Suspense, Volume 3 (of 3)
Date: 2024-09-23T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; War correspondents -- Fiction; Russo-Turkish War; 1877-1878 -- Fiction

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Title: Suspense, Volume 3 (of 3)

Author: Henry Seton Merriman

Release date: September 23, 2024 [eBook #74462]

Language: English

Original publication: London: Richard Bentley and Son, 1890

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/74462

Credits: Al Haines

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SUSPENSE, VOLUME 3 (OF 3) ***

SUSPENSE

BY

HENRY SETON MERRIMAN

AUTHOR OF 'YOUNG MISTLEY,' 'THE PHANTOM FUTURE'
ETC.

IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. III.

LONDON
RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON
Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen
1890

[All rights reserved]

Some there are who laugh and sing
While compassed round by sorrow;
To this ev'ning's gloom they bring
The sunshine of to-morrow.

CONTENTS OF VOL. III

CHAPTER

I. THE SPORT OF FATE
II. BREAKING IT
III. MRS. WYLIE TAKES THE OFFENSIVE
IV. AN INTERVIEW
V. SOUTHWARD
VI. THEODORE TRIST IS AROUSED
VII. A LESSON
VIII. HICKS' SECRET
IX. WYL'S HALL
X. DIPLOMACY
XI. GOOD-BYE!
XII. AT WORK
XIII. PLEVNA
XIV. THE PUZZLE OF LIFE
XV. THE END OF IT ALL

SUSPENSE

CHAPTER I.

THE SPORT OF FATE.

Theodore Trist did not attempt to blind himself as to the difficulties attending his strange undertaking, but he was prepared to face them courageously.

'If,' he said to himself, 'I can only find him ... sober ... I will manage the rest.'

Without doubt this silent man was ready to speak at last—to tear aside the veil of reserve, behind which he was wont to take refuge. And this to the eyes of Alice Huston's husband. His was a nature capable of immense self-sacrifice, and to this capability had been added an almost exaggerated sense of discipline. That which he thought right he would probably do—not on the spur of the moment, but with deliberate purpose, and without fear of subsequent regret.

As has been mentioned, he was never under the influence of sudden enthusiasm; and, as a rule, his errors arose more from too great conscientiousness in setting both sides of a question equally before his own judgment than from rash partisanship.

Even as he passed down the broad staircase, against a stream of gaily-dressed guests, he was mentally apologizing to Hicks for having harboured a vague feeling of dislike against him. If there had been any distinct motive for this dislike, he would never have withdrawn it, but he recognised that it was without ground. Hicks was not a man after his own heart; he was neither a sportsman nor a soldier—in fact, he was what is euphoniously called a 'muff'; but these charges were merely negative in their bearing. Mrs. Wylie might have told him that he had come into closer familiarity with Hicks at a propitious moment, when the young artist was finding his own level and laying aside unconsciously his small affectations one by one, but of this Trist had no suspicion.

He called a hansom, and drove to the club of which the books showed a subscription as due from Captain Huston. In return for this privilege its doors were still thrown open to the disgraced soldier. Careful inquiries at the door elicited the information that Huston had been there.

'He was took ... he went away with a friend a good half-hour ago, sir,' the porter added, with a curious smile.

The smile did not escape the questioner's glance, and, in consequence of it, Trist went upstairs to the smoking-room. He was not a member of the club, but his name was a power in military circles.

The information he gathered from friends upstairs was not of an encouraging nature. One young blade, with downy lip and weak, dissipated eyes, volunteered the statement that Huston had gone home to his diggings as tight as a drum. This news was apparently of an hilarious drift, because the youthful speaker finished with a roar of throaty laughter. An older man looked up over his evening paper, and nodded a grave acquiescence in reply to Trist's raised eyebrows.

'Does anybody know his address?' inquired the correspondent.

Nobody did.

Upon inquiry at the door, Trist made the discovery that the porter had fortunately been asked to give the direction to the driver of the cab in which Huston had been taken away. The address was one hardly known to the war-correspondent—a small street, leading out of another small street, near the Strand.

In his calm way he suddenly determined to follow Huston. He lighted a cigar at the spirit-lamp affixed to the door-post, and then called a cab.

'I am not,' he reflected with some truth as he descended the steps, 'I am not an imaginative person, nor very highly strung; but .... I feel .... somehow .... as if something were going to happen.'

There was a considerable delay in the Strand, where the traffic was much congested owing to the out-pouring theatres. A fog was hovering round the lamps already, and would soon envelop everything. The first keen frost of the season was at hand, with its usual disastrous effects to London lungs. Amidst the confusion, the roar of traffic, the deafening shouts of drivers, policemen, and runners with latest editions of evening papers, Trist sat forward, with his arms upon the closed door of the hansom, and enjoyed his cigar. All this rush of life and confusion of humanity thrilled him. He almost felt as if he were at work again, making his way to the front through the wild mêlée of a disorganized and retreating army; cavalry and infantry, baggage and artillery, all hopelessly inter-mingled. As he progressed he noted with admiration the cool skill of the policemen, each man alone acting on his own responsibility, and yet connected by the invisible links of discipline.

At length the driver escaped into a narrow street, and, turning sharply to the right, drew up before a tall narrow house, bearing, on a dingy lamp above the door, the legend 'No. 32, Private Hotel.' A hopeless waiter, with shuffling shoes and a shirt-front of uncertain antecedents, answered the summons of a melancholy bell, which seemed to tinkle under strong protest, and as briefly as possible.

'Captain Huston living here?' inquired Trist.

'Yess'r. Er you the doctor?'

The war-correspondent hesitated for a moment. Then he stepped into the narrow hall.

'Yes,' he said.

''E's got it bad this time, sir,' volunteered the waiter, with melancholy effusion.

'What?'

'D. T., sir.'

Trist nodded his head shortly, and laid aside his hat.

'Take me to his room, please,' he said.

The waiter shuffled on in front, and the young fellow followed him up the dingy stairs, walking lightly where the polished knots of pinewood peeped through the clammy oilcloth.

And now, reader mine, on the threshold of the drunkard's room let us understand each other. I am not going to take you across the boundary. The door will, with your permission, remain closed. There are certain things in life which are better left unstudied—certain dirty corners where the dust lies thickly. It is better to let it accumulate. Some of us have seen these things; some foot has been across the threshold; but this is no realistic novel; and in life, as in a story, there are details which (however powerful in themselves) in no way help forward the narrative or beautify the narration. There is assuredly nothing to be gained by dredging human nature. As a man, the present writer is influenced by a strong esprit de corps. It is not his wish to trample upon fallen human nature. We are not what we ought to be, but there is nothing to be gained by flaunting the seamy side before the world. This volume may fall into the hands of some young woman, or some youth to whom man is still something of an ideal. God forbid that any word of mine should dispel illusions which, though they be but hollow, are at least joyous.

Therefore we will let Theodore Trist enter that room alone. His walk in life had not been in the flowery part of the garden, but through the rougher growths, where good is sometimes hidden beneath a hideous exterior, and he knew already how slight a division there is between man and brute. Any battle-field would have taught him that.

The doctor came, and stayed longer than he could conscientiously spare out of his busy life. It was half-past one o'clock in the morning before he went away, leaving Trist alone with Huston, to whom sleep had come at last. Before leaving he promised, however, to send an experienced nurse.

The war-correspondent sat in a deep leather-covered arm-chair before the smouldering fire, contemplating his own shoes. A man of many resources, he had found himself in many strange situations during his short thirty years. He had made the best of more than one awkward dilemma by going straight ahead in his patient, steady way. He listened to the stertorous breathing of the sick man, and never thought of his own fatigue. There was no suggestion of complaint in his mind that his evening of pleasure should have had such an unpleasant finish. He did not even look at his own dress-clothes contrasting with the dingy surroundings, and appreciate the dramatic force of it all as Hicks might have done. It was merely an incident in his life, another opportunity to exercise for his own satisfaction that power of adaptability to environment which was in reality his chief aid to success in the peculiar surroundings of his varied life.

The nurse could scarcely be expected for half an hour or so, and there was nothing else to do but keep faithfully the watch that was his in the meantime. It was rather strange that Trist should have saved twice within a month the worthless life of this man who had done his best to throw it away. As has already been stated, this student of Death had his own views upon the worth of human life—a semi-Oriental philosophy which would not bear setting forth here in black and white to sensitive Western minds. There is no doubt that familiarity with death breeds a contempt for life. I cannot explain this, but it is so. Doctors and soldiers have a different view of human life from that held by the rest of mankind; but there is something in us which is stronger than the strongest views—namely, the instinct of preserving life. Theodore Trist knew that the miserable existence to which was attached the name Alfred Huston was in every way valueless. To its possessor it was a source of wretchedness, a constant struggle against the overpowering odds of evil. To others his death would be a mercy. He knew this; he valued his life lightly—and yet he staved off this death twice.

As he sat and thought over these things, the fire-light flickered rosily upon his face; it gleamed in his womanly eyes, glowed upon his broad high forehead. He was quite absorbed in his reflections, and never glanced towards the bed which was within the deep crimson shadow. He judged from the heavy respiration that Huston was asleep; in this, however, he was mistaken. The ex-soldier lay on his back, but his face was turned towards the fire, and his bloodshot eyes were wide open. His lips moved restlessly, but no sound came from them beyond the strong indrawing of the sodden air. His wavering glance wandered from Trist's head to his feet, restless and full of an insatiable hatred. Upon the dirty white coverlet his fingers moved convulsively, as if clutching and losing hold of something by turns.

It was a terrible picture, and one that could not fail to arouse in thoughtful minds a hopeless sense of despair. No one could look on it and say that human life is a success. We may paint the good points as brilliantly as we like, slur over the misery as quickly as we can, but, my brothers and sisters, the fact remains that we, as a race, are an utter failure.

Presently there was a soft knock at the front-door, and Trist rose from his chair. His watch was over; the hospital nurse had arrived, with her soft brave eyes, her quick, fearless fingers. As he left the room, Trist turned and glanced towards the bed. Huston lay there with closed eyes, unnaturally still.

Then the war-correspondent left the room on tiptoe. No sooner had the door closed than the sick man's eyes opened. There was a peculiar shifty light in the expanded pupils, and the man's horrible lips moved continuously. He sat up in bed.

'Ah!' he mumbled thickly; 'I know him. That's the man ... that's the man who's in love with my wife.'

The fire rose and fell with merry crackle—for Trist had drawn the coals together noiselessly before leaving the room—and in the semi-darkness a strange unsteady form moved to and fro.

'I know him,' mumbled the horrible voice, 'and ... I'm going to shoot him.'

There was a slight sound as if a drawer were being searched in a table or piece of furniture which was not quite firm upon its base, and a moment later the door was opened without noise. In the passage a single jet of gas burnt mournfully, and threw a flood of light through the open doorway.

Upon the threshold stood Huston, quaking and swaying from side to side. In his trembling fingers he held a large Colt's revolver of the cavalry pattern. The tips of the conical bullets peeped from the chambers threateningly. His clumsy hands were fumbling with the hammer, which was stiff and deeply sunk within the lock; the light was bad. He raised the pistol closer to his swimming eyes, and the barrel, gleaming blue and brown alternately, wavered in the air.

'D—n the thing!' he muttered hoarsely.

The next instant there was a terrific report through the silent house.

* * * *

A moment later Trist and the nurse were at the head of the stairs; they had raced up side by side. The woman seized a worn sheepskin mat that lay at the door of an empty bedroom, and, drawing her skirts aside, knelt down and raised the mutilated face.

'Don't let it run on the floor,' she gasped, 'it is so horrible!'

They were both old hands and callous enough to be very quick. By the time that the startled household was aroused, the dead man (for the great bullet had passed right through his brain) was laid upon his bed, and Trist had already gone for the doctor.

'No one must go in,' said the nurse, standing upon the threshold and barring the way. 'He is dead. There is nothing to be done. Wait until the doctor comes.'

Presently Trist returned, bringing with him the surgeon and a police-inspector. They all went into the room together and closed the door. Trist turned up the gas and watched the movements of the surgeon, who was already at the bedside.

'Where is the bullet?' asked the inspector.

'In the woodwork of the door,' answered Trist.

The doctor left the bedside and came into the middle of the room, standing upon the hearthrug with his back towards the fire.

'I should be of opinion,' he said, 'that it was an accident.'

The inspector nodded his head, and looked from the nurse to Trist.

'Does anybody,' he asked, 'know who he is, or anything about him?'

'I know who he is and all about him,' answered the war-correspondent.

Note-book in hand, the inspector glanced keenly at the speaker.

'And ... who are ... you?' he asked, writing.

'Theodore Trist.'

'Ah!' murmured the doctor.

The inspector drew himself up and continued writing.

'Do you know, sir, what he was doing with the pistol? Had he any intention of using it upon himself or upon any other?'

Trist looked at his questioner calmly.

'I do not know,' he answered.

CHAPTER II.

BREAKING IT.

Like one in a dream Theodore Trist passed out into the narrow street somewhat later. It was nearly three o'clock in the morning; the ball was scarcely over, and yet to this unimaginative man it seemed ages since he had spoken with William Hicks, listening in a vague way to the swinging waltz music all the while. When he reached his quiet rooms, he was almost startled at the sight of his own dress-clothes, spotless shirt-front, and unobtrusive flower. He had quite forgotten that these garments of pleasure were beneath his overcoat. His night's work had not been in keeping with dress-clothes.

'I will think,' he said to himself, 'how it is to be broken to everybody to-morrow.' And with great serenity he went to bed.

Sleep soon came to him despite the incidents crowded into the last few hours. It is a habit with some people to lie awake at night and ponder over their woes. They regard this as a solemn duty, a homage to be paid to the Goddess of Tears; and they never fail to mention their melancholy vigil to someone or other more or less connected with the trouble next morning. It is merely habit, and of no more value than the custom of mentioning with lowered voice the name of one who had been dead twenty years, and whose memory can after that space of time assuredly be awakened without such poignant grief as is considered its due.

Trist was not one of these. He valued human life at no very great price, and as (after all has been said and done, believed and repudiated) Death is the greatest sorrow we have to face, he was perhaps a little callous. He made no pretence of disguising the fact that Captain Huston's sudden, and what is usually denominated 'shocking,' demise was little short of a release for all concerned with his existence; and he did not even fall into the common error of looking upon all past sins as cleansed away by the very ordinary and easy method of terminating their career. It is just as well for some of us, methinks, that the good old Egyptian custom, of inscribing upon the lid or side of our sarcophagus a full and authentic history of the life terminating therein, has died out. They had a nasty habit too, those tactless ancients, of sculpturing a speaking likeness upon the lid, or erecting a statue near at hand, so that at the Great Judgment the wandering soul could single out without trouble its rightful body.

Death, however sudden, could not in those days endow with many virtues, many charms, and great personal comeliness, as it endows us now. I sometimes think of those old Egyptian spirits with a gentle sympathy. How disappointed some of them will be when they stand face to face with the true likeness of the body in which they played out their brief innings three thousand years ago! When, too, they read the uncompromising hieroglyphs, there will be unpleasant awakenings and perhaps a little scoffing from those who have drawn cleaner sarcophagi.

So Trist slept peacefully, with a philosophic reflection that Huston would never have done much good in the world. The present writer once heard a man, in all sincerity and all faith, console himself with the thought that if he was not fit to die, the probabilities were that he never would be fitter. This philosopher was a godless sailor, and he made the remark in answer to a chaffing observation advanced by a more fortunate mate that he would certainly be drowned because he possessed no life-belt. The ship was sinking, the boats were smashed, and there were other things to do just then than weigh this philosophy in the scales of reason; but having more leisure at a later period, I came to think over it, and have come to the conclusion that there was much within that reflection that is worth consideration. Let us, however, avoid the quicksands of a theological controversy.

* * * *

It has not hitherto been mentioned that Mrs. Wylie possessed one or two vices of a comparatively harmless description. The most prominent of these was unpunctuality at the breakfast-table. This is a most comfortable vice, and quite in keeping with the placid and easy-going nature of the lady. The best woman I have ever known is invariably late for breakfast; her hair is white now, but long may she continue arriving after time! There is someone else who is most lamentably unpunctual any time before ten o'clock antemeridian. She is not a woman yet, but she has begun well. I may mention that I do not at all object to pouring out my own coffee.

Brenda, being of a more active nature, was usually down first, and the fact of having been out to a ball the night before rarely acted as a deterrent. It thus came about that she was alone at the breakfast-table when Trist was announced. It was a dainty, womanly little meal set out on the snowy cloth, and as yet untouched. Brenda was in the act of opening the newspaper when Trist entered the room. She did not remember until afterwards that, as he shook hands, he took the journal from her and laid it aside. Perhaps she noted the action at the time, but he was never in the habit of acting just like other men, and the peculiarity of this little movement did not strike her sufficiently to remain upon her memory as a distinct incident.

'Ah!' she said gaily; 'you think it prudent to strike while the iron is hot -I being the iron. I am not red-hot, but quite warm enough to be unpleasant, and just too hard to be struck. Please explain why you never claimed the three dances you asked me to keep?'

Trist smiled in his gravest way—a mere reflection of her bright gaiety.

'That is what I came to explain,' he said.

He passed her standing at the table, and went towards the fire. There he drew off his gloves in a peculiarly thoughtful manner.

'Theo,' said Brenda, 'have you had breakfast?'

'Yes, thanks!'

His manner was habitually misleading, and it was quite impossible for her to see that he had bad news to impart. His strong, purposeful hands were always steady, which is somewhat exceptional; for the fingers betray emotion when the eyes are dumb.

'Rather,' she continued lightly, 'than break my faith to you, I planted myself, so to speak, among the wallflowers, where I was content to bloom in solitude.'

'Through the whole dance?' he asked meaningly.

'Well ... not quite. When I was satisfied that you were not there, I danced with someone else.'

He smiled, and said nothing.

Brenda moved one or two things upon the breakfast-table—things which in no way required moving. For the first time in her life she was beginning to feel ill at ease with this man. For the first time she dreaded vaguely to hear him speak, because she was not sure that he was at ease himself.

At last he began, and there was a strained thrill in his voice as if it were an effort to open his lips.

'It has been my ... fate ... Brenda, to be with you or near you during most of the incidents in your life ...' here he paused.

'Yes,' she murmured unsteadily.

'I have,' he continued, 'perhaps, been of some small use to you. I have been happy enough at times to tell you good news, and ... and once or twice I have been the messenger of evil.... Now...'

'Now,' interrupted Brenda suddenly, as she came towards him, for a light had broken upon her—'now you have bad news, Theo? Surely you are not afraid of telling it to me!'

'I don't exactly know,' he answered slowly, laying his hand upon the white fingers resting on his sleeve, 'whether it is good news or bad. Huston is dead!'

She had continued smiling bravely into his eyes until the last words were spoken, then suddenly she turned her face away. He watched the colour fade from her cheek, slowly sinking downward until her throat was like marble. Then she withdrew her hand deliberately from his touch, as if there had been evil in it. After a moment she turned again and looked keenly at him with wondering, horror-struck eyes.

'Then,' she murmured monotonously, 'Alice is ... a widow.'

It was a strange thing to say, and she had no definite conception of the train of thought prompting the remark. He looked at her in a curious, puzzled way, like a man who is near a truth, but fears to prove his proximity.

'Does she know?' she asked suddenly, rousing herself to the necessity of prompt action.

'No. I have not your aunt's address in Cheltenham.'

Brenda looked at the clock upon the mantelpiece, a reliable mechanism, which kept remarkable time considering its feminine environments.

'Mrs. Wylie will be here in a moment; we will then consider about the telegram. In the meantime ... tell me when it happened, and how?'

'It happened at two o'clock this morning ... suddenly.'

Brenda looked up at the last word, although it was spoken quite gently.

'Suddenly...?'

'Yes. It ... he shot himself with a revolver ... by accident!'

The man's gentle inscrutable eyes fell before Brenda's gaze. He moved uneasily, and turned away, apparently much interested in the ornaments upon the mantelpiece.

'Were you present at the time?'

'No. I was downstairs. He was in his bedroom.'

'Tell me,' said the girl mechanically, 'what was he doing with the revolver?'

Trist turned slowly and faced her. There was no hesitation in his glance now; his eyes looked straight into hers with a deliberate calm meaning. Then he shrugged his shoulders.

'Who knows?' he murmured, still watching her face.

There flitted across his features the mere ghost of a deprecating smile, which was answered somewhat wanly by her. Women, I have observed, never laugh at danger as men do. They are indifferent to it, or they dread it undisguisedly, but they do not at any time despise it.

When at length Brenda turned away she pressed her lips together as if to moisten them, and there was a convulsive movement in her throat. They understood each other thoroughly.

'There will, of course,' said Trist presently, 'be an inquest. It is, however, quite clear that, being left for a moment alone, he rose from his bed in a fit of temporary insanity, and having possessed himself of a revolver (possibly for suicidal purposes), he shot himself by accident.'

Brenda had crossed the room to the window, where she stood with her back towards her companion.

'Yes!' she murmured absently.

She was swaying a little from side to side, and her face was raised in an unnatural way. Trist stood upon the hearthrug, with his elbow resting on the mantelpiece. He was watching her attentively.

'I have,' he said somewhat hastily, as if it were an afterthought, 'some influence with the newspapers.'

Of this she took absolutely no notice. It would appear that she had not heard his voice. Then Trist moved restlessly. After a moment's hesitation he lifted his arm from the mantelpiece with the apparent intention of going towards her. He even made two or three steps in that direction—steps that were inaudible, for his tread was singularly light. Then the door opened, and Mrs. Wylie came into the room.

'Theo!' said the lady, with rather less surprise than might have been expected.

In a moment she had perceived that there was something wrong. The very atmosphere of the room was tense. These two strong young people had either been quarrelling or making love. Of that Mrs. Wylie was certain. Her entrance had perhaps been malapropos; but she could not go back now. Moreover, she was the sort of woman who never errs in retreating. Her method of fighting the world was from a strong position calmly held, or by a steady sure advance.

'Good-morning, Theo!' she said, with that deliberate cheeriness which is the deepest diplomacy. 'This is an early visit. Have you come to discover the laziness of the land?'

'No,' answered Theo simply.

Then he turned and looked towards Brenda in a way which plainly said that she was expected to come forward into the breach he had effected.

Brenda came. Her face was not so grave as Trist's, but her lips were colourless.

'Theo has come,' she said, 'with bad news. We must telegraph to Alice at once. Alfred Huston had ... an accident last night.'

'What?' inquired Mrs. Wylie, turning to Trist.

'He is dead—he shot himself by accident,' replied the war-correspondent.

Mrs. Wylie stood for some moments in her comfortable, placid way, rubbing one smooth hand over the other. She did not appear to be looking anywhere in particular, but in reality no movement of Brenda's, however slight, escaped her notice.

'And now,' she said, after a weary little sigh, 'I suppose she will discover how much she loved him all along...'

Trist made a little movement, but the widow turned her calm gaze towards him, and spoke on, with a certain emphasis:

'Alice has in reality always loved Alfred Huston. This little misunderstanding would never have arisen had there not been love on both sides. I have known it all along. You can trust an old woman on such matters. This is a very, very sad ending to it all.'

'Yes,' assented Theo meekly; 'it is very sad.'

Brenda had turned away. She was standing at the window in her favourite attitude there—with her arms outstretched, her fingers resting on the broad window-sill among the ornamental fern-baskets and flower-pots.

Mrs. Wylie walked to the fireplace.

'Let me think,' she said, half to herself, 'what must be done.'

She knew that Trist was watching her, waiting for his instructions in his emotionless, almost indifferent, way. (If it were not for a certain moral laziness in the male temperament, women would be able to do very little with men.) Then the widow met his gaze. She made a scarcely-perceptible movement towards the door with her eyelids. With a slight nod he signified his comprehension of the signal.

'I must,' he said, 'go back now to ... to Huston's rooms. Will you communicate with Alice?'

'Yes,' said Mrs. Wylie simply.

Without further explanation he went towards the door, glancing at Brenda as he passed. Mrs. Wylie followed him.

'We are better without you just now,' she whispered in the passage. 'Write me full particulars, and wait to hear from me before you come back.'

CHAPTER III.

MRS. WYLIE TAKES THE OFFENSIVE.

When Mrs. Wylie returned to the breakfast-room, she found that Brenda was preparing to write. A blank telegram-form lay on the blotting-pad in readiness.

'We must telegraph to Alice,' she said briskly, as she dipped a quill pen into the ink. 'What shall I say?'

Mrs. Wylie noticed the quill pen, and remembered that the girl never used anything but steel.

'Do not be in a hurry,' she urged rather coolly. 'Let us think what is best to be done. Let us have some breakfast.'

'I don't think I want any breakfast.'

'I am sure I do not, but I am going to eat some. Breakfast means nerve, Brenda, and we shall want all our nerve for the next few days.'

Reluctantly the girl took her place at the table. Her companion was relentless; moreover, she was aggravatingly placid, even to speculation.

'There are some lives,' she said, 'which seem to be allowed as a warning and lesson to the rest of us. No doubt it is very instructive to the onlookers; but I am sometimes a little sorry for the examples themselves.'

Brenda looked up, and presently resumed her pretence of eating.

'I am afraid,' she said, 'that his was not a very happy life. If he had the opportunity of living it over again ... I doubt ... whether he would accept it, I mean.'

'Oh,' returned the elder lady with remarkable conviction, 'none of us would do that!'

Brenda showed no disposition to stray off into generalities.

'Did you,' she asked quietly, 'really mean what you said just now about Alice? Is it your honest opinion that she loved Alfred Huston through it all?'

Mrs. Wylie sipped her tea meditatively.

'There are,' she answered after a pause, '... there are, I am afraid, some women who go through their lives without ever achieving the power of loving truly and wholly. It sometimes seems to me that Alice is one of them. They enjoy as others do, and they endure; but love is neither enjoyment nor endurance. It is a speciality, and the women who possess it (though they be called coquettes, flirts, wantons) are the salt of the earth. Alice came as near loving Alfred Huston as she will ever be to loving anyone beyond herself.'

'You think so?' in a curious monotone.

'Yes; I do.'

'I ... don't,' said Brenda.

'Ah! then you follow the majority, which, by the way, is composed of mere casual observers?'

'I do not know that I follow the majority; but I am of opinion that Alice has never loved Alfred Huston, because there was someone else.'

'That is following the majority,' observed Mrs. Wylie complacently.

'And,' continued the girl in a hard voice, 'that other person is Theo Trist.'

'Majority,' murmured the widow sweetly.

'Even,' continued Brenda after a little pause, 'if things are as you say, it is horribly sad, and there is no alleviation. It is very hard that Alice should only realize now that she loved him. The rest of her life will be ... what will it be?'

'I believe,' answered the older woman, with that practical philosophy which seems to be a growth of years only, 'that Alice loved him as much as lay in her nature. I am afraid, my dear, that your sister is incapable of a great and lasting passion, such as is usually considered desirable, although it invariably wrecks a life or two.'

'Very few people understand Alice.'

'And fewer still are ready to make her the slightest allowance. She began life with an initial mistake—namely, that a beautiful girl can marry any man she may choose. This error is very wide-spread; but, my dear, I have never watched the career of a beautiful girl without discovering, sooner or later, that in reality her choice is remarkably small. After weeding out impossibilities, setting aside improbabilities, and getting rid of ball-room hacks, there are seldom more than two men left. If a girl, in the confidence of her own loveliness as vouched for by elderly bachelors and doting relatives, is pleased to consider that she can have any man she likes, let her try. The best men, the ideal husbands, are not to be fished for. They come of their own accord, or they stay away altogether.'

'I suppose,' said Brenda reflectively, 'that she was spoilt by the circumstances attending her early life? Her popularity, I mean. But then people will say that a good nature is, or should be, beyond the reach of circumstances.'

'We cannot help,' replied the woman of the world, 'what people say. In the meantime we must just make the best of things as they stand. Alice is in an awkward position, and it is clearly our duty to get her out of it as creditably as we can.'

'Of course. I am ready to do all I can.'

Mrs. Wylie rose from the table with her characteristic cheeriness. For some moments she appeared to be thinking, then she spoke:

'The best way out of it is for me to go down to Cheltenham and bring her back. There is a train about eleven o'clock; Alice herself went by it. We can be back by to-night—about dinner-time, I should think, or a little later.'

To this suggestion Brenda acceded willingly enough. She was rather dazed by this sudden change in her sister's affairs, and her usually clear intellect seemed almost benumbed. Her manner was similar to that of a woman labouring under intense anxiety, or a suspense more terrible than the most abject fear.

Before leaving Mrs. Wylie telegraphed to Trist, the message being kept from Brenda's knowledge. She addressed it to his rooms in Jermyn Street, and without hesitation wrote the following words:

'I am going to Cheltenham. Keep away from Brenda. Expect me in Jermyn Street eight o'clock to-night.'

'I think,' she reflected, as her plump white hand pressed the blotting-paper, 'that the time has really come when I must do something. These young people are verging on a terrible muddle ... unless ... unless Theo has some set plan of his own all along. I sometimes think he has. There must be a motive somewhere.'

As the good lady was descending the stairs at half-past ten on her way to Paddington Station, a commissionaire came toiling up. He carried a letter in his hand, and Mrs. Wylie, perceiving it, stopped him. It was a full account of the accident, written at a club near at hand by Theodore Trist.

By three o'clock that afternoon Alice Huston learnt her husband's end. She received the news with a strange apathy. There were times in this woman's life when the permanence of sorrow was shut out from her mind. She was like a child in the way in which she took the punishment God thought fit to administer. It seemed part of her mental laziness. She had not even the energy to resist, however useless such a course may be.

There was no time to be lost, and Mrs. Wylie insisted upon an immediate departure for town. The excuses put forward by Alice were trivial, or would have been considered trivial in another woman. They caught the train, however, and reached London at half-past seven. A long, weary drive in a rattling cab (such a vehicle as could not be found in any other city) brought them to Suffolk Mansions.

Brenda was at the door to meet them. She kissed her sister silently, and then followed the two ladies into the drawing-room. There was a cheery fire burning briskly in the grate; a single lamp with a pink shade had a wonderful effect in adding comfort to the appearance of the room.

Alice lifted her veil and looked round as if expecting to find someone there. Mrs. Wylie, near the fire, and Brenda, who was closing the door, were both watching her.

'I think,' she said wearily, 'that Theo might have been here.'

Mrs. Wylie was hungry; perhaps she was also slightly irritated.

'Why?' she asked mercilessly.

Mrs. Huston unbuttoned her gloves speculatively, and, after a short pause, replied:

'Oh ... I don't know! I thought he would come, that was all.'

Mrs. Wylie made no pretence of concealing a somewhat impatient shrug of the shoulders.

'You are in your old room,' she said in a voice devoid of sympathy. 'If you take off your bonnet we will have dinner at once. It will warm us up.'

Brenda conducted her sister to the bedroom assigned to her. They had not spoken yet, but the girl's attitude was distinctly sympathetic in its bearing. Women have a silent way of telling us that their hearts are coming, as it were, towards us. I wonder, my brothers, what some of us would do without that voiceless sympathy—without the gentle glance that penetrates and consoles at one time—without the touch of certain fingers which, though light, is full of sweet heartfelt pleading to be allowed a share of the burden.

Brenda unpinned her sister's veil, and, hovering round, volunteered here and there a quick and deft assistance.

'I wonder,' said the beautiful woman at length, with that touch of helplessness in her tone which would have been better reserved for male ears, 'why I feel like a whipped child. I do not see that I am to blame because Alfred chose to be careless. Of course it was an accident.'

Brenda did not answer at once. Indeed, they were leaving the room when she said in a reassuring tone:

'Undoubtedly it was an accident.'

There was no mistaking the tone. Whatever Mrs. Huston's faults may have been, she never sought undue credit; she never pretended to feel that which had no place in her heart. Her sins were those of omission rather than of commission. Despite Mrs. Wylie's assurance to the contrary, Brenda knew then, and never afterwards doubted, that her sister's love for her husband, if it had ever existed, was dead at the time of his sudden and untimely end.

As things go in these days, we can hardly blame this beautiful woman for having loved, and ceasing to love. It is only in novels of to-day and in records of ancient times that we meet with an enduring love. The fact is, we see too many of our fellow-creatures to be constant to a few. We drift together, and we drift apart again. We vow a little, perhaps, and protest that nothing shall divide; but presently the streams diverge. There is some little obstruction in the bed or pathway; the waters part, and never flow together again. We merrymakers dance here and we dance there; we run down into the country by an evening train; dine, dance, make love, and come to town at an early hour. The next night it is just as likely as not that we go off in some other direction with our dress-clothes in a bag and our hearts conspicuously on our sleeves 'for one night only.'

It was all very well for those inconsistent old knights (strange combinations of poetry and brutality) to be faithful to the young person remaining at home for industrial purposes; it was very easy for the young person in question to think of none other than the youth who wore her colours 'twixt armour and heart. These people never saw other youths and other maidens. If I went to the Holy Land, I am confident that I should think only of a certain small person left behind; and, moreover, it is within the bounds of probability that if she had no tennis parties, bachelors' balls, bazaars, and race-meetings, she would pine away her youth in thoughts of me, not to mention executing quite a quantity of unsightly needlework.

These reflections must, however, remain strictly between us. It would not do for the general public to get ear of them. Let us rather pound away at the good old doctrine of true love, following in the footsteps of romancers since the days of Solomon. Your hand, my brother! It is best to blind one's self at times.

Brenda was a daughter of the nineteenth century, and as such conceived it possible that love can bloom and flourish in the human heart only to die utterly after all. Some of us there are, perhaps, who, having once loved, carry a small wound with us until the end of the chapter; but the majority have no time to look back too steadily. Most assuredly Alice Huston was not one of the former. I believe honestly that she loved her husband; but I am also convinced that before his death she had ceased to do so—that the growth had died down utterly within her heart, leaving no trace, diffusing no odour, as it were, of better things.

The younger sister realized all this, but her blind affection for the woman whose existence had been so closely allied to her own made excuses and propounded explanatory theories as only a woman's love can. There was in her mind an indefinite feeling of antagonism against the events of the last few months, but in her own heart she blamed Alfred Huston. She would not give way to the ever-growing conviction that her sister was not quite free from the taint of faultiness in thought or action.

CHAPTER IV.

AN INTERVIEW.

In his inner life—his domestic environments—Theodore Trist was not a comfortable man. There are some who, possessing luxurious ways, seem to pass through the trials and petty woes of life with more comfort than others. This is, moreover, accomplished without the expenditure of greater means. Many are wanting in this power of alleviating crude environments, which, however, goes usually with a very small capability of adapting one's self to circumstances.

Trist was essentially an adaptable fellow. He never seemed to notice that the sheet was shorter than the blanket, for instance. Nor did the fact affect his equanimity that he had to drink his tea without milk or sugar. It was not that he failed to perceive these things. His calling and his training alike made it necessary that he should. Nor was it that his mind was above such trifles; nothing was so small, so trivial, as to be beneath his attention. The fact was, that his mental and physical discipline was such that in recording hardship he had come to look upon it as an excuse for so much printed matter, a thing to write about, but of which it was useless to complain. He was an observer, not an autobiographer; he recorded the hardships of others, and spoke little of his own. On the Danube, and later in Plevna, they called him the 'philosopher.'

It has been said that women possess the faculty of stamping upon the rooms in which they dwell the impress of their own individuality. Surely this power is not confined to the weaker sex alone. A man surrounds himself with little individualities as well. He is more individual in his characteristics and in his way of living. Why! no two men fill their pipes alike. Some there are who stuff the tobacco in hastily; others (the luxurious type) linger over the operation lovingly. The one has no sense of anticipatory enjoyment; the other is already enjoying his smoke before the pipe is lighted.

Theodore Trist's room, in Jermyn Street, was very like himself. There was an indefinite feeling of readiness about it, as if at a moment's notice it could be vacated, or turned into a bedroom or a meeting-house. There were no curiosities lying about, no mementoes, no souvenirs of battle-field, no mysterious Eastern jewellery from poetic harems, such as lady-novelists tell us we who wander love to have about us when we loll in divans, and smoke narghilis at home in England. Looking round bedroom or sitting-room, one's first feeling was a conviction that in ten minutes the dweller therein could remove all trace of himself and his belongings. In a word, the rooms were lamentably bare. It is a pity to have to record this, because no man in the fiction of the day, having travelled in foreign lands, is allowed to live afterwards like an English gentleman. It has been the good fortune of the present writer to meet some whose lives have been spent, as it were, in portmanteaus, under tents, and under the open sky; but never, except in ladies' novels, has he met a globe-trotter, a big game-hunter, or a wandering journalist, who, when in England, wears Turkish slippers, an Eastern bernouse-like gown, and no waistcoat. Such individuals are a race apart; and in some respects they resemble a pug-dog, who barks much and bites little. In the matter of travel, their imaginations wander farther afield than their slippered feet.

Trist's readiness to depart at any moment was a literal fact, although he tried to disguise it. He rather prided himself upon the home-like appearance of his tobacco-scented sitting-room; but the habit of being always ready, of knowing exactly where everything was to be found, and putting all things in their right places, was so strong in him that a sailor-like neatness was his only conception of human comfort.

Instead, therefore, of adorning his apartment with flowers and ornaments in anticipation of Mrs. Wylie's visit, he committed the Philistine error of looking round to see that nothing was lying about without visible and obvious excuse. The task of making tidy was not a long one. Before going out to dine at a small and self-abnegating club he had dressed so that he might be ready for the widow's visit. There had also been a long and serious consultation with the landlady about tea at eight-thirty; and this feast had been royally prepared, regardless of expense in the luxurious matter of cream from the dairy round the corner.

There was a gravity almost amounting to solemnity in the war-correspondent's demeanour as he sat awaiting his gracious visitor.

'I am afraid,' he reflected, with characteristic calmness, 'that the good lady is not pleased with me.'

This fear no doubt interfered to some extent with his enjoyment of a French newspaper, which he had just freed from its small coloured wrapper. He did not appear to be deeply interested in the Echos de Paris, of which the wit failed to call a smile into his solemn eyes. It is, in fact, a matter of conjecture to me whether he had read anything at all (with understanding) when the rarely-used front-door bell tinkled dimly in the beetle-haunted basement. Trist laid aside the newspaper, and opened the door of his room just as the stairs began to creak under the comfortable step of Mrs. Wylie.

'Well, Theo,' said the good lady cheerily. 'Good-evening!'

Trist shook hands very gravely. He was at the moment deeply immersed in doubts as to whether his visitor should be shown to his bedroom with a view of removing her bonnet before his shaving-glass, or whether she would prefer keeping her out-door apparel with her. As might have been expected, Mrs. Wylie was equal to the occasion, and settled the question at once.

'I will just open my sealskin,' she said, suiting the action to the word. 'It is bitterly cold outside. What a nice fire, but ... what a bare room, Theo! Have you no sense of comfort?'

'Bare!' replied Trist, looking round in amazement; 'I never noticed it.'

'Naturally you would not. As long as it looks like a barrack-room, and the furniture suggests the luxuries of camp-life, you are happy, I suppose?'

Trist laughed in a fill-up-the-gap style, and busied himself with a tea-pot, once the property of his landlady's grandmother, and correspondingly ugly. This versatile man's ways were not new to Mrs. Wylie; but she smiled to herself, in the way people smile when they are busy collecting materials for a good story, as she watched him pour out the tea and manœuvre the kettle. It did not seem to enter his head that four men out of five would have asked the lady's assistance in such a case. Perhaps (for women note such things) she also remembered afterwards that he had no need to inquire after her taste respecting cream and sugar, but acted boldly, yet unobtrusively, upon knowledge previously acquired.

'And now,' she said in a determined way when the cups were filled, 'light your pipe.'

'I do not think,' answered he with mock hesitation, 'that such a proceeding would be strictly approved of by the laws of etiquette.'

'It is etiquette, my friend, to do exactly what a lady may wish. I would rather you smoked, because I want to talk to you seriously—a pastime I rarely indulge in—and I think tobacco would assist a contemplative attention on your part. I almost wish I could smoke myself. It would facilitate matters.'

In ratio to the increase of the lady's gravity her companion's spirits seemed to rise.

'After that,' he replied gaily, 'I am dumb, and ... light my strongest pipe.'

This threat he carried out to the letter. While Mrs. Wylie sipped her excellent tea and appeared to be searching in her mind for a suitable manner of beginning that which she had to say, he continued to puff softly, preserving a characteristic silence, and vouchsafing that contemplative attention which she had desired.

'Theo,' said Mrs. Wylie at length with an intonation upon the single word which, by some subtle means, caused him to lay aside all attempts at hilarity.

'Yes?' he replied, removing the pipe from his lips and looking across the table at her with meek inquiry.

Most people would have thought from his tone and manner that he was ready and willing to accede at once to any proposition, to follow any course of action, to obey without complaint or hesitation; but, as hinted on a previous page, Mrs. Wylie knew the ways of this man.

She did not meet his glance, but continued to gaze in a practically-abstracted way into the fender, while with one hand she smoothed a corner of her sealskin jacket.

'You will admit,' she continued at length with apparent irrelevance, 'that every action, or every course of action, is liable to several constructions.'

His reply was ready at once—a fact worth noticing in a man whose exterior habits would have led most observers to a belief that his mental method was slow.

'Yes; but the various constructions could not well be taken into account in anticipation. The attempt would be a death-blow to all action.'

The astute lady knew that she was understood, so she moved on in the same drift.

'I admit that,' she said; 'but ... in a course of procedure, the construction put upon the first actions should be allowed to carry some weight in subsequent proceedings. If ... I mean ... it is deleterious to others, the course might well be amended.'

Trist acknowledged the ability of this argument without enthusiasm.

'Nevertheless,' he said after a pause, 'people have mapped out for themselves a course of action, have held to it despite adverse criticism, and have in the end been triumphant.'

Mrs. Wylie now looked up rather keenly.

'Then,' she said significantly, 'yours is a course of action, and not mere idle drifting with the tide.'

Trist shrugged his shoulders, and met her glance with calm, impenetrable eyes. He was in a corner, because silence was naught but confession.

'Am I,' he inquired imperturbably, 'the sort of man to drift?'

'No,' said Mrs. Wylie; 'you are not. But, Theo, are you sure that you are doing right? I don't want to interfere in the slightest degree with your action so long as it concerns only yourself. You are quite capable of looking after your own affairs, I know, quite sure of yourself, utterly reliant upon your own strength of purpose; but I want you to remember that women cannot be so self-dependent as men. However strong they may be, however capable, however brilliant, they must give in a little to the usages and customs of society, they must consider the praise or blame of their neighbours. Such praise or blame is part of their life, an important factor in their happiness or sorrow, and all the woman's rights in the world will make no difference.'

Trist had left his seat during this speech. He went to the fireplace and removed the kettle, which was boiling with mistaken ardour, to a cooler spot. He stood erect upon the hearthrug, and looked down into the pleasant woman's face upturned towards him. His hands were clasped behind his back, and there was on his face an encouraging smile. Seeing it, the widow continued:

'I came to-night, Theo, because I wanted to come to some understanding with you, even at the risk of being considered meddlesome and unnecessarily anxious.'

'That risk is small, Mrs. Wylie.'

'Thank you. Now I am going to be frank with you—not with the view of forcing a reciprocal frankness upon you, but because it is the best method of saying difficult things. You disapprove of obtrusive frankness, I know.'

Trist laughed, and did not deny this accusation. Mrs. Wylie's cup was empty, and he made a step forward and took it from her hand with grave courtesy.

'Will you have some more tea?' he inquired incidentally.

'Thanks; I will.'

There was a short silence, during which the young fellow deftly manipulated the teapot.

'The girls,' said the lady reflectively, as she stirred her second cup, 'are, in a certain manner, cast upon my hands. I am morally responsible for their good name. Owing to an unfortunate chain of circumstances, they occupy at the present moment rather a prominent position in idle conversation. They cannot be too careful—you understand...?'

She stopped short because Trist's movements, which were rather restless, told her plainly enough that he had already got a long way in advance of her thoughts.

'You wish,' he said, 'to forbid me the house just now.'

Mrs. Wylie was not improving the texture of the lace handkerchief she continued to twist round her finger. For some seconds she made no answer. She almost hoped that by waiting she would effect a slight breach in the impenetrable wall of reserve with which this man seemed to find pleasure in surrounding himself. In this, however, she was disappointed. His power of unembarrassed silence was unique in a Western-born man.

'Had it been anyone else,' she said at length, 'I should have been obliged to do so. With you it is quite another matter. You are different from other men, Theo. I know that, but the general public does not, and consequently judges you by the same standard as it judges others.'

'They are quite right in doing that. I have a great respect for the general public.'

The widow looked rather sceptical respecting the latter statement, but did not raise the question.

'It is not,' she continued gravely, 'from that point of view that I look at it. Indeed, I should be inclined in any case to leave it to you, because I think that you are gifted with a great strength of purpose. No consideration of public censure, public blame, or public commentary would force me to speak to you upon a subject which I honestly believe to be better left undiscussed. I believe that every man, Theo, every woman, every youth, and every girl, knows his or her own business best. I believe we are all capable of managing our own affairs better than the kindest of our neighbours could manage them for us. In this you agree with me—is it not so?'

'I thought,' replied Theo, without meeting her glance, 'that that theory was mine. I must have learnt it unconsciously from you.'

'It has always been my conviction that you are a man singularly capable of managing your own affairs, and in my own sex I have fancied that I know a counterpart...'

'Yes?...' interrogated Trist in a semi-tone, divining that he was expected to do so.

'Brenda!' said Mrs. Wylie simply.

She had crossed her hands on her lap, and as her lips framed the girl's name, she raised her head slowly and fixed her pleasant, keen glance on him. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, leaning lightly against the corner of the mantelpiece. The single gas-jet of the old-fashioned chandelier cast a most uncompromising light upon his face; his eyes were raised, and he seemed to be contemplating the invention of a new burner.

Without detracting anything from the scrutiny to which she was subjecting him, she continued speaking.

'Now...' she said with some energy, 'Brenda is miserable.'

For some seconds his face was perfectly motionless. His eyelids did not even move. It was a triumph of inscrutability. Then he moved his lips, pursing them up in a manner expressive of thoughtfulness and doubt combined.

'Why?'

'That,' replied Mrs. Wylie, turning away, 'is exactly what I want to know.'

Trist did not appear to be in a position to supply the required information. The conversation was becoming decidedly strained, and Mrs. Wylie, while feeling her sang-froid gradually warming, as it were, noticed that there was plenty of staying-power in her companion still. He did not at that moment look like a man about to be betrayed into a hasty exposition of his inward thoughts or feelings. On motives of prudence she therefore relieved the strain.

'Brenda,' she said, 'has been terribly worried by Alice, I know. It seems to me that if you kept out of their way for some little time it would be conducive to a more peaceful frame of mind all round—do you see?'

'Yes; I was thinking of going over to Paris. If there is a war in the spring, I shall have work to do for one or two French papers, and it is best to have these things arranged in advance.'

Mrs. Wylie winced. It seemed as if he had dragged in the unpleasant little monosyllable with the purpose of reminding her of his profession. By some feminine course of logic she had reasoned herself into a belief that Theo Trist would go to no more campaigns, and now she grew pale at the thought that he was still a war-correspondent—she, who prided herself upon her freedom from that gnawing sorrow called anxiety. The readiness with which he acceded to her half hint that his absence would be an advantage was completely marred by the mention of a possible war, and she relented at once, seeking some other expedient than banishment.

'Would you go if there were another war?' she asked.

'Yes,' he replied coolly.

She made no comment, and the subject was dropped. She had made this visit with the full intention of coming to a definite knowledge of facts with Trist. Her chief desire had been to find out whether there was any understanding between Alice Huston and himself such as the world assigned; but in this she had failed. Theo would tell her nothing more than he chose, and she recognised in him a match in the matter of social diplomacy. His motives were a puzzle to her; she could not even come to a reasonable conclusion concerning his feelings. It was possible that he loved Alice Huston, but it was also possible that he loved Brenda. Again, she had no definite reason for supposing that he loved either of them, because his manner to both was that of a friend. However, the clear object of her visit had been attained—namely, that Trist should absent himself for some time, and with this she was content, looking to further enlightenment in the future.

CHAPTER V.

SOUTHWARD.

Theodore Trist had not over-estimated his powers in informing Brenda that he had some influence with the newspapers. The story of Captain Huston's sudden death never became public property; indeed, there was no mention made of the inquest. The result of an accident was all detail vouchsafed to the public. There was, by the way, some virtuous indignation expressed in the columns of a halfpenny weekly publication possessing a small circulation in the neighbourhood of the West India Dock Road. This just wrath was excited by the evident suppression of detail, and the scant courtesy with which their representative had been received by a gentleman—himself a journalist—who was closely connected with the disgraceful death of this British officer. In cheap type, upon a poor quality of paper, and in vile English, this self-constituted representative of the thirsting British public demanded further details. He expressed himself surprised that an enlightened nation should stand idly by while the aristocracy of the overburthened land deliberately plotted to screen its own debauched proceedings from public censure. The enlightened nation either failed to spend a halfpenny foolishly (thus neglecting its own interests), or it preferred to continue standing by. Moreover, the debauched aristocracy showed no signs of quailing beneath the lash of a relentless press. It is just possible, however, that they had neither seen the newspaper in question nor heard of its existence.

The demand for further details must have failed to reach the delinquents concerned. At all events, there was no reply, the error was never repaired, and the Times failed to take up the cudgels and fight for their common rights side by side with its powerful contemporary.

So Alfred Woodruff Charles Huston was laid, not with his own, but with the forefathers of someone else in Willesden Cemetery. Poor fellow! he came from a military stock, brave men and true, who had fought and drunk and finally deposited their bones in many parts of the globe. I am not by habit a sentimental person—moonlight over water, for instance, or the whisper of the pine-trees, has a certain quieting effect upon me, though it does not make me drivel; but I see the great silent pathos of our huge graveyards. If I never pitied Alfred Huston when he was alive, I pity him now in his narrow bed—one of many—an insignificant volume in God's book-shelf. Thus the Almighty is pleased to shelve us in rows. Sometimes He classifies us, and we are labelled with a title somewhat similar to that on the stones near at hand; but nowadays we stray away from the original corner of the library, and when the end comes we find ourselves among strangers. In some country churchyard it is sad enough to see a cluster of mouldering stones all bearing the same name, but infinitely more pathetic is it to wander through the serried ranks of the dead at Brookwood, Willesden, or Brompton. It is like a 'sundry' shelf, where all odd volumes are hastily thrust and soon forgotten; for poetry is side by side with commerce, fame elbows obscurity, youth lies by age. We scan the names, and find no connection. Truly these are among strangers—they sleep not with their fathers. And the shelves fill up, showing nought but titles. The books are closed, the tale is told, and so it moulders until the leaves shall flutter again beneath the searching finger of the Almighty. Sooner be buried in the common ditch beneath a weight of red-coated humanity than amidst these unknown thousands—sooner, a thousand times sooner, lie in patient solitude on untrodden rocks beneath the wave!

Alfred Huston's name is doubtless to be found in Willesden Cemetery to-day, though I do not know of anyone who will care to seek it. His wife caused it to be recorded in imperishable letters of lead, as if, mes frères, it had not as well been writ in water. It stands, moreover, in the State archives amidst a long record of heroes who drew their pay with remarkable regularity, and did little else. It was very good of her to go to the expense of those leaden letters, considering what an enormous number of mourning garments she was absolutely compelled to buy. The thought even is worthy of praise, because her mind was fully occupied with questions of crape and caps. Let us, therefore, give full credit to this widow who, in order to do more honour to her husband's memory, sent some of her dresses back four times to the milliners because the bodice would not fit.

One December morning three ladies dressed in black (two, indeed, wore widows' weeds) left Charing Cross Station for Paris. Mrs. Wylie, in her wisdom, had decreed a short banishment.

'Let us,' she said cheerily, the day after Captain Huston's semi-surreptitious funeral—'let us get away from all this fog and cold and misery. I want sunshine. Let us go south—Nice, Biarritz, Arcachon! Which shall it be?'

'We might,' suggested Alice Huston, 'stay a few days in Paris on the way.'

Brenda was reading, and before taking note of these remarks she finished a page, which she turned slowly, as one turns the page of a thoughtful book requiring slow perusal. She looked up at the clock upon the mantelpiece, and then her pensive gaze wandered towards Mrs. Wylie's face.

'Not the Riviera,' she said persuasively. 'It is like beef-tea when one is in rude health.'

'I must say,' observed Mrs. Wylie, after a pause, 'that I prefer the Atlantic to the Mediterranean.'

'Let us stay a little time in Paris first,' said Alice eagerly, 'and go on to Arcachon, or somewhere for Christmas. We might hear in Paris of nice people going South.'

The expression of the elder widow's face was not quite so sympathetic as might have been expected upon sentimental grounds.

'Why,' she inquired, with dangerous suavity, 'why are you so anxious to stay in Paris? It is no better than London in winter.'

Mrs. Huston shrugged her shoulders with childlike inconsequence. It was rather hard to expect her to have definite reasons ready for production.

'Oh, I don't know,' she answered. 'It would be a nice change. I think we would all find a place like Biarritz or Arcachon intolerably slow. We want taking out of ourselves.'

Mrs. Wylie nodded in a moderately sympathetic way. The three ladies knew that Theodore Trist was in Paris, and Mrs. Wylie, without looking in Brenda's direction, had seen a change come over the girl's face at the mention of the word. A singular change it was for so young a face—rather unpleasant, too, in its effect. For a moment her features appeared to contract, and a gray set look came into her eyes. This singular effect was slowly fading when Alice again mentioned Paris, and instantaneously the apathetic chill seemed to spread over Brenda's being again.

'I hate Paris in winter!' said Mrs. Wylie decisively. 'The wind is cutting, the streets are crowded with excited women carrying larger parcels, and more of them, than their limbs were intended to carry, and altogether it is horrible. We will stay one night if you like, but not more. In coming back we can stop perhaps. Besides ... Alice, I do not think it would do for you to be seen in Paris just now.'

Alice did not meet her friend's gaze. There was an unpleasant silence of some moments' duration, and then she murmured in a prettily petulant way:

'It is rather hard that I should be expected to bury myself alive.'

In this wise it was settled, and the three ladies passed through Paris without seeing aught of the cosmopolitan journalist, whose presence in the French capital was a matter of public discussion. Some papers even went so far as to refer to it as the immediate precursor of an outbreak of hostilities between France and Germany, and took the opportunity of reminding the citizens that every Frenchman thirsted for the gory cup of vengeance.

Mrs. Wylie was fully aware of the fact that had Theodore Trist so desired, he would have managed to see them somehow in passing; but she opined that he would not do so, and in this she was right. He actually knew that they were in Paris, but avoided them with an ease which showed his intimate acquaintance with the ways of the French capital.

Alice Huston made no attempt to disguise her contempt for Bordeaux, where a halt of one night was necessary, and arrived at mid-day at Arcachon with the full intention of disliking the place heartily. Personally, I have no interest in the town, not holding any shares in the Casino, nor claiming relationship with persons keeping hotels there; but it shall always be my honest endeavour to treat people and places alike with justice. There is no denying the fact that certain parts of the little French watering-place, more especially towards La Teste, are not savoury of odour; but Alice was hardly justified in the use of the word 'disgusting' in this respect. It happened to be blowing steadily from the westward, and, in consequence, the air was heavy with the distant continuous roar of Atlantic breakers surging on to the deserted shore across the Bassin.

'I know what that is,' said Alice impatiently on hearing it, which they did not fail to do as soon as they were out of the train; 'that is surf. It is the same as at Madras. Horrid! I never slept a wink.'

It was only to be heard during certain winds—a very rare direction of the wind, explained the hotel porter, who understood enough English to catch what was being said. He had explained only that morning to a sentimental English lady of uncertain age, who loved the sad song of the waves with all the gushing ardour of her poetic soul, that the said song was always there, floating in the air above the pines. Besides, knowing the times of the trains and the price of hired carriages, this man was by no means ignorant in the ways of sweet deception. He was a good hotel-porter, and could lie with conviction when he tried.

Imagine a fishing village shaken up in a huge box with a fashionable watering-place, and set down pell-mell at the edge of a large inlet of the sea, and you have Arcachon. Amidst the pines, on the slopes behind the town, are villas, where hypochondriacs live and imbibe the wondrous breath of the maritime pine. Oysters are cheap, and the air is invigorating. From the westward the wind blows directly across the broad Atlantic; from the east it sighs through trackless forests. Beyond that there is little to recommend this southern town, though some of us may think highly of such important adjuncts to human happiness as oysters and atmosphere.

A certain spasmodic sociability flickers through the small English colony, consisting, as most of our Continental colonies do, of military men and retired civil servants suffering either from slender purses or unsatisfactory lungs. Among these the advent of the three ladies caused a distinct flutter, and I have reason to believe that several dresses, and not a few bonnets, were subsequently rebuilt upon new and approved lines.

The flutter was scarcely reciprocal. Brenda was not at this period inclined to indiscriminate sociability. She was in a critical frame of mind, and the intellectual standard of the average Briton residing abroad will not bear criticism. Alice found the retired civil servants intolerably trivial and dull. The old soldiers were men of a bygone day when the army had not gone to the dogs, which departure seemed to date from the time of their several resignations.

Mrs. Wylie noted these things, and took them with her usual placid cheerfulness. She had not expected much, and was in nowise disappointed—the blessed privilege of pessimists. She looked upon the three weeks spent at Arcachon as an unpleasant interlude, necessary and unavoidable, and while there made herself as comfortable as circumstances allowed, according to her wont.

Thus Christmas with its forced festivity was tided over. I sometimes wonder why that happy season in each recurring year stands out upon the road of life like public-houses on the roads we tread here below. Wise men direct Jehu by the Spotted Dog or the Marquis of Granby, and I think most of us divide our journey into stages (some consciously, others without realizing it), marked and defined by the Christmas Day at the end of each. It is the 25th of December that stands clearly marked in my memory as having been passed in some outlying corner of the world in each successive year. There is no record of the 24th or the 26th. Having devoted some thought to this matter, I have concluded that the memory is closely connected with the appetite. There are certain dishes set apart for consumption on Christmas Day, and the absence or presence in perfection of these remains indelibly engraved on the mind.

It must be confessed that the Christmas spent at Arcachon by the three ladies was not of a very festive character; but it should be remembered that two of them were widows, and the third a thoughtful young person of by no means a gay and lightsome heart.

Early in January they turned their faces homeward, and by mutual tacit consent parted company in Paris. It happened that Alice Huston met some friends there, who pressed her to stay on with them, pleading to Mrs. Wylie that a change would be beneficial to the spirits of the young widow. Brenda returned to Suffolk Mansions with the Admiral's widow.

CHAPTER VI.

THEODORE TRIST IS AROUSED.

In a quiet street leading out of the Boulevard de la Madeleine, there is a large red-stone house with golden letters, each the size of a man, between the windows of the second and third floors. These letters spell a three-syllabled word, which is known in all the civilized world as the name of the greatest journal in France. For steadiness there is no newspaper in all the new republic to rival it. No false news was ever published within the walls of that red-stone house, nor sent forth to the French-speaking world from its portals. Its correspondence is conducted with that apparent lavishness which is the secret of successful journalism in these days. Good pay to good men is a motto that might well be inscribed in golden letters beneath the window of the second floor. There is upon the first story of this house a large room furnished somewhat in the style adopted by English clubs. That is to say, the chairs, tables, and bookcases are of a heavier type than is usually found in private houses. Unlike most French rooms the floor is entirely covered with a Brussels carpet. There are several small oak tables furnished with blotting-pad, inkstand, and pen-tray. I regret to say that cigarette-ash and cigarette ends are habitually thrown upon the floor, although numerous receptacles are provided on the larger table standing in the centre of the room.

This apartment serves as an anteroom to the offices of the editor and sub-editor, and on some days in the week there may be seen an assembly of all that there is of journalistic and literary talent in France.

One evening in January, Theodore Trist was standing near the huge white-china stove talking with a group of long-haired confrères of the ready pen. They were laughing—not in that airy, careless way which is generally considered by Englishmen as the prerogative of their Gallic cousins—but softly, and without much genuine amusement. There were others in the room, seated at the smaller tables, writing, which would account for the lowered tones of the group round the stove.

Presently a liveried servant came towards them.

'Monsieur Trist,' he ventured, standing at a respectful distance from the brilliant group.

A silence fell over the talkers, while Theo Trist turned and asked by whom he was wanted.

'It is,' replied the servant, 'a portier of the Hôtel Bristol, inquiring if monsieur was in Paris at present.'

'And you said...?'

'I said that I would inquire.'

A young Frenchman, whose poems were charming all readers just then, laughed merrily.

'Jules,' he said, with a sly glance towards the Englishman, 'is discreet.'

'It would never do,' interpolated an older man, with grave approval, 'if Jules were not so. This is the home of discretion. Who knows that this portier is a portier at all? Is it not easy to buy a hat-band with the word "Bristol" embroidered upon it? He may be an emissary from some journal of the Boulevards to collect information—the material for a canard—price two sous.'

Trist smiled meekly, and moved away with the servant at his heels.

'Ce Trist,' continued the older writer, when he was out of earshot, 'cannot come and go as we can—we who write but romances and idle paragraphs. It is a political power beneath that broad forehead, behind those woman's eyes. He smells of war. It is the stormy petrel, my friends.'

'I will see him,' Trist had said to the servant as they crossed the room together. 'But do not say who I am.'

Jules bowed in grave reproach at the implied possibility of an indiscretion.

'In the small room, monsieur?'

'Yes; in the small room.'

When the portier of the Hôtel Bristol entered the small room, he found a gentleman seated at a table writing.

'You seek Monsieur Trist?'

'Yes, monsieur.'

'For a public or a private purpose?'

The portier had received his instructions.

'It is private, monsieur, quite private. It is but a small word from a lady in the hotel.'

'An English lady?'

'An English lady, monsieur; a widow, I believe. A Madame Huston, on the second floor.'

Trist held out his hand.

'Give it to me,' he said gently; 'I am Theodore Trist. The answer shall be despatched presently. You need not wait.'

As the messenger left the room, Trist broke open the envelope and unfolded a dainty note. He read it carefully, and then leant back leisurely in his chair. There was a peculiar expression upon his face, half annoyed, half puzzled. And (why should it be withheld?) beneath the sun-burn on his cheeks there was a slight change of colour. Theodore Trist experienced a strange sense of warmth in his countenance, and wondered what it meant. He was ignorant of the fact that his cheek was attempting to blush. From the expression of his eyes, however, this was not a sign of pleasure. He was ashamed of that note, and after the lapse of a few minutes he rose and threw it into the stove, the brass door of which he opened deftly with the toe of his boot.

There are times in our lives when we have cause to feel ashamed of human passions, and even of human nature. Even if we be optimists, we can scarcely pass through existence without finding that human nature is a sorry business after all. It is only right that we should experience a sense of shame when brought face to face with such passions as jealousy or hatred, but God forbid that we should ever be ashamed of love! There is not too much dignity in our daily lives, and therefore let us hold one factor of it sacred. Let us leave untouched the dignity of love. If there be one seed of shame in the flower, the disease will grow and flourish until the bloom dies away entirely. From the cradle to the grave we have but one pure and holy thing in life. We are never free from it—no spot is beyond its reach—no place is too sacred, and no hovel is too miserable for it to enter there. On the battle-field, and in church, while laughing, while weeping, while singing, while sighing, we think of love. And you, my young brother, my gentle sister, who have such thoughts as these, cherish them and keep them holy; fence them round with noble efforts; keep away the canker-worm of shame. In all truth these thoughts are better than great wealth, more profitable than fame, higher than exceeding great gifts. We, also, who are farther on the road, have known what such thoughts are, and in looking back now over the trodden path we see one sunny spot—one golden field where no great trees, no gaudy flowers grow, but where a holy peace has reigned; where Ambition found no resting-place and Covetousness no root. To have passed through that meadow was sufficient reason for the creation of a life. Its pathway was very pleasant, and the scent of its modest flowers reaches us now. Those who have once loved truly have not lived in vain, even though they pass quite away and leave no trace behind.

Theodore Trist was by nature a remarkably self-contained man, and his life of late years had brought this characteristic to an exceptional pitch. He had acquired the habit of thinking, of writing, of working with a sublime disregard to the chance of his environments. On the battle-field, and amidst the roar of artillery, it had been necessary for him to write details of a successful march through fertile valleys, where the very atmosphere breathed of peace alone. In the gorgeous apartment of an Emperor's palace, seated in his rough, worn clothes, hat on head, booted, spurred, and armed, he had penned such a description of a battle, fought two days before, as will ever stand out unrivalled in the annals of warfare.

And now in the heart of gay Paris, in this neglected little room, he sat down before the glowing stove, while beneath his feet, like the pulse of an ocean steamer, the mighty press throbbed continuously, beating out its news, speaking great things and powerful words to all mankind. But these sounds he heeded not. He was thinking of other things. For half an hour he remained thus absorbed, and the result of those thirty minutes of thought went with him through life. At last he rose and looked at his watch.

'It will never do,' he said to himself, 'to funk it. I must put a stop to this. If she makes it so plain to me, the inference is that Mrs. Wylie and Brenda know something about it, or, at the least, suspect. Whatever comes in the future, I want to save Brenda that.'

At seven o'clock that evening Theodore Trist presented himself at the Hôtel Bristol, and inquired for the private salon occupied by Colonel Martyn. A small boy led the way upstairs without a word, and after a hurried tap, ushered the war-correspondent into a dimly-lighted apartment. A single lamp burnt upon a small table in the centre of the room, casting a faint pink glow all round. Mrs. Huston rose from a low chair near the table, and laid aside a copy of the French newspaper by which Trist's sole services were retained. She was alone, and there was in her graceful movements a scarcely perceptible self-consciousness, from which Trist conceived the passing notion that, although no mention had been made of it in the note received by him, he was not likely to see either Mrs. Martyn or her hen-pecked husband that evening.

The young widow was of course dressed in black, which, moreover, was relieved by no ornament; but although there was crape on the skirt, that unbecoming material was sparingly worn. The dress was opened slightly on the whitest throat imaginable, and the sleeves were loose below the elbow. Trist acknowledged inwardly that this woman had never looked so lovely as she did at that moment, with the glow of the lamp on her white throat and hands, a faint conscious blush upon her cheek, her golden hair gleaming softly.

He advanced to meet her with his impenetrable friendliness. Ah! it is those grave faces which we can never read.

'I was afraid,' said Mrs. Huston, 'that you were not in Paris ... or that even if you were you would not come.'

Trist took a chair which she had indicated with a wave of the hand.

'I have been hanging on,' he said, 'from day to day....'

Mrs. Huston looked at him with an expectant, half-inviting smile—a smile which Brenda loathed.

'For no particular reason,' continued the journalist with deliberate stolidity. 'I have fallen in with an interesting lot of men, and there is nothing to call me away.'

The young widow's expression of countenance altered from one of coquetry to well-simulated but nevertheless fictitious interest.

At this moment a waiter appeared with the information that madame was served.

'Colonel and Mrs. Martyn have unfortunately been called away this evening, so you will have to content yourself with me,' observed Mrs. Huston innocently, as she led the way down to the luxurious salle-à-manger.

'That,' answered Trist perfunctorily, 'will be no hardship.'

The tone in which he said this almost made it a question as to whether it would not have been politer to have kept silent.

During dinner they talked easily and pleasantly, as behoved two persons knowing the world and its ways. Occasionally they sparred in a subtle underhand way which no listener could have detected, Mrs. Huston attacking, Trist parrying as usual.

'There are,' said the lady when the waiter finally left them, 'cigarettes upstairs. The Colonel always smokes and has his coffee there. Will you do the same?'

Trist bowed silently as he rose from his seat.

When they reached the salon she went to a side-table, and returned presently with a box of cigarettes. This she opened and held out to him with both hands. There was in her movements a marvellous combination of girlish grace and womanly 'finish,' and her attitude as she stood before him with her white arms outstretched, her head thrown back, and her glowing eyes seeking his, was perfect in its artistic conception.

'Please smoke,' she said in a low voice.

He did not respond at once, and, seeing his hesitation, she continued rather hurriedly:

'Surely you need not stand on ceremony with me, Theo? We ... we have been friends all our lives.'

He smiled in a slow, grave way as he took a cigarette.

'Yes,' he answered, 'we know each other pretty well.'

While he struck a match and lighted his cigarette she turned away and took a low chair, swinging the rustling skirt of her dress aside with inimitable grace. It happened that there was a seat close to it, while no other was within convenient reach. Trist remained standing before the fireplace, where some logs burned fragrantly.

'It is a pity,' she said, looking up at him in a curious, half-embarrassed way, 'that we are not cousins. I almost ... wish we were. The world would have nothing to say about our friendship then.'

Trist looked at the burnt end of his cigarette with careful criticism.

'Has the world anything to say ... about it now?'

She shrugged her beautiful shoulders, and arranged the brooch at her breast before replying in a low tone.

'I don't care if it has.'

'What does it say?' asked the journalist, with imperturbable cruelty.

By way of reply she raised her eyes to his. A faint cloud of tobacco-smoke floated upwards, passed overhead, and left his strange incongruous face exposed to the full light of the shaded lamp. The beautiful eyes searched his features, and I maintain that few men could have looked down at that lovely woman, could have met those pleading eyes, could have ventured within the reach of that subtle feminine influence, unmoved. If Trist was uneasy no outward sign betrayed him; no quiver of the eyelids; no motion of the lips. During some moments there was a tense silence, while these two looked into each other's eyes, probed each other's souls. The veil which hangs round that treasure we all possess—the treasure of an unassailable, illegible, secret individuality—seemed to fall away. Without words they understood each other. Indeed, no words could have explained as that mutual searching glance had done.

Alice Huston knew then that she had met a man—the first in all probability—who was totally impervious to the baleful influence of the charms she had wielded so long, without defining or seeking to define them. She only knew that a turn of her head, a glance of her eyes, a touch of her hand, had been sufficient to work her will upon men. Without theorizing upon sexual influence she had used it unscrupulously, as most women do, and hitherto it had never failed. She was aware that she could lead men who were beyond the reach of the strongest purpose possessed by their own sex without any exercise of her will at all. Her strength lay in physical, not in moral influence. If her beauty failed she had nothing to support her.

And now she sat with interlocked and writhing fingers, gazing upwards at this man, awaiting his will. Her agonized eyes quailed beneath his gentle glance. It is a picture I recommend to the notice of such plain and unwomanly females as love to talk of woman's rights and woman's superior nature, which awaits but the opportunity of asserting itself. Ah, my sisters!—you, the womanly women!—believe me, your greatest earthly happiness lies in love as it is understood now and has been understood since the Lion lay down with the Lamb in that old Garden which we catch glimpses of still over a fence when the love-light is in our eyes.

Trist broke the silence at last, and his voice was hollow, with a singular 'far-off' sound, like the voice of a man speaking in great pain, with an effort.

'If the world has made a mistake, Alice,' he said slowly and impressively, 'I hope to God you have not!'

She made no answer. The power of speech seemed to have left her beautiful lips, which were livid and dry. She rubbed her hands together, palm to palm, in a horribly mechanical manner, which was almost inhuman in its dumb despair. Before her eyes a veil—dull, neutral-tinted, impenetrable—seemed to rise, and her vision failed. The tendons of her lovely throat were tense, like wires, beneath the milky skin.

At length her senses returned, her bosom rose and fell rhythmically, and she looked round the room in a dazed, stupid way like one who has fallen from a height.

She saw it all as in a dream. The conventional furniture of mahogany and deep red velvet, the variegated tablecloth, the hideous gilt clock upon the mantelpiece. Then she looked into the square, open fireplace, where some logs of wood smouldered warmly. Upon one of these, unaffected by the heat, lay the half-burnt cigarette which Theo Trist had thrown away before speaking.

Seeing it, she looked round the room again with drawn and hopeless eyes. Trist was not there. He had left her. There was a simple straightforwardness of action about this man which at times verged upon brutality.

Slowly Alice Huston rose from her chair. For some moments she stood motionless, and then she went to the fireplace, where she remained staring at her own reflection in the mirror, which was only partially hidden by the glass-shade covering the hideous clock.

'And,' she muttered brokenly, as she turned away with clenched fists, 'I used to think that we were not punished upon earth. I wonder how long ... how long ... I shall be able to stand this!'

CHAPTER VII.

A LESSON.

In Suffolk Mansions the absence of Alice Huston left a less perceptible vacuum than that lady would have imagined. Mrs. Wylie was intensely relieved that the young widow had, so to speak, struck out a line of her own—wherever that line might tend to lead her. Brenda was less philosophical. She tried to persuade herself that her sister's presence had been a pleasure, and, like all pleasures withdrawn, had left a blank behind it. But the pretence was at its best a sorry one. It is a lamentable fact that propinquity is the most powerful factor in human loves, hatreds, and friendships. The best of friends, the most affectionate sisters, cannot live apart for a few years without fostering the growth of an intangible, silent barrier which forces its way up between them, and which we lightly call a lack of mutual interest. What is love but 'mutual interest'?

Brenda, who was herself the soul of loyalty, stood mentally aghast over the ruins of her great unselfish love. She imagined it dead, but this was not the case. In a heart like that of Brenda Gilholme, love never dies. It is only in our hearts, my brothers, and in those of a very few women that this takes place. The sisterly love was living still, but it was little else than the mere tie of blood or the result of a few mutual friendships in the past. The two women had drifted apart upon the broad waters of life.

In the meantime Mrs. Wylie was watching events. This good lady was (is still, heaven bless her!) an optimist. She is one of those brave persons who really in their hearts believe that human life is worth living for its own sake. She actually had the effrontery to maintain that happiness is attainable. There are some women like this in the world. They are not what is called intellectual—they write no books, speak no speeches, and propound no theories—but ... I would to God there were more of them!

The daily life of these two ladies soon assumed its normal routine. Brenda studied political economy, Shakespeare, and the latest biography by turns in her unproductive, resultless way. Her mind craved for food and refused nothing; while, on the other hand, it possessed no decided tastes. Before January had run out its days she heard from Alice, who had moved southwards to Monte Carlo with her friends the Martyns.

One afternoon in February Brenda was sitting alone in the drawing-room in Suffolk Mansions when a visitor arrived. It was no other than William Hicks. His entrée was executed with the usual faultless grace and savoir-faire. He carried a soft hat, for it was foggy, and his long black cloak was thrown carelessly back to the full advantage of a broad astrakhan collar.

This was the first visit he had paid since the death of Captain Huston; consequently he and Brenda had not met since the ball to which Trist had conceived the bold idea of bringing his enemy. With this fact in view William Hicks smiled in a sympathetic way as he advanced with outstretched hand, but said no word. They shook hands gravely, and Brenda resumed her seat.

'Mrs. Wylie has just gone to your mother's,' she said, in some surprise.

Hick's laid aside his hat, and slowly drew off his slate-coloured gloves. The action was just a trifle stagy. He might well have been the hero of a play about to begin a difficult scene.

'Yes,' he answered meaningly; 'I know.'

Brenda turned her small, proud head, and looked at him in silence. Her attitude was hardly one of surprise, and yet it betrayed her knowledge of his possible meaning. Altogether it was scarcely sympathetic.

Hicks allowed her a few moments in which to make some sort of reply or inquiry as to his meaning, but she failed to take the cue.

'I found out by accident,' he continued, 'that Mrs. Wylie was upstairs with my mother, and had just arrived. It struck me that you might be alone here—the opportunity was one which I have waited for—so I came.'

Brenda's eyes were much steadier than his, and he was forced to turn his gaze elsewhere.

'It was very good of you,' she said with strange simplicity, 'to think of my solitude.'

Hicks caressed his matchless moustache complacently, although he was in reality not quite at ease.

'I wanted to speak to you,' he said, in a tone which deprecated the thought of a purely unselfish motive in the meritorious action.

'About ... what?' inquired the girl, without enthusiasm.

'About myself—a dull topic, I am afraid.'

It is to be hoped that William Hicks did not expect an indignant denial; for such was not forthcoming. Brenda leant back in her chair in the manner of one composing herself to the consideration of a long and, probably, dull story. Her eyebrows were slightly raised, but she betrayed no signs of agitation or suspense.

Hicks slipped his cloak from his shoulders and rose. He stood on the hearthrug before her, looking down upon her as she reclined gracefully in the deep chair.

'Brenda,' he said, in a carefully modulated tone, 'I am only a poor painter—that is to say, I am not making much money out of art. I am, however, making a name which will no doubt be valuable some day. In the meantime I am fortunately in a position to disregard the baser uses of art, and to seek her only for herself. I have a certain position already, and I am content even with it. I intend to do better—to make a greater name. And in that aim—you can help me!'

He was quite sincere, but the habit of posing was so strong upon him that the magnificence of his offer perhaps lost a little weight by the sense of study, of forethought, of preparation, as it were, in the manner of delivering it.

There was a singular suggestion of Theodore Trist's school of life in the manner in which Brenda looked up now and spoke—a deliberate ignorance, almost, of the smoother social methods.

'Are you,' she inquired, 'asking me to be your wife?'

Hicks stared at her vacantly. He was wondering what sequence of thought brought Theodore Trist into his mind at that moment. The question remained unanswered for some time.

'Yes,' he said at length weakly.

In all his private rehearsals of this scene, he had never conceived the possibility of having to answer such a query. It was hard to do with dignity; and for the first time, perhaps, in his life he was not quite content with his own method. After a momentary silence he recovered his usual aplomb. Brenda was, he argued, after all but a girl, and all girls are alike. Flattery reaches them every one.

'I have,' he said eagerly, giving her no opportunity of interrupting him, 'known many people—moved in many circles. I am not an inexperienced schoolboy, and therefore my conviction should carry some weight with it. I am certain, Brenda, that I could find no more suitable wife if I searched all the world over. Your influence upon my art cannot fail to be beneficial—you are eminently fitted to take a high place in the social world; such a place as my wife will find awaiting her. I have made no secret of my financial position; and as to my place in the art world of this century, you know as much as I could tell you.'

He paused with a graceful wave of his white hand, and intimated his readiness to receive her answer. He even moved a step nearer to her, in order that he might with grace lean over her chair and take her hand when the proper moment arrived.

There was no emotion on either side. Neither forgot for a second that they were children of a self-suppressing generation, which considers all outward warmth of joy or sorrow to be 'bad form.' William Hicks had delivered his words with faultless intonation—perfect pitch—allowing himself (as an artist) a graceful gesture here and there. Brenda took her cue from him.

'It is very good of you to make me such an advantageous offer,' she said, in an even and gentle voice, in which no ring of sarcasm could have been detected by much finer ears than those of William Hicks, which organs were partially paralyzed by self-conceit; 'but I am afraid I must refuse.'

The artist was too much surprised to say anything at all. A refusal—to him! One of the most popular men in London. A great, though unappreciated painter—a perfect dancer—a social lion. He had been run after, I admit that, for most men are who take the trouble to be universally and impartially polite; but he had never taken the trouble of investigating the desirability or otherwise of those who ran after him. He had not quite realized that there was not a woman among them worthy to button Brenda's glove.

'Will you not,' he stammered, with blanched face, 'reconsider your ... determination?'

The girl shook her head gravely.

'No!' she replied. 'There is not the slightest chance of my ever doing that, and I am very, very sorry if from anything I have said or done you have been led to believe that my answer could possibly have been otherwise.'

To this Hicks made no direct reply. He could not with truth have accused her of the conduct she suggested. The fact merely was that he had not excepted Brenda from the rest of womankind, and it had always been his honest conviction that he had only to ask any woman in the world to be his wife to make that woman the happiest of her sex as well as the proudest. There is nothing extraordinary in this mild self-deception. We all practise it with marvellous success. It is a fallacy I myself cherished for many years, until the moment came (a happy moment for my near relatives, no doubt!) when I made the lamentable discovery that I was not in such demand after all.

Hicks had never been refused before, for the simple reason that he had never hitherto thought fit to place his heart at any maiden's feet.

'But why,' he pleaded, 'will you not marry me?'

Her answer was ready.

'Because I do not love you.'

'But that will come,' he murmured. 'I will teach you to love me!'

She raised her eyes to his face and looked calmly at him. Even in such a moment as this the habit of studying and dissecting human minds was not laid aside. It seemed as if she were pondering over his words, not in connection with herself at all, but in a general sense. She was wondering, no doubt, if there were women who could be coerced into loving this man. As for herself she had no doubts whatever. William Hicks possessed absolutely no influence over her, but she felt at that moment as if it were possible that a man could make her love him even against her will if he were possessed of the necessary strength of purpose. In a vague, indefinite way she was realizing that woman is weaker than man—is, in fact, a weaker man, with smaller capabilities of joy and sorrow, of love, hatred, devotion, or remorse; and, in a way, William Hicks profited by this thought. She respected him—not individually, but generally—because he was a man, and because she felt that some women could look up to him and admire him for his mere manhood, if she herself was unable to do so because he fell short of her standard.

In the meantime Hicks had realized the emptiness of his boast. From her calm glance he had read that her will was stronger than his own—that she did not love him, and never would. We, my brothers, who have passed through the mill can sympathize with this young fellow, despite his follies, his vanity, his conceit, his affectation; for I verily believe that Brenda cured him of them all in those few moments. Most of us can, I think, look back to the time when we were severally foolish, vain, conceited, and affected—many of us have been cured by the glance of some girl's eyes.

The artist dropped his argument at once. He turned away and walked to the window, where he stood with his back towards her, looking out into the dismal misty twilight. Thus the girl allowed him to stand for some time, and then she rose and went to his side.

'Willy,' she said, 'I am very, very sorry!'

She was beginning to think now that he really loved her in his way, although by some curious oversight he had omitted to mention the fact.

He turned his head in her direction, and his hand caressed his moustache with its habitual grace.

'I don't quite understand it,' he murmured. 'Of course ... it is a bitter disappointment to me. I have been mistaken.'

She made no attempt to alleviate his evident melancholy—expressed no regret that he should have been mistaken. The time for sympathy was past, and she allowed him to fight out his bitter fight alone. Presently he went towards the chair where he had thrown his cloak and hat. These he took up, and returned to her with his hand outstretched.

'Good-bye, Brenda!' he said, for once without affectation.

'Good-bye,' she replied simply, and long after William Hicks had left the room she stood there with her white hands hanging down at either side like some delicate flower resting on the soft black material in which she was clad.

CHAPTER VIII.

HICKS' SECRET.

When Mrs. Wylie returned home about five o'clock she found the drawing-room still in darkness. The maid had offered to light the gas, but Brenda told her to leave it. In the pleasant glow of the firelight the widow found her young friend sitting in her favourite chair with interlocked fingers in her lap.

Mrs. Wylie closed the door before she spoke.

'This is bad,' she said.

'What is bad?'

'I believe,' replied Mrs. Wylie in her semi-serious, semi-cheerful way, 'that I have warned you already against the evil practice of sitting staring into the fire.'

Brenda laughed softly, and met the kind gaze of the gray eyes that were searching her face.

'It has always seemed to me,' she said, 'that your philosophy is wanting in courage. It is the philosophy of a moral coward. It is braver and better to think out all thoughts—good and bad, sad and gay—as they come.'

Mrs. Wylie loosened her bonnet-strings, unhooked her sealskin jacket, and sat down.

'No,' she answered argumentatively. 'It is not the creed of a coward, no more than it is cowardly to avoid temptation. A practical man, however brave he may be, will do well to avoid temptation. A sensible woman will avoid thought.'

'I was thinking,' replied the girl diplomatically, 'of tea!'

From the expression of the widow's face it would seem that she accepted this statement with reservations. She made, however, no remark.

After a little pause she looked across at Brenda in a speculative way, and no doubt appreciated the grace and beauty of that fire-lit picture.

'Willie Hicks,' she said, 'has been here?'

'Yes. How did you know?' inquired Brenda rather sharply.

'Emma told me.'

'Ah!'

'Brenda,' said the widow in a softer tone, after a pause of some duration.

'Yes!'

'I have constructed a little fable for myself, in some part founded upon fact. Would you like to hear it?'

'Yes,' replied the girl with a slightly exaggerated moue of indifference; 'tell me.'

'Shortly after I arrived at the Hicks', Willie went out. I happened to know this, because I was near the window in the drawing-room and saw him. I also noticed that his gait was slightly furtive. I thought, "That young man does not want me to know that he has gone out." On my way home I met him going in the contrary direction. He avoided seeing me, and did it remarkably well, as might have been expected. But there was a change in his gait, and even in his attitude. The strange thought came into my head that he had been here to see you. Then I began to wonder what had caused the change I detected. It seemed as if William Hicks had passed through some experience—had received a lesson. The final flight of my imagination was this: that you, Brenda, had given him that lesson.'

Mrs. Wylie ceased speaking and leant back comfortably. Brenda was sitting forward now with her two hands clasped around her knees. She was looking towards her companion, and her eyes glowed in the ruddy light.

'I think,' she said, 'we should respect his secret. Naturally he would prefer that we were silent.'

'We are neither of us talkative.... Then ... then my fable was true?'

Brenda nodded her head.

'I am glad,' murmured the widow after a short silence, 'that he has brought matters to an understanding at last. It is probable that he will turn out a fine fellow when he has found his level. He is finding it now. His walk was different as he returned home. All young men are objectionable until they have failed signally in something or other. Then they begin to settle down into manhood.'

'He misrepresents himself,' said Brenda gently. 'When he lays aside his artistic affectation he is very nice.'

'But,' added Mrs. Wylie with conviction, 'he is not half good enough for you.'

Brenda smiled a little wistfully and rose to preside at the tea-tray, which the maid brought in at that moment.

And so William Hicks was tacitly laid aside. People who live together—husband and wife, brother and sister, woman and woman—soon learn the art of deferring a subject which can gain nothing by discussion. There are perforce many such topics in our daily life—subjects which are best ignored, explanations which are best withheld, details best suppressed.

During their simple tea and the evening that followed there were other things to talk of, and it was only after dinner, when they were left alone with their work and their books, that Mrs. Wylie made reference to the afternoon's proceedings.

'On my way back from the Hicks',' she said conversationally, 'I met Sir Edward.'

'Ah! Indeed!

Brenda looked up from the heavy volume on her lap and waited with some interest. Mrs. Wylie paused some time before continuing. She leant to one side and took up a large work-basket, in which she searched busily for something.

'Yes,' she murmured at length, with her face literally in the basket; 'and ... Theo is in St. Petersburg!'

'St. Petersburg!' repeated Brenda slowly. 'In the winter. I rather envy him!'

'I do not imagine,' said Mrs. Wylie, still occupied with the dishevelled contents of her work-basket, 'that he is there on pleasure.'

Brenda laughed lightly.

'Theo,' she observed in a casual way, 'is not much given to pleasure in an undiluted state.'

'I like a man who takes life and his life's work seriously.'

'So do I,' assented Brenda indifferently.

She knew that Mrs. Wylie was studying her face with kindly keenness, and so she smiled in a friendly way at the fire, which seemed to dance and laugh in reply.

'Is it generally known that he is in St. Petersburg?' she asked with some interest.

'Oh no! Sir Edward told me in confidence. He says that it does not matter much, but that he and Theo would prefer it not being talked about.'

'Why has he gone?' asked the girl.

Mrs. Wylie laid aside the basket and looked across at her companion with a curious, baffled smile.

'I don't know,' she answered. 'I had not the ... the...'

'Cheek?'

'Cheek to ask.'

Brenda returned to her book.

'I suppose,' she said presently, as she turned a page, 'that it means war.'

The widow shrugged her shoulders.

'We must not get into the habit,' she suggested, 'of taking it for granted that every action of Theo's means that.'

'He lives for war,' said the girl wearily as she bent over her book with decision.

Mrs. Wylie worked on in silence. She had no desire to press the subject, and Brenda's statement was undeniable.

They now returned to their respective occupations, but Brenda knew that at times her companion's eyes wandered from the work towards her own face. Mrs. Wylie was evidently thinking actively—not passively, as was her wont. The result was not long in forthcoming.

'My dear,' she said energetically, 'I have been thinking. Let us go down to Wyl's Hall.'

Brenda pondered for a few seconds before replying. It was the first time that there had been any mention of the old Suffolk house since its master's sudden death. Mrs. Wylie had never crossed the threshold of this, the birthplace of many Wylies (all good sailors and true men), since she returned in the Hermione to Wyvenwich a childless widow. All this Brenda knew, and consequently attached some importance to the suggestion. During the last six months they had lived on in an unsettled way from day to day. Both had, perhaps, been a little restless. There was a want of homeliness about the chambers in Suffolk Mansions; not so much, perhaps, in the rooms themselves as in the stairs, the common door with its civil porter, and the general air of joint proprietorship. What we call vaguely 'home' is nothing but a combination of small things with their individual associations. The milkman with his familiar cry, the well-known bang of the front door, the creaking of the wooden stairs; such trifles as these make up our home, form the frame in which our life is placed, and each little change is noted. The present writer first realized the true meaning of death by noting the absence of a small vase from the nursery mantelpiece. It was a trifling little thing of brown ware, shaped quaintly, and round the bowl of it was a little procession of Egyptian figures following each other in stately angularity. One day it was broken, and I have never forgotten the feeling with which I first looked at the mantelpiece and sought in vain the familiar little jar.

To women these small associations are, perhaps, dearer than they are to us men. No doubt they love to be known and greeted by their neighbours, rich or poor, while we are often indifferent. The want of human sympathy, of human interest and mutual aid is the most prominent feature in town life. Men live and die, rejoice and grieve, laugh and weep almost under the same roof, and never share their laughter or mingle their tears. Faces may grow familiar, but hearts remain estranged, because perforce each man must fight for himself on the pavement, and there is no time to turn aside and lend a helping hand.

Brenda did not lose sight of the possibility that Mrs. Wylie might be longing for the familiar faces and pleasant voices of the humble dwellers in Wyvenwich; but the proposal to return to Wyl's Hall was apparently unpremeditated, and therefore the girl doubted its sincerity.

'Not on my account?' she inquired doubtfully, without looking up.

'No. On my own. I am longing for the old place, Brenda. This fog and gloom makes one think of the brightness of Wyvenwich and the sea, which is always lovely in a frost. Let us go at once—to-morrow or the next day. The winter is by no means over yet, and London is detestable. Even if we are snowed up at Wyl's Hall, it does not matter much, for it is always bright and cheery despite its loneliness. We will take plenty of books and work.'

The girl made no further demur, and presently caught the infection of her companion's cheerful enthusiasm. Mrs. Wylie possessed the pleasant art of making life a comfortable thing under most circumstances, and for such as her a sudden move has no fears. While Trist adapted himself to circumstances, Mrs. Wylie seemed to adapt circumstances to herself, which is, perhaps, the more difficult art.

The good lady seemed somewhat relieved when the move was finally decided upon and arranged; nevertheless, there was a look of anxiety on her round face when she sought her room that night.

'I wish,' she observed to her own reflection in the looking-glass, 'that I knew what to do. I must be a terrible coward. It would be so very easy to ask Brenda outright ... though ... I know what the answer would be ... poor child! And I might just as well have spoken out boldly when I went to see him that night. It is a difficult predicament, because—they are both so strong!'

CHAPTER IX.

WYL'S HALL.

It does not fall to the lot of many travellers by sea to plough through the yellow broken waters of the German Ocean where the coast of Suffolk lies low and fertile. Thus it happens that these shores are little visited, and never overrun by the cheap tourist. Upon this bleak, shingly shore there are little villages and small ancient towns quite unknown to the August holiday-seeker, who prefers crowding down to the south coast. The main-line of the Great Eastern Railway runs its northward course far inland, and sends out at intervals a small feeler, often a single line traversed but once or twice a day. Between these sleepy lines there are tracts of country where the roads are mere beds of sand or shingle, quite unfit for polite traffic—broad marshes intersected by sluices and waterways too broad to jump, too unimportant to bridge, and at the edge of the sea a great hopeless plain of unfathomable shingle. Five miles across this country are equal to twelve upon a moderately good road. Driving is impossible, riding impracticable, and walking unpleasant. There is, indeed, a tiny coastguard path near the sea, but this is often lost amidst the shingle; and even when the land rises to thirty feet, in soft, sandy cliff, the walking is but doubtful.

The glory of this coast has departed; many of its villages and towns—once important—have likewise gone ... into the sea. It is dreary, if you will. I admit that it is dreary, but in its very mournfulness there is a great beauty. I do not speak of the ruins of bygone monasteries, of the tall, square-towered churches, of the quaint black fishing hamlets—though these are picturesque enough—but of the land itself. The long, unbroken shingle shore, where is visible, upon the clean stones, a plank or an old basket for miles away—where the shore retreats in ridges to the green seawall or bank, each ridge marking the effect of some great storm. And over the sea-wall, inland, a great wild, deserted marsh, or 'mesh,' as it is called in Suffolk, dotted here and there with black-hulled, white-sailed windmills, duly set at low tide by the solitary 'mesh'-man to pump the water into the sluices and so into the sea.

A golden sunset over these lands seen from the sea-wall is a wondrous sight, for the land gleams like the heavens. The brilliant westering light searches out all still waters craftily hidden amidst marsh-grass and bulrush, making each pool and slow stream reflect the gold of heaven.

But Suffolk by the sea is not all marsh. There are high sand-dunes, where oaks grow to a wonderful stature and a mighty toughness; where clean-limbed beeches rustle melodiously in the breeze that is never still on the hottest autumn day; and where pines grow straight and tall despite the salty breath of ocean.

The little town of Wyvenwich lies upon the northern slope of such a bank as this. Before it spreads a bleak sandy plain seven miles across, while behind all is fertility and leafy luxuriance. To the south, over the hill, and past the ruins of a forgotten monastery, lies a vast purple moor, which undulates inland until a mixed forest of pine, oak and beech shuts out further investigation. The red heather literally hangs over the sea, and a high tide, coupled with a north-easterly gale, beating against the soft sand-cliffs, never fails to reduce the breadth of Wyvenwich Moor a yard or so. The heathland slopes gently down to a vast marsh, in the midst of which stands a solitary red-brick cottage, the home of the marsh-man. The nearest house to it is the Mizzen Heath Coast-guard Station, set back from the greedy sea upon the height of the moor; and beyond that, surrounded by trees on all sides except the front, is Wyl's Hall.

The parish register tells of Wylies since the thirteenth century. Nothing of great importance, perhaps, but the name is there, and the possessors of it appear to have done their duty faithfully in the state of life in which they were placed. Baptism, marriage, death—what could human ambition require beyond that? And now the old race is extinct. A lonely widow, childless, almost kinless, lives in Wyl's Hall; and the last possessor of the name, kindly honest Admiral Wylie, lies in his great solitude among the nameless northern dead, far away in the deserted Norse churchyard upon the mountain-side.

Brenda Gilholme found a place for herself in the great human mill where we are all so many 'hands' serving our little looms, feeding our insignificant crushers with honest raw material which goes away from us and never comes again. Even to her analytical, deep-searching mind it was clear that Mrs. Wylie had need of someone to bear her company in her widowhood, and so she stayed unquestioningly at Wyl's Hall now that Mrs. Wylie had returned there.

Here she lived just like an ordinary little country maiden who knew nothing of Greek verbs and was profoundly ignorant respecting political economy. She knew all about the tides, and sympathized with old Godbold, the marsh-man, when the north-east winds blew against the ebbing tide, and laughed at all his five creaking windmills. She learnt the names of all the six stalwart coastguardsmen stationed at Mizzen Heath, and was deeply versed in the smuggling lore of this famous smuggling country, where the most honest and law-abiding man can scarcely look at the long deserted coast, the intersected marshland, and the silent sandy roads, without thinking of contraband wares. These coastguardsmen, with their civil tongues and ready ways, occupied an important position in the domestic economy of Wyl's Hall. Their little turf refuge was at the foot of the kitchen garden, and there a pleasant-spoken man was to be found by night and day.

Women are weak where sailors are concerned. Mrs. Wylie set an evil example with the London newspaper, and the portly cook followed with surreptitious cold pudding when her dishes were washed on a warm evening. There was always something requiring a man's hand at Wyl's Hall, and the coastguards had a certain leisure, during which the most somnolent could scarcely sleep. No man slumbers quite peacefully about five o'clock in the evening, however actively employed he may have been during the previous night; and, indeed, at all times of day or night there was usually one of the six Mizzen Heath guardians awake and off duty.

Into this little world, shut off by shallow seas in front, closed in by vast moors behind, Brenda had quietly made her way like some new and gracious flower when the flowers of earth were still frozen in. In it she had found a place, among its denizens a welcome. And this was life. This the end and aim of all existence. To do a little good, to leave a pleasant memory in a few hearts. Ah, my brothers, the marble slabs in every church tell of men's virtues and men's deeds; lauding them and praising them beyond their value! 'And of Mary, his wife, who died at the age of seventy-six.' A short record, a simple statement. We do not hear of her virtues and her deeds, and only a few of us vaguely surmise that she may have had a hand in the shaping of that wonderful vessel, her lord and master, whose good name will go down to posterity—an example to men unborn. Could the life of 'Mary, his wife,' be dissected, I think it would prove to be a cleaner record.

And so Brenda, in her way, was doing her share of unrecorded good, working out her small existence in a daily round of trivial self-sacrifices, self-suppressions, self-abnegations, as the majority of women are doing round us now. In a manner she was happy, for youth itself is a happiness, because it is a deceptive glamour of anticipation—anticipation which, thank God! we can never learn to recognise as destined to certain disappointment. At times she vaguely questioned the benefit accruing from the possession of an exceptional education, but fortunately she was unaware that she was endowed with an exceptional intellect. She did not suspect that she could have scanned the wide expanse of sea and land spread out around the coastguards' refuge without finding a human mind worthy so much as to hold mere passing intercourse with hers.

She never looked upon this existence as permanent. It could not last. Something would come, some change for good or evil, and the powers—the infinite womanly powers of love and self-sacrifice—would have a larger scope. Meanwhile she did her duty by Mrs. Wylie with unfailing energy and inexhaustible cheerfulness. Between these two women, as between the elder and Theo Trist, there had been no definite exchange of sentiments. Both would have said that their tacit devotion to each other was nothing else than a practical worldly arrangement of mutual advantage and equal benefit.

Mrs. Wylie was almost her old self again. At times the former cheerfulness of demeanour would lighten up the old house. There was the same capable sense of comfort in her presence, the same readiness to make the best of unpropitious environments. Her own sorrow, never publicly aired, was hidden deeply beneath a certain cheerfulness which can only be described as worldly. Worldliness is not a vice, it is a social virtue. Why should we parade our sorrows and clothe ourselves in a meek coat of obtrusive resignation? There is enough grief in life to justify a little slurring over, a little avoidance of grievous topics. If Mrs. Wylie never referred to her late husband in touching terms, it was not because his memory was devoid of meaning to her; it was because she cordially disliked any approach to cant, because the memory was too sacred a thing to be discussed. Of course, society at large and her neighbours in particular had a say in the matter—the usual kind of say—flavoured with tea and thin bread, garnished with spite and kindly malice. But Mrs. Wylie had always been rashly indifferent to criticism. She had chosen to ignore the precious advice of sundry female counsellors, who knew infinitely more about her affairs and their mismanagement than she did herself. And this was the result—the neighbourhood would talk, it is a way neighbourhoods have, and really there was cause for it. Cause, indeed—I should think so! Why, Miss Ferret, the elderly unmarried daughter of the late vicar of Wyvenwich, had never even been told the details of the small tragedy in Norway. And instead of coming down quietly to Wyl's Hall the widow had actually lived in her chambers in town—a flat, near Piccadilly. A flat, indeed, and Admiral Wylie scarce cold in his grave! There is some deep reproach in this which is not quite clear to my obtuse male brain, but I am assured upon the best authority that the matter was much spoken of at Wyvenwich. There are some people whose chief aim in life seems to be to avoid being spoken of. They try all their days to walk in a trodden path, to live a vegetating existence, which is so absolutely commonplace and everyday, so compassed about by rule and the safe guiding of precedent, that there is absolutely nothing left to speak about. Then they shake their lace-caps, or pull down their starched waistcoats, and, in the self-laudation of their bloodless hearts, are happy.

All through February and March the two ladies had lived happily at Wyl's Hall, without longing for the busier life of London. The human mind is even more adaptable to circumstances than the body that carries it. Small interests soon take the place of large, and quietude follows on excitement without any great mental change being necessary.

At times Mrs. Wylie heard about Theodore Trist—usually a vague rumour that he was in London, or Paris, or Berlin. In his deliberate way he was building up for himself a great reputation in that inner diplomatic world which is a sealed chamber for prying journalism of the cheaper sort. Upon certain international subjects the newspaper he served was without rival, but the closest observer could not detect his pen or assign any statement to him. The secret remained inviolate between himself and his editor. The position of Theodore Trist was unique, and has not since been approached. His grasp of the great subject of war was extraordinary at this time of his life, when all his faculties were in full strength. From the lock of a Berdan rifle to the construction of a trench, from the strap of a knapsack to the details of a treaty, his knowledge was unrivalled. In diplomacy he could have made his mark had he so wished, but he contented himself with studying the art as a sailor learns astronomy—merely as a factor in his profession. In some countries he was cordially hated—notably in Germany, where the peculiar circumstances of his position were incomprehensible. The Teutonic mind cannot grasp certain motives which solely depend upon a sense of honour or find birth in a scrupulous uprightness. Far be it from this impartial pen to speak ill of any man or men; but having lived among Germans in their own country, in their daily life and work, also in other countries and in different circumstances; having had transactions—friendly, commercial, and unfriendly—with them, I hereby make note of the fact that our self-complacent neighbours are mentally and totally unable to comprehend why a man, possessing certain knowledge and certain power, should hesitate to use it for his own personal benefit.

That which we in our trammelled smallness call 'scruple' they possess not; and to that cause must be assigned the reason that the great Teutonic nation never understood Theodore Trist. His position was to them an anomaly. They could not realize that he was capable of serving two nations—France and England—honestly at the same time, and so they distrusted him. He was hated because he had dared to criticise a military policy which was modestly considered in Berlin as the ablest yet conceived since armies first ruled the world. Added to this there was the rankling sore of an unforgotten story, told bluffly and with scathing sarcasm in a French and English newspaper simultaneously—the story of a dastardly attempt to extract information from a faithful Alsatian peasant woman by means of what in barbarous ages we would have denominated infamous torture.

Once Mrs. Wylie heard directly from Theodore Trist—a short note, sent with some quaint old jewellery he had brought back from the Slavonski Bazar in Moscow for herself and Brenda.

March was drawing to a close, and the low Suffolk lands were already green by reason of their dampness, when a second communication arrived at Wyl's Hall from the busy correspondent.

'May I,' he asked tersely, 'come down for a day or two to see you? Please answer by telegraph.'

The note came at breakfast-time, and a messenger was at once despatched to Wyvenwich with a telegram.

'It is quite an age since we have seen Theo,' observed Mrs. Wylie pleasantly, as she wrote out the message.

Brenda, who was occupied with her letters, acquiesced carelessly; but in a few moments she laid the communications aside and took up the newspaper. With singular nonchalance she opened it and went towards the window. There was nothing very peculiar in this action, and yet the girl's movements were in some slight and inexplicable way embarrassed. It seemed almost as if she did not wish Mrs. Wylie to notice that she was looking at the newspaper. During breakfast there was a furtive anxiety visible in the manner and voice of these deceitful women. Each attempted to rejoice openly over the advent of Theodore Trist, and at the same time carefully avoided seeking a reason for his unusual mode of procedure; for Trist was a man who never invited himself. Indeed, his habit was one of apprehensive self-suppression; except in the battle-field, he was nervously afraid of being de trop.

While the table was being cleared Brenda left the room on some small errand, and Mrs. Wylie literally pounced upon the newspaper the moment the door was closed. With practised hand and eye she sought the column containing foreign intelligence. Eagerly she scanned the closely-printed lines, but disappointment was the evident result.

'Not a word,' she reflected—'not a word. But perhaps that is all the worse. Theo is coming down here for some specific reason, I am sure. Either to say good-bye or ... or for something else. War—war—war! I feel it in the air!'

And the good lady stood there in the bow-window gazing through the rime-shaded panes away across the moor, over the green and mournful sea. Her clever gray eyes were half-closed, owing to a peculiar contraction of the eyelids—a little habit she indulged in when thinking in her brave cheery way of those things, my sisters, which you have greater leisure to meditate over than we men—of the happiness and the great joy we seem ever about to grasp, and which with melancholy invariability slips through our earthly fingers, fades from our earthly eyes. I sometimes think that when other women would have wept Mrs. Wylie contracted her eyelids, set her lips, and looked 'very courageous and of a good faith.'

Unconsciously she was looking away towards the east, to those mysterious lands, whence so many chapters of the world's history have been drawn.

CHAPTER X.

DIPLOMACY.

It happened that there were some warm balmy days towards the end of March, and on one of these Theodore Trist arrived at Wyvenwich. Mrs. Wylie and Brenda were on the little platform to meet him, and the elder lady, in her practical way, noted the lightness of his baggage and drew her own conclusions.

They walked to Wyl's Hall through the High Street of the little town, down towards the sea, up a steep path on the cliff, and finally across the moor. All green things were budding, tender shoots and bold weeds alike. Overhead the larks were singing in gladsome chorus. Side by side the three friends walked, and talked of ... the weather. I mention it because none of the three took much interest in the matter, as a rule, nor ever talked of it.

'Spring is upon us again,' Mrs. Wylie had said during the first pause.

'Yes,' answered Trist; 'this weather always makes me restless.'

'More so than usual?' inquired Brenda innocently.

Trist looked at her sideways.

'Yes,' he murmured, 'more so than usual. I suppose a new fund of energy creeps into my somnolent being.'

'Do you really believe,' inquired Mrs. Wylie, with exceeding great interest, 'that the weather has so much effect upon one as that?'

'I am sure of it. There is no denying the fact that in the springtime, when all things are beginning to grow, men grow energetic. If they be working, they work harder; fighting, fight harder; playing, play harder. The majority of events happen in the first six months of the year.'

'So the unexpected may be expected before July,' suggested Mrs. Wylie quietly.

'That may be expected at all times.'

Thus they talked on in vague commonplaces, not entirely devoid of a second meaning perhaps. Brenda scarcely joined in the conversation. It was enough for her to listen to these two strangely assorted friends, who seemed to her analytical mind to be rather different in each other's company than they were before the rest of the world. She never quite lost her youthful habit of studying human minds—picking them to pieces, dissecting them, assigning motives, seeking reasons—and her belief in the influence of one will over another (even at a distance) was singularly strong. She was pleased to consider that Theodore Trist and Mrs. Wylie possessed some hidden sympathies in common beyond the mere ties of friendship; and it is probable that she gained some instruction and perhaps a little benefit in watching their intercourse. Certain it is that each in turn spoke to the other as he or she spoke to no one else. Each possessed a power of bringing out certain qualities in the other, which power was unique. And so Brenda, who was at no time a talkative woman, listened in silence as they walked home to Wyl's Hall across the deserted moor.

When they had reached the house the girl went upstairs to remove her hat and jacket, leaving her two companions together in the library. This was a good-sized room, with a broad old-fashioned bow-window, of which even the panes of glass were curved, while all round it there was a low window-seat softly cushioned. In the broad fireplace some logs of driftwood burnt slowly and silently, with a steady glow of heat, as only driftwood burns.

Trist went straight to the window and stood in the centre of it, with his strong lean hands hanging idly. His eyes were soft and meek and dreamy as ever, while his limbs seemed full of strength and energy. The old incongruity was still apparent.

Mrs. Wylie followed him, and seated herself by the window at the end of the bow, so that the man's profile was visible to her. Thus they remained for some seconds; then he turned with grave deliberation and met her steady gaze.

'Well...?' she inquired.

'Well...?' he reiterated.

'How long are you going to stay?'

'Till Monday.'

'This being Friday...'

He signified assent and turned away again.

'Why have you come?' asked Mrs. Wylie abruptly, after a short pause.

This time he avoided meeting her eyes by the simple expedient of staring out of the window.

'I do not know...' he replied, with some hesitation.

'Yes ... you do!'

He wheeled round upon his heels and looked down at her with an aggravatingly gentle smile.

'Yes, Theo, you do! Why have you come?'

'May I not be allowed,' he asked lightly, 'a certain desire to see you and ... Brenda?'

'You may,' she replied; 'but that is not the reason of your coming.'

She settled herself more comfortably on the window-seat, laid aside her muff, loosened her jacket, and composed herself to a long wait with a cheery determination eminently characteristic.

'In the spring ...' he began, in a patient voice which seemed to contain the promise of a long story.

'The young man's fancy...' continued Mrs. Wylie.

'Lightly turns,' he said gravely, taking up the thread, 'to thoughts of ... war.'

At the last word he lowered his voice suddenly, and turned upon her as if to see its effect. She merely raised her eyebrows and looked at him speculatively. At last she gave a little nod of the head, signifying comprehension.

'Then you have come to say—good-bye?'

Here her voice failed a little. With care she could have prevented such an occurrence; but perhaps she spoke a trifle recklessly—perhaps she did not care to conceal the feeling which was betrayed by that passing break in her mellow sympathetic tones. When it was too late, she closed her lips with a small snap of determination, and looked up at him smiling defiantly.

'Not necessarily,' he replied coolly. 'It may mean that; or, at least, it may mean that I am summoned away at such short notice that there will be no opportunity of coming again. Personally, I should prefer it to be so. The pastime of saying good-bye may possess a certain sentimental value, but it is a weakness which is best avoided.'

Mrs. Wylie continued to watch the young man's face with speculative criticism. It is just possible that she suspected him of talking nonsense, as it were, against time or against himself.

'Is your information of a general description, or have you certain advice that war is imminent?'

Trist smiled almost apologetically as he replied, with caution:

'I have reason to believe that there will be a big war before the summer.'

'Turkey and Russia, of course?'

'Yes.'

'And you go with Turkey, I suppose?'

'Yes.'

'The losing side again?' inquired Mrs. Wylie diplomatically.

'Probably; but not without a good fight for it. It will not be such an easy matter as the Russians imagine.'

'Where will you be?' asked the persistent lady. 'At Constantinople or...'

'At the front!' said Trist.

The widow turned aside and looked out of the window. Across the moor, on the edge of the cliff, a coastguardsman was pacing backwards and forwards with a measured tread acquired at sea, and from the window they watched him in a mechanical, semi-interested way.

'Do you know,' said Mrs. Wylie at length, in a half-shamefaced way, 'I believe I am beginning to lose my nerve. Is it a foretaste of approaching old age? I really believe I am going to be anxious about you.'

Her semi-bantering tone justified Trist's easy laugh. He took it for granted that Mrs. Wylie was not speaking seriously.

'You must not allow yourself,' he expostulated, 'to get into bad habits of that sort.'

'Still,' argued the widow in the same tone, 'I do not see why you should be free from the restraining and salutary feeling that there is someone waiting for you at home.'

It was hard to tell whether Mrs. Wylie meant more than the mere words conveyed or no. Trist seemed to hesitate before replying.

'I am never free from that—but it is not necessary; my foolhardy days are over.'

'And this is to be the last time?' said Mrs. Wylie, consoling herself.

'Yes. The last time!'

There was a strange, hard ring in the young wanderer's tone as he echoed the foreboding words and turned gravely away. The sound seemed to strike some sympathetic chord in the good lady's heart, for she, too, looked almost mournful.

'I would give a good deal to have you safe back again,' murmured Mrs. Wylie in an undertone. The remark was hardly addressed to him, and he allowed it to pass unnoticed. Presently, however, he turned and looked into her face with some anxiety depicted on his calm features. Then he took a step or two nearer to her.

'This will never do,' he said gravely, standing in front of her with his strong hands clenched.

She gave rather a lame little laugh, and looked up with a deprecating glance.

'Theo, I am afraid I am not so plucky as I used to be. My nerve is gone. I think I left it ... at Fjaerholm.'

He made no reply, but merely stood by her in his silent manliness, and from his presence she somehow gathered comfort, as women do—from your presence and mine sometimes. Although we be of coarser fibre, failing to grasp the hidden pathos of everyday life—the little trials, the petty sorrows; failing often to divine the motives that grow out of a finer, truer, nobler nature than ours, and always failing to appreciate the unselfishness of woman's love—despite all these, our presence is at times a comfort because of the greater strength that does or should lie within us.

No reference had hitherto been made between Mrs. Wylie and Trist to the events attending the last voyage of the Hermione. A year had not yet elapsed, and the Admiral's name was still avoided. Trist was of a singularly sympathetic nature, although he evinced some contempt for death itself, which was a mere matter of familiarity; and it was his creed that things and names which cause a pang of sorrow are best left in oblivion. Mrs. Wylie was outwardly little changed, but he knew that the wound was by no means healed, and he had, therefore, allowed all recollection of the Hermione's sorrowful voyage to die from his memory. No doubt the great healer Time would do for Mrs. Wylie what he has done for us all since the days of Adam—but it was too soon yet. In the annals of sorrow a year is no long period. It has often struck me that we have to lament over one singular trait in the mechanism of the human mind. It is a pity that the effect of joy is so short-lived, while sorrow holds its own so long. There are so many varieties of sorrow that by the time we have tasted most of them and have become accustomed to the flavour, life itself is at an end, and lo! we have had no time to enjoy its pleasures by reason of the years spent in wrestling with woe.

Theo Trist held his peace sympathetically and yet without encouragement. Mrs. Wylie no doubt understood his motive, for they possessed in common that desire of concealing the seamy side which Brenda had characterized as cowardly. In her strong young courage (self-assertive as all young virtues are) she seemed to take a pride in facing untoward things—indeed, she sought them; while these two, in their greater experience, slurred them over as a clever painter slurs over certain accessories in his picture, in order that the brighter objects may stand more firmly on the face of the canvas.

'Nevertheless,' he said more cheerily, returning to the original question, 'you are the pluckiest woman I have ever met! You must not give way to this habit of anxiety, for it is nothing but a habit—a sort of moral cowardice. It serves no purpose. An over-anxious man misses his opportunities by moving too soon; an over-anxious woman has no peace in life, because she can do nothing but watch.'

Mrs. Wylie laughed pleasantly.

'No!' she exclaimed, with determination. 'It is all right, Theo; I will not give way to it. My anxiety is only anticipatory; when the moment comes I am generally up to the mark.'

With a brave smile she nodded to him and moved towards the door, carrying her gloves and muff. He followed in order to open the door, for he had some strange, old-fashioned notions of politeness which promise to become fossilized before the end of the century.

'Will it be a long war?' she asked, before passing out of the room.

He answered without deliberation, as if he had already pondered over the question at leisure with a decisive result.

'I think so. It will go on all through the summer and autumn. As things get worse, Turkey will probably pull herself together. It is a way she has. It may even continue actively right on into the winter. The Turks will be on the defensive, which suits them exactly. Put a Turk into a trench with a packet of cigarettes, a little food, a rifle, and a sackful of cartridges, and it will take a considerable number of Russians to get him out.'

'I hope it will not extend into the winter,' said Mrs. Wylie, as she left the room.

'So do I.'

He closed the door and walked slowly back towards the bow-window. There he stood staring out with eyes that saw but understood not, for many minutes.

'I am not quite sure,' he muttered at last, 'that I have done a wise thing in coming to Wyl's Hall!'

CHAPTER XI.

GOOD-BYE!

In the course of a few hours Theodore Trist was quite at home at Wyl's Hall. These three people had lived together before, and knew each other's little ways. Mrs. Wylie, the personification of comfort—Theo Trist, possessing no real comprehension of the word—Brenda, midway between them, with a youthful faculty for adapting herself to either. The narrow limits of a ship soon break down the smaller social barriers, and the memory of life on board the Hermione knitted the inmates of Wyl's Hall in a close and pleasant familiarity. At times, indeed, the union of the three around the fireside or at table seemed to emphasize the absence of the fourth, to suggest the vacancy caused by the stillness of a pleasant voice, the absence of a fine old face. But this slight shadow was not unpleasant, because it had no great contrast to show it up. None of the three was hilarious, but there was a pleasant sociability, which for every-day use is superior to the most brilliant flashes of wit.

Very soon the old, semi-serious style of conversation found place again. Brenda fell into her former habit of listening (too silently, perhaps) to Mrs. Wylie and Theo, accusing them at times of cynicism and worldliness. Old questions came to life again—unfinished discussions were renewed. Everything seemed to suggest the Hermione.

Again and again Mrs. Wylie found herself watching the two young people thus thrown together, and on each occasion she remembered how she had watched them before to no purpose. Since the pleasant summer days spent in the Heimdalfjord many incidents had come with their petty influences, and yet these two were in no way altered towards each other. One great difference was ever before her eyes, and yet she could not detect its result. Alice Huston was now a free woman, and if Trist loved her, there was no reason why he should not win her in the end; indeed, there was great cause to suppose that the matter should be easy to him. And yet there was no change in his manner towards the girl who, in all human probability, was destined to be his sister-in-law. The old half-chivalrous, half-brotherly way of addressing her and listening to her reply was still noticeable; and it puzzled the widow greatly. But Brenda seemed to take it as a matter of course. This man was different to all other men in her estimation; it was only natural that his manner towards her should be unlike that of others. And now a subtle change took place in Mrs. Wylie's mind. On board the Hermione she had been convinced that if any woman possessed an influence over Theo Trist, that woman was Alice Huston. (The widow was too experienced, too practical, too farsighted to attempt a definition of this fascination exercised by a woman of inferior intellect over a man infinitely her superior in every way.) Now she was equally sure that Trist was moved by no warmth of love towards the beautiful young widow who had so openly thrown herself in his path.

One trifling alteration seemed to present itself occasionally to the good lady's watchful eyes, and this was a well-hidden fear of being left alone together. Whether this emanated from Theo or Brenda it was impossible to say, but its presence was unmistakable, and, moreover, whatever its origin may have been it was now mutual. At one time they had possessed a thousand topics of common interest, and found in each other's conversation an unfailing pleasure. Now they both talked to her, using her almost as an intermediary.

On the Saturday morning, while dressing, the widow meditated over these things, and in the afternoon she deliberately sent her two guests out for a walk together. About three miles down the coast, in the very centre of the marsh lying to the south of Mizzen Heath Moor, was a ruined lighthouse, long since superseded by a lightship riding on the newly-formed sandbank four miles off the shore. In this ruin lived an old marshman, in whose welfare Mrs. Wylie appeared suddenly to have taken a great interest. For him, accordingly, a parcel was made up, and the two young people were despatched immediately after lunch.

Mention has already been made of Mrs. Wylie's nervous abhorrence of any interference in what she was pleased to consider other people's affairs. In this matter she had at last made up her mind to act, because she loved these two as her own children, and there was in her kindly heart a haunting fear that they were about to make a muddle of their lives.

A slight haze lay over the land as the two young people made their way across the moor towards the coastguard-path—a narrow footway forever changing its devious course before the encroaching sea. Before their eyes lay a vast plain, intersected here and there with watercourse or sluice; while away to the southward rose a blue barrier of distant hill. Inland, the meadows were green and lush; while nearer to the sea the grass grew sparsely, and there were small plots of sand and shingle nourishing nought but unsightly thistles.

Already the clouds were freeing themselves from winter heaviness, and in their manifold combinations there was that suggestion of still distance which is characteristic of our English summer days, and has its equal in no other land, over no other sea.

The yellow sun was high in the heavens, with nothing more formidable to obstruct its rays than a slight shimmering haze. The air was light and balmy—indeed, in earth and air and sea there was a subtle buoyancy which tells of coming spring, and creates in men's hearts a braver contemplation of life.

It was, I think, a dangerous hour to send two young people away across the lonesome marshland alone together. Nevertheless, Mrs. Wylie watched them depart without a pang of remorse or a sting of conscience. Indeed, she calculated the risk with equanimity.

'I think,' she reflected, 'that this walk to the old lighthouse will be one of those trifling incidents which seem to remain engraved in our hearts long after the memory of greater events has passed away. They are both self-contained and resolute, but no human being is quite beyond the influence of outward things.'

For some time the two young people spoke in a scrappy way, of indifferent topics. The narrow path only allowed one to pass at a time, and the moor was so broken that progression at the side of the path was almost impossible. After, however, the Mizzen Heath Coastguard Station had been left behind, and the precipitous slope descended, the sea-wall afforded better walking, and the conversation assumed a more personal vein.

'Tell me,' said Brenda pleasantly, 'your plans in case of war! We know absolutely nothing of your proposed movements.'

'I know nothing myself, except in a very general way. Of course, we shall be guided by circumstances.'

'We...?'

'Yes; I take two men with me. The campaign will be on too large a scale for one man to watch unaided. These two fellows act as my lieutenants. I have chosen them myself. One is a future baronet with a taste for sport and literature, which is a rare combination. The other is a soldier, twenty-five years older than myself. We shall be a funny trio; but I think it will be a success, for we mean to make it one. The two men are full of energy and as hard as nails. Our plans are almost as voluminous and as comprehensive as Moltke's. It will be a great war, and we intend our history of it to be the only one worth reading. The old soldier is a Frenchman, so we shall tell our story in two languages simultaneously.'

'And where will it be—where will the battles be fought?'

'It is hard to say, because so much depends upon the apathy of the Turks. They will probably allow them to cross the Danube before making an effort to stop them, and the thick of it may be in Bulgaria again. I shall be at the Danube to see the Russians cross—probably at Galatz. There are small towns south of the Danube of which the names will be historical by this time next year, and in all probability there are men who will have immortalized themselves before then, although they are quite unknown now. War is the path by which the world progresses.'

'I suppose the younger Skobeleff will do something wonderful. I know your admiration for him.'

'Yes. If he does not get killed before he is across the Danube. As a leader I admire him, but not as a strategist. There are other men I know of also who will come to the front, but in the Turkish army individuality is more important than in the Russian. The lower the standard of discipline the higher is the power of personal influence over an army. The Turks depend entirely upon the individual capabilities of a few men—Suleiman, Osman, Tefik, and a few others.'

Brenda was not listening with the attention she usually accorded to Theodore Trist, whatever the subject of his discourse might happen to be, and he knew it. She had a strange trick of lapsing into a stony silence at odd moments, and he rarely failed to detect the slight difference. Such fits of absorption were usually followed by the raising of some deep abstract question, or an opinion of personal bearing. It may have been mere chance that caused him to cease somewhat abruptly, and continue walking by her side in silence; or it is possible that he knew her humours as few people knew them. The question of a Russo-Turkish War had suddenly lost all interest, and he might as well have told his opinion to the winds as to this girl, who had, a moment earlier, been a most intelligent listener.

For some time they walked on without speaking. The soft turf of the so-called sea-wall, which was nothing else than an embankment, gave forth no sound beneath their feet. The tide was out, and the day being still, there came to their ears only a soft, murmuring, continuous song from the little waves.

At last Brenda turned a little and looked at him in her thoughtful, analytical way, as if to read on his features an answer to some question which had arisen in her mind.

'Yes,' said Trist, smiling at her gently. 'Go on. You are about to propound one of those very deep theories which invariably suggest themselves to you in the middle of my most interesting observations.'

She laughed rather guiltily as she shook her head in denial.

'No.... I was only ... wondering.'

'Wondering—?' he repeated interrogatively, but she omitted to answer his implied question, and he did not press it.

'Do you know, Theo,' she said, after a little pause, 'that you are the greatest puzzle I have ever come across?'

'I am sorry,' he murmured, with mock humility.

'Oh, don't apologize! I dare say it is entirely unintentional. What I cannot understand is your nonchalant way of talking of certain things. For instance, nothing seems to be farther from your thoughts at this moment than the possibility of your being ... killed.'

He chipped off the head of a withered thistle with his stick before replying in a low, steady voice, very deliberately:

'And yet nothing is nearer to them.'

'That is what I cannot understand. I think women look farther ahead. They seem to have the power of realizing at the beginning what the end may be—realizing it more fully than men, I mean.'

'I doubt it!' he answered. 'I have to make two sets of arrangements, two sets of plans. One takes it for granted that I shall come through it all safely, the other goes upon the theory that I shall be killed. Each is complete in itself, independent of its companion. When I say that I will do something at a certain time, or be in a certain place, there is a "D.V." understood, hidden between the lines. Everything is of course "Deo volente," but you would not have me drag it in obtrusively.'

'No ... naturally not. But what I cannot understand is your power of facing the two possibilities—or, at the least, the latter—with apparent indifference. Is that the difference that exists between the courage of a man and that of a woman?'

'No,' he replied, looking at her very gravely, and speaking in a tone which gave weight to words of apparently small importance; 'I think not, for women face possibilities and even certainties with equal pluck. It requires as much courage to remain at home and wait as it does to go out and face the danger, for danger is never so unpleasant as the anticipation of it.'

She remembered these words afterwards, and recognised then the fuller sense he had intended them to convey. In the meantime, however, she held to her point.

'It is not exactly in that way that I mean,' she murmured slowly. 'Not from a question of personal bravery at all. I meant...'

She hesitated in embarrassment, and he hastened to remove it.

'Yes—go on.'

'I was wondering whether you ever looked at it from a religious point of view.'

He did not reply at once, and in some way the pause gave a greater gravity to his words.

'Yes, Brenda. You must not think that. Every man has his religion, and I have mine. It may consist in faith more than in works, perhaps, but it is there, nevertheless.'

'But you are half a fatalist.'

'In some degree I am, but I do not go so far as to say that nothing matters. Everything matters! We are intended to do our best, to make the best of our lives; but there is undoubtedly a scheme which is beyond our reach and far above our petty influence or endeavour.'

Brenda was no mean theologist, and she now set to work to demolish Trist's system of fatalism, while half leaning towards it herself. Somewhat to her surprise she found that his knowledge upon certain points was equal to her own, and in some cases superior; his acquaintance with Eastern lore and Oriental creeds was quite beyond her depth.

In this manner they reached the lighthouse, passed a few minutes with its solitary inmate, and set off homewards again across the marsh. Mrs. Wylie would, perhaps, have been surprised could she have overheard their conversation, which was upon very different topics to what she had expected.

Before they reached the rising ground at the edge of the moor, the sun was low over the western plain. A faint mauve-coloured haze rose from the damp earth and hovered weirdly among the pollarded oaks and rank marsh grasses. The whole scene was terribly dismal, and the distant note of a jack-snipe seemed only to add to the lifelessness of the land.

As they passed through one of the swing-gates on the sea-wall, Brenda turned her head, and in a moment the characteristic beauty of the sunset caught her attention.

'Look!' she exclaimed in little more than a whisper.

He obeyed, closing the gate, and resting his arms upon it. Thus they stood, side by side, without speaking. She in her pure upright maidenhood, with the sunset glow warming her refined face with a hue of great beauty, for her eyes were deep and pensive as woman's eyes rarely are, while her sweet lips were parted with a simple faithful wonderment which was almost childlike. He rested his arms upon the gray, moss-grown oak of the gate, and looked upon the hopeless scene with meekly contemplative eyes. His square chin was thrust forward, and the indescribable incongruity of his face was absurdly prominent. There was a great strength and a wondrous softness, a mighty courage and a meek resignation, an indefatigable energy and a philosophic calm. All these were suggested at once in this strange Napoleonic face. So may the great Buonaparte have leant his arms upon yon low wall at Saint Helena, and wondered over the utter incomprehensibility of human existence.

It was Brenda who at last broke the silence, without moving limb or muscle.

'So you are going on Monday?'

'Yes ... I must.'

Something in his voice caused her breath to come quickly.

'But you will come back?' she whispered almost pleadingly.

He moved, and laid his strong bare hand over the small gloved fingers resting on the gate.

'Yes, Brenda. I will come back!'

Then they turned and walked home in silence.

That was their farewell. They never spoke together again in confidence before he left on the Monday morning. There was, indeed, a pressure of the hand and a cheery word of parting on the little platform of Wyvenwich Station; but their two souls went out unto each other, and stood face to face in one long agonized ecstasy of parting by that old oaken gate upon the sea-wall.

CHAPTER XII.

AT WORK.

I have often wondered why blasphemy is excusable when it is spoken from a throne. It seems to me that many crimes have been deliberately set forth upon paper under the exculpating heading of, 'In the name of God—Amen. We,' etc., etc. This thought cannot well escape suggestion while perusing a declaration of war. It is a subterfuge—a mean attempt to assign the responsibility to One who is mightier than princes or potentates. God does not declare war—it is man.

On the twenty-fourth day of April, eighteen hundred and seventy-seven, the Czar of all the Russias gave forth to his people that, bowing his head to the evident desire of the Almighty, he reluctantly declared war against the Ottoman Empire. There was much rhetoric about Christian nations suffering beneath the lash of Mohammedan hatred; stories were told of shocking cruelties practised upon an oppressed people, coldly worded statements were made of misgovernment, misappropriation, theft. And the remedy to all these was, if it may please you, war! From the formal declaration, with its pharisaical self-laudation, its rolling periods and mock reluctance, fourteen letters might have been selected, and set in order so as to spell a single word in which lay the explanation of it all. That word was—'Constantinople.'

Before the official opening of hostilities, Russia was prepared, and Turkey (despite a long warning) but half ready, as usual. The Russian troops entered Roumania and Turkish Armenia at once, the inhabitants of both countries, with Oriental readiness, receiving them as deliverers. The day following the declaration of war saw the occupation of the town of Galatz.

Theodore Trist had, as he told Brenda he intended, taken up his quarters in this small town upon the Danube, and actually passed through its streets in the midst of the Northern troops unsuspected. When the conquerors had shaken down into their new quarters, and military discipline was beginning to make itself felt throughout the city, he discreetly vanished, and, crossing the Danube in a small boat, made his way South. At this time England began to receive the benefit of a brilliantly conceived and steadily executed plan of transmitting news. Trist and his two lieutenants appeared to haunt the entirety of the Ottoman Empire. One of them appeared to find himself invariably within reach of any spot where events of interest might be occurring. And from this time until the end of the great war this ceaseless flow of carefully-sifted information continued to set eastward to Paris and London. The first official notice taken was an imperial decree, forbidding the admittance into Russia of the French and English journals to which Trist was attached as war-correspondent. This heavy punishment in no way affected the equanimity of these mistaken organs, of which the circulation in the Northern empire had never attained a height worth consideration or even mention. A sackful of copies under private addresses had been the utmost limit, and out of these the majority were usually lost in transmission with that patient, bland persistency by means of which the Russian Government usually succeeds in quelling any private and individual attempt to learn what the world is saying. It is remarkable how little is known in England of the method of procedure in a country so near at hand as Russia. I verily believe that Hong Kong is better known than Moscow, Valparaiso than Tver. It is, for instance, a matter of surprise to many intelligent English men and women to learn that our newspapers are, with one or two exceptions, forbidden entrance into the Czar's dominions. And in the case of those exceptions there is no circulation—each copy comes under a private cover, with the probability of being opened several times on the way. Moreover, objectionable paragraphs, or, in the case of illustrated journals, sketches in any way connected with the seamy side of Slavonic life, are ruthlessly obliterated with a black pad. The transmission of news is virtually in the hands of the Government, with the natural result that all untoward events are hushed up, while pleasant things are glorified to the infinite profit of those in office. Respecting the progress of humanity, the events of the outer world, and the march of civilization, the whole of the vast continent of Russia is kept in the dark. Even with our marvellous facilities, the transmission of news over such vast tracts of land, across such stupendous plains, would be a matter of some difficulty; it is, therefore, easy to arrest the progress of thought, and force back men's brains into the apathetic, voiceless endurance of brutes.

Under these circumstances it will be readily understood that the views of the great English critic were looked upon with fear and dislike; additionally so, perhaps, because no one could accuse him of partiality or political bias. He studied war as an art, whereas the Russian staff had in most cases taken it up as a profession.

During the months that followed many brave men came to the front; but few reputations were made, whereas a number were lost. Gourko and Skobeleff proved that their personal courage, their calm assumption of a terrible responsibility, was something almost super-human; but as strategists they came within measurable distance of failure. The one has the stain of three thousand lives lost in one bold march upon his military reputation—namely, the crossing of the Balkans; while the other, the wild, half-mad Skobeleff, will have it remembered against him that two thousand of his 'children' fell in the storming of one redoubt, and three thousand more perished in attempting to hold it.

But in fairness to these reckless soldiers, it must be kept in mind that the Russians played, in a literal as well as metaphorical sense, an uphill game. They had to storm heights, 'rush' redoubts, and advance on trenches against the Berdan rifle in the hands of the Turk. Just as each man knows his own business best, so have we all our special way of fighting. The Russians are not brilliant at the attack, because they are too reckless of life, and in the excitement of the moment expose themselves with criminal prodigality; whereas there is no finer defender of a fortified position than the Turk.

Again, Skobeleff and Gourko were hampered by being in too constant and frequent communication with the royal amateur soldiers in their comfortable quarters on the Danube.

At first the Russians seemed to carry all before them, and the chronic unreadiness of the enemy was a matter for laughter. Having successfully crossed the Danube towards the end of June, driving the Turks before them step by step to Matchin, the campaign was looked upon as a mere parade. But Theodore Trist, retreating slowly from the Danube before the advance of the Northern army, held a different opinion.

'At present,' he wrote in the second week in July, 'everything seems to be against us. But the time is coming when some good men will force their way to the fore; and the power of individual influence over an ill-disciplined but well-armed horde like this is incalculable. Sulieman Pasha is said to be coming with his hardened troops, and from him great things may be expected. He is a good soldier, with an energy which is rendered more striking by its rarity in this country. When last I saw him he was spare in figure, much browned by exposure, singularly active, and as hard as nails. In appearance he is unlike a Turk, being fair, with ruddy hair and quick eyes. His men are more like a band of hill-robbers than a trained army, for they possess no distinct uniform; but they are full of fight. His staff is ludicrously informal, possessing no fine titles, and being entirely destitute of gold braid. The Turks are a strange mixture of impassibility and stubbornness. At times their fatalism gives way to an overwhelming strength of purpose, almost defying fate, and it is quite within the bounds of possibility that a trifling error on the part of the Russians may turn the tide suddenly upon them, and a disastrous retreat to the Danube will follow.'

By the time that the letter from which the above is extracted arrived in England, the far-seeing correspondent's prophecy had in part fallen true. The tide of fortune had set in in favour of the Moslem, and although a retreat was not as yet whispered of, it was held certain by experts that more men were absolutely required by the Russians in order to continue the campaign.

At this time the name of a hitherto unknown town in the north of Bulgaria was constantly on men's tongues. Until now no one had ever heard of Plevna, which, nevertheless, was destined to be the chief topic of conversation throughout all the civilized world for many months to come. The genius of one man raised this small city from its obscurity to a proud place in the annals of warfare, and the defence of Plevna will ever stand forth as a proof of the influence of one strong individuality over a whole army; and, one might almost say, upon the march of events.

Of course it is easy to state that much depended upon chance, but it is not only in warfare that we all have to wait upon chance. Those who step in quickly when fortune leaves the gate ajar are the winners in the war we are engaged in here below. Had Krüdener occupied Plevna when he received the order to do so, Osman Pasha might have died without leaving his mark upon the sands of time. But the Russian delayed, and the Turk stepped in. Osman saw at once the great strategetic value of Plevna, and Krüdener, the man of many mistakes, was outwitted.

'I see,' wrote Trist at this time in a private letter to his editor, which was not published until later, 'a subtle change in the atmosphere of events. It seems to me that the tide is turning. I will now attach myself definitely to the fortunes of Plevna. The time has come for me to give up my ubiquitous endeavours; to watch one spot only. My colleagues are splendid fellows, full of dash and energy; on them you must now depend for the other movements of the campaign. Osman is here, and Skobeleff is in this part of the country as far as I can learn—there is a feverish restlessness among the Russians, which suggests his presence. With these two men face to face Plevna will become historical, if it is not so already, for it will mark, firstly, the greatest military bungle of the age (Krüdener's neglect); secondly ... who knows? Osman is a wonderful fellow—that is all I can tell you now. I remain here, and if we are surrounded I will stick to Plevna until the end.'

The recipient of this letter, sitting in his quiet little room in Fleet Street, looked at the last words again. They were underlined with a firm dash, and immediately below followed the simple signature. About the entire letter there was a straightforward sense of purpose—a feeling, as it were, that this man knew what he was doing, and was ready to face the consequence of every action. The editor shook his vast head from side to side with a quiet and tolerant smile.

'The fever is upon him,' he said. 'It is a thousand pities that he is not a soldier.'

Then he leant forward and took an envelope from the stationery case upon the table in front of him. Into this he slipped the folded letter, addressing it subsequently to Mrs. Wylie, at Wyl's Hall, Wyvenwich.

On the last day of July, Prince Schahofsky and Baron Krüdener attacked Plevna. A combination had been intended, but Krüdener was again in fault. He was not ready at the hour appointed, and Schahofsky was led into the fatal error of attacking a superior force of Turks in a fortified position. The result of this was the loss of almost the whole of his fine army corps. The Russian soldiers charged gallantly but foolishly upon a literal wall of fire, for there is no man steadier in a trench than the fatalist. In some years, when the quick-firing rifle is perfected, there will be no such thing as carrying a breastwork at the point of the bayonet, for no man will live to stand up within forty yards of the position held. Even at Plevna, against an imperfect rifle in the hands of a half-trained, badly fed, poorly-accoutred soldier, the slaughter was terrible, and the result small. Only Skobeleff succeeded in really and literally carrying an intrenchment by the bayonet; and had he not been half mad with excitement and wholly carried away by the wild lust of battle, he would never have attempted it, for the men literally crawled over heaps of their slain comrades. The terrible work of the quick-firing rifle was only too apparent.

After the first assault upon Plevna the Russians settled down to a long siege, and heavy artillery was brought to bear upon the ill-fated town from every point of vantage on the surrounding hills. Step by step the northern foe crept up towards the town, until the sombre-clad figures within the redoubts were almost recognisable from the Russian lines.

Finally, it was one day announced that the last communication had been cut off and Plevna was surrounded. Like some sullen prisoner in the hands of a ruthless enemy, the fortress stood grimly silent, and all the world wondered pitifully what terrible tragedy might be working out its latest chapters within that small circle of blood-stained steel.

Vague reports reached England that there could not now be any food in Plevna. The garrison must be starving. Women and children were—thank God!—but few; for Osman had sent them away. Day by day the fall of this unforeseen, unsuspected stronghold was predicted, but day after day the dingy Crescent hung in the morning breeze, and every point was guarded.

The editor of the great English newspaper sat in his little room in Fleet Street and watched events from afar. No word reached him, for Plevna was silent, but he displayed no anxiety.

'Wait!' he said to all inquirers. 'Wait a bit. Trist is in there, and when the time comes he will astonish us all. One can always rely implicitly on Trist!'

CHAPTER XIII.

PLEVNA.

There is in one of the minor streets of Plevna a small baker's shop, with no other sign indicating that bread may be bought within than the painted semblance of a curiously twisted cake upon the yellow wall between the window and the low door.

On the seventh of September, eighteen hundred and seventy-seven, this painted cake was the nearest approach to bread that could be seen in the neighbourhood. For many weeks there had been no pleasant odour of browning loaves, no warm air from the oven at the back of the shop. Curious irony of fate! The baker had died of starvation. I almost hesitate to tell that the foul heap of clothing lying in the ditch a few yards down the hill was all the earthly remnant of the late owner of this useless establishment. Useless because there was nothing in Plevna now to bake. He had been dead many days, but there seemed to be no question of burying him. There were too many wounded, too many sick, dying, and festering men, for the living to have time to think of the dead. The heavy pestilential air was full of the groans of these poor wretches.

Within the little shop were three men—one seated at a rough table, a second standing before him, the third perched nonchalantly on the window-sill smoking a cigarette. The last-mentioned had the advantage of his companions in the matter of years, but of the three his gravity of demeanour was most noticeable. Amidst such squalid surroundings—by the side, as it were, of death—his personal appearance was somewhat remarkable, for he was neat and clean in dress. His fresh rosy cheek had that cleanly appearance which denotes the recent passage of the razor, the light moustache was brushed aside with a rakish upward flourish. The nose was small and straight, the eyes blue. A bright red fez tilted rather forward completed the smart appearance of the smoker, who manipulated his cigarette daintily, and, while listening to the conversation of his two companions, made no attempt to join in it. This man was Tefik Bey, Osman Pasha's chief of staff, one of the defenders of Plevna. I confess that Tefik is a puzzle to me. I cannot tell what sort of man he is. He is indescribable. Taciturn to a degree, he was barely thirty years of age, and looked younger. A dark, sombre, silent man is more or less a straight-forward production of Nature; but Tefik had the appearance of a light-hearted talker, and belied it.

The man standing in the middle of the small, low-roofed chamber was his wonderful chief, Osman Pasha. Tall, strongly built, and handsome, he formed a striking contrast to his young colleague. A loose, dark-blue cloak hung from his shoulders, and the inevitable fez surmounted his powerful brow. A short black beard concealed a chin of unusual firmness, and from time to time a nervous movement of a somewhat dusky hand brushed the hair aside with a rustling sound. The nose was large and inclined downwards with a heavy curve, while beneath bushy brows a pair of steadfast black eyes looked sorrowfully forth upon the world. There was determination and a great energy in those eyes, despite their wan thoughtfulness.

He who sat at the table we know. It was Theodore Trist. Clean and carefully shaven, he was literally clad in rags; but his face had lost its old dreaminess, its vague meekness of demeanour. A clear light in his eyes, the set of his lips, conveyed in some indefinite way that this man was in his element. Despite his hollow cheeks and sunken temples, in the midst of that heavy reek of death and blood, this Englishman was visibly happy.

'Do you want,' Osman was saying, 'to see what we can do with our triple ranks of Berdans?'

'Yes.'

'To-morrow Skobeleff will attack the redoubt again. He has positive orders to take it at any cost.'

'Will he take it?' asked Trist.

Osman turned with a smile towards Tefik, who was lighting a second cigarette. The chief of staff shrugged his shoulders, and threw away the end of the last cigarette with a sideward movement of his lips.

Osman shrugged his shoulders in precisely the same way.

'Who knows?' he said quietly. 'If they value the redoubt at four thousand lives, they might do it.'

Trist set his two elbows on the table and looked up at the speaker's face with calm speculative scrutiny. He did not offer him a chair, because he knew that Osman rarely sat down. The great soldier had no time for rest.

'Skobeleff,' said the Englishman, 'is a great man, but Napoleon would have been in here some time ago.'

Tefik moved slightly, and looked towards his two companions with a vague smile. He knew nothing of Napoleon the Great and his method of making war. Moreover, he did not care to know.

It was the chief of staff who finally broke a silence of some duration.

'Listen, Osman,' he said in a soft, dreamy voice. 'I hear the sound of a new gun. The Russians have mounted another big one. We are going to get it very hot.'

All three raised their heads and listened. After the lapse of a minute a dull thud broke upon their ears. The Russians had mounted a new siege gun, and Plevna was beginning its career as a target for a steadily increasing army of artillery. There was no indecent haste in loading or sponging. It was excellent practice for the gunners, and through the next three months the sound of heavy firing never quite ceased night or day. At times, by way of variety, the whole of the artillery combined in directing its fire upon a spot previously selected. But the grim game was not all on one side, for Plevna pluckily returned blow for blow.

'There is,' said an expert at Russian headquarters, 'a European directing those guns—probably a German.'

But Trist never sighted a single shot, although he did not withhold his advice.

'I know where it is,' said Tefik at last. 'Perhaps we can get at it.'

And he left the room quietly.

The two men remaining there did not speak for some time. Trist was occupied with a large sheet of paper covered with a fine writing, and showing columns of figures. Osman had brought this to him, and was now evidently waiting for it. The Englishman skimmed up the columns with the celerity of a banker's clerk, muttering the additions in his native language. The hand that held the pen was brown and scarred with manual labour, for Trist had worked in the trenches day and night.

'Yes,' he said at length, looking up in a business-like, curt way, which showed that between these men there was some bond of comradeship. 'Those figures are all right. At an extremity you could even reduce the allowance of soup, could you not?'

The soldier shook his head with a wan and momentary smile.

'Scarcely,' he replied. 'It is getting colder every day. If we want to hold out we must keep up the hearts of the men, and if there is nothing to press them upwards all our hearts drop into our stomachs, my friend.'

'There is more clothing to be had. We get a fresh supply day by day,' said Trist, with an uneasy sigh.

Osman winced. The meaning was only too clear, for the time had long since gone by for men to scruple over stripping the dead for the benefit of the living.

'Yes. You are right.'

With these words the commander of Plevna turned to go.

'What news have you?' inquired Trist indifferently, as he set in order the papers lying upon his table. He spoke in a loud voice, as all men did in Plevna, because of the roar of artillery and the rolling echo among the hills.

'Oh—nothing of importance!'

'Are you quite without communications from outside?'

Osman turned upon the threshold, and looked back with a smile of assumed density. Then he disappeared through the low doorway.

Trist turned to his papers again, but he had not begun writing when the Turkish commander appeared once more.

'Trist,' he said, coming forward with long, heavy strides.

'Yes.'

'I can get you out to-night. Had you not better go?'

'I would rather stay,' replied the Englishman. 'I am neither a woman nor a child.'

'But why run the risk?'

'It is my duty.'

'What we are enduring now,' said Osman, in a dull, painful voice, 'is nothing to what I foresee. At present we make some small attempt to collect bodies and ... and limbs, and bury them. Soon that will be impossible, for we shall want all our men at the guns and in the redoubts. The winter is coming on—food is already scarce—the wounded cannot be cared for. They and the dead will lie about the streets rotting in their own blood. My friend! this place will be a hell on earth!'

'Nevertheless, I stay.'

'Disease will take the town before the Russians break through—few of us will live to see Christmas!' pleaded Osman.

The Englishman looked up, pen in hand. There was actually a smile hovering upon his firm lips.

'It is useless,' he said very gently. 'I stay till the end.'

'As you like,' murmured the soldier, leaving the room.

Trist did not begin work again for some time. The pile of papers around was of sufficient dimensions to alarm a less methodical labourer, but in the apparent disorder there was really a perfect system. Darkness closed in soon, and the war-correspondent lighted a small lamp. Then he laid aside the larger mass of paper, and selected a sheet which he doubled carefully into the form of a letter.

'It is better,' he said, 'to face all probabilities. I shall write to her now, in case we are starved to death in here like rats.'

Far into the night this strange, restless Englishman sat at the little table writing. Heedless of the roar of artillery, the merry call of the bugle, and the groan of the dying, he wrote on at a great speed, for above all he was a writer. His pen sped over the paper with that precision which only comes from long practice—line after line, page after page of the small paper, perfect in punctuation, ready for the press in true journalistic form.

He folded the letter, and enclosed it in an envelope, which he addressed carefully in a legible roundhand.

'There,' he murmured, 'let that be the last line I write to-night. It seems to me that we are on the verge of a crisis. Osman has something on his mind ... I wonder if he means to cut his way out.'

Before lying down to rest on the heap of straw which served him as a bed, he collected all his papers and placed them securely in a large leather despatch-case, upon which was painted in black letters the address of the newspaper which he served. This was his nightly custom; for he was out all day upon the walls among the devoted children of Islam, and where bullets are flying no man has a right to ignore the chances of death. There was no bravado in the action, but a mere simple method. The chances were much in favour of the little baker's shop being left empty one night; but that was no reason why the British public should be defrauded of its rightful sensation in the matter of words written by a hand that is still, for nothing is so safe to draw as the last words of one who has died in battle or mishap.

People who live peaceably at home are accustomed to receive great odds in the game of life and death. They, therefore, cannot understand why others—wanderers, sailors at all times, soldiers in time of war—are content with the lighter favour, and have the power of living happily in close proximity to death.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE PUZZLE OF LIFE.

For five days and five nights there was little sleep to be had in Plevna. The Russians did not attack, as had been generally expected within the town, but commenced a terrible bombardment. Day and night the heavy guns were served by continual relays of men, and life in the redoubts was such as to reconcile the most philosophic to death. Within the town the scene was simply hellish. Osman has been accused of neglecting his wounded, but no man who crouched in the little town he so gloriously defended during those days would have the courage to aver that he could have done more than he did.

Tuesday, the eleventh of September, dawned, gray and hopeless. The smoke of a million rifles, a thousand cannon, hung heavily over the low hills. The continuous roar of the last few days seemed to have benumbed the very air, even as it had paralyzed men's senses.

In the Russian camp upon the Loftcha road there were signs of extra activity. The artillery fire was somewhat slacker.

'They will attack the redoubts to-day,' Theodore Trist said to himself, as he surveyed the position of affairs in the gray morning light. There was not much to be seen, owing to the density of the fog hanging low in the vales, but the five days' bombardment followed by audible activity in camp had some meaning.

Osman knew his weak point as well as it was known by Skobeleff; but the Russian general—foolhardy, reckless, wild as he was—hesitated to attack.

But there is no man who can boast that he is free from the trammels of duty. 'Duty is a certainty,' says one of our great living preachers, and I think we often lose sight of that fact. Skobeleff had received orders to take the redoubt in the curve of the Loftcha road, and on the eleventh of September he made ready to obey. Whether it was a criminal blunder or a deliberate sacrifice of human life, it is not for us to say; nor must we blame the young general who, much against his will, sent his men forward to a certain death.

It was afternoon before the advance was made, and in many places the fog had lifted.

Theodore Trist, with that instinct of warfare which was his curse, had selected a spot on the hill behind the doomed fortification, and thence, or from near at hand, he witnessed that terrible day's work.

Failure was Skobeleff's bête noir. Success in this case was an absolute necessity. There was only one way of gaining it in face of the horrible fire which was waiting within the fortification. Like the waves of ocean the Russian general swept his men up at carefully selected intervals. No troops in the world could have advanced under such galling volleys—they were bound to waver and fall back. But at the moment of hesitation a fresh regiment came on at the charge with a wild shout, bearing on the others in front of them. Four regiments rushed on thus to their death—three thousand men in three hundred yards. In the redoubt the Turks fought with that calm, desperate fatalism which makes such grand soldiers of the followers of Mahomed.

Theodore Trist, standing on the scarp of a second redoubt two hundred and fifty yards to the rear, wrote rapidly in his book, his mouth quivering with excitement. At last he could stand it no longer.

'By God!' he exclaimed hoarsely, 'I have never seen anything like this!'

And shouting incoherently, he ran down the slope towards the redoubt.

At this moment Skobeleff came charging up at the head of his last reserve, a mere handful of sharpshooters. Trist saw the general fall and roll over with his stricken horse. A great throb seemed to choke him, and he barely realized that Skobeleff was on his feet again leading on his men, waving his sword and shrieking like a madman. A moment later the Englishman was borne uphill before a rushing mass of Turks, black with powder, voiceless, inhuman in their fury. The redoubt was lost!

But Trist did not give way to the general panic. The instinct of journalism was too strong in him, and he stood for a moment between the two redoubts looking on with practised eyes. He knew exactly how many men had been defending the position now lost, and was busy counting roughly the small number of fugitives. In certain corners of the redoubt the fight was still going on, but the Turks in there were no better than dead men.

While he was still there a Russian non-commissioned officer picked up the rifle of a Turk, and took aim at the solitary figure standing upon the slope, but Skobeleff knocked away the barrel with his sword.

'Not that man, my child!' he exclaimed, in a voice hoarse with shouting. 'I know him. Let the story of this fight be told!'

The artillery fire had ceased all round, and for a moment there was a great silence in the valley, only broken by the moan of the dying and an occasional rifle-shot here and there. It was almost as if the living stood aghast—ashamed and cowering before their Maker, by the side of their grim handiwork. And so darkness came over the land, covering the hideousness of it with a merciful veil.

'They cannot possibly hold it!' Trist said to an officer who accosted him as he made his way—dazed and stupefied—back into the town. 'It is untenable.'

This was no idle attempt at consolation. The Russian general had obeyed orders, but now he knew that his gallant work had been all in vain. By itself the redoubt was useless, for it was fully exposed to the Turkish fire, and there was no material at hand to reconstruct it, had his weary men been equal to the task, which they were not. During the night he sent, again and again, for reinforcements, which were persistently withheld, and at dawn he pluckily prepared to defend the position as best he might with the remainder of his own army-corps.

Trist had said that when Osman and Skobeleff met there would be war indeed, and the result proved with terrible reality that he had spoken naught else but the truth.

At daybreak the fight began again. The restless Turkish leader had made all his arrangements during the night. Exposed as it was to a galling fire from all sides, it seemed impossible that the redoubt could be held. But Skobeleff was there, and under Skobeleff the Russians have fought as they never did before.

At Turkish headquarters there was little or no anxiety, for the enemy could not afford to take another redoubt at such a cost, and so skilfully had the fortifications been planned, that there was no reason to suppose that further advances could be made more easily.

'To-morrow,' Osman had said to his chief of staff, 'it must be retaken!' and the young officer merely nodded his head. Then with the pencil that he carried stuck into his fez above his eye, the Turkish commander proceeded to write out his instructions.

At daybreak the fight began again, and the sun had not yet lost its matutinal ruddiness when the first organized attack was made. This was repulsed, and the same fate attended four subsequent attempts. No man but Skobeleff could have held that position for so long. As usual, there was something unique and original in his style of defence. He waited until the attacking force was almost within forty yards before firing, and then met them with one crashing volley, the sound of which rose to the firmament like the crack of doom. After that the roll of fire swept from side to side, from end to end, with a continuous grating rattle like the sweep of a scythe in hay.

The short day was almost drawing to a close, when the remnant of the fifth attacking corps returned, baffled and disheartened. The sun had already disappeared behind a bank of purple cloud, through which gleamed bars of lurid gold low down upon the rounded hills. Overhead there was a shimmering haze of Indian red. It almost seemed as if the sky had caught the reflection of the blood-stained earth.

To the ears of the Turks came the distant sound of voices hoarsely cheering. The sound was of no great strength, for Skobeleff himself had been voiceless all day, and the remainder—a mere handful of black-faced, wild madmen—were dry and parched.

'They must be nearly worn out,' said Osman quietly, upon receiving the latest report. 'We will attack again, and take the redoubt before nightfall.'

Tefik merely acquiesced without comment, as was his wont, and turned away to give his orders with a close precision which inspired great confidence in his subordinates.

Presently he returned to where his chief was standing, not far removed from Theodore Trist, who was writing hard upon a gun-carriage.

'They want somebody to lead them,' said Tefik significantly. His contempt for the usual run of portly, comfortable Turkish line-officers was well known.

Trist looked up and saw that the commander was looking at his subordinate with calmly questioning eyes.

'I,' said the Englishman, closing his note-book as he came forward, 'will go for one.'

'And I, and I, and I!' came from all sides. Some were staff-officers, some civilians, some old men and some mere boys.

'An Englishman,' said Tefik, with the faintest suggestion of a smile, 'is too valuable to be refused! It would make all the difference.'

'I have been idle long enough,' answered Trist, in a voice laden with suppressed excitement. 'I cannot stand it any longer.'

He closed his note-book, drew the elastic carefully over it, and raised his eyes to the strange, dishevelled group of men before him. The chief of this wonderful staff, Osman himself, held out his hand without a word, took the book, and dropped it into the pocket of his long blue cloak.

Already the call of the bugle told that preparations were in course—that the commander's orders were being executed.

* * * *

Before darkness lowered over the land the redoubt was again in the hands of the Turks. This is a matter of history—as also the fact that the flower of the Russian army lay all round Plevna for three months afterwards, and never gained an advantage equal to that which they had held for twenty-four hours. Osman was impregnable—Plevna unassailable, except by the slower weapon of bodily hunger—grim starvation.

It was nearly seven o'clock on the evening of the twelfth of September, before Tefik Bey, the grave young chief of staff, found time to visit the great double redoubt which had cost the Russian army over five thousand lives.

Accompanied by an orderly bearing a simple paraffin hurricane-lamp, he made his laborious way over the heaps of dead. Upon the hill above the redoubt the Turks lay in thousands. There were rows of them, shoulder to shoulder as they had charged, marking the effect of Skobeleff's terrible volleys. Below the defence, upon the lower slope, the Russians covered the earth, and in the redoubt itself Moslem and Christian lay entangled in the throes of death. They were literally piled on the top of each other—a very storehouse of the dead—for the Russians had fought all day standing upon the bodies of the slain. Now the ready Turks trampled countryman and foe alike beneath their feet, for it was by no means certain that an attempt might not be made at once to regain the coveted position.

While crossing a ditch, that had been hastily cut by the Russians, Tefik stopped suddenly.

'Give me the lantern!' he said, in a peculiar short way.

Then he stooped over the body of a man who lay face downwards upon the blood-soaked turf.

'Turn him over!'

The flame of the hurricane-lamp flickered ruddily, and lighted up a calm, bland face. The firm lips were slightly parted in a smile, which seemed to be, in some subtle way, interrogative in its tendency. The eyes were wide open, but not unpleasantly so, and their expression was one of meek, gentle surprise. The whole incongruous face as it reposed there, looking upwards to its Creator, seemed to say, 'Why?'

Tefik rose to his full height.

'Le philosophic,' he murmured, with a little shake of the head. 'Ah! but that is a pity—a thousand pities!'

He stood with the lamp in his hand, gazing upwards at the stars, now peeping out in the rifts of heavy cloud. Unconsciously he had turned his grave young eyes to the West—towards civilization and England.

After a moment he turned and went on his way, stumbling in the dark over the dead and wounded.

CHAPTER XV.

THE END OF IT ALL.

All through the rough autumn, and on into midwinter, Plevna held out. All the world waited and watched, sympathizing, as is its way, with the side where sheer pluck seems predominant.

At Wyl's Hall, Mrs. Wylie and Brenda lived on in their quiet way; and, to these two, life soon assumed a calm, unruffled regularity. Small local incidents took to themselves a greater importance, and the larger events of the world reached them only as an echo.

As Winter laid its hand with increasing power over the land, so Wyvenwich found itself day by day more isolated from the world, until one morning in the middle of December the last link was severed. A great fall of snow, driven across the North Sea, besieged the Eastern counties, and for a time paralyzed all workers. The coastguards could do nothing, for they were hemmed in by great drifts on Mizzenheath Moor. The boats were full of snow, the roads impassable, and the small branch railroad hopelessly blocked by drifts, sixteen feet deep in parts.

During five days, no news of the outer world reached Wyvenwich, until at last a signalman, whose occupation was gone by reason of the snowed-up railway, made his way on foot from the junction on the main-line, carrying the mail-bag on his shoulders.

This man brought the five-days-old news of the fall of Plevna.

It was almost mid-day before the post-bag was delivered at Wyl's Hall, and the two ladies were sitting in the broad-windowed library when the servant brought it to them. There was a heap of unfinished needlework upon the table, for it will be easily understood that such a woman as the widow would be able to find good work to do in a hard winter.

'Ah!' exclaimed the good lady, throwing her work aside—'letters at last!'

The servant smiled sympathetically, and left the room. The key of the bag was soon taken from its hiding-place in an ornament on the mantelpiece, and Mrs. Wylie shook out the letters upon the table.

'It is delightful,' she exclaimed, 'to be in communication with the outer...'

Suddenly she stopped, and laid the old leather bag aside slowly.

There were two thin brown envelopes among the white ones; also a larger one bearing a foreign stamp, and carrying evident marks of a long journey. This was addressed to Brenda, as were the two telegrams.

'... Outer world,' said Mrs. Wylie, in a peculiar breathless way, finishing her interrupted remark with determination. 'There are ... two telegrams ... for you, Brenda.'

The girl took the envelopes without comment, and opened one, dropping it subsequently upon the floor while unfolding the pink paper. She read the message without a change of countenance, while Mrs. Wylie made a brave pretence of being interested in her own letters. In the same manner Brenda opened the second telegram.

After she had read it, there was a horrible silence in the room, while the elder woman stood nervously reading the address of a letter to herself over and over again.

Then Brenda spoke in a clear voice, which bore no resemblance to her usual tones at all.

'Theo Trist is dead,' she said. 'He was killed on the twelfth of September at Plevna!'

The widow held out her hand, and took the two telegrams. They were from the great London editor—one telling of a rumour, the second confirming it. Brenda had read the confirmation first.

At last Mrs. Wylie raised her eyes to her companion's face, and following the direction of the girl's gaze, she remembered the large, ill-used envelope bearing a foreign stamp.

'That letter,' she whispered, trembling with downright fear.

'Yes,' answered Brenda, with the same sickening composure. 'It is from him.'

Then she took it and turned away to the window.

Without exactly knowing what she was doing, Mrs. Wylie sat down again in the chair she had vacated on the advent of the post-bag. Her lips moved as she stared stupidly at the work tossed aside on the table.

'O God!' she was whispering, 'give her strength!'

It seemed hours that she sat there without daring to raise her eyes. She heard Brenda break open the envelope and unfold the paper, which crackled loudly. Then there came no sound at all except at times a suppressed rustle as a page was turned.

At last the girl moved, turning and coming towards her companion.

'There...' she said gently, 'you may as well read it.'

She laid the closely written sheets upon the table, for Mrs. Wylie did not hold out her hand, and turned again towards the window, where she stood looking out upon the gleaming snow.

After a space, Mrs. Wylie took up the letter and read it dreamily, without comprehending its full meaning—without realizing that the hand which had directed the clear, firm pen would never write another word. It ran as follows:

'DEAR BRENDA,

'It may be that the long confinement in this grim slaughter-house has upset my nerve, or it may, perhaps, be that I am not so hard or so plucky as I was. Be that as it may, I am going to break through a resolution to which I have held ever since I took to the war-path. It was my intention to wait until the end of this campaign before telling you that I have always loved you—that I have always looked up to you as my ideal of a brave, true woman. I never doubted, darling, that my love for you was and is a strong, firm reality, as all the factors in my life have been. I never doubted its truth, its honesty, and its permanency—but these very qualities held it back. If I had loved you less, I could have asked you to be the wife of a war-correspondent (and one whose reputation was such that he could not afford to be found in the background). This, Brenda, has been my secret ever since I left college—ever since I followed the irresistible inclination which led me on to the battlefield. It is unnecessary to dwell now upon the effort that I have had to make a thousand times to conceal my feelings. I used to think (and tried to persuade myself that I hoped) that you would marry someone infinitely worthier of you—someone who was richer, and wiser, and cleverer, and someone whose profession was less hazardous; but in the last year or two I have conceived the wild notion that there was a reason in your persistent blindness to the merits of men calculated in every way to make you happy. Gradually I came round to the belief that you understood, in some subtle feminine way, the policy I was pursuing, and in this belief Mrs. Wylie persistently encouraged me in that cheery, inimitable way of hers. If I have made a gross mistake, you and Mrs. Wylie must let me know as mercifully as you can. I leave my case in your little hands, darling. But I feel confident that I am right. Rashness of conclusion, hastiness of action, has never been ascribed to me, and it is only after long consideration—after placing the circumstances persistently before myself in their very worst light—that I have taken to myself the comforting thought that I can make your life a happy one (as lives go) if you will trust it to me. We are not strangers, Brenda, but have known each other since we could first stand, and we have always been good friends. As I have grown from youth to manhood, my love for you has grown also in strength and sureness. I have never doubted it for a moment, though I may have hesitated as to its wisdom. Perhaps I may have caught from you a habit of setting both sides of a question upon a footing inconveniently similar, and the result has been an honest conviction that you could do better than marry me. Now that conviction has given way to another—namely, that I simply cannot do without you—cannot get on at all, except it be at your own express wish that I should. Circumstances have now changed. I have been fortunate in making a name, and in escaping many risks to which others have fallen victims. I can command my own price, and make my own conditions. Altogether, I am now in a position such as an honourable man could ask his wife to share. As soon as this campaign (my last) is over, I shall hurry home to you. After all, my resolution has not collapsed entirely, for this letter cannot leave here until an end of some sort come upon us. We are like rats in a trap, but the pluck of these fellows is something wonderful. I shall have much to tell you when I get back, for I am the sole historian of events inside Plevna. In the meantime, darling, I dare to call myself

'Your lover,
'THEODORE TRIST.

'Plevna, 7th September, 1877.'

Mrs. Wylie looked again at the signature in a curious, mechanical way, as if verifying it. 'Theodore Trist.' Two simple words in bold abruptness without flourish, scroll, or ornament. A clear running caligraphy, strong and plain, rapid, legible, straightforward and purposeful, fresh from the fingers now still in death.

The last time the name was ever written by its possessor was at the foot of that letter to Brenda.

The girl herself stood at the window, looking over the snow-clad moorland to the gray sea. Her back was turned towards the room; her white hands hung motionless at her side. Near to her the telegrams lay on a small table, half unfolded, disclosing their short brutality of diction.

Outside, the sun shone down on the glancing sea. The waves gleamed white, and on the shingle sang their everlasting song. All the world was lovely. The sea-birds whirled in mid-air, and shrieked fantastically for very joy. They had no thought of their own end—-no doubts as to the purpose of their creation—no question as to the wisdom of their Creator. Only man—the lord of all the earth—has these!

THE END.

BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.

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Table of Contents

- SUSPENSE

- CHAPTER I. THE SPORT OF FATE.

- CHAPTER II. BREAKING IT.

- CHAPTER III. MRS. WYLIE TAKES THE OFFENSIVE.

- CHAPTER IV. AN INTERVIEW.

- CHAPTER V. SOUTHWARD.

- CHAPTER VI. THEODORE TRIST IS AROUSED.

- CHAPTER VII. A LESSON.

- CHAPTER VIII. HICKS' SECRET.

- CHAPTER IX. WYL'S HALL.

- CHAPTER X. DIPLOMACY.

- CHAPTER XI. GOOD-BYE!

- CHAPTER XII. AT WORK.

- CHAPTER XIII. PLEVNA.

- CHAPTER XIV. THE PUZZLE OF LIFE.

- CHAPTER XV. THE END OF IT ALL.

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE