People whom everybody considers tender-hearted and good-natured do not like to wake up to the fact that they are neither. It takes a good deal to wake them up to it, and they are apt to be indignant and incredulous even then. Gladys had always been considered particularly, gracefully unselfish. People might think her a little astonishing and unconventional, but this they put down to her American training; as for being underhand, cruel and grasping, no one would have dreamed it of her, and she least of all of herself. Love is a teacher of many lessons, and tears away all screens; there is no room left for anything but the real.

Love and pain together are the two world forces for sincerity, and Gladys’ sincerity was not pleasant to look at. She was possessed with the one desire—Jack. She wanted him; she hated everything and everybody else. Right and wrong became two faint, inadequate words; she would have stopped at nothing to gain her ends.

Even the dramatic instinct which had carried her through emotional friendships made her attractive and alluring to those to whom she was utterly indifferent, devout and regular in her religious attendances, eager and sympathetic over the miseries of the poor, they were all swept away. She planned, plotted, schemed and lived to meet and win Jack Hurstly.

For the sake of meeting him she made friends to a far greater extent with Edith le Mentier. She smiled in tender graciousness upon Alec Bruce, she treated Sir Arthur Dallerton when she met him with the greatest interest and respect.

It was through him she learned first that Muriel was not going to India, second that her engagement with Jack Hurstly was “off,” after that she ceased to take any interest in him at all. People said it was time she was married.

It took Jack a long time to realize that Muriel meant what she said. He wrote again, and it was not till she stopped answering him that he began to believe her. The key he held to the woman riddle says that “A woman who goes on saying no is easier to turn than the woman who says nothing.” India and the old influences of the regiment had undone a good deal of her training.

Jack told himself he was a fool to have loved her, and agreed with the world’s verdict that she “really went too far.” In fact the world turned its back on her. She had had two good marriages in her hand and thrown them away; her society was a strain; she did unheard-of things; she was really better in the slums.

Everybody told him he was well out of it, and though he was outwardly indignant at their judgment it took the edge off his sorrow. He grew rapidly strong, and hunted more than ever. He was not to be invalided home, and he had been very badly treated. He looked upon this as virtual absolution for whatever dissipations he might be led into. Even in the nineteenth century few men have found a better excuse than “The woman Thou gavest me.”

One evening as Jack sat smoking in his quarters, wondering lazily what sort of a drink it would be most possible to enjoy, a knock at the door aroused him from his thoughts, and gave entrance to a favorite young subaltern.

“Hullo, Musgrave!—come in!” he said with warmth. “Have a drink?” he added as the young fellow sank into a chair. Musgrave shook his head. “Anything up?” Jack asked with surprise.

“Nothing particular,” said Jim Musgrave. “My aunt’s coming out here, though. I shall have to sit up for her.”

“Oh! I say that’s bad,” said his friend sympathetically.

“She’s going to bring a mighty pretty girl out with her, though, to jam the powder,” said the nephew irreverently. “The fact of the matter is I believe it’s for the girl’s sake she’s coming. There’s an awful dearth going on in London—herds of pretty girls and nothing to gain by it, you know—I don’t know what England’s coming to—we’re so scarce—they say the returns after the season are something awful!” Jack laughed grimly.

“I’m one of them,” he said. “I didn’t make myself scarce enough it seems. Who’s your aunt, by-the-bye? Perhaps I know her.”

“Mrs. Huntly. Her husband was a fellow of ‘ours,’ you know; but he got on the shelf, and they gave him some appointment at home to hush him asleep with. We have an awfully short day, haven’t we? And a beastly hot one!” The young man’s eyes grew wistful, for he loved his profession; and he had not been out long enough to grow stale, or to have his ambitions adjust themselves to lower standards. Jack sighed.

“It’s a bit too long for some of us,” he said; and he dutifully thought of Muriel, till the remembrance of a polo match transformed them both into enthusiasts, and the talk grew unintelligibly technical.

It was not until Jim Musgrave rose to go back to his own quarters that Jack remembered to tell him that his aunt was an old friend of his, and to ask if the pretty girl was her cousin, Miss Travers.

“By Jove, do you know her?” shouted the surprised Jim. Jack nodded.

“Good-night!” he said briefly, and Jim took his dismissal, wondering how well his friend had known Miss Travers. Jack remembered the look in Gladys’ eyes, and resolutely pretended that it meant nothing; nevertheless he was not altogether sorry he was going to see her again. He told himself it was because she was Muriel’s great friend.

Then he went out to have a final look at the pony; it was necessary that it should be really fit for to-morrow’s match.

Muriel read Mary Huntly’s letter over slowly with sad eyes. There was a hopeless ring in it, as if the plucky effort to avoid the admission of a life failure had almost proved too much for her. She had attained most things that a woman of the world wishes to attain: a good income, a convenient husband, a boy at Eton, and a fine figure for forty; she was very popular, even with other women, and she had a most capital cook.

“Leslie Damores and I are going on a bus top to Kew Gardens this afternoon,” said Cynthia irrelevantly. “And I shall go to tea with him in the studios to see his new picture; he has called it ‘The Years of the Locust.’ I should rather like to see what he has made of it.” Muriel was still puzzling over Mary Huntly’s letter.

“She is so fine,” she said. “It must count for something, her pluck and dash and the way she faces things; it can’t be all shallow, or all selfish—and yet it does work death. Look at poor Mary. Her age of primary things has passed. She has run through most of the thrills, as I suppose we all do by forty, and now what’s left for her? She has been keeping yesterday’s manna, and she finds that it has gone bad!” Cynthia looked interested.

“I think,” she said slowly, “that a great love is the only thing to fill a woman’s life. I don’t believe that would wear out, would it?”

“I suppose,” said Muriel thoughtfully, “that depends on how one uses it; one must carry things on to their farthest extent. I mean—it’s stifling to be satisfied. If we go on far enough we shall come to a vista, and it’s not till we get to see that things have no end that we are really beginning at all. It is what you can’t grasp makes life worth living.” Cynthia listened reluctantly.

“But love,” she said again, “you can grasp that; and it won’t go, will it?”

“All that’s best and highest in love you can’t grasp, I think,” replied Muriel. “It’s because one expects to do that that it hurts. The invincible thrill of things is only meant as a launching into life. After that friendship, comradeship, a blending of life to life and heart to heart becomes unconscious development. Paroxysms aren’t love, and they have their reaction; but love is beyond and through all, and even in the most sad and sordid moments gleams and throbs an impossible possibility! A thing always to strive for, never to attain!” Cynthia rose and paced the room restlessly.

“Oh, Muriel! Muriel!” she said, “you don’t know——” Then she stopped short, and went over and kissed her, an unusual demonstration from Cynthia. “You’re so good,” she said, “and yet somehow so remote from it all! I think I begin to see now why you didn’t marry Jack. I should have faced it as you did, but I should have read the letters, talked about them—and then married him!”

“And been unhappy ever afterwards,” said Muriel softly.

“Yes! but that’s nothing to do with it,” cried Cynthia impatiently. “I acknowledge no afterwards. I would give myself body and soul to the man I loved, like Browning’s lady, even if he were the greatest rascal unhung!”

“That’s a horribly selfish theory!” said Muriel with sudden emphasis, “and a very dangerous one. You would degrade yourself, hurt the man, and ruin future generations, simply because of an effervescing passion, which soon becomes stagnant if you give it time enough. No one can afford to ignore consequences, least of all a lover. Why is it, do you suppose, that these girls of mine, living like animals, working like slaves, suffering like human beings, don’t oftener catch at this passion-flower of yours, and take the poison of it? Simply because they are face to face with the consequences. They can’t get away from themselves, and their life is visible and public. They know what a few days’ rapture implies—shame, pain, publicity, perhaps starvation. They know that to cut off your nose spites your face, however you may wish to make the surrender! You don’t risk a rapid when you see the rocks, only when the rocks are hidden; the consequences ignored, then the selfish, hopeless, aimless life gives in to its instincts; and though before the leap you may have ignored the consequences, it will not prevent the rocks beneath from grinding your life out after the fall.” She stopped, her eyes flashing with the intensity of all she meant.

She had given little by little her life over to a problem; one that she hated, had avoided, and that even now racked her with its misery—but it absorbed her.

Things cease to be bearable only when life is empty, and to Muriel her own sorrow, her own heart, had been filled and uplifted by full renunciative hours. Discontent and leisure walk hand in hand, wandering disconsolate over a world teeming with openings and opportunities for energy and power. Then it becomes necessary to invent new games, and religion runs to melancholia—or Christian science.

“I don’t think Leslie Damores will ever marry me,” said Cynthia slowly. She looked suddenly older and more careworn. “I—I don’t think I will go with him this afternoon.”

Muriel put on her things to go to the club. Before she went she threw her arms around Cynthia.

“Dearest,” she said with glistening eyes, “I don’t know what I should do without you.”

“Pray more,” said Cynthia shortly. Muriel shook her head.

“If you knew what strength you give, and how bright this all seems to come back to!”

“Don’t! don’t!” said Cynthia sharply. “For God’s sake go to the club and leave me alone!”

Muriel went and understood; she knew that it had been necessary to say those words, and after they were said she could do no more. One can start a crisis, but one cannot guide it, and it is usually best to get out of the way. Cynthia sent Leslie Damores away that afternoon, and faced for the first time in her life the years that the locust had eaten. Her lover’s picture could not have been more realistic.

Leslie went back to the studio bewildered. She had sent him away without excuses. He wondered blankly what he was being punished for, and why she was denied him in the present; and as Kew Gardens, unless one is a naturalist, is not the place one goes to alone, he sat down before his picture and thought about her in the past.

He was young and full of ideals when he first met her. He believed in the possibility of a Galahad, and that all women were exquisitely good, except a sad few who were picturesquely unfortunate. He had had a good mother, two beautiful sisters, and he had only seen Paris in a veil. He met Cynthia in the studios; her glorious red hair and the wonderful way she looked at him became the key to the universe. After that followed months of ideal companionship, and on his part at least unprecedented blindness. Perhaps she loved him for that most of all. Then she told him. He was horribly startled. He said surprised and terrible things, and then she looked at him—Oh that wonderful, broken, tragic look!—and went back to her brother. And he grew older, and wiser, and less surprised.

He had not meant to find her in London. When he had, and they met again and yet again, and in fact even from the moment when she had told him where and how she lived, he had made the great decision.

The locusts should eat no more empty years. If she could forget (could she forget, forgive at least?) that stammering judgment eight years ago, how happy they would be together! What noble, magnificent work would they not do—together—and now she had sent him away with no excuse. Had that self-made barrier of his fallen for another to rise? He smoked hard and rang the bell. There is always one way of finding out things if a man has sense and no false pride—to ask. He was going to ask, and he smiled grimly to himself as he thought of the answer she would give him—should give him!—if strength and power and purpose went for anything. The tea-things that were set out for her looked miserable as only neglected food can look, and the room lost in the gathering twilight seemed emptily expectant of the guest who had not come.

Leslie Damores cared nothing at all for omens and less for gloom, and even the fact that he could not find his matches did not evoke a frown. He was going to see her, and he meant to see her, and he terribly over-paid the cabman’s fare. How many sullen looks and surly words do we not owe to the over-generosity of lovers, who appear to think that by tipping the universe they will earn the reward of Providence in the shape they most desire? Alas! we human beings are always misplacing our tips, and then we wonder when the raps that come to us seem to be misplaced as well!

It was hot, with that intense silken quiver in the air which turns the atmosphere into a living creature.

That “certain twilight” moment was already beginning to “cut the glory from the gray,” and across the Indian garden strolled two figures scarcely conscious of the breathless life, so interested were they in each other. Gladys Travers, in a well-fitting gown, a cloud of something soft that sunk into a shower of lovely curves, led the way through the trees to a seat.

“I call it a summer-house,” she said. “It sounds so English!”

“Ah!” Jack Hurstly answered half wistfully, “you’ve already begun to hunger for home. We all have it, you know, and try to call the most un-English things by familiar names, just to trick ourselves into thinking—Heaven knows what—that it isn’t quite so far away, I suppose.”

“It seems hardly possible that we have been here two months,” sighed Gladys. “And it was so strange to find you here!”

Strange, indeed, Gladys! after the care-succeeding stratagem and innocent purposeful planning that took you and your good-natured cousin so straight across India to the station (not so frequently a resort for English travellers), simply because there this broad-shouldered young Englishman lived and rode and shot and spoke bitterly of life.

“It was most lucky for me,” he answered honestly; “and I shall miss you awfully when you go.”

“You are very fond of Mary, aren’t you?” she said looking at the ground.

“Yes, Miss Travers.” Gladys smiled.

“You’re rather stupid, you know,” she said.

“I think it’s you who are rather unkind,” he answered. “And what are you going to do with Jim?” Gladys frowned; the conversation at that moment was more interesting without Jim.

“Do with him!” she began indignantly, and then suddenly she laughed and turned dancing eyes upon her companion. “Do you know,” she cried, “I haven’t the faintest idea what to do with him! What should you think?”

“He’s a very nice fellow, Miss Gladys.”

“Then shall I marry him?” Captain Hurstly drew a long breath; it was rather like playing with fire. The sun sunk speedily in the west, and now in a glowing rose veil plunged behind the hills. Gladys looked up at him from under her long eyelashes. There was something a little wistful in her glance.

“Do you want me to marry him, please?” she asked. Jack looked from the sky to her face; it had caught the glow of the sunset.

“I don’t want you to marry anybody,” he said simply.

“Ah!” said Gladys, and there was a silence—dangerous, electric, full of unspoken things.

“You knew Muriel?” he said abruptly at last.

“She was a dear friend of mine,” Gladys replied softly.

“Was! Isn’t she now, then?” he questioned. She blushed and looked away. “Won’t you tell me?” he asked gently.

“I thought she was unjust—very unjust to you!” Gladys murmured. “It hurt me that she should misunderstand any one.”

“You’re very generous,” he replied gravely. “But how do you know, Miss Gladys, that she did misjudge me? Perhaps she was right to have nothing to do with such a poor sort of chap.”

Gladys sprang to her feet, her eyes flashed, and she shook a little, her voice was low and intense, and Jack, who rose to his feet also and stood opposite to her, was drawn into the circle of her emotions.

“No! Captain Hurstly. She was wrong—utterly wrong!” the girl cried. “What are we sheltered, protected darlings, brought up with closed eyes and within walls, to know of the world and man’s temptations? How dare we judge who have no standards of comparison? And if we love”—her voice grew so tender it was like music—“and if we love it is for man’s redemption, not for the satisfaction of our own, thin, misty ideals! And it should be the crown of our life to raise the man we love from lower things, and trust in his love to leave them for ever far behind!” She moved nervously back to the seat, and turned that she might still half face him. “I don’t know what I’ve been saying,” she said breathlessly. “I am afraid it must sound very silly and foolish to you, and rather—rather uncalled for; but it has always seemed to me that women like Muriel, who think God’s tools not good enough for them, do a terrible amount of harm.” Jack took a step forward and looked down at her.

“If there were more women like you,” he said huskily, “there would be fewer men—like me, Miss Gladys.” Gladys smiled a little. It was difficult for her to be serious for long.

“Then,” she said, “it’s certainly a good thing that I’m unique.” . . .

“My dear child! you know perfectly well that this is the most unhealthy time to be out in. Go in at once and dress for dinner! Really, Jack, I should have thought you would have known better!”—Mary Huntly shook her head at him reproachfully. Gladys lifting her eyes up to Jack, with a mixture of amusement and regret, turned gracefully and passed into the house. Mary Huntly, for all her sage advice, stayed out in the fast deepening darkness.

They walked for a little in silence towards the gate. Mary turned over in her mind what she should say to him. It was hard—extremely hard—and, worse, it looked disagreeable. She was used to doing difficult things, but as a rule they had delightful effects. She very much doubted as a woman of the world whether what she had to say would have any effect, but as a woman a little beyond the world she knew she ought to say it.

“My dear boy!” she said as they reached the gate, “that girl doesn’t ring true.”

“What do you mean, Mrs. Huntly?” Jack asked sternly. “Are you talking of—Miss Gladys?” He made that fatal half instant’s pause before her name that marks a lover.

“You have made one mistake already in falling in love with a woman too good for you,” she answered quietly, “don’t make the worse one of falling in love with a woman—not good enough! Good-night! I think you had better not come in after dinner this evening.”

Jack would have stayed and insisted on further explanations, for he was perplexed and angry—there’s nothing that makes a straightforward man so angry as perplexity—but Jim Musgrave who was going to dine with them came up, and in a mixture of greetings and farewells he had to go, but as he went he said very distinctly:⁠—

“Mrs. Huntly, may I come in to-morrow?” Mrs. Huntly saw in a flash it had been no use.

“Oh, yes!” she said. “What a lot of moths you have in this climate of yours. Good-night!”

The gorgeous moon, the thin low whisper of the tropic night, the rustling, murmuring life, which rose from the earth to the low sky above, seemed something of a new birth to Jack as free from the fetters of an old love he paused on the brink of a new, and because it was new imagined there would be no fetters.

Gladys was the incarnation of sprightliness; her shimmering green dress made her look like some beautiful heartless naiad of the woods.

When dinner was over she sang softly to Jim, letting her eyes rest on him with a light caressing smile. Her own world had turned to paradise. She was playing with sunbeams on a golden earth. It was impossible for her to be anything but charming.

Mary was very tired. She sat and talked with her husband about the boy at Eton; for a while at least she washed her hands of Gladys.

Finally the music stopped. Gladys’ hands sunk into her lap, and Jim looking at her in an adoring simplicity set about for words which were not too common to present to his goddess.

“I say” (the invocation seemed a little modern) “that’s an awfully ripping dress you’ve got on to-night.”

“Do you like it, Jim?” It was impossible for her to help the emphasis. It had been said of her that if she were left alone in a desert she would flirt with a camel. Jim would have sold his soul for a compliment, but could only repeat:⁠—

“Awfully!”

“Are you fond of being a soldier, Jim?” she asked. She was wondering why Jack Hurstly did not come.

“I think it’s the grandest profession in the world!” he said proudly. “People don’t do us a bit of justice except when there’s a row on, and then they praise us for the wrong things. They don’t understand that a man must be a decent sort of chap to win the respect of his men; and there are fine chances, you know, that a fellow gets on the frontier to show what he is made of. To hush up a disturbance or keep a district quiet, are pretty good pieces of work. I hope you don’t think we’re all of us brutes or blackguards, Miss Gladys?”

“No, Jim—oh, no!” said Gladys softly. “I think you’re the finest men in the world, the most chivalrous to women, the strongest and the gentlest—truest friend and noblest foe!” Jim thought it was too beautiful for words, also that it was original; but it was not exactly what he meant, and it put an end to the discussion.

“How does Captain Hurstly get on with his men?” she asked. It was evident by her tone that she was not much interested in Captain Hurstly.

“Oh, well enough,” said Jim doubtfully. “Only you see he had rather a bad time with a girl at home, and that rather put him off his work, I think. He doesn’t seem as interested as he used to be.”

“I don’t believe he cared for her,” said Gladys shortly. If there is nothing else to do with a clumsy fact, one can ignore it.

“Oh, yes, he did awfully,” said the unconscious Jim. “I never saw a fellow so cut up before about a girl. She must have been a jolly decent-looking girl, too—I’ve seen her photograph.”

“Really you’re very rude—you contradicted me flatly,” cried Gladys.

“Oh, but he did, you know,” said the over-truthful James. “I didn’t think she was so awfully fetching, though,” he added hastily, with the bright hope that jealousy of him might have promoted the frown he saw. Gladys yawned.

“You’re very dull to-night,” she said, “doing nothing but talk of the uninteresting love affairs of your uninteresting friends!” Jim flushed angrily; he was conscious that he had not introduced the subject, but he was too loyal to say so.

“I’m very sorry, Miss Gladys,” he said; “there’s something I’d much rather talk about.”

“And that?” said Gladys, lifting unconscious eyelashes with innocent ease.

“I think you know,” he said with the dignified gravity of extreme youth over a compliment.

“If you mean me,” said Gladys smiling sweetly, “I think you’re very rude to call me a ‘thing,’ and it’s horrid bad form to talk about a girl, you know.” The rest of the evening passed in a pleasant, dangerous fashion.

At parting Jim wore the rose she herself had worn at dinner. It was the pledge of all dear, impossible things to him; it was the usual termination of an evening’s episode to her—a gardener would have accused it of blight.

Desperation, when it does not rave, becomes a calm; and it was with an almost listless quiet that Cynthia, sitting opposite her brother in his office, told him she was going away.

He nodded briefly, and went on writing prescriptions. He had not quite finished his evening’s work. The boy was to deliver them to his patients. The room was bare and light, with the usual rows of medical books, long suggestive chair, and the sturdy boy standing near a forbidding cupboard.

Cynthia’s eyes took in the surroundings as if they had been new to her.

She had argued bitterly with her brother over having no lamp-shades, and the naked bright skeleton roused in her now a sense of irritation. Would Geoff never be done, and why was he so little interested in her going away?

But he had always been a man of one idea, she thought, and what interest he had was buried in his prescriptions. Ten minutes later he sent off the boy with a curt order or two, then he turned and looked at his sister.

“Going away, are you?” he said. He might have been drawing out a shy child, or encouraging a nervous patient. Cynthia shrugged her shoulders.

“So I told you.”

“Have you thought why, or where, or when?”

“I am going to a place in Somerset on the red Bristol Channel, where they have mud, and sunsets, and one can be alone.”

“The desire for mud is very modern, and sunsets only happen once a day,” he replied thoughtfully. “And as for being alone, you couldn’t be in a better place than London, you know, for that. People can’t stand so much in the country. However, I daresay a rest would do you good. Mind you take some books—light ones; and be careful where you go for milk—it’s disgraceful how they adulterate it in out-of-way places.” He was giving her time, and observing with keen watching eyes the lines of trouble and pain marked in Cynthia’s face.

“Geoff!” she cried with a sudden wail in her voice, “I want you! I want you!” He knew that she did not mean him; but he took her in his arms and stroked her hair. Cynthia sobbed a little in a hard choked way; she could not let herself go completely even in a breakdown.

“Shall we go to Paris?” he asked gently. “I have always wanted to study under the professors there.” He looked around his meagre office-room peopled with his love, his work, his dreams, to stay there another year till success lay in his grasp, to win life for his cases, each one meaning to him what a battle means to a soldier; all that went to make interest, satisfaction, attainment, must go because a woman wanted—another man. He did not mince matters, he only repeated the magnificent lie that rang better than most truths, “I have always hoped for a chance like this!”

“But you couldn’t leave your practice?” she protested.

“I could get an assistant for a time to take my place. It’s only for six months or a year, isn’t it?”

“There’s Muriel—Geoff!” she reminded him.

“You told me to get the idea of her out of my head—perhaps six months or a year will do it,” said Dr. Grant. He was smiling grimly to himself as he spoke. When a man attempts endurance it makes for something very fine. When Cynthia looked at him she saw nothing but kind, half-amused and wholly sympathetic eyes.

“I think it’s splendid you’re so placid,” she said; “I don’t believe you feel things at all.”

“I feel very much being kept away from my supper after working hard all day!” he laughed mischievously.

“Oh, you poor, dear thing! I’ll see about it at once!” she cried running from the room.

The doctor flung open the window wide and stood watching the streaming crowd in the dusk. The lights seemed alive against the dark masses of houses—impenetrable, mysterious, holding life-histories—and showing nothing but blank strong faces to the passers-by.

The doctor believed in no God at all; but when he looked above the house-tops to the sky, peopled by myriad stars, he felt a moment’s emotion, a thrill of hope, courage and strength.

God believed in him perhaps, and because he would not draw near with faith led him by his most unreasonable passion—love of humanity—nearer than he knew to the divine in humanity.

Muriel read Cynthia’s letter wonderingly. It was short, and merely contained her reasons for leaving Muriel for six months at least. By the end of that time Leslie Damores would have given her up, and she would be more fit to take up her life again. Muriel was not to tell him that she was ever coming back; she was not to overdo herself or live alone, and above all she must not give him her address. Geoff was going with her. Muriel sighed and frowned; the sigh was one of loneliness. She had got so used to companionship—Cynthia’s, and generally her brother in the evening. It was something to have a man to discuss things with sensibly even if she never agreed with him. She frowned because it was a little strange he had not written to say good-bye.

He had got over caring for her that was evident. She was glad of that—of course she was extremely glad of it. Suddenly she felt tired and discouraged. The girls had been unresponsive and tiresome in the Bible-class. She loved Paris; she could see its clean, broad streets filled with brilliant, rapid life, bright and gay and fresh, alive with incessant laughter.

It was a damp, foggy evening and the fire smoked. They had such theaters in Paris, and then the studios! Muriel had studied there for six months in the pleasantest and easiest fashion. Sometimes the love of her old, careless radiant life, pleasure and beauty, and the ease of things made her catch her breath and remember she was twenty-seven, and her eyes were beautiful, and there was that couple downstairs drunk and quarrelling again! It was too late for tea, too early for supper, and if she lit the candle she would have to write letters.

The door-bell clanged, and she heard a man’s voice. For a moment she thought it was Dr. Grant coming to say good-bye. Her hands wandered instinctively to her hair. No!—he asked for Cynthia. He must see her—but she was out. “Then Miss Dallerton”—the girl “would see.” The blackbeetle’s heavy footsteps paused outside her door. Muriel lit the candles and poked the fire.

“Yes, I will see Mr. Damores,” she said smiling encouragingly at the girl.

She felt less depressed because she had already begun to sympathize, and yet she could not help feeling angry with Leslie Damores.

He stood before her, tall, handsome, eager; she sat down and waited for him to speak. One of the most extraordinary things about her was her willingness to wait for somebody else, even her silence was an invitation.

“Cynthia wouldn’t see me,” he began, almost boyishly. “Won’t you tell me why, and where she is, Miss Muriel?”

“She has gone away, Mr. Damores, and left us both. It’s a case of double desertion, isn’t it?” she laughed nervously, for the look in his eyes was too strongly anxious to make the interview a pleasant one.

“Has she left you a message for me?”

“She does not wish to see you again,” said Muriel gravely. He was quite silent, with his eyes bent on the carpet.

“Then—and you—do you approve of her decision?” he asked slowly, his voice so different from his first eager greeting. It was tired and a little thick. An idea flashed through Muriel’s mind; she leaned forward suddenly.

“Mr. Damores, do you care for her?” she asked. He squared his shoulders, and looked back at her steadily, but a little surprised.

“Really, Miss Muriel, I thought—I thought it was pretty obvious!” he replied.

“Then,” said Muriel, “I think very poorly of you for not wishing to marry her!”

“But, good Heavens! Miss Dallerton,” he cried, now really astonished, “I want nothing so much! I came here, if you must know, simply for that purpose! and I find her—gone—leaving no traces, and, if you will excuse my saying so, a great deal of confusion behind her!”

“I certainly do feel confusion, not to say chaos,” said Muriel smiling; “and the worst of it is I can’t possibly explain. However one thing’s evident, if you want her you must look for her, for I have no address beyond Paris. She hates writing letters, and it will probably be a month at least before she writes and gives it to me. Will you wait in London?” Leslie Damores smiled.

“I might find her in Paris, and I shall not find her here,” he said; “and when I do find her, I shall bring her back. Good-bye, Miss Dallerton; I’m glad I didn’t deserve your scolding this time, it looked as if it was going to be a pretty bad one. Oh, but I was a fool for not marrying Cynthia eight years ago!” Muriel held out both her hands to him, her eyes filled with tears.

“I am glad you are going to her,” she said. “I won’t wish you luck, because there is something so much better that you have got already; but I can’t help being a little sorry, for she will never come back to me again!”

“Are you all alone?” he asked.

“There’s my work,” she said; “and the blackbeetle, who is a great friend of mine, and looks after me very well.”

“Do you remember ‘The Lady of Shalott?’ ” he asked abruptly. “I always liked that last line of it, ‘God in His mercy lend her grace.’ Good-bye, Miss Dallerton.” He was gone, hopeful and strong once more, with the possibility of satisfaction within his grasp, and Muriel again alone.

“It was all very well for Launcelot to say that,” she thought, “but when she needed him most she had no loyal knight and true, the Lady of Shalott, and—and not even God’s grace would make her forget that!” And Muriel put her arms on the table and cried a little about Jack—at least she thought it was about Jack, but it was really that Cynthia’s hand was on what she herself had missed. The woman’s lips that bear no kiss of love seem formed in vain; even the angels must sigh for them—and not even the angels satisfy. Yet she had held it all once, and remorse and passion and pity mocked at her for having thrown life’s gift away.

When the blackbeetle, whose other name was Catherine Mary, appeared again it was to bring supper, and a message from a poor woman that “She was taken cruel bad, and would Miss Muriel come to her?” Muriel left her after a terrible four hours. The fight had given her strength, and the light in her eyes was wonderful. She had forgotten all about the Lady of Shalott.

“Really, Mary, it’s absurd to stay away from the picnic! And I simply can’t go if you won’t. That odious Mrs. Collins makes the most hateful chaperon, with her ‘Come here, my dear!’ just at the wrong moments. Won’t you come, Mary?” Gladys, in the most delicate of Dresden flowered silks, with a huge hat one mass of pale pink roses and black velvet, looked imploringly at her companion.

She was a girl it was impossible to describe without mentioning her clothes. One felt if she had worn a yachting suit with gilt buttons she would have looked pathetic. Mary Huntly took one of the little hands in hers.

“The truth is, dear—but don’t, please, tell Tom—I had a slight hæmorrhage this morning. Nothing much, it is true, but these tiresome lungs will bother me, and I know I ought to keep quiet to-day.”

“You never used to be so fussy about your health, Mary,” exclaimed the girl petulantly. There is nothing that so torments a brave woman as a gibe at nervousness. It was true that Mary had conquered her fear, but she knew it to be something that comes again, and would never while she lived cease to give up coming. She winced and let the girl’s hand drop; she had not voice enough to explain. The persistent cruel healthiness of the girl before her aroused in her a kind of defiance.

“Since you are so keen, dear, I will go,” she said, “but I hope they won’t expect me to talk!” She laughed huskily.

“Tom is out shooting, isn’t he?” she asked Gladys later as they walked towards the carriage which was to take them to their destination.

“How funny you are, Mary! You never used to be so interested in Tom’s movements,” laughed Gladys; “he won’t be back, I don’t suppose, till long after we are.” An hour later, by a half-ruined temple, under the shade of great enshrouding trees, Jack Hurstly sitting beside Gladys asked her a little sharply if her cousin wasn’t very seedy.

“Yes, poor dear!” said Gladys with the wistful, pathetic look that had helped to draw Mary to the picnic; “and she’s so dreadfully plucky and determined, I couldn’t persuade her to stay at home with me. I can’t tell you how anxious it makes me feel!”

Jack’s eyes grew tender over her. Hats of a certain shade cast sincerity in a becoming glow over an upturned face. He wanted to help her, protect her, comfort her! His vexation was transferred to Mary. It must be such a strain to go about with an obstinate, sick woman. Jim Musgrave sat by his aunt. All the rest had gone off somewhere—a general direction to which all picnics tend where there is no one to victimize the party with games. Gladys had promised to go and see an ancient well with Jim, and she had gone to see it—with Jack Hurstly; only Mrs. Collins and Jim sat with Mary. Suddenly she put her hand on his arm.

“Jim—take—me—home,” she cried. It was the end of the picnic.