The Bracknels
Date: 2026-04-12T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Dysfunctional families -- Fiction; Ireland -- Fiction; Tutors and tutoring -- Fiction

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Title: The Bracknels
a family chronicle

Author: Forrest Reid

Release date: April 12, 2026 [eBook #78427]

Language: English

Original publication: London: Edward Arnold, 1911

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78427

Credits: Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BRACKNELS ***

CHAPTER I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII, XIX, XX, XXI, XXII, XXIII, XXIV, XXV, XXVI, XXVII, XXVIII, XXIX, XXX, XXXI, XXXII, XXXIII, XXXIV, XXXV, XXXVI, XXXVII, XXXVIII, XXXIX.

THE BRACKNELS

A FAMILY CHRONICLE

BY

FORREST REID

Author of
“The Kingdom of Twilight” “The Garden God”

LONDON

EDWARD ARNOLD

1911

[All Rights Reserved]

In compliance with current
copyright law, the University
of Minnesota Bindery
produced this facsimile on
permanent-durable paper to
replace the irreparably
deteriorated original volume
owned by the University of
Minnesota. 1994

THE BRACKNELS

CHAPTER I

Amy Bracknel, the morning sunlight picking out threads of gold from the loose mass of her dark-red hair, and accentuating the delightful purity and freshness of her complexion, watched her father for a moment of meditative silence. A faint smile passed across her face, a smile which became more pronounced as her glance encountered her sister’s rather small brown eyes expectantly fixed upon her from the other side of the table. “What is he like, papa?” she asked. “Is he good-looking?”

Her voice was firm, and its extreme clearness seemed to lend a certain boldness to her question, a suggestion almost of cynicism. The other persons present at the breakfast-table were probably accustomed to it. May, sitting opposite, waited a moment for her father’s reply, but as none was forthcoming offered her own opinion: “I’m sure he isn’t. I can’t imagine anyone who teaches being good-looking.”

The profound wisdom of this remark passed unchallenged, an apparent acceptance of its truth being conveyed by Amy’s next question. “But he’s only a beginner, papa, isn’t he?”

Mr. Bracknel looked up from his newspaper. He drank a mouthful of tea and sucked the ends of his moustache. His dark eyes rested discontentedly on Amy, and he paused deliberately. “He told me he had coached his young brother for some examination, and that he had passed it,” he said dryly.

“How old is he, papa?”

“Twenty-three.” This time Mr. Bracknel did not look up.

“A year older than May! How romantic! Is he dark or fair?”

“He’s fair,” her father snapped. “And if you’ve asked all your questions, be so good as not to mention his name again.”

Amy made a face but otherwise did not appear to be particularly impressed. She exchanged a second glance across the table with her sister.

“Don’t worry your father, Amy dear,” Mrs. Bracknel murmured timidly from behind her tea things. She watched every movement of her husband with dark, lustrous, melancholy eyes that seemed very large in the thin, sallow face with its hollow cheeks and bloodless, colourless lips. She was forty-six, and her eldest child, Alfred, was twenty-five. Her thin, smooth hair was already white about her temples, so often racked by abominable headaches. The eyes, in fact, were all that appeared to live in a discoloured, dried, emaciated countenance. When she met her husband’s glance her expression was of a mingled nervousness and fascination. She was painfully fragile. Her body seemed like a slender husk hardly capable of retaining the life that appeared to be burning quickly away within it, as if without any intervals of rest or sleep. Her pale yellow hands were as delicate as the petals of a flower, and her voice was sweet, soft and expressive, exquisitely pure, with a curious lingering charm, something winning and delightful, that made one wonder if she had not, as a young girl, been beautiful.

The boys, the two sons, the eldest and youngest members of the family, were neither of them present at the breakfast-table, a fact which Mr. Bracknel presently commented upon.

“Where is Alfred? Where is Denis?” he asked, peevishly, and looking at his wife as if he suspected her of having persuaded them to stay away for his particular annoyance. A servant who had just entered the room ventured to reply to his question:

“Master Denis went out this morning early. He’ll be to have forgotten the time.”

Mr. Bracknel glared again at his wife who had made some little murmuring ejaculation. “It seems to me that that boy is allowed to grow up exactly as he likes, and to do exactly as he likes. I hope when his new tutor comes there will be no more of this.”

“Dear Hubert will hardly be able to prevent him from getting up early,” said Amy carelessly.

“Be silent, miss.... And Alfred!—where is Alfred? I suppose he will come down about twelve! I insist on his breakfast not being kept hot for him. Remember—I insist on it.” His voice took a higher pitch and his brown eyes opened wider in his fat, dark face, as they always did in moments of excitement. “This is the result of their training in childhood—or I should say of their want of training. It is just what might have been expected.”

“Why weren’t we trained, papa?” asked Amy pertly.

“Amy dear!” her mother reproved.

Mr. Bracknel wiped his mouth, leaving a greasy stain on his napkin. He rose from the table. His right hand, large and white, with thick fingers, two of which were adorned with rings, rested a moment on the back of his chair. The throbbing of the motor drawn up before the hall-door beat into the room.

“I shall drive Rusk home with me to-night,” he said, ignoring his daughter’s impertinence. “He will be here for dinner.”

He left the room. They could hear him for a minute or two moving about in the hall. Then the front door closed, and he was gone for the day. A kind of unconscious sigh of relief seemed to be breathed into the air. Almost at the same moment Alfred appeared in his dressing-gown.

“Governor away?” he asked softly, as he crossed the room and peered out of the window from behind the curtain. “There he goes. Looks rather pegged about something.” He turned to the others with a little laugh.

“Alfred dear,” Mrs. Bracknel remonstrated, “couldn’t you manage to come down a little earlier in the mornings? You know how it annoys your father when you are late.”

“I never saw him when he wasn’t annoyed,” said Alfred calmly. “At any rate he likes having something to jaw about. Chuck over the paper, Amy, and ring the bell.”

He began to scan the sporting news with his dull little eyes while his mother poured out his tea. She had almost finished doing so when he happened to glance up. “Oh, I say, I’m not going to drink that, you know. How long has it been in?”

“It came in with the rest of the breakfast.”

“Ah, well, you’d better keep it for Denis, then. I’ll have some fresh.” He turned again to his newspaper, over which he bent a heavy, unintelligent face that somehow did not inspire confidence.

“I suppose you will be home for dinner to-night?” his mother said, as she was leaving the room to give her orders to the servants.

“I don’t think so,” he mumbled. He always mumbled when he was asked questions that he did not wish to answer. It was his way of intimating that he did not want to be interfered with, and that if other people would only mind their own business he could be counted on to mind his.

“Mr. Hubert Rusk is to be here,” said Amy irrepressibly. “Don’t you want to see him? We are all dying to.”

“Who’s Mr. Hubert Rusk ...? What a name!”

“What’s the matter with his name? He’s a charming young man, at any rate—just a year older than May! He is Denis’s new tutor.”

Alfred grunted. “He’ll have a fat time of it then. I thought Denis’s education was supposed to be complete!”

“It’s a good deal more complete than yours is ever likely to be, dearest boy,” said Amy politely, patting him on the head.

He pushed away her hand. His thick, carefully parted, black hair was slightly ruffled by the contact and he growled out something unintelligible. In an adjoining room May could be heard trying over a new waltz on the piano.

Amy stood watching her brother, and smiling half-derisively, half-affectionately. For some obscure reason she preferred him to the other members of her family. She felt there was a bond of sympathy uniting them, though what constituted it she could not have told. But his very brutality appealed to her and she could understand him, understand the kind of life he led, his deliberate pursuit of the particular pleasures he cared for, in perfect disregard of what other people said or thought. She threw him over a cigarette from a box on the chimney-piece and he accepted it with another grunt. Alfred’s communications with his fellow-creatures very often took this simple form. He was a young man of few words, and conversation for its own sake had never appealed to him. “What’s the matter with him, anyway?” he asked brusquely, flinging away his newspaper.

“The matter with whom? With Mr. Rusk?”

“Oh, hang Mr. Rusk. What’s the matter with Denis? What’s wrong with him?”

“There’s nothing wrong with him.”

“I’ll swear there is,” said Alfred simply.

Amy watched him a moment in silence. “I don’t know what you mean. What’s wrong with you, I suppose, is that you’re jealous.”

The remark provoked a loud laugh from her brother.

“Jealous of Denis? Do say it again.” He leaned back in his chair, his hands in his pockets. “Denis ’ll never be a man. And at any rate he’s mad.”

“He’s only clever,” answered Amy, carelessly.

She was leaning against the chimney-piece, and she seemed, as she stood there, with her large limbs and superb red hair, to be filled with a tremendous fund of reckless, tumultuous life.

“What does Birch say? Does he think Denis is all right?”

Amy continued to look at him with clear, untroubled eyes. “All right?” she repeated, emphasising the words. “What horrible ideas you get hold of!”

“Well, Birch must have said something: and he never talks to me of course. He doesn’t like me. He’s too superior.”

“He never talks to anybody ... Denis is a genius.”

Alfred looked sceptical.

“May thinks so: she thinks he’s going to be something wonderful.”

“Oh, May!”

“She’s a genius too, you know. Just look at that lovely picture on the wall.”

“Ah well, May’s not so bad,” Alfred replied. “She’s all right: she’s all right in lots of ways.”

“Whatever are you talking about now? It’s only you who are ’so bad.’ Papa is perfectly furious.” This last remark was thrown out half seriously and it had the effect of making her brother look at the clock.

“By Jove!... I suppose I’d better be getting away. What’s this chap Rusk like? Is he all right? I hope he won’t be a nuisance in the house.... I hate those sort of fellows that are supposed to be clever and all that: simply a lot of rotters, every one of them.”

“Nobody but papa has seen him yet,” said Amy, good-humouredly. “We all hope for the best. He’s English and he comes from Cambridge.”

“I’ll bet my life he’s not the best then, or the second best, and I’m not going to tow him about with me. Full of side! If he’d been a Trinity man he might have been all right—but those other blighters.... Always stuck up—a lot of rotters. I hate a chap like that in the house: you never know what to do with him or how to treat him.... What sort of a screw is he knocking out of the governor? If it’s anything decent he’s a genius too.”

“I don’t know what it is,” said Amy. “It was Dr. Birch who brought him.” She paused a moment, her eyes fixed on him. “You’d better come home to-night,” she added suddenly.

Alfred frowned impatiently. “I can’t possibly. I have an engagement.”

“Don’t keep it then. What is the use of irritating papa more than is necessary?”

Alfred stared, but he looked more doubtful. “He’s got it badly, you think?”

Amy made a little face. “We didn’t see you all last week, you know. Papa is worried about something. He wasn’t in the sweetest of tempers at breakfast.”

Her brother pondered this: then he looked at her once more. “I suppose he’s backed the wrong horse somewhere?” he murmured interrogatively.

Amy shrugged her shoulders. “Like me,” she answered.

This reply had the effect of amusing Alfred. His countenance gradually expanded in a broad grin. “Well, you know, confound it all, it wasn’t my fault,” he said. “You’d think I’d made the beastly thing lose. I told you it was practically a certainty and so it was. The brute only lost by half a head. At any rate you might give it a rest now. I dropped a good deal more over it than you did.”

Amy did not seem impressed by this. “You can make it up in other ways,” she answered. “I can’t. And I had to borrow the money from May to begin with. However, I forgive you.”

“And I’d better come home to-night?”

“I think so.” Then she turned away impatiently. “You can please yourself, of course, but it seems to me rather stupid to be perpetually having rows with papa.”

Alfred threw the end of his cigarette into the grate as he yawned and slowly rose to his feet. For a minute or two he regarded himself with much complacency in the mirror over the chimney-piece. “Well, I’ll see,” he murmured as if he were conferring some special favour. “I’ll see what can be done.”

CHAPTER II

As Mr. Bracknel drove along in his motor he caught a glimpse of a slight, bare-headed figure scudding across the fields in the direction of the house, and he seemed to recognise his younger son. The recognition was apparently unaccompanied by any feeling of satisfaction, for his face immediately grew darker, though it had not been shining with benevolence before. Mr. Bracknel was not pleased with his family. Each separate member of it, to his present sense, seemed to vie with all the others in a tireless endeavour to give him the greatest possible annoyance. The girls, first of all, with their silly questions about a young man they had never seen. Probably they would chatter about him all the morning in the foolish idleness they had been brought up to. Idleness was a thing Mr. Bracknel utterly detested. It loomed gigantically before his eyes, swelling up in a sinister way till it became something like the source of all vice; yet his own abhorrence of it had apparently served merely to put it within easy reach of every other member of the family. They accepted his years of constant labour as giving them the right to live in luxurious, slothful ease, and he doubted if, in their hearts, they even thanked him for the privilege. The despondency of his expression grew more profound....

What use was Alfred in the business? More of an anxiety than anything else; and, so far as the work he did went, not worth a pound a week. And Denis, too, was growing up. There rose before him again a vision of a slight, bareheaded figure scudding across the fields in the direction of the house. What could he possibly do with him? What use would he ever be in the world? He would never even be able to earn his own living. He felt suddenly a violent grudge against his wife; a woman not capable of bringing up her children, in the end not capable of bringing a properly healthy child into the world. He had an obscure sense that she must have known all this before she got married, that she ought to have known it at any rate. She might not exactly have been able to foresee the illness that had so greatly changed her, but she must always have been delicate. He felt that he had a grievance, and that it was one for which there was no redress.

He drove on, his face still set in an expression of deepest gloom. He was now fifty-seven years old, and, as regarded the work of his life, an exceptionally successful man. In contrast with his stoutness and commonplace coarseness there was something strange about his eyes—strange, because it did not harmonize with what would otherwise have been the perfect animality of his appearance—a kind of fretfulness and evasiveness, as if, beneath its outer covering of heavy flesh, the spirit were uneasy, troubled, possibly afraid. He wore a moustache and a short beard, and his dark skin had a fatty and unhealthy appearance, giving the impression that he was not too fastidious in the care of his person.

He was a self-made man, and the struggle for wealth, notwithstanding an amazing share of luck, had been hard and probably hardening. His energy, his mind, his entire life had been given to his business. It was almost as if he had come to look upon it as a huge game of skill which had for its end the making of a fortune he would never have either time or desire to spend. During business hours he had rarely left the office except to attend a commercial meeting. He had had a room fitted up there, where he could sleep when it did not suit him to go home, and where he had taken his meals during the day.

And in the midst of it all he had fallen in love with, and married, a charming girl, without fortune, but extremely pretty—pretty with a kind of soft radiance that was too delicate to last. It had not been the first, and it was not to be the last, amorous episode in his career, but neither it nor any of the others had been able to divert his life for even a brief period from the deep narrow groove in which it ran. He had grown tired of his wife, his children had been born, he had fallen in love elsewhere, he had bought and largely rebuilt an old house with a fine stretch of land attached to it, and he had asked his acquaintances to dinner on certain somewhat rare occasions. Also he had attended a Presbyterian church, where, Sunday after Sunday, he had sat at the end of his pew, apparently listening to a string of platitudes setting forth a theory of life he could never for a moment dream of putting into practice. Only, all that was nothing. His life had been one thing—the building up of a business.

And he was not happy. The main causes of his discontent were connected with his health and with his wife and children. His sons were failures, and Amy, ever since the discovery of her flirtation with an under-gardener, had given him more cause for anxiety than for self-congratulation.

CHAPTER III

He dismounted from the motor and went straight to his private office without saying a word to anyone. He began at once to go through the early morning mail. The fifth letter that he glanced at drew an exclamation from him. Some goods had not been delivered on the date promised, and this note now was to cancel the order. Alfred again, he thought; and put it aside to be dealt with later. The eighth letter was in a rough unformed hand, but, after looking at the signature, he read its contents through carefully twice before tearing the white, glazed sheet into minute fragments. It ran as follows:

“16, Medway Street.

“Dear Mr. Bracknel,—I would be favoured if you would be so kind as to call here as I have something to tell you which I do not want to write as it is private matter. If you would come this morning I would be favoured, and it will be better than me going to the office which I do not want to do.

“Yours respectfully,
“Mary Brooke.”

What did she want? he wondered. His eyes turned to a faded, fly-soiled map that hung on the opposite wall. He began to consider several possibilities, but dismissed them one after another as unlikely. Yet curiously enough the letter did not add to his annoyance—rather his brow cleared a little, till presently the ghost of a smile passed across his face. Certain memories came back to him—memories in which Mary Brooke played a part. He saw her as she had been in her youth—the handsome shop-girl, a little sullen-looking, with dark hair and pouting lips. Well, all that was over now, and the secret of it had remained between them, but he was sure he had never cared for anybody else as he had cared for her then. If he had not been married already he would probably have married her. At least he had never deceived her, had never hidden from her his exact position. And later she had become the wife of Brooke, an anæmic clerk with a pale sickly face and weak eyes—Brooke, dead now for half-a-dozen years—she could never have cared for Brooke. She had married him for the sake of John; and when John was twelve years old they had adopted a little girl, the child of the clerk’s dead brother. He meditated, and gradually a vague regret overshadowed his mind. John was worth a hundred of Alfred and Denis, and yet he could not acknowledge him; he could only help him more or less indirectly. As he brooded over this his mood became more sombre, and the thought that at his death so much would pass into the squandering hands of his wife’s children, and away from the only child he felt to be really his, filled him with bitterness.

He began to go through the rest of his correspondence. He had a meeting at the City Hall at twelve o’clock which he could not miss, and at a quarter to eleven he went out, with the intention of calling first at Medway Street. He hailed a cab and gave the man an address, telling him to drive quickly. Their way lay through the centre of the most populous district of the city. The streets they traversed were narrow, the houses small and far from attractive, disfigured by peeling plaster and discoloured brick. There were long lines of ugly little shops displaying stale-looking fruit and faded vegetables, groceries and butcher’s meat, with a public-house at every corner. Very soon, however, they emerged into a more open quarter. The houses here were small also, but they were clean and respectable, and each could boast a little dingy fuliginous plot of scanty grass and dusty shrubs before its door. At number 16 the cab drew up and Mr. Bracknel stepped out on to the hot pavement, telling the man to come back in half an hour. He walked up the path, but the hall door opened before he had time to ring the bell. Mrs. Brooke stood there, stood to one side, in order that he might pass her in the narrow hall, and enter the little parlour, where he seated himself on a hard, high, slippery sofa of black horse-hair. She herself sat near the window beside a small table on which were arranged a few books that looked like school prizes, and several large pink and white shells on mats of crochet work. Mr. Bracknel glanced round the room. White muslin curtains hung before the window, and a large fat bluebottle was buzzing about them, every now and again banging into the pane. Two vases of artificial flowers under glass shades stood on the chimney-piece on either side of a cheap chromo-lithograph portrait of Queen Victoria, who gazed down placidly and yellowly upon the visitor’s discomfort. On the opposite wall was a framed coloured print of the Duke of Wellington when a schoolboy; and a few black-edged, “In Memoriam,” cards, and an array of cheap photographs, represented, he supposed, the absent friends of the family. Among the photographs he noticed an enlarged portrait of the late Mr. Brooke, which was not rendered more cheerful by the fact of its having been taken toward the end of his life and when he was already in an advanced stage of consumption. Between the door and the fireplace, now filled with pink and green tissue-paper, a sideboard, far too large for the room, projected uncomfortably, and a piano was wedged between the sofa and the window, shutting out a good deal of the light. Mr. Bracknel had time to take in all these details while he sat waiting for the somewhat grim-looking woman opposite him to tell him what she had to say. Every now and again he gave her a quick sidelong glance which was not altogether free from suspicion, and at such moments he became aware of something hard and unyielding in her face. He recollected that she had “got religion” at a Baptist Chapel, and was, somehow, not reassured.

He had laid his hat on the table, but now he took it up again. Mrs. Brooke noticed the movement, and it possibly had the effect of bringing her at once to the point. She spoke simply, without hesitation, and in a rather dry tone.

“I’ve been thinking Rhoda had better look for another place,” she said, “but I wanted to tell you first.”

“What’s the matter with her present place?” Mr. Bracknel asked.

Mrs. Brooke folded her red hands in her lap. “It’s not exactly the place,” she said. “It’s Mr. Alfred. He seems to have taken a fancy to her. He’s been getting too friendly, wanting to take her to theatres and music-halls.”

Mr. Bracknel frowned. “Why doesn’t she send him about his business?”

“She says she has tried to. But I can see it flatters her to think a fine gentleman like Mr. Alfred cares for her, and I don’t want things to go any further than they have gone. I thought I’d better tell you.”

Mr. Bracknel gave her a quick glance, but he said nothing.

The woman remained for a moment or two pondering. “Rhoda’s weak,” she then added quietly. “She’s no sense. She thinks of nothing but amusing herself. John is very good to her. He hires that piano there for her. But I don’t know that they get on particularly well together, or that they’re much company to each other. John and me are too serious for Rhoda. She finds the house dull, and she’s always looking for pleasure outside. I’d better take her away, but if I do I can’t have Mr. Alfred meeting her anywhere. He’s done that once or twice already, though Rhoda says it was an accident.”

“He has met her?”

“It wasn’t her fault.”

Mr. Bracknel rose to his feet. He stood leaning against the chimney-piece, lost in gloomy contemplation of the youthful Duke of Wellington. “You can let Rhoda keep her place,” he presently announced. “I see I shall have to send Alfred away in any case. It seems the only thing to be done. I’ve been thinking of it for some time. He’s got in with a very bad set—drinking, betting, playing cards. I’ll send him out to the house in Switzerland.”

His hostess waited for a moment. Her eyes followed the movements of the restless bluebottle which was now wandering with no very obvious purpose over the portrait of her late husband. It came to a pause in the middle of Mr. Brooke’s high white forehead. She watched it with such apparent earnestness that Mr. Bracknel’s gaze also turned in that direction. “How soon will that be?” she suddenly asked.

“At once—at once. Oh, you needn’t be afraid. I’ll speak to him whenever I get back. I suppose you have warned Rhoda?”

Mrs. Brooke rose and flicked her handkerchief at the fly, which set up a loud buzzing, but almost immediately returned to its former position. “What good does warning do?” she asked impatiently. “I can’t trust Rhoda. She hasn’t any of my blood in her. I don’t understand her. I never know how she’ll act, nor how much she tells me.”

There was a silence during which Mr. Bracknel slowly twirled his hat. He held it listlessly for a few moments and then replaced it on the table. “I’ve been thinking,” he began abruptly. “I mean sometimes I’ve regretted how things— Sometimes I think John perhaps ought to be told.”

“To be told what?” Mary Brooke asked.

“The truth. I think perhaps I ought—to acknowledge him. Privately, of course,” he added hastily.

“Privately?”

“Yes, that, of course, would be necessary. I haven’t quite made up my mind what would be best; but I feel that I can trust him. I—I like him.” There was something in her face that made it difficult for him to proceed. He had been going to tell her that it was his intention some day to offer a share in the business to John; just as by his own old employers one had been offered to him. He felt a peculiar sentimental expansion moving him to make even further confidences, to compare John’s prospects with his own as they had been at John’s age, to evoke a sympathetic atmosphere in which his youth and that of his unacknowledged son should be mingled, but before beginning he required some slight encouragement and she seemed to give him absolutely none.

Presently she rose to her feet. “Come and see his room,” she said simply.

He followed her in silence, regretting now that he had spoken at all. He did not understand her; he thought she was not treating him fairly. His visits had been rare—in fact it was almost the first time he had been in the house—and he looked about him with a sort of awkward curiosity, trying to imagine it his own home. It is true that if he had married her it would not have been his home, any more than it would have been hers—only, he had not sufficient imagination to picture her anywhere else. He believed that he could have been happy here.

She opened the door, and he passed before her into John’s bedroom. It was a cheerful, sunny room, but he wondered why she wanted him to see it. The walls were bright with coloured pictures from old Christmas Numbers, and in the corner was a book-shelf. Mr. Bracknel was no reader, but he examined the books. They were mostly concerned with economics. Three bird-cages depended from hooks in the woodwork above the window. A small looking-glass was nailed to the wall. A low stretcher, a chest of drawers—serving also as a dressing-table—a wash-stand and a couple of chairs—one of them an arm-chair—completed the furniture of the room.

Mr. Bracknel looked all round. He was pleased with what he saw: it seemed to him to be reminiscent of his own youth. He was proud of his youth; once more he felt a desire to talk of it. He remembered Alfred’s fifth-rate actresses, and sporting prints.

“John’s a fine fellow,” he sighed. “He’s going to do well—particularly well. He’s going to be a success.”

But he got no further than this; an instinctive caution held him back. Through the open window there came the shouts of some children playing in the street below. He descended the narrow staircase and took up his hat for the third time from the parlour table. “Well,” he said, “I must be going. I have a meeting at twelve. I will remember what you told me. You needn’t be afraid.”

“I wouldn’t have troubled you to come, only I thought it better not to write. You never know who may see a letter.”

Mr. Bracknel opened the hall door, and she watched him get into the hansom and drive off.

Before he had gone very far, his mood, which had slightly mellowed under the influence of his visit, began to alter, and his earlier irritation to regain ground. Especially when he thought of Alfred’s conduct was he indignant. Somehow he did not quite seem to have realised it at the time, but he realised it now. It was altogether detestable....

Matters at the meeting did not go particularly well either. Mr. Bracknel’s opinions on all points differed from those of his colleagues, and were apparently of a nature that did not admit of much discussion, let alone contradiction. They were, too, expressed with a pertinacity, a warmth, and above all a personal note, that in the end, though it failed to triumph, led up to a somewhat animated climax in which action promised to supersede argument. Mr. Bracknel wanted the tramway to be brought out as far as a certain tract of ground in his own possession, which at present was of no use to him, though it had long been advertised to let for building purposes. His scheme met with unexpected, and in the end violent opposition. When he returned to the office he felt thoroughly at odds with life, and by no means inclined to overlook anything that might have gone amiss during his absence. The first person he saw was Rhoda Brooke, typing a letter. She was really very pretty, and there was a gaiety, a brightness about her, which was distinctly attractive. But at present she principally reminded him of Alfred, and he asked for that young gentleman, and was informed that he had not yet returned from lunch. Mr. Bracknel inquired at what time he had gone out, and learned that it had been shortly after twelve. He looked at his watch. It was now two o’clock. He sent for John Brooke, and spoke to him of the order that had been cancelled. “Send Mr. Alfred to me as soon as he comes in,” he said.

“Yes, sir.”

When he was alone he began to wonder what John thought of him, to wonder if he disliked him. His manner was invariably respectful, but nothing more. Mr. Bracknel would have preferred to see him less independent. He would have liked him to come to him now and then to consult with him about things, to ask his advice, perhaps his help; for he was very young—only a boy....

Three—four o’clock came round, but still Alfred had not returned. At twenty minutes to five he came in, feeling in distinctly good form, and diffusing an odour of the various refreshments he had partaken of during a highly successful game of poker. He was just in a mood when it bored him particularly to have to listen to accumulated indignation, but he listened, nevertheless, with considerable patience. Unfortunately, toward the end of a long tirade, he was thoughtless enough to yawn slightly. Mr. Bracknel’s mouth drew in at the corners. “I have had enough of this, sir,” he said grimly. “To give a kind of completeness to your conduct I understand that you have been making yourself objectionable to one of the girls in the office; that you have taken advantage of her position to insult her. The thing is odious, disgusting. Her aunt would have taken her away if I had allowed it; I had a letter from her to-day.”

Alfred blushed and stared; for the first time in their interview he was considerably taken aback. “What does she say I have been doing?” he asked sulkily. “I saw her once outside the theatre door, I think, and paid for her ticket.”

“I don’t intend to discuss the matter with you. There are some things you are evidently dead to, and a sense of decency appears to be one of them. I intend to write to the Swiss house to-night telling them you leave here as soon as possible, and to find some position for you.”

Alfred shrugged his shoulders. He knew his father sufficiently well to avoid any argument. He simply turned on his heel and left the office.

CHAPTER IV

The motor which had met Rusk at the train brought him to the office at half-past six, in order that they might all drive home together. Before they started he was introduced to Alfred; but Alfred was sullen and silent, and in the car he sat staring into vacancy and an imaginary Switzerland, while Mr. Bracknel himself seemed scarcely more talkative. Between them the unfortunate young Englishman’s attempts at conversation were allowed to pass practically unheeded, or, at most, to receive but a curt word or two in reply. “What extraordinary manners they have!” Rusk thought, as he leaned his fair head back against the cushion and wondered what the other members of the family would be like. He decided not to trouble himself any further just at present in an obviously hopeless attempt to make himself agreeable, but all the same he felt not a little disheartened. He was very young, and among strange people in a strange country, and for the first time in a dependent position. He began to speculate as to how he should get on with his pupil, and pictured some surly, stolid boy of unpleasant appearance, rude speech, and uncouth ways. Then he remembered that Denis was delicate, and wondered if this would make things easier. Alfred struck him as singularly unprepossessing, as belonging to a type he had never hitherto been obliged to associate with, and Alfred’s brother might very possibly resemble him. He hoped for better luck, however, and began to think of other things. He regretted that he was going to miss his long vacation. It had been the offer of this post that had so tempted his impecuniosity, but he was half sorry now that he had accepted it. He would have done better to have stayed in his own country, among people rather more civilized. He had an idea that a very little of this sort of thing would prove sufficient. After all he had expected to be treated with ordinary civility. So he leaned back in silence and waited for what might follow. He was tall and well-built, fair-haired and fresh-complexioned, with blue eyes, and an honest, kind expression. He laughed easily, and he liked to put his hands in his pockets and to stretch his long legs. At school and at the University he had been fairly good at games and fairly good at work, but not particularly brilliant in either department. On the other hand, he had been decidedly popular. He had never had much money to spend, but he had never missed it greatly. He had gone abroad once or twice in his vacations, and had discovered that foreigners were, taking them all round, a rather rum lot, but in their own ways not half bad. It may be added that these journeys had not been given over to any very strenuous sight-seeing, and that churches and galleries, on the whole, had not proved sufficiently absorbing to prevent him from lounging away a good many idle mornings and afternoons in delightful and unexacting places.

His forebodings in regard to his pupil were largely relieved on his introduction to that youngster, which took place as soon as they reached the house. At all events Denis was not like either Alfred or his father. The boy’s share of personal beauty was meagre, but there was something pleasant about him. He was thin and sallow, with straight, black, coarse hair tumbling about a broad forehead. His grey eyes were dark and very peculiar, of a narrow, elongated oval, and set wide apart and slightly obliquely in his face, beneath thin black eyebrows, giving him, to Rusk’s sense, a most strange, an almost Oriental, look. Neither his mouth nor his ears were small, and his nose was too broad to be at all aristocratic; nevertheless, after due consideration, Rusk came to the conclusion that he looked rather charming. His second impression was that though he was thin he did not seem particularly delicate. He had been playing tennis and was dressed in white flannels, with a loose red and black striped blazer, and a crimson tie which happened to go particularly well with his dark complexion. Then, as Rusk shook his thin brown hand, he noticed that the boy’s queer, narrow, slanting eyes had the deep grey of an autumn sky, and that he had a singularly pleasant smile. “I expect he’s all right,” he thought. “There’s something nice about him.”

He had a further opportunity to examine his pupil a little later, for he found himself sitting opposite him at dinner. The boy seemed very quiet and decidedly shy; only now and then, when he glanced across the table at his new tutor, he smiled, as if he were prepared to be very friendly. Rusk thought him curiously different from the other members of the family. He asked himself just in what the difference consisted. It lay not so much in his appearance, he decided, as in something subtle and more difficult to seize. Then it occurred to him that the others were more or less overshadowed by the spirit of their father, and that Mr. Bracknel was frankly impossible. It was true he was not quite so surly as he had showed himself to be during the drive home, and that he even made several spasmodic efforts to be agreeable; but these attempts were a little overpowering, and did not tend to set our young friend at his ease. Rusk watched him with a certain curiosity, and wondered why he had never taken the trouble to learn the distinctive uses of a knife and a fork. And somehow the father, by some effect of association, influenced, he felt, one’s impression of the children—of all save the boy, who sat there in a kind of exquisite detachment, as complete, in its way, as that of the cat asleep in the window-seat.

Presently he noticed Denis’s expression change. His eyes were lowered, and he seemed to be gazing fixedly into a tumbler of water beside him. Mr. Bracknel was in the midst of a ponderous anecdote of the kind that develops slowly. But he told it well, with a boisterous sort of humour one would hardly have expected. May, who was sitting beside Rusk, saw that the latter was watching her brother. “Don’t take any notice,” she warned him in a rapid whisper, which unfortunately her father overheard. As he perceived the cause of the interruption his face grew dark.

He was silent for a moment as if he were gathering breath. “Denis!” he suddenly shouted, and the boy jumped. “How often have I to tell you that I won’t have these tricks? If you can’t behave like a gentleman you will get your meals given you in the kitchen. I’m not going to put up with it—d’ye hear—sitting down with the manners of a stable-boy. What are you doing with that tumbler?”

Denis met his tutor’s eyes for a second, and he smiled again, though a quick deep flush came into his face. He made no reply.

“What are you doing with that tumbler?”

“Nothing.”

Rusk looked away. Exhibitions of violence never appealed to him, and Mr. Bracknel seemed to be always violent, whether in good or bad humour.

“Denis dear!” the boy’s mother softly interposed.

Denis lowered his head, the blush slowly dying from his cheeks.

The tutor observed that Alfred now for the first time showed signs of mental animation: his small dull eyes were wide open, and he was watching the scene with a broad grin. Mr. Bracknel proceeded with his story and Rusk was only just in time to show the proper amount of amusement when the point was reached, for he was occupied with something quite different.

“Papa hates anything of that sort,” May murmured in a half-explanatory, half-apologetic way; and later on she repeated her remark in the drawing-room.

“Of what sort?” Rusk then ventured to ask. He was seated beside her, near an open window through which they could have stepped out into the dim, rustling garden.

“Anything—well, I can’t exactly explain—but anything that he calls superstitious. Denis and Amy are forever putting their foot in it. Amy does it on purpose, but Denis is quite different.... I hope you will not be cross with him, Mr. Rusk.”

“With whom? With your brother?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sure I hope not, but why should I be? Do you think I look cross?” He liked her now. There was something pleasant in her manner. Besides, the way she had spoken of her brother had been rather nice.

“Oh no,” said May quickly, “I think just the opposite. But Denis is——” She paused, and they both looked across the room at the object of her remarks, who was sitting in a corner, with his hands in the pockets of his trousers and his head sunk a little forward on his breast. “Oh, well, you know, Denis is rather queer.”

“Queer?” echoed Rusk. “In what way?”

“You’ll see for yourself. He’s very nice. He’s rather a dear, really. He’s very—I don’t exactly know the right word—very unworldly. Of course it must sound a little silly to say that about a boy, but you’ll find out what I mean later on.”

“Shall I? I’ve an idea I’m rather unworldly myself.”

“Then perhaps you’ll understand him.”

“You are very fond of him, aren’t you?” asked Rusk, glancing at her.

“What makes you say that? Because I called him a dear?”

“No. It was the way you said it.”

He watched her, and his fine young face expressed the interest he had begun to feel. He could see her better now than he had been able to during dinner, and he had corrected his earlier impression. There was a certain almost boyish quality about her, though she was not in the least masculine. Still Rusk imagined that, had she been playing in an Elizabethan comedy, she would have made up excellently well as a boy. He could hardly have believed that she was older than her sister. In contrast with Amy she seemed slight and immature. He saw that she was pleased by what he had said. He also saw that she had beautiful teeth, very small and white and even. He himself was pleased to find that he was getting on so well with her. He stretched his legs, and leaned back more comfortably in his chair. He looked remarkably ingenuous and youthful, and Amy, who was holding some wool for her mother, thought him very handsome and wished May would not monopolise his attention.

“Is there anything in it?” Rusk asked presently, “in the crystal-gazing, I mean. It was crystal-gazing, wasn’t it?” He turned to her with his boyish smile.

“It was supposed to be. Denis got hold of some book about it. He discovers the most extraordinary books.”

“And does he see anything—any pictures, or visions, or whatever they’re called?”

“He says he does. He described the most wonderful thing to us the other day, but I’m sure he made it all up.”

“And have you tried?”

“I’ve tried, but I’ve never seen anything. We’ve all tried for that matter—all, that is, except papa and Alfred. Even mamma has tried, though she seemed to think it almost wicked to do so. You’d better not say anything about it, however. You saw how angry papa got at dinner. I don’t know why Denis should have begun experimenting just then!—it was so like him!”

“And he really does see things?” Rusk persisted.

“No, I don’t think so.” She hesitated. “You can never tell with Denis whether he is making fun or not. It doesn’t do to take everything he says too seriously.... Look; he knows we are talking about him.”

Denis’s eyes were in fact fixed on them, and, as Rusk looked over, he coloured slightly. He appeared to hesitate for a moment or two: then he rose and walked across the room to where they sat.

“Well, it’s very interesting,” Rusk murmured as his pupil approached.

“What has May been telling you?” the boy asked. He stood before them smiling a little, his hands deep in his trousers pockets, his manner an odd mixture of shyness and assurance. He spoke rather slowly and in a soft and pleasant voice that suggested a peculiar sweetness of temper.

“She has been telling me about you,” Rusk replied.

The boy turned his head slightly away. “Ah, I knew that,” he murmured. “You mustn’t believe her too much though. You must judge for yourself.”

“I shall be delighted to, if you will help me.”

Denis laughed. “Oh, I’ll help you. I’ll do anything.” His bright, intelligent eyes met Rusk’s frankly. “En attendant, I’m going into the garden to avoid papa.”

These last words were added as Mr. Bracknel appeared in the doorway, and a moment later the boy had stepped out through the open window. Rusk looked after him. Then he broke into a sudden laugh which he immediately checked.

Mr. Bracknel had approached his wife, and had begun to talk to her in a carefully lowered voice, so that his words should be inaudible to anyone else. Rusk noticed how she seemed to hang upon all he was saying, how her eyes were fixed on him, and how once she made a movement as if to caress his hand. The sight somehow struck him as singularly unpleasant and he turned away. It had made him feel uncomfortable, almost as if he had witnessed something gross or indecent, as if he had discovered her to be the victim of some depraved taste. He had had the impression that she was distinctly refined, and he was quite sure that her husband was very much the opposite. And somehow to imagine her caring for him in the particular manner that everything in her attitude toward him just now appeared to indicate shocked him, jarred upon him, offended in him some peculiar sense of delicacy, of appropriateness. He told himself that his powers of observation must be quickening wonderfully in his strange surroundings, and that they must be making him horribly morbid. He looked again at the girl beside him, and she no longer seemed quite so attractive.

May, however, chattered on, unconscious of the little shadow that her parents had cast upon the scene; and presently, indeed, the shadow was removed, for Mr. Bracknel, having finished what he had to say, took up a position before the fire-place, where he stood, his hands nursing the tails of his coat, surveying his drawing-room and his daughters. The room was ugly, but he was not aware that it was so, for it was bright, and contained lots of things that had cost a good deal of money. There was a general impression of rich upholstery, of padded velvet and soft carpets, of crimson and gilt.

“Do you play or sing, Mr. Rusk?” Amy suddenly inquired, with the purpose of getting him away from her sister.

Rusk gave a slight grimace. “I sing a little—very badly—so badly that I suppose I ought to say I don’t.”

“Ah, it’s too late now,” Amy cried, and both girls became at once tremendously interested.

“I wonder if we have any of your songs?” said May. “But perhaps you play your own accompaniments?”

“I’m afraid I don’t—not even with one finger. But I can get my songs in a moment if you like. The people I was staying with in Dublin made me sing a lot. I ought to tell you that they weren’t at all musical.”

“Oh, do get them; you must,” the girls cried.

“I can play your accompaniments if they’re not frightfully difficult,” May declared. “At any rate, we can try how we get on.”

Rusk went off and presently returned with half a dozen songs. Amy tried to take them, but May was too quick for her, and having gained possession of them began to turn them over, making various comments and asking Rusk innumerable questions. She chose Tosti’s “My Dreams,” and seated herself at the piano, while Rusk made the usual excuses and apologies. He had a tenor voice, not very strong, and with an incurable tendency to flatness, but rather sweet. At all events, he looked remarkably handsome as he stood beside May at the piano, singing the sentimental words with a certain amount of feeling, which the girls found exquisite, and which Denis and Mrs. Bracknel too enjoyed. At the first note of music the boy had come in again, and was standing now by the window, half-hidden behind the curtain.

“I dream of the day I met you,
I dream of the light divine
That shone in your tender eyes, love,
When first they looked into mine.
I dream of the flowers that made me
A path for my longing feet,
I dream of the star that led me
To your chamber window, sweet.

I dream of the words you whispered
In the hush of that magic hour,
With your eyes like the stars above me
And your heart like an opening flower;
I dream of the rose you gave me,
I think of our last farewell;
I dream of the silent longing
That only the heart can tell.

Alas! Alas! I have lost my star
In a world of glaring light,
And only a few poor ashes
Remain of my rose to-night;
But I dream of my rose and my star and you,
And, whether we part or meet,
I shall love you the same for ever,
As long as my heart may beat.”

When he had finished, he knew that he had pleased them. They thanked him enthusiastically, and the girls were loud in their praises, begging him to sing again. They thought his voice was delightful, and Mrs. Bracknel was reminded of an Italian tenor she had heard, extremely well-known, if one could but recall his name. It was all very flattering, and of course Rusk was pleased. Naturally he insisted on the girls doing their share. May did not sing, but she would play something if he liked. Chopin’s second Nocturne? It was a thing she simply loved! She rattled it off with wonderful cheerfulness, and then Amy sang, May playing her accompaniment. At this, Mr. Bracknel—who, his wife explained, was not musical—took the opportunity to leave the room.

Amy had chosen the Flower Song from Faust, but it did not go very well, partly because, though she had not a bad voice, she could not keep in tune, and partly because, about half-way through, May in turning the page turned the song on to the floor. It had to be begun all over again, and this time May, though she turned her page all right, skipped a line in the accompaniment, and the song again came to a standstill. The effect was sudden and amazing. Crimson with rage, Amy seized the music and tore it in two, flinging the pieces across the room.

“Amy, dear!” Mrs. Bracknel murmured, but Amy was in a towering passion.

“She did it on purpose. Anyone could see she did it on purpose. She did it to make me sing badly before Mr. Rusk, to make a fool of me. You can see the way she’s been monopolising him all the evening, and she did this just out of spite.” Then, choking with suppressed tears, she rushed from the room.

Poor Rusk had turned very red. He didn’t quite know what to do, and tried hard to look as if nothing unusual had happened. May had picked up the torn music and stood there holding it in her hand.

“Hadn’t you better go after her, dear?” Mrs. Bracknel suggested, meekly.

“I’m sure I’ll do nothing of the sort,” May declared. “If she chooses to behave like that she can look after herself. I’m not going to bother about her at any rate.”

It was Denis, in the end, who came to the rescue. He left his position by the window. “Well, I think I’ll go to bed,” he murmured. “If you are tired, Mr. Rusk, I can show you your room.”

Rusk glanced at the clock hypocritically. “I suppose it is getting rather late,” he made answer. He loitered about for a minute or two longer and then said good-night, leaving the room under the guidance of his pupil.

Denis conducted him in silence. After they had reached the bedroom he still lingered. “It’s not a bad room,” he said quietly. “It looks out over the lawn, and there’s a rather nice view through the trees, though of course you can’t see it now. I hope you’ll be quite comfortable. If you think of anything you want, just give a thump on the wall. No one will hear it but me. I’m next door to you.” He walked over to the window and back again as if he were hesitating about something, as if there were something on his mind, but apparently in the end he decided not to speak. He simply held out his hand. “Well, good-night,” he said. “Be sure to let me know if you want anything. It usually takes me ages to get to sleep, so that you needn’t be afraid of disturbing me,” and he turned away.

CHAPTER V

Left to himself, Rusk of course took a closer survey of his room. It appeared to him to be extremely comfortable, giving, as Denis had said, on to the lawn at the side of the house, and with a couple of large casement windows that might prove draughty in winter but were very delightful just now. He opened them wide, leaning far out into a night as soft as velvet and breathing the coolness of the air, as he considered the rather startling climax to his first evening with the Bracknels. He detested scenes; emotional outbursts of any kind made him feel uncomfortable, and this one had been so especially crude, and he himself, through no fault of his own, had been so unpleasantly mixed up with it. He had disagreeable imaginings of what might happen in the future. It was evident that he must be remarkably careful. Difficulties of this particular kind naturally had not been among those he had contemplated when he had accepted his post, and he felt they were the ones with which he was least able to deal. He was still at the window and still engaged with these thoughts when he fancied he heard someone tapping at his door. He drew in his head and shoulders. “Come in,” he cried, taking a step toward the centre of the room. The door opened and Mrs. Bracknel appeared. She entered softly and begged his pardon for having disturbed him. “I came to see if you have everything you want,” she said in her low sweet voice. “You must tell me if there is anything I can do to make you more comfortable.”

“I am sure I shall be perfectly comfortable, thank you,” Rusk replied, feeling slightly embarrassed. “It all seems very nice,” he went on, as she still stood there. “I was just looking out into the garden.”

“It is very quiet in the moonlight,” Mrs. Bracknel murmured. “But I am disturbing you, Mr. Rusk.”

“No, no—not at all,” Rusk hastened to assure her, as if a conversation with Mrs. Bracknel were the one thing he had been pining for. A pause followed this remark.

“I thought I should like to talk to you for a minute or two, if you don’t mind, and it occurred to me that this would be a good time, but of course it will do perfectly well in the morning. I’m afraid my not being a very good sleeper myself sometimes makes me inconsiderate of other people. Do tell me if you are too tired.”

“Not at all—not at all,” Rusk again replied. “Besides, it’s quite early, isn’t it? As a matter of fact I always read for an hour or so before turning in.”

“Then if I’m not keeping you from bed I’m keeping you from your book, which is just as bad. However, I shan’t be long.... I wanted to speak to you about Denis.”

Rusk felt relieved, he didn’t quite know why. He recognized now from whom his pupil had got the sweetness of his smile. Mrs. Bracknel seemed different when her husband was not present. “Won’t you sit down?” he asked, pushing forward the armchair. She accepted it, and he himself took a less comfortable seat at the foot of the bed.

“You are very young, Mr. Rusk, aren’t you?” she began, softly.

“I’m twenty-three,” Rusk said.

“Yes! I should have thought you were even younger. It makes it so much easier for me to say what I am going to say when I remember your age. If you were ten years older I should be afraid that you might snub me for interfering.”

“Oh, I hope I shouldn’t do that,” answered Rusk. He was still a little shy, a little nervous, and his manner had a certain involuntary stiffness that he was himself conscious of.

“I know Mr. Bracknel has already spoken to you about Denis, and I expect he told you that he had been at school, and that he had had several tutors, and that he was hard to manage—didn’t he? And he told you that you must be very strict?”

“He did say something of the sort,” Rusk admitted artlessly.

“Yes; I know he looks at it in that way, and I suppose it is natural that he should. But there are some things, Mr. Rusk, a boy’s father does not understand so well as his mother.”

“A good many, I should say,” replied Rusk, gallantly. “I expect fathers are nearly always wrong.” He could see that she was very anxious about something, but he did not know quite how to reassure her. “I think it will be all right,” he went on at a venture, and already feeling more at his ease. “I mean to say, I don’t think you need be afraid.” He paused for a moment, and then added with a heightened colour, “I’m fairly decent, you know; and at any rate I like him.”

Mrs. Bracknel’s thin, transparent hands were crossed on her lap, and her large, dark, gentle eyes rested on the honest, comely face of the young man before her. He felt a certain pity for her, she looked so excessively fragile; and he noticed that her lips were quite bloodless. He felt suddenly in sympathy with her.

“It is because I thought I saw that you liked him, Mr. Rusk, that I wanted to talk to you about him. We have not been very successful up to the present in finding anyone for him. He was at school for a few months—at a school in the south of England. It was near the sea, and we thought it might make him stronger, but he was most unhappy there, and he got ill, very ill—in fact the doctor thought he could not recover. Then we tried having him taught at home, but somehow things have not gone very well up to the present. His tutors did not seem to understand him, and he did not like them. Of course I am sure he was often very trying, and I should not have been surprised if they had lost patience with him now and then; but I really think they did not understand him. He is a good boy; he is very affectionate and sweet-tempered, but he is a little different from other boys, I suppose; and he sometimes does strange things. Still——”

“We all do strange things now and then,” Rusk observed optimistically.

“His father gets angry with him and punishes him—but it is not good for him; I know, in fact, that it does him harm. Denis has taken a liking to you, Mr. Rusk. I saw it at dinner, though he did not open his lips—but that was only because he was shy.”

“Oh, I’m sure we’ll get on famously,” Rusk said. His young cheerful voice gave almost the effect of a promise to his words. “I don’t see why in the world we shouldn’t?”

Mrs. Bracknel smiled. “I just thought it might be better to tell you a little about him—that it might make it easier for you.”

“Thank you very much: I’m sure it will.”

“I don’t wish to make excuses for him, of course—but sometimes there are such things as good excuses. Don’t you think so, Mr. Rusk?”

“Of course there are,” said Rusk boldly. “I’m obliged to use a good many myself.”

Mrs. Bracknel regarded him gravely, with sweet, gentle, serious eyes, before which his little joke somehow faded away.

“At school, for instance, and here at home, too, he was always getting into trouble—about his lessons, about not working better, about other things. I daresay he is inclined to be a little idle, and I know he is often absent-minded, and careless about being in time for meals, and other things of that sort: but there is something, I think, at the back of it all. When he was a child, I remember, I was dreadfully frightened and unhappy about him, because he was so different from what my other children had been. There were times when he would sit perfectly still, and when I couldn’t get him to play, or to take notice of anything. It seemed so unnatural for a young child to be quiet like that, and I didn’t know what was the matter. I thought, too, he would never learn to read. Then one day, when he was about ten years old, his nurse showed him a Bible with queer, ornamented letters that somehow caught his fancy, and he learned to read almost at once. It is just the same now: there are some things which he doesn’t seem able to learn; but I don’t believe it is because he is stupid or careless or obstinate. It is simply a mental peculiarity that he has.”

“It is a fairly common one,” said Rusk, without any ironical intention. Then, as Mrs. Bracknel did not reply: “I’m inclined to think there’s not much use trying to learn things that merely bore you to death.”

“Yes, don’t you think so, Mr. Rusk? I have always thought so. But his father wants him to have a sound commercial education as well as—as the ordinary thing, you know.”

Rusk looked somewhat puzzled though he tried very hard not to. “Ah yes—a sound commercial education,” he repeated vaguely. “What exactly does he mean by that, I wonder?”

“By a sound commercial education? I’m afraid I don’t know. I thought you would know. It is the expression he always uses.” There was something almost plaintive in Mrs. Bracknel’s tone.

“I see.”

“Now and then he puts Denis through a sort of examination, and it is always after that that things reach a crisis. Denis is never able to give the kind of answer his father seems to want.”

“I see: I see,” Rusk murmured again, but this time somewhat blankly. “I don’t think he mentioned anything about that to me. In fact I’m sure he didn’t. I’m afraid——”

“Ah well, don’t bother about it,” said Mrs. Bracknel gently. “I’m sure it will be all right.”

Rusk hoped that it would be, but he felt rather doubtful. Mrs. Bracknel, however, rose and held out her hand. “And now you must forgive me for having kept you up so long.” Her eyes rested on him, her sweet, half-timid smile. “Good-night, Mr. Rusk; I hope it isn’t yet too late for your book.”

Left for the second time to himself, Rusk went over to the armchair she had vacated. He wheeled it close to the window, and, making himself comfortable, began to turn over in his mind what she had told him. He felt that he had come into the midst of a strange family, and that the day had been almost eventful. He thought a little of Mrs. Bracknel; then of Amy; and then of his pupil;—then of his own home, so curiously different from this; and lastly of Cambridge and of his friends there, of the men who had gone down at the same time as he had, of those who were still up. There were some letters he must get off his hands soon, but not to-night; it was too late. He looked out across the moonlit lawn, and a kind of dreaminess came over him. He sat there for a long time. At a little distance the trees were dimly massed, black and motionless against the sky. The air was warm and soft, and full of a fragrance of hidden leaf and flower. Everything was extraordinarily quiet. He supposed that all the rest of the household had gone to sleep, and he had just decided that it was time that he too should turn in, when he thought he saw a figure moving below him, but keeping close to the house. Rusk’s dreaminess slipped from him in a flash, and he became all at once very wide awake indeed. He leaned out of the window as far as he could without toppling over. Yes, it was there!—a slight, dark form, skirting now the edge of the lawn, and making for the shrubbery beyond. A moment or two later it was lost to view, but Rusk had had time to believe that he had recognised Denis. After all, who else could it be? Not a burglar at all events: it was a boy’s figure, and it was going from the house, not trying to enter it. To make quite sure, he softly opened his door and tapped lightly on that of the room his pupil had told him was his. There was no answer, and Rusk turned the handle. The moonlight streamed in through the unblinded window, pale and radiant, and he did not need to strike a match to see that the room was unoccupied. He advanced a few steps. The bed bore the trace of someone having lain upon it, but without having turned down the clothes. Rusk retraced his steps, and re-entered his own room. This time he undressed and went to bed.

CHAPTER VI

Next morning, after breakfast, Rusk and his pupil retired to a room called the library, which contained perhaps a couple of hundred volumes, nearly all of them unreadable—volumes Mr. Bracknel, in a moment of intellectual expansion, had bought at an auction where things were going rather cheap. To this musty collection a few third-rate novels had been added from time to time by the girls, but the room had never been used and had latterly been set apart for Denis’s studies. Master and pupil sat down now at the table, and the former endeavoured, by a variety of more or less ingenious questions, to get some idea of the boy’s scholastic acquirements. He found these to be, on the whole, more striking than encouraging, though after his conversation of the night before he had not expected very much. Still, if Mrs. Bracknel had represented her younger son as being somewhat wayward and of peculiar tastes, her description of him found even more than justification in the extraordinary manner in which his studies appeared to have been pursued. In the gardens of learning, at all events, it was very evident that he had wandered at his own sweet will, and some of the flowers he had pulled there were a trifle bewildering to an anxious young preceptor whose own studies had been conducted according to the most strictly orthodox methods. Denis was very intelligent; that at least was obvious; and for a boy of his age it seemed to Rusk that he had found his way through some extremely remarkable works. His mother had expressed the difficulty she had experienced in teaching him to read, but he had evidently since then made up abundantly for lost time. He had read a good deal; far too much; and it had all been so unpractical, so much in the air, that it had left him childishly ignorant in regard to many things that Rusk had hitherto associated with the very foundations of any education—the things he himself had learned at school, the things that it appeared to him everyone must learn. He began to see fairly clearly how his predecessors might have found their pupil rather trying, for after an hour’s investigation he was still extremely hazy as to where exactly they ought to begin. It was not safe to take anything for granted except his companion’s intelligence and perfect candour.

“I can’t quite get at how you have been working,” Rusk said in the end. “What is your own idea in the matter? You have followed your own ideas pretty exclusively, haven’t you? so that you ought to be able to tell me. If you were left altogether to yourself, for instance, what would you do?”

“I don’t know. I don’t suppose I should do anything.”

“Oh, but you have done things. You haven’t just taken the line of least resistance. What is it you care for in a book, for example? What kind of books do you like?”

“I like different kinds,” Denis replied, without throwing a great deal of light on the subject.

“Evidently; but there must be some that give you more pleasure than others.”

The boy shrugged his shoulders. He leaned back in his chair, his hands in his pockets, a slightly bored look on his face. A band of sunlight lay on the table between them. It just touched the top of the boy’s head in passing. “I don’t know,” he said.

There was something slightly irritating about these replies, but Rusk was not easily irritated. “Why do you read at all, then?” he asked.

“I’m sure I can’t tell you. I suppose it is when I feel rather sick of myself and of most other things.”

Rusk made a sound expressive of dissatisfaction at what seemed to him an exhibition of juvenile cynicism. “There is something very much wrong with you if you are sick of things at your age,” he remarked a little dryly.

“Perhaps there is; but I’m afraid I can’t help that either.”

Rusk had an idea that this last remark bordered on impertinence, but he wasn’t absolutely sure. There was something in the boy’s face that seemed to contradict such an interpretation—that extraordinary sweetness in his eyes, which from the first had struck him as being eminently lovable. “Well, you’ll have to work a good deal more systematically than you have been doing,” was all he answered. “I may as well tell you that at once.”

Denis smiled. He looked across the table at his tutor. “I’ll do anything you like,” he said kindly.

Rusk broke into a laugh. He had had a vague idea of dignity to be kept up, but it all somehow now melted away in a sense of amused companionship. This curious, urbane, friendly boy was altogether too different from the probable pupil he had pictured in his mind to allow him to make use of any preconceived methods and plans. He felt that their relation would have to be one of simple friendship, or else that it would be frankly impossible.

“By the way, how old are you?” he asked.

“Fifteen—nearly sixteen.... I know I’m frightfully ignorant for my age.”

“Oh, you’re not particularly old,” said Rusk, good-humouredly.

“I think we shall get on all right,” Denis added, after a moment.

Rusk’s mouth twitched slightly at the corners. “If you only do a little work I daresay we shall.” He glanced out of the window into the green and gold of the summer morning. “I think we might work a little at cricket, too, if we get a net fixed up.”

“I’m awfully rotten at games,” Denis said apologetically. “I’ve never had any practice either.”

“Then we’ll have to begin as soon as possible. You play tennis, don’t you? You were playing when I arrived last night.”

“Oh, yes, after a fashion. I like it well enough, but I’m no good. I mean to say, it will be no fun for you playing with me.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. I’m not such a tremendous blood myself.”

He next set him a few easy questions in mathematics, only to discover that in this science at all events his pupil’s mind was absolutely virgin soil. He remembered what Mrs. Bracknel had told him, and decided that he had hit upon one of the subjects that hadn’t proved interesting. But at this juncture there came a quick tap at the door, followed immediately by the turning of the handle.

“May I come in?” asked Amy, leaning her head, with its red-gold hair, like a wonderful aureole, into the room, while she held the door ajar and smiled at Rusk, who had turned round at the noise. “I want to get a book.” Her smile persisted, but she made no movement to come any farther till Rusk rose from his chair. She laughed as she looked him straight in the eyes, and it was he who first averted his gaze. “Oh, please don’t get up or I shall think I am disturbing you.”

She went over to the shelves.

“It would be a pity to give you so wrong an impression,” said Denis slowly, tilting back his chair.

Amy gave him a glance, and her face changed. “Don’t be impertinent,” she answered sharply, “and before you speak wait till you are spoken to. I don’t envy you, Mr. Rusk, having to teach my brother.”

“If that is intended as a——” Denis began, but his sister looked quickly at Rusk:

“Now he’s going to be clever,” she said.

After the scene of the previous night the young Englishman felt this visit to be slightly embarrassing, and he did not quite know what to do. He did not feel inclined, while Amy was in the room, to go on with the explanation he had been in the midst of when she had entered. To wait in silence, however, made him feel foolish, and to feel foolish naturally annoyed him. He had a suspicion that she really wanted nothing, but had come in out of mere curiosity, and he hoped she would not make a habit of doing so. He had an idea that it might be as well to let her know at once that he did not care for interruptions, but he was too shy, and he contented himself with the thought that he would do so if the thing ever occurred again.

In the meantime Amy, who did not in the least share the new tutor’s diffidence, had seated herself, very much at her ease, in an armchair. “My brother Alfred is going to-morrow to Switzerland,” she announced. “Papa is sending him. He’s to go into the business there, and he doesn’t like it. He’s been grumbling at mamma and May and me for the last half-hour; as if we had anything to do with it! Before papa, of course, he’s as quiet as a lamb.”

“He doesn’t care for the idea, then?” asked Rusk politely.

“Care for it? I should think not. It means leaving all his friends here; and of course there will be no one over there. He says he hates foreigners.”

“He’s seen so many,” Denis murmured.

Amy glanced at him. “Of course he’s not so brilliant as you; but we all can’t be that. You have been to Switzerland, Mr. Rusk, haven’t you?” she went on.

“Only for a week or two.”

“To climb the mountains, I suppose?”

“I did a little climbing while I was there.”

“I’m sure you did. I should think you would be awfully good at everything of that sort.” Amy looked at him in perfectly frank admiration.

“I say, you know,” Denis began, “we’re supposed to be——”

“Oh, do shut up. Of all the odious little prigs! You’ll never climb a mountain at any rate.” Once more she turned to Rusk, and to his annoyance he found himself colouring. She struck him as being extraordinarily bold; certainly he had never met a young girl like her before. The fact was that for some reason her good looks did not particularly attract him, and he was thus left more free to be conscious of the crudeness of her manner and of its excessive freedom.

“Well, I must see if my book is here,” she rattled on, but without getting up.

“Can I help you?” asked Rusk, stepping forward.

“No, thanks; I’m ashamed to tell you the title. You are too learned, and this is only a love-story. Are you fond of love-stories, Mr. Rusk, or do you despise them?”

“Oh, I like a good novel very well.” He was conscious that his words sounded idiotically pedantic, and he had a sort of uneasy feeling that he was amusing her.

“The hero of this book comes from Norway,” Amy pursued deliberately. “He is very tall, and young, and handsome; with yellow hair and blue eyes.”

She kept her own eyes on Rusk’s face as she enumerated this fortunate person’s attractions, and again the young man felt himself colouring. Decidedly he did not like Miss Amy Bracknel’s manner. He turned to Denis. “Well, I think we’d better go on with our algebra,” he said hastily, seating himself at the table beside the boy. But he still felt that Amy’s eyes were fixed on him, and he grew more and more uncomfortable as he endeavoured to bring some light to his pupil’s extremely hazy ideas of the subject before them.

“How can you be so stupid, Denis?” Amy broke in suddenly. “I wonder Mr. Rusk has any patience left.”

“You might have seen he has a good deal,” her brother replied, without looking up.

“Thank you,” said Amy, rising from her chair. She sauntered across the room, but Rusk did not make any movement to open the door for her; he was entirely absorbed in Denis’s sum.

When he heard the door close he glanced up and met the boy’s narrow grey eyes, which were fixed on him with a curious expression he did not quite understand. As soon as Denis encountered Rusk’s gaze, however, his own dropped. Neither of them said anything till the boy asked some question about his work and their lesson proceeded without further interruption.

CHAPTER VII

The advent of the new tutor was followed by a period of cold and wet and stormy weather, during which, except for a daily walk along heavy, muddy roads, under grey skies and dripping trees, they were kept pretty closely within doors. But when this was past the summer renewed itself, and a golden sleepy July followed on a rainy June. Rusk had dropped by now completely into the ways of his new life. The strangeness had worn off; he had had time to look about him; and he had already formed the basis of the friendship that was henceforward to bind him more and more closely to his pupil.

He was somewhat surprised to learn from Denis that the Bracknels never went away for the summer, but he was not, in his present surroundings, greatly dismayed by the prospect. These surroundings he thought extremely pleasing. The house seemed a fairly modern one and could boast more of comfort than of beauty, but if it could pretend neither to ornament nor antiquity, it had at least been erected on an admirably chosen site. It stood upon an eminence just high enough to give a charming view from certain spots, where one could see out through fine old trees that spread great gnarled roots and branches over smooth, close turf away to a low curving chain of blue-grey hills, with dark lines of hedges threading the lower slopes, and masses of rock throwing dusky shadows on the grass.

On hot summer days a sort of bluish haze hung perpetually about these hills, while the middle distance seemed to swim in a sea of floating light. All around was a singularly beautiful country. On the right the river, slow, narrow, winding, richly wooded. On the left a broad, swelling tract of pasture-land, broken by narrow green lanes and little woody hollows. The slope up to the house from the road was dotted with clumps of gorse-bushes, among which rabbits flashed their furry bodies in happy security since Alfred had grown tired of popping at them with a gun; and on this slope, in the shadow of a horse-chestnut tree, one day, in the early afternoon, Rusk and his pupil lay basking in the heat. They had just come out from lunch, and were dressed in loose flannel suits. Rusk wore a panama hat, which half hid his sunburnt face, but the boy was bare-headed. He was sitting up playing with Rex, the spaniel, while his tutor lay stretched at full length on the grass.

“What shall we do?” Denis asked for the third time, giving his companion a slight poke, as if to prevent him from going to sleep. “Shall we go out in the boat?”

Rusk gave a little groan. “My dear fellow, your capacity for moving about on days like this is simply unnatural. You might take pity on your less fortunate fellow-creatures. Why can’t we stay where we are?”

“It would be nice on the river under the trees,” Denis said, stroking the spaniel’s long, silky ears.

“Yes, but we’d have to get there first. And I have an idea there would be flies.”

“Flies!” echoed Denis disgustedly. “What matter about flies? Would you like to play croquet?”

“Certainly not.”

“Tennis?”

“This evening, perhaps. But why this sudden passion for activity?”

“Oh, well, you know, you’re lazy.”

“Very possibly. I shouldn’t mind a bathe.... By the way I saw you last night. I thought I’d better tell you.”

Denis raised his eyebrows and made a little face, but he said nothing. He clasped his lean brown hands about his knees and looked away toward the blue hills. The trees at the end of the plantation were dark and compact, though faintly veiled by a thin quivering haze that indicated the full heat of the day, while those closer at hand stood out clear and vivid, showing in relief against the remoter landscape with the freshness and brightness of a child’s transfer-picture. A few swallows were skimming over the grass in low curves of flight, and in the hedgerow at the foot of the hill the purple of a mass of wild foxgloves caught the sunlight. On the right, and higher up, one had a glimpse of a corner of the house itself—a small patch of red brick, with a wreath of smoke from one of the chimneys floating up softly into the still air. The pale stone spire of a church peeped between the trees to the left, and the distant crowing of a cock came faintly across the fields from the same direction, mingled with the low sound of summer.

“I only mention it,” Rusk went on, “because I think I also saw you the first night I came here. Is it indiscreet to ask what you were doing?”

“Supposing it is?”

“Oh, then you needn’t tell me, and no harm will be done.”

“Where did you see me?”

“I saw you going into the shrubbery. I waited for nearly an hour but you did not come back.”

The boy again sat silent. He looked at Rusk who had kept his eyes closed all the time he was speaking.

“I don’t sleep very well,” he said at length.

“Not much wonder if you wander about half the night.”

“But I don’t—really—at least, not always.”

“You don’t what?”

“I don’t sleep well. It is when the moon is full.”

Rusk partially unclosed his eyes to give his companion a glance. “What has the moon got to do with it?” he asked.

The boy shrugged his shoulders. “How do I know? I was born under it.... I am talking nonsense; don’t bother about me.”

He made a movement as if to get up, but Rusk stretched out a large detaining hand in whose grasp he was absolutely helpless. “How strong you are!” he said admiringly. “I shouldn’t mind being like that.” He surveyed his own limbs rather ruefully. “Do you think I’ll ever be any good for anything?” he asked, with a kind of half-comical seriousness.

“It depends on what you want to be good for. I don’t think you’ll ever be a champion heavy-weight, if that’s what you mean. You’ve wonderfully improved all the same, even in that direction, since I’ve known you; in the last two months, that is.”

“In the direction of champion heavy-weights?” He sighed sceptically. “I’m only seven stone something,” he added. “When I was at school I used to be ashamed to undress before the other boys because I was so thin. I am ashamed still, when there is anybody to see me—at a bathing-place, for instance. You’ve seen me and you know what I’m like. The boys at school used to call me ’Skinny.’ I hated it.” He looked at Rusk, with the half-plaintive, half-laughing expression in his eyes, which the latter had seen there more frequently than any other. Again he made an attempt to escape, but his captor still held him.

“I shall call you ’Skinny’ too, if you talk in that way.”

“I shouldn’t mind it from you, because you like me.”

Rusk began to shake him slowly, holding him by his shoulders. “How did you hit on that amazing fiction?” he asked gravely.

“It isn’t a fiction. It may be a peculiar taste on your part, but it isn’t a fiction. It’s so little of one that I don’t care whether you deny it or not.... I say, do let me go.”

“No. I want you to sit still.”

“But you won’t let me. You’re a——”

“Remember I’m your tutor.”

“I know you are.”

“It just occurred to you in time, then.”

Denis looked at him in feigned alarm. He had a trick of lifting his delicate eyebrows and wrinkling his brow which lent to his appearance a kind of quizzical, whimsical quality, a sort of inoffensive, charming mischievousness, the reflection of which came and went in his eyes, like the dancing and quivering of sunlight on broken water.

“And I forbid you to talk in a stupid way about yourself,” Rusk concluded.

“I only wish it was stupid.”

“It is.”

“But why?”

“Because it isn’t true.”

“But it is true. Sure you know as well as I do that it has taken all kinds of manœuvring even to keep me alive.”

“That is a thing of the past,” said Rusk, quietly.

“It’ll have to be a thing of the future too, unless the trouble is all to be wasted.”

Rusk said nothing, but he still retained his grasp of the boy, who every now and again gave a futile wriggle toward escape.

“In any decently regulated state I should have been exposed immediately after I was born. Papa, you may have noticed, was all for exposure, but mamma wouldn’t let him.”

Rusk got on to his feet and brushed the little particles of stick and grass from his clothes. “You’re an amazing kid,” he murmured. “I don’t know what to make of you.” His eyes rested in a sort of grave, doubtful amusement on the boy, who smiled up at him gaily.

Presently Denis became thoughtful. “By the way, you didn’t say anything to anyone else about seeing me, did you?”

“I had an idea you would hardly have thought it necessary to ask that.”

Denis smiled, but he blushed too. “I’m sorry; I didn’t think.”

He took his tutor’s arm, and they sauntered over the grass slowly, the dog running on ahead, and every now and then starting off on a wild, fruitless rush when a rabbit flashed his white tail in the sun. They reached the bottom of the hill. The grass grew lush and green here, in the shadow of a hedge of twisted oak and beech and bramble. The honeysuckle was faintly fragrant, and on a half-unfolded wild rose a dragon-fly hung, gleaming in the sunshine like some highly polished jewel. The water in the ditch had dried up, but the water-grasses and wild parsley were still fresh and cool and moist. The hedge seemed full of birds flying in and out, dipping over the tops of the grasses and sorrel to catch darting flies.

Presently, through the low music of this summer world, there came the ugly noise of an approaching motor. “It is Doctor Birch,” said Denis, turning to look; and as the car came opposite them it drew up. The occupant dismounted. He was still a young man, with a keen, dear-cut face, and a premature baldness, at present concealed. He greeted the pedestrians in a smooth, tenor voice from the other side of the hedge, and Denis introduced his companion.

“I’ve been intending to call on you for ever so long,” the Doctor declared. “I was away when you first arrived, and I’ve been frightfully busy ever since I came back.... I hope this young man is behaving himself.”

“Oh, yes, fairly well.”

“As well as can be expected, I suppose.... Bring Mr. Rusk over to tea this afternoon, Denis. I shall tell my sisters you are coming.” He got into the car again.

“He’s clever,” said Denis, watching him drive off. “He was Doctor at the Asylum for a good while, but he gave it up a few months ago. I wonder if he felt he was beginning to get a bit queer himself? I’m sure it would have that effect on me.”

They walked on, keeping close to the hedge, till they reached the fringe of a little wood that lay in a triangular-shaped valley, stretching from the road up past the house and gradually widening in that direction.

“By the way, you haven’t yet answered the question I asked you under the chestnut,” Rusk observed. “Don’t you want to?”

Denis hesitated and suddenly grew serious. “It isn’t that,” he murmured. “I mean, it isn’t that I want to keep anything from you. I don’t.... Come and I’ll show you my temple,” he added. “I’ll tell you about it as we go along. I have never spoken of it to anyone else.”

Rusk laid his hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“I think you like living in a sort of cloud, and having innumerable secrets.”

“A cloud?”

“Don’t you like mystifying people?”

“No, no; it isn’t that,” said Denis eagerly. “It isn’t really. I don’t want to mystify you, for instance. I should like to tell you everything.... It is only that I am afraid you mightn’t understand.”

Rusk laughed. “You think I haven’t enough imagination? But even supposing I don’t understand?”

“Well, then—it would be all wrong, don’t you see? But I’m going to risk it.... It was to come here—to this place I’m taking you to now—that I went out last night and the other night you saw me.”

“You mean to come to your temple?”

Denis nodded. “You mustn’t look like that,” he went on. “I can’t tell you if you do. It is real; it is true.... It isn’t a temple,” he added, “it is only an altar. I found it by accident—or perhaps not quite by accident. It is just a big stone beside a well, but I thought it was an altar, and I know the old Druids used to look upon wells as sacred. Beside the well there is a hawthorn-tree. When I first saw it it was at dawn, and it looked pale and beautiful.”

“And do you connect it with anything—the altar, I mean? Is it dedicated to anything in particular?”

“To the moon-spirit,” Denis said.

Rusk was curious to get at his exact idea. “You mean you have a secret place where you come to worship the moon?”

Denis nodded.

“You mean it seriously?”

“Quite seriously.”

The tutor looked only half convinced. Nevertheless, there was a peculiar tone in the boy’s voice that deepened his attention, for he had never heard it there before. At that moment he happened to glance at him and it seemed to him that Denis had actually grown paler. He wondered if it were a mere effect of the light?—for they were passing under thickly-leaved boughs, which stretched almost like a green, trellised roof above them. “And for how long have you kept this up?” he asked.

“Oh, for years—ever since I can remember. Not always in this place, of course. This place I found in a dream.”

“In a dream?” Rusk thought of the crystal-gazing, and May’s comments upon it. Nevertheless, there was an unmistakable note of sincerity in Denis’s voice.

“I dreamt of it one night, and when I went there the next morning I found the stone and all, just as it had been in my dream—except that it was overgrown by creepers which I had to clear away.... What I am telling you is true,” he went on very gravely, and turning his strange, grey eyes—now a little clouded—on his companion, as if he in some way divined the instinctive incredulity Rusk had been careful not to express. “I swear that it is true, but if you still do not believe me I cannot tell you anything more.... And I know you don’t believe me,” he added in a moment. “We had better go back.”

Rusk hesitated for just a few seconds. He felt that the whole thing might become rather queer. But possibly his curiosity got the better of his common-sense, or of his conscience, for he then said, “Oh, of course I believe you: only I am a little surprised, naturally.”

Denis still appeared to waver between mistrust and a strong desire to unburden himself.

“But don’t tell me if you don’t like to,” Rusk added good-humouredly, and these words for some reason had a reassuring effect upon the boy.

He went on more confidently. “I have had this feeling all my life.... I told you that the moon affected my sleep. It affects me in other ways too. I can feel something awaken in me as it grows fuller—a kind of excitement—something moving in my blood. My mind seems to become more active—I feel freer....”

Rusk glanced at him searchingly. “I suppose you haven’t been reading anything to give you such ideas?” he questioned; but Denis shook his head. “I have always had them,” he replied. “I have read things, of course—what I could find—but it was very little. I got one or two things among Doctor Birch’s books.”

“There was the worship of Artemis among the Greeks,” said Rusk vaguely. “But I don’t know a great deal about Greek religions, and Artemis I dare say mayn’t have been very much of a moon-goddess.... There was Selene, the moon that fell in love with Endymion; and Hecate——”

“I don’t think of any particular deity,” said Denis softly. “What does it matter about names? There is something behind them all.”

“Something——” Rusk paused. The remark he had been about to make was left unspoken. “The old religions don’t interest you, then?”

“Oh yes, they do, but—oh yes, they interest me very much,” he went on with a sudden alteration of manner. It was as if he felt that he had possibly said too much and were trying now to cover it up. “It was principally by agricultural peoples like the ancient Babylonians that the moon was worshipped,” he began pedantically, like a boy reciting a lesson. “Among them the moon was a god and not a goddess. With the Persians it was one of the seven archangels....” Then his voice dropped again into its former dreamy tone: “Do you remember the verse in Job? ’If I beheld the moon walking in brightness; and my heart hath been secretly enticed or my mouth hath kissed my hand; this also were an iniquity; for I should have denied the God that is above.’”

“I’m afraid it never struck me,” Rusk confessed.

“It is an allusion to moon-worship, I suppose.”

“No doubt.... Of course, you come across references to the moon in lots of old writers.” He vainly tried to remember one or two. “They thought it had an effect on the—eh—growth of things, didn’t they? and that it sometimes caused madness—lunatics, you know?”

He was not immensely convinced by his own erudition, but it appeared to have made Denis thoughtful. “Madness?” he paused on the word, and when he went on again there was a vague disquiet in his voice. He spoke slowly and as if with a certain difficulty. Rusk regarded him, while a faint shadow of uneasiness crept for the first time across his mind.

“You begin your work when the moon is growing—and the full moon brings it to perfection.... If you fill a silver basin with water, and hold it so that the full moon is reflected in it, and if you drink the water, then some power of the moon——”

“But my dear boy, you surely don’t believe all these old superstitions, do you?” Rusk interrupted, sharply.

“No; I don’t.” A troubled look came into his face. “I—I don’t know what I believe.” His voice shook, and he turned away. Rusk could see that he had suddenly become very much agitated; that he was even trembling. And this perception brought him up at once with a quick, unpleasant shock.

“Never mind, Denis,” he said gently. “We’ll talk about it another time.”

“It’s just here,” said Denis, parting the bushes with his hands. “You may as well see it now you’ve come so far.” And Rusk followed him into a kind of little glade.

The well was there, and the old hawthorn, but he did not perceive the altar till the boy removed a heap of branches which almost hid it from view. He then saw a large flat stone, oblong in shape and hollowed in the middle. It was about four feet in length and seemed to be hardly more than eighteen inches high, but it was partially buried in the ground.

Rusk examined it curiously. He was no antiquary and could make nothing of it. “How was the—the ritual conducted?” he asked reluctantly. “I suppose there was some kind of ceremony?”

“You mean in the old time?” said Denis dejectedly.

“Yes.”

“I don’t quite know. I could never find anything definite. Sometimes there was dancing. There were libations and incense and moon-shaped cakes that were covered with lights.”

All at once Rusk’s expression changed and he gave the boy a quick keen glance. He bent lower, then lower still, over the hollow stone. He seemed to have detected something. “Was there ever anything else?” he asked slowly, evenly, and without looking up; but Denis made no reply. “There seems to be a——” He paused. For a moment it appeared as if he were not going to finish his sentence. Then he brought it out in spite of himself. “Has anything been killed here?” he asked, trying to speak quite naturally. “Has there been any living sacrifice—any blood spilled?”

Denis drew back. His face was white and scared and his eyes had grown darker as with an awakened memory. “Yes,” he whispered.

There followed a silence during which Rusk was conscious of feeling rather sick. In spite of himself a sense of repulsion made him draw away from the boy beside him. “So it was that!” he said, and for all his effort he could not keep an instinctive note of aversion out of his voice.

Denis looked at him for a moment. Then he dropped on the grass and hid his face in his arms. The whole thing came so quickly, so unexpectedly, that Rusk stood there dumfoundered, not knowing what to do. The mere sight of the boy lying there had changed his momentary disgust to compassion. He felt, indeed, horribly ashamed of himself. It seemed to him that he had asked Denis to confide in him, and that he had then turned on him for having done so. He bent down over him, and called him by his name.

The boy did not stir for some minutes, and when he got up he showed Rusk a face curiously white and troubled. “I could not help it,” he said in a low voice. “I have been trying to realise it. I will never do it again. I am not cruel really. I never hurt anything before. Something made me do it; I don’t know what.... I did it twice, but the other times there was never anything living—I just brought flowers, and the things I told you of.” His words came out a little jerkily, and he did not look at Rusk while he was speaking.

“Oh, it’s all right,” said the latter, somewhat lamely. “It was only that for a moment I—didn’t understand, didn’t see.”

“I should like to explain. I—I can’t quite understand myself.... It is as if it—was something from outside. But—you know— If it is in your mind— It is like trying to struggle against a dream when you are dreaming.”

“But don’t bother about it,” Rusk begged. “I was stupid. I have no imagination. I can never grasp anything unless it has been drummed into me for years.”

“No, no—it was quite natural—what you felt. But——” He smiled dimly. “I didn’t think of all this when I began to tell you.”

“Ah, but you’re making too much of it,” said Rusk. “We will talk it all quietly over some other time.”

Denis shook his head. “I don’t want to talk about it; I’ve nothing more to say. You’ve seen now what I’m capable of doing.”

“I haven’t seen anything I don’t like,” said Rusk, stoutly.

“Haven’t you?”

“No.” His mouth closed tightly, and a frown passed across his face. The boy gazed disconsolately straight in front of him, while they moved along slowly, retracing their steps.

“By the way—before we leave all this,” Rusk jerked out unexpectedly, and laying his hand on Denis’s shoulder, “there is something—I mean I hope you won’t be afraid to ask me if there’s ever anything I can do for you.... You understand?... I don’t want you on account of what happened this afternoon to be frightened to tell me about things—anything—even supposing you think it something bad—really bad that is, absolutely wrong. I behaved like a fool to-day but I won’t be stupid again. I daresay it is rather unnecessary, my talking in this way, but still— If you should ever feel inclined, for instance, to do something you have an idea you may be ashamed of having done afterwards—it seems a rotten sort of notion to suggest—but you know what I mean.... You will promise, won’t you?”

“Yes,” said Denis.

They had by this time issued forth again into the sunshine, and Rusk wondered what he could do to put all that had just taken place out of the boy’s mind. He felt that the sunlight was very welcome, and he breathed a sigh of relief. It was Denis himself who solved the difficulty by recollecting that he had promised to take his tutor to call on the Miss Birches, an engagement which must be kept at once if it were going to be kept at all.

“You don’t mind going, do you?” he asked Rusk.

“No; I should like to.”

They started off together, walking quickly, as if anxious to leave behind them the wood which, to Rusk, even yet, seemed to cast a kind of sinister shadow along their path—a shadow suggestive of some mysterious horror that might still be hidden there.

CHAPTER VIII

They approached the long low house by a path that led them through a sweetly-smelling, trim, and brilliant garden. A gardener was mowing the grass at the side of the house, and the hum of the machine rose sleepily through the heat of the heavy afternoon. There was an old-fashioned charm about the place, about the house with its drapery of creepers, about the garden, even about the mellow sunlight on the grass and on the flower-beds, which seemed to Rusk to make it an ideal spot for two elderly maiden ladies to pass their quiet lives in. It all reminded him—with an odd jump back to other days—of the illustrations to certain mid-Victorian fictions, which in his childhood, on wet afternoons, he had now and then been allowed to colour—pictures found in magazines, woodcuts by Millais or Fred Walker. The ladies too were there, sitting in comfortable chairs, with a little table before them prepared for the tea a capped and aproned maid-servant was at that moment bringing from the house. The maid deposited her tray, and Rusk was introduced by Denis to Miss Birch, and then to Miss Anna Birch, before they all sat down. It seemed that their brother had not, after all, told them visitors were coming.

Miss Birch was prim and even a little shy. She looked at least half a dozen years older than her sister, and her manner was colourless and slightly nervous. But her face was pleasant, with its somewhat vague and wandering expression which made Rusk think of the Sheep in “Alice.” She expressed herself in a series of little general remarks of an unexacting nature, and Rusk found both the ladies charming. They certainly formed a striking contrast to the Bracknel family, and he felt himself at once to be perfectly at home in their garden, with its red brick wall against which the orange lilies just now were singularly brilliant, and its immensely thick hedges and dark, neat paths. It was a relief too, not to have to set himself psychological conundrums. The Miss Birches were more or less the kind of people he had lived among and understood, and he saw himself cultivating their acquaintance rather assiduously. Miss Anna, in particular, struck him as being extremely pleasant. Before he had talked to her for ten minutes he found himself wondering why she had never married. Her manner was sympathetic; she was intelligent; and even in her slight air of primness, which was after all but the feeblest reflection of her sister’s, he discovered a distinct charm. Besides, she was still nice-looking, her complexion was still fresh, though her dry, loose, black hair was half turned to silver. Both ladies appeared very pleased to make his acquaintance. They talked to him of Cambridge, which they had visited on two occasions while their brother was an undergraduate there. They perfectly remembered Rusk’s college—one of the smallest; they had paid a visit to its library and had seen the Pepys manuscript.

After tea the younger of the two visitors asked permission to go indoors and choose a book. He had nothing to read at home, he said, which caused Miss Birch to express the hope that Rusk would make use of her brother’s library whenever he felt inclined to. She had resumed the embroidery she had laid down on their arrival, and amid its soft folds her slender hands were as graceful as flowers. Rusk liked to watch her; it gave him a feeling of pleasant quiet that he enjoyed immensely. He took up a volume which was lying open on the grass and glanced at the title.

“Harriet makes me read aloud to her,” Miss Anna said. “We are just now in the middle of ’Mansfield Park.’”

“Do you like it?” He tilted back his chair and stretched his legs, a proceeding which secretly alarmed Miss Birch, but which signified that Rusk himself was feeling very comfortable.

“I should like it better if it did not invariably send Harriet to sleep. As it is, I not only have to read, but next day I have to tell what I have read all over again.”

“It is so very long,” said Miss Harriet mildly, “and it is so difficult to find one’s place when the marker comes out.”

Rusk laughed. The Miss Birches pleased him immensely. “I must be careful not to lose it, then.” And he laid the book down on the table.

They on their side were pleased with him. His fair hair, his clear, pleasant, blue eyes, his handsome boyish face, his modest, unassuming manner—all these things made it much easier to like Rusk than not. They wondered how he was getting on in the bosom of the Bracknel family, and presently they asked him. He replied that he liked his pupil extremely; he also said that he liked Mrs. Bracknel and May, but was silent in regard to the others. At this point they were joined by the Doctor.

He greeted Rusk anew, while his sisters scolded him for not having told them that Denis and Mr. Rusk were coming; they might have gone out, and what would Mr. Rusk have thought then? The Doctor only laughed.

“He’s a perfect egotist,” Miss Anna suddenly declared.

“Are you alluding to me?” her brother asked, “or are you returning to an earlier topic?”

“I’m returning to Mr. Bracknel. I remember once, shortly before Denis was born, he wanted something which he had left upstairs—at the very top of the house; and he insisted on his wife going up to look for it. She asked him to ring for a servant, but he said he didn’t care for servants rummaging among his things.”

“All the same she is very fond of him,” Rusk replied, knocking the ash from his cigarette.

“Of course he isn’t a gentleman,” Miss Harriet observed, as if this might explain much.

“Do you think she is really fond of him, Mr. Rusk?” Miss Anna asked. “Don’t you think she only tries to be in order to make him more—more passable?”

“Oh, it is real enough,” Rusk said. As he spoke there came back to him very vividly two or three instances of Mrs. Bracknel’s tenderness.

“She is very nice, you know,” Miss Anna continued, “and she was one of the most beautiful young girls I have ever seen—much better looking than either of her daughters. I must show you her photograph some day. She had such a sweet face.”

“You remember her when she was young?”

“But she isn’t very old now, Mr. Rusk. She is a good deal younger than I am.”

“I should never have thought so,” Rusk confessed.

“She had a dreadful illness some years before Denis was born; that is what altered her.”

Doctor Birch, who had been listening somewhat impatiently to all this, rose to his feet. “You haven’t seen the garden yet, Mr. Rusk. Come and I will show it to you.”

“He can see it from here, I daresay,” Miss Anna murmured, but her brother led the young man off.

They strolled among the flower-beds, pausing every now and again before some finer specimen.

“Well, how do you like your pupil?” the Doctor asked abruptly.

Rusk was a little surprised. “Denis? I like him very much. He is very intelligent; very responsive.”

“You’ve found that—eh? A little too intelligent, a little too responsive—perhaps?”

Rusk stooped mechanically to smell a bunch of red roses. “Why do you say that?” he asked.

“I don’t believe in either quality as the soundest working basis for happiness.”

“What do you mean exactly?”

“Oh, just that. My remark is founded on a good many years’ observation. Our young friend is too imaginative, too sensitive, too gentle, too meditative. There’s not enough of the ordinary boy about him. There’s not enough of the brute about him; not enough of the fighting animal.”

“No; he’s certainly not that.”

“Well, he ought to be. He’s too fond of dreaming. His mind is filled with all kinds of wandering ghosts.”

Rusk was again surprised. “But don’t you think he is very much above the average?” he questioned—“mentally, I mean? He is limited, of course, but in his own way he has a fineness!”

“He has.”

“And if he develops; if——” He suddenly paused, and his eyes fastened on his companion’s. “Why are you anxious about him?”

Doctor Birch did not reply at once. “Who said I was anxious about him?” he then brought out. Yet, as if in support of Rusk’s suspicion, he almost immediately went on, “It is not uncommon for a certain type of mind to lose in some measure its hold upon reality.”

Rusk’s thoughts on the instant leapt back to the scene in the wood, and the vague apprehension he had felt then took definite form. “You mean he may become insane?”

“Not at all. Don’t jump to any exaggerated notion of that sort, though of course any of us may become insane.” He seemed to study his young friend’s face. “Do you mind my being frank with you?—plainly, brutally frank?”

“I had much rather you were,” said Rusk.

“Well, you know, I suppose, that I was largely responsible for bringing you over here? but that doesn’t matter. What does matter is that I thought we might perhaps more or less work together.”

“Work together?” Rusk repeated, not quite following him. “In what way work together?”

Doctor Birch took his companion’s arm. “Herford told me about you,” he said, “and I was so sure you were the very man I wanted that I daresay I left him a little in the dark as to one or two points I ought to have made clear. To put the matter plainly, I was interested in the boy, and I had a feeling that you—I pictured you, I may tell you, from Herford’s description, just exactly as you turn out to be—that you could do a great deal for him. At the same time I wanted you to get your first impression of him for yourself, so I avoided giving you any information that might have biassed you in one way or another. I’m afraid I’m revealing my conduct as slightly tortuous; but, please accept my apologies. The fact is, the boy had several tutors before you came—impossible people, all of them, as anyone with a glimmer of intelligence could have seen. The father’s stupidity in the matter was incredible. It was really that which exasperated me into interference. What do you think of it all?” He stood still for a moment, and laid his hand familiarly on the young man’s shoulder.

Rusk hesitated and glanced back toward the house. “But don’t you think he may outgrow this tendency?”

“I do. That is why I am delighted to hear that you get on so well together, that you like him.” His pale, rather cold eyes rested on Rusk’s, and the young Englishman was conscious of the strength that lay behind them. He felt that he was in the presence of a will much more powerful than his own.

“You, my dear fellow,” the Doctor went on blandly, “are much more the physician he is in need of than I am. Of course it is hard in such matters to be absolutely sure, but I do not think he has lost any ground since—well, for a long time. He has probably gained a little. Two years ago something occurred which made me uneasy, but it has never been renewed.... Tell me, are you, by any chance, excitable or nervous? You don’t look it, of course, but I should like to have your word for it too.”

Rusk wondered what all this was leading to. He hated to be rushed into things; he liked to know exactly where he was going. Already, mentally, he was throwing up little defensive ramparts from behind which he could view his position in quiet, before committing himself in any way. It was oddly noticeable that as the Doctor’s manner grew more cordial, his own became more reserved. “I don’t know that I’m particularly nervous,” he replied.

“That’s right. If you were it would spoil everything.” The Doctor had the tremendous advantage of knowing exactly what was passing in the younger man’s mind, and of absolutely refusing to be kept at a distance, while poor Rusk knew nothing at all.

“You seem to want to make me so!” he retorted.

“I, my dear fellow! Why in the world should you think that?”

“You seem bent on putting me into an extraordinarily responsible position; or rather, you seem to assume that I’m in one already.”

“So you are, of course,” said Doctor Birch, smiling for the first time since they had begun to discuss the subject. “But never mind that. I don’t think you will regret it. No one ever regrets doing what is worth doing, though that may sound like a copy-book heading. And after all this is nothing more than to keep an eye upon our young friend, to influence him, to make him more like yourself.”

For some reason remarks about influencing people always irritated Rusk, even when he did not find them positively offensive; but he said nothing now, and Doctor Birch went on:

“Try not to be impatient. Try to understand; try to understand. The whole problem in this as in everything else is simply to understand.”

For a moment Rusk thought of saying something about the mysterious moon-worship he had discovered, but almost immediately he decided not to do so. He did not care for rushing into confidences, and after all he knew very little about Doctor Birch. Nor did he altogether like what he did know. He did not like his manner, nor the way he seemed suddenly to spring things on you. Rusk felt that he should have been told about all this long ago.

“Of course, sending him to school was the maddest thing in the world,” Doctor Birch went on. “But he is stronger now than he used to be; much stronger.”

Rusk, however, was not satisfied. He felt, indeed, a certain exasperation; he felt like telling Doctor Birch to mind his own business, only he supposed this was his business. “I think, you know, I ought to have been given a clearer idea of all this before I came here,” he protested. “I was told nothing except that the boy was delicate.”

“I know; I know,” Doctor Birch agreed. “In a way, however, it would have been impossible to enter into details beforehand—at all events it would have been useless; it would merely have prejudiced you against giving the thing a fair trial; you simply wouldn’t have come.”

“Perhaps not, but I think I should have been allowed to choose.”

Doctor Birch agreed again. “But in any case, that is all that is the matter,” he continued. “To talk about it one has to seem to lay stress on it—one exaggerates, without wishing to do so. Denis is just as you have found him. All I have said would apply equally well to any other very highly-strung boy. What really complicates matters is the fact that you are the only person coming in contact with him who has the faintest grain of common-sense. Stick to him, at all events, as long as you can. If you can’t, of course, why it all ends here.”

Rusk coloured a little. He kicked at the grass border. “I will do what you want,” he said, “but it is because I like him, not because of what you say.”

Doctor Birch smiled, and his smile caused Rusk’s blush to deepen. It seemed to convey that the Doctor was not greatly curious as to his motives, and that he thought the distinction unnecessary, and even a little childish. “You think we have treated you badly—eh?” was what he said aloud.

“I don’t suppose it matters very much what I think,” answered Rusk, shortly. “I don’t want to be in a false position, that is all.”

Doctor Birch meditated. “So far as that goes, I am the only person who is to blame,” he presently remarked. “And if I have interfered it is only because I couldn’t very well avoid it.”

Rusk felt a little ashamed of his ill-humour. “Well, we’ll let the matter drop. I’ve told you I’ll do what I can.”

They had completed the tour of the garden; they had, in fact, very considerably prolonged it, and were again close to the spot where they had left the two ladies, whom they once more approached, Rusk preparing to take his leave. The Doctor went off to fetch Denis, leaving the visitor with his sisters.

“You must come back very soon,” Miss Anna said to him; and he promised to do so. He added that though a very unskilful artist he was extremely fond of sketching in water-colours, and that, if they would permit him to bring his paint-box with him, he should very much like to make a drawing of their garden. Miss Anna thought this idea a delightful one, and so did Miss Harriet. They were still discussing it when their brother reappeared, bringing Denis with him.

CHAPTER IX

They returned home by the back way, and as they passed the lodge a little bent old woman curtsied to them from the door. From a brown shrunken face, wrinkled like a withered russet apple, gleamed two small bright black eyes. The nearly toothless mouth was twisted into a smile, and the whole countenance expressed a mingled obsequience and cunning. Rusk nodded briefly. He had taken a strong dislike to her from the first moment he had seen her. A parrot screamed as they passed, and the old woman stood looking after them.

“How long has Rebecca been with you?” Rusk asked when they were out of earshot.

“Oh, she’s always been there,” said the boy gaily. “She was there long before we came. It is we who are the interlopers.”

“I don’t much care for her.”

“Mamma doesn’t like her either. She once tried to get her sent away.”

Rusk reflected that this possibly accounted for her continued presence, but he did not say so. “She’s the coachman’s mother, isn’t she?”

“Yes. It’s rather strange. She’s got five or six sons and all with different surnames—at least, so Johnson told me.”

Johnson was the gardener, and, it should be added, was for reasons of his own not on speaking terms with the lady of the back lodge.

Rusk stared.

“She’s been married five or six times?” he marvelled.

“Oh, no, I don’t think it’s exactly that,” said the boy vaguely. “But of course, it mayn’t be true.... I wonder if papa will be home for dinner to-night. I suppose he will.”

“Is he expected?”

“I think so. He was to be back this morning. Do you like it better when papa isn’t there?”

“I don’t intend to answer questions of that kind,” said Rusk half-angrily, “and you ought to know better than to ask them.”

“I’m awfully sorry. I wasn’t thinking. Of course, it can’t make any difference to you whether he is there or not.”

When they reached the house, however, they were not long left in doubt as to whether or no Mr. Bracknel had arrived. May was on the stairs, and she stopped half-way up the first flight as she heard Denis and Rusk enter the hall. “Papa has arrived,” she whispered. Then she pursed up her mouth expressively as she looked at her brother. “Don’t make a noise.”

“Make a noise!” said Denis. “What should we make a noise for? Did you expect us to cheer? What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. Dinner will be in in a minute.” She went on upstairs smiling back at them over her shoulder.

At dinner, Mr. Bracknel appeared, and to Rusk’s surprise Alfred also was present. He had guessed that it had not been for his pleasure that the father had undertaken a journey to Switzerland, but he was hardly prepared for so speedy a return of the prodigal, and he wondered what had actually taken place. Mr. Bracknel, however, was quieter than usual, and for once did not find fault with anything. He appeared moody and abstracted, and all kinds of telegraphic communications took place across the table without attracting his attention. Alfred was sulky and bored. Forgetful of the proverb that it is well to let sleeping dogs lie, Rusk asked him how he liked living abroad and what he thought of Switzerland. A glance from Amy warned him that he was treading on dangerous ground, but unfortunately the hint came too late. The word Switzerland seemed to pierce through Mr. Bracknel’s reveries and he looked up. He answered curtly that Alfred was home for good, and in such a tone as to leave no doubt as to the reason why. But Alfred himself affected indifference. “I’m very glad to be back again,” he dropped nonchalantly, and giving his father an insolent stare.

“You’ve always the pleasure of knowing that you bring comfort and happiness wherever you go,” said Mr. Bracknel, sourly.

“I’m not the only one who does that, perhaps.”

Mr. Bracknel started, but checked himself. Fortunately the pause that ensued was broken by Denis, who seemed just then to have wandered out of a dream.

“I took Mr. Rusk to the Birches this afternoon,” he said innocently to his mother, quite unconscious of the storm that was hanging in the air.

“Did you, dear?”

“I’m sure he must have enjoyed it,” Alfred sneered. “Fancy taking anyone to see those two old cats!”

“Oh, the old one’s not so bad,” Amy chimed in. “She’s harmless at any rate. It’s Anna who tries to be sarcastic—as if anybody cared about her!”

“I thought them very nice,” Rusk remarked.

“Did Harriet show you her embroidery, and did Anna read aloud to you?”

“You might be a little more respectful, Amy,” Mrs. Bracknel murmured. “I don’t like the way you have of sneering at people.”

“I’m not sneering at anyone; and what matter about those old frumps even if I was?”

Mrs. Bracknel looked distressed. “If you don’t respect them for anything else,” she said, “you ought at least to remember they are my friends.”

“I’m afraid I’m not sufficiently sentimental. At all events they’re no friends of mine. Mr. Rusk thinks them charming because they made a fuss about him. I can just imagine it—as if they wouldn’t give their eyes to get hold of any man!”

Alfred laughed, but Rusk for some reason felt annoyed. He wished Denis had not mentioned their visit. Amy, however, quite regardless of her mother, proceeded to give a lively imitation of Miss Anna reading aloud, and of Miss Harriet listening; and then, encouraged by Alfred, of Miss Harriet receiving an imaginary lover and being unexpectedly kissed by him. This latter performance, even in the midst of reveries inspired by his elder son, seemed to tickle her father enormously.

After dinner the tutor went out by himself to take a meditative stroll. He lit his pipe and sauntered across the lawn, thinking of what Doctor Birch had told him about Denis. He hardly knew what to make of it, nor exactly how all these unsatisfactory warnings were to be of much help to him. They seemed, if anything, merely to complicate matters by awakening all kinds of doubts and anxieties. Yet they were not to be ignored. He had himself noticed in his pupil all the peculiarities Doctor Birch had mentioned. He had told himself that Denis was too unusual—too unearthly—it was of his very essence to be so. Only it had never occurred to him that those same qualities which had struck him as beautiful and rare might also be, if slightly accentuated, actually perilous for the boy’s well-being.

In the midst of his meditations he heard a rustling behind him and turned round to see Amy, flushed and out of breath, hurrying after him. “I’ve come to apologize,” she said, pouting a little. “I called to you, but you wouldn’t wait for me.”

“Apologize!” he echoed absently, his mind still busy with the problem of his pupil.

“I’ve been watching you, and I could see you were thinking of what I said at dinner, and that it was annoying you—I mean all that about the Birches. You don’t know how cross you can look. But I was only in fun. I’m sorry.”

Rusk laughed. He was on the point of telling her that he had forgotten all about what she had said at dinner, but he checked himself, having an instinct that this might offend her. “I’ve an idea that you think me a most thorough-going prig,” he remarked.

“I don’t—at least, only now and then; and it’s just because you’re so English.”

Rusk laughed again, though he got rather red.

“Are you going for a walk?” Amy went on. “Shall I come with you, or do you want to be alone?”

“I shall be delighted if you will come.”

“You say that, as if you were being led to the stake. I know you don’t like me, but I want to know why. Do tell me.”

“My dear Miss Amy, you make the most extraordinary remarks!”

“Oh, that’s just a way of getting out of it. You would rather have May, wouldn’t you? You have more in common with May. You are both intellectual and can talk together by the hour about intellectual things. I loathe intellectual things.”

“You seem to loathe a good many things,” said Rusk. “If you tell me what it is you like we can talk about that.”

For a moment he thought she was going to say, “I like you,” but she didn’t. “I like life,” she answered, “and living, and knowing I am alive. And pleasure—I don’t mean anything ethereal and ascetic, mooning over sunsets and poetry and all that—but real pleasure—riding and motoring and playing golf and dancing and theatres and—oh, hundreds of things.”

“You ought to be very happy, then,” said Rusk, phlegmatically.

“So I am, when I get what I want. I’d do anything in the world to get what I want.”

She spoke, as usual, with an air of perfect frankness, and there was, as usual, something about her which vaguely disquieted him. He was for ever telling himself that he did not much care for her, but it was impossible to help feeling the abundance, the fascination of her vitality. There was something in her nature that had a kind of sweeping force, like the pull of a strong current.

“Were you surprised to see Alfred back again?” she went on. “You guessed, I suppose, that it was on account of him papa went away?”

“Not exactly. I had a vague idea of course, but I wasn’t sure.” It was a perpetual source of wonder to him, the amazing way in which the various members of the Bracknel family took him into their confidence, and retailed, with the fullest particulars, matters that might have been supposed to be more or less private. “I saw I had rather put my foot in it at dinner,” he continued. “It was quite unintentional.”

“Yes, I know. It didn’t matter. But that was really the reason why papa went. He had a letter from the house over there saying that they hadn’t seen or heard anything of Alfred for a fortnight, and wanting to know what they were to do. Papa posted over immediately, and discovered Alfred away up somewhere in the mountains with goodness knows who. He brought him home, and now he’s simply furious about it. What bothers papa is the way Alfred would allow everything to go to smash in the business. He told him on the way back that he was only going to give him one more chance, and I know he’ll keep his word. I’ve just been doing my best to get Alfred to turn over a new leaf.”

Rusk was silent, while he puffed at his pipe. He had no desire to discuss these family matters, but Amy kept on, undiscouraged:

“It’s not all his fault either. I mean, papa keeps him far too close. He only gives him two hundred a year, and he must be up to his eyes in debt. Papa isn’t generous in things of that kind: he’s just the opposite. Alfred says there’s not a man in the firm who gets decently paid. In fact the office is filled with girls, simply because they’re cheaper; and papa won’t allow anyone to have the least authority. Alfred says that last year he made about forty thousand. Of course it was a very good year, and Alfred is likely exaggerating; but still it’s a lot of money, and it makes him mad when he thinks of his two hundred. He ought to pay you more, Mr. Rusk, too.”

Rusk winced. “I don’t think—” he began hastily,

“Oh, I’m not going to say anything. You needn’t be so frightfully sensitive. Only you do a lot for Denis: you’re very different from the other tutors he has had. Besides, you are a gentleman, and they weren’t. Poor papa, of course, doesn’t know what a gentleman is; but we do—even Alfred has some idea.”

They strolled on in silence for a few minutes through the mild, beautiful, summer evening. The long twilight was slowly darkening into night. Overhead the sky was clear, but a heavy dew had begun to fall. The cawing of the homing rooks had died away, and an exquisite quiet had fallen on the air. Rusk could have appreciated it much more had he been alone. His companion jarred on him inexpressibly, but he had no way of getting rid of her. He thought of the well by the hawthorn, and had Amy not been with him he would probably have gone there to see it again: he thought of Denis and his lonely sacrifices to the moon. And somehow at this moment it was these things that were real, the girl beside him, so full of life and the passion for life, that was meaningless and vague. A divine tenderness seemed to drop down from the sky; the rustle of the fading, darkening trees was full of a dreamy, melancholy music. He had almost forgotten her when she spoke again:

“Rebecca was up at the house to-night. She says she saw you this evening, but that you hardly noticed her: she says you never do notice her.”

“I don’t like her,” said Rusk shortly, and Amy made a little grimace.

“You’re so hard to please,” she exclaimed.

“I’m certainly not pleased by Rebecca, and I don’t know that I want to be.”

“Well I think you might talk to her a little now and then out of kindness. She’s very interesting. She knows all sorts of queer things.”

Rusk was beginning to feel thoroughly bored. “If she knows anything worth knowing I’d be rather surprised,” he said. “I don’t think I ever saw a more villainous-looking old hag in my life.”

“She says she used to be a beauty; but it was a long time ago. She’ll talk to you for hours about her dead and gone lovers.... She believes in witchcraft and in charms and in all kinds of things of that sort. She can give you cures and charms for whatever you want. She had a bit of a sheet that was once wrapped round a corpse, and she told me that if I could get mamma to tie a corner of it over her head it would put away her headaches: and you know mamma has the most frightful headaches.”

“It was excellent advice then.”

“Don’t be so sarcastic. I’m sure if I had as bad headaches as mamma has I’d try it. It couldn’t do much harm at any rate.... She can give you a love-charm, if you want one, Mr. Rusk,” she added, suddenly, in a mocking tone, “and she can tell you all sorts of things to do on May Eve and Hallow Eve. Last May Eve I tried a thing she had told me about. I sprinkled ashes just outside the hall door, and then very early in the morning before anyone was awake I got up to see if there was a foot-print on them. If there is a foot-print, and it is turned inwards, it means marriage; if it is turned outwards it means death. I got the most horrible fright because there was a foot-print, and I hadn’t a bit expected one. It was turned outwards, too. One of the maids had got up early to gather dew to put on her face—if you gather dew on May morning, you know, and put it on your face, it makes you beautiful—and it was her foot-mark I saw. But, of course, I didn’t know that till afterwards, and it gave me an awful shock.”

Rusk had not been listening very attentively, yet she seemed to be waiting for a reply. “So those are Rebecca’s accomplishments,” he murmured abstractedly.

“Oh, you’re perfectly horrid. I won’t tell you anything more. I never saw anyone so superior in my life.”

They had turned on their homeward way and presently the house again came into sight. He was not sorry. There was something in the girl’s manner that warned him to be very careful. She had shown him pretty clearly that she liked him, and perhaps something more. He never knew, either, just how far she would go—that was the worst of it—though he was most particular to avoid all topics that, so far as he could judge, might develop sentimentally. Still, she was quite capable of choosing her own topics, or of doing anything else that happened to suit her purpose. Latterly she had begun to try to invent opportunities to be alone with him, and it was rather difficult to frustrate these designs without being more or less rude. He had no desire to be rude, but he had a suspicion that it would be necessary, sooner or later, to become so, unless he were prepared to play the rôle she appeared to wish him to adopt. When he entered the library Denis was sitting at the table working. He looked up in the soft lamplight and smiled. Rusk went over and sat down beside him.

CHAPTER X

Sunday morning was always with the Bracknels a period of disturbance and confusion. Breakfast was fixed for a particular time, half-past nine it happened to be, and at this hour everyone was expected to be seated at the table. Mrs. Bracknel came down first; Rusk also took care not to be late; but when Mr. Bracknel himself appeared punctually at the first ringing of the gong, a stormy scene not infrequently followed. For the others straggled down anyhow, and in varying order, save that Alfred, sleepy and in a vile temper, inevitably brought up the rear. The gong sounded repeatedly, sometimes being rung excitedly by Mr. Bracknel in person—he had once actually overturned it with an immense and startling clatter—and the air became full of conflicting and angry noises. Yet in spite of this agitation there was exactly the usual scramble at the last moment to be in time for church.

Morning church was absolutely obligatory. Nobody was allowed to miss it; not even the stranger within the gates—Rusk, for example, who had just re-awakened to this consciousness, a few days after his visit to the Birches, when through the customary stillness he became aware of the faint sound of a distant, lonely bell, marking off the passing moments with uncertain but by no means unmusical beats. As he dressed himself he looked out through the open window into a perfect summer day, and marvelled at the regularity with which, Sunday after Sunday, they all took their seats in the stuffy little building he detested. They would all be going this morning, he knew, though the garden looked delightful, and one could never tell how long the fine weather would last.

The Bracknels were Presbyterians, but Rusk had thought it better to go with them. Such things, even when they were not necessary, he did easily, thanks to his equable temper, and to a certain inherent desire to be obliging. To-day there was the usual rush at the last moment. The atmosphere was heavily charged with a kind of suppressed irritability, ready at the slightest touch to break out in sparks of temper. Amy in her haste had split a glove that was possibly a little too small for her, though she responded bitterly when Alfred made this suggestion: and Alfred, sulkily brushing his hat, told her not to be a fool, and wondered that she hadn’t a little sense. Mrs. Bracknel disappeared in the most exasperating fashion just as they should have been starting off—she had gone to give some directions to the servants—and her husband fumed and fretted in the hall, calling to her that they would be late. It was not till they were half way down the avenue that it was discovered that Denis was missing. Nobody had seen him; he must either be in bed still, or else have gone out before anyone else was down. Mr. Bracknel began to storm, and everyone was hot and unspeakably bored by the time they reached their destination.

And the service dragged interminably. Mr. Bracknel slept at the end of the pew. Alfred, to whom sleep was denied, yawned and stretched himself. Mrs. Bracknel alone appeared to listen to what was going on. Amy, clad in pale, soft, floating green, and with a huge hat, sat next to Rusk, a position she had obtained by almost pushing May into the pew first. Rusk was dressed in a light grey suit, with which he wore a deep violet tie. His skin was so sunburned as to be several shades darker than his fair hair. Amy looked, without turning her head, at his handsome profile, at his well-cut clothes. She sat close to him, closer in fact than was at all necessary, and when he moved away a little she was annoyed and drew back herself. He had begun to be constantly present to her thoughts, both by night and day. She had made a determined effort to attract him. It seemed to her, in the extraordinary impulsiveness of her nature, that, if she could not do so, life would not be worth living. She began to picture a series of imaginary love adventures, while the voice of the minister sounded persuasively through the building. Her mind wandered hither and thither. Would her father let her marry him? He had nothing and his prospects, so far as she knew, were nothing....

The congregation with a unanimous sigh of relief shuffled to its feet. Amy had determined to walk home with Rusk, but unfortunately she was doomed to disappointment. While they were yet in the porch May secured the young Englishman’s attention. “Oh, Mr. Rusk,” she cried, “you never told us you went in for sketching. I found it out by the merest chance from Miss Birch. I’m going to make you help me, so there.”

Rusk laughed, and his words were inaudible as he and May dropped behind.

Her mother made some remark to her, but Amy did not listen. Her disappointment was keen. He had not so much as glanced at her, and she had dressed especially to please him. And it was always like this. At the last moment May stepped in to take him away from her. She did it out of spite, not because she cared a straw for him. And now this “sketching” idea would be for ever coming up. May would use it for all it was worth. It would be an excuse to get hold of him for hours at a time. May had not opened her paint-box for months, but Amy was perfectly convinced that it would be in full evidence to-morrow. They would probably go on little expeditions together, and, under the pretence of getting help from him, she would occupy all his spare time. They would bend over each other’s drawings. They would be for ever putting their heads together. And May would flatter him: she would pretend to make fun of him and at the same time contrive to show him how much she was really influenced by what he said. That had always been May’s method. She was so good at listening, so sympathetic, so full of involuntary admiration. She was listening to Rusk now, she was being sympathetic and involuntarily admiring. And it was all for nothing, all merely to satisfy her personal vanity, for in reality she was as cold as ice and had never cared for anybody in her life....

So Amy worked it out, employing, for material was scanty, a good deal of imagination and ingenuity. On entering the house she went straight upstairs to her own room to take off her things. Then she sat down at the window to wait for Rusk and May. There was really very little use in this; the sole effect it had was to increase her own exasperation; but presently she saw them slowly sauntering across the lawn, and a little later she heard May come upstairs and open her bedroom door. Amy rose deliberately and walked down the passage to her sister’s room. She flung the door open brusquely, and as May turned round in some surprise she took a step forward and then stood still. She looked intently at her unconscious rival, but without speaking a word.

“What is the matter?” May asked, none too agreeably, for she had been interrupted in the midst of rather pleasant thoughts, and there was something particularly irritating in the way Amy stood and gazed at her. “What are you staring at me like that for? You would think I had seven heads!”

Amy gave a strained, mirthless laugh. “I hope you had a nice walk,” she said in a jarring voice. “You managed it so beautifully that it would be a pity if it hadn’t come off well.” All the indescribable crudity of the poor girl’s nature was in those few words. It was a pitiable exhibition, but it awakened no pity in May.

“Are you mad? I don’t even know what you are alluding to.”

“No, I’m not mad.”

“Well, I don’t understand what you mean; but I suppose it has something to do with Mr. Rusk, as usual.”

Amy took a step toward her, almost as if she were about to strike her. “That’s a lie,” she said in a low, hoarse voice. “I never mention his name to you.”

May smiled compassionately. “Perhaps not; but as you never think of anyone else it is hardly necessary. The way you behave about him is too revolting for words. Why, you almost pushed me off my feet in the aisle this morning simply to get sitting beside him.”

“I didn’t,” said Amy passionately. “It was you who stood in the way, as you always do.”

“My dear girl, I wonder you aren’t ashamed. You don’t know how obvious it all is, even to strangers. Everybody was staring at you.”

“I don’t care how obvious it is, nor what anybody thinks; you least of all. You saw I was just going to say something to him and you called him away.”

May broke into a little scornful laugh. “I didn’t call him away. I suppose he is at liberty to walk home with me if he wants to.”

“Oh, I’m sure he’s at liberty to do anything he likes with you.”

“After that, will you kindly leave my room.”

For all answer Amy sat down on the edge of the bed. A heavy sombre look overspread her face. “Are you going sketching with him?” she asked in a low voice, but May did not reply.

“Are you going sketching with him?” Amy asked again.

“It is no concern of yours what I am going to do. I don’t intend to discuss the matter with you, so you needn’t wait.”

Still her sister made no movement. There was a silence. At last Amy got up slowly. Her face had a kind of sullen vindictiveness, but she appeared to be absolutely unashamed of having laid bare her feelings and of the manner in which she had done so. She went back to her own room and began to pace up and down the floor, her mind filled with all the tumult of unreasoning jealousy. There was a curious simplicity about the girl; something almost elemental. The savage, the primitive, woman in her was scarcely even veiled. That slender web of convention which education and environment had so insecurely wrapped around her could be brushed aside at a touch; and she had nothing, on the other hand, of the dignity or self-control characteristic of really uncivilized persons. Yet her impulses were free and natural, untinged by any taint of vice or corruption. She posed herself now before the mirror and looked long and intently at her own image reflected there. The heavy masses of her red hair threw into relief the brilliant fairness of her complexion. She wondered artlessly why she should not be more desirable than May. She studied the outline of her form, which was admirably developed, though the limbs were possibly a little heavy. Her throat was white and strong and well-modelled, her lips were full and red. It seemed to her that in every way she was superior to her sister. May was almost insignificant-looking. She tried to imagine how May could be more attractive to any man, and failed. It was certainly not in her physical charms that her fascination lay. To Amy these appeared meagre. And she moved to and fro before her mirror almost as if she were a slave exhibiting herself to some hesitating and critical purchaser, and the result was reassuring. At any rate it was with a less clouded countenance that she descended the stairs as the deep note of the gong sounded from the hall below.

CHAPTER XI

“Rich in the simple worship of a day.”—Keats.

Denis had awakened early that morning. He knew that it was Sunday, and that there was no hurry about getting up, so for a few minutes more he lay in a half dream, listening to a leaf that tapped softly against his window pane, listening to the sighing of the trees. And gradually his drowsiness slipped from him till he was quite wide awake, when he sprang out of bed. He breakfasted early and alone, long before any of the others were down, and as soon as he had finished went out into the garden where for a few minutes he wandered among the flowers, shaking the dew from heavy crimson roses, and burying his face among cool drenched leaves. He knew it was going to be a glorious day, and remembering that if he lingered near the house he would presently be marched off to church, he decided to take a holiday, though it would certainly mean getting into trouble afterwards. But it was worth it. The sunlight lay on the grass all around him; every living thing seemed gay and happy, and innumerable birds were singing ecstatic praises to the summer God. It reminded him of those old summers, set to music long ago by Chaucer, when the God of Love wandered through the daisied meadows, “his gilte heer corouned with a sonne.”

Whan that I here the smale foules singe,
And that the floures ginnen for to springe,
Farwel my book and my devocioun!

No; clearly, church was out of the question.

His heart was strangely uplifted as he ran across the lawn and down a wooded slope till he was hidden from the house and in safety. Beside a stream he sat down in the cool fresh green grass, hugging his chin against his knees and watching the water ripple past, dancing and sparkling in the sunshine. Above his head the branches of a willow dropped to the stream; the tips of the long slender leaves just touched the water as it passed. Denis rolled over and over in the long cool grass like a dog, the earth-smell in his nostrils, the earth-murmur in his ears. From time to time a faint rustle passed through the tree-tops like the whisper of a spirit, from time to time a pale-winged butterfly flitted across the stream and on into the dimmer heart of the wood. “To-day perhaps my messenger will come to me,” the boy whispered, for he was already far in the country of romance. And a bird passing overhead seemed to carry his words into the wood, and from a distance there came the answer of a voice, faint through the light rustle of the leaves: “Follow; follow!” it murmured. “Follow the wind and the water!”

Denis sat up and leaned his back against the grey, gnarled trunk of the willow. He drew a small flute from his pocket and began to blow into it softly and dreamily; and from time to time he smiled, and the notes he played died into silence as he built his castles in the air and watched them climb up toward the sky and melt away like smoke. He sat there for a long time, watching and waiting. Through the glimmering shadow of leaves he seemed to see the dim paleness of a god, he seemed to hear the low sound of words spoken in the sleepy noon-tide hum; and in the faint noise of splashing water his name was called. Then a deep, slumbrous quiet dropped into his soul.

He gazed up through the golden quivering heat at the sky, so soft, so pure, never so far-off as to-day; and he wondered just where in all that immensity—untroubled by mortal joys and mortal sorrows—lay the country of the gods. His brown thin hands rested on either side of him, motionless upon the green grass; and the sunlight grew heavier and heavier till at last it beat down through the sheltering boughs above him, like a rain of liquid gold. Again a dim white form gleamed through the trees, and this time a voice sounded just above his head, clear and low and unmistakable: “Follow; follow!” it said. “Follow the wind and the water!”

He shut his eyes tightly, and crushed the grass in his hands till his fingers were stained with its cool greenness. A sudden, rapid wind blew past his cheek and for a moment his spirit seemed to be drawn out from his body. When he opened his eyes he saw quite distinctly a figure before him, naked and beautiful, standing there on the other side of the stream in the hot, clear sunlight. Then as he gazed and gazed, it receded slowly, it faded back into a green dimness that the next moment was but the deep shadow of the wood beyond. Had his fancy deceived him? Had he been asleep? Had it been a dream? He sprang to his feet and crossed the brook by a couple of stepping-stones. The next moment he was where the vanished figure had been, and a few steps further brought him to the shadow into which he had watched it disappear. He was in the thickest part of the wood now. The trees were very close together, and their branches made a kind of roof above him, while the ground was covered with a dense brown mould of decayed leaves which had lain there undisturbed for a long long time. The light was dimmed, like the light in a church. He knew where he was, and yet it all seemed strange and different.

His progress was momentarily arrested by a thick clump of bushes and undergrowth through which he forced his way, utterly reckless of his clothes. He tore his trousers, and scratched his hands and wrists, and then, coming out on the other side, he found himself in the little open glade where the great hawthorn grew beside the pool. The pool lay there now, surrounded by green level banks—it lay there in the sunlight like a huge jewel, and the spring that fed it bubbled over on to the grassy brink. On the green grass, and on the water the sunlight rested like a golden fire. The water was a rain of precious stones when he splashed it up and up against the blue. After the dusk and gloom of the wood, the glade seemed to him wonderful and unearthly, and for a long time he lay looking into the water, watching the sky in it, the passing clouds, the flight of a bird, his own face, very white and strange, half unknown.

He drank a mouthful or two of the water and it was cool and pleasant in his throat. He lay there a little longer, and then he turned over on his back. He felt restless and vaguely expectant of undreamed mysteries. He felt that he was not alone, that there were invisible creatures all about him—creatures either more or less than human, watching him from hidden places. This pool was haunted and he had come into its power long, long ago. He thought of it as he had seen it in the white cold moonlight, with a wind in the dark trees. He pictured strange mysterious creatures fleeing down through the water on his approach. He could see them softly rising again so soon as his back was turned; rising, and looking after him—rising like the whiteness of a fountain. He saw the water itself rising under their spell to curve against the moon, or, in winter, against the dreary, naked trees, while the few remaining leaves floated down through the damp air—turning, turning, turning, till they reached the ground. There had been times when sitting in the drawing-room at home, or in the crowded school-room he had so disliked, everything had faded away before him, and through the chatter of voices he had heard a soft rustle like the sound of leaves, and had found himself back here—back where he was now, beside the pool, and the old hawthorn, and the half-buried altar with its faint and faded stain of blood. He stood up and shouted aloud. A kind of ecstasy seized him and drew him up into the sun. He was lost in the spirit of the universe: he seemed to live through endless ages in the opening and closing of his eyes....

Suddenly he heard the noise of someone approaching—someone who did not know the way and who was blundering through the bushes and the undergrowth, yet always getting nearer. A quick thought of flight came into his mind. Who could it be? No one had ever come here before: no one even knew of his hiding-place. And then suddenly he remembered his tutor. It annoyed him that Rusk should break in upon his privacy; it seemed to him like a betrayal of confidence; and he slipped away between the bushes as quietly as a shadow, and in the thicket close by lay still to watch.

Presently Rusk came blundering out into the open, looking flushed, and very hot and uncomfortable. He turned his head and the boy could see he was disappointed at finding no one. Then he began to call aloud as he parted the surrounding bushes with his hands, peering between them: “Denis—Denis—are you here?”

A half-mocking smile flitted across the face of the hidden boy, but he made no sign, and presently Rusk went away again. He could hear him crushing twigs and brambles and broken branches under his feet as he went. When the noise of his progress had ceased Denis crept out once more into the sunlight, like a cat, and lay down again by the pool. But the magic was gone; the spell was broken; he was back in an everyday world and very soon his hunger awakened him to the fact that it must be getting late.

The shadows were lengthening as he drew near the house. The others were sitting out on the lawn. He was dirty, torn, dishevelled, but he sauntered across the grass with his hands in his pockets and with a delightful air of unconcern. He smiled with a little friendly nod, as who should say, “Oh, you’re here, are you? You all look very comfortable.”

But there was a general outcry at his appearance.

“Where have you been, sir?” Mr. Bracknel asked sternly. “Are you aware what day it is, and of the condition you are in? Do you think I buy you clothes to have you go out and roll in the mud in them like a savage? If your mother is content to pass over such practices, I will teach you that I am not. Where have you been, sir? Don’t stand there grinning like a—a——”

Denis still smiled faintly; he still kept his hands in his pockets, and his head was slightly drooped. “I was out for a little!” he murmured with an exquisite sweetness. “Nice day it’s been, hasn’t it?”

“Come with me, sir,” Mr. Bracknel said, getting up solemnly. “We will talk about this inside.”

His wife laid her hand timidly on his arm. “James dear, let him get something to eat first: he must be starving!”

“I am rather hungry,” Denis confessed. “Won’t it do a little later, papa—to talk, I mean.”

Mr. Bracknel’s face, which had been hot and shining before, now rivalled the sunset already flaming behind the trees. “Come with me, sir,” he said again, impressively.

Denis gave a little shrug and father and son went together toward the house.

The rest of the party sat on for some moments watching them till at last May murmured softly, “It is fortunate that papa’s bark is worse than his bite.”

She caught Rusk’s eye and the latter suddenly broke into a laugh. Mrs. Bracknel alone seemed anxious.

“He’s got the cheek of the mischief, you know,” Rusk ejaculated half-admiringly. “Did you ever see anything like it in your life? I wonder where he’s been? And why on earth didn’t he slip in by the back? He’s really amazing, you know—upon my word! He never turned a hair!”

“It wasn’t cheek,” May answered. “You don’t understand him. It was just a kind of beautiful unconsciousness. He never thinks of how he looks till somebody reminds him. Then he becomes quite sensitive till he forgets again.... And he was really very nervous though he talked in that way. Papa gets so violent. Why can’t he leave him alone: what matters about his clothes.”

“There was a piece out of his trousers about the size of my hand,” Rusk declared.

“Papa will never understand him either; and he gets so angry with him. It is stupid. There is nothing to be angry about.” The advent of Denis had had the effect of breaking up the party on the lawn, and May and Rusk were now strolling together across the grass away from the others.

“Oh, but I think I do understand him a little,” Rusk demurred. “After all, you must admit that he looked uncommonly cool. He’s a wonderful kid.”

“Mr. Rusk, I’m afraid I won’t be able to go out sketching to-morrow,” the girl suddenly said.

“Oh, well, the day after will do—or any day that suits you. I only suggested to-morrow because I thought it was going to be fine and I didn’t see any particular point in waiting.”

May was silent for a moment: then she pursued, “I don’t know that I shall really take it up again at all.”

“At all?” There was something in her tone that made him look at her.

The girl smiled. “I haven’t done anything for so long that I shouldn’t know how to begin.”

“Oh, if that is all, you’ll soon get into it. You only want a little practice.”

“I don’t think I can come all the same.”

A vague suspicion entered Rusk’s mind. “Why?” he asked. “I thought you were quite on for it this morning!”

“So I was—but——”

Rusk was disappointed. “You seem to have changed your mind very quickly,” he brought out in a rather injured tone. “Of course if it will only bore you——”

May coloured. “I haven’t changed my mind,” she answered. “I mean, I don’t want you to think me changeable. I hate changeable people.”

“I don’t know what you call it then,” Rusk grumbled.

She smiled again. “I am still interested in your sketches. I shall see that you do a dozen a week.”

They had drawn close to the others once more and he could say nothing further.

“We thought you were going for a walk,” Amy cried with a peculiar laugh. “Your backs looked so confidential!—as if you had heaps and heaps to tell each other.”

No one made any reply to this remark.

CHAPTER XII

On Sundays if the Bracknels got up late they went to bed early. At eleven o’clock only the light in Rusk’s room was still burning—the rest of the house was wrapped in darkness, though not wholly in slumber. May was awake, and Denis too was awake—awake and dreaming; the day, in fact, was ending as it had begun. There was a difference in one respect. In the morning he had been tireless, happy, eager; now an infinite lassitude had fallen upon him, and the sunlight of the morning was as far away as though it had never been. He felt weary and lonely, his mouth was drooped and tired, and as he sat up in bed hugging his knees and gazing out through the window, he seemed to be watching against the silent darkness the tragedy of his life slowly weaving itself out in strange and changing scenes. A reaction from the excitement of the past few hours had set in; he felt a kind of weariness of all things bad and good. He could have hidden his face on the pillow and cried himself to sleep; he could have welcomed the end of life as coming with the ending of the day. He was unhappy; he had never been very happy it now seemed to him, though usually he had been able to forget everything but the actually passing moment. He had no illusions about himself, about what had been, about what was now, or about what was still to come. He had no illusions about the people who formed his world, about life itself, so far as he knew it, about anything. He knew that he was unsound physically; that mentally also he was different from others, from healthy, normal people like Rusk, for instance—probably unsound there, too!—that even in appearance he was peculiar. He had read love tales that had fired his imagination for an hour, but he knew that no one would ever love him in that way. He was too sickly and queer. Probably he would be well-off some day, for his father was a very rich man, but he did not see that even this would make any great difference. After all, he had everything he wanted now—everything of that kind; and what did it mean to him? There was nothing that suggested itself to his ambition as particularly attractive; there was nothing he wanted to do; there was nothing he wanted to be. He was tired, tired to death....

His hands caught at the crumpled sheets and he shut his eyes tightly; his whole face was expressive of an infinite dejection. At length he could bear his loneliness no longer; he felt he must speak to some one, and got out of bed and softly opened his door. There was only one person to whom he could speak. He went along the passage and knocked at the door of the next room. He heard Rusk moving inside and then the handle turned.

Rusk stood there in the lamplight, holding a book, his finger still keeping the place, while he looked at the figure before him, barefooted, and clad in a light sleeping-suit, with his coarse black hair straggling over his forehead, and his curious narrow eyes unnaturally bright.

“I want to speak to you,” Denis said. “I knew you would be up reading. Do you mind? I will go away if you don’t want me.”

“But why aren’t you asleep? Of course I don’t mind, only you’d better go back to bed, and not stand there catching cold.”

“But I want to talk to you.”

“All right; I’ll come with you.” He laid down his book and followed Denis to his own room. There, when his pupil was once more under the bedclothes, he sat down beside him. “What is it?” he asked. “You led us all a nice dance to-day. I ought to be rowing you up about it.”

“I wanted to tell you that I was there when you came to look for me,” said Denis, suddenly reminded of this incident, and seizing it as an excuse for having disturbed his tutor. “I was angry at your coming; I had always kept it as a kind of secret place. I was hiding in the bushes watching you when you called my name.”

“Oh, you were hiding, were you?” said Rusk, good-humouredly. “I had a strong suspicion that you weren’t very far away. And you were angry with me for going to your den? But, my dear fellow, I didn’t go till well on in the afternoon, when everyone was beginning to wonder what on earth had happened to you. Such considerations don’t trouble you, I suppose?—your people imagining you have dropped into the river, or broken your leg, or been run over by a motor, or perhaps all three?”

“I didn’t think about them. At any rate, it wasn’t the first time I had been out; and so far as I saw nobody looked particularly anxious when I came back. You all looked very comfortable.”

“And what were you up to? Why didn’t you get hungry?”

“I did. That’s what brought me home.”

“Brought you home at half-past six in the evening!”

“Well, I wasn’t doing any harm. What’s the use of bothering about it?”

“And why can’t you go to sleep now?”

“I don’t know; but it’s not because I have a bad conscience.... I feel melancholy and rotten—that is all.”

“What about?”

“About everything—everything that concerns myself.”

“My dear boy, you’re tired.”

“I knew you would say that.... Well, it doesn’t matter.”

“Shall I read to you?”

He shook his head. “I don’t feel like reading. Tell me about what you did when you were a boy.... Do you think if I had known you then that we should have been friends?”

Rusk doubted it, but he only said, “Why not?”

“We’re good friends now, at any rate: that’s one comfort.”

He lay quiet for a long time, and presently, thinking that he had fallen asleep, Rusk went back on tip-toe to his own room.

But Denis was not asleep. He had realized that what he needed was beyond his companion’s power to give him—that was all. Rusk had always been sympathetic and kind, but the boy felt instinctively that he would never perfectly understand him. He was too different. His tutor’s spirit was in many ways really younger than his own. Probably there was nothing on earth that could ever give him what he sought.

He wondered if he should see anything of Rusk later on—when they had ceased to be master and pupil? He doubted it. Rusk would have his profession to follow. Yet his tutor was the only friend he had ever found.

The moon had risen above the trees and a silvery light lay across the floor. He watched it, and gradually he grew drowsy, and at last he fell asleep. It seemed to him that he was awakened by a slight sound—his name softly spoken. He opened his eyes and half sat up in bed. It was the voice he had heard in the woods; or was he dreaming again? The room was as light almost as it was by day. The white radiance of the moon was pouring in, and as he looked at it, it gradually grew denser and turned to something pale and cloudy—and then—and then to something else.... There was a figure bending over him, a pale, dim form that leaned down and took him in its arms. He felt a kind of coldness pass into his body with a curious, shivering joy; he felt a kiss upon his cheek and then a longer kiss upon his mouth: he lay in a half-conscious swoon....

When he again opened his eyes it was broad daylight and he had an idea that it was late. He was languid and loath to get up, and he turned in his bed and then lay still. He began to remember things. What was it that had taken place last night? Had it been a dream? He felt a curious reluctance to inquire into it too closely....

Outside, on the roof, just above his window, a bird was chirping. He lay and listened to it. He did not try to think very clearly, and presently he slipped back again into sleep.

CHAPTER XIII

May kept her word, and Rusk was obliged to go out sketching alone, or, rather, accompanied only by Denis, who on such occasions brought a book with him and read, sometimes to himself, sometimes to his companion. A good many hours they passed in this way—hours that brought Rusk a greater, though by no means a perfect, insight into the peculiar character of his pupil’s mind. There were certain things, above all, that he learned. Ordinary life, ordinary adventures, seemed to have but little attraction for Denis, and he would forsake the “Three Musketeers,” or “Treasure Island,” for any (to Rusk silly and fantastic) tale or poem or treatise that dabbled in the unseen. The boy had a mysterious standard, too, by which he judged such things. He examined them all impartially, but the vast majority he threw aside as worthless. “The man doesn’t know,” was his formula on such occasions—the man, of course, being the author—though what it was, exactly, that he knew, or didn’t know, to Rusk never became very clear. For, to himself, though varying in plausibility, the works in question all appeared to be of about equal value in relation to reality. He thought one or two of them rather clever, and one or two of them, as he called it, poetical; but the vast majority seemed to be merely foolish, and surely all alike were singularly profitless. He was not successful, nevertheless, when he tried to wean Denis from a taste which was evidently a part of his nature. Rusk himself saw in these productions nothing but a stimulus to an imagination already far too little under control. He found it difficult to reconcile the boy’s apparent credulity in such matters with his eager, alert intelligence in every other respect. There seemed to be a perpetual dream-life going on in his pupil’s mind, the reflections from which now and then flared out with so startling a brightness as actually to obscure that of his sensual perception. And his imagination had a curiously Eastern tinge Rusk found it difficult to follow. Beneath the wild fantasy of the “Arabian Nights,” he appeared to find hidden and strange realities. He knew they were fictions, and yet he had bewildering moods in which he apparently took them seriously. In all other directions Rusk found him amenable enough. He had never known anyone with so sweet a temper, so affectionate, so pleasant in his ways. Of course by this time he knew that Denis was extremely fond of him; there had been moments indeed when he had almost wished that the boy’s affection were a little less genuine—it had seemed so to deepen his responsibility. And he found himself growing alarmingly serious under the weight of this latter quantity; not outwardly so much as in the whole way he had come to look upon life. He had never particularly looked at life at all during his four extremely happy years at Cambridge. Now he seemed to himself to be plunged in it up to his eyes, as in some strange, perhaps dangerous, river, and without the least notion as to how well he could swim. He found himself endeavouring to gaze on into the future, and it was Denis’s future as often as his own that figured in the foreground of this temporal perspective. It was very well indeed, he thought, that the boy was, or would be, in a most comfortable position financially; otherwise he didn’t quite see what on earth would become of him. Even as it was, he had, somehow, a feeling of discouragement, as if he foresaw the waste of a fine intelligence and an exquisite sensibility, lost through some slight want of balance in one particular direction.

Denis sometimes had long fits of silence and abstraction which Rusk could not understand. He would be sitting before the fire, say, when he would drop off into a kind of dream from which it would be hardly possible to rouse him. Of course the tutor got accustomed to it, but at first it had made him a little anxious, for more than once he had noticed that, after he had been awakened, the boy’s mind would still seem to be filled with reflections and images from his dream, as if, indeed, he were hardly capable of distinguishing between it and reality. And now and then he appeared not even to know that he had been dreaming. Rusk was perplexed, but he felt the problem to be so delicate a one that he feared to touch it, lest his touch should prove too coarse. He did not care to question Denis, because by doing so he might perchance turn his thoughts into morbid and weakening channels. Rusk was still haunted by the memory of their visit to the altar in the wood. The place surely had some mysterious influence on the boy, and any such influence, it appeared to him, must necessarily be malign. He had a horror of mental aberrations. They struck him as being far more dreadful than a twisted, misshapen body. His pupil, of course, was perfectly sane, but was there not an enemy somewhere, watching and waiting in the shadow?—crouching, ready to spring? The boy struck him as being a curious mixture of childishness and something quite different; and in the past he must have been left absolutely to himself. Certainly in things that mattered maybe most of all he had been allowed to struggle on alone as best he might. There had been an unpardonable indifference or stupidity somewhere. It was as if he had been left in the dark to find his way through a treacherous place where quicksands lay all about his feet. Possibly such things were inevitable. Possibly, if a boy was born with a certain temperament, disaster was bound to follow: but Rusk did not believe it, and he intended to prove the contrary. The idea filled him with a kind of dogged determination that was highly characteristic. No doubt if he had not happened to care for Denis his zeal would have been very much less, but it is probable that it would still have kept him to his post. He had ideas about work—they coincided beautifully with those Doctor Birch had imputed to him—that there are certain things that are worth doing, and that those were the things he wanted to do; and his present occupation, viewed with the high seriousness he just now brought to it, dropped naturally into this category.

* * * * *

Toward the end of August, in order to be present at the wedding of his eldest sister, he returned home for a week—a week which threw into extraordinary vividness the peculiarities of the Bracknel menage. He had had half a mind to bring his pupil with him, but on his arrival he was rather glad that he had left him behind. His young brother was home for the holidays; he had left school and would be going up to the university next year. His young brother was rather a swell at games, and he had staying with him a congenial spirit whom Rusk had not hitherto met. He could not in truth quite see Denis getting on with either of these important youths. They would have regarded “Skinny” with unfathomable, if unspoken, contempt, and would have said he was mad. It gave Rusk something of the measure of the change that was being wrought in his own mental attitude, when he found himself impatient of a point of view he would doubtless not very long ago have shared—found himself, too, on a good many occasions, secretly bored by the society of these two fine specimens of budding Anglo-Saxon manhood, and mentally contrasting them, not particularly favourably, with the young boy he had lately seen so much of. He had a certain simple tenderness for Denis which was quite different from any feeling he had ever had for anybody else. Rusk was not of a temperament to be easily carried away, and if he had formed no romantic friendship at school, he was certainly unlikely to do so later on in the world. He was eminently sensible and practical. His imagination, if it could indulge in a respectable flutter now and again, was not given to any particularly sustained or lofty flights. His feet were planted firmly and sturdily on this earth, and above all he hated “gush.” Of course he would have denied that there was anything in the least romantic about his affection for Denis, but the denial would not, in spite of its sincerity, have represented quite the whole truth. For undoubtedly he had come by many little steps to regard himself as, in a way, the boy’s protector; and the very fact of his pupil’s dependence upon him had strengthened this feeling, had given it just that quality of delicacy, of tenderness, which beautifully differentiated it from anything else he had ever experienced, which, at the same time, actually and tremendously deepened his whole sense of life.

His mother and sisters were eager to know all about how he was getting on, all about his pupil, all about the Bracknels; and they had evidently expected something less prosaic than Rusk’s bald account of his adventures proved to be, though what it was they had pictured was never exactly revealed.

“He’s a queer little chap,” Rusk said, in reply to a question concerning Denis, “but he’s as clever as anything. I half thought of bringing him over with me. He’d have come like a shot; he’d have liked to come, and I’d have liked you to see him.”

But he knew that it was really in the other members of the Bracknel household that his mother and sisters were interested. Rusk told them that he liked Mrs. Bracknel and May, that May was quite a jolly kind of girl, and that he didn’t care for Amy so much. Yet, in regard to this last opinion, he apparently could not, when questioned, give any particulars. A curious, and possibly absurd, idea had in fact suddenly taken possession of him, that he must say nothing in any way derogatory, nothing of the sort that his mother and sisters would have been keenly interested to hear. He did not tell them, for instance, of what had taken place on the evening of his arrival; he did not tell them even about Mr. Bracknel and Alfred. His powers of description were not vivid at the best, and to the feminine mind they seemed at present singularly pale and inadequate. To supplement them he produced a photograph—a group Denis had taken—and his sisters discovered that Amy was distinctly good-looking, but that May was almost plain, an opinion Rusk did not share. When he showed them a portrait of Denis himself, they thought him curiously unattractive.

His week at home passed quickly and pleasantly; nevertheless, at the expiration of his leave, he was surprised to find that he was not altogether sorry to return to his duties. On the day of his arrival he and Denis spent a good deal of their time paddling on the river. Denis had innumerable questions to ask, being tremendously interested in everything relating to his tutor. He wanted to know how the wedding had gone off, what his brother was like, what they had done, if they had had much tennis, what his brother’s friend was like. This last question reminded Rusk of something he had now and then thought of before—namely, that Denis himself appeared to have no friends of his own age. He had never so much as heard him allude to any companion he might have had in the past. Once indeed he had asked him if he knew any boys whom they could get to make up a four at tennis, and on that occasion his pupil had said there was no one. Mrs. Bracknel had thereupon mentioned two or three names—Denis could write and ask them if Mr. Rusk liked—but the thing viewed in this light had seemed so absurdly formal that he had not pushed it any further. Of course he could see in a way that his pupil would have little in common with his contemporaries; his mind was at once more subtle and more simple, more precocious and more childish, than that of the ordinary boy of his age; but he thought it rather a pity that he had been so isolated, so much thrown on the society of persons older than himself. It must have helped to accentuate, even to create, some of his peculiarities, and if it had not made him unbearably priggish, that was a mere happy chance.

The day after Rusk’s arrival they returned to work. Perhaps an hour had passed, and the tutor was looking over a Latin prose the boy had done for him, when the door opened and Amy entered. Rusk had known before he looked round that it was she. She had paid them several visits since the one recorded, and just before he had gone home she had come in on some pretext or another for two or three mornings in succession. Rusk, it must be confessed, had not yet screwed up his courage to the point of objecting to these interruptions, but to-day he determined to do so.

She had brought him a letter which the postman had just delivered. “How cosy you are in here,” she said calmly, seating herself in an armchair. “This room is really quite pleasant.... I can never read properly with mamma and May chattering beside me and moving about. Don’t you think it is hard to keep your attention on anything if there is a noise going on? I simply can’t read when people are talking, can you?... It is so delightfully quiet here.”

“I’m afraid we have to do a good deal of talking,” Rusk said. “We couldn’t very well work without.”

“Oh, but that isn’t the same thing. What I mean is, when people every now and then ask you some question or begin to tell you something they expect you to listen to. I could read perfectly here, for instance.”

“I don’t think it would be good for Denis’s work,” said Rusk quietly.

Amy’s tone changed slightly, taking a sharper key. “Oh, Denis’s work! I’m sure he does a lot.” Then she dropped to her softest note. “I wish you would tell me what I ought to read, Mr. Rusk—really good books—I’m sure you know everything of that kind.”

“I’m afraid I don’t,” answered Rusk, “and at present we must really go on with what we are doing.”

He returned to his prose, and Amy sat silent for a while. Then, happening to encounter her brother’s eyes, she gave him a glare. She got up. “I’m sorry for having disturbed you,” she said stiffly to Rusk as she walked to the door.

Rusk too had risen. “Oh, it’s all right,” he replied with wonderful coolness. He decided that now was the time to settle the matter once for all. “I think, all the same, if you don’t mind my saying it, that it would be better, when you want to speak to me about anything, to choose some other time than the morning.” He made this remark perfectly innocently, in all good faith, but Amy discovered a sarcastic meaning in it.

“Want to speak to you!” she cried, her cheeks flaming. “I sincerely hope I shall never want to do anything so unpleasant. I think you forget yourself and your position! One would imagine you were somebody! I should have thought you might have learned how to address a lady before you volunteered to come and teach anybody else.”

Rusk stood in silence, his hand on the door handle, his eyes fixed on the opposite wall at a point somewhere above Amy’s head.

“Oh, you needn’t look at me if you don’t want to,” she continued, her voice trembling. “I know you think I’m only dirt under your feet without your telling me. But if you imagine I care you’re very much mistaken. It’s a nice example to set Denis, that is all.”

Rusk returned to the table and sat down, leaving Amy to find her own way out of the room. The boy had walked to the window while this scene was in progress. He stood there now with his back turned, his hands in his pockets, looking out. There was a minute or two of silence. Rusk scored a phrase through with his pen. “Where did you get this from?” he asked nervously. “Why will you never use your dictionary? I don’t see what objection you have to it.”

Denis came back and looked over his shoulder. Then he sat down in his place again. Rusk could not see his face, but he could tell from his attitude, from the way he sat, a good deal of what was passing in his mind. It made him regret that he had not chosen some more opportune moment to remonstrate with Amy. Denis was ashamed, and Rusk felt that it was partly his fault. A few minutes ago he had been quite glad to have been perfectly explicit. If Amy cared to take what he had said with a bad grace it was her own look-out, and probably it was all the better that she should do so. But now it suddenly appeared to him that he had been stupidly tactless. He had gone about the matter in the most maladroit fashion possible, and if his words had humiliated the girl, they could only, and in perhaps a deeper way, have had the same effect upon her brother.

CHAPTER XIV

Amy meanwhile hurried upstairs, but May, who was coming down, met her on the landing, and knew at once from her flushed face and peculiar expression that something unpleasant had happened. For the moment she did not connect it with either herself or Rusk, so she paused to ask what was the matter.

Amy pushed past her roughly, “Leave me alone, can’t you? You’ve done enough already.” And she went on into her own room.

Thither May followed her, at a loss to know what new offence she had committed, for since their quarrel on the subject of Rusk they had tacitly agreed never to mention him, and she herself had rarely been with him alone. She was tired, however, of this attitude of perpetual jealousy, and willing to go more than half-way in order to bring about a reconciliation. It was impossible to go on living the way they lived now, at enmity about a man who had never shown more than the most ordinary friendship for either of them. When she entered the room Amy lay stretched on the bed, her face turned to the wall, and May again approached her.

“Has anything happened? What is it?” She spoke sympathetically, and with the best intentions, but Amy turned on her as if her words concealed some taunt.

“I suppose you have come in to triumph over me.... I wonder you weren’t listening at the door! Perhaps you’d have been satisfied at last!”

There was something so utterly hopeless—so far as any question of “making it up” went—in this childish obstinacy, this sort of fixed idea which no amount of reasoning could ever overcome, that May recognized on the spot the uselessness of attempting it.

“I don’t know what you’re referring to,” she said, not quite sincerely. “I seem to have done something, but I really don’t know what it is.”

“You do—I know it was you. It was you who told him. He would never have done it but for you.”

“Told him what? What has he done? What are you talking about?”

“Oh, you needn’t put on that little soft voice with me. You told him not to let me come into the library. You put it into his head at any rate, and he had the impudence to ask me not to come back another day.... I hate him.... I will get papa to send him away.”

“I never told him anything,” said May. “I don’t know what you think me capable of. I’ve hardly even spoken to him for the last month, and any time I did speak to him you were there and heard all I said.”

“How do I know how often you see him?” cried Amy, bitterly. “Get out of my sight, can’t you?” She sat up on the bed. “You’ve done nothing but set him against me from the very first evening he came into the house.”

“Oh, but this is ridiculous!” May answered, losing patience. “If you’re going to begin all that stuff over again——!” And she made a movement toward the door.

“You can’t deny it then,” cried Amy, springing after her, her face flushed and her eyes shining. “You did tell him?”

“I never mentioned your name to him,” answered May disgustedly. “But it’s useless talking to you. You seem to be half-mad about him. Only I don’t know why you need perpetually drag me into it.”

“I’m not mad about him. I detest him. It’s you who are in love with him.”

May took another step towards the door, but Amy grasped her suddenly by the arm.

“Let me go. You’re hurting me,” May cried.

“Will you swear to me that you aren’t in love with him?” asked Amy roughly. “Come—answer.” She gave a tug at the arm she held, and her fingers sank into the soft flesh. May gave a cry of pain, but Amy being bigger and stronger held her there, quite powerless to do more than struggle a little. Finding it hopeless to free herself she at last gave up the attempt.

“Do you want to keep him for yourself?” asked Amy fiercely. “Answer, can’t you?”

“I don’t want him at all,” said May, her voice trembling with anger. “I shall speak to papa to-night and get him sent away. This kind of thing is too unbearable. Papa will send him away at once when he knows.”

Her words, spoken very much at random, had an instantaneous effect upon her sister. Amy’s manner underwent a pitiful transformation. All her fierceness seemed to die out at once in the withering chill of this wretched possibility. “I only asked you if you were in love with him,” she said helplessly. “You needn’t answer if you don’t like, though after all I’ve told you—” She relaxed her grasp of May’s arm, and though she still stood between her and the door it was no longer to bar her passage.

“I’m not in love with him,” said May, with as much dignity as she could summon up. “I should be very sorry to be in love with anyone if it made me behave in the way you’ve been going on lately.”

“Then will you stop speaking to him?” Amy asked naïvely.

“Stop speaking to him! How can I stop speaking to him?” She raised her voice impatiently. “You talk in such a senseless way: as if you didn’t know as well as I do——”

“I know you like him,” Amy interrupted obstinately.

“What is it to you if I do like him? Does it do you any harm? Why aren’t you jealous of Denis? I gave up going out sketching with him because it annoyed you, and this is all the thanks I get. I’m not going to give in to you any more. It only makes you worse. If you worry me about him again I’ll do what I said I would do; I’ll tell papa.”

Amy looked at her with heavy, sullen eyes. “You have never cared for anyone,” she answered. “You don’t understand. You couldn’t care for anyone if you tried. You don’t know what love is.”

“Love!” echoed May scornfully. “Do you remember when you were in love with the gardener’s boy? when you were in love with Jimmy Temple? Why, a few minutes ago you said you hated him.”

Amy made no reply. She turned away, and May left her to her own thoughts. These were gloomy in the extreme. She threw herself down on the bed once more, and lay staring at the ceiling. She hated Rusk, she hated everything, as her excitement gradually died down to a kind of sullen irritation. When she thought of how all along he had managed, as if by a deliberate scheme of action, to make her behave abominably both to him and to everybody else, to bring out all the worst elements in her nature, she wished that her father would send him away, she wished she had never seen him. And she knew that May liked him and that he liked May, though that he was in love with her she did not really believe. It was the danger that he might become so that troubled her. May was certainly trying to attract him. For herself, whatever way she turned she seemed to be met by a high, unscalable wall, bringing her up sharply, barring all progress, yet pierced with tiny loopholes through which she could just get a glimpse of an unattainable joy beyond.

CHAPTER XV

In the evening a remark Denis let fall seemed to point to the fact that he had been thinking a good deal of the unfortunate scene poor Amy had made that morning. They were sitting together—Rusk and the boy—in the study. It was about nine o’clock, and the blinds were drawn down, and the lamp was lit. Rusk was sitting in the armchair Amy had occupied. He was turning over the pages of a magazine. Denis was at the table, his books all round him, busy over some work for the next day. Rusk, whose interest was not very closely riveted to the article he was glancing at, had been watching him for some time, when the boy looked up and their eyes met. Denis pushed away his books and papers with a half-impatient gesture.

“Well, have you finished?” asked his tutor.

“Yes—for the time being.... I’ve been thinking——”

“Have you? What about?”

“About you,” said the boy unexpectedly, “about myself; about all of us. Don’t you think we’re very strange—taking the family as a whole?”

Rusk’s eyes dropped again to his magazine, a page of which he now turned. “I’m principally concerned with one member of the family,” he answered slowly. “Of course I think him very strange.”

“Ah, but seriously,” said his pupil.

“Well?”

“Will you answer a question, if I ask it?”

He leaned his elbows on the table, and with his chin supported between his two thin brown hands, looked across fixedly at Rusk. Rusk turned round. The boy’s peculiar, sallow, intelligent, charming face was vividly revealed in the bright lamplight, and, as often before, he was struck by some hint of strangeness in it, that vaguely Oriental quality he had thought so odd when he had first seen him. His lips were slightly parted; the dark, coarse hair was ruffled where it had been pushed back from the forehead; the wide-set, narrow, slanting eyes were fixed intently upon his.

“It depends on the question,” Rusk threw out cautiously.

“You’re afraid then?”

“I’m afraid of you, certainly,” he laughed. “Especially when you look at me like that.”

The boy flung himself back in his chair. “No; but I’m in earnest,” he answered. “Supposing you had known about us—everything that you know now—would you have come to teach me?”

Rusk was still smiling. “Yes,” he answered.

“Ah, you’re a humbug,” Denis grunted, giving him up. “There’s no getting at what you think.... We are queer, all the same,” he went on after a pause, as Rusk made no reply, “and I’m sure you think so, even if you won’t own up to it.”

Rusk laid down his magazine, still open, on a chair beside him. “But why do you want me to own up to it?” he asked, amused.

“Of course I don’t, if you’d rather not.” He was silent a moment. Then he went on again, but in a different tone. “Has it never occurred to you that Alfred, for instance, is very strange—a little depressing. He’s so complete, so invulnerable. I suppose there are other people like him, but——”

“But what?”

“His moral sense seems to be so strictly bounded by the law!... And then he’s so dull! I’m perfectly sure nobody in the world was ever interested in anything he ever said. If you consider that, it’s a little awful.”

“Why consider it then?” asked Rusk: but Denis was not to be put off. He got up and walked over to the hearth-rug, where he stood with his hands in his pockets, leaning against the chimney-piece and facing his tutor.

“It’s all jolly fine,” he continued, “but I know him. I’ve seen him with his own friends, and I know them, too. They talk to him, and play cards with him, but they don’t like him. He bores them. He bores them nearly to death. Even when he’s telling them some of his tales he bores them. I wonder——”

“Well, what is it you wonder?”

“I wonder what becomes of people like that—when they begin to get old? That’s what I meant when I said he was depressing.”

“Where did you ever see him with his friends?” asked Rusk, quietly.

“I’ve seen them up here at the house. He has them up sometimes when papa is away. They’re a rather rum lot. They like to talk about horses, and prize-fighting, and—and love, of a sort. The last is their special subject. It’s never very far away. They keep hovering about it, and every now and again it crops up. It amuses them more than anything else does. You can see their faces lighting up when it is mentioned. It gives them ideas. It suggests any amount of stories. It is only Alfred who can make it dull.” He brought this speech out with a kind of elderly cynicism that had the oddest effect when taken with the youthfulness and boyish charm of his face.

“And were you always present when these discussions took place?” inquired Rusk. He knew Alfred’s type, and could imagine the rest.

“No; not always: now and then. It would have been rather difficult not to have been, for they began immediately after dinner—just as soon as the coast was clear. They’re really awfully indecent: they’re so—so crude! But I liked to watch their faces. You can get at a good deal by watching people’s faces. You can see just what they are interested in, what they really think amusing, and what they think very deep, and what only bores them.”

“Ah, you’re too clever to live,” said Rusk, smiling.

Denis looked at him for a moment or two without speaking. “And then there’s papa——” he began thoughtfully.

“But my dear fellow, I’m not going to sit here and listen to you discussing your entire family,” Rusk interrupted. “Doesn’t it strike you that it’s hardly the thing to do—with me.”

“I’ll not do it if you don’t want me to. But why can’t I talk to you? You are the only person I can talk to.”

“You may talk about anything else you like. After all you are scarcely in a position to criticize your people. They’re all a good deal older than you, you know, especially your father.”

“And I’m not to say anything about what happened here to-day?”

“Not the least little word. It’s none of your business.”

“It is my business,” cried Denis, with a sudden and unexpected indignation in his voice. “It is my business if I have to put up with it. I hate it. It’s not fair to you.”

Rusk blushed crimson. “Oh, I can look after myself,” he interposed hastily.

The boy turned his back and stood with one foot resting on the fender, gazing into the black, dead grate. “I’m awfully sorry,” he muttered almost inaudibly.

“Would you like a game of chess?” asked Rusk, changing the subject, and speaking in a tone of exaggerated naturalness, “or would you care to go for a stroll before bedtime?”

Denis shook his head. “No: I don’t want to disturb you. You’re reading. I’ve said all I’ve got to say. I know you know what I mean.”

He went back to the table and began to work again, but his tutor, giving him a sidelong glance from time to time, could see that his mind was not very deeply engaged by the task he had taken up. So he had wanted to apologize! Rusk was sorry that he should have taken this matter of Amy’s silliness to heart. After all it was infinitely unimportant, and certainly he himself was not inclined to give it more consideration than it was worth. A rather childish outburst of rudeness and ill-temper, having its origin in a very easily wounded vanity—that was about what it amounted to. Amy was certainly crude, but was there anything very new about that? She had always been crude, and would, doubtless, always continue to be so. The only thing that was really a nuisance was that Denis seemed to have noticed her feeling towards him, and the fact that she could hardly be said to have tried to disguise it. This was unfortunate, and he wondered if it was equally obvious to everybody. He had an unpleasant sense that it probably was, and it reminded him of an episode of his knickerbocker days, when he had been publicly kissed at a party by an affectionate little girl. He had not responded to that particular demonstration, which had indeed only been rendered possible by some foolish game they had been playing, and he did not feel inclined to respond to this one now. Nor was he in the least flattered by it. His personal vanity was slight and did not lead him to picture Amy’s passion as a very profound one, though it might make him look supremely ridiculous.

“Come,” he said to Denis, “you’re not really working. We may as well go out for half an hour.” He walked over to the window and drew aside the blind. “It’s a beautiful night. Shall we go?”

The boy pushed back his chair. “If you like.”

He followed his tutor from the room, and they went out into the garden. They walked slowly and in silence over the lawn down toward the gate. The night was warm, a little close even. From time to time a flash of distant lightning threw for a moment into vivid distinctness every leaf and twig hanging absolutely motionless in the still air. Then, while they moved slowly on, like a lamp of gold swinging under a deep vaulted roof, the orange moon floated out from behind a cloud. In its misty light the grass was soft and dim and faded as some old tapestry, and the garden behind them was a well of deepening shadow. A bat flew past, the noise of its leathery wings distinctly audible in the stillness. The quiet trees were delicate and vague against the paler sky, and a falling grace of weariness had drawn the whole world closer to a dream.

Rusk drew his pupil’s arm beneath his own. “What is the matter?” he asked kindly. “Why do you bother about things that are of no importance?”

“I suppose it is my nature,” said Denis. “You are so good, so nice, that I hate anyone to be rude to you.”

There was something in his voice that touched the young Englishman deeply, that made him suddenly more serious. “It is you who are nice,” he answered unaffectedly. “You have always been so—from the first day I came.”

He felt his pupil’s hand tighten ever so little on his arm. He knew that what he had said had pleased him.

“If I have been,” said Denis shyly, “it is because I like you—more than you know perhaps—more than I have ever cared for anybody else—much more.”

Rusk answered nothing. There was no particularly appropriate remark to make, so he kept silent. Through the dusk the red glow of his cigarette came and went.

“You do not mind?” asked Denis presently.

“Mind?” repeated Rusk in surprise.

“My having said that.”

“It gave me great pleasure,” replied Rusk simply.

The boy looked up at him and smiled. “I wanted to tell you before—a good many times—but I didn’t like to. I wanted you to know, awfully, but somehow it was hard to say—I don’t know why.”

“I think I did know,” said Rusk.

“Well, it is better like that, isn’t it?”

“Much better.”

They had reached the gate, and they passed out on to the road. They walked a short distance and then turned back. They walked in silence, and the silence all round them was broken only by the noise of their footsteps as they moved on through the lonely, listening night. A strange sense of dreaming had crept over Rusk. He seemed to have drifted back into some old forgotten life that had been washed up to him again from the deep mysterious sea of time. Presently the lighted windows of the house came once more into view. They slackened their pace a little, but still continued on their way.

Denis felt happy, though there was a melancholy mingled with his happiness. There nearly always was. Never before had he felt himself so close to his friend, yet oddly enough what hovered in the background of it all was an infinite sense of loneliness, of some mysterious longing that would never be satisfied, of the impossibility of knowing even for a moment anything save the few sad or happy impressions that passed through his own mind. He seemed to be moving in a dark shadowy garden from which there was no discoverable way out, a place all dim secluded glades and dimmer walks shut in by high interlacing hedges, so that he could only see the solitary path he followed himself, and, now and then, as to-night, catch a faint sound or a swift gleam, showing that he was not quite alone there, that there was something or someone else moving in the distance, and at times seeming to approach, but always instead, in the end, only to pass out of sight.

He did not know why, but he felt that that was his life. Perhaps with others it was different—yet he hardly saw how it could be.... Only, they didn’t seem to mind, and he—he....

In the sudden light of the hall Rusk, glancing at him, thought he looked unusually pale and tired. He sent him off to bed there and then.

CHAPTER XVI

At lunch, a few days later, May announced that she had met Miss Anna Birch that morning.

“She wanted to know when Mr. Rusk was coming over to paint a picture of their garden. She says he promised to do one ages ago, and they’re beginning to think he’s trying to draw out of it.”

Rusk, in fact, though he had been to call on the Miss Birches half a dozen times since his first visit, had not yet set up his easel among their flower-beds.

“They asked me to go over this afternoon,” May continued, “and I am to bring Mr. Rusk with me if I can; and you, mamma, and Amy if she cares to come.”

“Which she doesn’t. You and dear Hubert can go alone. That will be a nice surprise for you both.”

May answered nothing, for at that moment Rusk and his pupil entered, with apologies for being late. The message was repeated.

“I’ll go,” said Denis. “Mamma and I will go and talk, while Mr. Rusk and May do their drawings.”

Mrs. Bracknel looked up mildly. “But you always shut yourself up in the library, dear, and you’d be much better out in the open air such a lovely day.”

“Oh, I get plenty of the open air—besides, one must be polite.”

All through lunch Amy sat in enigmatic silence. As they were leaving the table she rang the bell and ordered the motor to be round in ten minutes—she was going into town.

“What do you want to do in town, dear?” her mother asked, lingering by the door. “Hadn’t you better come with us?”

“To sit all the afternoon with Harriet and Anna Birch?—thank you for nothing.”

She turned her back and drummed impatiently with her fingers on the window-pane. When Rusk and May started off alone they left her on the door-step talking to Dixon, the chauffeur. She took no notice of them as they went by. The others had arranged to come over later, but the artists wished to take full advantage of the fine afternoon. There was a golden quality in the sunlight, in the colouring of everything—something which seemed to combine the richness of summer with the first change of approaching autumn. Rusk and May walked over the dark close turf in the green shadow of the trees, Rusk carrying the instruments of their craft, May swinging a parasol lightly as she stepped beside him. She was dressed in pale colours and had a big garden hat that shaded her face. She seemed to her companion to be very fresh and cool and pretty in the hot afternoon, with just the kind of prettiness he liked, full of gaiety and animation. They had only gone a short distance when Amy passed them in the motor. She did not look at them and in a moment she had turned round the bend and was lost to sight.

“I know papa wants the car this afternoon,” May said. “Isn’t it like Amy to take it?”

“But the chauffeur will tell her.”

“I’m sure he has told her; but you don’t know Amy, if you think that will make any difference. She’s like papa himself: when she once takes a thing into her head it sticks and sticks. She has taken it into her head this afternoon that she’s going to drive about town, and she’ll do it, whatever Dixon or anybody else may say.”

Rusk thought this highly probable. “She has taken something into her head concerning me,” he presently remarked. “I mean, I have managed to offend her in some way. She has hardly spoken to me or looked at me for the last week.”

“You asked her not to interrupt Denis at his lessons, didn’t you?”

“Did she tell you that? I said very little.”

“It was evidently enough.”

“I am sorry. I really can’t think it was my fault though. I’m sure I didn’t want to annoy her, but what else could I do?”

“You were perfectly right. Amy is always like that. She gets hold of the most extraordinary notions and nothing can put them away. The best thing is just to leave her alone. Of course you couldn’t have her poking about when you were working with Denis. The thing was ridiculous. If she had had any sense or any tact she would have seen it for herself. But she hasn’t the slightest grain of either. None of us have much, but she has least of all. You saw how she wouldn’t come with us to-day. It was just because she has taken a violent dislike to the Birches, on account of something Anna once said to her about Jimmy Temple, who was staying with them at the time. He is their nephew, and Amy was rather gone on him. But ever since Anna made that remark nothing can be bad enough for the whole Birch family. Of course she can be very decent when she wants to. She has got Alfred out of heaps and heaps of scrapes.... She likes you too,” May went on, “only she thinks you don’t care for her.”

She looked at him, as she gave utterance to these words, with an air of brightness and candour Rusk found it not quite easy to meet. “I’m sure I don’t know why she should think anything so—so extraordinary,” he murmured.

“Isn’t it true then?” May asked innocently. “I thought it was true myself.”

“But why?”

“Oh, one just forms an opinion—it is easy to do so about you. You are very ingenuous.”

Rusk was somewhat taken aback. He had cherished a conviction that his behaviour to Amy had been a model of discretion, and he did not see how anyone could have gathered from it what he had not intended to show. He felt disconcerted and somewhat irritated. “I hope I haven’t been rude?” he said.

But May smiled up at him with a delightful sweetness. “I can’t imagine your being rude.”

“Am I to take the ingenuousness as a compliment, then?”

She appeared to consider this a moment before replying. “I should think you might,” she then said “I’m sure it is a quality you admire in other people.”

He laughed. “Perhaps that is only another proof that I possess it?”

May again pondered while she turned her parasol on her shoulder. There was a subtle flattery in the way she seemed to weigh his remarks, as if they were informed with a profound suggestiveness. “You know,” she answered, “you told me yourself you were like that, on the first evening you came.”

“Did I? I must have been trying to attract your sympathy!”

“It’s a kind of gift.”

“What is? Your sympathy?”

“No; ingenuousness. You can’t make yourself like that.”

“Isn’t it sometimes the result of stupidity?”

“I like stupid people. When they are nice they have a kind of niceness clever people never have.”

“You are very generous.”

“No; it isn’t that. I mean it. But you needn’t talk as if you thought you were stupid, for you know you don’t. And you wouldn’t like me to think it either.”

“But I should—that is, if it made you at the same time think me nice.” He laughed boyishly.

“Mr. Rusk, that is not sincere.”

“Of course it is. I should like that awfully.”

“Why?”

“Oh, for lots of reasons.”

“I don’t see that it can matter very much.” She looked up at him again from under the broad brim of her big hat, her eyes full of seriousness and innocence. “You aren’t ingenuous a bit,” she pouted. “You are just the reverse.”

“Oh no.”

“Oh yes. You don’t mean a single bit what you say.”

“Ah, I can’t follow you,” he sighed. “You should remember that you’ve told me I am stupid.”

“You should remember that I altered my opinion directly afterwards. I’m now beginning to think you very deep.”

He laughed again. As she walked beside him there was a delightful appeal in her femininity. He decided that her hat was wonderfully becoming and ventured to tell her so.

She blushed charmingly. “I wish you hadn’t said that,” she murmured.

“Do you? Was it very impertinent?”

“No; but I won’t be able to wear it now.”

“I don’t understand.”

“If I do you’ll think I put it on just to please you.”

“And why shouldn’t you please me?” He made her promise that she would wear it. Also he argued with her that there was no reason why she shouldn’t wish to please him. This point took a great deal of discussion, and he was only beginning to convince her when they reached the Birches’ garden gate.

The afternoon was to prove a most delightful one. They set up their easels not far from the library window, and beside them, within easy conversing distance, the two Miss Birches sat. Presently Mrs. Bracknel joined them there, while Denis, as usual, went indoors to look for a book. Mrs. Bracknel seemed more at her ease than Rusk had ever yet seen her. She appeared to be perfectly happy, and her contentment lent her a kind of rejuvenescence in which he could even find the lovely girl of Miss Anna’s portrait. Her beautiful voice seemed of as rare a quality as the tone of a fine violin, and she talked easily and lightly, though not abundantly, to him and to her two old friends. The roses were still blooming in a rich glory of crimson and yellow and pink, but Rusk was principally occupied with a superb bed of poppies that stretched away from the porch which figured in the background of his sketch; and as he worked he wondered if he really cared whether May liked him or not. He watched her as she busied herself with her colours. She was certainly very pretty. And there was something natural and unaffected about her, something which made her easy to get on with. He imagined she was nearly always happy; and that meant so much so far as one’s own happiness was concerned—it was nearly the whole secret of a pleasant companionship. Yet it seemed to him that his feeling for her was quite platonic. He was not conscious of anything else; he never had been, even when they had been alone together. To find himself close to her did not in the least trouble him; to hold her hand did not make his blood run faster....

It was very quiet and delightful. From time to time his pupil would lean out over the window-sill to see how they were getting on. At last he came out altogether to compare Rusk’s drawing with May’s. Everybody except the individual artist concerned declared both to be excellent. Mrs. Bracknel thought it would be very nice if Denis were to learn to draw under Rusk’s tuition, and Rusk himself had a theory that it was “rather a good thing to sketch a bit”—especially if one went abroad—and that anyone could do it more or less. It helped one to keep one’s eyes open. One made one’s own discoveries. They were all agreed that it was a most desirable accomplishment, and Miss Birch recollected a time when she had adorned various domestic articles with groups of chrysanthemums and sweet peas—it had been before she had taken up embroidery. She had never got so far as drawing from nature, however—not even the sweet peas.

Denis moved about with his hands in his pockets. In his grey eyes a light gleamed and danced just as the sunlight was glimmering among the leaves. He declared that to his mind what was most worth sketching at present was his mother, sitting there among the roses. He was charming himself as he said it, and Rusk saw an almost imperceptible flush come into Mrs. Bracknel’s cheeks. There were a good many not very brilliant jokes in the air, but they dropped softly into a general atmosphere of pleasantness that rounded them off and made them fulfil their easy purpose.

When the drawings were finished and the painters had sat for a while resting from their labours and Denis had borrowed an armful of books, the visitors rose to go. The Miss Birches accompanied them part of the way. It was getting late; the evening sun was already dipping down to the trees; and birds were flying home in the softly coloured light.

* * * * *

If the pleasantness of the afternoon had exercised a certain charm, however, it was broken rudely enough an hour later, at dinner. Mr. Bracknel had been kept late for an appointment. The motor had not called for him, though he had given Dixon all his instructions in the morning perfectly plainly. It had not even called to bring him home: he had been obliged to come by train, and now he could find no trace of Dixon anywhere. The car was there, but nobody seemed to know where the chauffeur was, nor what had happened to him. He must have been drinking; he would really have to dismiss him if that was the case.

“You needn’t bother dismissing him, for he has gone already,” Amy interrupted brusquely. “I had a row with him in town this afternoon—he wouldn’t do what I told him to—and he left on the spot. I had to send round to Henderson’s to get a man to drive me home.”

Mr. Bracknel stared at her, his soup dropping from the ends of his moustache. He could hardly believe his ears, and he sat back farther in his chair, while a look of amazement overspread his face. “So it was you, miss, who prevented him from coming for me! It was you who countermanded my orders!” The very enormity of the offence overpowered him.

“I didn’t countermand anybody’s orders,” Amy replied pertly. “I told him to drive me home, and he said he hadn’t time, which was a lie; he had plenty of time; if he had hurried he wouldn’t have been more than five minutes late in calling for you.”

“Five minutes late!” Mr. Bracknel repeated weakly.

“He wouldn’t do what I told him. It was sheer insolence.”

“Insolence!”

“Yes, papa; you needn’t repeat everything I say.”

“What right had you to tell him anything, miss? You had no business taking the car at all. You know I’ve forbidden you to use it. Do you hear me? Don’t sit like that. Don’t look at me like that. Leave the room this instant.”

Amy raised her eyebrows. “Really, papa, one would think, to listen to you, I was a child! You only make yourself ridiculous when you talk like that. How could I prevent the man from going away? It wasn’t very pleasant for me to have to send round for somebody to drive me home; you don’t appear to have realized that.”

Her father choked. To all appearance he had realized quite enough. But Amy went on perfectly calmly with her dinner, and the servants moved noiselessly about the room, with fixed, inscrutable faces. There was a kind of painful absurdity in Mr. Bracknel’s position which made Rusk, for once, sympathize with him. He had always regarded him as a fairly strong man, but he now began to doubt the penetration of this judgment, and to wonder if what he had taken for strength had not been merely a knack of using other people’s weaknesses. These frequent puerile outbursts of anger in the bosom of his family, though the present one he admitted to be perfectly justifiable, were more neurotic than anything else. And there could be no denying that Amy had come off victorious. There was in fact a kind of insolence in her triumph which must have been particularly galling to her father. To Rusk the man’s whole existence seemed a pretty miserable affair. He glanced round the table with a peculiar curiosity. He looked from one to another of those sitting there. There was a strange lack of restraint about the whole lot of them—a want of balance—a something which had it been carried to a higher power would positively have amounted to hysteria. What other people could have been so insensible to the indecency of squabbling this way in public? He could imagine the scene that had taken place in town that afternoon between Amy and the chauffeur. Probably there had been a little crowd gathered to witness it! For himself, he was now quite accustomed to such happenings, but what must other people think? Surely they must be very much talked about, must have an extraordinary reputation! Of course it was horribly unfair to lump them all together like this. Denis he had always considered apart; but Mrs. Bracknel and May also were different from the others—from Amy and Alfred and the father. Only, was there not something wrong there too?—might there not be even more than he was yet aware of? He began to feel suspicious. May, for instance, was very pleasant and intelligent; but would one, after living as he had lived, in the family, marry her? He very much doubted it. He raised his eyes and encountered those of Mrs. Bracknel fixed upon him—large, dark, and strange, burning with that wasting, feverish light that seemed never to grow dim, that seemed never to find rest.

CHAPTER XVII

The book-keeper tapped at the door and without waiting for an answer entered Mr. Bracknel’s private office. “There’s a woman here, sir, wishes to speak to you.”

Mr. Bracknel looked up. His face assumed an expression of irritation, and he waited for a moment before he spoke.

“What does she want? Begging, I suppose? Surely you can interview such people yourself without bringing them to me!”

“I did speak to her, sir, but she wouldn’t tell me what her business was. She said she must see you yourself.”

“Well, I can’t see her. God bless my soul, you’d think I was made of money and had nothing to do but throw it about. Tell her I’m busy, and can’t talk to her now—tell her I’m always busy.”

“Yes, sir.”

The man turned to leave the room, but on the threshold a woman pushed firmly by him. Mr. Bracknel looked up angrily, recognised her and stood still, though he gave no sign of recognition. “Well?” he said, as the book-keeper discreetly withdrew.

Mary Brooke, however, took the precaution of shutting the door behind her before speaking or sitting down in the chair he had motioned her to. He himself stood up, leaning his back against the chimney-piece. His face had relaxed into a partial smile, which, as he almost at once scented an unpleasantness in the air, gradually died away.

“I came to tell you something I found out just half-an-hour ago,” the woman said. “I had it from Rhoda herself. She was married to Mr. Alfred on Monday morning.”

Mr. Bracknel stared hard—so hard that his eyes seemed to glaze and bulge in their sockets. Then he took a turn across the room, his hands behind his back. “Married to Alfred!” he repeated aloud, as if trying to realise it. All at once he broke into a disagreeable laugh. He saw it in all its amazing actuality. It was the crowning point. Nothing quite so complete as this had ever happened before. “Well, I wish her joy of him.”

Mrs. Brooke coloured faintly. “He’s been honourable with her as far as that goes.”

Mr. Bracknel gave her a strange look. He thought he detected a comparison, a reproof, in her words. A sort of sardonic humour, that had at the bottom of it a smouldering fury, took possession of him. “Yes, as far as that goes. Unfortunately it doesn’t go far.” He laughed again. “Well, as I say, I hope she’ll be happy with him; and I’m glad to see you approve of the match.”

A spark showed itself in Mrs. Brooke’s eyes. “I only want to know what you’re going to do?” she said, quietly.

“Do! Don’t you think enough has been done? What do you expect me to do? It’s rather late in the day now to interfere. Perhaps you expected me to be overwhelmed with joy; did you?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“You’re quite sure there’s no mistake about it?”

“Quite sure. They were married, and in church.”

“Ah, that’s a comfort anyway!” He repeated the words with a kind of vicious sarcasm. “Married, and in church!”

Mrs. Brooke’s mouth grew hard; the thin lips were tightly drawn together. “Well, I daresay we can leave that for the present.”

“Married, and in church!” This perfectly harmless phrase appeared to annoy him curiously.

“In the meantime what are you going to do?” The woman’s face had darkened with a slowly gathering wrath. He met it with an answering anger of his own.

“I’m going to do nothing,” he snapped. “Do you want me to make Alfred a partner in the business, and to present your niece with a carriage and—and—a teeara?”

Again Mrs. Brooke coloured. “My niece is as good as your son is, and perhaps better.”

“I don’t doubt it; I don’t doubt it. God help her if she isn’t. My son’s not good enough for me, however, and I don’t think any more of him because he happens to have made a fool of himself in this particular way as well as in every other.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” said Mrs. Brooke, rising slowly to her feet. “You speak in a very queer way. Do you think I had anything to do with it? Perhaps you do; perhaps you think he was trapped into it?”

Mr. Bracknel looked at her unpleasantly with half-closed eyes. “I haven’t got as far as that yet. Give me time.”

“I’m not any better pleased than you are, maybe.... And I’ve heard enough of this sort of talk. You didn’t want your son to marry Rhoda. I can understand that——”

“Oh, you can understand that, can you?”

“Yes: and without a fuss being made about it either.” Her voice rose with her increasing indignation. “I want to know what it is you’re going to do now he has married her: and if you don’t mind you’ll please to give me a plain answer.”

Mr. Bracknel had been walking up and down at intervals, but he now came to a definite standstill. “My good woman be reasonable and don’t lose your temper.” He spoke himself with studied calm as if to set her an example. “Believe me you’ll gain nothing by doing so. To begin with, she’s no real relation of yours; and secondly, what can I do?”

“There’s plenty of things you can do.”

Mr. Bracknel smiled dreamily at a yellow map on the wall. A kind of freakish humour again flickered in his dark eyes. “Are there?” he answered slowly and almost benevolently. “I’m not going to raise Alfred’s salary, if that is one of them. And I’m not going to take your niece to live in my house, if that is another. Upon my word I don’t see any further way I could come in, even if I wanted to—which I don’t, you know; I confess I don’t. Really when I come to think of it, so far as I am concerned there seems nothing even to be said. They are not children. They are both of age. Their marriage is their own affair. If Alfred neglects his wife—as I’ve no doubt he will—she can take an action against him. But there will be plenty of time to settle all that later.”

Mrs. Brooke took a step toward the door. Her eyes were fixed on the carpet and she spoke in a dry constrained voice, which nevertheless trembled slightly. “Well, I won’t keep you any longer. I may have to speak to you again after I’ve seen Mr. Alfred: I don’t know. I’m going to look after Rhoda; I may tell you that. And in the meantime she can’t come back here.”

“That’s just as you like. Naturally it’s a matter for yourselves to decide. I’m sorry she made this mistake.”

There might have been a covert insult in these last words, but Mrs. Brooke took no notice of them. She opened the door and Mr. Bracknel watched her go. He was on the point of sending for Alfred when he remembered that Alfred was not in the place. “Fool—stupid fool!” he muttered as he went back to his desk. In his eyes it was the ultimate folly of all, and he saw his son’s career, never very promising, sunk at last to the depth of abject futility. Above all, the remark about Alfred’s honourableness rankled in his mind. They could live on Alfred’s honour and see where it would land them. He strode over to the door and called out sharply to his shorthand clerk.

CHAPTER XVIII

Up at the house no one knew anything of the wonderful news, for Mr. Bracknel did not telephone to his wife, nor did he come home to announce it to her. Rusk, coming out on to the lawn, found Denis playing a game of croquet with his sisters. As both May and Amy were much more brilliant players than their brother, when the tutor proposed that he should join them the match promised to become a fairer one. May, who had been playing the other two, naturally took him for her partner, but when she declared that they must start all over again Amy demurred. She evidently was not enchanted with the prospect of having Denis for a whole game, and appeared to think Rusk had waited to make sure that it was May who was playing single-handed before he had offered to join in. She could make no objection, however, because at present she had adopted a policy of treating Rusk with polite and exaggerated coldness; nevertheless the game began inauspiciously. In her second shot Amy took all the hoops she wanted to take, but when she turned round it was to discover Rusk and May apparently too absorbed in conversation to notice that she had finished her break. She would not have interrupted them for the world, and in sombre silence marched over to a bench at the other side of the green.

Presently May looked up. “Oh, you’ve finished!” She glanced round to see what Amy had done. “We’re red and yellow, aren’t we?” she asked. “It’s your shot, Mr. Rusk. Just try for the blue.”

Rusk tried, and succeeded in making a happy cannon off the post. “Oh, good!” May encouraged him. “Now we must be very careful. What hoop is Denis for, Amy?”

“You can see the clips, can’t you? I suppose you’re not blind!”

Croquet is a pastime in which a vast amount of advice may be requested and given, and as Rusk and May discussed each of the former’s shots for about five minutes beforehand, and then promptly became totally oblivious to the game, Amy began to get more and more annoyed. She grew sulky and indifferent, and no longer helped Denis to go through his hoops. Several times the boy was obliged to shout to their opponents from the other side of the green that it was their turn: Amy would have waited in freezing wrath for a quarter of an hour rather than do so. At last, when May had played the wrong ball twice in succession, her patience gave way, and she flung down her mallet and stalked off to the house. Rusk and May did not even notice that she was gone till they saw Denis alone, and apparently wrapped in slumber, stretched full length on a bench. May glanced round quickly.

“Where is Amy?” she called out.

“She’s gone.”

“Gone! Where has she gone to? Has she stopped playing?”

“I should rather think so.” And Denis closed his eyes expressively.

“But what’s the matter?”

“Oh, I don’t know. She’s in a wax with me, I suppose.”

“With you! Why what have you done?”

“You’d better ask her. Somebody always gets like that over croquet, any way. It’s the most interesting thing in the game—trying to pick out who it will be.” He happened to glance at Rusk. “She’s angry with me, because I missed the same hoop three times. She says I spoil everything.”

May sat down beside him. “Well, what shall we do now?” She tapped the toe of her shoe with her mallet, and looked up at her partner.

“I’ll play against you and Mr. Rusk, if you like,” her brother suggested. “But you’ll have to give me lots of bisques—twelve.” And he went over to take his shot.

The game now proceeded more pleasantly, till by and by Mrs. Bracknel made her appearance.

“Where is Amy?” she asked as she settled herself. “Run and tell her tea is ready, dear,” she added to Denis. “It is just being brought out now. I thought it would be nicer to have it in the garden.”

Denis went off, but returned without his sister. “She’s going to have tea in her own room,” he announced. “She’s got a headache.”

“Got a headache?” his mother questioned anxiously. “Why I thought I saw her out here only a few minutes ago. It must be the hot sun. I am sure it would be better to wait till the evening to play your games.... Dear, do take your hands out of your pockets. It makes you look so—so I don’t know what. And give Mr. Rusk his tea. Where are your manners? You never see Mr. Rusk lounging about like that, I’m sure.”

Denis did as he was told. “Manners make the man,” he agreed. “Mr. Rusk, please accept this cup of tea, and select some grub.” Then he sat down on the grass at his mother’s feet.

“I wonder what is the matter with her?” Mrs. Bracknel went on anxiously. “I’m afraid she can’t be well. I wish she would see a doctor. Don’t you think she is looking very white?”

“Amy never had much colour,” May replied indifferently.

“She had a better colour than she has now. She isn’t looking at all well.”

“Why doesn’t she go away for a bit?” Denis suggested.

“I wish she would. I have been trying to persuade her to. I want her to go to her Aunt Lizzie, who, I’m sure, would be delighted to have her. But she says she hates going away, and that she is much better here. And she’s so headstrong there’s no getting her to do anything she doesn’t want to do. I shall speak to her again.... Denis, dear, wouldn’t you be better with a hat? You shouldn’t sit in the sun like that; you’ll get a sunstroke.”

“Do you say you have spoken to her already?” May asked.

“I spoke to her this morning; but she’s getting so irritable that——”

“I shouldn’t advise you to say anything more about it then. If you do, she’ll think we all want to get rid of her. You know what she’s like.”

Mrs. Bracknel’s gentle eyes opened wider. “As if she could possibly think such a thing!”

“It’s exactly the sort of thing she would think, or say, at any rate.”

“But why should we want to get rid of her?”

“Oh, we don’t, of course,” said May, a little impatiently. “I’m only telling you what she’ll think. You know yourself the extraordinary notions she gets hold of.”

“We might all go away, for that matter,” her mother murmured, “only your father doesn’t like the idea. It seems to him to be a waste of the garden.”

“He’s quite right,” Rusk interposed. “The garden couldn’t be nicer than it is at present.”

“Oh, for my part, I’m perfectly content to be here,” Mrs. Bracknel replied hastily. “It’s only that a change might do the children good.”

“But Amy and I were away all the spring,” said May, to whom this unexpected inclusion of herself in the plan was by no means agreeable. “I don’t in the least want to go away again. Amy can go if she likes—she gets on much better with Aunt Lizzie than I do.”

“Well, I’m sure I don’t wish to make any of you go against your will,” said Mrs. Bracknel, plaintively. “Only you never used to be so averse to leaving home.”

“Don’t you think we had better finish the game, or something?” said Denis, coming to the rescue. “It’s Mr. Rusk’s shot with yellow.”

Rusk took up his mallet and strolled across the green. May bent forward at the same time and kissed her brother. Neither Rusk nor Mrs. Bracknel saw her, and Denis made no sign. He stood there, smiling a little, beside, and slightly behind, his mother, his hands once more in his pockets.

“I knew you would do that,” he cried gaily, as Rusk, failing to get his hoop, left everything in beautiful position for the next player. “It was rather nice of you, all the same. As papa says, it is so difficult to trust people nowadays!”

Rusk returned to the bench where the two ladies were sitting, and Mrs. Bracknel smiled upon him. “You are so good to Denis, Mr. Rusk!” she murmured. “He is looking so much better since you came!”

“I’m afraid we all impose upon Mr. Rusk’s good-nature,” said May, as the young man murmured something inaudible. “We never give him a moment’s peace.” She moved away toward a corner of the ground where Denis had just knocked her ball, and Mrs. Bracknel went on:

“Don’t you think yourself he is really better, Mr. Rusk? I was beginning to be a little anxious about him. I wonder if it is only that he is happier with you. I know he is happier, very much happier, of course, but don’t you think there is something more than that? Don’t you think he is really better, physically, too?”

“Oh, I’m sure he is,” said Rusk, hopefully. “I think he is a good deal better.”

Mrs. Bracknel’s dark eyes rested upon him in gentle confidence. “I am very fond of Denis, Mr. Rusk,” she said softly.

Rusk smiled. “I am sure you are,” he answered. Then, after a slight pause: “I am, too. He’s a ripping little chap.”

Mrs. Bracknel was silent a moment. “I cannot tell you how grateful I feel to you for all your kindness to him.”

“Oh, the kindness is all on his side,” laughed Rusk, rather awkwardly. “I mean, for not exposing me. He’s about ten times cleverer than I am, you know.”

Mrs. Bracknel looked at him in mild surprise, as if doubtful whether to take this as a personal confession or not. In the end she decided to see it in a humorous light, and smiled a little.

It always embarrassed Rusk to be thanked for anything. He would much have preferred, so far as he himself was concerned, that people should take things for granted. The next moment, however, Denis came up and saved him any further expression of gratitude. The boy sat down on the bench beside them. He took up a book his mother had brought out from the house with her, and began to turn the leaves.

“Miss Birch sent me that a day or two ago,” Mrs. Bracknel murmured. “I can’t say I find it very interesting. It is by James. I remember reading some of his books when I was a girl, but this is not so good. The others were more historical. Perhaps you have read it, Mr. Rusk?”

“I don’t know, I’m sure. What is it called?” asked Rusk, whose thoughts had been wandering.

“It is called—oh, I never can remember names.” She took the volume from her son and consulted the title-page—“‘Princess Casamassima.’”

“No; I don’t think I have read it.”

“There is such a strange person in it—a Madame something or other——” She turned the leaves. “Madame Grandoni. A most peculiar character, and not at all natural. She says that she is a hundred and twenty. It seems so odd, for she appears to be quite active and intelligent.”

“A hundred and twenty!” Rusk repeated in astonishment.

“Yes. Here is the place. And she says it again somewhere else, I think.”

Rusk took the book and read a few lines. “Ah, yes.... I fancy she is speaking figuratively, don’t you think?” he remarked after a short pause.

“I suppose she must be,” Mrs. Bracknel answered gently, “but isn’t it peculiar to make anyone talk like that? I mean, so few people—even quite elderly people—want to make themselves out older than they really are.”

“Very few indeed,” Rusk agreed. Then, seeing that Mrs. Bracknel had found her place, he decided that it was an excellent opportunity to go and look at the roses with May.

CHAPTER XIX

Amy watched them from the window. If she had leaned out she might almost have heard their words, though they appeared, indeed, to be speaking but little as they wandered among the flower-beds, now standing still before some beautiful branch of roses, and again moving on, slowly, idly, as if in an enchanted land. She wondered if they were really in love, for as she saw them now they had all the appearance of lovers, and a deep bitterness of disappointment grew strong and stronger within her, till she could no longer bear to watch them, and turned away.

No matter in how questionable a form her love might show itself, she loved him really, according to her temperament, with an all-absorbing passion, selfish as such passions must be, and alternating between a desire to make him suffer, and a swiftly-following remorse for ever having tried to hurt him. She had not a nature to which resignation comes easily. Certainly she was far from being resigned just now. There was no tenderness, no softening sentiment of any kind, left by her wasted passion. Its trace was arid and bare; it had been like some burning, withering acid, that had destroyed and blasted, leaving behind it an ugly, ineffaceable scar. This afternoon, as she turned from the window, her sense of helplessness and loss seemed to have become more unendurable than ever, and, not being able to rest, she again went out, though she avoided going near Denis and her mother. She wandered off by herself, where she could see neither Rusk nor May, and where no one would bother her with questions about her health.

She walked along a narrow path that led her past the kitchens and the stables and on down towards the road. Presently she came in sight of the back lodge and saw Rebecca hobbling in at the gate. The sight of the old woman awoke strange and unpleasant thoughts in Amy’s sickened mind, and these thoughts took on alluring, yet half-fearful, shapes, as they seemed to stream into her brain like phantoms flying at nightfall to a haunted house. For a moment or two she hesitated; then she gathered up her courage and continued on her way.

Rebecca had already seen her and was waiting at the door, a smile upon her face. Her appearance was neither more nor less prepossessing than usual, but, to Amy’s present sense, she stood there like the very personification of evil. She fixed the approaching girl with dark, shining eyes, and she maybe read something in her countenance that induced her to ask her to step inside. The younger Miss Bracknel was indeed the only member of the family who ever did her that honour, and Amy, in the past, had rather prided herself on the fact. This afternoon she felt she would have done better to have refused, but she entered nevertheless, and sat down on a painted wooden chair beside the fire, casting a languid glance on the grey parrot, who returned her gaze with ancient and cynical eyes.

“You’re not looking yourself at all, Miss Amy,” the old woman began. “I’ve noticed it this long time. You that used to be so gay and bright!”

“Oh please don’t start all that,” the girl answered wearily. “I’m getting tired of it. It’s because nobody ever says anything else that I came in here now.”

Rebecca smiled her false, ingratiating smile. “Perhaps it’s something I could give you a cure for, Miss Amy. I remember me curing John Maloney’s wife for the rheumatism, when she had tried every doctor in the land, and not one of them any use. And Jane Stevenson, when she was dying of love, it was me that got her her man—it was indeed.”

Amy looked out of the window. “But you can’t really do such things,” she murmured after a minute or two, feigning indifference, though a tell-tale wave of colour had swept across her face. “What’s the use in pretending to be able to work charms and magic at this time of day? Nobody believes in such things, and if they were true you know you’d be afraid to talk about them.”

“Well, if they’re not true they’re not,” said the old woman, suddenly and unexpectedly nettled, “and I beg you to excuse me, for I’ve got some redding-up to do and it’s getting on.” She lifted a pail from beside the dresser and hobbled off with it to the door.

“Come back,” cried Amy petulantly, “I didn’t mean to offend you. Tell me about this—this woman, Jane Stevenson. I like hearing all these strange things, though I mayn’t believe in them.”

Rebecca returned to the fire. She sat down on a chair and held out her withered hands to the glowing coals, at the same time casting a sidelong glance at the pale, listless, red-haired girl, whose face was turned to the window. The sight seemed to mollify her wounded feelings, for it was in her usual fawning tone that she began:

“Jane Stevenson was in love with a fine young man, but he wouldn’t look at her. When she’d meet him on the road he’d take no more notice than if she’d been a tree or a sheep. Yet she couldn’t rest nor take her food for thinking of him, and everyone said she was going into a decline. One day, when I was alone in the house, I saw her come in, and I knew what she wanted. She offered me all the money she had if I’d tell her a charm! ‘Come back in a week,’ I said. At the end of a week she came back and I gave her what she was needing. ‘You can take it with you,’ I said, ‘and give it him some day in his drink.’”

“What a horrid idea!” cried Amy, drawing back instinctively. “Besides, it’s silly.”

She sat silent, and Rebecca watched her with an expression of senile depravity and greed. Then the old woman bent down over the fire and began to mumble to herself. Amy was suddenly conscious that there was something peculiarly unpleasant about her. She felt ashamed to be sitting there, but a kind of morbid curiosity held her, and presently she asked:

“If there is another person: I mean, if he had loved somebody else, would it have been just the same—would it have acted?”

“It would have acted,” said Rebecca.

“And it doesn’t do the person you give it to any harm?”

“No more than a glass of new milk.”

“You’re absolutely sure?” asked Amy, with a sudden intentness. “You would swear it—on the Bible?”

“It will do him no harm at all.”

There was a pause. The girl’s languor had completely disappeared.

“And if I were to want you to get me this charm, how much would I have to give for it?”

“Oh, that would be for yourself to say, Miss.”

“I haven’t much money, you know. Papa doesn’t give me much.”

“Oh, there’d be no trouble about that.”

“Of course I should only want it as a curiosity. I mean, I have been making a collection of queer, out-of-the-way things for some time, and I would like to have one of these just to show people.”

“I would never ask what you wanted it for, Miss Amy.”

“But that is what I want it for,” cried Amy haughtily. “What do you mean by doubting my word?”

“I don’t doubt your word, Miss Amy. What would a young lady like you want with any other charm than her own lovely face?”

“Of course it would have to be a real charm for all that,” Amy added hastily, “a real love-philtre, or whatever you call it. You would have to promise that it would be real or I shouldn’t want it—like the one you got for Jane Stevenson.”

“Yes, Miss Amy. You can trust me; you can trust old Rebecca.”

“You had a good many lovers yourself, hadn’t you, Rebecca, when you were young?” asked Amy, suddenly smiling.

“I didn’t need no charms for them,” said Rebecca tartly. “I could have had my pick of any young men ever I fancied.”

Amy laughed. She got up from her chair, but still stood there, hesitating. “Well, you know what I want,” she said at length, “and you’ll promise not to breathe a word to a soul about it, won’t you?”

“You needn’t be afraid, Miss. It would be worse for me than for you if anyone was to get word of it.”

“When will it be ready?”

“Well, it’ll take a deal of time and trouble.” A cunning look came into her face, and she put out her hand and stroked the soft stuff of the girl’s dress. “As soon as I can, Miss Amy, I’ll try to have it for you.”

“I’ll come for it then, in a few days,” said Amy, drawing back quickly from her touch. “And mind you don’t say a word to anybody—even about my having been here.”

CHAPTER XX

Alfred returned home that night. He had been away at a race-meeting, but the day, so far as he was concerned, had proved a failure, and an injudicious attempt later to neutralize matters by a game of cards had been hardly more successful. He didn’t know where the deuce the money was to come from, and it somehow did not tend to put him in any pleasanter mood to discover his father waiting up. His marriage too had begun to weigh upon Alfred’s mind. From many points of view it was unsatisfactory. The girl, he still felt, was worth it, but it had serious drawbacks, and their meetings at present were accompanied by nearly all the disadvantages and discomforts attendant on illicit loves. What was the use of being married, thought Alfred, when you have to behave as if you weren’t? He felt that he must make his position known on the first suitable opportunity.

As he came in from the obscurity outside, the strong light in the dining-room dazzled him, and he was conscious that he did not show to advantage. The fact naturally irritated him, for he was not at all so drunk as he knew for a minute or two he must appear to be. Mr. Bracknel, his hands under the tails of his coat, his back against the chimney-piece, watched him with considerable interest. The rest of the family had gone to bed.

“Well,” Mr. Bracknel remarked genially, “I hope you’ve had a pleasant day?”

“Very,” answered Alfred, making a sudden, plunging movement to get out of the room. The opportune moment to tell his tale had not yet arrived, and he knew nothing of Rhoda’s betrayal.

“I’m glad to hear that, but you’d better wait a moment; I’ve something to say to you. I’ve been hearing some news about you—quite unexpected news—bright and festive news I might call it.”

His father’s manner was highly disagreeable, and Alfred paused at the door without turning round. “What have you been hearing?” he asked shortly.

“About your increased responsibilities,” said Mr. Bracknel in the same tone of sinister geniality.

A dark flush overspread Alfred’s heavy face, and a vicious spark of light showed itself in his dull little eyes; but he knew that he must be propitiating, that it was his only chance. “What responsibilities?” he asked, trying to throw into his voice an amiability he was far from feeling.

“I mean the responsibilities which are always incurred by matrimony.” Mr. Bracknel spoke in soft purring fashion as he swayed his coat-tails gently up and down. The cheerfulness of his words, their prolonged sarcasm, had an intensely exasperating effect upon his son.

“Who told you I was married?” Alfred asked thickly.

“Your wife’s aunt,” replied Mr. Bracknel, with great relish. “Your wife’s aunt.” He repeated the words, rolling them on his tongue, as if he took a particular pleasure in their sound. “You might at least have given us a chance of going to the wedding or of offering you a present! I hear you were married in church, with the greatest regularity. Well, well; of course you know your own affairs best.”

Alfred said nothing and there was a silence till his father broke it once more: “How do you propose to live? What are your plans?” He rubbed his hands softly together and smiled. “What do you propose to do; but possibly such questions are indiscreet?”

“We haven’t settled yet. We were going to keep it quiet for a time.” It may seem strange, but Alfred had calculated that his father, once he got used to the idea of the marriage, would probably put him in a position to support his wife in reasonable comfort. He now saw these hopes rapidly dwindling. “I suppose she wormed it out of her,” he added gloomily, alluding to Mrs. Brooke and Rhoda.

“I don’t know—I don’t know, I’m sure, what particular method was employed. By the way, your salary is two hundred, isn’t it?”

“It is—at present.”

“At present?” His father grew positively radiant. “Ah, I see. You have something better in view: you are thinking of leaving us—thinking of leaving us.... Not thinking of leaving? Oh well, of course it isn’t impossible to live on two hundred. People do it: though you may find it difficult at first. These little excursions such as you have just returned from to-night, for instance—these pleasant, harmless little excursions I should think must be rather imprudent for a man in your position and with your ties. You see, you will have to allow for so many things—house-rent for example—unless you propose to live with your aunt?”

“I don’t propose doing so,” Alfred muttered. The flush on his face deepened, spreading over his neck and ears and up to the roots of his hair.

“I see. You will take a little house, then?—a little villa, perhaps?—one of those little villas with a porch and a glass door and a name on the gate. I shouldn’t advise you to spend too much on it. A small house in a street, where your wife will not be too far away from her aunt, might be best. I am sorry your abilities, and the intermittent attention which is all you are able to find for business, do not allow me to offer you a better position.”

Alfred’s mouth began to twitch. “No, I should think you would want to keep anything of that sort for your bastard.”

A silence followed these words, a silence in which the ticking of the clock became audible—a creak from the stairs—then nothing but the ticking of the clock. The father and the son still faced each other, but Mr. Bracknel’s geniality had departed. When he spoke again there was an icy note in his voice: “Well, I needn’t detain you any longer. Of course you know your own affairs best.”

Alfred did not move. He was conscious that he had burned his ships with a vengeance. Also, for a moment, he was a little shocked by the sound of his own words, though now that he had spoken them he would have liked them to have had more effect. His father’s apparent indifference—he had neither started nor changed colour—bewildered him. Could there be any mistake? He had received his information from Rhoda in the intimacy of a long discussion of their mutual affairs which had taken place the day after their wedding. It had been startling, but he had almost instantly recognized its truth. There was that in it which one could recognize. Had not Rhoda herself made it all out independently, even if with more to go upon than he had had? For him there had been nothing save an undue favouritism, and a physical resemblance, extraordinary, though not obvious, though not striking indeed perhaps, save to the completely initiated. But this resemblance had flashed upon him the instant she had spoken, and he found himself referring to it now, as if for corroboration, as if for support. Yes; it was there; he believed in it. And simultaneously he discovered that he had something else to say, something which had been bottled up for a long time within him and which an exasperated sense of injury, of accumulated wrong, gave him now the necessary eloquence to express. “You’ve treated me badly from the beginning; you’ve treated me meanly, and you’ve favoured John Brooke. I’ve never had a chance. I have been kept down and he has been pushed forward. You have never given me any authority in the place. I’m nothing more than any of the clerks for all the position I’ve got; and then you grumble at me because I don’t take an interest in the drudgery that you give me to do. What chance have I ever had to take an interest? I can’t do anything without coming to you first to get your permission. That’s what you like. You like everybody to go down on their knees and lick your boots.” His flow of words suddenly subsided. He could get no further though his father waited for him to go on. Mr. Bracknel was perfectly patient, even gravely attentive.

“If you have no authority,” he replied calmly, “it is because you have never shown yourself fit to have any. And, as for John Brooke, he isn’t drawing as much pay as you are.”

“I don’t care what he’s drawing. I’m quite sure you give him as little as you can, though he is your favourite. He has a position all the same, and I haven’t. He does things on his own account and everybody recognizes him. He has responsibilities: he isn’t a machine. I’ve heard you asking him for his opinion when I was standing by, but of course not worth talking to; and others have heard it too. That’s the sort of thing I’ve had to put up with ever since he came into the place.”

“And why should I ask your opinion?” Mr. Bracknel put it to him, with a sort of crushing, brutal deliberateness. “What sort of value do you imagine it has? You surely know that if you were not my son I wouldn’t have you in the place an hour longer than I could help! All you have ever done there has been to set an example of idleness and dissipation. Where have you been all day? What did you do when I sent you out to Switzerland? It has been the same story from the beginning. Cards, betting, drinking, and I don’t know what less mentionable pursuits—these are what have occupied your mind. It is only your constitution that has saved you from being at this moment as great a wreck physically as you are mentally and morally. Do you seriously expect me to entrust my business to men of your stamp?”

“Oh, damn you and your business,” said Alfred violently. “I hope you’ll take it to hell with you.” He turned on his heel, but on the threshold he met his mother standing there, pale and frightened, clad in a long, dark dressing-gown.

“Oh Alfred!” she murmured, horrified. “How could you speak so to your father!”

But Alfred only muttered something incoherent as he pushed past her and on upstairs.

Mrs. Bracknel entered the dining-room. In her long, flowing gown she seemed shadowy, hardly human. Mr. Bracknel’s air of indifference had dropped from him; he regarded her in sombre silence; but since he did not repulse her, which she had half expected him to do, she ventured to draw nearer.

“What is the matter, James?” she asked in a low voice that trembled slightly.

Mr. Bracknel was in a humour when it was a relief to have somebody to whom he could unburden himself.

“The matter?” he answered bitterly. “The matter is that he has done for himself.”

“Done for himself?” a vague vision of some dire deed floated before her mind, though without taking any precise form.

“He’s married,” said her husband laconically, “married a type-writing girl out of the office, that’s all.” He uttered the words with a kind of gloomy contempt, and Mrs. Bracknel gave a sigh of relief. The poor lady had imagined something infinitely worse.

“But when was it? To-day?”

“Oh, a day or two ago. What does it matter when?”

“And you didn’t know anything? You didn’t——”

He looked at her angrily. “Of course I didn’t know. Do you think I’m a fool? They took precious good care that I didn’t know. A silly little doll with a pretty face and the brains of a chicken.”

“But is she—is she a nice girl?—is she a good girl?”

“Oh, damn her,” said Mr. Bracknel. “I don’t know how nice she is. Nice enough for him, I daresay.”

“But is Alfred fond of her—what does he say about it all?”

“Fond of her! What do you mean by ‘fond of her?’ You don’t think he married her for her position, do you? Whether he’s fond of her or not, he’ll be sick of her at the end of a month, and God help her then!” He looked straight before him with unmitigated pessimism.

“Oh, don’t say such dreadful things!” Mrs. Bracknel quavered. “Why should he be like that?”

“Because he’s a brute and she’s a fool.” He spoke thickly, which was a sign that he was much agitated, but quietly, and even with a sort of gloomy fatalism. “What’s the use of sentimentalizing about it? You ought to know him well enough by this time, though he is your son! At any rate, if you don’t, I do.” And he began again to pace up and down the room.

His wife watched him for some moments in a kind of fascinated silence. Then she asked timidly. “What are they going to do?”

Mr. Bracknel smiled mirthlessly. “They’re going to be sorry they ever saw each other. They’re going to live in a squalid little house till they hate the very sight of each other. God knows what they’re going to do! Alfred can’t afford to keep her at any rate—with his tastes, and on his salary.”

Mrs. Bracknel’s gentle countenance was filled with trouble. She sank into a chair. “But where is she now?” she asked helplessly.

“She’s at her aunt’s, I suppose. Where else would she be? She’ll have to go on living there unless he takes a house.”

“She has no father or mother then?”

“It appears not: it’s the one redeeming thing about her.”

Mrs. Bracknel sighed. She tried to see some ray of light in all these gloomy pictures, but she had not yet had time to take in the full significance of what had happened. “Perhaps she is a nice girl,” she murmured, with a weak return to her former position. “After all, we don’t know her, do we?”

Mr. Bracknel broke into a laugh. “If she was a nice girl she wouldn’t have married Alfred.”

“But we don’t know her,” his wife repeated. She was beginning to resent these attacks upon her son. Surely he had not committed a crime in getting married.

“I know her—as well as I’ll ever know her. She’ll never cross this door: you may put away any idea of that sort.”

“Do you think she entrapped Alfred, then? Do you think——”

“I don’t know what she did. She hasn’t drawn a prize at all events, though I suppose she thought it worth the risk. I can’t live for ever, of course, and then it will be all right.”

“But we must do something for them in the meantime, mustn’t we?” Mrs. Bracknel pleaded.

“Must we? I’m pretty sure we won’t. Fortunately you’ve no money of your own to waste on them.”

“But why are you so severe? Is she—is there anything against her character?”

If he had wanted to, he could have told her why he was severe, he could have repeated to her the remark her son had let fall, have repeated those few words, for he remembered them perfectly, they still rang in his mind, in spite of the fact that he had been able, apparently, to ignore them; those words that had sounded like a menace, but a menace he would never yield to. “I tell you I know the type,” was all he said. “If he had married some simple country girl, it would have been different. But a girl like this—no, it won’t do.”

“But now that it has happened,” Mrs. Bracknel wonderfully persisted, “mustn’t we make the best of it? You can’t cast Alfred off. If you allowed——”

“I won’t allow him a penny more than his salary. He’s overpaid as it is.” Suddenly he sat down in a chair. The colour faded from his face and he began to breathe queerly. His wife flew to his assistance, but in a minute or two he was better and able to get on his feet again. “I’m not going to lose my night’s sleep over it either, whoever else may,” he added, with a poor attempt to carry off his curious collapse. But his face was still colourless and a perspiration had broken out on his forehead. He moved a little uncertainly across the room and up the stairs, leaning heavily on the banisters. Mrs. Bracknel followed him closely.

CHAPTER XXI

“Into the rose and grey
Ecstasy of the moon.”—Arthur Symons.

The moon-worshipper sat on his low white bed, hugging his knees. The posture was a favourite one with him when he was deep in thought or dreaming. He had only partially undressed, for though he had been lying down on the bed he was going out again presently; he was just waiting till he thought it would be quite safe to do so, and it seemed to him that he had been waiting a long time. By looking out of the window, he could see that Rusk’s light was still burning. He had heard Alfred coming upstairs half an hour ago:—later, his father’s step, as he too came up, the sound of the shutting of a door. It was past one o’clock; Rusk would be going to bed soon; and even as he looked the light went out. At last the coast was clear, but the boy lingered on for yet another ten minutes. Then he got out on to the window-sill and with a surprising agility, the result of much practice, let himself down by a rope. He stood upon the grass below the window and looked up. The house, so far as he could see, showed a blank and sleeping face to the night. A white moonlight flooded the lawn. He ran on looking neither to right nor left. On the border of the shrubbery was a weeping ash whose branches swept the ground. He paused here and gazed down the low grass-grown hill that separated him from the dim strange secrets of the wood and the stream. The grass was faded and wan in the moonlight, and there were dark mysterious shadows that were like crouching beasts. The boy was lightly clad, and his feet and legs were bare, but the ground seemed warm and soft beneath him in spite of the heavy dew. The night wind stirred his hair, and a wonderful moon floated high and clear in the sky. As he stood motionless a strange fear suddenly took possession of him—an unreasoning dread of something that was there and yet not there. He watched the shadows and they seemed to become alive. One of them was like a huge sprawling sphynx, lying waiting for its prey, with curved, cruel claws dug into the ground, and half-raised head, expectant, listening. A wild excitement made the blood drum in the boy’s ears. His fear passed and he ran lightly down the slope to the stream. He was quite close now to the wood, yet still he lingered, dabbling his feet in the water, conscious that he was approaching the innermost shrine, the secret temple. He crossed the shallow brook, and in doing so seemed to pass from one world to another. He stood for a moment upon the bank, pale and still, and the water went murmuring away into the darkness.

* * * * *

He had been very quiet, he thought, but, for all that, not quiet enough. Rusk at any rate had heard him, though the sound was but slight and he hardly knew why he should connect it with Denis, since he had not even been thinking of him. Nevertheless, he did so connect it, and lay absolutely still, listening for a minute or two longer, but the sound was not repeated. Still uncertain, he got out of bed and went to the window. He was just in time—just in time to see what he believed to be his pupil gaining the shadow of the trees. A few seconds more and Rusk would have missed him. He hesitated, but not really for long. Obviously it was better that he should learn once and for all what actually took place on these nocturnal expeditions—it would set his mind more at rest, no matter how the adventure should turn out; and then there was always the chance of his discovering that the whole thing was merely a strange kind of boyish prank, an elaborate and wonderful game. If he was to follow, however, there was no time to lose. He hastily put on a few articles of clothing, and going straight to Denis’s room discovered the rope just as the boy had left it. He had more or less expected something of the kind, and he decided that it would be better to make use of it than to risk waking anyone by going downstairs and letting himself out in the ordinary way. In another minute he was on the grass and moving rapidly in the direction where he had seen his pupil disappear. His idea was to get to the moon-temple before Denis, for he thought it quite possible that the boy would linger by the way. When he reached the shrubbery he proceeded more cautiously, but almost at once he caught sight of the fugitive, a slight dark figure, standing motionless on the top of the hill. Here was his opportunity, and Rusk made a rapid détour, approaching the boy’s hiding-place from a point higher up. Fortune favoured him again, and in a much shorter time than he could have expected he reached his destination, coming upon it simply by chance, and actually before he had begun his search.

His next proceeding was to hide himself carefully in the brushwood, and after that he had only to wait. Until now it had all been perfectly plain sailing, but just here he became conscious of a check, an unforeseen embarrassment, which presented itself in the shape of conscientious misgivings—moral scruples as to the honourableness of what he was about to do. It occurred to him that it was rather shabby—was in fact as clear a case of spying as one could well imagine, and such an idea was unpleasant to him. Of course there were plenty of reasons why he should act in this secret way—wasn’t one of them, in fact, just that no other was possible? And then, the essential gravity of the case, the impossibility of really learning indirectly what actually took place on these occasions, the heavy responsibility that Doctor Birch, that everyone, for that matter, had thrown upon him—all these things justified him immensely, to say nothing of the full confession he intended to make to Denis afterwards. There was no doubt in the world that here, if anywhere, was a case where the end would vindicate the means, though so jesuitical a policy might not particularly appeal to him. As the minutes passed indeed, it appealed to him less and less, till in the end he was on the point of getting out of his hiding-place, and going home, when a rustle close at hand sent him crouching back into the brushwood, gazing in amazement at Denis, who had emerged into the moonlight, moving through the dim, delicate beauty of the darkened wood, like a figure in a dream.

For the boy was naked, and this simple fact, so unexpected and astonishing, had in some inexplicable way the property of banishing from Rusk’s mind all hope that the whole thing might be merely an elaborate child’s-play. He lay still and watched, the strangeness of the performance holding him more and more, as by the force of some mysterious influence which drew his mind from its accustomed sphere. Denis advanced into the middle of the grove, and there was something in his movements, a kind of rhythmic precision and alacrity that was yet not haste, which gave Rusk a momentary impression that he might perhaps be walking in his sleep. The idea brought him a sudden hope, but of this hope he was doomed to swift disappointment when he watched the boy uncover the altar and place a large moon-shaped cake upon it. This cake, Rusk saw, was decked with white tapers—tapers which Denis was now lighting. When all were ablaze, he bowed low before them, as to some unseen and ghostly presence, and then proceeded to go through as amazing a ceremony as Rusk was ever likely to behold. He must surely have invented it, and yet it suggested to Rusk an actual survival from a half-forgotten pagan ritual. The boy poured out a libation. He burned incense as he moved about, waving it up to the mysterious, pale divinity that hung in the deep sky above him. The thin, aromatic smoke rose up in slender spirals, while the young priest, like a white, sylvan creature of a primeval world, performed his simple rites. Half an hour ago Rusk had asked himself how far it was all real, how far a mere exploit of boyish romance; but somehow, as he watched it now, alone, at this hour and in this place, with the dimness of night and the stillness of motionless trees all around stretching away into what might have been the very womb of the past, he found it difficult to see it in the light of anything childish or trivial. On the contrary, there was something in it that imposed itself occultly, weirdly, upon his imagination, as if indeed some baleful lunar influence were gaining upon his senses. It was real—too real. What, then, was the relation of this naked pagan boy, with body bared to the whiteness of the moon, to the young Presbyterian, who sat Sunday by Sunday in his father’s pew? The thing was perplexing, inexplicable, and innumerable disquieting suggestions passed through Rusk’s mind, making him more and more uneasy. Suddenly, as Denis drew closer to him, he had a clear view of his face, and his heart sank. That strange, rapt, almost ecstatic expression was not the expression of a boy playing a game. If he were to reveal himself now, would Denis recognize him? A sudden chill came over him as he realized the import of his question. But he could not watch the thing any longer; he had seen enough; he must break the charm; he had already suffered it to go on for too long; and he rose to his feet, coming out into the open, while at sight of him the boy gave a low strange cry. Denis made no attempt to hide himself, but stood perfectly still, trembling a little.

“It’s only me,” said Rusk, quietly. “Won’t you come back to the house?”

Denis looked at him doubtfully, distrustfully. Then a sudden consciousness of the situation seemed to come upon him, and with it a burst of anger against the intruder. It was the first and last time that Rusk was ever to see him in a passion. He himself felt horribly in the wrong, though his reasons for doing what he had done were surely good enough. At all events the spell was broken, very effectually broken, and Rusk knew he need have no further fear to leave Denis to himself. He knew that the boy would follow him back to the house: he thought it better not to wait, better to leave him alone, for the present at all events. Such explanations as he had to offer would do well enough in the morning, and he was conscious that they would sound particularly feeble. He was afraid, indeed, that the episode might alter their whole relation to each other. He was afraid it could hardly fail to do so, hardly fail to make Denis suspicious of him, even if it did not make him actually dislike him. Certainly the boy would have every reason to be distrustful. No matter with what excellent intentions, Rusk had broken his word to him, he had taken advantage of his confidence. He was very sorry, but he felt he could do nothing save give his excuses for what they were worth. Of course he knew Denis would not think he had been actuated by any mere prying curiosity, still less by any unworthy suspicion; but he might easily think, in fact he evidently did think, that he had been officious, secretive and interfering. Rusk, as he considered the matter, was afraid he had made a serious mistake, which might cost him all the ground that up to the present he had gained: but it was too late now to draw back; what was done could not be undone.

And in the morning it was all right. Denis came down late, looking pale and tired and with heavy black lines under his eyes, but otherwise much as usual. He smiled somewhat listlessly at his tutor, but did not seem to bear him any ill-will on account of the last night’s adventure. He behaved as if he had forgotten the whole affair, though Rusk could hardly believe that this was the case. Over his work he was languid and indifferent—so much so that at the end of an hour Rusk suggested that they should take the rest of the day as a holiday. The boy rose from the table with a sigh of relief, and curled himself up in an armchair, where he seemed to drop asleep over a book.

Outside it was raining heavily. The branches of the trees, soaked and dark, stretched above the sodden grass, and from all around there rose a continuous drip—drip—drip. To Rusk for some reason the melancholy sound was soothing and pleasant; and the soft rush of the rain down the window—the stillness it had brought into the air—all were in harmony with his mood.

He felt relieved, immensely relieved, that Denis had taken the affair as he had taken it. He was glad now that he had followed him, had watched him; it was so much better that he should really know all. He began to write a letter, and from time to time glanced at his charge with a kind of doubtful anxiety, for he had an idea that he ought to speak to him, that he in fact must speak to him sooner or later, of what was uppermost in his mind, and yet he shrank from doing so. It was not very pleasant to be perpetually forcing the boy to deliver an account of his doings. But he had not forgotten Doctor Birch’s lecture. In fact, though he had tried to forget it a little, it had kept cropping up pretty constantly in his thoughts. His thoughts hovered about it as moths hover about a lamp, and with as little beneficial effect; every now and then they dropped down on singed wings, or wandered away into the darkness and were lost. He would have liked to consult Doctor Birch about his recent adventure, but here again, if he did so, would he not be breaking his word to Denis? He could not make up his mind what his next step should be. So between the sentences of his letter (Rusk had not a talent for any branch of literary art, and his present effort was even more disjointed than usual) he looked at the sleepy boy, and tried to decide what he really ought to do.

It was possible that Denis was not wholly unaware of the psychological problem he was giving rise to. This occurred to Rusk as he watched him. He looked very young and delicate—almost a child—as he half sat, half lay, in the big chair, with that big old book in his brown, slender hands. Rusk felt that there were few things he would not do if there were even a bare chance of helping him. The volume that Denis had taken up was the second of the complete works of that exquisite and fanciful divine, Jeremy Taylor, and he had come upon the passage in the “Life of Jesus,” describing the flight into Egypt.

“‘Then he arose and took the young Child and his mother, by night, and departed into Egypt.’ And they made their first abode in Hermopolis, in the country of Thebais; whither, when they first arrived, the child Jesus, being by design or providence carried into a temple, all the statues of the idol-gods fell down, like Dagon at the presence of the ark, and suffered their timely and just dissolution and dishonour, according to the prophecy of Isaiah: ‘Behold, the Lord shall come into Egypt, and the idols of Egypt shall be moved at his presence.’”

For some reason this passage had caught the boy’s fancy, and awakened his imagination, which plumed its wings and spread them for a very distant Egypt, where he became busy with a scene that curiously blended the quaint picture of the learned bishop with a wilder wonder borrowed from the “Arabian Nights.” He read no more except in his own fantasy, and the heavy, calf-bound book slipped unheeded to the floor. To Rusk, still watching him, his face just now seemed to have an extraordinarily spiritual quality, and it sent a sharp pang of regret through him to think that that spirit should ever be troubled, as surely it had been troubled but a few hours since. A sudden tenderness for the boy swept over him—a tenderness that almost from the beginning had been there, but which now seemed to crystalize into a definite sense of sorrow at what might be the waste of an exquisite intelligence, an intelligence so fine, so rare, that it sometimes seemed to be capable of the very highest things. Rusk was quite convinced that his pupil was made of a clay finer than any other he had yet had the privilege of coming into personal relation with. He was different—it was of his very essence to be different—but the difference lay not so much in any superficial peculiarities as in a greater delicacy, a rarer quality of spirit, a more perfect sensitiveness, a higher, a subtler power of imagination. And what was there, perhaps, in the most striking degree of all, though hitherto it had somehow not occurred to him to take note of it, was an astonishing, a complete absence of anything gross, of anything that could, even with the passage of years, associate itself for a single instant with vulgarity or sensuality.

CHAPTER XXII

On the afternoon of the last day of October Rusk was strolling along the river bank by himself. He had left Denis fishing in a stream hard by, where he had once caught a small trout, and which he had haunted assiduously ever since. He had left him with the intention of returning later on, but at the present moment he had forgotten all about him, and was completely absorbed in his own thoughts. The path he followed was heavy, and covered with a clinging brown mud. The ground sloped up upon either side from the dark river, down whose black surface a few brown and scattered leaves drifted slowly. Rusk came to a pause and leaned against a broken stile. On the opposite bank the curve upward was broad and low and sweeping—a smooth meadow of a yellow-green hue, washed across with waves of darker green, and crowned, toward the top of the incline, by trees of every shade of brown and red and gold and green. In the mildness of the season, though the ground was drifted over by a powder of dead leaves, most of the trees were still well covered, the blacker, stouter limbs alone being visible through the thinning foliage. Two horses moved slowly over the grass, nibbling lazily. Grey clouds blew overhead. The reflections of tall grasses and reeds, of hawthorn bushes and stooping trees, of tangled shrubs and naked prostrate logs, were motionless in the still water; all the colour of the upper world was mirrored there, hardly dimmed, in this deep dark mirror, as in a dream. The lower clouds in the west were tinged with gold and washed through with a faint cold sunlight, looking almost silvery behind the deeper red-bronze of the trees, while in the east a heavier cloud-bank was black and threatening, approaching slowly, though hardly seeming to move.

A barge came drifting along, pulled by a white horse with mud-splashed legs. It passed so smoothly, low in the dark, oily water, that it seemed the sleepiest thing in the world. When it was gone, the silence closed in once more, broken now only by the chirping of one or two birds, and the distant sound of the weir. And the quiet of the passing afternoon had a melancholy that brought with it a curious consolation. Rusk acquiesced in its sleepy stillness; his mood became sympathetic with it, and with the somewhat austere beauty of his surroundings; but he was thinking of things that might have seemed far enough removed from the scene about him, things that were altogether practical....

After a while he clambered over the broken, rickety stile, and ascended the incline, till he reached a road leading in a homeward direction. He had been walking for some time, still lost in thought, when he saw someone coming towards him whom he took to be Miss Anna Birch. It was indeed Miss Anna—Miss Anna, who had been paying a visit at one of the cottages in the village, where there was a child lying sick of some childish ailment, and who was now returning home. She carried a basket in her hand, and she had recognized Rusk almost at the same moment as he had recognized her. He quickened his pace, and when they met he turned back with her, and both entered a long, narrow lane, grass-grown and high-banked, a short-cut to the Birches’ house.

The country everywhere was still clothed in a brown and yellow autumnal tint, with richer notes of gold and crimson. The yellow leaves had fallen from the chestnut-trees, and were drifting over the ground; the beeches were a deep red-brown; the willows still a delicate silver-grey; but the last lingering traces of summer were gone, and there was rustle of dead leaves in the wind.

It was a country of mingled wood and pasture-land, stretching between the river and the hills, and lying now under a white, drifting light of mid-afternoon. The sunless landscape had a melancholy and somewhat wintry charm; the cold wan light was slowly fading, and the wind seemed full of whispering voices—the thin, low, trembling notes of withered grasses, the fuller, sweeping murmur of the trees.

They followed the garden wall, built of crumbling red brick, stained with patches of rich dark green moss, and with tufts of wall-flower shivering high up in the wind, till they reached a small green wooden gate, where they came to a pause. Here Rusk was about to take leave of his companion, but Miss Anna still detained him.

“Now you have come so far you must come in and have tea,” she declared; and the young man yielded without much persuasion.

He had a weakness for drinking tea with the Miss Birches. It was the most innocent of dissipations, and the society of these ladies he always found to have a certain sweetness and fragrance that was most agreeable to him. Miss Anna, perhaps, was not perceptibly old-fashioned. She liked to talk about Wagner’s music, for instance, a good deal of which she had listened to abroad, and Rusk had once discovered her reading a novel by Gabriele D’Annunzio. This work, it is true, she subsequently confessed to having taken up more for the sake of her Italian than for any great pleasure it afforded her; she preferred things like the delightful “Chèvre d’Or” of Paul Arène, a book she had lent Rusk a week or two ago, and which he told her now he had enjoyed immensely.

They had tea indoors—the garden days had been over for some time—and the young Englishman, looking out at the sober flower-beds, the faded, leaf-strewn grass, had a curious sense of regret. He found an indescribable melancholy, delicate and half-fanciful, in the passing of summer; and never before had he been so conscious of its personal significance, its suggestion of the passing of other things one cared for, hours, some of them, one would gladly enough recall. His sentimental reveries were prosaically interrupted by Miss Birch discovering that he had a slight cold. She insisted on preparing some special kind of tea for him, in which tea itself appeared to be the least important ingredient; and Rusk allowed himself to be doctored and made much of, with a half-amused sense of drifting back into a not tremendously remote boyhood. Miss Anna found that he was becoming far too serious. She declared that when she had met him he had frowned at her as if he carried a thousand cares on his shoulders.

“They must have been worldly cares,” said Rusk smiling. “I was wondering what I should do when I leave here—leave the Bracknels, that is. I had intended to go in for teaching, you know, but I have decided not to. I don’t think I should like it—I mean, in a school; and of course one can’t go on being a tutor all one’s life; once is enough for me at all events. I think I shall try to get some sort of inspectorship—something of that kind at any rate (there are such things, you know)! I must begin to make inquiries.”

“But you are getting on all right with the Bracknels, aren’t you?” Miss Birch ventured. “You are not thinking of leaving just yet?”

Rusk laughed. “Oh, no. It’s not so immediate as all that. I shall stay with them as long as they want me to—for another year or two, that is. But then will come the difficulty. I don’t somehow see myself taking a second pupil.”

“Did you ever suggest that you and Denis should go abroad for a few months?” Miss Anna asked him. “It would do him a world of good, and it would be rather nice for both of you.”

“It would indeed,” said Rusk regretfully. “The only thing is that it might be considered too nice. Mr. Bracknel would call it an unnecessary expense, and he doesn’t like unnecessary expenses.”

“Don’t you think that he would in this case—if you put it to him very artfully—put it to him as being ever so much to Denis’s advantage and all that?”

“But he has his own ideas as to what is to Denis’s advantage,” said Rusk dubiously. “And then—well, he’s not exactly the kind of man you can suggest such things to. You never know whether he’ll insult you or not. He’s got an awfully peculiar mind, you know. He might think I only wanted to travel for nothing; and if he did he’d probably say so, and—oh, well, it would be very unpleasant all round.”

“But still——”

“It has been confoundedly unpleasant, I may tell you, more than once, even as it is. All this fuss about Alfred, too, seems to have made him worse than ever. He’s so beastly suspicious—seems to think that everybody is trying to ‘do’ him in some way or other.”

“He’ll get over the Alfred affair now Alfred is settled in a house of his own.”

Rusk was not convinced, but he did not argue the point further, and presently he rose to go. As he walked back he turned Miss Anna’s suggestion over in his mind. It had a peculiar brilliance and fascination, but unfortunately all the turning over, all the brilliancy and fascination in the world, couldn’t make it appear very practicable. He was so far from seeing it in this light that he did not even think it would be worth his while to go through the highly distasteful task of approaching Mr. Bracknel on the subject. The less he had to approach Mr. Bracknel on any subject whatever the better, he thought. Such undertakings seldom met with success. Mr. Bracknel had his own ways of regarding things, and he had an obstinacy that could move mountains.

Rusk did not take a direct route back to the house, but wandered on down a series of lanes and field-paths, feeling rather in the mood for a lonely ramble. Presently he perceived a solitary figure coming towards him through the twilight. The figure as it drew closer proved to be that of Denis, and he was carrying a fishing-rod over his shoulder, though apparently this was the only trophy he was bringing back with him from his afternoon’s sport. His lack of success, however, did not seem to have put him out of humour. He was whistling as he came. “Where are you off to?” he called out gaily, as soon as he caught sight of Rusk. Then, coming up with him, he passed his arm beneath his tutor’s and they walked on in this fashion together.

“I’m just taking a stroll,” Rusk had replied. “I’ve been over at the Miss Birches’.”

“I wondered why you had deserted me. Do you know that this is the last day of October—Hallow Eve—and that you certainly shouldn’t be out alone after dark ‘on this night of all nights of the year?’”

“I don’t suppose the risk is very serious,” said Rusk absently.

“Don’t be too sure. On just this one night the dead can leave their graves and dance in the moonlight on the grass—do you imagine they’re going to miss it for you?”

Rusk glanced round into the damp foggy evening. “There isn’t very much moonlight at present, is there?” he said. “I think we are fairly safe.” He was thoughtful, but Denis prattled on, undiscouraged.

“There is all there’s going to be. It is a new moon. You’re brave because you don’t realize your danger.” He spoke in a gay, happy tone, and his fresh young voice had, as always, a curious charm, though, having begun to break, it was subject to sudden and surprising alterations of pitch. Rusk turned to where he pointed, and saw in the western sky a faint, almost imperceptible, crescent.

“The old Irish feast to the moon was held on this night,” the boy said. “Amy and May will be trying all kinds of things after dinner—at least they used to other years—to find out who they are going to marry, and all that.”

“Well, you and I aren’t in a hurry to know,” Rusk supposed. “Are we?”

“Aren’t we, you mean. There’s nothing we want to know more.” He was silent a moment. “I saw Alfred yesterday. Mamma went to visit Mrs. Alfred; in the deadest of secrecy; you mustn’t breathe a word about it; and I went with her though I didn’t go in. I waited outside to bring mamma home again, and I saw Alfred in the distance. It’s rather stupid, isn’t it—I mean, all the fuss that has been made. To listen to papa you would think we mixed exclusively with the aristocracy. It’s a little quaint, you know. Papa always was rather quaint, don’t you think? She must hate us like poison, and that’s about the only effect it can have. Personally, I have a theory that she’s rather nice.”

“I daresay it’s as good as any of the others,” said Rusk a little wearily.

“Are you bored?” asked Denis, smiling at him, and leaning a little on his arm.

“Bored! What with?”

“With the family.”

“Are you the family, then?”

“With me, if you like?... I’m awfully frightened of boring you,” he laughed. “After all, I know nothing; I’ve seen nothing; I’ve done nothing. Naturally I can’t have very much to talk about. Do you mind?”

“You’re a wonderful humbug,” said Rusk. “How do you expect me to say it if I do?”

“Oh, easily enough.”

“Are you fishing for a compliment?”

“I don’t know. Won’t you pay me one if I am? Or are you frightened of making me conceited? I think you might risk it.”

“Ah, well, I won’t.”

“No: you’re not bored.... What were the Miss Birches saying?”

“They were talking about you.”

“Were they? I hope they said something nice—or do you think that sentimental?”

“I’ll perhaps tell you later on what they said—if anything comes of it, which is highly improbable. I’ve an idea it is something you’ll like.”

“You are mysterious! I want to know what it is at once.”

“Ah well, you won’t know. You must learn to control your curiosity.”

“But why did you excite it? I will go and see for myself if you don’t tell me.”

“Come along,” said Rusk. “It is getting late.”

They quickened their pace. It was very dark. Now and then they stumbled over some unevenness in their path, and occasionally they had to scramble across a ditch or over a stile, for they still kept to the fields.

“If we had gone by the river it would have been easier,” said Denis.

“But this is a short cut; and it’s going to rain.”

“Is it? I like the river better. I’m very fond of the river. There is something strange about it at night, too!... You’re not superstitious, Mr. Rusk, are you?”

“I don’t think so. Not that I know of at any rate.”

“Not even a little bit?”

“Oh, I won’t say that!”

“You’re never afraid of something you don’t understand?”

“Something that may be going to happen?”

“No, not exactly that.... It doesn’t get as far as that. It’s just a kind of feeling.”

“About what?”

“That you’re not altogether alone—when you ought to be alone—when you seem to be alone, I mean.... If you’re walking across the lawn to the house, do you never feel as if there was something at a window high up, hiding behind the blind, and watching you?”

“Oh, you’re too full of fancies for me!” growled Rusk good humouredly. He laid a firm, friendly hand on his shoulder. “I never saw such a little chap! What I’m afraid of at present is that we’re going to get wet through.”

CHAPTER XXIII

It was dark as pitch when they reached the house. The rain Rusk had prophesied had already begun to fall, and the wind was rising steadily.

The son of a neighbour, a boy who was supposed to have looked after Denis—or who at any rate had been requested to do so—during the latter’s brief period at school, was present at dinner. He had ridden over, the bearer of a message, and had been persuaded to stay.

Mrs. Bracknel introduced him to Rusk as a friend of her son’s, and Rusk could guess just how far the friendship went. He had a chat with this youth later on in the evening, when Denis was out of the room, and while the girls and their mother were discussing some bazaar they had promised to help at. They talked a little of football, and then by a question or two Rusk brought their conversation round to his pupil. One of the first things he learned was that Skinny was “a freak,” and could never be much improved. Not a bad soul when you got to know him, but “an awful wee fool.” “He did the maddest kind of things—you’d hardly believe! And he was always getting into rows—silly kinds of rows that no one else ever got into. There was no harm in anything he did, you know, but it was all just senseless, childish stuff: he seemed to think he was living in a fairy-tale. And the masters couldn’t stand him. They had an idea half the time that he was ‘rotting’ them, but they could never quite tell. You see, he’s a facetious little beast in his own way. I’ve known him give the most frightful cheek even to quite big chaps, without realizing what he was doing. He has cheeked me before now; and of course that sort of thing doesn’t do.”

“But how did he get on with the other boys? Was he liked at all?” Rusk inquired.

“Oh, he was liked all right in a sort of a way. After all there’s nothing much to dislike about him, is there, even though he’s pretty rotten at everything? He can hardly help that, though, as he didn’t make himself. The only thing was that most of the boys couldn’t quite get the hang of him. Of course, if he had stayed on a bit longer he might have learned some sense; but I don’t think myself it would have made much difference. As it was, he hadn’t any chance. He seemed to me to be getting along fairly well in his own way, and then, after he got ill, it came out that everything had been wrong from the first—one or two beasts had been giving him no end of a bad time. I needn’t tell you I didn’t know anything about it before. Neither did anybody else, for that matter. He never told a soul. Queer enough, for a little chap like that! And then, I didn’t really see very much of him. When a fellow is younger than you are, and is no use at anything, you can’t see much of him, can you? And Skinny was always loafing about in an aimless sort of way. A boy like him shouldn’t be sent to school at all. He’s bound to have a rotten time, and the chances are he’ll get into bad ways and go to the mischief.”

“I don’t think there was much danger of that, at all events,” said Rusk.

“No, I don’t suppose there was. He’s about as straight as they’re made. I like him, you know; I really do; there’s something nice about him; only he’s too queer for anything. I must tell you a thing he did one day. It was on the Sunday before he took ill, I believe, and before all the row——”

But Rusk was never to hear the remainder of the tale, for at that moment Denis himself entered the room. He held a long, narrow, green volume in his hand, and as Rusk and the young guest came over to join the little group by the fire he opened it and began to read aloud slowly and gravely, with a little upward wrinkle of his delicate eyebrows:

“‘What is your favourite musical instrument?’

‘The harp.’

‘Who is your favourite hero in fiction?’

‘Donovon.’

‘What do you consider to be the most beautiful thing in nature?’

‘Ruins by moonlight.’”

But May by this time had begun to recognize a smack of familiarity in these remarks, and she now made a sudden grab at the book. Her brother was too quick for her and dodged behind his mother’s chair.

“Where did you get it?” she demanded indignantly.

“I got it in the bookcase. ‘What is your opinion of the young man of the period?’ This is for you, Mr. Rusk, ‘My opinion is that——’”

“Stop. Mamma make him stop. I wrote it ages and ages ago, and I don’t want him to read it.”

She made another attempt to get the book, but Denis again eluded her. “I wasn’t going to tell whose it was,” he said.

“Don’t read it, dear, if she doesn’t want you to,” Mrs. Bracknel interposed.

“But it is only her modesty,” Denis insisted.

“You wouldn’t like anybody to read your things,” cried May, catching him by the jacket, and beginning a noisy struggle.

“I would, if they were nearly as good as this. And at any rate I can’t leave Mr. Rusk in suspense about the young man of the period. ‘My opinion——’”

“No—no. Mamma, make him give me the book. It is mine. Mr. Rusk, make him give it to me.”

Rusk caught his pupil’s hands and the book fell to the floor, where May pounced upon it. As soon as it was safely in her own possession she began to laugh. “Aunt Lizzie gave it to me one Christmas; I’d forgotten all about it. It’s a Confession Album. I must get you to write in it, Mr. Rusk, as soon as I’ve taken mine out.”

“Jimmy Temple has done a humorous one,” said Denis. “Let me read it.”

“No.”

“Do, it’s frightfully clever. ‘What coloured eyes and hair do you most admire?’ ‘Strawberry ice and jugged hare.’ That’s only a sample, there are other things just as good. For May’s benefit he has put the puns in brackets and underlined them. I wonder how long it took him to sweat it out. About a month?”

“It’s not half-bad,” said May. “And it was quite decent of Jimmy to write at all.”

“Half-bad! It’s ripping. It’s the only really serious one in the book. Mr. Rusk, ‘What do you consider to be the most beautiful thing in nature?’ Come now, you oughtn’t to have to go very far afield for that! May, stand up——” But his sister’s hand was clapped over his mouth, and the rest of his speech was lost in a splutter.

Mrs. Bracknel watched them with a gentle smile.

“They’re burning nuts and doing all kinds of things in the kitchen,” said Denis, when he could free himself. “Don’t you think we had better go down? Cook was going through some mysterious rite with a red-herring when I was there. I couldn’t make out what it was, but she got mad with Johnson, because he spoiled it. It’s the greatest lark. Let us go. I’m going. I’m going to burn myself with cook. She’s very fond of me: a grande passion, mamma.”

In the ebb and flow of his present existence Rusk had now for some time been conscious of what appeared to be a favourable current, but never had it so strongly revealed itself as on this particular evening. Amy seemed in quite a normal mood again, and her relation with her sister was more natural and friendly than it had been since the day of his arrival. In fact when he retired that night to his bedroom it was with a reassuring sense that things had after all worked out all right—an idea which gave a pleasant encouragement to his naturally easy optimism, to his innate conviction that in the long run, if you only let them, they invariably do. To-night, up in his own room, while the wind was rocking the trees outside and coming in gusty blasts against his window with a hard sweep and rattle of driving rain, he had been thinking of these things, and at last had taken up a novel, an old-fashioned novel by Le Fanu, which promised to be full of mystery and suspense. It was a little past midnight, and he was just beginning to abandon himself to the spell of his book, when suddenly, above the rush and moaning of the wind outside, coming almost like an echo to the passage he was reading, he heard a cry. At this hour, when he believed everyone but himself to be in bed, the thing was somehow startling and unpleasant. Rusk listened intently for a few seconds but he could hear nothing further. Then he got up and opened his door, going some little way along the passage, still listening.

Evidently he had not been mistaken, for the next moment Denis, too, in his sleeping-suit and looking rather white and scared, came out. They stood together, uncertain as to the direction the sound had proceeded from, but almost immediately the door of May’s room, at the very end of the passage, opened, and Amy appeared. She remained for perhaps a quarter of a minute motionless and in silence on the threshold. She held a lamp above her head and its light shone on her pale face and on her red hair. She was extraordinarily white it seemed to Rusk—he had never seen her so white before. He took a step forward, but there was something in her eyes that brought him up again on the instant.

“What do you want?” she asked sharply, in a clear, cold voice, that rang out with a metallic distinctness in the silence of the house. “And what is Denis doing there, prowling about at this hour?”

Rusk felt somewhat foolish but he began to explain. “I thought I heard someone calling,” he said awkwardly, “so I came to see.”

“Were you frightened? You seem to be very easily alarmed! I suppose you heard May calling to me. I am sorry we frightened you.”

She spoke with a kind of deliberate contempt, and Rusk coloured as he drew back with a murmured apology. The next moment, closing the door sharply in their faces, she had disappeared once more into May’s room, leaving them to return to their own quarters or to continue standing in the passage, whichever they pleased.

“I told you they would be trying things,” Denis murmured, with a queer little smile. Rusk, however, felt rather sore and angry. They might cry out as much as they pleased in future, but it would be a long time before he would trouble himself again about any of them. Shortly after he had returned to his room, however, his indignation began to cool. What he had heard still sounded in his ears, and he was now persuaded that it had been a cry of fear. As he thought of it, in spite of Amy’s lofty attitude he did not feel altogether satisfied. He had been very easily put off. But, on the other hand, what could have happened? And even granting that something had, why should she be so anxious to conceal it? He resolved not to trouble himself with the matter any further, and placing his reading-lamp on a table near his pillow he undressed and got into bed, taking up his novel again at the point where he had left it.

He read several chapters before he began to feel drowsy. He had heard the clock strike one some time ago, and he had closed his book and was about to put out his lamp when a slight sound reached him, coming from the direction of Denis’s room. The next moment there was a tap at his door.

“Come in,” Rusk called out. Then:

“What is the matter?” he asked, as in response to his bidding the boy entered the room.

Denis approached the side of the bed. His face had a curious expression and his eyes seemed unnaturally bright. “Will you let me sleep with you?” he asked hurriedly. “I will tell you——”

Rusk turned out the lamp and made room for the boy beside him. Five—ten minutes passed, and still they lay in silence, for he did not want to question Denis, in case he should prefer not to answer. But the boy spoke at length of his own accord:

“It was a thing I heard,” he began suddenly in a half-whisper. “I heard it last night, too, and it kept me awake till morning. To-night, about half-an-hour ago, I woke up, and it had begun again. I had just had the most horrible dream and I could not stand it somehow. I lay for a bit, and then I thought I would come in to you. Do you mind?”

“Of course I don’t mind,” said Rusk kindly. “I am very glad if it makes you more comfortable.... What was it?” he went on gently, for he could tell from the boy’s voice that he was still extraordinarily nervous. “Perhaps you were only dreaming. It wasn’t what we heard before, was it?”

“No, it wasn’t that. It was ... I heard the death-watch.”

Rusk lay still a moment. “I don’t understand,” he then said.

“I heard it ticking—somewhere at the head of the bed.... The last time I heard it was about four years ago—two or three weeks before my grandfather’s death.”

“Oh,—I know what you mean now.... But it is only a little insect that gets into the woodwork of a bed.” He spoke on purpose very quietly.

“There isn’t any woodwork,” said Denis.

“Well, into the wall, then. We’ll have a hunt for him in the morning.”

Denis said nothing further, but Rusk knew that he was unconvinced. He had no other explanation to offer, however, and indeed he felt that just at present there was little use in trying to reason with the boy. His nerves were over-strung—the combined effects of the cry they had heard, of his bad dream, and of this last sound, had been too much for him. He put out his arm, and Denis lay with his head against his shoulder. It suddenly occurred to him, and he wondered that he had never thought of it before, that possibly it was not a very uncommon thing for his pupil to be nervous at night. He remembered certain things that Miss Anna Birch had told him about his childhood, and he wondered if he had altogether outgrown his old weakness.

“Do you often have bad dreams?” he asked. And then as he spoke a sudden sense of the strangeness of life came over him—of its peculiar isolation, the insurmountable loneliness of each separate soul as it floats swiftly on into darkness....

“Sometimes,” the boy replied. “Not nearly so often as I used to: I used to hate going to bed. I used to dread it for an hour before the time—and sometimes it was horrible—I could see things even after I woke up. I don’t know how I came through it. There was one thing that I used to see standing beside me when I woke up. It came back and back again, the same thing; very tall, and with a long, white, horrible, grinning, cruel face. And its teeth, I remember its teeth when it smiled. I used to be frightened of meeting it after dark in some empty room, on the stairs, even outside in the black avenue behind the house, for it seemed to hover about here, never to go very far away.... There are times even now when I have feelings like that, but—but not often.”

“Would you like to have your bed brought in here? The room is quite large enough for both of us. Tell me really. It wouldn’t disturb me in the very least, you know. That is absolutely true. It won’t make the smallest difference so far as I am concerned, and, if you would like it, you might just as well be here as not.”

Denis waited, but not for very long. Then he said: “I would like to come.”

“I wonder I didn’t think of it sooner,” Rusk murmured. “It was stupid of me, but I never understand anything unless it is half pushed down my throat.”

“You do understand,” said Denis quickly. “There is nobody else understands so well. You didn’t think I was such a baby. How could you?”

“My dear boy, it is all just a matter of temperament, of imagination; you aren’t in the least a baby.”

Denis made no reply, and Rusk thought he must have fallen asleep, when he suddenly said, “Don’t mention it before papa, will you? He wouldn’t allow it.” He was silent again for some moments till he added, “I’m afraid it won’t do. The others would find it out, and they’d think me cowardly and babyish, I know they’d be horrid. It’s just the kind of thing they’d think it funny to be always alluding to. They’re not like you.”

“Will you leave it to me?” asked Rusk.

“But what will you do about it?”

“You don’t call that leaving it, do you? I’ll speak to your mother. At any rate, if nothing else, you can always come in as you have done to-night, without anybody knowing.”

A little later he could tell from his low, regular breathing that Denis had dropped asleep. Rusk himself lay awake for some time longer. He was again busy with the idea of taking the boy away, and just now, curiously enough, the difficulties to be surmounted did not seem to be nearly so formidable as they had appeared before. He determined at any rate to do his best in the matter, and not to give in without a hard struggle.

CHAPTER XXIV

It was about half an hour before lunch. From the study window Rusk had seen Mrs. Bracknel leave the house, and thinking this to be probably his best chance of getting her alone, had sallied forth in pursuit. She was only going as far as the lodge, he discovered, but his offer to accompany her thither was accepted, and they paced slowly down the drive together, Rusk asking after May, who had not appeared at breakfast, and whose absence he had guessed to be in some way connected with the mysterious alarm of the previous night. He had said nothing about this, thinking it better to avoid a further defiance from Amy, and Amy on her side had also kept silence—an unaccustomed discretion, not tending in any way to allay the young man’s suspicions. A moment later, Mrs. Bracknel’s rejoinder to his inquiry seemed amply to justify this distrust.

“I don’t understand what is wrong with May,” she softly complained. “I wanted her to stay in bed, but she is getting up for lunch. She says she fainted last night, and indeed she looks quite strange this morning. She got a very bad fright, it seems; a sudden shock—they will try those senseless tricks! Just think, Mr. Rusk, at midnight, she shut herself up in her room, in the dark, and began to comb her hair before the looking-glass. It is an old Hallow Eve custom, but I’m sure people ought to know better than to keep up such things. After a time you are supposed to see the reflection of a face—the face of a person who is to be in some way bound up with your future life. I think it is wrong to try such things. If one did see anything, how could it be anything good? May says now that she only tried it because she knew it was all nonsense. Just after twelve she locked her door and began to comb her hair before the looking-glass while she looked into it and waited. The room was nearly dark, but she says that after a few minutes she distinctly saw a most horrible white face glaring at her over her shoulder. That is all she remembers, and when she opened her eyes again she was lying on her bed and Amy was in the room with her. This morning she declares that it was Amy, wearing some kind of mask, who looked over her shoulder on purpose to frighten her. Of course that is nonsense: Amy would never do such a wicked thing. But she won’t listen to me when I say so. She says Amy knew what she was going to do, and that she must have hidden herself in the room and then crept out while she was looking into the glass.”

“But——” Rusk began, and then he paused.

Mrs. Bracknel turned to him. As he did not say anything further, she went on: “Amy has explained how it really happened. She was not feeling sleepy, and had been sitting up doing something. A little after twelve o’clock, when she was going to bed, she heard May give a scream and ran to her room to find her lying on the floor, with the looking-glass broken in pieces beside her. She says you and Denis heard the noise too.”

Rusk reflected. He did not for a moment doubt that Amy was telling a lie. For one thing, he thought it hardly possible that she could have got into May’s room without his hearing her; for another, she would not even have had time to do so without his seeing her; but he thought it better not to interfere in the matter, so he merely replied that both he and Denis had heard a cry, and, not knowing what had caused it, had come out into the passage to listen.

Mrs. Bracknel’s large, dark eyes rested on him a moment, while she seemed to ponder something. “But how could Amy get into May’s room if the door was locked?” she suddenly asked. “I didn’t think of that before.... They’re all so strange,” she went on piteously. “I’m sure I never know what to do nor what to think!”

Rusk was equal to the occasion. “Miss May probably was a little excited and forgot to lock the door.”

Mrs. Bracknel turned away. “Oh, I’m sure I don’t know,” she said plaintively. “If the door was locked then Amy must be telling an untruth.... I don’t know why they should want to do such things,” she went on. “A few years ago people would have thought it wicked, and I can’t see how any good can come of it. It seems to me like trying to evoke evil spirits, and I’m sure there is enough natural evil in the world without that. But they only laugh at me when I speak to them. It is Rebecca—that old woman at the back lodge—who puts these ideas into their heads. I know she does. I have often tried to get Mr. Bracknel to send her away, but he won’t listen to me.”

It occurred to Rusk that all this was not exactly leading up to what he had himself desired to talk about, but he sympathized with his companion and acquiesced in the view that Rebecca was an undesirable person. As he did so, he reflected on the curious fact that it was almost impossible to agree with any one member of the Bracknel family without at the same time tacitly condemning some other. But he had grown accustomed to the position, and latterly had begun to disregard it, saying on every occasion what he actually thought. Meanwhile they had reached the lodge, and he waited for Mrs. Bracknel while she spoke with the gardener’s wife.

“I wanted to talk to you about Denis,” he began, as soon as they had turned back toward the house. He told her of his idea of having his pupil’s bed brought into his room; and then, carrying his plan still further:

“Don’t you think it would be good for him to get away for a bit, to have a—a change of scene—to travel for a year, two years perhaps?”

“To travel?” Mrs. Bracknel ejaculated, looking at him as if he had said something most extraordinary. But Rusk, nothing daunted, continued to enlarge on his idea:

“Yes. I should be most happy to look after him. Of course I only mention it because I suppose that the matter of expense would not be of much importance to Mr. Bracknel.”

“But matters of expense are always of importance to my husband,” said Mrs. Bracknel naïvely.

Rusk laughed. “I am convinced that it would be the best thing for Denis. It is really just what he needs. It would set him on his feet; the good it would do him would never be lost.”

“What is the matter with him?” Mrs. Bracknel asked.

“Well, this nervousness is the main thing. He needs something to take him out of himself a little, something to—to interest him and amuse him.”

“To amuse him?” Mrs. Bracknel echoed, her gentle eyes resting on the tutor’s face with an almost alarmed expression.

Rusk returned her gaze with his frank, boyish smile. “You know what I mean—something that will make him look round him—that will give him a new interest in life, in people, in places. I know myself exactly what it would do for him. It would take everything that is morbid and unhealthy out of his nature. If you give him to me for a year now, you will never regret it later.”

The note of conviction in his voice would have been more than sufficient to overcome any objections that might have existed in Mrs. Bracknel’s own mind, but she had not herself principally to take into account, since her acquiescence would mean nothing in the face of her husband’s certain refusal.

“Mr. Bracknel would never agree to such a thing,” she murmured, as if a little frightened at Rusk’s audacity in even thinking of it. She had herself perfect confidence in the young Englishman; she had come to look upon him almost as Denis’s elder brother; but she also knew that this fact would have counted for very little in any decision her husband might eventually arrive at.

“I will speak to him,” said Rusk, “or rather I will get Doctor Birch to speak to him; that will be better.” He had a sudden assurance of success. “We will all speak to him,” he cried enthusiastically. “After all, anyone must see that it is an excellent plan.” It suddenly occurred to him, however, that he was possibly displaying over much jubilation at the thought of leaving his present abode, so he moderated his tone though he continued to press the point.

Mrs. Bracknel’s imagination had all along taken a lower flight. “He won’t see it at all,” she persisted. “He might possibly agree to his going away for a month. Do you think that a month——?”

“Oh, a month is no good,” exclaimed Rusk impatiently. His last night’s impression of his pupil was still fresh in his mind, and it left him in no mood for half-measures. “I’ll go and see Doctor Birch myself this afternoon.”

“Don’t count on Mr. Bracknel’s consent, Mr. Rusk,” the boy’s mother softly repeated. “I think you are almost certain to be disappointed. And, in the meantime, I think you had better not mention anything about it to Denis.”

“To Denis! Of course not. But if everybody knows it is the right thing, I don’t see why——”

“He can’t go without his father’s consent, Mr. Rusk,” Mrs. Bracknel reminded him with some firmness. “Until he has that, there is little use discussing the matter. My husband will tell us what he thinks.”

Rusk could push the thing no further, though it irritated him to leave it like this. Why should there be any difficulty about it, when it was so easily within their power? To refuse to try it, even to hesitate about trying it—it was that that exasperated him.

And full of his project, of a determination to fight for it, he called that afternoon to have a chat with Doctor Birch. Denis waited for him in the drawing-room, but Rusk did not keep him long. Doctor Birch at once fell in with the idea, thought it excellent, and promised to come round without delay and discuss it with Mr. Bracknel. They talked about it for a minute or two and then Rusk returned to the drawing-room for Denis, whom he had left alone there, the Miss Birches being out. They went for a walk round by the river and home again across the fields. Mrs. Bracknel and the girls were having tea when they came back. Amy evidently had been in charge of the ceremony, and she rose again as they entered. She was talking rapidly and rather loudly to her mother, and, if she had been pale the night before, it struck Rusk now that her colour was higher than usual. She took a step toward him to give him his tea, but as she did so her hand trembled so violently that she actually dropped the cup. She gave a little cry. The blood had suddenly retreated from her face, leaving it white and strange. Mrs. Bracknel rang the bell to have the carpet wiped at once so that there might not be a stain left.

“How stupid of me! It slipped out of my hand!” Amy exclaimed. She looked down, still holding the saucer tightly grasped, making no movement of any kind.

Rusk meanwhile had picked up the cup, which was not broken, and replaced it on the tea-table. A servant entered and was sent off for a cloth and hot water, while Mrs. Bracknel continued to express anxiety about the stain that might be left.

“And the pot’s empty,” said May, lifting the cosy off and peeping in. “I’ll ring for some fresh.”

“But, thanks, I don’t want any,” Rusk assured her. “I’m not in the least thirsty.”

“As if one required to be thirsty! Denis, ring the bell.”

“But really I don’t want it;” Rusk insisted. “I only took the other because it happened to be poured out for me.”

“Oh, of course, if you’d rather not!”

Amy had disappeared from the room, but she came back while the maid was still scrubbing the carpet under the supervision of Mrs. Bracknel and May. Rusk had walked to the window and stood with his back to the room; Denis was not there. Amy took all this in as she moved from the door to the fireplace. She began to poke the fire, then, glancing quickly round, she dropped into the middle of the flames a small box that had been hidden in her pocket-handkerchief. She watched it while it burned; she even tapped it with the poker to make sure that its contents also were destroyed. After this she breathed a little sigh of relief. “Well, that’s over at any rate!” she murmured inaudibly as she turned round to the others. Nobody had noticed her, and she knew it would have given them scant information even if they had.

CHAPTER XXV

He entered the study, expecting to find his pupil at work, but, though the lamp was burning and the table showed numerous traces of him, Denis was not there. Rusk was really just as glad, for he had an idea that after the interview Doctor Birch might come in to report the result. He had been dining with the Birches and they had talked a good deal of the new plan, they had talked, in fact, of very little else, and, after dinner, the Doctor had decided to walk over with his guest and put the matter before Denis’s father as quite his own idea. He had laid particular stress upon this, having found out that, so far as his visitor was aware, nobody had yet broached the subject to Mr. Bracknel. Rusk, of course, could see that this would be much the best way; it would give the proposition infinitely more weight to have it come from such a source; the Doctor could guarantee it, as it were, scientifically—guarantee it as the proper, the necessary, thing to be done; and even if he failed to gain his point he would at least prepare the way. They had discussed it, Rusk and his host, in every light, to the accompaniment of the Doctor’s excellent cigars and the Doctor’s excellent wine—perhaps indeed, for one of them, the less experienced, they had lingered over it a little too long. At all events now, seated before the fire, he felt somewhat sleepy and perfectly at peace with life and the world. In this happy condition he became conscious that the door had been opened, and concluded, without troubling to look, that his pupil had come in. But no further sound followed the opening of the door, and after a few seconds Rusk, puzzled, turned himself round in his chair to see what was the matter. It was only then he discovered that it was Amy and not her brother who had entered. She stood still, neither advancing nor retreating, hesitating, apparently rather disconcerted to find him there alone.

“Where is Denis?” she asked, suddenly smiling with a peculiar soft intensity that covered him with a strange physical sense of light and even of warmth.

“I don’t know. Is he not downstairs?”

She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. It’s nothing of any importance.... You look dreadfully lazy, and dreadfully unsociable—I suppose I had better go away.” These last words were uttered in a tone somewhat at variance with their literal sense, and she, in fact, made no visible attempt to put them into practice. Rusk begged her to come in.

“I am rather lazy,” he confessed. “It must be the demoralizing effect of a comfortable chair and a fire. Such things are fatal.”

“Do you feel demoralized, then? I love to feel that way, but it’s so difficult.”

“I was enjoying it immensely.” He looked at her with his frank simple smile. His fair hair was ruffled, as if he had been out in the wind without a hat; his handsome, boyish face was rather flushed.

The sudden softness of her manner was remarkable. The coldness and reserve that she had treated him to of late had entirely disappeared, and it was the very midsummer sun of favour that she turned upon him now. He had risen to his feet on her entrance, but he sat down again since Amy, forgetful of her intention to leave him, had already found a chair. Moreover, she had given it a push that had brought it in front of the fire, and very close to his own; and she leaned a little forward as she sat, while the warm, coloured light played on her face and in her eyes, which rested on him from time to time with an expression he had not seen in them for quite a long while now, and that never before perhaps had been so frankly revealed. He had an idea that she had come in to make friends with him, and that it was rather nice of her. He found himself dreamily watching her. The firelight lent an exquisite grace of colour to her delicate skin.

She drew her chair still closer. He felt that she was very near to him, and over the dreamy passivity of his mood the strength of her will seemed to prevail, seemed in the end to cast a kind of glamour.

“It is horrid to see you here all by yourself and looking so lonely,” she softly breathed, with a lingering sweetness in her voice. “I’m sure you must very often feel lonely. I have thought so over and over again.”

“Oh, I’m all right,” answered Rusk vaguely. He smiled as his eyes rested upon her.

“But you must find it so different from what you have been accustomed to! You must have had so many friends in England!”

“Oh well, of course I had a few friends. But sooner or later men are bound to get scattered, to lose sight of one another. It’s inevitable.”

“And girls don’t make friends.”

“Don’t they?”

She shook her head. “Not really. Of all the girls I knew at school there isn’t one to whom I even write now; and yet we used to sit with our arms round each other and pretend to be ever so affectionate.”

“Well, I can understand the not writing part of it,” laughed Rusk.

“Ah, but it isn’t the trouble that prevents me. I don’t even want to write. I don’t like girls—that is the real truth of the matter. I never did like them. They are nice enough in some ways I daresay, but they aren’t made for friendships among themselves.”

“Why not? My sisters never seem to find any difficulty.”

“Perhaps they are like you.”

“They’re not—not a bit.”

“Most girls are jealous of each other, and, besides, they’re always doing mean things. You don’t understand, you don’t know. No man knows anything about women. Sometimes they say he does when he flatters them or idealizes them, but he doesn’t. They’re both better and worse than men think—at all events they’re different. The only women who are really popular with other women are the very plain ones, and it’s not altogether because they are plain, it’s because they have—a better chance.”

“A better chance to do what?”

“To be different; to live their own lives; to be not quite so selfish. It’s the difference between children and grown-up people. There isn’t the same spirit of competition, the same struggle; you can watch them without feeling sick....” She paused and Rusk made no reply. For a few minutes they sat in silence, and then Amy began to speak again.

“Don’t you feel it very queer to have nobody who calls you by your Christian name ...? I have seen your name so often on your letters that I have got into the way of calling you by it when I think of you, but I have never heard anybody say it aloud.... Hubert.... It sounds a little strange, but not very.... I don’t know any other Hubert, which makes it seem to belong particularly to you.”

“Oh, a man doesn’t notice these things much. You see he’s accustomed to being called by his surname by everybody except his own people and perhaps one or two others. It begins when he goes to school.”

“To me that would be dreadful. I should like everyone to call me Amy.”

“They do, don’t they?” asked Rusk without looking at her.

“You don’t.” Her eyes as they rested on him were almost closed, and she leaned back in her chair, her arms along either side. A slow languid smile parted her lips.

“Well, of course I couldn’t, could I? You wouldn’t have liked it if I had.” He gave a little, boyish, rather foolish laugh.

He felt her hand touch his. It rested there for a few seconds and then was withdrawn. He felt a sudden quickening of his blood, and made an effort to shake himself free from the fascination that was closing about him. For a moment their eyes met and he tried to read what was passing in her mind. A silence followed which seemed very long. He moved uneasily. He lifted the poker and began to stir the fire, and as he did so she felt that he was trembling slightly.

“Doctor Birch is downstairs talking to papa about your going abroad with Denis,” Amy murmured at last, as if with a slight effort. “I wonder if the idea is yours or his.... You are fond of travelling, aren’t you?”

“I haven’t had very much opportunity to do so up to the present.”

“Perhaps when you get married you will have more,” said Amy. “If you were to marry somebody with plenty of money then you would be able to do exactly as you liked.” Her voice continued to caress him with its vague provocation.

“Oh, I’m not so sure of that.” The word “marry” had given him a disagreeable sense of dropping back to earth, which he seemed to reach now with a sudden bang as there flashed on him the so definite end that all this had possibly been leading up to.

“You would be, if your wife cared only to please you,” Amy went on. “If you met someone like that—someone who loved you more than anything else in the world.... But you are spoiling the fire; give me the poker.” She knelt down on the hearth-rug beside his chair. One of her hands rested on his knee as with the other she gave a few touches to the glowing coals. “See!”

He saw well enough but he did not move, and she raised her head. She was so close to him that her hair brushed his cheek. For perhaps three seconds her face was there before him, lingering, smiling; at the next he had kissed her and she had returned his kiss. They heard someone at the door, and Amy moved away from him, but to Rusk it seemed not nearly so quickly as she might have. He was conscious of having almost had to push her. The intruder was May, and Denis followed closely at her heels. May stopped short as she saw them. “Oh, mamma isn’t here?” she exclaimed, quickly, glancing round the room. “She must be upstairs.”

She went out, but her brother had come in, and whether he had noticed anything or not he gave no sign. He went straight to the table and began to gather up his books and papers and to put them away. Meanwhile Rusk had got on his feet and was standing on the hearthrug before the fire, looking very flushed and confused. He knew that to anybody entering the room at the particular moment when May and Denis had entered it their position, his and Amy’s, must have revealed an interrupted embrace, and he had an instinctive feeling that he had been trapped. As his eyes met Amy’s there was an angry light in them, and she turned away without a word, leaving him alone with his pupil, which seemed to make the matter worse. He felt horribly ill at ease as he glanced from time to time at Denis, who continued to keep a provoking silence. Rusk endeavoured to assume a highly natural air, but was conscious of woeful failure. What did it matter? he told himself. Nevertheless it mattered a good deal. He was horribly ashamed—ashamed of what May must have seen, of what Denis very probably had seen. Rusk looked at him once more, but the boy kept his face averted, and presently sat down at the table. Rusk could learn absolutely nothing from watching him. He took up a book, not in the least because he wanted to read, but because he was angry, puzzled and suspicious. Suddenly he spoke: “Where were you?” he asked.

Denis for the first time glanced up. “I was out. Amy asked me to go a message for her.”

“H’m....” His frown deepened, but he said nothing more. She had known then that he was by himself; she had sent Denis a message simply to get him out of the way; she had told him a thumping lie. He filled his pipe and began to smoke.

“Did you want me for anything?” asked Denis, innocently.

“No—no. I just wondered where you had got to.... That’s all—that’s all,” he added somewhat impatiently, as he saw the boy still looking at him.

CHAPTER XXVI

Amy, when she came away from the library, wondered if the inopportune entry of May and Denis had really spoiled everything. For a few minutes all had been so well—better than ever before! If the others had not come in ...? She wondered if May had done it on purpose? Why should she have come to look for their mother in the study? When was their mother ever in the study? She had come in to see if she, Amy, were sitting there with Rusk. That was undoubtedly the true reason. And now she would go and tell their mother what she had seen, and Mr. Rusk would be sent away, and everything would be at an end.

She went to the drawing-room and found her sister already there, beside the piano, sorting some music, songs of Rusk’s. She had not yet told, then; but it was only because she hadn’t had an opportunity. An intense nervous irritation possessed Amy, an irritation urging her to any act of folly that might happen to suggest itself. She flung herself down in an armchair and took up an illustrated paper over the pages of which she watched her sister in silence, waiting, longing for her to say something, no matter what; but May said nothing. She had now begun to practise an accompaniment, and the more difficult passages she repeated several times, humming the air as she went along. There was something in this apparently quite harmless pastime, in the apparently happy manner of May’s pursuance of it, which Amy felt she would be unable to stand for very long. She was more certain than ever now that May intended to tell their mother. It was not that she was really shocked; Amy did not believe in that; but she would do it, if not to keep Rusk for herself, at any rate to keep him from her sister. Amy had a sudden inspiration. It came to her in a flash that she might save the situation. May had reached the end of one song and was turning over the pages of another, when all at once these words reached her:

“I may as well tell you, I am engaged to Hubert Rusk.”

As soon as she had spoken her inspiration dropped, went out like a blown candle-flame. It seemed suddenly idiotic, worse than useless. Yet she did not draw back; she waited, watching an expression of mortification, which she was obviously struggling not to show, come into the elder girl’s face.

“Engaged?” May at last repeated. “What do you mean exactly?”

“I mean what I say,” Amy answered. It had occurred to her that she was engaged to Rusk—even if there should be nothing on his side, her own troth had been plighted, and perhaps the other would come.

A deep flush had passed over May’s face. She had risen to her feet, leaving her music open on the piano. “I don’t understand you,” she said. But she understood only too completely, and her gaze, which had been fastened on Amy’s, faltered and fell. She turned away and walked to the door, through which, closing it behind her, she passed without looking back.

And Amy, left there alone, sat very still. Her face had all at once grown white and strained, as she remained in the same position before the closed door, listening with painful intentness as if for some remote sound beyond it. She knew she had gone too far and she already wondered where it would end. More and more rapidly, as the minutes passed, her courage failed her. Yet it had been the only way—the only chance, though now it seemed so poor a one. She waited for what appeared to be a long time before she heard a step outside: then her mother hurriedly entered, looking worried and perplexed.

“What is this May tells me,” she asked at once—“about your being engaged to Mr. Rusk?”

Amy hesitated, but she could still smile faintly.

“Did she tell you? She is so stupid.”

Mrs. Bracknel stopped short in astonishment. “But she said she had just come from you, and that you had told her!”

Amy hesitated again. “It is so like her.... I mean, of course, I didn’t intend her to repeat what I said; but she ran out of the room before I could explain. I don’t know what is the matter with her. I thought she would understand; but she is so strange sometimes that you really don’t know where you are with her.”

Mrs. Bracknel for a moment did not reply. “It is you who are strange,” she then said slowly. “Is what you told May not true? What has happened? What is there between you and Mr. Rusk?”

“There is nothing—nothing, I mean, that I can tell you, nothing definite.” Her voice trembled slightly, but she still kept up her smile.

“Nothing? Yet May says she saw you together—and you.... What have you been doing? What have you been saying? You are keeping something from me.... I know you are keeping something from me. Why should you look as you are looking now if there is nothing, and why should May have come to me?”

“I don’t know why she went, and I don’t know how I am looking. There is nothing definite!”

“What do you mean by ‘nothing definite?’ What——”

Her words were suddenly cut short by Amy flinging her arms round her neck. “Mamma—mamma—I love him,” she cried in a sudden abandon. “I want to be married to him. I can’t tell you how much I love him. Surely you might have seen! Promise, promise you will help me. I won’t let you go till you promise. My life won’t be worth living without him. I will never care for anybody else. If I don’t get him I know I shall die. It is this that has been making me ill. You don’t know how ill I have been. Often I lie awake half the night, and sometimes I think the most dreadful things—things that would frighten you if you only knew them.”

Mrs. Bracknel tried to draw back. Amy’s words shocked her, but Amy’s arms held her tightly clasped, so that she could not free herself. “I don’t understand,” she said helplessly. “I must speak to your father. You shouldn’t say such things—it isn’t right. What have you been doing?”

“Oh, but you mustn’t speak to papa,” cried Amy, piteously. “Promise that you won’t.... Promise—promise.... You must.... Promise you won’t speak to-night at all events. He might come in at any moment. Promise you won’t tell him.”

Mrs. Bracknel yielded. She felt distressed and frightened, but it was not in her to resist her daughter’s appeal. “I don’t suppose it matters for a few hours,” she said weakly, “but I don’t understand.... I have never seen anything in Mr. Rusk’s manner to indicate.... When did he first lead you to think that he cared for you in this way?”

“I don’t know ... this evening....” And suddenly she began to cry. She buried her head in the cushion and the noise of her sobs became stifled, but they were still audible, and still her body shook convulsively. The paroxysm lasted for but two or three minutes, and when she lifted her head she had regained control of herself; nevertheless it had been startling, and her mother accompanied her to her own room, where she left her only when she had promised to go to bed and to sleep. Mrs. Bracknel was now intensely anxious about her. The flush in the girl’s face was feverish and unnatural, and there was a brilliant restless light in her eyes. She was certainly far from well. She wondered if she ought to tell her husband that night—at once—in spite of her promise to Amy, and though she was still so uncertain as to how the situation stood. But she hardly knew what she could tell him; it was all so very vague, and there might be so much or so little in it. In the morning they would have to go into everything thoroughly; in the morning they would get to know clearly just how far things had gone, and decide what it would be best to do. They would have to settle about Mr. Rusk; Mr. Rusk would have to be sent away. And things of this kind were so bad for her husband; one never knew what might happen. He had been much worse after the trouble about Alfred. Any excitement was so dangerous to him, and he was so easily excited.

CHAPTER XXVII

“Do you think the lamp will keep you awake?” Rusk asked.

It was a reading-lamp and threw a bright light only in one direction, leaving the rest of the room in shadow.

Denis was already in bed. “No,” he murmured, drowsily.

“You are sure?”

“Quite sure, thanks.” And he turned over on his pillow.

Rusk put on his dressing-gown and sat down. He would have given a good deal to know what had been, what was now, passing in Denis’s mind; but how in the world was he to find out? The boy was perfectly inscrutable; it was really amazing how little Rusk could count on his betraying himself.

For an hour the young man sat in an attitude of one too comfortable or too drowsy to take the trouble to go to bed, but in reality he was extremely uncomfortable, extremely wakeful and solicitous. He came to the conclusion that he had made a most hopeless fool of himself, and that he might hear a good deal more of the matter before he was done with it. Why had he been such an idiot—he who, up to that moment, had been so careful? There was something incredibly stupid and disagreeable about the whole episode, and it might have all kinds of consequences. Suppose May were to tell her mother! It would simply mean that he should have to go, and he knew all that this in its turn signified. Nothing could ever have been further from his desire than to sacrifice Denis to Amy, yet what else had he done? And he did not even care for her! This particular element in the matter might savour delightfully of the irony characteristic of human affairs, but Rusk was in no mood to appreciate irony. The thought that Doctor Birch attached so great an importance to his remaining with his pupil awoke, instead, all sorts of unpleasant possibilities within his mind. Doctor Birch had never entered into particulars, but this left only a freer field to Rusk’s unaided imagination, which proceeded now to improvise on several lugubrious themes, while his whole being was stirred into a violent resentment against the girl directly responsible.

Denis had dropped asleep long ago, and his low, regular breathing was the only sound audible in the dim, quiet room. Rusk, leaning his head back, gazed up at the ceiling without discovering much inspiration there. Everything, he felt, depended on what May would do, on the relation existing between the two girls. He had got no further than this, when the handle of the door turned silently and the door itself was opened. He started, for he had heard no footsteps in the passage outside, and, with the movement he gave, he knocked a book off the edge of the table. It fell to the floor with what seemed a quite unnecessary bang—enough, he thought, to waken the whole house. Amy was there, standing in the doorway, her long red hair floating about her shoulders. She was dressed in something loose and soft and white, which revealed the creamy pallor of her beautiful rounded arms. Her feet were bare. She advanced into the room a step or two, closing the door carefully behind her.

“I came to see if you were still angry with me,” she said in a low voice. “I thought perhaps you might be reading; I looked for a light under your door. There is something I must tell you.”

In the obscurity of the room, and with her gaze fixed on Rusk, she had not noticed the other bed. Now it gave a sharp creak, and glancing in that direction she saw her brother sitting up and staring at her, his eyes still dark and liquid with sleep. She started, and barely checked the little cry that rose in her throat. “What are you doing here?” she whispered furiously, her face completely transformed, distorted by a rage and disappointment that were like the swift leaping up of a fire in a darkened house. In a moment she had recovered herself, but that bright, brief flash had been intensely, cruelly revealing, and Rusk could see nothing else.

“He has come to keep me company,” he answered. He had grown very red in the face and stood, erect and frowning, in an attitude that barred Amy’s further progress.

“I suppose you were frightened to sleep by yourself,” she went on fiercely to her brother. “You poor, little, puny, miserable coward. You were frightened of the dark, weren’t you?”

Denis, still half-asleep, blinked at her without replying. He then turned to his tutor. “What does she want?” he asked quaintly.

“Nothing. Lie down and go to sleep again.”

Denis obeyed. At all events he lay down and shut his eyes, turning his back to the other occupants of the room. Rusk took a step toward him as if to see that he had done so. He remained for a few seconds in this position, purposely, and when he looked round again Amy had disappeared. He swore softly, though rather savagely, to himself, as he stared out into the dark passage, but he made no movement, waiting, as if to give her time to get back to her own room. He gave her plenty, several minutes in fact; then he shut the door and began to undress. Denis still lay there, with his face to the wall, in an absolute silence that somehow did not suggest slumber. If he were asleep, Rusk felt half-inclined to wake him up and ask him just what ideas had been forming themselves in his mind during the past few hours. But he did not yield to this impulse. “Damnation,” he muttered, as he picked up the fallen book.

CHAPTER XXVIII

In the morning, still horribly uncertain as to how things stood, he imagined that Mrs. Bracknel’s manner was slightly constrained, and jumped to the conclusion that she must know something, if not all. It was Sunday, and he and Denis and Mr. and Mrs. Bracknel were breakfasting alone. When he had finished he went out into the garden, his mind still occupied by what had kept him awake half the night. He wondered if he had really got himself into a most horrible mess, or if he were making mountains out of mole-hills? He strolled up and down for ten minutes, inclining now to one point of view now to the other. He saw Denis throwing sticks for Rex the spaniel, and turned in the opposite direction, when he perceived May coming towards him from the house and paused again, uncertain what to do. She herself, Rusk imagined, hesitated whether to turn back or to come on. In the end she took the latter course, but there was still nearly the whole length of the lawn between them, and he had plenty of time to observe her as she slowly approached. She was rather pale, he thought, but her face before she reached him was overswept by a bright wave of colour. She smiled and held out her hand, wishing him good-morning.

They strolled on side by side for a little way, taking the direction back to the house. Rusk made some casual remark, but she appeared not to hear him, at any rate she gave him no reply. Suddenly she began to speak, without turning her head in his direction; “I don’t know whether I ought to tell you or not, but I think it is perhaps only fair to give you some idea, some warning....” She ceased as abruptly as she had begun, and to Rusk, listening with the most distressing forebodings, it occurred that she might have heard Amy either going to or coming from his room last night. Only, would she mention it if she had? He remained silent, waiting anxiously for her to continue, while he felt the blood burning in his cheeks.

When she began again she spoke rapidly and disjointedly, though quite plainly enough for him to make out what had happened, to see it all, indeed, as vividly as if it were actually taking place just then and there before him. For a single instant he had looked blankly at her, but afterwards he gazed on straight ahead, while her voice continued to sound in his ears.

May’s colour had been almost as bright as his own, but it faded before she reached the end of her tale. They both simultaneously, and, as if at a given signal, came to an abrupt halt. They were then within a few yards of the house, and Rusk still did not look at her. All his worst fears were realized, more than realized.

“Is she with them now?” he asked.

“Yes, I think so.... I must go in.”

“Oh Lord!” he muttered. Then he thanked her for telling him, but left her to go on to the house alone. When she reached the porch he turned on his heel and walked rapidly down the drive.

He felt as indignant as he had ever felt in his life, but as the moments passed his anger became mingled with bewilderment. Amy must be half-mad! She might at that very moment be inventing all kinds of lies! She seemed capable of anything! One point was clear at all events—he would have to leave Mr. Bracknel’s house as soon as possible. He felt a violent disgust of the whole affair, an overwhelming desire to leave all memory of it behind him. He had had enough of it—more than enough. They might work out the problem of his relation to Amy between themselves, and as was most pleasing to them or to her. He was going home at once; he would leave Ireland that night. He was so certain of this, so sure that it was the only thing left for him to do, no matter how his adventure might turn out, that he decided to go and bid his adieus to the Miss Birches.

He wanted to talk to somebody, he wanted advice, he wanted to be understood. He turned back and in a few minutes was at their gate. He met Miss Birch coming down the garden path on her way to church. Rusk had forgotten that it was Sunday, but he was relieved to be sure of finding Miss Anna alone. He learned that this lady had not ventured out, because of a cold which had kept her indoors for several days, though it was now almost gone. Rusk lingered for a few minutes longer, talking very absently, and for the most part in monosyllables, to Miss Birch, not attempting to explain the reason of his visit. Then he went on to the house. He found Miss Anna in the parlour. It was a grey November morning, and the sound of church bells came distinctly across the surrounding fields. A bright fire was burning in the grate, and before this fire Miss Anna was seated, writing a letter. She was charmed to see him, though she must have been surprised. She declared, however, that he had guessed by some secret and mysterious sympathy that she was all alone and was not going to church. The young man answered lamely that he had forgotten for the moment there was such a thing as church to go to; he had had something particular to tell her, and finding himself not far from their house, had come in on the spur of the moment; he could not help coming. He was on the point of beginning the whole history of his misadventure when it occurred to him that there was positively nothing he could tell. He could not repeat what had actually taken place, his tongue was tied: it was impossible for him to say baldly that Amy had got him into a mess, that she had told lies about it, that she had come to his room and found Denis there, that she had practically forced him to chuck up his post. So instead of making his confession he simply fell back on the bare announcement that he was going home.

Miss Anna looked at him, struck by his appearance, by his manner of telling his news. It was as if she knew that this was not what he had really come in to say. “Well, I hope you’ll have a pleasant holiday,” she answered. “Are you going soon?”

“To-morrow, I’m afraid,” Rusk said gloomily. “I can’t put it off.”

Miss Anna hesitated. “Has anything happened?” she asked. “You will be coming back in a little?”

Rusk shook his head. “I’m afraid not. In fact I shan’t be coming back at all. I’m going for good.” He had taken his plunge and Miss Anna stared in astonishment.

“For good? But isn’t this very sudden? I thought only the other day you told us you would stay just as long as they wanted you to!”

Rusk coloured. “They don’t want me,” he answered, his eyes on the carpet. “That’s the difficulty. They’ve had enough of me.”

“But what in the name of goodness has happened? You can’t rush off like that, you know. Do they know you’re going?”

Rusk smiled feebly. “I’m afraid I’m not so indispensable as you seem to think. They must know I’m going, if it’s they who are sending me away!”

“Fiddlesticks! sending you away! I don’t understand. You needn’t tell me that they’ve asked you to go!”

Rusk nodded his head. “I don’t suit them,” he continued. “There’s been an explanation. It’s better that I should go.”

Miss Anna still seemed hardly to believe him. “It hasn’t, by any chance, to do with this plan of taking Denis abroad, has it? If so, it is really my fault.”

“No; it isn’t that. Oh, there are several things.” But his fiction seemed suddenly to fail him in regard to detail.

“And you’re never coming back?”

He shook his head. “I’m afraid not. I’m awfully sorry in many ways. I shall be very sorry for one thing to leave you and your sister. You’ve been so kind to me. I shall be very sorry, too, to leave Denis—especially after having given my promise to your brother to look after him. But—If I could I would take him home with me for a while; only I’m afraid that would be impossible. I don’t think they would allow him to come—his own people, I mean—and at any rate, even if they did, I shall have to look out for something to do, some sort of post, and it isn’t likely that I’ll find one at home.”

Miss Anna caught a sudden light in the darkness. “It isn’t that girl, is it?” she demanded peremptorily. “It has nothing to do with Amy?”

Rusk blushed. “Nothing whatever,” he said almost angrily. “I had a row with Mr. Bracknel, that is all.”

He rose on this, as if about to take his leave, but his companion still kept him.

“You’re not to go so soon,” she protested. “You must have lunch first. The others will want to see you.”

“Thanks very much, but it’s really quite impossible; I can’t stay.”

“You must say good-bye to Herbert at any rate. Of course you’ll see us for at least a few minutes to-morrow, but he may not be here.” She rang the bell and despatched a servant with a message to Doctor Birch.

The Doctor made his appearance while Rusk still stood there, holding his hat and feeling more and more uncomfortable.

“Herbert,” cried Miss Anna, “Mr. Rusk has come to say good-bye. He says he is going away—probably to-morrow night. I don’t know what to think. And it all seems to be Mr. Bracknel’s fault.”

Doctor Birch turned inquiringly to the young man. “You’re not taking the youngster with you, I suppose?”

“I’m afraid not,” Rusk stammered. “I’d be only too glad to, if they’d let me.”

“And you have to go?”

“Yes; I’m afraid I’ve no choice.”

Doctor Birch said nothing. Rusk stood with bowed head. He appeared to be studying most carefully the pattern in the carpet. His clear young face was anxious and troubled. “I must go,” he repeated after a slight pause. “I can’t help it. You know I’d stay if I could.”

“It’s all Mr. Bracknel’s fault,” said Miss Anna again.

But her brother took no notice of her. He continued to regard the young man before him, as if considering something which had just come into his mind. Under the perspicacity of his gaze Rusk’s eyes remained lowered, like those of a guilty schoolboy. Doctor Birch, however, laid his hand on his shoulder with a friendly gesture, which had at the same time the effect of conducting him to the door. “I’ll see you later,” he told him. “Before you have finished your packing at any rate. I want to talk to you.”

CHAPTER XXIX

As the long night drifted slowly away and a cold, livid dawn grew brighter, to Amy the whole aspect of life seemed to alter with it. The last flickering colour had faded from the dream she had been weaving, and now, in the chill white light of early morning, it seemed sad and grey enough, an empty pitiful thing, threadbare and broken, curiously ugly, like all dead things. And she wondered how she had ever yielded to it. It seemed so senseless, so repulsive, so utterly futile. She had seen it in its true light more or less from the moment she had left Rusk’s room, from the moment of its last abject and irremediable failure. She felt that she would like to steal out of the house before anyone was awake and disappear never to return. But she had nowhere to go to—and, besides, it was impossible. It had been for this that she had done all that she had done; that she had quarrelled with May; that she had humiliated herself to Rusk; that she had awakened from strange and terrible dreams in the blank horrible light between night and morning—for this!

Why had she come away from Rusk’s room without speaking? She must speak to him; she must tell him what she had said to May, what she had said to her mother; she must throw herself on his mercy, and trust to his generosity not to betray her. Last night, after her mother had left her, she had felt that she must go to him, that she must confess everything to him and not leave it to come from others:—and then, at the back of it all, had there not been some half-formulated hope, some vague thought, something that the presence of her brother had doomed and darkened? The idea was ugly and horrible—such things always must be when they fail—she hated to think of it, but it kept coming back and back to her mind, and every now and again she realized it fully with a sudden sharp shock, as if for the first time. She knew above all that it must have struck him in that light. Her coming away again, without having spoken, was the very worst thing she could have done. She had known that by the time she had regained her own room, but then it was too late, and to go back a second time was impossible. It was all still before her, the interview, the confession, for she would have to tell him how matters stood; otherwise her mother, or, should her mother’s promise not have been kept, perhaps even her father, might speak to him first.

And then suddenly she knew that it did not really matter. Her father would insist on Rusk’s leaving the house in any case. There was nothing to be hoped, nothing to be feared either; it was all over already, and, in a little, everybody but herself would have forgotten it.

She heard the servants moving about downstairs, opening the hall-door; she heard the rattle of a milk-can. She waited wearily while another hour, another two hours, passed. Then, at the usual time, she got up and dressed herself, but she did not leave her room, and presently her mother came to her there. Mrs. Bracknel was alarmed by her appearance and secretly decided that she must consult a doctor. “Your father is waiting downstairs to see you,” she murmured anxiously. “It is about Mr. Rusk. He thinks it best——”

In those few words Amy saw everything lost, and suddenly the tension in her brain seemed to snap. “You have told him then?” she said almost indifferently.

“Yes; he is in the drawing-room now, waiting to see you.”

Amy lifted her eyes to the window. She did not look at her mother. Her face expressed a profound dullness and lassitude that were in part due to loss of sleep. “What does he want to see me about? There is nothing more—I have nothing more to tell.”

Mrs. Bracknel looked at her uneasily. “You are sure, dear, that you are keeping nothing from us?”

“I wish you hadn’t told papa,” Amy interrupted querulously. “I wish I hadn’t said anything.... I said it without thinking, and now I shall never hear the end of it.”

She stopped suddenly at the sound of a step in the passage. They both knew that it was Mr. Bracknel’s, and at the same moment his voice was raised as he called to his wife. Mrs. Bracknel, after exchanging a glance with Amy, went to the door and let him in.

“Might I ask when you intend to come down?” he began. “Do you know what time it is? Well, wait a minute, I daresay we can settle the matter here as well as anywhere else.”

He took up his customary position before the fireplace, and stood with his hands crossed behind his back, dandling the tails of his coat. The fatuity of his air sent a chill to the girl’s heart. She gave one glance in the direction of her mother, who had taken a chair near the window, and then she herself sat down and waited, motionless, and, to all seeming, utterly impassive, for her father’s inevitable question. It came almost immediately.

“What is this nonsense about you and Mr. Rusk?”

He had an air of thinking it best not to take the matter over-seriously, rather lightly perhaps, and he spoke in a brusque, self-complacent voice that sounded dismally, hopelessly pompous to his daughter. A sudden bitterness seemed to pass into her soul. “I don’t know what you’ve heard,” she answered. “There is nothing to hear.”

As she made the avowal an immense weariness, like a heavy black cloud, descended upon her mind and spirit, leaving her cold, absolutely cold. She knew that her words, and still more the tone in which they had been uttered, must strike her father as stupid and obstinate, if not positively defiant, and that they could at best only irritate him, but she did not seem to care. She was surprised to find him continue in quite a mild way, repeating the old question, which she appeared now to have been answering all her life.

“There has never been anything between you then? Yet your mother tells me you have fallen in love with him, and that you would like to marry this precious young man, whose only prospects so far as I can gather are matrimonial; that you want us to encourage him, in other words. Of course that is nonsense, but if he has done anything to try to—to—put such ideas into your head, I consider that he has behaved in a dishonourable and an underhand way; that he has taken advantage of the confidence we placed in him to—to—in short to do whatever he has done.”

“What has he done?” asked Amy dully.

“That’s for you to tell us, miss; that’s what we’re waiting now to learn.”

“I don’t know what mamma said,” Amy pursued in the same inanimate tone. “Mr. Rusk is neither dishonourable nor underhand, as you know very well, and he has done nothing at all.”

Mr. Bracknel began to show signs of annoyance. “Nothing? But what did you tell your sister? What did you tell your mother?”

Mrs. Bracknel fortunately had not thought it necessary to mention the incident of the kiss.

“I said I cared for Mr. Rusk.... And that——”

“Well—go on—and that what?”

The girl flushed faintly. “That is all.”

“But it isn’t all. Your mother says you asked her to help you to marry him. How could you ask such a thing unless he had given you some kind of hint that he would be willing to do so?”

“There is nothing definite,” Amy faltered.

“What do you mean by ‘nothing definite’?” her father asked irritably. “At one minute you say one thing, at another another. Answer plainly, can’t you? In what way has he ever made you think that he might possibly ask you to marry him?”

“I love him,” said Amy, in a low, dogged voice.

“And is that all? He has said nothing? done nothing?”

She did not answer, and for a minute or two there was silence. Mr. Bracknel, in spite of the tone he had adopted, secretly felt relieved.

“What do you find in him that is so remarkable?” he suddenly inquired, speaking in a tone that almost approached playfulness. “Why do you think him so very wonderful?”

“I don’t think him wonderful,” answered Amy.

“You would like to marry him though? You would like me to keep him? He is the only man you will ever care for? You’ve told us that two or three times, you know, so you must be quite sure of it. You don’t think him wonderful; you don’t see anything remarkable about him—just an ordinary young fellow, in fact, except that he is the only man you will ever care for.... No matter how long you may live—thirty, forty, fifty years—the only man you will ever care for.”

Amy said nothing.

“Pooh ...!” Mr. Bracknel blew out his thick lips and laughed not unkindly. “Why, you are only beginning life! Wait till you have seen something more of the world. You will find there are better men in it than this—this schoolmaster. You are only a child, and don’t know what is best for you.”

Amy lifted her eyes and let them rest on his face. She felt a sudden and irresistible desire to speak the simple, naked truth. “I am not a child,” she replied slowly. “He is the only man I have ever loved. If he asked me to go away with him, I would go, whether I was married to him or not. I went to his room last night after mamma had left me; but I had to come away because Denis was there.”

A wonderful pause succeeded this simple speech. Then Mrs. Bracknel began to weep silently, while her husband turned a deep, purplish red. Amy looked from one to the other of her outraged parents, without any visible alteration in her own countenance. “You might have spared me this, Amy,” her mother sobbed.

“I am only telling you the truth,” said Amy bitterly. “I thought you wanted to know. I don’t see that my loving him now is any more disgraceful than it would be, if I happened to be engaged to him. I only told you because papa seemed to find it impossible to believe me.”

Mr. Bracknel took a step toward his daughter that was almost threatening. “Be silent,” he cried. “You need not advertise your shamelessness any further.”

“If I am shameless it is not my fault. People can’t be ashamed simply because they want to be. I don’t understand you. You railed and stormed at Alfred because you said he had married beneath him. But Mr. Rusk is not beneath me. I have told you everything now. At any rate you know the truth.”

Mr. Bracknel’s eyes had been fixed on his wife’s face during the greater part of this surprising confession. It was as if, after all, they didn’t want, had never wanted, to know the truth. “Is she mad?” he asked. “What is the matter with her?”

But Mrs. Bracknel had already risen and she now approached her daughter. She had captured a certain air of quiet, faded dignity, though her voice faltered a little as she spoke. “We had better leave you, Amy,” she said as calmly as she could. “I will come to you later.” She opened the door and her husband went out. She followed him without looking back.

When they were outside, Mr. Bracknel began to feel more at his ease. “Your children are certainly doing you credit,” he growled, as if his own share in them were at most that of an uncle. “Well,” he added impatiently, “I suppose Rusk will have to go, and the sooner the better.” The mere fact that Amy was compelling him to send the tutor away had already considerably enhanced that young man’s value in his eyes.

“But—but—what is to become of Amy? You can see for yourself how altered she is, how ill she is!”

Mr. Bracknel looked at her half contemptuously. “You may thank heaven things are no worse,” he said grimly. “Fortunately there seems to be nothing in it except her own brazenness, and as she has been that way from her childhood I suppose nothing will change her now. I don’t expect Rusk ever even gave her a thought.” Then, as if he felt a kind of compunction, he went on more kindly: “Come, come, we’ll have to send him away, and that will be an end of it. It’s a pity, for he was doing very well so far as Denis is concerned, and he seems a decent enough young fellow. But what else can we do? He can’t stay on here, unless you want to send Amy herself away, and I don’t suppose you want to do that.”

CHAPTER XXX

Rusk was surprised, on his return to the house, to receive no intimation from either Mr. or Mrs. Bracknel that they wished to speak to him. He had taken it quite for granted that they would demand an immediate explanation of his conduct, and he wondered what had actually occurred between them all. Lunch, or rather dinner—for on Sundays the Bracknels dined in the middle of the day—proved, in this undecided state of affairs, a distinctly embarrassing repast. Amy was not present, which was always something to be thankful for; but even without her, a kind of forced naturalness was depressingly in evidence as the keynote of the gathering.

Nobody lingered longer than was necessary, and as soon as he could Rusk, too, escaped. He made his way to the library. Now was the time, he felt sure, when he would be summoned to give an account of himself; but an hour later, when he left the house with his pupil, Mr. Bracknel had not yet given any sign of desiring an interview.

Their walk for the first mile or so was a singularly silent one. The boy saw that his companion’s mind was occupied, and forebore to interrupt him. Rusk, on his part, was thinking how he could best put to his pupil what he had to say. He found it difficult, for there was a good deal more in it than the mere announcement of his approaching departure, though this in itself was not easy. To begin with, he did not wish to leave Denis with a false impression, yet he did not see how, if he were to avoid, as he assuredly must, any reference to Amy, it would be possible to give him a true one. And, if he could not tell him the real reason why he was going, on the other hand he did not want him to think that it was simply to better himself, or because he had grown tired of his present occupation. Their relation had been altogether too close to admit of any light partings now, with the probability of their rarely or never meeting again. After all, their homes were in different countries, and Rusk could not tell to what far abode Fate, in the shape of stern pecuniary necessity, might not lead him. Despite the disparity in their ages, his friendship with Denis was the most intimate he had ever formed, and it meant a great deal to him to have it broken off so sharply, and with so little prospect of their taking up again, later on, the snapped thread. His pupil had come to occupy a certain place in his life—a place which it would be difficult for anyone else to fill. What it would mean to the boy himself he, of course could only guess, but he decided that, in any event, it would be better to tell him before they returned to the house, and presently an opening seemed to be afforded him when Denis suddenly asked, “Aren’t you very quiet? I hope there is nothing the matter?”

Had he heard no rumour, Rusk wondered? Had he not heard the others talking?

They had come down to the river and were following the brown, deserted tow-path. The afternoon was grey and dull and cloudy. On one side lay a marsh of coarse grass and reeds, with here and there a twisted, stunted ash-tree, delicate and fantastic, like a decoration in a Japanese print. On the other side the ground rose abruptly in a thickly-wooded slope. The damp sodden grass was bleached to a greenish yellow, and drifted over with fallen leaves, brown, yellow, and dull red, rotting slowly into the soil. There were leaves floating on the dark, oily water, and a shifting, waning light played over the whole landscape, filtering between livid clouds that hung, sullen and motionless, ready to drop down in rain.

Rusk had become conscious of these things while his young companion’s question still remained unanswered. They seemed to draw them closer to each other in a loneliness that might have been that of an unpeopled world, and he felt an indescribable depression, which grew deeper and deeper as they wandered on through the fading, soundless afternoon.

“There is something I must tell you,” he at length said, “something that cannot be very pleasant to either of us.”

“You are going away,” the boy answered softly, and at once. He did not look at Rusk, but kept his eyes fixed on the sandy path before him. A quick flush passed across his face, fading as rapidly as it had come.

There was something in his voice, a kind of uncompromising fatalism, which it was against all Rusk’s instincts to accept. “Oh come,” he said, with a feeble attempt to be cheerful, “we’ll meet again before very long—and you’ll come over to stay with me; we’ll have to arrange all that before I leave.”

He had a vision, as he spoke, of their first meeting,—already it seemed long ago,—of Denis being brought to speak to him—of the early summer evening, the beautiful trees in the declining sunlight, the interrupted game of tennis, the boy before him in his flannels, a little flushed, his hair tossed, his eyes bright and delightfully friendly. And then, even as he watched it, a veil dropped down, leaving them once more here with the dim winter twilight, the sadness of naked trees and faded fields, a dark sluggish river.

“You’ll come to stay with me,” he said again, but Denis met this suggestion with a head-shake of immovable conviction.

“Papa wouldn’t allow me to,” he answered. “He’ll get someone else to teach me, and that will be all.”

“I hope he’ll be nice,” said Rusk, weakly.

“I hope so.”

A silence followed these words, and Rusk unconsciously slackened his pace, though they had been walking slowly before. The boy’s acquiescence surprised him. He had expected to be questioned. Yet he was vaguely aware that Denis understood, that he was, in a way, letting him off, and that it would be better for him, too, to take it like this. “You must write and tell me all about him. Perhaps he will be somebody I know.”

“Perhaps.” Denis lifted his head and their eyes met for a moment. The boy’s face seemed to be blown across suddenly by a strange white light. He smiled a little, and Rusk lowered his gaze.

The sound of falling water following them in the lonely place seemed to exercise an almost narcotic influence upon his mind. He was haunted by thoughts and images from the past, memories of hours he was loth to leave behind him, and which he knew the sharp change he was about to bring into his life would cut off from him for ever.

“When are you going?” Denis asked abruptly.

“Very soon. To-morrow night.”

The boy said nothing more.

It was rapidly getting dusk, yet still they wandered on, as if they felt that this walk might well be their last together. Presently they paused by a swinging wooden gate, set across the path to keep cattle from straying. The sad, lonely cry of a bird seemed to draw down the darkness about them, and in the gathering obscurity the shadowy trees and the winding river grew faint and ghostly. They drew closer to each other. They were absolutely alone. All suggestion of human life had been blotted out from the scene. Everywhere was struck the strictly impersonal note of nature—of earth, and water, and sky. A low sound from the weir, a faint murmur in the trees, and the increasing darkness of approaching night, all met and mingled.

At last, when they turned to retrace their steps, the path itself became uncertain, and Rusk allowed the boy to guide him, while more than once he stumbled over some unevenness in the way. The landscape in every direction was now black and impenetrable. Twice the silence was broken by a noise of falling water, and the sound followed them for a long distance. All the way home they spoke but little, and among their few words was no further allusion to their approaching separation. A faint moon had floated out above the trees, diaphanous and pale, like a slender wisp of luminous cloud.

When they reached the house Rusk was informed that Mr. Bracknel desired to speak to him, and awaited him now, for that purpose, in the drawing-room.

CHAPTER XXXI

When he came into the room, however, he found only Mrs. Bracknel there with May. The elder lady was unoccupied, but May had her writing materials spread out upon her lap and was evidently finishing a letter. They both looked up on his entrance and smiled.

“Did you have a pleasant walk?” Mrs. Bracknel asked gently.

“Yes, it was very nice. A little damp under foot, and rather dark coming home—we went by the river—but Denis kept me from falling in.” He was not at his ease and spoke a little stiffly, sitting bolt upright, and staring into the fire.

“I don’t like the river in winter,” May interposed. “It is too cold and melancholy—especially when it is beginning to get dark. There are such queer shadows among the trees, and they seem to come down to the water like ghosts.”

“Ah, I don’t believe in ghosts,” Rusk replied.

He had an idea that something had happened in his absence. Some subtle alteration in his relation to the others had been brought about, he knew not how; but he could feel it in the general atmosphere, could hear it in the tones of their voices, from which the constraint he had before noticed had completely vanished, could see it in their manner, in their faces; and he wondered what had caused the change, wondered where exactly he stood now. He had a disagreeable sense of being in the dark, or rather of being very much in the light, while the others moved and whispered mysteriously in shadow, their eyes fixed on him as on the central figure occupying the stage in some dramatic piece of whose meaning he was not at all clear.

“We were talking about you, Mr. Rusk, when you were out,” Mrs. Bracknel began, in her low, sweet voice, “about you and Denis.”

“Oh!”

The darkness seemed at last about to be illumined, and he waited a trifle nervously for what he should find there.

“You don’t look very pleased,” May remarked. “If you’d only heard all the nice things that were said—especially by mamma; though Doctor Birch happened to drop in, and he said some too.”

“Mr. Bracknel has walked back with him,” the elder lady murmured. “They only went a few minutes before you came in. I wonder you didn’t meet them.... Do you remember, Mr. Rusk, talking to me a short time ago about Denis—about his going abroad?”

Rusk looked up quickly. “Yes, I remember.”

“That was what we were really discussing, and Mr. Bracknel was wondering if you would still be of the same mind—that is, if you would still be willing to take him?”

Rusk coloured. He glanced at May, but her head was bent down as she addressed and fastened an envelope. “I shall be extremely glad to,” he stammered. “I shall like it immensely.”

“Ah well, then,” Mrs. Bracknel softly breathed, “it can all be settled. We think that it would be better perhaps if you could start fairly soon. In two or three days, if that would be possible. Of course we don’t want to hurry you too much, but once my husband takes an idea into his head he never rests till it is carried out. It is extremely inconvenient now and then, but unfortunately in that respect nothing will ever change him. However, you must take your own time, and never mind him. We are leaving it altogether in your hands. Denis can be ready for whatever day you settle on.”

“I could go to-morrow night, I should think,” Rusk replied.

Mrs. Bracknel smiled. “Well, that would perhaps be pressing matters a little too much. After all we must make some plans, we must talk over where you will go to and all that. I should think we had better settle on Wednesday, as giving us breathing-time. Denis, of course, doesn’t know anything about it yet.”

“Of course not,” Rusk said.

“There will be no difficulty about Denis,” said May, her head still bent over her writing. “He will be nearly out of his mind with delight at the thought of it.”

“It is really awfully good of you,” Rusk declared, turning to Mrs. Bracknel, but she only smiled.

“It is you who are good,” she answered, “coming to our rescue. There is no one else we would trust Denis to. It is you who make the scheme possible. Our idea is that he should be with you for about a year at any rate—after that we shall see. It was mostly May’s doing; it was she who persuaded her father.”

“Oh, I did nothing,” said May. She blushed, and then, as if to cover her blush, went on hurriedly: “Papa is quite in favour of the idea now. The only thing is that for the next day or two he’ll worry Mr. Rusk to death with questions about every imaginable detail. You’ll have to give a reason, Mr. Rusk, for everything you propose to do, and you had better try to invent the kind of reason papa can most easily understand. Bring in the word ‘advantage’ pretty often. Papa understands all about ‘advantages.’ He will be fairly happy so long as he thinks you are both getting good value.”

“We must certainly try to do so,” said Rusk, in a tone that contrasted amazingly with his tone of a few minutes ago.

“It would be extremely foolish not to,” Mrs. Bracknel took up. “There is very little use in going away if one isn’t going to make anything of one’s opportunities.”

“We have always made the most of ours,” May answered, with a rather strange smile. “You ought to have been with us in Paris, Mr. Rusk; it would have done you all the good in the world. Enjoyment was the last thing we thought of. If we sat down for a moment to breathe, papa used to tell us that if we only wanted to sit in chairs we could have done it more comfortably and less expensively at home. I was never so thankful for anything in my life as for the sight of the train that was to take us back.”

Mrs. Bracknel looked annoyed. “I don’t know why you should exaggerate so,” she said. “And it is natural that your father should want to see as much as possible when he takes a holiday so rarely.”

“He certainly didn’t take one then. The only things that might have amused him he left alone. He insisted on seeing everything mentioned in the guide-book; that was his one idea. He used to get furious, too, because the people didn’t speak English.”

“I should like very much to go to Italy,” Mrs. Bracknel broke in to change the subject. “Ever since I was quite a young girl I have wanted to go. One hears so much of the scenery and the beautiful climate. But I have never been able to manage it.”

“You ought to come with us,” Rusk said.

“We have never been out of our own country except for our solitary visit to Paris,” May persisted, with a peculiar obstinacy. “Mr. Rusk is filled with astonishment, knowing our ‘advantages!’”

“Not at all—not at all,” answered Rusk, hastily. “I know any amount of people who prefer staying in England to going abroad.”

“Oh, but some of us don’t prefer it,” said May. “We haven’t any choice, which is even simpler.” Fortunately she allowed the matter to drop here, and a few minutes later Rusk left the room in search of Denis.

May and her mother sat on by the fire in silence, till Mrs. Bracknel began again to talk of the proposed journey, making desultory and wandering conjectures concerning it, with occasional digressions on the subject of the new assistant minister, on the fact that Doctor Birch was very bald for so young a man, on the advisability of giving the housemaid notice. She alluded once or twice to Amy, but they had already talked a great deal about Amy, and May, for some reason, had not proved responsive. With the departure of Rusk a kind of dullness seemed to have crept into the room, like a chill and depressing mist. To the girl it was symbolical of all those hours that were yet to be passed there, and which she seemed to see now stretching on and on into interminable years—monotonous, trivial, wasted.

She roused herself to listen to her mother. Mrs. Bracknel was again talking of Italy, and how she had so much wanted to visit that country in the past. There was something in her uncomplaining, unquestioning acquiescence in the idea that her desire should have been considered of no importance that had the effect of alienating May’s sympathy.

“It is really too ridiculous, when you come to think of it!” she burst out bitterly. “What on earth is the use of having money if you are to be cooped up in one little spot all your life, and never allowed to see or do anything? And money is all that we have got. When you think of what some people would have made of even a hundredth part of our chance! But we are shut up here, not even properly educated in the most ordinary sense of the word. Look at the difference between me or Amy and Miss Anna Birch: look at the difference between Alfred and Mr. Rusk! Denis is the only one of us who has anything, and he has it, simply because he is ten times cleverer than an ordinary boy. We have nothing—not even proper manners. We do the wrong things and say the wrong things. We never meet anybody who is worth knowing. And so we go on, day after day, and year after year, and will continue to do so until it is too late, if it is not too late already.”

Mrs. Bracknel regarded her in dismay. Was her elder daughter, too, who had never hitherto given her a moment’s trouble, going to fail her? “May, dear, what is the matter with you?” she sounded helplessly. “I never saw you like this before.”

The girl laughed. She sat there, still a little flushed, but the momentary bitterness had gone out of her face. Then, as her eyes rested on her mother, her expression grew softer still. “Dearest mamma, it is not your fault, I know. You have all the things that we ought to have. I am awfully sorry. It was stupid of me to talk like that. I suppose I must be jealous of Denis and Mr. Rusk.”

She came over and knelt beside her mother, throwing her aims about her and kissing her. Then suddenly she burst into tears.

CHAPTER XXXII

Rusk had gone in search of Denis: he wanted to tell the boy of this unexpected alteration in their plans—he had an idea it would make him very happy—but Denis was neither in his own room nor in the library. As Rusk approached the door of this latter apartment for the second time, it seemed to him that he caught a glimpse of a white face peering down from an upper landing, but, if he were right, it had vanished again too quickly for him to recognise it, or even to be quite sure that his imagination had not deceived him. He wondered what had happened to Amy, and what had been the result of the family council. To send him away with Denis? Well, that part of it at all events was highly satisfactory. He entered the room, which was lit only by the red glow of the fire, and, sitting down in an armchair, betook himself to planning out in detail an imaginary tour. He was so absorbed by these thoughts that he was unconscious of a figure standing near the door and hardly visible in the fitful light—a figure that had stolen into the room as noiselessly as a ghost, and that had even something ghostly in its appearance, in its attitude of dim, watchful stillness, of a kind of sadness and remoteness, as of one gazing into a lost world. The figure had been standing there for two or three minutes before Rusk at last looked up and beheld it. When he did so, he started and half rose to his feet, but it motioned to him to sit still, and he obeyed.

“I wanted to see you before to-morrow. I am going away to-morrow morning, and you are going abroad with Denis, aren’t you? I wanted to say good-bye.”

There was a note in this strange, sad voice, which Rusk had never heard before. It seemed to have had all life crushed out of it; it was like something that had been living and full of colour and was now white and dead. He made some vague sound of acquiescence. “I want you to forgive me before you go. I shall not see you again.”

Rusk did not meet her eyes. “There is nothing to forgive,” he muttered uneasily. “I am sorry.... I don’t know what to say.... I am sorry....”

They were both standing now, and he longed for her to go, but she did not go. The fire blazing up showed him for a few seconds the whiteness of her face. He felt desperately afraid that somebody might come in, and tried to think how he could get rid of her at once. Then she took a step toward him and he felt her kiss him on his cheek. He made no movement of any kind. The next moment she was gone. He had a tremendous sense of relief, yet now that he had seen the last of her he could afford to be more sympathetic, and behind the somewhat melodramatic character of her farewell he recognised a suffering that was at any rate sincere. All the same, he knew that he still did not like her—not even now, in this hour of her defeat, when she seemed so unhappy and so ill.

His thoughts turned to Denis, and he would have gone upstairs to look for him, had he not feared that he might possibly come across Amy again, and he really could not afford to risk that. It did not matter. Denis himself a few minutes later entered the room, sitting down quietly at the opposite corner of the hearth.

Rusk could see his strange, expressive face as the flicker of the fire passed across it. He watched him without at once beginning to tell him the news. Then he remembered that his pupil believed this to be their last evening together, and told him.

Denis came over and sat on the arm of his chair. He faced his tutor, a deep, happy light in his eyes, but Rusk could see that they had filled with tears. His tears did not fall, however, and his affection and gratitude—for he insisted on looking on the whole thing as being entirely due to his friend—shone out with a warmth and spontaneity that made Rusk almost ashamed of the little he had actually done. What he had done most of all had been very nearly to spoil everything, yet Denis was positively radiant, and Rusk saw that this long journey to be made with him was of all things what he most desired. He had looked upon it as too improbable, too delightful, ever to come true; he had never mentioned it, on that account, but he had sometimes dreamed of it—it all came out now, in the gladness of realisation. He chattered to Rusk about it, about what they would do together, what they would see—wonderful things, it appeared!—all the roads of the world lay before them! Then he seemed to notice that his companion was a little lacking in enthusiasm.

“What is the matter?” he asked more slowly. “Do you not want to go? You seem——” He came to a pause and Rusk answered quickly:

“My dear fellow, of course I want to go. There is nothing I want more. We shall have a tremendous time.”

But Denis was only partially reassured. “Why are you melancholy then?” he asked doubtfully.

“I’m not melancholy,” said Rusk, smiling, and laying his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Aren’t you sorry a little, yourself,” he inquired ingeniously, “to say good-bye for so long to everything here? We’ve been very happy, you know. And then, I may never be back again.”

“Of course you’ll be back,” cried Denis gaily. “You mustn’t be morbid, you know.” But he was satisfied with Rusk’s explanation, and re-embarked on a series of imaginary adventures, while Rusk, as he listened to his prattle, thought of something else.

* * * * *

It was in another tone, however, that the boy said to him a few hours later: “I’m glad we are going away.” He was silent after this, but not with any intention of eliciting a reply from his tutor, who had been unusually quiet all the evening. Denis himself had been wandering restlessly about, dropping disconnected remarks from time to time, in relation to their trip, and he was standing now before the window, his back turned to the room, his hands in his trousers pockets, his forehead pressed against the glass, gazing out into the darkness. Presently he pursued his thought further: “There is something strange about this place,” he said slowly, without turning round. “I don’t know what it is—but I can feel it—it is always hanging over us, and I am glad I am going to leave it behind.... There was a time when I liked it, I think—but it has changed, lately, and I don’t like it any more.”

These mysterious words were uttered with a good many pauses between them, and they reached Rusk as he sat before the fire in an attitude of extreme comfort, his legs stretched out to their full extent, his head leaning against a cushion, a pipe in his mouth. A faint sound of wind came and went in the trees with a peculiar, musical sighing.

“I should like to go somewhere where there is light—plenty of light. It is too dark here.... There is something strange about this place,” he said again. “There have been other lives lived here—I don’t know when—I don’t know how long ago; but they have altered it, they have infected it, they are still here in some unnatural, impossible way, they still have a kind of power.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what on earth you are talking about,” answered Rusk, phlegmatically, “nor where you pick up your ideas.”

Denis still gazed out straight before him. “I pick them up here,” he said. “They’re floating in the air here; and I want to get away from them....”

Rusk said nothing, not being in a mood for argument.

“They’re there—there,” the boy went on, pointing into the outer darkness. “They’re there; coming and going; not imaginary at all; they are as distinct as the touch of a fog on your cheek.... However, I know you hate talking about such things.”

“I don’t hate it,” Rusk said good-humouredly. “I don’t particularly like it; but that is all. It seems to give you an unending pleasure, so I suppose it is all right.”

“Does it?” He began to draw with his finger on the glass.

“Aren’t you forever producing such fancies?”

“I don’t know, I’m sure. I suppose I am, if you say so.”

There was a longish pause, and then he came over and sat down on the hearthrug at his tutor’s feet. “Why should I be like that?” he asked thoughtfully, looking into the red heart of the fire.

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you,” said Rusk, fixing his cushion, which had slipped down too low.

“I suppose I must always have been that way. I remember a thing I did more than once when I was a kid, and which I can’t understand now at all....” He paused. “Shall I tell you?”

“Fire away,” said Rusk, simply.

But Denis stared at the red, glowing coals for some time before he began. The firelight flickered across his face, and touched his black, coarse hair. Rusk was knocking the ashes from his pipe when he commenced his tale. “There was an old, deserted, decaying house which I imagined was haunted. I had heard, I don’t remember how, that a murder had been committed there, and whether the story was true or false, I know this was really the reason why the house had been empty for so long. It stood in its own grounds at a good distance from the road, and two or three times when I managed to get away from my governess—I had a governess then, a Miss McAlpine—I came to it by myself in the late afternoon, when it was just beginning to get dark. It was a big pale house, a sort of fungus-colour, low and square, with a flat roof railed in by a lot of queer little pillars. Some of the pillars had been broken, and the doorstep was broken and all covered with dark green moss. The brick and plaster were mouldering away, and the knocker was thick with rust that came off on your hand. In all the windows were tall, dark, narrow shutters, closely fastened, but worn and decayed. One of them, on an upper floor, was broken, and by climbing a tree you could get a glimpse of a bare, unfurnished room, and it was in this room that I always imagined the murder had taken place. The kitchens and pantries were underground, and a grating ran round the house, and below the grating was a stone passage. Bushes of red barberry grew close up to the side of the house, and at the back and front were avenues of tall, black trees. I used sometimes to pull branches of the barberry and take them home with me. The garden had run wild; weeds and shrubs and flowers all grew together in a kind of jungle; the box had grown quite high, and the paths were almost hidden. The place had a queer, deserted look. It may have been only my fancy, but it seemed to me a kind of heavy shadow hung over it even in the broad sunshine. There was a smell of dampness and decay, and the house looked haunted. I can’t explain why, but the sight of it gave you a chill. There was something evil about it—a sort of blight. I used to be as frightened as anything when I came up to it along the winding paths. The sound of a twig snapping under my foot would make my heart bump so that I could hear the noise of it. And then suddenly, at a turn, the house would be there. The mere sight of it, so quiet and queer and gloomy, with its closed shutters, used to send a chill into my stomach. I imagined there might be a white, dreadful face watching me. I thought the door might be suddenly opened, or a hand laid on my shoulder. If the door had opened, by any chance, I know I should have died. Every minute I was jerking my head round to see what was behind me. What I wanted to do was to run away as hard as ever I could, but what I did was just the opposite. Something seemed to drag me on till I had climbed the six steps to the hall-door. There I would stand for a minute or so, and then give a tug at the bell. The wires, I think, must have got entangled in some way, for they made the most hideous noise that sounded all over the house. Even though I knew it was coming it nearly killed me. Once I collapsed on the step and just rolled myself down, the way you do in a dream. Then it was over; I could go; I could run for my life, without looking behind.... It was queer—queer—! Why should anyone do such things?”

His voice died away. Rusk sat puffing at his pipe. “I never did them,” he said stolidly.

“I know I was an awful little fool,” Denis apologised, “but I wasn’t very old at the time.” He ceased speaking, and his narrow eyes half closed, as if he were suddenly fallen into a dream.

“Where is the house?”

Denis looked up strangely, but he did not answer till Rusk had repeated his question. Then he said in a low, level voice, but with a curious suggestion of reluctance: “This is the house.”

Rusk stared. “This?”

“Yes. Papa bought it and had it repaired and altered—almost rebuilt. Another roof was put on, and everything was set right. We used to live over beyond the Birches.”

A silence followed, during which Rusk smoked on steadily. “I thought you had been living here much longer than that,” was all he at last said.

“No. Rebecca is the only one who belongs to the old days.”

“You mean she was here with the people who had the place before you?”

“No, not that. I mean that she was here, at the lodge. But there was nobody living in the house in her time.” Suddenly he leaned back his head and looked up. “What are you thinking about? Why are you so grave? You’ve hardly smiled once all the evening.” His own smile, as he spoke, had a kind of soft beauty. There was something very gentle and lovable about him.

“I’m not grave. I was only admiring the dramatic way in which you ended your tale.”

“It was quite unintentional. I wouldn’t have told you the ending at all, if you hadn’t asked me to. It wasn’t a nice thing to tell you. Perhaps there never was a murder; and, at any rate, if there was, it must have happened a long time ago.”

Rusk laughed. “Do you think you have frightened me?”

“No. But still it isn’t a very pleasant thing to know of. I once asked papa about it, but he got so angry that I never heard the answer. I am sure he would be furious if he knew I was talking about it now. Servants, you know, if they hear of such things, always insist on leaving, especially if it is particularly inconvenient that they should do so. Papa probably got the house cheap on account of what had happened, or at any rate on account of the story. What do you think of it all?”

“Do you mean what do I think of you?”

“Oh, I know that already. You think I’m morbid.”

Rusk blew out a cloud of smoke very deliberately, and watched it dissolve. “No, I shouldn’t exactly call it morbid. Most people appear to like frightening themselves. I confess I’ve never been able quite to understand why. Still they must enjoy it, or they wouldn’t do a lot of the things they do do. Of course, I don’t know that many of them would take just such drastic measures to get a thrill as you seem to have done. The majority, I imagine, limit themselves to somewhat milder doses—a chamber of horrors, or a melodrama, or some such stuff.”

“I’m not such a fool now, you know,” the boy assured him sweetly.

“I wonder?”

“You’re not very polite!”

“I suppose not. But——”

“But what?”

“Well, I’ve always felt a strong dislike for—— well, for all that kind of thing.”

“And you think I’m the other way?”

“Oh no, I should be sorry to believe that.”

“I don’t really like such things,” Denis protested. “If I could, I would never think of them again.... I won’t think of them when we are away,” he went on softly. “They simply won’t be there. We’ll be too happy—or I shall be too happy, at any rate. I’m very happy now.”

Rusk smiled as he turned to him. “I don’t expect you’ll be disappointed.”

“I was miserable this afternoon, when I thought you were going away, and that perhaps I should never see you again. I tried not to realise it: I made up my mind not to think of it until after I had said good-bye to you, for I knew you would not have decided to go if it had not been absolutely necessary.”

“You’re a good boy,” said Rusk, laying his hand on his shoulder. “That’s what one means by friendship, I imagine—at any rate it is my idea of it.” To which remark Denis made no reply.

But he had begun to think. There were things happening all around him which he did not perfectly understand. He could weave them together in a kind of pattern, yet there were threads missing, and the pattern was blurred and broken. They sat on in silence, and from the red glow of the fire a deep delightful homeliness and peacefulness seemed to pour out into the room, filling it, making it beautiful with a rare and exquisite beauty that existed more for the spirit than the sense. He felt himself bathed by it; it washed up around him like a great warm, sunny sea; he felt happier than he had ever yet felt, and he wondered a little how it had all come about. Why was he to be allowed to go away with Rusk? Why was it that Rusk himself had been going away? Why was it that all had been changed at the last moment? He knew it had something to do with his sister; she was a part of his woven pattern, a vivid thread coming and going more frequently than any other. He remembered her in their room last night. Why had she come, and why had she been angry with him when he had awakened and recognised her? She had wanted to see Rusk alone, of course—to talk to him privately—but there were surely other places where they could have met! It was all strange enough, and there had been something strange, too, in the air, when he had come into the study yesterday evening and found them together. He had disturbed something, he had broken some mood which he had felt floating vaguely in the atmosphere. Rusk had been embarrassed; but why, again, unless there was by chance something between them, some understanding, something which Amy at all events wanted to bring about? He knew more concerning his sister than anyone imagined, more concerning everything. He had his sense of life, and of the moving forces of life; he had intuitions which covered more ground than the asking and answering of questions. He would never ask questions. Fortunately it was all none of his business, not even the pressure which he felt must have been brought to bear upon Rusk and which had so suddenly been removed. His business now was to taste life for himself as he had never tasted it, to develop a capacity for happiness which he felt springing up in every part of his being. It was as if he were emerging from dusk into sunlight: the strange shadows of his world, its darkness, its mists and dreams, were melting into something brighter and more healthy. He felt his hold on existence growing stronger, tremendously stronger; there had been a few hours that afternoon when it had died down, when it had almost flickered out altogether; but the afternoon was by this time infinitely remote.

And then he wondered if he should live long? The thought came to him without any apparent cause. He knew he had already been near death a year, somewhat more than a year, ago. At the time it had not frightened him, had not greatly interested him even; but he remembered someone coming into a hushed and dim room where he had been lying for many days very ill—someone talking to him kindly and soothingly—a clergyman—and then the same figure, quite unexpectedly, kneeling down beside his bed to pray for him. At the time it had stirred nothing deeper in him than a languid acquiescence; it had been unreal, faint, fainter even than a dream. All he had been conscious of was an immense lassitude, a weakness that had seemed to wrap him round like a vast tepid bath in which he floated without effort, without pain. He had got better, but only very slowly, because he had not cared whether he got better or not, because he had made no struggle to return to life. Yet he had always had an idea that life might be delightful—if—if everything were different. It was all so much a matter of personal relations, he had thought,—ideal, imaginary relations, impossible, impossible for him at all events, though everything depended on them. An immense capacity for caring for people had constituted, though he did not know it, his great stumbling-block. There was, in the spirit of this boy, an almost divine quality of unselfishness, of loyalty and affection, which no one, even of those who cared most for him—his mother, May, Rusk—had ever really fathomed. They had seen a part of it, but not all. They had seen a part of it, because it would have been impossible to live with him and be altogether blind to it—was it not outwardly there in his expression, his eyes?—but they had not seen it all, because they had been incapable of fully comprehending the subtlety of his mind. Rusk had come nearest to divining it, and it had suggested to him, indirectly, certain possibly false ideas, which are noteworthy, principally, because of their origin: such as, that the highest beauties are never the easiest to get at, and that the most beautiful thing in the whole world is perhaps intelligence.

And his pupil was intelligent, adorably intelligent. The fact was there now for anybody to see, as he sat on the hearth-rug in the flickering firelight. His eyes made his whole face—ugly, charming, though it might strike, and in the past had often struck, different observers as being—his beautiful, strange, narrow eyes made his whole face beautiful, with that suggestion of delicacy and depth which has nothing in the world to do with the skilful moulding of the potter’s clay.

The fire slumbered and flickered in the grate. There was something strangely intimate, something almost watchful, in the quiet of the room. It seemed to await some wonderful word as the lips of the sleeping princess in the palace awaited the kiss of the prince—or so it appeared to the boy, who had moved a little, and leaned his head back against the side of the chair, A curious idea came to him that he had reached a definite point in his life—the last page of a chapter, the last act of a drama. Yet what could very well be less dramatic than merely to sit here with his friend, following the waving flight of his own fancies, in this stillness that was built up of their friendship, of their trust and esteem? Only, oddly, unaccountably, he felt it to be dramatic, almost as much so as if he had himself invented a wonderful incident that was to follow. Rusk’s pipe could not make it prosaic, nor his leaning forward to strike a match against the top bar of the grate. It amused him to wonder how these thoughts would strike his tutor were he to put them into words, but they were not the kind of thoughts one ever puts into words; they were incommunicable; one had to have them for one’s self or one did not have them at all.

The fire broke and fell in with a slight noise; a tongue of flame shot up and quivered and danced like a spirit dancing on a mountain; the reflection quivered and danced upon the ceiling.

Rusk moved again in his chair, sinking lower into it, altering the position of the cushion against which his head leaned, and propping up his feet against a narrow ledge above the grate. He removed his pipe from his mouth. “Suppose you read something to me,” he said.

“I shall have to light the lamp if I do.”

“Well, repeat something to me—you know lots of things.”

“Just anything that comes into my head?”

“Yes; whatever you like.”

Denis was silent. His eyes half closed. When he spoke again his voice had dropped into a kind of low monotonous rhythm, a sort of unemphasised music that seemed to sway backward and forward, moved by the meaning of the words he repeated, by the passionate emotion that underlay them, as a branch of seaweed moves backward and forward with the rise and fall of the sea:

“Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awaken’d birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

Dear as remember’d kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign’d
On tips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more.”

CHAPTER XXXIII

Shortly before five o’clock on the afternoon of the next day, Mr. Bracknel, who had still several hours work before him, was shut up in his private office with two other persons, one of whom was John Brooke. The other was a small, meagre, middle-aged man, turning grey, of unhealthy and unprepossessing appearance, called Davis. Davis was a despatch-clerk. He was neatly dressed in dark clothes, but his hands and nails were dirty. A straw-coloured beard, whiskers, and moustache, grew strugglingly and as if reluctantly on his wax-pale face; and his mouth twitched nervously as he watched every movement made by the other two with large, round, protuberant eyes—eyes of a uniform yellow-blue tint, without any visible iris, and of a curious opaque, glaucous appearance which almost suggested the eyes of a dead thing. There was something cringing, obsequious and uncertain about Davis, with a hint of a latent malignance that might flash out at any moment, though at present his state of mind was obviously that of a person very much frightened.

John Brooke, his young, fresh-coloured face calm and inscrutable, stood slightly to one side, with an air of holding himself more or less aloof from the other two. This highly conscientious young man, whom Mr. Bracknel thought so well of, was extremely serious and hard-working, and without a glimmer of imagination or humour. By his fellow-employees he was treated with due respect, because he was known to be very much in favour, but he had the misfortune to be secretly disliked, especially by apprentices and young persons, who detested the alarming closeness with which he stuck to business, and the disfavour with which he regarded even the mildest forms of relaxation. John Brooke looked young—looked only a boy in fact—but he had never really been young. From his cradle he had been impressed by the seriousness of life, and at twenty-two there was hardly anybody or anything on the face of the earth that he would not have undertaken to improve. He had an extraordinary sense of responsibility, and two excellent qualities—he was perfectly honest and perfectly innocent.

“Remember, Davis, you will go to jail for this,” Mr. Bracknel was saying. “There need be no remorse, no sentiment about your wife and children at the last moment. You’ve only confessed because you couldn’t help yourself: I give you no credit for it whatever.”

After this encouraging speech he turned to Brooke. “Did you suspect anything of this sort was going on?” he asked.

“I can’t quite say that,” John answered, cautiously. He spoke with extreme deliberation, as if determined that no matter what happened he would never be guilty either of over- or of under-statement. His sobriety and exactitude—they were reflected even in his clothes, even in his necktie—contrasted somewhat comically with Mr. Bracknel’s eagerness.

“Nobody knows anything about it but me and Mr. Alfred,” the clerk interrupted in a whining voice.

“Keep quiet,” said Mr. Bracknel savagely. “You did suspect it, in other words?” He had turned again to John.

“I suspected this much,” said John, slowly, “that I knew there must have been a big slackness somewhere, and I warned Davis about it.”

“And why didn’t you come to me?”

John was silent, till Mr. Bracknel had repeated his question more peremptorily.

“I wasn’t sure.”

“But you had a suspicion. It was your duty to inform me at once. Why didn’t you do so?”

“I had an idea that Davis wasn’t primarily to blame. He could have done nothing by himself.” He spoke perfectly quietly and without looking at the despatch-clerk, who had begun to edge a little nearer the door.

“You mean that you thought he had been acting with Mr. Alfred?”

“I thought so.”

Mr. Bracknel began to pace up and down the room. Presently he paused once more in front of Brooke. “I don’t see that that could make it any less proper for you to tell me.”

John hesitated. “It seemed to me that it was fairer to give Davis a chance.”

“A chance! A chance to do what?” asked Mr. Bracknel irritably. “A chance to rob me, do you mean?”

“A chance to give in his notice and leave in the ordinary way. As I say, I didn’t think he could be primarily responsible for whatever might have taken place.”

Mr. Bracknel grunted. “Well, I’ll have the man arrested now at all events.” He took a step toward the door, but John laid his hand on his arm. John was always right; John was never excited.

“Remember Mr. Alfred, sir,” he said in a low voice. “You can’t very well make the thing public.”

Mr. Bracknel hesitated. Then he turned to the despatch-clerk who was standing in the corner watching them furtively, yet viciously. “Who is it that got these goods?” he asked roughly.

Davis gave him a name and address.

“Anyone else?”

“No.”

“Have you a note of what he got?”

Davis took a paper from his pocket and handed it over.

Mr. Bracknel just glanced at it. “You can go,” he then said abruptly, and the despatch-clerk glided away.

There was a short pause after the door had closed behind him with a gentle snap. Mr. Bracknel was now studying the paper Davis had given him. “You kept very quiet about all this, John,” he said at last, looking up, and speaking in his ordinary tone.

“I kept quiet because I didn’t know about it. I hadn’t inquired into it. I wasn’t sure.”

“Would you ever have told me?”

“I don’t know, sir. I don’t think I would have told you if Davis hadn’t been a fool.”

“You mean if he had given in his notice. But if you don’t tell me how am I ever to get to know things? It was by a mere chance that Irwin found out what was going on.”

“I should have kept a better watch in future,” said John.

Mr. Bracknel shrugged his shoulders. “Well, what are we to do now?” he asked in a melancholy voice.

“I don’t see that there is very much that you can do,” John made answer. “Possibly you may be able to get back some of the goods, but that is all.”

“We can get back the money that was paid for them,” said Mr. Bracknel gloomily, though at the moment he was thinking much more of the lack of sympathy in the young man’s manner than of any pecuniary loss he had suffered.

“I very much doubt it,” said John with horrible impassiveness. “People don’t do that sort of thing to put the money in the bank.”

“You mean that he will have spent it? This is very unfortunate, very painful to me.” There was something vaguely appealing in his voice.

“I can quite understand that,” was all John replied.

“What do you advise? Tell me what you think?” Mr. Bracknel went on in the same tone.

John was silent. His grave, stolid face was extremely unresponsive. He turned away and seemed to be trying hard to stare through the wall in front of him. He was the very image of scientific impartiality. “I’m afraid I can’t advise you, sir,” he said at length, rather coldly, though he did not intend to be cold. “I know nothing about Mr. Alfred’s affairs. I suppose his salary isn’t big enough.”

The, to Mr. Bracknel, atrocious cynicism of this remark was really shocking; it was like a slap in the face, administered by an unexpected hand. He started angrily. “Not big enough! Are you asking me to raise it? I may tell you that from to-day he ceases to be a member of the firm.”

John Brooke shrugged his shoulders. “He’ll have to live somehow, I suppose,” he replied. “Especially as he is married. Of course it is extremely unlikely that anything of this sort will occur again.”

“Occur again! I should rather think it won’t!” cried Mr. Bracknel.

“I suppose he had debts,” John went on calmly. “He may have thought himself justified.”

“Justified! Good heavens! What kind of talk is that? Do you approve of what he has done?” His eyes rested indignantly on the young man facing him, and he had a bitter sense of failure and disappointment. He appeared to be on the point of saying something stronger, but the moments passed and he still kept silence. Then: “That will do,” he announced curtly, turning away. “Send Mr. Alfred to me when he comes in. I suppose he is not in now.”

“He may be. I will see.” And John went from the room.

He did not appear to be successful in finding Alfred, however, for that young man did not make his appearance, and Mr. Bracknel was left alone with his thoughts, which were more numerous than cheerful. This revelation of Alfred’s behaviour threw into the background even Amy’s extraordinary conduct in regard to Rusk. Mr. Bracknel had long been conscious of a smouldering bitterness against his son, for whom at no time had he felt any particular affection; and he now decided that he had had enough of him. There was no use giving him any more chances. John Brooke’s scheme for bribing him into good behaviour was particularly odious to him, and of course had only been suggested on account of Rhoda. Doubtless, if he had a sufficient quantity of money to squander, Alfred would cease to trouble him directly, so long as the money lasted, but there were other ways of meeting the difficulty than that. The simplest would be to wash his hands of him once and for all. It would have to be done some day, and it might as well be done to-day. Why should he be bothered with him? He was a fool, a liar, a profligate, and now a thief.

He had reached this point in his summing up when Alfred himself slouched in. “They say you want me,” he grunted.

“Sit down there,” said his father shortly, pointing to a particular chair.

Alfred took another, which appeared to him to be more comfortable. With his hands in his pockets he did not show signs of any great perturbation.

“So you have turned thief?” Mr. Bracknel began darkly.

Alfred shrugged his shoulders. “Did Davis tell you?” he asked callously.

“It doesn’t matter who told me.”

“All right.”

“What have you to say for yourself?” his father went on sternly.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing that you would admit.”

“Oh!... You could defend yourself if you wanted to?”

“If you had behaved decently to me I would have behaved decently to you. That’s all. I don’t believe in making a lot of jaw about things. As you preferred to be mean, I had to get the money some way. I told you at the time that I was in need of it. I don’t profess to be a saint, but so far as this affair goes I can’t see that there is much to choose between us. At any rate you left nothing else open to me.”

“I see. Well, I’ll leave something else open for you now: I’ll leave the door for you. You will get very little more out of me, either honestly or dishonestly; can you understand that? You’ve counted once too often on my softness. There’s an end to all things, and you’ve reached the end of that.... And now we can get to business. I’m not going to waste much time on you, so you’d better attend to what I am saying. If you consent to emigrate, I will give you a thousand pounds. If not, you will get nothing. I suppose you are sober enough to follow me? I need not tell you that I no longer look upon you as a son of mine, and that this thousand pounds is the last money you will ever get—during my lifetime at all events—and I’ll probably last another fifteen years. The question for you to decide is whether you want the money or not. Will you, or will you not, leave the country?”

Alfred looked up malevolently, his small eyes gleaming: yet he had almost expected something of the kind. “I don’t want your dirty money,” he said, rising to his feet.

“Remember,” answered Mr. Bracknel grimly, “to-morrow it will be too late. You need not count upon any relenting on my part. I fancy I will be able to control my affection. From the time you leave this office I have nothing more to do with you. It is not a matter of very much importance to me whether you accept or refuse; only I am weak enough, for the sake of your mother and sisters, to give you this last chance.”

“You were always very indulgent,” Alfred sneered heavily. He hesitated, looking sullenly down at the carpet. “Make it five thousand and I will go.”

His father gave a little, dry, unpleasant laugh. “You are an interesting case,” he remarked bitterly. “It is a pity your field is so limited! If you had had your fair share of brains you might have made a quite passable criminal. However, I take what you say as a refusal. And now you had better leave my office. I have more important things than this to attend to.”

Alfred hesitated. Then: “Give it me,” he said sullenly.

“Give you what?”

“The thousand.”

“You consent to the conditions, then?”

“Yes ... damn you,” he added under his breath.

Mr. Bracknel wrote a cheque and handed it to him. Alfred was walking to the door again, but as he did so he examined the strip of paper he held. “This is only for a hundred,” he snarled, turning round.

“You don’t imagine that I’m going to give it all to you at once,” said his father contemptuously, “and before you actually go! You must remember that yours is hardly a word to be trusted implicitly. You will get the balance paid to you in instalments when you reach your destination, which we will settle later.”

Alfred still did not move. “It will take a good deal more than this to get me away,” he said in a low thick voice.

“You must do what you can with it, I’m afraid. If you refer your creditors to me, I can settle with them, deducting the amount from the nine hundred pounds I still hold for you.”

He turned back to his desk, and Alfred walked out of the office. In the distance he saw John Brooke, and a sudden idea of vengeance flashed through his mind. He would tell Brooke who his father was: he would tell them all. Then he thought he had better not risk the rest of the money. The revelation of John’s birth would keep. Besides, he didn’t believe the old man would care a straw if everybody knew, and under his breath he called him by various filthy names as he stepped into the street.

CHAPTER XXXIV

Alfred walked slowly along the moist, greasy pavement in the November evening. A slight drizzle was falling and he turned up the collar of his overcoat. The streets were slimy and dirty. The gas-lamps threw out a golden halo on the damp air, their yellow light splashing on wet roads and flag-stones. It was past six o’clock and the traffic was considerable. Alfred made his way to an hotel in a back street, a place he had only once or twice visited before, and where there was little chance of his meeting anyone he knew. He wanted to think things over before he took his next step. He dined most indifferently, and after dinner sat down on a lounge at the back of the bar. At first he had the place to himself, but presently two or three commercial travellers entered and stood about the counter drinking and talking. Their flamboyant vulgarity filled the air, amazing, bewildering; and Alfred watched them with a sombre face. He felt depressed, and the whiskies and sodas he had drunk at dinner had done nothing to make him more cheerful. He ordered another now, but it did not dispel his gloom. The thing was ridiculous, absurd!—what could he do in the colonies? Yet he knew there would be little use in making an appeal to his father: his father was obstinate to the verge of idiotcy, and Alfred had never yet seen him draw back from any decision he had once come to. In the present instance, he felt, he would be especially pertinacious; he was probably only too glad of an excuse to be rid of him; he had wanted to get rid of him for some time back; he had always hated him. As he brooded over this, becoming more and more certain of it, Alfred felt like catching him by the throat. His thoughts travelled round and round in the little, dreary circle of the wrongs that had been done him, and the injustices he had suffered from, till they began to torture him like a probed sore. Yes, he was perfectly sure his father would keep his word. It was not as if he were the only child, or even the only son. There was Denis, and still more there was John Brooke. His whole soul rose up in hatred of the bastard. The old man would probably leave the business to John, who was just such a creature as he would like to give everything to. In the meantime he might even take him into partnership; things had been shaping in that direction all along. If only his father were to die; to meet with some accident—some accident with the motor say! But quite apart from accidents, he had an idea that Mr. Bracknel was not at all so well as he pretended to be; there was something which he kept secret, but of which, nevertheless, he was afraid. Alfred had gathered that a long time ago, from many little things that had occurred. But of course such speculations were futile, the idlest dreams.

A few more stragglers had by this time wandered in, their presence being highly resented by Alfred. There was one in particular, one of the original group of commercial travellers, who irritated him to fury; a man with a fatuous, perpetual laugh, a pale face, a waxed moustache, and a ring which he wore on his little finger. This little finger he held gracefully curled when he raised his tumbler to drink, and on each occasion Alfred felt an almost irresistible longing to bring his pleasant evening to a close. One good straight knock would do it. He stretched out his powerful arm and stiffened its muscles. He got up and strolled over towards his victim. That unfortunate person, leaning languidly against the counter, gave another twist to his moustache as Alfred approached. He eyed Alfred a moment and then half turned to the barmaid. “Upon my word we did; we thought nothing of a thing like that. I remember once in London—some of us were going the pace a bit, and——”

Alfred brushed up against him and turned round slowly. “What the devil do you mean?” he asked, with a stare that showed the whites of his eyes. There was perhaps something strange in his face, for the man with the waxed moustache and the ring apologized, and the tale of his romance in London died lamentably upon his lips. Alfred still lingered near him, and a curious hush came over the whole group. In a minute or two one of them discovered they would be late for an appointment. He announced the fact with a kind of nervous air of taking the company at large into his confidence. The others were astonished; nobody had had any idea it was so late; time had positively flown! They departed, not very brilliantly, and Alfred, the triumphant male, feeling a little better, strolled back to his lounge, perfectly indifferent to the encouraging glances of the impressionable barmaid.

But this improvement in his spirits was very transitory. He took up the Evening Telegraph and flung it away. He lit a cigar and smoked savagely, with his brows knit and his eyes on the floor. He had one or two more drinks before taking his departure. Outside it was raining quietly but heavily, and as he walked down the street he did not know what he was going to do next. Should he go home? Should he go to a music-hall? Should he have a game of cards? Suddenly it occurred to him to go back to the office. He had some things there he must get. He had not thought of them before, and he would rather get them now than return in the morning. The fumes of the drink he had taken had begun, once he was in the open air, to cloud his brain a little. He paced sullenly on till he reached the tall dark building which at present turned a blank face to the dreary, murky night. The few people he met were hurrying by, bent on their own business, or on getting as soon as possible into shelter. He paid no attention to them. He fitted the key in the outer door and it turned easily. Only a single lock was fastened, therefore there must be somebody inside. But the place was in darkness; the only light there was streamed out through the half-open door of Mr. Bracknel’s private office, and Alfred at once concluded that his father was working late—working alone, as very often happened.

His first idea was to get away without his father’s knowledge, and he wondered that Mr. Bracknel had not already come out to see who was there. Surely he must have heard the opening of the door! But he did not make his appearance, and presently, as if by instinct, silently, on tip-toe, Alfred stole past the open door and on into the rear of the building. Here he suddenly stood still, for he had heard a step overhead—someone was coming downstairs. Alfred remained motionless and noiseless as a statue. He had already forgotten why he had come back to the place; his thoughts now—obscure and dreamy—were wholly occupied with Mr. Bracknel, with the amazing possibilities sometimes dependent on absurdly slight things. Perfectly hidden himself, he watched his father descend the stairs. He saw him go on into the office, the door of which he now left wide open, as if he did not intend to work much longer. He had probably been up to the lavatory and was going home. But as Alfred watched him he sat down in front of the fire and began to turn over some papers. The sight of this appeared for some reason to affect his son powerfully. It was as if it brought home to him in a single, swift, bright vision, the clear, intolerable realisation of all he was losing, and he felt a sudden recklessness which blotted out everything else. He marched straight to the office and entered without ceremony. He had at least the satisfaction of startling his father, for Mr. Bracknel jumped to his feet, scattering his papers into the fender and over the floor. Wheeling round, he recognised the intruder, and his fat sallow face grew black as thunder. His momentary fear turned to an extraordinary rage.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, speaking below his breath.

Alfred smiled unpleasantly. “I came to say that it isn’t good enough,” he answered impudently.

“What isn’t good enough?”

“Your miserable thousand. It’s too thin—the whole idea.” He sat down on the leather-covered writing-table and eyed his father disagreeably.

Mr. Bracknel took a step toward him. “Get out of this,” he threatened, in the same low husky voice. “Drunken blackguard!” It was visible that he was making an immense effort to control himself. “Go—or I’ll call a policeman.”

But Alfred only laughed. “I can make it damned unpleasant for you, you know,” he remarked expressively. “If I tell the mater about your bastard, for instance—and in a good many other ways too. No, you’ll really have to do something a lot better if you want to get rid of me.” Even in the present low state of his fortunes he was capable of deriving a genuine pleasure from his father’s excitement. The situation struck him as extremely piquant. He produced his cigarette case.

Mr. Bracknel made another movement towards him. His face was now purple, and the veins of his forehead and neck were swollen unpleasantly. A flake of froth actually appeared at the corner of his mouth. He raised his hand as if he were about to strike his son, and at the same instant stopped. For a moment he stood quite still, while his lips twitched, and his whole face was drawn as with some sharp sudden pain. Then he grasped at the table, missed it, and fell on the floor.

Alfred gazed down at him callously, curiously, watching the colour ebb from his face and leave it a pale, sickly, waxy yellow. Mr. Bracknel lay almost upon his back. His eyes were wide open, and he breathed slowly and noisily, a phenomenon which appeared to interest Alfred keenly, so that he made no attempt whatever to interrupt it. A good many thoughts, suggested possibly by this strange breathing, passed through his mind. He seemed to have become miraculously sober. He gazed down at his father lying there, the odd, foolish noise he was making becoming fainter, and his lips turning blue; but he saw something far different, something that shone out extraordinarily brightly, the vision of a life perfectly free and delightful, with plenty of money, more than enough, all that he might ever have expected. And without waiting—without waiting—that was the great thing! A swift train of desires flitted by him and he saw them one by one gratified. He saw, too, justice being done, the humbling of John Brooke. He tasted in anticipation the joy of a long-deferred revenge, the payment of a double grudge. And the only thing that prevented all these dreams from coming true was one little paltry life that was perhaps even now dying out. It was incredible! A life that no one would regret, a life that must be a burden to itself! And all he had to do was simply not to interfere, simply to leave it to Providence. His vision seemed to materialize in the air before him, and he glared at it with hard, intent eyes, in which there was no shadow of compunction. It fascinated him, it drummed in his ears and swam before his gaze. And all this time (the hands of the clock had travelled quite a long distance!) he remained absolutely still—as still as if he too had ceased to breathe.

For no sound came now from the dark, limp heap upon the floor. Moved by a morbid curiosity, he bent lower over his father. Mr. Bracknel was not very pleasant to look at. His face had turned an ash-grey colour and his bulging eyes were fixed and glazed. His jaw, too, had dropped, leaving the tongue slightly visible between the false teeth.

Alfred sat down on a chair and began to think. If his father were to show any serious signs of reviving he might have to get him some medical assistance: if he did not show such signs—well, then it would be better if he could get away from the office unseen. At present Mr. Bracknel looked as if, were he left alone, he would behave perfectly sensibly. Alfred resolved to wait.

He glanced at the clock on the chimney-piece. The hands pointed to twenty minutes past nine. He waited for what appeared to be a very long time before he heard the hour strike. Then he got down on his knees and examined his father more closely. He unfastened his waistcoat, his shirt, his vest, and slipped in his hand: he put his ear close: he could hear no faintest beating of his heart, he could hear no faintest sound of his breathing. He lifted one of the arms and let it drop. It fell dead, and the hand he had touched was quite cold. So was the face—cold as ice, and covered with a clammy sweat. Alfred decided that it was all over. He rearranged his father’s clothes and sat down once more in his chair. It would not do to call a doctor: a doctor might find out that his father had been dead for some time, and that might, you never knew, lead to awkwardness of some kind. Worse still, a doctor would perhaps drag him back to life again and so spoil everything. He glanced about the office. Should he let himself out now or wait till later? He came to the conclusion that it would be better to wait. He had begun, instinctively, to avoid looking at the dark, limp heap lying on the floor, with its upturned face and wide staring eyes. It had been there for a long time now. The heavy seals of its watch-chain glistened in the gas-light: there was something ugly and unpleasant about it—it had not moved for so long—and presently he betook himself to the darkness of the outer office. He had a curious sense that everything was much quieter than usual, except the ticking of the clock, which somehow sounded unnaturally loud. He had begun to wonder how many thousands a year he was worth, when suddenly he heard the clear, high ring of the telephone bell. The unexpected noise in the dark, still place gave him a disagreeable shock. His nerves were not so well under control as he had imagined. The bell rang twice again and then was silent. Alfred sat on alone in the darkness.

One—two—three—eleven strokes. The striking of the hour seemed to come to him from all sides. The traffic in the street had by this time practically ceased. Only very seldom since he had been waiting had he heard a foot-fall. He peeped out presently from behind the blind. It was still raining heavily. There was a lamp just in front of the door, but he could see nobody, hear nobody. He resolved to run a slight risk, and going to the door he opened it gently and again listened. Nothing but the rain. The next moment he was outside and had turned the key in the lock. A minute later and he felt he was safe. A feeling of extraordinary exultation took possession of him. He was a rich man; his own master; all life lay before him.

That night, when he went upstairs to bed, his wife asked him sleepily what time it was, but for answer Alfred only kissed her.

CHAPTER XXXV

“Where is papa?” May asked her mother as they sat down to breakfast. “Did he not come home last night?”

“No.”

“He must have been very busy, surely!”

“I knew he was going to be late; he told me he would be. I rang him up again before I went to bed, but I could get no answer.”

“He must have gone to an hotel, then.”

“I hope so. I’m sure the room he used to use at the office wasn’t ready for him; it is so long since he has stayed there over night. I hope you and Denis will be very particular about getting good rooms, Mr. Rusk. From all one hears, foreigners can’t be trusted in such matters. Your best plan, if you have the slightest suspicion that your sheets are damp, is just to sleep between the blankets. But Denis is so absent-minded he’d never think of looking whether they were damp or not.”

Rusk hastened to reassure her on this point; he would see to the matter himself; but Denis said nothing. He appeared at that moment to be even more absent-minded than usual. His face was pale and there were dusky shadows under his eyes. He looked as if he had not slept, or as if sleep had brought him little refreshment. He seemed nervous and dejected. His mother noticed that he did not look well, and she wondered what had become of the high spirits he had shown ever since his tour with Rusk had been decided on; but she could extract no information as to what it was that ailed him. To all her questions he answered that there was nothing the matter, that he was all right, and then lapsed once more into silence.

They sat over breakfast longer than usual. May had an atlas opened beside her—she had been looking out some of the places the travellers would be passing through—and Rusk had described to Mrs. Bracknel for the twentieth time everything he knew of various routes and trains. He was just beginning for the twenty-first when they heard a car drive up to the door, and directly afterwards there was the sound of footsteps in the hall, followed by a low murmur of subdued voices.

“Who can it be?” May wondered, and all paused to listen. “It’s not papa, is it?” And Denis answered in a strange, dull voice, as if he were speaking in a dream:

“It is Alfred.”

Rusk looked at him, but the others took no notice; they were still trying to make out who was talking in the hall. The boy’s face had grown whiter, and there was a most peculiar expression in his eyes, a look of suspense, of shrinking, which deepened gradually to one of absolute horror, as the door opened and Alfred stood there, very grave and quiet, ready to deliver his tidings.

He hesitated before coming on into the room, and his voice was a little hushed as he wished them all good-morning. Everyone turned toward him save Rusk, whose attention was still held by the extraordinary, the indescribable, gaze with which Denis was watching his brother.

“I have very bad news,” Alfred began in a low voice; and then he paused again.

Mrs. Bracknel had risen to her feet. She stood trembling beside her chair, her white face turned to her son.

“Papa is dead,” Alfred continued in the same tone, avoiding his mother’s expectant, half-terrified gaze. “He died suddenly last night down at the office.”

Mrs. Bracknel sank back into her chair. The next minute May had sprung to her assistance, but her mother waved her back. “It is nothing,” she murmured. “Tell Alfred to go on.”

“There is very little more to say,” Alfred replied. “Where is Denis going to?”

The boy had got out of the window and they could see him running across the lawn. Alfred stared after him. “What’s the matter with him, I wonder?” he grunted, relapsing unconsciously into his ordinary manner.

“Oh, Alfred!” said May reproachfully.

The tone of this remark appeared to hurt her brother’s feelings. His face clouded over. “What are you ‘Oh, Alfreding’ about? What have I done?” he asked indignantly.

May, however, had turned back to her mother. “Mamma, won’t you come upstairs?” she murmured. “Won’t you lie down for a little? I can see after everything.” But Mrs. Bracknel waited to hear all Alfred had to tell.

At last she left the room, followed by her daughter, and Alfred and Rusk were left alone. They stood confronting each other uneasily and almost hostilely. Rusk had been struck by a lack of correspondence between the grave, lowered voice in which Alfred had announced his tidings, and a curious expression which had passed a moment later across his face—an expression of intense excitement and animation—something almost triumphant, though at the same time it was alert and restless. Certainly he had never seen him look like that before, and he watched him with a curiosity that was mingled with a vague repugnance. He was convinced that Alfred was filled with a secret and hardly repressible joy.

“They’ll be bringing him up here,” Alfred remarked after a pause, and glancing toward the door to see if it was closed. He mentioned the fact much in the way he might have announced a drop in the barometer, and Rusk made no reply. “In the meantime I think I had better be going.” He had already made one or two vague movements of imperfectly concealed impatience to be gone, but Rusk had not helped him. “There’s a lot to see about, and there’s nothing I can do here,” he went on, as if excusing himself. “I don’t quite know how matters stand yet, but I expect they will be all right. Tell them if they want anything to ring me up, will you? and that I’ll be back as soon as I can. I suppose some of the relations had better be wired to, but May or Amy can look after that.”

“Miss Amy is not here,” Rusk said quietly, following him out into the hall.

Alfred turned. “Not here! Why? Where is she?”

“She went yesterday to stay with one of her aunts.”

“Then she’ll have to be wired to also.... Well, good-bye for the present.”

He made his escape at last, but the door had not very long closed behind him before May reappeared. “Where is Alfred?” she asked, looking round the room in surprise, “Mamma wants him.”

“I’m afraid he has gone back into town,” Rusk said. He delivered his various messages, and May sat down while she listened. She held her chin supported between her hands and looked toward the window.

“I can hardly realize it,” she faintly sounded, in an awed and wondering voice. “It seems almost impossible! I never even knew there was anything the matter with him. Nobody knew except mamma and the doctor.”

Rusk tried hard to think of some way in which he could express his sympathy, but he had not yet discovered one when the girl again rose.

“I must go back to mamma for a moment; she is waiting to see Alfred. I must tell her that he has gone. It is very strange, his running off like that!”

Rusk sat on alone. He knew Mr. Bracknel had not been greatly beloved by his children, but he was sure his death would be a tremendous blow to his wife; and she seemed so little able to bear a sudden shock. The old problem as to the nature of that mysterious attachment flitted again through his mind.

“Has Denis come back?” May asked from the door. She had returned a second time and was now looking for her other brother.

“No, I don’t think so. I haven’t seen him at any rate.”

May gazed out across the lawn. “I wish you had both got safely away before this dreadful thing happened,” she murmured. “When you are not close to a thing it makes it so much less real.... I wonder ought I to bring Amy home, or to tell her not to come? I must wire to her in any case, and there are some other wires I must send.”

“Can’t I help you?”

She accepted his offer at once. “Thanks, if you will. I am sure to do everything wrong. I feel almost as if I were dreaming a bad dream.... I have sent for Doctor Birch to come to see mamma. She is not at all well. It was such a shock to her. Alfred told us so abruptly.”

“It is never easy to tell such news,” Rusk said. “I daresay it is best to get it over quickly.”

“You will not mind putting off your arrangements for a little, will you? I mean about going abroad. Wouldn’t it be better if Denis met you in London? I should think he might go in a week or so—when everything is settled. That is, unless you yourself wish to stay for the funeral. But it isn’t at all necessary that you should, you know, and it would be very unpleasant for you. You don’t mind my speaking so plainly, do you? It is only because I feel we are old enough friends to understand each other.”

“I will do whatever you think best,” Rusk answered. “I suppose there will be some people coming.”

“I expect so. I will tell you later. But it was not of that I was thinking—it was just the whole thing—the house will be so uncomfortable.”

“Well, I will do anything you want.”

“I think I will get mamma to ask the Birches to take Denis in for a day or two: he will be better out of all the fuss.”

“That is a good idea. I am glad you thought of it.”

“I am sure they won’t mind.... I wonder what has happened to him!”

He helped her to send off the telegrams: then he went out in search of his pupil, but could not find him anywhere. On coming back to the house, however, he met Doctor Birch who was just leaving, and turned and walked a short distance with him, drawn by that mysterious fascination which lies in the discussion of death and misfortune when they are not too intimately tragic.

“This is a very sudden affair,” the Doctor commented, and Rusk answered, “Very.” They both derived a faint, inexplicable satisfaction from the exchange of even these remarks.

“I hope Mrs. Bracknel is feeling better,” Rusk immediately added. “It must have been a great shock to her.”

“A great shock—a great shock—but she is keeping up wonderfully. My sisters will be over some time in the afternoon to see her.”

There was a short pause.

“I never thought he looked a very healthy man,” Rusk then remarked, attacking the real subject. “He seemed, too, to be slightly—what shall I call it?—hysterical—nervous.”

“It was the life he led—absolutely killing. Besides, what he suffered from often makes people irritable.... I’ve told them not to talk about him before the boy. Worst possible thing for him: but of course they will talk. They’ve already transformed the house into a kind of tomb—all the blinds down and everybody speaking in whispers. I suggested that you should take him away at once: I suppose you will hardly want to wait? But they have some idiotic idea that he ought to be there for his father’s funeral, that people would think it queer if he wasn’t.”

“They would, probably,” Rusk replied. “I expect I shall cross to-night. There are sure to be a good many relations coming, and at any rate I am only in the way at a time like this.”

“Well, can’t you persuade them to let you take Denis with you? They can send his things on after him if they’re not ready.”

Rusk promised to do his best, though without much idea of succeeding. When he returned to the house he found it wrapped in gloom and silence. Denis had not come back, and Mrs. Bracknel was lying down. Alfred had again come and gone.

Rusk and May, in the darkened dining-room, sat down to lunch alone. He told her of his decision to cross to England that night. If they would not let Denis come with him, he would meet him in London on any day they arranged. Would they let him come?

But May was sure her mother would wish her younger son to be present at his father’s funeral, and Rusk himself, for that matter, did not see that a few days one way or other could make much difference. He certainly did not think it worth while worrying Mrs. Bracknel about it, if she wanted Denis to stay.

In the afternoon he went to his own room to pack his things. He had nearly finished and it was growing dusk when his pupil came in search of him. The boy looked pale and dishevelled, with a wild expression in his eyes. At a single glance he took in the situation.

“You are going away?” he said.

“Yes: I am going to-night. You are to join me in a few days.”

“But why are you going ...? If you go I will go too,” cried Denis in a sudden excitement.

Rusk paused in his packing. He did not quite know what to do. “Your mother wants you to stay,” he said gently. “You will come over after the funeral, and I shall meet you.”

Denis looked at him piteously. “I can’t stay,” he moaned. “I can’t—I can’t. I only came in now to look for you.” He flung himself down on the bed and hid his face in the pillow.

Rusk tried to soothe him. He called him by his name, and stroked his dark, coarse hair. Suddenly, Denis sat up. He put his hand on his tutor’s. “I know what happened,” he whispered, staring at the opposite wall. “I knew it all before I came down to breakfast this morning. I knew he was dead. I had a dreadful dream about him—that he was struggling against something or someone that was killing him.”

Rusk looked at him in consternation, but the boy went on rapidly:

“I saw him struggling,” he whispered once more. “That was all I could see, but it was horrible. And when I woke up you were asleep.... And then—when I looked at the window—staring in at me—oh, his dreadful face—papa’s.” His voice had risen in a sudden shrillness, and when he had finished speaking he sat still and trembling.

“But all this is only a dream,” Rusk said painfully, though the horror in the boy’s voice had sent a sudden chill into his soul. That horror, indeed, seemed in the gathering darkness to be floating very near them, and he felt a strain on his nerves which he could not shake off.

“I saw it—I saw it,” Denis repeated with an intensity that seemed to spring from hallucination. “I saw it last night; and when Alfred came into the room this morning there was something strange about him. He seemed to know—oh, he knew—he knew—he knew....” Denis was clinging to him now, and Rusk held him close, and closer still—held him as if to shield him for ever from all harm. They sat there in the growing darkness. He could feel the boy’s face cold and damp. The sweat stood upon his forehead though he was shivering.

“I will stay with you to-night,” Rusk said. “Denis, you mustn’t think of this any more. It was only a horrible dream—a nightmare. It is only because of what really happened that it seems so terrible to you; but there is nothing more in it than that. You must forget it; you must be a man; you must put it from you.”

“I can’t—I can’t,” the boy moaned. “Why are we like this, Mr. Rusk? Why should we be different from other people? But we are—we are. We are all tainted. There is something wrong with Alfred—with me—with all of us.... You must go away; you can do nothing. Why should you stay among us? This house is haunted. It is not meant for you. For us it is different—that is the air we have breathed for long—long. We are tainted—we are tainted.” His voice broke in a kind of sob, though there were no tears in his eyes.

“My dear boy—my poor boy,” Rusk murmured, trying to comfort him. “Dearest Denis, you mustn’t think such things. In a week or two when we are far away—do you hear?—far, far away—all this will be different. Just now you are tired, and everything seems wrong. But ... there is more good in the world than evil.... You will trust me, won’t you? It you have ever trusted me, trust me now.”

“I shall never go away,” said the boy wretchedly, and with a desolating conviction in his voice. “Something will prevent me, something will hold me back. I can feel it near me now. It will take some form—it will keep me—it will hold me fast—I shall never go away.”

A clock downstairs struck the hour. Rusk listened to the sound, and then to the following silence. “Will you promise me not to tell your dream to anyone else?” he asked. “I do not mean by that that I attach the slightest importance to it in the way that you do, for I don’t. But it would be very painful to whoever you told it to.”

“I have not told it to anyone but you,” said Denis. “Only I can’t bear to see Alfred. I couldn’t stay in the room with him this morning. I could hardly keep from crying out what I knew; something seemed forcing me to, and I went out to prevent it. I have been walking for miles. I don’t know where I have been; I don’t know how I found my way back.”

“But if you were to say to anyone else what you told me, it would be horrible,” said Rusk despairingly. “What can I do to prevent you?”

“I won’t say it. I won’t say it,” the boy promised.

“You promise faithfully?”

“Yes—yes. Why should I want anybody else to know? It is bad enough for me to know. I wish I could forget it.”

“You will forget it,” Rusk assured him.

“No—no.” His face turned suddenly toward the window, and his whole body stiffened.

“What is it? What is it?” Rusk asked in a kind of agony.

“There! It is there at the window, looking in.” He gave a little cry in his throat and fell back on the bed.

Rusk rose hastily and lit the lamp. Denis lay there, pale and unconscious, as if he had had some kind of fit. It was some time before Rusk could revive him. Presently, however, he half opened his eyes; and then he opened them altogether and smiled a strange, sad, dim, little smile at his tutor who was bending over him.

“Are you better?” Rusk asked anxiously, raising him in his arms.

“Yes ... I am very sorry for frightening you. I couldn’t help it.” He sighed, and his head sank forward on Rusk’s shoulder. “It will come back always now,” he said hopelessly, helplessly. “I thought it mightn’t; I got out of bed last night and prayed not to see it again; but it is no use; it will come back always.” He spoke quietly, but the simple despair in his voice to Rusk was worse than anything else.

“There was nothing there,” he said almost passionately, “absolutely nothing. I swear it. There was nothing but the curtain. I too looked. It was only your imagination.”

CHAPTER XXXVI

On going downstairs they found Miss Birch and Miss Anna in the drawing-room. The two ladies had come over to convey their sympathies to their old friend, who, with May, was talking to them now.

Rusk had not seen Mrs. Bracknel since the morning. She was seated with her hands folded in her lap, in profile against a dark green curtain, and her thin, sallow face, hollow-cheeked, the skin drawn close over the delicate skull, seemed already altered by the shock she had received. He heard Miss Birch offering to put Denis up, and Mrs. Bracknel thanking her; she would be very glad if they would. Amy would arrive that night probably, and her uncle and two of her cousins would be with her; and there were more people expected to-morrow. The funeral had been arranged for an early hour on Thursday morning. Alfred had been very thoughtful and was looking after everything.

Rusk had sent off a wire telling his people that they might expect him on the following day, but he had now decided to alter his plans. He crossed the room and sat down on a vacant chair close to Miss Anna, and began to talk to her in a low voice. He asked her if she could put him up as well as Denis. The boy was in a very nervous state, he told her, and if she could arrange to take them both he would feel much more comfortable about him. He had intended going home, but he really did not like to leave Denis unless it was absolutely necessary that he should do so. Of course Miss Anna assented, and it was decided—Rusk himself proposed it—that they both of them should go back with her and her sister when they left. Having settled this much, and asking Miss Anna to settle the rest, he went upstairs and packed a bag with such things as they would need. When he came down again the Miss Birches were already saying good-bye. He waited for them in the hall and he felt distinctly relieved when, a minute or two later, they were all walking down the avenue together under the dark bare trees. He had a dim sense of something evil—something evil and strange, though indefinite—floating in the air—a horror, a kind of spiritual blight, which he hoped to shake from him when he left the house behind. It was a house he now wished never to enter again. Too much that was unpleasant had happened there; it was for him as well as for Denis beginning to be haunted; a kind of fixed, unnatural gloom had settled upon it.

How long had he been living there? A few months only, yet they seemed to him like years! Into that brief time so much had been crowded that, when he looked at it, it stretched back and back as if to the beginning of his life. But, once he had Denis safely away, he would have broken with it for ever. The very hour they embarked on the steamer would mark the commencement of a new period. It seemed to him now inconceivable that he should ever really have left without Denis. When one’s life became bound up with another life so closely as that, was separation really possible?—just when it appeared to be inevitable would not something always happen to prevent it? There were unseen, unknown forces at work, moving, at any rate, if not controlling, destiny. It seemed to him, in his present mood, that the only power in the world lay in these unseen, unknown forces. They were reality. He had lost faith in appearance, in matter as he had hitherto conceived of it. The solid ground he trod upon might dissolve at any moment, the whole aspect of things change, but spirit was eternal. It was as if he were on the point of awakening from some heavy, stupid slumber, as if the curtains of sleep already trembled to the pull that would draw them back, as if he could catch even now, through the curtain, the dimmed, softened glow of the flaming vision beyond.

And all this time he was walking beside Miss Harriet Birch, with Denis and Miss Anna some forty or fifty yards ahead; and they had not yet reached the lodge. When Miss Harriet spoke to him he answered in monosyllables, but after they had passed out of the grounds and on to the open road beyond, he endeavoured to shake off the mysterious burden which oppressed him, and to talk a little of his plan for taking the boy abroad. Very soon, however, that topic, too, slipped unnoticed away; quite unconsciously he relapsed into silence, and it was still in silence that, a quarter of an hour later, they reached their destination.

The evening passed off better than he had expected. There was a careful avoidance of all lugubrious topics, and Denis himself seemed brighter and more natural.

It was fairly late when they retired to the room they were to share. Denis, wearied out physically and mentally, seemed to fall asleep very soon, but Rusk lay awake a long time—as long as he could, for he had a feeling that it would be better for him to be on guard. It was almost day when he at last sank into a kind of slumber, and even then he did not sleep soundly, but every now and again would open his eyes with a sudden start, and an unaccountable impression that something, he knew not what, was trying to get into the room. Then he would reassure himself that he had only been dreaming, and would presently doze off again to find no sounder rest than before.

At last he gave it up altogether, and, lighting a candle and wrapping himself in his dressing-gown, he went down to the library to get a book. When he came upstairs again he paused beside Denis’s bed, and shading the light with his hand looked down at the sleeping boy. He lay on his side, his brown face, his black coarse hair, strikingly dark against the white pillow. His eyes were shut, but as Rusk watched him it seemed to him that he was trembling. Was he shivering? Was he cold? And suddenly Rusk knew that he was not asleep. “Denis,” he said softly, and the boy opened his eyes. Rusk put his hand on his forehead: it was damp.... And again a tremor passed through him. His eyes stared up, unblinking, bright, dry and strange, but he said nothing. Then it flashed upon Rusk that he was in a state of mortal terror. He felt a deep, an immense, compassion for him. He wondered how long he had been like that—perhaps for hours ...! The ways of Providence were strange....

“Come into my bed,” he said simply, and, as Denis made no movement, “Come,” he repeated. The boy got up and crossed over to the other bed. “I’m going to read,” Rusk went on, as soon as they were under the clothes. “Be a good boy and try to go to sleep.”

Denis turned on his side. He had not spoken a word, but he gave now a long low sigh as of infinite relief. Almost immediately he fell into a heavy slumber that was like the unconsciousness following upon utter exhaustion. He slept far on into the morning—even the fire being lit, even Rusk getting up and dressing, did not awaken him—and when the tutor came upstairs again after breakfast he was still asleep. Rusk sat down at a table near the window and began to write a letter home, explaining his change of plan. He had finished it and was addressing the envelope when Denis awoke. The boy sat up, his eyes still dark and liquid with sleep.

“Is it late?”

“Not very. Going on for twelve. I’ll ring and they’ll bring you up some breakfast.”

“Hadn’t I better wait till I go down?” asked Denis, doubtfully.

“Oh, no. It’s all right. I told them you would have it up here.” He smiled, and approaching the bed, “Well, how are you feeling?” he asked, patting him on the shoulder.

“Oh, I’m all right, thanks.”

Rusk was sure his long sleep must really have done him good: he looked better, too. Rusk sat down on the side of the bed and talked to him till his breakfast was brought up.

Then he went over to the fire and unfolded the morning paper. Nearly the first thing that caught his eyes was an obituary notice, half a column in length. He was glad he had seen it: he would keep the paper out of Denis’s way. He began to read. In half a column there was lots of room to touch upon all Mr. Bracknel’s virtues, and the notice in fact did so. It pointed out that in his commercial career he had set an example of high principle and integrity it would be difficult to over-estimate; it dwelt on the various services he had rendered the city in his capacity of Councillor and Member of the Harbour Board; it intimated that he had been asked to stand for West Belfast on the occasion of the last general election; it mentioned the deep regret that had been experienced throughout the city at the news of the premature termination to an inspiring and useful career; it expressed the universal sympathy that was felt with the bereaved family in their distress; and, finally, it stated that he left behind him two sons and two daughters, and that the elder son, Mr. Alfred Bracknel, had for some years past occupied a responsible position in the business, the fine old traditions of which he would doubtless carry on in a manner worthy of his father’s name.

For Rusk, for some reason, these remarks—which everybody else, he knew, would consider quite appropriate—glimmered in the light of an irony so dreary that he wondered if he were growing utterly cynical and sceptical. He reflected that all that remained of the “admirable citizen” would by this time have been conveyed to his own house, and that Alfred, in a black suit and with a mourning-band round his hat, would already have proceeded to bethink himself of the “fine old traditions.”

He folded up the paper and put it away. Denis had finished his breakfast. He had eaten very little. It would have been wiser, Rusk now saw, had Doctor Birch’s advice about taking him away been followed. Fortunately the funeral would take place to-morrow. To-night he would get Doctor Birch to give the boy a narcotic, and to-morrow night, or at least the night after, they could start.

CHAPTER XXXVII

On the morning of the day after the funeral Rusk was seated before the fire in the Birches’ library, lost in thought. By-and-by he got up, and crossing the room, looked out at the melancholy, wind-swept garden. It was not long after breakfast and he was alone. Out of doors it was a boisterous and dirty day. A high wind drove the clouds in banks and masses without clearing the sky—drove, too, the rain with a sharp continuous rattle against the streaming window-panes. Rusk, looking out, could see the trees bending and dripping, their black boughs creaking and swaying as they battled with the storm. Nevertheless, in spite of the weather, he presently put on his boots and went in search of Denis to persuade him to come for a walk. With their overcoats well buttoned up round their throats they sallied forth, splashing through the rain that streamed down the incline of the road. Everything was soaking wet; once or twice they met some bedraggled pedestrian, beating up like a battered ship against the wind, with soaked clothes and limp, melancholy hat that would have flapped away like a bird but for the hand that retained it yet they trudged on for a couple of hours, during which period hardly a word passed between them, though at the end of it Rusk, at least, felt much better for the exercise, and imagined, rightly or wrongly, that his pupil had benefitted too.

In the afternoon he suggested that they should repeat the experiment. He had an idea that if the boy were tired out physically he would sleep all the sounder at night; but Denis preferred staying by the fire with a book, leaving Rusk and Miss Anna to depart alone. He watched them walk down the garden path, and as soon as they were out of sight half regretted that he had not gone with them. For the rain had ceased and a faint glimmer of watery sunshine now made its appearance. His brighter mood of the morning had not been wholly the creation of Rusk’s fancy, and, such as it was, it still persisted, and he even began to hope a little that he might keep other things at a distance. The fact of the burial—might not that have made a difference? He grew drowsy as he sat by the fire: his book slipped from his hand: and by-and-by he dropped asleep.

He opened his eyes suddenly in the thickening dusk, and it was as if all the horror of the world had awakened him. It was there!—it was there!—outside, invisible, but drawing closer: he should never be rid of it now.

He tried to banish all consciousness from his mind, but from the first the struggle was hopeless. The thing grew and grew with a curious intensity till he could feel its presence in the air about him like a dense cold cloud. It was there outside—there, crouching in the darkness—drawing nearer. It had followed him from the other house; it would follow him to the ends of the earth. He tried to reason with himself. He was here in the library. Outside was the garden, a little naked in the cold November greyness, and the noise he heard was the rustling and moaning of the wind—there was nothing more....

The last light faded as he sat there, his head leaning back against the cushion of his chair, his face white and still, his eyes closed. He heard the noise of a coal falling into the fender. He opened his eyes and watched the coming of the darkness. He was afraid, wretchedly, abjectly afraid; and his fear grew with the passing of every moment. At last he sank down on his knees with a little moan, and buried his face in the seat of the chair. He tried to pray; he repeated over and over a few words, begging that what he dreaded might not be allowed to come.

He had prayed and prayed again, yet he still feared to look up. He waited on and on, his face buried in his hands, waited while he heard the clock strike the quarter, and the half-hour. Then at last he lifted his head, knowing very well what he was going to see. His eyes turned to the window, gazing out, fixed and dilated, while his hands opened and shut on the chair before him.

When the thing was gone he turned to leave the room. A look of despair had come into his face, and though he heard Miss Birch moving about upstairs he did not attempt to go to her, but went out, bare-headed, just as he was, and hurried down the garden path. It was not quite dark. A faint ghostly pallor seemed to fall from the sky, and through this misty veil the trees and shrubs showed dim and blurred. It would rain again soon, he felt, with a curious interest in so trifling a thing: the air was still full of it and the wind had fallen. He walked down the road and took the path that led into the grounds of his own home. He walked quickly and surely, as if he were bent on some definite errand, and paused only when he had reached his old haunt by the hawthorn.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

Rusk and Miss Anna returned a good deal later than they had expected to, and just in time for dinner. They found Doctor Birch in the drawing-room with his sister, but Denis was not there, and the tutor immediately asked for him.

“Was he not with you?” wondered Miss Birch, glancing up from her work. “I have been in the house all afternoon, and I haven’t seen a sign of him. Perhaps he is in the library.”

“I will go and see,” said Rusk, at once rising. He had a sudden feeling of uneasiness, which increased as he passed from one empty room to another where he thought his pupil might possibly be. But he could find no trace of him, and presently returned to announce his lack of success.

“Could he have gone back to the house for anything?” Miss Birch suggested. “I somehow took it for granted he was with you, and never thought of looking.”

Rusk shook his head. “I am sure he would not go to the house. He did not like it. I mean,” he added hastily, “he was glad to come away. It reminded him too much of this unfortunate affair.”

“Of his father?”

Rusk nodded. “I am going out to look for him,” he said, taking a step toward the door.

“But won’t you wait for him here? Won’t you have dinner first?” Miss Birch asked in some surprise. “He can’t have gone very far,” she added. “At any rate, I don’t see that you are in the least likely to find him if you do go.”

“I think I shall go all the same,” Rusk persisted. “I shouldn’t have left him this afternoon. It was a stupid thing to do.”

“But why? Surely he doesn’t need so much looking after as all that!”

“And you left him in the safest place in the world,” Miss Anna interposed. “You left him reading in the library. No harm could possibly come to him there.”

Rusk, however, was not to be persuaded; he had already opened the door, though he stood hesitating on the threshold.

“I may as well go with you if you are going,” Doctor Birch remarked quietly. “Better tell them to keep dinner till we come back, Anna.”

The two men put on their overcoats and went out together. It was very dark and they knew they were bound on a somewhat hopeless errand. “Which way shall we take?” Doctor Birch asked. “I suppose it doesn’t greatly matter. If we are looking for him really, though, perhaps we ought to go in different directions.”

“There is a place where I think he may be,” Rusk replied. “If he is not there, I don’t know where he is.”

They paced on for some minutes side by side through the darkness. There seemed, on the face of it, very little reason for anxiety, yet a sort of dim foreboding of disaster began to weigh upon them, growing heavier and heavier. A bitter wind, cold as if laden with snow, blew out of the black, starless sky, sweeping across their path and dying away with a remote desolate cry in the bare trees. Rusk was haunted by a vision of Denis wandering alone in the darkness and listening to that dreary sound. He tried to persuade himself that he was foolishly anxious, but he would have given everything he possessed to have seen the boy coming down the road at that moment on his way home. He had a sickening knowledge that if he had stayed in the house with him that afternoon all would have been well. The others had excused him, had treated his idea on this point as ridiculous, but the others did not know what he knew. His suspense became almost unbearable, and he unconsciously increased his pace, till Doctor Birch found it difficult to keep up with him.

“You think he has gone back to the house after all?” Doctor Birch suddenly asked, as they turned in at the back gate.

“No. Along here.”

He led him to the edge of the plantation, but once among the trees everything was black as pitch, and they found it extremely difficult to make their way. Rusk had imagined that by this time he knew the whereabouts of the spot he was in search of, yet in the darkness he lost his bearings and it was half an hour or more before they managed to hit on the right place. They could see no one there when they did discover it, and when they called aloud they could get no answer.

“I wish we had thought of bringing a lantern,” Rusk exclaimed.

“But what makes you think he would come here?” asked the Doctor uneasily. He had stepped up to the edge of the pool. Both men looked down at the black, still water, and there was a short silence.

“He used to come here very often,” said Rusk at length. “I never told you about it—I see now I was wrong. I can’t explain it all at present, but when I found he was not in the house I thought he might——” He turned to Doctor Birch, but, though he was almost touching him, his companion’s face was only visible as something pale and indistinct in the surrounding darkness. “Do you think there is any chance of his—his——?” He did not finish the sentence.

“Of his what?” Doctor Birch asked nervously.

“Of his being down there?” And Rusk made an invisible motion toward the water.

The Doctor hesitated, evidently not altogether surprised by the suggestion. “I—I—you surely don’t think so? Why should he be? What put such an idea into your head?”

“He is not well. There has been something troubling him.... I did not tell you about that either.”

“But surely— Is it deep?”

“Deep enough for that. Of course he can swim: but if it should have been intentional?”

Doctor Birch laid a would-be-reassuring hand on the younger man’s arm. “I think you are alarming yourself unnecessarily,” he said. “It is infinitely more probable that we shall find him comfortably seated at home when we get there.”

But in spite of these words a sombre foreboding seemed to have gripped Rusk with the strength of a conviction. “I am going to see,” he said.

“See! How can you see? Do you mean you will dive?”

“Yes: there is no other way.”

“But the water is like ice. If he is there he is not alive now. Time enough when we really know that he is missing.”

“But why should he have gone out at all? He told me he was not going out.”

“And he changed his mind after you were gone! I don’t see anything very extraordinary about that.”

Doctor Birch had stepped aside toward the edge of the shrubbery, and he now struck a match. Rusk heard him give a sharp exclamation. “He is here. He has— Quick; strike a light.” The Doctor was cutting at something with his knife and Rusk sprang to his assistance.

“Is it he? Is he dead?” he gasped out, sick with the horror of it all.

“I don’t know. Make a blaze, can you?—with paper—anything.” The Doctor bent over the slight, prostrate form. “How could he do it?” he murmured to himself. “How could he do it?”

There was a silence that seemed to Rusk to last for ever. The Doctor was still bending over the body.

“Is he dead?” Rusk asked again, as the light he had kindled flickered and went out.

“Yes.... poor little chap. It must have been done at least an hour ago.... He did it with his braces.”

Rusk did not speak.

“Is there a short way out? Can we carry him?” the Doctor inquired mechanically.

There was another silence while Rusk stooped down and lifted his pupil’s body in his arms. Doctor Birch followed him as he made his way through the trees. “Who is to tell his mother?” he asked rather blankly, and as if speaking more to himself than to his companion. He kept on repeating the question at intervals, as if he could think of nothing else. “It is very unfortunate. I don’t know how we are to tell her.”

CHAPTER XXXIX

Rusk had known, however, who would bear the tidings, had known it from the moment when, on emerging into the clearing before the stream, he had laid his burden gently on the grass; and the impression of that miserable hour, of the wan, stricken faces of the two women, was destined to be one of the deepest he should ever receive. Above all, the face of May had come back to him again and again, suggesting strange trains of thought, which, taken with her letters, with all they had revealed to him of her love for her brother, had tended more and more to occupy his mind and to fill him with a sense of dissatisfaction and doubt. This feeling of doubt was with him more than ever as he sat gazing out at the blackness of sea and sky, in the murky stillness of the autumn night, listening to the throbbing of the steamer’s engine, and to the footfalls of those more energetic, more wakeful, passengers who continued monotonously to pace the deck.

The lights of the Liverpool docks had long since disappeared, but to Rusk, well wrapped in a heavy overcoat and with his cap pulled down over his eyes, it had not occurred to seek his cabin. That he was returning after a year and a half—a year and nine months, really—to the scenes of a chapter in his life he had at the time believed closed, gave him plenty to consider. It was as if he were taking a plunge back into the past, and already the intervening period, which marked his absence, was receding, while the atmosphere of what he had quitted, of what he was again approaching, seemed to reach out to him mysteriously through the night, like some occult spiritual influence, like a far clear summons from an invisible power. He told himself that if he were returning to Ireland it was because something definite had happened, because it was a case of either now or not at all. He was about to embark on a new career which would take him to the other side of the world, and he had no idea when, if ever, he should be home again. An old and close companion of his father’s youth had come back from Australia after an absence of twenty-five years, and, finding the threads of other relations impossibly lost or broken, had, in the end, sought out and called on his friend’s widow; had called a second and a third time, and, at last, in a kind of odd helplessness, had come to stay for the remainder of his visit.

He had taken a fancy to Rusk and had offered him an opening, a position on his farm, if he cared to accept it, the main condition being that he must make up his mind at once. This condition, fortunately, had been easy to comply with. For Rusk, weary of his present occupation, a more active, more open-air, life had many attractions, and he was still young enough to strike out on a fresh path. The matter had been settled with the head of the preparatory school where he was teaching, and in a fortnight now he was to sail. It had been only then, he told himself, after all arrangements were made, that certain oft-repeated promptings and echoes had found clearer voice, and that he had written to Miss Anna Birch, saying he would like to come over for a day or two. Miss Anna’s prompt reply had expressed the pleasure his proposal gave them, together with a hope that he would stay as long as possible. Rusk, however, could not stay long. His mother, he more than suspected, was a little hurt at his wanting to go at all; and he himself was sure that his letter to the Miss Birches had occasioned quite as much surprise as anything else. But he could not help it. He was surprised himself, perhaps, as he looked over the bulwark into the damp, cloudy night. The sea was extraordinarily calm, and the steamer cut through its oily blackness with a low continuous swish as the water parted in two lines of white foam before the sharp bow.

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Table of Contents

- THE BRACKNELS

- THE BRACKNELS

- CHAPTER I
- CHAPTER II
- CHAPTER III
- CHAPTER IV
- CHAPTER V
- CHAPTER VI
- CHAPTER VII
- CHAPTER VIII
- CHAPTER IX
- CHAPTER X
- CHAPTER XI
- CHAPTER XII
- CHAPTER XIII
- CHAPTER XIV
- CHAPTER XV
- CHAPTER XVI
- CHAPTER XVII
- CHAPTER XVIII
- CHAPTER XIX
- CHAPTER XX
- CHAPTER XXI
- CHAPTER XXII
- CHAPTER XXIII
- CHAPTER XXIV
- CHAPTER XXV
- CHAPTER XXVI
- CHAPTER XXVII
- CHAPTER XXVIII
- CHAPTER XXIX
- CHAPTER XXX
- CHAPTER XXXI
- CHAPTER XXXII
- CHAPTER XXXIII
- CHAPTER XXXIV
- CHAPTER XXXV
- CHAPTER XXXVI
- CHAPTER XXXVII
- CHAPTER XXXVIII
- CHAPTER XXXIX
- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE