The Heavenly Twins by Madame Sarah Grand (page 13)

END OF BOOK V.

BOOK VI.

THE IMPRESSIONS OF DR. GALBRAITH

Nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice.

–_Othello_, Act V. Sc. II.

NOTE.–The fact that Dr. Galbraith had not the advantage of knowing Evadne’s early history when they first became acquainted adds a certain piquancy to the flavour of his impressions, and the reader, better informed than himself with regard to the antecedents of his “subject,” will find it interesting to note both the accuracy of his insight and the curious mistakes which it is possible even for a trained observer like himself to make by the half light of such imperfect knowledge as he was able to collect under the circumstances. His record, which is minute in all important particulars, is specially valuable for the way in which it makes apparent the changes of habit and opinion and the modifications of character that had been brought about in a very short time by the restriction Colonel Colquhoun had imposed upon her. In some respects it is hard to believe that she is the same person. But more interesting still, perhaps, are the glimpses we get of Dr. Galbraith himself in the narrative, throughout which it is easy to decipher the simple earnestness of the man, the cautious professionalism and integrity, the touches of tender sentiment held in check, the dash of egotism, the healthy-minded human nature, the capacity for enjoyment and sorrow, the love of life, and, above all, the perfect unconsciousness with which he shows himself to have been a man of fastidious refinement and exemplary moral strength and delicacy; of the highest possible character; and most lovable in spite of a somewhat irascible temper and manner which were apt to be abrupt at times.

CHAPTER I.

Evadne puzzled me. As a rule, men of my profession, and more particularly specialists like myself, can class a woman’s character and gauge her propensities for good or evil while he is diagnosing her disease if she consult him, or more easily still during half an hour’s ordinary conversation if he happens to be alone with her. But even after I had seen Evadne many times, and felt broadly that I knew her salient points as well as such tricks of manner or habitual turns of expression as distinguished her from other ladies, I was puzzled.

We are not sufficiently interested in all the people we meet to care to understand their characters exactly, but a medical man who has not insight enough to do so at will has small chance of success in his profession, and when I found myself puzzled about Evadne it became a point of importance with me to understand her. She was certainly an interesting study, and all the more so because of that initial difficulty–a difficulty, by the way, which I found from the gossip of the place that everybody else was experiencing more or less. For it was evident from the first that whatever her real character might be, she was anything but a nonentity. Before she had been in the neighbourhood a fortnight she had made a distinct impression and was freely discussed, a fact which speaks for itself in two ways: first, her individuality was strongly marked enough to attract immediate attention, and secondly, there was that about her which provoked criticism. Not that the criticism of a community like ours is worth much, consisting as it does of carping mainly, and the kind of carping which reflects much more upon the low level of intelligence that obtains in such neighbourhoods than upon the character of the person criticised, for what the vulgar do not understand they are apt to condemn. Somebody has said that to praise moderately is a sign of mediocrity; and somebody might have added that to denounce decidedly shows deficiency in a multitude of estimable qualities, among which discernment must be specially mentioned–not, however, that there was any question of denouncing here, for Evadne was always more discussed for what she was not than for what she was. One lady of my acquaintance put part of my own feeling into words when she declared that Evadne _could_ be nicer if _she would_, that part of it which first made me suspect that there was something artificial in her attitude towards the world at large, and more especially towards the world of thought and opinion, and that, had she been natural, she would have differed from herself as we knew her in many material respects. Naturalness, however, is a quality upon which too much stress is generally laid. If you are naturally nice it is all very well, but suppose you are naturally nasty? We should be very thankful indeed to think that some of our friends are not natural.

In looking back now, I am inclined to ask why we, Evadne’s intimate friends, should always have expected more of her than we did of other people. That certainly was the case, and she disappointed us. We felt that she should have been a representative woman such as the world wants at this period of its progress, making a name for herself and an impression on the age; and it was probably her objection, expressed with quite passionate earnestness, to play a part in which we gathered from many chance indications that she was eminently qualified to have excelled, that constituted the puzzle. Her natural bent was certainly in that direction, but something had changed it; and here in particular the external tormenting difficulty with regard to her occurred with full force. At a very early period of our acquaintance, however, I discovered that her attitude in this respect was not inherent, but deliberately chosen.

“I avoid questions of the day as much as possible,” she said on one occasion in answer to some remark of mine on a current topic of conversation. “I do not, as a rule, read anything on such subjects, and if people begin to discuss them in my presence I fly if I can.”

“I should have thought that all such questions would have interested you deeply,” I observed.

“They seem to possess a quite fatal fascination for people who allow themselves to be interested,” she answered evasively, and in a tone which forbade further discussion of the subject.

But it was the evasion which enlightened me. She would not have been afraid of the “fatal fascination” if she had never felt it herself, and it was therefore evident that her objection was not the outcome of ignorant prejudice, but of knowledge and set purpose. It was the attitude of a burnt child.

The impression she made upon the neighbourhood was curious in one way–it was so very mixed, In the adverse part of the mixture, however, a good deal of personal pique was apparent, and one thing was always obvious: people liked her as much as she would let them. She even might have been popular had she chosen, but popularity comes of condescending to the level of the average, and Evadne was exclusive. She was _une vraie petite grande dame_ at heart as well as in appearance, and would associate with none but her equals; and out of those again she was fastidious in the selection of her friends. To servants, people who knew their proper place, and retainers generally, with legitimate claims to her consideration, she was all kindly courtesy, and they were devoted to her; but she met the aspiring parvenu, seeking her acquaintance on false pretences of equality, with that disdainful civility which is more exasperating than positive rudeness because a lady is only rude to her equals.

And hence most of the animadversion.

But her manner was perfectly consistent. Her coldness or cordiality to mere acquaintances only varied of necessity according to her position and responsibilities. In her own house, where the onus of entertaining fell upon her, she was charming to everybody to-day, neglecting none, and giving an equally flattering share of her attention to each; but if she met the same people at somebody else’s place to-morrow, when she was off duty, as it were, she certainly showed no more interest than she felt in them. I do not believe, however, that she ever committed a breach of good manners in her life. When she spoke to you she did so with the most perfect manner, giving you her whole attention for the moment, and never letting her eyes wander, as underbred people so often do, especially in the act of shaking hands. Fairly considered, her attitude in society was distinguished by an equable politeness, in which, however, there was no heart, and that was what the world missed. She did not care for society, and society demands your heart, having none of its own. She certainly did her duty in that state of life, but without any affectation of delight in it. She went to all the local entertainments as custom required, and suffered from suspended animation under the influence of the deadly dulness which prevailed at most of them, but in that she was not peculiar, and she could conceal her boredom more successfully than almost anybody else I knew, and did so heroically.

In her religion too she was quite conventional. Like most people in these days, she was a good Churchwoman without being in any sense a Christian. She did not love her neighbour as herself, or profess to; but she went to church regularly and made all the responses, pleasing the clergy, and deriving some solace herself from the occupation–at least she always said the services were soothing. She was genuinely shocked by a sign of irreverence, and would sing the most jingling nonsense as a hymn with perfect gravity and without perceiving that there was any flaw in it. In these matters she showed no originality at all. She would repeat “my duty towards my neighbour is to love him as myself, and to do to all men as I would that they should do unto me” fervently, and come out and cut Mrs. Chrimes to the quick just afterward because she had the misfortune to be a tanner’s wife and nobody’s daughter in particular. It was what she had been taught. Any one of her set would have said “my duty to my neighbour” without a doubt of their own sincerity, and given Mrs. Chrimes the cold shoulder too; the inconsistency is customary, and in this particular Evadne was as much a creature of custom as the rest.

It was my fate to take Evadne in to dinner on the first occasion of our meeting. I did not hear her name when I was presented, and had no idea who she was, but I was struck by her appearance. Her figure was fragile to a fault, and she was evidently delicate at that time, not having fully recovered, as I was afterwards told, from a severe attack of Maltese fever; but her complexion was not unhealthy. Her features were refined and exquisitely feminine. She looked about twenty, and her face in repose would have been expressionless but for the slight changes about the mouth which showed that the mind was working within. Her long eyes seemed narrow from a trick she had of holding them half shut. They were slow-glancing and steadfast, and all her movements struck one at first as being languid, but that impression wore off after a time, and then it became apparent that they were merely rather more deliberate than is usual with a girl.

She answered my first remarks somewhat shortly; but certainly such observations as one finds to make to a strange lady while taking her from the drawing room to the dining room and arranging her chair at table are not usually calculated to inspire brilliant responses. She had the habit of society to perfection and was essentially self-possessed, but I fancied she was shy. Coldness is often a cover for extreme shyness in women of her station, and I did my best to thaw her; but the soup and fish had been removed and we had arrived at the last _entree_ before I made a remark that roused her in the least. I forget what I said exactly, but it was some stupid commonplace about the difficulties of the political situation at the moment.

“I hate politics,” she then observed. “Business is a disagreeable thing, whether it be the business of the nation or of the shop. I hear women say that they are obliged to interfere just now in all that concerns themselves because men have cheated and imposed upon them to a quite unbearable extent. But they will do no good by it. Their position is perfectly hopeless. And the mere trade of governing is a coarse pursuit, and therefore most objectionable for us.” She drew in her breath and tightened her lips. “But for myself,” she added, “what I object to mainly is the thought. Why are they trying to make us think? The great difficulty is not to think. There are plenty of men to think for us, and while they are thinking we can be feeling. I, for one, have no joy in eventful living. Feeling is life, not thought. You need not be afraid to give us the suffrage,” she broke off, with the first glimpse of a smile I had seen on her lips. “After the excitement of conquering your opposition to it was over we should all be content, and not one woman in a hundred would trouble herself to vote.”

“I believe women are more public spirited than that,” I answered. “They are toiling everywhere now for the furtherance of all good works, and they come forward courageously whenever necessity compels them to take such an extreme and uncongenial course. In times of war–“

She had been leaning back in her chair in a somewhat languid attitude, but now suddenly she straightened herself, her face flushed crimson, and I stopped short. Something in the word “War” either hurt or excited her. Her long eyes opened on me wide and bright for the first time, and flashed a look into mine more stirring than the wine that bubbled in the glass between my fingers.

“She is beautiful!” I said to myself; but up to that moment I had not suspected it.

“War!” she exclaimed, speaking under her breath, but incisively. “Do not let us talk about it! War is the dirty work of a nation; it is one of the indecencies of life, and should never be mentioned!”

She looked straight into my face for a moment with eyes wide open and lips compressed when she had finished speaking, and then took her _menu_ in her left hand, and began to study it with great apparent attention.

Having discovered that she thought politics a coarse, contaminating business, and war the dirty work of a nation, I felt curious to know her views on literature and art.

“I have just been reading a book that might interest you,” I began; “it strikes me as being so true to life.”

“I think I should be inclined to avoid it, then,” she answered, “for I always find that ‘true to life’ in a book means something revolting.”

“Unfortunately, yes, it often does,” I agreed. “But still we ought to know. If we refused to study the bad side of life, no evil would ever be remedied.”

“Do you think any good is ever done?” she asked.

“I am afraid you are a pessimist,” I rejoined.

“But do you really like books that are true to life yourself?” she proceeded. “Don’t you think we see enough of life without reading about it? For my own part I am grateful to anyone who has the power to take me out of this world and make me feel something–realise something–beyond. The dash of the supernatural, for instance, in ‘John Inglesant,’ ‘Mr. Isaacs,’ ‘The Wizard’s Son,’ and ‘The Little Pilgrim’ has the effect of rest upon my mind, and gives me greater pleasure than the most perfect picture of real life ever presented. In fact, my ideal of perfect bliss in these days is to know nothing and believe in ghosts.”

This also was a comprehensive opinion, and I felt no further inclination to name the book to which I had alluded. But now that she had begun to respond I should have been well content to continue the conversation. There was something so unusual in most of her opinions that I wanted to hear more, although I confess that what she said interested me less than she herself did. Before I could touch on another topic, however, the ladies left the table.

A big blond man, middle-aged, bald, bland, and with a heavy moustache, had been sitting opposite to us during dinner, and had attracted my attention by the way he looked at my partner from time to time. It was a difficult look to describe, because there was neither admiration nor interest in it, approval nor disapproval; he might have looked at a block of wood in exactly the same way, and it could hardly have been less responsive. Once, however, their eyes did meet, and then the glance became one of friendly recognition on both sides; but even after that he still continued to look in the same queer way, and it was this fact that struck me as peculiar.

When the ladies had gone I happened to find myself beside this gentleman, and asked him if he could tell me who it was I had taken in to dinner.

“Well, she is supposed to be my wife,” he answered deliberately; “and I am Colonel Colquhoun.”

He spoke with a decidedly Irish accent of the educated sort, and seemed to think that I should know all about him when he mentioned his name, but I had never heard of the fellow before. I rightly conjectured, however, that he was the new man who had come to command the Depot at Morningquest while I had been abroad for my holiday.

CHAPTER II.

First impressions are very precious for many reasons. They have a charm of their own to begin with, and it is interesting to recall them; and salutary, also, if not sedative. Collect a few, and you will soon see clearly the particular kind of ass you are by the mistakes you have made in consequence of having confided in them. When I first met Evadne I was still young enough, in the opprobrious sense of the word, to suppose that I should find her mentally, when I met her again, just where she was when she left me after our little chat at the dinner-table; and I went to pay my duty call upon her under that most erroneous impression. I intended to resume our interrupted conversation, and never doubted but that I should find her willing to gratify my interest in her peculiar views. It was a mistake, however, which anybody, whose delight in his own pursuits is continuous, might make, and one into which the cleverest man is prone to fall when the object is a woman.

I called on Evadne the day after the dinner. She was alone, and rising from a seat beside a small work-table as I entered, advanced a step, and held out a nerveless hand to me. She was not looking well. Her skin was white and opaque, her eyes dull, her lips pale, and her apparent age ten years more than I had given her on the previous evening. She was a lamplight beauty, I supposed. But her dress satisfied. It was a long indoor gown which indicated without indelicacy the natural lines of her slender figure, and she was innocent of the shocking vulgarity of the small waist, a common enough deformity at that time, although now, it is said, affected by third rate actresses and women of indifferent character only. The waist is an infallible index to the moral worth of a woman; very little of the latter survives the pressure of a tightened corset.

“Will you sit there?” Evadne said, indicating an easy chair and subsiding into her own again as she spoke. “Colonel Colquhoun is not at home,” she added, “but I hope he will return in time to see you. He will be sorry if he does not.”

It was quite the proper thing to say, and her manner was all that it ought to have been, yet somehow the effect was not encouraging. Had I been inclined to presume I should have felt myself put in my place, but, being void of reproach, my mind was free to take notes, and I decided off-hand that Evadne was a society woman of unexceptionable form, but ordinary, and my nascent interest was nowhere. My visit lasted about a quarter of an hour, during which time she gave me back commonplace for commonplace punctually, doing damage to her gown with a pin she held in her left hand the while, and only raising her eyes to mine for an instant at a time. Nothing could have been easier, colder, thinner, more uninspiring than the fluent periods with which she favoured me, and nothing more stultifying to my own brain. If it had not been for that pin my wits must have wandered. As it was, however, she inadvertently forced me to concentrate my attention upon the pin, with fears for her femoral artery, by apparently sticking it into herself in a reckless way whenever there was a pause, and each emphatic little dig startled my imagination into lively activity and kept me awake.

But, altogether, the visit was disappointing, and I left her under the impression that the glimpse of mind I had had the night before was delusive, a mere transient flash of intelligence caused by some swift current of emotion due to external influences of which I was unaware. Love, or an effervescent wine, will kindle some such spark in the dullest. But there was nothing in Evadne’s manner indicative of the former influence; and as to the latter, the only use she ever made of a wineglass was to put her gloves in it.

As I gathered up the reins to drive my dogcart home that afternoon I was conscious of an impression on my mind as of a yawn. But I was relieved to have the visit over–and done with, as I at first believed it to be; but it was not done with, for during the drive a thought occurred to me with chastening rather than cheering effect, a thought which proves that my opinion of Evadne’s capacity had begun to be mixed even at that early period of our acquaintance. I acknowledged to myself that one of us had been flat that day, and had infected the other; but which was the original flat one? Some minds are like caves of stalactite and stalagmite, rich in treasures of beauty, the existence of which you may never suspect because you bring no light yourself to dispel the darkness that conceals them.

CHAPTER III.

The next time I saw Evadne it was at her own house also, and it was only a few days after my first visit. I was driving past, but encountered Colonel Colquhoun at the gate, and pulled up for politeness’ sake, as I had not seen him when I called. He was returning from barracks in a jovial mood, and made such a point of my going in that I felt obliged to. We found Evadne alone in the drawing room, and I noticed to my surprise that she was extremely nervous. Her manner was self-possessed, but her hands betrayed her. She fidgeted with her rings or her buttons or her fingers incessantly, and certainly was relieved when I rose to go.

The little she said, however, impressed me, and I would gladly have stayed to hear more had she wished it. I fancied, however, that she did not wish it, and I accordingly took my leave as soon as I decently could.

As I drove home I found myself revising my revised opinion of her. I felt sure now that she was something more than an ordinary society woman. Still, like everybody else at that time, I could not have said whether I liked or disliked her. But I wanted to see her again. Before I had an opportunity of doing so, however, I received a request with regard to her which developed my latent curiosity into honest interest, and added a certain sense of duty to my half formed wish to know more of her.

The request arrived in the shape of a letter from Lady Adeline Hamilton-Wells, an intimate friend of mine, and one who has always had my most sincere respect and affection. She is a woman who lives altogether for others, devoting the greater part of her ample means, and all the influence of an excellent position, to their service; and she is a woman who stands alone on the strength of her own individuality, for Mr. Hamilton-Wells does not count. Her great charm is her perfect sincerity. She is essentially true.

When I saw her note on the breakfast table next day, I knew that somehow it would prove to be of more importance than the whole of my other letters put together, and I therefore hastened to open it first.

“VILLA MIGNONNE, 15th March, 1880.

“Colonel Colquhoun, late of the Colqohoun Highlanders, has been appointed to command the depot at Morningquest, I hear. Kindly make his wife’s acquaintance at your earliest convenience to oblige me. She is one of the Fraylings of Fraylingay. Her mother is a sister of Mrs. Orton Beg’s, and a very old friend of mine. I used to see a good deal of Mrs. Colquhoun up to the time that she met her husband, and she was then a charming girl, quiet, but clever. I lost sight of her after her marriage, however, for about two years, and only met her again last January in Paris, when I found her changed beyond all knowing of her, and I can’t think why. She is not on good terms with her own people for some mysterious reason, but, apart from that, she seems to have everything in the world she can want, and makes quite a boast of her husband’s kindness and consideration. I noticed that she did not get on well with men as a rule, and she may repel you at first, but persevere, for she _can_ be fascinating, and to both sexes too, which is rare; but I am told that people who begin by disliking often end by adoring her–people with anything in them, I mean, for, as I have learnt to observe under your able tuition, the ‘blockhead majority’ _does_ do despitefully by what it cannot comprehend. And that is why I am writing to you. I am afraid Evadne will come into collision with some of the prejudices of our enlightened neighbourhood. She is not perfect, and nothing but perfection is good enough for certain angelic women of our acquaintance. They will call her very character in question at the trial tribunals of their tea-tables if she be, as I think, of the kind who cause comment; and they will throw stones at her and make her suffer even if they do her no permanent injury. For I fear that she is nervously sensitive both to praise and blame, a woman to be hurt inevitably in this battle of life, and a complex character which I own I do not perfectly comprehend myself yet, perhaps because parts of it are still nebulous. But doubtless your keener insight will detect what is obscure to me, and I rely upon you to befriend her until my return to England, when I hope to be able to relieve you of all responsibility.

“Tell me, too, how you get on with Colonel Colquhoun. I should like to know what you think of them both.

“ADELINE HAMILTON-WELLS.”

My answer to this letter has lately come into my possession, and I give it as being of more value probably than any subsequent record of these early impressions:

“FOUNTAIN TOWERS, 19th March, 1880.

“MY DEAR LADY ADELINE:

“I had made Mrs. Colquhoun’s acquaintance before I received your letter, and have seen her three times altogether. And three times has not been enough to enable me to form a decided opinion of her character, which seems to be out of the common. Had you asked me what I thought of her after our first meeting, I should have said she is peculiar; after the second I am afraid I should have presumed to say not ‘much’; but now, after the third, I am prepared to maintain that she is decidedly interesting. Her manner is just a trifle stiff to begin with, but that is so evidently the outcome of shyness that I cannot understand anybody being repelled by it. Her voice is charming, every tone is exquisitely modulated, and she expresses herself with ease, and with a certain grace of diction peculiarly her own. It is a treat to hear English spoken as she speaks it. She uses little or no slang and few abbreviations, but she is perfectly fearless in her choice of words, and invariably employs the one which expresses her meaning best, however strong it may be, yet somehow the effect is never coarse. Yesterday she wanted to know the name of an officer now at the barracks, and made her husband understand which she meant in this way: ‘He is a little man,’ she said, ‘who puts his hands deep down in his pockets, hunches up his shoulders, and says _damn_ emphatically.’ How she can use such words without offence is a mystery; but she certainly does.

“All this, however, you must have observed for yourself, and I know that it is merely skimming about your question, not answering it. But I humbly confess, though it cost me your confidence in my ‘keen insight’ forever, that I cannot answer it. So far, Mrs. Colquhoun has appealed to me merely as a text upon which to hang conclusions. I do not in the least know what she is, but I can see already what she will become–if her friends are not careful; and that is a phrase-maker.

“Colonel Colquhoun is likely to be a greater favourite here than his wife. Ladies say he is ‘very nice!’ ‘so genial,’ and ‘a _thorough_ Irishman!’ whatever they mean by that. He does affect both brogue and blarney when he thinks proper. Perhaps, however, I ought to tell you at once that I do not like him, and am not at all inclined to cultivate his acquaintance. He strikes me as being a very commonplace kind of military man, tittle-tattling, idle, and unintellectual; and in the habit of filling up every interval of life with brandy and soda water. The creature is rapidly becoming extinct, but specimens still linger in certain districts. And I should judge him upon the whole to be the sort of man who pleases by his good manners those whom he does not repel by his pet vices– most people, that is to say. The world is constant and kind to its own.

“They are at As-You-Like-It, the gloomiest house in the neighbourhood. I fancy Colonel Colquhoun took it to suit his own convenience without consulting his wife’s tastes or requirements, and he will be out too much to suffer himself, but I fear she will feel it. She is a fragile little creature, for whose health and well-being generally I should say that bright rooms and fresh air are essential. The air at As-You-Like-It is not bad, but the rooms are damp. That west window in the drawing room is the one bright spot in the house, and the sun only shines on it in the afternoon. I am sorry that I cannot answer your letter more satisfactorily, but you may rest assured that I shall be glad to do Mrs. Colquhoun any service in my power.

“Diavolo wrote and told me the other day that his colonel thinks him too good for the Guards, and has strongly advised him, if he wishes to continue in the service, to exchange into some other regiment! I have asked him to come and stay with me, and hope to discover what he has been up to. With your permission, I should urge him to apply for the Depot at Morningquest. It would do the duke good to have him about again, and Angelica would be delighted; and, besides, Colonel Colquhoun would keep his eye on him and put up with more pranks probably than those who know not Joseph.

“Angelica is very well and happy. Her devotion to her husband continues to be exemplary, and he has been good-natured enough to oblige her by delivering some of her speeches in parliament lately, with excellent effect. She read the one now in preparation aloud to us the last time I was at Ilverthorpe. It struck me as being extremely able, and eminent for refinement as well as for force. Mr. Kilroy himself was delighted with it, as indeed he is with all that she does now. He only interrupted her once. ‘I should say the country is going to the dogs, there,’ he suggested. ‘Then, I am afraid your originality would provoke criticism,’ Angelica answered.

“When do you return? I avoid Hamilton House in your absence, it looks so dreary all shut up.

“Yours always, dear Lady Adeline,

“GEORGE BETON GALBRAITH.”

CHAPTER IV.

Having despatched my letter, I began to consider how I might best follow up my acquaintance with Evadne with a view to such intimacy as should enable me at any time to have the right to be of service to her should occasion offer, and during the day I arranged a dinner party for her special benefit, not a very original idea, but by accident it answered the purpose.

The Colquhouns accepted my invitation, but when the evening arrived Evadne came alone, and quite half an hour before the time I had dressed, luckily, and was strolling about the grounds when I saw the carriage drive up the avenue, and hastened round the house to meet her at the door.

“The days are getting quite long,” she said, as I helped her to alight. Then, glancing up at a clock in the hall, she happened to notice the time. “Is that clock right?” she asked.

“It is,” I answered.

“Then my coachman must have mistaken the distance,” she said. “He assured me that it would take an hour to drive here. But I shall not have occasion to regret the mistake if you will let me see the house,” she added gracefully. “It seems to be a charming old place.”

It would have been a little awkward for both of us but for this happy suggestion; there were, however, points of interest enough about the house to fill up a longer interval even.

“But I am forgetting!” she exclaimed, as I led her to the library. “I received this note from Colonel Colquhoun at the last moment. He is detained in barracks to-day, most unfortunately, and will not be able to get away until late. He begs me to make you his apologies.”

“I hope we shall see him during the evening,” I said.

“Oh, yes,” she answered, “he is sure to come for me.”

There was a portrait of Lady Adeline in the library, and she noticed it at once.

“Do you know the Hamilton-Wellses?” she asked, brightening out of her former manner instantly.

“We are very old friends,” I answered. “Their place is next to mine, you know.”

“I did not know,” she said. “I have never been there. Lady Adeline knows my people, and used to come to our house a good deal at one time; that is where I met her, I like her very much–and trust her.”

“That everybody does.”

“Do you know her widowed sister, Lady Claudia Beaumont?”

“Yes,”

“And their brother, Lord Dawne?”

“Yes–well. He and I were ‘chums’ at Harrow and Oxford, and a common devotion to the same social subjects has kept us together since.”

“He is a man of most charming manners,” she said thoughtfully.

“He is,” I answered cordially. “I know no one else so fastidiously refined, without being a prig.”

She was sitting on the arm of a chair with Adeline’s photograph in her hand, and was silent a moment, looking at it meditatively.

“You must know that eccentric ‘Ideala,’ as they call her, also?” she said at last, glancing up at me gravely.

“We do not consider her eccentric,” I said.

“Well, you must confess that she moves in an orbit of her own,” she rejoined.

“Not alone, then,” I answered, “so many luminaries circle round her.”

“Lady Adeline criticises her severely,” she ventured, with a touch of asperity.

“_Les absents out toujours torts_,” I answered. “But, at the same time, when Lady Adeline criticises Ideala severely, I am sure she deserves it. Her faults are patent enough, and most provoking, because she could correct them if she would. You don’t know her well?”

“No.”

“Ah! Then I understand why you do not like her. She is not a person who shows to advantage on a slight acquaintance, and in that she is just the reverse of most people; her faults are all on the surface and appear at once, her good qualities only come out by degrees.”

“I feel reproved,” Evadne answered, smiling. “But it is really hard to believe that the main fabric of a character is beautiful when one only sees the spoilt bits of it. You must be quite one of that clique,” she added, in a tone which expressed “What a pity!” quite clearly.

“You are not interested in social questions?” I ventured.

“On the contrary,” she answered decidedly, “I hate them all.”

She put the photograph down, and looked round the room.

“Where does that door lead to?” she asked, indicating one opposite.

“Into my study.”

“Then you do not study in the library?”

“No. I read here for relaxation. When I want to work I go in there.”

“Let me see where you work?”

I hesitated, for I kept my tools there, and I did not know what might be about.

“It is professional work I do there,” I said.

She was quick to see my meaning: “Oh, in that case,” she began apologetically. “I am indiscreet, forgive me. I have not realized your position yet, you see. It is so anomalous being both a doctor and a country gentleman. But what a dear old place this is! I cannot think how you can mix up medical pursuits with the names of your ancestors. Were I you I should belong to the Psychical Society only. The material for that kind of research lingers long in these deep recesses. It is built up in thick walls, and concealed behind oak panels. Oh, how _can_ you be a doctor here!”

“I am not a doctor, here,” I assured her, “at least only in the morning when I make this my consulting room.”

“I am glad,” she said. “This is a place in which to be human.”

“Is a doctor not human, then?” I asked, a trifle piqued.

“No,” she answered, laughing. “A doctor is not a man to his lady patients; but an abstraction–a kindly abstraction for whom one sends when a man’s presence would be altogether inconvenient. If I am ever ill I will send for you in the abstract confidently.”

“Well, I hope I may more than answer your expectations in that character,” I replied, “should anything so unfortunate as sickness or sorrow induce you to do me the favour of accepting my services.”

She gave me one quick grave glance. “I know you mean it,” she said; “and I know you mean more. You will befriend me if I ever want a friend.”

“I will,” I answered.

“Thank you,” she said.

It was exactly what I had intended with regard to her since I had received Lady Adeline’s letter, but a compact entered into on the occasion of our fourth meeting struck me as sudden. I had no time to think of it, however, at the moment, for Evadne followed up her thanks with a question.

“How do you come to have an abode of this kind and be a doctor also?” she asked.

“The house came to me from an uncle, who died suddenly, just after I had become a fully qualified practitioner,” I told her; “but there is not income enough attached to it to keep it up properly, and I wanted to live here; and I wanted besides to continue my professional career, so I thought I would try and make the one wish help the other.”

“And the experiment has succeeded?”

“Yes.”

“Are you very fond of your profession?”

“It is the finest profession in the world.”

“All medical men say that,” she remarked, smiling.

“Well, I can claim the merit–if it be a merit–of having arrived at that conclusion before I became–“

“Eminent?” she suggested.

“Before I had taken my degree,” I corrected.

“So you came and established yourself as a doctor in this old place?”

She glanced round meditatively.

“That seems to surprise you?”

“It is the dual character that surprises me,” she answered, “Your practice makes you a professional man, and you are a county magnate also by right of your name and connections.”

She evidently knew all about me already, and I was flattered by the interest she showed, which I thought special until I found that she was in the habit of knowing, and knowing accurately too, all about everyone with whom she was brought into close contact.

“I cannot imagine how you find time for it all,” she continued; “you are not a general practitioner, I believe.”

“Not exactly,” I answered. “Of course I never refuse to attend in any case of emergency, but my regular practice is all consultation, and my speciality has somehow come to be nervous disorders. Sometimes I have my house full of patients–interesting cases which require close attention.”

“I know,” she said, “and poor people who cannot pay as often as the rich who will give you anything to attend them.”

“I should very much like you to believe the most exaggerated accounts of my generosity if any such are about,” I hastened to assure her; “but honesty compels me to explain that I benefit by every case which I treat successfully.”

“Goto! you do not deceive me,” she answered, laughing up in my face.

Her manner had quite changed now. She recognized me as one of her own caste, and knew that however friendly and familiar she might be I should not presume.

When it was time to think of my other guests, she begged to be allowed to remain in the library until they had all arrived.

“It would be such an exertion to have to explain to each one separately how it is that I am here alone–and I do so dislike strange people,” she added plaintively. “It makes me quite _ill_ to have to meet them. And, besides,” she broke out laughing, “as it is a new place, perhaps I ought to try and make myself interesting and of importance to the inhabitants by coming in late! When you keep people waiting for dinner you do become of consequence to them–to their comfort–and then they think of you!”

“But not very charitably under such circumstances,” I suggested.

“That depends,” she answered. “If you arrive in time to save their appetites, they will associate a pleasant sense of relief with your coming which will make them think well of you for evermore. They mistake the sensation for an opinion, and as they like it, they call it a good one!”

She looked pretty when she unbent like that and talked nonsense–or what was apt to strike you as nonsensical until you came to consider it. For there was often a depth of worldly wisdom and acuteness underlying her most apparently careless sallies that surprised you.

She lingered long in the library–so long that at first I felt impatiently that she might have remembered that I had an appetite as well as the strangers within my gates with whom it apparently pleased her to trifle, and I felt obliged, during an awkward pause, to account for the delay by explaining for whom we were waiting. If she were in earnest about wishing to make a sensation or attract special attention to herself, she had gained her end, for the moment I mentioned the name of Colquhoun, people began to speak of her, carefully, because nobody knew as yet who her friends might be, but with interest. I never supposed for a moment, however, that she was in earnest. There was something proudly self-respecting about her which forbade all idea of anything so paltry as manoeuvring. I did at first think that she might have fallen asleep; but, afterward, on recollecting that she was a nervous subject, it occurred to me that her courage might have failed her, and that she would never present herself to a whole room full of strangers alone. Excusing myself to my guests, therefore, as best I could, I went at last to the library, and found that this latter surmise was correct. She was standing in the middle of the room with her hands clasped, evidently in an agony of nervous trepidation. I went up to her, however, as if I had not noticed it, and offered her my arm.

“If you will come now, Mrs. Colquhoun,” I said, “we will go to dinner.”

She took my arm without a word, but I felt as soon as she touched me that her confidence was rapidly returning, and by the time we had reached the drawing room, and I had explained that Colonel Colquhoun had been detained by duty most unfortunately, but Mrs. Colquhoun had been kind enough to come nevertheless, she had quite recovered herself, and only a slight exaggeration of the habitual _noli me tangere_ of her ordinary manner remained in evidence of her shyness.

When we were seated at table, and she was undoubtedly at her ease again, I expected to see her vivacity revive; but the nervous crisis had evidently gone deeper than her manner, and affected her mood. I had left her all life and animation, a mere girl bent upon pleasure, but with every evidence of considerable capacity for the pursuit; but now, at dinner, she sat beside me, cold, constrained, and listless, neither eating nor interested; pretending, however, courageously, and probably deceiving those about her with the even flow of polished periods which she kept up to conceal her indifference. I thought perhaps her husband’s absence had something to do with it, and expected to see her brighten up when he arrived. He did not come at all, however, and only once at table did she show any sign of the genuine intellectual activity which I was now pretty sure was either concealed or slumbering in these moods. The sign she made was deceptive, and probably only a man of my profession, accustomed to observe, and often obliged to judge more by indications of emotion than by words, would have recognized its true significance. In the midst of her chatter she became suddenly silent, and one might have been excused for supposing that her mind was weary; but that, in truth, was the moment when she really roused herself, and began to follow the conversation with close attention. There was an old bore of a doctor at table that evening who would insist on talking professionally, a thing which does not often happen in my house, for I think, of all “shop,” ours is the most unsuitable for general conversation because of the morbid fascination it has for most people. Ladies especially will listen with avidity to medical matters, perceiving nothing gruesome in the details at the moment; but afterward developing nerves on the subject, and probably giving the young practitioner good reason to regret unwary confidences. I tried to stave off the topic, but the will-power of the majority was against me, and finally I found myself submitting, and following my friend’s unwholesome lead.

“You must have some curious experiences, in your branch of the profession especially,” the lady on my left remarked.

“We do,” I said, answering her expectations against my better judgment, and partly, I think, because this was the moment when Evadne woke up. “I have had some myself. The extraordinary systems of fraud and deceit which are carried on by certain patients, for no apparent purpose, would astonish you. Their delight is essentially in the doing, and the one and only end of it all is invariably the same: a morbid desire to excite sympathy by making themselves interesting. I had one girl under my charge for six months, during which time she suffered daily from long fainting fits and other distressing symptoms which reduced her to the last degree of emaciation, and puzzled me extremely because there was nothing to account for them. Her heart was perfectly sound, yet she would lie in a state of insensibility, livid and all but pulseless, by the hour together. There was no disease of any organ, but certain symptoms, which could not have been simulated, pointed to extensive disorder of one at least. It was a case of hysteria clearly, but no treatment had the slightest effect upon her, and, fearing for her life, I took her at last to Sir Shadwell Rock, the best specialist for nervous disorders now alive. He confirmed my diagnosis, and ordered the girl to be sent away from her friends with a perfect stranger, a hard, cold, unsympathetic person who would irritate her, if possible; and she was not to be allowed luxuries of any kind. I had considered the advisability of such a course myself, but the girl seemed too far gone for it, and I own I never expected to see her alive again. After she went abroad I heard that when she fainted she was left just where she fell to recover as best she could, and when any particular food disagreed with her, it was served to her incessantly until she professed to have got over her dislike for it; but in spite of such heroic treatment she was not at that time any better. Then I lost sight of her, and had forgotten the case, when one day, without any warning whatever, she came into my consulting room, looking the picture of health and happiness, and with a very fine child in her arms. ‘I suppose you are surprised to see me alive,’ she said. ‘I am married now, and this is my boy–isn’t he a beauty? And I am very happy–or rather I should be but for one thing–that illness of mine–when I gave you so much trouble–‘ ‘Oh, don’t mention that,’ I interrupted, thinking she had come to overwhelm me with undeserved thanks: ‘My only trouble was that I could do nothing for you. I hope you recovered soon after you went abroad?’ ‘As soon as I thought fit,’ she answered significantly, ‘and that is what I have come about. I want to confess. I want to relieve my mind of a burden of deceit. Doctor–I was never insensible in one of those fainting fits; I never had a symptom that I could not have controlled. I was shamming from beginning to end.’ ‘Well, you nearly shammed yourself out of the world,’ I said. ‘Tell me how you did it?’ ‘I can’t tell you exactly,’ she answered. ‘When I wanted to appear to faint I just set my mind somehow–I can’t do it now that I am happy, and have plenty of interests in life. At that time I had nothing to take me out of myself, and those daily doings were an endless source of occupation and entertainment to me. But lately I have had qualms of conscience on the subject.'”

“And was she cured?” Evadne asked.

“Oh, yes,” I answered. “There was no fear for her after she confessed. When the moral consciousness returns in such cases, and there is nothing but relief of mind to be gained by confession, the cure is generally complete.”

“But what could have been the motive of such a fraud?” somebody asked.

“It is difficult to imagine,” I answered. “Had it been more extensive the explanation would have been easier; but as myself and the young lady’s parents were her only audience, I have never been able to account for it satisfactorily.”

I noticed, while I was speaking, that Evadne was thinking the problem out for herself.

“She would not have given herself so much trouble without a very strong motive,” she now suggested, “and human passions are the strongest motives for human actions, are they not?”

“Of course,” I said, “but the question is, what passion prompted her. It could not have been either anger, ambition, revenge, or jealousy.”

“No,” she answered, in the matter-of-fact tone of one who merely arrives at a logical conclusion, “and it must therefore have been love. She was in love with you, and tried in that way to excite your sympathy and attract your attention.”

“It is quite evident that view of the case never occurred to you, Galbraith,” Dr. Lauder observed, laughing.

And I own that I _was_ taken aback by it, considerably–not of course as it affected myself, but because it gave me a glimpse of an order of mind totally different from that with which I should have credited Evadne earlier in the evening.

“But how do you treat these cases?” she proceeded. “Is there any cure for such depravity?”

“Oh, yes,” I answered confidently. “They are being cured every day. So long as there is no organic disease, I am quite sure that wholesome surroundings, patience and kind care, and steady moral influence will do all that is necessary. The great thing is to awaken the conscience. Patients who once feel sincerely that such courses are depraved may cure themselves–if they are not robbed of their self-respect. The most hopeless causes I have, come from that class of people who give each other bits of their mind–very objectionable bits, consisting of vulgar abuse for the most part, and the calling of names that rankle. The operators seem to derive a solemn kind of self-satisfaction from the treatment themselves, but it does for the patient almost invariably.”

This led to a discussion on bad manners, during which Evadne relapsed. I saw the light go out of her eyes, and she showed no genuine interest in anything for the rest of the evening; and when I had wrapped her up, and seen her drive away, I somehow felt that the entertainment had been a failure so far as she was concerned, and I wondered why she should so soon be bored. At her age she should have had vitality enough in herself to carry her through an evening.

“Colonel Colquhoun will regret that he has not been able to come,” she said as she wished me good-bye.

And I noticed afterward that she was always most punctilious about such little formalities. She never omitted any trifle of etiquette, and I doubt if she could have dined without “dressing” for dinner.

CHAPTER V.

Colonel Colquohoun called next day himself to explain his absence on the previous evening. I forget what excuse he made, but it sufficed.

I saw Evadne, too, that same afternoon. She had been to make a call in the neighbourhood, and was waiting at a little country station to return by train. Something peculiar in her attitude attracted my attention before I recognized her. She was standing alone at the extreme end of the platform, her slender figure silhouetted with dark distinctness against the sloping evening sky. She might have been waiting anxiously for someone to come that way, or she might have been waiting for a train with tragic purpose. She wore a long dark green dress, the train of which she was holding up in her left hand. She showed no surprise when I spoke to her, although she had not heard me approach.

“What do the people here think of me?” she asked abruptly. “What do they say?”

“They have yet to discover your faults,” I answered.

She compressed her lips, and looked down the line again.

“That is my train, I think,” she said presently.

When I had put her into a carriage, she shook hands with me, thanking me gravely, then threw herself back in her seat, and was borne away.

That was literally all that passed between us, yet she left me standing there, staring after her stupidly, and curiously impressed. There was always a suggestion of something unusual about her which piqued my interest and kept it alive.

During the summer and autumn I met her at various places, and saw her also in her own house, and she seemed, so far as an outsider could judge, as happily situated as most women of her station, and not at all likely to require any special service at the hands of a friend. Her husband was a good deal older than herself, but the disparity made no apparent difference to their comfort. When he was absent she never talked about him, but when he was present she treated him with unvarying consideration, and they appeared together everywhere. Mindful of my promise to Lady Adeline, I showed them both every attention in my power. I called regularly, and Colonel Colquhoun as regularly returned my calls, sometimes bringing Evadne with him.

The winter that year came upon us suddenly and sharply, and until it set in I had only seen her under the most ordinary circumstances; but at the beginning of the cold weather, she had an illness which was the means of my learning to know more of her true character and surroundings in a few days than I should probably have done in years of mere social intercourse. I stopped for a moment one morning as I drove past As-You-Like-It to leave her some flowers, and her own maid, who opened the door, showed me upstairs to a small sitting room, the ante-chamber to another room beyond, at the door of which she knocked.

I heard no answer, but the girl entered and announced me. I followed her in, and found myself face to face with Evadne. She was in bed. The maid withdrew, closing the door after her.

“What nonsense is this–I am exceedingly sorry, doctor!” Evadne exclaimed feebly. “That stupid girl must have thought that you were coming to see me professionally. But, oh! _do_ let me look at the flowers!” and she stretched out her left hand for them, offering me her right at the same time to shake, and burying her face and her embarrassment together. Her hand was hot and dry.

“I don’t require you in the least, doctor,” she assured me, looking up brightly from the flowers, “but I am very glad to see you.”

“Why are you in bed?” I asked, responding cheerfully to this cheerful greeting.

“Oh, I have a little cold,” she answered.

I drew a chair to the bedside, laid my hand on her wrist, and watched her closely as I questioned her–cough incessant; respiration rapid; temperature high, I judged; pulse 120.

“How long have you had this cold?” I asked.

“About a week,” she said. “It makes me ache all over, you know, and that is why I am in bed to-day.”

I saw at once that she was seriously ill, and I also saw that she was bearing up bravely, and making as little of it as possible.

“Why isn’t your fire lit?” I asked.

“Oh, I never thought of having one,” she answered.

“And what is that you are drinking?”

“Cold water.”

“Well, you mustn’t drink any more cold water, or anything else cold until I give you leave,” I ordered. “And don’t try to talk. I will come and see you again by and by.”

I went downstairs to look for Colonel Colquhoun, and found him just about to start for barracks.

“I am sorry to say your wife is very ill,” I said. “She has an attack of acute bronchitis, and it may mean pneumonia as well; I have not examined her chest. She must have fires in her room, and a bronchitis kettle at once. Don’t let the temperature get below 70 deg. till I see her again. Her maid can manage for a few hours, I suppose? But you had better telegraph for a nurse. One should be here before night.”

“What a damned nuisance these women are,” Colquhoun answered cheerfully. “There’s always something the matter with them!”

I returned between five and six in the evening, walked in, and not seeing anybody about, went up to Evadne’s sitting room. The door leading into the bedroom was open, and I entered. She was alone, and had propped herself up in bed with pillows. The difficulty of breathing had become greater, and she found relief in that attitude. She looked at me with eyes unnaturally large and solemn as I entered, and it was a full moment before she recognised me. The fires had not been lighted in either of the rooms, and she was evidently much worse.

“Why haven’t these fires been lighted?” I demanded.

“This is only October,” she answered, jesting, “and we don’t begin fires till November.”

I rang the bell emphatically.

“Do not trouble yourself, doctor,” she remonstrated gently. “What does it matter?”

I went out into the sitting room to meet the maid as she entered.

“Why haven’t these fires been lighted?” I asked again.

“I don’t know, sir,” she answered. “I received no orders about them.”

“Where is Colonel Colquhoun?”

“He went out after breakfast, sir, and has not come back yet.”

“Has the nurse arrived?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, light these fires at once.”

“I don’t light fires, sir,” she said, drawing herself up. “It isn’t my work.”

“Whose work is it?” I demanded.

“Either of the housemaids’, sir, but they’re both out,” she answered, ogling me pertly.

I own that I was exasperated, and I showed it in such a way that she fled precipitately. I followed her downstairs to find the butler. I happened to know the man. His wife had been in my service, and I had attended her through a severe illness since her marriage.

“Do you know if there’s such a thing as a sensible woman in this establishment, Williamson?” I demanded.

“Well, sir, the cook’s sensible when she’s sober,” he answered, pinching his chin dubiously.

“Does she happen to be sober now?”

He glanced at the clock. “I’ll just see, sir,” he said.

When he returned he announced, with perfect gravity, that she was ‘passable sober, but busy with the dinner.”

“Then look here,” I exclaimed, out of all patience, “we must do it ourselves.”

“Yes, sir,” he said. “Anything I _can_ do.”

When I explained the difficulty, he suggested sending for his wife, who could manage, he thought, until the trained nurse arrived, and help her afterward. It was a good idea, and my man was despatched to bring her immediately.

“They’re a bad lot o’ servants, the women in this ‘ouse at present,” Williamson informed me. “The missus didn’t choose ’em ‘erself”–and he shook his head significantly, “But she knows what’s what, and they’re going. That’s why they’re takin’ advantage.”

I returned to Evadne. Her eyes were closed and her forehead contracted. Every breath of cold air was cutting her lungs like a knife, but she looked up at me when I took her hand, and smiled. I never knew anybody so patient and uncomplaining. She was lying on a little iron bedstead, hard and narrow as a camp bed. The room was bare-looking, the floor being polished and with only two small rugs, one at the fireplace and one beside the bed, upon it. It looked like a nun’s cell, and there was a certain suggestion of purity in the sweetness and order of it quite consistent with the idea; but it was a north room and very cold, Evadne had unconsciously clasped my hand, and dozed off for a few minutes, holding it tight, but the cough re-aroused her. When she looked at me again her mind was wandering. She knew me, but she did not know what she was saying.

“I am so thankful!” she exclaimed. “The peace of mind–the peace of mind–I cannot tell you what a relief it is!”

Williamson came in on tiptoe and lit the fire, and Evadne’s maid followed him in and stood looking on, half sheepishly and half in defiance. I noticed now that she was a hard-faced, bold-looking girl, not at all the sort of person to have about my delicate little lady, and when Mrs. Williamson arrived, I ordered her out of the room, and never allowed her to enter it again. During the week she left altogether, and I was fortunately able to procure a suitable woman to wait upon Mrs. Colquhoun. She has been with her ever since, by the way.

I felt pretty sure by this time that no nurse had been sent for, and I therefore despatched one of Colonel Colquhoun’s men in a dogcart to Morningquest to telegraph for one. But she could not arrive before daylight even by special train, and it had now become a matter of life and death, and as Mrs. Williamson had no knowledge of nursing to help her good will, I determined to spend the night beside my patient.

When Colonel Colquhoun came in and found me making myself at home in his house he expressed himself greatly pleased.

“When I returned this afternoon to see how Mrs. Colquhoun was progressing, I found that none of my orders had been carried out, and now she is dangerously ill,” I said severely.

“Faith,” he replied, changing countenance, “I’m very sorry to hear it, and I’m afraid I’m to blame, for I was in the deuce of a hurry when I saw you this morning, and never thought of a word you said from that moment to this. Now I’m genuinely sorry,” he repeated. “Is there nothing I can do? Mrs. Orton Beg–“

“She’s gone abroad for the winter.”

“Ah, to be sure!”

“And everybody else is away who would be of any use,” I added, “and I therefore propose, if you have no objection, to stay here to-night myself.”

“You’d oblige me greatly by doing so,” he answered earnestly. “I don’t know what there is for dinner, but I shall enjoy it all the more myself for the pleasure of your company.”

He made no special inquiries about his wife’s condition, and never went near her; but as he was in a tolerably advanced state of intoxication before he retired for the night, it was quite as well, perhaps.

Mrs. Williamson had probably done her day’s work before I sent for her, and, with all the will in the world to wake and watch, she fell fast asleep before midnight, and I let her sleep. There were only the fires to be attended to–at least that was all that I could have trusted her to do. Watching the case, generally, and seizing opportune moments to administer remedies would not have been in her line at all.

Evadne knew me always, but she lost all count of time.

“You seem to come every day now, doctor,” she said once during the night, “and I _am_ glad to see you!”

For two hours toward dawn, when the temperature is sensibly lower, I gave my little lady up; but she was better by the time the trained nurse arrived, and eventually she pulled through–greatly owing, I am sure, to her own perfect patience. She was always the same all through her illness, gentle, uncomplaining, grateful for every trifle that was done for her, and tranquillity herself. My impression was that she enjoyed being ill. I never saw a symptom of depression the whole time; but when she had quite recovered, and although, as often happens after a severe illness, when so-called “trifles” are discovered and checked which would otherwise have been allowed to run on until they grew serious–although for this reason she was certainly stronger than she had ever been since I became acquainted with her, no sooner did she resume her accustomed habits than that old unsatisfactory something in her, which it was so easy to perceive but so difficult to define, returned in full force.

I had ceased to be critical, however. Colonel Colquhoun’s careless neglect of her had continued throughout her illness, and I thought I understood.

CHAPTER VI.

I had necessarily seen much of Evadne during her illness, and the intimacy never again lapsed.

Jealousy was not one of Colonel Colquhoun’s vices. He always encouraged any man to come to the house for whom she showed the slightest preference, and I have heard him complain of her indifference to admiration.

“She’ll dress herself up carefully in the evening to sit at home alone with me, and go out to a big dinner party in the dowdiest gown she’s got,” he told me once. “She doesn’t care a hang whether she’s admired or not–rather objects, if anything, perhaps.”

Colonel Colquhoun rubbed his hands here with a certain enjoyment of such perversity. But I could see that Evadne did not relish the subject. It was one afternoon at As-You-Like-It. I was tired after a long day and had dropped in to ask for some tea. Colonel Colquhoun came up to entertain me, and Evadne went on with her work while we chatted familiarly.

“You were never so civil to any of your admirers, Evadne, as you were to that great boy in the regiment,” Colonel Colquhoun continued, quite blind to her obvious and natural though silent objection to being made the subject of conversation–“a young subaltern of ours,” he explained to me, “a big broad-shouldered lad, six feet high, who just worshipped Evadne!”

“Poor boy!” said Evadne, sighing. “He was cruelly butchered in a horribly fruitless skirmish with his fellow creatures during that last small war. I was glad I was able to be kind to him. He was always very nice to me.”

“Well, there’s a reason for everything!” Colonel Colquhoun observed gallantly.

“Don’t you like boys?” Evadne asked, looking up at me. “The ones we have here at the depot, when they first come, fresh from the public schools, are delightful, with their high spirits, and their love affairs; their pranks, and the something beyond which will make men of them eventually. I can never see enough of _our_ boys. But Colonel Colquhoun very kindly lets me have as many of them here as I like.”

“Faith, I can’t keep them out, for they’re all in love with you,” said Colonel Colquhoun.

“And I am in love with them all!” she answered brightly, leaning back in her chair, and holding up her work to look at it. As she did so, the lower half of her face was concealed from me, and her eyes were cast down. I only glanced at her, but, in the act of doing so, I suddenly became aware, by one of those curious flashes of imperfect recollection which come to us all at times to torment us, that I had seen her somewhere, before I knew who she was, in that attitude exactly; but where, or under what circumstance, I failed to recollect. The impression, however, was indelible, and haunted me ever afterward.

“Now, there’s Diavolo,” Colonel Colquhoun continued–the exchange I had suggested had been effected by this time, and Diavolo was quartered at the depot–not exactly to Colonel Colquhoun’s delight, perhaps, but he was very good about it. “Now, there’s Diavolo. He tells me to my face that he was the first to propose to Mrs. Colquhoun, and always meant to marry her, and means it still. He said to me coaxingly, only last Friday, when I was coming out of barracks: ‘Take me home with you to-day, sir.’ And I answered, pretending to be severe, but pulling his sleeve, you know: ‘Indeed I won’t. You’ll be making love to Mrs. Colquhoun.’ And he got very red, and said quite huffily; ‘Well, I think you might let a fellow look at her.’ And of course I had to bring him back with me, and he sat down on the floor at her feet there, and got on with the most ridiculous nonsense. You couldn’t help laughing! ‘I should like to kill you, and carry her off,’ he said, for all the world as if he meant it. And no more harm in the boy, either, than there is in Evadne herself,” Colonel Colquhoun added good-humouredly.

This is a specimen of the man at his best. Latterly I had seldom seen him in such a genial mood at home–abroad he brightened up. But in his own house _now_–for a process of deterioration had been going on ever since his arrival in Morningquest–his mind was apt to resemble a dark cave which is transformed diurnally by a single shaft of sunshine which streams in for a brief space at a certain hour. The happy moment with him occurred about the time of the tenth brandy-and-soda, as nearly as I could calculate, and it lasted till the eleventh, when he usually relapsed into gloom again, and became overcast until the next recurrence of the phenomena. But whatever his mood was, Evadne humoured it. She responded always–or tried to–when he was genial; and when he was morose, she was dumb. I thought her a model wife.

CHAPTER VII.

After her illness Evadne spent much of her time in the west window of the drawing room at As-You-Like-It with her little work-table beside her, embroidering. I never saw her reading, and there were no books about the room; but the work she did was beautiful. She used to have a stand before her with flowers arranged upon it, and copy them on to some material in coloured silks direct from nature. She could not draw either with pen or pencil, or paint with a brush, but she could copy with her needle quite accurately, and would do a spray of lilies to the life, or in the most approved conventional manner, if it pleased her. Her not being able to draw struck me as a curious limitation, and I asked her once if she could account for it in any way.

“I believe I am an example of how much we owe to early influences,” she answered, laughing; “and probably I have the talent both for drawing and painting in me, but it remains latent for want of cultivation. My mother drew and painted beautifully as a girl, but she had given both up before I was old enough to imitate her, and only copied flowers as I do with her needle, and I used to watch her at her work until I felt impelled to do the same. If she had gone on with her drawing I am sure I should have drawn too; but as it was, I never thought of trying.”

“Moral for mothers,” I observed: “Keep up your own accomplishments if you would have your daughters shine.”

Evadne was not enough in the fresh air at this time, and she was too much alone. I ventured once, in my professional capacity, to say that she should have friends to stay with her occasionally, but she passed the suggestion off without either accepting or declining it, and then I spoke to Colonel Colquhoun. He, however, pooh-poohed the idea altogether.

“She’s all right,” he said. “You don’t know her. She always lives like that; it’s her way.”

I also counselled regular exercise, and to that she replied: “I _do_ go out. Why, you passed me yourself on the road only the other day.”

I certainly had seen her more than once, alone, miles away from home, walking at the top of her speed, as if impelled by some strong emotion or inexorable necessity, and I did not like the sign. “One or two hours’ walk regularly every day is what you should take,” I told her. “The virtue of it is in the regularity. If you make a habit of taking a short walk daily you will have got more sunshine and fresh air, which is what you specially require, in one year than you will in two if you continue to go out in a jerky, irregular way. And you must give up covering impossible distances in feverish haste, as you do now. Walk gently, and make yourself feel that you have full leisure to walk as long as you like. You will find the effect tranquillizing. It is a common mistake to make a business of taking exercise. I am constantly lecturing my patients about it. If you want exercise to raise your spirits, brace your nerves, and do you good generally, it must be all pure pleasure without conscious exertion. Pleasurable moments prolong life.”

“Thank you,” Evadne answered gently. “I know, of course, that you are right, and I will do my best to profit by your advice, if it be only to show you how much I appreciate your kindness. But I must have a scamper occasionally, a regular _burst_, you know. Please don’t stop that! The indulgence, when I am in the mood, is my pet vice at present.”

The great drawing room at As-You-Like-It, which I had mentioned in my letter to Lady Adeline as containing the one bright spot in that gloomy abode, was an addition tacked on to the end of the house, and evidently an afterthought. It was entered by a flight of shallow steps from the hall, and was above the level of the public road, which ran close past that end of the house, the grounds and approach being on the other side. It was lighted by three high narrow windows looking toward the north, and three more close together looking west, and forming a bay so deep as to be quite a small room in itself. It almost overhung the high-road, only a tall holly-hedge being between them, but so near that the topmost twigs of the holly grew up to the window-sill. It was a quiet road, however, too far from the town for much traffic, and Evadne could sit there with the windows open undisturbed, and enjoy the long level prospect of fertile land, field and fallow, wood and water, that lay before her. She sat in the centre window, and I think it was from thence that she learnt to appreciate the charms of a level landscape as you look down upon it, about which I heard her discourse so eloquently in after days. It was her chosen corner, and there she sat silent many and many an hour, with busy fingers and thoughts we could not follow, communing at times with nature, I doubt not, or with her own heart, and thankful to be still.

The road beneath her was one I had to traverse regularly, and it became a habit to look up as I drove past. If she were in her accustomed seat she usually raised her eyes from her work for a moment to smile me a greeting. Once she was standing up, leaning languidly against the window frame, twirling a rose in her fingers, but she straightened herself into momentary energy when she recognized me, and threw the rose at me with accurate aim. It was the youngest and most familiar thing I had known her do–an impulse of pure mischief, I thought, for the rose was _La France_, and the sentiment, as I translated it, was: “You will value it more than I do!” For she hated the French.

There often occurs and recurs to the mind incessantly a verse or an apt quotation in connection with some act or event, a haunting definition of the impression it makes upon us, and Evadne in the wide west window, bending busily over her work, set my mind on one occasion to a borrowed measure of words which never failed me from that time forward when I saw her so engaged:

There she weaves by night and day
A magic web of colour gay.
She has heard a whisper say,
A curse is on her if she stay
To look down to Camelot.
She knows not what the curse may be, And so she weaveth steadily,
And little other care hath she,
The lady of Shalott.

But where was Camelot? Fountain Towers, just appearing above the tree-tops to the north, was the only human habitation in sight. I had a powerful telescope on the highest tower, and one day, in an idle mood, I happened to be looking through it with no definite purpose, just sweeping it slowly from point to point of the landscape, when all at once Evadne came into the field of vision with such startling distinctness that I stepped back from the glass. She was sitting in her accustomed place, with her work on her lap, her hands clasped before her, leaning forward looking up in my direction with an expression in her whole attitude that appealed to me like a cry for help. The impression was so strong that I ordered my dogcart out and drove over to As-You-Like-It at once. But I found her perfectly tranquil when I arrived, with no trace of recent emotion either in her manner or appearance.

When I went home I had the telescope removed. I had forgotten that we overlooked that corner of As-You-Like-It.

CHAPTER VIII.

The idea that Evadne was naturally unsociable was pretty general, and Colonel Colquhoun believed it as much as anybody. I remember being at As-You-Like-It one afternoon when he rallied her on the subject. He had stopped me as I was driving past to ask me to look at a horse he was thinking of buying. The animal was being trotted up and down the approach by a groom for our inspection when Evadne returned from somewhere, driving herself.

She pulled up beside us and got out.

“I never see you driving any of your friends about,” Colonel Colquhoun remarked. “You’re very unsociable, Evadne.”

“Oh, well, you see,” she answered slowly, “I like to be alone and think when I am driving. It worries me to have to talk to people–as a rule.”

“Well,” he said, glancing at the reeking pony, “if your thoughts went as fast as Blue Mick seems to have done to-day, you must have got through a good deal of thinking in the time.”

Evadne looked at the pony. “Take him round,” she said to the groom; and then she remarked that it must be tea-time, and asked us both to go in, and have some.

The air had brought a delicate tinge of colour to her usually pale cheeks, and she looked bright and bonny as she sat beside the tea-table, taking off her gloves and chatting, with her hat pushed slightly up from her forehead. It was an expansive moment with her, one of the rare ones when she unconsciously revealed something of herself in her conversation.

There were some flowers on the tea-table which I admired.

“Ah!” she said, with a sigh of satisfaction in their beauty; “I derive all my pleasure in life from things inanimate. An arrangement of deep-toned marigolds with brown centres in a glass like these, all aglow beneath the maiden-hair, gives me more pleasure than anything else I can think of at this moment.”

“Not more pleasure than your friends do,” I ventured.

“I don’t know,” she replied. “In the matter of love _surgit amari aliquid_. Friends disappoint us. But in the contemplation of flowers all our finer feelings are stimulated and blended, and yet there is no excess of feeling to end in regrets, or a painful reaction. When the flowers fade, we cheerfully gather fresh ones. But I hope I do not undervalue my friends,” she broke off. “I only mean to say–when you think of all the uncertainties of life, of sickness and death, and other things more dreadful, which overtake our dearest, do what we will to protect them; and then that worst thing whether it be in ourselves or others: I mean change–when you think of it all, surely it is well to turn to some delicate source of delight, like this, for relief–and to forget,” and she curved her slender hand round the flowers caressingly, looking up at me at the same time as if she were pleading to be allowed to have her own way.

I did not remonstrate with her. I hardly knew the danger then myself of refusing to suffer.

It was some weeks before I saw her again after that. I had been busy. But one day, as I was driving into Morningquest, I overtook her on the road, walking in the same direction. I was in a close carriage, but I pulled the checkstring as soon as I recognized her, and got out. She turned when she heard the carriage stop, and seeing me alight came forward and shook hands. She looked wan and weary.

“Those are fine horses of yours,” was her smileless greeting. “How are you?”

“Have you been having a ‘burst’?” I said–she was quite five miles from home. She looked up and down the road for answer, and affected to laugh, but I could see that she was not at all in a laughing mood, and also that she was already over-fatigued. I thought of begging to be allowed to drive her back, but then it occurred to me that, even if she consented, which was not likely, as she had a perfect horror of giving trouble, and would never have been persuaded that I was not going out of my way at the greatest personal inconvenience merely to pay her a polite attention; but even if she had consented, she would probably have had to spend the rest of the day alone in that great west window, with nothing to take her out of herself, and nothing more enlivening to look at than dreary winter fields under a sombre sky, and that would not do at all. A better idea, however, occurred to me.

“I am going to see Mrs. Orton Beg,” I said. “She is not very well.”

Evadne had been staring blandly at the level landscape, but she turned to me when I spoke, and some interest came into her eyes.

“Have you seen her lately,” I continued.

“N-no,” she answered, as if she were considering; “not for some time.”

“Come now,” I boldly suggested. “It will do her good. I won’t talk if you want to think,” I added.

Her face melted into a smile at this, and on seeing her stiffness relax, I wasted no more time in persuasion, but returned to the carriage and held the door open for her. She followed me slowly, although she looked as if she had not quite made up her mind, and got in; but still as if she were hesitating. Once she was seated, however, I could see that she was not sorry she had yielded; and presently she acknowledged as much herself.

“I believe I was tired,” she said,

“Rest now, then,” I answered, taking a paper out of my pocket. She settled herself more luxuriously in her corner, put her arm in the strap, and looked out through the open window. The day was mild though murky, the sky was leaden gray. We rolled through the wintry landscape rapidly–brown hedgerows, leafless trees, ploughed fields, a crow, two crows, a whole flock home-returning from their feeding ground; scattered cottages, a woman at a door looking out with a child in her arms, three boys swinging on a gate, a man trudging along with a bundle, a labourer trimming a bank; mist rising in the low-lying meadows; grazing cattle, nibbling sheep;–but she did not see these things at first, any of them; she was thinking. Then she began to see, and forgot to think. Then her fatigue wore off, and a sense of relief, of ease, and of well-being generally, took gradual possession of her. I could see the change come into her countenance, and before we had arrived in Morningquest, she had begun to talk to me cheerfully of her own accord. We had to skirt the old gray walls which surrounded the palace gardens, and as we did so, she looked up at them–indifferently at first, but immediately afterward with a sudden flash of recognition. She said nothing, but I could see she drew herself together as if she had been hurt.

“Do you go there often?” I asked her.

“No–Edith died there; and then that child,” she answered, looking at me as if she were surprised that I should have thought it likely.

“She shrinks from sorrowful associations and painful sights,” I thought. But I did not know, when I asked the question, that our poor Edith had been a particular friend of hers.

We stopped the next moment at Mrs. Orton Beg’s, and she leant forward to look at the windows, smiling and brightening again.

I helped her out and followed her to the door, which she opened as if she were at home there. She waited for me for a moment in the hall till I put my hat down, and then we went to the drawing room together, and walked in in the same familiar way.

Mrs. Orton Beg was there with another lady, a stout but very comely person, handsomely dressed, who seemed to have just risen to take her leave.

The moment Evadne saw this lady she sprang forward. “_Oh, Mother!_” she cried, throwing her arms round her neck.

“Evadne–my dear, dear child!” the lady exclaimed, clasping her close and kissing her, and then, holding her off to look at her. “Why, my child, how thin you are, and pale, and weak–“

“Oh, mother–I _am_ so glad! I _am_ so glad!” Evadne cried again, nestling close up to her, and kissing her neck; and then she laid her head on her bosom and burst into hysterical sobs.

I instantly left the room, and Mrs. Orton Beg followed me.

“They have not met since–just after Evadne’s marriage,” she explained to me. “Evadne offended her father, and there still seems to be no hope of a reconciliation.”

“But surely it is cruel to separate mother and child,” I exclaimed indignantly. “He has no right to do that.”

“No, and he would not be able to do it with one of us,” she answered bitterly; “but my sister is of a yielding disposition. She is like Mrs. Beale, one of the old-fashioned ‘womanly women,’ who thought it their duty to submit to everything, and make the best of everything, including injustice, and any other vice it pleased their lords to practise. But for this weakness of good women the world would be a brighter and better place by this time. We see the disastrous folly of submitting our reason to the rule of self-indulgence and self-interest now, however; and, please God, we shall change all that before I die. He will be a bold man soon who will dare to have the impertinence to dictate to us as to what we should or should not do, or think, or say. No one can pretend that the old system of husband and master has answered well, and it has had a fair trial. Let us hope that the new method of partnership will be more successful.”

“Yes, indeed!” I answered earnestly.

Mrs. Orton Beg looked up in my face, and her own countenance cleared.

“You and Evadne seem to be very good friends,” she said. “I am so glad.” Then she looked up at me again, with a curious little smile which I could not interpret. “Does she remind you of anybody–of anything, ever?” she asked.

“Why–surely she is like you,” I said, seeing a likeness for the first time.

“Yes,” she answered, in a more indifferent tone. “There is a likeness, I am told.”

I tried afterward to think that this explained the haunting half recollection I seemed to have of something about Evadne; but it did not. On the contrary, it re-awakened and confirmed the feeling that I had seen Evadne before I knew who she was, under circumstances which I now failed to recall.

Thinking she would like to be alone after that interview with her mother, I left the carriage for her, and walked back to Fountain Towers; and the state I was in after doing the ten miles warned me that I had been luxuriating too much in carriages lately, and must begin to practise what I preached again in the way of exercise, if I did not wish to lay up a fat and flabby old age for myself.

I made a point of not seeing Evadne for some little time after that event, so that she might not feel bound to refer to it in case she should shrink from doing so. But the next time we met, as it happened, I had another glimpse of her feeling for her friends, which showed me how very much mistaken I had been in my estimate of the depth of her affections. It was at As-You-Like-It. I had walked over from Fountain Towers, and dropped in casually to ask for some tea, and, Colonel Colquhoun arriving at the same moment from barracks, we went up to the drawing room together, and found Evadne in her accustomed place, busy with her embroidery as usual. She shook hands, but said nothing to show that she was aware of the interval there had been since she saw me last. When she sat down again, however, she went on with her work, and there was a certain satisfied look in her face, as if some little wish had been gratified and she was content. I knew when she took up her work that she liked me to be there, and wanted me to stay, for she always put it down when visitors she did not care for called, and made a business of entertaining them. But we had scarcely settled ourselves to talk when the butler opened the door, and announced “Mr. Bertram Frayling,” and a tall, slender, remarkably handsome young fellow, with a strong family likeness to Evadne herself, entered with boyish diffidence, smiling nervously, but looking important, too. Evadne jumped up impetuously.

“_Bertram_!” she exclaimed, holding out her arms to him. “Why, what a big fellow you have grown!” she cried, finding she could hardly reach to his neck to hug him. “And how handsome you are!”

“They say I am just like you,” he answered, looking down at her lovingly, with his arm around her waist. Neither of them took any notice of us.

“This is your birthday, dear,” Evadne said. “I have been thinking of you the whole day long. I always keep all the birthdays. Did you remember mine?”

“I–don’t think I did,” he answered honestly. “But this is my twenty-first birthday, Evadne, and that’s how it is I am here. I am my own master from to-day.”

“And the first thing you do with your liberty is to come and see your sister,” said Colonel Colquhoun. “You’re made of the right stuff, my boy,” and he shook hands with him heartily.

Evadne clung with one hand to his shoulder, and pressed her handkerchief first to this eye and then to that alternately with the other, looking so glad, however, at the same time, that it was impossible to say whether she was going to laugh or cry for joy.

“But aren’t there rejoicings?” she asked.

“Oh, yes!” he answered. “But I told my father if you were not asked I should not stay for them. I was determined to see you to-day.” He flushed boyishly as he spoke, and smiled round upon us all again.

“But wasn’t he very angry?” Evadne said.

“Yes,” her brother answered, twinkling. “The girls got round him, and tried to persuade him, but they only made him worse, especially when they all declared that when they came of age they meant to do _something_, too! He said that he was afflicted with the most obstinate, ill-conditioned family in the county, and began to row mother as if it were her fault. But I wouldn’t stand that!”

“You were right, Bertram,” Evadne exclaimed, clenching her hands. “Now that you are a man, never let mother be made miserable. Did she know you were coming?”

“Yes, and was very glad,” he answered, “and sent you messages.”

But here Colonel Colquhoun and I managed to slip from the room. Evadne sent her brother back that day to grace the close of the festivities in his honour, but he returned the following week, and stayed at As-You-Like-It, and also with me, when he confirmed my first exceedingly good impression of him. Evadne quite wakened up under his influence, but, unfortunately for her, he went abroad in a few weeks for a two years’ trip round the world, and, I think, losing him again so soon made it almost worse for her than if they had never been reunited, especially as another and irreparable loss came upon her immediately after his departure. This was the sudden death of her mother, the news of which arrived one day in a curt note written by her father to Colonel Colquhoun, no previous intimation of illness having been sent to break the shock of the announcement. I can never be thankful enough for the happy chance which brought about that last accidental meeting of Evadne with her mother. But for that, they would not have seen each other again; and I had the pleasure of learning eventually that the perfect understanding which they arrived at during the few hours they spent together on that occasion, afterward became one of the most comforting recollections of Evadne’s life–“A hallowed memory,” as she herself expressed it, “such as it is very good for us to cherish. Thank Heaven for the opportunity which renewed and intensified my appreciation of my mother’s love and goodness, so as to make my last impression of her one which must stand out distinctly forever from the rest, and be always a joyful sorrow to recall. Do you know what a _joyful_ sorrow is? Ah! something that makes one feel warm and forgiving in the midst of one’s regrets, a delicious feeling; when it takes possession of you, you cease to be hard and cold and fierce, and want to do good.”

Mrs. Frayling died of a disease for which we have a remedy nowadays–or, to speak plainly, she died for want of proper treatment. Her husband gloried in what he called “a rooted objection to new-fangled notions,” and would not send for a modern practitioner even when the case became serious, preferring to confide it entirely to a very worthy old gentleman of his own way of thinking, with one qualification, who had attended his household successfully for twenty-four years, during which time only one other member of his family had ever been seriously ill, and he also had died. But I hope and believe that my poor little lady never knew the truth about her mother’s last illness. She was overwhelmed with grief as it was, and it cut one to the quick to see her, day after day, in her black dress, sitting alone, pale and still and uncomplaining, her invariable attitude when she was deeply distressed, and not to be able to say a word or do a thing to relieve her. As usual at that time of the year, everybody whom she cared to see at all was away except myself, so that during the dreariest of the winter months she was shut up with her grief in the most unwholesome isolation. As the spring returned, however, she began to revive, and then, suddenly, it appeared to me that she entered upon a new phase altogether.

CHAPTER IX.

During the first days of our acquaintance Evadne’s attitude, whatever happened, surprised me. I could anticipate her action up to a certain point, but just the precise thing she would do was the last thing I had expected; I knew her feeling, in fact, but I was ignorant of the material it had to work upon, and by means of which it found expression. I had begun by believing her to be cold and self-sufficing, but even before her illness I had perceived in her a strange desire for sympathy, and foreseen that on occasion she would exact it in large measure from anyone she cared about. It was making much of a cut finger one day that she had led me to expect she would be exacting in illness, languishing as ladies do, to excite sympathy; and when the illness came I found I had been right in so far as I had believed that she would appreciate sympathy, but entirely wrong about the means she would employ to obtain it. Instead of languishing, when she found herself really suffering, she pulled herself together, and bore the trial with heroic calm. As I have said, she never uttered a complaint; and she had the strength of mind to ignore annoyances which few people in perfect health could have borne with fortitude. Certainly her attitude then had excited sympathy, and respect as well. It was as admirable as it was unexpected.

I had also perceived that she could not bear anything disagreeable. She seldom showed the least irritability herself, nor would she tolerate it for a moment in anyone else. Servants who were not always cheerful had to go, and the kind of people who snap at each other in the bosom of their families she carefully avoided, turning from them instinctively as she would have done from any perception revolting to the physical senses; and that she would fly disgusted from sickening sights or sounds or odours I never doubted. But here again I was wrong–or rather the evidence was utterly misleading. I found her one day sitting on the bridge of a little river that crossed a quiet lane near their house, and got down from my horse to talk to her, and as we stood looking over the parapet looking into the stream, the bloated carcase of a dead dog came floating by. She could only have caught a glimpse of it, for she drew back instantly, but she looked so pale and nauseated that I had to take her to the house, and insist upon her having some wine. And I once took her, at her own earnest request, to visit a children’s hospital; but before we had seen a dozen of the little patients she cried so piteously I was obliged to take her away; and she could never bear to speak of the place afterward. And lastly, I had seen how she shrank from going to the palace because of the association with Edith’s terrible death, and the chance of seeing her poor, repulsive looking little boy there.

Yet when it came to be a question of facing absolute horrors in the interests of the sufferers, she was the first to volunteer, and she did so with a quiet determination there was no resisting, and every trace of inward emotion so carefully obliterated that one might have been forgiven for supposing her to be altogether callous.

This happened after her mother’s death, In the spring, when she had already begun to revive, and was the first startling symptom she showed of the new phase of interest and energy upon which I suspected she was entering. I hoped at the time that the great grief had carried off the minor ailments of the mind as the great illness did of the body, and that the change would prove to be for the better eventually, although the first outcome of it was not the kind of thing I liked at all–for her.

I had not seen her for a week or so when she was ushered one morning into my consulting room. She had not asked for an appointment, and had been waiting to take her turn with the other patients.

“Well, what can I do for _you?_” I said. I was somewhat surprised to see her. “You don’t look very ill.”

“No, thank goodness,” she answered cheerfully; “and I don’t mean to be ill. I have come to be vaccinated.”

“Ah. that is wise,” I said.

“You have heard, I suppose, that small-pox has broken out in the barracks?” she said when she was going. “There are fifteen cases, four of them women, and one a child, and they are going to put them under canvas on the common, and I shall be obliged to go and see that they are properly nursed. That is why I am in such a hurry. Military nursing is of the most primitive kind in times of peace. Our doctor is all that he should be, but what can he do but prescribe? It takes all his time just to go round and get through his ordinary duties.”

“Did I understand you to say that you are going to look after the small-pox patients?” I asked politely.

“Yes,” she answered defiantly. “I am going to be isolated with them out on the common. My tent is already pitched. I shall not take small-pox, I assure you.”

“I don’t see how you can be so sure,” I said.

She gave me one of her most puzzling answers, one of those in which I felt there was an indication of the something about her which I did not understand.

“Oh, because it is such a relief!” she said.

“How a relief?” I questioned.

“Oh–I shall not take the disease,” she repeated, “and I shall enjoy the occupation.”

But this, I knew, was an evasion. However, I had no time to argue the point with her just then, so I waited until my consultations were over, and then went to see Colonel Colquhoun. I thought if he would not forbid he might at all events persuade her to abandon her rash design. I found him at his own place, walking about the garden with his hands in his pockets, and a cigar in his mouth. He was in a facetious mood, the one of his I most disliked.

“Now, you look quite concerned,” he said, with an extra affectation of brogue, when I had told him my errand. “Sure, she humbugs you, Evadne does! If you knew her as well as I do, you’d not be troubling yourself about her so much. I tell you, she’ll come to no harm in the world. Now what do you think were her reasons for going to live in the small-pox camp?”

“Then she _has_ gone!” I exclaimed.

“Oh, yes, she’s gone,” he answered. “The grass never has time to grow under that young woman’s feet if she’s an idea to carry out, I will say that for her. But what do you think she said when I asked her why she’d be going among the small-pox patients? ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I want to see what they look like!’ And she’d another reason, too. She’ll make herself look like an interesting nurse, you know, and quite enjoy dressing up for the part.”

I felt sure that all this was a horrid perversion of the truth, but I let it pass.

“You’ll not interfere, then?” I persisted.

“Not I, indeed!” he answered. “She never comes commandering it over me, and I’m not going to meddle with her private affairs, so long as she doesn’t come here bringing infection, that’s all.”

“But she may catch the disease herself and die of it, or be disfigured for life,” I remonstrated.

“And she might catch her death of cold here in the garden, or be burnt beyond all recognition by a spark setting fire to her ball-dress the next time she wears one,” he answered philosophically. “When you look at the chances, now, they’re about equal.”

He smiled at me complacently when he had said this, and something he saw in my face inclined him to chuckle, but he suppressed the inclination, twirling his fair moustache instead, first on one side and then on the other, rapidly. In his youth he must have been one of those small boys who delighted to spear a bee with a pin and watch it buzz round. The boy is pretty sure the bee can’t hurt him, but yet half the pleasure of the performance lies in the fact of its having a sting. It would not have been convenient for Colonel Colquhoun to quarrel with me, because there had been certain money transactions between us which left him greatly my debtor; but he thought me secured by my interest in Evadne, and indulged himself on every possible occasion in the pleasure of opposing me. Not that he bore me any ill-will, either. I knew that he would borrow more money from me at any time in the friendliest way, if he happened to want it. I was his honey bee, and he was fond of honey; but it delighted him also to see me buzz.

I was obliged to consider my own patients and keep away from the small-pox camp during the epidemic, for fear of carrying infection, and consequently I saw nothing of Evadne, and only heard of her through the military doctor, for she would not write. His report of her, however, was always the same at first. She was the life of the camp, bright, cheerful, and active, never tired apparently, and never disheartened. This went on for some time, and then, one evening, there came another report. She was just as cheerful as ever, but looking most awfully done.

At daybreak next morning I drove out to the common, and, leaving my dogcart outside the camp, went in to look for her. I knew that she was generally up all night, and was therefore prepared to find her about, and I met her making her way toward her own tent. She was dressed like a French _bonne_, in a short dark blue gown made of some washing material, with a white apron and white cap, and a chatelaine with useful implements upon it hanging from her girdle, a very suitable costume for the work; but she wore no wrap of any kind, and the morning air was keen.

I noticed as she walked toward me that her gait was a little uncertain. Once she put out her hand as if seeking something to grasp, and once she staggered and stopped. I hastened to her assistance, and saw as I approached her that she was colourless even to her lips; her eyes were bright and sunken, with large black circles round them, and the lids were heavy. I drew her hand through my arm without more formal greeting, and she grasped it gratefully for a moment, then dropped it and stepped back.

“I forgot,” she said, “it seems so natural to see you anywhere. But don’t touch me. I shall infect you.”

“I shall have to go home and change in any case,” I answered briskly.

“I’ve been up all night with a poor woman,” she said, “and I’m just tired out. Don’t look concerned, though. I shall not take small-pox. My own