SUDDENLY HER HEART GAVE A THROB.
She went slowly back, in a dazed condition, questioning whether it had been a trick of the imagination. She wished now that she had gone nearer, to make sure. Yet, no! For if Giles were there, and chose to avoid her presence, it was not for Phyllys to go after him.
To the Forsyths she said nothing of what she had seen or imagined.
On arrival they found that Mrs. Keith had retired to her room. "Madame" had been a long time away, the Swiss girl said, when questioned. She had twice been out in the morning, and had received two telegrams; and then she had said that she would get fresh air on the lake.
She had returned but lately—by the boat preceding that which had brought back Monsieur and Madame and Mademoiselle. Yes, surely, Madame had returned by that boat, for she would not all these hours have walked about Hilterfingen and Oberhofen, not once entering the châlet.
Mrs. Forsyth and Phyllys made their way to the bedroom, to find Mrs. Keith hard at work, packing. Her cheeks were flushed; her manner showed excitement.
"Yes, I went out," she said. "I thought it might do me good. My nerves seem all to pieces, and I could not keep still. So I took the boat to Interlaken and back—for the sake of the air. You there—too!" with a start. "Then you gave up S. Beatenberg. What a pity! No, I did not see you. I was—no time ashore. Just for a cup of tea."
"I think you would have been better quiet," remarked Mrs. Forsyth.
"Perhaps. It may have been a mistake. But something in Swiss air does not suit me. I seem to be a wreck of myself—" and she laughed nervously. "So I have decided to go home. To start to-morrow. Phyllys will not object—and you must not think me ungrateful. I have made up my mind."
Had she seen Giles? Phyllys all but asked the question; and then something in that unhappy face, with its haggard flush, held her silent. As once before, the wonder arose—"was" Mrs. Keith perfectly sane? Could it be that her brain was ever so slightly "touched"? Phyllys decided not to risk exciting her further.
CHAPTER XXVI
AN UNQUIET MIND
NO persuasions would induce Mrs. Keith to put off her departure more than one night. The Forsyths had a fight to gain that concession.
"But I must and will have a clear day for the Schynige Platte," Mrs. Forsyth declared to her husband. "Phyllys has been promised that excursion from the first."
She gained her point; though, probably, if Mrs. Keith had guessed what her consent would involve, it would not have been granted. When she was further enlightened, too late to draw back, she hotly combated the plan, then insisted on being one of the party.
Phyllys was allowed no voice. She still kept silence about her supposed glimpse of Giles; and Mrs. Keith talked confidently of finding him at Castle Hill. Phyllys had begun to distrust her own eyesight. If he were at Interlaken, he would surely have appeared. If, on the contrary, he were at Castle Hill, she could not regret going there—unless her appearance would be unwelcome; but as she recalled the past, she could not believe that. Her "friend" would not be untrue, though he might never be more than "friend." She was gaining hope.
A lurid sunset made them anxious about next day. Heavy clouds clothed the mountain tops; and the Niesen had donned a dark cap and short mantle. But the sun shone brightly over Thun, and shed crimson upon the lower slopes and lake. Strangers could not decipher what this meant.
Phyllys, an early riser, did not fail next morning. She sprang out of bed and went to the open window, with chestnut hair falling loose over her frilled nightdress.
It was a sight worth waking for—the pale lake lying in shadow, the pyramidal Niesen mass rising darkly beyond. Further shone the snow-peaks of the Blumlisalp and tips of the Jungfrau range with a silver glow from the coming sun. The tint could hardly be otherwise described. It was not rose or gold, nor was it ordinary "cold" silver, but a pale rose-silver, if such a colour exists. She watched breathlessly, kneeling, lost in admiration; unknowing whether the sight appealed more to her artistic or her spiritual self. It made her think of Colin and his ideals. It made her think of Giles. It lifted her heart to the Divine Source of all earthly and heavenly beauty. She whispered her prayers softly, looking with bodily and mental eyes on that indescribable light, while her spiritual eyes were uplifted to her Father in heaven.
Then the ascending monarch of day crushed out the delicate tinting, and flooded heights and vales with gold.
By half-past six Phyllys was down to breakfast, as was Mr. Forsyth, but the elder ladies were later. Had they not arranged to drive to the boat-station, they would have failed to catch the steamer.
A sharp air assailed them on the lake, and Mrs. Keith looked blue, by no means in condition for exertion. She held to her point, however, and refused to turn back.
Phyllys could have been in dancing spirits. The beauty of lake and mountain, the charms of the coming ascent, the prospect of Castle Hill, the hopes that her fears would prove groundless and that Giles would be in the future all he had been in the past—these buoyed her up; and the one wet blanket was Mrs. Keith's unhappiness. As they neared Interlaken, she did indeed force a cheerful manner; but when they landed her eyes were everywhere, nervously on the look-out. Phyllys could not but notice this, could not but conjecture explanations.
From Interlaken they went by train to a station at the base of the mountain, where they entered the tiny mountain-train.
Mrs. Keith would not be hurried, and they nearly lost their first chance. Though late in the season, enough tourists appeared to fill the train—but they managed to pack in; Mrs. Keith close to a window; Phyllys beside her; the Forsyths in front, whence they could lean back to talk. As the gradient became more steep, the engine puffed vigorously.
"Schynige Platte—not far from seven thousand feet high," announced Mr. Forsyth, dividing his attention between his Guide-book and Phyllys. "Subtract from that the eighteen hundred feet altitude of the lake—leaves a respectable amount still to climb! Engine worked with a cog-wheel—very safe—all precautions taken. Ascent lasts about an hour and a half—or less. I beg your pardon—" at a gasp from Mrs. Keith.
"I thought it lasted twenty minutes!"—in dismay.
"Dear me, no. You are thinking of S. Beatenberg. This is a longer affair."
"It won't seem any time at all—there is so much to see," murmured Phyllys.
As they rose, the landscape widened by leaps and bounds. From one side, then from the other, they gazed over a growing expanse. The Lake of Thun lay far beneath. The Lake of Brienz had shrunk to a puddle of greenish water. There was an overmastering sense of loftiness, as they looked into sheer depths, across valleys, over precipitous walls of rock falling from the very verge of the line on which they travelled. Moat of the travellers took the journey composedly. It was the correct thing to do; everybody did it; and nobody expected to be the worse. To Phyllys the outlook was too wonderful to whisper of fear. But she became aware that the lady on her other side was growing nervous, and that Mrs. Keith trembled like a leaf.
Three or four tunnels had to be gone through, and the breaking out from each into a broader world was grand. Ascent by rail has an unromantic sound; yet no man, climbing slowly on foot or on mule-back, gains these marvellous upward leaps.
The nervous lady fidgeted anew. "Well, one comfort is," she remarked, "if anything 'did' go wrong, it wouldn't be a case of getting mangled only. It would be—the end!"
"My dear, don't talk nonsense. Nothing is going wrong," a man's voice made reply.
Mrs. Keith clutched the window, and Phyllys slipped a hand through her arm. "It's all right," the girl said cheerily. "Nothing to be afraid of. These trains go all through the summer."
She met the haggard eyes, with a look in them which she would not easily forget. A look of shrinking dread.
"But—if it 'did'—" she heard.
They stopped at a small station, and Mrs. Keith started up. Phyllys caught her hand.
"This isn't the top yet."
"Sit down, Mrs. Keith. A little longer. We are two-thirds up," added Mrs. Forsyth.
But she dragged her hand from Phyllys, and pushed her way out. "I must—I can't stand this any longer," she panted. "It—terrifies me! I can't stand it!"
Remonstrances were useless. She stood on the platform, her face a mottled pallor.
"I can't—I tell you, I can't—I won't!" she declared. "I haven't the nerve for it. No use asking me. I'll never again get into a funicular train after to-day. You are all to go on without me, and you can take me up as you come back. I shall be all right till then. No, I won't have any of you. I won't allow it."
So imperious was her manner, that resistance was impossible. Mr. Forsyth had sprung out, but she almost pushed him back, with insistence, in the face of his polite desire to stay. He had to yield, and she was left standing on the platform.
Since she refused their help, all they could do was to put aside the thought of her, and to enjoy the views. Another tunnel was gone through; and as they emerged, the Jungfrau burst upon them in dazzling radiance.
The last station was reached, and a walk of twenty minutes took them to the top. A party of loud-voiced Germans, who had kept up a rattle during the ascent, now did their best to mar the solemn grandeur of Nature. Phyllys and the Forsyths moved to a distance, where they might study the scene in quiet.
Far below, branching different ways, lay the Lauterbrunen and the Grundelwald Valleys; and in front, from right to left, swept a range of snowy heights and towering peaks, including the three giants daily scanned from Châlet S. Jacques—the Jungfrau, the Mönch, the Eiger—a lordly trio. These and other mountains of the Bernese Oberland seemed to have placed themselves in a stately order, on view. It was a perfect day; some clouds floating, but all the greater heights sharp in definition. Through a binocular Phyllys could see the very crevasses in the Grundelwald glacier, the châlets dotting the Grundelwald valley.
When the time came to return, they kept a look-out for Mrs. Keith at the station; but she was not visible. Mr. Forsyth left the train to inquire.
"She has set off to walk down," he said on return, with a lined forehead. "Very unwise! Of course she's not equal to it. Over four miles! I must go after her. She might have a fainting-fit."
No time to discuss the question, for the train was starting. Mrs. Forsyth could not resist a murmur of—"Really too bad!"
The small engine, which had puffed and snorted on its upward way, kept silence in descent. Down and down they slipped—winding to and fro from edge to edge; the mountains gaining in height as they slid into valleys between; the distant views contracting, the horizon narrowing.
Nothing below was seen or heard of Mrs. Keith or Mr. Forsyth; and Mrs. Forsyth decided on going at once to Interlaken, there to await their appearance. It was surely impossible that Mrs. Keith could yet have walked the whole way.
The wait was a long one. Mrs. Forsyth and Phyllys had tea, then hovered about the boat-station, till patience was exhausted. When the absent pair drove up, Mrs. Keith, drooping and feeble, seemed not to realise the trouble she had given. Mr. Forsyth had overtaken her not far from the foot of the mountain, and she had been so ill as to make a halt needful. She was barely able now to drag one foot after the other. They helped her on board—Mr. Forsyth moving away for a talk with his wife.
"Not at all grateful for my going after her, I assure you," he murmured. "You'd have been astonished if you had seen the pace at which she was going—before she saw me. After that, all weakness and faintness. My dear, your friend is rather—eccentric, to say the least! However, not a word of this. She is bent on starting for home to-morrow."
Phyllys had taken a seat close to Mrs. Keith, and the latter said, "You are a kind girl!"
"I am sorry you are feeling so ill. Would it not be better to put off our journey home?"
"No, certainly not. Everything is arranged. I cannot wait a day longer. My nerves seem all to rags!"—and she tried to laugh.
The laugh turned into a shudder. "Was that thunder? I have a horror of a storm in a boat—all the iron about!"
Phyllys had hoped that she would not notice. A change had developed after the brilliant day; and lurid cloud-masses covered the summits, broken by yellow streaks.
"I don't like that. How long shall we be? An hour? More than an hour! Ask somebody if the storm will hold off so long. Find out—pray!"
Phyllys went obediently, though aware that "somebody" was not likely to have positive information. She came back to her seat, remarking, "I dare say it won't be much."
"What does Mr. Forsyth think?"
"He says it looks rather threatening."
They ploughed their way, zigzagging from side to side of the lake; and the cloud-capped heights grew more densely black. Another rumble sounded, winning a shiver from Mrs. Keith.
"If it gets worse, I shall land. I won't be stopped."
But for a while the storm held off; and when it broke, she seemed paralysed.
The Niesen, always a prominent object, showed now no pyramidal form. From summit to base it was one mass of black vapours. From within that darkness rolled heavy reverberating peals, each louder and longer than the last, issuing with solemn echoes from the shrouding canopy. Thus far no lightning had been seen. The battle of forces was carried on behind a curtain.
Then a dazzling double-forked arrow leaped forth, with a crashing roar, which drowned Mrs. Keith's scream. She clutched at Phyllys' wrist, holding it with a force which gave pain. Mr. Forsyth came to ask if she would go into the cabin, but she shook her head, moaning.
"No, no! The boat may go down. We may all go down."
Another resplendent flash, lighting up the scene with rose-colour; and another burst of heaven's artillery. Mrs. Keith hid her face, while Phyllys watched, fascinated. The black-clothed pyramid, the issuing sword-flashes, the rolling peals, had an impressive solemnity, which brought to mind the giving of the law from Mount Sinai in days of old.
At a pause in the lengthened reverberations, she heard, "If only one could—!"
Phyllys slipped an arm round her companion.
"If one could live the past over again!"
Should she say anything? But—what to say?
"Phyllys,—if death came, would God have mercy? If one had not meant—"
"Had not meant to do wrong?"
"Yes. That is—had not intended. Circumstances sometimes—"
"But circumstances never can 'make' one do wrong," the girl said staunchly.
"In the past. I mean, in the past. One can't help the past."
"One may confess and try to make amends."
"Too long ago."
"I don't think it can be too long." Phyllys thought of Zacchaeus coming to the Divine Giver of pardon, with "fourfold restitution" on his lips.
Another dazzling sword of light; another echoing crash; and the reverberations rolled from mountain to mountain.
Mrs. Keith stooped forward, shaken by a sob.
"But if one cannot—cannot—confess—will He have mercy?"
"He knows if you really cannot. If it is for the sake of others—not your own sake—that you don't speak." Afterwards she wondered what made her say this. "I think one should always tell—if not publicly, at least to some one. And then one might be helped."
No reply came. Mrs. Keith remained in the same position till they reached their station. By that time the storm was lessening, and she walked from the boat with little help, her face averted from Phyllys. The girl wondered—had she given offence?
On reaching the châlet, a fresh effort was made to induce Mrs. Keith to put off her journey, but she was obdurate. She meant to go; she would go. She was fit only for home.
Then, in her own room,—"Did I talk nonsense in the boat, Phyllys? Lightning affects my head so strangely. I never know what I am saying while a storm lasts."
Phyllys looked at her with serious eyes. "I don't know," she said. "It didn't sound at the time like nonsense."
"I've no doubt it was, if it makes you so terrifically grave. Well, thank goodness, this is nearly the end. I shall never attempt another funicular railway, and I have had enough of Switzerland. Now you must go to bed. Most of your packing is done, I suppose. You said you would see to it yesterday evening. That is right. I long to be safe at my beloved Castle Hill."
And the next day they started.
CHAPTER XXVII
RENEWED FIGHTING
"IN the lives of most men there has been a week, at the memory of which ever afterwards a dark cloud comes down, and makes a possibly sunny world momentarily a place of gloom." So says that forceful writer, "Linesman."
Such a week had Giles known earlier; a week, followed by months of pain, but in itself sufficient when recalled to bring a cloud, making his "possibly sunny world a place of gloom." The sorest loss, the most passionate remorse, though they may promise to shadow life's future, do from the nature of things, in the course of time, sink into the background, and fail to quench all hope; forming indeed a burden, yet one to which the shoulders have grown used. But in the background the burden still is, at seasons making itself felt.
That week, the recollection of which could never grow dim, the results of which could never cease to be, belonged to boyhood.
Since then, recently, he had lived through another stringent week—in which he had awakened to his love for Phyllys, and to the fact that she was beloved by Colin. Which last discovery involved two other discoveries; first, that it was his duty to yield her up; and secondly, that he had not power to do so. In the strife, his sense of duty succumbed before the vehemence of his love.
But to be beaten is not always to be conquered. Nay, to be twice-beaten, thrice-beaten, may still lead to victory. With human beings generally, a defeat weakens the moral fibre, lessens the power to resist. Yet there does exist a stamp of soldier, notably in the British Army, with whom defeat seems to stiffen the moral fibre, to strengthen the will, so as to render more resistless his next onset.
Something of his struggle might have been visible to watching angels, themselves unseen of men, as Giles went to and fro those autumn days. He said nothing to anybody. It was not his way to talk about himself, to appeal for sympathy. He fought his bitter fight alone.
Not Colin, with his keen vision, not Mrs. Keith, with all her eagerness, could penetrate the surface, could lift the covering and gaze below. Colin might have begun to suspect, but that now he was much away. Though one outburst of wrath had suggested a good deal, passion thereafter had been held down, and even Colin was deceived by Giles' calm. He spent time as usual over the management of his property, rode and cycled, saw friends, was the busy country gentleman,—too composed, too solid and occupied, for those around to imagine that within was a long-continued conflict.
He had been worsted. He had retreated before the foe. Then, at a critical moment, Phyllys had been snatched away. He had time to recollect himself, time to be confronted afresh by his resolution. He took it up again, clenched his teeth, and—in Phyllys' absence—resolved anew.
This was not impossible, when her presence no longer enchained him, when Colin seemed languid, and Giles could conjecture why.
The thought of giving up Phyllys to another, though that other was Colin, shook him to the core; and it was a relief when Colin started for Edinburgh. Giles could get on better alone, thinking always of Phyllys, yet struggling not to think of her, striving to make up his mind that Colin should have the first chance.
A fresh shock came, in the shape of a letter from the latter, gay in tone, announcing that he had been at Midfell for a week, and had all but finished the bust of Phyllys.
"Not bad either, though I shouldn't be the one to say so!" he added.
He did not write like a lover; but of course he would not. His presence in Midfell spoke plainly enough.
Wrath again had Giles in its grip. To determine that Colin should be allowed a chance was one thing; to see Colin taking that chance, without a "with or by your leave," was another. He could face no human being that morning. He went off on his favourite horse for hours of misery; galloping across fields; refusing to think; conscious that he was once more overcome; yet aware that fresh power would dawn when he had rallied from the blow. He returned to dinner, a sombre meal, for Mrs. Keith was away; and so much the better. Her questions would have made the one straw too much.
At night he went out again, and paced the lanes till early morning, getting home in time for an hour in bed, whereby he avoided comment.
By post arrived a letter from Mrs. Keith, telling of her visit to Midfell, of her plan to take Phyllys abroad.
"I have a delightful suggestion to make," she wrote. "You must join us on Lake Thun. The Forsyths send you an invitation. Write and say how soon you can be there."
He understood, for he knew her wish, a wish which too well chimed in with his own desires. By this time he craved for Phyllys with a consuming passion. And Mrs. Keith, for reasons of her own, was bent on the same end. She cleared the path for him, and he had but to walk in it.
But, Colin! His past resolve!
He fought the battle again. He wrote to say that he would go, and he burnt the letter. Next day was a repetition. Another letter of acceptance was written, and destroyed. Then he achieved a third, declining the invitation. He sent this off, and felt that life held no more of joy.
Mrs. Keith cannonaded him with remonstrances, and he held to his point. He was too busy; a lame excuse; and he knew what Phyllys would think. Too busy! He spent hours, his head on his hands, thinking only of her.
Days passed thus, and a telegram arrived from Mrs. Keith, dated at Dover, saying: "Not well, will get home this afternoon, train arriving 5.5."
"In England!" Then Phyllys had gone to Midfell. Some complication must have arisen. The plea "Not well" made small impression. He was too much accustomed to hearing it. Mrs. Keith was not strong; but also she never hesitated to be "not well" for a purpose. She would look ill, no doubt, since she was a born actress.
Had she and Phyllys quarrelled? Impossible. A thrill tingled through his powerful frame. Was it possible that Phyllys might come too! He negatived this idea; nevertheless, he told the housekeeper to have the best spare room ready, just in case—But of course she had gone north.
When the hour came he was on the platform; and as the train drew up—as he glanced along the carriages—that tingling recurred.
For Phyllys was there.
CHAPTER XXVIII
NEW DEVELOPMENTS
WAS this to mean fresh defeat? With victory in view, was he to be hurled back?
Phyllys to stay a fortnight at Castle Hill! He to be, day after day, within sight, hearing, touch, yet debarred from winning her! Debarred by his own resolve in the past; by his fresh resolve in the present! If Colin failed, then would come his chance. But Colin would not fail. And meanwhile, a fortnight of this agony! To make matters worse, he read in Phyllys' face joy at their meeting. Despite Colin's absence, she was glad to be here.
Not glad only, but sweet to a degree which even he had not known in her before. She had developed of late. He saw this, as the old Vicar had seen it, though from a different point of view. He was conscious of something new in her; something which had not been there. He was also dimly aware of power; recognising as once earlier that he might do what he would with her, Colin being out of reach.
Giles was a strong man, a man of iron will, yet it might be questioned whether his strength would be equal to this strain. There are forces before which iron bends and snaps like tin. In her beloved presence he was weak, and he knew it. But in that very knowledge lay safety. Because he felt his own strength inadequate, he laid hold upon Divine strength.
These weeks of lonely battling had told upon even his powerful frame. Phyllys noted something unusual; a weight, a haggard look, recalling the imaginary Interlaken glimpse. Singular that he should then have appeared to her vision as she now found him, altered and aged. Though not indeed grey-haired, he was plainly in trouble. She had debated with herself whether to tell him of that fancy, and the first evening she said nothing.
She was up betimes next morning, and indulged in a ramble before breakfast. Coming back, she met him in a side-path.
"This is too soon after your journey," he said. He had no choice but to turn and walk by her side.
"I'm as fresh as possible. I don't think you are well."
"Quite, thanks."
"I fancied something might be worrying you, like Mrs. Keith. She so often seems worried. It's her way, is it not? But not your way!"
"Perhaps not."
"Was it not strange?—one day at Interlaken I thought I saw you. I could have declared it to be you! And you seemed bothered then too. You've not been in Switzerland, have you?—not even for one day!"
She put the question laughingly.
And he said—"No."
"It was droll; for we had found a letter for Mrs. Keith, lying at a little Thun hotel, in your handwriting. Not really, of course, but I felt sure it was yours, and it had been posted at Interlaken. And then—that I should seem to see you yourself there too—it was queer, as if chance likenesses were in the air."
Giles hardly followed her words. He was thinking of herself more than of what she said. She ventured another question:—
"I suppose Mrs. Keith has not some great sorrow; something that would make her unhappy?"
He showed surprise.
"She gets so easily upset, and sometimes it is as if she expected things to go awfully wrong. But you would know. I don't want to interfere, only I have been so sorry for her."
"She is excitable by nature. Nerves," explained Giles. "Nothing to be anxious about. She could hardly have any serious trouble, unknown to me. There is—" and he hesitated—"a tendency to exaggeration—to exaggerated views. One must allow for that. I am sure she is not aware of it herself."
He changed the subject abruptly.
"Colin was with you at Midfell?"
"Yes, he wanted to finish the bust. It is said to be a success. He ought to become a famous sculptor some day."
"No question as to his having the gift. The doubt is, whether he has health to use it."
"Midfell suited him. He was well all the time."
"Because he was happy." Giles' glance added, "Because with 'you!'"
Phyllys kept silence, and in suppressed tones the other continued—
"He may have a career before him. He ought to have. But much depends on whether he marries the right wife. Sympathy in his work would mean to him—everything."
Did Giles wish her to marry Colin? Phyllys held herself in, and spoke with indifference.
"Do you think Colin likely to marry? I don't. Sculpture will always be first with him; and a wife shouldn't come second."
"Ah, you know only one side of him yet."
"I've seen pretty much!" she murmured.
But Giles paid no attention. He had made up his mind that something had to be said, and he went on in the same monotonous undertone—
"If he should wish to marry, there would be no difficulty as to means. He and Mrs. Keith talk as if he were a poor man, dependent on Art. It is not so, really. What belongs to me belongs to him. What is mine is his. I had a feeling that I should like to say this to you."
She made no remark, and he went on patiently, trying to explain—
"It is not merely that we were brought up together—that we have been brothers. It is more. Years ago I made up my mind that, whatever he should wish, if it were in my power to give, he should have it—even though it might cost me—might cost me—"
The hesitation, the suppressed suffering, told more than he knew, let slip what he meant to hide.
She kept her face turned away, and said gently—
"Yes, I see. I think it is quite beautiful of you."
"Not beautiful at all. You mistake my meaning. It is a matter of simple duty."
"For you—perhaps," she murmured. "But Colin would be wrong to let you."
"If you knew everything, you would not say so. I owe him all—more than I can ever pay."
They were nearing the house, and only a few seconds remained. Phyllys' heart beat fast; for now she saw, now she knew, that Giles loved her. But with the knowledge came a woman-like instinct to hold back, a rush of shy reserve. She would not too quickly betray herself. She wanted him to know that he was mistaken—that Colin never could, never would, be anything to her. But how could she say it? He saw only a lowered hat-brim.
"It's breakfast-time," she murmured, as they reached the door.
The hat-brim was slightly lifted, and he caught one tiny flash of blue from between curling lashes.
It meant—what did it mean? Giles stood motionless, white as chalk. A rush of new hope almost unmanned him.
"Phyllys—" his voice broke as on the day he had rescued her from the bog, and when he tried to say more, he could not.
She forgot herself, and looked wonderingly up, full at him.
Then he too saw, he too knew—and the strong man visibly shook.
The wonder in her eyes gave place to a tender concern.
"You will not—misunderstand," he faltered. "I had thought—if it were for Colin's happiness—"
She unconsciously shook her head.
"'He' has never given me to understand—but if it were so—A fancy of mine, no doubt." Giles was trying to shield Colin, while yet making sure. "It might have been right to give him the first chance—to—leave home myself—"
"Please 'don't!'" she whispered, and ran indoors.
Giles did not follow. He had to meet joy as he had met pain—alone.
CHAPTER XXIX
THE LOST HEIRLOOM
IN the gallery stood Phyllys, gazing at a vacant space once occupied by an ancestral portrait. She knew the spot, though during a former visit her attention had not been drawn to it. Colin, under pressure of modelling, had failed to take her round. Then had come her summons home, with the discovery that the picture had vanished.
She hardly wondered that the loss had not been more quickly found out. The oak-panelled wall was so dark, the pictures around so resembled it in tint, the corner itself was so much in shade,—that the disappearance might easily go unnoticed. As she thus cogitated, a step made her turn.
"Fine afternoon," remarked Mr. Dugdale. "Kathleen wants you for a drive. She will call at half-past three."
He was cool, neat, precise as always, but in his face was a glimmer of something not often visible. He liked Phyllys as he liked few; partly for her own sake, partly for her father's.
"Swiss trip cut short in a hurry," was his next remark. "How came that about?"
"Mrs. Keith did not care to stay longer."
"So I hear. Can't discover any reason."
"I don't know why it was. She seemed upset—and one day she had a fainting-fit."
"Real?"—with a glance.
"Yes, quite real."
"She's given to nervous attacks," as if in apology.
Phyllys looked towards the corner. "That picture has never been found!"
"No. Extraordinary!" and he knitted his brows.
"But if the thief took it—"
Mr. Dugdale raised his eyebrows.
"Humbug!"
"You don't think it was a thief?"
He glanced round to see that they were alone, and lowered his voice. "That's all humbug. No more a thief than I am. I'd wager a hundred pounds it is Mrs. Keith's own doing. Don't repeat what I say. There 'd be no end of a rumpus."
Phyllys was startled, despite her own suspicions. "But why? What could make her?"
"Mrs. Keith has done many things for which reasons are hard to find. Odd woman—always was! Never could conceive what made Giles' father give him into her charge. Must have been demented."
"'She' must?" inquiringly.
He gave a short laugh. "I meant Giles' father. But she—well, you are not far out there."
"She has been a good mother to Giles."
"Taken care of his health. As for the lads' moral training, it's a marvel to me how they have turned out so well. Precept enough! But as for example!"
"What was the picture like?" asked Phyllys. She had often wished for an opportunity to ask this.
"Young fellow, in the dress of two hundred years ago. Pleasant face—blue eyes—look of Colin. That is why she has hidden it—if she has, which I, for one, don't doubt. Can't say this to Colin or Giles. I'm telling you in confidence." There was in Mr. Dugdale a feminine element, apparent at this moment.
Phyllys assented. He seemed to be describing the hidden oil-painting—the likeness of Mrs. Keith's brother.
"Why should she mind its being like Colin?"
"No accounting for feminine vagaries. But in this case a clue does exist. She has always set herself against Colin's modelling—no reason!—it's like the schoolboys and Dr. Fell. Since things are so, she detests being told that Colin is like the young fellow in the portrait, simply because 'he' was a sculptor—and a successful one in his day, though not of lasting fame. Which accounts for the resemblance—not so much feature as expression."
"The spirit of sculpture in both," suggested Phyllys.
"That may be! However, years ago she made up her mind that Colin should not model; and, having made up her mind, she sticks to it like a leech. Therefore, anything that encourages him in his love of sculpture she hates like poison. Consequently, when she detected a growing likeness, she banished the portrait from the drawing-room. Then, finding attention drawn to the resemblance, she made away with it. Bless you—no!—even she wouldn't venture to destroy it. But I haven't a doubt—not a doubt!—she's got it somewhere under lock and key. And what is more, I'm certain Giles suspects the same—which is why he refuses to have the police."
"Doesn't he want it found?"
"He doesn't want his private affairs to be the talk of the county. Mind, he says nothing. All this is conjecture. I'm telling you because—" and a pause—"I think you ought to know; and you might have influence with Mrs. Keith." His look said, "You know something already."
Phyllys admired his astuteness, but felt herself powerless. "It seems such an extraordinary thing," she said. "A picture belonging to somebody else."
Mr. Dugdale tapped his forehead with a forefinger.
"Is she—really?"
"That is my theory again. Nothing else explains."
"Explains—?"
"The muddle she makes of life. The way in which she snubs her own son, and fawns on Giles. The fact that not a word she says can be relied on. There's a moral twist in her. She will contradict herself a dozen times a day, if it suits her purpose. All the same, she knows what she is about. She's the oddest mixture I ever came across of cleverness and—really one might almost call it semi-insanity. Only there is method in the madness."
"What sort of man is her brother?"
"Jock Reeves? Never saw him. Rather a scamp, I imagine, in his youth—banished to Australia—family pleased to get him out of the way. So Mrs. Keith says. 'Dear Jock' she calls him. Never seems to write to 'dear Jock,' or to hear from him; and not the smallest anxiety to get him home."
"Have you seen a likeness of him?" Phyllys was picturing still the hidden portrait, declared by Mrs. Keith to represent her brother in theatricals.
"Good while ago. Big-made, substantial fellow, rather jolly-looking—not Mrs. Keith's style."
Giles approached in time for the last words, and Phyllys said, "We are talking about Mrs. Keith's brother. Did you ever see him?"
"Just before he went out. I remember a big man, as Mr. Dugdale says, with a hearty laugh. Very jolly, and good to us little fellows."
"Not at all Colin's style!" thought Phyllys.
She pondered much that afternoon and evening on the enigmatical ways of Mrs. Keith.
That the hidden portrait was the lost heirloom it was impossible longer to doubt,—that it was "not," as professed by Mrs. Keith, the likeness of her only brother, but of a young sculptor, ancestor to Giles, who had lived two centuries earlier, and whose gift, resembling that of Colin, had apparently developed in him something of the same type of features and expression. Mrs. Keith's extreme dislike to the resemblance arose, doubtless, from her aversion to sculpture as a pursuit for her son. An illogical aversion, yet very real. Unreasonableness seemed in her to be a leading characteristic; perhaps connected with that touch of brain-weakness which Phyllys had begun to suspect, and of which Mr. Dugdale spoke frankly.
"A kind of brain-oddity!" decided Phyllys. "But what shoals of lies she has told!"
Then a rebound. In past days Phyllys had been weary of the little Midfell home. She had found Barbara unendurable, had craved escape from Mrs. Wyverne's narrow judgments. Now, in fuller understanding of Mrs. Keith, her mind leaped back to the grandmother, with a sense of repose in that strong solid goodness, in the certainty that she need never fear there to find aught of exaggeration, double meaning, falsity. She recalled, with loving respect, Mrs. Wyverne's sturdy truth and religious devotion—a devotion lived out in daily life, marred by no such terrible inconsistencies. Mrs. Keith made a show of religion, but did not live up to it.
At this juncture, the girl could almost have exclaimed, "Let me go back to the old life, with its limitations, and its reality!"
But other elements existed. She could never again live the old life as in the past. In many ways she had expanded beyond it. She might meet its limitations more patiently, because able to value more truly what it held of real worth; yet those limitations, the spirit of narrowness, the contracted outlook, would try her more severely than of old.
And—there was Giles! She could not put Giles aside.
Needless that she should, she told herself, smiling. Giles had his faults, but he was true! There was in his character a rock-like stability, good to lean upon. She recalled the grasp of his hand, as he drew her from the bog, and she recognised that grip to be symbolical of the strong upholding which might, perhaps, be hers for life should she one day give herself to him.
Midfell village with all its simplicity, the kind old grandmother with all her honesty and goodness, could not satisfy her deeper needs. Giles only was able, she whispered to herself.
And she hardly yet realised, though in a manner she had begun to know, that the deepest needs of her nature not even Giles could satisfy.
When she went to bed she considered all this over again, arriving at the same conclusions with respect to Giles; and dismissing Mrs. Keith as hopelessly eccentric. It was useless to try to understand her. What a mercy Colin had not grown-up like his mother!
She was dropping asleep, letting entanglements glide away. Giles' face came up, and she smiled. Then she forgot herself, and came to, and floated off again, when, like a flash of lightning, an extraordinary conjecture seized her.
It was a conjecture so vivid, so startling, so far-reaching, that in a moment she was wide awake, sitting up in bed.
"Nonsense! Nonsense!" she said aloud.
But the possibility grew. It laid hold upon her imagination. Looking back, she saw scene after scene, heard utterance after utterance, more or less perplexing at the time—all now met, unravelled, explained, by this scathing suggestion—all lending support to it!
"No, no, 'no!'" she said. "I'll never let myself think such a thing again! It's out of the question."
The resolve was powerless. She could not stop thinking. Again and again that dread possibility leapt up, and "would" be faced, "would" assert itself. It cast a lurid light on past, present, future! It made perplexities clear. It set her head whirling.
It could not be. It was too madly impossible. She said these words over and over, but they had no force. She could not divest herself of a growing belief that things were so. And yet, to imagine that she alone should see, that everybody else had been blind! Preposterous!
She tried to laugh. "It's a nightmare! I'll go to sleep and forget!"
But sleep had fled.
CHAPTER XXX
MRS. KEITH AND HER CORRESPONDENT
TWO or three evenings later Mrs. Keith stood at her open bedroom window. Giles, before her return, had invited to dinner the Vicar and Dr. Wallace. She always set herself against attentions being paid to the doctor; but once in a while Giles put his foot down. He had done so now, and she had to give in. Mr. Dugdale also was coming.
She was in one of her restless moods; frequent moods of late. She had dressed early and dismissed her maid, planning a time alone. When successful, she wished she had failed.
Solitude was abhorrent to her; yet she did not go down. Difficulties had to be faced. At any moment they might assume an acute form, and it was needful to consider how she should meet the danger. She lived on the edge of a volcano.
After years of immunity from fear, of running away from conscience, of shutting her eyes to realities, she found herself in a net of her own weaving. Less and less, as weeks went by, could she see her way out. Knot after knot was being tied, so it seemed to her, by a relentless hand. More truly, she had herself fastened those knots in the past; and the net had ever since imprisoned her, though so loosely that she could ignore its existence. Now that unseen hand was tightening it.
She could not escape. No loophole presented itself. One mode she did know—the mode of the "Gordian knot." But from that she shrank with loathing.
"I would sooner die!" she said, setting her teeth; and she failed to see, as in Switzerland she had seen, what such a death must mean. She clenched her hand. "He must not come! He shall not come!"
A letter had arrived that afternoon, not in the ordinary way, but forwarded under cover from her London bankers, being marked "Immediate." It was written by one whom she ought to have welcomed to Castle Hill; whom, for no fault of his own, she was determined to keep away. The writer, in a tone of grave remonstrance, argued against this resolve, trying to make it clear that she wronged herself and him.
"He shall 'not' come!" she repeated aloud, with energy.
She turned from the window, through which blew a cold breeze. There were lights on the table; and she drew from her pocket two envelopes. With impatient fingers she took out a sheet, found it to be the one she did not want, and drew forth the other, which she read, not for the second or third time.
"He ought to be sure that I would not act so without reason. He ought to understand. My motives are no concern of his! I told him it had to be; and that should be enough. After all these years, what can it signify? At any cost, stay away he 'must!'"
Standing before the mirror, in her brocaded silk, she knew what his arrival on the scene would mean. She saw him come in; pictured the faces around; heard the inevitable exclamations; realised to the tips of her fingers what would be felt, thought, uttered; and with that vision sick terror seized her. She leant against the table, on the verge of fainting.
"I could not bear it! I would rather die. The very idea is maddening. 'Right.' But right or wrong I could not! There are things too impossible. And after all—that 'one' false step should bring me to this! One step, which seemed at the time nothing! To have one's life ruined! It would be cruel."
She put up both hands to her throat, where a lump seemed to rise. If she sometimes pretended to be ill, she also suffered much from overwrought nerves. Crimson flushed her face, fading into pallor, and noises sang in her ears.
"Am I going off again?" she muttered. She had presence of mind to take the letter, which had fallen from her shaking hand, and to thrust it into her pocket. The second letter she put mechanically into its envelope, then it dropped from her grasp, and she staggered to the armchair, lying back with shut eyes.
A slight tap made her reply, "Come in."
And Phyllys appeared in a new frock of pale blue, a present from Mrs. Keith. There was a touch of constraint in her manner, though she tried to be as usual. She would not accept, but could not forget, that strange midnight suggestion.
"I want you to see how nice my dress looks," she said. "But you are ill."
"A touch of faintness. Not much. Some eau-de-cologne, please."
Phyllys went to the dressing-table, beside which lay on the floor an envelope. She picked it up and laid it on the table, with the addressed side uppermost: "Colin Keith, Esquire." Evidently meant to go by the evening post. Then she poured the liquid on Mrs. Keith's palm, and dabbed it behind her ears.
"You must keep quiet," she said. "It is early still. Nobody will come for twenty minutes." But contradicting herself—"Why, there is a carriage already."
She went to the window.
"Not a carriage, but a railway fly."
Mrs. Keith sat upright, and faintness vanished. If this were the worst, she would brace herself to meet it.
"Colin has come!" exclaimed Phyllys.
"Nonsense! He is in Scotland."
"I saw him plainly, in the light from the door."
Mrs. Keith leant back, shaking like a leaf. The momentary terror, courageously met, had been awful; and reaction was severe. She had felt certain that the deferred possibility of years, nay, of decades of years, was a present reality.
Another tap at the door was accompanied by a slow—"Mother here?"
Phyllys' "Yes" was prompt, and he entered before Mrs. Keith could speak.
"You did not expect me," he said. "Just in time for dinner." He kissed Mrs. Keith on a cheek coldly presented, and Phyllys wondered if he felt the lack of welcome. He said a kind word about her apparent exhaustion, though, as Phyllys could not help noting, it aroused no anxiety. Then, when she would have moved, he murmured, "Pray don't go. I'm off."
As he passed the dressing-table, he saw the envelope addressed to himself, and took it. "Save the postman that trouble! From Giles," he remarked, and drew the sheet out, as it happened with the fourth page towards himself. "No!" in surprise. "I could have declared it to be his writing. Oddly like!" He turned to the first page, and a singular expression came.
"What are you doing there?" Mrs. Keith asked irritably.
"This is yours; not mine," and he came nearer. "You must have put it by mistake into the wrong envelope."
"What?" The word cracked out like a pistol-shot. She jumped up. "What are you talking about?"
He placed the letter in her hands. "I saw the address, and took it—but it is for yourself. I suppose you have another for me."
She snatched and thrust it into her pocket; then turned upon Colin a look not to be forgotten. It seemed to be the concentration of hate.
"How dare you meddle with letters of mine?" she demanded furiously.
"I beg your pardon. I thought it was mine."
"And of course you have read it."
She could not face those quiet eyes.
"You do not really think so. I saw the signature, and that it was to you."
"Nothing more?"
"Is not that a needless question?"
She turned away, and said passionately, "I might be left in peace this one half-hour!"
Without another word he went, followed by Phyllys, who, in the passage, could not resist a glance of sympathy.
He said in an undertone, "Please forget. She means nothing."
"I suppose she can't help it."
"There's a good deal of nervous excitement," he said evasively.
"Do you think it is—perhaps—her head?"
"Giles and I have long thought so. People are apt in such cases, as you know, to turn against those who are nearest. This is between ourselves."
Phyllys, as she moved away, wished that she could have believed the same.
CHAPTER XXXI
GILES AND HIS HOPES
THE dinner, kept up to the mark by Mr. Dugdale, went off as small dinners commonly do.
Mrs. Keith was well-dressed, but she could not have been complimented on her looks. Her face was pale with a spotted pallor, drawn, and lined. Colin noted her appearance as unusual. His eyes travelled often in her direction, and his gaze showed only concern; but the concern terrified her.
Giles observed no difference, for his mind was occupied elsewhere. Since the first morning he had been much with Phyllys, yet he could not flatter himself with having made great way. For Colin's sake, as well as his own, now that he had gathered the other's supposed quest to be hopeless, he would fain have brought matters to a point. Phyllys, however, was in an "elusive" mood; entirely charming, but by no means to be promptly won. She held him at bay and fascinated him, at one and the same time.
Colin's return was unexpected. He had meant to stay in the north longer. The avowed cause, something to do with modelling, did not satisfy Giles, who suspected Phyllys to be the true reason. He seemed to be in good spirits, but looked ill, as always after travelling. Phyllys ascribed his looks to his mother's reception, which reception now held in her mind a new and sinister meaning. That midnight suspicion haunted her.
Small-talk had not been included in Giles' composition; and the Vicar did not love chit-chat; while the Doctor was uncomfortably conscious of his hostess' dislike. But Mr. Dugdale kept the ball going.
Not long after Mrs. Keith and Phyllys left the table, they were joined by Colin; and when he appeared, the elder lady walked off, leaving him alone with the girl—an unusual move on her part, but she could not longer face his scrutiny.
"Have you come straight from Scotland?" Phyllys asked. "You look awfully tired."
"Dining-room atmosphere. No—I slept at York."
He seemed indisposed to talk, and she left him mercifully alone; but soon there was a murmured—"What brought the Swiss plan to grief?"
"Mrs. Keith wanted to get home."
"Any reason?"
She decided that Mrs. Keith's son had a right to ask, and she related to him, as to Giles, about the letter found at Thun, her supposed glimpse of Giles at Interlaken, and Mrs. Keith's fainting-fit. He listened with interest.
"I see you connect fainting-fit and letter."
"Mrs. Keith said it was not that."
"She must have advice. If one could contrive it, a London specialist."
"A specialist for—?"
"Brain—" very low.
"You think that explains all?"
"I'm not up to thinking anything definitely this evening." Then came a change of topic, and Phyllys found him to be speaking of Giles. "One of the best fellows that ever lived," he said. "Honestly, I believe there's nothing in the world he wouldn't give me if he could!"
Phyllys' reply was impulsive. "Yes. He said so. 'At any cost!' I wondered what he meant. He said he owed you so much."
She was aware of a drawing back. "Unfortunately the debt lies the other way."
"Giles must know," she insisted. "He told me he never could repay what he owed to you. He did not explain—and of course it is not my business." But it might be her business one day, she thought, if things came about as seemed not impossible.
"He likes to put things strongly. Sounds effective. Don't make too much of it." Colin's tone was evasive. "Some boyish escapade in his mind."
"It didn't sound so."
"Giles was talking nonsense."
Was he? Phyllys knew him to be a man not addicted to careless speech. What he had said he meant.
Perhaps Colin did not wish to be questioned further, for he moved away.
Giles was still a prisoner in his own dining-room. The Vicar and Dr. Wallace had plunged into a discussion, and, like most men not possessed of the faculty of small-talk, when they did set forth upon the waters of a debate, they floated far. Their host had to sit it out as best he might.
When at length freed, he found Phyllys alone with Mrs. Keith, and not till the end of the evening did he come across Colin, lying on the library sofa.
"Here—by yourself!" he said involuntarily. "Your head?" He shut the door and came near, looking down on the pale chiselled face. "What brought you back so soon?"
"Erratic disposition. If the moulding won't do!"
"You meant to stay longer."
"Perhaps—yes. Why don't you try conclusions with—" and a pause—"Phyllys?"
He was smiling with his most detached air. Giles remained grave.
"How long have you known?"
"Lately. For a time I was not sure."
"You think—there is hope for me?" He stood upright, waiting in suspense for the reply. Few looking on would have guessed the greater force of will and character to belong to that slight recumbent figure.
Colin laughed. "As if you didn't know! Go ahead, and don't shilly-shally! That's my advice. Speak out at once."
"Thanks. I will."
Giles went to his little sanctum, and Colin turned his face from the light, bearing pain quietly. Not pain of body alone. Giles had won his way earlier to victory through defeat; but in Colin's case there was no defeat, and no man knew of his strife. He loved; and at one time he had hoped; but when he read what Phyllys was to Giles, he drew back. He would not stand—if he might—in the way of Giles' happiness.
CHAPTER XXXII
A POSSIBLE COMPLICATION
ONCE more at her open window, gazing, not at dim fell-outlines against a starry sky, but into the darkness of a Midland garden, with ancestral trees under a clouded heaven, knelt Phyllys.
Another thought had come, another suggestion, touching her more acutely than the first.
That earlier flash of light on Mrs. Keith's past, lurid in aspect, had been a weight upon her spirits, the supposition burdening her with a fear lest one day it might be her duty to speak out. Still, she was with Giles; she was sure of his love; she felt confidence in his rectitude; she knew that, whatever might happen, he was dependable. Nothing, she had told herself, could shake that security.
And she had not dreamt of this new doubt.
The other suspicion had struck at the root of much in her future; but it had not affected her relations with Giles, had not threatened her happiness. This, if true, would sweep away the foundations of all that made for earthly joy.
If Giles went, everything went.
Hitherto no thought of blame to him had occurred. He was the unconscious partner in another's evil deed; no less ignorant than the rest of the world. Provisionally she had condemned one person, hoping that her conjecture was mistaken; seeking for extenuating circumstances should the conjecture prove true.
But if Giles were implicated, if for years "he" had acquiesced, there could be for him no extenuating circumstances.
Recalling her chat with Colin, she glanced to an earlier conversation with Giles, and words recurred spoken of Colin:—
"He and Mrs. Keith talk as if Colin were a poor man, dependent on Art. It is not so, really. What belongs to me belongs to him. What is mine is his . . . You mistake my meaning. It is a matter of simple duty . . . Years ago I made up my mind that, whatever he might wish, he should have it—even though it might cost me—might cost me—You would not think so if you knew everything! I owe to Colin all—more than I can ever repay."
He had spoken this earnestly—from his heart. And Colin could say he had been talking nonsense.
Then the new conjecture came, dagger-like—
"'Did Giles know?'"
Colin did not. No such suspicion had occurred to him. But was Giles in ignorance?
"What belongs to me belongs to him! What is mine is his! . . . If you knew everything! . . . I owe to Colin more than I can ever repay!"
Some boyish escapade to win words like these from a man of Giles' stamp! The explanation would not hold water. Another lay only too ready. Colin could make the assertion in all honesty; but Phyllys knew that Giles had not talked nonsense, had not alluded to some boyish folly. He had meant every word. He had not intended her to understand; but she did understand. She saw the whole, with daylight clearness.
She laid her face on the window-sill, clutching it in her distress. "Giles, you too untrue!" she whispered, and scalding tears fell.
Then the thought of her own future; the all but certainty that he would ask her to be his wife. How could she? Marry a man whose life was a lie, whose career had been one long fraud, who for years had connived at that which stabbed the very soul of honour, nay, of common honesty!
"If" things were so! But it might be a mistake. His words might bear some different interpretation. Even though her first surmise should prove correct, "he" might have had no hand in it, "he" might be innocent. She resolved that, without ample proof, she would hold him incapable of such conduct. She would wait for further light; but she would not allow him to propose until she knew.
She would have to go home. She could not stay here, in hourly intercourse, loving and knowing herself beloved, unable to meet his advances. It would be hard to go, but from every point of view it would be safer.
With her early cup of tea was brought a letter from Barbara, the opening sentences of which read like a response to her resolution. Mrs. Wyverne disapproved of Phyllys being at Castle Hill without leave.
"If you care to know what I think, I say you ought to come back at
once," tartly wrote Barbara. "You ought to consider grandmother's
feelings. She looks quite worried, and we shall have her ill, at this
rate."
The sharp words glanced aside, scarcely heeded. Phyllys welcomed the letter as helping her out of difficulty. At any cost—and the cost would be severe—she felt that she must put off giving Giles a decisive answer. She must allow no chance for a private talk. In view of Barbara's former telegram, she could not feel anxious; but the words would serve as a plea. To her dismay there was a postscript—
"After all, you can't come at present. Ben Lane is ill with scarlet
fever, and Grannie will not hear of having you. So we must wait."
This made a complication. Phyllys went down to breakfast, pale, "distraite," unlike herself.
Afterwards she wrote an impulsive note to Mr. Hazel, asking him to bring about her recall.
"Don't tell anybody, please," she begged, "only if you could have me
telegraphed for, it would be best. They are so kind here; still, just
now I ought to get away, and I can't tell you why. Please help me."
She ran with the note herself, to catch an early post, and wondered whether she had asked her kind old friend to do a thing impossible.
"Good morning," aroused her from a dream, and she found herself looking at Colin. "Giles was hunting for you. He is called off for the day on business—awful nuisance for him. Would you like to see the cast of your head? You've not been to my studio yet."
She laughed. "Considering that you came home last night—"
"I forgot. Come now, if you have nothing better to do."
Phyllys complied, relieved to hear that Giles was out of reach. Anything to gain time.
The bust was on a pedestal, near that of Elsye, side by side with that of Giles. Phyllys noted the latter fact. She stood gazing at the successful reproduction of her own pretty outlines.
"Grannie would love to see it some day."
"You like it?"
"Yes. Didn't I say so? But I'm no judge."
"Some day if you will sit to me again, I'll do another for Mrs. Wyverne."
"Like this?"
"Too much to ask! It might be better—or worse."
"You could not make a copy, I suppose?"
"I'm no good at copying."
"And if you took me a third and fourth time—they would all be different."
"Yes. If you sat to a class of students, and a dozen heads were modelled, no two would be the same. Taken from the same Phyllys, at the same time, under the same conditions—several might be good likenesses, yet all would differ."
"Curious," she murmured.
"Each modeller sees with different eyes—according to his own capacity for seeing, and his own mental make. What we see is always in part a reflection of what we are in ourselves. A dozen artists copying you would see each a different Phyllys—all to some extent the true Phyllys, but no two the same. The Phyllys that I see is not the Phyllys that Giles sees. The Giles whom I see is not the Giles whom you see."
He was interesting her with his old power; and his words sent her in recollection to a chat with the old Vicar of Midfell.
"It's like the light on different surfaces," she murmured; and a word from Colin drew a fuller statement.
"That is just it." He grasped the thought instantly. "Different surfaces give forth what they are able to receive—what, in common language, they can 'see.'"
"Then, what one 'sees' one seems to others."
"That practically is the outcome."
"And people blame one another for not seeing more."
"Whence sprang the persecutions of the Middle Ages. The soil was for ever trying to smother the water, and the water to drown the grass."
"We don't persecute now."
"No. Modern martyrdom with us is a sorry armchair business. But we belabour one another with hard words—for not being able all to see Divine Light in the same fashion."
"'You' don't say hard words of others, even when you don't think like them."
He smiled, and murmured—
"Shall one like me—
Judge hearts—like yours?"
The response in her face made him turn to a table and open a small book, pointing to the page. She read—
"Time was when I believed that wrong
In other to detect
Was part of genius all a gift,
To cherish, not reject;
Now better taught by Thee, O Lord,
This truth dawns on my mind,
The beet effects of Heavenly Light
Is—Earth's false eyes to blind."
She murmured, "Ah!" Colin's quotations always seemed to be just the right thing.