, and Hicks came to the conclusion, later on, that she must have known. He could not conceive it possible that a woman moving in intelligent circles, although in the outer rims thereof, and far from the living centre of Kensington, could be unaware of such an important item in his own personal history; this being no mean part of the artistic history of the nineteenth century.

Enveloped as he was, however, in conceit, he had the good taste to perceive that his bewildering presence was on this particular occasion liable to be considered bliss of an alloyed description, and in a short time he took his leave.

As he was moving round and saying goodbye, Mrs. Huston returned to the artistic question, from which they had never strayed very far. Indeed, art was somewhat apt to become a nauseating subject of conversation wherever William Hicks was allowed to influence matters to any extent.

“You have never sent pictures to the Academy, then?” she asked innocently.

“Oh no!” he answered with mild horror. “Goodbye, so glad to see you home again.”

And then he vanished.

Mrs. Wylie watched his retreating figure with a pleasant and sociable expression on her intelligent face.

“That,” she was reflecting, “is a lie!” She happened to know that Hicks had been refused a place on the walls of Burlington House.

If I were a ghost, or if I ever come to be one, I shall not take up the old, timeworn craft of frightening people during the stilly hours. Instead of such uninteresting work, I shall make a collection in a phantom pocketbook of asides and murmured reflections. From such, an interesting study of earthly existence, and more particularly of social life, might well be made.

On those phantom pages might, for instance, be inscribed the reflections of William Hicks as he made his way down the broad staircase of Suffolk Mansions.

“Whew!” was their tenor; “ran right into it. She’s left him; I could see that. Seems to me she’s on the verge of a catastrophe⁠—divorce or separation, or something like that.”

In the drawing-room Mrs. Wylie was saying reflectively to either or both of her companions:

“This is the beginning of it. That man will tell everyone he meets before going to bed tonight that you are home. He did not ask where your husband was, which shows that he wanted to know; consequently he will wonder over it, and will take care to tell everyone what he is wondering about.”

A week later Brenda was sitting in the same apartment again. But this time she was alone. From pure kindness of heart Mrs. Wylie had managed to allow the girl an afternoon’s leisure, and Brenda was spending this very happily amidst her books and magazines. She was, in her way, a literary person, this brilliant young scholar; but, belonging to a universal age, universality was also hers. With the literary she could show herself well-read; with the purely pleasure-seeking she could also find sympathy. In these times of mixed circles, men and women must needs be able to talk upon many subjects, whether they know aught about them or nothing.

Brenda Gilholme was not, however, a brilliant talker. She could have written well had she been moved thereto by that restless spirit which makes some people look upon existence as a blank without pens and paper. But as yet she was content to read, and her young mind thirsted for the grasp of other folks’ thoughts as a fisherman’s fingers itch for the rod.

During the last week Alice Huston’s presence in Mrs. Wylie’s household had not been an unmixed success. There was a slight and almost imperceptible impatience in the widow’s manner, in the inflection of her pleasant voice, in her very glance when her eyes rested upon her guest’s gracious form. Gradually the story had come out, and some details were related with unguarded carelessness, resulting in the conclusion, as far as Mrs. Wylie and Brenda were concerned, that Captain Huston might also have a story to tell, differing in tone and purport from that related by his wronged spouse. Her case against her husband was not very clear, and in her relation of it there was in some vague way a sense of suppression and easy adaptation both pointing to the same end. If Brenda felt this and drew her own conclusions from it, she allowed no sign of such conclusions to appear, but accepted the situation without comment. The natural result of this unfeminine behaviour was a wane of confidence between the sisters. It is easy enough, even for the most reticent person, to make known to some chosen familiar certain details hitherto suppressed when once the subject is broached; but to continue confiding in a bosom friend who accepts all statements without surprise, horror or sympathy is a different matter.

Brenda’s manner of listening was neither forbidding nor indifferent. It was merely unenthusiastic, and its chief characteristic was a certain measured attention, as if the details were imprinting themselves indelibly upon a prepared mental surface, where they might well remain intact and legible for many years. Mrs. Wylie, glancing at the two sisters over her book, or her palm-leaf screen, conceived a strange thought. She imagined that she detected in Brenda’s manner and demeanour a certain subtle resemblance to the manner and demeanour of one who was far away, and whose influence upon the girl’s life could not well have been very great, namely, Theodore Trist.

When the war-correspondent was not on active service, he lived in London, and, as was only natural to one of his calling, moved in such intervals in a circle of men and women influential in the political world. He was a reticent speaker, but an excellent listener, and Mrs. Wylie, as the wife of an active naval politician, had many opportunities of watching in her placid way this strange young man among his fellows. Theodore Trist’s chief fault was, in her eyes, a lack of enthusiasm. He waited too patiently on the course of events, and moved too guardedly when he moved at all. It was a very womanly view of a man’s conduct, and one held, I think, by nineteen out of twenty mothers who have brought brilliant sons into the world.

These characteristics the widow now began to see developing subtly in the soul of Brenda Gilholme, and a keen study of the girl during this trying time only confirmed her suspicions. She began to feel nervously sure that the companionship of Mrs. Huston was bad for her, and with this knowledge to urge her she calmly forced her way in between the two sisters.

If Brenda lacked enthusiasm (which failure is characteristic of this calculating and practical generation), she atoned for the want by a wondrous steadfastness. By word, and deed, and silence, she demonstrated continuously her intention to stand by her sister and do for her all that lay in her power. In this spirit of dumb devotion Mrs. Wylie was pleased to see a suggestion of Theo Trist’s soldierly obedience to the call of duty in which there was no question of personal inclination. She may have been right. Women see deeper into these subtle human influences than men. There are many small powers at work in everyday life, guiding our social barque, withholding us or urging us on, dictating, commanding, approving, or disapproving; and the motive of these is woman’s will. The eye that guides is a woman’s heart; the brake that checks is a woman’s instinct. Mrs. Wylie was probably, therefore, quite right in her supposition; for it is such men as Theo Trist who leave the impress of their individuality upon those who come in contact with them⁠—men who speak little and listen well, who think deeply and never speak of their thoughts. It is not your talkative man with a theory for every emergency, with a most wonderful and universal knowledge, who rules the world. The influence of these is comparatively small. Their experience is too vast to be personal, and thus loses weight. Their theories are too indefinite, too sweeping, and too general for practical application to human affairs, which are things not to be generally treated at all. We are a sheepish generation. Our thoughts are held in common; we theorize in crowds and hold principles in a multitude, but God’s grand individuality is not dead yet. It lives somewhere in our hearts, and at strange odd moments we still act unaccountably, according to the dictates of that enfeebled organ.

There is a subtle difference between the male and female intellects respecting anxiety. Most women can conceal it better than their brothers and husbands when the necessity for concealment arises, but they suffer no less on that account. In fact, the weight of it is greater and more wearing, because in solitude they brood over it more than men. They have not the same power of laying it aside and taking up a book or occupation with the deliberate intention of courting absorption, as possessed by us.

Brenda was apparently immersed in the pages of an intellectual monthly review, but at times her sweet innocent eyes wandered from the lines and rested meditatively on the glowing fire. The girl was restless. She moved each time she turned a page, glancing sometimes at the small clock on the mantelpiece, sometimes towards the window, whence an ever-waning light fell gloomily upon her.

There was in her soul a vague sense of discomfort, which was as near an approach to imaginative anxiety as her strong nature could compass; and to this she was gradually giving way. Her interest in the magazine upon her lap had never been else than perfunctory, and now she could not take in the meaning of the carefully rounded and somewhat affected phrases.

Alice Huston had been a week in Mrs. Wylie’s chambers, and there was no positive reason now to suppose that her husband was not in London. But the beautiful woman possessed little sense of responsibility, and none of consideration for others. She simply refused to leave town until the following Monday, because, she argued, the sound of wheels, the gay whirl of life, was so intensely refreshing to her. Mrs. Wylie would scarcely interfere, because she was not quite certain that Captain Huston was unfit to take care of his wife. She could not decide whether it was better to keep them apart or to allow Alice to run into the danger of being followed and claimed by her husband. The widow had very successfully followed a placid principle of noninterference all through her life, and now she applied it to the calamitous affairs of Captain and Mrs. Huston. She recognised very clearly that the man had made as evil a bargain as the woman. In both there was good material, capable of being wrought into good results by advantageous circumstances. The circumstance of their coming together and contracting a lifelong alliance was disadvantageous to the last degree, voilà tout. It was a matter for themselves to settle. There are some people who, in a crisis, form themselves into a reserve⁠—not necessarily out of range, but beyond the din and confusion of the melee: of these was Mrs. Wylie. If necessity demanded it, she was capable of leading an assault or withstanding an attack, but as a clearheaded, watchful commander of reserves she was incomparable.

Brenda knew this. She had an analytical way of studying such persons as influenced her daily life, and in most cases she arrived at a very accurate result. That Mrs. Wylie was watching events, but would not influence them, she was well aware, and, moreover, she now felt that someone was needed who would calmly step to the front and act with a bold acceptance of responsibility. That she herself was the person to take this position seemed undeniable. There could be no one else. No other could be expected to assume the task.

But there was another, and Brenda would not confess, even indefinitely in her own thoughts, that she knew it.

At length she laid her book down, and sat gazing softly into the fire. When the bell rang at the end of the long passage beside the kitchen-door, she never moved. When the maid opened the drawing-room door, with the mumbled announcement of a name to whose possessor no door of Mrs. Wylie’s was ever shut, Brenda failed to hear the name, and half turned her head without much welcome in her eyes.

She was preparing to rise politely from her seat when a dark form passed between the window and herself. There, upon the hearthrug, within touch of her black skirt, stood Theo Trist! Theo⁠—quiet, unemotional, strong as ever; Theo⁠—with a brown face, and his bland, high forehead divided into two portions of white and of mahogany, where the fez had rested, keeping off the burning sun, but casting no shadow; Theo⁠—to the fore, as usual, in his calm, reliable individuality, just at the moment when he was required.

Brenda gave a little gasp, and the eyes that met his were, for a second, contracted with some quick emotion, which he thought was fear.

“Theo!” she exclaimed, “Theo!” Then she stopped short, checking herself suddenly, and as she rose he saw the frightened look in her eyes again.

They shook hands, and for a brief moment neither seemed able to frame a syllable. Brenda’s lips were dry, and her throat was parched⁠—all in a second.

He looked round the room as if seeking someone, or the indication of a presence, such as a workbasket, a well-known book, or some similar token. Brenda concluded that he was wondering where Mrs. Wylie might be, and suddenly she found power to speak in a steady, even voice.

“Mrs. Wylie is out!” she said. “I expect her in by teatime.”

He nodded his head⁠—indicated the chair which she had just left⁠—and, when she was seated, knelt down on the hearthrug, holding his two hands to the fire.

“Where is Alice?” he asked, in a peculiar monotone.

“She is out with Mrs. Wylie⁠—Then⁠ ⁠… you know?”

“Yes, Brenda, I know!” he answered gravely.

The girl sat forward in her low chair, with her two arms resting upon her knees, her slim, white hands interlocked. For a time she was off her guard, forgetting the outward composure taught in the school of which she was so apt a pupil. She actually allowed herself to breathe hurriedly, to lean forward, and drink in with her eager eyes the man’s every feature and every movement. He was not looking towards her, but of her fixed gaze he was well aware. The sound of her quick respiration was close to his ear; her soft, warm breath reached his cheek. With all his iron composure, despite his cruel hold over himself, he wavered for a moment, and the hands held out to the glow of the fire shook perceptibly. But his meek eyes never lost their settled expression of speculative contemplation. Whatever other men might do, whatever women might suffer, Theodore Trist was sufficient for himself. The flame leapt up, and fell again with a little bubbling sound, glowing ruddily upon the two faces. He remained quite motionless, quite cold. It was the face of the great Napoleon again⁠—inscrutable, deep beyond the depth of human soundings, cruel and yet sweet⁠—but the high forehead seemed to suggest an infinite possibility of something else; some lack of energy, or some great negation, which cancelled at one blow the resemblance that lay in lip and chin and profile.

Presently Brenda leant back in the chair. There was a screen on the table near her⁠—Mrs. Wylie’s palm-leaf⁠—and she extended her hand to take it, holding it subsequently between her face and the fire, so that if Trist had turned his head he could not have seen anything but her slim, graceful form, her white hand and wrist, and the screen glowing rosily. He did not turn, however, when he spoke.

“I will tell you,” he said, “how I came to know.”

Before continuing, he rubbed his hands slowly together. Then he rose from his knees and remained standing near the fire close to her, but without looking in her direction. He seemed to be choosing his words.

“I came home,” he said at length, “from Gibraltar in an Indian steamer, a small boat with half a dozen passengers. There was no doctor on board. One evening I was asked to go forward and look at a second-class passenger who was suffering from⁠ ⁠… from delirium tremens.”

He stopped in an apologetic way, as if begging her indulgence for the use of those two words in her presence.

“Yes⁠ ⁠…” she murmured encouragingly.

“It was Huston.”

As he spoke he turned slightly, and glanced down at her. She had entirely regained her gentle composure now, and the colour had returned to her face. Her attention was given to his words with a certain suppressed anxiety, but no surprise whatever.

“Did,” she asked at length⁠—“did he recognise you?”

“No.”

“And he never knew, and does not know now, that you were on board?”

It would seem that he divined her thoughts, detecting the hidden importance of her question.

“No,” he answered meaningly, as he turned and looked down at her⁠—“no; but he has not forgotten my existence.”

She raised her eyes quickly, but their glance stopped short suddenly at the elevation of his lips. It was only by an effort that she avoided meeting his gaze.

“I do not know,” she said with a short laugh, in an explanatory way, “much about⁠ ⁠… about it. Is it like ordinary delirium, where people talk in a broken manner without realizing what they are saying?”

“Yes; it is rather like that.”

She examined the texture of the screen with some attention.

“Do you mind telling me, Theo,” she asked at length evenly, “whether he mentioned your name?”

Trist reflected for a moment. He moved restlessly from one foot to the other, then spoke in a voice which betrayed no emotion beyond regret and a hesitating sympathy.

“He said that Alice had run away to join her old lover⁠—meaning me.”

“Are you sure he meant⁠ ⁠… you?”

“He mentioned my name; there could be no doubt about it.”

Brenda rose suddenly from her seat and crossed the room towards the window. There she stood with her back towards him, a graceful, dark silhouette against the dying light, looking into the street.

He moved slightly, but did not attempt to follow her.

“It is rather strange,” she said at length, “that the first name she mentioned on landing at Plymouth should be yours.”

A look of blank surprise flashed across his face, and then he reflected gravely for some moments.

“I am sorry to hear it,” he said slowly, “because it would seem that my name has been bandied between them, and if that is the case my hands are tied. I cannot help Alice as I should have liked to do.”

“I told Alice some time ago that it would be much better for us to manage this⁠ ⁠… this miserable affair without your help.”

“You are equal to it,” he said deliberately.

She laughed with a faint gleam of her habitual brightness.

“Thank you. That is a very pretty sentiment, but it is hardly the question.”

“My help,” he continued, “need not be obvious to every casual observer. But I am not going to leave you to fight this out alone, Brenda. I was forced to leave you once, and I am not going to do it again. What does Mrs. Wylie say to it all?”

“Nothing as yet. She is waiting on events.”

“Ah, then, she is in reserve as usual. When the time comes, we may rely upon her help. But until then⁠ ⁠…”

“Theo,” interrupted Brenda in an agonized voice, “the time has come!”

She started back from the window, her face as white as her snowy throat, her eyes contracted with horror.

“He is there!” she whispered hoarsely, pointing towards the window⁠—“in the street. Coming into the house!”

Her little hands clutched his sleeve with a womanly abandonment of restraint, and he stood quite still in his self-reliant manhood. Then he found with surprise that his right arm was round her shoulders protecting her.

“Come,” he said with singular calmness⁠—“come into another room. I will see him here.”

As he spoke he gently urged her towards the door, but she resisted, and for a moment there was an actual physical struggle.

“No,” she said, “I will see him. It is better. Alice may come in at any moment, and before then I must know how matters stand between them.”

Trist hesitated, and at that moment the bell rang. They stood side by side looking at the closed door, listening painfully.

“Perhaps,” whispered Trist, “the maid will say that Mrs. Wylie is out.”

They could hear the light footstep of the servant, then the click of the latch.

A murmur of words followed, ending in the raised tone of a male voice and a short sharp exclamation of fear from the maid.

Instinctively Trist sprang towards the door.

There was a sound of heavy footsteps in the passage. Trist’s fingers were on the handle. He glanced towards Brenda appealingly.

“Leave it!” she exclaimed. “Let him come in.”

Before the words were out of her lips the door was thrown open, concealing Theodore Trist.

A tall, well-built man entered the room hurriedly and stopped short, facing Brenda, who met his gaze with gentle self-possession.

“Ah!” he muttered in a thick voice, and his unsteady hand went to his long fair moustache.

It was a terribly unhealthy face upon which Brenda’s eyes rested inquiringly. The skin was cracked in places, and the cheeks were almost blue. The eyelids were red and the eyes bloodshot, while there was a general suggestion of puffiness and discomfort in the swollen features. The man was distinctly repulsive, and yet, with a small amount of tolerance, he was a figure to demand pity. Despite his dissipated air, there was that indefinite sense of refinement which belongs to birth and breeding, and which never leaves a man who has once moved among gentlemen. There was even a faint suggestion of military vanity in his dress and carriage, though his figure was by no means so smart as it must have been in bygone days.

The room was rather dark, and he glanced round, failing to see Theo Trist, who was leaning against the wall behind him.

“Ah!” he repeated; “Brenda. I suppose you are in it, too!”

She made no reply, but stood before him in all her maidenly sweetness and strength, looking into his face through the twilight with clear and steady eyes which he hesitated to meet. Into his weak soul a flood of bitter memories rushed tumultuously⁠—memories of a time when he could meet those eyes without that sudden feeling of self-hatred which was gnawing at his heart now. His tone was not harsh nor violent, but there was an undernote of determination which was not pleasant to the ear.

“Tell me,” he continued thickly, “where my wife is to be found.”

Trist noticed that she never took her eyes off Huston’s face, never glanced past the sleek, closely-cropped head towards himself. In some subtle way her wish was conveyed to him⁠—the wish that he should remain there and continue, if possible, to be unnoticed by Huston. This he did, leaning squarely against the wall, his meek eyes riveted on the girl’s face with a calm, expectant attention. From his presence Brenda gathered that strength and self-reliance which, I think, God intends women to gather from the companionship of men.

“No, Alfred,” she answered, using his Christian name with a gentle diplomacy which made him waver for a moment and sway backwards upon his rigid legs; “I must not tell you that yet.”

“What right have you to withhold it?”

“She is my sister. I must do the best I can for her.”

He laughed in an unpleasant way.

“By throwing her into the path of the man she has always⁠—”

“Stop!” commanded Brenda.

“Why? Why should I stop? I suppose Trist is in England. That is why she came home, no doubt.”

“She has never spoken to Theodore Trist since she married you. Besides, that is not the question. Tell me why you want to find Alice. What do you propose to do?”

“That is my affair!” he muttered roughly. “You have no business to stand between man and wife. If you persist in doing so, it must be at your own risk, and I tell you plainly that you run a chance of being roughly handled.”

As he spoke he advanced a pace menacingly. Still she never betrayed Trist’s presence by the merest glance in his direction. He, however, moved slightly, without making any sound.

Huston looked slowly round the room with bloodshot, horrible eyes.

“Tell me!” he hissed, thrusting forward his face so that she drew back⁠—not from fear, but to avoid a faint aroma of stale cigar-smoke.

“No!” she answered.

“Deny that Trist loved Alice⁠—if you dare!” he continued, in the same whistling voice.

Still she never called for Trist’s assistance. She was very pale, and the last words seemed to strike her in the face as a blow.

“I deny nothing!”

“Tell me,” he shouted hoarsely, “where Alice is!”

“No!”

“Then take that, you⁠ ⁠…”

He struck her with his clenched fist on the shoulder⁠—but she had seen his intention, and by stepping back avoided the full force of the blow. She staggered a pace or two and recovered herself.

Without a sound Trist sprang forward, and the same instant saw Huston fall to the ground. He rolled over and over, a shapeless mass with limbs distended. As he rolled, Trist kicked him as he never would have kicked a dog.

“Oh⁠ ⁠… h⁠ ⁠… h⁠ ⁠… !” shrieked the soldier. “Who is that?”

“It is Trist⁠ ⁠… you brute!”

But Huston lay motionless, with limp hands and open mouth. He was insensible.

Leaving him, Trist turned to Brenda, who was already holding him back with a physical force which even at that moment caused him a vague surprise.

“Theo! Theo!” she cried, “what are you doing?”

He looked into her face sharply, almost fiercely⁠—and she caught her breath convulsively at the sight of his eyes. They literally flashed with a dull blue gleam, which was all the more ghastly in so calm a face; for though he was ashen-gray in colour, his features were unaltered by any sign of passion. Even in his wild rage this man was incongruous.

“Has he hurt you?” he asked in a dull, hollow voice; and, while he spoke, his fingers skilfully touched her shoulder in a quick, searching way never learnt in drawing-rooms.

“No⁠—no!” she cried impatiently. “But you have killed him!”

She broke away from him and knelt on the floor, bending over the prostrate form of the soldier. Her bosom heaved from time to time with a bravely suppressed sob.

“Don’t touch him,” said Trist, in an unconsciously commanding tone. “He is all right.”

Obediently, she rose and stepped away, while he lifted the limp form, and placed it in a chair.

Slowly Captain Huston opened his eyes. He heaved a deep sigh, and sat gazing into the fire with a hopeless and miserable apathy. Behind him the two stood motionless, watching. Presently he began to mutter incoherently, and Brenda turned away, sickened, from the woeful sight.

“I wonder,” she whispered, “if this sort of thing is to go on.”

Trist’s mobile lips were twisted a little as if he were in bodily pain, while he glanced at her furtively. There was nothing for him to say⁠—no hope to hold out.

They moved away to the window together without speaking, both occupied with thoughts which could not well have been pleasant. Trist’s features wore a grave, concentrated expression, totally unlike the philosophical and contemplative demeanour which he usually carried in the face of the world. There was food enough for mental stones to grind, and he was not a man to take the most sanguine view of affairs. His philosophy was of that rare school which is not solely confined to making the best of other folks’ troubles. His own checks and difficulties were those treated philosophically; while the griefs of others⁠—more especially, perhaps, of Alice and Brenda⁠—caused him an exaggerated anxiety. It has been the experience of the present writer that women are infinitely better fitted to stand adversity than men. There is a certain brave little smile which our less mobile lips can never frame. But Theodore Trist had lived chiefly among men, and his human speciality was the fighting animal. He knew a soldier as few of his contemporaries knew him; but of sweet woman-militant he was somewhat ignorant.

Perhaps he took this trouble too seriously. Of that I cannot give an opinion, for we all have an individual way of getting over our fences, and we never learn another. Personally, I must confess to a penchant for those men who go steadily, with a cool, clear head, and a firm hand, realizing full well the risk they are about to run⁠—men who do not put a blind faith in luck, nor look invariably for Fortune’s smiles.

In Trist’s place many would have uttered some trite consolatory or wildly hopeful remark, which would in no wise have deceived a young person of Brenda’s austere discrimination. In this, however, he fell lamentably short of his duty. After a thoughtful pause he merely whispered:

“Here we are again, Brenda⁠—in a tight place. There is some fatality which seems to guide our footsteps on to thorny pathways. There is nothing to be done but face it.”

“Is it,” she asked simply, “a case for action, or must we wait upon events?”

“I would suggest⁠ ⁠… action.”

“Yes⁠ ⁠…” she said, in little more than a whisper, after a pause, “I think so too⁠—more especially now⁠ ⁠… that you suggest it. Your natural bias is, as a rule, in the direction of masterly inactivity.”

He smiled slowly.

“Perhaps⁠ ⁠… so!”

“Therefore your conviction that action is necessary must be very strong before you would suggest it.”

“I feel,” he said, with some deliberation, “that it will be better to keep them apart in the meantime.”

A strange, uneasy look passed across the girl’s face. It happened that there was only one man on all the broad earth whom she trusted implicitly⁠—the man at her side⁠—and for a second that one unique faith wavered. With a sort of mental jerk⁠—as of a person who makes a quick effort to recover a wavering balance⁠—she restored her courageous trustfulness.

“Yes,” she murmured, “I am sure of it.”

“And I suppose⁠ ⁠… I suppose we must do it. You and I, Brenda?”

It was a wonderful thing how these two knew Alice Huston. Her faults were never mentioned between them. The infinite charity with which each looked upon these faults was a mutual possession, unhinted at, half concealed. Brenda knew quite well what was written between the lines of his outspoken supposition, and replied to his unasked question with simple diplomacy.

“Yes⁠—we must do it.”

Trist moved a little. He turned sideways, and glanced out of the window. His attitude was that of a man whose hands were in his pockets, but he was more than half a soldier⁠—a creature morally and literally without pockets⁠—and his hands hung at his sides.

“It is a⁠ ⁠… a pretty strong combination.”

She smiled, and changed colour so slightly that he no doubt failed to see it.

“Yes,” she answered cheerfully. “It succeeded once before. But Mrs. Wylie is not quite herself yet, Theo! That is why I don’t want her to have any trouble in this matter. We have no right to seek her aid.”

The last words might easily have passed unheeded, but Brenda felt, even as she spoke them, that they contained another meaning; moreover, she recognised by his sudden silence that Trist was wondering whether this second suggestion had been intended. Uneasily she raised her eyes to his face. He was looking down at her gravely, and for some seconds their glances met.

If an excuse to seek Mrs. Wylie’s assistance was hard to find, much more so was it open to question respecting Trist’s spontaneous help. Why should he offer it? By what right could she accept it? And while they looked into each other’s eyes, these two wondered over those small questions. There was a reason⁠—the best reason of all⁠—namely, that the offer was as spontaneous and natural as the acceptance of it. But why⁠—why this spontaneity? Perhaps they both knew. Perhaps she suspected, and suspected wrongly. Perhaps neither knew definitely.

At last she turned her head, and naturally her glance was directed downwards into Piccadilly.

“There they are,” she whispered hurriedly, “looking into the jeweller’s shop opposite. What are we to do, Theo?”

He almost forestalled her question, so rapid was his answer. There was no hesitation, no shirking of responsibility. She had simply asked him, and simply he replied.

“Go,” he said, “and throw some things into a bag. I will stay here and watch him. When the bag is ready, leave it in the passage and come back here. I will take it, go down, and take her straight away.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know,” he replied, with a shrug of the shoulders.

There was a momentary hesitation on the girl’s part. She perceived a terrible flaw in Trist’s plan, and he divined her thoughts.

“It will be all right,” he whispered. “No one knows that I am in England. I will telegraph tonight, and you can join her tomorrow. You⁠ ⁠… can trust me, Brenda.”

There was a faint smile of confidence on her face as she turned away and hurried from the room.

Although her light footsteps were almost inaudible, the slight frôlement of her dress seemed to rouse the stupefied man on the low chair near the fire. Perhaps there was in the rhythm of her movements some subtle resemblance to the movements of his wife. He raised his head and appeared to listen in an apathetic way, but presently his chin dropped heavily again upon his breast, and the dull eyes lost all light of intelligence.

Trist turned away and looked out of the window. The two ladies were still lingering near the jeweller’s shop. Alice Huston appeared to be pointing out to her companion some specially attractive ornament, and Mrs. Wylie was obeying with a patient smile.

The war-correspondent smiled in a peculiar way, which might well have expressed some bitterness, had he been the sort of man to speak or think bitterly of anyone. The whole picture was so absurdly characteristic, even to the small details⁠—such as Mrs. Wylie’s good-natured patience, scarce concealing her utter lack of interest in the jewellery, and Alice Huston’s eyes glittering with reflex of the cold gleam of diamonds; for there is a light that comes into the eyes of some women at the mere mention of precious stones.

While he was watching them the ladies turned and crossed the street, coming towards him. He stepped back from the window in case one of them should raise her eyes, and at the same moment Brenda entered the room.

She glanced towards Huston, who was rousing himself from the torpor which had followed his maltreatment at Trist’s hands, and which was doubtless partly due to the drink-sodden condition of his mind and body.

“All I want,” whispered the war-correspondent, following her glance, “is three minutes’ start from that man.”

“You had better go!” she answered anxiously below her breath.

“Yes; they are on the stairs⁠ ⁠… but⁠ ⁠… tell me, Brenda, promise me on your honour, that he did not hurt you.”

“I promise you,” she said, with a faint smile.

Then he left her.

As Mrs. Wylie made her way slowly and peacefully up the broad stairs, she suddenly found herself face to face with the man whom she had last seen in the still Arctic dawn, bearing the body of her dead husband down over the rocks towards her. She gave a little gasp of surprise, but nothing more. The next instant she was holding out her gloved hand to greet him. But even she⁠—practised, gifted woman of the world as she was⁠—could not meet him with a smile. In gravity they had parted, gravely they now met again. He was not quite the same as other men to Mrs. Wylie, for there was the remembrance of an indefinite semi-bantering agreement made months before, while the sunshine of life seemed to be glowing round them both⁠—an agreement that they should not be mere acquaintances, mere friends (although the friendship existing between an elderly woman and a young man is not of the ordinary, practical, everyday type⁠—there is a suggestion of something more in it), and Trist had fulfilled the promise then given.

He had taken her quite unawares, with that noiseless footstep of his which we noticed before, and the colour left her face for a moment.

“You!” she exclaimed; “I did not expect you.”

As he took her hand his all-seeing gaze detected a slight indication of anxiety, and he knew that his presence was not at that moment desired by Mrs. Wylie. Due credit is not always given to us men for the possession of eyes. Our womenfolk are apt to forget that we move just as much as they, and in most cases infinitely more in the world, and among the world’s shoals and quicksands. We may not be so quick at reading superficial indications as our mothers, sisters, or wives; but I think many of us (while keeping vanity in bounds) are much more capable of perceiving when our presence is desired or distasteful than is usually supposed. There are some of us, methinks, who, if chivalry failed to withhold our tongues, could tell of very decided preferences shown, and shown unsought; of glances, and even words, advanced to guide us whither the water runs smoothly. And let us hope that if such have been the case, we turn to the rougher channel we love better, without a smile of self-conceit.

Twice within the last hour Theodore Trist had perceived that there was a reason why those who held Alice Huston dearest should desire that he avoided meeting her. What this reason was her own husband had unwittingly told him; confirming brutally what he had read in Brenda’s unconsciously expressive face a few moments before. And yet, in face of this undoubted knowledge, he seemed deliberately to court the danger that the two women feared, and sought to avert.

He was not a man to be blinded by a false impression. Nor was he one of those who act impulsively. His mind was of too practical, too steady, and too concentrated a type to be suddenly conquered by a mere prompting of the heart. At this juncture of his life he acted coolly and with foresight. Of Alice Huston he knew enough to feel quite sure of his mastery over her. If she loved him (which supposition had been thrown in his face many times since the evening when he had first been called upon to give assistance to those who stood in Captain Huston’s little cabin), he did not appear in the least afraid of his own capability of killing that love.

He turned from Mrs. Wylie and greeted the younger woman, who followed her, with a self-possessed smile; and from his manner even Mrs. Wylie could gather nothing, and she was no mean reader of human faces. She glanced at them as they stood together on the stairs and asked herself a question:

“What part is he playing, that of a scoundrel or a fool?”

She could not conceive a third alternative just then, because she did not know Alice Huston so well as Theo Trist knew her.

Before Mrs. Huston, who was blushing very prettily, had time to speak, Trist imparted his news with a certain rapid bluntness.

“Your husband is upstairs,” he said. “Brenda will keep him in the drawing-room for a few minutes. I have a bag here with some necessaries for you. Will you come with me, or will you go upstairs to your husband?”

“Will⁠ ⁠… I⁠ ⁠… go with you?” stammered the beautiful woman in a frightened whisper. “Where to, Theo?”

Mrs. Wylie leant against the broad balustrade and breathed rapidly. She was really alarmed, but even fear could not conquer her indomitable placidity.

“I will conduct you to a safe hiding-place tonight, and Brenda will join you tomorrow morning,” said Trist in a tone full of concentrated energy, though his eyes never lighted up. “Be quick and decide, because Brenda is alone upstairs with⁠ ⁠… him.”

Mrs. Wylie’s eyebrows moved imperceptibly beneath her veil. She thought she saw light.

Mrs. Huston played nervously with a tassel that was hanging from her dainty muff for the space of a moment; then she raised her eyes, not to Trist’s face, but to Mrs. Wylie’s. Instantly she lowered them again.

“I will go with you!” she said, almost inaudibly, and stood blushing like a schoolgirl between two lovers.

Mrs. Wylie raised her head, sniffing danger like an old hen when she hears the swoop of long wings above the chicken-yard. Her eyes turned from Alice Huston’s face, with a slow impatience almost amounting to contempt, and rested upon Theodore Trist’s meek orbs, raised to meet hers meaningly. Then somehow her honest tongue found itself tied, and she said nothing at all. The flood of angry words subsided suddenly from her lips, and she waited for the further commands of this soft-spoken, soft-stepping, soft-glancing man, with unquestioning obedience.

He moved slightly, looked down at the bag in his hand, and then glanced comprehensively from the top of Mrs. Huston’s smart bonnet to the sole of her small shoe. He could not quite lay aside the old campaigner, and the beautiful woman was moved by a strange suspicion that this young man was not admiring her person, but considering whether her attire were fit for a long journey on a November evening.

“Come, then!” he said.

Still Mrs. Huston hesitated.

Suddenly she appeared to make up her mind, for she went up two steps and kissed Mrs. Wylie with hysterical warmth. This demonstration seemed to recall Trist to a due sense of social formula. He returned, and shook hands gravely with the widow.

“Go to Brenda!” he whispered, and the matron bowed her head.

Again she raised her eyebrows, and there was a flicker of light in her eyes like that which gleams momentarily when a person is on the brink of a great discovery.

The next minute she was running upstairs, while the footsteps of the two fugitives died away in the roar of traffic.

“Theo,” she said to herself, while awaiting an answer to her summons at her own door, “must be of a very confiding nature. He expects such utter and such blind faith at the hands of others.”

The maid who opened the door was all eagerness to impart to her mistress certain vague details and incomprehensible sounds which had reached her curious ears. She had a thrilling tale of how Captain Huston, “lookin’ that funny about the eyes,” had rung loudly and pushed roughly through the open door; how there had been loud words in the drawing-room, and then a noise like “movin” a pianer’; how a silence had followed, and, finally, how Mr. Trist (and not Captain Huston, as might have been expected) had left just a minute ago. But the evening milkman was destined, after all, to receive the first and unabridged account of these events. Mrs. Wylie merely said, “That will do, Mary,” in her unruffled way, and passed on.

She entered the drawing-room, and found Brenda standing near the window, with one hand clasping the folds of the curtain.

Captain Huston was sitting on a low chair beside the fire, weeping gently. His bibulous sobs were the only sound that broke an unpleasant silence. Brenda was engaged in adding to her experiences of men and their ways a further illustration tending towards contempt. Her eyes were dull with pain, but she carried her small head with the usual demure serenity which was naught else but the outcome of a sweet, maidenly pride, as she advanced towards Mrs. Wylie.

“He is quite gentle and tractable now!” she whispered.

Mrs. Wylie took her hand within her fingers, clasping it with a soft protecting strength.

“Is he⁠ ⁠… tipsy?”

“No!” answered Brenda, with a peculiar catch in her breath; “he is only stupefied.”

“Stupefied⁠ ⁠… how?”

“I⁠ ⁠… I will tell you afterwards.”

The quick-witted matron had already discovered that some of her furniture was slightly displaced, so she did not press her question.

At this moment Captain Huston rose to his feet, and took up a position on the hearthrug.

“I do not know,” he said, with concentrated calmness, “whether the law has anything to say against people who harbour runaway wives; but, at all events, society will have an opinion on the subject.”

He ignored the fact that he had in no way greeted Mrs. Wylie, addressing his remarks to both ladies impartially. By both alike his attack was received in silence.

“I will find her,” he continued. “You need have no false hopes on that score. All the Theodore Trists in the world (which is saying much⁠—for scoundrels are common enough) will not be able to hide her for long!”

Mrs. Wylie still held Brenda’s hand within her own. At the mention of Trist’s name there was an involuntary contraction of the white fingers, and the widow suddenly determined to act.

“Captain Huston,” she said gravely, “when you are calmer, if you wish to talk of this matter again, Brenda and I will be at your service. At present I am convinced that it is better for your wife to keep away from you⁠—though I shall be the first to welcome a reconciliation.”

He shrugged his shoulders and walked slowly to the door. It was Brenda who rang the bell. Captain Huston passed out of the room without another word.

It would almost seem that the ingenuous Mary anticipated the call, for she was waiting in the passage to show Captain Huston out. She returned almost at once to the drawing-room, with a view (cloaked beneath a prepared question respecting tea) of satisfying her curiosity regarding the sound which had suggested the moving of a “pianer.” But there was no sign of disorder; everything was in its place, and Brenda was standing idly near the mantelpiece.

“We will take tea at once, Mary,” said Mrs. Wylie, unloosening her bonnet-strings.

Mary was forced to retire, meditating as she went over the inscrutability and coldness of the ordinary British lady.

“Ah!” sighed Mrs. Wylie, when the door was closed. “Now tell me, Brenda! What has happened? Did these two men meet here? I am quite in the dark, and have a sort of dazed feeling, as if I had been reading Carlyle at the French plays, and had got them mixed up.”

“Theo came first,” answered Brenda, “to warn us that Captain Huston had come home in the same steamer as himself, without, however, recognising him. While we were talking, the other came in. He did not see Theo, who was behind the door⁠ ⁠…”

“I suppose he was tipsy?”

“No; he was quite sober. He looked horrible. His eyes were bloodshot⁠—his lips unsteady⁠ ⁠…”

Mrs. Wylie stopped the description with a sharp, painful nod of her head. To our shame be it, my brothers, she knew the rest!

“Was he quite clear and coherent?”

“Yes!”

“But⁠ ⁠… just now⁠ ⁠…” argued Mrs. Wylie, vainly endeavouring to make Brenda resume the narrative⁠—“just now he was quite stupid?”

“Yes.”

“What happened, Brenda?”

At this moment Mary brought in the tea and set it briskly down on a small table. Brenda stepped forward, and began pouring out.

“What happened, Brenda?” repeated Mrs. Wylie, when the door was closed.

Then she approached, took the teapot from her hand, and by gentle force turned the motherless girl’s face towards herself.

“My darling,” she whispered, drawing the slim form to her breast, “why should you hide your tears from me?”

I have endeavoured to make it clear that this girl was not an emotional being. There were no hysterical sobs⁠—merely a few silent tears, and the narrative was continued.

“He came in, and asked me to tell him where Alice was. I refused, and then⁠ ⁠…”

“Then⁠ ⁠… ?”

“He tried to hit me.”

“Tried⁠ ⁠… Brenda?”

“Well⁠ ⁠… he just reached me.”

“And⁠ ⁠… Theo?” asked Mrs. Wylie. “What did Theo do?”

There was a short pause, during which both ladies attended to their cups with an unnatural interest.

“I have never seen him like that before,” murmured the girl at length. “I did not know that men were ever like that. It was⁠ ⁠… rather terrible⁠ ⁠… almost suggestive of some wild animal. He knocked him down and⁠ ⁠… and kicked him round the room like a dog!”

“My poor darling,” whispered Mrs. Wylie. “I ought never to have left you here alone. We might have guessed that that man Huston would be home soon. Did he hurt you, Brenda?”

“No; he frightened me a little, that was all.”

“I am very glad you had Theo!” Mrs. Wylie purposely turned away as she said these words.

Brenda sipped her tea, and made no reply.

It had been twilight when Mrs. Wylie returned home, and now it was almost dark. The two ladies sat in the warm firelight, with their feet upon the fender. Tea laid aside, they continued sitting there while the flames leapt and fell again, glowing on their thoughtful faces, gleaming on the simple jewellery at their throats. From the restless streets came a dull, continuous roar as of the sea. I hear it now as I write, and would fain lay aside the pen and wonder over it; for it rises and falls, swells and dies again, with a long, slow, mournful rhythm full of life, and yet joyless; soporific, and yet alive with movement. There is no sound on earth like it except the hopeless song of breaking waves. Both alike steal upon the senses with an indefinable suggestion of duration, almost amounting to a glimmer of what is called eternity. Both alike reach the heart with a subtle, undeniable lovableness. Londoners and sailors cannot resist its music, for both return to it in their age, whithersoever they may have wandered.

Mrs. Wylie it was who moved at last, rising with characteristic determination, as if the pastime of thought were a vice not wisely encouraged. She stood before Brenda in her widow’s weeds, looking down through the dim light with a faint smile.

“Come,” she said; “we must get ready for dinner. Remember that Mrs. Hicks is going to call for you at eight o’clock to take you to that Ancient Artists’ Guild soirée. I should put on a white dress if I were you, and violets. The gifted William Hicks, whom we met in the Park this afternoon, asked what flowers he should bring, and I suggested violets.”

Brenda laughed suddenly, but her hilarity finished in a peculiar, abrupt way.

“Telle est la vie!” she murmured, as she rose obediently. “What a labour this enjoyment sometimes is!”

“Wot’s this⁠—runaway couple?” asked a pallid and slipshod waiter of his equally-unwholesome colleague in the dining-room attached to a large City railway-station.

“D’no,” answered the second, with weary indifference; “we don’t offen see that sort down ’ere.”

“There’s a sort,” continued the first attendant, pulling down his soup-stained waistcoat, “o’ haristocratic simplicity about them and their wants as pleases my poetic and ’igh-born soul.”

“Indeed,” yawned the other with withering sarcasm.

“Yes, indeed!”

The sarcasm was treated with noble scorn by its victim, who was called away at that moment by a bumping sound within the lift-cupboard.

In the meantime Trist and Alice Huston were turning their attention to dinner.

The novelty of the situation pleased the lady vastly. There was a spice of danger coupled with a sense of real security imparted by the presence of her calm and resourceful companion which she appreciated thoroughly. For Trist there was, however, less enjoyment in the sense of novelty. A war-correspondent is a man to whom few situations are, strictly speaking, novel, and it is, or should be, his chief study to acquire the virtue of adaptability, and never to allow himself to be carried away by the forces of environment.

His sense of chivalry was too strong to allow the merest suggestion of weariness, but in his inmost heart there was a vague uneasiness at the thought that there was still an hour before the train for the east coast left, not the station where they were at present, but one near at hand. He knew that to the fugitive every moment is of immeasurable value, but for the time being he feared no pursuit. His measures had been too carefully taken for that, and all the private detectives in London could not approach this impenetrable strategist in cunning or foresight.

Only an hour had passed since he and Alice Huston had met on the stairs of Suffolk Mansions, and since then the excellent construction of a London cab and the justly-praised smoothness of London roadways had effectually put a stop to any conversation of a connected or confidential nature.

At first Alice had been too frightened to resent this, and subsequently the manner of her companion, which was at once reassuring and repelling, had checked her efforts. Now the pallid waiters were almost within earshot, and Theodore Trist, who concealed a keen power of observation beneath a demeanour at times aggravatingly stolid, was fully aware that they were interested, and consequently inquisitive. The result of this knowledge was a singular lack of the ordinary outward signs of mystery. He spoke in rather louder tones than was his wont, told one or two amusing anecdotes, and laughed at them himself, while Mrs. Huston unconsciously aided him by smiling in a slightly weary way. This last conjugal touch of human nature went far to convince the waiter that the two were after all nothing more interesting than husband and wife.

“Theo, I have so much to tell you,” whispered Mrs. Huston once when the waiter was exchanging civilities with the cook’s assistant down a speaking-tube.

“Yes,” replied Trist, interested in his bread; “wait until we are in the train.”

“Where are we going?”

“I will tell you afterwards; these fellows might hear. Will you have wine? What shall it be, something light⁠—say Niersteiner?”

He softened his apparent brusqueness with a smile, and she blushed promptly, which was an unnecessary proceeding. Trist’s sangfroid was phenomenal.

By a simple subterfuge, of which he was almost ashamed, he had obtained tickets to a small east-coast watering-place without leaving any trace whatever, and at seven o’clock they left Liverpool Street Station, in the same compartment, without having allowed the railway officials to perceive that they were acquainted. There were but few first-class passengers in the train, and they were alone in the compartment. The light provided was not a brilliant specimen of its kind; reading or pretending to read was out of the question. There was nothing to do but talk, so Trist gave himself over to the tender mercies of his companion, and for the time vouchsafed his entire attention to the details of a story too common and too miserable to recapitulate here. Probably you, who may turn these pages, know the story; if not, an old traveller takes the liberty of wishing that you never may.

“And,” said Mrs. Huston between half-suppressed sobs, when the tale was told, “I simply could not stand it any longer, so I came home. I⁠ ⁠… I hoped, Theo, to find you in England, and when Brenda told me that you were in the East, busy with some horrid war, it was the last straw. I wonder why people want to fight at all. Why can’t the world live in peace?”

Trist tugged pensively at the armrest, and looked out into the darkness without replying. He did not seem at that moment prepared to answer the extremely pertinent and relevant question propounded. If Mrs. Huston had expected a proper show of masculine emotion, she must have been slightly disappointed; for during no part of her narrative had the incongruous face opposite to her, beneath the ludicrous lamp, displayed aught else than a most careful and intelligent attention. What she required was sympathy, not attention. Her story was not calculated to withstand too close a study. Being in itself emotional, it was eminently dependent upon an emotional reception; it was, in fact, a woman’s narrative, fit for relation by a peaceful fireside, in the hush of twilight, on the top (so to speak) of tea and muffins, and to a woman’s ear. Retailed to a hard practical man of the world in a noisy train, where the more pathetic vocal inflections were inaudible; after dinner, and while narrator and listener wore thick wraps and gloves, it lost weight most lamentably. She ought to have thought of these trifles, which, however, are no trifles. You, dear madam, know better than to attempt to soften your husband’s stony heart when he is protected by gloves, or boots, or topcoat. Ah! these little things make a mighty difference.

Trist was an ardent follower of that school of philosophy which seeks to ignore the emotions. By means of cold suppression he would fain have wiped all passions out of human nature, and, having moved amidst bloodshed and among men engaged in bloodshed, he had learnt that our deepest feelings are, after all, mere matters of habit. From the Eastern lands he knew so well, it is probable that he had brought back some reflection of that strange Oriental apathy of life which is incomprehensible to our more highly-strung Western intellects.

When Mrs. Huston pushed her dainty veil recklessly up over the front of her bonnet, and made no pretence of hiding the tears that rendered her lovely face almost angelic in its pathos, Trist made no further acknowledgment of emotion than a momentary contraction of the eyelids. He continued tugging pensively at the leather armrest, while his eyes only strayed at times from the flashing lights of peaceful village or quiet town to the beautiful form crouching against the sombre cushions opposite to him.

“Oh why⁠ ⁠… did you ever let me marry him?” sobbed Alice miserably.

He glanced at her with a peculiar twist of his lips, downwards, to one side. Then he shrugged his shoulders very slightly.

“I?⁠ ⁠… What had I to do with it, Alice?”

There was something in his voice, a certain dull concentration, which had the singular effect of checking her sobs almost instantaneously, although her breast heaved convulsively at short intervals, like the swell that follows a storm at sea, long after the rage has subsided.

She touched her eyes prettily with a diminutive handkerchief, and made an effort to recover her serenity, smoothing a wrinkle out of the front of her dress.

“Well,” she sighed, “I suppose you had as much influence over me as anybody. And⁠ ⁠… and you never liked him, Theo. I could see that, and lately the recollection of it has come back to me more vividly.”

“You forget that I was in China at the time of your engagement. My influence could not have been very effective at such a range⁠—even if I had taken it upon myself to exert it, which would have been an unwarrantable liberty.”

“I was so young,” she pleaded, “and so inexperienced.”

“Twenty-two,” he observed reflectively; “and you had your choice, I suppose, of all the best men in London.”

In some vague way Mrs. Huston’s eyes conveyed a contradiction to this statement, although her lips never moved. A man less dense than this war-correspondent appeared to be would have understood readily enough what that glance really signified.

“I hope,” he continued imperturbably, “that this misunderstanding is only temporary⁠ ⁠…”

She laughed bitterly, and examined the texture of her lace handkerchief with a gracefully impatient poise of the head.

“Huston⁠ ⁠… loves you.”

“And you,” she answered pertly, “hate him! Why? Tell me why, Theo.”

“I hate no one in the world,” he answered. “Not on principle, but because I have met no one as yet whom I could hate. There has invariably been some redeeming point.”

“And what is my husband’s redeeming point?”

“His love for you,” answered Trist promptly, and with such calm assurance that his companion evacuated her false position at once, and returned to her original line of argument.

“I only had Brenda,” she murmured sorrowfully; “and she is like you. She listens and listens and listens, but never gives any real advice.”

“If she had, would you have taken it?” suggested Trist.

The graceful shoulders moved interrogatively and indifferently.

“I suppose not.”

During the silence that followed, Trist looked at his watch, openly and without disguise. The journey, which was a short one, was almost half accomplished, and the train was now running at a breakneck pace through the level Suffolk meadows. Hardly a light was visible over all the silent land. There were no tunnels and no bridges, consequently the sounds of travel were reduced to a minimum. It is the petty local trains that make the most noise; the great purposeful expresses run almost in silence. In this, my brothers, I think we resemble trains in some degree. There are those among us who make little way upon Life’s iron track with a great noise; and those who travel far are silent.

“I don’t believe you care a fig what becomes of me!” said Mrs. Huston at length in a reckless way.

He looked at her with a slow grave smile, but made no other answer.

“Do you?” she asked coquettishly.

He was quite grave now, and her breathing became slightly accelerated.

“Yes!” quite simply.

Presently Trist roused himself, as if from unpleasant reflections, and began talking about the future.

“I should like to know,” he said, “exactly what you think of doing, because I have not much time. At any moment Russia may declare war against Turkey, and I shall have to go at once.”

“If Russia declares war, I shall kill myself, I think.”

He laughed, and changed his position, drawing in his feet, and leaning forward with his hands clasped between his knees.

“No,” he said with genial energy, “I would not do that, if I were you. If I may be allowed to make a suggestion, it seems to me that you will do well to come to a distinct understanding with Huston, either through the mediation of Mrs. Wylie or by letter. You cannot go on long like this.”

“What sort of understanding?” she inquired, with that nonchalant impatience of detail which seems to be the special prerogative of beautiful women.

“Ask him to give you three months to think over matters; at the expiration of that time you can have an interview with him, and come to some definite agreement respecting the future.”

She sighed, and leant back wearily, looking at him in a curious, snakelike way beneath her lowered lids.

“Three months will make no difference.”

“Nevertheless⁠ ⁠… try it.”

“I want,” she said in a dull voice, “… a divorce!”

For a moment a veil seemed to have been lifted from his eyes; all meekness vanished, and the glance was keen, farsighted, almost cruel.

“You cannot get that, Alice. It is impossible!”

She turned her face quite away from him and looked out of the window, jerking the armrest nervously. Her breath clouded the glass. She murmured something inaudible.

“Eh?” he inquired.

“I could make it possible,” she said jerkily, and her voice died away in a sickening little laugh.

For some moments there was a horrible silence, and then Theo Trist spoke in a strange, thick voice, quite unlike his own.

“Alice,” he said, “do you ever think of Brenda? Do you ever think of anyone but yourself?”

The words came as a cold and chilling surprise to Mrs. Huston, and she began slowly to realize that she had met with something which was entirely new to her. She had come in contact with a man upon whom the effect of her beauty was of no account. Her powers of fascination seemed suddenly to have left her, and across her mind there flashed a gleam of that unpleasant light by the aid of which we are at times enabled to see ourselves as others see us. It was only natural and womanlike that she should resent the shedding of this light, and visit her resentment, not upon the disclosure made by it, but on the illuminator of the unpleasant scene.

“Oh,” she muttered angrily, “you are all against me! No one cares for me; no one makes allowances.”

Trist smiled in a slow, strong way which was infinitely pathetic.

“No,” he said, “no one makes allowances; you must never expect that.”

Then Mrs. Huston’s tears began to flow again, and the self-contained man opposite to her sat with white bloodless lips and contracted eyes staring into the blackness of the night.

The soirée of the Ancient Artists’ Guild was in the full flow of its success. There had been some excellent music, and the programme promised more. The brilliancy of the attendance was equal to the highest hopes of the most ambitious committee. Long hair and strange dresses vouched for the presence of self-conscious intellect; small receding foreheads, hopeless mouths, and fair but painted faces, announced the presence of that shade of aristocracy which prefers to patronize.

William Hicks was not on the committee of the Ancient Artists, but he moved about from group to group, dispensed ices, and exchanged artistic jargon with a greater grace than was at the command of that entire august body. By some subtle means, peculiarly his own, he managed to convey to many the erroneous idea that he was in some indefinite way connected with the obvious success of this soirée; and several stout ladies went so far as to thank him, later on, for a pleasant evening, which gratitude he graciously and deprecatingly disowned in such a way as to make it appear his due. The pleasant evening had been in most cases spent between a nervous concern as to the effect produced by personal and filial adornment, and an ill-disguised contempt for common women who flaunt titles and diamonds (both uncoveted) in the faces of their superiors, possessing neither. But we men cannot be expected to understand those things.

Chiefly was William Hicks’ devotion laid at Brenda’s feet. For her was reserved his sweetest smile, just tempered with that suggestion of poetic pathos which he knew well how to sprinkle over his mirth. To her ear was retailed the very latest witticism, culled from the brain of some other man, and skilfully reproduced, not as a cutting, but as a modest seedling. To her side he returned most often, and over her chair stooped most markedly.

It has been hinted already that Hicks, with all his talents and mental gifts, was not an observant man. In certain small diplomacies of social life he was no match for the quiet-faced girl whom he was pleased to honour this evening with his conspicuous attention.

She was miserably anxious, but she hid it from him; and he talked on, quite ignorant of the fact that she was in no manner heeding his words. Her quick, acquired smile was ready enough; when an answer was required, she was equal to the occasion. Ah! these social agonies! There is a sort of pride in enduring them with cheerful stoicism.

“I am glad,” murmured Hicks, with a deprecating smile, “that my mother succeeded in dragging you here. It is a sort of intellectual treat for me. We painters are so incurably shoppy in our talk, that it is really a relief to have you at my mercy⁠—so to speak. This is a success, is it not? There are a great many celebrities in the room.”

“Indeed?”

“Yes; and I always feel a slight difference in the atmosphere when there is someone present with a name one likes to hear.”

He looked round the room with glistening eye and delicate nostrils slightly distended, as if sniffing his native atmosphere of Fame.

“One can generally recognise a celebrated man or woman, I think,” he continued. “There is an indefinite feeling of power⁠—a strength of individuality which seems to hover round them like an invisible halo.”

“Ye-es,” murmured Brenda vaguely. A moment later she was conscious of having looked round the room as if in search of halos, and wondered uncomfortably whether her companion had seen the movement.

Then a stout lady, with a very dark complexion, suddenly raised an exquisite voice, and a complete silence acknowledged its power instantaneously. It was a quaint old song, with words that might have had no meaning whatever, beyond trite regrets for days that could never come again, had they been sung with less feeling⁠—less true human sympathy.

Brenda literally writhed beneath the flood of harmony. She tried not to listen⁠—tried vainly to look round her and think cynical thoughts about the hollow shams of society, but some specially deep and tender note would reach her heart, despite the wall of worldliness that she had built around it. It would seem that that stout cheery woman could see through the smiles, through the affected masks, and penetrate to the heart, which is never quite safe from the sudden onslaught of youthful memories surviving still, youthful hopes since crushed, and youthful weaknesses never healed.

Brenda looked round the room with a semi-interested little smile (such as we see in church sometimes when a preacher has got well hold of his audience), and suddenly her face grew white, her breath seemed to catch, and for some seconds there was no motion of her throat or bosom. Respiration seemed to be arrested. With an effort she recovered herself, and a great sigh of relief filled her breast.

Among a number of men beneath the curtained doorway she had recognised an upright sturdy form, beside which the narrower shoulders and sunken chests of poetic and artistic celebrities seemed to shrink into insignificance. The way in which this man carried his head distinguished him at once from those around him. He was of quite a different stamp from his companions, most of whom depended upon some peculiarity of dress or hair to distinguish them from the very ordinary ruck of young men.

Across that vast room Trist’s eyes met Brenda’s, and although his calm face changed in no way, betrayed by no slightest tremor that he had come with the wild hope of meeting her, his lips moved.

“Thank God, I have done it!” he muttered, beneath the whirl of polite applause that greeted the stout lady’s elephantine bow.

At the other end of the room Hicks noticed with some surprise that Brenda drew her watch from her belt, and consulted it with particular attention. She was counting the number of hours since she had last seen Theodore Trist, with signs of travel still visible on his dress and person, just starting off on a new journey, without rest or respite. It was now midnight. She had never thought that he would return the same night⁠—in fact, she was sure that he had not intended to do so. And here he was⁠—calm, thoughtful, almost too cool as usual, without sign of fatigue or suggestion of hurry. His dress was faultless, his appearance and demeanour politely indifferent.

“I hope,” said Hicks meaningly, “that you are not growing weary. It is early yet.”

He looked round the room, with a pleasant nod for an acquaintance here and there whom he had not seen before.

“Oh no,” said Brenda lightly in reply. “I just happened to wonder what the time might be. I hope it was not rude.”

He laughed forgivingly, still looking about him.

“Ah!” he exclaimed in an altered tone. “Is that not Trist? Dear old Theo Trist!”

“Yes.”

Brenda had apparently followed the direction indicated by her companion’s gaze, and was now looking towards the newcomer with an inimitable little smile which completely quashed all attempts to divine whether she were surprised, or pleased, or politely interested.

Trist was making his way slowly across the room, exchanging greetings here and there. Brenda, in her keen observant way, conceived a sudden idea that his manner was not quite natural. Although of a kindly spirit, Trist was not a genial man with a smile full of affection for the merest acquaintance; and the girl, in some vague way, felt that he was shaking hands with men and women who were profoundly indifferent to him. Indeed, he seemed to go out of his way to do so.

“When did you get home?” she heard someone ask him; and the reply was delivered in clear tones, audible at a greater distance than Trist’s voice usually was, as if with intention.

“This afternoon,” he said. “Only this afternoon. I landed at Plymouth this morning.”

The next moment he was standing before her with his brown face bowed, his hand extended.

“You see, Brenda,” he said, “I have turned up again. A veritable dove without the leaf in my mouth. I am an emblem of peace.”

Instinctively, and without knowing her motive, she answered in the same way, conscious that it was his wish.

“I am very glad to see you back,” she said.

Then he turned to Hicks, and shook hands with more warmth than that ethereal being had expected.

“You see, Hicks,” he said, “I cannot resist flying at once to pay my respects at the shrine of Art⁠—only arrived in London this afternoon, and here I am in full war-paint, with a flower in my coat and my heart in my eyes. What pictures have I to admire? You may as well tell me.”

Hicks laughed in his semi-sad way, and mentioned a few pictures of note, which were carefully remembered by his hearer. Then Trist turned to Brenda and offered her his arm.

“Will you come,” he said, “and have some tea or an ice, or something?”

Brenda appeared to hesitate for a moment, then gave in with that reluctant alacrity which is to be observed when a lady is making a sacrifice of her own inclination.

As they moved away together through the crowded room there was a sudden hush, and succeeding it a louder buzz of expectant conversation. Trist looked over the heads of the people towards the little flower-bedecked platform at the end of the room.

“Ah!” he said; “Crozier is going to sing. Shall we wait? It is a pity to miss Sam Crozier.”

Nevertheless he made no attempt to stop, and they passed through the doorway into a smaller gallery, which was almost deserted.

“I am in luck tonight; everything I have attempted has been a success. So we shall probably find the refreshment-room empty.”

She laughed in a nervous way, and her touch upon his arm wavered.

“We must run the risk,” he continued, “of being talked about; but I must see you alone for a few minutes. It is strange, Brenda, that we are always getting into hot water together.”

“Oh!” she said indifferently, “the risk is not very great. People do not talk much about me. Alice possesses that unfortunate monopoly in our family.”

“That is why I must see you.”

“Yes,⁠ ⁠… I know.”

They had passed through the smaller room and out of it into a brilliant corridor, whence a broad flight of stairs led up to the refreshment-room.

“There is a sofa halfway up the stairs,” said Trist. “It is a good position, quite out of earshot, and very visible⁠—therefore harmless; let us occupy it!”

When they were seated, Brenda leant back with that air of grave attention which was peculiarly hers, and which, I venture to think, is rarely met with in women.

“When,” said Trist in a smooth and even tone, “I got back to town, I figuratively tore my hair, and said to myself: ‘Where shall I find Brenda⁠—where shall I find Brenda tonight?’ I took a hansom back to my rooms, changed, and then drove to Suffolk Mansions. Mrs. Wylie told me where you were; I gave chase, and⁠ ⁠… and I caught you.”

The girl turned her face slightly, and her childlike blue eyes sought his with a quaint air of scrutiny.

“When,” she said, “you left Suffolk Mansions this afternoon with Alice, you had no intention of returning to London tonight.”

There was no mistaking the deliberation of her assertion. She was defying him⁠—daring him to deny.

He met her glance for a moment⁠—no longer.

“That,” he confessed airily, after a pause, “is so!”

“And,” continued the girl with more confidence, “since that time your views respecting Alice have become modified or changed in some way, perhaps?”

He moved with some uneasiness, and appeared particularly wishful to avoid encountering her frank gaze. He clasped his two hands around his raised knee, and stared at the carpet with a non-committing silence which was almost Oriental in its density.

“Brenda,” he whispered at length, “I have had an awful scare!”

She drew in a deep breath with a little shivering sound, and moistened her lips⁠—first the lower, and then the upper. There was a momentary gleam of short, pearly teeth, and the red Cupid’s-bow of her mouth reassumed its usual contour of demure self-reliance.

There was a long pause, during which the faint echo of distant applause came to their ears.

“I wonder,” said the girl at length, “how many men would have taken as much trouble as you have taken tonight for the sake of such a trifling affair as a woman’s good name?”

A dull red colour slowly mounted over her white throat to her face⁠—a painful blush of intense shame, which she was too proud to attempt to hide. The deliberation with which she spoke the words, and then held up her burning face that he might see, had he wished, was very characteristic.

Trist himself changed colour, and his firm lips opened as if he were about to reply hastily. He checked himself, however, and they sat through several painful moments without motion.

During that time their two souls merged, as it were, into a complete understanding⁠—so entire, so perfect and faithful, that no spoken words could ever have brought its semblance into existence. He knew that his painful task was now finished, that Brenda now understood his reason for coming back to London at once. Moreover, he was aware that she had divined the cause of his sudden geniality on first arriving at the soirée, and there was no need to tell her that all London could now find out, if it pleased, that the war-correspondent, Theodore Trist, had arrived home from the East that afternoon, and was seen by many in the evening at a public place of entertainment.

But Brenda was not content with divination of motives. It was her evil habit to proceed to analysis, and in this pastime she made a mistake. Trist’s motive in running away, as it were, from the dangerous proximity of a desperate and beautiful woman was clear; and although a large majority of men would, under the circumstances, have had the generosity to do the same, she was pleased to consider this act a most wondrous thing⁠—her reason for doing so being that she was convinced that Trist loved her sister with all the cruel and taciturn strength of his nature. This was an utter mistake, and Theo Trist was unaware of its existence.

Ah! these little mistakes! We spend a small portion of our lives in making them, and the rest in trying to repair.

“Give me,” said Brenda, “her address, and I will go to her tomorrow.”

“She is at the Castle Hotel, Burgh Ferry, Suffolk. There is a train from Liverpool Street Station leaving at ten o’clock tomorrow for Burgh Station, which is four miles from Burgh Ferry.”

“I have heard of the place,” said Brenda composedly. “Have you been there and back this evening?”

“Yes. I just had time to install Alice comfortably in the hotel, which is really nothing more than an inn, and is the largest house in the village. I have a list for you⁠—here it is⁠—of things that Alice would like you to take to her tomorrow.”

Brenda took the paper and glanced at it rapidly.

“It is a long one,” she said with a short, hard laugh. “Is she quite resigned to burying herself alive for a short time?”

“Ye⁠—es.⁠ ⁠… I put things rather strongly. She has consented to communicate with her husband through Mrs. Wylie, with the view of coming to some sort of agreement.”

The girl drew a sharp breath of relief.

“There⁠ ⁠… were⁠ ⁠… a good many tears,” added Trist rather unevenly. “I would suggest a good supply of books,” he said a moment later in a practical way. “It is a dreadfully dull little place (which makes it safer), and too much thinking is hardly desirable at the present time.”

“It is questionable whether much thinking is profitable at any time.”

Trist looked at her in a curious, doubtful way, and then he rose from his seat.

“I will take you home now,” he said, “if you are ready. It is nearly one o’clock.”

She rose a little wearily, and, lifting her gloved hand, skirmished deftly over her hair in order to make sure that it had not become deranged. He noted the curve of her white arm, and the quick play of her fingers, while he stood erect and motionless, waiting. No passing light of emotion was visible in his eyes, which possessed a strange, unreflective power of observation. That round white arm was looked upon as a beautiful thing, and nothing more. And she was a trifle weary. Her face betrayed no sign of mental or natural anxiety.

Then she took his arm, and they passed down the splendid stairs together. Co-heirs to a truly human inheritance of sorrow, they bore their burden without complaint or murmur, with a self-reliance behoving children of an acute civilization. For civilization will in time kill all human sympathy.

“I will go home with you,” said Trist, “because some precautions are necessary in order to escape observation on your journey tomorrow, and I have several suggestions to make.”

As the winter settled over Europe⁠—here with gloom and fog, there with bright keen frosts and dazzling snow⁠—the feeling of anxiety respecting affairs in the East slowly subsided. The general conviction was that Russia would not move against her hereditary Muslim enemy until the winter was over; for even hatred, sturdy weed though it may be, is killed by cold.

Theodore Trist, fresh from those mysterious Oriental lands which are so much more romantic from a distance, gave no opinion upon the matter, because he was a practical businessman, and fully aware of the market value of his observations.

By ten o’clock on the morning following the soirée of the Ancient Artists, he alighted from a hansom cab opposite the huge office of the journal to which his pen was pledged. A few moments later he was shaking hands uneffusively with the editor. This gentleman has been introduced before, and men at his age change little in appearance or habit. His vast head was roughly picturesque as usual, his speech manly and to the point.

“Glad to see you back,” he said, in a businesslike way. “Sit down. None the worse, I hope?” he added, in a softer tone, and accompanied his observation with a keen glance. “None the worse for the smell of powder again?”

“No,” was the answer. “That smell never did any man much harm.”

The editor smiled, and drew some straggling papers together upon his desk.

“I want,” said Trist, after a pause, “to make a lot of money.”

“Ah!”

“Enough,” continued Trist gravely, “to put into something secure, and ensure a steady income in the piping times of peace.”

The editor clasped his large hands gravely with fingers interlocked, and placed them on the desk in front of him.

“That,” he said, with raised eyebrows, “is bad.”

“But natural,” suggested the younger man.

“When a man of your age suddenly expresses a desire for something which⁠ ⁠…”

“He has never had,” remarked Trist meekly.

“Which he has never had or wished for, it is suggestive of a change⁠—a radical change⁠—in that man’s plan of life.”

Trist raised his square shoulders slightly and respectfully.

“Now,” continued the editor, in his most solid and convincing way, “you⁠—Theodore Trist⁠—are the most brilliant war-correspondent of a brilliant and warlike generation. You are, besides that, a clever fellow⁠—perhaps an exceptionally clever fellow. But, my friend, there are many clever fellows in the world. It is an age of keen competition, and the first man in the race must never look back to see whose step it is that he hears behind him. We live in a time of specialities, and we must be content with specialities. You are a born war-correspondent, and I suppose your ambition is to prove that you can do something else⁠—write a novel, or edit a religious periodical⁠—eh?”

Trist laughed, and returned the gaze of a pair of remarkably bright eyes without hesitation.

“No,” he answered. “I am content with the mark I have made, but there is not sufficient money to be gained at it, considering how much it takes out of a man. I am as strong as a horse yet, but I have noticed that there are some of us who, considering their years, are not the men they should be. It is a desperately hard life, and we are constantly required. If I live ten years longer, I shall be laid on the shelf, as far as active service goes.”

The editor looked much relieved, and, moreover, made no pretence of concealing his feelings.

“I have thought of that,” he said. “Of course, we will take you on the editorial staff.”

“Now⁠ ⁠… ?”

The elder man raised his head, and the kindly gray eyes searched his companion’s face.

“Ah!” he said slowly. “That is your game. Have you lost your nerve?”

“No.”

“Then you contemplate some great change in your plan of life.”

“Hardly,” returned Trist, with some deliberation; “but I want to be prepared for such an emergency.”

“I am very sorry to hear it.”

“Why?”

“Because you are too young yet. And⁠ ⁠… and, my boy, I don’t want to lose the best war-correspondent that ever crossed a saddle.”

The object of this honest flattery shrugged his shoulders.

“There are plenty more coming on.”

The great man shook his head.

“Do you mean to tell me,” he asked, “that you are going to turn your back upon a splendid career, and take up journalism? Why, my dear fellow, even at my age I would willingly change my chair for your saddle, and men say that I am at the top of the journalistic tree. Come, be candid; why are you giving up active service?”

“Because I am wanted at home, and because I must find some means of making a steady income.”

“Will you take my advice?” asked the elder man humbly.

They were like two friendly gladiators, these immovable journalists, each conscious of the strength that lay behind the gentle manner of the other, both anxious to avoid measuring steel.

Trist laughed good-humouredly.

“I will not promise.”

“No; that would be asking too much from a man who has made his own way with his own hands. My advice is: do nothing until the necessity arises. At the first rumour of war we will talk this over again. In the meantime, let us wait on events. You will write your leaders as usual, and I suppose you are busy with something in book form?”

“If,” answered Trist, “there is war in Turkey, I will go, because I told you that I would, but that will be my last campaign.”

The editor looked at him with kindly scrutiny; then he scratched his chin.

“Why?” he asked deliberately, and with a consciousness of exceeding the bounds of polite noninterference.

“I cannot tell you⁠—yet.”

There was a slight pause, during which neither moved, and the stillness in that little room which lay in the very heart of restless London was remarkable.

The editor looked very grave. There were no papers on his desk requiring immediate attention, but he held his pencil within his strong fingers ready, as it were, to add his notes to any news that might come before him. The responsibility of a great journalist is only second to that of a Prime Minister in a country like England, where the voice of the people is heard and obeyed. Had this man turned his attention to politics, he would perhaps have attained the Premiership; but he was a journalist, and from that small silent room his fiats went forth to the ready ears of half a nation. Few men read more than one newspaper, and we have not yet got over the weakness of attaching undue importance to words that are set in type; consequently the influence of an important journal over the mind of the nation to which it dictates is practically incalculable.

“You know,” said this modern Jove at length, “as well as I do that there will be war as soon as the winter is over.”

In completion of his remark he nodded his vast head sideways, vaguely indicating the East.

“Yes,” was the meek answer; “that is so⁠—a war which will begin in a one-sided way, and last longer than we quite expect; but I will go.”

“I fancy,” remarked the editor after some reflection, “that Russia will make a very common mistake, and underrate, or perhaps despise, her adversary.”

Trist nodded his head.

“They are sure to do that,” he said; “but I suppose they will win in the end.”

“And you will be on the losing side again.”

“Yes; I shall be on the losing side again.”

Both men relapsed into profound meditation. Trist’s meek eyes were fixed on the soft Turkey carpet⁠—the only suggestion of ease or luxury about the room. The editor glanced from time to time at his companion’s strong face, and occupied himself with making small indentations in his blotting-pad with the point of a blacklead pencil.

“Trist,” he said at length, “I cannot do without you in this war.”

“The war has not come yet. Many things may happen before the spring; but I will not play you false. You need never fear that.”

Then he rose and buttoned his thick coat; for, like all great travellers, he wrapped himself up heavily in England. It is only very young and quite inexperienced men who gather satisfaction from the bravado of wearing no topcoat in winter.

“Goodbye,” he said; “I must go up to the publishers.”

“Goodbye,” replied the editor heartily; “look in whenever you are passing. I hope to see you one night soon at the Homeless Club; they are going to give you a dinner, I believe.”

“Yes; I heard something of it. It is very good of them, but embarrassing, and not strictly necessary.”

Trist passed out of the small room into a long passage, and thence into what was technically called the shop⁠—a large apartment, across which stretched a heavily-built deal counter, and of which the atmosphere was warm with the intellectual odour of printing-ink.

The doorkeeper, who persisted, in face of contradiction, in his conviction that Mr. Trist was a soldier, drew himself stiffly up and saluted as he held open the swing-door. It was one of those cold blustering days which come in early November. A dry biting southeast wind howled round every corner, and disfigured most physiognomies with patches of red, more especially in the nasal regions. Nevertheless, the air was clear and brisk⁠—just the day to kill weak folks and make strong people feel stronger.

With his gloved hands buried in the pockets of his thick coat, the war-correspondent wandered along the crowded pavement of the Strand, rubbing shoulders with beggar and genius indifferently.

He was not a man much given to useless reflections or observations upon matters climatic, and so absorbed was he in his thoughts that he would have been profoundly surprised to learn that a biting east wind was withering up humanity. He looked into the shops, and presently became really interested in a display of rifles exposed in the unpretending window of a small establishment.

It is strange how the sight of those tools or instruments with which we have at one time worked for our living affects us. The present writer has seen an old soldier handle a bayonet in a curious reflective way which could not be misunderstood. The ancient warrior’s face, in some subtle sense, became hardened, and his manner changed. I myself grasp a rope differently from men who have never trodden a moss-grown deck, and the curve of the hard strands within my fingers tells a tale of its own, and brings back, suddenly, ineffaceable pictures of the great seas.

Theodore Trist stood still before the upright burnished barrels which the poet has likened to organ-pipes, and to his mind there came the memory of their music, and the roar of traffic round him was almost merged into the grand, deep voice of cannon. It is in the midst of death that men realize fully the glorious gift of life, and those who have known the delirious joy of battle⁠—have once tasted, as it were, the cup of life’s greatest emotion⁠—are aware that nothing but a battlefield can bring that maddening taste to their lips again.

This contemplative man breathed harder and deeper as his eyes rested on lock and barrel, and for some time he stood hearing nothing round him, seeing nothing but the instruments of death.

“Yes,” he murmured as he turned away at length. “I must go to the Russian war. One more campaign, and then⁠ ⁠… then who knows?”

Brenda left Mrs. Wylie at eleven o’clock, merely walking away from the door of Suffolk Mansions without wrap or luggage. She did not know whether she was being watched or no, but her plans were so simple, and yet so cunning, that the question gave her little trouble. Detection was impossible. Trist had seen to that, and his strategy had been the subject of some subdued laughter the night before, because Brenda complained that she felt like an army. He had unconsciously dictated to her, in his soft, suggestive way, and so complete were his instructions, so abject the obedience demanded, that there was some cause for her laughing dissatisfaction. With intelligence, education, experience, reading, and money it is no difficult matter to evade the closest watcher, and Trist was not at all afraid of such means as lay at Captain Huston’s disposal for tracing the hiding-place of his wife.

When Mrs. Wylie found herself left alone, she proceeded placidly to await further events. She was convinced that, sooner or later, the husband of her protégée would appear. Whether this questionable honour would be conferred with bluster and righteous indignation, or with abject self-abuse, remained to be seen. Neither prospect appeared to have the power of ruffling the lady’s serene humour. The morning newspaper received its usual attention, and subsequently there were some new books to be cut and glanced at. Lunch had already been ordered⁠—lunch for two, and something rather nice, because Theo Trist had invited himself to partake of the lone widow’s hospitality.

In her small way, Mrs. Wylie was likely to pass an eventful day, but the thought of it in nowise took away her interest in December’s Temple Bar. She was one of those happy and lovable women who are not in the habit of adding to their grievances by anticipating them; for it is an undeniable fact that sorrows as well as joys are exaggerated by anticipation. Personally, I much prefer going out to get my hair cut as soon as ever I realize the necessity. It is a mistake to put off the operation, because the scissors seem to hang over one’s luxuriant locks with a fiendish click during the stilly hours.

About twelve o’clock there was a knock at the door which shut off Mrs. Wylie’s comfortable suite of rooms from the rest of the house.

“Ah!” murmured the occupant of the drawing-room. “Our violent friend. Twelve o’clock: I must get him out of the house before Theo arrives.”

She leant back and tapped the pages of her magazine pensively with an ivory paper-cutter, while her eyes rested on the door.

In the course of a few moments there was audible the sound of murmuring voices, followed shortly by footsteps.

The door was thrown open, and William Hicks made a graceful entrée, finished, as it were, by the delicately-tinted flower he carried in his gloved fingers.

Mrs. Wylie rose at once with a most reprehensively deceitful smile of welcome. She devoutly wished William Hicks in other parts as she offered her plump white hand to his grasp.

The artist, with passable dissimulation, glanced round the room. No sign or vestige of Brenda! The rose was deftly dropped into his hat and set aside. It had cost two shillings.

“Ah! Mrs. Wylie,” he exclaimed, “I was half afraid you would be out shopping. The wind is simply excruciating.”

“Then warm yourself at once. I am afraid I am alone.”

Hicks was, in his way, a bold man. He relied thoroughly upon a virtue of his own which he was pleased to call tact⁠—others said its right name was “cheek.”

“Afraid!” he said reproachfully, and with an inquiring smile.

“Yes⁠—the girls are out.”

He laughed in a pleasant deprecating way, and held his slim hands towards the fire.

“How absurd you are!” he said. “I merely ran in to ask if a lace handkerchief I found last night belonged to Miss Gilholme.”

He began to fumble in his pockets without any great design of finding the handkerchief. Mrs. Wylie spared him the trouble of going farther.

“Bring it another time,” she said.

She knew the handkerchief trick well. It is very simple, my brother: pick up a lace trifle anywhere about the ballroom, and with a slight draft upon your imagination, you have a graceful excuse to call at any house you may desire the next afternoon. If there is not one to be found, one can easily buy such a thing, and it serves for years. No young man is complete without it.

For some minutes William Hicks talked airily about the soirée of the Ancient Artists, throwing in here and there, in his pleasant way, a blast upon his individual instrument, of which the note was wearily familiar to his listener.

At last, however, he let fall an observation which made Mrs. Wylie forgive him, “à un coup,” his early call.

“I met,” he said casually, “that fellow⁠ ⁠… Huston this morning.”

Mrs. Wylie laid aside the paper-knife with which she had been trifling. The action scarce required a moment of time, but in that moment she had collected her faculties, and was ready for him with all the alertness of her sex.

“Ah! What news had he?” she inquired suavely.

“Oh, nothing much. We scarcely spoke⁠—indeed, I don’t believe he recognised me at first.”

Mrs. Wylie raised her eyebrows in astonishment.

“He came yesterday,” she said, “to get his wife; and Brenda has gone away, too, so I am all alone for a few days.”

This was artistic, and the good lady was mentally patting herself on the back as she met Hicks’ glance, in which disappointment and utter amazement were struggling for mastery.

“I do not think,” continued she calmly, “that I shall stay in town much longer. I am expecting a houseful of quiet people⁠—waifs and strays⁠—at Wyl’s Hall at Christmas, so must really think of going home. But I will call on your mother before going. Give her my love and tell her so.”

William Hicks was not the man to make a social blunder. He rose at once, and said “Good morning,” with his sweetest smile. Then he bowed himself out of the room, taking the two-shilling rose with him.

Mrs. Wylie reseated herself, and withheld her sigh of relief until the door had closed. She then took up her book again, but presently closed its pages over her fingers, and lapsed into thought.

“That young man,” she reflected, “is finding his own level. He may give trouble yet; but Brenda goes serenely on her way, quite unconscious of all these little games at cross-purposes of which she is the centre.”

The good lady’s reflections continued in this vein. She leant back with that pleasant sense of comfort which was almost feline in its supple grace. Her eyes contracted at times with a vague far-off anxiety⁠—the reflex, as it were, of the sorrows of others upon her own placid life, from which all direct emotions were weeded now.

When, at length, the sound of a bell awoke her from these daydreams, she rose and arranged the cheery fireplace with a sudden access of energy.

“I wonder,” she murmured, without emotion, “who is coming now.”

With a glance round the room to see that her stage was prepared, she reseated herself.

Again the door opened, and this time the new arrival did not hurry into the room, but stood upon the threshold waiting. Mrs. Wylie looked up with a pleasant expectancy. It was Captain Huston.

The soldier glanced round the room uneasily, and then he advanced towards the fire without attempting any sort of greeting. Mrs. Wylie remained in her deep chair, and as the Captain came towards her, she watched him. His unsteady hands gave his hat no rest. Taking his stand on the hearthrug, he began at once in a husky voice.

“I have come to you, Mrs. Wylie,” he said, “because I suspect that you know where Alice is to be found. This game of hide-and-seek to which she is treating me is hardly dignified, and it is distinctly senseless. If I choose to take decided steps in the matter, I can, of course, have her hunted down like a common malefactor.”

He spread his gaitered feet apart, and waited with confidence the result of this shot.

“In the meantime,” suggested Mrs. Wylie, with unruffled sweetness, “it is really, perhaps, wiser that you should remain apart. I sincerely trust that this is a mere temporary misunderstanding. You are both young, and, I suppose, both hasty. Think over it, Captain Huston, and do not press matters too much. If, in a short time, you approach Alice with a few kind little apologies, I believe she would relent. You must really be less hard on us women⁠—make some allowance for our more tender nerves and silly susceptibilities.”

By way of reply, he laughed in a rasping way, without, however, being actually rude.

“I have an indistinct recollection of having heard that before,” he observed, with forced cynicism, “or something of a similar nature. The kind little apologies you mention are due to me as much as they are to Alice. Of course, she has omitted to draw your attention to sundry little flirtations⁠ ⁠…”

The widow stopped him with a quick gesture of disgust.

“I refuse,” she said deliberately, “to listen to details. Alice will tell you that I treated her in the same way. These matters, Captain Huston, should be sacred between husband and wife.”

“Well, I suppose you have Alice’s story through Brenda? It comes to the same thing. I can see you are prejudiced against me.”

Mrs. Wylie smiled patiently, with a suggestion of sympathy, which her companion seemed to appreciate.

“The world,” she said, “is sure to be prejudiced against you in the present case. You must remember that the moral code is different for a pretty woman than for the rest of us. Moreover, the husband is blamed in preference, because people attribute the original mistake of marrying to him. I don’t say that men are always to blame for mistaken marriages, but the initiative is popularly supposed to lie in their hands.”

Captain Huston tugged at his drooping moustache pensively. He walked to the window, with the assurance of one who knew his way amidst the furniture, and stood for some time looking down into the street. Presently he returned, avoiding Mrs. Wylie’s eyes; but she saw his face, and her own grew suddenly very sympathetic.

He played nervously with the ornaments upon the mantelpiece for some moments, deeply immersed in thought. There was a chair drawn forward to the fire, at the opposite end of the fur hearthrug to that occupied by Mrs. Wylie. This he took, sitting hopelessly with his idle hands hanging at either side.

“What am I to do?” he asked, half cynically.

Before replying, the widow looked at him⁠—gauging him.

“Do you really mean that?”

“Of course⁠—I am helpless. A man is no match for three women.”

“To begin with, you must have more faith in other people. In myself⁠ ⁠… Brenda⁠ ⁠… Theo Trist.”

The last name was uttered with some significance. Its effect was startling. Huston’s bloodshot eyes flashed angrily, his limp fingers clenched and writhed until the skin gave forth a creaking sound as of dry leather.

“D⁠⸺⁠n Trist!” he exclaimed. “I will shoot him if he comes across my path!”

Mrs. Wylie did not shriek or faint, as ladies are usually supposed to do when men give way to violent language in their presence. But there came into her eyes a slight passing shade of anxiety, which she suppressed with an effort.

“But first of all,” she said, “you must learn to restrain yourself. You must understand that bluster of any description is quite useless against myself or Theo. Alice may be afraid, but Brenda is not; and with Alice fear is closely linked with disgust. Do not forget that.”

She spoke quite calmly, with a force which a casual observer would not have anticipated. In her eagerness she leant forward, with a warning hand outstretched.

“And,” he muttered, “I suppose I am to suppress all my feelings, and go about the world like a marble statue. It seems to me that that fellow Trist leaves his impression on you all. His doctrine is imperturbability at any price. It isn’t mine!”

“Nor mine, Captain Huston. All I preach is a little more restraint. Theo goes too far, and his reticence leads to mistakes. You have been misled. You think that⁠ ⁠… your wife and Theo Trist⁠ ⁠… love each other.”

The soldier looked at her steadily, his weak nether lip quivering with excitement. Then he slowly nodded his head.

“That⁠—is my impression.”

Mrs. Wylie evinced no hurry, no eagerness now. She had difficult cards, and her full attention was given to playing them skilfully. She leant back again in her comfortable chair, and crossed her hands upon her lap.

“Using primary argument,” she said concisely, “and meeting opinion with opinion, I contend that you are mistaken. I will be perfectly frank with you, Captain Huston, because you have a certain claim upon my honesty. In some ways Alice is a weak woman. It has been her misfortune to be brought up and launched upon society as a beauty; a man who marries such a woman is assuming a responsibility which demands special qualifications. Judging from what I have observed, I am very much afraid that you possess these qualifications in but a small degree. Do you follow me?”

The man smiled in an awkward way.

“Yes. You were going to say, ‘I told you so.’ ”

“That,” returned the widow, “is a remark I never make, because it is profitless. Moreover, it would not be true, because I never told you so. Circumstances have in a measure been against you. You could scarcely have chosen a more dangerous part of the world in which to begin your married life than Ceylon. As it happens, you did not choose, but it was forced upon you. In England we live differently. A young married woman is thrown more exclusively upon the society of her husband; there is less temptation. You will find it less difficult⁠ ⁠…”

“Is married life to be described as a difficulty?” he interrupted.

Mr. Wylie did not reply at once. She sat with placidly crossed hands gazing into the fire. There was a slight tension in the lines of her mouth.

“Life,” she replied, “in any form, in any sphere, in any circumstances, is a difficulty.”

After a moment she resumed in a more practical tone:

“Again, Alice is scarcely the woman to make a soldier’s wife in times of peace. War⁠ ⁠… would bring out her good points.”

Huston moved restlessly. Mrs. Wylie turned her soft gray eyes towards his face, and across her sympathetic features there passed an expression of real pain. She had divined his next words before his lips framed them.

“I am not a soldier, Mrs. Wylie.”

“Resigned⁠ ⁠… ?” she whispered.

“No; turned out.”

Unconsciously she was swaying backwards and forwards a little, as if in lamentation, while she rubbed one hand over the other.

“Drink,” continued Huston harshly; “… drink, and Alice drove me to it.”

There was a long silence in the room after this. The glowing fire creaked and crackled at times; occasionally a cinder fell with considerable clatter into the fender, but neither of these people moved. At last Mrs. Wylie looked up.

“Captain Huston,” she said pleadingly.

“Yes.”

He looked across, and saw the tears quivering on her lashes.

“Come back to me tomorrow morning,” was her prayer. “I cannot⁠ ⁠… I cannot advise you yet⁠ ⁠… because I do not quite understand. Theo Trist is coming to lunch today. Will you come back tomorrow?”

“I will,” he answered simply, and left the room.

As Theodore Trist mounted the broad bare staircase of Suffolk Mansions, his quick ears detected the sound of Mrs. Wylie’s door being drawn forcibly to behind departing footsteps.

He continued his way without increase of speed. The person whose descent was audible came slowly to meet him, and in a few moments they were face to face upon a small stone-paved landing.

Neither departed from the unwritten code by which Englishmen regulate their actions; they merely stared at each other. Trist was unchanged, except for a slight heaviness in build⁠—the additional weight, one might call it, of years and experience; but Huston was sadly altered since these two had met beneath a Southern sky. Both were conscious of a sudden recollection of sandy plain and camp environments, and Huston changed colour slightly, or, to be more correct, he lost colour, and his eyes wavered. He was painfully conscious of his disadvantage in this trifling matter of appearance, and he had reason to remember with dread the ruthless penetration of the calm soft eyes fixed upon him. Years before he had suspected that Theodore Trist was cognizant of a trifling fact which had at times suggested itself to him⁠—namely, that, despite braided coat and bright sword, despite Queen’s commission and Sandhurst, he, Alfred Woodruff Charles Huston, was no soldier.

Each looked at the other with the hesitation of men who, meeting, recognise a face, and half await a greeting of some description. In a moment it was too late, and they passed on⁠—one upstairs, the other down, with unconscious symbolism⁠—having exchanged nothing more than that expectant, hesitating stare of mutual recognition and mutual curiosity.

Each was at heart a gentleman, and under other circumstances, in the presence of a third person, or with the view of sparing a hostess anxiety, they would undoubtedly have shaken hands. But here, beneath the eye of none but their God (who, in His wisdom, has purposely planted a tiny seed of divergence in our hearts), they saw no cause for acting that which could, at its best, have been nothing but a semi-truth.

When Trist greeted Mrs. Wylie a few moments later, he detected her glance of anxiety; but it was against his strange principles to take the initiative, so he waited until she might speak.

After a few commonplaces dexterously handled, she suddenly changed her tone.

“Theo,” she said with that abruptness which invariably follows after hesitation on the brink of a difficult subject, “there was a man in this room ten minutes ago who announced his fixed determination of shooting you the very next time you crossed his path.”

The war-correspondent shrugged his shoulders, and turning sharply round, he kicked under the grate a small smoking cinder which had fallen far out into the fender.

“That man’s statements, whether in regard to things past or things future, should be accepted with caution.”

“Then you met him on the stairs?”

“Yes; I met him on the stairs.⁠ ⁠…”

“And⁠ ⁠…”

“And he did not shoot,” said Trist with a short laugh as he turned and faced Mrs. Wylie.

Then he did a somewhat remarkable thing⁠—remarkable, that is, for a man who never gave way to a display of the slightest emotion, demonstrating either sorrow or joy, hatred or affection. He took Mrs. Wylie’s two hands within his, and forced her to sit in the deep basket-work chair near the fire with its back towards the window.

Standing before her with his hands thrust into the pockets of his short serge jacket, he looked down at her with quizzical affection.

“Some months ago,” he said, “we made a contract; you are breaking that contract, unless I am very much mistaken. You have allowed yourself to be anxious about me⁠—is that not so?”

The widow smiled bravely up into the grave young face.

“I am afraid,” she began, “… yes, I am afraid you are right. But the anxiety was not wholly on your account.”

Trist turned slowly away. The movement was an excess of caution, for his face was always impenetrable.

“Ah!” he murmured.

“I am very anxious about Alice and Brenda.”

“Ah!” he murmured again, with additional sympathy.

She did not proceed at once, so he leant back in the chair he had assumed, and waited with that peculiar patience which seemed to belong to Eastern lands, and which has been noticed before.

“Theo,” she said at last, “has it never struck you that your position with regard to those two girls is⁠—to say the least of it⁠—peculiar?”

“From a social point of view?”

“Yes.”

“If,” he said in a louder tone, on his defence, as it were, “I were constantly at home, society might have something to say about it. But, as it happens, I am never long in London, and consequently fail to occupy that prominent position in the public esteem or dislike to which my talents undoubtedly entitle me.”

“Fortunately, gossip has not been rife about it.”

“Partly by good fortune, and partly by good management,” corrected Trist. “With a little care, society is easily managed.”

“A tiger is easily managed, but its humours cannot be foretold.”

This statement was allowed to pass unchallenged, and before the silence was again broken, a servant announced that luncheon was ready. Mrs. Wylie led the way, and Trist followed. They were both rather absorbed during the dainty repast, and conversation was less interesting than the parlourmaid could have wished.

Had Trist been less honest, he could have thrown off this sense of guilt which weighed upon him. Like most reserved men, he was perhaps credited with a more versatile intellect than he really possessed. In his special line he was unrivalled, but that line was essentially manly, and the finesse it required was of a masculine order. That is to say, it was more straightforward, more honest, and less courageous, than the natural and instinctive finesse of a woman. This vague struggle with an over-susceptible conscience handicapped Trist seriously during the tête-à-tête meal, and rendered his conversation very dull. He was quite conscious of this, and the effort he made to remedy the defect was hardly successful. Men of his type⁠—that is, men of a self-contained, self-reasoning nature⁠—are too ready to consider themselves of that heavy material which forms the solid background of social intercourse. Their very virtues, such as steadfastness, coolness, complete self-reliance, are calculated to prevent their shining in conversation, or in the lighter social amenities. A little conversational impulse is required, a gay lightness of touch, and an easy divergence from opinions previously hazarded, in order to please the average listener; but these were sadly wanting in Theodore Trist.

He was merely a strong, thoughtful man, who could think and reason quickly enough when such speed was necessary, but as a rule he preferred a slower and surer method. He was ready enough to proffer an opinion when such was really in demand, and once spoken, this would change in no way. It was the result of thought, and he forbore to uphold a conviction by argument. Argument and thought have little in common. One is froth drifting before the wind, the other a deep stream running always. Trist held fixed opinions about most things, but it was part of his self-reliant and self-sufficing nature to take no pleasure whatever in convincing others that the opinion was valuable. If men chose to think otherwise, he tacitly recognised their right to do so, and left them in peace. Although he held certain doctrines upon the better or worse ways of getting through the span of a human life creditably, he was singularly averse to airing them in any manner.

Now, Mrs. Wylie, in her keen womanliness, knew very well how to deal with this man. She was quite aware that there was, behind his silent laisser-aller, a clearly-defined plan of campaign, a cut-and-dried theory or doctrine upon which his most trifling action was based. There was an object aimed at, and perhaps gained, in his every word. If Theodore Trist was a born strategist (of which I am firmly convinced), and carried his principles of warfare into the bitter strife of everyday existence, he had in Mrs. Wylie an ally or a foe, as the case might be, whose manoeuvres were worthy of his regard.

She possessed a woman’s intuitive judgment, brightened, as it were, and rendered keener, by the friction of a busy lifetime; and added to this, she was in the habit of acting more spontaneously, and perhaps with a greater recklessness, than came within Trist’s mental compass. These were her more womanly qualities, but her character had been influenced through many years by the manly, upright nature of her husband, and it was from him that she had acquired her rare doctrine of noninterference. In woman’s weaker nature there is a lamentable failing to which can be attributed a large portion of the sorrows to which the sex is liable. This is an utter inability to refrain from adding a spoke to every wheel that may roll by. Interference⁠—silly, unjustifiable interference⁠—in the affairs of others is woman’s vice. She can no more keep her fingers out of other people’s savoury pies than a cat can keep away from the succulent products of Yarmouth. It has been said by cynical people that a woman cannot keep a secret, but that is a mistake. If it be her own, she can keep it remarkably well; but if it be the property of someone else, she appears to consider it as a loan which must not be allowed to accrue interest. I have tried the effect of imparting to a woman whom it affected but slightly, and to a man whose life would be altered in some degree by it, a piece of news under the bond of secrecy⁠—a bond which expired at a given date. The man held his peace and went on his way through life unaffected, untroubled by the knowledge he possessed. I studied him at moments when a glance or a word might have betrayed to observant eyes the fact that he was in possession of certain information. He looked at me calmly, and with no dangerous glance of intelligence, subsequently talking in a manly, honest way which was in no degree a connivance at criminal suppression. The date given had not yet arrived, but the knowledge was fresh in his mind, and he treated the matter in an honourable, businesslike way. I knew that my secret was buried in that man’s brain as in a sepulchre.

The woman was uneasy. I could see that the secret oppressed her. She chafed at the thought that the date mentioned was still a long way ahead. She longed to talk of the matter to me, with a view, no doubt, of craving permission to tell one person, who would certainly not repeat it. By glance or significant silence she courted betrayal; and at one time she even urged me to impart the news to a mutual friend, in order, I take it, to form a channel or an outlet for her cooped-up volume of thought. Finally, I discovered that she had forestalled the date, by writing to friends at a distance, who actually received the letters before the day, but were unable to reissue the news in time to incriminate her.

It would appear that the same characteristic defect applies to the retention of a secret as to the restraint from interference. Perhaps it is a weakness, not a vice. Mrs. Wylie never sought confidences, as women, by nature unable to retain secrets, are prone to do. Her doctrine of noninterference went so far as to embrace the small matter of passing details. She placed entire reliance in Theodore Trist, and although his behaviour puzzled her, she refrained from asking an explanation of even the smallest act. She was content that his leading motive could only be good, and therefore felt no great thirst to know the meaning of his minor actions.

The cynical-minded may opine that I am describing an impossible woman. The fault is due to this halting pen. I once drew a woman who herself recognised the portrait⁠—a critic said that the character was impossible and unnatural.

Mrs. Wylie was very natural and very womanly, after all. She had almost forced Theo Trist to invite himself to lunch, and her anxiety respecting Alice and Brenda had been made clear to him at once. She would not interfere; but she could not surely have been expected to refrain from suggesting to him that the world and the world’s opinion, if of no value to him, could not be ignored by two motherless women.

She placed before him her views upon the matter, and then she proceeded to shelve the subject; but Trist failed to help her in this, contrary to her expectation. He was distinctly dull during luncheon, and made no attempt to disguise his preoccupation. Mrs. Wylie nibbled a biscuit while he was removing the outer rind of his cheese with absurd care, and waited patiently for him to say that which was undoubtedly on his lips.

The maid had left the room; there was no fear of interruption. Trist continued to amuse himself for some moments with a minute morsel of Gorgonzola; then he looked up, unconsciously trying the temper of his knife upon the plate while he spoke.

“I had,” he said, “an interview with my chief this morning.”

“Ah! Sir Edward, you mean?”

“Yes,” slowly, “Sir Edward.”

Mrs. Wylie saw that she was expected to ask a question in order to keep the ball rolling.

“What about?” she inquired pleasantly.

“I informed him that I proposed burying the hatchet.”

“You are not going to give up active service!” exclaimed Mrs. Wylie in astonishment.

“I promised to go to one more campaign⁠—the Russo-Turkish⁠—which will come on in the spring, and after that I shall follow the paths of peace.”

Mrs. Wylie rolled up her table-napkin, and inserted it meditatively into an ancient silver ring several sizes too large for it.

“I used to think,” she murmured, “that you would never follow the ways of peace.” Then she looked across the table into his face with that indescribable contraction of the eyes which sometimes came even when her lips were smiling.

“I am not quite sure of you now, Theo,” she added gently, as she rose and led the way towards the door.

Trist reached the handle before her, and held the door open with that unostentatious politeness of his which made him different from the general run of society young men. As she passed, he smiled reassuringly, and said in his monotonous way:

“I am quite sure of myself.”

“Not too sure?” she inquired over her shoulder.

“No.”

In the drawing-room he succumbed to his hostess’s Bohemian persuasions, and lighted a cigarette. He seemed to have forgotten his own affairs.

“About Alice,” he began⁠—“que faire?”

For some reason Mrs. Wylie avoided meeting his glance.

“I told Alfred Huston,” she replied, after a pause, “that I would communicate with Alice, and that I had hopes of their living happily together yet.”

Her tone was eminently practical and businesslike. Trist answered in the same way.

“I told Alice,” he said cheerily, “that I would ask you to communicate with Huston, with the view of coming to some definite arrangement. Hide-and-seek is a slow game after a time.”

“What sort of arrangement?”

“Well⁠ ⁠… I suggested that he should agree to leave her unmolested for a certain time, during which she could think over it.”

Mrs. Wylie’s smile was a trifle wan and uncertain.

“In fact, you made the best of it?”

“Yes. What else could I do?”

The widow looked at him keenly. It was hard to believe in disinterestedness like this; and it is a very human failing to doubt disinterestedness of any description.

“I told Alfred Huston,” she said disconnectedly, “that I trusted you to do your honest best for all concerned in this matter.”

“Which statement Huston politely declined to confirm, I should imagine.”

Mrs. Wylie shrugged her shoulders. Denial was evidently out of the question.

“Then my name was brought in?” asked Trist in a peculiar way.

“Yes.”

“By whom?”

“By me. It would have been worse than useless, Theo, to have attempted ignorance of your influence over the girls.”

For a second time Trist avoided meeting his companion’s glance.

“I told Sir Edward,” he said, after a considerable space of time, “that I must be allowed to remain in England for some time to come; it seems to me that I should have done better had I asked to be sent away on active service without delay.”

“I should hardly go so far as to say that, Theo,” remarked Mrs. Wylie placidly; “but I think you must be very careful. I only want to call your attention to the light in which your help is likely to appear in the eyes of the world.”

“You have no⁠ ⁠…”⁠—he hesitated before saying the word “man,” but his listener gave a little quick nod as if to help him⁠—“man to help you, except me; and it seems better that there should be someone whom you can play, as it were, against Huston’s stronger cards⁠—someone of whom he is afraid.”

“Yes,” replied the lady with an affectionate smile; “I quite understand your meaning; and I think you are right, although Alfred Huston is not an alarming person: he is very weak.”

“When he is sober,” suggested Trist significantly.

The sailor’s widow was too brave a woman to be frightened by this insinuation, of which she took absolutely no notice.

“And,” she continued, “I am convinced that this reconciliation is more likely to be brought about if it is left entirely in my hands. Your influence, however subtle, will be detected by Alfred Huston, and the result will be disastrous. Unless⁠ ⁠… unless⁠ ⁠…”

She stopped in a vague way, and moved restlessly.

“Unless what?”

“Unless you go to Alfred Huston and convince him by some means that there is no love between you and Alice.”

The laughter with which he greeted this suggestion was a masterpiece of easy nonchalance⁠—deep, melodious, and natural; but somehow Mrs. Wylie failed to join in it.

“No,” he said; “that would not do. If Alice and I went together, and took all sorts of solemn affidavits, I doubt whether Huston would be any more satisfied than he is at present. The only method practicable is for me to hold myself in reserve, while you manage this affair.”

He had risen during this speech, and now held out his hand.

“I have an appointment at the Army and Navy,” he said, “and must ask you to excuse me if I run away.”

Mrs. Wylie was left in her own drawing-room nonplussed. She gazed at the door which had just closed behind her incomprehensible guest with mild astonishment.

“That,” she reflected, “is the first time that I have seen Theo have recourse to retreat.”

It very often happens that the so-called equinoctial gales are behind their time, and do not arrive until Night has undoubtedly made good her victory over Day. When such is the case, we have a mild November, with soft southwesterly breezes varying in strength according to the lie of the land or the individual experience of farmer or townsman. At sea it blows hard enough in all good sooth, and there may be watery eyes at the wheel or on the forecastle; but there are no frozen fingers aloft, which is in itself a mercy. There is a good hearty roar through the shrouds, and certain parts of the deck are always wet, but the clear horizon and rushing clouds overhead are full of brave exhilaration.

On land, things are dirtier, more especially under foot, where the leaves lose all their crackle and subside odorously into mud. Water stands on the roadways, and in ruts elsewhere; and curled beech-leaves float thereon in vague navigation, half waterlogged like any foreign timber-ship. The tilled land, bearing in its bosom seed for next year’s crops, or merely waiting fallow, is damp and soft and black; men walking thereon⁠—rustic or sportsman⁠—make huge impressions, and carry quite a weight on either foot. The trees stand bare and leafless, though rapid green mouldy growths relieve the wet monochrome of bark or rind.

Here, again, as at sea, the atmosphere is singularly gay and translucent. Things afar off seem near, and new details in the landscape become apparent. Any little bit of colour seems to gleam, almost to glow, and the greenness of the meadow is startling. Although there is an autumnal odour on the breeze, it has no sense of melancholy. The clouds may be gray, but they are fraught with life, and one knows that there is brightness behind. With motion, melancholy cannot live.

The effect of this soft breeziness upon different people is apparent to the most casual of observers. It freshens sailors up, and they pull on their oilskins with a cheery pugnacity; tillers of the land are busy, and wonder how long it will last; and hunting-men (provided only the land be not too heavy) are wild with a joy which has no rival in times of peace; timid riders grow bold, and bold men reckless. It is only folks who stay indoors that complain of depression. For myself, I confess it makes me long to be at sea, and although I can see nothing but sky and chimney-pots over the inkstand, the very shades of colour, of dark and light, are before me if I close my eyes. It is a long rolling sweep of greeny gray, with here and there a tip of dirty white, and the line of horizon is hard and clear enough to please the veriest novice with the sextant.

In November, 1876, there were a few days of such weather as I have attempted to describe, and Brenda, who spent that time on the east coast of England, in a manner learnt to associate soft winds and clear airs with the much-maligned county of Suffolk. All through the rest of her life, through the long aimless years during which she learnt to love the verdant plains with their bare mud seawalls, she only thought of Suffolk as connected with and forming part of soft autumnal melancholy. She never again listened to the wail of the seagull without involuntarily waiting for the cheery cry of the snipe. Never again did she look on a vast plain without experiencing a sense of incompleteness which could only have been dispelled by the murmurous voice of the sea breaking on to shingle.

The human mind is strangely inconsistent in its reception and retention of impressions. As in modern photography, the length of exposure seems to be of little consequence. Without any tangible reason, and for no obvious use, certain incidents remain engraved upon our memory, while the detail of other events infinitely more important passes away, and only the result remains.

Brenda and Alice only passed four days in the little hamlet selected for them by Theodore Trist as a safe hiding-place; but during that time a great new influence came into Brenda’s soul.

She had always been sensitive to the beauties of Nature. A glorious landscape, a golden sunset, or the soft silver of moon-rise, had spoken to her in that silent language of Nature which appeals to the most prosaic heart at times; but never until now had one of earth’s great wonders established a longing in her soul⁠—a longing for its constant company which is naught else but passionate love. She had hitherto looked upon the sea as an inconvenience to be overcome before reaching other countries. Perhaps she was aware that this inconvenience possessed at times a charm, but not until now had she conceived it possible that she, Brenda Gilholme, should ever love it with an insatiable longing such as the love of sailors. On board the Hermione she had passed her apprenticeship; had, as the admiral was wont to say, learnt the ropes; but never had she loved the sea for its own grand incomprehensible sake as she loved it now.

Its gray mournful humours seemed to sympathize with her own thoughts. Its monotonous voice, rising and falling on the shingle shore, spoke in unmistakable language, and told of other things than mere earthly joys and sorrows.

I who write these lines learnt to love the sea many years ago, when I had naught else but water to look upon⁠—from day to day, from morning till night, through the day and through the darkness, week after week, month after month. The love crept into my heart slowly and very surely, like the love of a boy, growing into manhood, for some little maiden growing by his side. And now, whether on its bosom or looking on it from the noisy shore, that love is as fresh as ever. The noise of breaking water thrills the man as it thrilled the boy⁠—the smell of tar, even, makes me grave.

Men may love their own country, but the sea, with its ever-varying humours, kind and cruel by turn, exacts a fuller devotion. A woman once told me of her love for her native country. She happened to be a practical, prosaic, middle-aged woman of the world. We were seated on a gorgeous sofa in a blaze of artificial light, amidst artificial smiles, listening to the murmurs of artificial conversation. Something moved her; some word of mine fell into the well of her memory and set the still pool all rippling. I listened in silence. She spoke of Dartmoor, and I think I understood her. At the end I said:

“What Dartmoor is to you, the sea is to me;” and she smiled in a strange, sympathetic way.

That is the nearest approach that I have met of a love for land which is akin to the love of sea.

In Brenda’s case, as in all, this newfound passion influenced her very nature. If love⁠—love, I mean, of a woman⁠—will alter a man’s whole mode of life, of action, and of thought, surely these lesser passions leave their mark as well.

Undoubtedly the girl caught from the great sea some of its patient contentment; for the ocean is always content, whether it be glistening beneath a cloudless sky, or rolling, sweeping onwards before the wind in broad gray curves. Those who work upon the great waters are different from other men in the possession of a certain calm equanimity, which is like no other condition of mind. It is the philosophy of the sea.

At first Brenda had dreaded the thought of being imprisoned, as it were, in this tiny east coast fishing village with her sister. This was no outcome of a waning love, but rather a proof that her feelings towards her sister were as true and loyal as ever. She feared that Alice would lower herself in her sight. She dreaded the necessary tête-à-têtes because she felt that her sister’s character had not improved, and could not well bear the searching light of a close familiarity.

After the first hour or two, however, the sisters appeared to settle down into a routine of life which in no way savoured of familiarity. The last two years had hopelessly severed them, and now that they were alone together the gulf seemed to widen between them.

Brenda was aware that some great change had come over her life or that of her sister. They no longer possessed a single taste or a single interest in common. Whether the fault lay entirely at her own door, or whether Alice were partially or wholly to blame, the girl did not attempt to decide. She merely felt that it would be simple hypocrisy to pretend a familiarity she did not feel. Yet she loved her sister, despite all. The tie of blood is strangely strong in some people; with others it is no link at all.

After an uncomfortable meal had been bravely sat out subsequent to Brenda’s arrival, the younger sister announced her intention of going out for a long ramble down the coast. Alice complained that she had no energy, predicted that the dismal flat land and muddy sea were about to prove fatal to her health, and subsided into a yellow-backed novel. This was a fair sample of their life in exile.

Alice deluged her weak intellect with fiction of no particular merit, and Brenda learnt to love the sea. For her the bleak deserted shore, the long, low waves rolling in continuously, the dirty sweeping of sandbanks near the shore, and the endless fields of shingle, acquired a mournful beauty which few can find in such things.

Only once was reference made to Theodore Trist, and then the subject was tacitly tabooed, much to the relief of Brenda. This happened during the first evening of their joint exile. Doubtless a sudden fit of communicativeness came over Alice just as they come to the rest of us⁠—at odd moments, without any particular raison d’être.

The miserable shuffling waiter had removed all traces of their simple evening meal, and Brenda was looking between the curtains across the sea, which shimmered beneath the rays of a great yellow moon. Alice had taken up her novel, but its pages had no interest for her just then. She had appropriated the only easy-chair in the room, and was leaning back against its worn leather stuffing with a discontented look upon her lovely face. Her small red mouth had acquired of late a peculiar “set” expression, as if the lips were habitually pressed close with an effort.

“Theo,” she said, without looking towards the tall, slim form by the window, “has changed.”

Brenda moved the curtain a little more to one side, so that the old wooden rings rattled on the pole. Then she leant her shoulder against the framework of the window, and turned her face towards the firelight. Her gentle gaze rested on the beautiful form gracefully reclining in the deep chair. She noted the easy repose of each limb, the proud poise of the golden head, and the clearcut profile showing white against the dingy background. There was no glamour in her eyes, such as would have blinded the judgment of nine men out of ten; but there was in its place the great tie of sisterly love.

Brenda, looking on that beauty, knew that it was the curse of her sister’s life. Instead of envying her, she was mentally meting out pity and allowance.

“I suppose,” she said, without much encouragement in her manner, “that we have all changed in one way or another.”

“But Theo has changed in more than one way.”

“Has he?”

“Yes. His manner is quite different from what it used to be; and he seems self-absorbed⁠—less energetic, less sympathetic.”

Brenda did not answer at once. She turned slightly, and looked out of the window, resting her fingers upon the old wooden framework.

“You see,” she suggested, “he has other interests in life now. He is a great man, and has ambition. It is only natural that he should be absorbed in his own affairs.”

Mrs. Huston raised her small foot, and rested the heel of her slipper on the brass fender, while she contemplated the diminutive limb with some satisfaction.

“I have met one or two great men,” she said meditatively, “and I invariably found them very much like ordinary beings, rather less immersed in ‘shop,’ perhaps, and quite as interesting⁠—not to say polite.”

Brenda winced.

“Was Theo not polite?”

“Hardly, my dear.”

As Mrs. Huston delivered herself of this opinion, with a faint tinge of bitterness in her manner, she turned and looked towards her sister, as if challenging her to attempt a palliation of Trist’s conduct.

Brenda neither moved nor spoke. The moonlight, flooding through the diamond panes of the window, made her face look pale and wan. There were deep shadows about her lips. Without, upon the shingle, the sea boomed continuously with a low, dreamlike hopelessness.

I wish I were a great artist, to be able to paint a picture of that small parlour in an east coast village inn. But there would be a greater skill required than the mere technicalities of art. These would be needed to deal successfully with the cross-lights of utterly different hues⁠—the cold, green-tinted moonlight, the ruddy glow of burning driftwood washed from the deck of some Baltic trader; and the reflection of each in turn upon quaint old bureaux, bright with the polish of half a dozen generations; gleaming upon Indian curio, and shimmering over the glass of dim engravings. All this would require infinite skill; but no brush or pencil could convey the old-day mournfulness that seemed to hang in the atmosphere. Perhaps it found birth in the murmuring rise and fall of restless waves, or in the flicker of the fire, in the quick crackle of the sodden wood. My picture should be called The Contrast, and in the gloom of the low ceiling I should bring out with loving care two graceful forms⁠—two lovely faces.

The one⁠—the more beautiful⁠—in all the rosiness of young life, glowing in the firelight. The other, pale and wan, with an exquisite beauty, delicate and yet strong, resolute and yet refined. Of two working in the field, one is taken, the other remaineth. Around us are many workers, and of every two we look upon, one seems to have the preference. One has greater joy, the other greater sorrow; and, strive as we will, think as we will, argue as we will, we can never tell “why.” We can never satisfy that great question of the human mind. Life has been called many things: I can express it in less than a word⁠—in a mere symbol⁠—?⁠—a note of interrogation, the largest at the compositor’s command.

In this great field of ours, where we all work blindly, many are taken, and many left. Moreover, those who would wish to go remain, and those who cling to work are taken. She who grindeth best passeth first.

Brenda never answered her sister’s challenge. She turned her eyes away, facing the cold moonlight, staring at the silver sea with eyes that saw no beauty there.

“O God!” she whispered, glancing upwards into the glowing heavens with that instinct which comes alike to pagan and Christian, “send a great war, so that Theo may go to it.”

Mrs. Wylie had undertaken the task of reconciling Alice Huston and her husband without any great hope of success. The widow’s married life had been an exceptionally happy one, but even in her case there had been small drawbacks, mostly arising, it is true, from the untoward work of fate, but, nevertheless, undoubted drawbacks, and undeniably appertaining to married life.

It would have been hard to find two people less calculated to assimilate satisfactorily than Alice and Alfred Huston; and yet there was love between them.

The weak-minded soldier undoubtedly loved his wife: as for her, it would be hard to give a reliable opinion. She was, I honestly believe, one of those beautiful women who go through life without ever knowing what love really is.

With another woman for his helpmate, Huston might reasonably have been expected to reform his ways. With another husband, Alice might have made a good and dutiful wife.

Assuredly the task that had fallen upon Mrs. Wylie’s handsome shoulders was not overburdened with hope. She was, however, of an evenly sanguine temperament, and I think that it is such women as she who help us men along in life⁠—women who trust for the best, and work for the best, without any high-flown ideals, without poetic notions respecting woman’s influence and woman’s aid; who, in fact, are desperately practical, and make a point of expecting less than they might reasonably get.

Mrs. Wylie was by no means ignorant of the fact that a reconciliation between such a couple as Mr. and Mrs. Huston was not calculated to be of a very permanent or deeply-rooted character; but she had lived a good many years in a grade of society which delights to watch the inner life of others. She had seen and heard of so many unsuitable matches, which, having been consummated, had proved the wonderful power of love. It is only the very young and inexperienced who shake their heads upon hearing of an engagement, and prophesy unhappiness. No man can tell to what end love is working. The wise are silent in such matters, because there are some mistakes which lead to good, and some wise actions of which the result is unmitigated woe.

The widow therefore held her peace, and set to work as if there could be but one result to her efforts. She communicated with Alice Huston in her hiding-place, with Captain Huston at the club of which he was still a member, and with Trist by word of mouth. Brenda was, so to speak, in the enemy’s country. Her reports were therefore to be received, but no acknowledgment could be made. In this respect she was like a spy, because she was without instruction from headquarters, and, nevertheless, had to act and report her action.

Her first and, indeed, only communication reached Mrs. Wylie the morning after her interviews with Theo Trist and Captain Huston. It was only a few words scribbled on the back of a visiting card, and slipped into an envelope previously addressed and stamped:

Whatever you do, keep Theo and Alice apart.

Mrs. Wylie turned the card over and read the neatly-engraved name on the other side. Then she read the words aloud, slowly and thoughtfully, once more:

Whatever you do, keep Theo and Alice apart.

“Brenda knows,” reflected the practical woman of the world, “that Huston is jealous of Theo. She also knows that I am quite aware of this jealousy. It would be unnecessary to warn me of it; therefore this means that Brenda has discovered a fresh reason.”

She broke off her meditations at this point by rising almost hurriedly, and walking to the window. For a considerable time she watched the passing traffic; then she returned to the fireplace.

“Poor Brenda!” she murmured⁠—“my poor Brenda! And⁠ ⁠… Alice is so silly!”

The connection between these two observations may be a trifle obscure to the ordinary halting male intellect; but I think I know what Mrs. Wylie meant.

Later on in the day she sent a note to Captain Huston, requesting him to come and see her, and by the same messenger despatched a few words to Theo Trist⁠—her reserve force⁠—forbidding him to come near.

“My reserves,” she said to herself as she closed the envelope energetically, “are thus rendered useless; but Brenda is reliable. I must do as she tells me.”

Captain Huston received the widow’s note at his club. It was only eleven o’clock, and, consequently, there was plenty of time before he need put in an appearance at Suffolk Mansions. He was an idle man, and, like all idle men, fond of lounging about the streets gazing abstractedly into shops, and getting generally into the way of such foot-passengers as might have an object in their walk.

There is no haven for loungers in London except Piccadilly in the morning, and to this spot the soldier turned his steps. After inspecting the wares of a sporting tailor, he was preparing to cross the road with a view of directing his course down St. James’s Street, when someone touched him on the shoulder.

Huston turned with rather more alacrity than is usually displayed by a British gentleman with a clear conscience, and for some seconds gazed in a watery manner at a fair, insipid face, ornamented by a wondrous moustache. There was a peculiarity about this moustache worth mentioning. Although an essentially masculine adornment, it, in some subtle way, suggested effeminacy.

“Mr.⁠ ⁠… eh⁠ ⁠… Hicks,” murmured Huston vaguely, and without much interest.

Hicks forgave magnanimously this Philistine want of appreciation.

“Yes, Captain Huston. How are you?”

“I?⁠ ⁠… Oh! I’m all right, thanks.”

There was a faint suggestion of movement about the soldier’s left leg as if intimating a desire to continue on its way towards St. James’s Street; but this was ignored by Hicks in his own inimitable way.

“I caught sight of you the other day,” he said graciously; “and I also had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Huston at Mrs. Wylie’s.”

“Oh yes,” vaguely.

The soldier made a violent effort, pulled himself together, and stepped into the road. The artist stepped with him, and, furthermore, slipped his gloved hand within his companion’s arm with a familiar ease which seemed to say that they would live or die together until the passage was safely accomplished.

“How is Mrs. Huston?” inquired he when they had reached the opposite pavement.

That lady’s husband looked very stolid as he answered:

“Quite well, thanks.”

He mentally wriggled, poor fellow, and in sympathy his arm became lifeless and repelling. Hicks removed his hand from the unappreciative sleeve.

“Do you know,” he asked pleasantly, “whether Trist happens to be in town?”

Huston began to feel uncomfortable. He was afraid of this society prig, and honestly wished to save his wife’s name from the ready tongue of slander.

“I don’t,” he answered abruptly⁠—“why?”

This sudden question in no way disconcerted Hicks, who met the soldier’s unsteady, and would-be severe, gaze with bland innocence.

“Because I happen to know a Russian artist who is very anxious to meet him, that is all.”

“Ah! I have seen him since I came home, but I could not say where he is now.”

If Hicks had been a really observant man (such as he devoutly considered himself to be), he would have noticed that his companion raised a gloved finger to his cheek, and tenderly pressed a slight abrasion visible still just on the bone in front of the ear.

“He is generally to be heard of,” said the artist in that innocently-significant tone which may mean much or nothing, according to the acuteness or foreknowledge of the listener, “… he is generally to be heard of at Suffolk Mansions. That is to say, when Brenda is staying there.”

Captain Huston’s dull eyes were for a moment actually endowed with life. He stroked his drooping moustache, which was apparently placed there by a merciful Providence for purposes of justifiable concealment, and his moral attitude became visibly milder. He had just begun to realize that his own private affairs might not, after all, be of paramount importance to the whole of society.

“Is there,” he asked with military nonchalance, “supposed to be something between Trist and Brenda?”

Hicks laughed, and, before replying, waved his hand gracefully to a friend in the stock-jobbing line, who had previously crossed the road in order to be recognised by him in passing.

“Oh no,” he answered cheerfully; “I did not mean that at all. Now that I think of it, however, you were quite justified in taking it thus. They have always been great friends⁠—that was all I meant. Their mothers were related, I believe.”

Captain Huston looked slightly disappointed. He did not, however, display such eagerness to walk either faster or slower, or in some other direction, now.

“Trist,” he observed as he opened his cigar-case sociably, “is a queer fellow. Have a cigar?”

“Oh, I never smoke, you know⁠—never. No, thanks.”

The captain grunted, and put his case back with a suppressed sigh. He had not known, but hoped. Then he waited for a reply to his leading and ambiguous remark.

“Yes,” mused Hicks at length; “he is. I dined with him the night he left for the Serbian frontier.”

This detail, interesting as it was, had but slight reference to the general characteristics of Theodore Trist. Huston tried again after he had lighted his cigar.

“One never knows where one has him.”

Hicks looked mildly sympathetic. He even gave the impression of being about to look in his pockets on the chance of finding the war-correspondent there.

“No; he is always on the move. I was once told that the Diplomatic Corps call him the Stormy Petrel, because he arrives before the hurricane.”

“And sits smiling on the top of the waves afterwards, while we poor devils sink,” added the soldier with a disagreeable laugh.

“He has not the reputation of being a coward,” said Hicks, who despised personal courage as a mere brute-like attribute.

The man of arms did not like the turn of the conversation.

“No; I believe not,” he said rather hurriedly, as if no man could be a coward. “What I don’t like about him is a certain air of mystery which he cultivates. It pleases the women, I suppose.”

“That,” suggested the other calmly, “is probably part of his trade. If he talked much there would be nothing original left in him to write! All these diplomatic fellows get that peculiar reticence of manner⁠—a sort of want of frankness, as it were. That is the great difference between art practised by the tongue, and art stimulated by the eye and created for the pleasure of the eye.”

Huston looked at the burning end of his cigar with bibulous concentration. He knew absolutely nothing about art, and cared less. It is just possible that, in his hideous ignorance, he doubted the purity of the pleasure vouchsafed by the pictorial productions of the artist at his side.

“We,” continued Hicks, with a deprecating wave of the hand, “can always be frank. The bolder we are, the higher we aim, the⁠ ⁠… eh⁠ ⁠… the better.”

“Yes⁠ ⁠… yes,” murmured Huston. “But tell me⁠—what made you think that Trist was out of town?”

“Oh, nothing!” airily. “Nobody stays in town at this time of the year unless they can’t help it; that is all! But I suppose these newspaper men hardly think of the seasons. They do not seem to realize the difference between summer and winter⁠—between joyous spring and dismal autumn. I saw a man sketching the other day in a cold east wind on the Thames Embankment. He was only a ‘black and white’ man, you know; but he seemed to know something about drawing. His fingers were blue.”

Like many weak-minded people, Alfred Huston was subject to sudden fits of obstinacy. He felt now that Hicks wished to lead him away from the subject originally under discussion, and in consequence was instigated by a sudden desire to talk and hear more of Theodore Trist.

“That is another thing,” he said, “about Trist that I do not like. He pretends to despise personal discomfort. It is mere affectation, of course, and on that account, perhaps, all the more aggravating.”

“Carried away by enthusiasm, I suppose?”

The soldier laughed.

“Trist never was carried away by anything. He sits on a box of cartridges, and writes in that beastly notebook of his as if he were at a review. If all his countrymen were being slaughtered round him he would count them with his pencil and take a note of it.”

Hicks gave a few moments’ careful attention to the curl of his moustache. Then he glanced curiously at his companion’s vacant physiognomy. There was evidently some motive in this sudden attack on Trist. Both these men distrusted the war-correspondent, but were in no way prepared to test the value of that force which is said to arise from union. They distrusted each other more.

Presently they parted, each absorbed in his own selfish fears as before. Here, again, was Vanity and her hideous sister Jealousy. If one of these be not found at the bottom of all human misery, I think you will find the other. With these two men both motives were at work. Each was jealous of Trist, and neither would confess his jealousy to the other; while Vanity was wounded by the war-correspondent’s simple silence. He ignored them, and for that they hated him. His own path was apparently mapped out in front of him, and he followed it without ostentation, without seeking comment or approbation.

William Hicks was, as Mrs. Wylie had said, finding his own level. He was beginning to come under the influence of a vague misgiving that his individuality was not such as commands the respect of the better sort of women. In his own circle he was a demigod; but the gratification to be gathered from the worship of a number of weak-kneed uncomely ladies was beginning to pall. In fact, he had hitherto been intensely satisfied with the interesting creature called William Hicks; but now there was a tiny rift within the lute upon which he always played his own praises. He had not hitherto realized that man is scarcely created for the purpose of being worshipped by the weaker sex, and lately there had been in his mind a vague desire to be of greater account among his fellow-men. Of athletics, sport, or the more manly accomplishments he knew nothing; indeed, he had up to this period despised them as the pastime of creatures possessed of little or no intellect; now he was at times troubled by a haunting thought that it would have been as well had he been able to play lawn-tennis, to ride, or shoot, or row, or drive⁠—or even walk ten miles at a stretch. This was not the outcome of any natural taste for healthy exercise, but a mere calculation that such accomplishments carry with them a certain weight with energetic and well-found young ladies. The curse of jealousy has a singular way of opening our eyes, mes frères, to sundry small shortcomings of which we were not aware before. When I saw Angelina, for instance, dance with young Lightfoot in former days, my own fantastic toes suddenly became conscious of clumsiness. Hicks was jealous of Theodore Trist, and while, in a halfhearted way, despising the sturdy philosopher’s soldier-like manliness, he could not help feeling that Brenda Gilholme admired Trist for this same quality. He was fully satisfied that he was in every other way a superior man to the war-correspondent, although the latter had made a deep mark upon the road he had selected to travel; but he wished, nevertheless, that he himself could assume at times the quiet strength of independence that characterized Trist’s thoughts and actions.

The young artist was celebrated in his own circle⁠—that is to say, among a certain coterie of would-be artistic souls, whose talents ran more into words than into action. They admired each other aloud, and themselves with a silent adoration wonderful to behold. Most of them possessed sufficient means to live an idle, self-indulgent life in a small way. Such pleasures as they could not afford were conveniently voted unprofitable and earthly. They hung upon the outskirts of the best society, and were past-masters in the art of confusing the terms “having met” and “knowing” as applied to living celebrities. Among them were artists who had never exhibited a picture, authors who had never sold a book, and singers who had never faced an audience. The vulgar crowd failed to appreciate them, and those who painted and sold, wrote and published, sang and made money, tolerantly laughed at them. Hicks was clever enough to know that his mind was in reality of a slightly superior order, and weak enough to value its superiority much more highly than it deserved. He was undoubtedly a clever fellow in his way, but a moderate income and a doting mother had combined to kill in him that modicum of ambition which is required to make men push forward continuously in the race of life. Had he been compelled to work for his daily bread, he might have been saved from the clutches of London society; but as a rising young artist, with pleasant manners and some social accomplishments, he was received with open arms, and succumbed to the enervating round of so-called pleasure. He continued to be “rising,” but never rose.

Hicks did not confess deliberately to himself that he was in love with Brenda Gilholme, but he made no pretence of ignoring the fact that she occupied in his thoughts a place quite apart. He respected her, and in that lay the great difference. The unkempt and strangely-attired damsels who were pleased to throw themselves mentally at his feet were not such as command respect. In his heart he despised them a little; for contempt is invariably incurred by affectation of any description.

And so each went on his way⁠—the idle soldier, the vain artist, and the absorbed journalist, each framing his life for good or evil⁠—pressing upward, or shuffling down, according to his bent; each, no doubt, peering ahead, as sailors peer through rime and mist, striving to penetrate the blessed veil drawn across the future. Ah! Let us, my brothers, thank God that, despite necromancer, astrologer, thought-reader, or chiromancer, we know absolutely nothing of what is waiting for us in the years to come. Could we raise that veil, life would be hell. Could we see the end of all our aims, our ambitions, our hopes, and our “long, long thoughts,” there would be few of us courageous enough to go on with this strange experiment called human existence. Could we see the end, no faith, no dogma, no fanaticism even, would have power to prevent us questioning the existence of the Almighty, because we could never reconcile the beginning to that end. The question would rise before us continuously: “If such was to be the end, why was the beginning made?” And turn this question as you will, explain it as you may, it is ever a question. The only safeguard is suppression. The question is not asked because life is so slow that the beginning is almost forgotten in the climax; and while we live through the earlier chapters, the last volume is inexorably closed.

About ten o’clock on the evening of the third day after the meeting with Captain Huston, William Hicks entered a large and crowded ballroom with his usual pleasant condescension.

The dance was of a semi-parliamentary character, and although the society papers were pleased to announce that all the “best” people were out of town, there was a crowd of well-dressed men and women round the door when Hicks made his appearance. There were many greetings to be exchanged, a few diplomatic dances to be asked for, and then the artist leisurely stroked his golden moustache as he looked critically round the room.

His smiling face contracted into gravity for a moment, and it was only after a pause that he continued his investigations.

“Trist!” he murmured to himself. “Trist here? What is the meaning of that? Is it war, I wonder? Or is Brenda coming? I will find out.”

Presently he moved away, and after some time joined a group of grave-faced elderly men, among whom Theo Trist was standing. There were politicians among these gentlemen, and several faces were of a distinctly foreign type, while more than one language could be heard. Hicks looked a trifle out of his element amidst such surroundings, and the foreign languages troubled him. No one looked towards him invitingly⁠—not even Trist, who was talking with a broad-shouldered little man with a large head, and a peculiar listless manner which stamped him as an Oriental. Hicks did not even know what language they were speaking. It was not European in sound or intonation. Here and there he caught a word or a name.

Once he heard Trist mention the name of a Russian general then scarcely known. Though the pronunciation was rather different from that of most Englishmen, Hicks recognised the word “Skobeleff,” and, glancing towards the smaller man, he saw upon his long, mournful features a singular look of uneasiness.

There was something fascinating about the man’s face which attracted the artist’s attention, and he stood gazing with a greater fixity than is usually considered polite. Without looking towards him, the Oriental was evidently aware of his attention, for he spoke to Trist, who turned with deliberate curiosity.

“Ah, Hicks!” he said, “how do you do?”

Then he turned again to his unemotional companion and made a remark, which was received apathetically.

Hicks had not wished to make his advent so prominent. It now appeared as if he had sought out Trist for some special purpose, to make some important communication which could not brook delay.

Trist evidently read his action thus, for he left the group of statesmen and joined him. Hicks was equal to the occasion.

“You remember,” he said confidentially, as he touched his companion’s sleeve and they walked down the room together⁠—“you remember what I once told you about the Hustons?”

Trist’s meek eyes rested upon the speaker’s face with a persistence which was not encouraging to idle gossip.

“The night I left for Serbia?” he inquired.

Hicks nodded his head.

“Yes. I remember.”

The artist paused, and his gloved fingers sought the beauteous moustache. Trist’s calm eyes were not easy to meet. They were so unconsciously scrutinizing.

“Well, I saw Huston the other day,” he said at length. “He has not improved in appearance. In fact, I should say that there is some truth in the story I repeated to you.”

There was no encouragement forthcoming, but Hicks was not lacking in assurance. He was a true son of the pavement⁠—that is to say, an individual radical. His opinion was, in his own mind, worth that of Theodore Trist.

“There are,” he continued, “other stories going about at present. Do you not think⁠ ⁠… Trist⁠ ⁠… —I mean, had we not better, for Brenda’s sake, settle upon a certain version of the matter and stick to it? You and I, old fellow, are looked upon by the general world as something more than ordinary friends of Alice and Brenda. Mrs. Wylie is not going out just now. They have no one to stick up for them, except us. If you know more than you care to confess, I am sorry if I am forcing your hand.⁠ ⁠…”

He paused again, and again his companion preserved that calm non-committing silence which he knew so well how to assume. He held a hand which could not have been forced by a player possessing ten times the power and ten times the cunning of William Hicks.

“But, Trist, I know what the London world is. Something must be done.”

Trist shrugged his shoulders imperceptibly.

“Silence,” continued Hicks significantly, “in this case would be a mistake. I don’t mind⁠ ⁠… your knowing that it is not from mere curiosity that I am doing this. Brenda⁠ ⁠… I want to save⁠ ⁠… her⁠ ⁠… from anything unpleasant.”

At this point Trist appeared to relent. It was not until afterwards that Hicks realized that he had learnt absolutely nothing from him.

“What do you think ought to be done?” he asked gently.

The question remained unanswered for some time, and then it was only met by another.

“Is Brenda coming tonight?”

“Yes.”

“And Alice?”

“No.”

They walked through the brilliant rooms together, each wondering what lay behind the eyes of the other, each striving to penetrate the thoughts of the other, to divine his motives, to reach his heart.

“I really think,” said Hicks at length, “that it rests with you. You must say what is to be done, what story is to be told, what farce is to be acted. It seems to me that you know more about it than I do. Somehow I have lately dropped out of Mrs. Wylie’s confidence, and⁠ ⁠… and Brenda has not spoken to me about her sister.”

“But,” said Trist, “I know nothing of what you refer to as the common gossip of⁠ ⁠… of all these.”

He indicated the assembled multitude with a gesture which was scarcely complimentary. Hicks looked uncomfortable, and bit his red lip nervously.

“Don’t be hard on us,” he pleaded with an unnatural laugh. “I am one of them.”

“Tell me,” said Trist with a sudden gravity of manner, “… tell me what they are saying.”

“Well⁠ ⁠… it is hardly fair to ask me.”

“Why?”

“Because you will not thank me for having told you. We⁠ ⁠… we don’t, as a rule, give the benefit of the doubt, you know.”

The elder man turned and looked at his companion with a slow smile.

“My dear Hicks,” he said, “it is many years since I gave up caring what the world might say, or expecting the benefit of the doubt.”

“For yourself?”

“Yes; for myself. What do you mean?”

“I mean that they are not giving Alice the benefit of the doubt either.”

They happened just then to be near two chairs placed invitingly within an alcove by a softhearted hostess who had not yet forgotten her flirting-days.

“Let us sit down,” said Trist, indicating these chairs.

“Now,” he continued in a calm voice when they were seated, “tell me what the world is saying about Alice.”

Hicks was not devoid of a certain moral courage, and for once in his life he was actuated by a motive which was not entirely selfish.

“They say,” he answered boldly, “that she ran away from her husband to join you.”

To some natures there is a vague enjoyment in imparting bad news, and the dramatic points in this conversation were by no means lost to William Hicks, who was a born actor. His listener, however, received the news without the slightest indication of surprise or annoyance. He merely nodded his head and murmured:

“Yes; what else?”

“Oh⁠ ⁠… nothing much⁠—nothing, at least, that I have heard, except that Huston was supposed to have followed her home and caught her just in time. He is also said to have announced his intention of shooting you at the first convenient opportunity.”

Hicks ceased speaking, and waited for some exclamation of disgust, some heated denial or indignant proof of the utter falseness of the accusations made against Alice Huston. None of these was forthcoming. Theo Trist merely indicated his comprehension of the cruel words, and sat thinking. Beneath that calm exterior the man’s brain was very busy, and as he raised his head with a slight pensive frown Hicks recognised for the first time the resemblance to the great Corsican which was currently attributed to the war-correspondent.

“Suppose,” said Trist at length, “suppose that I were to walk arm-in-arm into this room with Huston. Would that do?”

“Can you manage it?” inquired the artist incredulously.

“I think so; if I can only find him. Suppose Huston were to dance with Brenda, and we were all to give it out that Alice is staying with her father in Cheltenham or somewhere.”

Hicks’ first inclination was towards laughter. The proposal was made so simply and so readily that the whole affair appeared for a moment merely ludicrous.

“Yes,” he said vaguely; “that will do; that will do very well. But⁠ ⁠… is Huston invited?”

“I will manage that.”

There was a peaceful sense of capability about this man before which all obstacles seemed to crumble away. Hicks felt slightly dissatisfied. His own part was too small in this social comedy. The conduct of Brenda’s affairs was slipping from his grasp, and yet he could do nothing but submit. Trist had unconsciously taken command, and when command is unconscious it is also arbitrary.

“I will go now and bring Huston,” he added presently, and without further words left his seat.

Hicks caressed the golden moustache, and watched him as he moved easily through the gay, heedless throng⁠—a sturdy, strong young figure, full of manhood, full of purpose, the absurdly meek eyes shunning rather than seeking the many glances of recognition that met him on his way.

He went up to his hostess, and with her came apparently straight to the point, for Hicks saw the lady listen attentively and then acquiesce with a ready smile.

Nearly half an hour elapsed before Brenda arrived. She was one of a large party, and her programme had been in other hands before Hicks became possessed of it. He glanced keenly down the column of hieroglyphics. The initials were all genuine, but three dances had been kept by a little cross carefully inserted. Hicks obtained two waltzes, and returned the card with his usual self-satisfied smile. He knew that Brenda expected Trist, although she was not looking round as if in search of anybody. But he was fully convinced that there was some mystery on foot. One dance, he had observed, which was marked with a cross, was a square. Trist and Brenda had met by appointment⁠—not as young men meet maidens every night in the year at dances for purposes of flirtation, or the more serious pastime of lovemaking, but to discuss some point of mutual interest.

As a rival Hicks had no fear of Theodore Trist, who, he argued, was a very fine fellow in his way, but quite without social accomplishments. He was a good dancer⁠—that point he generously admitted⁠—but beyond that he had nothing to recommend him in the eyes of a clever and experienced girl like Brenda, who had had the advantages of association with some of the most talented men of her day, and intimacy with himself, William Hicks. There was only that trivial matter of athletic and muscular superiority, which really carried no great weight with a refined womanly intellect. In a ballroom Theodore Trist, with his brown, grave face, his absorbed eyes, and his sturdy form, was distinctly out of place. He had not even a white waistcoat, wore three studs in the front of his shirt, and sometimes even forgot to sport a flower in his coat. His very virtues (of an old fashion), such as steadfastness, truth, and honesty, prevented him from shining in society. Fortunately, however, for his own happiness he was without vanity, and therefore unconscious of his own shortcomings. It is just within the scope of possibility that he was moved by no ambition to shine in society.

While the first bars of the waltz were in progress, Hicks found Brenda. He had little difficulty in doing so, because he had been watching her. Moreover, she was dressed in black, which was a rare attire in that room. In choosing this sombre garb she had made no mistake; the style suited exactly her slim, strong young form, and in contrast her neck and arms were dazzling in their whiteness.

They began dancing at once, and Hicks was conscious that there was no couple in the room so perfectly harmonious in movement, so skilled, so intensely refined.

“Trist,” he said presently in a confidential way, “has been here.”

“Indeed!” was the guarded reply, made with pleasant indifference.

“Yes⁠ ⁠… Brenda, he and I had a little talk, and, in consequence, he will be absent for some time, but he is coming back.”

“What,” she inquired calmly, “did you talk about?”

All this time they were dancing, smoothly and with the indefatigable rhythm of skilled feet.

“It has come to my knowledge,” he replied, “that gossip has connected the names of Alice and Trist, and there are foolish stories going about concerning Huston, who is said to be searching for Trist with the intention of shooting him. Trist has gone to bring Huston here; they will come into the room arm-in-arm. We arranged it, and I think no further contradiction is required.”

Had she winced he would have been aware of it, because his arm was round her yielding waist, and her hand was within his. She turned her head slightly as if to assist him in steering successfully through a narrow place; and he, glancing down, saw that her face was as white as marble, but her step never faltered. She drew a deep unsteady breath, and spoke in a grateful voice.

“It is very good of you⁠ ⁠… both,” she said simply.

They continued dancing for some time before the silence was again broken.

“Some day, Brenda,” whispered Hicks, while preserving with immaculate skill an indifferent face before the world, “I will tell you why I was forced to interfere even at the risk of displeasing you. Some other time, not now.”

A peculiar contraction seemed to pass over her face, and it was only with an effort that she smiled while acknowledging a passing bow from a girl-acquaintance.

Soon afterwards she began talking cheerily on a safer subject; and despite all his experience, all his cleverness, William Hicks could not bring the conversation round again to the topic she had shelved.

Her spirits seemed to rise as the evening progressed. There was a task before her, the dimensions of which were soon apparent. Almost everyone in the room had heard something of Alice, and the only contradiction possible, until Trist and Huston arrived, lay in the brave carriage of a cheerful face before them all.

There was a clock upon the mantelpiece of a small room where refreshments were set forth, and the merits of this secluded retreat were retailed by her to more than one of her partners. The pointers of the dainty timepiece seemed to crawl⁠—once or twice she listened for the beat of the pendulum. Midnight came, and one o’clock. Still there was no sign of Theodore Trist. At two o’clock her chaperon suggested going home, and Brenda was compelled to apologize laughingly to several grumbling young men, who attempted to cut off her retreat at the door.

The spacious hall was full of departing guests; through the open door came the hoarse confusing shouts of policemen and footmen. Brenda pressed her hands together beneath her opera-cloak and shivered.

Theodore Trist never returned, and his absence passed unnoticed by all except William Hicks, who waited till the end.

Theodore Trist did not attempt to blind himself as to the difficulties attending his strange undertaking, but he was prepared to face them courageously.

“If,” he said to himself, “I can only find him⁠ ⁠… sober⁠ ⁠… I will manage the rest.”

Without doubt this silent man was ready to speak at last⁠—to tear aside the veil of reserve, behind which he was wont to take refuge. And this to the eyes of Alice Huston’s husband. His was a nature capable of immense self-sacrifice, and to this capability had been added an almost exaggerated sense of discipline. That which he thought right he would probably do⁠—not on the spur of the moment, but with deliberate purpose, and without fear of subsequent regret.

As has been mentioned, he was never under the influence of sudden enthusiasm; and, as a rule, his errors arose more from too great conscientiousness in setting both sides of a question equally before his own judgment than from rash partisanship.

Even as he passed down the broad staircase, against a stream of gaily-dressed guests, he was mentally apologizing to Hicks for having harboured a vague feeling of dislike against him. If there had been any distinct motive for this dislike, he would never have withdrawn it, but he recognised that it was without ground. Hicks was not a man after his own heart; he was neither a sportsman nor a soldier⁠—in fact, he was what is euphoniously called a “muff”; but these charges were merely negative in their bearing. Mrs. Wylie might have told him that he had come into closer familiarity with Hicks at a propitious moment, when the young artist was finding his own level and laying aside unconsciously his small affectations one by one, but of this Trist had no suspicion.

He called a hansom, and drove to the club of which the books showed a subscription as due from Captain Huston. In return for this privilege its doors were still thrown open to the disgraced soldier. Careful inquiries at the door elicited the information that Huston had been there.

“He was took⁠ ⁠… he went away with a friend a good half-hour ago, sir,” the porter added, with a curious smile.

The smile did not escape the questioner’s glance, and, in consequence of it, Trist went upstairs to the smoking-room. He was not a member of the club, but his name was a power in military circles.

The information he gathered from friends upstairs was not of an encouraging nature. One young blade, with downy lip and weak, dissipated eyes, volunteered the statement that Huston had gone home to his diggings as tight as a drum. This news was apparently of an hilarious drift, because the youthful speaker finished with a roar of throaty laughter. An older man looked up over his evening paper, and nodded a grave acquiescence in reply to Trist’s raised eyebrows.

“Does anybody know his address?” inquired the correspondent.

Nobody did.

Upon inquiry at the door, Trist made the discovery that the porter had fortunately been asked to give the direction to the driver of the cab in which Huston had been taken away. The address was one hardly known to the war-correspondent⁠—a small street, leading out of another small street, near the Strand.

In his calm way he suddenly determined to follow Huston. He lighted a cigar at the spirit-lamp affixed to the doorpost, and then called a cab.

“I am not,” he reflected with some truth as he descended the steps, “I am not an imaginative person, nor very highly strung; but.⁠ ⁠… I feel⁠ ⁠… somehow⁠ ⁠… as if something were going to happen.”

There was a considerable delay in the Strand, where the traffic was much congested owing to the outpouring theatres. A fog was hovering round the lamps already, and would soon envelop everything. The first keen frost of the season was at hand, with its usual disastrous effects to London lungs. Amidst the confusion, the roar of traffic, the deafening shouts of drivers, policemen, and runners with latest editions of evening papers, Trist sat forward, with his arms upon the closed door of the hansom, and enjoyed his cigar. All this rush of life and confusion of humanity thrilled him. He almost felt as if he were at work again, making his way to the front through the wild melee of a disorganized and retreating army; cavalry and infantry, baggage and artillery, all hopelessly intermingled. As he progressed he noted with admiration the cool skill of the policemen, each man alone acting on his own responsibility, and yet connected by the invisible links of discipline.

At length the driver escaped into a narrow street, and, turning sharply to the right, drew up before a tall narrow house, bearing, on a dingy lamp above the door, the legend “No. 32, Private Hotel.” A hopeless waiter, with shuffling shoes and a shirtfront of uncertain antecedents, answered the summons of a melancholy bell, which seemed to tinkle under strong protest, and as briefly as possible.

“Captain Huston living here?” inquired Trist.

“Yess’r. Er you the doctor?”

The war-correspondent hesitated for a moment. Then he stepped into the narrow hall.

“Yes,” he said.

“ ’E’s got it bad this time, sir,” volunteered the waiter, with melancholy effusion.

“What?”

“D.T., sir.”

Trist nodded his head shortly, and laid aside his hat.

“Take me to his room, please,” he said.

The waiter shuffled on in front, and the young fellow followed him up the dingy stairs, walking lightly where the polished knots of pinewood peeped through the clammy oilcloth.

And now, reader mine, on the threshold of the drunkard’s room let us understand each other. I am not going to take you across the boundary. The door will, with your permission, remain closed. There are certain things in life which are better left unstudied⁠—certain dirty corners where the dust lies thickly. It is better to let it accumulate. Some of us have seen these things; some foot has been across the threshold; but this is no realistic novel; and in life, as in a story, there are details which (however powerful in themselves) in no way help forward the narrative or beautify the narration. There is assuredly nothing to be gained by dredging human nature. As a man, the present writer is influenced by a strong esprit de corps. It is not his wish to trample upon fallen human nature. We are not what we ought to be, but there is nothing to be gained by flaunting the seamy side before the world. This volume may fall into the hands of some young woman, or some youth to whom man is still something of an ideal. God forbid that any word of mine should dispel illusions which, though they be but hollow, are at least joyous.

Therefore we will let Theodore Trist enter that room alone. His walk in life had not been in the flowery part of the garden, but through the rougher growths, where good is sometimes hidden beneath a hideous exterior, and he knew already how slight a division there is between man and brute. Any battlefield would have taught him that.

The doctor came, and stayed longer than he could conscientiously spare out of his busy life. It was half-past one o’clock in the morning before he went away, leaving Trist alone with Huston, to whom sleep had come at last. Before leaving he promised, however, to send an experienced nurse.

The war-correspondent sat in a deep leather-covered armchair before the smouldering fire, contemplating his own shoes. A man of many resources, he had found himself in many strange situations during his short thirty years. He had made the best of more than one awkward dilemma by going straight ahead in his patient, steady way. He listened to the stertorous breathing of the sick man, and never thought of his own fatigue. There was no suggestion of complaint in his mind that his evening of pleasure should have had such an unpleasant finish. He did not even look at his own dress-clothes contrasting with the dingy surroundings, and appreciate the dramatic force of it all as Hicks might have done. It was merely an incident in his life, another opportunity to exercise for his own satisfaction that power of adaptability to environment which was in reality his chief aid to success in the peculiar surroundings of his varied life.

The nurse could scarcely be expected for half an hour or so, and there was nothing else to do but keep faithfully the watch that was his in the meantime. It was rather strange that Trist should have saved twice within a month the worthless life of this man who had done his best to throw it away. As has already been stated, this student of Death had his own views upon the worth of human life⁠—a semi-Oriental philosophy which would not bear setting forth here in black and white to sensitive Western minds. There is no doubt that familiarity with death breeds a contempt for life. I cannot explain this, but it is so. Doctors and soldiers have a different view of human life from that held by the rest of mankind; but there is something in us which is stronger than the strongest views⁠—namely, the instinct of preserving life. Theodore Trist knew that the miserable existence to which was attached the name Alfred Huston was in every way valueless. To its possessor it was a source of wretchedness, a constant struggle against the overpowering odds of evil. To others his death would be a mercy. He knew this; he valued his life lightly⁠—and yet he staved off this death twice.

As he sat and thought over these things, the firelight flickered rosily upon his face; it gleamed in his womanly eyes, glowed upon his broad high forehead. He was quite absorbed in his reflections, and never glanced towards the bed which was within the deep crimson shadow. He judged from the heavy respiration that Huston was asleep; in this, however, he was mistaken. The ex-soldier lay on his back, but his face was turned towards the fire, and his bloodshot eyes were wide open. His lips moved restlessly, but no sound came from them beyond the strong indrawing of the sodden air. His wavering glance wandered from Trist’s head to his feet, restless and full of an insatiable hatred. Upon the dirty white coverlet his fingers moved convulsively, as if clutching and losing hold of something by turns.

It was a terrible picture, and one that could not fail to arouse in thoughtful minds a hopeless sense of despair. No one could look on it and say that human life is a success. We may paint the good points as brilliantly as we like, slur over the misery as quickly as we can, but, my brothers and sisters, the fact remains that we, as a race, are an utter failure.

Presently there was a soft knock at the front-door, and Trist rose from his chair. His watch was over; the hospital nurse had arrived, with her soft brave eyes, her quick, fearless fingers. As he left the room, Trist turned and glanced towards the bed. Huston lay there with closed eyes, unnaturally still.

Then the war-correspondent left the room on tiptoe. No sooner had the door closed than the sick man’s eyes opened. There was a peculiar shifty light in the expanded pupils, and the man’s horrible lips moved continuously. He sat up in bed.

“Ah!” he mumbled thickly; “I know him. That’s the man⁠ ⁠… that’s the man who’s in love with my wife.”

The fire rose and fell with merry crackle⁠—for Trist had drawn the coals together noiselessly before leaving the room⁠—and in the semidarkness a strange unsteady form moved to and fro.

“I know him,” mumbled the horrible voice, “and⁠ ⁠… I’m going to shoot him.”

There was a slight sound as if a drawer were being searched in a table or piece of furniture which was not quite firm upon its base, and a moment later the door was opened without noise. In the passage a single jet of gas burnt mournfully, and threw a flood of light through the open doorway.

Upon the threshold stood Huston, quaking and swaying from side to side. In his trembling fingers he held a large Colt’s revolver of the cavalry pattern. The tips of the conical bullets peeped from the chambers threateningly. His clumsy hands were fumbling with the hammer, which was stiff and deeply sunk within the lock; the light was bad. He raised the pistol closer to his swimming eyes, and the barrel, gleaming blue and brown alternately, wavered in the air.

“D⁠⸺⁠n the thing!” he muttered hoarsely.

The next instant there was a terrific report through the silent house.

A moment later Trist and the nurse were at the head of the stairs; they had raced up side by side. The woman seized a worn sheepskin mat that lay at the door of an empty bedroom, and, drawing her skirts aside, knelt down and raised the mutilated face.

“Don’t let it run on the floor,” she gasped, “it is so horrible!”

They were both old hands and callous enough to be very quick. By the time that the startled household was aroused, the dead man (for the great bullet had passed right through his brain) was laid upon his bed, and Trist had already gone for the doctor.

“No one must go in,” said the nurse, standing upon the threshold and barring the way. “He is dead. There is nothing to be done. Wait until the doctor comes.”

Presently Trist returned, bringing with him the surgeon and a police-inspector. They all went into the room together and closed the door. Trist turned up the gas and watched the movements of the surgeon, who was already at the bedside.

“Where is the bullet?” asked the inspector.

“In the woodwork of the door,” answered Trist.

The doctor left the bedside and came into the middle of the room, standing upon the hearthrug with his back towards the fire.

“I should be of opinion,” he said, “that it was an accident.”

The inspector nodded his head, and looked from the nurse to Trist.

“Does anybody,” he asked, “know who he is, or anything about him?”

“I know who he is and all about him,” answered the war-correspondent.

Notebook in hand, the inspector glanced keenly at the speaker.

“And⁠ ⁠… who are⁠ ⁠… you?” he asked, writing.

“Theodore Trist.”

“Ah!” murmured the doctor.

The inspector drew himself up and continued writing.

“Do you know, sir, what he was doing with the pistol? Had he any intention of using it upon himself or upon any other?”

Trist looked at his questioner calmly.

“I do not know,” he answered.

Like one in a dream Theodore Trist passed out into the narrow street somewhat later. It was nearly three o’clock in the morning; the ball was scarcely over, and yet to this unimaginative man it seemed ages since he had spoken with William Hicks, listening in a vague way to the swinging waltz music all the while. When he reached his quiet rooms, he was almost startled at the sight of his own dress-clothes, spotless shirtfront, and unobtrusive flower. He had quite forgotten that these garments of pleasure were beneath his overcoat. His night’s work had not been in keeping with dress-clothes.

“I will think,” he said to himself, “how it is to be broken to everybody tomorrow.” And with great serenity he went to bed.

Sleep soon came to him despite the incidents crowded into the last few hours. It is a habit with some people to lie awake at night and ponder over their woes. They regard this as a solemn duty, a homage to be paid to the Goddess of Tears; and they never fail to mention their melancholy vigil to someone or other more or less connected with the trouble next morning. It is merely habit, and of no more value than the custom of mentioning with lowered voice the name of one who had been dead twenty years, and whose memory can after that space of time assuredly be awakened without such poignant grief as is considered its due.

Trist was not one of these. He valued human life at no very great price, and as (after all has been said and done, believed and repudiated) Death is the greatest sorrow we have to face, he was perhaps a little callous. He made no pretence of disguising the fact that Captain Huston’s sudden, and what is usually denominated “shocking,” demise was little short of a release for all concerned with his existence; and he did not even fall into the common error of looking upon all past sins as cleansed away by the very ordinary and easy method of terminating their career. It is just as well for some of us, methinks, that the good old Egyptian custom, of inscribing upon the lid or side of our sarcophagus a full and authentic history of the life terminating therein, has died out. They had a nasty habit too, those tactless ancients, of sculpturing a speaking likeness upon the lid, or erecting a statue near at hand, so that at the Great Judgment the wandering soul could single out without trouble its rightful body.

Death, however sudden, could not in those days endow with many virtues, many charms, and great personal comeliness, as it endows us now. I sometimes think of those old Egyptian spirits with a gentle sympathy. How disappointed some of them will be when they stand face to face with the true likeness of the body in which they played out their brief innings three thousand years ago! When, too, they read the uncompromising hieroglyphs, there will be unpleasant awakenings and perhaps a little scoffing from those who have drawn cleaner sarcophagi.

So Trist slept peacefully, with a philosophic reflection that Huston would never have done much good in the world. The present writer once heard a man, in all sincerity and all faith, console himself with the thought that if he was not fit to die, the probabilities were that he never would be fitter. This philosopher was a godless sailor, and he made the remark in answer to a chaffing observation advanced by a more fortunate mate that he would certainly be drowned because he possessed no life-belt. The ship was sinking, the boats were smashed, and there were other things to do just then than weigh this philosophy in the scales of reason; but having more leisure at a later period, I came to think over it, and have come to the conclusion that there was much within that reflection that is worth consideration. Let us, however, avoid the quicksands of a theological controversy.

It has not hitherto been mentioned that Mrs. Wylie possessed one or two vices of a comparatively harmless description. The most prominent of these was unpunctuality at the breakfast-table. This is a most comfortable vice, and quite in keeping with the placid and easygoing nature of the lady. The best woman I have ever known is invariably late for breakfast; her hair is white now, but long may she continue arriving after time! There is someone else who is most lamentably unpunctual any time before ten o’clock antemeridian. She is not a woman yet, but she has begun well. I may mention that I do not at all object to pouring out my own coffee.

Brenda, being of a more active nature, was usually down first, and the fact of having been out to a ball the night before rarely acted as a deterrent. It thus came about that she was alone at the breakfast-table when Trist was announced. It was a dainty, womanly little meal set out on the snowy cloth, and as yet untouched. Brenda was in the act of opening the newspaper when Trist entered the room. She did not remember until afterwards that, as he shook hands, he took the journal from her and laid it aside. Perhaps she noted the action at the time, but he was never in the habit of acting just like other men, and the peculiarity of this little movement did not strike her sufficiently to remain upon her memory as a distinct incident.

“Ah!” she said gaily; “you think it prudent to strike while the iron is hot -I being the iron. I am not red-hot, but quite warm enough to be unpleasant, and just too hard to be struck. Please explain why you never claimed the three dances you asked me to keep?”

Trist smiled in his gravest way⁠—a mere reflection of her bright gaiety.

“That is what I came to explain,” he said.

He passed her standing at the table, and went towards the fire. There he drew off his gloves in a peculiarly thoughtful manner.

“Theo,” said Brenda, “have you had breakfast?”

“Yes, thanks!”

His manner was habitually misleading, and it was quite impossible for her to see that he had bad news to impart. His strong, purposeful hands were always steady, which is somewhat exceptional; for the fingers betray emotion when the eyes are dumb.

“Rather,” she continued lightly, “than break my faith to you, I planted myself, so to speak, among the wallflowers, where I was content to bloom in solitude.”

“Through the whole dance?” he asked meaningly.

“Well⁠ ⁠… not quite. When I was satisfied that you were not there, I danced with someone else.”

He smiled, and said nothing.

Brenda moved one or two things upon the breakfast-table⁠—things which in no way required moving. For the first time in her life she was beginning to feel ill at ease with this man. For the first time she dreaded vaguely to hear him speak, because she was not sure that he was at ease himself.

At last he began, and there was a strained thrill in his voice as if it were an effort to open his lips.

“It has been my⁠ ⁠… fate⁠ ⁠… Brenda, to be with you or near you during most of the incidents in your life⁠ ⁠…” here he paused.

“Yes,” she murmured unsteadily.

“I have,” he continued, “perhaps, been of some small use to you. I have been happy enough at times to tell you good news, and⁠ ⁠… and once or twice I have been the messenger of evil.⁠ ⁠… Now⁠ ⁠…”

“Now,” interrupted Brenda suddenly, as she came towards him, for a light had broken upon her⁠—“now you have bad news, Theo? Surely you are not afraid of telling it to me!”

“I don’t exactly know,” he answered slowly, laying his hand upon the white fingers resting on his sleeve, “whether it is good news or bad. Huston is dead!”

She had continued smiling bravely into his eyes until the last words were spoken, then suddenly she turned her face away. He watched the colour fade from her cheek, slowly sinking downward until her throat was like marble. Then she withdrew her hand deliberately from his touch, as if there had been evil in it. After a moment she turned again and looked keenly at him with wondering, horror-struck eyes.

“Then,” she murmured monotonously, “Alice is⁠ ⁠… a widow.”

It was a strange thing to say, and she had no definite conception of the train of thought prompting the remark. He looked at her in a curious, puzzled way, like a man who is near a truth, but fears to prove his proximity.

“Does she know?” she asked suddenly, rousing herself to the necessity of prompt action.

“No. I have not your aunt’s address in Cheltenham.”

Brenda looked at the clock upon the mantelpiece, a reliable mechanism, which kept remarkable time considering its feminine environments.

“Mrs. Wylie will be here in a moment; we will then consider about the telegram. In the meantime⁠ ⁠… tell me when it happened, and how?”

“It happened at two o’clock this morning⁠ ⁠… suddenly.”

Brenda looked up at the last word, although it was spoken quite gently.

“Suddenly⁠ ⁠… ?”

“Yes. It⁠ ⁠… he shot himself with a revolver⁠ ⁠… by accident!”

The man’s gentle inscrutable eyes fell before Brenda’s gaze. He moved uneasily, and turned away, apparently much interested in the ornaments upon the mantelpiece.

“Were you present at the time?”

“No. I was downstairs. He was in his bedroom.”

“Tell me,” said the girl mechanically, “what was he doing with the revolver?”

Trist turned slowly and faced her. There was no hesitation in his glance now; his eyes looked straight into hers with a deliberate calm meaning. Then he shrugged his shoulders.

“Who knows?” he murmured, still watching her face.

There flitted across his features the mere ghost of a deprecating smile, which was answered somewhat wanly by her. Women, I have observed, never laugh at danger as men do. They are indifferent to it, or they dread it undisguisedly, but they do not at any time despise it.

When at length Brenda turned away she pressed her lips together as if to moisten them, and there was a convulsive movement in her throat. They understood each other thoroughly.

“There will, of course,” said Trist presently, “be an inquest. It is, however, quite clear that, being left for a moment alone, he rose from his bed in a fit of temporary insanity, and having possessed himself of a revolver (possibly for suicidal purposes), he shot himself by accident.”

Brenda had crossed the room to the window, where she stood with her back towards her companion.

“Yes!” she murmured absently.

She was swaying a little from side to side, and her face was raised in an unnatural way. Trist stood upon the hearthrug, with his elbow resting on the mantelpiece. He was watching her attentively.

“I have,” he said somewhat hastily, as if it were an afterthought, “some influence with the newspapers.”

Of this she took absolutely no notice. It would appear that she had not heard his voice. Then Trist moved restlessly. After a moment’s hesitation he lifted his arm from the mantelpiece with the apparent intention of going towards her. He even made two or three steps in that direction⁠—steps that were inaudible, for his tread was singularly light. Then the door opened, and Mrs. Wylie came into the room.

“Theo!” said the lady, with rather less surprise than might have been expected.

In a moment she had perceived that there was something wrong. The very atmosphere of the room was tense. These two strong young people had either been quarrelling or making love. Of that Mrs. Wylie was certain. Her entrance had perhaps been malapropos; but she could not go back now. Moreover, she was the sort of woman who never errs in retreating. Her method of fighting the world was from a strong position calmly held, or by a steady sure advance.

“Good morning, Theo!” she said, with that deliberate cheeriness which is the deepest diplomacy. “This is an early visit. Have you come to discover the laziness of the land?”

“No,” answered Theo simply.

Then he turned and looked towards Brenda in a way which plainly said that she was expected to come forward into the breach he had effected.

Brenda came. Her face was not so grave as Trist’s, but her lips were colourless.

“Theo has come,” she said, “with bad news. We must telegraph to Alice at once. Alfred Huston had⁠ ⁠… an accident last night.”

“What?” inquired Mrs. Wylie, turning to Trist.

“He is dead⁠—he shot himself by accident,” replied the war-correspondent.

Mrs. Wylie stood for some moments in her comfortable, placid way, rubbing one smooth hand over the other. She did not appear to be looking anywhere in particular, but in reality no movement of Brenda’s, however slight, escaped her notice.

“And now,” she said, after a weary little sigh, “I suppose she will discover how much she loved him all along⁠ ⁠…”

Trist made a little movement, but the widow turned her calm gaze towards him, and spoke on, with a certain emphasis:

“Alice has in reality always loved Alfred Huston. This little misunderstanding would never have arisen had there not been love on both sides. I have known it all along. You can trust an old woman on such matters. This is a very, very sad ending to it all.”

“Yes,” assented Theo meekly; “it is very sad.”

Brenda had turned away. She was standing at the window in her favourite attitude there⁠—with her arms outstretched, her fingers resting on the broad windowsill among the ornamental fern-baskets and flowerpots.

Mrs. Wylie walked to the fireplace.

“Let me think,” she said, half to herself, “what must be done.”

She knew that Trist was watching her, waiting for his instructions in his emotionless, almost indifferent, way. (If it were not for a certain moral laziness in the male temperament, women would be able to do very little with men.) Then the widow met his gaze. She made a scarcely-perceptible movement towards the door with her eyelids. With a slight nod he signified his comprehension of the signal.

“I must,” he said, “go back now to⁠ ⁠… to Huston’s rooms. Will you communicate with Alice?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Wylie simply.

Without further explanation he went towards the door, glancing at Brenda as he passed. Mrs. Wylie followed him.

“We are better without you just now,” she whispered in the passage. “Write me full particulars, and wait to hear from me before you come back.”

When Mrs. Wylie returned to the breakfast-room, she found that Brenda was preparing to write. A blank telegram-form lay on the blotting-pad in readiness.

“We must telegraph to Alice,” she said briskly, as she dipped a quill pen into the ink. “What shall I say?”

Mrs. Wylie noticed the quill pen, and remembered that the girl never used anything but steel.

“Do not be in a hurry,” she urged rather coolly. “Let us think what is best to be done. Let us have some breakfast.”

“I don’t think I want any breakfast.”

“I am sure I do not, but I am going to eat some. Breakfast means nerve, Brenda, and we shall want all our nerve for the next few days.”

Reluctantly the girl took her place at the table. Her companion was relentless; moreover, she was aggravatingly placid, even to speculation.

“There are some lives,” she said, “which seem to be allowed as a warning and lesson to the rest of us. No doubt it is very instructive to the onlookers; but I am sometimes a little sorry for the examples themselves.”

Brenda looked up, and presently resumed her pretence of eating.

“I am afraid,” she said, “that his was not a very happy life. If he had the opportunity of living it over again⁠ ⁠… I doubt⁠ ⁠… whether he would accept it, I mean.”

“Oh,” returned the elder lady with remarkable conviction, “none of us would do that!”

Brenda showed no disposition to stray off into generalities.

“Did you,” she asked quietly, “really mean what you said just now about Alice? Is it your honest opinion that she loved Alfred Huston through it all?”

Mrs. Wylie sipped her tea meditatively.

“There are,” she answered after a pause, “… there are, I am afraid, some women who go through their lives without ever achieving the power of loving truly and wholly. It sometimes seems to me that Alice is one of them. They enjoy as others do, and they endure; but love is neither enjoyment nor endurance. It is a speciality, and the women who possess it (though they be called coquettes, flirts, wantons) are the salt of the earth. Alice came as near loving Alfred Huston as she will ever be to loving anyone beyond herself.”

“You think so?” in a curious monotone.

“Yes; I do.”

“I⁠ ⁠… don’t,” said Brenda.

“Ah! then you follow the majority, which, by the way, is composed of mere casual observers?”

“I do not know that I follow the majority; but I am of opinion that Alice has never loved Alfred Huston, because there was someone else.”

“That is following the majority,” observed Mrs. Wylie complacently.

“And,” continued the girl in a hard voice, “that other person is Theo Trist.”

“Majority,” murmured the widow sweetly.

“Even,” continued Brenda after a little pause, “if things are as you say, it is horribly sad, and there is no alleviation. It is very hard that Alice should only realize now that she loved him. The rest of her life will be⁠ ⁠… what will it be?”

“I believe,” answered the older woman, with that practical philosophy which seems to be a growth of years only, “that Alice loved him as much as lay in her nature. I am afraid, my dear, that your sister is incapable of a great and lasting passion, such as is usually considered desirable, although it invariably wrecks a life or two.”

“Very few people understand Alice.”

“And fewer still are ready to make her the slightest allowance. She began life with an initial mistake⁠—namely, that a beautiful girl can marry any man she may choose. This error is very widespread; but, my dear, I have never watched the career of a beautiful girl without discovering, sooner or later, that in reality her choice is remarkably small. After weeding out impossibilities, setting aside improbabilities, and getting rid of ballroom hacks, there are seldom more than two men left. If a girl, in the confidence of her own loveliness as vouched for by elderly bachelors and doting relatives, is pleased to consider that she can have any man she likes, let her try. The best men, the ideal husbands, are not to be fished for. They come of their own accord, or they stay away altogether.”

“I suppose,” said Brenda reflectively, “that she was spoilt by the circumstances attending her early life? Her popularity, I mean. But then people will say that a good nature is, or should be, beyond the reach of circumstances.”

“We cannot help,” replied the woman of the world, “what people say. In the meantime we must just make the best of things as they stand. Alice is in an awkward position, and it is clearly our duty to get her out of it as creditably as we can.”

“Of course. I am ready to do all I can.”

Mrs. Wylie rose from the table with her characteristic cheeriness. For some moments she appeared to be thinking, then she spoke:

“The best way out of it is for me to go down to Cheltenham and bring her back. There is a train about eleven o’clock; Alice herself went by it. We can be back by tonight⁠—about dinnertime, I should think, or a little later.”

To this suggestion Brenda acceded willingly enough. She was rather dazed by this sudden change in her sister’s affairs, and her usually clear intellect seemed almost benumbed. Her manner was similar to that of a woman labouring under intense anxiety, or a suspense more terrible than the most abject fear.

Before leaving Mrs. Wylie telegraphed to Trist, the message being kept from Brenda’s knowledge. She addressed it to his rooms in Jermyn Street, and without hesitation wrote the following words:

I am going to Cheltenham. Keep away from Brenda. Expect me in Jermyn Street eight o’clock tonight.

“I think,” she reflected, as her plump white hand pressed the blotting-paper, “that the time has really come when I must do something. These young people are verging on a terrible muddle⁠ ⁠… unless⁠ ⁠… unless Theo has some set plan of his own all along. I sometimes think he has. There must be a motive somewhere.”

As the good lady was descending the stairs at half-past ten on her way to Paddington Station, a commissionaire came toiling up. He carried a letter in his hand, and Mrs. Wylie, perceiving it, stopped him. It was a full account of the accident, written at a club near at hand by Theodore Trist.

By three o’clock that afternoon Alice Huston learnt her husband’s end. She received the news with a strange apathy. There were times in this woman’s life when the permanence of sorrow was shut out from her mind. She was like a child in the way in which she took the punishment God thought fit to administer. It seemed part of her mental laziness. She had not even the energy to resist, however useless such a course may be.

There was no time to be lost, and Mrs. Wylie insisted upon an immediate departure for town. The excuses put forward by Alice were trivial, or would have been considered trivial in another woman. They caught the train, however, and reached London at half-past seven. A long, weary drive in a rattling cab (such a vehicle as could not be found in any other city) brought them to Suffolk Mansions.

Brenda was at the door to meet them. She kissed her sister silently, and then followed the two ladies into the drawing-room. There was a cheery fire burning briskly in the grate; a single lamp with a pink shade had a wonderful effect in adding comfort to the appearance of the room.

Alice lifted her veil and looked round as if expecting to find someone there. Mrs. Wylie, near the fire, and Brenda, who was closing the door, were both watching her.

“I think,” she said wearily, “that Theo might have been here.”

Mrs. Wylie was hungry; perhaps she was also slightly irritated.

“Why?” she asked mercilessly.

Mrs. Huston unbuttoned her gloves speculatively, and, after a short pause, replied:

“Oh⁠ ⁠… I don’t know! I thought he would come, that was all.”

Mrs. Wylie made no pretence of concealing a somewhat impatient shrug of the shoulders.

“You are in your old room,” she said in a voice devoid of sympathy. “If you take off your bonnet we will have dinner at once. It will warm us up.”

Brenda conducted her sister to the bedroom assigned to her. They had not spoken yet, but the girl’s attitude was distinctly sympathetic in its bearing. Women have a silent way of telling us that their hearts are coming, as it were, towards us. I wonder, my brothers, what some of us would do without that voiceless sympathy⁠—without the gentle glance that penetrates and consoles at one time⁠—without the touch of certain fingers which, though light, is full of sweet heartfelt pleading to be allowed a share of the burden.

Brenda unpinned her sister’s veil, and, hovering round, volunteered here and there a quick and deft assistance.

“I wonder,” said the beautiful woman at length, with that touch of helplessness in her tone which would have been better reserved for male ears, “why I feel like a whipped child. I do not see that I am to blame because Alfred chose to be careless. Of course it was an accident.”

Brenda did not answer at once. Indeed, they were leaving the room when she said in a reassuring tone:

“Undoubtedly it was an accident.”

There was no mistaking the tone. Whatever Mrs. Huston’s faults may have been, she never sought undue credit; she never pretended to feel that which had no place in her heart. Her sins were those of omission rather than of commission. Despite Mrs. Wylie’s assurance to the contrary, Brenda knew then, and never afterwards doubted, that her sister’s love for her husband, if it had ever existed, was dead at the time of his sudden and untimely end.

As things go in these days, we can hardly blame this beautiful woman for having loved, and ceasing to love. It is only in novels of today and in records of ancient times that we meet with an enduring love. The fact is, we see too many of our fellow-creatures to be constant to a few. We drift together, and we drift apart again. We vow a little, perhaps, and protest that nothing shall divide; but presently the streams diverge. There is some little obstruction in the bed or pathway; the waters part, and never flow together again. We merrymakers dance here and we dance there; we run down into the country by an evening train; dine, dance, make love, and come to town at an early hour. The next night it is just as likely as not that we go off in some other direction with our dress-clothes in a bag and our hearts conspicuously on our sleeves “for one night only.”

It was all very well for those inconsistent old knights (strange combinations of poetry and brutality) to be faithful to the young person remaining at home for industrial purposes; it was very easy for the young person in question to think of none other than the youth who wore her colours ’twixt armour and heart. These people never saw other youths and other maidens. If I went to the Holy Land, I am confident that I should think only of a certain small person left behind; and, moreover, it is within the bounds of probability that if she had no tennis parties, bachelors’ balls, bazaars, and race-meetings, she would pine away her youth in thoughts of me, not to mention executing quite a quantity of unsightly needlework.

These reflections must, however, remain strictly between us. It would not do for the general public to get ear of them. Let us rather pound away at the good old doctrine of true love, following in the footsteps of romancers since the days of Solomon. Your hand, my brother! It is best to blind one’s self at times.

Brenda was a daughter of the nineteenth century, and as such conceived it possible that love can bloom and flourish in the human heart only to die utterly after all. Some of us there are, perhaps, who, having once loved, carry a small wound with us until the end of the chapter; but the majority have no time to look back too steadily. Most assuredly Alice Huston was not one of the former. I believe honestly that she loved her husband; but I am also convinced that before his death she had ceased to do so⁠—that the growth had died down utterly within her heart, leaving no trace, diffusing no odour, as it were, of better things.

The younger sister realized all this, but her blind affection for the woman whose existence had been so closely allied to her own made excuses and propounded explanatory theories as only a woman’s love can. There was in her mind an indefinite feeling of antagonism against the events of the last few months, but in her own heart she blamed Alfred Huston. She would not give way to the ever-growing conviction that her sister was not quite free from the taint of faultiness in thought or action.

In his inner life⁠—his domestic environments⁠—Theodore Trist was not a comfortable man. There are some who, possessing luxurious ways, seem to pass through the trials and petty woes of life with more comfort than others. This is, moreover, accomplished without the expenditure of greater means. Many are wanting in this power of alleviating crude environments, which, however, goes usually with a very small capability of adapting one’s self to circumstances.

Trist was essentially an adaptable fellow. He never seemed to notice that the sheet was shorter than the blanket, for instance. Nor did the fact affect his equanimity that he had to drink his tea without milk or sugar. It was not that he failed to perceive these things. His calling and his training alike made it necessary that he should. Nor was it that his mind was above such trifles; nothing was so small, so trivial, as to be beneath his attention. The fact was, that his mental and physical discipline was such that in recording hardship he had come to look upon it as an excuse for so much printed matter, a thing to write about, but of which it was useless to complain. He was an observer, not an autobiographer; he recorded the hardships of others, and spoke little of his own. On the Danube, and later in Plevna, they called him the “philosopher.”

It has been said that women possess the faculty of stamping upon the rooms in which they dwell the impress of their own individuality. Surely this power is not confined to the weaker sex alone. A man surrounds himself with little individualities as well. He is more individual in his characteristics and in his way of living. Why! no two men fill their pipes alike. Some there are who stuff the tobacco in hastily; others (the luxurious type) linger over the operation lovingly. The one has no sense of anticipatory enjoyment; the other is already enjoying his smoke before the pipe is lighted.

Theodore Trist’s room, in Jermyn Street, was very like himself. There was an indefinite feeling of readiness about it, as if at a moment’s notice it could be vacated, or turned into a bedroom or a meetinghouse. There were no curiosities lying about, no mementoes, no souvenirs of battlefield, no mysterious Eastern jewellery from poetic harems, such as lady-novelists tell us we who wander love to have about us when we loll in divans, and smoke narghilis at home in England. Looking round bedroom or sitting-room, one’s first feeling was a conviction that in ten minutes the dweller therein could remove all trace of himself and his belongings. In a word, the rooms were lamentably bare. It is a pity to have to record this, because no man in the fiction of the day, having travelled in foreign lands, is allowed to live afterwards like an English gentleman. It has been the good fortune of the present writer to meet some whose lives have been spent, as it were, in portmanteaus, under tents, and under the open sky; but never, except in ladies’ novels, has he met a globetrotter, a big game-hunter, or a wandering journalist, who, when in England, wears Turkish slippers, an Eastern bernouse-like gown, and no waistcoat. Such individuals are a race apart; and in some respects they resemble a pug-dog, who barks much and bites little. In the matter of travel, their imaginations wander farther afield than their slippered feet.

Trist’s readiness to depart at any moment was a literal fact, although he tried to disguise it. He rather prided himself upon the homelike appearance of his tobacco-scented sitting-room; but the habit of being always ready, of knowing exactly where everything was to be found, and putting all things in their right places, was so strong in him that a sailor-like neatness was his only conception of human comfort.

Instead, therefore, of adorning his apartment with flowers and ornaments in anticipation of Mrs. Wylie’s visit, he committed the Philistine error of looking round to see that nothing was lying about without visible and obvious excuse. The task of making tidy was not a long one. Before going out to dine at a small and self-abnegating club he had dressed so that he might be ready for the widow’s visit. There had also been a long and serious consultation with the landlady about tea at eight-thirty; and this feast had been royally prepared, regardless of expense in the luxurious matter of cream from the dairy round the corner.

There was a gravity almost amounting to solemnity in the war-correspondent’s demeanour as he sat awaiting his gracious visitor.

“I am afraid,” he reflected, with characteristic calmness, “that the good lady is not pleased with me.”

This fear no doubt interfered to some extent with his enjoyment of a French newspaper, which he had just freed from its small coloured wrapper. He did not appear to be deeply interested in the Echos de Paris, of which the wit failed to call a smile into his solemn eyes. It is, in fact, a matter of conjecture to me whether he had read anything at all (with understanding) when the rarely-used front-door bell tinkled dimly in the beetle-haunted basement. Trist laid aside the newspaper, and opened the door of his room just as the stairs began to creak under the comfortable step of Mrs. Wylie.

“Well, Theo,” said the good lady cheerily. “Good evening!”

Trist shook hands very gravely. He was at the moment deeply immersed in doubts as to whether his visitor should be shown to his bedroom with a view of removing her bonnet before his shaving-glass, or whether she would prefer keeping her outdoor apparel with her. As might have been expected, Mrs. Wylie was equal to the occasion, and settled the question at once.

“I will just open my sealskin,” she said, suiting the action to the word. “It is bitterly cold outside. What a nice fire, but⁠ ⁠… what a bare room, Theo! Have you no sense of comfort?”

“Bare!” replied Trist, looking round in amazement; “I never noticed it.”

“Naturally you would not. As long as it looks like a barrack-room, and the furniture suggests the luxuries of camp-life, you are happy, I suppose?”

Trist laughed in a fill-up-the-gap style, and busied himself with a teapot, once the property of his landlady’s grandmother, and correspondingly ugly. This versatile man’s ways were not new to Mrs. Wylie; but she smiled to herself, in the way people smile when they are busy collecting materials for a good story, as she watched him pour out the tea and manoeuvre the kettle. It did not seem to enter his head that four men out of five would have asked the lady’s assistance in such a case. Perhaps (for women note such things) she also remembered afterwards that he had no need to inquire after her taste respecting cream and sugar, but acted boldly, yet unobtrusively, upon knowledge previously acquired.

“And now,” she said in a determined way when the cups were filled, “light your pipe.”

“I do not think,” answered he with mock hesitation, “that such a proceeding would be strictly approved of by the laws of etiquette.”

“It is etiquette, my friend, to do exactly what a lady may wish. I would rather you smoked, because I want to talk to you seriously⁠—a pastime I rarely indulge in⁠—and I think tobacco would assist a contemplative attention on your part. I almost wish I could smoke myself. It would facilitate matters.”

In ratio to the increase of the lady’s gravity her companion’s spirits seemed to rise.

“After that,” he replied gaily, “I am dumb, and⁠ ⁠… light my strongest pipe.”

This threat he carried out to the letter. While Mrs. Wylie sipped her excellent tea and appeared to be searching in her mind for a suitable manner of beginning that which she had to say, he continued to puff softly, preserving a characteristic silence, and vouchsafing that contemplative attention which she had desired.

“Theo,” said Mrs. Wylie at length with an intonation upon the single word which, by some subtle means, caused him to lay aside all attempts at hilarity.

“Yes?” he replied, removing the pipe from his lips and looking across the table at her with meek inquiry.

Most people would have thought from his tone and manner that he was ready and willing to accede at once to any proposition, to follow any course of action, to obey without complaint or hesitation; but, as hinted on a previous page, Mrs. Wylie knew the ways of this man.

She did not meet his glance, but continued to gaze in a practically-abstracted way into the fender, while with one hand she smoothed a corner of her sealskin jacket.

“You will admit,” she continued at length with apparent irrelevance, “that every action, or every course of action, is liable to several constructions.”

His reply was ready at once⁠—a fact worth noticing in a man whose exterior habits would have led most observers to a belief that his mental method was slow.

“Yes; but the various constructions could not well be taken into account in anticipation. The attempt would be a deathblow to all action.”

The astute lady knew that she was understood, so she moved on in the same drift.

“I admit that,” she said; “but⁠ ⁠… in a course of procedure, the construction put upon the first actions should be allowed to carry some weight in subsequent proceedings. If⁠ ⁠… I mean⁠ ⁠… it is deleterious to others, the course might well be amended.”

Trist acknowledged the ability of this argument without enthusiasm.

“Nevertheless,” he said after a pause, “people have mapped out for themselves a course of action, have held to it despite adverse criticism, and have in the end been triumphant.”

Mrs. Wylie now looked up rather keenly.

“Then,” she said significantly, “yours is a course of action, and not mere idle drifting with the tide.”

Trist shrugged his shoulders, and met her glance with calm, impenetrable eyes. He was in a corner, because silence was naught but confession.

“Am I,” he inquired imperturbably, “the sort of man to drift?”

“No,” said Mrs. Wylie; “you are not. But, Theo, are you sure that you are doing right? I don’t want to interfere in the slightest degree with your action so long as it concerns only yourself. You are quite capable of looking after your own affairs, I know, quite sure of yourself, utterly reliant upon your own strength of purpose; but I want you to remember that women cannot be so self-dependent as men. However strong they may be, however capable, however brilliant, they must give in a little to the usages and customs of society, they must consider the praise or blame of their neighbours. Such praise or blame is part of their life, an important factor in their happiness or sorrow, and all the woman’s rights in the world will make no difference.”

Trist had left his seat during this speech. He went to the fireplace and removed the kettle, which was boiling with mistaken ardour, to a cooler spot. He stood erect upon the hearthrug, and looked down into the pleasant woman’s face upturned towards him. His hands were clasped behind his back, and there was on his face an encouraging smile. Seeing it, the widow continued:

“I came tonight, Theo, because I wanted to come to some understanding with you, even at the risk of being considered meddlesome and unnecessarily anxious.”

“That risk is small, Mrs. Wylie.”

“Thank you. Now I am going to be frank with you⁠—not with the view of forcing a reciprocal frankness upon you, but because it is the best method of saying difficult things. You disapprove of obtrusive frankness, I know.”

Trist laughed, and did not deny this accusation. Mrs. Wylie’s cup was empty, and he made a step forward and took it from her hand with grave courtesy.

“Will you have some more tea?” he inquired incidentally.

“Thanks; I will.”

There was a short silence, during which the young fellow deftly manipulated the teapot.

“The girls,” said the lady reflectively, as she stirred her second cup, “are, in a certain manner, cast upon my hands. I am morally responsible for their good name. Owing to an unfortunate chain of circumstances, they occupy at the present moment rather a prominent position in idle conversation. They cannot be too careful⁠—you understand⁠ ⁠… ?”

She stopped short because Trist’s movements, which were rather restless, told her plainly enough that he had already got a long way in advance of her thoughts.

“You wish,” he said, “to forbid me the house just now.”

Mrs. Wylie was not improving the texture of the lace handkerchief she continued to twist round her finger. For some seconds she made no answer. She almost hoped that by waiting she would effect a slight breach in the impenetrable wall of reserve with which this man seemed to find pleasure in surrounding himself. In this, however, she was disappointed. His power of unembarrassed silence was unique in a Western-born man.

“Had it been anyone else,” she said at length, “I should have been obliged to do so. With you it is quite another matter. You are different from other men, Theo. I know that, but the general public does not, and consequently judges you by the same standard as it judges others.”

“They are quite right in doing that. I have a great respect for the general public.”

The widow looked rather sceptical respecting the latter statement, but did not raise the question.

“It is not,” she continued gravely, “from that point of view that I look at it. Indeed, I should be inclined in any case to leave it to you, because I think that you are gifted with a great strength of purpose. No consideration of public censure, public blame, or public commentary would force me to speak to you upon a subject which I honestly believe to be better left undiscussed. I believe that every man, Theo, every woman, every youth, and every girl, knows his or her own business best. I believe we are all capable of managing our own affairs better than the kindest of our neighbours could manage them for us. In this you agree with me⁠—is it not so?”

“I thought,” replied Theo, without meeting her glance, “that that theory was mine. I must have learnt it unconsciously from you.”

“It has always been my conviction that you are a man singularly capable of managing your own affairs, and in my own sex I have fancied that I know a counterpart⁠ ⁠…”

“Yes?⁠ ⁠…” interrogated Trist in a semitone, divining that he was expected to do so.

“Brenda!” said Mrs. Wylie simply.

She had crossed her hands on her lap, and as her lips framed the girl’s name, she raised her head slowly and fixed her pleasant, keen glance on him. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, leaning lightly against the corner of the mantelpiece. The single gas-jet of the old-fashioned chandelier cast a most uncompromising light upon his face; his eyes were raised, and he seemed to be contemplating the invention of a new burner.

Without detracting anything from the scrutiny to which she was subjecting him, she continued speaking.

“Now⁠ ⁠…” she said with some energy, “Brenda is miserable.”

For some seconds his face was perfectly motionless. His eyelids did not even move. It was a triumph of inscrutability. Then he moved his lips, pursing them up in a manner expressive of thoughtfulness and doubt combined.

“Why?”

“That,” replied Mrs. Wylie, turning away, “is exactly what I want to know.”

Trist did not appear to be in a position to supply the required information. The conversation was becoming decidedly strained, and Mrs. Wylie, while feeling her sangfroid gradually warming, as it were, noticed that there was plenty of staying-power in her companion still. He did not at that moment look like a man about to be betrayed into a hasty exposition of his inward thoughts or feelings. On motives of prudence she therefore relieved the strain.

“Brenda,” she said, “has been terribly worried by Alice, I know. It seems to me that if you kept out of their way for some little time it would be conducive to a more peaceful frame of mind all round⁠—do you see?”

“Yes; I was thinking of going over to Paris. If there is a war in the spring, I shall have work to do for one or two French papers, and it is best to have these things arranged in advance.”

Mrs. Wylie winced. It seemed as if he had dragged in the unpleasant little monosyllable with the purpose of reminding her of his profession. By some feminine course of logic she had reasoned herself into a belief that Theo Trist would go to no more campaigns, and now she grew pale at the thought that he was still a war-correspondent⁠—she, who prided herself upon her freedom from that gnawing sorrow called anxiety. The readiness with which he acceded to her half hint that his absence would be an advantage was completely marred by the mention of a possible war, and she relented at once, seeking some other expedient than banishment.

“Would you go if there were another war?” she asked.

“Yes,” he replied coolly.

She made no comment, and the subject was dropped. She had made this visit with the full intention of coming to a definite knowledge of facts with Trist. Her chief desire had been to find out whether there was any understanding between Alice Huston and himself such as the world assigned; but in this she had failed. Theo would tell her nothing more than he chose, and she recognised in him a match in the matter of social diplomacy. His motives were a puzzle to her; she could not even come to a reasonable conclusion concerning his feelings. It was possible that he loved Alice Huston, but it was also possible that he loved Brenda. Again, she had no definite reason for supposing that he loved either of them, because his manner to both was that of a friend. However, the clear object of her visit had been attained⁠—namely, that Trist should absent himself for some time, and with this she was content, looking to further enlightenment in the future.

Theodore Trist had not overestimated his powers in informing Brenda that he had some influence with the newspapers. The story of Captain Huston’s sudden death never became public property; indeed, there was no mention made of the inquest. The result of an accident was all detail vouchsafed to the public. There was, by the way, some virtuous indignation expressed in the columns of a halfpenny weekly publication possessing a small circulation in the neighbourhood of the West India Dock Road. This just wrath was excited by the evident suppression of detail, and the scant courtesy with which their representative had been received by a gentleman⁠—himself a journalist⁠—who was closely connected with the disgraceful death of this British officer. In cheap type, upon a poor quality of paper, and in vile English, this self-constituted representative of the thirsting British public demanded further details. He expressed himself surprised that an enlightened nation should stand idly by while the aristocracy of the overburdened land deliberately plotted to screen its own debauched proceedings from public censure. The enlightened nation either failed to spend a halfpenny foolishly (thus neglecting its own interests), or it preferred to continue standing by. Moreover, the debauched aristocracy showed no signs of quailing beneath the lash of a relentless press. It is just possible, however, that they had neither seen the newspaper in question nor heard of its existence.

The demand for further details must have failed to reach the delinquents concerned. At all events, there was no reply, the error was never repaired, and the Times failed to take up the cudgels and fight for their common rights side by side with its powerful contemporary.

So Alfred Woodruff Charles Huston was laid, not with his own, but with the forefathers of someone else in Willesden Cemetery. Poor fellow! he came from a military stock, brave men and true, who had fought and drunk and finally deposited their bones in many parts of the globe. I am not by habit a sentimental person⁠—moonlight over water, for instance, or the whisper of the pine-trees, has a certain quieting effect upon me, though it does not make me drivel; but I see the great silent pathos of our huge graveyards. If I never pitied Alfred Huston when he was alive, I pity him now in his narrow bed⁠—one of many⁠—an insignificant volume in God’s bookshelf. Thus the Almighty is pleased to shelve us in rows. Sometimes He classifies us, and we are labelled with a title somewhat similar to that on the stones near at hand; but nowadays we stray away from the original corner of the library, and when the end comes we find ourselves among strangers. In some country churchyard it is sad enough to see a cluster of mouldering stones all bearing the same name, but infinitely more pathetic is it to wander through the serried ranks of the dead at Brookwood, Willesden, or Brompton. It is like a “sundry” shelf, where all odd volumes are hastily thrust and soon forgotten; for poetry is side by side with commerce, fame elbows obscurity, youth lies by age. We scan the names, and find no connection. Truly these are among strangers⁠—they sleep not with their fathers. And the shelves fill up, showing nought but titles. The books are closed, the tale is told, and so it moulders until the leaves shall flutter again beneath the searching finger of the Almighty. Sooner be buried in the common ditch beneath a weight of red-coated humanity than amidst these unknown thousands⁠—sooner, a thousand times sooner, lie in patient solitude on untrodden rocks beneath the wave!

Alfred Huston’s name is doubtless to be found in Willesden Cemetery today, though I do not know of anyone who will care to seek it. His wife caused it to be recorded in imperishable letters of lead, as if, mes frères, it had not as well been writ in water. It stands, moreover, in the State archives amidst a long record of heroes who drew their pay with remarkable regularity, and did little else. It was very good of her to go to the expense of those leaden letters, considering what an enormous number of mourning garments she was absolutely compelled to buy. The thought even is worthy of praise, because her mind was fully occupied with questions of crape and caps. Let us, therefore, give full credit to this widow who, in order to do more honour to her husband’s memory, sent some of her dresses back four times to the milliners because the bodice would not fit.

One December morning three ladies dressed in black (two, indeed, wore widows’ weeds) left Charing Cross Station for Paris. Mrs. Wylie, in her wisdom, had decreed a short banishment.

“Let us,” she said cheerily, the day after Captain Huston’s semi-surreptitious funeral⁠—“let us get away from all this fog and cold and misery. I want sunshine. Let us go south⁠—Nice, Biarritz, Arcachon! Which shall it be?”

“We might,” suggested Alice Huston, “stay a few days in Paris on the way.”

Brenda was reading, and before taking note of these remarks she finished a page, which she turned slowly, as one turns the page of a thoughtful book requiring slow perusal. She looked up at the clock upon the mantelpiece, and then her pensive gaze wandered towards Mrs. Wylie’s face.

“Not the Riviera,” she said persuasively. “It is like beef-tea when one is in rude health.”

“I must say,” observed Mrs. Wylie, after a pause, “that I prefer the Atlantic to the Mediterranean.”

“Let us stay a little time in Paris first,” said Alice eagerly, “and go on to Arcachon, or somewhere for Christmas. We might hear in Paris of nice people going South.”

The expression of the elder widow’s face was not quite so sympathetic as might have been expected upon sentimental grounds.

“Why,” she inquired, with dangerous suavity, “why are you so anxious to stay in Paris? It is no better than London in winter.”

Mrs. Huston shrugged her shoulders with childlike inconsequence. It was rather hard to expect her to have definite reasons ready for production.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she answered. “It would be a nice change. I think we would all find a place like Biarritz or Arcachon intolerably slow. We want taking out of ourselves.”

Mrs. Wylie nodded in a moderately sympathetic way. The three ladies knew that Theodore Trist was in Paris, and Mrs. Wylie, without looking in Brenda’s direction, had seen a change come over the girl’s face at the mention of the word. A singular change it was for so young a face⁠—rather unpleasant, too, in its effect. For a moment her features appeared to contract, and a gray set look came into her eyes. This singular effect was slowly fading when Alice again mentioned Paris, and instantaneously the apathetic chill seemed to spread over Brenda’s being again.

“I hate Paris in winter!” said Mrs. Wylie decisively. “The wind is cutting, the streets are crowded with excited women carrying larger parcels, and more of them, than their limbs were intended to carry, and altogether it is horrible. We will stay one night if you like, but not more. In coming back we can stop perhaps. Besides⁠ ⁠… Alice, I do not think it would do for you to be seen in Paris just now.”

Alice did not meet her friend’s gaze. There was an unpleasant silence of some moments’ duration, and then she murmured in a prettily petulant way:

“It is rather hard that I should be expected to bury myself alive.”

In this wise it was settled, and the three ladies passed through Paris without seeing aught of the cosmopolitan journalist, whose presence in the French capital was a matter of public discussion. Some papers even went so far as to refer to it as the immediate precursor of an outbreak of hostilities between France and Germany, and took the opportunity of reminding the citizens that every Frenchman thirsted for the gory cup of vengeance.

Mrs. Wylie was fully aware of the fact that had Theodore Trist so desired, he would have managed to see them somehow in passing; but she opined that he would not do so, and in this she was right. He actually knew that they were in Paris, but avoided them with an ease which showed his intimate acquaintance with the ways of the French capital.

Alice Huston made no attempt to disguise her contempt for Bordeaux, where a halt of one night was necessary, and arrived at midday at Arcachon with the full intention of disliking the place heartily. Personally, I have no interest in the town, not holding any shares in the Casino, nor claiming relationship with persons keeping hotels there; but it shall always be my honest endeavour to treat people and places alike with justice. There is no denying the fact that certain parts of the little French watering-place, more especially towards La Teste, are not savoury of odour; but Alice was hardly justified in the use of the word “disgusting” in this respect. It happened to be blowing steadily from the westward, and, in consequence, the air was heavy with the distant continuous roar of Atlantic breakers surging on to the deserted shore across the Bassin.

“I know what that is,” said Alice impatiently on hearing it, which they did not fail to do as soon as they were out of the train; “that is surf. It is the same as at Madras. Horrid! I never slept a wink.”

It was only to be heard during certain winds⁠—a very rare direction of the wind, explained the hotel porter, who understood enough English to catch what was being said. He had explained only that morning to a sentimental English lady of uncertain age, who loved the sad song of the waves with all the gushing ardour of her poetic soul, that the said song was always there, floating in the air above the pines. Besides, knowing the times of the trains and the price of hired carriages, this man was by no means ignorant in the ways of sweet deception. He was a good hotel-porter, and could lie with conviction when he tried.

Imagine a fishing village shaken up in a huge box with a fashionable watering-place, and set down pell-mell at the edge of a large inlet of the sea, and you have Arcachon. Amidst the pines, on the slopes behind the town, are villas, where hypochondriacs live and imbibe the wondrous breath of the maritime pine. Oysters are cheap, and the air is invigorating. From the westward the wind blows directly across the broad Atlantic; from the east it sighs through trackless forests. Beyond that there is little to recommend this southern town, though some of us may think highly of such important adjuncts to human happiness as oysters and atmosphere.

A certain spasmodic sociability flickers through the small English colony, consisting, as most of our Continental colonies do, of military men and retired civil servants suffering either from slender purses or unsatisfactory lungs. Among these the advent of the three ladies caused a distinct flutter, and I have reason to believe that several dresses, and not a few bonnets, were subsequently rebuilt upon new and approved lines.

The flutter was scarcely reciprocal. Brenda was not at this period inclined to indiscriminate sociability. She was in a critical frame of mind, and the intellectual standard of the average Briton residing abroad will not bear criticism. Alice found the retired civil servants intolerably trivial and dull. The old soldiers were men of a bygone day when the army had not gone to the dogs, which departure seemed to date from the time of their several resignations.

Mrs. Wylie noted these things, and took them with her usual placid cheerfulness. She had not expected much, and was in nowise disappointed⁠—the blessed privilege of pessimists. She looked upon the three weeks spent at Arcachon as an unpleasant interlude, necessary and unavoidable, and while there made herself as comfortable as circumstances allowed, according to her wont.

Thus Christmas with its forced festivity was tided over. I sometimes wonder why that happy season in each recurring year stands out upon the road of life like public-houses on the roads we tread here below. Wise men direct Jehu by the Spotted Dog or the Marquis of Granby, and I think most of us divide our journey into stages (some consciously, others without realizing it), marked and defined by the Christmas Day at the end of each. It is the 25th of December that stands clearly marked in my memory as having been passed in some outlying corner of the world in each successive year. There is no record of the 24th or the 26th. Having devoted some thought to this matter, I have concluded that the memory is closely connected with the appetite. There are certain dishes set apart for consumption on Christmas Day, and the absence or presence in perfection of these remains indelibly engraved on the mind.

It must be confessed that the Christmas spent at Arcachon by the three ladies was not of a very festive character; but it should be remembered that two of them were widows, and the third a thoughtful young person of by no means a gay and lightsome heart.

Early in January they turned their faces homeward, and by mutual tacit consent parted company in Paris. It happened that Alice Huston met some friends there, who pressed her to stay on with them, pleading to Mrs. Wylie that a change would be beneficial to the spirits of the young widow. Brenda returned to Suffolk Mansions with the Admiral’s widow.

In a quiet street leading out of the Boulevard de la Madeleine, there is a large red-stone house with golden letters, each the size of a man, between the windows of the second and third floors. These letters spell a three-syllabled word, which is known in all the civilized world as the name of the greatest journal in France. For steadiness there is no newspaper in all the new republic to rival it. No false news was ever published within the walls of that red-stone house, nor sent forth to the French-speaking world from its portals. Its correspondence is conducted with that apparent lavishness which is the secret of successful journalism in these days. Good pay to good men is a motto that might well be inscribed in golden letters beneath the window of the second floor. There is upon the first story of this house a large room furnished somewhat in the style adopted by English clubs. That is to say, the chairs, tables, and bookcases are of a heavier type than is usually found in private houses. Unlike most French rooms the floor is entirely covered with a Brussels carpet. There are several small oak tables furnished with blotting-pad, inkstand, and pen-tray. I regret to say that cigarette-ash and cigarette ends are habitually thrown upon the floor, although numerous receptacles are provided on the larger table standing in the centre of the room.

This apartment serves as an anteroom to the offices of the editor and subeditor, and on some days in the week there may be seen an assembly of all that there is of journalistic and literary talent in France.

One evening in January, Theodore Trist was standing near the huge white-china stove talking with a group of long-haired confrères of the ready pen. They were laughing⁠—not in that airy, careless way which is generally considered by Englishmen as the prerogative of their Gallic cousins⁠—but softly, and without much genuine amusement. There were others in the room, seated at the smaller tables, writing, which would account for the lowered tones of the group round the stove.

Presently a liveried servant came towards them.

“Monsieur Trist,” he ventured, standing at a respectful distance from the brilliant group.

A silence fell over the talkers, while Theo Trist turned and asked by whom he was wanted.

“It is,” replied the servant, “a portier of the Hôtel Bristol, inquiring if monsieur was in Paris at present.”

“And you said⁠ ⁠… ?”

“I said that I would inquire.”

A young Frenchman, whose poems were charming all readers just then, laughed merrily.

“Jules,” he said, with a sly glance towards the Englishman, “is discreet.”

“It would never do,” interpolated an older man, with grave approval, “if Jules were not so. This is the home of discretion. Who knows that this portier is a portier at all? Is it not easy to buy a hatband with the word ‘Bristol’ embroidered upon it? He may be an emissary from some journal of the Boulevards to collect information⁠—the material for a canard⁠—price two sous.”

Trist smiled meekly, and moved away with the servant at his heels.

“Ce Trist,” continued the older writer, when he was out of earshot, “cannot come and go as we can⁠—we who write but romances and idle paragraphs. It is a political power beneath that broad forehead, behind those woman’s eyes. He smells of war. It is the stormy petrel, my friends.”

“I will see him,” Trist had said to the servant as they crossed the room together. “But do not say who I am.”

Jules bowed in grave reproach at the implied possibility of an indiscretion.

“In the small room, monsieur?”

“Yes; in the small room.”

When the portier of the Hôtel Bristol entered the small room, he found a gentleman seated at a table writing.

“You seek Monsieur Trist?”

“Yes, monsieur.”

“For a public or a private purpose?”

The portier had received his instructions.

“It is private, monsieur, quite private. It is but a small word from a lady in the hotel.”

“An English lady?”

“An English lady, monsieur; a widow, I believe. A Madame Huston, on the second floor.”

Trist held out his hand.

“Give it to me,” he said gently; “I am Theodore Trist. The answer shall be despatched presently. You need not wait.”

As the messenger left the room, Trist broke open the envelope and unfolded a dainty note. He read it carefully, and then leant back leisurely in his chair. There was a peculiar expression upon his face, half annoyed, half puzzled. And (why should it be withheld?) beneath the sunburn on his cheeks there was a slight change of colour. Theodore Trist experienced a strange sense of warmth in his countenance, and wondered what it meant. He was ignorant of the fact that his cheek was attempting to blush. From the expression of his eyes, however, this was not a sign of pleasure. He was ashamed of that note, and after the lapse of a few minutes he rose and threw it into the stove, the brass door of which he opened deftly with the toe of his boot.

There are times in our lives when we have cause to feel ashamed of human passions, and even of human nature. Even if we be optimists, we can scarcely pass through existence without finding that human nature is a sorry business after all. It is only right that we should experience a sense of shame when brought face to face with such passions as jealousy or hatred, but God forbid that we should ever be ashamed of love! There is not too much dignity in our daily lives, and therefore let us hold one factor of it sacred. Let us leave untouched the dignity of love. If there be one seed of shame in the flower, the disease will grow and flourish until the bloom dies away entirely. From the cradle to the grave we have but one pure and holy thing in life. We are never free from it⁠—no spot is beyond its reach⁠—no place is too sacred, and no hovel is too miserable for it to enter there. On the battlefield, and in church, while laughing, while weeping, while singing, while sighing, we think of love. And you, my young brother, my gentle sister, who have such thoughts as these, cherish them and keep them holy; fence them round with noble efforts; keep away the cankerworm of shame. In all truth these thoughts are better than great wealth, more profitable than fame, higher than exceeding great gifts. We, also, who are farther on the road, have known what such thoughts are, and in looking back now over the trodden path we see one sunny spot⁠—one golden field where no great trees, no gaudy flowers grow, but where a holy peace has reigned; where Ambition found no resting-place and Covetousness no root. To have passed through that meadow was sufficient reason for the creation of a life. Its pathway was very pleasant, and the scent of its modest flowers reaches us now. Those who have once loved truly have not lived in vain, even though they pass quite away and leave no trace behind.

Theodore Trist was by nature a remarkably self-contained man, and his life of late years had brought this characteristic to an exceptional pitch. He had acquired the habit of thinking, of writing, of working with a sublime disregard to the chance of his environments. On the battlefield, and amidst the roar of artillery, it had been necessary for him to write details of a successful march through fertile valleys, where the very atmosphere breathed of peace alone. In the gorgeous apartment of an Emperor’s palace, seated in his rough, worn clothes, hat on head, booted, spurred, and armed, he had penned such a description of a battle, fought two days before, as will ever stand out unrivalled in the annals of warfare.

And now in the heart of gay Paris, in this neglected little room, he sat down before the glowing stove, while beneath his feet, like the pulse of an ocean steamer, the mighty press throbbed continuously, beating out its news, speaking great things and powerful words to all mankind. But these sounds he heeded not. He was thinking of other things. For half an hour he remained thus absorbed, and the result of those thirty minutes of thought went with him through life. At last he rose and looked at his watch.

“It will never do,” he said to himself, “to funk it. I must put a stop to this. If she makes it so plain to me, the inference is that Mrs. Wylie and Brenda know something about it, or, at the least, suspect. Whatever comes in the future, I want to save Brenda that.”

At seven o’clock that evening Theodore Trist presented himself at the Hôtel Bristol, and inquired for the private salon occupied by Colonel Martyn. A small boy led the way upstairs without a word, and after a hurried tap, ushered the war-correspondent into a dimly-lighted apartment. A single lamp burnt upon a small table in the centre of the room, casting a faint pink glow all round. Mrs. Huston rose from a low chair near the table, and laid aside a copy of the French newspaper by which Trist’s sole services were retained. She was alone, and there was in her graceful movements a scarcely perceptible self-consciousness, from which Trist conceived the passing notion that, although no mention had been made of it in the note received by him, he was not likely to see either Mrs. Martyn or her henpecked husband that evening.

The young widow was of course dressed in black, which, moreover, was relieved by no ornament; but although there was crape on the skirt, that unbecoming material was sparingly worn. The dress was opened slightly on the whitest throat imaginable, and the sleeves were loose below the elbow. Trist acknowledged inwardly that this woman had never looked so lovely as she did at that moment, with the glow of the lamp on her white throat and hands, a faint conscious blush upon her cheek, her golden hair gleaming softly.

He advanced to meet her with his impenetrable friendliness. Ah! it is those grave faces which we can never read.

“I was afraid,” said Mrs. Huston, “that you were not in Paris⁠ ⁠… or that even if you were you would not come.”

Trist took a chair which she had indicated with a wave of the hand.

“I have been hanging on,” he said, “from day to day.⁠ ⁠…”

Mrs. Huston looked at him with an expectant, half-inviting smile⁠—a smile which Brenda loathed.

“For no particular reason,” continued the journalist with deliberate stolidity. “I have fallen in with an interesting lot of men, and there is nothing to call me away.”

The young widow’s expression of countenance altered from one of coquetry to well-simulated but nevertheless fictitious interest.

At this moment a waiter appeared with the information that madame was served.

“Colonel and Mrs. Martyn have unfortunately been called away this evening, so you will have to content yourself with me,” observed Mrs. Huston innocently, as she led the way down to the luxurious salle-à-manger.

“That,” answered Trist perfunctorily, “will be no hardship.”

The tone in which he said this almost made it a question as to whether it would not have been politer to have kept silent.

During dinner they talked easily and pleasantly, as behoved two persons knowing the world and its ways. Occasionally they sparred in a subtle underhand way which no listener could have detected, Mrs. Huston attacking, Trist parrying as usual.

“There are,” said the lady when the waiter finally left them, “cigarettes upstairs. The Colonel always smokes and has his coffee there. Will you do the same?”

Trist bowed silently as he rose from his seat.

When they reached the salon she went to a side-table, and returned presently with a box of cigarettes. This she opened and held out to him with both hands. There was in her movements a marvellous combination of girlish grace and womanly “finish,” and her attitude as she stood before him with her white arms outstretched, her head thrown back, and her glowing eyes seeking his, was perfect in its artistic conception.

“Please smoke,” she said in a low voice.

He did not respond at once, and, seeing his hesitation, she continued rather hurriedly:

“Surely you need not stand on ceremony with me, Theo? We⁠ ⁠… we have been friends all our lives.”

He smiled in a slow, grave way as he took a cigarette.

“Yes,” he answered, “we know each other pretty well.”

While he struck a match and lighted his cigarette she turned away and took a low chair, swinging the rustling skirt of her dress aside with inimitable grace. It happened that there was a seat close to it, while no other was within convenient reach. Trist remained standing before the fireplace, where some logs burned fragrantly.

“It is a pity,” she said, looking up at him in a curious, half-embarrassed way, “that we are not cousins. I almost⁠ ⁠… wish we were. The world would have nothing to say about our friendship then.”

Trist looked at the burnt end of his cigarette with careful criticism.

“Has the world anything to say⁠ ⁠… about it now?”

She shrugged her beautiful shoulders, and arranged the brooch at her breast before replying in a low tone.

“I don’t care if it has.”

“What does it say?” asked the journalist, with imperturbable cruelty.

By way of reply she raised her eyes to his. A faint cloud of tobacco-smoke floated upwards, passed overhead, and left his strange incongruous face exposed to the full light of the shaded lamp. The beautiful eyes searched his features, and I maintain that few men could have looked down at that lovely woman, could have met those pleading eyes, could have ventured within the reach of that subtle feminine influence, unmoved. If Trist was uneasy no outward sign betrayed him; no quiver of the eyelids; no motion of the lips. During some moments there was a tense silence, while these two looked into each other’s eyes, probed each other’s souls. The veil which hangs round that treasure we all possess⁠—the treasure of an unassailable, illegible, secret individuality⁠—seemed to fall away. Without words they understood each other. Indeed, no words could have explained as that mutual searching glance had done.

Alice Huston knew then that she had met a man⁠—the first in all probability⁠—who was totally impervious to the baleful influence of the charms she had wielded so long, without defining or seeking to define them. She only knew that a turn of her head, a glance of her eyes, a touch of her hand, had been sufficient to work her will upon men. Without theorizing upon sexual influence she had used it unscrupulously, as most women do, and hitherto it had never failed. She was aware that she could lead men who were beyond the reach of the strongest purpose possessed by their own sex without any exercise of her will at all. Her strength lay in physical, not in moral influence. If her beauty failed she had nothing to support her.

And now she sat with interlocked and writhing fingers, gazing upwards at this man, awaiting his will. Her agonized eyes quailed beneath his gentle glance. It is a picture I recommend to the notice of such plain and unwomanly females as love to talk of woman’s rights and woman’s superior nature, which awaits but the opportunity of asserting itself. Ah, my sisters!⁠—you, the womanly women!⁠—believe me, your greatest earthly happiness lies in love as it is understood now and has been understood since the Lion lay down with the Lamb in that old Garden which we catch glimpses of still over a fence when the love-light is in our eyes.

Trist broke the silence at last, and his voice was hollow, with a singular “far-off” sound, like the voice of a man speaking in great pain, with an effort.

“If the world has made a mistake, Alice,” he said slowly and impressively, “I hope to God you have not!”

She made no answer. The power of speech seemed to have left her beautiful lips, which were livid and dry. She rubbed her hands together, palm to palm, in a horribly mechanical manner, which was almost inhuman in its dumb despair. Before her eyes a veil⁠—dull, neutral-tinted, impenetrable⁠—seemed to rise, and her vision failed. The tendons of her lovely throat were tense, like wires, beneath the milky skin.

At length her senses returned, her bosom rose and fell rhythmically, and she looked round the room in a dazed, stupid way like one who has fallen from a height.

She saw it all as in a dream. The conventional furniture of mahogany and deep red velvet, the variegated tablecloth, the hideous gilt clock upon the mantelpiece. Then she looked into the square, open fireplace, where some logs of wood smouldered warmly. Upon one of these, unaffected by the heat, lay the half-burnt cigarette which Theo Trist had thrown away before speaking.

Seeing it, she looked round the room again with drawn and hopeless eyes. Trist was not there. He had left her. There was a simple straightforwardness of action about this man which at times verged upon brutality.

Slowly Alice Huston rose from her chair. For some moments she stood motionless, and then she went to the fireplace, where she remained staring at her own reflection in the mirror, which was only partially hidden by the glass-shade covering the hideous clock.

“And,” she muttered brokenly, as she turned away with clenched fists, “I used to think that we were not punished upon earth. I wonder how long⁠ ⁠… how long⁠ ⁠… I shall be able to stand this!”

In Suffolk Mansions the absence of Alice Huston left a less perceptible vacuum than that lady would have imagined. Mrs. Wylie was intensely relieved that the young widow had, so to speak, struck out a line of her own⁠—wherever that line might tend to lead her. Brenda was less philosophical. She tried to persuade herself that her sister’s presence had been a pleasure, and, like all pleasures withdrawn, had left a blank behind it. But the pretence was at its best a sorry one. It is a lamentable fact that propinquity is the most powerful factor in human loves, hatreds, and friendships. The best of friends, the most affectionate sisters, cannot live apart for a few years without fostering the growth of an intangible, silent barrier which forces its way up between them, and which we lightly call a lack of mutual interest. What is love but “mutual interest”?

Brenda, who was herself the soul of loyalty, stood mentally aghast over the ruins of her great unselfish love. She imagined it dead, but this was not the case. In a heart like that of Brenda Gilholme, love never dies. It is only in our hearts, my brothers, and in those of a very few women that this takes place. The sisterly love was living still, but it was little else than the mere tie of blood or the result of a few mutual friendships in the past. The two women had drifted apart upon the broad waters of life.

In the meantime Mrs. Wylie was watching events. This good lady was (is still, heaven bless her!) an optimist. She is one of those brave persons who really in their hearts believe that human life is worth living for its own sake. She actually had the effrontery to maintain that happiness is attainable. There are some women like this in the world. They are not what is called intellectual⁠—they write no books, speak no speeches, and propound no theories⁠—but⁠ ⁠… I would to God there were more of them!

The daily life of these two ladies soon assumed its normal routine. Brenda studied political economy, Shakespeare, and the latest biography by turns in her unproductive, resultless way. Her mind craved for food and refused nothing; while, on the other hand, it possessed no decided tastes. Before January had run out its days she heard from Alice, who had moved southwards to Monte Carlo with her friends the Martyns.

One afternoon in February Brenda was sitting alone in the drawing-room in Suffolk Mansions when a visitor arrived. It was no other than William Hicks. His entrée was executed with the usual faultless grace and savoir-faire. He carried a soft hat, for it was foggy, and his long black cloak was thrown carelessly back to the full advantage of a broad astrakhan collar.

This was the first visit he had paid since the death of Captain Huston; consequently he and Brenda had not met since the ball to which Trist had conceived the bold idea of bringing his enemy. With this fact in view William Hicks smiled in a sympathetic way as he advanced with outstretched hand, but said no word. They shook hands gravely, and Brenda resumed her seat.

“Mrs. Wylie has just gone to your mother’s,” she said, in some surprise.

Hicks laid aside his hat, and slowly drew off his slate-coloured gloves. The action was just a trifle stagy. He might well have been the hero of a play about to begin a difficult scene.

“Yes,” he answered meaningly; “I know.”

Brenda turned her small, proud head, and looked at him in silence. Her attitude was hardly one of surprise, and yet it betrayed her knowledge of his possible meaning. Altogether it was scarcely sympathetic.

Hicks allowed her a few moments in which to make some sort of reply or inquiry as to his meaning, but she failed to take the cue.

“I found out by accident,” he continued, “that Mrs. Wylie was upstairs with my mother, and had just arrived. It struck me that you might be alone here⁠—the opportunity was one which I have waited for⁠—so I came.”

Brenda’s eyes were much steadier than his, and he was forced to turn his gaze elsewhere.

“It was very good of you,” she said with strange simplicity, “to think of my solitude.”

Hicks caressed his matchless moustache complacently, although he was in reality not quite at ease.

“I wanted to speak to you,” he said, in a tone which deprecated the thought of a purely unselfish motive in the meritorious action.

“About⁠ ⁠… what?” inquired the girl, without enthusiasm.

“About myself⁠—a dull topic, I am afraid.”

It is to be hoped that William Hicks did not expect an indignant denial; for such was not forthcoming. Brenda leant back in her chair in the manner of one composing herself to the consideration of a long and, probably, dull story. Her eyebrows were slightly raised, but she betrayed no signs of agitation or suspense.

Hicks slipped his cloak from his shoulders and rose. He stood on the hearthrug before her, looking down upon her as she reclined gracefully in the deep chair.

“Brenda,” he said, in a carefully modulated tone, “I am only a poor painter⁠—that is to say, I am not making much money out of art. I am, however, making a name which will no doubt be valuable someday. In the meantime I am fortunately in a position to disregard the baser uses of art, and to seek her only for herself. I have a certain position already, and I am content even with it. I intend to do better⁠—to make a greater name. And in that aim⁠—you can help me!”

He was quite sincere, but the habit of posing was so strong upon him that the magnificence of his offer perhaps lost a little weight by the sense of study, of forethought, of preparation, as it were, in the manner of delivering it.

There was a singular suggestion of Theodore Trist’s school of life in the manner in which Brenda looked up now and spoke⁠—a deliberate ignorance, almost, of the smoother social methods.

“Are you,” she inquired, “asking me to be your wife?”

Hicks stared at her vacantly. He was wondering what sequence of thought brought Theodore Trist into his mind at that moment. The question remained unanswered for some time.

“Yes,” he said at length weakly.

In all his private rehearsals of this scene, he had never conceived the possibility of having to answer such a query. It was hard to do with dignity; and for the first time, perhaps, in his life he was not quite content with his own method. After a momentary silence he recovered his usual aplomb. Brenda was, he argued, after all but a girl, and all girls are alike. Flattery reaches them every one.

“I have,” he said eagerly, giving her no opportunity of interrupting him, “known many people⁠—moved in many circles. I am not an inexperienced schoolboy, and therefore my conviction should carry some weight with it. I am certain, Brenda, that I could find no more suitable wife if I searched all the world over. Your influence upon my art cannot fail to be beneficial⁠—you are eminently fitted to take a high place in the social world; such a place as my wife will find awaiting her. I have made no secret of my financial position; and as to my place in the art world of this century, you know as much as I could tell you.”

He paused with a graceful wave of his white hand, and intimated his readiness to receive her answer. He even moved a step nearer to her, in order that he might with grace lean over her chair and take her hand when the proper moment arrived.

There was no emotion on either side. Neither forgot for a second that they were children of a self-suppressing generation, which considers all outward warmth of joy or sorrow to be “bad form.” William Hicks had delivered his words with faultless intonation⁠—perfect pitch⁠—allowing himself (as an artist) a graceful gesture here and there. Brenda took her cue from him.

“It is very good of you to make me such an advantageous offer,” she said, in an even and gentle voice, in which no ring of sarcasm could have been detected by much finer ears than those of William Hicks, which organs were partially paralyzed by self-conceit; “but I am afraid I must refuse.”

The artist was too much surprised to say anything at all. A refusal⁠—to him! One of the most popular men in London. A great, though unappreciated painter⁠—a perfect dancer⁠—a social lion. He had been run after, I admit that, for most men are who take the trouble to be universally and impartially polite; but he had never taken the trouble of investigating the desirability or otherwise of those who ran after him. He had not quite realized that there was not a woman among them worthy to button Brenda’s glove.

“Will you not,” he stammered, with blanched face, “reconsider your⁠ ⁠… determination?”

The girl shook her head gravely.

“No!” she replied. “There is not the slightest chance of my ever doing that, and I am very, very sorry if from anything I have said or done you have been led to believe that my answer could possibly have been otherwise.”

To this Hicks made no direct reply. He could not with truth have accused her of the conduct she suggested. The fact merely was that he had not excepted Brenda from the rest of womankind, and it had always been his honest conviction that he had only to ask any woman in the world to be his wife to make that woman the happiest of her sex as well as the proudest. There is nothing extraordinary in this mild self-deception. We all practise it with marvellous success. It is a fallacy I myself cherished for many years, until the moment came (a happy moment for my near relatives, no doubt!) when I made the lamentable discovery that I was not in such demand after all.

Hicks had never been refused before, for the simple reason that he had never hitherto thought fit to place his heart at any maiden’s feet.

“But why,” he pleaded, “will you not marry me?”

Her answer was ready.

“Because I do not love you.”

“But that will come,” he murmured. “I will teach you to love me!”

She raised her eyes to his face and looked calmly at him. Even in such a moment as this the habit of studying and dissecting human minds was not laid aside. It seemed as if she were pondering over his words, not in connection with herself at all, but in a general sense. She was wondering, no doubt, if there were women who could be coerced into loving this man. As for herself she had no doubts whatever. William Hicks possessed absolutely no influence over her, but she felt at that moment as if it were possible that a man could make her love him even against her will if he were possessed of the necessary strength of purpose. In a vague, indefinite way she was realizing that woman is weaker than man⁠—is, in fact, a weaker man, with smaller capabilities of joy and sorrow, of love, hatred, devotion, or remorse; and, in a way, William Hicks profited by this thought. She respected him⁠—not individually, but generally⁠—because he was a man, and because she felt that some women could look up to him and admire him for his mere manhood, if she herself was unable to do so because he fell short of her standard.

In the meantime Hicks had realized the emptiness of his boast. From her calm glance he had read that her will was stronger than his own⁠—that she did not love him, and never would. We, my brothers, who have passed through the mill can sympathize with this young fellow, despite his follies, his vanity, his conceit, his affectation; for I verily believe that Brenda cured him of them all in those few moments. Most of us can, I think, look back to the time when we were severally foolish, vain, conceited, and affected⁠—many of us have been cured by the glance of some girl’s eyes.

The artist dropped his argument at once. He turned away and walked to the window, where he stood with his back towards her, looking out into the dismal misty twilight. Thus the girl allowed him to stand for some time, and then she rose and went to his side.

“Willy,” she said, “I am very, very sorry!”

She was beginning to think now that he really loved her in his way, although by some curious oversight he had omitted to mention the fact.

He turned his head in her direction, and his hand caressed his moustache with its habitual grace.

“I don’t quite understand it,” he murmured. “Of course⁠ ⁠… it is a bitter disappointment to me. I have been mistaken.”

She made no attempt to alleviate his evident melancholy⁠—expressed no regret that he should have been mistaken. The time for sympathy was past, and she allowed him to fight out his bitter fight alone. Presently he went towards the chair where he had thrown his cloak and hat. These he took up, and returned to her with his hand outstretched.

“Goodbye, Brenda!” he said, for once without affectation.

“Goodbye,” she replied simply, and long after William Hicks had left the room she stood there with her white hands hanging down at either side like some delicate flower resting on the soft black material in which she was clad.

When Mrs. Wylie returned home about five o’clock she found the drawing-room still in darkness. The maid had offered to light the gas, but Brenda told her to leave it. In the pleasant glow of the firelight the widow found her young friend sitting in her favourite chair with interlocked fingers in her lap.

Mrs. Wylie closed the door before she spoke.

“This is bad,” she said.

“What is bad?”

“I believe,” replied Mrs. Wylie in her semi-serious, semi-cheerful way, “that I have warned you already against the evil practice of sitting staring into the fire.”

Brenda laughed softly, and met the kind gaze of the gray eyes that were searching her face.

“It has always seemed to me,” she said, “that your philosophy is wanting in courage. It is the philosophy of a moral coward. It is braver and better to think out all thoughts⁠—good and bad, sad and gay⁠—as they come.”

Mrs. Wylie loosened her bonnet-strings, unhooked her sealskin jacket, and sat down.

“No,” she answered argumentatively. “It is not the creed of a coward, no more than it is cowardly to avoid temptation. A practical man, however brave he may be, will do well to avoid temptation. A sensible woman will avoid thought.”

“I was thinking,” replied the girl diplomatically, “of tea!”

From the expression of the widow’s face it would seem that she accepted this statement with reservations. She made, however, no remark.

After a little pause she looked across at Brenda in a speculative way, and no doubt appreciated the grace and beauty of that fire-lit picture.

“Willie Hicks,” she said, “has been here?”

“Yes. How did you know?” inquired Brenda rather sharply.

“Emma told me.”

“Ah!”

“Brenda,” said the widow in a softer tone, after a pause of some duration.

“Yes!”

“I have constructed a little fable for myself, in some part founded upon fact. Would you like to hear it?”

“Yes,” replied the girl with a slightly exaggerated moue of indifference; “tell me.”

“Shortly after I arrived at the Hicks’, Willie went out. I happened to know this, because I was near the window in the drawing-room and saw him. I also noticed that his gait was slightly furtive. I thought, ‘That young man does not want me to know that he has gone out.’ On my way home I met him going in the contrary direction. He avoided seeing me, and did it remarkably well, as might have been expected. But there was a change in his gait, and even in his attitude. The strange thought came into my head that he had been here to see you. Then I began to wonder what had caused the change I detected. It seemed as if William Hicks had passed through some experience⁠—had received a lesson. The final flight of my imagination was this: that you, Brenda, had given him that lesson.”

Mrs. Wylie ceased speaking and leant back comfortably. Brenda was sitting forward now with her two hands clasped around her knees. She was looking towards her companion, and her eyes glowed in the ruddy light.

“I think,” she said, “we should respect his secret. Naturally he would prefer that we were silent.”

“We are neither of us talkative.⁠ ⁠… Then⁠ ⁠… then my fable was true?”

Brenda nodded her head.

“I am glad,” murmured the widow after a short silence, “that he has brought matters to an understanding at last. It is probable that he will turn out a fine fellow when he has found his level. He is finding it now. His walk was different as he returned home. All young men are objectionable until they have failed signally in something or other. Then they begin to settle down into manhood.”

“He misrepresents himself,” said Brenda gently. “When he lays aside his artistic affectation he is very nice.”

“But,” added Mrs. Wylie with conviction, “he is not half good enough for you.”

Brenda smiled a little wistfully and rose to preside at the tea-tray, which the maid brought in at that moment.

And so William Hicks was tacitly laid aside. People who live together⁠—husband and wife, brother and sister, woman and woman⁠—soon learn the art of deferring a subject which can gain nothing by discussion. There are perforce many such topics in our daily life⁠—subjects which are best ignored, explanations which are best withheld, details best suppressed.

During their simple tea and the evening that followed there were other things to talk of, and it was only after dinner, when they were left alone with their work and their books, that Mrs. Wylie made reference to the afternoon’s proceedings.

“On my way back from the Hicks’,” she said conversationally, “I met Sir Edward.”

“Ah! Indeed!⁠ ⁠…”

Brenda looked up from the heavy volume on her lap and waited with some interest. Mrs. Wylie paused some time before continuing. She leant to one side and took up a large workbasket, in which she searched busily for something.

“Yes,” she murmured at length, with her face literally in the basket; “and⁠ ⁠… Theo is in St. Petersburg!”

“St. Petersburg!” repeated Brenda slowly. “In the winter. I rather envy him!”

“I do not imagine,” said Mrs. Wylie, still occupied with the dishevelled contents of her workbasket, “that he is there on pleasure.”

Brenda laughed lightly.

“Theo,” she observed in a casual way, “is not much given to pleasure in an undiluted state.”

“I like a man who takes life and his life’s work seriously.”

“So do I,” assented Brenda indifferently.

She knew that Mrs. Wylie was studying her face with kindly keenness, and so she smiled in a friendly way at the fire, which seemed to dance and laugh in reply.

“Is it generally known that he is in St. Petersburg?” she asked with some interest.

“Oh no! Sir Edward told me in confidence. He says that it does not matter much, but that he and Theo would prefer it not being talked about.”

“Why has he gone?” asked the girl.

Mrs. Wylie laid aside the basket and looked across at her companion with a curious, baffled smile.

“I don’t know,” she answered. “I had not the⁠ ⁠… the⁠ ⁠…”

“Cheek?”

“Cheek to ask.”

Brenda returned to her book.

“I suppose,” she said presently, as she turned a page, “that it means war.”

The widow shrugged her shoulders.

“We must not get into the habit,” she suggested, “of taking it for granted that every action of Theo’s means that.”

“He lives for war,” said the girl wearily as she bent over her book with decision.

Mrs. Wylie worked on in silence. She had no desire to press the subject, and Brenda’s statement was undeniable.

They now returned to their respective occupations, but Brenda knew that at times her companion’s eyes wandered from the work towards her own face. Mrs. Wylie was evidently thinking actively⁠—not passively, as was her wont. The result was not long in forthcoming.

“My dear,” she said energetically, “I have been thinking. Let us go down to Wyl’s Hall.”

Brenda pondered for a few seconds before replying. It was the first time that there had been any mention of the old Suffolk house since its master’s sudden death. Mrs. Wylie had never crossed the threshold of this, the birthplace of many Wylies (all good sailors and true men), since she returned in the Hermione to Wyvenwich a childless widow. All this Brenda knew, and consequently attached some importance to the suggestion. During the last six months they had lived on in an unsettled way from day to day. Both had, perhaps, been a little restless. There was a want of homeliness about the chambers in Suffolk Mansions; not so much, perhaps, in the rooms themselves as in the stairs, the common door with its civil porter, and the general air of joint proprietorship. What we call vaguely “home” is nothing but a combination of small things with their individual associations. The milkman with his familiar cry, the well-known bang of the front door, the creaking of the wooden stairs; such trifles as these make up our home, form the frame in which our life is placed, and each little change is noted. The present writer first realized the true meaning of death by noting the absence of a small vase from the nursery mantelpiece. It was a trifling little thing of brown ware, shaped quaintly, and round the bowl of it was a little procession of Egyptian figures following each other in stately angularity. One day it was broken, and I have never forgotten the feeling with which I first looked at the mantelpiece and sought in vain the familiar little jar.

To women these small associations are, perhaps, dearer than they are to us men. No doubt they love to be known and greeted by their neighbours, rich or poor, while we are often indifferent. The want of human sympathy, of human interest and mutual aid is the most prominent feature in town life. Men live and die, rejoice and grieve, laugh and weep almost under the same roof, and never share their laughter or mingle their tears. Faces may grow familiar, but hearts remain estranged, because perforce each man must fight for himself on the pavement, and there is no time to turn aside and lend a helping hand.

Brenda did not lose sight of the possibility that Mrs. Wylie might be longing for the familiar faces and pleasant voices of the humble dwellers in Wyvenwich; but the proposal to return to Wyl’s Hall was apparently unpremeditated, and therefore the girl doubted its sincerity.

“Not on my account?” she inquired doubtfully, without looking up.

“No. On my own. I am longing for the old place, Brenda. This fog and gloom makes one think of the brightness of Wyvenwich and the sea, which is always lovely in a frost. Let us go at once⁠—tomorrow or the next day. The winter is by no means over yet, and London is detestable. Even if we are snowed up at Wyl’s Hall, it does not matter much, for it is always bright and cheery despite its loneliness. We will take plenty of books and work.”

The girl made no further demur, and presently caught the infection of her companion’s cheerful enthusiasm. Mrs. Wylie possessed the pleasant art of making life a comfortable thing under most circumstances, and for such as her a sudden move has no fears. While Trist adapted himself to circumstances, Mrs. Wylie seemed to adapt circumstances to herself, which is, perhaps, the more difficult art.

The good lady seemed somewhat relieved when the move was finally decided upon and arranged; nevertheless, there was a look of anxiety on her round face when she sought her room that night.

“I wish,” she observed to her own reflection in the looking-glass, “that I knew what to do. I must be a terrible coward. It would be so very easy to ask Brenda outright⁠ ⁠… though⁠ ⁠… I know what the answer would be⁠ ⁠… poor child! And I might just as well have spoken out boldly when I went to see him that night. It is a difficult predicament, because⁠—they are both so strong!”

It does not fall to the lot of many travellers by sea to plough through the yellow broken waters of the German Ocean where the coast of Suffolk lies low and fertile. Thus it happens that these shores are little visited, and never overrun by the cheap tourist. Upon this bleak, shingly shore there are little villages and small ancient towns quite unknown to the August holiday-seeker, who prefers crowding down to the south coast. The mainline of the Great Eastern Railway runs its northward course far inland, and sends out at intervals a small feeler, often a single line traversed but once or twice a day. Between these sleepy lines there are tracts of country where the roads are mere beds of sand or shingle, quite unfit for polite traffic⁠—broad marshes intersected by sluices and waterways too broad to jump, too unimportant to bridge, and at the edge of the sea a great hopeless plain of unfathomable shingle. Five miles across this country are equal to twelve upon a moderately good road. Driving is impossible, riding impracticable, and walking unpleasant. There is, indeed, a tiny coastguard path near the sea, but this is often lost amidst the shingle; and even when the land rises to thirty feet, in soft, sandy cliff, the walking is but doubtful.

The glory of this coast has departed; many of its villages and towns⁠—once important⁠—have likewise gone⁠ ⁠… into the sea. It is dreary, if you will. I admit that it is dreary, but in its very mournfulness there is a great beauty. I do not speak of the ruins of bygone monasteries, of the tall, square-towered churches, of the quaint black fishing hamlets⁠—though these are picturesque enough⁠—but of the land itself. The long, unbroken shingle shore, where is visible, upon the clean stones, a plank or an old basket for miles away⁠—where the shore retreats in ridges to the green seawall or bank, each ridge marking the effect of some great storm. And over the seawall, inland, a great wild, deserted marsh, or “mesh,” as it is called in Suffolk, dotted here and there with black-hulled, white-sailed windmills, duly set at low tide by the solitary “mesh”-man to pump the water into the sluices and so into the sea.

A golden sunset over these lands seen from the seawall is a wondrous sight, for the land gleams like the heavens. The brilliant westering light searches out all still waters craftily hidden amidst marsh-grass and bulrush, making each pool and slow stream reflect the gold of heaven.

But Suffolk by the sea is not all marsh. There are high sand-dunes, where oaks grow to a wonderful stature and a mighty toughness; where clean-limbed beeches rustle melodiously in the breeze that is never still on the hottest autumn day; and where pines grow straight and tall despite the salty breath of ocean.

The little town of Wyvenwich lies upon the northern slope of such a bank as this. Before it spreads a bleak sandy plain seven miles across, while behind all is fertility and leafy luxuriance. To the south, over the hill, and past the ruins of a forgotten monastery, lies a vast purple moor, which undulates inland until a mixed forest of pine, oak and beech shuts out further investigation. The red heather literally hangs over the sea, and a high tide, coupled with a northeasterly gale, beating against the soft sand-cliffs, never fails to reduce the breadth of Wyvenwich Moor a yard or so. The heathland slopes gently down to a vast marsh, in the midst of which stands a solitary redbrick cottage, the home of the marsh-man. The nearest house to it is the Mizzen Heath Coastguard Station, set back from the greedy sea upon the height of the moor; and beyond that, surrounded by trees on all sides except the front, is Wyl’s Hall.

The parish register tells of Wylies since the thirteenth century. Nothing of great importance, perhaps, but the name is there, and the possessors of it appear to have done their duty faithfully in the state of life in which they were placed. Baptism, marriage, death⁠—what could human ambition require beyond that? And now the old race is extinct. A lonely widow, childless, almost kinless, lives in Wyl’s Hall; and the last possessor of the name, kindly honest Admiral Wylie, lies in his great solitude among the nameless northern dead, far away in the deserted Norse churchyard upon the mountainside.

Brenda Gilholme found a place for herself in the great human mill where we are all so many “hands” serving our little looms, feeding our insignificant crushers with honest raw material which goes away from us and never comes again. Even to her analytical, deep-searching mind it was clear that Mrs. Wylie had need of someone to bear her company in her widowhood, and so she stayed unquestioningly at Wyl’s Hall now that Mrs. Wylie had returned there.

Here she lived just like an ordinary little country maiden who knew nothing of Greek verbs and was profoundly ignorant respecting political economy. She knew all about the tides, and sympathized with old Godbold, the marsh-man, when the northeast winds blew against the ebbing tide, and laughed at all his five creaking windmills. She learnt the names of all the six stalwart coastguardsmen stationed at Mizzen Heath, and was deeply versed in the smuggling lore of this famous smuggling country, where the most honest and law-abiding man can scarcely look at the long deserted coast, the intersected marshland, and the silent sandy roads, without thinking of contraband wares. These coastguardsmen, with their civil tongues and ready ways, occupied an important position in the domestic economy of Wyl’s Hall. Their little turf refuge was at the foot of the kitchen garden, and there a pleasant-spoken man was to be found by night and day.

Women are weak where sailors are concerned. Mrs. Wylie set an evil example with the London newspaper, and the portly cook followed with surreptitious cold pudding when her dishes were washed on a warm evening. There was always something requiring a man’s hand at Wyl’s Hall, and the coastguards had a certain leisure, during which the most somnolent could scarcely sleep. No man slumbers quite peacefully about five o’clock in the evening, however actively employed he may have been during the previous night; and, indeed, at all times of day or night there was usually one of the six Mizzen Heath guardians awake and off duty.

Into this little world, shut off by shallow seas in front, closed in by vast moors behind, Brenda had quietly made her way like some new and gracious flower when the flowers of earth were still frozen in. In it she had found a place, among its denizens a welcome. And this was life. This the end and aim of all existence. To do a little good, to leave a pleasant memory in a few hearts. Ah, my brothers, the marble slabs in every church tell of men’s virtues and men’s deeds; lauding them and praising them beyond their value! “And of Mary, his wife, who died at the age of seventy-six.” A short record, a simple statement. We do not hear of her virtues and her deeds, and only a few of us vaguely surmise that she may have had a hand in the shaping of that wonderful vessel, her lord and master, whose good name will go down to posterity⁠—an example to men unborn. Could the life of “Mary, his wife,” be dissected, I think it would prove to be a cleaner record.

And so Brenda, in her way, was doing her share of unrecorded good, working out her small existence in a daily round of trivial self-sacrifices, self-suppressions, self-abnegations, as the majority of women are doing round us now. In a manner she was happy, for youth itself is a happiness, because it is a deceptive glamour of anticipation⁠—anticipation which, thank God! we can never learn to recognise as destined to certain disappointment. At times she vaguely questioned the benefit accruing from the possession of an exceptional education, but fortunately she was unaware that she was endowed with an exceptional intellect. She did not suspect that she could have scanned the wide expanse of sea and land spread out around the coastguards’ refuge without finding a human mind worthy so much as to hold mere passing intercourse with hers.

She never looked upon this existence as permanent. It could not last. Something would come, some change for good or evil, and the powers⁠—the infinite womanly powers of love and self-sacrifice⁠—would have a larger scope. Meanwhile she did her duty by Mrs. Wylie with unfailing energy and inexhaustible cheerfulness. Between these two women, as between the elder and Theo Trist, there had been no definite exchange of sentiments. Both would have said that their tacit devotion to each other was nothing else than a practical worldly arrangement of mutual advantage and equal benefit.

Mrs. Wylie was almost her old self again. At times the former cheerfulness of demeanour would lighten up the old house. There was the same capable sense of comfort in her presence, the same readiness to make the best of unpropitious environments. Her own sorrow, never publicly aired, was hidden deeply beneath a certain cheerfulness which can only be described as worldly. Worldliness is not a vice, it is a social virtue. Why should we parade our sorrows and clothe ourselves in a meek coat of obtrusive resignation? There is enough grief in life to justify a little slurring over, a little avoidance of grievous topics. If Mrs. Wylie never referred to her late husband in touching terms, it was not because his memory was devoid of meaning to her; it was because she cordially disliked any approach to cant, because the memory was too sacred a thing to be discussed. Of course, society at large and her neighbours in particular had a say in the matter⁠—the usual kind of say⁠—flavoured with tea and thin bread, garnished with spite and kindly malice. But Mrs. Wylie had always been rashly indifferent to criticism. She had chosen to ignore the precious advice of sundry female counsellors, who knew infinitely more about her affairs and their mismanagement than she did herself. And this was the result⁠—the neighbourhood would talk, it is a way neighbourhoods have, and really there was cause for it. Cause, indeed⁠—I should think so! Why, Miss Ferret, the elderly unmarried daughter of the late vicar of Wyvenwich, had never even been told the details of the small tragedy in Norway. And instead of coming down quietly to Wyl’s Hall the widow had actually lived in her chambers in town⁠—a flat, near Piccadilly. A flat, indeed, and Admiral Wylie scarce cold in his grave! There is some deep reproach in this which is not quite clear to my obtuse male brain, but I am assured upon the best authority that the matter was much spoken of at Wyvenwich. There are some people whose chief aim in life seems to be to avoid being spoken of. They try all their days to walk in a trodden path, to live a vegetating existence, which is so absolutely commonplace and everyday, so compassed about by rule and the safe guiding of precedent, that there is absolutely nothing left to speak about. Then they shake their lace-caps, or pull down their starched waistcoats, and, in the self-laudation of their bloodless hearts, are happy.

All through February and March the two ladies had lived happily at Wyl’s Hall, without longing for the busier life of London. The human mind is even more adaptable to circumstances than the body that carries it. Small interests soon take the place of large, and quietude follows on excitement without any great mental change being necessary.

At times Mrs. Wylie heard about Theodore Trist⁠—usually a vague rumour that he was in London, or Paris, or Berlin. In his deliberate way he was building up for himself a great reputation in that inner diplomatic world which is a sealed chamber for prying journalism of the cheaper sort. Upon certain international subjects the newspaper he served was without rival, but the closest observer could not detect his pen or assign any statement to him. The secret remained inviolate between himself and his editor. The position of Theodore Trist was unique, and has not since been approached. His grasp of the great subject of war was extraordinary at this time of his life, when all his faculties were in full strength. From the lock of a Berdan rifle to the construction of a trench, from the strap of a knapsack to the details of a treaty, his knowledge was unrivalled. In diplomacy he could have made his mark had he so wished, but he contented himself with studying the art as a sailor learns astronomy⁠—merely as a factor in his profession. In some countries he was cordially hated⁠—notably in Germany, where the peculiar circumstances of his position were incomprehensible. The Teutonic mind cannot grasp certain motives which solely depend upon a sense of honour or find birth in a scrupulous uprightness. Far be it from this impartial pen to speak ill of any man or men; but having lived among Germans in their own country, in their daily life and work, also in other countries and in different circumstances; having had transactions⁠—friendly, commercial, and unfriendly⁠—with them, I hereby make note of the fact that our self-complacent neighbours are mentally and totally unable to comprehend why a man, possessing certain knowledge and certain power, should hesitate to use it for his own personal benefit.

That which we in our trammelled smallness call “scruple” they possess not; and to that cause must be assigned the reason that the great Teutonic nation never understood Theodore Trist. His position was to them an anomaly. They could not realize that he was capable of serving two nations⁠—France and England⁠—honestly at the same time, and so they distrusted him. He was hated because he had dared to criticise a military policy which was modestly considered in Berlin as the ablest yet conceived since armies first ruled the world. Added to this there was the rankling sore of an unforgotten story, told bluffly and with scathing sarcasm in a French and English newspaper simultaneously⁠—the story of a dastardly attempt to extract information from a faithful Alsatian peasant woman by means of what in barbarous ages we would have denominated infamous torture.

Once Mrs. Wylie heard directly from Theodore Trist⁠—a short note, sent with some quaint old jewellery he had brought back from the Slavonski Bazar in Moscow for herself and Brenda.

March was drawing to a close, and the low Suffolk lands were already green by reason of their dampness, when a second communication arrived at Wyl’s Hall from the busy correspondent.

“May I,” he asked tersely, “come down for a day or two to see you? Please answer by telegraph.”

The note came at breakfast-time, and a messenger was at once despatched to Wyvenwich with a telegram.

“It is quite an age since we have seen Theo,” observed Mrs. Wylie pleasantly, as she wrote out the message.

Brenda, who was occupied with her letters, acquiesced carelessly; but in a few moments she laid the communications aside and took up the newspaper. With singular nonchalance she opened it and went towards the window. There was nothing very peculiar in this action, and yet the girl’s movements were in some slight and inexplicable way embarrassed. It seemed almost as if she did not wish Mrs. Wylie to notice that she was looking at the newspaper. During breakfast there was a furtive anxiety visible in the manner and voice of these deceitful women. Each attempted to rejoice openly over the advent of Theodore Trist, and at the same time carefully avoided seeking a reason for his unusual mode of procedure; for Trist was a man who never invited himself. Indeed, his habit was one of apprehensive self-suppression; except in the battlefield, he was nervously afraid of being de trop.

While the table was being cleared Brenda left the room on some small errand, and Mrs. Wylie literally pounced upon the newspaper the moment the door was closed. With practised hand and eye she sought the column containing foreign intelligence. Eagerly she scanned the closely-printed lines, but disappointment was the evident result.

“Not a word,” she reflected⁠—“not a word. But perhaps that is all the worse. Theo is coming down here for some specific reason, I am sure. Either to say goodbye or⁠ ⁠… or for something else. War⁠—war⁠—war! I feel it in the air!”

And the good lady stood there in the bow-window gazing through the rime-shaded panes away across the moor, over the green and mournful sea. Her clever gray eyes were half-closed, owing to a peculiar contraction of the eyelids⁠—a little habit she indulged in when thinking in her brave cheery way of those things, my sisters, which you have greater leisure to meditate over than we men⁠—of the happiness and the great joy we seem ever about to grasp, and which with melancholy invariability slips through our earthly fingers, fades from our earthly eyes. I sometimes think that when other women would have wept Mrs. Wylie contracted her eyelids, set her lips, and looked “very courageous and of a good faith.”

Unconsciously she was looking away towards the east, to those mysterious lands, whence so many chapters of the world’s history have been drawn.

It happened that there were some warm balmy days towards the end of March, and on one of these Theodore Trist arrived at Wyvenwich. Mrs. Wylie and Brenda were on the little platform to meet him, and the elder lady, in her practical way, noted the lightness of his baggage and drew her own conclusions.

They walked to Wyl’s Hall through the High Street of the little town, down towards the sea, up a steep path on the cliff, and finally across the moor. All green things were budding, tender shoots and bold weeds alike. Overhead the larks were singing in gladsome chorus. Side by side the three friends walked, and talked of⁠ ⁠… the weather. I mention it because none of the three took much interest in the matter, as a rule, nor ever talked of it.

“Spring is upon us again,” Mrs. Wylie had said during the first pause.

“Yes,” answered Trist; “this weather always makes me restless.”

“More so than usual?” inquired Brenda innocently.

Trist looked at her sideways.

“Yes,” he murmured, “more so than usual. I suppose a new fund of energy creeps into my somnolent being.”

“Do you really believe,” inquired Mrs. Wylie, with exceeding great interest, “that the weather has so much effect upon one as that?”

“I am sure of it. There is no denying the fact that in the springtime, when all things are beginning to grow, men grow energetic. If they be working, they work harder; fighting, fight harder; playing, play harder. The majority of events happen in the first six months of the year.”

“So the unexpected may be expected before July,” suggested Mrs. Wylie quietly.

“That may be expected at all times.”

Thus they talked on in vague commonplaces, not entirely devoid of a second meaning perhaps. Brenda scarcely joined in the conversation. It was enough for her to listen to these two strangely assorted friends, who seemed to her analytical mind to be rather different in each other’s company than they were before the rest of the world. She never quite lost her youthful habit of studying human minds⁠—picking them to pieces, dissecting them, assigning motives, seeking reasons⁠—and her belief in the influence of one will over another (even at a distance) was singularly strong. She was pleased to consider that Theodore Trist and Mrs. Wylie possessed some hidden sympathies in common beyond the mere ties of friendship; and it is probable that she gained some instruction and perhaps a little benefit in watching their intercourse. Certain it is that each in turn spoke to the other as he or she spoke to no one else. Each possessed a power of bringing out certain qualities in the other, which power was unique. And so Brenda, who was at no time a talkative woman, listened in silence as they walked home to Wyl’s Hall across the deserted moor.

When they had reached the house the girl went upstairs to remove her hat and jacket, leaving her two companions together in the library. This was a good-sized room, with a broad old-fashioned bow-window, of which even the panes of glass were curved, while all round it there was a low window-seat softly cushioned. In the broad fireplace some logs of driftwood burnt slowly and silently, with a steady glow of heat, as only driftwood burns.

Trist went straight to the window and stood in the centre of it, with his strong lean hands hanging idly. His eyes were soft and meek and dreamy as ever, while his limbs seemed full of strength and energy. The old incongruity was still apparent.

Mrs. Wylie followed him, and seated herself by the window at the end of the bow, so that the man’s profile was visible to her. Thus they remained for some seconds; then he turned with grave deliberation and met her steady gaze.

“Well⁠ ⁠… ?” she inquired.

“Well⁠ ⁠… ?” he reiterated.

“How long are you going to stay?”

“Till Monday.”

“This being Friday⁠ ⁠…”

He signified assent and turned away again.

“Why have you come?” asked Mrs. Wylie abruptly, after a short pause.

This time he avoided meeting her eyes by the simple expedient of staring out of the window.

“I do not know⁠ ⁠…” he replied, with some hesitation.

“Yes⁠ ⁠… you do!”

He wheeled round upon his heels and looked down at her with an aggravatingly gentle smile.

“Yes, Theo, you do! Why have you come?”

“May I not be allowed,” he asked lightly, “a certain desire to see you and⁠ ⁠… Brenda?”

“You may,” she replied; “but that is not the reason of your coming.”

She settled herself more comfortably on the window-seat, laid aside her muff, loosened her jacket, and composed herself to a long wait with a cheery determination eminently characteristic.

“In the spring⁠ ⁠…” he began, in a patient voice which seemed to contain the promise of a long story.

“The young man’s fancy⁠ ⁠…” continued Mrs. Wylie.

“Lightly turns,” he said gravely, taking up the thread, “to thoughts of⁠ ⁠… war.”

At the last word he lowered his voice suddenly, and turned upon her as if to see its effect. She merely raised her eyebrows and looked at him speculatively. At last she gave a little nod of the head, signifying comprehension.

“Then you have come to say⁠—goodbye?”

Here her voice failed a little. With care she could have prevented such an occurrence; but perhaps she spoke a trifle recklessly⁠—perhaps she did not care to conceal the feeling which was betrayed by that passing break in her mellow sympathetic tones. When it was too late, she closed her lips with a small snap of determination, and looked up at him smiling defiantly.

“Not necessarily,” he replied coolly. “It may mean that; or, at least, it may mean that I am summoned away at such short notice that there will be no opportunity of coming again. Personally, I should prefer it to be so. The pastime of saying goodbye may possess a certain sentimental value, but it is a weakness which is best avoided.”

Mrs. Wylie continued to watch the young man’s face with speculative criticism. It is just possible that she suspected him of talking nonsense, as it were, against time or against himself.

“Is your information of a general description, or have you certain advice that war is imminent?”

Trist smiled almost apologetically as he replied, with caution:

“I have reason to believe that there will be a big war before the summer.”

“Turkey and Russia, of course?”

“Yes.”

“And you go with Turkey, I suppose?”

“Yes.”

“The losing side again?” inquired Mrs. Wylie diplomatically.

“Probably; but not without a good fight for it. It will not be such an easy matter as the Russians imagine.”

“Where will you be?” asked the persistent lady. “At Constantinople or⁠ ⁠…”

“At the front!” said Trist.

The widow turned aside and looked out of the window. Across the moor, on the edge of the cliff, a coastguardsman was pacing backwards and forwards with a measured tread acquired at sea, and from the window they watched him in a mechanical, semi-interested way.

“Do you know,” said Mrs. Wylie at length, in a half-shamefaced way, “I believe I am beginning to lose my nerve. Is it a foretaste of approaching old age? I really believe I am going to be anxious about you.”

Her semi-bantering tone justified Trist’s easy laugh. He took it for granted that Mrs. Wylie was not speaking seriously.

“You must not allow yourself,” he expostulated, “to get into bad habits of that sort.”

“Still,” argued the widow in the same tone, “I do not see why you should be free from the restraining and salutary feeling that there is someone waiting for you at home.”

It was hard to tell whether Mrs. Wylie meant more than the mere words conveyed or no. Trist seemed to hesitate before replying.

“I am never free from that⁠—but it is not necessary; my foolhardy days are over.”

“And this is to be the last time?” said Mrs. Wylie, consoling herself.

“Yes. The last time!”

There was a strange, hard ring in the young wanderer’s tone as he echoed the foreboding words and turned gravely away. The sound seemed to strike some sympathetic chord in the good lady’s heart, for she, too, looked almost mournful.

“I would give a good deal to have you safe back again,” murmured Mrs. Wylie in an undertone. The remark was hardly addressed to him, and he allowed it to pass unnoticed. Presently, however, he turned and looked into her face with some anxiety depicted on his calm features. Then he took a step or two nearer to her.

“This will never do,” he said gravely, standing in front of her with his strong hands clenched.

She gave rather a lame little laugh, and looked up with a deprecating glance.

“Theo, I am afraid I am not so plucky as I used to be. My nerve is gone. I think I left it⁠ ⁠… at Fjaerholm.”

He made no reply, but merely stood by her in his silent manliness, and from his presence she somehow gathered comfort, as women do⁠—from your presence and mine sometimes. Although we be of coarser fibre, failing to grasp the hidden pathos of everyday life⁠—the little trials, the petty sorrows; failing often to divine the motives that grow out of a finer, truer, nobler nature than ours, and always failing to appreciate the unselfishness of woman’s love⁠—despite all these, our presence is at times a comfort because of the greater strength that does or should lie within us.

No reference had hitherto been made between Mrs. Wylie and Trist to the events attending the last voyage of the Hermione. A year had not yet elapsed, and the Admiral’s name was still avoided. Trist was of a singularly sympathetic nature, although he evinced some contempt for death itself, which was a mere matter of familiarity; and it was his creed that things and names which cause a pang of sorrow are best left in oblivion. Mrs. Wylie was outwardly little changed, but he knew that the wound was by no means healed, and he had, therefore, allowed all recollection of the Hermione’s sorrowful voyage to die from his memory. No doubt the great healer Time would do for Mrs. Wylie what he has done for us all since the days of Adam⁠—but it was too soon yet. In the annals of sorrow a year is no long period. It has often struck me that we have to lament over one singular trait in the mechanism of the human mind. It is a pity that the effect of joy is so short-lived, while sorrow holds its own so long. There are so many varieties of sorrow that by the time we have tasted most of them and have become accustomed to the flavour, life itself is at an end, and lo! we have had no time to enjoy its pleasures by reason of the years spent in wrestling with woe.

Theo Trist held his peace sympathetically and yet without encouragement. Mrs. Wylie no doubt understood his motive, for they possessed in common that desire of concealing the seamy side which Brenda had characterized as cowardly. In her strong young courage (self-assertive as all young virtues are) she seemed to take a pride in facing untoward things⁠—indeed, she sought them; while these two, in their greater experience, slurred them over as a clever painter slurs over certain accessories in his picture, in order that the brighter objects may stand more firmly on the face of the canvas.

“Nevertheless,” he said more cheerily, returning to the original question, “you are the pluckiest woman I have ever met! You must not give way to this habit of anxiety, for it is nothing but a habit⁠—a sort of moral cowardice. It serves no purpose. An overanxious man misses his opportunities by moving too soon; an overanxious woman has no peace in life, because she can do nothing but watch.”

Mrs. Wylie laughed pleasantly.

“No!” she exclaimed, with determination. “It is all right, Theo; I will not give way to it. My anxiety is only anticipatory; when the moment comes I am generally up to the mark.”

With a brave smile she nodded to him and moved towards the door, carrying her gloves and muff. He followed in order to open the door, for he had some strange, old-fashioned notions of politeness which promise to become fossilized before the end of the century.

“Will it be a long war?” she asked, before passing out of the room.

He answered without deliberation, as if he had already pondered over the question at leisure with a decisive result.

“I think so. It will go on all through the summer and autumn. As things get worse, Turkey will probably pull herself together. It is a way she has. It may even continue actively right on into the winter. The Turks will be on the defensive, which suits them exactly. Put a Turk into a trench with a packet of cigarettes, a little food, a rifle, and a sackful of cartridges, and it will take a considerable number of Russians to get him out.”

“I hope it will not extend into the winter,” said Mrs. Wylie, as she left the room.

“So do I.”

He closed the door and walked slowly back towards the bow-window. There he stood staring out with eyes that saw but understood not, for many minutes.

“I am not quite sure,” he muttered at last, “that I have done a wise thing in coming to Wyl’s Hall!”

In the course of a few hours Theodore Trist was quite at home at Wyl’s Hall. These three people had lived together before, and knew each other’s little ways. Mrs. Wylie, the personification of comfort⁠—Theo Trist, possessing no real comprehension of the word⁠—Brenda, midway between them, with a youthful faculty for adapting herself to either. The narrow limits of a ship soon break down the smaller social barriers, and the memory of life on board the Hermione knitted the inmates of Wyl’s Hall in a close and pleasant familiarity. At times, indeed, the union of the three around the fireside or at table seemed to emphasize the absence of the fourth, to suggest the vacancy caused by the stillness of a pleasant voice, the absence of a fine old face. But this slight shadow was not unpleasant, because it had no great contrast to show it up. None of the three was hilarious, but there was a pleasant sociability, which for everyday use is superior to the most brilliant flashes of wit.

Very soon the old, semi-serious style of conversation found place again. Brenda fell into her former habit of listening (too silently, perhaps) to Mrs. Wylie and Theo, accusing them at times of cynicism and worldliness. Old questions came to life again⁠—unfinished discussions were renewed. Everything seemed to suggest the Hermione.

Again and again Mrs. Wylie found herself watching the two young people thus thrown together, and on each occasion she remembered how she had watched them before to no purpose. Since the pleasant summer days spent in the Heimdalfjord many incidents had come with their petty influences, and yet these two were in no way altered towards each other. One great difference was ever before her eyes, and yet she could not detect its result. Alice Huston was now a free woman, and if Trist loved her, there was no reason why he should not win her in the end; indeed, there was great cause to suppose that the matter should be easy to him. And yet there was no change in his manner towards the girl who, in all human probability, was destined to be his sister-in-law. The old half-chivalrous, half-brotherly way of addressing her and listening to her reply was still noticeable; and it puzzled the widow greatly. But Brenda seemed to take it as a matter of course. This man was different to all other men in her estimation; it was only natural that his manner towards her should be unlike that of others. And now a subtle change took place in Mrs. Wylie’s mind. On board the Hermione she had been convinced that if any woman possessed an influence over Theo Trist, that woman was Alice Huston. (The widow was too experienced, too practical, too farsighted to attempt a definition of this fascination exercised by a woman of inferior intellect over a man infinitely her superior in every way.) Now she was equally sure that Trist was moved by no warmth of love towards the beautiful young widow who had so openly thrown herself in his path.

One trifling alteration seemed to present itself occasionally to the good lady’s watchful eyes, and this was a well-hidden fear of being left alone together. Whether this emanated from Theo or Brenda it was impossible to say, but its presence was unmistakable, and, moreover, whatever its origin may have been it was now mutual. At one time they had possessed a thousand topics of common interest, and found in each other’s conversation an unfailing pleasure. Now they both talked to her, using her almost as an intermediary.

On the Saturday morning, while dressing, the widow meditated over these things, and in the afternoon she deliberately sent her two guests out for a walk together. About three miles down the coast, in the very centre of the marsh lying to the south of Mizzen Heath Moor, was a ruined lighthouse, long since superseded by a lightship riding on the newly-formed sandbank four miles off the shore. In this ruin lived an old marsh-man, in whose welfare Mrs. Wylie appeared suddenly to have taken a great interest. For him, accordingly, a parcel was made up, and the two young people were despatched immediately after lunch.

Mention has already been made of Mrs. Wylie’s nervous abhorrence of any interference in what she was pleased to consider other people’s affairs. In this matter she had at last made up her mind to act, because she loved these two as her own children, and there was in her kindly heart a haunting fear that they were about to make a muddle of their lives.

A slight haze lay over the land as the two young people made their way across the moor towards the coastguard-path⁠—a narrow footway forever changing its devious course before the encroaching sea. Before their eyes lay a vast plain, intersected here and there with watercourse or sluice; while away to the southward rose a blue barrier of distant hill. Inland, the meadows were green and lush; while nearer to the sea the grass grew sparsely, and there were small plots of sand and shingle nourishing nought but unsightly thistles.

Already the clouds were freeing themselves from winter heaviness, and in their manifold combinations there was that suggestion of still distance which is characteristic of our English summer days, and has its equal in no other land, over no other sea.

The yellow sun was high in the heavens, with nothing more formidable to obstruct its rays than a slight shimmering haze. The air was light and balmy⁠—indeed, in earth and air and sea there was a subtle buoyancy which tells of coming spring, and creates in men’s hearts a braver contemplation of life.

It was, I think, a dangerous hour to send two young people away across the lonesome marshland alone together. Nevertheless, Mrs. Wylie watched them depart without a pang of remorse or a sting of conscience. Indeed, she calculated the risk with equanimity.

“I think,” she reflected, “that this walk to the old lighthouse will be one of those trifling incidents which seem to remain engraved in our hearts long after the memory of greater events has passed away. They are both self-contained and resolute, but no human being is quite beyond the influence of outward things.”

For some time the two young people spoke in a scrappy way, of indifferent topics. The narrow path only allowed one to pass at a time, and the moor was so broken that progression at the side of the path was almost impossible. After, however, the Mizzen Heath Coastguard Station had been left behind, and the precipitous slope descended, the seawall afforded better walking, and the conversation assumed a more personal vein.

“Tell me,” said Brenda pleasantly, “your plans in case of war! We know absolutely nothing of your proposed movements.”

“I know nothing myself, except in a very general way. Of course, we shall be guided by circumstances.”

“We⁠ ⁠… ?”

“Yes; I take two men with me. The campaign will be on too large a scale for one man to watch unaided. These two fellows act as my lieutenants. I have chosen them myself. One is a future baronet with a taste for sport and literature, which is a rare combination. The other is a soldier, twenty-five years older than myself. We shall be a funny trio; but I think it will be a success, for we mean to make it one. The two men are full of energy and as hard as nails. Our plans are almost as voluminous and as comprehensive as Moltke’s. It will be a great war, and we intend our history of it to be the only one worth reading. The old soldier is a Frenchman, so we shall tell our story in two languages simultaneously.”

“And where will it be⁠—where will the battles be fought?”

“It is hard to say, because so much depends upon the apathy of the Turks. They will probably allow them to cross the Danube before making an effort to stop them, and the thick of it may be in Bulgaria again. I shall be at the Danube to see the Russians cross⁠—probably at Galatz. There are small towns south of the Danube of which the names will be historical by this time next year, and in all probability there are men who will have immortalized themselves before then, although they are quite unknown now. War is the path by which the world progresses.”

“I suppose the younger Skobeleff will do something wonderful. I know your admiration for him.”

“Yes. If he does not get killed before he is across the Danube. As a leader I admire him, but not as a strategist. There are other men I know of also who will come to the front, but in the Turkish army individuality is more important than in the Russian. The lower the standard of discipline the higher is the power of personal influence over an army. The Turks depend entirely upon the individual capabilities of a few men⁠—Suleiman, Osman, Tefik, and a few others.”

Brenda was not listening with the attention she usually accorded to Theodore Trist, whatever the subject of his discourse might happen to be, and he knew it. She had a strange trick of lapsing into a stony silence at odd moments, and he rarely failed to detect the slight difference. Such fits of absorption were usually followed by the raising of some deep abstract question, or an opinion of personal bearing. It may have been mere chance that caused him to cease somewhat abruptly, and continue walking by her side in silence; or it is possible that he knew her humours as few people knew them. The question of a Russo-Turkish War had suddenly lost all interest, and he might as well have told his opinion to the winds as to this girl, who had, a moment earlier, been a most intelligent listener.

For some time they walked on without speaking. The soft turf of the so-called seawall, which was nothing else than an embankment, gave forth no sound beneath their feet. The tide was out, and the day being still, there came to their ears only a soft, murmuring, continuous song from the little waves.

At last Brenda turned a little and looked at him in her thoughtful, analytical way, as if to read on his features an answer to some question which had arisen in her mind.

“Yes,” said Trist, smiling at her gently. “Go on. You are about to propound one of those very deep theories which invariably suggest themselves to you in the middle of my most interesting observations.”

She laughed rather guiltily as she shook her head in denial.

“No.⁠ ⁠… I was only⁠ ⁠… wondering.”

“Wondering⁠—?” he repeated interrogatively, but she omitted to answer his implied question, and he did not press it.

“Do you know, Theo,” she said, after a little pause, “that you are the greatest puzzle I have ever come across?”

“I am sorry,” he murmured, with mock humility.

“Oh, don’t apologize! I dare say it is entirely unintentional. What I cannot understand is your nonchalant way of talking of certain things. For instance, nothing seems to be farther from your thoughts at this moment than the possibility of your being⁠ ⁠… killed.”

He chipped off the head of a withered thistle with his stick before replying in a low, steady voice, very deliberately:

“And yet nothing is nearer to them.”

“That is what I cannot understand. I think women look farther ahead. They seem to have the power of realizing at the beginning what the end may be⁠—realizing it more fully than men, I mean.”

“I doubt it!” he answered. “I have to make two sets of arrangements, two sets of plans. One takes it for granted that I shall come through it all safely, the other goes upon the theory that I shall be killed. Each is complete in itself, independent of its companion. When I say that I will do something at a certain time, or be in a certain place, there is a D.V. understood, hidden between the lines. Everything is of course Deo volente, but you would not have me drag it in obtrusively.”

“No⁠ ⁠… naturally not. But what I cannot understand is your power of facing the two possibilities⁠—or, at the least, the latter⁠—with apparent indifference. Is that the difference that exists between the courage of a man and that of a woman?”

“No,” he replied, looking at her very gravely, and speaking in a tone which gave weight to words of apparently small importance; “I think not, for women face possibilities and even certainties with equal pluck. It requires as much courage to remain at home and wait as it does to go out and face the danger, for danger is never so unpleasant as the anticipation of it.”

She remembered these words afterwards, and recognised then the fuller sense he had intended them to convey. In the meantime, however, she held to her point.

“It is not exactly in that way that I mean,” she murmured slowly. “Not from a question of personal bravery at all. I meant⁠ ⁠…”

She hesitated in embarrassment, and he hastened to remove it.

“Yes⁠—go on.”

“I was wondering whether you ever looked at it from a religious point of view.”

He did not reply at once, and in some way the pause gave a greater gravity to his words.

“Yes, Brenda. You must not think that. Every man has his religion, and I have mine. It may consist in faith more than in works, perhaps, but it is there, nevertheless.”

“But you are half a fatalist.”

“In some degree I am, but I do not go so far as to say that nothing matters. Everything matters! We are intended to do our best, to make the best of our lives; but there is undoubtedly a scheme which is beyond our reach and far above our petty influence or endeavour.”

Brenda was no mean theologist, and she now set to work to demolish Trist’s system of fatalism, while half leaning towards it herself. Somewhat to her surprise she found that his knowledge upon certain points was equal to her own, and in some cases superior; his acquaintance with Eastern lore and Oriental creeds was quite beyond her depth.

In this manner they reached the lighthouse, passed a few minutes with its solitary inmate, and set off homewards again across the marsh. Mrs. Wylie would, perhaps, have been surprised could she have overheard their conversation, which was upon very different topics to what she had expected.

Before they reached the rising ground at the edge of the moor, the sun was low over the western plain. A faint mauve-coloured haze rose from the damp earth and hovered weirdly among the pollarded oaks and rank marsh grasses. The whole scene was terribly dismal, and the distant note of a jacksnipe seemed only to add to the lifelessness of the land.

As they passed through one of the swing-gates on the seawall, Brenda turned her head, and in a moment the characteristic beauty of the sunset caught her attention.

“Look!” she exclaimed in little more than a whisper.

He obeyed, closing the gate, and resting his arms upon it. Thus they stood, side by side, without speaking. She in her pure upright maidenhood, with the sunset glow warming her refined face with a hue of great beauty, for her eyes were deep and pensive as woman’s eyes rarely are, while her sweet lips were parted with a simple faithful wonderment which was almost childlike. He rested his arms upon the gray, moss-grown oak of the gate, and looked upon the hopeless scene with meekly contemplative eyes. His square chin was thrust forward, and the indescribable incongruity of his face was absurdly prominent. There was a great strength and a wondrous softness, a mighty courage and a meek resignation, an indefatigable energy and a philosophic calm. All these were suggested at once in this strange Napoleonic face. So may the great Bonaparte have leant his arms upon yon low wall at Saint Helena, and wondered over the utter incomprehensibility of human existence.

It was Brenda who at last broke the silence, without moving limb or muscle.

“So you are going on Monday?”

“Yes⁠ ⁠… I must.”

Something in his voice caused her breath to come quickly.

“But you will come back?” she whispered almost pleadingly.

He moved, and laid his strong bare hand over the small gloved fingers resting on the gate.

“Yes, Brenda. I will come back!”

Then they turned and walked home in silence.

That was their farewell. They never spoke together again in confidence before he left on the Monday morning. There was, indeed, a pressure of the hand and a cheery word of parting on the little platform of Wyvenwich Station; but their two souls went out unto each other, and stood face to face in one long agonized ecstasy of parting by that old oaken gate upon the seawall.

I have often wondered why blasphemy is excusable when it is spoken from a throne. It seems to me that many crimes have been deliberately set forth upon paper under the exculpating heading of, “In the name of God⁠—Amen. We,” etc., etc. This thought cannot well escape suggestion while perusing a declaration of war. It is a subterfuge⁠—a mean attempt to assign the responsibility to One who is mightier than princes or potentates. God does not declare war⁠—it is man.

On the twenty-fourth day of April, eighteen hundred and seventy-seven, the Czar of all the Russias gave forth to his people that, bowing his head to the evident desire of the Almighty, he reluctantly declared war against the Ottoman Empire. There was much rhetoric about Christian nations suffering beneath the lash of Mohammedan hatred; stories were told of shocking cruelties practised upon an oppressed people, coldly worded statements were made of misgovernment, misappropriation, theft. And the remedy to all these was, if it may please you, war! From the formal declaration, with its pharisaical self-laudation, its rolling periods and mock reluctance, fourteen letters might have been selected, and set in order so as to spell a single word in which lay the explanation of it all. That word was⁠—“Constantinople.”

Before the official opening of hostilities, Russia was prepared, and Turkey (despite a long warning) but half ready, as usual. The Russian troops entered Romania and Turkish Armenia at once, the inhabitants of both countries, with Oriental readiness, receiving them as deliverers. The day following the declaration of war saw the occupation of the town of Galatz.

Theodore Trist had, as he told Brenda he intended, taken up his quarters in this small town upon the Danube, and actually passed through its streets in the midst of the Northern troops unsuspected. When the conquerors had shaken down into their new quarters, and military discipline was beginning to make itself felt throughout the city, he discreetly vanished, and, crossing the Danube in a small boat, made his way South. At this time England began to receive the benefit of a brilliantly conceived and steadily executed plan of transmitting news. Trist and his two lieutenants appeared to haunt the entirety of the Ottoman Empire. One of them appeared to find himself invariably within reach of any spot where events of interest might be occurring. And from this time until the end of the great war this ceaseless flow of carefully-sifted information continued to set eastward to Paris and London. The first official notice taken was an imperial decree, forbidding the admittance into Russia of the French and English journals to which Trist was attached as war-correspondent. This heavy punishment in no way affected the equanimity of these mistaken organs, of which the circulation in the Northern empire had never attained a height worth consideration or even mention. A sackful of copies under private addresses had been the utmost limit, and out of these the majority were usually lost in transmission with that patient, bland persistency by means of which the Russian Government usually succeeds in quelling any private and individual attempt to learn what the world is saying. It is remarkable how little is known in England of the method of procedure in a country so near at hand as Russia. I verily believe that Hong Kong is better known than Moscow, Valparaiso than Tver. It is, for instance, a matter of surprise to many intelligent English men and women to learn that our newspapers are, with one or two exceptions, forbidden entrance into the Czar’s dominions. And in the case of those exceptions there is no circulation⁠—each copy comes under a private cover, with the probability of being opened several times on the way. Moreover, objectionable paragraphs, or, in the case of illustrated journals, sketches in any way connected with the seamy side of Slavonic life, are ruthlessly obliterated with a black pad. The transmission of news is virtually in the hands of the Government, with the natural result that all untoward events are hushed up, while pleasant things are glorified to the infinite profit of those in office. Respecting the progress of humanity, the events of the outer world, and the march of civilization, the whole of the vast continent of Russia is kept in the dark. Even with our marvellous facilities, the transmission of news over such vast tracts of land, across such stupendous plains, would be a matter of some difficulty; it is, therefore, easy to arrest the progress of thought, and force back men’s brains into the apathetic, voiceless endurance of brutes.

Under these circumstances it will be readily understood that the views of the great English critic were looked upon with fear and dislike; additionally so, perhaps, because no one could accuse him of partiality or political bias. He studied war as an art, whereas the Russian staff had in most cases taken it up as a profession.

During the months that followed many brave men came to the front; but few reputations were made, whereas a number were lost. Gourko and Skobeleff proved that their personal courage, their calm assumption of a terrible responsibility, was something almost superhuman; but as strategists they came within measurable distance of failure. The one has the stain of three thousand lives lost in one bold march upon his military reputation⁠—namely, the crossing of the Balkans; while the other, the wild, half-mad Skobeleff, will have it remembered against him that two thousand of his “children” fell in the storming of one redoubt, and three thousand more perished in attempting to hold it.

But in fairness to these reckless soldiers, it must be kept in mind that the Russians played, in a literal as well as metaphorical sense, an uphill game. They had to storm heights, “rush” redoubts, and advance on trenches against the Berdan rifle in the hands of the Turk. Just as each man knows his own business best, so have we all our special way of fighting. The Russians are not brilliant at the attack, because they are too reckless of life, and in the excitement of the moment expose themselves with criminal prodigality; whereas there is no finer defender of a fortified position than the Turk.

Again, Skobeleff and Gourko were hampered by being in too constant and frequent communication with the royal amateur soldiers in their comfortable quarters on the Danube.

At first the Russians seemed to carry all before them, and the chronic unreadiness of the enemy was a matter for laughter. Having successfully crossed the Danube towards the end of June, driving the Turks before them step by step to Matchin, the campaign was looked upon as a mere parade. But Theodore Trist, retreating slowly from the Danube before the advance of the Northern army, held a different opinion.

At present, [he wrote in the second week in July,] everything seems to be against us. But the time is coming when some good men will force their way to the fore; and the power of individual influence over an ill-disciplined but well-armed horde like this is incalculable. Sulieman Pasha is said to be coming with his hardened troops, and from him great things may be expected. He is a good soldier, with an energy which is rendered more striking by its rarity in this country. When last I saw him he was spare in figure, much browned by exposure, singularly active, and as hard as nails. In appearance he is unlike a Turk, being fair, with ruddy hair and quick eyes. His men are more like a band of hill-robbers than a trained army, for they possess no distinct uniform; but they are full of fight. His staff is ludicrously informal, possessing no fine titles, and being entirely destitute of gold braid. The Turks are a strange mixture of impassibility and stubbornness. At times their fatalism gives way to an overwhelming strength of purpose, almost defying fate, and it is quite within the bounds of possibility that a trifling error on the part of the Russians may turn the tide suddenly upon them, and a disastrous retreat to the Danube will follow.

By the time that the letter from which the above is extracted arrived in England, the farseeing correspondent’s prophecy had in part fallen true. The tide of fortune had set in in favour of the Muslim, and although a retreat was not as yet whispered of, it was held certain by experts that more men were absolutely required by the Russians in order to continue the campaign.

At this time the name of a hitherto unknown town in the north of Bulgaria was constantly on men’s tongues. Until now no one had ever heard of Plevna, which, nevertheless, was destined to be the chief topic of conversation throughout all the civilized world for many months to come. The genius of one man raised this small city from its obscurity to a proud place in the annals of warfare, and the defence of Plevna will ever stand forth as a proof of the influence of one strong individuality over a whole army; and, one might almost say, upon the march of events.

Of course it is easy to state that much depended upon chance, but it is not only in warfare that we all have to wait upon chance. Those who step in quickly when fortune leaves the gate ajar are the winners in the war we are engaged in here below. Had Krüdener occupied Plevna when he received the order to do so, Osman Pasha might have died without leaving his mark upon the sands of time. But the Russian delayed, and the Turk stepped in. Osman saw at once the great strategetic value of Plevna, and Krüdener, the man of many mistakes, was outwitted.

I see, [wrote Trist at this time in a private letter to his editor, which was not published until later,] a subtle change in the atmosphere of events. It seems to me that the tide is turning. I will now attach myself definitely to the fortunes of Plevna. The time has come for me to give up my ubiquitous endeavours; to watch one spot only. My colleagues are splendid fellows, full of dash and energy; on them you must now depend for the other movements of the campaign. Osman is here, and Skobeleff is in this part of the country as far as I can learn⁠—there is a feverish restlessness among the Russians, which suggests his presence. With these two men face to face Plevna will become historical, if it is not so already, for it will mark, firstly, the greatest military bungle of the age (Krüdener’s neglect); secondly⁠ ⁠… who knows? Osman is a wonderful fellow⁠—that is all I can tell you now. I remain here, and if we are surrounded I will stick to Plevna until the end.

The recipient of this letter, sitting in his quiet little room in Fleet Street, looked at the last words again. They were underlined with a firm dash, and immediately below followed the simple signature. About the entire letter there was a straightforward sense of purpose⁠—a feeling, as it were, that this man knew what he was doing, and was ready to face the consequence of every action. The editor shook his vast head from side to side with a quiet and tolerant smile.

“The fever is upon him,” he said. “It is a thousand pities that he is not a soldier.”

Then he leant forward and took an envelope from the stationery case upon the table in front of him. Into this he slipped the folded letter, addressing it subsequently to Mrs. Wylie, at Wyl’s Hall, Wyvenwich.

On the last day of July, Prince Schahofsky and Baron Krüdener attacked Plevna. A combination had been intended, but Krüdener was again in fault. He was not ready at the hour appointed, and Schahofsky was led into the fatal error of attacking a superior force of Turks in a fortified position. The result of this was the loss of almost the whole of his fine army corps. The Russian soldiers charged gallantly but foolishly upon a literal wall of fire, for there is no man steadier in a trench than the fatalist. In some years, when the quick-firing rifle is perfected, there will be no such thing as carrying a breastwork at the point of the bayonet, for no man will live to stand up within forty yards of the position held. Even at Plevna, against an imperfect rifle in the hands of a half-trained, badly fed, poorly-accoutred soldier, the slaughter was terrible, and the result small. Only Skobeleff succeeded in really and literally carrying an intrenchment by the bayonet; and had he not been half mad with excitement and wholly carried away by the wild lust of battle, he would never have attempted it, for the men literally crawled over heaps of their slain comrades. The terrible work of the quick-firing rifle was only too apparent.

After the first assault upon Plevna the Russians settled down to a long siege, and heavy artillery was brought to bear upon the ill-fated town from every point of vantage on the surrounding hills. Step by step the northern foe crept up towards the town, until the sombre-clad figures within the redoubts were almost recognisable from the Russian lines.

Finally, it was one day announced that the last communication had been cut off and Plevna was surrounded. Like some sullen prisoner in the hands of a ruthless enemy, the fortress stood grimly silent, and all the world wondered pitifully what terrible tragedy might be working out its latest chapters within that small circle of bloodstained steel.

Vague reports reached England that there could not now be any food in Plevna. The garrison must be starving. Women and children were⁠—thank God!⁠—but few; for Osman had sent them away. Day by day the fall of this unforeseen, unsuspected stronghold was predicted, but day after day the dingy Crescent hung in the morning breeze, and every point was guarded.

The editor of the great English newspaper sat in his little room in Fleet Street and watched events from afar. No word reached him, for Plevna was silent, but he displayed no anxiety.

“Wait!” he said to all inquirers. “Wait a bit. Trist is in there, and when the time comes he will astonish us all. One can always rely implicitly on Trist!”

There is in one of the minor streets of Plevna a small baker’s shop, with no other sign indicating that bread may be bought within than the painted semblance of a curiously twisted cake upon the yellow wall between the window and the low door.

On the seventh of September, eighteen hundred and seventy-seven, this painted cake was the nearest approach to bread that could be seen in the neighbourhood. For many weeks there had been no pleasant odour of browning loaves, no warm air from the oven at the back of the shop. Curious irony of fate! The baker had died of starvation. I almost hesitate to tell that the foul heap of clothing lying in the ditch a few yards down the hill was all the earthly remnant of the late owner of this useless establishment. Useless because there was nothing in Plevna now to bake. He had been dead many days, but there seemed to be no question of burying him. There were too many wounded, too many sick, dying, and festering men, for the living to have time to think of the dead. The heavy pestilential air was full of the groans of these poor wretches.

Within the little shop were three men⁠—one seated at a rough table, a second standing before him, the third perched nonchalantly on the windowsill smoking a cigarette. The last-mentioned had the advantage of his companions in the matter of years, but of the three his gravity of demeanour was most noticeable. Amidst such squalid surroundings⁠—by the side, as it were, of death⁠—his personal appearance was somewhat remarkable, for he was neat and clean in dress. His fresh rosy cheek had that cleanly appearance which denotes the recent passage of the razor, the light moustache was brushed aside with a rakish upward flourish. The nose was small and straight, the eyes blue. A bright red fez tilted rather forward completed the smart appearance of the smoker, who manipulated his cigarette daintily, and, while listening to the conversation of his two companions, made no attempt to join in it. This man was Tefik Bey, Osman Pasha’s chief of staff, one of the defenders of Plevna. I confess that Tefik is a puzzle to me. I cannot tell what sort of man he is. He is indescribable. Taciturn to a degree, he was barely thirty years of age, and looked younger. A dark, sombre, silent man is more or less a straightforward production of Nature; but Tefik had the appearance of a lighthearted talker, and belied it.

The man standing in the middle of the small, low-roofed chamber was his wonderful chief, Osman Pasha. Tall, strongly built, and handsome, he formed a striking contrast to his young colleague. A loose, dark-blue cloak hung from his shoulders, and the inevitable fez surmounted his powerful brow. A short black beard concealed a chin of unusual firmness, and from time to time a nervous movement of a somewhat dusky hand brushed the hair aside with a rustling sound. The nose was large and inclined downwards with a heavy curve, while beneath bushy brows a pair of steadfast black eyes looked sorrowfully forth upon the world. There was determination and a great energy in those eyes, despite their wan thoughtfulness.

He who sat at the table we know. It was Theodore Trist. Clean and carefully shaven, he was literally clad in rags; but his face had lost its old dreaminess, its vague meekness of demeanour. A clear light in his eyes, the set of his lips, conveyed in some indefinite way that this man was in his element. Despite his hollow cheeks and sunken temples, in the midst of that heavy reek of death and blood, this Englishman was visibly happy.

“Do you want,” Osman was saying, “to see what we can do with our triple ranks of Berdans?”

“Yes.”

“Tomorrow Skobeleff will attack the redoubt again. He has positive orders to take it at any cost.”

“Will he take it?” asked Trist.

Osman turned with a smile towards Tefik, who was lighting a second cigarette. The chief of staff shrugged his shoulders, and threw away the end of the last cigarette with a sideward movement of his lips.

Osman shrugged his shoulders in precisely the same way.

“Who knows?” he said quietly. “If they value the redoubt at four thousand lives, they might do it.”

Trist set his two elbows on the table and looked up at the speaker’s face with calm speculative scrutiny. He did not offer him a chair, because he knew that Osman rarely sat down. The great soldier had no time for rest.

“Skobeleff,” said the Englishman, “is a great man, but Napoleon would have been in here some time ago.”

Tefik moved slightly, and looked towards his two companions with a vague smile. He knew nothing of Napoleon the Great and his method of making war. Moreover, he did not care to know.

It was the chief of staff who finally broke a silence of some duration.

“Listen, Osman,” he said in a soft, dreamy voice. “I hear the sound of a new gun. The Russians have mounted another big one. We are going to get it very hot.”

All three raised their heads and listened. After the lapse of a minute a dull thud broke upon their ears. The Russians had mounted a new siege gun, and Plevna was beginning its career as a target for a steadily increasing army of artillery. There was no indecent haste in loading or sponging. It was excellent practice for the gunners, and through the next three months the sound of heavy firing never quite ceased night or day. At times, by way of variety, the whole of the artillery combined in directing its fire upon a spot previously selected. But the grim game was not all on one side, for Plevna pluckily returned blow for blow.

“There is,” said an expert at Russian headquarters, “a European directing those guns⁠—probably a German.”

But Trist never sighted a single shot, although he did not withhold his advice.

“I know where it is,” said Tefik at last. “Perhaps we can get at it.”

And he left the room quietly.

The two men remaining there did not speak for some time. Trist was occupied with a large sheet of paper covered with a fine writing, and showing columns of figures. Osman had brought this to him, and was now evidently waiting for it. The Englishman skimmed up the columns with the celerity of a banker’s clerk, muttering the additions in his native language. The hand that held the pen was brown and scarred with manual labour, for Trist had worked in the trenches day and night.

“Yes,” he said at length, looking up in a businesslike, curt way, which showed that between these men there was some bond of comradeship. “Those figures are all right. At an extremity you could even reduce the allowance of soup, could you not?”

The soldier shook his head with a wan and momentary smile.

“Scarcely,” he replied. “It is getting colder every day. If we want to hold out we must keep up the hearts of the men, and if there is nothing to press them upwards all our hearts drop into our stomachs, my friend.”

“There is more clothing to be had. We get a fresh supply day by day,” said Trist, with an uneasy sigh.

Osman winced. The meaning was only too clear, for the time had long since gone by for men to scruple over stripping the dead for the benefit of the living.

“Yes. You are right.”

With these words the commander of Plevna turned to go.

“What news have you?” inquired Trist indifferently, as he set in order the papers lying upon his table. He spoke in a loud voice, as all men did in Plevna, because of the roar of artillery and the rolling echo among the hills.

“Oh⁠—nothing of importance!”

“Are you quite without communications from outside?”

Osman turned upon the threshold, and looked back with a smile of assumed density. Then he disappeared through the low doorway.

Trist turned to his papers again, but he had not begun writing when the Turkish commander appeared once more.

“Trist,” he said, coming forward with long, heavy strides.

“Yes.”

“I can get you out tonight. Had you not better go?”

“I would rather stay,” replied the Englishman. “I am neither a woman nor a child.”

“But why run the risk?”

“It is my duty.”

“What we are enduring now,” said Osman, in a dull, painful voice, “is nothing to what I foresee. At present we make some small attempt to collect bodies and⁠ ⁠… and limbs, and bury them. Soon that will be impossible, for we shall want all our men at the guns and in the redoubts. The winter is coming on⁠—food is already scarce⁠—the wounded cannot be cared for. They and the dead will lie about the streets rotting in their own blood. My friend! this place will be a hell on earth!”

“Nevertheless, I stay.”

“Disease will take the town before the Russians break through⁠—few of us will live to see Christmas!” pleaded Osman.

The Englishman looked up, pen in hand. There was actually a smile hovering upon his firm lips.

“It is useless,” he said very gently. “I stay till the end.”

“As you like,” murmured the soldier, leaving the room.

Trist did not begin work again for some time. The pile of papers around was of sufficient dimensions to alarm a less methodical labourer, but in the apparent disorder there was really a perfect system. Darkness closed in soon, and the war-correspondent lighted a small lamp. Then he laid aside the larger mass of paper, and selected a sheet which he doubled carefully into the form of a letter.

“It is better,” he said, “to face all probabilities. I shall write to her now, in case we are starved to death in here like rats.”

Far into the night this strange, restless Englishman sat at the little table writing. Heedless of the roar of artillery, the merry call of the bugle, and the groan of the dying, he wrote on at a great speed, for above all he was a writer. His pen sped over the paper with that precision which only comes from long practice⁠—line after line, page after page of the small paper, perfect in punctuation, ready for the press in true journalistic form.

He folded the letter, and enclosed it in an envelope, which he addressed carefully in a legible roundhand.

“There,” he murmured, “let that be the last line I write tonight. It seems to me that we are on the verge of a crisis. Osman has something on his mind⁠ ⁠… I wonder if he means to cut his way out.”

Before lying down to rest on the heap of straw which served him as a bed, he collected all his papers and placed them securely in a large leather despatch-case, upon which was painted in black letters the address of the newspaper which he served. This was his nightly custom; for he was out all day upon the walls among the devoted children of Islam, and where bullets are flying no man has a right to ignore the chances of death. There was no bravado in the action, but a mere simple method. The chances were much in favour of the little baker’s shop being left empty one night; but that was no reason why the British public should be defrauded of its rightful sensation in the matter of words written by a hand that is still, for nothing is so safe to draw as the last words of one who has died in battle or mishap.

People who live peaceably at home are accustomed to receive great odds in the game of life and death. They, therefore, cannot understand why others⁠—wanderers, sailors at all times, soldiers in time of war⁠—are content with the lighter favour, and have the power of living happily in close proximity to death.

For five days and five nights there was little sleep to be had in Plevna. The Russians did not attack, as had been generally expected within the town, but commenced a terrible bombardment. Day and night the heavy guns were served by continual relays of men, and life in the redoubts was such as to reconcile the most philosophic to death. Within the town the scene was simply hellish. Osman has been accused of neglecting his wounded, but no man who crouched in the little town he so gloriously defended during those days would have the courage to aver that he could have done more than he did.

Tuesday, the eleventh of September, dawned, gray and hopeless. The smoke of a million rifles, a thousand cannon, hung heavily over the low hills. The continuous roar of the last few days seemed to have benumbed the very air, even as it had paralyzed men’s senses.

In the Russian camp upon the Loftcha road there were signs of extra activity. The artillery fire was somewhat slacker.

“They will attack the redoubts today,” Theodore Trist said to himself, as he surveyed the position of affairs in the gray morning light. There was not much to be seen, owing to the density of the fog hanging low in the vales, but the five days’ bombardment followed by audible activity in camp had some meaning.

Osman knew his weak point as well as it was known by Skobeleff; but the Russian general⁠—foolhardy, reckless, wild as he was⁠—hesitated to attack.

But there is no man who can boast that he is free from the trammels of duty. “Duty is a certainty,” says one of our great living preachers, and I think we often lose sight of that fact. Skobeleff had received orders to take the redoubt in the curve of the Loftcha road, and on the eleventh of September he made ready to obey. Whether it was a criminal blunder or a deliberate sacrifice of human life, it is not for us to say; nor must we blame the young general who, much against his will, sent his men forward to a certain death.

It was afternoon before the advance was made, and in many places the fog had lifted.

Theodore Trist, with that instinct of warfare which was his curse, had selected a spot on the hill behind the doomed fortification, and thence, or from near at hand, he witnessed that terrible day’s work.

Failure was Skobeleff’s bête noire. Success in this case was an absolute necessity. There was only one way of gaining it in face of the horrible fire which was waiting within the fortification. Like the waves of ocean the Russian general swept his men up at carefully selected intervals. No troops in the world could have advanced under such galling volleys⁠—they were bound to waver and fall back. But at the moment of hesitation a fresh regiment came on at the charge with a wild shout, bearing on the others in front of them. Four regiments rushed on thus to their death⁠—three thousand men in three hundred yards. In the redoubt the Turks fought with that calm, desperate fatalism which makes such grand soldiers of the followers of Mahomed.

Theodore Trist, standing on the scarp of a second redoubt two hundred and fifty yards to the rear, wrote rapidly in his book, his mouth quivering with excitement. At last he could stand it no longer.

“By God!” he exclaimed hoarsely, “I have never seen anything like this!”

And shouting incoherently, he ran down the slope towards the redoubt.

At this moment Skobeleff came charging up at the head of his last reserve, a mere handful of sharpshooters. Trist saw the general fall and roll over with his stricken horse. A great throb seemed to choke him, and he barely realized that Skobeleff was on his feet again leading on his men, waving his sword and shrieking like a madman. A moment later the Englishman was borne uphill before a rushing mass of Turks, black with powder, voiceless, inhuman in their fury. The redoubt was lost!

But Trist did not give way to the general panic. The instinct of journalism was too strong in him, and he stood for a moment between the two redoubts looking on with practised eyes. He knew exactly how many men had been defending the position now lost, and was busy counting roughly the small number of fugitives. In certain corners of the redoubt the fight was still going on, but the Turks in there were no better than dead men.

While he was still there a Russian noncommissioned officer picked up the rifle of a Turk, and took aim at the solitary figure standing upon the slope, but Skobeleff knocked away the barrel with his sword.

“Not that man, my child!” he exclaimed, in a voice hoarse with shouting. “I know him. Let the story of this fight be told!”

The artillery fire had ceased all round, and for a moment there was a great silence in the valley, only broken by the moan of the dying and an occasional rifle-shot here and there. It was almost as if the living stood aghast⁠—ashamed and cowering before their Maker, by the side of their grim handiwork. And so darkness came over the land, covering the hideousness of it with a merciful veil.

“They cannot possibly hold it!” Trist said to an officer who accosted him as he made his way⁠—dazed and stupefied⁠—back into the town. “It is untenable.”

This was no idle attempt at consolation. The Russian general had obeyed orders, but now he knew that his gallant work had been all in vain. By itself the redoubt was useless, for it was fully exposed to the Turkish fire, and there was no material at hand to reconstruct it, had his weary men been equal to the task, which they were not. During the night he sent, again and again, for reinforcements, which were persistently withheld, and at dawn he pluckily prepared to defend the position as best he might with the remainder of his own army-corps.

Trist had said that when Osman and Skobeleff met there would be war indeed, and the result proved with terrible reality that he had spoken naught else but the truth.

At daybreak the fight began again. The restless Turkish leader had made all his arrangements during the night. Exposed as it was to a galling fire from all sides, it seemed impossible that the redoubt could be held. But Skobeleff was there, and under Skobeleff the Russians have fought as they never did before.

At Turkish headquarters there was little or no anxiety, for the enemy could not afford to take another redoubt at such a cost, and so skilfully had the fortifications been planned, that there was no reason to suppose that further advances could be made more easily.

“Tomorrow,” Osman had said to his chief of staff, “it must be retaken!” and the young officer merely nodded his head. Then with the pencil that he carried stuck into his fez above his eye, the Turkish commander proceeded to write out his instructions.

At daybreak the fight began again, and the sun had not yet lost its matutinal ruddiness when the first organized attack was made. This was repulsed, and the same fate attended four subsequent attempts. No man but Skobeleff could have held that position for so long. As usual, there was something unique and original in his style of defence. He waited until the attacking force was almost within forty yards before firing, and then met them with one crashing volley, the sound of which rose to the firmament like the crack of doom. After that the roll of fire swept from side to side, from end to end, with a continuous grating rattle like the sweep of a scythe in hay.

The short day was almost drawing to a close, when the remnant of the fifth attacking corps returned, baffled and disheartened. The sun had already disappeared behind a bank of purple cloud, through which gleamed bars of lurid gold low down upon the rounded hills. Overhead there was a shimmering haze of Indian red. It almost seemed as if the sky had caught the reflection of the bloodstained earth.

To the ears of the Turks came the distant sound of voices hoarsely cheering. The sound was of no great strength, for Skobeleff himself had been voiceless all day, and the remainder⁠—a mere handful of black-faced, wild madmen⁠—were dry and parched.

“They must be nearly worn out,” said Osman quietly, upon receiving the latest report. “We will attack again, and take the redoubt before nightfall.”

Tefik merely acquiesced without comment, as was his wont, and turned away to give his orders with a close precision which inspired great confidence in his subordinates.

Presently he returned to where his chief was standing, not far removed from Theodore Trist, who was writing hard upon a gun-carriage.

“They want somebody to lead them,” said Tefik significantly. His contempt for the usual run of portly, comfortable Turkish line-officers was well known.

Trist looked up and saw that the commander was looking at his subordinate with calmly questioning eyes.

“I,” said the Englishman, closing his notebook as he came forward, “will go for one.”

“And I, and I, and I!” came from all sides. Some were staff-officers, some civilians, some old men and some mere boys.

“An Englishman,” said Tefik, with the faintest suggestion of a smile, “is too valuable to be refused! It would make all the difference.”

“I have been idle long enough,” answered Trist, in a voice laden with suppressed excitement. “I cannot stand it any longer.”

He closed his notebook, drew the elastic carefully over it, and raised his eyes to the strange, dishevelled group of men before him. The chief of this wonderful staff, Osman himself, held out his hand without a word, took the book, and dropped it into the pocket of his long blue cloak.

Already the call of the bugle told that preparations were in course⁠—that the commander’s orders were being executed.

Before darkness lowered over the land the redoubt was again in the hands of the Turks. This is a matter of history⁠—as also the fact that the flower of the Russian army lay all round Plevna for three months afterwards, and never gained an advantage equal to that which they had held for twenty-four hours. Osman was impregnable⁠—Plevna unassailable, except by the slower weapon of bodily hunger⁠—grim starvation.

It was nearly seven o’clock on the evening of the twelfth of September, before Tefik Bey, the grave young chief of staff, found time to visit the great double redoubt which had cost the Russian army over five thousand lives.

Accompanied by an orderly bearing a simple paraffin hurricane-lamp, he made his laborious way over the heaps of dead. Upon the hill above the redoubt the Turks lay in thousands. There were rows of them, shoulder to shoulder as they had charged, marking the effect of Skobeleff’s terrible volleys. Below the defence, upon the lower slope, the Russians covered the earth, and in the redoubt itself Muslim and Christian lay entangled in the throes of death. They were literally piled on the top of each other⁠—a very storehouse of the dead⁠—for the Russians had fought all day standing upon the bodies of the slain. Now the ready Turks trampled countryman and foe alike beneath their feet, for it was by no means certain that an attempt might not be made at once to regain the coveted position.

While crossing a ditch, that had been hastily cut by the Russians, Tefik stopped suddenly.

“Give me the lantern!” he said, in a peculiar short way.

Then he stooped over the body of a man who lay face downwards upon the blood-soaked turf.

“Turn him over!”

The flame of the hurricane-lamp flickered ruddily, and lighted up a calm, bland face. The firm lips were slightly parted in a smile, which seemed to be, in some subtle way, interrogative in its tendency. The eyes were wide open, but not unpleasantly so, and their expression was one of meek, gentle surprise. The whole incongruous face as it reposed there, looking upwards to its Creator, seemed to say, “Why?”

Tefik rose to his full height.

“Le philosophic,” he murmured, with a little shake of the head. “Ah! but that is a pity⁠—a thousand pities!”

He stood with the lamp in his hand, gazing upwards at the stars, now peeping out in the rifts of heavy cloud. Unconsciously he had turned his grave young eyes to the West⁠—towards civilization and England.

After a moment he turned and went on his way, stumbling in the dark over the dead and wounded.

All through the rough autumn, and on into midwinter, Plevna held out. All the world waited and watched, sympathizing, as is its way, with the side where sheer pluck seems predominant.

At Wyl’s Hall, Mrs. Wylie and Brenda lived on in their quiet way; and, to these two, life soon assumed a calm, unruffled regularity. Small local incidents took to themselves a greater importance, and the larger events of the world reached them only as an echo.

As Winter laid its hand with increasing power over the land, so Wyvenwich found itself day by day more isolated from the world, until one morning in the middle of December the last link was severed. A great fall of snow, driven across the North Sea, besieged the Eastern counties, and for a time paralyzed all workers. The coastguards could do nothing, for they were hemmed in by great drifts on Mizzenheath Moor. The boats were full of snow, the roads impassable, and the small branch railroad hopelessly blocked by drifts, sixteen feet deep in parts.

During five days, no news of the outer world reached Wyvenwich, until at last a signalman, whose occupation was gone by reason of the snowed-up railway, made his way on foot from the junction on the mainline, carrying the mailbag on his shoulders.

This man brought the five-days-old news of the fall of Plevna.

It was almost midday before the postbag was delivered at Wyl’s Hall, and the two ladies were sitting in the broad-windowed library when the servant brought it to them. There was a heap of unfinished needlework upon the table, for it will be easily understood that such a woman as the widow would be able to find good work to do in a hard winter.

“Ah!” exclaimed the good lady, throwing her work aside⁠—“letters at last!”

The servant smiled sympathetically, and left the room. The key of the bag was soon taken from its hiding-place in an ornament on the mantelpiece, and Mrs. Wylie shook out the letters upon the table.

“It is delightful,” she exclaimed, “to be in communication with the outer⁠ ⁠…”

Suddenly she stopped, and laid the old leather bag aside slowly.

There were two thin brown envelopes among the white ones; also a larger one bearing a foreign stamp, and carrying evident marks of a long journey. This was addressed to Brenda, as were the two telegrams.

“… Outer world,” said Mrs. Wylie, in a peculiar breathless way, finishing her interrupted remark with determination. “There are⁠ ⁠… two telegrams⁠ ⁠… for you, Brenda.”

The girl took the envelopes without comment, and opened one, dropping it subsequently upon the floor while unfolding the pink paper. She read the message without a change of countenance, while Mrs. Wylie made a brave pretence of being interested in her own letters. In the same manner Brenda opened the second telegram.

After she had read it, there was a horrible silence in the room, while the elder woman stood nervously reading the address of a letter to herself over and over again.

Then Brenda spoke in a clear voice, which bore no resemblance to her usual tones at all.

“Theo Trist is dead,” she said. “He was killed on the twelfth of September at Plevna!”

The widow held out her hand, and took the two telegrams. They were from the great London editor⁠—one telling of a rumour, the second confirming it. Brenda had read the confirmation first.

At last Mrs. Wylie raised her eyes to her companion’s face, and following the direction of the girl’s gaze, she remembered the large, ill-used envelope bearing a foreign stamp.

“That letter,” she whispered, trembling with downright fear.

“Yes,” answered Brenda, with the same sickening composure. “It is from him.”

Then she took it and turned away to the window.

Without exactly knowing what she was doing, Mrs. Wylie sat down again in the chair she had vacated on the advent of the postbag. Her lips moved as she stared stupidly at the work tossed aside on the table.

“O God!” she was whispering, “give her strength!”

It seemed hours that she sat there without daring to raise her eyes. She heard Brenda break open the envelope and unfold the paper, which crackled loudly. Then there came no sound at all except at times a suppressed rustle as a page was turned.

At last the girl moved, turning and coming towards her companion.

“There⁠ ⁠…” she said gently, “you may as well read it.”

She laid the closely written sheets upon the table, for Mrs. Wylie did not hold out her hand, and turned again towards the window, where she stood looking out upon the gleaming snow.

After a space, Mrs. Wylie took up the letter and read it dreamily, without comprehending its full meaning⁠—without realizing that the hand which had directed the clear, firm pen would never write another word. It ran as follows:

Dear Brenda,

It may be that the long confinement in this grim slaughterhouse has upset my nerve, or it may, perhaps, be that I am not so hard or so plucky as I was. Be that as it may, I am going to break through a resolution to which I have held ever since I took to the warpath. It was my intention to wait until the end of this campaign before telling you that I have always loved you⁠—that I have always looked up to you as my ideal of a brave, true woman. I never doubted, darling, that my love for you was and is a strong, firm reality, as all the factors in my life have been. I never doubted its truth, its honesty, and its permanency⁠—but these very qualities held it back. If I had loved you less, I could have asked you to be the wife of a war-correspondent (and one whose reputation was such that he could not afford to be found in the background). This, Brenda, has been my secret ever since I left college⁠—ever since I followed the irresistible inclination which led me on to the battlefield. It is unnecessary to dwell now upon the effort that I have had to make a thousand times to conceal my feelings. I used to think (and tried to persuade myself that I hoped) that you would marry someone infinitely worthier of you⁠—someone who was richer, and wiser, and cleverer, and someone whose profession was less hazardous; but in the last year or two I have conceived the wild notion that there was a reason in your persistent blindness to the merits of men calculated in every way to make you happy. Gradually I came round to the belief that you understood, in some subtle feminine way, the policy I was pursuing, and in this belief Mrs. Wylie persistently encouraged me in that cheery, inimitable way of hers. If I have made a gross mistake, you and Mrs. Wylie must let me know as mercifully as you can. I leave my case in your little hands, darling. But I feel confident that I am right. Rashness of conclusion, hastiness of action, has never been ascribed to me, and it is only after long consideration⁠—after placing the circumstances persistently before myself in their very worst light⁠—that I have taken to myself the comforting thought that I can make your life a happy one (as lives go) if you will trust it to me. We are not strangers, Brenda, but have known each other since we could first stand, and we have always been good friends. As I have grown from youth to manhood, my love for you has grown also in strength and sureness. I have never doubted it for a moment, though I may have hesitated as to its wisdom. Perhaps I may have caught from you a habit of setting both sides of a question upon a footing inconveniently similar, and the result has been an honest conviction that you could do better than marry me. Now that conviction has given way to another⁠—namely, that I simply cannot do without you⁠—cannot get on at all, except it be at your own express wish that I should. Circumstances have now changed. I have been fortunate in making a name, and in escaping many risks to which others have fallen victims. I can command my own price, and make my own conditions. Altogether, I am now in a position such as an honourable man could ask his wife to share. As soon as this campaign (my last) is over, I shall hurry home to you. After all, my resolution has not collapsed entirely, for this letter cannot leave here until an end of some sort come upon us. We are like rats in a trap, but the pluck of these fellows is something wonderful. I shall have much to tell you when I get back, for I am the sole historian of events inside Plevna. In the meantime, darling, I dare to call myself

Mrs. Wylie looked again at the signature in a curious, mechanical way, as if verifying it. “Theodore Trist.” Two simple words in bold abruptness without flourish, scroll, or ornament. A clear running caligraphy, strong and plain, rapid, legible, straightforward and purposeful, fresh from the fingers now still in death.

The last time the name was ever written by its possessor was at the foot of that letter to Brenda.

The girl herself stood at the window, looking over the snow-clad moorland to the gray sea. Her back was turned towards the room; her white hands hung motionless at her side. Near to her the telegrams lay on a small table, half unfolded, disclosing their short brutality of diction.

Outside, the sun shone down on the glancing sea. The waves gleamed white, and on the shingle sang their everlasting song. All the world was lovely. The seabirds whirled in midair, and shrieked fantastically for very joy. They had no thought of their own end⁠—no doubts as to the purpose of their creation⁠—no question as to the wisdom of their Creator. Only man⁠—the lord of all the earth⁠—has these!