Phyllis of Philistia by Frank Frankfort Moore (page 3)

consequently amazed at her attitude. He took a step toward her.

“No–no,” she cried angrily. “I will not have any more of you. I tell you that I have had enough. I find now that what I mistook for love was just the opposite. I believe that I hate you. No–no, Bertie, not that, it cannot be that, only—- Oh, I know now that it is not hate for you that I feel–it is hate for myself, hate for the creature who is hateful enough to stand between you and the happiness which you have earned by patience, by constancy, by self-control. Yes, I hate the creature who is idiotic enough to put honor between us, to put religion between us, to put her soul’s salvation between us.”

“Ella, Ella, why will you not trust me?” he said, when she had flung herself into a chair. He was standing over her with his hands clasped behind him. He was beginning to understand something of her nature; of the nature of the woman to whom love has come as a thief in the night. He was beginning to perceive that she had, in her ignorance, been ready to entertain love without knowing what was entailed by entertaining him. “If you would only trust me, all would be well.”

She almost leaped from her chair.

“Would it?” she cried. “Would all be well? Would it be well with my soul? Would it be well with both of us in the future? Would it be well with my husband?”

He laughed.

“I know your husband,” he said.

“And I know him, too,” said she. “He cares for me no more than I care for him, but he has never been otherwise than kind to me. I think of him–I think of him. I know the name that men give to the man who tries to make his friend’s wife love him. It is not my husband who has earned that name, Mr. Courtland.”

He looked into her face, but he spoke no word. Even he–the lover–was beginning to see, as in a glass, darkly, something of the conflict that was going on in the heart of the woman before him. She had uttered words against him, and they had stung him, and yet he had a feeling that, if he had put his arms about her again, she would have held him close to her as she had done before; she would have given him kiss for kiss as she had done before. It is the decree of nature that the lover shall think of himself only; but had he not told Phyllis that his belief was that Nature and Satan were the same? He was sometimes able to say, “/Retro me, Sathana/”–not always. He said it now, but not boldly, not loudly–in a whisper. The best way of putting Satan behind one is to run away from him. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Yes, but, on the whole, it is safer to show him a clean pair of heels than to enter on an argument with him, hoping that he will be amenable to logic. Herbert Courtland said his, “/Retro me/,” in a whisper, half hoping, as the gentlewoman with the muffins for sale hoped, that he would escape notice. For a few moments he ceased to think of himself. He thought of that beautiful thing before him–she was tall, and her rosy white flesh was as a peach that has reached its one hour of ripeness–he thought of her and pitied her.

He had not the heart to put his arms about her, though he knew that to do so would be to give him all the happiness for which he longed. What was he that he should stand by and see that struggle tearing her heart asunder?

“My poor child!” said he, and then he repeated his words, “My poor child! It would have been better if we had never come together. We are going to part now.”

She looked at him and laughed in his face.

He did not know what this meant. Had she been simply acting a part all along? Had she been playing a comedy part all the while he was thinking that a great tragedy was being enacted? Or was it possible that she was mocking him? that her laugh was the laugh of the jailer who hears a prisoner announce his intention of walking out of his cell?

“Good-by,” said he.

She fixed her eyes upon his face, then she laughed again.

He now knew what she meant by her laugh.

“Perhaps you may think that you have too firm a hold upon me to give me a chance of parting from you,” said he. “You may be right; but if you tell me to go I shall try and obey you. But think what it means before you tell me to leave you forever.”

She did think what it meant. She looked at him, and she thought of his passing away from her forever more. She wondered what her life would be when he should have passed out of it. A blank? Oh, worse than a blank, for she would have ever present with her the recollection of how he had once stood before her as he was standing now–tall, with his brown hands clenched, and a paleness underlying the tan of his face. “The bravest man alive”–that was what Phyllis had called him, and Phyllis had been right. He was a man who had fought his way single-handed through such perils as made those who merely read about them throb with anxiety.

This was the man of whom she knew that she would ever retain a memory –this was the man whom she was ready to send back to the uttermost ends of the earth.

And this was to be the reward of his devotion to her! What was she that she could do this thing? What was she that she should refrain from sacrificing herself for him? She had known women who had sacrificed themselves to men–such men! Wretched things! Not like that man of men who stood before her with such a look on his face as it had worn, she knew, in the most desperate moments of his life, when the next moment might bring death to him–death from an arrow–from a wild beast–from a hurricane.

What could she do?

She did nothing.

She made no effort to save herself.

If he had put his arms about her and had carried her away from her husband’s house to the uttermost ends of the earth, she would not have resisted. It was not in her power to resist.

And it was because he saw this he went away, leaving her standing with that lovely Venetian mirror glittering in silver and ruby and emerald just above her head.

“You have been right; I have been wrong,” said he. “Don’t try to speak, Ella. Don’t try to keep me. I know how you love me, and I know that if I ask you to keep me you will keep me until you die. Forgive me for my selfishness, my beloved. Good-by.”

She felt him approach her and she felt the hands that he laid upon her bare shoulders–one on each side of her neck. She closed her eyes as he put his face down to hers and kissed her on the mouth–not with rapturous, passionate lips, but still with warm and trembling lips. She did not know where the kiss ended, she did not know when his hands were taken off her shoulders. She kept her eyes closed and her mouth sealed. She did not even give him a farewell kiss.

When she opened her eyes she found herself alone in the room.

And then there came to her ears the sound of the double whistle for a hansom. She stood silently there listening to the driving up of the vehicle–she even heard the sound of the closing of the apron and then the tinkling of the horse’s bells dwindling into the distance.

A sense of loneliness came to her that was overwhelming in its force.

“Fool! fool! fool!” she cried, through her set teeth. “What have I done? Sent him away? Sent him away? My beloved!–my best beloved–my man of men. Gone–gone! Oh, fool! fool!”

She threw herself on a sofa and stared at the Watteau group of masquerading shepherds and shepherdesses on the great Sevres vase that stood on a pedestal near her. The masks at the joining of the handles were of grinning satyrs. They were leering at her, she thought. They alone were aware of the good reason there was for satyrs to grin. A woman had just sent away from her, forever, the bravest man in all the world–those were Phyllis’ words–a king of men–the one man who loved her and whom she loved. She had pretended to him that she was subject to the influences of religion, of honor, of duty! What hypocrisy! They knew it, those leering creatures–they knew that she cared nothing for religion, that she regarded honor and duty as words of no meaning when such words as love and devotion were in the air.

She looked at the satyr masks, and had anyone been present in the room, that one would have seen that her lovely face became gradually distorted until the expression it wore was precisely the same as that upon the masks–an expression that had its audible equivalent in the laugh which broke from her.

She lay back on her broad cushions. One of the strands of her splendid hair had become loose, and after coiling over half a yard of the brocaded silk of a cushion, twisted its way down to the floor. She lay back, pointing one finger at the face on the vase and laughing that satyr-laugh.

“We know–we know–we know!” she cried, and her voice was like that of a drunken woman. “We know all–you and I–we know the hypocrisy–the pretense of religion–of honor–duty–a husband! Ah, a husband! that is the funniest of all–that husband! We know how little we care for them all.”

She continued laughing until her cushion slipped from under her head. She half rose to straighten it, and at that instant she caught a glimpse of her face in the center silvered panel of the Venetian mirror. The cry of horror that broke from her at that instant seemed part of her laugh. It would not have occurred to anyone who might have heard it that it was otherwise than consistent with the incongruity, so to speak, of the existing elements of the scene. The hideous leer of the thing with horns, looking down at the exquisite picture of the /fete champetre/–the distorted features of the woman’s face in the center of the ruby and emerald and sapphire of the Venetian mirror– the cry of horror mixed with the laugh of the woman who mocked at religion and honor and purity–all were consistently incongruous.

In another instant she was lying on the sofa with her face down to the cushion, trying to forget all that she had seen in the mirror. She wept her tears on the brocaded silk for half an hour, and then she slipped from where she was lying till her knees were on the floor. With a hand clutching each side of the cushion she got rid of her passion in prayer.

“Oh, God! God! keep him away from me! keep him away from me!” was her prayer; and it was possibly the best that she could have uttered. “Keep him away from me! keep him away from me! Don’t let my soul be lost! Keep him away from me!”

When she struggled to her feet, at last, she stood in front of the mirror once again.

She now saw a face purified of all passion by tears and prayer, where she had seen the soulless face of a Pagan’s orgy.

She went upstairs to her bed and went asleep, thanking God that she had had the strength to send him away; that she had had strength sufficient to stand where she had stood in the room, silent, while he had put his arms on her bare shoulders and kissed her on the mouth, saying “Good-by.”

She felt that she had every reason to thank God for that strength, for she knew that it had been given to her at that moment; it had not sprung from within her own heart; her heart had been crying out to him, “Stay, stay, stay!” her heart took no account of honor or purity or a husband.

Yes, she felt that the strength which had come to her at that moment had been the especial gift of God, and she was thankful to God for it.

That consciousness of gratitude to God was her last sensation before falling asleep; and, when morning came, her first sensation was that of having a letter to write. Before she had breakfasted she had written her letter and sent it to be posted.

This was the letter:

“MY ONE LOVE: I was a fool–oh, such a fool! How could I have done it? How could I have sent you away in such coldness last night? Believe me, it was not I who did it. How could I have done it? You know that my love for you is limitless. You know that it is my life. I tell you that my love for you laughs at such limits as are laid down by religion and honor. Why should I protest? My love is love, and there can be no love where there are any limits.

“Come to me on Thursday. I shall be at home after dinner, at nine, and see if I am not now in my right mind. Come to me; come to me, Bertie, my love.”

CHAPTER XVII.

WHAT AM I THAT I SHOULD DO THIS THING?

“At last!”

He sat with the letter before him after he had breakfasted, and perhaps for a time, say a minute or so, he caught a glimpse of the nature of the woman who had written those lines to him. If he had not had some appreciation of her nature he would have spent an hour or two –perhaps a day or two–trying to reconcile her attitude of the previous night with the tone of her letter. He did not, however, waste his time over such an endeavor. He knew that she loved him, and that she did not love her husband. He knew that she had allowed him to kiss her, and it had been a puzzle to him for some months why she had not come to his arms forever–he meant her to be his own property forever. He had been amazed to hear her allude, as she had done on the previous night, to such abstractions as honor, religion, her husband. He could not see what they had to do with the matter in hand. He could not see why such considerations should be potent to exercise a restraining influence on the intentions of a man and a woman who love each other.

Well, now it would appear that she had cast to the winds all such considerations as she had enumerated, and was prepared to live under the rule of love alone, and it was at his suggestion she was doing so.

For a moment or two he saw her as she was: a woman in the midst of a seething ocean, throwing up her hands and finding an absolute relief in going down–down–down into very hell. For a moment or two his heart was full of pity for her. Who could be a spectator of a woman’s struggles for life in the midst of that turbulent sea of passion which was overwhelming her, and refrain from feeling pity? That letter which lay before him represented the agonizing cry of a drowning creature; one whom the long struggle has made delirious; one who looks forward to going down with the delight born of delirium.

He recollected a picture which he had once seen–the picture of a drowning woman. He saw it now before him with hideous vividness, and the face of the woman was the face of Ella Linton. The agony of that last fight with an element that was overpowering, overwhelming in its ruthless strength, was shown upon every feature, and his soul was filled with pity.

He sprang to his feet and crushed the letter into his pocket. He felt none of the exultation of the huntsman–only sadness at the fate of the hunted thing that lay at his feet. Once before the same feeling had come over him. It was when, after the long struggle up the river, through the forests, swamps, jungle grass that cut the body of a man as though it were sharp wire, he fired his shot and the meteor-bird fell at his feet. After the first few panting breaths that came to him he had stood leaning on his gun, looking down at that beautiful thing which he had deprived of life.

“What am I that I should have done this thing?” he had asked himself on that evening, while the blacks had yelled around him like devils.

“What am I that I should do this thing?” was his cry now, as the voice of many demons sounded in his ears.

What was he that he should rejoice at receiving that letter from the woman over whose head the waters were closing?

He ordered his horse and, mounting it, rode to where he could put it to the gallop. So men try to leave behind them the sneering demons of conscience and self-reproach. Some of them succeed in doing so, but find the pair waiting for them on their own doorstep. Herbert Courtland galloped his horse intermittently for an hour or two, and then rode leisurely back to his rooms. He felt that he had got the better of those two enemies of his who had been irritating him. He heard their voices no longer. He had lost them (he fancied), because there had come to him another voice that said:

“I love her–I love her.”

And whensoever that voice comes to a man as it came to Herbert Courtland it drowns all other voices. He would love her to the end of his life. Their life together would be the real life for which men and women have come into the world. He would go to her, and so far from allowing her to sink beneath the waters down to hell, his arms would be around her to bear her up until–well, is it not generally conceded that love is heaven and heaven is love?

He seated himself at a desk and wrote to her an impassioned line. He would go to her, he said. If death should come to him the next day he would still thank God for having given him an hour of life.

That was what he said–all. It expressed pretty well what he felt he should feel. That reference to God she would, of course, understand. God was to him a Figure of Speech. He had said as much to Phyllis Ayrton. But then he had said that he had regarded God to mean the Power by which men were able (sometimes) successfully to combat the influences of nature. But had he not just then made up his mind to yield to that passion which God, as a Principle, has the greatest difficulty in opposing? Why, then, should he expect that Ella would understand precisely what he meant in saying that he would thank God for his hour of life, his hour of love?

He would have had considerable difficulty in explaining this apparent discrepancy between his scheme of philosophy and his life as a man, had Phyllis asked him to do so; and Phyllis would certainly have asked him to do so had she become acquainted with the contents of his letter to her friend Ella; though Phyllis’ father, having acquired some knowledge of men as well as of phrases, would not have asked for any explanation, knowing that a man’s philosophy is, in its relation to a man’s life, a good deal less important than the fuse is to a bomb. He would have known that a scheme of philosophy no more brings wisdom into a man’s life than a telescope brings the moon nearer to the earth. He would have known that for a man to build up a doctrine of philosophy around himself, hoping that the devil will keep on the other side of the paling, is as ridiculous as it is to raise a stockade of roses against a tiger.

Herbert Courtland, however, thought neither of philosophical consistency nor of the advantages of having on one’s side a sound Principle. He thought of the stockade of roses, not to keep out the beast but to keep love in. They would live together in the midst of roses forever, and though each might possibly lose something by the transaction, yet what they might lose was nothing compared to what they should certainly win. Of that he was certain, and therefore he posted his impassioned line with a light heart.

That was on Tuesday. He had still two days that he might employ thinking over the enterprise to which he was committed; and he certainly made the most of his time in this direction. Now and again, as he thought of what was in store for him–for her–he felt as if he were lifted off the earth, and at other times he felt that he was crushed into the earth–crushed into it until he had become incapable of any thought that was not of the earth, earthy. At such moments he felt inclined to walk down to the docks and step aboard the first vessel that was sailing eastward or westward or northward or southward. Then it was that he found but the scantiest comfort in the consideration of the loveliness of love. Glorifying life! No, corrupting life until life is more putrid than death.

That was what love was–something to fly from. But still he did not fly from the vision that came to him when he found himself alone after spending the evenings in brilliant company–a vision of the lovely woman who was waiting for him! What had she said? Her soul–her soul would be lost forevermore?

Well, that showed that she was a woman, at any rate, and he loved her all the better for her womanliness. He knew very well that if God is a Figure of Speech with men, the losing of a soul is a figure of speech with women. The expression means only that they have lost the chance of drinking a number of cups of tea in drawing rooms whose doors are now shut to them. That was what Ella meant, no doubt. If she were openly to set at defiance certain of those laws by the aid of which society was kept together with a moderate degree of consistency, she would be treated as an outlaw.

After all, such a fate was not without its bright side. Some happiness may remain to human beings in that world which is on the hither side of London drawing rooms; and it would be his aim in life to see that she had all the happiness that the world could give her.

Pah! He felt his sentiment becoming a trifle brackish. He loved her, and she loved him. That was more than all the laws and the profits of society to them. That was the beginning and the end of the whole matter–the origin of the sin (people called it a sin) and the exculpation of the sinners. There was nothing more to be said or thought about the matter. Those who loved would understand. Those who did not understand would condemn, and the existence of either class was of no earthly importance to himself or to Ella.

When he awoke on the Thursday morning the feeling of exultation of which he was conscious was not without a note of depression. So it had been when the object of his explorations in New Guinea had been attained, and he looked down at that exquisite thing–that dead splendor at his feet.

He wondered if the attainment of every great object which a man may have in life brings about a feeling of sadness that almost neutralizes the exultation. As he picked up his letters he had a fear that among them there might be one from Ella, telling him that she had come to the conclusion that she had written too hastily those lines which he had received on Tuesday–that, on consideration, she was unwilling to lose her soul for love of him.

No such letter, however, was among his correspondence. (Could it be possible that he was disappointed on account of this?) He received an intimation from Berlin of the conferring of an order upon him in recognition of his exploration of a territory in which Germany was so greatly interested. He received an intimation from Vienna that a gold medal had been voted to him by one of the learned societies in recognition of his contributions to biological science. He received an intimation from his publishers that they had just gone to press with another thousand (the twelfth) of his book, and he received thirteen cards of invitation to various functions to take place in from three to six weeks’ time, but no line did he receive from Ella.

She was his forever and ever, whether her soul would be lost or saved in consequence.

He rather thought that it would be lost; but that did not matter. She was his forever and ever.

CHAPTER XVIII.

HERBERT COURTLAND IS A MAN WHO HAS LIVED WITH HONOR.

It was a long day.

Toward evening he recollected that he had to leave cards upon his host and hostess of the Monday previous, but it was past six o’clock when he found himself at the top of the steps of Mr. Ayrton’s house. Before his ring had been responded to a victoria drove up with Phyllis, and in a moment she was on the step beside him.

She looked radiant in the costume which she was wearing. He thought he had never seen a lovelier girl–he was certain that he had never seen a better-dressed girl. (Mr. Courtland was not clever enough to know that it is only the beautiful girls who seem well dressed in the eyes of men.) There was a certain frankness in her face that made it very interesting–the frankness of a child who looks into the face of the world and wonders at its reticence. He felt her soft gray eyes resting upon his face, as she shook hands with him and begged him to go in and have tea with her. He felt strangely uneasy under her eyes this evening, and his self-possession failed him so far as to make it impossible for him to excuse himself. It did not occur to him to say that he could not drink tea with her on account of having an appointment which he could not break through without the most deplorable results. He felt himself led by her into one of her drawing rooms, and sitting with his back to the window while her frank eyes remained on his face, asking (so he thought) for the nearest approach to their frankness in response, that a man who has lived in the world of men dare offer to a maiden whose world is within herself.

“Oh, yes! I got the usual notification of the Order of the Bald Eagle,” said he, in reply to her inquiry. “I shall wear it next my heart until I die. The newspapers announced the honor that had been done to me the same morning.”

“You cannot keep anything out of the papers,” said Phyllis.

“Even if you want to–a condition which doesn’t apply to my case,” said he. “My publishers admitted to me last week that they wouldn’t rest easy if any newspaper appeared during the next month without my name being in its columns in some place.”

“I’m sure they were delighted at the development of the /Spiritual Aneroid’s/ attack upon you,” said Phyllis.

“They told me I was a made man,” said he.

She threw back her head–it was her way–and laughed. Her laughter– all the grace of girlhood was in its ring; it was girlhood made audible–was lightening her fair face as she looked at him.

“How funny!” she cried. “You fight your way through the New Guinea forests; you are in daily peril of your life; you open up a new country, and yet you are not a made man until you are attacked by a wretched newspaper.”

“That is the standpoint of the people who sell books, so you may depend upon its being the standpoint of the people who buy books,” said he.

“I can quite believe it,” said she. “Mr. Geraint, the novelist, took me down to dinner at Mrs. Lemuel’s last night, and he told me that the only thing that will make people buy books is seeing the author’s portrait in some of the illustrated papers, or hearing from some of the interviews which are published regarding him that he never could take sugar in his coffee. The reviews of his books are read only by his brother authors, and they never buy a book, Mr. Geraint says; but the interviews are read by the genuine buyers.”

“Mr. Geraint knows his public, I’m sure.”

“I fancy he does. He would be very amusing if he didn’t aim so persistently at going one better than someone else in his anecdotes. People were talking at dinner about your having massacred the natives with dynamite–you did, you know, Mr. Courtland.”

“Oh, yes; I have admitted so much long ago. There was no help for it.”

“Well, of course everyone was laughing when papa told how the massacre came about, and this annoyed Mr. Geraint and induced him to tell a story about a poor woman who fancied that melinite was a sort of food for children that caused their portraits to appear in the advertisements; so she bought a tin of it and gave it all to her little boy at one meal. It so happened, however, that he became restless during the night and fell out of his cradle. That happened a year ago, Mr. Geraint said, and yet the street isn’t quite ready for traffic yet.”

“That little anecdote of Mr. Geraint makes me feel very meek. If at any time I am tempted to think with pride upon my dynamite massacre, I shall remember Mr. Geraint’s story, and hang my head.”

“We were all amused at Mr. Geraint’s lively imagination, but much more so when Mr. Topham, the under-secretary, shook his head gravely, and said in his most dignified manner, that he thought the reported occurrence–the melinite incident–quite improbable. He was going on to explain that the composition of the explosive differed so materially from that of the food that it would be almost impossible for any mother to take the one for the other, when our hostess rose.”

“Mr. Topham must have been disappointed. As a demonstrator of the obvious he has probably no equal even among the under-secretaries. You discussed him pretty freely in the drawing room afterward, I may venture to suggest.”

“No; we discussed you, Mr. Courtland.”

“A most unprofitable topic. From what standpoint–dynamite massacres?”

“From the standpoint of heredity, of course. Can you imagine any topic being discussed in a drawing room, nowadays, from any other standpoint? There was a dear old lady present, Mrs. Haddon, and she said she had been a friend of your mother’s.”

“So she was; I recollect her very well. I should like to go see her.”

“She told us a great deal about your mother, and your sister–a sister to whom you were greatly attached.”

Phyllis’ voice had become low and serious; every tone suggested sympathy.

“I had such a sister,” said he slowly. His eyes were not turned toward her. They were fixed upon a little model of St. Catherine of Siena,–a virgin among the clouds,–which was set in the panel of an old cabinet beside him. “I had such a sister–Rosamund; she is dead.”

“Mrs. Haddon told us so,” said Phyllis. “She talked about your mother, and your sister, and of the influence which they had had upon your life–your career.”

“They are both dead,” said he.

“They did not live to see your triumph; that is what your tone suggests,” said she. “That is what Mrs. Haddon said–the tears were in her eyes–last night, Mr. Courtland. I wish you could have heard her. I wish you could have heard what she said when someone made a commonplace remark as to how sad it was they were dead.”

“What did she say, Miss Ayrton?”

“She said, ‘No, no; please do not talk about death overtaking such as they. The mother, who transmits her nature to the son, renews her life in him; it is not he, but his mother, who lives.’ And then she asked, ‘Do you suppose that Herbert Courtland ever sets out on any of his great enterprises without thinking of his mother and sister, without feeling that he must do something worthy of them, something for their sake? And you talk of them as if they were dead–as if they had passed away forever from the concerns of earth!’ That is what she said, Mr. Courtland.”

He had bent forward on his low seat, and was leaning his head on one of his hands. He had his eyes fixed on the parquet of the floor. He was motionless. He did not speak a word.

“Mrs. Haddon said something more,” Phyllis continued, after a pause. Her voice had fallen still another tone. ” ‘Yes,’ she said, as if musing, ‘dead–dead! A man is as his mother has made him. He is with her from the moment she loves his father. She is evermore thinking of him; he is precious to her before the mystery of his birth is revealed to her. He grows up by her side, and loves her because he knows that she understands him. She does understand him, and she understands his father better by understanding her son.’ She said that, Mr. Courtland, and I felt that she had spoken one of the greatest truths of this mysterious life of ours. Then she said, ‘Herbert Courtland is a man who has lived with honor to himself, with honor to the memory of his mother, and of his sister, whom he loved. He is a man, and he has not merely attained distinction in the world; if he is without fear, he is also without reproach; and ask him if he has not been strengthened in his fight with whatever of base may have risen up within him, being a man, from day to day, by the thought that his sister is one with him; that his purity of heart and of act is the purity of his mother and his sister, upon which no stain must ever come.’ That was all she said, Mr. Courtland.”

There was a long pause after she had spoken. He sat there with his head bent, his fingers interlaced. He had his eyes fixed upon the floor. His cup of tea stood untasted beside him on a little Algerian table.

And she–as she looked at him her soft eyes became dim with tears. She knew that the words which she had spoken, the words which she had repeated as they were spoken by the lady whom she had met the previous night, had awakened many memories within him. She too had her memories. She knew that there was a certain gratefulness in the midst of the bitterness of such memories.

That was all she knew.

And the tears continued to well up to her eyes until she was aware that he had risen from his seat and was standing in front of her. She drew her hand across her eyes. She saw a movement in his lips. They were trembling, but no sound came from them. The hand that he stretched out to her was trembling also. She put her own into it. He held her hand tightly for a moment, then dropped it suddenly and almost fled from the room, without uttering a word.

For a few moments she stood where he had left her, and then she went to a sofa and seated herself upon it. The tears that had come to her eyes before, now began to fall; she thought, girl that she was, that she could understand what were the feelings of the man who had just parted from her. She thought that he was overcome at the reflection that the distinction which he had won in the world could not be shared by those whom he loved, those who would have valued far more than he did the honor that was being done to him.

The pity of it! Oh, the pity of it!

Ella had told her one day when they had talked together about Herbert Courtland, that he had no relation alive, that he stood alone in the world. The information had not meant much to her then; but when she had heard Mrs. Haddon speak on the previous evening about his attachment to his mother and his sister, she remembered what Ella has said, and her heart was full of pity for him. She had made up her mind to tell him all that Mrs. Haddon had said, for surely more sympathetic words had never been spoken; and her opportunity had come sooner than she expected. Their chat together had led naturally up to Mrs. Haddon, and she had been able to repeat to him almost word for word all that his mother’s friend had said.

Her heart felt for him. Surely the sweetest reward that can come to a man who has toiled and fought and conquered was denied to the man who had just parted from her. He had toiled and conquered; but not for him was the joy of seeing pride on the face of those who claimed him as their kin. His father had been killed when he had charged with a brigade through the lines of a stubborn enemy–everyone knew the story. His mother and sister had died when he was beginning to make a name for himself. He had gone forth from the loneliness of his home to the loneliness of the tropical forest; and he had returned to the loneliness of London.

She felt that she had done well to repeat to him the words of his mother’s friend. Those words had affected him deeply. They could not but be a source of comfort to him when he was overwhelmed with the thought of his loneliness. They would make him feel that his position was understood by some people who were able to think of him apart from the great work which he had accomplished.

Thus the maiden sat musing in the silent room after she had dried her tears of pity for the man who an hour before had sauntered up to her door thinking, not of the melancholy isolation of his position in the world, but simply that two hours of the longest day of his life must pass before he could kiss the lips of the woman who had given herself up to him.

Her maid found her still seated on the sofa, and ventured to remind her that time was fugitive, and that if mademoiselle still retained her intention of going to Lady Earlscourt’s dinner party,–Lady Earlscourt was giving a dinner party apparently for the purpose of celebrating her husband’s departure for a cruise in Norwegian fjords in his yacht,–it would be absolutely necessary for mademoiselle to permit herself to be dressed without delay.

Phyllis sprang up with a little laugh that sounded like a large sigh, and said if Fidele would have the kindness to switch on the lights in the dressing room, she would not be kept waiting a moment.

The maid hurried upstairs, and mademoiselle repaired to an apartment where she could remove, so far as was possible, the footmarks left by those tears which she had shed when she had reflected upon the loneliness to which Mr. Herbert Courtland was doomed for (probably) the remainder of his life.

Mademoiselle had a dread of the acuteness of vision with which her maid was endowed. She was not altogether sure that Fidele would be capable of understanding the emotion that had forced those tears to her eyes.

But that was just where she was wrong. Fidele was capable of understanding that particular emotion a good deal better than mademoiselle understood it.

CHAPTER XIX.

THEY HAVE SOULS TO BE SAVED.

When Lord Earlscourt was at home the only two topics that were debarred from the dinner table were religion and politics; but when Lord Earlscourt was absent these were the only two topics admitted at the dinner table. Lady Earlscourt had views, well-defined, clearly outlined, on both religion and politics, and she greatly regretted that there still remained some people in the world who held other views on both subjects; it was very sad–for them; and she felt that it was clearly her duty to endeavor by all the legitimate means in her power–say, dinner parties for eight–to reduce the number of these persons. It was rumored that in the country she had shown herself ready to effect her excellent object by illegitimate means–say, jelly and flannel petticoats–as well.

She wore distinctly evangelical boots, though, in the absence of her husband, she had expressed her willingness to discuss the advantages of the confessional. She had, however, declined, in the presence of her husband, to entertain the dogma of infallibility: though she admitted that the cardinals were showy; she would have liked one about her house, say, as a footman. She thought there was a great deal in Buddhism (she had read “The Light of Asia” nearly through), and she believed that the Rev. George Holland had been badly treated by Phyllis Ayrton. She admitted having been young once–only once; but no one seemed to remember it against her, so she was obliged to talk about it herself, which she did with the lightness of a serious woman of thirty-two. When a man had assured her that she was still handsome, she had shaken her head deprecatingly, and had ignored his existence ever after. She had her doubts regarding the justice of eternal punishment for temporary lapses in the West End, but she sympathized with the missionary who said: “Thank God we have still got our hell in the East End.” She knew that all men are alike in the sight of Heaven, but she thought that the licensing justices should be more particular.

She believed that there were some good men.

She had more than once talked seriously to Phyllis on the subject of George Holland. Of course, George Holland had been indiscreet; the views expressed in his book had shocked his best friends, but think how famous that book had made him, in spite of the publication of Mr. Courtland’s “Quest of the Meteor-Bird.” Was Phyllis not acting unkindly, not to say indiscreetly, in throwing over a man who, it was rumored, was about to start a new religion? She herself, Lady Earlscourt admitted, had been very angry with George Holland for writing something that the newspapers found it to their advantage to abuse so heartily; and Lord Earlscourt, being a singularly sensitive man, had been greatly worried by the comments which had been passed upon his discrimination in intrusting to a clergyman who could bring himself to write “Revised Versions” a cure of such important souls as were to be found at St. Chad’s. He had, in fact, been so harassed–he was a singularly sensitive man–that he had found it absolutely necessary to run across to Paris from time to time for a change of scene. (This was perfectly true. Lord Earlscourt had gone more than once to Paris for a change of scene, and had found it; Lady Earlscourt was thirty-two, and wore evangelical boots.) But, of course, since George Holland’s enterprise had turned out so well socially, people who entertained could not be hard on him. There was the new religion to be counted upon. It was just as likely as not that he would actually start a new religion, and you can’t be hard upon a man who starts a new religion. There was Buddha, for instance,–that was a long time ago, to be sure; but still there he was, the most important factor to be considered in attempting to solve the great question of the reconcilement of the religions of the East,–Buddha, and Wesley, and Edward Irving, and Confucius, and General Booth; if you took them all seriously where would you be?

“Oh, no, my dear Phyllis!” continued Lady Earlscourt; “you must not persist in your ill-treatment of Mr. Holland. If you do he may marry someone else.”

Phyllis shook her head.

“I hope he will, indeed,” said she. “He certainly will never marry me.”

“Do not be obdurate,” said Lady Earlscourt. “He may not really believe in all that he put into that book.”

“Then there is no excuse for his publishing it,” said Phyllis promptly.

“But if he doesn’t actually hold the views which he has formulated in that book, you cannot consistently reject him on the plea that he is not quite–well, not quite what you and I call orthodox.”

This contention was too plain to be combated by the girl. She did not for a moment see her way out of the amazing logic of the lady. Quite a minute had passed before she said:

“If he propounds such views without having a firm conviction that they are true, he has acted a contemptible part, Lady Earlscourt. I think far too highly of him to entertain for a single moment the idea that he is not sincere.”

“But if you believe that he is sincere, why should you say that you will not marry him?”

“I would not marry an atheist, however sincere he might be.”

“An atheist! But Mr. Holland is not an atheist; on the contrary, he actually believes that there are two Gods; one worshiped of the Jews long ago, the other by us nowadays. An atheist! Oh, no!”

“I’m afraid that I can’t explain to you, dear Lady Earlscourt.”

Once more Phyllis shook her head with some degree of sadness. She felt that it would indeed be impossible for her to explain to this lady of logic that she believed the truth to be a horizon line, and that any opinion which was a little above this line was as abhorrent as any that was a little below it.

“If you are stubborn, God may marry you to a Dissenter yet,” said Lady Earlscourt solemnly.

Phyllis smiled and shook her head again.

“Oh, you needn’t shake your head, my dear,” resumed Lady Earlscourt. “I’ve known of such judgments falling on girls before now–yes, when the Dissenters were well off. But no Dissenter rides straight to hounds.”

Phyllis laughed.

“More logic,” she said, and shook hands with her friend.

“That girl has another man in her eye,” said her friend sagaciously, when Phyllis had left her opposite her own tea-table. “But I don’t despair; if we can only persuade our bishop to prosecute George Holland, she may return to him all right.”

She invariably referred to the bishop as if he were a member of the Earlscourt household; but it was understood that the bishop had never actually accepted the responsibilities incidental to such a position; though he had his views on the subject of Lady Earlscourt’s cook.

This interview had taken place a week before the dinner party for which Phyllis was carefully dressed by her maid Fidele while Herbert Courtland was walking away from the house. In spite of her logic, Lady Earlscourt now and again stumbled across the truth. When it occurred to her that Phyllis had another man in her eye,–the phrase was Lady Earlscourt’s and it served very well to express her meaning,–she had made some careful inquiries on the subject of the girl’s male visitors, and she had, of course, found out that no other man occupied that enviable position; no social oculist would be required to remove the element which, in Lady Earlscourt’s estimation, caused Phyllis’ vision to be distorted.

George Holland was at the dinner. Phyllis had been asked very quietly by the hostess if she would mind being taken in by George Holland; if she had the least feeling on the matter, Sir Lionel Greatorex would not mind taking her instead of Mrs. Vernon-Brooke. But Phyllis had said that of course she would be delighted to sit beside Mr. Holland. Mr. Holland was one of her best friends.

“Is his case so hopeless as that?” said Lady Earlscourt, in a low voice, and Phyllis smiled in response–the smile of the guest when the hostess had made a point.

When Lady Earlscourt had indiscreetly, but confidentially, explained to some of her guests the previous week that she meant her little dinner party to be the means of reuniting Mr. Holland and Miss Ayrton, one of them–he was a man–smiled and said, when she had gone away, that she was a singularly unobservant woman, or she would have known that the best way of bringing two people together is to keep them as much apart as possible. There was wisdom in the paradox, he declared; for everyone should know that it was only when a man and a woman were far apart that they came to appreciate each other.

It seemed, indeed, that there was some truth in what that man said, for Phyllis, before the ice pudding appeared, had come to the conclusion that George Holland was a very uninteresting sort of man. To be sure, he had not talked about himself,–he was not such a fool as to do that: he had talked about her to the exclusion of almost every other topic–he had been wise enough to do that,–but in spite of all, he had not succeeded in arousing her interest. He had not succeeded in making her think of the present when her thoughts had been dwelling on the past–not the distant past, not the past of two months ago, when they had been lovers, but the past of two hours ago, when she had watched the effect of her words upon Herbert Courtland.

She chatted away to George Holland very pleasantly–as pleasantly as usual–so pleasantly as to cause some of her fellow-guests to smile and whisper significantly to one another, suggesting the impossibility of two persons who got on so well together as Mr. Holland and Miss Ayrton being separated by a barrier so paltry as an engagement broken off by the young woman for conscience’ sake.

But when the significant smiles of these persons were forced upon the notice of their hostess, she did not smile; she was a lady with a really remarkable lack of knowledge; but she knew better than to accept the pleasant chat of George Holland and Phyllis Ayrton as an indication that the /status quo ante bellum/–to make use of the expressive phrase of diplomacy–had been re-established between them.

Only when George Holland ventured to express his admiration of Mr. Ayrton’s adroitness in dealing with the foolish question of the gentleman from Wales did he succeed in interesting Miss Ayrton.

“What a very foolish letter those missionaries sent home regarding the explorations of Mr. Courtland!” said he. “Did they hope to jeopardize the popularity of Mr. Courtland by suggesting that he had massacred a number of cannibals?”

“I suppose that was their object,” said Phyllis.

“They must be singularly foolish persons, even for missionaries,” said the Rev. George Holland.

“Even for missionaries?” Phyllis repeated. “Oh, I forgot that you are no believer in the advantages of missions to the people whom we call heathen. But I have not been able to bring myself to agree with you there. They have souls to be saved.”

“That is quite likely,” said he. “But the methods of the missionaries, generally speaking, have not tended in that direction. Hence the missionary as a comestible is more highly esteemed by the natives than the missionary as a reformer. They rarely understand the natives themselves, and they nearly always fail to make themselves intelligible to the natives. It would appear that the two foolish persons who wrote that letter about Mr. Courtland made but a poor attempt at understanding even their own countrymen, if they fancied that any rumor of a massacre of cannibals–nay, any proof of such a massacre–would have an appreciable effect upon the popularity of the man who brought home the meteor-bird.”

“You don’t think that the public generally would believe the story?” said Phyllis.

“I think it extremely unlikely that they would believe it,” he replied. “But even if they believed every word of it they would not cease to believe in Mr. Courtland’s bravery. What is a hecatomb of cannibals compared to the discovery of the meteor-bird,–that is, in the eyes of the general public, or for that matter, the Nonconformist public who turn up their eyes at the suggestion of a massacre of natives of an island that is almost as unknown to them as Ireland itself? The people of this country of ours respect bravery more than any other virtue, and I’m not altogether sure that they are generally astray in this matter. The Christian faith is founded upon bravery, and the same faith has inspired countless acts of brave men and women. Oh, no! Mr. Courtland will not suffer from the attacks of these foolish persons.”

“I saw him this–a short time ago,” said Phyllis, “and he told me that his publishers were delighted at the result of the agitation which that newspaper tried to get up against him: they said it was selling his book.”

“I saw you talking with Mr. Courtland after the first production of ‘Cagliostro.’ I envied you–and him,” said Mr. Holland. “I wonder if he was really placed in the unfortunate position of having to massacre a horde of cannibals.”

Phyllis laughed, and forthwith told him the truth as it had been communicated to her regarding the dynamite outrage upon the unsuspecting natives, and George Holland was greatly amused at the story–much more highly amused, it would have occurred to some persons, than a clergyman should be at such a recital. But then George Holland was not as other clergymen. He was quite devoid of the affectations of his cloth. He did not consider it necessary to put the tips of his fingers together and show more of the white portion of the pupil of his eye than a straight-forward gaze entailed, when people talked of the overflowing of a river in China and the consequent drowning of a quarter of a million of men–that is to say, Chinamen. He was no more affected by such tidings than the Emperor of China. He was infinitely more affected when he read of the cold-blooded massacre by David, sometime King of Israel, in order to purchase for himself a woman for whom he had conceived a liking. He knew that the majority of clergymen considered it to be their duty to preach funeral service over the drowned Chinamen, and to impress upon their hearers that David was a man after God’s own heart. He also knew that the majority of clergymen preached annual sermons in aid of the missionaries who did some yachting in the South Seas, and had brought into existence the sin of nakedness among the natives, in order that they might be the more easily swindled by those Christians who sold them shoddy for calico, to purge them of their sin. George Holland could not see his way to follow the example of his brethren in this respect. He did not think that the Day of Judgment would witness the inauguration of any great scheme of eternal punishment for the heathen in his blindness who had been naked all his life without knowing it. He knew that the heathen in his blindness had curiosity enough at his command to inquire of the missionaries if the white beachcomber and his bottle of square-face represented the product of centuries of Christianity, and if they did not, why the missionaries did not evangelize the beachcomber and his bottle off the face of the earth.

Phyllis, being well aware of George Holland’s views, was not shocked at the sound of his laughter at the true story of Mr. Courtland’s dynamite outrage at New Guinea; but all the same, she was glad that she was not going to marry him.

He had not, however, been altogether uninteresting in her eyes while sitting beside her, and that was something to record in his favor.

She drove home early, and running upstairs found herself face to face with Ella Linton.

CHAPTER XX.

I HAVE HEARD THE PASSIONATE GALLOP OF THOSE FIERY-FOOTED STEEDS.

Ella was standing waiting for her outside the open door of a drawing room. She was wearing a lovely evening dress with a corsage of white lace covered with diamonds and sapphires. Her hair–it was of the darkest brown and was very plentiful–was also glittering with gems under the light that flowed through the open door. The same light showed Phyllis how deathly white Ella’s face and neck were–how tumultuously her bosom was heaving. She had one hand pressed to her side, and the other on the handle of the door when Phyllis met her; and in that attitude, even though the expanse of white flesh, with its gracious curves that forced out her bodice, had no roseate tint upon it, she looked lovely–intoxicating to the eyes of men.

Phyllis was certainly surprised. The hour was scarcely eleven, but Ella had given no notice of her intention to pay a visit to her friend that night. When the girl raised her hands with a laugh of admiration, of pleasure, Ella grasped her hands with both of her own and drew her into the drawing room without a word. Then with a cry,–a laugh and a cry mingled,–she literally flung herself into the girl’s arms and kissed her convulsively a dozen times, on the throat, on the neck, on the shoulder whereon her head lay.

“My darling, my darling!” she cried,–and now and again her voice was broken with a sob,–“my darling Phyllis! I have come to you–I want to be with you–to be near you–to keep my arms about you, so tightly that no one can pluck us asunder. Oh, you don’t know what men are– they would pluck us asunder if they could; but they can’t now. With you I am safe–that is why I have come to you, my Phyllis. I want to be safe–indeed I do!”

She had now raised her head from Phyllis’ shoulder, but was still holding her tightly–a hand on each of her arms, and her face within an inch of the girl’s face.

Phyllis kissed her softly on each cheek.

“My poor dear!” she said, “what can have happened to you?”

“Nothing–nothing! I tell you that nothing has happened to me,” cried Ella, with a vehemence that almost amounted to fierceness in her voice. “Would I be here with you now if anything had happened to me? tell me that. I came to you–ah! women have no guardian angels, but they have sisters who are equally good and pure, and you are my sister –my sister–better than all the angels that ever sang a dirge over a lost soul that they put forth no hand to save. You will not let me go, darling Phyllis, you will not let me go even if I tell you that I want to go. Don’t believe me, Phyllis; I don’t want to go–I don’t want to be lost, and if I leave you I am lost. You will keep me, dear, will you not?”

“Until the end of the world,” said Phyllis. “Come, dearest Ella, tell me what is the matter–why you have come to me in that lovely costume. You look as if you were dressed for a bridal.”

“A bridal–a bridal? What do you mean by that?” said Ella, with curious eagerness–a suggestion of suspicion was in her tone. She had loosed her hold upon the girl’s arms.

Phyllis laughed. She put a hand round Ella’s waist and led her to a sofa, saying:

“Let us sit down and talk it all over. That is the lace you told me you picked up at Munich. What a design–lilies!”

“The Virgin’s flower–the Virgin’s flower! I never thought of that,” laughed Ella. “It is for you–not me, this lace. I shall tear it off and–“

“You shall do nothing of the kind,” cried Phyllis. “I have heaps of lace–more than I shall ever wear. What a lovely idea that is of yours,–I’m sure it is yours,–sewing the diamonds around the cup of the lilies, like dewdrops. I always did like diamonds on lace. Some people would have us believe that diamonds should only be worn with blue velvet. How commonplace! Where have you been to-night?”

“Where have I been? I have been at home. Where should a good woman be in the absence of her husband, but at home–his home and her home?”

Ella laughed loud and long with her head thrown back on the cushion of the sofa, and the diamonds in her hair giving back flash for flash to the electric candles above her head. “Yes; I was at home–I dined at home, and, God knows why, I conceived a sudden desire to go to the opera,–Melba is the /Juliet/,–and forgetting that you were engaged to the Earlscourts–you told me last week that you were going, but I stupidly forgot, I drove across here to ask you to be my companion. Oh, yes, I have been here since–since nine, mind that! nine–nine– ask the servants. When I heard that you were dining out I thought that I was lost–one cannot drive about the streets all night, can one? Ah! I thought that God was against me now, as he ever has been; and as for my guardian angel–ah! our guardian angels are worse than the servants of nowadays who have no sense of responsibility. Thompson, your butler, is worth a whole heavenful of angels, for it was he who asked me if I would come in and wait for your return–ask him, if you doubt my word.”

“Good Heavens, Ella, what do you say? Doubt your word–I doubt your word? You wound me deeply.”

“Forgive me, my Phyllis. I don’t quite know what I said. Ah, let me nestle here–here.” She had put her head down to Phyllis’ bare neck and was looking up to her face as a child might have done. “There is no danger here. Now pet me, and say that you forgive me for having said whatever I did say.”

Phyllis laughed and put her lips down among the myriad diamonds that glowed amid the other’s hair, like stars seen among the thick foliage of a copper beech.

“I forgive you for whatever you said,” she cried. “I, too, have forgotten what it was; but you must never say so again. But had you really no engagement for to-night that you took that fancy for going to ‘Romeo’?”

“No engagement? Had I no engagement, do you ask me?” cried Ella. “Oh, yes, yes! I had an engagement, but I broke it–I broke it–I broke it, and that is why I am here. Whatever may come of it, I am here, and here I mean to stay. I am safe here. At home I am in danger.”

Phyllis wondered greatly what had come to her friend to make her talk in this wild strain.

“Where were you engaged?” she inquired casually. She had come to the conclusion that there was safety in the commonplace: she would not travel out of the region of commonplaces with Ella in her present state.

“Where was I engaged? Surely I told you. Didn’t I say something about the opera–‘Romeo and Juliet’?–that was to be the place, but I came to you instead. Ah, what have we missed! Was there ever such a poem written as ‘Romeo and Juliet’? Was there ever such music as Gounod’s? I thought the first time that I went to the opera that it would spoil Shakspere–how could it do otherwise? I asked. Could supreme perfection be improved upon? Before the balcony scene had come to an end I found that I had never before understood the glory of the poem. Ah, if you could understand what love means, my Phyllis, you would appreciate the poem and the music; the note of doom runs through it; that–that is wherein its greatness lies–passion and doom–passion and doom–that is my own life–the life of us women. We live in a whirlwind of passion, and fancy that we can step out of the whirlwind into a calm at any moment. We marry our husbands and we fancy that all the tragedy of human passion is over so far as we are concerned. ‘The haven entered and the tempest passed.’ Philip Marston’s terrible poem, –you have read it,–‘A Christmas Vigil’? ‘The haven entered,’–the whirlwind of passion has been left far away, we fancy. Oh, we are fools! It sweeps down upon us and then–doom–doom!”

“My poor dear, you are talking wildly.”

“If you only understood–perhaps you will some day understand, and then you will know what seems wild in my speech is but the incoherence of a poor creature who has been beaten to the ground by the whirlwind, and only saved from destruction by a miracle.”

She had sprung from her place on the sofa and was pacing the room, her diamonds quivering, luminous as a shower of meteors–that was the fancy that flashed from her to Phyllis. Meteors–meteors–what a splendid picture she made flashing from place to place! Meteors–ah, surely there was the meteor-bird flashing across the drawing room!

“Come and sit down, my dear Ella,” said Phyllis. “You are, as you know, quite unintelligible to me.”

“Unintelligible to you? I am unintelligible to myself,” cried Ella. “Why should I be tramping up and down your room when I might be at this very moment—-” She clutched Phyllis’ arm. “I want to stay with you all night,” she whispered. “I want to sleep in your bed with you, Phyllis. I want to feel your arms around me as I used to feel my mother’s long ago. Whatever I may say, you will not let me go, Phyllis?”

“I will load you with chains,” said Phyllis, patting her lovely hair– it was no longer smooth. “Why should you want to go away from me? Cannot we be happy together once again as we used to be long ago?”

“How long ago that was! And we read ‘Romeo and Juliet’ together, and fancied that we had gone down to the very depths of its meaning. We fancied that we had sounded the very depths of its passion and pathos. We were only girls. Ah, Phyllis, I tell you–I, who know–I, who have found it out,–I tell you that the tragedy is the tragedy of all lovers who have ever lived in the world. I tell you that it is the tragedy of love itself. ‘Gallop apace, ye fiery-footed steeds!’ That is the poem that the heart of the lover sings all day–all day! I have heard it–my heart has sung it. I have heard the passionate gallop of those fiery-footed steeds. I have listened to them while my heart beat in unison with their frantic career–all day counting the moments with fiery face, and then–then–something that was not passion forced me to fly from it for the salvation of my soul. I was a fool! Why am I here, when I should be where he—- What is the hour? Why, it is scarcely twelve o’clock! Did I say nine in my letter? What does it matter? I wonder if on that wonderful night–Gounod translated its glory into music–Juliet kept her lover waiting for three hours.”

“What are you doing?” cried Phyllis, rising.

Ella had picked up her theatre wrap–it was a summer cloud brocaded with golden threads of quivering sunlight, and had flung it around her.

She held out a hand to Phyllis. Phyllis grasped her round the waist.

“Where are you going?” she said.

“To hell!”

She had whispered the words, and at their utterance Phyllis gave a cry of horror and covered her face with her hands.

Had she seen a suggestion of the satyr in the expression of that lovely face before her?

In the pause that followed the sound of footsteps upon the stairs outside was heard; the sound of footsteps and of men’s friendly laughter. Some persons were in the act of ascending.

“My God!” whispered Ella. “He has followed me here!”

“Hush!” said Phyllis. “Papa is bringing someone to us.”

“Whom–whom?”

They were both standing together in the middle of the room, both having their eyes fixed on the door, when the door opened and Mr. Ayrton appeared, having by his side a man with iron-gray hair and a curiously pallid face.

At the sight of that man Ella’s hands, that had been holding her wrap close to her throat, feeling for its silver clasp, fell limp, and the splendid mass of white brocade slipped to the floor and lay in folds about her feet, revealing her lovely figure sparkling from the hem of her dress to the top of her shapely head.

CHAPTER XXI.

THAT TOILET SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN WASTED.

For several seconds the tableau remained unchanged: the two women standing side by side, the two men motionless at the half-open door.

Ella was staring at the man who had entered with Mr. Ayrton. There was some apprehension in her eyes.

The man had his eyes fixed upon her. But his face was wholly devoid of expression.

Phyllis was the first to break the silence that made a frame, so to speak, for the picture.

“How do you do, Mr. Linton?” she said, taking a step toward the door.

“I am very well, thank you, Miss Ayrton,” the man replied, shaking hands with her. “Rather a singular hour for a visit, is it not?”

“Oh, no! only Ella didn’t tell me that you—-“

She turned to Ella, and noticed that the expression of apprehension on her face had increased. She was still gazing at her husband as one shut up in a room with a snake might gaze at it, waiting for it to strike.

“Ella didn’t tell you that I was coming?” said he. “She had the best of reasons for her reticence.”

“Ah!”

The sound came from Ella. There was a little scornful smile on her face.

“The best of reasons?” said Phyllis interrogatively.

“The very best; she had no idea that I was coming. I wonder if she is glad to see me. She has not spoken a word to me yet.”

“You have startled her by your sudden appearance,” said Phyllis. “She is not certain whether you are flesh and blood or a ghost.”

Then Ella gave a laugh.

“Oh, yes!” she said. “He is my husband. Go on with what you have to say, Stephen. I will not run away.”

“Run away? What nonsense is this, my dear? Run away? Who said anything about your running away?”

Her husband had advanced to her as he spoke. He put a hand caressingly on one of her bare arms and the other at the back of her head. She suffered him to press her head forward until he put his lips upon her forehead.

When he had released her, and had taken a step back from her,–he seemed abut to address Phyllis,–a little cry forced itself from her. She called his name twice,–the second time louder,–and threw herself into his arms, burying her face on his shoulder, as she had buried it on Phyllis’ shoulder.

In a few moments, however, she looked up. Her husband was patting her on the arm. She had acquired two new gems since she had bent her head. They were shining in her eyes.

“Don’t go away, Phyllis dear,” she said. Phyllis and her father were standing at the /portiere/ between the drawing rooms. Mr. Ayrton had a hand at the embroidered edge in the act of raising it. “Don’t go away. I am all right now. I was quite dazed at Stephen’s sudden appearance. I thought that perhaps he had–had—- Ah, I scarcely know what I thought. How did you come here–why did you come here?”

She had turned to her husband. In spite of her manifestation of affection,–the result of a certain relief which she experienced at that moment,–there was a note of something akin to indignation in her voice.

“It is very simple, my dear,” replied her husband. His curiously sallow face had resumed its usual expressionless appearance. “Nothing could be more simple. I got a telegram at Paris regarding the mine, and I had to start at a moment’s notice. I wrote out a telegram to send to you, and that idiotic courier put it into the pocket of my overcoat instead of sending it. I found it in my pocket when we had come as far as Canterbury. I am not one of those foolish husbands who keep these pleasant surprises for their wives–it is usually the husband who receives the surprise in such cases.”

“And the coachman told you that he had driven me here?” said Ella.

“Quite so,” replied the husband. “But, you see, I had some little hesitation in coming here at half-past ten o’clock to make inquiries about my wife–you might have gone to some place else, you know, in which case I should have looked a trifle foolish; so I though that, on the whole, my best plan would be to drop in upon Mr. Ayrton at the House of Commons and drive here with him when he was coming home for the night. I took it for granted that even so earnest a legislator as Mr. Ayrton allows himself his nights–after twelve, of course–at home. I’m very sorry I startled you, Ella. It shall not occur again.”

“What time did you reach home?” inquired Ella casually–so casually that her husband, who had a very discriminating ear, gave a little glance in her direction. She was disengaging a corner of her lace trimming that had become entangled with a large sapphire in a pendant.

“I reached home at nine,” he replied.

“At nine?” She spoke the words after him in a little gasp. Then she said, walking across the room to a sofa, “I could not have left many minutes before you arrived. I intended going to the opera.”

“That toilet should not have been wasted,” said he. “It is exquisite– /ravissante/!”

“It was an inspiration, your putting it on,” said Phyllis. “I wonder if she really had no subtle suggestion from her own heart that you were on your way to her, Mr. Linton,” she added, turning to the husband.

“I dare say it was some inward prompting of that mysterious nature, Miss Ayrton,” he replied. “A woman’s heart is barometric in its nature, it is not? Its sensitiveness is so great that it moves responsive to a suggestion of what is to come. Is a woman’s heart prophetic, I wonder?”

“It would be a rank heresy to doubt it, after the example we have had to-night,” said Mr. Ayrton. “Yes, a woman’s heart is a barometer suggesting what is coming to her, and her toilet is a thermometer indicating the degree of expectancy.”

“A charming phrase,” said Mr. Linton; “a charming principle, only one that demands some years of close study to be rendered practical. For instance, look at my wife’s toilet: it is bridal, and yet we have been married three years.”

“Quite so; and that toilet means that you are the luckiest fellow in the world,” said Mr. Ayrton.

“I admit the interpretation,” said her husband. “I told the hansom to wait for me. He is at the door now. You have had no opera to-night, my dear?”

“You would not expect me to go alone? Phyllis was dining at the Earlscourts’,” said the wife.

“You are the soul of discretion, my beloved,” said the husband. “Is your stock of phrases equal to a suggestion as to what instrument is the soul of a woman, Ayrton?” he added. “Her heart is a barometer, her toilet a thermometer, and her soul—-“

“The soul of a woman is not an instrument, but a flower–a lily,” said Mr. Ayrton.

“And my wife wears her soul upon her sleeve,” said Mr. Linton, touching the design on the lace that fell from her shoulders.

“But not for daws to peck at–that is the heart,” laughed Mr. Ayrton. “Talking of woman’s soul, how is Lady Earlscourt?” he added, to his daughter.

“I was so sorry that I was at that stupid dinner,” said Phyllis. “I might have enjoyed the music of ‘Romeo and Juliet.’ But I had engaged myself to Lady Earlscourt a fortnight ago.”

“You did not see Lord Earlscourt, at any rate,” said her father.

“No; he left us in the evening for Southampton,” said Phyllis.

“And, curiously enough, I dined with him at the club,” said her father. “Yes, he came in with Herbert Courtland at half-past seven; he had met Courtland and persuaded him to join him in his cruise to Norway. They dined at my table, and by the time we had finished Courtland’s man had arrived with his bag. He had sent the man a message from the club to pack. They left by the eight-forty train, and I expect they are well under way by this time.”

“That’s quite too bad of Courtland,” said Mr. Linton. “I wanted to have a talk with him–a rather serious talk.”

Ella had listened to Mr. Ayrton’s account of that little dinner party at the club with white cheeks–a moment before they had been red–and with her lips tightly closed. Her hands were clenched until the tips of the nails were biting into each of her palms, before he had come to the end of his story–a story of one incident. But when her husband had spoken her hands relaxed. The blaze that had come to her eyes for a second went out without a flicker.

“A serious talk?” she murmured.

“A serious talk–about the mine,” replied her husband.

“About the mine,” she repeated, and a moment after burst into a laugh that was almost startling in its insincerity. “It is so amusing, this chapter of cross-purposes,” she cried. “What a sight it has been! a night of thrilling surprises to all of us! I miss Phyllis by half an hour and my husband misses me by less than half an hour. He comes at express speed from Paris to have a talk, a serious talk, with Mr. Courtland about the mine, and while he is driving from Victoria, Mr. Courtland is driving to the same station with Lord Earlscourt!”

“What a series of fatalities!” said Mr. Ayrton. “But what seemed to me most amusing was the persuasiveness of Earlscourt. He has only to speak half a dozen words to Courtland, and off he goes to Norway at a moment’s notice with probably the most uncongenial boat’s load that Courtland ever sailed with, and he must have done a good deal in that way in New Guinea waters. Now, why should Courtland take such a turn?”

“Ah, why, indeed!” cried Mrs. Linton. “Yes, that is, as you say, the most amusing part of the whole evening of cross-purposes. Why should he run away just at this time–to-night–to-night?”

“What is there particular about to-night that Courtland’s running away should seem doubly erratic?” asked Mr. Linton, after a little pause. He had his eyes fixed coldly upon his wife’s face.

She turned to him and laughed quite merrily.

“What is there particular about to-night?” she repeated. “Why, have you not arrived from Paris to-night to have that serious talk with him about the mine? Doesn’t it seem to you doubly provoking that he didn’t stay until to-morrow or that you didn’t arrive yesterday? Why, why, why did he run away to-night before nine?”

“Why before nine?” said her husband.

“Heavens! Was not that the hour when you arrived home? You said so just now,” she cried. Then she picked up her wrap. Phyllis had thrown it over a chair when it had lain in a heap on the floor as Cleopatra’s wrap may have lain when she was carried into the presence of her lover. “My dear Stephen, don’t you think that as it is past nine, and Mr. Courtland is probably some miles out at sea with his head reposing on something hard,–there is nothing soft about a yacht,–we should make a move in the direction of home? It seems pretty clear that you will have no serious talk with him to-night. Alas! my Phyllis, our dream of happiness is over. We are to be separated by the cruelty of man, as usual. Good-night, my dear! Good-night, Mr. Ayrton! Pray forgive us for keeping you out of bed so long; and receive my thanks for restoring my long-lost husband to my arms. Didn’t you say that the hansom was waiting, Stephen?”

“I expect the man has been asleep for the last half-hour,” said her husband.

“I hope nothing has gone astray with the gold mine,” said she. “Hasn’t someone made a calculation regarding the accumulation of a shilling hansom fare at compound interest when the driver is kept waiting? It is like the sum about the nails in the horse’s shoe. We shall be ruined if we remain here much longer.”

“Ah, my dear,” said Mr. Ayrton, when he had kissed her hand, and straightened the sable collar of her wrap; “ah, my dear, a husband is a husband.”

“Even when he stays away from his wife for three months at a time?” said Ella.

“Not in spite of that, but on account of it,” said Mr. Ayrton. “Have you been married all these years without finding that out?”

“Good-night!” said she.

CHAPTER XXII.

HE HAD EXPLAINED TO PHYLLIS ONCE THAT HE THOUGHT OF GOD ONLY AS A PRINCIPLE.

The sound of the hansom wheels died away before the father and daughter exchanged a word. Mr. Ayrton was the first to speak.

“It seems to have been a night of mischance,” said he.

“I am very glad that Mr. Linton has returned,” said she.

“What? Now, why should you be glad of that very ordinary incident?”

“Why? Oh, papa, I am so fond of her!”

“She may be fond of him, after all.”

Mr. Ayrton spoke musingly.

“Of course she is,” said Phyllis, with a positiveness that was designed to convince herself that she believed her own statement.

“And he may be fond of her–yes, at times,” resumed Mr. Ayrton. “That toilet of hers seems to have been the only happy element in the game of cross-purposes which was played to-night.”

“Ah,” whispered the girl.

“Yes; it was in inspiration. She could not have expected her husband to-night. What a dress! Even a husband would be compelled to admit its fascination. And she said she meant to wear it at the opera to-night. It was scarcely an opera toilet, was it?”

“Ella’s taste is never at fault, papa.”

“I suppose not. I wonder if he is capable of appreciating the–the– let us say, the inspiration of that toilet. Is that, I wonder, the sort of dress that a man likes his wife to wear when she welcomes him home after an absence of some months? No matter it was exquisite in every detail. Curious, her coming here and waiting after she had learned that you were out, was it not; from nine o’clock–that fateful hour!–to-night.”

“I think she must have felt–lonely,” said Phyllis. “She seemed so glad to see me–so relieved. She meant to stay with me all night, poor thing! Oh, why should her husband stay away from her for months at a time? It is quite disgraceful!”

“I think that we had better go to bed,” said her father. “If we begin to discuss abstract questions of temperament we may abandon all hope of sleep tonight. We might as well try to fathom Herbert Courtland’s reasons for going to yacht with so uncongenial a party as Lord Earlscourt’s. Good-night, my dear!”

He kissed her and went upstairs. She did not follow him immediately. She stood in the center of the room, and over her sweet face a puzzled expression crept, as a single breath of wind passes over the smooth surface of a lake on a day when no wind stirs a leaf.

She thought first of Herbert Courtland, which of itself was a curious incident. How did it come that he had yielded so easily to the invitation of Lord Earlscourt to accompany him on his cruise in the yacht /Water Nymph/? (Lord Earlscourt’s imagination in the direction of the nomenclature of his boats as well as his horses was not unlimited.)

But this was just the question which her father had suggested as an example of a subject of profitless discussion. She remembered this, and asked herself if it was likely that she, having at her command fewer data than her father bearing upon this case, should make a better attempt than he made at its solution. Her father had seen Herbert Courtland since he had agreed to go on the cruise, and was therefore in the better position to arrive at a reasonable conclusion in regard to the source of the impulse upon which Mr. Courtland had acted; so much she thought certain. And yet her father had suggested the profitless nature of such an investigation, and her father was certainly right.

Only for a single moment did it occur to her that something she had said to Herbert Courtland when he was sitting there, there in that chair beside her, might have had its influence upon him–only for a single moment, however; then she shook her head.

No, no! that supposition was too, too ridiculous to be entertained for a moment. He had, to be sure, shown that he felt deeply the words which she had quoted as they came from Mrs. Haddon; but what could those words have to do with his sudden acceptance of Lord Earlscourt’s invitation to go to Norway?

She made up her mind that it was nothing to her what course Herbert Courtland had pursued, consequently the endeavors to fathom his reason for adopting such a course would be wholly profitless. But the question of the singular moods suggested by the conduct and the words of her friend Ella Linton stood on a very different basis. Ella was her dearest friend, and nothing that she had said or done should be dismissed as profitless.

What on earth had Ella meant by appearing in that wonderful costume that night? It was not a toilet for the opera, even on a Melba night; even on a “Romeo and Juliet” night, unless, indeed, the wearer meant to appear on the stage as /Juliet/, was the thought which occurred to the girl. Her fantastic thought–she thought it was a fantastic thought–made her smile. Unless—-

And then another thought came to her which, not being fantastic, banished her smile.

/Unless/—-

She got to her feet–very slowly–and walked very slowly–across the room. She seated herself on the sofa where Ella had sat, and she remained motionless for some minutes. Then she made a motion with one of her hands as if sweeping from before her eyes some flimsy repulsiveness–the web of an unclean thing flashing in the air. In another instant she had buried her face in the pillow that still bore the impress of Ella’s face.

“Oh, God–my God, forgive me–forgive me–forgive me!” was her silent, passionate prayer as she lay there sobbing. “How could I ever have such a thought, so terrible a thought. She is my friend–my sister– and she put herself into her husband’s arms and kissed him! Oh, God, forgive me!”

That was her prayer for the greater part of the night as she lay in her white bed.

She felt that she had sinned grievously in thought against her friend, when she recalled the way in which her friend had thrown herself into the arms of her husband. That was the one action which the girl felt should entitle Ella Linton to be the subject of no such horrid thought as had been for a shocking instant forced upon her mind, when she reflected upon the strange passion which had tingled through Ella’s repetition of the fiery words of /Juliet/.

She recalled every strange element in the incident of Ella’s appearance in the drawing room: the way in which Ella had kissed her and clung to her as a child might have done on finding someone to protect it; she recalled the wild words which Ella had uttered, and, finally, the terrible expression which had appeared on her face as she whispered that reckless answer to Phyllis’ question, when she had picked up her wrap and flung it around her just before the sound of footsteps had come to their ears. All that she recalled in connection with that extraordinary visit of Ella’s was quite intelligible to her; but the mystery of all was more than neutralized by her recollection of the way Ella had thrown herself into her husband’s arms. That action should, she felt, be regarded as the one important factor, as it were, in the solution of the problem of Ella’s mood–Ella’s series of moods. Nothing else that she had done, nothing that she had said, was worthy of being taken account of, alongside that dominant act of the true wife.

The little whisper which suggested to her that there was a good deal that was mysterious in the incident of her friend’s visit she refused to regard as rendering it less obligatory on her–Phyllis–to pray that she might be forgiven that horrid suspicion which, for an instant, had come to her; and so she fell asleep praying to God to forgive her for her sin (in thought) against her friend.

And while Phyllis was praying her prayer, her friend, the True Wife, was praying with her face down upon her pillow, and her bare arms stretched out over the white lace of the bed:

“Forgive me, O God; forgive me! and keep him away from me–forever and ever and ever. Amen.”

And while both these prayers were being prayed, Herbert Courtland was sitting on one of the deck stools of the yacht /Water Nymph/, looking back at the many lights that gleamed in clusters along the southern coast of England, now far astern; for a light breeze was sending the boat along with a creaming, quivering wake. In the bows a youth was making the night hideous through the agency of a banjo and a sham negro melody. Amidships, Lord Earlscourt and two other men were playing, by the light of a lantern slung from the backstay, a game called poker; Lord Earlscourt, at every fresh deal, trying to make the rest understand how greatly the worry of being held responsible, as the patron of the living of St. Chad’s, for the eccentricities of his rector, had affected his nerves–a matter upon which his friends assured him, with varied degrees of emphasis, they were in no way interested.

Within a few feet of these congenial shipmates Herbert Courtland sat looking across the shining ripples to the shining lights of the coast; wondering how he came to be on the sea instead of on the shore. Was this indeed the night over which his imagination had gloated for months? Was it indeed possible that this was the very night following the day–Thursday–for which he had engaged himself in accordance with the letter that he still carried in his pocket?

How on earth did it come that he was sitting with his arm over the bulwarks of a yacht instead of—- Oh, the thing was a miracle–a miracle! He could think of it in no other light than that of a miracle.

Well, if it were a miracle, it had been the work of God, and God had to be thanked for it. He had explained to Phyllis once that he thought of God only as a Principle–as the Principle which worked in opposition to the principle of nature. That was certainly the God which had been evolved out of modern civilization. The pagan gods had been just the opposite. They had been founded on natural principles. The Hebrew tradition that God had made man in his own image was the reverse of the scheme of the pagan man who had made God after his own image; in the image of man created he God.

But holding the theory that he held–that God was the sometimes successful opponent to the principles of nature (which he called the Devil)–Herbert Courtland felt that this was the very God to whom his thanks were due for the miracle that had been performed on his behalf.

“Thank God–thank God–thank God!” he murmured, looking out over the rippling waters, steel gray in the soft shadow of the summer’s night.

But then he held that “thank God” was but a figure of speech.

“Tinky-tink, tinky-tink, tinky-tinky-tinky-tinky-tinky-tinky-tink,” went the youth with the banjo in the bows.

CHAPTER XXIII.

ITS MOUTHINGS OF THE PAST HAD BECOME ITS MUMBLINGS OF THE PRESENT.

It was very distressing–very disappointing! The bishop would neither institute proceedings against the rector of St. Chad’s nor state plainly if it was his intention to proceed against that clergyman. When some people suggested very delicately–the way ordinary people would suggest anything to a bishop–that it was surely not in sympathy with the organization of the Church for any clergyman to take advantage of his position and his pulpit to cast sometimes ridicule, sometimes abuse, upon certain “scriptural characters”–that was their phrase–who had hitherto always been regarded as sacred, comparatively sacred, the bishop had brought the tips of the fingers of one hand in immediate, or almost immediate, contact with the tips of the fingers of his other hand, and had shaken his head–mournfully, sadly. These signs of acquiescence, trifling though they were, had encouraged the deputation that once waited on his lordship–two military men (retired on the age clause), an officer of engineers (on the active list), a solicitor (retired), and a member of the London County Council (by occupation an ironmonger), to express the direct opinion that the scandal which had been created by the dissemination–the unrebuked dissemination–of the doctrines held by the rector of St. Chad’s was affording the friends of Disestablishment an additional argument in favor of their policy of spoliation. At this statement his lordship had nodded his head three times with a gravity that deeply impressed the spokesman of the deputation. He wondered if his lordship had ever before heard that phrase about the furnishing of an additional argument to the friends of Disestablishment. (As a matter of fact his lordship had heard it before.)

After an expression of the deputation’s opinion that immediate steps should be taken to make the rector of St. Chad’s amenable to the laws of the Church,

His lordship replied.

(It was his facility in making conciliatory replies that had brought about his elevation in the Church):

He referred to (1) his deep appreciation of the sincerity of the deputation; (2) his own sense of responsibility in regard to the feelings of the weaker brethren; (3) his appreciation of the value of the counsel of practical men in many affairs of the Church; (4) the existing position of the Church in regard to the laity; (5) the friendly relations that had always existed between himself personally and the clergy of his extensive diocese; (6) his earnest and prayerful desire that these relations might be strengthened; (7) the insecurity of a house divided against itself; (8) the progress of socialism; (9) the impossibility of socialism commending itself to Englishmen; (10) the recent anarchist outrages; (11) the purity of the Court of her Majesty the Queen; (12) the union of all Christian Churches; (13) the impossibility of such union ever becoming permanent; (14) the value of Holy Scripture in daily life; (15) his firm belief in the achievement of England’s greatness by means of the open Bible; (16) the note of pessimism in modern life; (17) the necessity for the Church’s combating modern pessimism; (18) the Church’s position as a purveyor of healthy literature for the young; (19) his reluctance to take up any more of their valuable time, and (20) his assurance that the remarks of their spokesman would have his earnest and prayerful attention.

The deputation then thanked his lordship and withdrew.

But still the bishop made no move in the matter, and the friends of the Rev. George Holland felt grievously disappointed. They had counted on the bishop’s at least writing a letter of remonstrance to the rector of St. Chad’s, and upon the publication of the letter, with the rector’s reply in the newspapers; but now quite two months had passed since the appearance of “Revised Versions,” the bishop had returned from the Engadine, and still there were no indications of his intention to make the Rev. George Holland responsible to the right tribunal–whatever that was–for his doctrines. They counted on his martyrdom within six months; and, consequently, upon his election to a position of distinction in the eyes of his fellow-country-men–or, at least, of his country-women. But the bishop they found to be a poor thing after all. They felt sure that what the people said about his being quite humble in the presence of his wife was not without some foundation; and they thought that, after all, there was a great deal to be said in favor of the celibacy of priests compulsory in the Church of Rome. If the bishops of the Church of England were not very careful, they might be the means of such a going over to Rome as had never previously been witnessed in England.

George Holland may have been disappointed, or he may have been pleased at the inactivity of the bishop. He made no sign one way or the other. Of course he was no more than human: he would have regarded a letter of remonstrance from the bishop as a personal compliment; he had certainly expected such a letter, for he had already put together the heads of the reply he would make–and publish–to any official remonstrance that might be offered to him. Still he made no sign. He preached at least one sermon every Sunday morning, and whenever it was known that he would preach, St. Chad’s was crowded and the offertory was all that could be desired. The bishop’s chaplain no longer held a watching brief in regard in regard to those sermons. He did not think it worth while to do so much, George Holland’s friends said, shaking their heads and pursing out their lips. Oh, yes! there could be no doubt that the bishop was a very weak sort of man.

But then suddenly there appeared in the new number of the /Zeit Geist Review/ an article above the signature of George Holland, entitled “The Enemy to Christianity,” and in a moment it became pretty plain that George Holland had not in his “Revised Versions,” said the last word that he had to say regarding the attitude of the Church of England in respect of the non-church-goers of the day. When people read the article they asked “Who is the Enemy to Christianity referred to by the writer?” and they were forced to conclude that the answer which was made to such an inquiry by the article itself was, “The Church.”

He pointed out the infatuation which possessed the heads of the Church of England in expecting to appeal with success to the educated people of the present day, while still declining to move with the course of thought of the people. Already the braying of a trombone out of tune, and the barbarous jingle of a tambourine, had absorbed some hundred thousand of possible church-goers; and though, of course, it was impossible for sensible men and women–the people whom the Church should endeavor to grapple to its soul with hooks of steel–to look, except with amused sadness, at the ludicrous methods and vulgar ineptitude of the Salvation Army, still the Church was making no effort to provide the sensible, thinking, educated people of England with an equivalent as suitable to their requirements as the Salvation Army was to the requirements of the foolish, the hysterical, the unthinking people who played the tambourines and brayed on the tuneless trombones. Thus it is that one man says to another nowadays, when he has got nothing better to talk about, “Are you a man of intelligence, or do you go to church?”

Men of intelligence do not go to church nowadays, Mr. Holland announced in that article of his in the /Zeit Geist/; many women of intelligence refrain from going, he added, though many beautifully dressed women were still frequent attenders. There was no blinking the fact that the crass stupidity of the Church had made church-going unpopular–almost impossible–with intelligent men and women. The Church insulted the intelligence by trying to reconcile the teachings of Judaism with the teachings of Christianity, when the two were absolutely irreconcilable. It was the crass stupidity of the Church that had caused it–for its self-protection, it fancied–to bitterly oppose every truth that was revealed to man. The Church had tortured and burned at the stake the great men to whom God had revealed the great facts of nature’s workings–the motion of the earth and the other planets. But these facts, being Divine Truth, became accepted by the world in spite of the thumb-screws and the fagots–the arguments of the Church against Divine Truth. The list of the Divine Truths which the Church had bitterly opposed was a sickening document. Geography, Geology, Biology–the progress of all had, even within recent years, been bitterly opposed by the Church, and yet the self- constituted arbiters between Truth and falsehood had been compelled to eat their own words–to devour their own denunciations when they found that the Truth was accepted by the intelligence of the people in spite of the anathemas of the Church.

The intelligence of the Church was equal only to the duty of burning witches. It burned them by the thousand, simply because ancient Judaism had a profound belief in the witch and because a blood-thirsty Jewish murderer-monarch had organized a witch hunt.

And yet with such a record against it–a record of the murder of innocent men and women who endeavored to promulgate the Divine Truths of nature–the Church still arrogated to itself the right to lay down a rule of life for intelligent people–a rule of life founded upon that impossible amalgamation of Judaism and Christianity. The science of the Church was not equal to the task of amalgamating two such deadly opponents.

Was it any wonder, then, that church-going had become practically obsolete among intelligent men and women? the writer asked.

He then went on to refer to the nature of the existing services of the Church of England. He dealt only casually with the mockery of the response of the congregation to the reading out of the Fourth Commandment by the priest, when no one in the Church paid the least respect to the Seventh Day. This was additional proof of the absurdity of the attempted amalgamation of Judaism and Christianity. But what he dealt most fully with was the indiscriminate selection of what were very properly termed the “Lessons” from the Hebrew Bible. It was, he said, far from edifying to hear some chapters read out from the lectern without comment; though fortunately the readers were as a rule so imperfectly trained that the most objectionable passages had their potentiality of mischief minimized. He concluded his indictment by a reference to a sermon preached by the average clergyman of the Church of England. This was, usually, he said, either a theological essay founded upon an obsolete system of theology, or a series of platitudes of morality delivered by an unpractical man. The first was an insult to the intelligence of an average man; the second was an insult to the intelligence of an average schoolgirl.

His summing up of the whole case against the Church was as logical as it was trenchant. The Church had surely become, he said, like unto the Giant Pagan in “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” who, when incapable of doing mischief, sat mumbling at the mouth of his cave on the roadside. The Church had become toothless, decrepit either for evil or for good. Its mouthings of the past had become its mumblings of the present. The cave at the mouth of which this toothless giant sat was very dark; and intelligent people went by with a good-natured and tolerant laugh.

This article was published in the /Review/ on Tuesday. Phyllis read it on the evening of that day. On Wednesday the newspapers were full of this further development of the theories of the writer, and on Thursday afternoon the writer paid a visit to Phyllis.

As he entered the drawing room he found himself face to face with Herbert Courtland, who was in the act of leaving.

CHAPTER XXIV.

SHE WAS A WIFE, AND SHE HAD A LOVER WHO DISAPPOINTED HER.

The prayer of Ella Linton had not been answered. She had prayed, not that her heart wherewith she loved Herbert Courtland might be changed –that she knew would be difficult; not that her love for Herbert Courtland might cease–that she believed to be impossible; but simply that Herbert Courtland might be kept away from her–that she knew to be the most sensible course her scheme of imploration could take.

She was well aware of the fact that God had given her strength to run away from Herbert Courtland, and for that she was sincerely thankful; she did not pause to analyze her feelings, to ask herself if her thanks were due to her reflection upon the circumstance of her husband’s return, at the very hour when she had appointed to meet Herbert Courtland; she only felt that God had been good to her in giving her sufficient strength to run away from that appointment. Then it was that she had prayed that he might be kept away from her. Surely God would find it easy to do that, she thought. Surely she might assume that God was on her side, and that he would not leave his work half done.

But when she began to think of the thorough manner in which God does his work she began to wish that she had not prayed quite so earnestly. Supposing that God should think it fit to keep him away from her by sending a blast from heaven to capsize that yacht in the deep sea, what would she think of the fervency of her prayer then?

The terror of her reflection upon the possibility of this occurrence flung her from her bed and sent her pacing, with bare feet and flying lace, the floor of her bedroom in the first pearly light of dawn, just as she had paced the floor of Phyllis’ drawing room beneath the glow of the electric lights.

She wished that she had not prayed quite so earnestly that he might be kept apart from her. But one cannot pray hot and cold; she felt that she had no right now to lay down any conditions to Heaven in the matter of keeping Herbert Courtland away from her. She had prayed her prayer; only, if he were drowned before she saw him again, she would never say another prayer.

This feeling that she would be even with Heaven, so to speak, had the effect of soothing her. She threw herself upon her bed once more and was able to fall asleep; she had a considerable amount of confidence in the discrimination of Heaven.

But before she had come down to the breakfast room where her husband was reading a newspaper in the morning, she had thought a good deal upon another matter that disquieted her in some degree. She had been exuberant (she thought) at having had sufficient strength given to her to run away from her lover; but then she had not dwelt upon the rather important circumstance that all the running away had not been on her side. What were the facts as revealed by the narrative of Mr. Ayrton?