Ghost Gavotte and other stories
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Description: Eighteen short stories by Ethel Lina White (1879-1944), author of "The Lady Vanishes" and other novels, and also author of many short stories, many of which have not been reprinted since they first appeared in magazines. This is the second collection I have prepared, with assistance from Roy Glashion of Roy Glashan's Library. The first collection is entitled "The Uninvited Guest and other atories." Contents 1: The Ghost Gavotte 2: The Unknown 3: Catastrophe 4: Thumbs Down 5: Underground 6: The Seven Years' Secret 7: A Bad-Good Woman 8: Noblesse Oblige 9: The Pillow 10: Maids of Honour 11: The

THE GHOST GAVOTTE

And other stories

Ethel Lina White

1876-1944

Produced by Terry Walker, July 2023

Contents

1: The Ghost Gavotte

2: The Unknown

3: Catastrophe

4: Thumbs Down

5: Underground

6: The Seven Years' Secret

7: A Bad-Good Woman

8: Noblesse Oblige

9: The Pillow

10: Maids of Honour

11: The Day

12: The Suicide and the Saint

13: The Counter-Irritant

14: The Cellar

15: Don't Dream on Midsummer's Eve

16: The Fairy Pot

17: If You Can... Lose

18: It Hung on a Thread

_______________

1: The Ghost Gavotte

The Grand Magazine, July 1909

Journal (Adelaide) 20 May 1916

"YES, DOCTOR, fifteen proposals, and me not turned twenty! My! You should have seen the depot the day I left Chicago! Forty men fighting around our saloon to get a last spy at me! And— I'd refused every one of them!"

Virginia L. Pine sighed plaintively as she uttered her last words. Her inventions had not been artistic this afternoon. In her anxiety to strengthen her claims to distinction she had recklessly weakened her arithmetic. But Adam Aubroit's thin lips never relaxed to a smile as he looked at her pretty face and listened to her ingenuous lies. To the brain specialist she represented the interest of a "case."

A frown, however, gathered on his brow and from his perch in the musicians' gallery, he gazed down at the scene in the hall below. The vaulted roof echoed with wild merriment, and the Torquil portraits, dim and dark with age, seemed to be clearing the dust from their eyes as they, too, looked down on the revels. The house party, which was composed largely of flappers, was amusing itself by strenuous efforts to catch a small greased pig. The rain, which dashed against the great oriel window, was the cause of this ingenious device to escape boredom. In Aubroit's eyes it was the fitting climax of a distasteful week.

The specialist was a dealer in brains. The more damaged the article the keener his interest, but he abhorred the spectacle of no brains at all. Therefore, the young and frivolous guests gathered under the roof of Torquil Towers, although they excluded him from their extensive ragging, irritated his nerves by their high spirits.

Moreover, be personally disliked the American purchaser of Torquil Towers—Theophilus A. Pine, the soap king, who, despite the cleanly nature of the commodity be handled, had emerged from the labours of making his pile with considerably soiled hands and a besmirched name. But the crown of Aubriot's disappointment lay in the fact that the interesting case he had been detailed to watch was little better than a fraud.

It had sounded so promising when Cornelius Van Cruch, the doctor relative of the Pine family, had given him its details before handing over his cousin for the opinion of the specialist. Mrs. Pine had been even more emphatic in her statements.

"Yes, I know you don't go out as a rule," she had remarked. "They have to  come to you; but we don't mind what we pay, so long as you cure Virgie. She's only queer so far, but she'll end in being crazed. It's this way. When Poppa bought this place of those Torquils, Virgie was just set on all the old mouldy part of it. She got dreamy like, and mazed. She's wonderfully spry at music, and she started off to learn the spindle. Spinet? Yes, of course, spinet. Then she got into the way of playing minuets, and those old-fashioned dances. And there you have the whole trouble in a hickory nutshell!"

Aubriot proceeded to wind up the loquacious lady anew. "Well?" he had enquired, sympathetically.

"Well, you know, doctor, if you were to play a waltz for folk to dance you'd keep straight on, not troubling about anything so long as you kept the time. Virgie's not like that. When she starts playing one of those old dances she's got a notion she's playing to folk she cant see. To give them a name, I just call them 'spooks.' And she looks downright struck, and acts silly. She's getting worse every day. Cornelius calls her a real baffling case!"

Aubriot had looked forward to seeing Virginia. From what he had heard of her strange personality, springing from so sordid a stock as the parent Pines, he expected to find a throwback to a period before the sailing of the Mayflower. He was very forcibly struck by the idea of little American, uprooted from her brand-new surroundings, and planted into the venerable pile of Torquil Towers, finding her mind straying back into the past as, subconsciously, through the notes of her spinet, her spirit sought communion with the shades of departed generations.

The actual Virginia proved an electric shock. There was nothing of the dream maiden about her. Radically American, with scraps of surface veneer from every European capital daubed freely all over her, the whole French-polished by a Parisian education, she strongly reminded him of a black butterfly. It was true that her face, from which the hair frizzed back, was colorless, but her pallor was easily traceable to a very unpsychological cause— candy.

She was spoiled, self-centred, and neurotic, and Aubriot was inclined to attribute her supposed delusions to hysteria, engendered by indigestion, especially as he could see no signs to justify her parents fear of mental malady. Virginia was evidently shrewd enough to understand the value attached to the unknown, quantity, and resisted any attempt to be drawn regarding her claims to be an object of general interest. Aubriot looked at her now impatiently as she leaned forward, a delighted spectator of the pig hunt.

"Isn't that just cute?" she asked? "I'd like to join in, but it might give me palpitations." The next minute, with a squeal or laughter, she had rushed down into the fray, leaving Aubriot deep in reflection.

The result of his meditation he imparted later lo a council of three—Mrs. Pine, van Crouch, and Capt. Blair, R.N., one of the guests.

"You have had my opinion of your daughter this morning, Mrs. Pine, he said. "I believe her delusion is simply the result of hysteria, but, with her temperament, it is undoubtedly dangerous to allow it to take deeper root. I do not say your daughter is untruthful."

Blair raised his brows at the memory of Virginia's romances, but Aubriot took no notice.

"Your daughter apparently firmly believes," Aubriot continued, "that she plays for unseen dancers. Now, I want her to see them, and with your help, Capt. Blair, I think we can effect our object."

"I?" stammered the astonished young man.

"Yes, you. Young people are always on the qui vive for a fresh sensation. Give them one to-night— a ghost gavotte. Rig yourselves out in white, and don't the sparing of the powder. Dance on one of the lawns to her music. Miss Virginia is very sensitive to ridicule, and if it can be proved that she has simply been a victim of a practical joke, we shall hear no more about it."

Mrs. Pine scratched her nose thoughtfully.

"You'll never get Virgie to play!" she asserted.

Van Crouch grinned at the specialist.

"Guess you've cut off a bigger chunk than you can chew there, doctor," he said. "But you leave that part to me. I've got an idea."

The young American had not overrated his powers of resource. Aubriot felt uneasy that evening as guest after guest slipped unostentatiously away, all alert with suppressed excitement about the coming masquerade. He tried to pin Virginia down to a tête-à-tête, but she soon grew restive, and he was relieved beyond measure when Cornelius came towards them.

"Come on, Virgie," said Cornelius, "into the music room. We have a dandy treat on to-night, doctor. Virgie's going to play for me to make records."

Virginia's eyes sparkled with vanity. "We're going to Bend the records after to the folk we know in the States,'' she explained to Aubriot. "My! They will be tickled to hear me play again."

Two minutes later the girl was seated at the piano in the music room, her wine-coloured dress making a vivid splash of t brightness against the gloomy background. Aubriot, who had not expected much of a performance, was astonished at the brilliance and precision with which she tossed off a couple of Sousa's marches. That she was quick to notice his admiration was evident from the artifices and eye battery with which she embellished her playing. The two men kept feeding her with piece after piece, as though she were an animated pianola.

Presently Aubriot looked at his watch. Although a bachelor, he was enabled by the aid of his professional experience to determine the time-limit of the most exacting feminine toilette. Even now his keen ear seemed to detect the faint rustle of a silken petticoat and the tap of a high heeled slipper on the staircase outside, as though the ancestors had stepped from their frames and were banded together in a mighty Passing of the Portraits. When an unmistakable twentieth-century giggle, keyed up to the high pitch of "society," broke through the frou-frou and click of skirt and slipper, Aubriot spoke hastily.

"Thank you so much, Miss Virginia. Now just one more. One of your old English dances."

Virginia lowered her lids and looked at him sideways, with the slanting glance of a suspicious cat.

"I can't?"she muttered sullenly. "If I do they will want to dance."

"Well, why shouldn't they?  Very good taste on their part! Any one would want to dance to your playing. You would make the  Archbishop of Canterbury join in a cellar-flap. That is the whole secret, of this puzzling business. Have you ever seen them?"

Reassured by the matter-of-fact tone of Aubriot's voice, Virginia was betrayed into answering the carelessly tacked on question. The black pupils of her eyes seemed to split for the fraction of a second, revealing a glimpse of mystery.

"I don't Know—exactly," she said. "I— I think so. At least I'm not sure."

Aubriot smiled at the hesitation, so typical of her case. He had evidently taken her unawares— tapped a weak spot. By to-morrow she would be well coached up in the appearance of the dream dancers, with every detail supplied by the fertile imagination of hysteria. He took the girl's arm and led her towards the spinet.

"Just one," he pleaded. "Something to remember you by. The flattery in his voice, drew Virginia down to the music stool, but her hands still hung motionless over the yellow keys. Then she looked up at Aubriot.

"I'm afraid always when I play," she said, pitifully. "I am afraid I might lose the time. I can't explain, but if ever I put them out of stop something will happen."

"What?"

"Something terrible. Something— I don't know "

Aubriot looked at her keenly as her voice dragged away. It was evident she was once again romancing, but although her hesitating words were neither fluent nor convincing, she had plainly succeeded in taking in herself; for her black eyes were now dark pools of staring fright. He flung aside the portiere that divided the music room from the drawing room, and, crossing over to the great windows, drew hack the curtain.

"The moon is just full," he said, softly. "What a night to dance! Can't you fancy you see them on the lawn?" He was about to switch off some of the lights when he felt a hand touch his shoulder, and Cornelius— unobtrusive, alert, and endowed with the self-effacing qualities of a perfect witness—spoke softly—

"Say," he whispered. "Leave me one light. I'm going to have a record of this. Sure!"

Aubriot nodded. Then he threw open the great window and waited. The room was almost in shadow, but a circle of light flickered like a great golden moth over the figure of the girl at the spinet.

"They are waiting!" whispered Aubriot, conscious of his nerves being at extreme tension. Virginia gave an affected little wriggle.

"Well, you must neither of you speak, or hum, or do anything to distract me," she commanded. Promise!"

The instant the men had given their word her fingers fell hungrily on the old keys, and through the room stole the thin strains of a gavotte. Aubriot looked at the girl. To his astonishment he noticed that the moment she began to play a tidal wave of oblivion seemed to pass over her face, completely sweeping away every sign of self-consciousness. Her head nodding in time with the stately measure, her body swaying in unison, she seemed to have merged her whole personality into the expression of the music. As the man watched, his own foot suddenly began to tap the parquet flooring— an involuntary tribute to the spell.

There was a curious fascination about the old-world air thus loosed from its prison in a faded manuscript. Daintily the notes minced through the room, picking their way with high-stepping precision. It was starchy and prudish, yet. withal graceful, and sweet with the lilt of eternal youth and romance. An oft-recurring refrain wove itself again and again through the melody, like the blue ribbon of a true lover's knot. Up and down, down and up, now loud, now soft, it rippled on with an exquisite rhythm that rose and fell like the swell of a stately tide.

Aubriot broke free from his reverie. The time had come for action. Crossing again to the window, he looked into the night. But, even though prepared for the spectacle that greeted his eyes, so strong was the witchery of the gavotte that he started in spite of himself as he looked on to the lawn.

The dark sward stretched before him with the softness of black velvet, but the moon, shining brightly through the tall trees, shed a tracery of light on the darkness like the laced edge of an old valentine.

Moving to and fro in measured tread to the strains of the spinet was a shadowy company of dancers in shimmering drapery and courtly dress. Silhouetted whitely against the dark yew hedges, they seemed ghostly and unreal, stranded strays from the Age of Patch and Powder, called back by the spell of the music once more to foot it on the dew-spangled grass under the limelight radiance of the moon.

"Capital effect!" thought Aubriot, rubbing his chin with appreciation.

Then he turned towards Virginia. Her eyes were closed, her lips pressed together, as if in a passionate exclusion of all outside interests.

For some long seconds the specialist hesitated. It seemed almost akin to wanton cruely to break in on her absorption; and rudely shatter her reverie. At last shaking off the fancy with as effort, he spoke suddenly and sharply

"Look." He pointed to the window. The word was like a pistol shot crashing through the crystal of a magic globe. Something seemed to snap in the air.  One could almost hear the whirr of the crotchets and quavers as they were suddenly leashed off the stave like a swarm of black bees; the music tripped in its lilting rhythm— floundered to a fall.

A low cry burst from Virginia's lips.  Aubriot expected her to spring to her feet and come to the window. To his surprise, without another glance she leant again over the notes, hot on the trail of the air, picking up the mangled melody, until, with hardly a break, it rippled on again in fluting sweetness.

The specialist frowned with annoyance. Apparently his plan had failed. Again he turned to the window; but the dancers had now disappeared. A few moments later, with one final nerve-tingling chord the gavotte was over.

For a space Virginia sat staring into vacancy, her hands hanging limply by her sides. Then, without warning, she threw herself on the ground in an unrestrained passion of grief. When Aubriot bent over her she shook off his hand in a frenzy of terror.

"You broke your word!" she shrieked. "I lost the time. I put them out. It means— death!"

Cornelius, who bad been an interested of the scene, now, as he stroked his cousin's hand gently, darted an angry glance at Aubriot.

"Why did you scare her like that, doctor?" he asked angrily. "You've made her real sick now. Guess we don't treat our women that way. I wouldn't touch your methods with a long pole."

"Turn on the lights," was Aubriot's sole answer. He heard the sound of footsteps outside, and he knew that the masqueraders had returned. As the great cluster of electric bulbs burst into golden bloom, flooding the place with light, the door was flung wide and a laughing throng of quaintly garbed figures dashing into the room, made a ring round the girl.

Virginia gazed at them with bewilderment. In spite of paint, patch, and powder, face after face grew familiar. As one by one her guest's identity peeped through their disguises she suddenly grew scarlet.

To Aubriot's intense joy she flung aside Cornelius's hand as though he had been red-hot iron, subjecting his own to similar treatment as she hastily drew her skirts violently over her dainty ankles. He gloried in her restoration to her fierce sense of the proprieties after her former distressing self-abandonment.

"What does this mean, Capt. Blair?" she demanded of the nearest masquerader. "It means I'll soon be a blancmange if I don't get this stuff out of my head," was the prompt answer. "Powder ran out, and they dredged me with cornflour. Its been a ripping lark, Miss Pine. We rigged ourselves up like old-time Johnnies, and went dancing out there on the lawn to your music. Didn't you see us?"

"Yes, I saw you," answered Virginia quietly.

"It was simply divine," chimed in one of the Carstair twins. "The smartest thing we've done this year. Our ghost gavotte! And that sweet quaint spinet! But you put us out once."

"You lost the time. You remember?" remarked Aubriot meaningly, turning to Virginia. Her visibly increasing humiliation gave him added satisfaction. Getting up from the ground, she looked squarely into the laughing faces of her guests. Then she summed up her feelings in one tense sentence. "Well! I guess I've just made a real fool of myself!"

With a glow of professional pleasure Aubriot registered another success. He took little note of the noisy commotion amid laughter that followed, for his thoughts were dwelling on trains back to town. But when the exuberant crew finally started upstairs to shed their borrowed plumage he stopped Capt. Blair for a moment.

"Thanks, Blair," he said. "You did capitally, and put it all in. I am hopeful that you've bounced that silly girl out of her delusions."

"Well, I flatter myself it was no nine carat affair," replied Blair modestly. "All the same, it seemed rather rotten to guy one's hostess like that! Only the Momma was with us, egging us on. What did we look like, footing away on the west lawn?"

"South lawn," corrected the doctor. Blair drew his mouth to one side.

I'm ready to give you best over pills and blisters, doctor," he answered. "that you must allow a sailor to know a little about the points of the compass. West— I say, west."

As. he went out of the room, leaving the specialist alone, Aubriot turned towards the great south window, repeating obstinately— "And I say, south."

But immediately he gave a violent start and then sprang in the direction he was gazing. For a little space his eyes strained into the shadows of the lawn. Then he threw away his cigar, crossed to a mirror, and looked at himself closely, criticising his tired eyes and dragged cheeks with professional scrutiny.

"I'm going to prescribe for you, old man," he said softly to his reflection. "Something you're not specially keen on— bed."

But as he passed out of the room he threw a last glance at the south window— a glance of half-expectation, wholly nervous trepidation. He could have sworn that a moment previously, pressed against the panes, its dark eyes glazed with terror, he had seen a strange white face set in a frame of powdered hair.

In finite of his good resolutions; Aubriot proved that he possessed a very bad patient in himself, for he did not rest long that night. Moreover, whatever he put on at one end he took off at the other, for early in the small grey hours of the morning he was pacing the grounds of Torquil Towers. In the dim light everything looked chill and eerie as he approached the south lawn. The clipped peacocks on the yew hedge watched austerely over the prim turf, whose unruffled surface disclaimed any suggestion of having been a scene of over: night revelry.

Aubriot whistled softly then he walked round to the west lawn. There a very different scene met his eyes. Alas for the graceful slide and bend of the stately gavotte! Rutted with the imprints of high heels, and bearing the marks of many a slip and stamp, the wet grass reminded him forcibly of the mutilated ground after a cattle show.

"Blair was right," he admitted. "The dance evidently took place here."

Then he loaned against an did sundial and began, to reflect on the face he imagined he had seen at the window. It rose up instantly in vivid relief before , his mental vision. Triangular in shape, eyes set widely apart, chin tapering to a sharp point, it did not correspond in any single detail to the face of any one of the guests.

The brain specialist knitted his brows.

"Rather interesting," he mused. "Clearly a case of mental telepathy—automatic suggestion of some kind. In my keyed-up, receptive condition last, night I was a fit subject to received vivid impression of the creation of that girl's imagination.  She was hazy about what she thought she saw, but she transmitted a very clear mental photograph to my sensitised brain. Very interesting!"

He looked forward with eagerness to meeting his patient.

At the first sight of her at the breakfast table, he was further reassured. During the night she had shed her air of self-importance, and appearing now shamefaced and unwilling to meet his eye. It was only by dint of strong maternal persuasion that she was coaxed into the drawing room after the meal for a final interview.

Before he could speak she burst into the subject.

"It's real mean in you, doctor, to talk about last night," she cried. "I feel so mortified I could just... I reckon I got crazed about this old house, and started to moon and fancy. But I allow I'm cured now, that's a cinch. I'll never be caught again grovelling on the Axminster showing inches of stocking!  Not me!"

Aubriot smiled. "That's all right," he said. "Now, with a confident heart, I  can wish you goodbye, with the very pleasant hope that I may never see you again. But before I go, suppose you play a me that gavotte again. I want to hear it."

Virginia pouted. Nothing on earth would induce her to play that dreadful piece, she vowed, yet in the midst of her protestations she began to play.  Leaning back in his chair listening, Aubriot looked round the great room. Two old portraits of the Stuart period at the end of the room caught his eye and stirred a vague wonder in his breast. But his brain only worked feebly. Virginia's performance engrossed his attention, and when she had finished he thanked her heartily.

There was no doubt that the neurotic girl had been laughed out of her hysteria. The haunting quality had completely disappeared from her playing, and no touch of mystery now transformed her pretty face from the commonplace. Aubriot's interest in her died on the spot. She was no longer a case.

The next day found him back in London, starting fresh researches, tracking to its lair the spark of reason that had strayed from its rightful course and been lost in the labyrinth of a diseased brain. But the Pines did not forget Aubriot as easily as Aubriot forgot the Pines. From time to time he received grateful letters, giving copious details of Virginia's improvement as expressed principally in golf scores.  She was a different girl, they asserted, adding with a true Irish touch that they had to thank Aubriot for her restoration, and could not be sufficiently grateful. The specialist yawned over the letters, but duly filed them away with the record of the case.

ABOUT six months later Aubriot had further news of Virginia Pine. On the eve of his departure to-India for a long-overdue holiday, he received an unexpected visitor in the shape of Dr. Dan Crouch. The young American was evidently permeated with joy. He bore unofficial news of a great event that had taken place in the Pine family, and which was shortly going to press under the heading of "A marriage has been arranged."

Virginia Pine had become engaged to no less a personage than the present Lord Torquil.

"Thought you'd like to know, seeing you're responsible for rubbing the moss off Virginia, doctor," said his American colleague, on parting, mauling Aubriot's hand painfully. "And, by the way. I brought you some of the records I took of her playing that night. You remember. They're real good, and I suspicioned they'd sort of interest you as souvenirs."

Aubriot thanked his visitor mechanically and went upstairs to his packing. Pitching the bundle into a half-filled bag, he let his thoughts wander momentarily on the strange chance that had led the little American interloper to link her lot with the original owner of Torquil Towers.

Then, suddenly, he gave a short laugh of excitement; an extraordinary thought had struck him.

"That face at the window," he said, aloud. "I have it now. It bore a strong resemblance to the Torquil family portraits. Very apt. Fits in with the girl's delusions, which were evidently engendered and colored by her surroundings."

Aubriot's interest, however, was but perfunctory, for the case of Virginia Pine had long been shelved to make room for fresh arrivals.

In the months that followed it receded entirely from his memory, for although his visit to India was to partake of the nature of a rest cure, his life work had built him a reputation that rose up, like Macbeth, to murder peace, and social engagements and invitations poured in.

After a constant round of sightseeing, and being seen, as England's latest lion, Aubriot accepted with Keen relief an invitation to spend a week in a bungalow high up in the hills.

His host, Major Croft, a man who spoke little, but who smoked most eloquently, proved an ideal companion at the end of the long days which the specialist spent rambling among the hills, finding in the pure air and solitude a perfect panacea for brain fag.

On the last day of his visit he walked down the steep path among the deodars with a feeling, of deep regret. On one side the ground fell sheer away, and as he looked down the precipice to the blue distances the thought of the grime-filled streets of London set his teeth on edge, he shook his fist at a grey ape that ragged him from the branches above his head.

His face was still clouded with the thought of his return when he reached the bungalow.  Croft met him on the verandah, and his host's first words did not dispel his gloom.

"Rotten nuisance!" Croft grumbled. "Sha'n't have our final jaw! Visitor— Lord Torquil— girl he's engaged to told him to look you up."

Back again went Croft's pipe, as if loth to leave his lips for so long a spell.

Aubriot swore expressively.

"Where is he?" he asked.

"In my room— sleeping— fagged out. He's playing in some theatricals—'School for Scandal'— in Simla to-night, and has come a deuce out of his way, ready dressed, to take you in. Had to make a triangle to do it. Heard you were leaving to-morrow and knew it would be his only chance. Said the girl would never forgive him if he didn't manage it somehow. I fancy he wants the chance to jabber about her."

Croft looked gloomy 'as he uttered his dark suspicion about Torquil's desire for conversation; and then collapsed into silence, completely worn out by the strain. For a moment the pair smoked in silence. Then Aubriot spoke petulantly:—

"I don't know the fellow from Adam. Hang the Pines! I never had a case that kept cropping up so after it was done, with. I always have the feeling that I'm never to be clear of it— that there's still something to come."

Blue rings from Croft's pipe answered him effectually.

"He'll have a hundred questions to ask about that girl," resumed Aubriot, "and it will, be talking through the back of my neck to answer them. Just out from home with his regiment, isn't he? Well, I suppose I must sacrifice myself, and resurrect a few creditable anecdotes of Miss Virginia L. Pine, of U.S.A."

"He can't stop long," grunted Croft, hopefully. This optimism was contagious. Aubriot suddenly gave a smile of inspiration.

"I have it!" he exclaimed. "I have some records of Miss Pine's playing. Packed them by mistake and carted them round India. Evidently for this. There's a reason for everything, Croft, my boy, as we learn in our scientific A.B.C. Just put them on the gramophone. They will interest him."

As Aubriot hurried off to find bundle it struck him as a strange freak of fate that the records he had hitherto regarded as an incubus should be tested for the first time in the pretence of the sole person for whom they could possess   any value.

Croft slipped on a record and started to winding the gramophone. He grunted sympathetically.

"Torquil will have a breakfast," he said. "Hearing his beloved playing to him in benighted India. Hang it all, Aubriot, they're young! And they're infernally in love!"

Aubriot nodded.

As the strains of the gavotte broke free from the whir of the instrument an unwonted feeling of sentiment stirred in his crusted heart. From the sweet notes of the spinet a young girl in her sheltered English home seemed to he calling to her lover in his Eastern exile.

Croft stole along the verandah in the direction of Torquil's room.

"I'll dig him out," he said. Carelessly be raised the click. Then Aubriot, who was watching his host, saw a sudden change sweep over Croft's face. His fingers sawed blindly in the air, until he beckoned frantically to his friend.   Aubriot in turn stole noiselessly to the doorway.

At first, as he looked into the darkened room, he could see nothing. Then he became aware of a man stretched out on a cane lounge chair. He wore a court suit of the Georgian period, and a powdered white wig framed ghastly features set in a stare of agony.

With a sharp stab at his heart Aubriot recognised the face of Lord Torquil. He had seen it before. It was the face of the window!

In that tense moment the brain specialist realized the riddle of his vision It  stood revealed in a baleful light of significance. The episode of Torquil Towers was only one-half— the unconnected half was—tragedy.

On Torquil's breast a dark mass bulged, coil upon coil of hideous life, and the man's terror-stricken gaze was concentrated on the threatening head of a cobra. Aubriot could see the spectacle marks on the scales shining in the light of the setting sun as the creature swayed to an fro but a foot distant from the forehead of the motionless man. Daintily and mincingly the notes of the gavotte trickled in with the sickly sweetness of the old-world air, steeped with lavender and pot-pourri. Up and down, down and up, it rippled with perfect time and beat. As the spell of the rhythm threw its noose over the reptile Croft clutched Aubriot's shoulder with a grip of iron.

The snake was dancing to the music!

"My gun!" Croft whispered. "Pray to God I'll be in time before the record ends!"

Aubriot could not stir. One tiny sip from the awful draught of the prescient Immortals had been vouchsafed him.  He knew the end

The year ago in a quiet English home, the tragedy had played out in the sound of a girl's shriek. The white face, the staring eyes, the swaying snake, all passed away.  He could only see a darkened room and a girl in a wine-colored robe playing in a gold circlet of light.

"I have lost the time. It means death!"

The words rang through his brain again and again, the dainty notes still rippling like a thread of delicate beads. The oscillation of the reptile grew dreamy , as the music steeped its senses.

Like a shadow the form of Croft slid down the passage.

A moment passed with the dragging eternity of an hour. As he waited Aubriot's scalp tightened as if from the pressure of an encircling vise.

Then suddenly it came— the dreaded flaw in the record!  The music stumbled to discord.

At that moment two things happened almost simultaneously. The snake struck and Croft fired. But before the smoke cleared Aubriot had answered the unspoken question in Croft's eyes. He shook his head, for he knew that, even as it was in the beginning, it was the hour of the Snake.

_____________

2: The Unknown

The Grand Magazine March 1922

Express and Telegraph (Adelaide) 3 May 1922

OUTSIDE the church— leafless trees riding the crest of the hill; a white, windy sky and the scent of early primroses; the open road, unwinding like a ribbon, on— on— to the very last milestone in the world.  All the magic and mystery of the elusive promise of spring. None to mark it.

Inside the church— a red carpet, crooked, down the aisle; two palms and four white camellias on the altar steps; and a large company, chiefly women,  whose eyes were misty with the supreme romance of a wedding.

Marcus Orme looked about him with savage contempt. He was conspicuous not only for his great stature, but also for his deeply graven features, instinct with deflected powers:  Niagara dribbling through a myriad suburban bath-taps.  It was an unhappy face— the face of one who has lived many lives and died as many deaths.

At the height of ha prosperity he had been socially important by reason of his fourth place in the succession to a title; now that only two bad lives stood between; he was nominally filling the post of-mathematical coach at a famous boys college, buried in the heart of the country, but, in reality, washing himself in the waters of Jordan.

Of course, it was a girl who had worked his cure,  only nineteen years of inexperience and a sunny smile, but all-powerful to wipe out the corroded bitterness of the past and to re-create the golden promise of a future.

Janet Hardcastle was the eldest daughter of the rector of Watermead. She was possessed of an exceptionally pretty face and a sweet and wholesome nature. Without being clever, she had brains enough for the usual, course— senior Cambridge at sixteen, and matriculation at eighteen and now was filling her time with domestic and parish duties in the home and family which she adored.

Marcus studied her face covertly, with almost famished longing.  In spite of the war-paint which he so derided in the other women, Marcus thought that Jan looked lovelier than ever; even if her white furs were rabbit in fancy-dress, they were snowily pure in contrast with the purple violets pinned to her stole and the red flush of her cheek.

But he knew that that flush was not for him— nor for any mortal man.

In his sense of baffled longing, the whole scene irritated him unreasonably. The bride and bridegroom kneeling at the altar, bound on the Great Adventure, yet only conscious of first returns to Bournemouth, the palpitating women thrilling to the bridesmaids' costumes and the bridal-veil, and, above all, Jan singing, "Oh, perfect love"— congregation kneeling— her eyes wistful  with the thought of her own wedding. Some day— some man...

The waste of it! Women had helped Marcus to place his own price in his; days of lotus-eating, and he knew of the great heart and brain and the yet undrained reserves which he was storing up for his best beloved.

Yet not one word nor one hint could he breathe so long as there stood on either side of Jan's writing-table the framed portraits of stage beauty-men. There were many picture-postcards in Jan's den, but all preserved the general idea of straight nose, curved lips, and satin-smooth hair— the ideal lover of a young girl's fancy.

Thump. Thump. The "Wedding march." It was over.

Marcus drew a deep breath of gratitude as he stepped out into the radiant white Spring afternoon. Disdaining the huddle of hired cabs, he walked to the doctor's old-fashioned house, where the reception was being held. Immune to the lure of refreshments, he searched for Jan.

"Wasn't it a topping wedding?" she cried. "Didn't Agnes look a lamb? And the bridesmaids! I love yellow for a spring wedding. Charlie Partridge spoiled it rather. Not a bit like a bridegroom!"

Marcus compressed his lips firmly.

"Has it ever occurred to you, Jan, that the world is chiefly populated by ordinary people? The ordinary married man has to start. somehow, and most of them begin by being ordinary bridegrooms; in short, being much like themselves the ordinary chaps who, in the war, went over the top, just in the ordinary coarse of things, as Partridge did."

She felt that she was being reproved, although she knew not her exact crime.

"I— I know. Tell me,  which do you think make the prettiest brides? Fair girl— or dark?"

"Fair."

Jan, who was dark as any blush-rose, winced.

"Why do you always say things like that?"

"Why do you ask questions like that? Keeping some wedding-cake to dream on to-night?"

"Nothing so silly. Besides, I expect I shall be an old maid."

"Yes. I expect you will."

She looked up, startled, but his eyes were serious. In spite of her youth and beauty, and an existent lover who was slightly more than life-size, he honestly believed her doomed, for he knew that she had been born under that fatal star which forced her to follow the dream.

In her case, it was this wretched ideal lover— the composite being she had created from picture-postcards, cinemas, and her own dreams. A creature, partly pasteboard, partly flicker, partly, red firelight, and largely idleness.

"Do you know one difference between wives and spinsters, Jan?" he asked. It's this. A married woman is generally a woman who has had but one offer of marriage and accepted it. A spinster very often is a woman who has had many offers of marriage, but just one less than she expected. Know why?"

"Why?"

"She waited for the unknown. And Jan— he rarely comes!"

Jan recovered) her forces.

"Now its your turn to listen to me. Marcus. I've got one mother. Should I marry, I shall have two. So I really see no reason why you should lecture me like a third. Besides, why should you tick me off because I want to marry someone different?"

It was out, at last, and he listened to her frank avowal.

"Everyone's got to know what they want. The men my friends have married  wouldn't satisfy me. I don't see it's so awful to want a— a smart man. one who has a club and— is good at everything and has travelled and— and— you know!"

Marcus nodded savagely. He knew. Suddenly, he made up his mind to risk a rebuff.

"Jan, what kind of a face have I got?"

She looked at him— her usual unconscious gaze— and then, as though she saw something there which disconcerted her, she averted her eyes.

"A blasted face," she said, simply. "Oh, you needn't laugh. It's not— language. I must find mother."

The unusual touch of nervousness consoled him for the verdict. Even if she had looked down into deep waters which had disturbed her, at least, in future, she would regard him other than furniture. She must know that one very definite personality was preparing to enter the lists against the unknown.

"Only this, Jan," he said, as he rose to his feet. "Don't waste your whole life over a dream! I'm ready to wager half my soul that he doesn't exist."

HAD the bet been registered, any sporting devil who'd had the usual flutter over Marcus would only have drawn halfprices, for within three days Orme was proved to be conclusively in the wrong. Not only did the Unknown exist, but they actually met him, in all his glory, at the Cottage Hospital Ball, at Marketville— the neighboring town.

Marcus escorted Jan, partly because the rector had complete confidence in him, partly to pay for her cab fare, and partly to behold her in the crowning charm of her party-frock.

He was waiting for her in the rectory hall when she fluttered down the shallow stairs, and she looked up at him with the new touch of timidity. .

"You always ought to wear evening dress, Marcus. It make you look a— a personage. You just want a few stars and orders and things."

"Trimmings in fact. Sorry you don't like me plain."

But all the 'same, he felt a good inch taller as he walked into the ballroom, his great shoulders expanded and his head held high with the pride of a victor.

The very first person he saw was the Unknown.

His name was Lewis Ford and he had motored down from town with the Wyndhams, smart and fashionable newcomers to the neighborhood.

He was, in every respect, the exact counterpart of the ideal lover. God alone knows how he managed to achieve such unnatural perfection. He was like a perfect Grecian statue, warmed to requisite temperature, colored to life, and clothed by an inspired tailor! His hair, broken by the slightest crisp, reflected the lights as he bent his head deferentially over the programmes of the Wyndham girls.

Jan gave a little gasp. This was her man. This was the face which had smiled at her from the red heart of many a fire. This was the form which had been her companion in many a magic adventure in the misted regions of Make-Believe.

At that moment Ford raised his eyes and looked at the radiant white figure, her soft, dark hair crowned with roses and her cheeks carnation with excitement. He had an unfailing eye for the prettiest girl in the room and he instantly requisitioned the introduction.

It was the rushing together of the moth and the star, and Marcus, knowing his services to be superfluous, only waited long enough to see him take Jan's programme. Then, with a face dark as a thunderstorm, he dug himself into the smoking-room for the rest of the evening.

"Don't look!" said Ford, as he handed back the programme. His voice was low and pleasant, and his smile held a hint of delightful audacity.

Of course, Jan looked.

"Oh, you've taken far too many!"

But she gave him those and many more before the end of the. evening. He was a perfect dancer, and she herself had never danced t so well, unconscious that half her skill was due to her partner. Her code of fair play in sad eclipse, she cut the dances of her luckless partners in favor, of many minutes of stolen bliss in discreet alcoves.

The hours flew away on wings, bringing her to the tragedy of the Last Extra and "God Save the King."

"I'm going to see you home," he said. "Is your car waiting?"

"I'm not going, home to-night. It's too far out in the country. I'm stopping with friends in the town."

Arm-in-arm, very slowly, they walked through the little old-fashioned town. All the lamps were extinguished and the narrow streets were bathed in milky moonlight, giving it the unreal quality or a hamlet in fairyland, with sugar-loaf steeples and cobbled roads.

"Ripping little place," said Ford. "Reminds me of Switzerland."

"Isn't it? Exactly."

"Know Geneva?"

"Why, yes!"

"Paris, of course?"

"I've stayed there. And at Lucerne and Interlaken and Territeta."

"Splendid. I knew you weren't the ordinary stay-at-home country girl.   Do you know, I tossed up whether I  should fag or come to-night?"

Jan's heart froze. The carelessness of men's methods! To think she might have missed him by the spin of a coin!

"I thought I should be fed to the back teeth; instead of which, I met you."

His hand pressed her arm.

"Do you know, you are quite unlike any other girl?"

She too, experienced that priceless feeling of being unique, which is a lover's supreme gift.

"Here we are!" She stopped before a tall dark house with blind windows and a double flight of steps which met before the front door.

"I— I suppose we shan't see each other again."

Her voice shook slightly, but she could not believe it all the same.

"Oh, we shall. Somewhere, some time. Don't you feel it's ordained? We've not met for nothing. I know it's soon to talk like that, but I never funk my fences. I— I'll write."

But Jan, the practical, noted that he had not asked for her address.

Suddenly her brain was fired by a daring idea which held, in its development, infinite possibilities.

"I suppose you wouldn't care about a week-end in the country? We live at the Rectory, at Watermead. People rave about the place. There's a good football match next Saturday. And— and— people seem to like staying with us."

"I should love it; You alone would be sufficient inducement. But I shall bore your people?"

She laughed happily.

"We're quite used to week-end visitors. But l must warn you we're unconventional. Do you mind? Daddy's not a bit like a parson. He's out-of-doors."

"Topping."

"Then, suppose you come by the four-thirty on Friday. We have a  railway station. I'll meet you."

As she pulled the dangling bell-chain he caught her in his arms. Thrilling to his kisses, she returned them simply and naturally. Wasn't he her own Fair Prince?

"Have you ever kissed a girl before?" she asked.

As the door was opened by a sleep-sodden maid he released her swiftly.

"Never!"

ii

"MARCUS, you've stopped at a lot of big houses, haven't you?"

Marcus, who in the purple gloom of his tempestuous past had been a guest at more than one historic mansion, twitched an eyebrow. His face was set in stiffer mould than usual as he watched Jan fill a big blue bowl with daffodils.

"Just a few— calling with samples and all that."

"Please be serious. How does this drawing-room strike you? It always seems perfect to me. but, perhaps I am prejudiced!"

Marcus could give a genuine opinion, for the room never failed to please him. It was long and narrow, with tall windows and a floor of dark-grained oak; its carpet of delphinium-blue was faded and the roses on the cretonnes were washed out, but it still suggested taste and comfort.

"It'll pass, Jan. It has atmosphere."

"I'm so glad. I often wonder if I'm silly over my home."

"Fact is, Jan, you've made a corner here in happiness.

Marcus was always responsive to the spell of the Rectory. It was a pleasant white house, facing— south, shabby, but full of comfort. It was run on the general lines of-good fires and plenty in the larder.

"You can't really know a person until you've seen her in her own house," went on Jan.

"That's so. Twenty-four hours together within four walls is more effective than a whole season's casual meetings in drawing-rooms."

Marcus turned the knife in his heart. The sooner the tragedy was finished the better.

Jan looked at her wrist-watch. "I must fly to meet Lewis."

"D'you call him 'Lewis' already?"

"Well, it's a surname, anyway."

"Nice girls don't call men by their surnames."

Jan's sole answer was a laugh of pure happiness.  She had lived up in the  stars since waking the morning after the dance, to the rapture of the knowledge that the same sun was shining upon Lewis.

Her mother, who was used to hospitality, could not understand her insistence upon special preparations.

"Mum, all that's lovely, but he— he's used to different things. He's different altogether from the other boys. Oh, just splendid!"

Enlightened by her daughter's blush, her mother was on her mettle.

As Jan flew across the fields towards the railway-station she wondered fearfully if the picture she had retained of Lewis Ford would prove a glamorous fancy.

But when he stepped on to the platform, in just the wondrous travelling coat to which she was accustomed by the films, she thought that she had under-rated his perfection. Swelling with a girl's natural pride of conquest, she piloted him home the long way through the village.

A motor passed them and he looked up, with sudden interest, as a golden-haired girl in spectacular motoring kit, turned to wave to him.

"Hulloa! Lady Sylvia Wells! Didn't know she was staying here. That's the Wyndhams' car. Oh, no....  Just met her, that's all."

Jan felt that his eyes were fixed upon her as he spoke. She knew that her cheeks were flushed with exercise, and, with a remembrance or the rouge on the London girl's face she had a swift glow of triumph.

They stopped at the stile to gaze over the expanse of swelling meadows.

"Ripping field for a gallop. I suppose your dad can mount me?"

"We've only the pony-cart. We've all bicycles."

"Quicker, too. Are you near the links?"

"There aren't any. I am sorry you've brought your clubs for nothing."

"No matter. I'll teach, you on the lawn. I suppose there is something I can teach you?"

"Lots.  We'll begin with golf."

"And end with—"

"We're nearly there."

Filled with shyness at the ardor of his tone, Jan snatched at postponement. She did not want the crown of her romance to come too quickly. The present moments were so entirely sweet.

Later on, as she gave Lewis afternoon tea in the drawing-room, she felt that a dream had come true. The firelight gleamed on the old Queen Anne teapot and the great bowls of daffodils on the window-ledges. It was home at its best.

Ford looked at her feet as she stretched them to the blaze.

"I specially noticed your slim ankles at the dance."

"They don't look slim now!" she laughed. "Mummy knits all my stockings."  "Ripping of her! Uncommon, aren't they? Most girls seem to wear brogues and sports stockings in the country."

"Rather! And dresses up to their knees to show them off. Daddy would give me a sermon, five heads and a "lastly—" all to myself if my skirt ever rises more than two inches above any ankles."

"All the same, you wore shorter skirts than that at the Winter Sports in Switzerland?"

"But I went to Switzerland in the summer."

"Oh! Climbing?"

"No. We went for the scenery. Lunn's three-week tour. Oh, it was gorgeous."

She broke off in her recital as the clock struck six.

"You'll want to go to your room?"

The best guest chamber— called the Blue Room because of the color of its   hangings— was bathed in hospitable firelight. From the window was a view of a ridge crowned with a clump of fir trees darkly silhouetted against the rose-flush of sunset. With a satisfied sigh Jan slipped away to help in the preparations for the high tea.

It was a festive meal, for Mrs. Hardcastle— a sport to her backbone— had killed the fatted calf. She set and kept the ball rolling as she beamed from behind the tea-urn. She was a stout, tweed-clad lady, with learning glasses and rosy cheeks. Gold and grey were fighting it out in her hair.

There were cold fowls and a York ham, as well as eggs and home-made cakes, and Jan was delighted at her lover's appetite.

He had come down to the meal attired in dinner clothes, and, later on in the evening, Jan, despite a pang of shame, had to contrast his with Marcus, who dropped in attired in the casual Norfolk of an uninvited guest.

"What do you do in the evening? asked Ford. "Jazz— or auction?"

"We play games. We made a Cambridge don, and a colonial bishop, play  'Cat-and-mouse' the other evening, and they loved it."

"Topping! I know, Kiss-in-the-ring. The Wyndham push coming over?"

"No. We called, but they're not parishioners."

When candles were lit at the end of an uproarious evening. Jan felt her first slight pang of hesitation as she turned to Ford.

"I— I hope you don't mind family prayers to-morrow morning. Remember, you're staying in a parson's family!"

"My dear child, of course! We always had them at the Bishop's. Otherwise, it would be Hamlet without the Ghost."

His charming smile dissipated her last doubt.

But, all the same, prayers were over by the time he appeared the next morning for breakfast, and Jan, who had missed her cold bath in order to hold the bathroom at his sole disposal, scolded him gently.

"You've made me late, so I may have to leave you for a bit. I must look in at the church to do the altar flowers, as we're going to the match this afternoon. Come and see me feed my fowls!"

To her surprise he shook his head.

"Just wash me out, my dear! I want to get a trunk call through at the post  office if I can. Stocks and shares. Mind you tell your hens to lay me a nice brown Buff Orpington egg for my tea."

So Jan obediently trotted off to tell her White Leghorns to lay Buff Orpington eggs.

Later on, Ford helped her to carry her bundles of ivy and primroses to the church, and there, was no prouder girl than Jan as she walked up the aisle with her escort.

But her rapture was dispelled when Roger, her small brother, chattered into the church, elated with the distinction of bearing a' telegram.

Ford tore it open, and, remembering where he was, bit off a naughty-word in time.

"Of all the rotten luck! I positively must go back to town by noon. Important business."

"Business? You're a barrister, aren't you?" faltered Jan, who, on the strength of his profession, had waded through the most disreputable case in the paper the day before, for the sake of the duel of the counsels.

"Reading for the bar. But this is finance. I must pack up my kit immediately. Coming?"

"Of course. But I can't see you off at the station, for I simply must do the altar flowers. I'm so sorry."

He rallied her on her forlorn looks as they hurried through the churchyard.

"I shall be coming back, of course. Not likely I shall keep away for km^. Why, in time, I expect the good folk planted out here will get to know my step so well that you'll have the whole graveyard out in purple and red, like Tennyson's 'Maud.' Rotten color-scheme."

Jan was comforted. And when he stood, bag in hand, outside the Rectory gates, she felt that their farewell was only the first instalment of a serial.

Marcus, walking down the lane unseen, gritted his teeth as he witnessed the long rapture of their parting.

iii

"HELLO, Pony! Where on earth, are you hithering?"

Ford's face lit up, as he walked on to the sun-drenched railway station, to find it not only gay with polyanthuses in the flower-beds, but brilliant with a flamboyant cluster of ladies— the Wyndham girls and Sylvia Wells. Instantly nicknames flew like chaff in a gale.

"Called back to town business," said Ford.

There was a howl of laughter. Then Lady Sylvia, in the most hectic of sports coats ..and. skirts,...which displayed the maximum of smart hosiery, turned to Ford, her pretty, eyes filled with persuasion.

"We simply screamed when we heard that you were staying at the  Rectory. We're dying to hear all about it. How did they manage to net you?"

He shook his head.

"What's there to tell? I've had a delightful visit— what there was of it. Charming family, country air, and all that."

"Not good enough, Pony. Be a sport. Tell us! We won't let on!"

It is accepted that three generations go to the making of a gentleman. Lewis Ford was the son of a rich father, who had taken his first steps in clogs. Although he might have remained proof to the Wyndham girls persuasions, he could not resist the blue eyes— and title— of Lady Sylvia Wells.

He lowered his voice.

"Well, in, strict confidence, I'll own up to the most ghastly suck-in. She—Miss Hardcastle— "told me that her dad was 'out-of-doors,' and I went down, expecting plenty of sport and a port wine, fox-hunting parson. Instead of which he just digs in his garden."

He was spurred on by delighted ripples of laughter.

"Oh, she warned me that they were unconventional. What would you make of that? I spelt it, dinner in pyjamas and so on. Burt I found out it means no dinner, a saucer instead of a soap-dish, and nursery games "

'What's the house like?"

"Very shabby. Oh, very nice people, but a bit below the top-drawer."

"Did you have family prayers?" gurgled Olive Wyndham.

"We did! I attended, very reverently, in bed."

"Pony! You really are the limit!"

But Lady Sylvia had heard of Ford's infatuation at the dance and she knew that a man could survive all that— and more— for love.

"What's the girl like?" she asked, and then watched him narrowly.

"The prettiest kid. She looked topping at the dance. But she's shockingly  dressed. I tried to drop her a hint."

"A flirt?"

"Lord, no."

It was the only decent thing he hid said, for, quite honestly, he had misinterpreted the situation, which was the chief extenuation of his conduct! He did not know that he was the substance of a dream, and Jan's bulging  eyes, upon meeting, and her subsequent response to his kisses, had led him to conclude that she had a hectic taste for experience.

AS the train came in the eldest Wyndham girl caught his arm.

"You're not going, Pony! We've a houseful for the weekend and a dance tonight. Come back with us. Car's outside. You'll simply mope about in London, without a date."

He protested feebly.

"I say, it's not done. I handed out all the usual dope to that poor kid when I said 'Goodbye.' Whatever would she think? It's not done!"

But it was done, and done that very afternoon. Jan and Marcus cycled out to Marketville for the football match. As she sat on the base boards of the stand Jan was keenly expectant of an afternoon's enjoyment, and also bright with triumph, of having the handomest lover in the town. He was soon coming back to her.

Suddenly, Marcus who was packed, sardine-wise, by her side, felt her flinch away. She just managed to stifle a cry.

Following the direction of her eyes he saw, parked outside the rails, the Wyndham car with Ford at the steering wheel. His handsome head was bent in total absorption in his charming companion, Lady Sylvia Wyndham.

In that moment of shock Jan grew ten years older. Although she did not look again at Lewis, every detail of the scene, was stamped upon her brain.

She saw him now in his proper setting— as she had been wont to see him on the screen— the guest in palatial country-houses with billiard-rooms, lounges and swimming baths, and surrounded by smart butterfly girls, expert in the social game.

A lump rose in her throat as she thought of her cherished family and home. She felt that he had rejected what she loved best and had trampled it in the dust.

No one on the field watched the match with more meticulous interest. She commented on every point just to show Marcus to show that her attention was focused upon the ball.

But, at last, her ordeal came to an end, and with cheers ringing in their ears, she and Marcus silently retrieved their bicycles. She made the pace so furious along the hard white road that Marcus had his work cut out to keep up  with her. When they came to the bridge which spanned the river, just outside Watermead , she slipped from her wheel and stood gazing silently down at the sliding grey water.

"E'en the weariest river  Winds somewhere safe to sea," quoted Marcus consolingly.

She raised her head and he saw that her eyes were hot and angry.

"Why don't yon laugh at me. too. You've seen. I felt everyone at the match was staring at me. I told them in the village about the telegram. 'Had to go.  Coming back, of course!' Oh, isn't it funny?"

"Now, Jan, depend on it, there s some good reason for all this. Did you quarrel with him?"

"Quarrel? I was too nice. I'll scrub my lips with carbolic to-night."

Marcus frowned angrily.

"Then, what did you do to?"

"Just gave him the best I had, of myself, of everything, of everyone. Oh. Marcus, I'll never give up my family for anyone! They are dears, aren't they. And to think that all the time he was making fun of Mum's riddles and Dad's  tales.

"My dear girl, family jokes are admittedly a ferocious blight. It takes someone who's been brought up in a decent family to appreciate them, and probably, this splendid fellow's been reared in a foundling hospital."

In spite of his dutiful attempts at sympathy Marcus was enjoying the present turn of events, for he was a tremendously human person.

Jan struck the stone parapet with her clenched fists.

"I've made myself the laughing-stock of the parish. The people! Oh, the people! I would give all I have if I could announce my engagement to someone else."

Marcus looked at her and made up his mind swiftly. He was very sorry for her, for he knew the depths of pain and humiliation in which she groped, but he had to hurt her yet more for her own salvation.

"Anyone in particular?" he asked.

"I—" she stared at the reeds waving in the current— "I only know you."

"And I'm damned if you'll have me, " Marcus exploded at white heat. "Isn't it enough for me to have loved you with all of myself— month in, month out— while you oozed sickly sentiment for something unknown with a straight nose and a stiff collar? Do you think I have no feelings? Haven't I stood by and held your hand while you turned your heart inside out and invited me to look inside and see someone else? And now you dare to offer me the pale ghost of a simulated passion, just to satisfy the conventions of outraged pride! You're dealing with a man not a door-mat! I'm through with you. You've only got what you've asked for. And serve you jolly well right."

"How— how— dare you—"

But when Jan found her breath she only saw the dust whirling behind his furiously revolving wheel.

On the crest of the hill Marcus paused before the downward plane and laughed into the twilight.

"What a brute!"

He was right. Jan lay awake during the first hours of the night— she thought of course, that she never closed her eyes— but no tears were shed for Lewis. The smart of outraged pride had burnt out the self-pity of a deceived maiden.  Marcus had brutally shown her that she had made a fool of herself, and she, consequently, thought of Marcus. She thought of him with anger— with shame— with feelings of revenge. But still— she thought of him. In spite of her former indifference, he had two years' standing against Lewis' two days.

The whole of the next day it rained and Jan stayed inside the rectory, for fear she should meet somebody. The whole of the next day it rained and Jan walked in the dripping fields. The whole of the third day it rained, and Jan sallied out in the village, in fear lest she should meet nobody.

She met nobody.

The fourth day the sun shone, and Marcus, with inward trepidation, called at the rectory. Mrs. Hardcastle, in short serge skirt, was in the garden, cutting cabbages.

They met with a smile of understanding. "Is she convalescent?" he asked.

"Sitting up and taking nourishment. I'm rather grateful to this Ford man!. I think he's done Jan good. She's upstairs in her den, Marcus."

He found her standing before her desk, upon which were two empty frames. She held the torn fragments of the photographs of her stage favorites.

"Now what have they done to you?" asked Marcus soothingly, apparently regardless of her downcast eyes.

"I don't like their silly faces. They're so— so good-looking. They bore me to tears. I want someone who's strong and ugly— someone who looks like a man!"

Very firmly Marcus extracted his own portrait from the rim of the mirror, and deliberately fitted it into one of the frames.

"Is that ugly enough for you? he asked. She looked up, sudden laughter in her eyes, and he saw that her good sense and sanity had been restored by the four days in the good company of herself. Once again, she repeated her regrettable expression.

"It's a blasted face. But— it is a man!"

As she placed it upon her writing-table Marcus took a sudden dive into a golden future, which held a country church, a red carpet, for white camellias—and Romance.

______________

3: Catastrophe

The Hardin Tribune-Herald, Montana, 20 & 27 Sep 1933

THE night before the last expedition of her holiday Stella was oppressed by a sense of impending catastrophe. She looked at the noisy crowd of young people in the hotel lounge with a feeling of responsibility.

Ought she warn them of their danger?

Her common sense told her that she had no facts to offer them; she probably was exaggerating the windy boasting of an egomaniac. Many young men had attacks of Red rash, yet developed into normal, good citizens. It was mainly youth's recognition that the social system is not perfect.

Yet from the first Ivan Morgan gave her the impression of being an enemy to society. He reminded her of some mad machine, driven by gusts of class hatred, and he made no secret of his views.

Tired from her train journey and seated by herself in the lounge, she noticed at once that the slovenly young man with famished eyes and spikes of black hair was also an outsider. No one spoke to him or took the slightest notice of him. He slumped in his chair, his arms folded and his eyes scorching the face and figure of a beautiful blonde who was taking part in a hectic game of pool.

When Stella tried vainly to attract the attention of a waiter he crossed over to her side.

"Waste of time to ring." His voice grated unpleasantly. "Since the millionaires have condescended to honour this hotel with their patronage, ordinary visitors must wait on themselves or go without."

"Then it's an abominable scandal." Stella spoke sharply, for she wanted her coffee. "I shall complain to the agency when I get back. I've paid for service."

"Don't." Ivan made a dramatic gesture which revealed black-rimmed nails. "Don't blame the waiters. They're only the spineless victims of the rotten capitalist system which must be smashed if we want to build a brave new world."

Stella soon discovered that he could reel off that kind of speech without any encouragement, but she listened to him and even drew him out— partly because she was an intelligent girl who liked to study types of humanity and partly because she was sorry for him. When he learned that she had a job on the staff of a big London hotel, he claimed her sympathy as a fellow worker.

She soon grasped the facts of his grievance. The hotel was shut during the winter and was only full for six weeks in the summer; during the rest of the time it was run on a skeleton staff for the benefit of such tourists as took out-of-season holidays.

The village was miles away from a railway station, but was an excellent centre from which to explore the numerous historic ruins— abbeys and chateaux— set amid wild and picturesque scenery. Probably for that reason a party of riotous young people in a fleet of luxury cars had suddenly swooped down for lunch and then— on impulse— had decided to make it their headquarters.

Coming in the dead season they proved a little gold mine to the proprietor and not unnaturally the staff became demoralized. Money flowed constantly into the bar and waiters reaped a rich harvest of tips. The handful of ordinary visitors went to the wall.

Stella, however, was swift to prove her mettle, for she forced a surly waiter to bring her coffee. While she drank it she smoked a cigarette, while she studied the crowd.

They seemed much alike— young, attractive, high spirited, and strangers to any form of inhibition or restraint. Apparently unconscious of any one outside their own circle, they behaved as though this particular hotel had been created for their pleasure and use. It was plain that they believed that they were roughing it in the wilds, and their joking remarks were so frank that Stella thought it was fortunate that the waiters could not understand English.

The proprietor, who was a linguist, merely shrugged and smiled at his cash register, but Ivan took up the cudgels for him and literally spurted venom as he harangued Stella.

"Look at that swilling mob of drunken swine. They know nothing. They don't know the meaning of hunger, or pain, or fear. They're stuffed with food instead of ideas.... But if I were to hurl a bomb into their midst they'd be nothing but bloody rags."

"You'd be blown up, too," Stella reminded him.

"What of it? Death's nothing. Life's nothing." His eyes smouldered. "But what a scoop. The heirs to millions all here together. What a blow to strike at capitalism. The man who did that would be a hero."

"He'd be a murderer."

"No. An avenger. These millionaires are mass murderers. See that girl." He pointed to the beautiful blonde. "That's Mitzi Cross, heiress to sweated millions. She's a human being, like myself. Yet she doesn't know I'm made of flesh and blood, too. When we meet she doesn't see me. If I speak to her she doesn't hear. I hate her."

The boredom of her first evening was typical of the days to follow and it soon became plain to Stella that this special holiday was not a success. The millionaires— to use Ivan's collective title for sake of convenience—disorganized the hotel. They claimed the easiest chairs, monopolized the billiard table, exacted preferential treatment for meals and baths. Hot water ran tepid, and the best dishes were declared "off."

They were chaperoned by a depressed elderly lady who remained mostly invisible, partly from rheumatism and partly from dread of making an acquaintance. This fear was unfounded, for the other guests usually retired to their own rooms for refuge. They were all of them quiet, pleasant people and included an American family, two English women school-teachers, and several French and Belgian married couples.

As Stella was an attractive girl and used to attention, she grew rather bored and resentful. Ivan soon got on her nerves, especially when she discovered that her pity was wasted on a swollen self-conceit. After she had made it clear that free love was mud to her he left her alone.

All his attention was concentrated on the millionaires, and in particular the heiress, Mitzi Cross. He devoured her with glittering eyes which missed no movement of her slim figure, and strained his ears to catch every word of her fluting high-pitched voice. When she laughed he shivered as though the sound touched an exposed nerve.

"I believe it's an inverted passion," thought Stella. "It's unhealthy."

But gradually she, too, became affected by the adverse conditions, both spiritual and climatic. Although the weather was bad she went on daily motor excursions because the hotel was so uncomfortable. The landscape looked savagely depressing, viewed through sheets of torrential rain, and she left the car only to stumble through melancholy ruins which smelt of mouldy damp.

Presently she began to sleep badly from lack of air and exercise. The village lay deep in a tree-lined valley, so that from her bedroom window she could see only a wall of sodden foliage. After her light was switched off she lay staring out at the gloom until she fell asleep, often to dream of oubliettes and medieval torture.

She had reached the point of deciding to cut her loss and return to England and was actually on her way to the bureau when to her surprise a member of the millionaires' party asked her to play billiards with him.

Before the game was over she had not only shed her depression but was I pledged to stay out her fortnight. The young man, whose name was Lewis Gough, had an interesting personality besides charm. She discovered that in spite of his father's wealth he was a keen worker and a clever chemist.

Her pleasure, however, was partly spoiled by the presence of Ivan, who sat and stared fixedly at Lewis and herself as though they were a pair of performing fleas, hopping about for his ironic amusement. The next time she met him he cut her dead.

Although this extraordinary behaviour was a relief, since it rid her of his company, she expected a sense of discomfort and also of unmerited guilt. Ivan's clap-trap speeches were usually ridiculous, but his silence got on her nerves. It changed him into the unknown— a figure of sinister and inscrutable menace.

But as gradually she was drawn into the outer ring of the charmed circle she thought about him less, even while he remained in the background of her consciousness.

TWO DAYS before the end of her holiday she had just returned from a motor trip with Lewis and was standing on the bridge over the river when she was startled by the sound of Ivan's harsh voice.

"Are you going to the caves tomorrow?"

"Yes," she replied, stressing her smile to show him that she was still friendly. "Are you?"

"What does that matter to you? I'm not your new friend— the millionaire."

"O, don't be silly. If you mean Mr. Gough, he's not a millionaire. And he probably works harder than you."

"Probably. But not between meals... I came to give you a warning. Don't go tomorrow."

Her heart gave a little leap.

"Why not?" she asked.

Ivan stared down at the swirl of the soupy rain-swollen current and smiled darkly, as though he were dipped in the turgid depths of his imagination.

"These rich people feel secure," he said, "because they always herd in crowds. They're cowards who find safety in numbers. But suppose an— accident— happened tomorrow they would be trapped in the bowels of the mountain."

"What could happen?"

"The light might be cut off. They're all at the mercy of some poor devil, but they'll never give one thought to him. Suppose he was one of us? They would be left in pitchy darkness— And then— anything might happen."

As she listened Stella's imagination galloped away with her, so that she gasped with a sense of blind, choking horror, as though some one had crept behind her and smothered her in a black cloth. Before her common sense returned Ivan had turned away.

WHILE she was dressing for dinner she was shocked to discover how shaken she was by the episode. Her fingers trembled and she hunted for garments after she had put them on. Presently she opened her suit-case and drew out her book of return tickets.

As she checked the stages of her journey home the fear coiled around her heart, raised its ugly head.

"Suppose these are never used. Suppose I don't go back."

Even while she told herself that Ivan's threats were ridiculous she knew that one thoughtless or irresponsible person could precipitate a catastrophe. Ivan was incapable of clear thought. His head was a clouded broth of revolutionary phrases. He talked glibly of death, but knew nothing of life.

They were at the mercy of a child— an idiot— a drunkard— who walked amid piles of gunpowder, flourishing a lighted taper.

Suddenly she decided to trust to her instinct and not go to the caves. It was lowering her flag of superstition, but in the circumstances the excursion would prove a penance instead of a pleasure.

After she made the decision she felt happy again. Dinner was quite a festive meal and she ordered a bottle of wine to mark the occasion. But afterward, as she looked around the lounge, to her dismay, her send of responsibility awoke.

To-night some freak had prompted the millionaires to appear in full evening dress. Hitherto, as though to mark the difference between the other quests and themselves, they had not changed for dinner, appearing in the breeches and shorts of the daytime.

Although they were now far too ornate for the occasion they were exceedingly good to look at. The girls were like a swarm of brilliant butterflies, quivering with colour and life. Mitzi was alluring and exquisite in an amazing backless gown of black velvet; her nails and lips were vivid coral, and the loose waves of her silvery hair shimmered like moonlight.

"They have something which is beautiful," thought Stella. "They have youth."

She glanced anxiously at Ivan, who was glowering at Mitzi as he sprawled in one of the chairs which the millionaires had grown to regard as their especial property. Presently he was tackled by one of Mitzi's special young men whom every one called "Pony."

This youth was the richest member of the party and incidentally not a favourite dish with Stella; he was spoilt, sophisticated, and brainless. His grin was confident as he spoke to Ivan.

"I say, Miss Cross wants her chair. Do you mind frightfully?"

"I do," snarled Ivan. "But if she's bought the chair she shall have it when she shows me the receipt."

The youth started, stared, and then turned away with a shrug.

"Was that necessary?" asked Stella, speaking to Ivan in a low, soothing voice. "Why do you let these people make you unhappy? Soon you'll never see them again. Forget them."

"I can't." His voice was choked with passion. "Look at them. Dancing, drinking, laughing. They are always laughing."

"And you're jealous because they laugh. You could laugh, too."

"I'm not a hyena nor yet a grinning ape. Look at that girl. You're a worker. Have you ever worn a dress like hers?"

"No, but I don't envy her. You and I have the luck because we have jobs, while these people are all on the dole. They must be so bored. Can't you realize you're above them? You have personality— power."

It was second nature with Stella to smooth rough places. Her hotel experience had taught her to regard dissatisfied guests as so many fractious children to be calmed. She fed Ivan with spoonfuls of grossest flattery through sheer force of habit.

It came to her as a shock of surprise when he swallowed her bait.

"You're right," he said. "I am above them. I'll show them. I'll show them."

"I can influence him," she thought as she watched him rise to his feet. She felt something of the thrill of the engine-driver when he controls a runaway machine.

"I'm going to give her one last chance," said Ivan. "It is in her power to save the lot of them."

Still acting in the grand manner he crossed to Mitzi, made a low bow, and pointed in the direction of his empty chair

"It's yours," he said. Mitzi accepted the courtesy with quite a gracious nod and half a smile. But even as Stella drew a deep breath of relief the girl gingerly picked up the greasy cushion— against which Ivan's head had rested— and pitched it on the floor.

As it was not clean the action might have been a precaution to protect her frock. Besides, Mitzi was the kind of girl who threw things about. But Ivan construed it as a deadly insult.

His lips quivered with fury as he strode from the lounge. There was a burst of laughter as he went, but Stella shuddered, for she had seen his eyes.

She started at the sound of Lewis' voice.

"That young man!" she replied. "He's class-conscious and not quite normal. I feel he's dangerous. Miss Cross offended him just now. Could you persuade her to say something decent to him?"

"Wouldn't if I could. I know his type. Harmless. All the fellow wants is to be a hero and pose in the limelight... Come on. Dance, little lady, dance."

So Stella danced and tried to forget her fears. She told herself that it was hopeless to try to control the situation. In any case it was not her business. In two days' time she would never see any of these people again.... Life went on.

On her way up to bed she met Ivan on the narrow staircase. He was carrying a suit-case and his face was white and his eyes glazed as though he had been drinking!"

"Are you going away?" she asked.

"Yes," he replied thickly. "I've been kicked out of the hotel by the blasted millionaires."

"What do you mean?"

"I complained to the proprietor about their filthy behaviour. And he had the damned insolence to tell me to go.... Me!"

The triumph of his laugh and the bravado of his swagger told Stella that the ultimate disaster had happened. He was now a martyr to his cause.

She tossed sleeplessly in bed, a prey to every kind of foreboding fancy, and when at last she dropped into a doze she had horrible nightmares of dark places. She was drowning into the darkness. Choked in the darkness. Crushed by the darkness. Sinking down into the bottomless gulfs of darkness.

IT WAS a relief to wake up and see the rare sunlight streaming through her window and to remember that she was not going to the caves.

But all the same she could not shake off a sense of her own responsibility. During cafe complet she felt a pang whenever she looked around the restaurant. The young people were in the highest spirits and their shouts of laughter tore at her heart.

She told herself that they were going to their doom like sacrificial lambs. It was true that they were graceless, noisy lambs, but they were so unconscious of any overhanging fate. Their faces had the bloom of youth; some of the boys had only begun to shave; they were merely spoiled, reckless babes.

She alone was forewarned and had any influence over Ivan. At a critical moment she might prove the driver, able to control a mad machine. One word might mean all the difference between life and death. If she stayed safely at the hotel and later heard of some catastrophe in the caves she would never be able to forgive herself— or to forget. Presently Lewis crossed to her table.

"Change your mind and come to the caves." he pleaded. "It is our last excursion together. Come for me."

As Stella looked at his clear eyes and the clean cut corners of his mouth she suddenly realized that he meant more to her than she had guessed. In that moment she changed her mind. "All right," she said. "I'll go."

Although the rest of the party were in the highest spirits, Stella felt as though she were in the tumbrel on her way to the guillotine as the car tore through the sunlit countryside. When they arrived at the village, which was the starting point of their expedition, the little train was already waiting by the side of the road. But Mitzi and her crowd, with whoops of glee, rushed to get drinks at the hotel, outside which stood the usual painted iron tables and chairs.

Stella seated herself beside the two English school teachers. One was tall and rather gloomily handsome; the other was a little, pale girl in glasses, with a vivid face and an astounding store of information.

"What are we waiting for?" complained the tall teacher.

"Those boys who are drinking," replied her little friend. "People like that spoil things for every one."

Stella mentally agreed with her. Although Ivan was not on the train she held her breath with suspense, fearing every second to see him hurry down the street. But at last, to her joy, the train began slowly to move. It jolted through the town and then ran under a tunnel of shady trees. An amber river flowed beside the avenue, but gradually its water gleamed below them as the engine chugged up the hillside.

As they climbed higher and higher through the gaps in the rocks they had visions of the country spread out below like a painted map. The scarlet of poppies and yellow of mustard made bright splashes, amid the multi-shades of green, while the shadows of racing clouds swept across in tremulous blue and purple patches.

The journey was short and soon the conductor came and took Stella's ticket. Thinking he had made a mistake she held it firmly as she explained that she wanted it for the return journey.

"Pas de retour," he said.

"Sounds ominous." laughed the little school mistress. " 'No return.' He means we don't go back by train. We walk back inside the mountain to our starting point."

Although the explanation was sound Stella felt absurdly depressed by the incident, as though the conductor's words were prophetic. "No return." The phrase rang in her head as she got out of the train. The rest of the tourists were crowding to look over the lip of a Dante-esque gorge at the source of the river, which foamed in a dark boil through the rocks far below.

Turning away with a shudder she followed her companions down a slippery path which zig-zagged along the base of the mountain until the entrance to the caves was reached.

She looked nervously around her as she passed through the turnstile, dreading to see Ivan's white, sneering face. Although he was apparently not among the crowd of sightseers, his absence did not reassure her altogether.

"Perhaps he's already Inside." she thought, "waiting."

In a kind of nightmare she entered the maze of passages and caves with which the mountain was honeycombed. From the beginning of the expedition her mind was so heavy with apprehension that she received but a confused impression of her surroundings. The marvels of the stalactites were lost upon her; she could only plod through cracks in the rocks, along galleries, and I up and down endless steps. She was dimly aware of dripping walls, of corners of fantastic draperies, of what appeared to be guttering stone altar candles, but she could neither admire nor wonder. She could only endure.

"How far is it to the end?" she asked faintly.

"About two and a half miles," replied the little teacher.

The tourists straggled on in a long thin line like ants on march. Sometimes they clustered together in some chamber while the guide explained its formation, in three languages, which did not include English. Stella's brain was too dull to attempt to translate; she was only fretted by the repetition, although she recognized the standardized jokes by the bursts of laughter.

All the time she was acutely on the alert— waiting for some horror which might await them round the next bend. The shattering roar of an explosion—  the rumbling avalanche of rocks sealing their tombs— the thick, choking blackness.

"Tired?" asked Lewis.

"O, no. But the air's rather thick, isn't it?"

"A bit dead probably. We're getting pretty deep in."

He put his hand through her arm to help her as they scrambled onward. The tourists went in pairs or single file along the narrow paths. Most of them were silent. Some were feeling the strain of the stagnant atmosphere and of climbing steps; some were bored; some were memorizing what they saw.

But there were others who were oblivious of their surroundings and carrying on as usual. These included Mitzi and her young men who, following precedent, regarded the mountain as their private property. They chased each other down the flights of steps with shouts and laughter, pushing aside the other tourists without ceremony.

Stella's feeling of oppression deepened as they got further inside the mountain. Sometimes when they walked over the tongues of rock they caught glimpses of a black river boiling down below.

At one point where it was wide and oily it was spanned by a bridge. The guide halted to name it the River Styx and to make jokes about hell in three different languages.

"Looks pretty foul," remarked Lewis. "I shouldn't care to swim in it. Would you?"

"I can't," Stella confessed. "It's awful, but somehow I never got the chance. I suppose I'm unique."

"No, you aren't. Mitzi can't swim either. She'll do any stunt in the air, but she's always had a dread of water. Some sort of complex."

The expedition had now become a test of endurance. They appeared to wind eternally through cracks of rocks or stop in the caves during a ghastly period of explanation. Everything seemed calculated to draw out the agony. The guide had so many regulation jokes to be cracked; there were theatrical effects of coloured flares to be admired; musical chimes and echoes were evoked to heighten the effect of the grottoes.

Presently Stella noticed a man who was always running ahead of the party.

"He turns on the lights before we come and then goes back and switches them of again," explained the little teacher.

"I don't commend their economy," grumbled her tall friend. "If a light fused we should be left in the dark."

A memory stirred in Stella's brain. "Some poor devil.... Suppose he was one of us." To stifle it she spoke to the little school teacher:

"Are we near the end?"

"Yes," was the comforting reply. "But we've got to wait and have refreshments first."

The subterranean café reminded Stella of a foretaste of the infernal regions, with its waitresses and the members of the orchestra all in scarlet, and the weird, echoing music. Tortured by the delay, she was trying to swallow a cup of bitter black coffee when she suddenly saw Ivan looking down from an upper balcony.

Only his face was revealed by the red flare, so that he seemed to swim in space. The light accentuated its bony structure and the hollows of his eyes making him resemble a corpse awaiting burial.

Like a spirit of evil he brooded in gloating triumph over the abyss.

At last his enemies were in his power.

Stella could imagine the drunken dreams which flooded his brain. He would believe it to be a glorious deed to hurl a bomb into their midst. With one gesture entire nests of capitalists and blood-suckers would be wiped out. The others who perished would be merely incidental to the sacrifice.

He would be a hero— and die a martyr's death. He would be photographed and paragraphed in the press. Beyond that his thoughts would not go.

"I must get to him. I must speak to him before it's too late.'

As the thought flashed across Stella's mind he disappeared. She tried to scramble in his direction just as the little teacher called out to her that they were moving on again. Afraid to be lost in the ramifications of the caves, she had to turn and follow the party through other passages until they reached a wooden dock which was built over a stretch of black, still water. On it floated a huge, clumsy craft, rather like a barge.

"In a few minutes we shall be outside," explained the little teacher. "We just float down the river. Jump in. I wish people wouldn't push."

The tourists crowded forward while the boatmen helped them into the barge. They were packed together so closely that the boat seemed to sink down almost below the level of the water

"We're not enough for two boats, so they're making one do," remarked the little teacher.

Stella could see nothing of her party because of the intervening heads, although she could judge the whereabouts of Mitzi, who was shouting to Pony to sit beside her. As he tried to rise the barge lurched perilously and every one yelled to him to keep still.

But in that moment of shifting positions Stella had a glimpse of Ivan's white face and staring eyes. They had taken death on board. They began to slide slowly through the water, leaving the lighted dock for the semi-gloom of the tunnel. She could see its lofty, dripping roof as they crawled onward foot by foot. Each moment the light drew dimmer until it suddenly went out altogether.

The eclipse was greeted with laughter and faint screams of excitement.

"They always do this," said the little teacher. "We shall drift around the bend and then we shall see the daylight at the end of the tunnel, like blue fire."

Stella listened in an agony of terror. At last she realized why Ivan had withheld the bomb of which he talked. This was the opportunity for which he had waited. The darkness.

Each minute seemed to hold an eternity of dread. She could hear the trickling and gurgling of water— the creaking of timber. And then— the catastrophe happened within three seconds. The barge rocked with a sickening lurch as some one rose to his feet. There was shouts of "Sit down," but almost in the same moment the boat keeled completely over and she felt herself slipping down through the water.

It was like her dream— a choking agony in the darkness. Pandemonium raged all around her as people fought and struggled, while a mad medley of limbs thrashed and kicked in every direction. Just as her fingers touched the slimy boards of the barge she felt a violent blow under her chin and dropped down into an abyss of blackness.

WHEN she opened her eyes she was lying on the grass, staring up into a dazzling blur of light. Gradually the landscape stopped floating about like bits of a jig-saw puzzle and reassembled itself into definite shapes of trees, fields, and people. She saw the barge— now righted on the sunlit river— and heard excited voices and shouts of laughter.

Then she smiled into Lewis' concerned eyes.

"Am I drowned?" she asked.

"No, just a spot damp," was the reply "You were knocked out in the scrum."

"Were any lives lost?" she whispered as she shuddered at the memory.

"Of course not. At one time things looked a bit ugly. People lost their heads because of the dark. But when the light came on we soon got things sorted out."

"But it might have been a tragedy. You see, I was right about Ivan. He was dangerous."

"But that chap didn't scuttle the boat," explained Lewis. "It was that fool, Pony, trying to cross to Mitzi. No, the Mad Mullah fished her up and now's she's telling the world he's her hero. I told you all he wanted was the limelight. Look at him. lapping it all up."

As Stella followed his pointing finger she could hardly believe the evidence of her eyes. Shouting and laughing with excitement— Ivan was the central figure of his group. His thin cheeks were flushed and his fingers snapped as he spouted like a stump orator. One arm was thrown around Mitzi, who literally clung to him, for she was a girl who never did things by halves.

But later that evening, looking into the swirl at the soupy river, he made his confession to Stella.

"I did upset the barge. The other chap got up afterward. I gripped Mitzi. I meant to drag her down with me and hold her under until we were both drowned. But when she put her arms around my neck and cried out I— I couldn't. Something got hold of me."

Stella understood. This youth who had walked and talked daily with death, for the first time had been gripped by the mighty force of life.

________________

4: Thumbs Down

The London Magazine, Dec 1910

Queenslander, 21 Jan 1911

CHESTNUTS were going strong— both before and round the fire. As the nuts on the bars frizzled and popped, hoary jokes were brought out again and aired. A jovial-faced man propounded the old teaser of "The Lady— or the Tiger?" When he paused for breath, his hearers rushed into the breach, each ready with a positive answer to the Riddle of the Two Doors. Their host laughed derisively.

"You youngsters are all mighty cocksure. Prehistoric— all of you. I'm listening to your rubbish with respect, for the reason that at least one half of you might be right. But the one man, whose opinion I'd like to hear, sits glum. Come on, Drake, which did he meet? Lady or tiger? Don't be afraid! It won't let you down. Angels' feet have been pounding in everywhere."

He winked jovially at the pretty girls he loved to collect round him.

Drake drew further back into the shadow. He was a long, lean man, with puckered eyes. To make up for his narrow girth, he possessed a world-wide reputation.

"Without prejudice," he said. "I don't care a hang which it was. The fellow sounds rather like a grafter. Anyway, he's comfortably dead now, whichever way he went out. But it makes me think of a similar cases in which I happened to—  My eye! What a fool I am!"

He rushed in with a vengeance. The circle round the fire would take no denial.

"Well, stoke up with the chesnuts, then," snapped Drake, "for it's Lombard-street to a China orange you won't swallow my yarn. It happened just after I'd returned home from Henshaw's expedition into Central Africa. I came back to find myself very seedy— eye trouble— and what was worse, a marked man. Lumps of Henshaw's well-earned fame had come pelting on to me. As a matter of fact, he did everything off his own bat. I simply went with him and did the cooking— records and all! Oh, shut up! Very well, then. Do your own talking!"

"Go on, Simon ! Don't be a coward!" said a gentle-faced woman in the corner. She was Drake's wife and, incidentally, a great talker.

The famous man obeyed instantly.

VERY SOON, I got fed up with strangers, and was only too thankful to accept an invitation to stay with some people I knew fairly well. Oddly enough, at the very start of my entering the house, an incident occurred which was significant and which was the keynote of the visit. No sooner was my foot inside the door, than a heavy bag of flour tilted down on to my head. A practical joke! I entered the house with white hair, and I left it with my hair white for good, as you see it now, from the same cause.

I won't pretend that I enjoyed the first few days of my stay. I had been away so long that I couldn't catch on to the new spirit that had crept into society. The Groves were a specially nice family, and the house-party, on the whole, consisted of a thoroughly good set. But the entire lot was infected with a croze for idiotic ragging. It didn't appeal to me. I was used to brainless frivolity— used to meet it in chunks among the monkeys and natives. And I was used to danger. Old Henshaw saw to that. But this particular blend of dangerous joking that animated the antics of the house-party gave me a positive pain. It was simply fierce. I got on to the subject with a very decent fellow— Derby by name— who was also staying in the house. He liked the tone as little as I.

"Dora Groves brought it back after her visit to Beecham Towers," he said, "and her people froze on to it, because they think it's the hall-mark of the Smart Set. They've done nothing sensible since. Bag, rag, rag— from dawn to dewy eve. And the idiots don't know where to stop. There'll be serious trouble before they're through."

"I'll put an end to it," I said. My own confidences make me smile. I'll say straight away, I was a humbler man afterwards. I couldn't tackle my host and hostess— but I got hold of Dora and let her have the great guns of my wrath.

"Look here, Dora," I said straight. "You were the jolliest little kid in creation when I left home, and you're tho jolliest big one now." But I lied, for there was staying at the house then the very nicest girl, of whom more hereafter.

"Frankly," I went on, "these idiotic monkey tricks aren't worthy of you, Dora. They're dangerous, they're brainless, they're discourteous. They're dead against the spirit of hospitality, for which your family is famous. Do make a stand against them, like the dear, brave girl you are. The rest will follow your lead."

She tossed her head contemptuously, and peppered me with small shot. She must have thought me a fine specimen of a long-lipped, weak-eyed kill-joy.

"I'm sorry if our fun has disturbed you," she said. "I should have thought a man of your reputation wouldn't have grumbled about a few jokes. But I'll tell the others, in future, not to try to score off you, as you think it dangerous!"

Off she went, with a cracker in her hand, and a second later the cracker went off— under the door of an invalid spinster. I tackled the lot of them in turn, with about equal success. They took their tone from Dora, as the eldest girl of the family, and she— in turn— was completely infatuated by a fellow of the name of Puffin Lake.

He was the ringleader of the rag. I don't want to do this man an injustice. At the same time, if I were to do him justice, you'd think I was infringing the law of slander. So I'll content myself by saying he was a virulent waster— too brainless to be vicious, too mischievous to be harmless. In a strait-waistcoat, or a monkey-house, he'd have been quite a decent fellow, and good company. I like to be fair.

I lasted out about four days of my visit, keeping a pretty stiff lip, considering my disgust. You can imagine, I was not exactly popular. In return for my gift of the cold shoulder, I got any amount of cool cheek. I did not meditate, however, making tracks for some other cover, when an incident took place which altered my views. I said something about a nice girl who was staying in the house. She will have to figure in this yarn again, so I will put a name to her—not her real one, for obvious reasons. I intend to call her "Silence."

The night in question there was an impromptu dance in the hall. It was the usual combination of a football scrum and a bargain-sale. During the lancers, in the middle of a ring, some fool loosed hands, and the whole lot went flying, like a bead necklace when the thread is snapped. The girl I called silence went spinning into space, made several cannons against different bits of furniture, and ended up with a mighty crack.

My rage was an eye-opener to me. I wanted to charge the lot like a rogue-elephant. I pounded over to help Silence, but directly I hauled her up, she collapsed. Her ankle was broken. After that, there was no stopping me. I let them have my unvarnished opinion of them, served up piping hot, and without trimmings.

"Look here," I said, only I put it stronger, I'm afraid, "fooling is fooling, I grant you, and no harm done. Tea-tray tobogganing and pillow-fights are capital sport, and only come rough ontlhe carpets and pillows. I don't grudge you your greased-pig chase you had round the house, yesterday, for I grant that, at least, you were in congenial society. But, when it comes to a lady being injured, I say your conduct is not worthy of decent fellows— let alone gentlemen! You're about equal to the lowest set of apaches !"

There was a sort of stunned silence. Mrs. Groves, who is a sweet, fat-baby sort of person, bleated out l something about "young folk being young folk." It was her idea of saving the situation. Old Man Groves stuck out his lip and snorted like a cross infant. I knew his sympathies were with me. He had been too badly hit, through his furniture, to approve the rag.

However, things went a trifle slower after that. We actually had a quiet evening the next night, when we bawled out songs from the musical plays. Puffin Lake also entertained us with animal imitations. I will admit— being a fair man— that his imitation of a monkey was pretty nearly perfect. Instinct, I suppose, which I maintain is a throw-back to some previous existence. As I watched his antics, my thoughts went back to steaming forests, and I saw again the creatures leaping and gibbering among the matted ropes of creepers overhead. I wondered how the girls could tolerate anything so lifelike, but to my amazement their enthusiasm was fierce. Not to put too fine a point to it, he possessed the dough.

So far, I'm afraid I must be boring you with this yarn. None of tho thrills I've promised you! Too much of the flour-bag! You're wondering where my whitened poll comes in. Sit tight! I'm coming to the other half, where the grin adds a pothook and turns to "grim."  It's as difficult to divide the two bits of the yarn as to separate a snake into neck and tail.

It appeared that I had offended Dora over the dance episode. Her head did overtime tossing, so I arranged to go, after the fancy-dress ball, which was to take place a few days later. I never went to it, however, because of the events that took place the night before. With your leave, I'll hop right into that evening.

I was walking in the park, about 5 o'clock, in the company of Derby— the nice fellow I mentioned— and with Puffin Lake. No company about him ! It was a nasty evening that reeked of rheumatism. The wind was whistling as shrilly as though it had its fingers between its teeth, and had a bite on, as well. Leaves lay about in rotting piles. The sky had a dirty look, as though the Fiend had trodden heavily on the mud below and spattered the sky with splashes.

Just as we were turning homewards, we met a couple of men. I recognised one of them immediately as being a keeper from the Zoo, which lay the other side of the park. He stopped, knowing me at once from the villainous woodcuts in the rags, which shows how closely they must resemble me. He told me that they were in a stew, as a gorilla— a recent purchase— had made its escape. They were trying to keep it dark, and were organising battues all over the park to trace the brute.

Naturally, our depression vanished on the spot. We were all as keen as mustard, and volunteered to help "in the hunt.

"Is he savage?" asked Lake.

"I wouldn't advise you to take liberties with him," answered the keeper. "Either he'd toss you up in the trees like a pancake, or make you into mincemeat."

"Sounds like a chef!" grinned Lake.

I'll do him the justice to admit that, contrary to my expectations, he did not show any fear, but capered with excitement at the sport. Very likely he hadn't the wit to understand danger. Derby also showed no signs of the white feather, although a dreary park, at shadow o clock, with a possible gigantic ape waiting to drop on one from a tree, is not a cheerful spot.

I'm free to confess that, of the three, I was the most afraid. This sounds odd. The keeper had stopped me purposely, feeling the hunt was in my line. In Africa, day after day, I used to cut my way through forests that supplied plenty of cover for a varied assortment of attacks. I suppose I got case-hardened, for I don't remember feeling especially scared. Yet in the middle of those few acres of park, with the lights from houses and villas twinkling in the distance, my heart was in my mouth the whole time.

It was the idea of the unconscious population that got on my nerves. I thought of sleeping babies in mailcarts, innocent youngsters, careless errand-boys, defenceless maiden ladies, feeble old men, any of whom might cross a lonely corner of the park at any moment to fall a victim to the great simian that lurked somewhere in the under-growth.

I wanted to thrash every acre to the place until we had unearthed the brute, but we had to give in at last, so as not to bo late for dinner. Unpunctuality was the only sin that good Old Man Groves could not forgive.

I went into the big house, full of light and bustle, with a queer, feeling of depression at the thought of the danger still at large in the darkness outside. The first thing I saw was the nice girl— Silence— lying on a couch. She gave me a smile when she saw me, and it flashed across me— a rough, chap who had tramped thousand of weary miles in his time— that it was a good thing to have a smile of welcome at the end. She— bless her— lying there helpless, stood for one of the things we'd fight to protect from all danger present and to come. I went up to dress, feeling the Adam's apple in my throat swelling to a football.

Half way down the corridor Lake sang out to me to come into his room. Spread out on his bed lay an ape's get-up, which he had just sent for from town. It was his costume for the ball. And he wanted my opinion. I think he was surprised at the warmth I bestowed upon his choice, for he wasn't used to giving my approval.

"You'll never look better again in your life," I assured him. "You'll make a thundering good-looking monkey."

He stood there, grinning under the electric light, his puffy pale face and little eyes reflected in the mirror.

"By Jove," he said, with a sudden flicker crossing his features. "What a rag it would be to put it on now and make the girls yell! They'd think it was the gorilla from the Zoo."

In an instant I had my paw round his arm. The gorilla's grip was nowhere in it with my clutch.

"D'you mean to say you've let on to them already about that?" I shouted. "More shame you, then! But I tell you what. You don't stir from this room until you promise not to play any infernal trick in this matter!"

He told me I was no gentleman, and I agreed with him so promptly that it took the wind out of his sails. He liked to have his opinions endorsed. In the end I had his word to abstain from fooling, and I admit I insulted him in my own mind, by wondering how much it was worth.

When I got to my own room, I found that I was in a bad way. I went straight to pieces. My eyes were throbbing as though they had engines inside their balls. I saw shapes stalking me from every corner. I clapped a cold sponge at the back of my neck, but it only ruined my collar. After tying a disreputable bow I turned to a drawer and took out a certain little shooting-friend of mine that has been with me in many a tight corner. Instinctively, I slipped it into my pocket. It made a shocking bulge, besides being incorrect, but at the very feel of it my depression and seediness vanished. Nothing like iron as a tonic for the system!

Dinner was a peaceful meal that night. Something was in the air that seemed hostile to the usual scrap. The servants got through their tasks with relieved faces. Personally, I felt the lull was unusually soothing as I chatted to the nice girl— Silence— who was wheeled in for the meal.

After dinner we all sat in the hall. It was a big, old-fashioned place, oak-panelled and low-ceiled. At one end was a great window, set above a sort of gallery. The house, I'm sorry to say, has long been swept away to make room for the villas and flats that are spreading over the place like fungus.

"Turn out the lights," commanded Dora, "and we'll sit in the dark and tell ghost-stories! That is," she added spitefully, "if Mr. Drake has no objection." Just before the lights were turned down I looked across at Dora. I noticed that she was sitting close to the door. By her side was Lake, and their heads were very close together.

The next minute— darkness

"Yes; talking does make one thirsty. Rather cold, isn't it? Anyway, I'll depart from my usual custom. Three fingers, please! Thanks!..."

Well, to go on... Very soon we were in full blast. A pretty, dark girl, who looked rather hungry, started a spiritualistic story. She managed to hold our attention with a grip of which I should not have judged her capable, and we were hanging on her words when something stirred in the direction of the gallery. We all looked that way. You would have thought our eyes were all connected with one switch, the way they all turned together. I suppose our nerves were on the stretch from the story. We were keyed up and receptive. The air seemed to tinglo and crackle as wo i waited for a tense moment. i Tho whole of what followed hapi pened almost in a brace of seconds, but it will take me much longer to tell. Against the dim square of the window something appeared like the outlines of a gigantic, squashed spider. A crouching form— huge, hairy, monstrous— shot through the frame, and, in one spring, landed almost on the rail of the balcony.

Everyone screamed. Panic was loose in a second, and hopping about like a drop of quicksilver. The groups in the hall broke up like the pieces of a kaleidoscope. One shake, and every one had left his place and was swarming towards the door. Only one person remained in tho deserted spot by the gallery. She had to stay because her foot put her out of the running. It was the nice girl Silence!

I rose to my feet with the rest. Instinctively my hand went to my pocket, and I was covering the crouching form up aloft. I wish I could move this tale along quicker. Remember, it is all passing at record rate. Then, shall I ever forget the concentrated horror of that moment! Two shrieks rang out:

"Shoot man, shoot!" shouted Derby. "The gorilla !" His voice was simply charged with command and conviction.

Almost simultaneously Dora cried out in an agony of appeal: "For God's sake, don't shoot! It's Puffin!"

Now, you, who sit here calmly, try and get inside me, as I stood there faced with the whole responsibility of action. You've been laughing over the old teaser— Which Door! The Lady or the Tiger? Put yourselves in my place as I stood there and grappled with the appalling problem of the man or the monkey? And remember the issues at stake. Mind, I had no time to think it out, to reason calmly, to decide dispassionately. No brainy Sherlock Holmes theory flickered across my brain. Everything had to be settled, as settled it was, between the flutter of a lash, the drawing of a breath, the pause before an ape's spring. Which stood there before me?

For the life of me I could not tell. Remember what I told you of my eye trouble. In the dim right it was impossible to distinguish any salient point of difference. In just the same way I was faced with the double poser. To whose appeal should I respond? Derby's or Dora's? Again I say, put yourselves in my place. Derby was a sensible fellow. He was keen— no fool. He yelled to me to kill the brute.

On the other hand, the whole affair was stamped with the brand of a practical joke. Dora had been sitting with Lake. She must have known if he had slipped from the room. She was possibly in his confidence. I remembered the contempt with which I had received his reluctant promise to abstain from fooling, also the faithfulness of his monkey imitations and the perfection of his masquerading costume. Added to this, Dora's voice was wrung with the agony of conviction as she screamed: "For God's sake, don't shoot!"

Very likely you will think I should have aimed low. I say No! You aim low to wing a man, but to disable a great ape is not to stop him but to infuriate him to madness.

There I stood, faced with the awful riddle. Man or Monkey? Monkey or man? If I fired I might have Lake's blood on my head. If I held my hand I thought of the helpless figure of Silence, lying in the path of the brute. But I do not believe it was then my hair turned white. A long time to tell what happened! A second. In my hand was life or death. Such a responsibility is too heavy for mortal powers. It is rightly in the gift of Higher Hands. But in that moment I accepted the charge. I decided.

Pray you may never know the agony of such a choice! I deliberately singled out a fellow creature for death. There was a chance either way. But I could not give Puffin Lake the benefit of the doubt, Just as he was in the midst of his fooling, I prepared to pong him hrto eternity, to appear before his Maker with the grin still On his lip. I firmly believe that it was in that instant that my hair turned white.

I sighted, fired— twice, thrice. There was an inhuman scream, a fierce choking struggle, and then jre knew that whatever lay there fn the gallery was dead. Some one turned up the lights. Why not before, you say. I repeat it was the work of two seconds. I, distraught and capering like a maniac, was the first to race up the steps to the gallery.

We found there, all crumpled up and distorted, the body of the gorilla. Derby had been right. At the sight I did a queer thing— when I was a tiny chap I took my tannings mute. Yet I sat down and cried like a baby, and then cried and cried again.

I believed that I embraced Puffin Lake like a brother. It is the most painful recollection of the lot. That's all. I came out of the house the next day with nothing to the good but a crop of white hair.

DRAKE stopped and rumpled his white poll.

"Did you get nothing else?" inquired a girl.

Drake shook his head.

"Nothing?" persisted the girl. Again he smiled. He was not to be drawn. He looked across at his wife. She was a very nice woman. At one time she must have been a very nice girl. But then, no one could ever call her Silence.

_________________

5: Underground

Pearson’s Magazine, Feb 1928

World's News (NSW), 5 June 1929

CUTTLE had a horror of going underground. His dread was a legacy of the war, when he had been buried in a bombed sap. Since then he had avoided, as far as possible, even tunnels and Tubes.

Yet now, of his own free will, he was on his way to visit a subterranean cave.

Old families and old countries suffer from gout; England's chalky deposits crop out from coast to coast and encrust her spine. The stalactite cavern to which Cuttle was bound was hollowed deep in the heart of a mountain, which, at one time, had been quarried.

Cuttle's host had been enthusiastic about the cave, which he compared to Cheddar, with an unfair bias in favor of his own lo-cality.

"It'll never be opened to the public, like Cox's Cavern or Gough's Caves," he declared. "because it's too inaccessible; but it's well worth a visit. Suppose you folk take off. some time to-day to see it."

IT was Tennis Week at the county town, and many of the players were his guests. While the list of fixtures was being consulted. Cuttle stood aloof and admired the clouds. But he pricked up his ears as a girl, Shirley Charles, put a question.

"Is it a very stiff climb? You see, I've a touch of tennis-elbow, and I've got to save myself any strain."

Shirley took herself as seriously as a racehorse on the eve of the Derby. Wimbledon was her Mecca; but her immediate goal was the County Championship.

Her host hastened to reassure her.

"Anyone of sixty could tackle it with ease. It's a stiffish scramble down at its entrance, and the going's a little rough. But there's only one bad bit, and the air, considering all things, is sweet as milk."

"I'm on," declared Shirley.

"I'm off," murmured Cuttle, discreetly withdrawing a few paces.

He was recalled by Shirley's voice.

"The others have got to phone up the secretary of the association. I hate hanging about; suppose we go on ahead?"

Cuttle forgot his qualms. Before ever he met Shirley in the flesh he had worshipped her on paper. He had a bulging envelope of tennis snapshots cut from the daily press.

But, as a non-player, he had been outside her charmed tennis circle. This was his first opportunity to be alone with her.

"Great idea!" he said fervently.

She walked him at a regrettable pace through the village. It was a heavy day, with a spatter of rain in the breeze. The sky hung low and was the color of a bruise.

"How far is it?" askea Cuttle.

Shirley consulted an envelope, on the back of which their host had drawn a rough plan.

"About a mile and a quarter to the shaft. We follow old workings through to the cave. The General said we couldn't miss it. Wait a minute here."

She stopped outside the village shop.

"My torch needs a refill," she explained "We'll buy some candles and then well be on the safe side, whatever happens."

Cuttle reflected sadly that she seemed determined to forestall any emergency which might have saved him from the horrors of underground. But once they were out on the rough paths of the mountainside he forgot everything but Shirley.

She wore no hat, and the wind blew an enchanting golden cowlick over her eyes. Her cheeks were like ripe apricots. She had radiant youth and health. Better than all this, she was at the top of her form.

Cuttle decided that they were reaching the cave too quickly.

"Do you mind easing up a bit?" he asked, blowing ostentatiously.

"Oh, sorry! I forgot." Shirley's smile was sweet. "I'm in special training. I've even knocked off smoking until after the Championship."

She slackened her steps to a pace which made conversation possible. Cuttle yearned to exchange views about some of the things which matter; community singing, Vitamin B, and survival after death.

But Shirley knew a better subject than any of these.

Tennis.

Cuttle did his best. He talked of Tilden and Suzanne, of Borotra and Betty Nuthall; but chiefly about the local Tennis Week.

And, in particular, the form displayed by that promising young player, Miss Shirley Charles.

"Isn't it thrilling to have the crowd cheering you and asking for your autograph?" he asked.

Shirley tried to look stern.

"Applause shouldn't be allowed. It's apt to put you off your game."

"But does it?" persisted Cuttle.

"Well, to be frank, it does— but only when they're cheering your opponent. And I get very tired sometimes," she added.

CUTTLE rejoiced to hear it. He held Shirley the dearest girl on earth, but it was plain that she possessed one grievous fault.

Unless it were checked, a man might end in being known as the husband of Miss Shirley Charles.

"Tired of tennis?" he asked hopefully.

"No. Of wearing white. So insipid." She stopped to consult her envelope. "We must be nearly there."

At the reminder Cuttle felt the working of an internal churn.

Their path had led them directly under the brow of the mountain, which hung over them in massive rocks superimposed on raw earth. While Cuttle viewed it with a sink-ing heart, Shirley ran ahead with a scream of delight.

"Here!"

She stopped before a gash in the ground which sloped steeply to unseen depths.

"Doesn't it look like the beginning of an adventure?" she asked joyfully.

Cuttle leant over the side and was met by a whiff of decay, as though the mountain suffered from foul breath.

"Such a lovely earthy smell," declared Shirley. "Makes one think of Pan."

"Pan stuck to the woods, like a sensible chap," dissented Cuttle. "And— if this is the entrance— I've the deepest respect for the age of sixty. But I'm positive it is not."

Shirley merely consulted her miserable plan.

"Of course it is. It's marked here. Oh, do let me go first!"

Cuttle saw that there was to be no reprieve, as she leapt into the chasm as nimbly as a chamois. He took a last look at the world, lying below him in dark laps of bracken and heather. Then, gritting his teeth, he followed Shirley down the shaft.

The sides were slippery and draped in sappy greenery, which he was positive oozed verdigris within his grip. Worse still, it proved to be of unexpected depth. The slice of livid sky at the top grew narrow and pale as he wormed his way down into twi-light gloom.

HE felt his feet slipping on the base of a slimy rock as he dropped a good five feet down to the bottom.

In the darkness Shirley's torch glimmered like a glow-worm. Looking up he could no longer see his crack of blessed daylight.

"How on earth shall we get up that last bit again?" he inquired.

"Pick-a-back," said Shirley. "Isn't it a thrill? Aren't you just loving it?"

Cuttle declared that he loved it—  just.

"And now," he said, "I think we'll pick-a-back up again. This is the wrong hole. Now, please, don't tell me to find a better hole. At certain times I abominate humor."

Shirley stood firm.

"My dear man, what's all the fuss about? It wasn't half so stiff a scramble down as the General led me to expect. Come on!"

Cuttle saw that she had not turned a hair. She seemed endowed with joints of India-rubber and unpuncturable wind. So he cursed himself for a club-footed craven as he stumbled after her along the bed of a miniature moraine.

However, he had one ray of light in his darkness, for it was evident that Shirley had accepted him.

"I'm glad we two got off alone," she said frankly. "In conversation we make quite a good doubles, don't we? We seem to think alike."

"About tennis?" observed Cuttle bleakly.

"Yes. But, competition play apart, you play tennis, of course?"

"I'm only a rabbit," confessed Cuttle.

He could guess that he had shocked her, although her voice remained kind.

"I expect golf is your game?"

"I potter round and take my eye off the ball."

"Oh! Then what is your special line?"

"The line of mediocrity."

Shirley discreetly changed the subject.

"LET me get my bearings," she said. "We keep on turning to the left. In that case we go down here."

She pointed to a cutting in the rocks.

As Cuttle looked through the narrow aperture he felt his old horror of underground suddenly weigh down on him like actual stricture. The back of his neck began to ache slightly, as though a heavy hand were forcing down his head.

"Nonsense!" he objected. "We keep on down the cave."

"But I can see the end of the cave," declared Shirley triumphantly. "So this must be the way. But, if you prefer it, we'll wait for the others."

Cuttle reminded himself that Fate had given him this hour. By the afternoon he would be again outside Shirley's circle, straining his ears to catch the magic sounds of cross-cut, volley and chop."

"It's not a pleasant spot to hang round in," he said. "We'd better go on."

The gallery was so narrow that they were forced to walk in single file. But it seemed lofty, although an occasional drop fell from its unseen roof. This moisture was responsible for a cold, dead odor, as of stagnant water.

CUTTLE tried to take as shallow breaths as possible, with the result that an invisible finger began to tickle his throat.

"Talking about the electric hare," he began hurriedly. "What do you think—"

"Why are you coughing?" interrupted Shirley.

"This air. It strikes me as foul."

"But the General said it was sweet as milk."

"I never did have any opinion of milk," commented Cuttle, beginning to whistle "The Frothblowers' Anthem."

"Yet milk," said Shirley, "gave you your first start in life, and made you the man you are to-day."

Cuttle followed the glow-worm glimmer of her torch in silence. Presently he spoke.

"I don't quite like that remark, because I've an idea that you don't think me quite the world's model for a man."

Shirley laughed.

"Don't be silly! Your only trouble is you've far too much imagination. Now, I cough just like you before a match. It's just nerves."

Before Cuttle could reply, they were startled by a low, sullen boom, as of an explosion. It grew louder, throbbing through the narrow passage in a savage roar, like the stamping of a vast machine.

Cuttle's heart dropped a beat. He had a vision of a monstrous slice of the mountain peeling itself off and sealing their entranceshaft with hundreds of tons of earth.

"What is it?" asked Shirley.

"Sounds rather like a landslip," he re-plied. "I think we'd better go back, just to see if the—  the road is clear outside."

Shirley shook her head as a second boom followed on the echoes of the last.

"Why, it's thunder! Now I do call that luck to be out of the rain!"

Remembering the livid sky, Cuttle knew that she was right. But his nerve had de-finitely crashed, and he followed her with the uneasy sensation that every step brought them still farther from the safety of their base.

Although he made no further protest, he had hardly gone a few yards down the next passage when he recognised that he was in the grip of his old enemy, claustrophobia. The roof was so low that they had to stoop.

Cuttle felt as though the mountain itself were pressing down on his head. The ache at the back of his neck grew almost in-
tolerable, while the air seemed to have thickened and to be clotted with the taint of decay. In his efforts not to breathe, his throat grew sanded.

He fought his sensations desperately as he remembered Shirley's charge of nerves. This was merely the aftermath of his experience in the bombed sap. They had the General's assurance that the air was technically pure.

AS he realised this fact he was conscious of relief. He reminded himself that there was a time limit to everything. Moreover, his sufferings were not comparable with his gain, if he could only subdue his reactions to the dis-comfort of underground. It was plain that Shirley liked him; the end of the morning might find them closer friends.

Suddenly he burst out laughing.

"Oh. I'm so glad you're liking it at last" cried Shirley. "I thought you were horribly bored."

"You see, exclaimed Cuttle, I'm not used to pleasure. I'm one of the world's workers. I make marmalade."

"Of course," Shirley reflected. " 'Cuttle's Crystal Cut.' I never connected it with you. Jolly good marmalade, too."

"Excellent. If you'll put that into writing, enclosing your signed photograph for publication, I am prepared to send you a whole pot gratis. I spare no expense in advertisement."

"If you'd really like my photograph," said Shirley, "I'll give you one in memory of this morning. Oo? My back is aching from stooping. Is yours?"

"No."

Cuttle spoke with truth. Every shred of discomfort had vanished at the prospect of Shirley's gift.

But his jubilation was of short duration. It vanished abruptly as Shirley dropped to her knees before an aperture not much higher than the entrance to a dog-kennel.

"Here comes the General's bad bit," she announced cheerfully. "It's evidently a working of the old chalk quarry. Come on! This is most exciting!"

Before Cuttle could protest, she had crawled through the hole. Although she managed to hold her torch in her left hand, she blocked its light, leaving Cuttle in darkness.

IN a panic he struck a match, all he could see was a long silk stocking, grievously laddered, and a rubber sole.

The cutting was practically dark and very hot. He seemed again to be eating mouth-fuls of curded air. They stuck in his throat and made him choke. He tried not to cough, and felt his heart protest in violent thumps. Lastly, his brow grew damply chill and he heard an ominous singing in his ears.

He pictured her plight at finding herself entombed in a burrow with an unconscious man. She could neither extricate him nor minister to him. She would never forgive him.

He told himself that this torture was worse than the agony of the bombed sap. After all, death exacts no ceremony; one can meet it as Nature in the raw and feel no shame. But now he had to remember that he was an English gentleman and a public schoolboy, and all the beastly things which he was not; that he made marmalade; and— worst of all— that Shirley was billed to appear at 3.30 on the centre court that afternoon.

Then he thought of the miners who had lain here, on their backs, all day, picking away at this very cutting; who took the job in their stride and never lost their joy in beer. Recalled by their heroism, his own manhood oozed back.

Shirley's voice broke through the buzzing of the bees which had hived inside his head.

"I'm through!"

In another second he was standing erect and wiping his brow.

He felt distinctly easier without his pull-over, which he tucked under one armpit. He reminded himself that, after all, his gallant miners worked, more or less, in the buff. With a fresh interest he examined his surroundings.

They were in what appeared to be a gigantic fissure in the mountain— rather like human flies in a crack. The walls on either side dripped with moisture, and he could hear subterranean gurgling. Although the roof was lost in shadows, he had the comforting idea that the chimney might open to the sky.

He followed Shirley with renewed confidence.

"These drippings suggest we are near the stalactite cave," he remarked.

"I've never been in one," confessed Shir-ley. "That's why I'm keen on this. What are the stalactites like?"

"Oh, bundles of carrots, and bits of draperey, and such-like. Requires an effort of imagination, to my mind."

Shirley was shaking with laughter. She turned to him, her eyes brimming with mirth.

"I've just been looking at the chart, and I find I took a wrong turning. That bit we crawled through was a little extra I threw in. Awful confession. Bue we're straight again, and this is the General's bad bit."

She pointed to a break in the path, where the rock narrowed to a ledge about a foot wide, above a deep cavity. It extended for about two yards, and could be crossed with ease by anyone who possessed a good head.

ALTHOUGH Shirley went over like a lamplighter, Cuttle followed closely behind her in case of mishap. Near its end she leant over the gap.

"Coo!" she cried. "I believe it goes down for miles. I can't see the bottom, and there's ever such a wind blowing up."

She broke off with a cry as her foot slipped on the ledge. Leaning forward too far for safety, she had lost her balance. But even as she staggered Cuttle's arm shot out and he dragged her across to safety.

As he did so the pullover which he was carrying fell into the depths. They could follow its passage by the magnified rattling of dislodged pebbles rebounding against the rocks.

After an interval there was a distant splash.

"It might have been me!" she said.

Cuttle saw that she was badly shaken by the incident. Her cheeks no longer looked like ripe apricots. When they left the fis-sure, to follow another cutting through the clay, he forgot his own discomfort in his concern for her.

"I'm feeling quite rotten," she said suddenly. "I'm sure this air is septic."

"Sweet as milk," he assured her. "Proof. It's not knocked me out."

"But you're a man."

"And you're a tennis champion."

"Not yet."

"No. Next week."

Cuttle felt that his own shadow must be standing by, laughing at the ironic twist to the situation, as he strove to interest Shirley in the supreme topic of tennis.

HE succeeded to a certain impersonal extent. She stopped him in the middle of his description of a Wimbledon Final.

"Where are those candles? This torch is nearly done."

She recovered some of her complacency when Cuttle drew the bulky parcel from his trousers pocket.

"Lucky I thought of it, or we'd have been in the soup," she said, producing her matches.

There were but three in the box. One was already spent, and the heads of the other two blew off directly they were struck.

"That's the worst of cheap foreign matches," remarked Shirley. "Where are yours?"

Cuttle put his hand in his trousers pocket.

"Hurry up!" called Shirley. "The light's nearly gone."

He tried the other pocket.

"I know you've got a full box," said Shir-ley, "for I saw them."

"Only give me time," urged Cuttle.

He patted the breast-pocket of his shirt with fingers which were clay-cold. He knew that he had carried matches.

And he knew where he had put them. Shirley remembered, too.

"They were in the pocket of your pullover," she said. "Your pullover. Oh!"

She clapped her hand to her mouth to suppress her scream. Dimly Cuttle saw her face, white as ashes, with a damp golden cowlick clinging to her forehead.

Then the light went out.

"That's done it!" said Shirley, beginning to laugh.

"What's the next move?" she asked, tak-ing great pains with her voice.

"Masterly inaction," replied Cuttle. "The others will soon be here. We've only to wait for them."

"Wait— in the dark?"

"It won't be long."

"But they may decide not to come."

"In that case," he said, "they'll certainly send out a search party for us."

"Of course. Let's sit down and be comfortable."

Her words were a mockery. The darkness was like an enemy which had already struck home, drugging their faculties.

Cuttle was blind, with no third eye to guide him. His ears were beginning to betray him, for he located Shirley's voice in a direction which he knew to be false. He found himself gasping for breath, as though he were being chloroformed by the black density.

It was like the Prelude to Creation, where there was neither form, nor light, nor tone.

Shirley had the same thought.

"It's horrible!" she cried. "It's like—  nothing! I'm sorry, but I simply can't stay still, waiting in the dark. Let's go on."

Cuttle sprang to his feet. His belief in that rescue party was not as vital as he would have wished. It would be a relief to move.

"Heaven helps those who help themselves," he said cheerily. "I'll prod the wall, and we'll keep on turning always to the left. Give me your hand."

"I hope you realise this is your fault," he said. "See what comes of giving up the womanly habit of smoking."

"Yes," agreed Shirley. "Normally I carry tons of matches. Of course, too, if I'd not been curious to see the bottom of that crevasse you wouldn't have lost your pullover."

"Never mind. I saved something more worth while."

"I wonder. It might have been quicker—  that way."

"Don't be a blooming sap."

Cuttle's rough words had their desired effect.

THEY wandered, because inaction was death to the spirit. While they sat and waited, the Shadow which fol-lowed them swallowed them up.

They wandered, although they had no goal. They could see no end, because they did not dare to look beyond the moment. Even if a false step brought death to the body, it was better to go out and meet it unafraid.

So they talked of marmalade.

"Of course I like making it," said Cuttle. "All but one part of it. It's a jolly good trade. Wholesome, refreshing food for the nation— made from the purest sugar and finest fruit. Nature's own remedy—"

"Don't!" pleaded Shirley. "You make me feel ashamed."

"Why on earth?"

"Because you work and I play."

"Now, don't be a sap again. I call your kind of tennis jolly hard work."

"It is, in a way. It's fine for lots of things. But I've thought far too much about it. Even when I was at school I wouldn't play with the other girls for fear of losing my form. You see, I'm not big, like the real champions, and I've lost my sense of proportion. I can see myself now. Just a fairly good amateur, with a swelled head."

IT made Cuttle long to justify her confidence, but he could do nothing. They could only wander on until they crossed the threshold of a still deeper darkness. "What's the part of your work you don't like?" asked Shirley suddenly.

"The jokes," explained Cuttle. "People always asking you if you pick up the orange-peel in the gutter, and so on. And I've got to grin and pretend I like it."

Shirley actually laughed—  and the Shadow shrank a little farther behind.

"That's weak," she declared. "You should either like it or let them see you don't like it."

"What— have people laughing at me?"

"Why not? What do people matter? People are only a lot of you's and me's. Why do you practically admit that every man is better than yourself?"

Although her words were a flame spurting in the gloom, Cuttle made no reply. He had gone past speech, as he pressed forward through the darkness, as though he were wading through a sluggish black lake. Only part of his brain seemed able to function, and he reeled slightly, like a man walking in his sleep.

All sense of time or direction slipped away. He might have been wandering for a minute, or a hundred years, when he felt Shirley's fingers tighten on his.

"Listen! Voices."

He strained his ears. There were gurglings and whisperings, chuckles and echoes everywhere.

"No," he said; "only water."

"But I can distinguish words," persisted Shirley. "Shout!"

They both shouted into the darkness. The echo sent back an independent reply:—

"Hullo! Where are you? Shout!"

They pressed forward, straining their eyes. A long way ahead there seemed to be a very faint sprayed light, like street illuminations seen through a window at the end of a black corridor.

Presently Cuttle gave a shout of surprise. They were poised upon the lip of a drop down to the cup of a huge cavern. Natural pillars and arches gleamed faintly in the light of electric torches, as though adorned with frosted icicles.

It was the General's famous stalactite cave.

Cuttle could distinguish moving figures and the white blurs of faces looking upwards to their gallery.

Yet, even as he hailed his friends, he felt a sense of loss. This was the end of the adventure. Shirley's own special circle was here. Some of the tennis players were already clambering up the rocks to their aid. Shirley was carried off, surrounded, swallowed up. But in the midst of the excitement and confusion she looked across at Cuttle and smiled.

He knew then that his fears were vain. They had come too close together in the darkness, where they had not only found each other, but seen themselves.

He turned to the General, who received him with welcome brandy and profanity.

"Did we take a wrong turning?" asked Cuttle.

"Wrong turning?" roared the General. "You never were right. You only went down a derelict mine-shaft and wandered about in the old workings. Marvel is you escaped being gassed. The air must be foul as festering fish."

Cuttle smiled.

"As a matter of fact," he said, "we were both nearly bowled over. But we had your assurance that the air was pure, and we believed it. Auto-suggestion, I suppose. But it was pretty bad in the dark."

The General's face sobered.

"If you'd shown a naked light," he declared, "there would have been an explosion, probably, and a fall of earth. I believe that it was losing your matches that saved you both from being buried alive."

__________________

6: The Seven Years' Secret

The Grand Magazine Nov 1921

Chronicle (Adelaide) 10 Dec 1921

BEFORE the Aquarium, where a concert party performed thrice daily was a poster of a little girl, with half a yard of lace flouncing for skirt, two yards of broad ribbon in her butterfly hair-bow, and a violin locked under her chin.

Little Marjorie Smith— the child violinist.

The heavy grey-blue heat of the morning had broken in a torrential storm which drove Edgar Choat and Wallace Sterne into the Aquarium. The morning performance was in progress, and on a dusty platform, decked with consumptive palms, Marjorie Smith was striving valiantly to be heard above the battery of the rain on the streaming glass roof and the incessant, scuffling of trippers at the far end of the building.

As Wallace piloted his friend to a chair near the platform he thought he had never before witnessed a more sordid travesty of holiday enjoyment. His own idea of vacation was miles of wet empty shingle. But the air of this especial health resort had been ordered for Choat, whose number was up.

The pair formed a striking contrast. Wallace was husky and heavy-chinned with the truculent eye of a fighter, while Choat was a wasted, merry little man, with plenty of money, and half a lung... He glanced at his programme and then suddenly began to grin.

'Marjorie Smith— the child violinist... Wallace, I've heard this little lady before. Up in the north, five years ago. She was about the same age then. A trifle older if anything.'

The boredom vanished from Wallace's eyes as he looked at the performer. She was daintily pink and white as hawthorn bloom, with long flaxen curls, a button of a mouth, and large, blue, infantile eyes. She wore a very short jumper-dress of knitted lemon silk, which showed her bare arms and legs to be innocent of the tan of happier seaside children. Her pretty face was composed and expressionless as that of an expensive doll. Choat continued to chuckle.

'Marjorie Smith. Nice plain name which no one would remember. And wide gaps between the towns she works, you bet! I should say the fair Marjorie conducts her own census. How many hundred times would you say she'd played that piece?'

The child was playing an intricate sonata, not only with absolute facility, but with the abstraction of complete mastery.

'A brilliant performance for an infant. But if she dropped a few tucks in her skirt and picked up a few birthdays, it's hardly a show we should do poojah to. Why are you looking so down in the mouth, Wally?'

'Thinking of Talbot. Know him? Fine cellist and couldn't fill a bill anywhere this summer. Frozen out by this kind of vampy fraud, who puts on bare legs and socks and monkeys with her birth certificate, just to kick a decent, chap into hell... Choat, if I can land her, she's for it.'

He was , in that state of chafed inaction which engenders the instinct 'to go out and ..kill something.'

The solo was ended, and Marjorie, heedless of applause, bounded down the platform steps into the arms of a stout, middle-aged woman, who wore Paris clothes and a heavy moustache with feminine courage. That spontaneous rush— that of a child hailing release— made Wallace doubtful of Choat's statement. He watched her closely as she put on her outdoor things, and noticed, with a thrill of interest, that she pulled her hat well on the back of her head, before she tilted it over her eyes.

'A kid puts the elastic under its chin first. She's had her hair up some time in her life.'

He turned to Choat.

'All right for a bit, old man? If so, I'm going to try to dodge the duenna and scrape acquaintance with the fair Marjorie. I want to find out how much experience she has garnered in her brief span of years.'

WHEN Wallace left the Aquarium the wind was blowing blue rifts between the purple-black clouds, and by the time he had finished .the purchase of a doll in the Arcade the sun was again, shining on, a glistening arid repopulated parade. He was about to re-enter the Aquarium when, to his surprise, he saw Marjorie Smith alone, on one of the seats n the green, staring at the water-logged geraniums with blank eyes.

'You'll catch cold sitting there,' he said involuntarily. 'Where's the— the lady who looks after you?'

'Aunty? I gave her the slip. And I don't care, if I do catch cold. I'm fed up.'

Her defiant voice was a high, childish prattle. He looked at her closely. Under the little, mushroom hat her face looked younger than her admitted years. There was a velvety bloom on the cheeks and a fatness round the corners of the lips which were very convincing

She frowned as he spread his waterproof on the seat.

'Aunty doesn't let me talk to strangers. Go away!'

He drew a shot at a venture.

'Nonsense! You're a woman, and you know how to discriminate.'

He had expected a glance of swift suspicion. To his surprise, a light of sudden pleasure flickered in her blank, blue eyes as though a starving intelligence had snatched at a scrap of nourishment.

'You see, you are a woman in miniature,' he went on. 'In fact, I expect you know quite as much as any woman of— er— nineteen.'

'Guess I know more... I'm still at lessons.'

'Dates— and all that. Know your own date?'

'Course!'

But— this time— the glance she shot him held a furtive, quality.

He unwrapped his parcel.

'Do you like dolls?'

'Rather! Why, she's like me.  Isn't she cunning?'

'That's because your playing gave me so much pleasure,' said Wallace. 'When did you first learn the violin?'

'Can't remember. Aunty says I played in my cradle.'

'Who taught you?' Wallace intended to write to that professor for information. But even a twopenny stamp is insufficient postage to heaven.

'Daddy. He's dead.'

For a full hour he gat and talked, white the sun dried the battered geraniums and sequinned the emerald waves with golden points of fire. But none of Wallace's questions— and he grew more adroit with practice— were successful in drawing any compromising admissions.

Moreover he became filled with a conviction that he was really up against a blank wall of ignorance, which could be nothing else than the mind of a child totally unacquainted with the current topics of the day.

Presently he tapped out his pipe and rose.

'Lunch time. Hungry?'

'No; it's only mutton and milk pudding. I've such a crave for really nice things to eat.'

'Never mind, little woman. One of these nights I'll, stand you a proper  grown-up supper. Hang this pipe! It won't draw— Good morning.

HE LOOKED after the retreating form with bewildered eyes. For the moment before he had noticed that her hands had flown to her curls in instinctive search for a hairpin.

'I'd give something to know your real age,' he mused. 'If it be only the happy hours which count, Marjorie Smith was very, very young; by the calendar she was grown-up.'

As she walked along the parade towards her rooms, the wind whipped her lemon frock above her knees, she had to pass a cinema which displayed the portrait of Mary Pickford.  Mary Pickford— the World's Sweetheart— with curls flowing loose and in the short frocks of a child. The film was very old. It was new when she had last seen the poster, seven years ago, on a black, streaming night, outside the pier gates of a seaside town. She remembered every detail of the scene; the coloured lights which outlined the entrance, the waterproofed crowd ticking through the turnstile; the oily swell of water which sucked round the staging of the pier.

As she crouched in the shelter she kept easting furtive, hunted glances at that vague foam-flecked darkness, which rose and fell— rose and fell.

Marjorie Lambert had put up her hair at a very early age. For two years she had fiddled for her supper and given music lessons at starvation prices— not always paid. She had never had dinner and, usually, only a travesty of breakfast.

That night there was only a litter of bully beef cans in her room and the landlady's ejection notice. So she had crept down to the sea-wall— just to watch the water. Light-headed with hunger and half-sobbing with self-pity, she was creeping, across the parade when she was arrested by the smile of the World's Sweetheart. She was Life incarnate— happy, triumphant Life— calling to Youth. Marjorie caught her breath sharply. If a woman who was older than herself could sustain the merciless ordeal of photography and yet live in the hearts of millions as the Eternal Child, it was possible that she could support a similar imposture. She knew that her face was round and infantile, while her frame was ill-nourished by under-feeding.

That was how it had begun. After the lean time had come the era of milk and honey. And then gradually Marjorie had awakened to the bitter truth. For two years she had half-starred for bread and butter.

But ever, since she had wholly starved for what really mattered— her woman's heritage.

The rooms in which they were staying were the beat in the town. From the first Miss Horn had played, for absolute safety, and her charge— apart from her public appearances— was jealously guarded. This precaution deprived the girl of any life or gaiety and threw her upon the sole companionship of the elder woman.

When Marjorie had first confided to Agatha Horn her mad project the woman, who was herself an ill-nourished harpy, had got her claws into the campaign and worked it with relentless thoroughness. The girl was sapless from lack of nourishment, and glad enough to relinquish the struggle. On the evidence of the birth certificate of a niece of Agatha Born— the child of a sister who would have sold the sun for a guinea— Marjorie Lambert became Marjorie Smith.

After the struggle it was good to drift. She made a charming child, whose talent met with swift reception. Plenty to eat, pretty clothes to wear, nothing to do. She was not allowed to work at her music, lest she played too well.  A safe, comfortable mediocrity was their goal.

Agatha Horn taught her the commandments of her new life. They were two— to learn, and to forget.

'You must forget everything you've known.  You must learn to look like a child, to speak like a child,  to think like a child!  Otherwise one unguarded word might betray us both! Never read a book— never read a newspaper, Forget!'

It was not until each successive birth-day brought only a toll of continual youth, that she began to realise dimly her arrested growth. Her mind had lain fallow for so long that it was difficult for her to estimate fully the situation. But her least hint of rebellion brought her up against a powerful personality which, imperceptibly, had dwarfed and swamped her own.

Agatha Horn turned the key on the womanhood  for which she was  beginning to crave.

MARJORIE ran into the apartment drawing-room, where Miss Horn was knitting a silken jumper.

'For the love of Mike, give me a cigarette,' she panted.

Miss Horn swung her stout legs from  the velvet couch and sat facing her.

'Don't be a silly girl. You know you're not to smoke. One of the maids might see and have suspicions.'

'I don't care. I'm fed up.'

Agatha Horn's beady eye held her so that she laid down the match unlighted.

'Where's the paper? I must know what's going on. Such a nice man was talking to me this morning and I felt a perfect fool.'

Miss Horn's bushy eyebrows met.

'I've warned you of the consequences of talking to strangers. No one can be everlastingly on guard. You may dodge folks' curiosity for years, but you'll get caught in the long run.'

'The long run! Dear heart! Hasn't it been long enough already?' Marjorie buried her face on her outstretched arms and began to sob .

Miss Horn looked down on the bowed, flaxen head with alarm. For some years life had been one well-fed, padded to-day, darkened by no fear of tomorrow. She had moulded Marjorie to her will until she believed her incapable of resistance.  The safety campaign had achieved a second objective in deliberately weakening the girl's mentality. In another year or so she would be little better than a performing doll.

She played her trump card of working upon the girl's ignorant fears of unknown penalties.

'All right! Throw up the sponge. Go back to where you started! What were yon doing then?'

'Starving.'

'Then I can give you one crumb of comfort. You won't be allowed to starve— in prison.'

'Oh, no. Oh, don't.'

As Marjorie began to sob hysterically, Miss Horn laid a powerful hand upon her curls.

'Don't cry! Horny'll keep you safe. Be a good girl and trust Horny. Did the man give you the doll? Good! Shows he doesn't suspect. What sort of a man was he?'

'Nicest I've ever met.'

Together they went down to luncheon. Spiced, sophisticated food for Agatha Horn— nursery fare for Marjorie. The system was complete down to the least detail. Marjorie glowered at the custard pudding with eyes of hatred. It was for this that she had sold herself. Merely food.

After the meal she went to her accustomed nook in the window-seat.

'Horny,' she asked presently, 'are you sending to town for my new frocks?'

'Yes, you vanity. There's the letter.'

'Then I'll enclose a note.  I want some really good clothes for my new doll.'

Agatha Horn took up her knitting, feeling that the crisis was over. Well for her peace of mind that she could not read the riddle of Marjorie's placid eyes as she gazed down on the parade. Children passed. Real, normal children, walking onward into their future— each day a step further on their journey. She looked at them with envy.

Men passed. She thought of the stranger of the morning, and a vivid  interest surged into her eyes— the first awakening of a newly-created Eve. But, chiefly, she brooded over the groups of girls, radiant with youth and health, in the first flush of womanhood.

iii

'Hot milk. Night-light. Sleeping-suit. Yes. It's all here. Sure you don't mind my leaving you?'

It was some days later. Agatha Horn— resplendent in evening, dress, for she was going to a whist drive at the Majestic— spoke rather loudly, for the benefit of the apartments housemaid, who was on the landing. Nobody but  herself was allowed to maid Marjorie.

'Oh no, aunty, I hope you will win the first prize.'

Marjorie's wish might have been prompted by a sense of the law of compensation. For even then the biggest prize of her life was slipping  between Agatha Horn's splay fingers.

With a smacking kiss the woman rustled off.

Marjorie remained in the middle of the room, a little smile playing round the corner of her childish mouth Then, in a sudden fit of excitement, she tore off her lace frock and rose sash and stamped upon them.

Under her frill pillow-case was concealed the packet of 'dolls clothes'. With eager fingers, she unfastened the parcel and drew out the first adult garment she had ordered for years.

Presently she looked at herself in the mirror. She gave a cry. Instead of the familiar reflection, she saw, a slip of a woman, fair and frail as a wind-flower. The black silky frock was ankle-length— unfashionably long— and gave her added height.

'I'm grown-up!' she exulted.

But the loose curls around her face reminded her of someone she had grown to hate— a fair headed eternal child—  so she tied them tightly over her temples with a headache band, and drew on the small pull-on satin hat.

Her transformation was complete. She through out her arms in welcome to the beloved stranger.

'You are Marjorie Lambert. And you are free!'

Her voice ran up in a weak little squeak. She was vaguely aware that her knees shook, and her head felt strangely light, like a blown egg-shell.

Throwing on her black satin cloak she looked around the room for the last  time.

An uncharted region of romance seemed to stretch all around her— a purple vagueness studded with golden jewels. The banal seaside town was transformed by the magic of night. She mingled with crowd in a delirium of ecstasy. She felt as light as a soap bubble and floated along without the effort of walking. She was going if she could to meet the nicest man she had ever known.

He had promised her a supper. She knew now that she was ravenously hungry, and she began to gloat over thought of unaccustomed food— carpet-bag steaks filled with oysters, prawns is aspic, and bubbling wine.

She floated on and on, blown by the light breeze, until she was stopped by the rough stone wall, which bounded the far end of the parade.

Presently her thoughts, which were a confused jumble of food, star-dust, and romance, were shattered ay the sound of footsteps. She looked up to see Wallace Steyne.

For the last two days Wallace had been acutely worried over the remnants of Choat's lung. It was nearly eleven when he left his friend's room in order to get a mouthful of air.

He soon left the crowd and rounded the shoulder of the cliff, where the parade was only lit by an occasional flickering lamp, and the sea made muted thunder as it broke over the rocks. He reached the wall at the end and stood for a few minutes, cap in hand, facing the wind and gazing down on the boil of surf. In the darkness he believed himself to be alone, until a girl detached herself from the shadow and leaned over the parapet.

'Isn't life— wonderful?' She spoke with such absolute simplicity that he answered involuntarily.

'It is. If one could only buy it for those one cares for!'

'Is— is anyone ill?'

'Dying. My best friend.'

'Ah! I haven't one single friend.'

'Then the fault must be with you.'

Marjorie's mind had been for so long the pawn of Agatha Horn's mentality that she meekly accepted his blame. Wallace suddenly awoke to the fact that  he was exchanging confidences with a strange young female, which was contrary to both his custom and his taste. Yet there was a note in the fluting voice which stirred him strangely: and caused his heart to beat faster— that quick-silver bead of instinctive affinity which causes two strangers in a crowd to pass with racing pulses.

He strained his eyes to see her more closely, but could only distinguish features of pale elfin charm.

'Have we met before?' he asked. His anxiety had completely driven away all memory of Marjorie Smith. His brief detective spasm had had its birth merely in the boredom of a wet morning combined with ill-temper.

'No' she said. 'I'm free to-night for the first time for ever so long. I've been seven years in prison.'

'Prison?'

'Yes. Inside myself.'

His lips hardened slightly. He had no heart to pander to a woman's hysterical desire for self dissection while his best friend was strangling from the reality of a. punctured lung.

'That so? Very interesting. Good-night.'

'Don't go. I've something to tell you.' Her voice became triumphant. 'I'm Marjorie Lambert and I'm grown-up.'

'And now, I suppose, you want to know my name?'

'Oh no. Have you one? How funny! Won't you take me out to supper?'

He relit his pipe, with the object of seeing her face. A throb of disappointment went through him as he noticed the painted cheeks and lips of
a definite type.

'Very sorry. I'm afraid I must get back to my friend.'

Marjorie's head began to swim as a sick faintness again stole over her.

'You promised!'

'Pardon me! I certainly never did.'

'And I'm so hungry.'

'In a satin frock? Look here, my girl, you'd better go home, you're only wasting your time.'

'I haven't a home. I've nowhere.'

'Nonsense! .Where are you staying?'

The girl mechanically named the best apartments in the town. To rid his mind of the last qualm, Wallace fished out a few coins. 'If you're really hungry this will buy some supper.'

She dashed the money down into the boiling surf.'

'No, no. I sold myself for food seven years ago. And it wasn't worth it.'

The sound of his retreating footsteps was her last conscious recollection. She had some dim sense of wandering in the darkness that fringed the sea and presently of creeping into some shelter, before she dropped into the deep of utter exhaustion.

She awoke before the dawn and stared around her with incredulous eyes. She was lying on ribbed sand, while above her was the pent roof  of shell encrusted rocks. The air was pungent with the smell of sea. As she raised herself on one elbow a pain shot through her below her shoulder. She scarcely noticed it as she stared at her long black skirt.

Slowly the films cleared from her brain. She washed her face in a pool of sea water and then zig-zagged into the open. As she stood, spellbound in the immensity, her knees gave way under her, and she sank down in the shelter of a boulder and watched the cloud-bank split in a thin red line. The marvel seemed to blend into a wondrous secret she bore in her heart.'

'I'm myself!'

She whispered it over and over, until her exaltation passed into a drowsy rapture and her lids fell. The sun, gathering strength, steeped her chilled frame in a glow of physical well-being. She dozed and half-woke, only to dose again. Presently, she opened her eyes and looked around her. The beach, which she had last seen as a smooth glistening waste, was pitted with holes and craters, and littered with rubbish. Nearly all the visitors had gone to lunch, and only a few trippers ate from their nose-bags.

A breeze blew towards her a paper. It was a police bill, bearing a blurred and villainous portrait of little Marjorie Smith— the child violinist— and offering a large reward for her recovery. Marjorie's teeth chattered as she was gripped with fear of the beady-eyed black-lipped woman who had dominated her destiny. With the hunted animal's instinct to hide, she crept back to her cave.

When Agatha Horn returned from the Majestic and found her charge vanished, she lost her head completely, and telephoned immediately to the police.  She was interviewed by pressmen the same night.

CHOAT— his shrunken figure in a jazz sleeping suit, chuckled over the morning paper, as he lay in bed, propped up by pillows.

'Listen, Wally! The little lady is probably dressed in her underclothing, as  none of her dresses are missing. Nice, inconspicuous costume to be promenading the town. It says she has no money, so she must be in the neighbourhood.'

Wallace grimaced.

'I believe the beach is black with hopeful folks waiting for the tide to return the body.

'Let 'am wait! Pity you let the reward slip between your fingers, though.'

'I?'

'What about the little painted lady you met last night, St Anthony? If ever I die— which I doubt— a famous detective will die with me. It's clear as mud. Remember what I told you about that girl's age? Some poor little starving devil, putting her head into the noose and then trying to escape from the clutches of that she-vamp who ran her!'

Wallace's pipe slipped from his fingers as he remembered scrap after scrap of the mysterious maiden's confidences.

'My Grief, Choat, I believe you've got it. It all fits in. Same address.... remember, I promised the poor kid a supper.... And— I let her go— God  knows where!'

iv

THE SUN was once again a blood-orange in a grey haze— setting as it rose— when Marjorie opened her eyes, and stared around her. Despite the 'beating in her head her mins was now quite lucid. At last she was free.

What came afterwards?

She lifted her land and the effort showed her extreme weakness. She believed she would soon die of exhaustion, but it did not seem to matter very much.

'Awake, little girl?'

As the words pierced her coma she realised that she was not alone in the cave. She looked around her fearfully. But she saw only Wallace Sterne, his face pale and scored with anxiety. A great wonder dawned in her eyes.

'You!'

'Yes. I've been out all day, searching for Marjorie  Smith...'

'You'll never find her!'

'I know. I've found Marjorie Lambert instead, thank God! She's all the girl I want.'

She tried to stagger to her feet, but he caught her in his arms.

'I'm going to carry you right back.'

'You can't. I'm not a baby. I'm grown up... But I feel— safe, now. You won't let her get me again?'

'Not till never. I promise.'

'Indian Giver? You promised me supper.'

'I know. To-night as ever is. Lobster and game pie and beef steak—'

He knew he was talking nonsense in a case of semi-starvation. Yet her little pinched face lost its greyness as she shook her head— smiling.

________________

7: A Bad-Good Woman

Observer (Adelaide), 8 May 1926

The Novel Magazine, March 1926

"WHEN I look at this—" Charlotte pointed to the islets, floating like mauve and turquoise petals upon the jade sea— "I always think hard of Piccadilly Circus and mud."

''Why?" asked Lord Chard's eyebrows.

"It's too beautiful," went on Charlotte. "It's like a fairy tale. And when you're a real person, you've got to remind yourself that you live in  a real world."

"What is reality but the income tax?" murmured Chard.

"It means that you're alive. Here— in this fairy tale— we live on sugar plums and dreams. Real life means work and bread."

Lord Chard said nothing. He was naturally of indolent disposition, and he had been on the island for six years.

Charlotte sat bolt upright, as she scooped up handfuls of the snow-white beach. She was very young and the last word in modernity. Her swimming suit was little sister to that of Chard. Her hair— gold as a guinea— was not much longer than his.

She sniffed the warm breezes, which seem to bear spicy fragrance from distant Ternate and Tidore, as she studied Lord Chard's handsome impassive face.

"What are you doing here?" she asked. He said nothing, which was the right answer.

"The men who plant things belong here," continued Charlotte. "So do their wives and little etceteras, so does the native population and rare floaters, like me. But where do you come in?"

"Just drifted here. In a ship— or some thing. Thought I'd stop here a day."

"And then," dared Charlotte, "you met Mrs. Gloria Sims?"

''No. She met me."

"And since then, you've been lying round, like something that's been washed up by the tide."

Lord Chard raised his indolent eyebrows. "Why do you hate her so?" he asked.

"Hate— whom?"

"Gloria. Or if you prefer it, Mrs. William John Sims."

Charlotte crushed a fragile pink shell viciously in an effort to be honest. She knew that she was jealous of the elder woman's beauty and power. But there were other things.

"I can't stick her," she said. "She pulls such old stuff— all the things we've cut out. She'll never let you forget she's a woman, Doesn't her hair come down regularly, by accident, at every picnic?"

"Wonderful hair,"

"That's the only sort that comes down. And doesn't she display an inch of ankle as much as to say, 'Boys, there's a treat for you'?"

"Eve."

"With a jolly sight too many fig leaves." Charlotte kicked a tanned leg impatiently. "And I'll bet her name is Gertie. Can't you see? If she were an out-and-out bad lot, she'd have the good points that go with her type. And if she were really good, you'd respect her. But she's neither black nor white. She's dirty grey— a bad-good woman. She'd never care enough for a man to come a cropper. But she makes men mad about her and then they may go hang. And her husband is just there to pay the bills,"

"Decent little chap— Sims."

Charlotte flushed slightly, checked by Chard's air of glacial experience.

"Still, Tops," she persisted, "one day, you'll be a marquis, won't you?"

"My people would consider this conversation tactless."

"But when they die you will be. It means a lot... you do the job thoroughly. And because of that you shouldn't be here. It's gorgeous for a holiday. But it's moral mush. Every one turns soft, and then they rot."

"Rot!"

"Truth. Tops, you're too— too worthwhile to rot. Go back. Do, do go back!"

Chard let his cigarette die out as he stared at the sea which gleamed like a sheet of pale green metal."

"You're right, Charlie," he said. "I am living in a fairy tale. Do you remember Hans Anderson's fairy tale of 'The Snow Queen?' "

"Yes." Charlotte looked surprised. "I think go."

Chard sank hack on the sand. "Tell it," he said.

"I can't remember the lot. But a little girl, Gerda, went to rescue her foster brother from the Snow Queen, and on her way she met a friendly witch, who wanted to keep her. So she magiced away her memory. And because she knew that roses would make Gerda remember her quest, she made every rose in her garden sink into the earth."

"Go on!" said Chard in a low voice.

"But she forgot about the roses painted on her own tall hat. One day, Gerda saw those, and then, of course, she remembered—"

"That's all."

Charlotte glanced at Lord Chard and then looked quickly away at the floating sun had spread a golden pathway over the islets. They seemed on the point of dissolving into the deep azure sky. The sea. It seemed a land where it was always afternoon.

Presently, Charlotte broke the silence. "I think I understand. You came here to forget something?"

"Yes."

"Have you forgotten?"

"Utterly."

Suddenly to Charlotte's surprise, Lord Chard's hand was laid over her own.

"There's always something," he said. "Here, there seems nothing to remind me of the past. But there's always the thing one overlooks. I dread every fresh arrival to the island. I dreaded— you. For, one day. I'll see the roses painted on the witch's hat. That day I shall remember. That day I'll have to go back!"

"Go back to— hard things?"

"Damnable."

Charlotte sprang to her feet. Her commonsense told her that Lord Chard was no good. At least, not to her. When the patch on her lung was healed, she was going back to England. She wanted to be a doctor. She hoped she would marry some one of her own profession, for the sake of mutual interest. A match with a future marquis was all right inside a fairy tale, but nowhere else.

"I wish I knew what are the special roses which would make you remember," she said. "I'd paint the blessed island with them.' '

"Pleasant child.'

"I would'. I'd make you go back and face the music, whatever you'd suffer. That's the only way you'll save your soul alive."

Lord Chard's flicker of self-revelation had died out. He smiled in his old enigmatic manner as he watched Charlotte striding up the beach, the sun gliding her golden tanned limbs and golden hair, until she looked like some godlet arisen from the sea.

Two Women

AS CHARLOTTE approached a dark carven bungalow, bound with scarlet creeper, a white-clad woman languidly arose from her seat on the verandah.

It was the island queen— Mrs. William John Sims.

The woman and girl regarded each other, much as a horse might wonder at a unicorn. The other was the unicorn. Centuries yawned between their points of view.

Gloria, whose real name was Grace, had come to the island when she was little more than a child. She still belonged to the nineties, when there was a handful of notable beauties standing out from the regiment of ordinary women.

Her features and figure were perfect— her eyes blue as violets. Every gesture and glance was studied with a view to fascination.

Charlotte involuntarily thought of the tales connected with Gloria— unreal, fantastic tales which belonged to the three-decker yellowback.

Less than three months ago a bank clerk had paid tribute to Gloria by spattering her verandah with his brains.

Gloria, in her turn, viewed Charlotte with amusement, blent with contempt. Illustrated papers came to this remote fairy islet, which portrayed the modern Eve as a flat-chested, cropped being, dressed in the short skirts of childhood.

Gloria had ridiculed them in the company of her enslaved admirers.

"Mercy! what are they? Not women!" Gloria looked past Charlotte.

"I am expecting Lord Chard."

"He's on the beach, gradually coming to life after swimming."

"Amazing energy on his part."

"On mine. I dug him out." Charlotte glanced at the tea table. ''And I'm going on with the good work, so don't wait tea for him. Directly we've changed, we're going for a ride."

Gloria's famous violet eyes grew darker. This was interference of a new order. She, herself, never beckoned her admirers where a single glance sufficed. This boy-girl, who had no dignity to lose, and no manners, descended to cave-tactics,

"Interested in him?" she asked sweetly.

"A bit."

"Don't be. It's dangerous."

"Dangerous? For whom?"

"You."

"But not for you? Hasn't he been coming to see you for six years?"

Gloria merely smiled. The island saw Lord Chard as her shadow; it was her own secret that she could not be certain whether he were enslaved.

"Well, don't worry," said Charlotte. "My interest in Tops is localized. I'm doing my best to get him to leave this blighted island."

Gloria stared after her retreating figure, partially draped in a bathing cloak of faded orange towelling. Into her eyes had stolen the first suggestion of panic.

Rivalry.

ALTHOUGH there seemed no time upon the island— one scented day slipping into the next—it was a forcing bed of fruition. A bud became overblown in a day. An introduction blossomed into romance inside a week.

Before the new moon rose into the sky as a tiny nail-paring of silver, the Island Club had a new topic of gossip.

Lord Chard had transferred his allegiance from Gloria to Charlotte.

Gloria remained unmoved by the rumours. Incredulity had much to do with her lack of jealousy. She had only to look in the mirror.

This feeling was dominant, one afternoon, when she— and her latest attachment— a man called Palfrey— met Chard and Charlotte on their ride. She posed consciously on her horse, as she glanced superciliously at Charlotte, who rode astride in shorts.

"She looks like a circus rider," commented Charlotte, turning to look after her.

"Rides like one," said Chard.

"Anyway, she's a bad piece of work.

"Who's the man?"

"Nutmegs."

"Well, I can't understand how any man can be such a fool as to dangle round her, when he knows about the rest."

"My child never studied a fly-paper?"

"But, Tops, it's awful. There was that boy who committed suicide the other day."

"Nasty mess, that,"

"And the planter who drank himself right through his plantation."

"But what a death!"

"And that married man who ran into debt to give her jewellery."

"And Chard, wasting his innocent youth and beauty—"

"Don't, Tops! I hate your island queen. If I thought you really had a crush on her, I'd try to cut her out myself!"

Charlotte's words were a challenge more to herself than to Chard. The weather had grown very hot and even her energy had grown torpid. Despite her warning commonsense, she felt herself drifting under the spell of the island.

"No," said Chard, not you. You know I'm no good to you— or any other girl. Worse luck!"

In spite of the smart to her vanity, Charlotte felt almost glad of the rebuff. Life lay ahead of her; she would miss half of its wonder were she to be cheated of its struggle.

"I deserved that," she said, "for being soppy. Well, cheer up. I'm going home next week by the Empress of the East."

Chard's face clouded. He laid his hand on the bridle-rein of her horse and looked into her eyes.

"Don't go, Charlie! I can't spare you. You're like a pick-me-up after the night before. Stay here where nothing matters and no one's real and we're only part of the Bad King's Dream!"

"Not me. My life's cut out, Allah be praised! There's some biology, anatomy, and physical science, to begin with. And a fountain pen that leaks. And my self-respect."

"Yet even that could not sting him from his degraded sloth," murmured Chard.

Presently, his face cleared.

"I think I'm glad, after all, you're going, Charlie. This place is no good to you."

"Nor to you, Tops. If I could only find those roses on the witch's hat!"

Charlotte's grey-blue eyes were narrowed with perplexity. Lord Chard reminded her of a sound apple on a shelf filled with rotten fruit. Already there was a soft patch, which was the preliminary to decay.

Yet what was the reminder he dreaded? It was nowhere in this island, for here he had found oblivion. But, apart from its fairyland setting, the place was a miniature replica of the civilized world. Not a factor of social life was absent. The main difference was sugar plums for bread.

Chard's hand was still on Charlotte's arm, when Gloria and her cavalier  turned at the end of the palm avenue.

The planter pointed to the tableau, with his whip.

"That's a case."

"Think so?" murmured Gloria languidly.

"You bet. It's the cat's camisole, or whatever the expression is. Club opinion, anyway."

Gloria's smile grew stiff. She never despised the barometer of the masculine island gossip.

"Lord Chard in love with— that?" she asked.

"Don't blast me utterly. It's not my taste. Far, very far from it." The planter cast her a glance of passionate, if slightly bloodshot devotion. "Granted, Chard is not exactly ardent. But has any one seen him even half-awake before?"

Gloria stared fixedly at a clump of finest asparagus fern. It reminded her of green smoke. She pulled herself up to listen to the planter.

He was saying an incredible thing.

"It's club betting that when she goes home, next week, Chard goes as well."

Gloria could not reply. For the first time she was suffering.

She had not believed it possible that any one could feel such pain. Quite suddenly, amid the green and golden glory, she had a vision of the red-haired bank clerk. She had looked with repulsion at his quivering rabbit-mouth— at the bloated face of the half-drunken planter— at the others, too.

She did not know that her eyes were even as theirs.

She could not sleep that night. Her mind was oppressed with a great dread.

Chard was going away. She saw miles and miles of green tropical ocean rising in mounds between herself and Chard. She listened to the beating of the far-away surf against the reef, until the whole island throbbed like a gigantic heart.

With morning came courage and resolution. She faced her problem with a clear mind. She told herself that personal appeal to Chard would be a blunder. Charlotte's triumph was the result of novelty. Chard had had six years in which to grow accustomed to her own beauty.

She had to make his see her again— for the first time

Her opportunity lay in the club fancy dress ball, which was to be given on the occasion of the visit of The Empress of the East.

For hours she pondered over theatrical papers, seeking inspiration for her costume. One portrait— that of a celebrated Parisian dancer— drew her eyes again and again. Each time she laid it down more reluctantly.

To conquer— she had to dare.

Defeat.

THE ISLAND never seemed more beautiful to Charlotte than on her last night. As she motored to the clubhouse, she seemed to be brushing her way through the scented heart of a dark pansy, starred with fireflies.

Yet, already, it had lost some of its fairyland quality, for, from the Marine Drive, she could see the lights of The Empress of the East riding in the harbour.

They linked her with the prosaic world of bread.

The ladies' cloakroom was filled with an excited mob, all struggling for the mirror and the powder-puff. Charlotte stood aloof in the complete transformation of a Puritan maid.

Her dress fell in dove-grey folds to her ankles. Only little golden feathers of hair showed under her stiff lawn cap. But her smile was that of sinner rather than saint.

Since she had practically lived in shorts during her stay, masculine dress was no novelty to her. But, as she had foreseen, most of the island belles had taken the opportunity to appear as pierrots or jockeys.

"My score," she reflected. "Wonder what Gloria will wear!"

She was certain that Gloria, too, would appear in skirts— hooped, or trailing cloth-of-gold, or silver tissue. She would be both beautiful and magnificent— with the wonderful hair well on view.

As Charlotte entered the ballroom she admitted to herself a second motive for her choice of costume— a desire that Lord Chard's last memory of her should be, not that of a boy-chum, but of a woman.

"I'm on Gloria's ground," she told herself. with an excited thrill of coming combat.

As she looked around eagerly for her rival, she met the appraising gaze of Lord Chard. His face could never be deemed expressive; but she read admiration in his weary eyes.

"Why, you've grown up," he said.

"Wonderful, isn't it? And all done on sugar-plums."

He took her programme.

"Suppose, just to save ourselves trouble we take each other on for the evening?

Charlotte looked thoughtful. This arrangement would exclude Gloria from the entire programme. It would be complete triumph.

"Done," she said, "on one condition. Will you promise to come home?"

Chard sighed as he began to pencil his name on her card.

"That is impossible. Sorry. So sorry."

Charlotte bit her lip. What was the good of trying to do the decent thing in a fairy tale? She had only been a prig and spoilt her last evening.

She turned at the sound of a smothered gasp. As though a wind bad swept through the ballroom, all heads turned in one direction.

Gloria had entered.

The gasp was succeeded by a silence which was electric.

Gloria appeared as a Bacchante— utterly beautiful— utterly alluring. She was dressed in autumn leaves, and not too many of them. Grapes wreathed her wonderful hair which fell over her bare back in a rippling copper cloud. As a classical picture, she was sheer joy and perfection.

The island allowed widest latitude in the matter of fancy dress. Gloria had strayed just beyond the limit.

For her costume was the replica of that rendered famous by the Parisian dancer— Bijou-Celeste.

Charlotte glanced involuntarily at Lord Chard. She started back at the sight of his face.

It was that of a stranger— alive in every nerve, hungry, suffering. In his eyes was a light that carried her right back to the Garden, when the Serpent walked upright like a man.

Then she became conscious of a buzz of comments.

"Bit too thick," murmured one man.

"Bit too thin, you mean."

At the second man's snigger Charlotte turned on him in a sudden fury. He was dressed as a hideous travesty of a woman.

"If you were men— not pigs— you would see she's just beautiful!"

It was her own salutation of the vanquished.

The next moment she was ashamed of her outburst.

"Ever so sorry," she said. "I'm sore because I'm going home to-morrow. Don't judge English girls by me."

Next minute she was gaily fox-trotting with the hideous travesty of a woman. Her eyes kept straying towards Chard, who was dancing with Gloria. She had her arms around his neck in approved island fashion, but there was no need of her possessive attitude to proclaim her conquest.

It was plain, from Chard's expression that he moved in a world of shadows where she was the reality.

He never claimed his dance with Charlotte. She made a grimace and tore up her programme.

"I'm going now," she told her partner. I've still some packing to do. and I must keep that schoolgirl complexion."

The Witch's Hat.

THE island danced till daybreak. It rode, instead of going to bed, until it was time to witness the sailing of The Empress of the East.

Only Gloria lay dozing in the cool gloom of her room. The walls still revolved around her in a golden blur of lights. The music still heat in her head.

She awoke to the memory of Chard's parting words.

"Gloria! You little know what you've done to me!"

"I do!" she had answered. "You are awake— at last!"

The distant sounds from the harbour reminded her of the departure of the liner.

Her lips hardened as she thought of Charlotte. Last night the island had witnessed the downfall of her rival. Today's sailing would partake of the nature of a rout. She resolved to be present in order to add the final humiliation.

She arrived on the quay too late for the farewells. The gangway had been withdrawn and three yards or more of clear jade water separated her from the ship. The scores of coloured paper streamers which moored the Empress of the East to the island were still taut.

As she swept on the scene in queenly white Gloria was conscious of slight bewilderment. She had expected some new note of deference— some hint of homage— in her reception. Instead there were glances— curious, amused, and even compassionate.

She started as her eyes fell on Charlotte who was leaning over the rail. There was no sign of the wilted maiden in her cheerful grin. It even held friendship for herself.

"I want to take my hat off to you," called Charlotte, who was already bare headed. "You've succeeded where I've failed." As Gloria looked in the direction of her nod her heart gave a great leap and then seemed to stop beating.

Lord Chard stood on deck, gazing moodily towards the island.

"He's— going away!" she gasped.

"Yes." Charlotte regarded. her with friendly eyes. "And he told me himself he had to thank you for it."

Gloria pressed her lips to stifle an elemental scream.

Next second, instinct reasserted itself. She knew that she had to remain on the island. If she left it, where would she go? Not to Lord Chard. She had to admit to herself that, during the six years of their friendship, he had spoken no word of love.

Instinctively, she slipped her hand into the arm of Mr. William John Sims— the man who paid the bills.

The siren blew a last blast. The band struck up a lively air. Amid cheers and farewells, the last fragile streamer was snapped.

Soon the Empress of the East would be lost behind the blue line of the horizon. Soon, too, the fairy island would sink, like a waterlogged mauve petal, into the ocean.

Gloria stared at the churning foam. She could not feel the gaping wound in her heart. Not yet. That was still to come.

Her mind was a blur of bewilderment. She, herself, had sent Lord Chard away. How? Last night was no illusion. The whole island had witnessed her triumph.

"What? What?"

There was no answer.

How was she to know that when she had entered the ballroom in the guise of a beautiful Bacchante, Lord Chard had never seen her at all. What he had seen was the colourless likeness of another Bacchante— ravishing. magnetic, shameless— who had swept him, on the gale of his infatuation, into a secret marriage.

He had met with storm, disaster, heartbreak. To escape slavery, he had fled, seeking oblivion— to find it in a fairy island where he had even forgotten the humiliation of his own shameful flight.

But last night he had seen the roses painted on the witch's hat. In every gleam of white skin and every flying lock of grape-bound hair he remembered.

And he had to return— return to the old enchantment— the old trouble— to take up his responsibilities and build afresh what he had broken down.

He had to return to his wife— the celebrated Parisian dancer— Bijou-Celeste.

_______________

8: Noblesse Oblige

The Grand Magazine of Fiction Aug 1908

Observer (Adelaide) 8 April 1916

FAY WYMAN, from Chicago, U.S.A., had just cut in to play against the princess. Among the rigidly select circle gathered under the roof of Cornwall House she had the privilege of being the sole "outsider."

The other guests resembled a pack composed entirely of court cards; coronets bristled, titles abounded, an invitation from the Duke of Chesterton, a bachelor wearer of the strawberry leaves, was earmarked as a coveted honour of rare distinction. This particular house party had the additional attraction of basking in the reflected glory of the "divine majesty" in the person of a minor sprig of the family.

Fay felt strangely alone as she took her place at the bridge table. Her chaperon, the Countess of Nonne, through whose strenuous efforts she had been enabled to desecrate the sacred precincts of Cornwall House with her transatlantic accent, never lost sight of the commercial aspect of their relationship. The young woman's Saratoga trunks had forced their entry up the back stairs of the ducal mansion, and the countess considered that her responsibility thereafter was at an end.

The game proceeded in silence, Fay's opponents, obviously only concerned in pricking her swollen American purse, addressed their brief remarks pointedly to Lord Rakes, whose manners and hair parting had grown thin together. The princess had elected to play for high stakes.

Fay sat erect, her thoughts intent on the game. All her facilities braced to withstand the Arctic atmosphere. Pink and white, like a striped convolvulus, there yet lay under that fragile appearance the strength and tenacity of a coil of copper wire. When, by keeping a watchful eye over the destinies of the low cards that fell to her share, the American gathered in a trick at the sacrifice of her opponent's queen, the princess raised her black-rimmed eyes and stared fixedly at her. Although consort to a British Royalty, the line in which the princess stood towards the Throne was as oblique as her own eyelids. At present the reminded Fay strongly of some louche frequenter of Continental casinos.

"That was good generalship," the princess remarked. "Where did you acquire your skill at figures?"

The tone was a command. Fay instinctively answered, without a second's deliberation—

"As a bookkeeper, way down in 'Frisco, before poppa made his pile."

There was a general gasp. As Fay glanced at the face of Lady Daphne, who was the princess's dummy, she realized the full enormity of her crime. The English girl's delicately tinted features had frozen to an expressive mask of disgust. When Fay studied the ring of stony faces that had gathered round the table, it seemed to her that Stonehenge was a witness to her discomfiture. Her chaperon's eye was absolutely baleful in its ferocity.

With a remark about the heat, the princess pushed hack her chair impatiently, and swept from the room. Lord Rakes following in her train. Lady Daphne stooped for a moment over the table, raking together a pack of cards with her slender white fingers— Fay noticed that the backs of the cards were marked with the Royal Worcester pattern— then, without a backward glance at her late opponent, she also passed from the room.

Under, the glare of a cluster of lamps Fay sat alone, her lips bitten to a thin red line, her ears tingling under the smart of the insult. She drummed her fingers impatiently on the green cloth of the table, her thoughts winging over the ocean, till they hovered like gulls round the brown stone mansion in Chicago.

A great wave of home sickness swept over her. She looked back on the years when her father had flown through his days, chasing the almighty dollar, sparing neither youth nor energy, until the golden snowball had reached the proper proportions of a "pile." All the best days of his manhood, the flower of his strength, the pickings of his brains, had been expended in erecting an edifice that was merely to serve as the glittering shoot down which Fay should glissade into English society. It was pitiful— pitiful!

The girl smiled sadly as she remembered the schemes that had been hatched in their splendid insolence under the shadow of the star-spangled banner. She saw her father's lean face start out of the dense curtain of smoke from his inevitable big cigar while he shot out his brief remarks in intermittent volcanic eruption.

"Reckon you'd best see the little island where they're all asleep 'fore America buys it up." Puff. "Guess you'll wake them up eh, my gaal?" Puff. "Make 'em sit up." Puff. "Make 'em grow whiskers on their teeth."

Then the old man would work rapidly to his favourite climax, Fay's eyes sparkling the while in delighted anticipation.

"And when you've seen the dooks and belted earls, if you like to bring one over here, just you pick out the best of the bunch, and I'll shake him by the hand, and— and it'll be cash down for value received."

He drew the picture crudely, but Fay, with insight born of loving sympathy, softened the glaring tints, till she saw in the whole scheme the perfect self-sacrifice of a father for his child. He had spent himself that Fay should have the very best, cashed himself in small change, invested it again and again, till the total was raised that would crown his ambition and make Fay an English peeress.

At last, with a hundred frocks and a thousand hopes, she had sailed for the other side, to be sheltered under the moulting wing of an earl's widow. From the moment the girl met her chaperon, who scanned her fresh beauty with the keen eye of a marriage broker, intent on possible commission, the bubble of her confidence was pricked. Silently but steadily it had been leaking ever since as she penetrated farther and farther into the inner circles of society. The English aristocracy, whose name she had invoked so lightly, first subjected her to an X-ray course of treatment under a monocle and lorgnette battery, then, to restore the balance, completely overlooked her existence. Her father's gold had merely purchased for her the position of an "outsider."

Not even as Fay's mind groped back along the track of past humiliations, the I other half of her brain was sub-consciously dictating a letter home to her father.

Darling Poppa—

Such a night! Fancy it! Little me playing cards with a princess. My! Wasn't she set on winning, too? We flew pretty high, didn't we? but we never grazed each giddy heights as this. I haven't marked my earl yet, for there isn't one half as nice as my dear poppa. But the duke is a beautiful man—

Fay stopped short abruptly. The duke, Lady Daphne by his side, was standing in the curtained doorway, regarding her intently.

Even Fay, with her anti-English prejudices, had been forced to admit him a personality. The pride of birth that stiffened his stalwart frame was of a different calibre to that which had previously fossilized the little American. It he held his head high, it was through his habit of regarding the sum in preference to keeping an eye on his ancestors underground. His face was as brown as a filbert, his teeth white as the filbert's split kernel.

Fay felt a pang of envy shoot through her as Lady Daphne slipped her arm lightly through the duke's. Beyond a few words of greeting she had hardly come into direct contact with her host. She was quite ignorant of the fact that his conservative principles had caused him to steadily set his face against the American invasion, and that her inclusion as a ducal guest was due to a judicious mixture of bluff and false pretence on the part of the countess.

The duke's keen eyes studied Fay's dainty face as she sat in the middle of the card room. The query he addressed to his companion was inaudible. Fay's sharp ears caught the contemptuous answer.

"I don't know. When she speaks to you she says 'Say;' when you speak to her she says 'Sure.' That is all I know about her."

Chesterton's expression grew hostile as he realized that his sacred stronghold had been stormed by the all-invading American. At that moment, however, his name was called, and Fay was again left alone.

Angry tears started to her eyes; she rose to her feet and mechanically folded back the table, unconscious of what she did. A card with the Royal Worcester pattern was wedged between one of the flaps. She picked it up— it was the ace of hearts.

THE NEXT moment a tense look spread over her face, and she intently examined her find. Her restless, groping fingers had detected a slight roughness in the bottom left-hand corner. Holding the card to the level of her eyes, she could see an eruption of minute prickings. The card was marked!

The girl's face darkened. The memory of every bolted meal, every starved pleasure, every frenzied rush that had gone to swell the measure of her father's strenuous toil to win his game fairly stood up to denounce those who, though they scorned, had not scrupled to cheat her.

Not stopping an instant, she rushed to her room, and hastily rubbed black powdered chalk into the incriminating marks till they stood out like the pips on a berry. Armed with this evidence, she was just setting out in search of the countess, when that lady herself sailed into the room.

The newcomer placed her elbow majestically on the mantlepiece, and, elevating her Roman nose, looked over Fay's head as she addressed her

"I have not come to comment on your behaviour of this evening; it would be superfluous, since I cannot appeal to the sense of social tact which is apparently completely lacking. I merely wish to point out that your obvious course of action, which 'is to remain in your, room for the rest of the evening, and for the rest of the time you may be here to efface yourself so far as lies in your power

Fay tossed her head.

'Thank you for your advice," the girl answered. "As a matter of fact, I shall be very much in the foreground in the linear future. I've stood your snubs, I've stood your insults; but I won't stand your cheating. I have done with you—I have done with, you all! Into the sea goes my chest of tea to-night. I mean to assert my independence.

The dowager's powdered nose dropped with a jerk. She was so startled that she looked directly at this American parvenue.

"What on earth do you mean?"

"I mean that Lady Daphne Carson brought a marked pack of cards to the table to-night, and played with them. Here is one. She won poppa's money, and— and I mean to show her up."

The enamelled mask of the countess's face worked convulsively for a second under the stress of some powerful emotion; then it broke up suddenly, looking old, and scored with innumerable wrinkles. She laid one trembling hand on Fay's arm.

"I forbid you!" she cried. "Think— think for a minute! The scandal! Here in Cornwall House, which no breath of slander has ever even touched—where it is a great privilege to peas even an hour. And with royalty staying in the house!" The voice rose to a shriek. "You wicked girl! How dare you— how dare you?"

"I dare," was the calm answer.

The countess's appeal dropped into the minor key of pathos.

"I only ask you to reflect an instant," she urged. "Think of the duke. How he stands one of the highest in the realm. He is practically engaged to Lady Daphne. Consider his feelings! Think of her parents, of the ancient name she bears. Think of Lord Sherry, whom I brought you here for. How will he regard you? Think of all we hold most sacred here— our honour, our prestige!"

Fay's lip curled at the last words.

"I have thought," was the grim answer.

The countess recognised the ultimatum. The creases of her agitated face ran together, and melted into her former expressionless mask. She showed her teeth in an ugly grin.

"So— it is useless to argue?"

"In the absence of a sense of social tact, yes."

"Then, when are we to expect the second instalment of Chicago revelations?''

The girl's face flushed.

"A good expression," she flashed. "For I have you all bottled up; most of you have been kept too long."

Grasping the card lightly, she passed down the broad corridor, her eyes noting the splendour of picture and statue with a hew interest. When she reached the head of the great marble stair that branched to right and left in its downward flight, she stood gazing into the vast hall beneath. She counted the number of powdered lackeys that passed below, and let her eyes linger appreciatively on the pillared majesty of the hall. When she slowly, descended the stair her foot spurned the thick carpet with a fierce pressure.

As she crossed the marble flags of the hall one of the powdered lackeys passed. She noticed that the fellow allowed his habitually wooden expression to relax as he stared at her in supercilious scorn. She returned the look with interest, and the servant's eyes fell. The story of her slip had already, it was clear, circulated freely below-stairs; but with her card held tighter in her fingers, she held her head yet higher. Heedless of a couple of guests she encountered on the threshold of the door, who shrank back at her approach as though her Paquin gown had been a bundle of loathsome rags, she passed out into the night.

She leaned over the rail Of the balcony and gazed oh the fair scene lying at her feet. The moon was spraying the landscape with showers of silver confetti, revealing the shimmer of the lake, the symmetry of the trees. Garden and terrace, statue and fountain lay bathed in the white glow. Behind her towered the historic pile, gabled and turreted.

She flung back her head and laughed at its hoary majesty. So this was one of the "stately homes" of England! Every stone could tell its tale; but she had a stone to fling at it that would roll an ancient name in the dust as in a glorified game of skittles. Then some far-off strain in her blood awoke.

"There will be a slump in British titled securities to-night," she thought, exultantly.

A voice uttered her name. She turned, to find her solitude invaded by Lord William Sherry. Long of limb, stow of speech; a typical Englishman generally, here was the bait the countess had constantly dangled before Fay's eyes, the toy she was to take back to her father out of the English lucky bag. To-night his eyelids no longer drooped indolently; there was a hint of excitement in his manner that puzzled the girl. The cavalier treatment she had received at his hands, in comparison with the universal homage that had been her portion in America, did not prepare her for this sudden adhesion to her side in the face of the general coolness.

Sherry looked at the moonlit stretch of turf reflectively.

"Fine old place," he remarked. "Takes one back, eh? Pity powder and patches are out of fashion."

"Are they? I thought you still wore patches— on your reputations."

Sherry started slightly.

"More's the pity," he said, gravely. "By the way, I wonder if you have noticed that I have absolutely haunted you lately?"

"I haven't. I was under the impression that the countess was chasing you."

Sherry frowned.

"Was she? Well, it was to do me a good turn, for her woman's instinct told her of my admiration for you, Miss Wyman— Fay. I am a great believer in Anglo-American alliances. All I have to offer you is an old name; but it is a name that any girl might be proud to bear. Will you accept it— and me?"

An automatic sweet machine could not have proposed in a less emotional manner, but in the sudden reaction from the bitterness of failure Fay's heart glowed. The dominant feeling that possessed her was summed up in her answer.

I will!

"Yes, I will! Oh, poppa will be real glad."

"Poppa? Oh, yes; your father. I shall be charmed to meet him— er— one day. Now, Fay," he continued, briskly; "I want a second promise. You're one of us now. Promise me to live up to our traditions. No more scenes. They're bad form. Remember our watchword, 'Noblesse Oblige.' Promise!"

The girl put out her hands, deeply moved by her translation to these lofty spheres.

"I promise. Say, what do you mean exactly by 'Noblesse Oblige'?"

Sherry hesitated slightly.

"Oh, It translates literally enough. You know— You know the sort of thing we're all led up on? When you become Lady Sherry, and now also, you are bound by the obligations of rank, and must put them before private feeling. Which reminds me. Just give me that card you are clutching." He spoke commandingly. "You am one of us now; and there must be no vulgar scenes in Cornwall House.   Remember, we have to hang together. Your lips are sealed."

Ear's eyes dilated.  She realized that for the second time she had been tricked. The kid-glove diplomacy of Sherry had cheated her out of her revenge. When she spoke her voice was metallic.

"Say, you are in love with lady Daphne?"

"You have no right to ask such a question. Lady Daphne is practically engaged to Chesterton. I have known her since she was a child."

"Did she cheat at snap and marbles? Well, never mind, I take it the idea is to wrap her delicate feelings up in cotton wool while you throw me the sop of your ancient name to exercise my teeth on. It is sometimes considered rather convenient to hare an American wife. Isn't that so. Now, listen!"

She suddenly dashed the card from her.

"You have cheated me again, for you have muzzled me with false pretences. As to your quixotic offer of marriage, I'll have none of it. I don't deal in remnants, even at a bargain sale. But you need alarm yourself no longer. It may be necessary to translate your trade mark to me, but I can assure you that an outsider like myself— a tricky Yankee— understands how to play a square game. You have my promise."

The angry red ran up Sherry's  face.

"Thank you," he said, with an effort. "If I could offer you an explanation, I might appear less of a cad in your eyes. But my lips are sealed."

He stepped towards the card, but at that moment a passing gust of the evening breeze flicked it through the open doorway. As Sherry sprang after it he nearly fell into the arms of the duke. Both men stooped simultaneously, but Chesterton picked up the card.

With terror-stricken face, Fay stole into the hall. It was filled with guests. Every one gazed at the duke as he carelessly examined his find.

Fay saw him start. Then his face grew grey and hard as granite. He cleared his throat before he spoke.

"Here is a card of a curious description," he announced, "which I should like claimed. It must be of value to the owner, as it conveys private intelligence. Although, in my capacity of host, I am pulled in two directions, it appears to be my obvious duty to safeguard the interests of my guests."

A murmur swelled in the hall like the buzzing in the hollow of a shell. The duke's face grew whiter.

"Here is a thing, and a very pretty thing," he announced, ironically. He held up the card.

Fay looked at Lady Daphne. Her mouth was smiling stiffly, her eyes filled with the terror of the aristocrat at sight of the guillotine. The countess's haggard face was askew. Chesterton glanced at Sherry.

''Yours, Sherry?" he demanded.

"No," was the hoarse reply.

In the silence that followed Fay heard the beating , of her own heart, The very portraits seemed to lean from their frames to listen.

Fay gazed at the circle of blanched faces, and a sudden sense of exultation surged up in her heart. These sneering Britishers had taught her the rules, but they dared not play the game.  They only clutched at the tattered mantles of their prestige to shelter their dishonourable deeds. She had nothing to lose but one thing— her self-respect.

Slowly and distinctly she spoke.

"That card was last in my possession, duke. Give it to me."

A long pent up breath of suspense broke from the circle.

With ah immobile expression the duke] handed the card to the girl. Tearing it in pieces, she threw the fragments on the ground and addressed the duke.

"If convenient, I will leave to-morrow by the early train."

"A carriage will be in readiness," was the answer

Again Fay glanced round the circle, letting her eyes rest on Lady Daphne's face with scornful insistence. Then, head erect, she walked through the crowd of people, who shrank from her as she passed. Slowly she ascended .the staircase, a solitary, white-clad figure.

No sleep visited her that night. Long before dawn she was dressed, watching the rain that fell in a soft grey curtain. Her maid and boxes were to follow later. She could not wait; her sole desire was to leave this place of abomination.

The house was still silent and deserted, when at last she descended to the dining room. For form's sake she swallowed a cup of coffee under the scornful eyes of footman. The tears that welled up her eyes were not those of self-pity.

Poor poppa! He'll be real disappointed, she thought.

The wheels of the carriage roused her to the fact that the horses were waiting. To her surprise, Lady Daphne, accompanied by Lord Sherry, was standing out side.

Daphne put out a small hand timidly. "Will you shake hands?"

After a minute's hesitation, Fay gripped the girl's fingers.

"Don't fret," she said. "It's best this way. You're bound here for life: but I've got my ticket-of-leave and it's saloon all the way. That's one of the slight advantages of being an outsider."

When Sherry opened the carriage door, to Fay's astonishment she found the duke seated inside. Lord Sherry bent numbly over her hand.

"Good-bye," he said. "Don't think too badly of us. I know I was not worthy to marry you; but I shall always be glad I have had the honour of knowing you."

The carriage rolled away, and Fay stared at her companion. That was a different leave-taking from that of her imagination.

"What does it all mean?" she asked.

"It means that you have rendered us the greatest service possible. Henceforth, everything that belongs to me will be under a debt of the deepest obligation to you."

His voice shook. Fay stared in surprise.

"And all for— Lady Daphne?" she asked. "All for a little bit of fluff like that?"

Chesterton shook his head.

"Lady Daphne, Lord Sherry— yes, even the Countess— all acted truly and squarely, according to their standards. You must not judge them too harshly. They only shrank from the final ordeal because, unlike you, they were not made of tempered steel. But their fault lay in treating you unfairly. They regarded you as an outsider, and they guarded their secret jealously."

She looked at the duke.

"Have I not a right, now, to ask you for an explanation?"

"You have established your right. Lady Daphne and Lord Sherry fought for the honour of something we hold even dearer than our life, for the sake of which men have gone to the scaffold. When I picked up that card I was placed in a terrible dilemma. Now, can you not guess to whom it belonged?"

Fay nodded, "The princess?" she whispered.

The duke bowed his head sadly.

Then a smile broke through his gloom as he gripped Fay's hand.

"I want to know you better. May I come to America some day?"

As he gazed at Fay there was a look m his eyes that was older far than his vaunted English strawberry leaves, a lock which reached right back to the garden itself.

"Yes, come," said Fay. "I should like to see you again— but there, not here."

Her thoughts leaped away westward across a waste of tumbled waters, to where a colossal statue held a torch to the world. It was the Statue of Liberty.

_____________

9: The Pillow

Pearson’s Magazine, June 1925

Saturday Journal (Adelaide) 3 Oct 1925

LITTLE GINGER lay in bed, crippled with muscular rheumatism. She was racked with pain whenever she stirred a finger. She was entirely dependent upon the grudged services of her step-mother, Jitta.  And she hated Jitta.  But she kept on smiling. For inside her pillow was £380. Jitta was 10 years older than Ginger. She was an ice-cold brunette, with snapping black almond eyes and thin scarlet lips. All she cared for was money.

She had made a precious bad speculation in her marriage to Dan Scudamore. He was the son of a gentleman-farmer, but the family was going downhill. Since Jitta had spent his modest patrimony, Dan had been selling goods on commission. Like his daughter, he was a Rufus. He was a big man, with a red, clean-shaven face and jovial blue eyes. His was the type which went with prosperity— sporting clothes, dogs, and money to 'jingle.'

He put up a brave bluff at the confidence which spells success in business. But while he fixed customers with magnetic blue eyes, they held apology. He told broad stories to men, but his loud laughter could not hide the tremor of his lips. He had reached the stage when he had to goad himself to make his daily round of humiliation and failure. He had to force his way into houses where he was not welcome, and pester people to buy goods which they did not need.

Dan was a gentleman, and he hated making a nuisance of himself. When he made a sale, he felt that it was the result of pity.

And he hated pity.

He got none from his wife— Jitta. She had him well to heel. She lashed him with her tongue. Worse than all, she had taught him to despise, himself.

For this last, Ginger hated her.

Yet, although Ginger had the fiery temper which accompanies red hair, she dared not quarrel.  While she lay there Jitta had the whip hand.

Jitta resented the extra work of her illness. She did the minimum for the invalid. Thrice daily, she slammed down a tray by her bedside. It was left to Dan to wash Ginger's face and make her bed. Still, that was to the good, for it enabled them to preserve the secret of the pillow. It was only the knowledge of that £380 which kept Dan going in his little hell of life with Jitta. It was the key to release.

Formerly, it had been, placed on deposit But Dan's nerve crashed upon the failure of a certain bank, popular with small investors. He withdrew the whole, in twenty-pound notes, and the bulky envelope, was sewn up in Ginger's pillow.

The hoard was the slow growth of years— the salvage of Dan's War Gratuity, and Ginger's savings.

Before her illness, Ginger— who had taken the first job which offered— had been a waitress at a celebrated London restaurant. Quick as a needle to adapt herself to town surroundings, within a month, she had covered her. Freckles with powder and used a discreet lipstick. She was smart as paint, from every live red hair to the silk stockings which twinkled under her knee-short skirt. She soon became popular with the clientele of the restaurant, for she nipped round and executed an order while another girl was writing it down. For every sixpence the other waitresses took up. Ginger picked up a shilling. They all went into the pillow.

For six weeks now, Ginger had lain in her lumpy bed, suffering the torments of inactivity and baffled rage. She was denied even the solace of privacy, for Jitta kept the overflow of her wardrobe in her room. She dared not rebel. Jitta had ways of getting even with, her. She had known what it was to lie parched for hours, while Jitta gossiped at the gate. And Jitta never gossiped with women.

Ginger gritted her teeth, like some small trapped creature, as the door was kicked open and Jitta entered her room. Taking no notice of Ginger, she walked to the window and stood there, polishing her nails upon a dirty pad.  Although it was early in the morning, she was dressed in a short tight skirt of large plaid: her orange silk jumper left her big arms bare to the shoulder. Round her neck was a string of enormous imitation pearls.

Ginger knew that downstairs the dirty, dishes were still unstacked, so that Dan would have to wash his own plate when be returned. A film of dust covered the carpet. Under the bed, the fluff was piling up in drifts. Ginger began to boil.

"When I get about again," she said, addressing the air, "I'll soon have the place shipshape and Bristol fashion."

Jitta regarded her with callous eyes.

In her London days Ginger had rather resembled a pretty little red fox. Now— with her tangle of matted hair— she looked more like a lost sandy kitten, with an unwashed face.

Jitta ran her fingers over her over shingled head, which gleamed like black lacquer.

"Best begin on yourself," she remarked scornfully. "Sly! You do look a sketch."

"I can't help it," gulped Ginger. "Lying here, not able to do a stroke for myself."

"Got others to do it for you, haven't you?"

As she spoke Jitta banged open a drawer and shook a new nightdress from its crease. It was sleeveless and made of lemon crepe de chine.

Ginger watched while Jitta packed it inside a suitcase, to which a luggage tag was already tied. Her sharp eyes read the name of a celebrated Brighton hotel. Her grey-green eyes grew bigger. She knew that Jitta was indifferent to scandal, but she had never before gone openly away for a weekend. Yet whatever she did, Ginger knew that Dan would take it like a lamb, lying down.  There lay the sting. Yet safer so. She always remembered their bull terrier who had bitten the postman

Dan explained the attack to the board, "He's mild as milk and he stood this man's tormenting, day after day— week in, week out—till he reached a point when he couldn't stand any more."

The Bench— doggy men all— had spared the bull terrier's life. But Ginger never forgot. She knew the time would come when Dan's patience, too, would break. That day he would see red. He hated Jitta, but he did not know it. Ginger knew. And this fear was always in her mind.

Jitta snapped the suitcase and slouched into her own room. She returned with armfuls of  clothing of all kinds— suits; frocks, jumpers— which she flung on the bed.

A sudden flicker of mad hope shot through Ginger.

She crushed it resolutely. Such a wonderful thing could not happen. It was too good to be true.

At last she could restrain her curiosity no longer.

'Whatever are you up to now, Jitta?

"Selling my old rags."

"Are you expecting Mrs. Pomeroy?"

Jitta deigned no reply. She rubbed her nails to higher polish. Presently she  went downstairs and Ginger heard the owning of the front door.

The wardrobe dealer's big laugh floated up the stairs. When, she entered the bedroom with Jitta she brought with her a sense of warmth and life. She was a handsome, portly matron of 50, with a rose-red colour and fine dark eyes. She wore a long seal coat and carried two enormous Japanese handbags.  She spoke to Ginger with real kindliness.

"My! Ginger in bed! What's the matter?"

"Screws," said Jitta indifferently.

"You don't say sol"

Mrs. Pomeroy clicked her sympathy. "Dear, dear! When my old man gets lumbago I iron his back. Have you tried that?"

Jitta laughed scornfully. "No fear! Me? I'd like to know why she didn't go to a hospital in London, instead of coming here to be nursed. You'd think this family came from Aberdeen."

"Now, my dear, that's not the way to talk," purred Mrs. Pomeroy. She betrayed no sighs of professional interest, although Jitta was adding to the piles on the bed. Presently she dumped down a final bundle, and stood, her hands on her hips.

"That's the lot. Make a bid, Mrs. Pom."

Ginger's eyes, grew bigger as the flame of hope shot up again. Something vital was in the wind. Mrs. Pomeroy did not glance at the array of finery. She strolled nonchalantly across to the door and fingered a near fur coat which was slung on a hanger.

"I'll give you a pound for that coat," she said.

Ginger's face flamed. "It's mine. Jitta sold it to me for four pounds."

"In instalments," snapped Jitta. " 'Tisnt yours till the last is paid."

"Well, before you sell it you'll, have to give me back the two pounds I've paid you, won't she, Mrs. Pom?"

Mrs. Pomeroy, however, had made her gesture. She turned her back on the coat, with a shrug, and allowed herself to become aware of the clothing on the bed. She took up a skirt and held it up to the light. Ginger noticed how all the geniality had drained from her face. Her eyes glittered like black glass as she disparaged one article after another.

"They're not the fashion. People want a lot for their money, these days, ready-mades being so cheap. The trade's not what it was. No one'll buy an out-of-date cut."

"My lord!" Jitta exploded. "They're the latest." She picked up a vivid checked silk frock. "I got this from Paris— well, never mind how!"

Mrs. Pomeroy threw her a curious glance. She adopted a swift change of tactics.

"Well, now I look at it, I can see it for myself. There's a bit of sauce. Heal style— all of them— and in good condition. But, tell you the truth, I'm overstocked as it is. The Hall's gone into mourning and I took away all their colours yesterday. But I could offer you a good price for underclothing."

"Righto!"

A spot of colour burned in Ginger's face as Jitta opened the lower drawers of the wardrobe and feverishly raked out their contents. "Plenty here. But, I warn you, no lump sum. Every blessed thing is to be sold separate, even if it's only odd pence."

Mrs. Pomeroy grimaced as Jitta produced a slip of paper and pencil. Both women knew that the threepences and sixpences would add up to a higher total than any direct offer.

"You seem having a wholesale clearout," she remarked. "You'll want another trousseau to make up. Are you thinking of a second honeymoon?"

Jitta did not respond to her wink. She looked at her under insolent lids.

"I'll tell you one thing. Nothing under a fiver's any good to me. Will you give two shillings for this?"

"Funny, eh? Give you fivepence."

Ginger did not hear her wrangling. Her heart was singing with joy. Like one who had dwelt long in a cellar, she saw the door open to a vista of light.

There was no longer any doubt that Jitta was selling all she possessed. It could mean only one thing. She was going away for good.

Everyone one had predicted that the Scudamore marriage would end that way, but Ginger had credited Jitta with too much selfish prudence to burn her boats. She knew that Dan would never take proceedings against her. She had trained him too well. Poor bluff, beaten Dan kept flying the banner of his wife's loyalty as though to salve the pride he had once possessed.

He admitted— speaking with Jitta's voice— that since he was not man enough to provide a smart woman with more than a bare living, he could not grudge her the amusements which other men were able to offer her. It was  natural for women to want small presents and visits to the cinema.

But, while he affected to see nothing, Ginger had seen his eyes, blaze like fire between his sandy lashes; she had noticed the involuntary, clenching of his lists.

To-day, her fear would be laid to rest for ever. The end really was in sight. When things had seemed at their blackest the worst had turned to the best.

Ginger turned unwarily on to her back. In the rapture, she scarcely felt the torture of her racked muscles. She did not worry about the ethics or morality; to her, Jitta was merely about to do openly what she had done in secret.  And the prisoners would be free.

They had often talked, in secret, of the day when they would sail into the sun and begin the new life of freedom. For that that end they had saved, even though the goal was obscured. They had planned; to join Ginger's lover in California. He was already working his small prune plantation.

Dan often talked wistfully of a man's life in the open, with aching muscles and plenty of sweat. Ginger, too, had her private, dream of running a restaurant, with home made fare and black-and-orange checked tablecloths. She suddenly gurgled as she looked at Jitta's tense face. There was rich humour in the situation; while Jitta was scraping together the halfpence, Ginger was lying upon a small fortune.

While she was helpless, it was any one's— for the taking.

"What's Ginger smiling about?" asked Mrs. Pomeroy. It seemed to Ginger that she towered above her bed, like a steamer over a small boat when boarded from the open sea.

"I'm thinking of my boy in California. Summer there? It's nice to think of the sun."

"To be sure. This house always stinks of blue mould."

The mill house was certainly damp, it was responsible for Ginger's rheumatism, but the rent was low. It lay below the level of the road and was built beside the stream which flowed between towering banks. Fallen leaves lay around it in sodden piles and the gorge was choked with the thin blue smoke of mist. Altogether, an ideal place wherein to think of the sun.

"It's not fit for pigs to live in," declared Jitta wrathfully. "But he won't move."

She never referred to Dan by his name.

"If your good man could afford a better house," said Mrs. Pomeroy soothingly,  "I am sure be would. But you can't blink facts. The Scudamores have always been noted for their bad luck."

The words fell with a chill on Ginger's heart. It was true. The family was on the down-grade. Nothing good ever came their way. They dreamed— but to wake. She tried to shake off her depression, by picturing Dan's homecoming that evening. She imagined the dawn of incredulous joy in his eyes. They. would search the paper for the first sailing; Ginger intended to go on that ship, even if she had to be carried on board. Together, they would open the pillow and recount their hoard.

But it was no good. She had grown vaguely uneasy whenever she thought of the pillow. It seemed like courting bad luck.

Her eyes persisted in following, Mrs. Pomeroy. There was no doubt that she was a terrific personality. She commanded the situation, in spite of Jitta's dominant nature.

She shook her head at every appeal to examine Jitta's discarded wardrobe. "I wouldn't give the thing house room. But I could do with old boots and shoes— or gentlemen's clothes."

Ginger read her expression when Jitta retuned from her room burdened with her entire stock of footgear. If she wanted confirmation of her own suspicion, it was plainly written on Mrs Pomeroy's face as she looked at Jitta. It bore grudged envy for one who had the courage to quit dull domesticity for lurid adventure, blended with the contempt of the respectable matron towards the woman who throws her cap over the windmill.

"Heels run-over. Soles thin as brown paper."

While she haggled over the shoes, she kept throwing appraising glances towards the piles on the bed.  They were not lost on Ginger. Jitta had shown her cards. She was obviously desperate for money to buy new finery for her venture. It was Mrs. Pomeroy's cue to ask for anything else that was saleable, so that, at the end, she could obtain the lot for a song.

While she bought the shoes for starvation prices, her wandering eyes  made Ginger feel uneasy. This woman was ruthless where her pocket was concerned. Jitta, too, was reckless, and would not care how she despoiled the nest she was leaving for ever. And Ginger could not raise a finger in her defence.

She realized her own helplessness when the women began to laugh at Dan's suit. In striking contrast to Jitta's stock, he had but one tri spare— a sporting affair, of shepherd's plaid. It was ancient to the last degree, but poor, shabby Dan always invested his clothes with his own air of breeding. Pockets may be empty, but an unbroken line of yeoman ancestry will tell.

The empty suit looked grotesque and moth-eaten as dangled in Mrs. Pomeroy's clutch.

"About fit for a scarecrow," she sniggered. "A man with a smart wife didn't ought to let himself run to seed."

"I give you my word," broke in Jitta passionately, "that there've been times when that I've pretended not to see him in the street, I've been so ashamed."

Ginger writhed as she listened: her hot blood boiled. Had she been able to rise, she would have flown at them like a little tiger-cat.

"And you fancy a swell dresser, eh?" Mrs. Pomeroy the smiled archly. "Well, there's as good fish, you know. Between you an me and the bed-post, is it true that stripes are the fashion, this season?"

"That so?" Jitta bright yawned ostentatiously in her face.

Ginger swallowed her rage. Temper could do Dan no good, and it only weakened her. In addition, it had given her a terrifying insight into the fury of elemental passion.

But that old fear was stilled. Before Dan came home, Jitta would have gone away with Tiger Morgan— the manager of the local cinema. Ginger had recognised the allusion to his taste in suitings. Her elation, however, had now entirety left her. She felt vaguely worried and apprehensive. Mrs. Pomeroy seemed no longer a genial, well-preserved woman, but a harpy, with avid claws outstretched to by pounce on all and she fancied.

As she watched her, Ginger fell a prey to a terrible fear. They would sell  her pillow.

She tried to shake off the morbid fancy. Even the family ill-luck had its limits, she could not conceive a cruelty which had raised them to the heights, only to dash them down in ruin.

She began to pray fervently that the wardrobe woman would leave the house. Her petition was not granted. Mrs. Pomeroy had not bought sufficient to half fill one of her hampers.

Jitta— biting her lip over the low total on her paper—walked desperately towards the bed.

"Have a heart, Mrs. Pom. I tell you, I simply haven't a bean. I never get anything from him. Come on. I'll take a lump sum."

"Right."

Mrs. Pomeroy laughed.

"Ten bob for the lot."

"Ten? Well— I'm— They'd fetch more for rags."

"Try! The rag-and-bone man will be round next week."

Jitta could not wait for him. Mrs. Pomeroy knew that. She smiled, although the fruit had not fallen when she shook the tree.

"I've a party coming to-night," she observed. "that's going to be married—and not too soon, either. Now, what have you got to spare in the household line? Any old carpets?"

Ginger held her breath as Jitta shook her head. It was like the children's game of "hunt the thimble," where the seeker is guided by cries of  "hot" and "cold."

"Rugs? Curtains? Tablecloths?" Mrs Pomeroy was still cold. "Counterpanes? Eiderdowns?"

She was growing warm. Warmer.

"Dear" me! No old sheets or blankets?"

Ginger could hardly breathe. It was but one step away from her treasure. She waited for the connecting thought which would bridge the gap.

"I'll see what sheets we have," said Jitta. "Making me work, aren't  you?"

There was no spare linen at the Mill House. Mrs. Pomeroy turned down the corners of her mouth at the few ragged sheets.

"I can't make you an offer for this tripe. It's past turning sides to middle."

"More shame to him. He's never restocked since we were married," cried Jitta vehemently. "And Ginger's never sent home so much as a duster from the  White Sales for all the money she makes."

"Ginger?" Mrs. Pomeroy's ears were pricked. "She can't, earn much."

"Oh, no," Jitta laughed scornfully. "She only takes pounds a week in tips. A girl who works in the same shop told me."

Ginger's face began to burn. She had no idea that Jitta knew of her earnings.

"Look at her blushing," said Mrs Pomeroy. "You mark my words, Ginger's got a stocking."

Ginger felt a real terror as the two women stared at her. As she lay there, a little palpitating heap of nerves, the blow fell.

Mrs. Pomeroy kicked aside the sheets.

"Got any pillows to spare?"

All the colour drained away from Ginger's face.

Jitta admired the polish of her nails.

"M'm. Yes. He always sleeps with two."

The throb of Ginger's heart was the a great engine. It raced and pulsed while Dan's pillow was fetched and examined. Her secret was still safe. But Mrs. Pomeroy was getting nearer every second. She was hot— burning— she was on fire. The pillow was brought in. She scratched her eyebrows in thought.

"Got another to make the pair?"

"Yes. How's this?"

Jitta jerked the pillow from under Ginger's head. Ginger felt the sweat, break out on her pale face. Carelessly Mrs. Pomeroy let £380 slip through her itching palms.

"No. Two small. I want a couple of squares for a baby's lot, but it's too big for that." She jerked her thumb in the direction of Jitta's pile. "I'll give you a pound for that lot." Jitta passed her hands over her polished shingle with a desperate movement.

"Thirty," she cried.

"Twenty-five."

"All right. But it's blood money."

Mrs. Pomeroy packed her hampers swiftly and dexterously.

"I'll take only the one and send a boy for the other this afternoon," she said, straightening herself.

"Don't do that!" said Jitta quickly. "There'll be no one here all day, for Ginger can't move. I'm going your way as far as the Red Lion. I'll take the other hamper and drop it there."

Mrs. Pomeroy opened her purse and took out three notes.

"Here you are. Three pound. But there's an odd fourpence owing to night. I must have something for it.... This will do. I can use the feathers."

She picked up Ginger's pillow. Ginger choked back her scream. She knew that her only hope lay in silence. If she could only keep cool and not arouse suspicion, Dan would be able to get back the pillow from Mrs. Pomeroy that same evening. It was torture to lie still while Jitta dressed herself for her final departure. At last she came back to the room. Without a farewell glance at Ginger, she took up one of the hampers by its strap. Mrs. Pomeroy stopped her.

"No. Leave me that one. It's got the small pillow. It's just struck me that I've a party coming at four, about the baby's cot. There'll just be time to rip open the pillow and fill a couple of small squares."

"No! No!" Ginger's lips moved soundlessly. She tried to rise, but the room turned black. She fell back in a faint. Neither woman noticed her. Both had paused by the door, on which was the fur coat.

There was a rapid interchange of glances.

"Two pounds," breathed Mrs. Pomeroy. As Jitta nodded, she whisked the coat from its hanger.

"Best not let it be seen," whispered Jitta. "People know I sold it to her."

"Trust me. I'll sell it outside the neighbourhood."

Mrs. Pomeroy plumped noiselessly to her knees, and unstrapped a hamper. "Something'll have to come out. Here! I'll leave you this, for luck."

She dumped one of her bargains on the floor, and stuffed the fur coat in its place.

"There! So long, Ginger." Her farewell was cheery. But she did not glance at the silent figure on the bed.

Ginger heard the slam of the gate as she recovered consciousness. She felt empty, as though something had eaten away her heart.

Then— she remembered. Slowly she opened her eyes.

A ray of winter sun fell across the floor. It lit upon the object which had been discarded by Mrs. Pomeroy.

It was her pillow.

__________________

10: Maids of Honour

Pearson’s Magazine. Nov 1924

Saturday Journal (Adelaide) 28 March 1925

THIS is the everlasting story of the Cinderella, retold from a new angle.

Every bit of it is wrong; for it concerns itself with the drama of Cinderella's Ugly Sister.

To begin with, the Prince was not correct. Viewed in the leaping firelight, as he sat in his shack, somewhere in the frozen twilight of the north, he did not look the part. He did not wear even the red shirt of "The Miner's Dream of Home." He was dirty with real good honest dirt. His lips were cracked from cold. His face was smudged with eight days' growth of beard. For all that, he had but to shave and pet into a dinner jacket, to be in reality the Prince.

For the letter he held told him that he had come into his kingdom. It was from the lawyer of his home town, and stated that he inherited the estate of his late uncle— Horace Rice.

Rice puffed reflectively at his pipe. Outside, the snow was frozen in spikes on the fir trees. The sky was like a mirror of black glass, burning with electric white stars. It was so cold that it seemed that the air itself must crack. Rice smiled as he gazed into the flames. He was thinking of women...

During his 17 years of exile, he had rarely seen a woman. He had wandered in those corners of the world where a man has no address. He had to remind himself of his own name, since it never came home with the weekly wash. But he had his consolation, whenever the sun set, and, within or without, he sat over his fire.

Twilight and smoke. Then they came to him.

Those dear memories— the women of yesterday. As he uttered each name, one by one, they stole from the shadows. Girls he had known in the old days, in the little home town. Girls from shop, from office, from stage. Girls whom one visited in their drawing room, and girls one kissed at the back door. Girls who had sold him drinks over bar, and girls who had sold him cream candied at charity fetes. Blonde, brune, and brunette— with a rufus or two flaming red. Shining eyes, smiling lips, shapely forms, waving hair. Girls long since married or put on the shelf— but all eternally young and beautiful in memory. He kissed his hand to the shadows.

"The ladies, God bless 'em! I'm coming home to you, my dears!"

Home was a small residential town of 10,000 inhabitants, set in a country thick with mistletoe-hung oaks. The town was noted for its historic Bun-Shoppe, which had the original Maid-of-Honour cakes. It was further famous for its pretty girls. At least, the town said so. The census return merely stated rudely that there was a large preponderance of female. These females— hereinafter called ladies— had not very much to do. They belonged to the leisured class, with three sitting rooms and a black-and-white parlourmaid.

And each lady had her day.

Mrs. Hunter had third Wednesday. She had no official servant, three daughters, and lived in a pokey house with a pink-shaded drawing room. But her at-homes always attracted that rare shy bird— the male visitor.

There  were actually three of them at this particular at home—college youths with satin hair and silk socks, all devouring Maid-of-Honour as though they were glad to be there.

Their presence was a mystery. For one had but to glance at Mrs. Hunter and her two elder daughters to understand the reason of those pink shades.

Mrs. Hunter was a lean, powdered lady, with swinging emerald earrings and a terrific personality. A foot-long cigarette holder was perpetually between her lips. She wore a peacock-blue velvet jacket and smoking fez. Her glittering green eyes betrayed a relentless will.

All her life, she had striven to achieve originality. An ardent smoker at period when few women smoked in public, she advertised the fact in her daughter's names. She called them Virginia and Egypt, and never once thought of their future.

Virginia— hereinafter called "Vergie"— was a volcanic, skinny young thing— and not so young at that. She was rouged to the eyes and she jangled and chattered in perpetual motion. She achieved a certain amount of success at dances, for her hunting instinct was perfectly developed, and she pounced on partners. They submitted because she danced very well— poor thing— merely to teen her footing, with new buds blooming each fresh season. But—she would never get married.

The second daughter— hereinafter called "Gyp"— was the predestined wallflower. She lacked shape, animation, and colour. Her pale, heavy face was smothered in vanishing cream, which had not vanished. Her hair, bunched over her eyes and ears, made her face appear yet broader. She wore very fashionable clothes. Furthermore, she was made on a big scale and well, covered— and every one knows how kind modern dress always is to that kind of figure.

Yet she seemed serenely secure in her power to charm without effort. She sat like a maiden queen, her head high, her insolent eyelids half-closed, merely suffering the efforts of a college youth to entertain her.

"Going to the ball to-night, of course?"

"Ye-es."

"I hear it's going to be a jam."

"Why don't the committee keep it more select?

"Why?" The college youth was Socialist. "Every one likes a hop. Is Miss Jane coming?"

"No."

"Oh! Why not?"

Gyp treated this question merely as a comment. She was not accustomed to answer questions. At least, not in her mother's drawing room, with free Maids-of-Honour. She merely went on eating queen cakes.

Like a cyclone, Vergie bore down on them, grimacing and posturing.

"Did anyone say, 'Jane'? My dear good man, Jane's an infant. Besides, there are millions of girls ever already. I'm going to make my card beforehand— as we're told to do in the Bible— in the Parable of the Wise Virgin. I've put you. down for seven, and fourteen. Aren't you thrilled?"

"Dee"— Poulton fervently relieved his feelings— "lighted. By the way; where is Miss Jane?"

"In the kitchen."

The kitchen was the natural place for only there through the charity and loving kindness of Mrs. Hunter, who had a private income of her own. Her late husband, twice lost to her— first by divorce and then by death— had left her not even alimony. When he ran away with a beautiful, passionate young woman, the pair had led a perfectly happy life in one room, with all its furniture disguised under frillies, and a gas ring for cooking.

The man made a violent departure from the scene, through an accident. And he was not insured. When, a little later, the woman faded from the scene, too, partly from living on tinned food, and not enough of that— Mrs. Hunter—inspired by malice, kindness, and self-interest, all of which she called "charity," rescued Jane, the sole child of the union, from the workhouse. She sent her to a training college of domestic science.

At the completion of her course, Jane gratefully accepted Mrs. Hunter's offer to receive her into her own house, in return for her services. It was a rare opportunity for revenge on those late splendid sinners, whose hell lay in finding a heaven of domestic bliss in one room.

Every one praised Mrs. Hunter's forgiving charity. Her first step was to change the child's name from "Hermione" to "Jane"— which, at that time, was very plain indeed. She did this from pure malice— which was impure. But, in the fullness of time, and just when the matter was of importance to the girl, the name received a boom. Things happened like that, for Jane.

All eyes were fixed on Jane as she entered with the tea tray. In her excess of zeal, Jane had forgotten Mrs. Hunter's orders to leave the teapot outside the door. In her hurry to keep the tea hot, she had not stopped to take off her pinafore, which was of sea-water blue. Her hair, too, unsmoothed, fell in a golden smother about her face. Her complexion was of roses and snow, all achieved on a diet of porridge and tea. It sometimes happens like that.

Instantly she was surrounded by the college youths who had risen, like one man. Poulton, who alone was not satin haired, but sported a crest like a scrubbing brush, harped back to his former question.

"Coming to the ball tonight, Miss Jane?"

"No." She spoke sadly. But she hastened to console them. "The girls are going, though. They've got new dresses for it. Dreams. You'll love them."

"Not going! What a rotten shame."

"Poor little thing."

"What stinking hard lines!"

"Look here, you've got to come!"

"I wish I could." Jane looked pensive. They say that old Mr. Rice's nephew, from Canada, will be there: I— I'm curious to see what he's like. Oh, I should love to go!"

The socialistic Poulton turned impulsively to Gyp. "Can't you wangle it, somehow?"

"Afraid not," Gyp yawned. "Sorry. Jane's too young."

Poulton looked from one sister to the other. In that moment of flaming injustice, he changed from a mild Socialist into a red. He was up against the whole scheme, which illustrated the attitude of Society towards the under-dog. He hated the lazy, self-satisfied sister lolling back in her chair, while the little beauty had to be her drudge and fetch her tea. He hated Gyp because she wore satin which was in reality georgette— while Jane wore gingham— which was actually casement-cloth. He hated Gyp because she was fat, while Jane was thin. To him, a slim girl was pathetic, even though she did not feel the heat and could wear ready-made clothes.

The more he studied Gyp, the more he hated her. She wasn't a woman at all. She was like some Robotess, wound up to eat cake. She had neither heart, imagination, or justice. What did she know of the tragedy of young life starved of its lawful pleasures? Although he was a man, Poulton knew exactly how a young girl felt about these things. And Jane was such a beautiful and appealing object in her badge of servitude— a blue pinafore.

"I see," he said unpleasantly. "Three girls from one family too many, I suppose? You girls always say that. Now, I wonder what has suddenly reminded me of a pantomime? Have you been this year? A rotten principal boy."

His expression was innocently bland as he discussed the play, for the indignant flush on Gyp's face told him that his shaft had gone home. He knew that she knew that he referred to the history of Cinderella and her Ugly Sisters.

When the last visitor had gone, Gyp went upstairs to her bedroom. It was fireless and chill in a dim whiteish light from a fading sky and a snowy landscape.

On the bed was spread a new dress in a foam of palest Pink, like the drift of almond-blossom. Gyp picked it up and looked at it. Then, hurling it aside, she buried her face in her pillow and burst into strangled sobs. Presently, she got up and, lighting a candle, studied her swollen face in the glass.

"You ugly! You hateful monkey face! How I loathe the sight of you."

Her mouth was distorted in a fresh burst of self-pity. It wasn't fair. Why hadn't Fate given her a little of beauty which she worshipped passionately? She was sick to death of her own hopeless reflection.

Sick, too, of the humiliation of sitting— partnerless— for endless hours at halls,  hiding her misery under a mask of insolent indifference. Sick of the shame of being dressed up like a four-penny rabbit, for social functions. Sick of being a failure at the games which her mother decreed for the good of her figure. Hopeless drudgery and torture. How could she possibly reduce her weight at tennis, when her partners— knowing her game— poached her every ball? When she rode, she was too nervous to trot; was more self-conscious than Lady Godiva when she passed through the town and saw her reflection in the shop windows, sitting like a sack of flour in the saddle.

Yet it was vain, to rebel against her mother's relentless will. She had tried— only to fail. She shrank from that merciless slit of a month and these glittering green eyes.

It was much worse since Jane had come to live with them. The young men  were furious because she was kept in the background, and visited their scorn on Gyp. It was unfair, because Jane was too young for balls, at 17. Yet even the women, to whose daughters Jane would be a fatal rival, liked to refer to "poor little Jane."

Gyp started as Vergie burst into the room. Her face was thickly greased, and her hair wound round metal curlers, yet she appeared unconscious of her appearance as she smirked into the mirror.

"We've all got to look blooming tonight, to attract William. Glory be for a new dress! Hurry up, Gyp! You're to have the bathroom after me."

When she was alone. Gyp listlessly picked up her pink frock. She shivered at the thought of the long-drawn ordeal ahead. The outside snow would make the great ballroom at the George still chillier, as she sat— sat— listening to the eternal fox-trot and watching passing figures until her eyes ached.

Suddenly her self-control snapped.

"I won't go! I won't! Jane! Jane, come here!"

Gyp had looked forward to her first dance. She went. And she had never looked forward to a dance again. But on the historic occasion of the ball, which was to be graced by the presence of the Prince— once again, she was thrilled with anticipation. A wonderful dance. A dance which was different from the others.

For she was going to stay at home. There had been a terrific scene over her decision. Mrs. Hunter would have insisted on her presence had she been merely ill, but when Gyp not only asserted that she was bilious but threatened to prove her words in public, she had to give way.

Jane's presence at the ball was Gyp's secret and her triumph. Her pride had insisted upon it as her vindication with the socialist Poulton. Cinderella could go to the ball, while her Ugly Sister stopped at home.

She dressed Jane in her own room.

It was a lengthy process, as Jane's undress revealed a perfect faith in safety-pins. When, at last, Gyp drew the almond-pink frock over Jane's head, it gave her a pang to see how exactly it suited 17, while it had been designed for 26.  No wonder she had looked grotesque in frills.

There was no false modesty about Jane when she viewed her own reflection. Girls always know when they are pretty, and, often, when they are not.

"I never knew clothes could make you look like that, Gyp. you dear old beanie. I could eat you! But who wants girls' kisses? It's different with men's."

"It's different with men's," echoed Gyp dully. "On which subject I shall probably have something to tell you when I come back. Do you think I shall mean anything in William's young life?"

"You'll be what your grandmother called 'the belle of the ball,' " said Gyp, smothering her envy. Yet, beautiful though she was, to Gyp's mind, something was lacking. She dimly remembered that, on the stage, Cinderella retained her picturesque rags throughout the play, and only appeared in feathers and cloth of silver for two minutes, in the finale.

Gyp supposed that theatrical producers knew their business. For the first time she began to wonder.

Her heart hammered with excitement  when the taxi, secretly summoned by telephone, bore off Jane in the train of the car with Mrs. Hunter and Virgie.

At last she was alone. With the air of a queen entering her throne-room she descended to the kitchen.

Everybody loves Cinderella. We all rejoice over her fortunate marriage. But nobody can deny that she was a slut.

"O-oh!" said Gyp, looking under the mat. She fastened on the blue overall. The cap proved too small, so she unpinned her heavy knot of hair and plaited it into one thick rope. She rolled up her sleeves and kilted up her skirts. The light of battle shining in her eyes, she attacked the untidy stove.

Thereafter, in a passion, she swept. In a rapture, she scrubbed the linoleum. She sang as she worked for the sheer glory of action. At last she had found the outlet for her pent physical energy. This was something which repaid her— unlike the futile pursuit of a ball.

Gluttonous for more work, she polished the dresser until she could see her face in it— but was too happy to notice it. The sink, which was inches deep in refuse, with a stray knife or so floating amid the drift, she kept for a last delicious morsel. Then she washed her hands, put on the kettle to boil, and sat before the fire.

Ten o'clock. The ball would be well started. She could picture the gay scene; the polished ballroom floor reflecting the lights of the chandeliers and the brilliant maze of dancers. She smiled. This was the first dance she had ever enjoyed.

Her reverie was shattered by a hammering-on the hack door.

A man in evening clothes stood outside. He was a tanned, attractive, husky giant, with puckers round his humorous blue eyes. The faintest frost was on his crisped hair.

"Sorry to knock you up. but you've no lights showing in front. I'm William Rice, of Clints, back from Canada, you know."

"Yes, I know,"

"Does my accent bite you all that? Well, I figured to go to a hop to-night, but clean forgot to get my ticket. I remembered reading Mrs. Hunter's name on the committee list, and thought she'd kindly stretch a point and sell me one now. I understand you must have a ticket."

Gyp gasped at the modesty of the Prince.

"It won't be necessary at all, in your case," she said. "Yon can pay up afterwards."

William continued to gaze reflectively into the kitchen.

"Bully place. I aimed at this standard with my own shack, but men don't get the same results as women. I suppose we're not so strong."

"It takes me exactly 12 minutes to scrub that floor," boasted Gyp, falling into vanity.

"You?" He stared at her. "I say, why aren't you at the ball?"

"Because three girls from one family are too many. Both my sisters are there."

"And they've left you at home! What a bally shame! I suppose you're the youngest?"

"No. Jane is the youngest. Seventeen."

"She's a selfish little, devil."

"Indeed, she's not." Gyp loved Jane passionately at that moment. "I made her go. It was her turn."

"You're a sport. But it is a rotten shame. All the family going off in its glad-rags, and leaving you here to do the chores. Makes me boil."

Gyp looked at him with eyes which had grown bright.

"I don't mind. Honestly."

"That's a lie. I know you've been eating your heart out. Aren't you just a girl? Now, can you look me in the face and deny you were thinking of the ball when I knocked at the door?

Gyp rather liked looking into his eyes. They compelled her to tell the truth. ~

"Well, yes; I was."

"There! Look here, let's put one over them. Hop into your dress and come with me to the ball!"

Gyp suppressed a cry.

"I can't. I've nothing to wear. Jane is wearing my new dress."

"New, eh? Poor little girl. Seems to me that Jane gets all the pie. Tarnation shame. I'd like to see you in your party frock, with that big plait of yours swinging out and wiping your partner's eye."

Gyp shivered at the thought of the frilled frock.

"I don't wear my hair like this," she confessed. "I've far too much. It's nuisance."

"Like that? I've thought no woman could have too much hair and that she bought it and pinned it on, when the thatch was thin."

"Not now. It's worse to have too much than too little."

"Looks fine to me. That kettle's going to spit "

Gyp looked at him in hesitation.

"I was just going to make tea. I suppose you wouldn't— would you like some?"

"Yep, I sure would. Eats, too? Fine."

He looked, not at the plate of Maids-of-Honour, but at her hands.

"Do you know you've just the right sort of hands. They do everything well, yet they're pretty too. But one thing about them is all wrong."

There was an audacious glint in his eyes as he looked at her.

"That finger ought to wear a ring. You're cut out for a wife. How old are you?"

"About 23."

Although she had put back her age, as a true woman should, William was staggered.

"All that? Then— why aren't you married?"

After all, Gyp was human and she had her back against the wall. She fell from the truth.

"You forget the War," she said. "It hit my generation hard."

William gripped her hand.

"Awful hard. Look here, can't I stop and talk a bit?"

"But the ball?"

"Ball' can wait. The night is still young, Do you know this— all this— is a dream come true? So are you. You're the first woman I've seen for 17 years."

"Am I?" Gyp stared at him. "But— the voyage?"

'I came over in a small boat, and there weren't many women crossing in the winter. Besides, we'd a rough passage, and all of them were mighty sick, all but a few aunties. No, you're the first. May I tell you about it?"

William made a good story of his wanderings, which covered a period of 17 years. Some of his adventures seemed a bit too good to be true. But when he spoke of those frozen blue twilights and of his fireside guests, his voice grew rough with real feeling.

"I'd have sold my soul to have felt the touch of a lady's hand again. So I used to think of all the girls I'd known— go over their names, their dresses, their kisses, everything. They saved me from going under."

It was long past midnight, and still the Prince had not appeared at the ball. In short, he never went at all, which cut out the slipper business. The story of Cinderella is entirely wrong.

"Now mind you come to the Hunt Ball next week," urged William, as he  mangled her hand on parting. "I want to see you in chiffon and silk and all the gadgets."

Gyp looked, at herself in the glass when she readied her room. Her eyes no longer veiled by insolent, heavy lids, looked big and dark with excitement; they made her face appear smaller. Her cheeks were flushed with the warm tea-rose colour which exercise brings to pale thick skins. Her hair was a glory.

"You're not a beauty," she said. "But you don't look half bad tonight, old Face!"

Cinderella dreaded being seen by the Prince in her rags. Cinderella's Ugly Sister dreaded being seen by the Prince in her party frock. She vowed that no power on earth should induce her to go to the ball. Let William remember her at the high water mark of her charm.

Yet, during the day, when all the talk of the town was of William, her resolution weakened. She told herself that men had such curious taste. One had but to remember the horrible things they liked to eat— jellied eel, tripe and cheese with little things inside it.

William might have been a case of love at first sight. No one could understand why men married their wives. So she went.

It was a long time before William discovered her presence. Directly he entered the ballroom he saw the youngest bud of the season— dressed in white— fresh as dew and rose-tinted from schoolroom fare.

She was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.

As he gazed, spellbound, an M.C. pounced on him and introduced him to a girl with bobbed golden hair, dressed in apple-green— who had been, in her time, two war brides.

She was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. He wanted to fill her entire programme with his initials; but was glad he refrained when he was led to a slim slip of 40, in silver tissue, with shingled hair.

She was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.

When he presently caught sight of Gyp, in her little-girl turquoise-blue dress, tucked away among the wall-flowers, the hours of sitting still had done their worst to circulation. Her face was delicately mauve with cold as she surrendered her programme.

He hid his surprise at finding a dance and he apologized fervently every time she trod, through pure nervousness, on his feet.

They sat out the remainder of the foxtrot on the dark narrow stairs leading to the Musicians' Gallery. Gyp knew that the very worst had happened. But she faced the situation bravely.

"You've enjoyed yourself, I know. I've watched you."

"Haven't I?" He laughed, "My first hop after all these years."

Gyp knew it had to come.

"And the girls?"

"Wonderful to me. I'm staggered at their youth. Every one's young."

"Perhaps it's the short hair."

"Yep, that's another new thing which is mighty attractive. In the old days you picked out the pretty girls in a room. Now every girl is pretty."

"Wonderful how we—how they do it."

"Their dress has a lot of say-so on the subject. It's so simple. No boned bodies and high necks to give double chin."

Always "they"— never "you." Gyp spoke with the bitterness of the outsider.

"That's true. No one need possess a figure nowadays."

"And every one's so slim," persisted William. "Perfect sylphs. Don't they eat?"

"It's probably the games they play."

"I expect so. Aren't their complexions better than they used to be?"

As nearly every girl in the room was made up, Gyp aid nothing.

"Yes," mused William, "your modern girl is a sure winner. Am I boring you? Remember, I'm at kid who's got the ran of the tuckshop, after flattening my nose outside."

Gyp looked at his frosted hair and could not resist a dig.

"What a thing it is to he a boy, in love with life."

"Isn't it? gee that girl on the bottom stair? I told her my best story— really funny—but a smoking-room brand. She roared, and capped it with one I'd have barred. But it's a step in the right direction. When one's lived life in the raw, one has no use for prudes."

Gyp was my silent on the homeward drive. She was nerving herself for the thing she meant to say.

Directly they were inside the hall she prayed for courage and opened her dry lips.

"No sandwiches for me. I— I've something to say. This is my last dance. In future I give way to Jane. For pity's sake, give her her chance! It's her day. It's not mine. I never was— I never was the modern girl. I belong to the nineties, when a woman had hair and a bust and looked grown-up, when she was. I'm sick of being laughed at by uglies like Poulton. I'm sick of sitting still. So Jane shall go to balls, while I go into the kitchen. Goodnight."

Girls. Fair girls, dark girls, dancing girls, sporting girls, rich girls, poor girls, thieves.

Thieves. For every mother's daughter of them was after William's heart. Happy as a salamander in hell, he went on his conquering way— eternally conquered by every fresh face. It was an unusually festive season, for a long frost made possible winter sports.

In the depths of her kitchen Gyp was safe from certain humiliation. Yet her heart kept yearning towards the gaiety from which she had barred herself. When she went for long walks on the iron-bound roads she kept hearing, in fancy, the bite of the skates and feeling the pressure of fingers on her own.

Gyp had too much imagination. That was the trouble with her.

The thaw came. Jane got engaged to young Poulton, and bought slippers for her trousseau. And still the situation was the same. Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs, Spades. Every Queen in the pack out after William.

Gyp had not seen him for weeks, when he appeared unexpectedly at Mrs. Hunter's third Wednesday. He crossed instantly to the tea table where Gyp was busy.

"Where've you been hiding?"

"Kitchen."

"Good, Lowered your scrubbing record yet? Which reminds me. Didn't I tell you, once, you had big hands?"

There was nothing in Gyp's face to tell him that he had slain her sweetest memory. She bit on the bullet. "I suppose you mean you want something done?"

"Yep. My car's got a pain in its tummy. Let's go down to the kitchen and get your slops!"

Where was Gyp's pride? She asked herself the question fiercely as the led the way downstairs and took her pinafore from its nail.

"Cap, too." William frowned. "What's wrong? You look different."

"I wore my hair in a plait time."

"Well, what's the matter with a plait, now?"

Gyp could not resist the opportunity to display her one beauty. She defiantly shook it loose in a shining chestnut fan.

"There's hair!" William whistled. "You look like Eve fixed up to pass the  censor. I say, do let me plait it for you!" As he laid his fingers on her hair. Gyp's  self-control snapped. She had stood too much already...

"How dare you take such liberties? If you want to maul any one's hair, try it on with Rose or Betty, or one of your fancy girls!"

"Hooray! I've put you in a wax. Now you've got a colour. Come, sit down." His voice grew persuasive. "I want to talk."

"I don't want to listen."

"You will, when I tell you I'm hungry. You're the sort to fall for that. Last time you gave me eats."

"Well, do you want cookies now?"

"No. I want a kiss.''

She gave him a slap in the face. He laughed as he rubbed his smarting cheek.

"Gosh! That takes one back. It's youth again. If you kissed a girl then you'd, better look out and duck...  I've kissed scores since I've come back, and its like saluting chaste cold fish. It's all they care. But you do."

"You— you cad!"

"No, I'm not a cad exactly, Gyp. I'm just lonely. I'm blurting out things and I don't know how to say them. I wonder if I can make you understand."

He began to pace the kitchen. "Lonely. I'm like Rip Van Winkle. I went to sleep for a hundred years. And I dreamt of women. And I woke up to find that there are no women left. Only girls. Girls who are girls and girls who will be girls. Girls who've been kept on ice. I'm fed to the back teeth with eternal youth. I've no use for these everlasting sylphs. I don't want to hold a fairy— or a boy. I'm a gross man and I like to hug an armful. I want a woman.

"But they're all gone. Everything's different. No woman has any shape, or, if she has, she hides it in a sack. I'm bored to tears with slop. She drags her hat over her eyes and covers her ears. She's got no hair— not really well-dressed; hair— all roly-polies and curls. I grant you that in the old days, many a good girl went to hell for the wicked swear words she said over her hair-pins— but she looked IT....

"Take the stage. What do you find in the chorus now? Pretty, slim, bobbed boy-girls. Then think back to the Gibson Girls. Every one of them was a queen. Oh, Gyp, there were women once. If you'd seen Queenie Jay! A barmaid was she and the belle of Brighton. The chaps would line up to see her pass."

In his fancy, he saw her again. In her trim blue costume which was moulded to her perfect form, like wax; her golden hair which rippled in waves under her sailor-hat; the froth of her lace petticoat kicked up by her high heels; her white fox furs, her twenty-inch waist, her pink carnations, her complexion dazzling under the big black spots of her veil and the coquetry of her long lashes.

She passed. The woman of yesterday.

Gyp watched him, a little understanding smile playing round her lips. She knew what was wrong. William had never grown up. He had dreamt too much by the fire and wandered too much in the past. It had kept him eternally young. He wanted his youth again.

"I know," she said gently. "You're like some poor little boy who looked forward too much to the Christmas tree. You were bound to get disappointed. I'm go sorry."

"Sorry for me? Where did you get that?" William broke into a big laugh. "What d'you think I came to the kitchen for? Didn't I tell you, in here, that you were a dream come true. The first woman I'd seen for 17 years. And the only one. Thank God, you're left to me!"

This story is entirely wrong, for the Prince married Cinderella's Ugly Sister.

__________________

11: The Day

The Cornhill Magazine, Aug 1916

Leader (Melbourne), 14 Oct 1916

AS THE cathedral chimes struck eleven, Hubert Quality raised the corner of the blind and looked into the street. A deep peace reigned; the cobbles of the road glistened from recent rain; wet wads of yellowed leaves padded the pavements. Very far away on the horizon, a fitful red quiver told of heathen fires lighted to the dark god Thor. No human form was visible in the street. Yet Quality shrank from the uneasy sensation that some one was spying upon him.

Bracing himself with an effort, he looked up furtively into the indigo vault of the heavens— knowing the while that he was about to be subjected to some fresh demonstration of trickery on the part of his nerves.

Instantly, he started back with a stilled cry.

A face was watching him from the moon.

For several full seconds it bleached him, the unhuman stare of century-old eyes, before it blended again into the blank silver disc.

With shaking fingers, Quality dropped the curtain, the pallor of his face and the twitching of his features testifying to the cumulative effect of oft-repeated shocks.

For the past two weeks his terror-maddened nerves had rent him with the strength of lunatic devils— making every heart beat leap like a bead of quicksilver, and chopping up each breath into demi-semi-quavers of panting panic. Only the consciousness of one supreme fact held them back from their objective— the wreck of Quality's sanity.

On the morrow, their victim was going home.

It was his day.

The most cursory glance at his face proclaimed him the predestined prey of his imagination. His dreamy eyes, sensitive mouth, and delicate physique denoted him student— or visionary— rather than man of action, and, as such, averse from any act or form of violence.

During the siege and occupation of the town by the enemy, in his role of spectator, he had been plunged into a super-hell, in which he groped in a red delirium— fire-flecked and blood smudged. His razor-keen sympathies supplying the lack of experience, he had died, by proxy, many deaths a day. He had seen human faces blasted by the red hot touch of the Martian hand, and the sight had not been good to see. Above all, his ears were deafened by the constant terrific speech of great guns that spoke.

Peace— passionately he prayed for it. And to-morrow that peace would be his. Soothed by the mere thought of his imminent release, he turned back again towards the room which he had grown to hate. It was a prim, mid- Victorian-looking apartment, stuffy from a porcelain stove and crowded with horsehair furniture. At the round table of highly polished walnut wood, his landlady sat at her knitting.

Apparently about forty years of age, madame was of ponderous build. clumsy as a Flemish horse, with massive, heaving shoulders, and broad hips. Abundant black hair was brushed back from her face and gathered in a knot on the top of her head. Her callow skin was partially redeemed by the beauty of her eyes— velvet-brown and fringed with thick lashes. Her full lips were pencilled with a fine line of black down. It was a typical enough face of a daughter of the people, sprung from peasant stock and now the wife of a small tradesman.

This was the woman whom Quality feared with his very soul. When he had first rented her apartment, she had reminded him of a woman in a fairy tale, who, while apparently honest and homely, concealed under her ordinary exterior that element of the sinister supernatural that often accompanies such histories: Thus looked the pleasant-faced female, who afterwards figured as the ogress; thus appeared the harmless peasant who changed nightly into a were-wolf.

It was not his fanciful idea of a composite personality, however that inspired Quality's dislike of his landlady. That had come with the knowledge. that she was utterly lacking in the usual sentiments of humanity.  Undisturbed by any horrors of the siege, and showing neither pity nor fear, she continued her daily routine with the mechanical precision of a machine.  The sole interest that she ever showed in her boarder was connected with the weekly  note.

It was since the war that his distaste had magnified into fear. And his fear was the craven terror of one, who amidst hostile surroundings, carries his very life on a tongue-string. For Fate, choosing her instrument with callous cruelty, had ordained that he should serve his country by means of those subterranean methods, for which the punishment is summary death.

Quality eyed the woman now, looking at her with the oblique glance of suspicion. How much did madame know? Did she merely suspect? Was her inaction a sign ignorance? Or was she on crouch and biding her time to pounce?

Yet though the shifting mists of those dread days of doubt and fear— when rustling leaves tracked him homewards and his own shadow slipped away to denounce him, one fact remained real and potent. He knew that all appeal to madame's feminine compassion  would be in vain. If she possessed his secret, she would certainly betray him.

Again he looked at her, marking, with strong dislike, the rust-red grain of her skin over her cheek bones, the tight tartan silk blouse, the stiff linen collar that made her neck appear so dirty by contrast. The room, with its hideous-patterned paper seemed to wall him in alive; the charcoal fumes from the stove to suffocate him.

Then suddenly he smiled. All this, too will pass away. Next week, he would rub his eyes and wonder if somewhere— on some alien planet— there really existed a strange, hostile room tenanted by an unhuman, saw-dust tufted woman. Both would dwindle down to a name on an envelope, merely an address.

In the reaction of spirits, he stooped to pick up madame's ball of worsted.

"The last time I shall do this for you, madame!"

Even as he spoke, his morbid mind quarrelled with his sentence; it seemed as though its finality left a loophole for sinister interpretation.

"Shall you miss me, Madame?"

"Yes,"  Her "si!"was emphatic. "As one misses all men. Less work, but unfortunately less money."

The speech, typical of the frugal housekeeper of grasping spirit, was reassuring. He smiled once more as he looked at the clock.

"You are late to-night, madame! You should save your eyesight— or, better still, your oil and fuel. Aren't you going to bed at all?"

She shook her head vehemently .

"For me, I have no stomach for bed at all, at all. To sleep would be but to see again that which I have, this day seen. What? Have you not heard?"

He shook his head.

"Ah! What misfortune! To-day at noon, they shot M. Lemoine!"

M. Lemoine, the prominent citizen and advocate!  Quality could not credit the news. His mind conjured up a vivid picture of that portly form and plum-colored face, as madame proceeded:

"Yes, m'sieur; I saw it. It was horrible. Two soldiers ran him down the steps of the hotel, quick, quick! Yet, at every step, one saw him shrink. It was as though a hole had been pierced in him, so that the man came leaking through. At the top, there was the fine figure— so brave, so big; at the bottom, only a shrunken stranger, with eyes that ran; ran, and fingers that picked, and little bubbles around his, lips, rising, rising. He— himself— was gone. There was no longer any M Lemoine!"

Told in her native tongue, with pantomiming gesture to point her words, the. recital was ghastly.

Breathing heavily, Quality cleared his throat to ask a question.

"What was the charge?"

Surely the woman must notice the treacherous quiver of his voice. Her answer seemed to be delayed for an eternity.

"The charge, M'sieur? He was a spy "

"Ah!" Quality sank down upon a bristly horsehair chair, the crocheted antimacassar slipping down behind his back. He looked around him, with eyes of sick loathing. The clinking sound of madame's needles maddened him; he had watched the incessant flash of steel for so many long drawn-out evenings of strain.

The flawed mirror, set above the marble console table, reflected the room, duplicating the gilt clock on the mantelshelf and the pallid waxen fruit,  cherished under crystal shades. Presently, however, the hateful vision blurred and faded away, and the home-sick man saw, in its stead, the picture that was engraved upon his mind.

Somewhere, far a way from this plane of thunder, bloodshed, and cold fears— geographical facts non-existent— was an isle that rocked gently, like an ark of safety, on the grey-green seas. And tucked away within its very heart, approached only by grass-grown ruts, was a long, grey house. Sentineled by age-old oaks, there brooded over it, the very spirit of security and peace.

Again he sat in his own familiar study, surrounded by the good company of his books, while the fire burned red in the grate and his old hound dozed on the rug at his feet. This was his proper place— his own milieu, of which he thought by day and dreamed by night.

His longings to escape magnified these dreams into passions. He was always trying to get home. He took abortive railway journeys, when the train broke down, and changed itl4# inadequate rubbish, leaving him stranded in unfriendly country. Sometimes he boarded a steamer, which ploughed its way through fields and streets, ever seeking a far-receded sea. These nightmares were varied by the nerve-racking experience of ceaseless preparations for a journey which ended in the poignant pang of reaching the station only to see the express dash through, its lighted windows merging into one golden streak.

Often, too, he tried to fly home— even as a bird— swooping from his bedroom window in vain essay at flight, and sinking lower into the darkness at each impotent stroke. His distraught mind, flashing its S.O.S. signals across the sea, must have stirred the rest of those who slumbered safely in that lamp-post-lit, policeman-guarded isle. For influence began its wire-pulling work, its efforts, resulting in the promise of the special train that was to convey certain refugees homewards by way of neutral territory. To-morrow would be the day.

"I am going home to-morrow!"

He silently repeated the words with a thrill of joyful anticipation, fingering his papers and passport the while, to assure himself, of their truth.

Thus fortified he nerved himself for another question.

"By the way, madame, speaking. of poor Lemoine. Who— who gave information?"

"A woman betrayed him "

Involuntarily; Quality started. He had not before noticed the grating rasp of madame's voice. It irritated him to unreasonable resentment and disgust.

"A woman? Damnable!"

"Plait-il?" Madame raised her brows in interrogation. "But why?  Lemoine sold his secret for gold. The woman sold her secret for gold. C'est egal!"

How furiously her needles flew! In just such manner must her forbears have sat, knitting and counting in the blood-sodden days of the Revolution.

"But, madame"—  Quality's voice was vibrant with horror— "how can you call it equal? It. is inconceivable that a woman, with a woman's heart beating within her breast, should sell a life merely for money!"

"Ah, m'sieur!"— madame laughed mirthlessly— "it is easy to see that all your life you have had more than enough. For the others, though— What will they not do for gold?"

She proceeded to answer her own question by illustration.

"My young brother killed the farmer that he worked for, the farmer's wife,  four children, and a farm hand— all for the sake of the gold that was in the house. Alone he did: with a hatchet, and he but a child of fifteen! Such a good lad, and regular with his mass. It was merely the gold that. maddened him, and yet they imprisoned him— Ie pauvre!"

At last Quality had heard the thrill of emotion in her voice. Looking up, he detected a bead of moisture in her eyes. The sight of her sorrow only added to  the horror. On top of her calm recital of the crime, such sympathy for the  juvenile monster was nauseating.

"Your young brother must be a unique specimen," he said stiffly, speaking with an effort.

"Not at all. Like all of us. Like you, perhaps; certainly like me!"

A pleasant family history.  To steady his nerves, Quality fingered his papers feverishly, repeating the while his magic formula: "Tomorrow, I go home."

Even as he silently framed the words, he started back, blinking his eyes and momentarily stunned and deafened.  For it seemed to him that a lighted express had shot, shrieking, through the room like a rocket— thundering past him in a long golden streak. It was only a fresh manifestation of infamous buffoonery on the part of his nerves, yet it left Quality utterly shaken. He felt suddenly stranded and abandoned. All his vague fears and doubts of the past days sharpened into a definite pang of fear.

Was he, in actual fact, going home to-morrow? Or was he called upon to undergo the supreme anguish of cheated hope?  To see his prison bars  opening, only to slam again in his face?

As, still unstrung from shock, he looked round the room, he was a prey of minor optical illusions. Madame seemed to have swollen in bulk— the apartment to have grown distinctly taller. He hated it with the savage hatred of a convict for his concrete cell.

Inaction became unendurable, and he pushed back his chair.

"I'm going out, madame."

"No, m'sieur! No, no!"

"Why not?

Suspicion stabbed him anew at madame's vehement outcry. Yet her next words were reassuring by reason of their sound common sense.

"Because; m'sieur, it is too late. See, it wants but a little to midnight. It might arouse suspicion in this place, where every brick has an eye. To-morrow, you return to your own country. How imprudent to risk your liberty thus, at the eleventh hour."

His head approved the wisdom of the woman's words. Once again, he saw her as she was— callous, mercenary, possibly— but, for the rest, an ordinary hard-working housewife of her class. Again he sat down, watching the flashing points of her needles until his mind gave a sudden slip— and he found himself thinking with drowsy amusement of the sheep in "Alice Through the Looking Glass."

He roused himself with a violent start to find that madame had laid down her wool, and was watching him intently. The reflection from the lamp fell on her eyes, lighting therein twin balls of orange flame.

"What is it, madame?"

"Nothing! I thought I hard a knocking at the street door, that is all."

"I heard nothing. But, then, I was nearly asleep."

"Best so." Her voice thickened. "Get all the sleep you can— in preparation for the morrow."

As she snatched up her knitting, he stared at her, all drowsiness dissipated by her words. He watched her furious energy, trying the while to conceive some adequate motive for her unusual vigil and her evident wish for his own company.

Of a sudden, instinct supplied the knowledge.

Madame was waiting for something to happen.

Like vultures scenting their prey, his nerves instantly swooped down on their victim, agonising him with the refined torture of mirage. As the parched traveller feasts hollow eyes on waving date palm and bubbling well, so Quality, with aching intensity of longing, saw a clear picture of his own familiar room. He smelt the faint odor of worn leather; heard the crackling whisper of the wood fire; felt the muzzle of his hound, moist against his hand.

Would the day never come? He looked it the clock, crookedly upheld by misshapen gilded cupids. Only a quarter to twelve. Slowly. slowly the minutes ticked away. The night was dying hard.

Presently, Quality noticed that madame had laid down her needles and was again listening. Her tense attitude, flattened ears and craning neck told of an intensity of purpose that would strain her aural organs beyond the limits of their powers.

He saw her sudden start— the involuntary wince.

"Footsteps, m'sieur! Do you not hear them ? Footsteps without in the street."

"I can hear nothing."

"But they are passing this way. Open the window, and see if there is anyone in the street."

What was she? Quality could not decide. Merely the shrewd, suspicious housewife, with natural fears— or the composite, fearsome creation of his diseased imagination?

With the reluctant step of one who fears a snare, he walked to the window, and, opening it, looked out into the street. A deep tranquillity reigned without. The old houses, steeped in the milky bath of moonshine, seemed to sway gently. as though in sleep; the sable shadow of the drinking fountain seemed to rock, as though the ancient town slumbered, to the croon of some unheard lullaby.

"Ah! How peaceful."

Madame had arisen, and was now standing by his side. Her breath, onion-flavored from her last meal, fell on his cheek in hot puffs.

"What a picture! And see the leaves, how they fly."

At a sudden gust of wind, the withered foliage arose from the bare boughs like a flock of birds, and soared into the air in a mad ecstasy of flight— rising, wheeling, swooping— only to sink, feebly fluttering, to the pavement.

With a cold chill of premonition, Quality recalled his own dream of impotent flight.

"See, the floating leaves are like revenants! Or, perhaps, the souls— ever rising in their thousands— swarming from field and trench. Whither? Whither?  Ah!"

She recoiled with a cry as a leaf, fluttering in through the window brushed against her face, and then fell, brown and shrivelled, at her feet.

She stooped and picked it up.

"Blasted!"

The sound of her whisper was terrible. In the moonlight her face appeared to blanched to a greenish-white hue. Involuntarily Quality saw, in a lighting flash of clairvoyance, the white, dripping face of a peasant boy, with wolfish eyes glowing yellow, as he felt the edge of his axe with tremulous fingers.

"Ah, m'sieur, our last night together."

Inspired by unusual affection, madame pressed his arm. "To-morrow you will be gone. But what of me? Hélas, what of me?"

"You?" Quality strove to speak naturally."Oh, very soon I hope the Allies will make good, and your town be cleared  again of the enemy."

"The enemy? Ah!"

Madame broke off abruptly. Following the direction of her gaze Quality: also looked at the fountain darkly carven against the luminous sky.

Obedient to the dictate of his mountebank nerves, it slightly altered its position. Or was it a shape that slipped further into the depths of its shadow?

"The enemy!"

Madame raised her voice shrilly, with startling lack of caution.

"Who is the enemy? Have you ever given a thought to the lot of us who live in a province that to-day is French, and to-morrow German? Can one say with certainty: 'This one is French; that one German?' No, no, m'sieur. My name may be French as the wife of a French spouse, but I have German blood in my veins— German sympathies— love, of the Fatherland— deep hatred for all his foes!"

Again the fountain moved, to give sign that it had heard. In a last desperate effort to preserve his sanity, Quality slammed down the window, forcing a laugh the while.

"Come, madame!  That's not a very friendly sentiment. You cannot mean what you say. You are overstrung— got nerves."

"Nerves? Bein! Tonight I am all made of nerves"

She sank down heavily, her fingers groping for her knitting.  The steel needles began to click with mechanical precision. Quality looked at the clock. It wanted but three minutes to twelve.

The day was near its birth.

The same moment madame broke the silence.

"Courage, m'sieur!" Her teeth showed in a smile. "We were both wrong. There were no footsteps, after all."

Her words, vibrant with cheerful sympathy, awoke in Quality a response that was almost electric. Suspicion and fear melted at the warm touch of humanity.. The devils that had possessed and tormented him went out of him; leaving him wrapped in a foretaste of that peace that passeth understanding. He saw the room dimly, as though through a veil of blue transparency, in a new guise. It was the abode of warmth, and comfort— a domestic interior. Madame, smiling over her work, was a type of tranquil femininity.

Suddenly, without warning, the all-pervading calm was shattered. There was the sound of loud knocking on the street door. The violent double-beat of Quality's heart seemed almost its echo. He started upright, every frayed nerve at the utmost stretch; his hunted eyes searching madame's face as though he would read therein the riddle of the sphinx.

There was a rapid, breathless exchange of question and answer.

"There is someone at the door, madame."

"I hear."

"Who can it be—"

"Who knows? Visitors, perhaps."

"At this hour?" Why do you not open to them?"

"Why? Marie will doubtless hear."

In the pause that followed, the knocking again sounded, louder and more peremptory, as though the door were battered by the impact of a mailed fist. Still mute to its summons, madame sat motionless, her needles flying with incredible rapidity.

Then, higher up in the building, a door opened. Hurried shuffling footsteps descended the stair and pattered along the passage.

"C'est Marie."As she spoke, madame raised her face, and for the first time Quality saw her eyes. Swiftly he averted his own, shrinking back before that stare of unholy guilt. She had betrayed him.

For a fractional measure of time he was rent by the throes of an elemental passion to grip the woman's throat and wring out her life in bubbling breaths. But the wholly foreign impulse came and passed almost simultaneously at the grating scream of a withdrawn bolt.

The sound of a man's voice, sharp and peremptory, drowned the woman's quavering tones in a rapid colloquy. Then there was silence, followed by the slam of a door. Quality's whole frame shook in a tempestuous ague of suspense. Had they gone again? Was the blow to be averted at the eleventh hour?  Were his hopes yet to find consummation?

Even as he asked the question the answer came. There was the sound of heavy footsteps along the passage. Once more, Quality's hunted glance flickered around the room, with the sharpened sense of the trapped quarry, seeking desperately for some channel of escape.

His eyes fell upon the papers lying on the table before him. He began to read them with dull interest. Who was this Hubert Quality whose harmlessness and integrity was vouched for in black and white? What of him? Bereft of all sense of identity— calmly expectant— he watched the door burst open. It seemed the final performance of an oft-rehearsed drama.

Inside— they were actually inside at last; these oft-dreamed-of figures of his fears— stern-faced men, wearing the grey Prussian uniform. Before him was the officer, seemingly magnified to unhuman stature, in long, belted coat and spiked helmet. His eyes, blue and polar, raked the rom. His voice, sharp and metallic, gave the word of command. He was no man, but merely a vehicle of inexorable justice— a machine that has found its range.

Slowly, slowly, Quality arose to his feet. He stretched out his hands. Arose— only to sink back in his seat.

For, at the sound of a woman's laugh he realised that he was but the spectator in another's drama. With a soldier on either side of her, madame stood rigid and frozen. No need for plea or denial; in her lying outburst of apostasy to the fountain, she had made her ultimate appeal. As the spy passed through the doorway, Quality saw her face. And it was even as the face of M. Lemoine.

The clock struck twelve. Through the shrivelled sheath of the dead night broke the glorious promise of the new day.

________________

12: The Suicide and the Saint

Australian Town and Country Journal (Sydney) 1 Feb 1911

THREE small daughters of Eve were discussing fig-leaves on their way home from school. Or, rather, two talked while the third listened with all the bitterness of our First Parents as they looked back at the Garden. Like them, she was barred out.

The little girl who held the conversation made stabs and imaginary diagrams in the air, while her face lit up with eagerness. She was the daughter of a famous barrister, and, like her father, knew how to make the best of a thin case.

"Dear, ducky little bows here, that sweet shade of faded rose— it's got a French name you know— and a lace panel down the front— so!"

The other child sniffed. She had fat, golden curls and looked very opulent but she was conscious that her account of her costume for the breaking-up party had been eclipsed by this vivid description.

"H'm! It sounds just like your summer dress done up, Alys," she said, suspiciously. "Now, mine is a new four-guinea dress from Long's."

Alys swiftly shifted her ground.

"What are you going to wear, Juliet?" she asked, swooping down on the silent child in her father's best manner. Juliet's thin cheeks grew scarlet. "I— I don't know!" she stammered. She saw her companions exchange glance of meaning.

"I must hurry home," she continued desperately. "It is nearly four."

As she ran down the avenue she heard a burst of childish laughter behind. Instantly her finger-nails made dints in the palms of her hands. That gurgle of mirth was the thing she dreaded more than lightning or ghosts.

She could not remember the time when she was not a laughing-stock. Grown-ups always had smiled when they saw her, but they did it in a sneaky, half-veiled manner that she had learned to endure. It was , the open, brutal derision of her school-fellows that made her daily martyrdom. She had had seven years of it. Seven years of pure, undiluted misery! All because her mother had the spirit of a pioneer, and instead of experimenting on insensate puddings, muddled in dress, and then lacerated her daughter's soul by forcing her to wear unholy mixtures.

Mrs. Arum-Lake said that her child was just like a wall-flower, because she was so brown, and quaint, and sweet. Everybody else thought she was going to be a wallflower— sure enough!— when she grew up, but meantime only considered her odd.

Juliet's depression did not last long. She had run away instinctively at the first smell of powder like some oft-hunted quarry. In reality, her fortunes  seemed on the mend. It was some time since her mother had broken out badly, and her clothes had been fairly normal. Moreover other children in the school now wore djibbahs, although the articles in question were severely edited edition of her weird sack.

But, best of all, she was going away next term to a convent school where all the pupils were forced to dress alike. How Juliet gloated over the hideous serge uniforms that would be her daily wear for years and years! Marguerite, enthusing over her jewels, was a bad second to her! No one would pick her out among that crowd of girls as an ear-marked child of a cross between a High Arter and a Simple Lifer. She would be merely one bead on a necklace; one pebble on a beach. The glory of it! The world was painted rose-color, and the stars shook hands with the daisies at the mere thought of it.

As Juliet entered the house, she heard her mother's high-pitched voice.

"At least, no one can say my child has been made a martyr to dress!"

Mrs. Arum-Lake was entertaining a crony in the drawing-room, but her conversation could be enjoyed equally well on the front door-mat.

Juliet stopped to listen with apprehension.

"The folly and cruelty of some parents! I could weep when I think how they cram their children's sweet, tender little toes into stiff boots and bury their poor little heads under hot, heavy hats. I, myself— in person— was present at the toilet of a modern baby yesterday. My dear, it wore a corset. A corset! To support its back and protect it from cold, the foolish mother said. I asked her how she dared to usurp the functions of Nature— the universal Mother. Ah, well!  I, at least have considered her demand in this dress for Juliet."

Juliet gasped at the words. Her party-dress! A tremendous lump of the repressed and devitalised Nature in her small frame heaved and expanded at the thought. In an agony of suspense she tore up the stairs and burst into the drawing-room. Her mother— an amber-haired lady in a peacock-blue dress and countless chains looked up and smiled.

"What ah outburst of physical energy!" she exclaimed. "I could sing when a child bursts open a door. Shut it again, Juliet. There's a draught. Don't slam it!" The one breath of spring air was barred out of the stuffy, lily-scented room.

"Would you like to see your new dress, precious?'' asked Mrs. Arum-Lake, groping among layers of white tissue-paper.

At first Juliet thought she was only looking at a portion of the costume that her mother displayed. When she grasped the stunning fact that she was viewing the whole, her heart seemed to contract. This time, her mother had done her very worst. It was mere morsel of clothing— a thin, white silk tunic braided with silver, in a key pattern. Pulled out to its utmost, it did not reach the knee.

"Mother!" Juliet's voice was husky. "I shall show all my legs!"

"The most beautiful part of a child."

Mrs. Arum-Lake looked affectionately at her daughter's knobby knees.

"You will have to, wear silken tights under it as a concession to your schoolmistress's indecent susceptibilities. Now kiss me, and thank me my little Grecian maid!"

"Mother!" Juliet turned white, and when a dark, skinned child throws pale, the result is rather awful. Her mother shrieked at the bilious hue.

"The child's ill!" she cried, ringing the bell. "Nature is speaking her mind as to what she thinks of our modern diet. Perkins, rhubarb, and magnesia for Miss Juliet!"

There was very little Nature left in Juliet by the end of the week. Mental agony and lowering medicines had reduced her to the least state of resistance. At her best, the child was no fighter. Seedy from her birth, she had been moulded like putty by her parent. Her faint protests were never even heard; they were drowned at utterance in her mother's unceasing flow of language.

"l can't wear it! I can't wear it!" Over and over, she sobbed the plaint, to herself. "Can't!" Not "Won't" like a normal naughty child, with healthy notions of rebellion.

Two days before the party, Mrs. Arum-Lake watched her child as she sat in a red pool of setting sunlight. A paper lay on the carpet. Juliet had let it slip from her limp hand and was staring at the flaming sky. Mrs. Arum-Lake glanced at the heavens also, divided it into shades, giving each a name from her paint-box, and then sucked in her breath at the brooding mystery in her child's eyes.

"Something has slipped from the sunset into my darling!" she whispered. "A wonderful gift for me to give my child. The Soul! Hush, the angels are whispering to her!"

She did riot know that even at that moment her child was planning to open the door and set free that soul. Juliet had found the solution to her trouble" in one word. Suicide!

In the paper she had just read was a paragraph, headed "Suicide at Eleven." It related how another morbid miserable child before her, after eating out her heart with jealousy of her baby-brother, had swallowed rat-poison, and for the sum of a few pence attained the dignity of death. Juliet gloated over the details with envious yet sad feelings. She wallowed gloomily in the stricken parents' sorrow and the flowers brought by the child's school mates. She went to bed with sulphur in her milk, brimstone from the Pit in her heart, and under her pillow the death story of one Grace Kemp— suicide, aged eleven.

THE FOLLOWING day a certain Lady Eleanor Jamaica— the daughter of a Duke, and a very great lady in every respect— was driving among the dykes. Suddenly she pulled up short, apparently to admire the scenery.

There was a touch of Holland about its flat grey washes. A brown swollen stream was rolling heavily along its willow-fringed bed. The sole touch of color was given in a sheet of daffodils. But, as the indignant mare knew perfectly well, Lady Jamaica saw none of these things. Her worst enemy could not call her artistic, even as her best friend could not call her beautiful. She was big and weather-beaten, with tomato tints in her complexion and a faint moustache on her upper lip.

She screwed up her eyes in the direction of the river, as if she were doing perspective drawing. Kneeling down on the marshy ground was a small, brown-clad child. As Lady Jamaica watched she scrambled to her feet, crossed herself, and then deliberately waded into the stream. Lady Jamaica threw the reins to the groom, jumped from the cart, cut over the ground, cleared the ditch, grabbed the child, and swung her back on the bank, with the swiftness of a cinematograph film. The child felt horribly light and limp, and seemed to cower in her ladyship's number eight doeskin gloves

"What are you doing, you little idiot?" asked Lady Jamaica angrily, giving her a slight shake. "There's a deep hole just there. You'd have been drowned."

"I know!" answered the child. "Why did you stop me? I was only committing suet-side."

"Good Lord!"

It was a genuine appeal. Lady Jamaica stared at the child with open, startled eyes. One would like to say she saw a pale, pure face like a snowdrop, with great black-ringed eyes— which, by the way, no snowdrop ever had. As a matter of fact, she saw a thin, miserable, brown child, with red-rimmed eyes— crying favors that, color— and knuckle-stained face. She locked so starved and bullied that Lady Jamaica's thoughts flew to the N.S.P.C.C. of which she was president.

"Tell me, little girl," she said gently, "has your mother done anything to you? Yes. What is it?"

"She makes me wear funny clothes, and the other children laugh at me all day— and I want to die!"

"Heavens!" Lady Jamaica appealed again. "I thought only Russian children talked like that," she added, with splendid patriotism. "Tell me all about it!"

Juliet sobbed out the whole story from her poisoned babyhood down to her last mutilated hope. These are big words, but it seemed like that to her. Poor innocent! If she could have heard Lady Jamaica's laughter when anyone came a cropper in the hunting-field, she would have known the folly of making such a confidence.

"I see!" she said, at the end. "Well, you mustn't die. It's very wicked to want to. We'll find a way out."

"You can't," was the hopeless reply. "Only a miracle could save me from wearing that dress, and I'm old enough to know miracles don't happen."

"Then you must be older than the Saints and Apostles," answered Lady. Jamaica.

She was genuinely surprised at herself. She— who smacked her own children at the first hint of insurrection, to be found arguing with a child!

"But I've proved it," went on Juliet. "I turned Catholic, like our washer-lady. I stole nine candles from the larder, and said a Paternoster for each one I burned. A Paternoster is an "Our Father." It's Latting. ''Pater" means "our", and "noster" means "father," you see; But— nothing happened. And I'll kill myself before I wear that dress," and my soul will be lost for ever and ever'"

"Well— I'm—" Although Lady Jamaica stopped in time, it was clear that Juliet would be in aristocratic company.  "Miracles do happen, child!" she said stoutly. "Fairies make them happen. Now, look at me! Don't you think I look just like a fairy?"

Juliet looked intently at the jolly red face and the driving coat, and answered firmly, "NO."

"You ungrateful monkey! Well— I'll tell you my secret, I'm a saint. But I've more magic than Ariel and. Puck, and all that gang, combined. Now, tell me exactly what your party dress is like. Into the cart with you! Suicide is off for to-day."

As they bowled along, Juliet gave a vivid description of the Greek tunic,  every harrowing detail of which was nailed to her memory. It brought back her sorrow so vividly that she shivered, and clung to her companion, when they reached her mother's house.

Lady Jamaica gently disengaged herself, feeling choky "at the pressure of the feeble, clawing little fingers. "Now be a good kiddie! It's coming right. I'm really a saint, and saints work miracles, you know. You must wear whatever your mother tells you to-morrow night, and trust me to help you. Your mother won't be able to scold or keep you from going to that convent. And the children won't laugh at you. You'll be the happiest little girl at the party. Trust me!"

Lady Jamaica rattled off, feeling very blank. It was one thing to make splendid promises to cheer up a child's heart, and another to make them good. She bit her nails thoughtfully— a trick for which she daily smacked her children. Fortunately, however, she was a lady of strong common sense, and by immediately discounting all improbable schemes arrived the sooner at a possible solution.

She barred all fantastic notions that might entail consequences on herself or the child. To forcibly kidnap the youngster for the date of the party or to appeal to the generosity of the other children was ridiculous. To argue with Mrs. Arum. Lake was merely to court a snub. To ask the schoolmistress to postpone the party until the next term was to lay that good lady open to criticism.

It was a hard nut to crack, but Lady Jamaica had excellent teeth. Before she reached the stables her mind was made up. She climbed the stairs to the nursery. A fight was in progress, so she sat down like a good sportsman,, and watched with interest, until the better man won.

There were three children— all healthy and rough, and without a nerve in their bodies. They were called Tom, Dick, and Harry. Dick, by the way, was a girl, and the roughest and noisiest of the batch.

When the noise had subsided, Lady Jamaica put the question to her offspring. It was anything but a proper suggestion, but it was received with loud acclamations. She left the room, feeling that she had conquered the Opposition, and that the path was clear for instant operations.

"Fair, play!"she said.  "I couldn't let down my own, even for the sake of that poor mite."

THE WHOLE of the next day, Juliet lived in a fevered dream. She looked  forward to the hour of dressing with mingled feelings of apprehension and excitement. Yet, in spite of her doubtful moments, on the whole she trusted in the powers of the red-faced lady in the dog-cart, who called herself a saint. Her heart was entirely full of confidence when the washing was over, and in scanty petticoats and with cold, mottled arms she ran into her mother's room at the maternal call.

Upon the bed lay something in tissue paper.

Her dress.

Juliet's heart beat fast as the wrappings were laid aside. Now for a glorious transformation! Now for a mother's astonishment and defeat! Now for the rout of the material at the invasion of magic! Room for the miracle!

The dress was shaken out, and with it all the life died out of Juliet's face. She bit her tongue in her disappointment. It was the Greek tunic. No miracle had happened. Her saint was an impostor. She had played her false. She stood, mute and frozen, while her petticoats were drawn off and the tights coaxed on. She was almost dead to feeling when at last she saw herself in the long glass. A pathetic little figure-of-fun in the white tunic, silver bay leaves filleted round her head, and silver braids criss-crossed round her thin little shanks.

The numbness lasted all through the drive, but when she had reached the Assembly Rooms and had left her wrappings in the cloak-room, her casing of ice suddenly fell away at the sound of a two-step and the chatter of children's voices.

She clung to the maid's hand in an agony of shyness. How could she enter that big electric-lit room? How could she run the gauntlet of scornful eyes? How could she show her legs to the public?

The maid gave her a kindly push and shot her through the doorway. The room seemed full of smart people, for the party was a large one, including the outside children who attended the dancing classes with their parents and friends. Juliet stood still for a dreadful moment. She thought that a howl of laughter had greeted her appearance. She hardly dared raise her eyes as she bitterly reviled the saint who had cheated her out of that kindly brown stream and the glory of suicide.

Then she noticed that a school-fellow was standing near her. It was the child with the fat golden curls— Em Miller— and she looked more opulent than ever in a frilly blue silk dress. Juliet gave her a look of heart-felt envy, as she waited for the inevitable chuckle of derision. To her surprise, none came. Em looked at her sourly, and with something that seemed curiously like jealousy. As Juliet blinked with surprise, Alys— the barrister's daughter— ran up in all the glory of her done-up dress.

"Have this with me, Juliet," she said. "There aren't half enough boys."

With spinning head, Juliet pranced off with her partner. On such occasions she danced with the teachers only, as none of her schoolfellows had the courage to foot it with such a little guy. She jigged away merrily— a queer feeling in her mind. Something had happened. Was it a miracle? This was totally different from the reception she had expected.

Alys, who by virtue of her conversational skill was a power in the school, was most affable.

"So you've one of those sweet dresses," she observed, as they stopped, panting. "But Juliet, my dear," she added, with a remembrance of her mother when the famous barrister golfed, "Why don't you pad your calves?"

Juliet did not reply. She was studying the room.

Three white figures went rollicking by, bucking and plunging like young colts! Short, white Grecian tunics gave free play to their splendid rounded limbs as they jumped in the dance. They were Tom, Dick and Harry— the children of Lady Jamaica and the grand-children of the Duke of Peppercorn. Nor did the wonder end there. There were a few other white tunics to be seen in the room, all of which were worn by the pupils who were considered the cream of the dancing class.

Juliet forgot about the miracle. She only knew that she was no longer a; pariah and a butt. She was among the Elect. This was her last party and she was going to enjoy it. Now she knew, what legs were for. They were made for dancing— not to be looked at. Splendid things, legs !

IS IT tame to have to explain the stage-management of a modern miracle? Why relate how Lady Jamaica disposed of her children's healthy objections to making fools of themselves by that artful, suggestion, "Wouldn't you like to go to the party dressed in bathing costumes?"

Why describe her mortified feelings as she saw the sailor suits; and Liberty  smock deposed in favor of these circus trappings? Why touch on the diplomacy that caused the costumes to be hurriedly made by the gossipy dressmaker, whose clientele copied the great lady in every respect?

At all events, she was repaid with interest as she watched a happy-faced child footing it gaily among the dancers with wrinkled, white-silk legs. Once Juliet looked up, and saw the jolly red face beam at her with the benevolent pleasure of an old-world saint.

Her ladyship's satin gown was torn from musical chairs. She had barged one of the masters so hard that he had forgotten she was a woman, and had floored her, to her pure and simple joy.

As she smiled, her head was encircled by a rakish ring that had escaped from its moorings. It might have been the extra plait that her maid pinned on nightly.....

Or it might have been a halo.

______________

13: The Counter-Irritant

The Strand Magazine, Nov 1914

Roy Glashan's Library, July 2023

THE bedroom had looked ordinary enough in the morning; a cheerful place, filled with commonplace furniture and hung with flowered chintz. When I peeped in, during the afternoon, it had taken on a sinister and unfamiliar appearance. White sheets and cloths were spread over everything. Bowls, sponges, and mackintoshes were being arranged by a strange woman, whose costume seemed largely composed of the same cold whiteness. Under the window was drawn up a table.

The sight gave me a queer feeling in the region of the throat, for here— in a few minutes' time— one of our number was to undergo the ghastly ordeal of the Knife.

As I stood, a girl peeped over my shoulder, and then shrank away— tearing at her handkerchief.

"How awful it looks! Oh, I can't stand it! I can't!"

Her voice rose ominously, and the hostile-eyed woman in uniform crossed the room and shut the door in our faces. I don't blame her for her action, for if ever the principals in a grim fight were hindered by the horrified curiosity of the loafers that fringe the ring, they must have been those hastily-summoned surgeons and nurses.

In point of fact, the entire atmosphere was soaked in panic, and everyone in the house had been sopping it up since the early morning. Imagine a week-end party, in top-hole holiday spirits. Take the dominant spirit— a man of solid bone and brawn, animated by the spark of devil so dear to the hearts of women. Crumple him up suddenly with a torturing pain. Call in your specialist, and await his verdict of "Instant operation!" Do all this, and then you'll have some inkling of the consternation and funk that filled every soul in Boar's Head Court since the sudden illness of Terence Dashwood.

As I gazed in dismay at the girl beside me she began to work herself up still farther. Leila Wales was composed chiefly of the dangerous material of nerves.

She began to speak rapidly.

"I caught a sight of the specialist as he went into the dressing-room. A hateful little grey man, with cold eyes. And that awful stony nurse told me she loved her work. She's gloating over it. Oh, they're inhuman! We can't leave him to them!"

"All this is pure hysteria," I answered. "You must try to calm yourself. You know perfectly well that everything that science and humanity can do is being done for Dashwood. He has a fighting chance. No man need ask for more."

In my efforts to keep the demi-semi-quavers from leaping from my heart to my voice I had frosted my tone pretty liberally. Leila Wales turned on me like a fury.

"It's easy for you to talk. You— who haven't a finger-ache! You haven't to go under the awful knife. Oh, you make me hate you!"

With a fresh sob she tore down the corridor. I turned guiltily to meet a couple of men and a woman, who had also been drawn to the area of the operating-room. They bore, in common with everybody, the tense expression of congealed excitement.

As the woman— Cynthia May— flopped on her knees to the key-hole, in a swirl of cherry-coloured draperies, one of the fellows turned to me, reproachfully.

"At it again, Piper? Exercising your talent for wounding? At the risk of letting it rust, you might have spared that poor girl to-day. Everyone knows she's keen on Dashwood!"

Oddly enough, everyone did not. I, for one. But I did now, and from my sensations my feet and hands seemed to have been suddenly transferred to the neighbourhood of the North Pole.

The little group at the door was swelling in numbers, and the ghastly excitement grew as Cynthia May issued key-hole bulletins in a husky whisper.

"I think they're wheeling him in. They're all getting in the way and crowding. I can see nothing but white. Oh, dear! I'm sure I caught the glitter of a knife. There, again! A-ah! Can't you all smell it?"

The sickly, clogging odour of chloroform stole into the corridor. Leila Wales, who had crept up to the group, shied off at its breath, like a colt that has stepped on a hot cinder.

We turned to watch her as she staggered away.

"She should take sal-volatile," suggested a girl.

"She takes it hard," commented another, her words making an idiotic sequence.

But Jayne— a medical student with a long, white face, like a Jack-o'-Lantern— looked grave. He riveted his attention on me as he spoke.

"It's more serious than you think. Ever noticed that girl? Hasn't she struck you as heart?"

In my painful relations with Miss Wales she had struck me as anything but heart, but I nodded, all the same.

"That vivid colour, now? All heart! And I tell you this. We all know it's touch and go with poor Dashwood. So if she keeps on working up like this, by the time the op's over she'll be pulp. If he pegs out, she— well, she won't stand the shock."

"That would be a pity."

I did not recognize the formal voice that spoke, but it must have been mine, for they all turned and glared at me.

"Can nothing be done? Can't we distract her attention?" asked Bartlett, vaguely. "Talking's no good, as we've all found out."

"Only one thing would do it," answered Jayne. "A counter-irritant."

"A what?"

We all hung on the pallid youth's words, for, unwholesome-looking brute though he was, he seemed to speak with the ring of authority.

"Anything that would set up a rival agitation. You know the effect of a shock on a raging tooth-ache. A slight accident might divert Miss Wales's attention. But, unfortunately, one could not be stage-managed on the spur of the moment."

"Why not? Surely we can do something." Bartlett was still vaguely eager.

"Because it might be dangerous. An unrehearsed contretemps might lead to unexpected results."

Pompous words! I remembered them later on.

"Well, if you really want an irritant for Miss Wales, I should think Mr. Piper would act as a very effective one."

You remember my name is Piper? Of course it was a woman who spoke. In my case, I should be very sorry for any poor measure of affection I might excite that could not pass "the love of women" with the utmost ease and romp in a winner.

Everyone laughed, with one exception. Again, myself. Nature had undoubtedly made a very poor job of my face, and perhaps it was her slackness that has made me such a fierce opponent of any feminist movement. Yet, to my mind, it was hardly humorous to be the special antipathy of an exceptionally beautiful woman.

Did I mention that Leila Wales was beautiful? Therefore, although it is generally conceded that chivalry is a dead commodity, and to say that five able-bodied men in full possession of their faculties would die for a woman, is a pure piece of sentiment— all the same we tugged at our collars miserably, and felt that to do nothing was at least bad form.

At that moment Turner, the son of the house, came out of another door.

"Clear off, every one of you, this minute!" he said, herding us along the corridor and down the broad staircase. He vouchsafed us a few crumbs of information, however.

"Good old Dashwood! Went into action game to the last. Might have been an innings at cricket."

Everyone broke into a chorus of gulps.

"Thundering good man we've got for the job. Mycroft's the best man in the North. Insignificant little chap, eh?"

As we started to sort ourselves out into restless groups, preparatory to a nomad afternoon, I drew Jayne apart.

"About Miss Wales," I said. "I admit your point of view. She wants a blister. Ahem! I'm ready to be that blister."

As he merely gaped at me, I went on.

"I pledge myself to put Miss Wales into such a fury of indignation that she won't give another thought to Dashwood until he is recalled to her thoughts."

"Really! And how do you propose to do this?"

"I propose," I answered steadily, "to— propose. To ask the beautiful and superior Miss Wales to marry— me. It is the only way. And, in view of my extreme popularity with women I can guarantee the result."

Jayne's eyes nearly bolted from his head.

"But will you get her to hear you out?"

A significant question. Shows he had gauged her exact abhorrence of my unlucky personality.

"That's the difficulty, I confess. Nothing short of locking her up with me, in a limited space, where she could not dodge my near neighbourhood, would answer the case, I fear."

Again that wretched student took me seriously.

"I'll undertake that part for you. Get her to go with you to the strong-room, to— well, say, to see a negative, and I'll lock you in, and unlock you again in five minutes' time. Will you undertake to create such an impression in those five minutes that the effects will last until the op is over?"

"It's up to me!"

Here, I must give a word of explanation. You may have noticed the somewhat peculiar name of the house— Boar's Head Court. Originally an old mansion, it had been turned into an hotel, and then back again to a family residence. The strong-room, where they used to store the visitors' valuables, was somewhere in the depths, and, now unused, was occasionally made to answer as a scratch dark-room for amateur photographers.

I went up and addressed Miss Wales, who was still tearing herself to emotional tatters.

"Come with me to the strong-room for one minute," I urged. "I have something to show you. A rather startling snap of Dashwood."

She instantly turned and followed me. Dashwood was evidently a name to conjure with. Lucky beggar— knife notwithstanding!

As we walked down the corridor that ran off at right angles from the kitchen offices, and turned down the narrow flight of steps that led to the cell, I had a fleeting recollection of the fine Dashwood who went into action game. Again I heard the chorus of gulps. Then I looked at the scornful face of Leila Wales, and am free to confess I felt I faced bigger guns. Only the chorus of sympathy was absent, although Miss Wales did her best to oblige with a sniff— one charged with triple-essence of disdain.

In we went— the door was banged, and the key grated in the lock. At the sound, Leila Wales turned sharply on me.

"Who has locked us in?"

Her voice was suspicious.

"My orders."

I spoke calmly although my heart was expanding and contracting like a concertina.

I thought of the ugly, insignificant Mycroft in that upper chamber, who was carving his way through disease to cure, and I felt a subtle affinity with his repellent personality and drastic methods.

Leila went quite red. She looked at me, as though she were thinking unutterable things. But I felt a glow of congratulation, for I was positive that Dashwood was not one of them.

"Will you explain?" she asked, quietly. You all know that ominously quiet voice! "Where is the snap-shot?"

"There is none."

Seeing that I had taken away her breath, I went on rapidly.

"I merely wanted to secure the pleasure of your company free from interruption. In five minutes Jayne will return, and our tête à tête will be over."

Her breath came back with a rush, and then— she began to talk. I'm putting it mildly, leaving you to guess at the full torrent of her eloquence. But it's my duty to give you a hint, and add you might find it quicker to guess what she didn't say.

As I listened to her flow of indignation it gave me something akin to a prick of pride to feel I had power to call up such a vivid display of personal feeling. But my pride was swallowed almost immediately in a pang of pity. Just as the utilitarian deplored the wasted motive power of the Falls of Niagara, so I saddened to think such splendid force should be turned merely to slate a fellow-mortal. Well, the gods be praised! At least, she'd clean forgotten Dashwood.

Rapidly I made my plans. It would be better to keep my thunder-bolt for the final minute, as it would have to last for some time after her release. My course was plainly to inflame her for its reception.

I took out my watch.

"I have something important to say," I remarked, "but it is too good to be wasted on you in your present hysterical condition. I will give you five minutes in which to find yourself. Then you may be able to do it, and me, justice."

She gave a violent start of temper. I'm positive Mycroft never jabbed home more surely. Stuffing her fingers in her ears she faced me furiously.

"I don't intend to listen to a single word. Nothing you can say would interest me. Everything you say is odious. Your conduct is inexplicable, even in you. I don't believe you ought to be at large. You ought to be locked up."

"I am," I reminded her.

In the ruby glow of the lantern we glared at, each other. Her eyes were dark with resentment. Then, to escape from her gaze, I watched the minutes play "Follow-My-Leader" slowly round the white face of my watch. I wondered what it would feel like, for one minute, to be a fine lump of a chap like Dashwood— to swagger instead of cringe, inwardly at least— to know success instead of failure. Odd to think that even now he was just so much helpless tissue under the knife.

A sound roused me from my reflections. It was the drag of Jayne's footsteps coming to release us.

I moistened my tongue. It was now or never. The cords began to swell on my forehead like leather after rain.

"What I mean to say to you—" I began.

"I'm not listening," broke in Leila, furtively removing one finger-stopper.

"Is to— Good heavens! What's that?"

We heard the sound of something pitching down the stairs like a half-ton of coal.

"What's up, Jayne?" I sang out.

A mighty amount of heaving, slipping, and soliloquy followed. Then Jayne's voice answered:—

"Caught my foot—that's all, and fallen down. Hurt my leg, too. Wait a bit!"

As we held our breaths we heard the sound of a smothered groan.

"Crepitus!" Jayne spoke in a tone of gloomy triumph. "I've broken it all right. I should diagnose it as a simple fracture."

"Yes. Sorry. What about us?"

"I know, I know. My head's swimming a bit. I've dropped the key somewhere, and the candle went out when I fell. Can't feel it anywhere. But— it's all right. I'll crawl up and let the others know. You'll be let out, sooner or later."

We heard him drag himself painfully up the steps. Then, all at once, the rustling and scuffling stopped abruptly.

I slued my head round at Leila, but her ears were evidently not so keen as mine. She had not grasped the fact that Jayne had fainted.

You don't seem impressed, although this is the very crux of my yarn— what I've been leading up to from the first. I'm not surprised, however, for I didn't tumble to it myself, at first. But in less than two minutes I had run my head against the fact with staggering force.

At first flush it sounds harmless enough. Jayne was bound to come to, sooner or later, and it was only a question of waiting to be liberated. Sooner or later. In point of fact, too late.

Ever tried covering a lighted candle with a wine-glass and watching its flame flicker out? That was our position exactly. The strong-room—a mite of a place— was absolutely air-tight.

We knew this and, when developing our plates, always left the door ajar, as there was practically no light in the passage outside. Jayne's promise to let us out in five minutes was based on the same knowledge.

His words came back to me in that moment— "An unrehearsed contretemps might lead to unexpected results." I could have laughed at the simplicity of the events which had turned our counter-irritant into a deadly poison. The side-issue had swollen to monstrous proportions, completely engorging the primary tragedy of the operation.

I'm no scientist— merely an unprepossessing individual with a nervous system for ever on the hop. So I could make no rough calculations as to how soon we two should exhaust the air. Nor did it seem feasible to pack up my share and, with traditional nobility, proffer it to my companion. But it was a fact that we had been draining our supply hard for over five minutes. It seemed to me that even in that moment, as we waited, the air thickened visibly, like milk when you drop in rennet.

To one thing, however, I was pledged. Leila must remain in ignorance until just before the end. I could not sling her blindfolded into Eternity, but at least she should be spared the torture of fore-knowledge until the last possible moment.

I thought all this over quietly as I faced the situation. To my mind, in real life, one takes a stunning blow quietly. It may be that the brain is too dead to cope with the position. Or it may be that, without our knowledge, the spark of immortality imprisoned within us is straining to be free. In any case I know that, bar an under-current of horror, I viewed the affair in a detached, critical way.

Then I looked at Leila. Brown hair, vivid in the red light. Grey eyes with a wash of blue. Ripe, rounded cheeks. I wanted to stamp the picture indelibly on my mind, so that if we missed each other in Shadow-land I might remember her through the ages to be. It seemed to me, however, that she was eyeing me suspiciously, so I returned to my former tactics of tickling her animosity. Never was a sorrier task given to mortal— this petty sparring— as preparation for the eternal "Good-bye." Instead, I wanted to— but, never mind!

"As we've still a little time together," I said, with a ghastly double meaning, "I should like to ask you something. Why, ever since we've met, have you treated me with such persistent dislike? There is no reason for so much bitterness and disdain. Remember the adage— 'A cat may look at a king.' I may reasonably claim superiority to a cat."

"Why? For one thing, you haven't nine lives."

The flippant retort was so sinister a reminder that I drew a long breath The next minute I cursed myself for reckless waste.

"Nevertheless," I went on, "I have a little value as a human being. On the other hand, you are not a king. You are just a woman—one among many. What are you so proud of? Looks? In England alone there are hundreds of women prettier than you."

I did not believe it, but I rejoiced to see the angry light coming back to her eye.

"Thousands!" I was growing reckless with success.

She wiped her face. But, thank Heaven! she did not know why she did it. I did, for to my mind the air was growing stale as last night's smoke.

"And you're proud of your attainments," I proceeded, turning the knife round again. "In the name of common sense, why? Why should you give yourself airs on the strength of being able to speak French and German? Any half-starved Swiss waiter is a better linguist than you."

Again Leila Wales used her handkerchief.

"When I first met you," she said, "I knew you were a horrid, snubbing man. But you are even horrider than I thought. I put down your hateful air of superiority to the fact that I worked in the Woman's Movement."

"Woman's Movement?" I waved my hand in the air, and noticed with a shock how the fingers trembled. "It simply amounts to the fact that you're doing badly work that men would do well."

"What a lovely reason!" Leila seemed to be enjoying herself. "What proof have you ever given of masculine superiority? You are a sneering cynic, who have never lifted a finger on anyone's behalf!"

For the life of me I could not keep back a smile at that. When one considers the exact position, there was unconscious humour in her charge.

But even as I smiled, certain disquieting sensations were crowding over me. I could not keep from fidgeting, and my breath was growing faint and shallow.

"You are very clever at finding fault," went on Leila. "It would be quite interesting to hear what you expect of a woman?"

I would rather not have spoken, for I knew my voice would let me down. But I took up the challenge, speaking in reedy tones.

"I'd rather have a woman who darned stockings instead of being a blue-stocking. I'd rather her be homely than beautiful. I'd rather she spoke one language— her own— kindly and gently, than all the languages in the world."

It was no good. I had to stop. There was a singing in my ears and a mist before my eyes. My horrible suspicions were fulfilled. I was going under first.

Well— now she would have to know! But, as I sought for words, she turned sharply round on me.

"What's the matter?"

There was such an unusual note of sympathy in her voice that I forgot all.

"Leila," I said, "what I wanted to say to you was this: I loved you from the first moment I saw you. I shall always love you!"

To my astonishment she caught my hand.

"Then why have you been so hateful and superior, John— dear?"

John! She had called me by my name! And tacked something else on as well.

Before I could grasp the significance of her words there was a rattle at the door, a gust of fresh air that almost knocked us over, and the light of a lamp. It seemed to me that a crowd of faces looked in at us. A buzz of voices arose, and in less than a trice we were in the passage. I saw Jayne, pallid and limping, and then I realized that Turner was speaking.

"Just over!" he cried. "A splendid success. Everything O.K."

I stared blankly at Leila, who held my hand.

"Good gracious!" she exclaimed. "The operation. Why, I'd completely forgotten it!"

The faces round us broke into significant smiles.

"Aha! The counter-irritant!" said one man.

"Good man, Piper! Congratulate you on its success!" said another.

But he did not know then exactly why I was to be congratulated. Neither did any of them know, until later, why I suddenly pitched forward and fainted.

__________________

14: The Cellar

Glacier County Chief, Montana, 19 Feb, 26 Feb, 5 Mar 1937

Roy Glashan's Library, July 2023

"THERE'S a Black Man in our cellar," declared Baby Lamb— her big blue eyes round as moons. The new nursery-governess, Lesley Bishop, understood her fear, for as a child, she, too, had been terrorised by the threat or the terrible occupant of the cellar, who— according to her nursemaid, would come up to her, if she cried.

"Don't believe it, darling," she said to Baby. "There's nothing in the cellar but coals. Who told you such a wicked lie?"

"Max."

Lesley was not surprised, for her second charge, Max, was a Boy Scout who never failed to do his evil deed per day. He was a pale, skinny little shrimp, with the large eyes of a stranded angel, and a contrast to the stout prosperous-looking Baby.

"'Tisn't lie," he persisted. "I've seen him. He's all black, and he's got no face, like the Invisible Man—"

"Who took you to see the 'Invisible Man'?" broke in Lesley.

"Rosa," broke in Baby.

Rosa was the children's late nurse and Max had been devoted to her. Lesley guessed that he resented her as a usurper and tormented her out of revenge. During that afternoon's walk he had been in the championship class of young demons. She had grown so breathless while chasing him away from doorsteps—to prevent him from giving runaway knocks—that, presently, she weakly accepted his conditional surrender.

"I'll stop now, if you'll let me ring at the empty house."

As she nodded consent, she looked the most frightened child of the three. This was her first engagement and she was still in her teens. It was the darkest time of the year when the old town was shrouded by the mist from the river, which flowed through it.

And under the fog and the shadows, like the quivering outline of a shark in deep water, lurked the threat of a murder.

A series of crimes, believed to be the work of a homicidal maniac, had recently shocked the population. Although the tragedies were confined to the poorer parts of the town, Lesley went through the ill-paved historic streets with her heart fluttering at every footstep behind her.

It was dark when they reached the sweep of the Crescent, where Capt. Lamb, who was a widower, lived with his sister as temporary housekeeper. The houses were imposing stucco erections of Regency period. The Lambs lived in the middle, next door to No. 11— the empty house.

Amid the lighted semi-circle, it stood out as a wedge of darkness. Inside was absolute blackness. For a life-time, it had been unilluminated even by the flicker of a match or a thread of moonshine.

Max had not forgotten his bargain, and he rushed up the steps, followed by Lesley, who feared further rebellion. When he tugged at the old-fashioned chain there was a discordant jangle, and a series of faint tinkles. The bell seemed to go on ringing further and further into the dark distances of the house, awakening the echoes. On and on— deeper and deeper. The sounds filled Lesley with the sense of having precipitated some calamity, and she tried to tug Max away from the door.

"No," he shouted, clinging to the railings. "Somebody's coming to answer the door. Listen."

"It's the Black Man from the cellar," whimpered Baby.

As Lesley struggled with Max, she thought that she too could actually hear padded footsteps, slithering over layers of dust. They seemed to be drawing nearer to the door. In another second, they would reach it....

Smitten by sudden panic, she leaped the flight of steps in one bound, dragging the children with her, and hammered furiously for admission to their own house.

LESLEY was dismayed when Captain Lamb himself opened the door. Although she liked him, she was in awe of him, as her employer.

"Just in time for tea," he said genially, herding the nursery-party into the drawing-room.

Miss Lamb, who wore trousers, merely grinned at the intrusion. She was a typical John Bull, with a jolly red face and a crop of copper curls. The big room, modernized with metal furniture, was so light and cheerful, that Lesley forgot the creepy darkness outside. When she was fortified by tea and muffins, she began to apologize.

"I'm sorry I made that awful din. But we thought we heard someone in the empty house."

"Rats," explained the Captain. "No one could get inside that house, or out of it again."

"Not even through the roof? Or down the chimneys?"

"Certainly not. After the last murder, the police examined the premises thoroughly. You see, there was dust on the poor creature's clothing, which made them wonder whether the crime was committed in an empty house. But every lock and bolt on No. 11 was intact."

"What a relief. I hate to think of that blackness, only the other side of my bedroom wall, when I'm listening for Miss Lamb to come home."

When Miss Lamb looked at her In surprise, she flushed.

"It's a stupid habit I got when I was a child." she said. "My nurse left me alone In the house, and I was so frightened I couldn't sleep until I heard her come back."

"Well, you won't have to worry tomorrow," Miss Lamb told her. "I shall be away for the Golf Tournament. Miss Nightingale— who used to live here— is coming Instead, and she asked to sleep in her old room. Sentiment, you know."

The Captain who had been watching Lesley's face closely, made a lightning decision.

"I'm going to sleep there, while my sister is away," he announced "And directly I'm back from the club, I'll give three knocks on the wall, so you wont have to strain your ears."

"Oh, thank you," murmured Lesley "Where has Max gone?" she added, to change the subject, as the boy stole out of the room.

Baby who was a natural news collector, began to broadcast.

"I spect he's ringing up Rosa on the basement phone. He is always calling her. He wants to frighten Miss Bishop away and get nasty Rosa back. I'll go and stop him."

After she had marched out, like a young policewoman, Miss Lamb began to gossip.

"You know, Miss Bishop, the police believe these crimes are the work of a local criminal lunatic. He strangled a woman, but they said he'd a missing gland, or something, so he was imprisoned for life. Then he escaped and the murders broke out again. They can't find him, and they think some woman is hiding him, so they came here after Rosa. The horrible creature was attractive to women, and she was supposed to be a sweetheart."

"Did you know?" gasped Lesley.

"No, her testimonials were forged and I never took them up. Dashed lass. We discovered afterwards that she did an unclothed act in some low hall, and never had been in service."

"It was rum," broke In the captain. "She couldn't hope to hide the man here, in a house full of people. Yet she must have had some object in coming— especially as she wanted to get back again, after we racked her. She was a flashy creature, but she petted Max, who fell for her."

Reminded of her charges, Lesley walked to the door, where she turned to speak to Captain Lamb.

"It shows Max wants love. He's missing his mother."

"That girl's got a nice nature," remarked the captain to his sister, when Lesley had gone. "Pretty, too."

Miss Lamb lit a cigarette thoughtfully, for she wanted to return to her own flat, and it struck her that Lesley might be a solution of her own problem.

Lesley, too, felt happier as she walked up the fine staircase. Since the gossip over drawing-room tea, she seemed less of a stranger. She was also pleasantly conscious of the captain's dawning interest.

Suddenly she was startled by piercing screams from above, as Baby, shrieking like a steam engine, dashed down the nursery stairs and hurled herself into Lesley's arms.

"The Black Man's in our nursery!" she wailed. "He's gone and left his awful hand behind him!"

"Nonsense!" said Lesley sharply. "Come back at once!"

Dragging the protesting child after her, she reached the landing, where Max, who was also screaming, pointed to the door.

Standing out with sinister distinctness on the cream-painted panels was the black print of an open hand.

Lesley was so startled by the unexpected sight that she almost yielded to panic. She felt a sudden weakness at her knees, and was about to grab the children and run, when, luckily, her prestige was saved. Just in time she surprised a glint in Max's eyes.

Pouncing on him, before he could guess her purpose, she forced open one of his hands and revealed his palm which glistened with black lead.

"Silly," she said lightly. "You're too big to play with coals, like crawling babies."

He writhed under her ridicule, especially as Baby joined in the joke. Lesley had not only the satisfaction of putting two young angels to bed, but received a valuable lesson in morale.

The incident had taught her the folly of fear since the Black Man in the cellar was nothing but smudges of lead.

THAT night, she awoke from a sound sleep to find that she was ravenously hungry. As she tossed and turned, she kept thinking of a cold chicken which had left the nursery supper-table, almost intact. Presently she decided that she was really entitled to it, so she determined to raid the larder.

There was a touch of stolen apples about the adventure which thrilled her as she stole out into the broad landing and crept down the stairs. Crossing the hall, she opened the small baize-covered door which led down to the kitchen regions. She switched on the lights as she went, so that there were no dark corners to avoid, or shadows riding the walls.

The basement had been modernized as far as possible with gleaming white enamel and electric labor-saving contrivances. Gleeful at the prospect of her feast. Lesley was crossing to the refrigerator when she was startled by a low rumbling sound, directly underneath her feet.

Some one was in the cellar.

Her heart began to race as she listened. She heard movements like those which had terrified her when she waited outside the empty house. There was a drag of slow footsteps, while heavy objects seemed to be rolled about. Then a door was shut with a dull thud.

As she stared with wide frightened eyes, she remembered the captain's explanation that the noises were due to rats. Besides, no intruder could get inside their safe burglar-proof house. She knew, too, that the slightest sounds were magnified at night.

"I'm worse than Baby," she thought. "I must conquer my miserable nerves or I'm not fit to look after children.... I'll prove to myself there's no one in the cellar."

It took all her courage to open the small door in the passage. She remembered the black gaping hole in her grandmother's old house and the smell of cold, stale air rising from the vaults. But, to her relief, her groping fingers found an unexpected switch and she snapped on the electric light to reveal a narrow staircase and yellow washed walls.

She stopped to listen, but was reassured by the silence. Apparently her approach had scared the rats back to their holes. Growing more confident, she descended as far as the halfway turn, from whence she could see a section of the cellar.

Suddenly, a dark flicker— swift as the passage of a bat's wing— shot over the butter-hued plaster.

Lesley realized it, rather than saw It, as— shying like a racehorse at a flash of lightning— she bolted back up the stairs.

When she was in the kitchen again, the leisurely ticking of the grandfather's clock made her feel ashamed of herself. As her heart ceased to flutter, her reason assured her that the shadow might have been cast by herself, unless it was merely a trick of Imagination.

"Back you go, you little fool," she said to herself.

When she had forced herself to venture down the stairs a step at a time, with a pause to listen, she was rewarded for her boldness by a prosaic explanation of the rumbling noise. She discovered that the cellar had been converted into a furnace-room, with a central furnace and bags of anthracite stacked around the walls. One of these had overbalanced, and now lay on the floor, the coals spilling from its mouth.

She guessed that she had been startled by its fall; and she laughed at her own cowardice as she scampered back to the kitchen— snatched some cheese and crackers— and finished her adventure with a schoolgirl feast in bed.

AS usual, next morning, she was first of the household to get up, for there was no regular domestic staff, at present. After the police exposure of Rosa, Miss Lamb had dismissed the other servants, for fear of collusion. It was Lesley's duty, therefore to open the door to the temporary staff.

Tins morning, everyone, including the man Who stoked the furnace, was so late that she thought she had better see if the stove were in danger of going out. Full of morning confidence, she ran down the cellar steps—to stand, at the entrance, frozen with bewilderment.

The sack— which she had left lying on the floor— had been restored to its original position, and all the coals were removed from the flags.

As she stared, a disturbing thought struggled through the ferment of her mind.

"Things don't move of themselves. Someone—"

She turned and fled. Unlocking the back door to the servants who were knocking for admission—she rushed upstairs to the nursery, to find fresh trouble awaiting her. The little angels of the previous night had reverted to type, and Baby was howling.

"Max is frightening me," she wailed. "He says he's been inside the empty house, and it's full of lions and tigers and bears. And there's a gate big tree growing up inside. And he says the Black Man lives there—"

Lesley had to go through the tiresome business of soothing Baby and scolding Max all over again. It was a relief to be called down to the morning-room, where Miss Lamb was reading the paper while she breakfasted.

"Another murder," she shouted. "Some wretched girl found strangled, early this morning, outside some low pub. But you won't feel nervous with Miss Nightingale. She's a bit of a dud, so just keep a tab on the servants. I've proved that food is being taken out of the house."

LESLEY felt rather depressed after Miss Lamb's car had disappeared into the gloom. It was the darkest morning of the year, and the street-lamps were still alight in the Crescent, which was shrouded in fog. Miss Nightingale, too, proved a bad exchange for the jovial sportswoman. She was elderly and faded, while her voice was ultra-refined. As she looked around the hall, she drooped like a weeping-willow.

"It's heartbreaking to come back to my old home as a stranger," she confided to Lesley. "It doesn't look the same place. It's so bare without any draperies. And all the rooms are changed. We had a beautiful double drawing-room on the first floor."

"I'm afraid it's been turned into two bedrooms," confessed Lesley. "I sleep in one, with the children, and the captain is sleeping in the other, just for the present."

"But there's a connecting door," cried Miss Nightingale in a horrified voice. "Of course, you keep it locked...."

"It probably is."

"How peculiar.... Is there a key to my bedroom door?"

"I don't know, but we'll see."

When they reached the second floor, the key to Miss Nightingale's old room was missing. The fact distressed the lady so much that Lesley went in search of it. To her annoyance, she discovered that there had been a wholesale removal of keys— not only from the doors of the rooms, but from bureaus and drawers.

She guessed the culprit and pounced down on him.

"Max, where are those keys?" she demanded.

Instead of protesting his innocence, the boy proposed a bargain.

"If I tell you, will you go away, and let Rosa come back?"

"Certainly not."

"Then I won't tell you— never."

"Oh, Max," cried Lesley in distraction, "you're enough to make me cry."

To her surprise, he was genuinely startled and distressed.

"Not cry?" he asked. "But— you're big.... See here. I'll put them all back again. But you're not to look where I go."

"Mind you fit them in properly." Lesley warned him, as he stole away to his secret hoard.

As Miss Lamb had prophesied. Miss Nightingale proved only a figure-head, so Lesley had to grapple with housekeeping responsibilities, without any aid. It had one good result— she was too busy to worry over the incident of the sack, until she believed she had the clue to the mystery. While she was tidying the children's wardrobe, she discovered that one of Max's Jersey suits was covered with dust and cobwebs.

"That boy's been up to some monkey-trick in the cellar," she concluded.

AS the morning wore on, the fog thickened, until the lights had to be kept burning permanently. Outside the windows was an opaque world of chaos and shadows. It was impossible to take the children out, so Max was left to his evil deeds while Baby entertained Miss Nightingale in the drawing room.

In the afternoon, the captain— who had basely lunched at his club to avoid Miss Nightingale— returned.

"Not frightened?" he asked Lesley. "Don't get steamed up about anything—and let things rip. I'm sorry, but I've got to go to a reunion dinner at Burney, tonight. I'll leave early, but don't lie awake to listen for me. I'll give those three knocks."

His voice was unconcerned, but his eyes held such personal interest that he might have been making an assignation. Lesley felt so lonely after he had driven off through the fog that she went round the house, in order to see whether Max had restored the keys to their rightful places.

When she reached the captain's room, she had rather a disagreeable shock. As she crossed to the connecting door, she noticed a speck of oil on the key.

Miss Nightingale's insinuation and the captain's ardent gaze combined to give rise to an ugly suspicion.

"So that's the idea," she thought angrily. "Don't flatter yourself, my gentleman. This key's coming in my side of the door."

But before she could remove It, she repented.

"It's an Insult to think that about him," the decided. "If he notices the key to gone, hell think me a nasty-minded little prig. Probably Max has been up to one of his little jobs."

WHEN she went to the drawing-room for afternoon-tea she found that Baby had managed, as usual, to collect news.

"Miss Nightingale was a beautiful girl," she said, "and she had a beautiful young man. She's got their pictures. Show them to Miss Bishop, please, darling."

The term of endearment showed that Baby was enslaved by Miss Nightingale's past attraction. Lesley was not surprised at the fact when she saw the old faded photographs inside a limp leather case. One depicted a young girl of rare beauty, while the other showed a handsome youth with a delicate face.

Miss Nightingale explained them with an apologetic cough.

"Me at eighteen. It missed my coloring, which people used to praise. I was very fair, with golden hair."

"It's enchanting." cried Lesley. Then she glanced at the other photograph and added, "I expect you had a wonderful time when you lived here?"

"You would consider it dull," replied Miss Nightingale primly. "I never went out alone. Ladies were ladies then."

Somehow Lesley received the impression that, many years ago, the house had held a prisoner.

"What would you like for supper?" she asked, to banish the beautiful ghost of Miss Nightingale's lost youth.

"A dry biscuit, please." Miss Nightingale's voice almost died from refinement. "And some very weak whisky-and-water."

When Lesley reached the basement, she found that the servants had left. It was Max who informed her of the fact.

"Daddy will be mad," he said gleefully. "He ordered them to sleep in, tonight, so you wouldn't be frightened. Because of the murder, you know."

"Run upstairs and turn on the bath," Lesley ordered.

She shot the bolt of the backdoor, since the key proved unexpectedly stiff from damp, and put up the chain, for extra safety. But she felt so bored and lonely that she spun out the children's bath, for the sake of their company. When, at last, she had dumped them in their beds, she lingered over her own supper, until her conscience reproached her with neglect of Nightingale.

She found her sitting over her bedroom fire, while she smoked a cigarette with a guilty air. Her curlers were covered with a pale-blue boudoir cap and she wore an attractive dressing gown.

"Come in and talk," she invited gaily. It was obvious that she was unaccustomed to spirits, for it took so little to flush her cheek and untie her tongue. After preliminary confidences about her health and toilet, she broke into the romantic tragedy of her youth.

"You saw Eric's photograph, this afternoon. He was the only son of General Hurley and they lived in the house that's empty now. We fell in love—but there were terrible scenes The General thought we were mud because we had been in trade, and Pa's pride was mortified, so they kept me a prisoner, to keep me from meeting Eric. Then the General took Eric, who was delicate, to the Riviera, and he died there, of a broken heart. The General never came back and the house has been empty to this day."

"Have you ever been inside?" asked Lesley.

"I was once in the hall. It was crowded with stuffed animals which the General had shot— lions, tigers and bears— and there was an enormous family tree painted on one wall.... Oh, those terrible children are screaming again."

"Lions, tigers, bears. An enormous tree." The words swam in Lesley's head as she dashed down the stairs to her bedroom. The children were clinging together in very well-acted terror, as they screamed, "The Black Man's been here."

But they did not find their slave in her usual pliant mood. She hurried them back to bed and refused to glance at the smudged fingerprints on the connecting door.

"'Tisnt me," wailed Max. "Look at my clean hands."

"Yes, you remembered to wash them, this time," snapped Lesley.

She scolded them partly because she was distracted with a sudden memory. Max had given an accurate description of the hall of the empty house, when he frightened Baby, that morning.

"He couldn't have known," she assured herself. "No one knows, except Miss Nightingale. Unless he's got inside."

The idea was so horrible that she was driven upstairs to ask the prim spinster an incredible question.

"Is there a secret way leading from this house to the empty one?"

To her dismay. Miss Nightingale smiled triumphantly.

"Yes," As declared, "there is... we cheated them... he used to come to me secretly by night."

"How?" whispered Lesley.

"He was studying to be a mining engineer, and he made a hole between the two cellars. It led through to the back of the boot cupboard in our cellar."

"Does anyone else know of this way?" she asked fearfully.

"No one but our housemaid, who was our go-between with notes, and she's been dead for years. I had to pay her hush-money. Not long ago, her daughter, Rosa, tried to blackmail me, but I was too wise. I told her no one would believe such a fantastic old tale, and I dared her to tell it. She never did, of course."

As Lesley listened, her heart seemed to turn over. She had believed so confidently in their burglar-proof security, while all the time they had been linked directly with the dreaded empty house any horror that might lurk within. The cellar was their danger-spot.

"Good-night." she said. "Do you lock your door at night?"

"Always, with a gentleman in the house," was the prim reply.

IT was a tonic reminder that the Captain would be home soon, which substantiated Lesley as she rushed down to the basement, as though pursued by fiends. When she had turned the key of the cellar door, she felt safe again. But although she walked quietly upstairs, she was careful to smash up the sequence of her thoughts.

While she was responsible for the children's safety, it was criminal to indulge in neurotic speculation. Following Miss Nightingale's example, she locked her own door and undressed quickly, keeping her mind on safe subjects. As she lay in bed, listening for the Captain's step in the passage in the corridor, she told herself that her only worry now was the Captain's meals, and she would soon discover his tastes. That was how people fell in love—living in the same house.

Relaxed in delicious warmth, she must have dosed, for she was startled awake by three welcome knocks on the other side of the bedroom wall.

The Captain had not forgotten the signal. She smiled into the darkness at this proof that he had been thinking of her.

She was just dropping off to sleep when she heard the faint ringing of the telephone in the library below. She unlocked her door noiselessly and stole down to the library. Expecting a wrong number, the shock was greater when she heard the Captain's voice.

"That you. Miss Bishop? I'm hung up with the car, but I'll soon be back?"

He was in a hurry, for he rang off before she could grasp the fact that although he was speaking to her, he was actually miles away....

Her first thought was for the children. She must return to them immediately. Almost incoherent with terror, she rang up the exchange and gasped into the receiver:

"Police! Police! Send them here. We're in terrible danger! Murder!"

Her hands shook so violently that she could scarcely unlatch the front door, in readiness for the police.

She only knew that, since the maniac was in the adjoining room to hers, she must fetch the children and seek sanctuary with Miss Nightingale.

But, even on her flight back, that wild hope died. She realised that the maniac would be listening for movements, and that, in order to escape, they must be swift and silent as shadows. While she might depend on Max, Baby was too heavy to be carried, while she would wreck everything by screaming, if she were aroused from sleep.

There was nothing to be done but wait and pray for the police to come. Almost dead to sensation, she stood in the middle of her room, while her eyes darted alternately from door to door. And then, for the first time, she noticed the smudged hand on the panels of the communicating door.

No child had left that mark.

Baby was snoring like a little porpoise, so she covered her with a light shawl, in a vain effort to hide her. Max slept in a little cubby-hole, adjoining her room, so he was safer from attack. But even while she stooped over the bed, she thought she heard a board creak behind her, and she swung round, expecting to see a crouching black form, with no face.

Presently the strain of trying to keep both doors under observation at once proved intolerable. She had the feeling that if she took her eyes away from one door, he would steal her, unawares, and she cracked under her ghastly expectation of that sudden bound.

"I must see him," she thought, as she tip-toed to the door which led into the corridor and locked it silently.

The minutes crawled away as she faced the connecting door. It was added agony to remember that she had been given her chance to remove the key to her side of the door. She had thrown her safety away, merely to make a futile gesture.

She knew he must come that way, because of the oiled key. Silence had always been his safeguard, for none of his victims had screamed. The fact that he had fooled her with the captain's signal proved that he had listened-in.

"He thinks the Captain is away for the night," thought Lesley with sudden clarity of mind. "But he thinks the servants are sleeping here. He is waiting for everyone to be asleep, before he creeps in to me."

Then her strained oars seemed to catch the faintest sound from below. She did not know whether she imagined them, or if a car had actually stopped in the road, and the front door creaked open.

In the same minute, she heard another sound— the turning of a key in the lock of the connecting door.

She knew then that the police might capture their man, but they would be too late to prevent another crime. In her terror, she had forgotten to tell them where to find her. While they were cautiously exploring the ground floor, her neck would be broken in that gorilla-grip. She had read that the victims had died almost instantaneously. Even if they located her screams before she was silenced, they would not come until life was extinct.

She was past all help. At the knowledge, her brain jammed, and she stood and stared at the door. There was the sound of a click— and then another— as though the key were turning round and round in the lock. But she knew that he would come, and she remained with her eyes fixed on the door—waiting. A long time passed, while she heard shouts on the other side of the wall, and the sounds of a struggle. Yet she did not move.

She knew the door would open, and eventually it did—but it was a man in uniform who entered.

"Are you all right?" he asked anxiously.

To her surprise, she realized that she was still alive.

"Yes," she muttered.

He saw that she was still dazed, and he patted her arm.

"We've got him," he said. "Nothing to be frightened of now."

As she listened, her jammed brain began to work again, so that she realized the source of the miracle. It was Max, who had mistaken two nearly identical keys. The maniac had oiled the key of the back-door— for silent excursions— and the boy had fitted it into the lock of the connecting door.

___________________

15: Don't Dream on Midsummer's Eve

The Hardin Tribune-Herald, Montana, 30 July, 6 Aug 1937

Roy Glashan's Library, July 2023

"WHAT would happen to Puck if I had been killed?" This was the first thought which flashed across Merle's brain after her crash. It was the agonized question of the bread- winner, for her small nephew— Puck— was entirely dependent on herself.

The accident was not the fault of the motorist, since she had crossed the road against the lights. She had been mooning back to work, down the scented gloom of the lime avenue. It was June 23rd, Midsummer eve, and some one had told her that a dream dreamed on that special night, always came true...

Even as she smiled at the fancy, she was conscious of a shattering shock, followed by a black-out; and then she opened her eyes, to find herself lying on the pavement, while an elderly man with a kindly face, bent anxiously over her.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she cried. "Have I hurt the car?"

"The question is— has the car hurt you?" he asked.

To his relief, although bruised and shaken, she was miraculously intact. She rose unsteadily to her feet, and was beginning to fumble for her powder-puff, when he spoke to her.

"You had better let me drive you home."

As she was on her way to work, it seemed wiser to give the address of the doctor for whom she acted as secretary-dispenser. To her dismay, there was an appreciable pause before she could remember it. In the end, however, her brain began to function again, and not long afterwards, the car stopped before the right door.

Dr. Perry lived in a large old-fashioned house, at the end of the ancient city, which was dominated by gray cathedral towers. Nearly every street was lined with limes, or chestnuts, which formed cool tunnels during the summer heat. A slow green river flowed slowly through the town, which had been half asleep for the last hundred years.

Merle loved every stone of it, but this evening, it seemed doubly precious, because she had so nearly lost it. When the motorist had driven away, she entered the house, by the private way of the dispensary, and threw herself down into a deep leather chair.

The sun had been beating down on the glass roof all afternoon, so that the place was warm as a conservatory. It was very quiet, for Mrs. Stock— the housekeeper— was in the kitchen and the doctor was out, at a case in the country. He was only beginning to build up a practice, and there were no appointments for the evening.

As she sat in the twilight, smelling the familiar druggy odor, blended with the scent of the jessamine screen over the windows, Merle grew cold to realize the risk to which she had exposed Puck by her criminal carelessness. Although the gentleman had an imposing string of names, his nickname was apt, since he was rather like a mischievous elf.

He was the kind of child to whose appeal women are vulnerable—delicate, affectionate, clever, and a champion trouble-maker. Merle was especially sentimental and apprehensive over him, because he was her sole salvage from an unhappy past.

She had endured a little hell of proxy suffering during her twin-sister, Marvis' disastrous marriage to Lewis Gore. Unfortunately, her brother-in-law's conduct offered no loop-hole for legal redress. His mean bullying nature was not manifested in acts of violence, just as— although he soaked continually— no one had ever seen him drunk... But he contrived to drain his young wife of her joy and vitality, so that, at the first illness, she flickered out of life, leaving her baby boy in Merle's care.

At first, Merle was too stunned with grief, and too worried about the future, to appreciate her legacy. It took nearly all that remained or her small capital, to finance Lewis and clear him out of the country. Since he had gone, however, she could hardly believe in her present happiness and peace.

She often herself that she had everything—Puck, her work, her home, and loyal service, for Puck's nurse looked after the bungalow. Lately, too, a new element had come into her life, for she was conscious of the doctor's growing interest in herself. He was a kindly practical man, and she was growing very fond of him.

As usual, she considered Puck's interests first, and she came to the conclusion that, besides the benefit of a resident physician, the young domestic tyrant needed masculine authority.

She had drifted off into a light sleep— for the warm gloom acted as a soporific— through which she could hear faintly the cooing of the pigeons and the ticking of the grandfather's clock. Presently she opened her eyes and forced herself to rise. The movement made her feel so queer and dizzy, that she knew that further work was out of the question.

"I'll mix myself a draught, to quiet my nerves," she decided. "And then I'll rest a bit, before I go home."

To her dismay, she found that she lurched against the furniture when she crossed over to the shelves. Her head was spinning like a weather-cock in a high wind, while the floor heaved like the deck of a steamer, during a channel crossing. Half-blinded by a mist which drifted before her eyes, she managed to measure and mix a sedative.

As she raised it to her lips, she felt suddenly too sick to drink it. Laying it down again, she groped her way from the dispensary into the cool cavern of the big dining room, where she flopped down in an easy chair.

Closing her eyes, she listened to the distant sounds of Mrs. Stock moving about in the kitchen, until she was aroused by the creaking of the door.

JUMPING up in a panic, she stared, in incredulous horror, at her brother-in-law, Lewis Gore.

He was tall and enormously stout, with a head too small for his bulk. His light cold eyes— set in deep pouches— glittered like white glass, as he nodded in casual greeting.

"Hullo, Merle."

She forced herself to speak.

"When did you come back, Lewis?"

"I landed yesterday. I've come back to collect my boy. I am taking him back to Borneo."

"Borneo?" she echoed, scarcely able to believe her ears. "But Lewis, he is so wee and delicate. He could never stand the heat."

"He'll get used to it. The kids there don't play. They just sit around and sweat. Very healthy, on the whole."

"No, Lewis, I can't let him go. You don't understand. I've had all the trouble in the world just to rear him... If you want money—"

"Money?" He laughed thickly. "My dear girl, I've not come back to hold out my hat. I've married a rich widow, with a rubber plantation, out there. You can send your bill for his keep. It can't be much for bread and gravy."

The mean speech, which flattened out two years of sacrifice into a thin spread of pap, was typical of his mentality, but Merle barely heard it. Her head was throbbing like a dynamo as she thought of Puck. He had to be tempted to eat, even in an English imitation heat wave, while he grew languid and limp as a wax candle.

It was torture to picture him— bewildered, unhappy, ill-torn from his devoted slaves and handed over to callous strangers. She knew he could never survive the change from his own little kingdom to a damp tropical exile.

"You can't do it," she cried with sudden fierceness, which was foreign to her nature. "I won't let you. It would be murder. Murder."

As her voice rose, the door slipped open a few inches, and the long horse-face of the housekeeper appeared in the aperture. "Was any one hollering 'murder'?" she asked.

Merle was too agitated to do more than shake her head, but her brother-in-law growled an order of dismissal.

"Clear out."

After another long suspicious gaze at the girl's quivering face, Mrs. Stock went away, banging the door to register protest.

As though the noise caused her jammed brain to vibrate, a wild plan suddenly flashed through Merle's head. When her brother-in-law dropped into the empty chair, and spoke in the amicable tone which paved the way for a customary request, she agreed with him in token of defeat.

"That's settled then," remarked Lewis. "I'll collect him some time this evening."

"I'll have him ready," she told him.

"Well, then, what about a quick one?"

"A drink? I'm sure the doctor would offer you one. I'll get it at once."

AS she walked slowly toward the door her decision was made. She intended to take Puck away immediately and hide him in some quiet place until Lewis had gone abroad again.

Only, since every minute's start was of importance to her getaway, it was necessary first to take steps to prevent his father from coming to the bungalow that evening. He must be doped, so that he would sleep for a few hours in the safe haven of the doctor's dining room. It was evident that no meal was going to be laid there that night, for the doctor would return too late for dinner.

Lewis' back was turned toward her as she crept to the sideboard and snatched up the whisky decanter, so he did not see her go into the dispensary.

Her head bumped furiously when she crossed over to the slab where she had left the sedative which she had mixed for herself. The specks of light which kept flashing across her eyes, blinded her vision; but as the powder was already dissolved in the glass, she only had to fill it up with whisky.

"Lucky I had it already," she thought, as she carried it back to the dining room.

Her brother-in-law remained seated and appeared to be already at home, as though in anticipation of his enforced visit.

"It's neat," she told him tremulously.

"That's right." He nodded approvingly. "Never tasted good water."

She gave him the tumbler, and saw him drain it as she reached the door. He sank back and the chair hid him from view; but she heard a satisfied grunt and a creaking of springs, as though he were settling himself more comfortably.

"I must wait a few minutes, just to see if it is going to take effect," she told herself.

Her heart was hammering with impatience, for she was in a fever to get back to Puck. In spite of recurrent fits of giddiness she paced the room, unable to keep still. As she paused by the dispensing-slab, she took up the bottle she had left standing there.

Suddenly her vision cleared, so that she read the label clearly. Unable to credit what she saw, she stood, staring at it in frozen horror.

Instead of a sedative, she had just given her brother-in-law a fatal dose of virulent poison.

She clutched her throat, to strangle her screams, as she realized her position. She felt sure she would be under suspicion of committing a crime, since the principal factors—motive and opportunity—could be proved. Everyone knew about her devotion to her small nephew and also her hatred of his father.

Further, there would be the evidence of the housekeeper, who disliked her intensely, and who had overheard a dispute, which included the incriminating word, "Murder." Who would believe her story that she had killed him with poison which she had mixed, in error, for herself?

"I must do something," she said desperately.

Then she shook her head hopelessly. Calling for help would be useless. The doctor was away, and the hostile housekeeper would only complicate her trouble. Besides, she knew that it was too late to try to administer antidotes.

Her brother-in-law must have died almost immediately—and in agony. As she remembered the creaking springs of the chair, which heralded the first spasm, she crashed completely and dropped down into darkness...

IT seemed to her that she had been falling for years, yet still went on sinking. Deeper and deeper, while the blackness thickened around her... All at once, she became conscious of faint sounds in the void, which reminded her of homely things— the cooing of pigeons and the ticking of a clock. She smelt a familiar odor compounded of jessamine and drugs, as she opened her eyes.

She was sitting in the same chair in the dispensary, as when she had felt herself growing drowsy. Her hat and bag lay beside her, just where she had thrown them after she had first entered. In front of her was a calendar, which displayed the date.

It was Midsummer eve. And she had been asleep.

The compensation of an evil dream is the relief of waking up. Although she was still feeling the effects of her crash, Merle laughed joyously.

"Lewis went to Australia," she said. "And he couldn't fascinate anyone— let alone rich widows. Except my poor Marvis, and she was spellbound. But I know where the Borneo part came from. I was staring at that."

A journal, dealing with tropical disease, lay on the table, displaying the word "Borneo," in heavy type, above an article.

In spite of her happiness, some of the horror of her dream remained. She felt apprehensive and feverishly anxious to see Puck and know that all was well with him. Ramming on her hat, she hurried from the dispensary. She ran most of the way home, so that when she reached the bungalow, she was in a state of utter exhaustion.

Mrs. Megan Thomas broke off her song— for like most Welsh people, she was a tireless vocalist— when she opened the door.

"Oh, my Heavenly Father," she gasped. "What's happened to you?"

"I was knocked down by a car," gasped Merle. "How's Puck?"

"Lively as a flee."

"Thank heaven... Anyone called about him?"

"Of course not... Now you drink this, and off to bed with you, my lady."

As she was unaccustomed to stimulants, Merle was practically drunk when Mrs. Thomas undressed her and tucked her up. She lay through the night in a heavy dreamless sleep, and awoke carefree and refreshed.

AS she lay and listened to the cheerful sounds of an awakening world, she watched the curtains blowing into her room, and the green flicker of a beech-tree shaking against a windy blue sky. It was a day when it was good to be alive. She heard the milk-cart on the road and the welcome rattle of china from the kitchen, while she waited for the reassurance of a child's voice, to tell her that the angels had not called for Puck during the night.

It came almost Instantly— the protesting squeal of a young autocrat disturbed in mischief. The next minute, the door was burst open and Puck rushed into the room and hurled himself on her bed.

To an unenlightened eye, he might appear an ordinary small boy in a thin vest and panties; but when he hooked his arms around her neck, Merle knew that she held the world's wonder.

He was followed by Mrs. Thomas, with the tea tray.

"What did you have for breakfast?" Merle asked him, knowing his passion for important words.

"Partridges," he replied promptly.

"Porridge," explained Mrs. Thomas. "You don't eat partridges in summer, Puck."

"But it's winter, today," he assured them, glancing out of the corners of his almond-shaped blue eyes. "I made it 'fair and frosty'."

"He's been playing with the barometer again," groaned Merle, feeling that she need not have worried about angel visitations. "Have you broken it again, Puck?"

"Not much," he replied virtuously. "Not nearly so much as I did last time."

Mrs. Thomas and Merle smiled at each other when their young lord and master had scampered from the room to find the puppy whom he really adored.

"Fancy sending him out to Borneo," said Merle. "I had a ghastly dream about his father yesterday."

Mrs. Thomas listened to Merle's dream with a creditable show of interest; but at its end, she sniffed with disgust.

"Pity you only dreamed it... Why, what's the matter now?"

To her consternation Merle had grown suddenly pale, while her eyes were dark with horror.

"Oh, Megan," she cried. "I've just thought of something terrible. Suppose it wasn't a dream? Suppose I really did poison him?"

"Oh, don't be daft," snapped Mrs. Thomas. "Did you give him rat poison?"

"Of course not."

"Then he's still crawling round in your dream. Only vermin-killer would make his sort curl up properly."

But Merle refused to be comforted. Her hands shook so violently that Mrs. Thomas had to take her cup from her, as she went on speaking.

"You see, when I woke up in the dispensary, I was so confused that I took it for granted I'd been asleep. I never looked around... But I remember now, that I must have fainted when I found out what I'd done. Suppose I was just coming to, after a faint, instead of waking up?"

Mrs. Thomas tried to scold, or laugh her out of her morbid fancy, without success; in the end, she decided to humor her.

"If you bumped off Puck's pa," she reasoned, "you must have left the corpse lying about. We know that housekeeper is a slummock, but even she wouldn't overlook a nasty trifle like that... I'm going to ring her up and ask her if she found anything out of its place."

Merle held her breath with suspense, while she listened to Mrs. Thomas' voice in the hall, where the telephone was installed. Her heart pounded when the woman returned to the bedroom.

"The housekeeper says you left your bag behind you."

"Oh, the blessed relief," cried Merle, laughing to keep back her tears. "What a fool I've been."

SHE left the bungalow in a gay mood that matched the sunshine. As she walked down the avenues, every garden was fragrant with roses. The river sparkled in the light as she leaned over the parapet of the old bridge, and looked down at the slow current.

She was swinging away with it, when a voice brought her back to earth.

"Morning, Merle. Day-dreaming?"

She looked up into the ruddy cheerful face of Captain Cliff. He was the club gossip, and, as usual, he had plenty of amusing tales for her entertainment. Presently, however, his expression grew graver and he lowered his voice.

"By the way," he said. "I heard that precious scoundrel— your brother-in-law, Gore— was back in town. I hope, for your sake, it's not true."

As Merle listened, she felt in the grip of a nightmare.

"No," she protested vehemently. "It's not true."

"Good. Some chap fancied he recognized him. I'm glad. It's not secret that you hate him like rat-poison, is it?"

The Captain strolled away, chuckling, while Merle gazed at his receding back, as though she beheld the Angel of Doom.

"It's no secret that you hate him," The words echoed in her brain as she began to run toward the doctor's house. It was like the Voice of the Town, condemning her with corroborative evidence. Only— she had not murdered him. It was a dream, from which she was not yet fully awakened.

When she reached the familiar door, it took an effort to ring the bell. While she waited for the housekeeper to come, she reminded herself of the reassuring telephone call. All the same, she moistened her lips nervously when at last, the door was opened.

No policeman stood in the entrance— only the slatternly figure of Mrs. Stock.

"The doctor's gone away for the morning," she said in a surly voice. "He says put off all appointments till the afternoon. And he wasn't back until nearly midnight. But I suppose he knows his business best."

"He certainly does, Mrs. Stock."

Merle's voice was firm, to hide the fact that she was vaguely worried by the unexpected absence. As she crossed the hall, instead of entering the dispensary, she nerved herself to open the door of the dining-room.

Her first glance showed her that the big chair was empty. No huge, distorted body lay stiffened there in its death agony. There was nothing worse than dead flowers in the vases and the usual signs of the housekeeper's neglect.

She started at the sound of Mrs. Stock's voice.

"Your bag's in the dispensary, if that's what you are looking for."

Convicted of trespass, Merle returned to her own domain of the dispensary, where indignation drove out every other emotion. It was only too obvious that Mrs. Stock had taken advantage of the doctor's absence to slack shamefully.

"She's not so much as shown it a duster," thought Merle furiously. "Her number's up, as far as I'm concerned. And she knows it. That is why she looks so venomous."

Although a note in the doctor's handwriting was lying on a table, she did not open it at once. After telephoning to the few patients who had appointments, she decided that she must restore some order before she could work. The wastepaper basket was stuffed to overflowing and had evidently been used as a communal dump for the rubbish from the living rooms.

As she picked it up, with the intention of carrying it out to the kitchen, she noticed some fragments of glass lying amid the dead flowers from the dining room.

Her heart dropped a beat, as she scooped them up to examine them. They were parts of a broken tumbler, to which a smear of sediment still adhered.

Her dream was true. She had actually given poison to her brother-in-law.

Feeling as though she had been sandbagged, she looked around her dully. By now, Lewis Gore's death was known, for someone had discovered the body and removed it. The most likely person was the doctor, who would do his utmost to protect her. It was even possible that his absence was connected with her interests.

The thought of his championship was her one ray of light. There was a wan smile on her lips as she opened his note, but it stiffened to a grimace of horror as she read it.

"I've just seen your brother-in-law. He spun me a lie about taking Puck out to Borneo, but I soon got wise to it. He wanted to be bought off again, and it was merely a threat to raise his price... Now, you'll be furious with me, but I knew he would only go on bleeding you, so I wrote him a final check, (I'll tell you how you can repay me, when I come back.) In return, I have his stamped agreement, appointing you Puck's guardian and renouncing all claim. I am taking it up to Somerset House, to get it stamped."

The letter made the tragedy doubly grim, by reason of its irony. It was torment for Merle to reflect that Lewis had already signed away his claim to the boy when he called yesterday. He was telling lies to try and get something extra out of her.

For some time, she sat, stunned by the blow. The telephone bell rang, but she did not stir from her chair. Presently she roused herself to speculate on her future.

She could not see any ray of hope for herself. Her fate would be hanging, or imprisonment for life. What jury would believe her story of a mistake, in view of the fact that the bottle was plainly labeled, and that she was accustomed to dispense drugs?

But her own fate was nothing compared with Puck's future. By the deed, now in process of being stamped at Somerset House, she was appointed his legal guardian. And she had failed him utterly. It appalled her to imagine what would become of him— penniless and left to strangers.

Even if the doctor took charge of him, for her sake— and she only assumed his affection for herself— it was natural that he would marry some other woman, later on.

In that dark hour Merle had to admit that she and Mrs. Thomas had spoiled Puck, even although, in their opinion, he redeemed their fondness by a hundred ways, just by being himself— the most adorable small boy in the universe.

But this practical hypothetical woman— the doctor's future wife would probably resent him as a usurper and pack him off to boarding school. On the other hand, if no one accepted his responsibility he would be sent to some institution, which would be worse.

And she could do nothing to help him— for she was going to be hanged.

THE idea was so fantastic and monstrous that her mind slipped away on another journey. Although her brain was too blurred for clear thought, it was apparent even to her, that, since the doctor knew nothing of the tragedy, there remained only Mrs. Stock to make the discovery. Remembering her dilatory habits, it was likely that she found the distorted body in the chair only a little time before Merle had appeared on the scene.

In her employer's absence she would notify the police, who had evidently removed the body to the mortuary. There could be no other explanation of the empty chair. Yet, as Merle thought of the housekeeper's grim silence, when she opened the door, and her denial of any unusual incident, over the telephone, she had the helpless feeling of being ambushed.

If she were already connected with the tragedy why had no official appeared to take her evidence? And why were the fragments of glass placed in the wastepaper basket? She always understood that— in a case of sudden death— nothing on the scene was allowed to be removed.

For a moment she wondered whether Mrs. Stock had smashed the tumbler herself, only to reject the idea immediately. Lewis must have swept it off the table in his death agony. But the mere fact that the pieces had been piled on top of the dispensary rubbish basket, where she could not fail to see them, seemed to indicate an attempt to trap her.

She knew that if she yielded to her impulse, she was bound to incriminate herself. For Puck's sake, she wanted desperately to hide the bite... Yet the first thing the police would look for would be the medium by which the poison was administered and they must have seen the broken glass already.

Perhaps they were in a conspiracy with Mrs. Stock to watch her own reaction. Although the dispensary was empty, she felt the unseen presence of a company of spies. Eyes were everywhere— looking at her through holes in the ceiling and chinks in the wall.

As time passed and nothing happened, she felt that she was being subjected deliberately to the torture of suspense— waiting for the inevitable knock on the door and the footstep in the hall. They wanted to break down her resistance, in advance. Yet she could do nothing else but wait...

Wait. Listening to the ticking of the clock— to the buzz of a fly on the window pane—to the throbbing of her own heart ...

"It must be a dream," she told herself.

If she hung on to this certainty, she might wake up and find herself in the warm gloom of the twilight dispensary, where she doped last night.

Only— this was reality. She was wide awake and the sun was shining on the trees outside. This was today— and she was powerless to recall the past.

SUDDENLY her heart gave a mighty leap. Her fingers gripped the arm of her chair, as she heard footsteps outside the room. The door was opened, but she did not turn round. She had reached the limit of sensation, when nothing mattered any more.

"Merle."

It was the doctor's voice, tense with anxiety. "Are you all right?" he asked. "Mrs. Thomas has just been telling me about your accident."

"Perfectly," she told him.

"Did you get my note?"

"Yes."

"Isn't it fine news about Puck? Aren't you thrilled?"

"Yes. It's marvelous."

The doctor was in a state of jubilant excitement, when he accepted Merle's lack of enthusiasm as the result of her smash. He went on talking eagerly and rapidly, while she watched his face, without grasping the meaning of his words.

"Lewis confessed he tried to touch you first. But he said you gave him a drink and then walked out on him. So then he came to me.

"When did you last see him?" asked Merle.

"Oh, lateish. I had to get the lawyer to draw up the document, after hours. Oh, by the way, I ran Lewis up to London, with me, this morning, to clear him out of your way. I... What's the matter?"

In her relief, Merle broke down completely.

"Then he's alive. I didn't poison him," she cried.

As she sobbed out her story, the doctor's face, too, worked with emotion.

"You might have drunk that poison yourself. That's the part I can't get over," he said. "It was just touch and go that you are alive today."

Suddenly a chance sentence galvanized her to life.

"But he drank it— and he's alive too," said Merle. "I can't understand it all. I always thought you told me that potassium cyanide is a deadly poison."

"So it is. For heaven's sake don't try to find out for yourself... But the poisonous effect of the cyanide is due to a great extent to the fact that it reacts with the acid normally secreted in the process of digestion by the stomach to form a highly poisonous partial compound which is instantly absorbed... Now your brother-in-law suffers from chronic alcoholic gastritis— a form of dyspepsia in which the stomach fails to secrete acid. So like Rasputin— whom they tried to kill, in vain, by the same poison— he was immune."

_____________

16: The Fairy Pot

Illustrated, London, 14 Oct 1939

Glacier County Chief, Montana, 25 Aug and 1 Sep 1939

Roy Glashan's Library, July 2023

"SO this is a pothole," gasped Iris. She was sunken below sun-level in a vast cavern of rock, chill with damp and earthy odors. Only the dimmest light filtered through a small hole in the roof— from which trickled a shrunken waterfall. But although she was muddy, breathless and soaked to the skin, she felt the special thrill which accompanies achievement.

"Pothole?" repeated her companion scornfully. "What d'you mean? We're only in the daylight shaft. This is where the pothole begins. I'll show you."

The young engineer gripped her arm and they stumbled together across the slimed floor, following up the course of the streamlet from the fall, until it disappeared down a wide fissure in the rocks.

"At the bottom of that fall is an eternal pothole which is pitch dark," Courage explained. "It will lead you down to another, and so on, down and down, until the stream disappears down a crack too narrow to follow it—or until the ropes give out— or until any old thing happens."

"And you mean to tell me you go down horrible holes like that for pleasure?" asked Iris incredulously. "It seems to me a specially morbid and debased way of committing suicide."

Courage laughed.

"Potholing is a bug, like any other phobia," he said. "You have it— or you haven't."

He knew that it was hopeless to try to explain to her the magnetism in the sound of that chuckling water which was an elusive thread, leading down to hidden treasure. Here, in Pothole Land— the Cumberland dales— a vast region of subterranean wonderland had been already explored. Huge stalactite caverns, lakes, streams and more than two miles of connecting passages.

But there remained still the lure of finding some new entry down some insignificant hole which might drop down hundreds of feet in one sheer swoop. There was also the eternal hope of the pioneer— to be first to stumble on some new enchanted territory.

Even then, it might be lying under his feet—waiting for him to discover it. Voices called to him from the halls of darkness.

ALTHOUGH he was a keen Alpinist and rarely missed a holiday in Switzerland, the joys of mountain-climbing lacked this thrill of exploration. As he strained his eyes to look at Iris through the gloom, he longed to share his secret passion with her. He had known her for less than a fortnight, yet already she seemed so vital to his happiness, that his mind shied at the prospect of a future apart from her.

She had been tramping the Fells without a hat and her face was very brown, making a piquant contrast with her fair hair. Essentially a modern girl with a mechanical mind, she was employed at an aircraft factory and had the hard muscles and the unselfconscious camaraderie of one accustomed to work with men.

Lately Courage had wished that her blue eyes were not so friendly and impersonal.

"Don't you ever climb?" he asked.

"Definitely no," she replied. "I've no head for heights. Something goes funny inside me. I fly, of course, but that's different. My job is on the ground and I feel safer there... Let's get out of this tomb."

ALTHOUGH Courage remained below, to steady the rope ladder, she found its ascent both a tricky and humiliating performance. Whenever her shoe slipped on the narrow five-inch tread, she upset the precarious balance, and either swayed under the fall, or bruised herself against the rock.

It was a relief to get into the open air which was cooled by the spray from the Pharisee (Fairy) Fall. The great cascade foamed like a pillar of smoke down into the gorge, whose sides— emerald green with soaked ferns and vegetation— were hung with small trees, rowans, bird-cherries and birch. After plunging into a deep pool at its bottom, it rushed down into the valley in a small river.

In spite of its present volume, it had shrunk so far below its normal flow that it sealed no longer the mouth of the pothole. Courage explained the situation to Iris when he rejoined her.

"It's about eight years since it's been possible to get near the pothole," he said. "A chap called Riley discovered it, but he had to give up for lack of ropes."

The climb up the gorge was heavy going, which left no surplus breath for conversation, as they toiled out of the cool and shadowed radius of the spray. When they reached the path again, the sun beat down on them from a cloudless sky. The turf was scorched and the hills blurred by a thick blue soupy atmosphere, as though the heat had become visible.

"Today's going to be a real scorcher," panted Iris as she caught her heel in a crack in the baked earth. "Don't you wish it would rain?"

"I should say not." replied Courage. "I'm praying for this blessed drouth to last. It's the chance of a lifetime to explore the Pharisee Pot again. There's still rather too much overflow from the fall."

"Are you really going down that awful drop into the dark? You must be crazy."

"Call it 'potty.' Yes, it's all fixed. Riley— the chap who did it before, young Collier and myself."

"Young Collier? That precious youth? I don't believe it."

"Oh, he's got guts all right, In spite of his pretty face. I suppose as you're a native, you've a down on him because his old man is living in your Squire's ancestral hall."

"I'm not that sort of moldy snob. No, my grouch is this: When Granny rented her cottage from his father, the conveyance covered adequate water rights. Now we're dry as a bone, while he's built a swimming pool. It doesn't make sense. I believe he's poaching our spring."

"That's a dangerous charge," Courage reminded her. "Can you prove it?"

"How can I? Gran is helpless. If she tried to pump any of Collier's men, or approached the local surveyor, he'd get to hear of it and then he wouldn't renew her lease. It would break her up to leave her beloved hovel."

"Well, don't be hasty. Water is a very tricky thing. This drouth may have caused your spring to break out somewhere else. I'm an engineer, so I know something about it."

"And all I know is this. I've got to go to old Collier, cap in hand, to beg for some water. Gosh, what a prospect for any girl of spirit."

THEY parted at a hurdle-gate at the union of two tracks. One led up to the Hall— a fine Elizabethan mansion, now the property of Sir Henry Collier, late of the Baltic Pool. For the past fortnight, Courage had been a guest at this house, so naturally was prejudiced in favor of a genial and hospitable host.

The other path wound down to a whitewashed cottage, rented by Iris' grandmother— an active, independent lady of 62. It was only an accident to her leg which caused her to accept the services of her grandchild, who had given up her own holiday to look after her.

The sacrifice had proved to be not altogether loss, for she had met Courage, but the continuance of the drouth was gradually getting her down. It had lasted now for weeks. First, the flowers had to be sacrificed—a hopeful collection of buds. Then the daily bath was replaced by a piecemeal wash in a basin. After that, vegetables had to take their chance, when most of them lost out. Now it had become a problem how to ration the drinking water to include the fowls and dog.

With the end of her holiday in sight, Iris was worried about the future. It was only the thought of her grandmother's disability which forced her to turn out in the afternoon heat and eat humble-pie.

After the glare of the unprotected Fells, it was a relief to walk under the shade of the lime avenue which led up to the Hall. She noticed enviously the vivid green of the lawn in front of the house and the beautiful flower beds. On her way, she also passed the new swimming pool which was lined with turquoise tiles.

She told herself that it held sufficient water to preserve the cottage garden for the duration of the drouth. Her young lips were stern as she glanced contemptuously at two slim forms in bathing slips, stretched out on the grass. One was young Collier— a youth with a handsome slack face; the other was an exotic girl from London, whose skin was painted to get the same effect as the sunburnt Iris. There was no sign of Courage— a fact which disconcerted her, since she had counted on his moral support. Sir Henry Collier, however, was lounging on a deck-chair on the terrace.

He was a pleasant-faced, well-preserved man in the fifties, with wavy silver hair and a double chin. In his early struggling days he had been a thin acid young man, full of snap and drive, and although prosperity had mellowed him, there was still a glint in his eye which hinted of the original wire structure under his genial overweight.

He welcomed Iris with the cordiality of a host to an honored guest. Feeling slightly awkward, as though he had placed her in a false position, she refused his offers of varied refreshment.

"Really not, thank you," she persisted. "I only came to tell you that we've practically no water."

"No drinking water?" asked Sir Henry.

"Yes, we have that, but—"

"Then you must consider yourself lucky, when you think of the drouth."

"I know... But I have to walk a quarter of a mile to the village to get water for domestic purposes. Our garden is dying on us. Please, could you spare us a little of your surplus?"

"I don't know what you mean, If I had any surplus my tennis courts would not be ruined."

"But that swimming pool—"

"Oh, my dear young lady, don't look at me with such accusing eyes. I built that pool as a storage-tank, in case of fire. Indirectly, it benefits you, for we could run a pipe down to the cottage."

He stopped, as though waiting for the gratitude she could not force. She felt beaten down and incapable of making a further stand, as he went on talking.

"You can't blame me for the drouth. It was an act of God. It has dried up one of my best wells, but I am only too thankful for what is left. You must keep your chin up. I've always been on pleasant terms with your grandmother and I should be sorry to lose her for a more sporting tenant who would take the rough with the smooth. And don't forget it was I who put in the bathroom for her— not the old Squire."

"Yes, that was kind. There is no water in the pipes, but it looks very nice."

"And so do you— very fit and charming from all your extra exercise. I walked ten miles a day, to and from work, when I was young. Are you sure you won't have tea?"

"No, thank you." Her voice was bitter. "I only want water."

He took the request seriously and rang for a glass of iced water... Iris decided that it was impossible to impress such a man.

THAT evening, Courage met her as she was toiling up the path from the village. She wore breeches and looked both hot and limp, as she carried two slopping pails of water.

"Where were you this afternoon?" she asked reproachfully, as he took the buckets from her.

"Out on a private prowl," he told her. "How did you get on with Collier?"

"I didn't. I got out. All he did was to hint I couldn't take it. Well, I'm not sporting and I must have a smutty mind. For I still believe he has pinched our spring."

Courage frowned thoughtfully.

"Even if he has," he said, "litigation over water rights is the very mischief. If you prove your claim— and experts usually differ— Collier could hardly take it for a friendly gesture. Directly your grandmother's lease was up, she'd be outside on her ear. So how's it going to help you?"

"I know, but I'm bothered about the future. This will happen every drouth, and Gran can't carry water.

"Oh, buck up. Collier may have a change of heart. Any old way, this heat is bound to crack soon with thunder... That's why we are having a shot at the Pharisee Pot tomorrow."

"Tell me all about it. Do you go much deeper than that horrible black drop?"

"Deeper?" Courage laughed Jubilantly. "That's only the entrance hall, with 'Welcome' on the mat. When we're down that, we come to a filthy crawl over the bed of a stream—which should be dry if it knows what's expected of it— along a passage which is nothing but a drain out to a main chamber. Then comes the clinking long drop which Riley couldn't tackle. I hope to be able to report its exact length and what's at the bottom of it tomorrow, Modom."

"Any— any danger?"

"Practically none. We're all experienced climbers. You've got to be very fit for pot-holing— and you've got to be slim or you'd stick. If you think of joining us, don't wear your crinoline. Of course, we've got to check up on ropes, food, lights, and so on. If they are O.K., we shall be O.K., too, except for—"

"Go on," she told him.

"Well, if a storm broke up in the hills, we might get our feet wet."

Iris said nothing. Her eyes were wide with terror as she pictured the sudden rush of floodwater down the valley, as she had seen it once before. She saw it thunder over the Pharisee Fall, rushing down the holes and cracks at its base— flooding underground passages— filling every chamber.

"What's the matter?" asked Courage.

"I'm afraid." Her voice was low and husky. "Don't go. For my sake."

He shook his head.

"You're putting me on the spot," he said. "I don't want you to be worried over me. I would rather make you happy. But honestly, you don't know what this chance is to a pot-holer. Besides, there is no risk. We shall phone up to the hills, to yet the weather report before we start."

"All right." Iris forced herself to speak in the voice familiar to all in the aircraft factory, where she claimed equality with men. "Good luck, mate— and get on with it."

IRIS was not the only person to sleep badly that night, for the heat was oppressive. She kept getting out of bed to watch from her window, in the hope of seeing a flicker of lightning, as herald of a thunderstorm.

Her prayers were not granted, for after a short sleep she awoke to another cloudless sky, from which all color was drained.

"Do you smell rain?" she asked, when she carried the morning tea in to her grandmother.

The small alert lady who was already knitting in bed, so as to waste no time, looked at her over steel-rimmed spectacles.

"You insolent child, I'm not a witch doctor," she protested. "Besides, any fool must know this heat will break in a storm. Probably tomorrow. I'm afraid it will skin the face off the garden, but it will get right down to the roots, thank God."

"Good. We want another dry day. Some boys are going down the Pharisee Pot-hole."

"That's fine news. Good lads."

No lack of sporting spirit there— but Iris failed to feel responsive to the local passion. Although every domestic task— complicated by lack of water— seemed drudgery, she tried to forget her apprehension in a drive of furious energy.

DIRECTLY after lunch, she changed into shorts, in order to fetch their daily ration of water. Just as she was about to start, she saw Sir Henry Collier sauntering down the hillside. He looked so aggressively cool and freshly-tubbed in his suit of tropical silk, that she felt she could not endure to walk to the village in his company.

She was loitering by the gate when be called out to her.

"The climbing party went off in fine spirits. They showed sense in not waiting. It's looking rather heavy up the pass. But no one can say our young men are deficient in grit."

Although his remark was not intended to be personal, Iris was stung to reprisal.

"You showed me your beautiful garden yesterday," she said sweetly. "Would you like to see what is left of ours? We have enough seeded nasturtiums to keep us in pickles all the winter."

As he was not the man to ignore a challenge, he followed her to the back of the cottage. They passed under a pergola, covered with withered roses and then Iris, who was leading, gave a cry.

"Do you see what I see? Water?"

Overflowing from a tank at the end of the garden, where the spring was piped, a great pool was spreading out over the baked earth which could not absorb it.

"You've left the tap on," said Sir Henry reproachfully.

"But the tank takes a whole day to fill. The water dribbles in, drop by drop... No. Something's happened to the spring."

At the implication of her words his face turned suddenly gray.

"Come and see," he said hoarsely.

He spoke to the air, for she had already rushed through the gate and was running up the hillside.

He followed her, bursting through clumps of burnt heather, whose tough roots noosed his feet and held him back, until he reached the spot where she stood.

At first, she was too breathless to speak, as she pointed to a streamlet which was half concealed by fronds of bracken.

"It's the normal flow," she panted. "There must be rain in the hills." The terror in her eyes leaped to his.

"Those lads," he gasped. "I'll ring up the Rescue club... But it will be too late."

"TOO late."

The words rang in Iris ears as she rushed madly up the pass, like one bereft of her senses.

The boulders on either side of the track blocked her view of the valley, but as she reached the gorge she became aware that she should have heard the roar of the little swollen river, dashing over its stony bed. Stopping for a moment to strain her ears, she caught— something— so faint that it was a vibration, rather than actual sound— as though a telephone were ringing in the last house of a long row.

It was thunder up in the hills.

Mercifully, it was very far away... Rushing round the bend, she was able, at last, to see the Pharisees Fall through its screen of trees. To her amazement, it was still pouring down in a steady white column, with no visible increase in volume.

She stood, scarcely able to credit the evidence to her eyes, while a wild hope flared up in her heart. Some miracle of Nature had intervened—a landslip or fall of boulders higher up— which had either dammed the flood, or diverted its course.

There was no time to lose in speculation. Reckless of danger, she plunged down the steep side of the gorge, snatching at such frail holds as ferns and wild strawberry runners, as she glissaded down muddy slopes and mossy rocks. Often she only saved herself from pitching headlong to the bottom of the gulf, by catching at the branches of a wild cherry or birch.

Her luck held, for her last jump was blind, so that she landed with a crash, amid the boulders of the stream. As she got up again, her first thought was for the torch which she had snatched from the hall table, in her rush through the cottage.

To her great relief, it was unbroken, to match her bones. Slipping it inside the neck of her pullover for safety, she scrambled over the exposed rocks until she reached the entrance to the pothole.

Without giving herself time to think, she gripped the rope ladder and began to lower herself with frantic haste— only to meet with disaster. In skipping rungs— to descend more quickly— she lost her footing and hung suspended by her hands. As she swayed to and fro the motion accelerated and she spun giddily round, like a fly dangling at the end of a spider's thread.

She realized that she was missing the ballast provided by Courage, on her previous descent, when he had stood below to steady the ladder. Now, in her struggle to regain her footing, she kicked wildly against the rock, only to crash back under the fall. Fortunately, her palms were hard, to match her muscles, and she managed to lower herself until her toes scraped the insecure rungs again.

Lower and lower she dropped. The light drew dimmer— damp dungeon odors arose from the vault below— and she found herself on the rocky floor of the daylight chamber. Shuddering in anticipation of what was to come, she flashed on her torch and guided herself, by the trickle of water, across the dark shaft.

All she could see was a ghastly drop— like the shaft of a lift, enclosed by walls of dripping rock— and an insecure-looking rope-ladder dangling into the blackness.

At first, she lingered to shout, in the faint hope that the climbing party might be on its way up, but she only awoke a mutilated echo which was plainly out of practice. Time was racing on, while up in the hills the flood was piling itself up against its barrier, lapping higher every minute. Sooner or later, water must find its level.

She gripped the rope ladder with one hand and dropped backwards into the shaft. The strain on her arm was terrific, but it was momentary. The next instant she stuffed her precious torch into her pullover—releasing both hands for use.

At first, she felt the demoralizing swaying movement, growing gradually stronger with every lurch, like the swing of the pendulum. One moment, she banged against rock and the next, she hung under the spray of the fall. Then her feet found a hold on the ladder and the immediate crisis was past.

Afraid to hurry, lest she upset her balance, she crabbed downwards, rung by rung. As she did so, she began to lose her grip on reality. The darkness was so dense and muffling that it fulfilled the function of a drug, deadening her to the threat of vertigo. When, presently, her foot landed on rock again, she was only vaguely surprised that the decent had been accomplished so quickly.

She was about to step off the ladder when a warning signal was flashed from her brain. Still gripping the rope with one hand, she fumbled for her torch... Its light revealed a narrow shelf of cliff, on which she was perched while below was the darkness of the shaft.

Her heart leaped at the thought of the fate she had just escaped. Both palms and forehead were clammy as she continued her descent.

THE incident had shaken her nerve severely, but she had to go on. Down— down. Deeper— deeper. One, two... ten... twenty, until she lost count.

Once again she felt her foot bumping on a rough surface. This time, she had reached the bottom of the shaft in reality and was standing in a cave. Only a section was visible in the light of her torch, but she received a dim impression of stalactites, like bunches of candles or carrots. Then she followed the course of the stream which oozed down the slope and disappeared into the underground passage of which Courage had spoken.

" 'The filthy crawl'," she quoted in a high unfamiliar voice. "Then comes the clinking long drop. Nobody knows how far down it. goes or what's at the bottom. That's the fun. At the end, we all break our necks, to make it a real success... But we've found another pot. Cheers— and mind your head."

She was able to crawl on her hands and knees along the bed of the underground stream for only a few yards. Very soon she was forced by the lowness of the roof to lie full length and drag herself along over the slimy trickle. She was scratched and bruised by grit, while the strain of her posture grew intolerable, but far worse than pain or exhaustion was the knowledge that she had to return the same way that she had come.

"Every terrible thing has to be done again." she thought. "I'm not even halfway. There's still the unfathomed drop to come."

In a way, her fear of the next ordeal was merciful, for it prevented her from accepting a suggestion so horrible that her mind instinctively rejected it, whenever it tried to drift into her brain.

It was the thought that even a slight fall of rock could seal her inside a living tomb.

She was gasping for breath and aching in every muscle when she crawled out of the passage. Her knees shook violently when she got up and her head began to swim. Flashing her light around, she got a confused impression of dripping disrupted cliff and riven rock, murmurous with echoes and the chuckles of imprisoned waters.

The streamlet led her inexorably to the lip of a cracked precipice, down which dangled a jaunty rope ladder.

As she looked at it, she felt another wave of faintness surge over her and knew that Nature had beaten her. If she attempted to climb down that ladder, her fingers would surely lose their grip and she would drop down into the gulf. To persevere was merely to commit suicide.

"I must make them hear," she thought desperately.

She put all her strength into her screams. Again and again... Then from the depths arose an answering shout.

"Oy! Oy!" It was Courage's voice. "What's up?"

"Flood!" she yelled. "Rain in the hills!"

She heard him shouting to the others, awakening a confusion of crosscurrent echoes. Then he called to her directly:

"Go back at once!"

In spite of the command, the knew that she must rest, to gain strength for the crawl along the drain. She was still crouched on the rocky floor when Courage came up the ladder, like a steeple-jack.

"Here, drink this," he said in a strangely stern voice.

She swallowed the brandy and then struggled to her feet. "I can start now," she said. As she followed him down the passage a thought passed through her mind.

"At this moment, I am here in this ghastly place. Where shall I be in an hour's time? And— how?"

AN hour later, she was curled up in a big chair in the cottage drawing-room, while her grandmother lay upon the couch. She felt tired but pleasantly relaxed after the rare luxury of a hot bath, even although the water which gushed from the tap was colored coffee-brown. A teapot was on the table and she smoked a cigarette as she watched the grand spectacle of a thunderstorm sweeping the Fells.

The clock ticked, her grandmother knitted, the ginger cat washed her face. In that scene of domestic comfort it was difficult to believe in her recent experience. It seemed incredible that she could have sustained such an ordeal and emerged with only cuts and bruises.

Already its memory was growing blurred, owing to her acute mental tension at the time— and parts of it were altogether forgotten. Looking back on her return journey, it seemed concentrated into a test of overstrained endurance and forced effort, when will, nerve and muscle were teamed in one frantic drive to cheat the enemy— Time.

They were racing the flood, so they could not stop to relax or rest. Once when they jammed in the terrible confinement of the underground passage, Courage cursed them impartially, but it was the very fury of his abuse which galvanized their limp muscles into new life.

They got out of the pothole only just in time. They could hear the distant roar of rushing water as they were climbing out of the daylight-shaft, and they had to scramble for their lives to reach the sides of the gorge.

As she was dragging herself up by the trees. Iris turned just in time to see the white pillar of the Pharisee Fall spread out suddenly in a broad brown fan as the flooded river foamed over its lip.

Afterwards there had been the comedy of their meeting with the Rescue Club, when she had been overwhelmed with congratulations. At the time she thought it was recognition of her feat, but learned later that it was only local jubilation over the discovery of a new pot.

"You can't satisfy some folks," said her grandmother, breaking the current of her thoughts. "Looks as if someone hadn't got wet enough for his liking."

Looking up as a fork of lightning veined the sky, Iris saw Courage coming through sheets of torrential rain. He looked excited and happy as he waved his hand. A minute later he burst into the room in front of the little maid who was trying to admit him.

"I've brought the doings," he said, crossing to the old lady's couch. "A new lease of the cottage for your lifetime, with adequate water provision and a special emergency clause, in case of drouth. It's rough, but it covers everything and it's signed and witnessed. It comes from Sir Henry Collier as a mark of appreciation for your granddaughter's heroism in saving his son's life."

Old Mrs. Holtby looked at the young man.

"I'll thank you later," she said. "First I want to hear the real story."

"Very well," he agreed. "The truth is this. I did a little private surveying yesterday afternoon, after which I engaged a young man to dig at a certain spot which seemed indicated. Result— I found that Collier had done the dirty on you. A stirrup-pipe had been inserted, which reduced the flow from your spring by one-half. The drouth did the rest of the mischief."

"I knew it," cried Iris.

"At the time I couldn't decide what to do," went on Courage. "As I explained to you, I couldn't see you would be better off if you fought a claim. So I told the young man to cover everything up and say nothing for the present. He was very hot over the business, so it is evident he decided to take the law into his own hands and remove the stirrup-pipe. That was the explanation of the increased flow from your spring."

"Does Sir Henry know everything?" asked Iris.

"Yes. I came out into the open. I also explained fully the providential nature of the incident... You see, we rang up that place in the hills and from what they have told us, the storm did not really break until Iris was well underground... If there had not been this false warning, nothing and no one could have saved us from being drowned."

He stopped and looked wistfully at Iris.

"Here's your prize," he said, giving her the lease.

Her face grew radiant.

"It's wonderful," she said. "Gran will love you for this."

Suddenly Courage saw his chance to propose in the presence of a friendly third party.

"I want her to love me— as a grandson," he said boldly.

Mrs. Holtby's eyes twinkled as she went on with her knitting.

"Iris," she said, "I'm doing very well. I've just had an offer. If you will cooperate with me, I am inclined to accept it."

_________________

17: If You Can... Lose

The Cornhill Magazine, Sep 1917
Roy Glashan's Library, July 2023

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch and toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss.

THE little shop was dying hard.

Throughout the forenoon its torpidity had been barely disturbed by the tinkle of the door-bell that announced customers; and even these had failed to drift in during the afternoon.

About the hour of four, Carolus Wicks— the proprietor of the shop— ceased his pacing of the uneven floor and, crossing to the millinery counter— where perilous stacks of straw hats flanked a flawed mirror in a gilded frame— intently regarded himself in the glass.

He saw a face planned on a scale generous to nobility, with majesty in the poise of the head and with every line of the massive features instinct with forceful individuality. The eye that pierced the semi-gloom of the mirror was that of a Personality.

He viewed his reflection with a certain somber pride.

"Destiny!" he murmured. "It's the final proof. I shall follow Bolingbroke!"

He uttered the name as one who invokes a Power.

Crossing to the door, he cast a long look around him, from the cage with the glazed top— where he intermittently dwelt, when he doubled the mysterious entity of "Cash" with that of "Sign"— to the counter laden with bales of Manchester goods.

The "Manchester" was Wicks's specialty.

Slowly he walked out into the street and began to put up the shutters.

In the middle of his task, he stopped suddenly, as though petrified; a gleam kindled in his eye at the sight of a man who, in the full glare of the westering sun, strode in the middle of the street, with the conscious pride of its creator.

He attracted attention both by his arrogant carriage and dominant expression. His sartorial perfection was rather that of advertisement than the self-effacing quality of the well-dressed man.

This was Horatio Bolingbroke— a man who had found a cinderheap and made a town thereof— who played with financial issues as a juggler with his balls— who dehumanized men to puppets, in the furtherance of his ambitions.

A curious smile stole round Wicks's mouth, as he marked the eagle eyes, the winged nostrils, the resolute mouth. For he knew that he was gazing at the replica of the face in the glass.

He braced his shoulders, and gloomily appreciative of the drama of his situation, stepped into the back-parlor behind the shop, to make his announcement.

"I've just put up the shutters. Probably for the last time!"

His wife looked up from the letter that she was writing. Her comely full-blown prettiness resembled that of a rose whose petals have been assaulted by storm, for her large pink cheeks were damp and her hair disheveled.

"Doesn't it sound awful? Oh, dear, oh, dear! I never thought when I married you that you would bring me to this!"

She looked around her sitting-room, with the culminating glory of hand-labor evident in each treasure— hand-painted piano-top, hand-carved book-case, hand-embroidered cushion. Even the flowers were not subject to Nature's limitation of mortality.

With a sigh, she took up her pen again.

"I'm writing to Uncle Elijah to jog his memory about the loan. He may send it us yet. He's been known to do funny things sometimes."

"And it would be a funny thing," sneered Wicks. "Who's likely to give £500 for me? I'm not a competition sweet-pea, nor yet a prize story."

As he spoke, he glanced in the glass. In the setting sunlight, with frowning brows and folded arms, he might have been Napoleon on board the Bellerophon.

"A woman always expects a man to succeed," he said, "but women are poor judges of conditions. The greatest is prone to failure.... Take Bolingbroke! It's common talk that he's on the verge of ruin. Yet I saw him, two minutes ago, swaggering down the street, flower in his buttonhole and twirling his stick, as though he was going smash for the good of his health. It was fine, though!" His face brightened. "That buttonhole, now! The spirit of bravado. He may be a scamp, swindler— what you like— but you can't deny he's a man!"

May Wicks colored with exasperation.

"Really, haven't you troubles enough of your own to look after, without raving about that rogue? You exhaust my patience. Why don't you go up to Woodruff House to find out what's happening there?"

Her husband's blank face forced her to explain.

"I never knew such a man! Haven't you heard they're operating on old Draycott today, and a poor chance at best? Trust you not to know, with the funeral order already placed, and just at a time when some ready money might tide us over until the luck turned. Oh, don't stand there! Put on your hat and go!"

As his wife literally thrust him from the room, Wicks shrank to the defensive male. But on the threshold, he came back, and taking from a vase an artificial carnation, he put it in his buttonhole.

He stepped into the red sunlight, his mind a riot of conflicting emotions, paramount among them a smarting sense of injury at his wife's lack of comprehension.

She blamed him for his failure, while his mental vision was shot by the vivid streak of a gigantic constellation hurtling through space to flaming combustion and drawing in its train its least satellite.

But while he pitied her for that feminine practicality that made it impossible for her to follow him into his refuge of imagination, the subterranean current of her resentment rankled none the less acutely. It left him alone with his Secret—the enchanting force which possessed him to the exclusion of nearly every other interest.

While doomed in the finite world to stand behind a counter, he was yet conscious of being at grips with far-reaching issues, stretching beyond his ken into the uncharted region of the Infinite. He was as one who stands before a curtain, which, at any moment, might be drawn aside.

It had all begun with his inordinate admiration of Bolingbroke and his own facial resemblance to the great man. Although he was too modest to allude to it himself, its existence had been proved on that historic occasion when he and his family had been admitted to the reserved paddock at the races.

As his worship passed into a creed, he began to study the private history of his idol, to find the first link of the chain forged by destiny.

By extraordinary coincidence, he and Bolingbroke had been born on the same day.

On the shock of the discovery, there followed a whole sequence of duplications, each cumulative and leading up to the electric discovery. It was a revelation of almost staggering force, revealing as it did— to the material mind of the draper— the existence of an unseen Power.

He— Carolus Wicks— was the Shadow of the great Substance— Horatio Bolingbroke.

Despite the inward exultation of a share in that coveted but denied power, Wicks's thoughts, as he walked along, were gloomy enough to satisfy his wife's pessimism. He found himself instinctively avoiding recognition, in morbid anticipation of the neglect that would be accorded to the insolvent tradesman. When he reached the residential quarter of the town, the urgent need to save his poor little business from disruption infused his errand with the acid of anxiety.

Woodruff House—a detached residence standing in its own grounds—was built on the top of a hilly road. Of solid structure and uninspired architecture, it barely stood out against the clouded sky— pearly-white as pear-blossom. A long line of windows flashed back on every pane a crystal sun.

A graveled drive, bordered with shrubs, led up to the front portico, in front of which was drawn a car, as though in readiness. On each side of the path, the earth was pierced with scores of tiny green spears, that spoke of the conquest of a regiment of snowdrops over the invasion of frost.

As Wicks neared the house, he saw, leaning over the gates, the humped outline of a motionless figure.

With a thrill of prescience he recognized the silent watcher. It was Bolingbroke.

As he gazed in awed admiration, Bolingbroke abruptly turned his massive head and shot a look of interrogation. Wicks thought he detected surprise— the astonishment of a man suddenly confronted with his own shadow.

In the pride of that mutual recognition, he almost forgot the urgency of his errand, until Bolingbroke recalled it.

"Want to go in?"

He moved away from the gates as he spoke.

"No, thank you, sir." Although his voice was beyond his control, Wicks chose his words with care, in his anxiety to create his impression.

"I'm here— merely as a spectator. I trust you will not credit me with any nefarious designs. But the truth is that my affairs cause this house to be of vital interest to me. In short, sir, I'm watching the windows."

Bolingbroke started. Then he made an illustrative motion— the gesture of one who has subdued the art of pantomime to supplement public oratory.

Wicks nodded.

"That's it, sir. I'm waiting to see if those blinds come down.... I am sure I don't know why I should intrude my little affairs on you, but—it would make all the difference to me."

"How's that?"

The question was almost barked.

Carolus Wicks felt in his pocket. Even in the exposition of the calamity that was blasting him, the fact that he was about to establish a basis: of intimate confidence between his idol and himself drew its sting from the situation. He was drenched with the unreasoning elation of a fulfilled dream.

With trembling fingers, he presented his card.

"Perhaps you'll condescend to read that, sir?" He persisted in his attitude of humility, with an artful impulse to render the moment of self-revelation more overwhelming. "Yes, sir... an uncommon name. Useful asset in trade.... Well, sir, for some years, for various causes, I've been playing a losing game. I've been up against big odds—" he threw open his chest with a militant gesture— "cramped for want of capital when I wanted to expand. It's maddening to feel yourself full of suppressed power throttled up inside you like steam with no outlet— all driven back upon you till it breaks you up— all because you're too strong for your limits and can't open out!"

He saw that Bolingbroke was studying him with intent interest.

"Go on!" he commanded.

"So, sir, I borrowed. But it wasn't enough. Not for me. And the luck turned against me. You may be the pluckiest caller in the world, but it doesn't help when the other holds the cards. And so—" he swallowed in his throat, searching for some fitting phrase wherewith to veil his ignominy—"so, at this present minute, sir, I— I'm afraid I can't call myself solvent!"

Bolingbroke laughed shortly.

"Broke? It's happened before. But— where's the connection between you— and this?"

He jerked his thumb towards the line of gleaming windows.

Recalled to a sense of fast-dissolving reality, Wicks spoke soberly.

"Because, even now, at the eleventh hour, a little ready money might help me to tide over. In the drapery, especially in small towns, it's customary to include an undertaking branch. And the old gentleman lying up there is"— he tapped his forehead before he remembered the status of his auditor. "What I mean is he's what you would call an eccentric."

"What I call a ruddy crank," amended Bolingbroke curtly.

"Precisely, sir. In any case, he's had his funeral planned and entrusted to me these two years. I assure you, it will be more like a pageant than a funeral. Make live men feel there's some compensation, if they've got to go. And— it will be a cash transaction."

Bolingbroke frowned incredulously.

"Mean to tell me twopence would set you on your legs again?"

"Everything is a matter of degree."

Wicks spoke stiffly. Yet even while his failure seemed of pitiful inadequacy, that strange, exultant conviction reminded him that he was— in some dim way— a participant in a vast financial collapse.

Bolingbroke seemed to have forgotten his companion, as he leaned over the gate in brooding melancholy.

Suddenly he turned, and spoke as though on impulse.

"Your story has interested me— extraordinarily. We are total strangers. Yet the curious fact is that your history might be my own. In miniature, of course. Know me?"

As he tilted his chin arrogantly, Wicks gasped at the amazing modesty of the query.

"Is there anyone who doesn't know Mr. Horatio Bolingbroke? The papers—"

"Ah, yes, the Press— curse it!" Bolingbroke glowered at a corner of cheap ivory-tinted paper that protruded from Wicks's pocket. "Then you know that I'm on the verge of an almighty smash. And— same as in your case— I stand to be richer by some six figures by that man's death.... God! If only those blinds would come down!"

Both men stared at the house. It seemed to stand out from its background with additional prominence, now that the twilight was beginning to fall. The clouds were rolling away, and against a strip of lemon-green sky, Sirius showed faintly, as a point of silver wire. A thrush, on a naked copper-beech, burst into its recurrent phrase.

Bolingbroke consulted his watch.

"Ought to be over. Lord, we're a pair of precious churchyard ghouls, on the gloat."

"I know." Wicks spoke deprecatingly. "But I understand that this operation can only give partial relief— merely a prolongation of misery. God knows I wish for no man's death!"

"And God knows I do!" Bolingbroke gripped Wicks's shoulder and spoke in a sharpened tone.

"Look man— look!"

At one of the windows appeared the figure of a woman in a nursing uniform. Even at that distance, Wicks could distinguish the raven wings of hair that framed a pale, melancholy face with the racial traits of a Jewess.

Her poise was instinct with fate as she raised her arm.

"Pull, woman!"

A passion of force was concentrated in Bolingbroke's whisper. Wicks noticed his hands, as they gripped the gate, and shuddered to see how instantly the veins started out in swollen lumps.

The nurse stood motionless for a space. It seemed to Wicks that, in that moment of suspense, the atmosphere was rarefied to the cracking-point of tensity, and he feared to draw a breath, lest a feather should disturb the balance.

The woman threw open the window and turned away.

Bolingbroke smothered an oath. Regaining his self-control, he turned to his companion.

"Odd that we— strangers— should be partners in this deal!"

"No, it's not odd at all."

Wicks purposely omitted the "sir" that marked the division of values. His eyes glowed brilliantly from the pallor of his face. While he felt that the great moment of revelation was at hand, he distrusted his own temerity.

"It's not odd," he repeated defiantly. "It is Destiny.... I must ask you to listen to some strange facts, which you can verify. You and I were born on the same date—April 2, 1874. No, don't interrupt! We were both married in 1898—went into business in 1900.... There's lots more, too. Personal tastes all duplicated. Oh, I've ferreted it out. Asked roundabout questions, read chatty paragraphs— 'Who's Who'—"

Bolingbroke interrupted.

"Trust the Press to know a man's name and business before he is born! You're sober, man, aren't you? Well, what was your object in this— inquisition?"

Wicks grasped at the remnant of his courage.

"Because I have always admired you above all other men. I can't make you realize what you stand for to me. Bigness. That's it. And although I'm only a small tradesman, I've felt bigness, too— inside me. And I've felt it wonderful that we should pair like we do. In looks too. I've often been mistaken for you."

Bolingbroke scrutinized him intently.

"Strange," he said at last, "that a man should not know his own face! Well— what do you make of it all— my Double?"

Wicks caught at the words.

"You've said it," he shouted. "Doubles! I'm you and you're me." The air seemed to thresh under his feet as he spluttered into speech. "We're one Person— in halves. We rise together, sink together.... That's why I don't mind being poor and insignificant, because, through you, I've got my stake in something big. Fate. And you can't alter Fate!"

For answer, Bolingbroke pointed to the house.

"Fate," he repeated. "There's our fate. It's over!"

As he spoke the front door opened yet wider, and from the shadows of the portico a chauffeur appeared. Under his ministrations, the automobile purred its readiness for departure.

Three men stood upon the threshold. Bolingbroke pointed to one of them— a spare gray man, with something of the bristling activity and intelligence of a rat. This was the famous surgeon, who harnessed inspiration to mathematical precision and inexhaustible nerve.

"Jayne— the throat-man. He's the last word. I know him. He'll put me wise."

He passed his hand over his brow as he spoke. Wicks was horrified to notice that his face was thickly beaded with great drops of moisture. He viewed them with a feeling of shame as of a devotee who sees the brazen features of his god melt in the furnace.

He was relieved to find himself alone. The air was sharpened at the first invasion of night-frost, and he saw his own breath faintly. In the gathering darkness, the garden showed as a sloe-bloom blue vagueness, against which the naked black tree-trunks of the foreground stood out with the sharpness of scaffolding. Sirius now blazed in electric fire in the violet heavens.

With his eyes fixed on the figures of the four men, now in conversation, Wicks, with his confused sense of merged destinies, trembled at the magnitude of Bolingbroke's stake. A town had grown under his fingers, as a card-castle. And as a player hesitates to lay the topmost card, lest it destroy the balance, so Bolingbroke towered over a tottering structure of factories, shops, offices. One card too many— one venture too hazardous.... On the clear air, Bolingbroke's laugh rang out.

Wicks's gasp was almost a sob. So all was well.

Suddenly he was conscious of a teasing sensation, as of the wings of butterflies beating on his face. Putting up his hand, he found, to his surprise, that drops of sweat were coursing slowly down his cheeks.

Unwittingly, he had duplicated Bolingbroke's agony of suspense.

The crunching of gravel recalled him to reality. Bolingbroke was walking briskly in his direction.

Wicks marked every detail of his appearance— the gray frock-coat, the white spats— the apricot carnation. Once again, he gloried in the erect carriage of his head and the composure of the face. Some powerful counter-emotion had erased all signs of the vigil.

"Well?"

"Bolingbroke looked at the sanguine face.

"Success. Another two years to go, Jayne says. Wonderful 'op,' I'm told. Big score for Jayne."

Wicks paled— incredulous of the verdict. So great a crash—while not even a whisper had stirred the evening peace!

"And you—" he stammered; "what will happen to you?"

"To me?" Bolingbroke thrust out his jaw with a truculent movement. "I start over again. That's all."

That was all. Yet Wicks could not comprehend.

"All over again? You! Sink to the bottom? When you've reached the top? Impossible! When you—"

Bolingbroke cut him short roughly.

"Good lord, man— it's not what I was! That's past and done with. It's what I am!"

With a nod of farewell, he turned away. But Wicks caught at his arm.

"And me— I—"

"Ah! It's your funeral too! I forgot. Well, you start over again too, I take it. Don't we pair— my Double?"

Unconscious of any mockery in the smile, Wicks gazed after the receding figure. In this revelation of strength, Bolingbroke outgrew humanity, and Wicks beheld him towering through a Brocken mist.

The glory of the moment bubbled through his veins like strong wine, stirring within him a riot of sensations. Like one who has sustained the shock of explosion, his faculties were still fluttering vagrants, and his personality a blank vessel for strange tenancy. He was filled with his realization of the supremacy of the Will— the impregnability of the Soul. The Wheel had broken them; yet he and Bolingbroke had arisen from the dust and faced the future— empty yet unafraid.

He walked down the hill, grinding star-dust under his feet.

"Not what I was! What I am!"

At every stride his mind leaped ahead, in pursuit of myriad possibilities. His new start would be unhampered by his old cramped methods. He was now free to develop his operations— to ramify. Plans should no longer be passive captives in brain-cells, but active factors towards success. His past mistakes stood out as milestones towards victory— each a memorial to an error that need never be duplicated. Akin to the Fire of London that cleansed a plague-area, his failure stood revealed in its true glory.

His face heated, his eyes afire, he marched in the middle of the road— a giant among pygmies, while overhead in the darkening sky a belt and sword of stars showed that he walked in titanic company.

He was recalled to a sense of traffic-regulations by a petulant hoot, and he leaped to the pavement, flush with one of the smaller houses.

The gas of the sitting-room had been just lit, and its beam filtered through a rose silk shade with a fringe of pendant crystal beads.

The sight of the decoration reminded Wicks of a similar ornament in the process of manufacture at home.... May would miss her parlor sadly; her puny ambitions became concrete realities in the shapes of cushions and ornaments. Women were like that— bound to little things.

Yet while he pitied her for the limitations of her imagination, the austerity of the new venture claimed May for the first victim.

His face was sober as he neared the end of the road which debouched into the main street, aglow with lavish illumination.

On every side of Wicks were brilliantly lighted shops, each, according to its prosperity, a phase of that trade which he was to exploit to the pinnacle of fortune. In some vague manner, they chilled the hot flow of his confidence.

He looked through the windows of a grocer's shop, towards the counter, behind which a sunken-checked man in a white apron, sliced bacon in a machine. He bore the same name as that emblazoned on the shop-sign:

MUNSTER STORES
LATE CHAS. KING

"Suppose I shall have to take a berth, like poor King!"

Wicks instinctively lowered his head, as though warding off a blow between the eyes.

To divert the current of his thoughts, he speculated on the nature of Bolingbroke's second venture. Impossible to conceive him apron-girt and counter-bound! It was easier to picture him as fustian-clad and breaking stones, in symbolic action.

But his mind refused to respond to the stimulus of Bolingbroke. All those small houses and contemptible retail-shops were so much garnered earth-force that, through sheer force of gravity, had sucked his feet from the stars.

He found himself thinking of a little shop, with uneven boards, that, in at least two corners, terminated in a mouse-hole. The mahogany counter was cumbered with stacks of heavy goods— pink flannelette and gray linings. Emerald-green and Wedgwood-blue cardboard boxes advertised their treasure of lace and ribbon through many a broken side. Bunches of purple calico violets and yellow primroses were festooned overhead in floral gala. The air was faintly heavy with the odor of unbleached calico.

And, stretching from the shop, the unseen channels that nourished a home, a wife, a family— the unseen strands that bound him to the honorable traditions of the trade— the unseen web of happy associations and the bloom of memories.

Suddenly he became aware of violent internal compression—an unfamiliar sensation which he resisted with all the force of his manhood. He almost ran past a small building whose closed shutters indicated that another small shop was dead.

His latch-key was impotently scraping the paint from the door, when it was opened, and his wife stood before him. He noticed that her lashes were matted with tears.

He shook his head.

"No luck!"

Then the passage was momentarily blotted out, and he was only dimly aware of his wife's arm leading him into the parlor, while with shaking fingers she fluttered something white before his eyes.

"It's just come. The check from Uncle Elijah! Oh, Carolus, we're saved!"

He stared at it with incredulous eyes.

"No, no," he cried incoherently. "It can't be. Can't go against Destiny. Bolingbroke smashed and I—"

"Bolingbroke? What has Bolingbroke to do with you? Look!" May's voice rose in an hysterical note. "Look at the check! Can't you realize it?"

Instead of obeying her, Carolus Wicks looked in the glass.

He saw a man with an ill-proportioned head, a shock of rough hair, plebeian features, watery eyes and a tremendous mouth. A face totally lacking in distinction. The face of a nonenity. The face of any small man—of any little tradesman.

Ay, but of a solvent tradesman. While Bolingbroke was a beggar.

Could he realize it? For answer, Carolus Wicks laid his head upon his wife's shoulder, and while she sobbed in happy unison, revealed the full depths— and heights— of his realization.

______________________

18: It Hung on a Thread

Braidwood Dispatch and Mining Journal (NSW) 4 Oct 1946

Pearson’s Magazine, April 1933

THE Derby was being run and fortunes lay in the balance. But although Mortlake Fry was a confirmed gambler, he merely noted the time subconsciously. A more thrilling race was being run in the big family town-house— a race between life and death. If his cousin, Monkey Fry, died a minor or intestate, Mortlake would inherit the accumulated reserves of the fortune of Grandfather Fry, the millionaire shipowner. To-morrow Monkey would be twenty-one... and at that minute he lay in an upper bedroom, fighting for every breath, and almost at his last gasp.

The marvel was that he had reached his present age. A sickly, deformed infant, he had nearly died half a score of times; and when he reached adolescence he further ruined his chance of maturity by burning the candle at both ends. On his twentieth birthday, however— inspired not by the wish to live but by a secret definite purpose— he turned over a new leaf, cutting out nightlife and going on the water-wagon. Mortlake saw his hopes of inheritance dwindle daily as Monkey slowly drew nearer to his inheritance. Almost at the end his gambler's luck gave a sudden twist, when Monkey was smitten by a smart attack of influenza. To-day would probably settle the issue.

Unable to keep still, Mortlake paced the vast library. He was in the early thirties, tall and good-looking; but his appearance was just a shade too polished, his manners too suave. He was popular with women, but men would not accept him as a friend.

He had never missed a Derby before. For a second he had a vivid picture of the familiar course, the cluster of horses round Tottenham Corner and the swift thunder down the straight. But, almost directly, his thoughts shifted back to Monkey, sinking into coma, in the big bed upstairs.

He looked up at the entrance of his wife. She was a tall, striking-looking woman with an ivory, mask-like face, Chinese eyes and a long mop of crinkled black hair. Her name, 'Flor,' had been casually chosen from the lid of a cigar-box.

'What's won?' she asked.

'It'll be on the wireless,' replied her husband. They could have got the news by merely turning a screw, but although both had telegraphed their bets, the Derby faded into insignificance before the main crisis.

'I've just met Nurse Hopkins,' said Plor. 'She says there's no doubt he's sinking fast.'

'Old stuff!' sneered Mortlake. 'They've been saying that as long as I can remember. The blighter, won't die until he's signed his will and cut me out.'

'Hates you?' Flor smiled faintly. 'How strange.'

'Hates me like poison. And not so strange.' Mortlake's perfect teeth flashed under the black shading of his small moustache as he remembered the many times he— a handsome, strapping schoolboy— had tormented the puny, misshapen child.

His wife, watching him with inscrutable, Chinese eyes, easily followed the flow of his thoughts.

'You're losing your nerve,' she said. 'Suppose we call in the poor relation and get her to compound.'

As she anticipated, the remark stung Mortlake to anger.

'Compound?' he snarled. 'I'd rather lose out altogether than share with that girl. And you know it.'

Flor knew. There was no real love between the pair, but they were well matched and held together by mutual attraction.

The butler, passing by the open door, saw them linked together, and his clean-shaven lip curled in scorn.

'What's that pair of crooks up to now?' he wondered. Like the rest of the staff, he had no affection for Monkey. But where the young master had chastised him with whips, he expected Mortlake to use scorpions. All his hopes of the future were centred on the poor relation— Nan Fry.

NAN was upstairs in her large, luxurious bedroom, where she passed most of her time. She had felt confused and strange ever since she had arrived at the house, a week ago, at the lawyer's bidding. Moreover, she disliked meeting Flor and Mortlake.

It was not only the fact that the beautifully-dressed woman of the world made her self-conscious of her inferiority, which caused her to shrink into her hiding-place, but she was instinctively repelled by the attitude of the couple. They reminded her of vultures waiting to pounce down on the corpse. Although she was guiltless of wire-pulling, they made her feel ashamed of her own position as second claimant. She had sufficient honesty to realise the position, for she was finding life almost impossibly hard. When the lawyer, Mr. Willis, told her the news, it had the force of a blow.

'Oh, I do wish you hadn't told me,' she cried, 'I don't want to look forward to anyone's death. But I won't think of it. I won't!'

The lawyer smiled in encouragement, for this girl appealed to him, for her grey eyes held courage and self-reliance.

'You mustn't feel like that,' he said. 'Your poor cousin is doomed. He has only kept himself alive by his urgent wish that you should have half his property.'

'But he doesn't know me,' protested Nan.

The lawyer stroked Its lip, for he knew that Nan had not really entered into the picture. He remembered the malicious grin on Monkey's face when he told his wishes to the lawyer.

'Bequeath half to the poor relation, and spread the other half among charities,' he said. 'The noble Mortlake will so enjoy seeing his money go to blind babies and old horses.'

Ever since Nan had done her utmost not to think of what she stood to gain, but she could not help wondering what the future might hold for her father, Captain Fry.

He was a charming gentleman and a gallant officer, but his luck had been bad, so that at the age of fifty-seven he was unable to find employment and was dependent on Nan, who worked in a large store. Her constant nightmare was the real peril of being dismissed, as, owing to the depression, there was continuous reduction of staff. Captain Fry, as a man of the world, could appreciate Monkey's meteoric career in vice at its true value, so he viewed the situation without Nan's sentiment

'If the poor chap had his health we'd wish him a long life,' he said. 'But if he's got to pass out, pray he may live to make his will. It will be our salvation.'

Nan could tell by the break in his voice that the glory of new life was already shining on an horizon which, hitherto, had held no dawn. Her heart swelled as she thought of his pluck and cheerful patience in an intolerable position of dependence and that painful poverty which exacts every kind of personal economy.

She looked round her enormous room, cool from shaded balconies and fragrant with choice flowers, and when she thought of her father, stewing in his tiny bedroom in an apartment-house which smelt of gas-stove and cabbage, she felt hot and angry at the contrast.

Fortunately, she had never realised the amount of the fortune at stake. Unlike Mortlake, who spent his time in problematic estimates, she only thought of a few vague salient points. Her father could afford his subscription at his old club, and she would leave the store. She had a vision of a sunny garden where her father pottered happily about in an old suit, budding roses.

But to-day these things were mirages on the desert sand. The morning's bulletin about Monkey was most depressing. Nurse Hopkins did not mince her words when she met Nan in the corridor.

'He's only hanging on by sheer willpower. If he was one of my own I'd be glad when it was over. It's suicide for him to see that lawyer to-day.'

Nurse Hopkins had no knowledge of the fact that her patient came of age on the morrow or of the important issues which hung on a few strokes of the pen.

As Nan looked at her soft brown eyes for one moment she was tempted to tell her all and to beg her to keep her cousin keyed up for the final effort. But distaste of trying on dead men's shoes before they were discarded had kept her silent. The telephone bell hummed with its muffled note. As she had feared, Captain Fry was at the other end of the wire.

'Well, darling ' His voice was intense with a hope which was almost painful. 'Is he holding his own?'

'Yes, Daddy.'

'Thank Heaven. I always expect to hear he's passed out in the night. Only one day more.'

'Yes. But, darling, he's much weaker. Don't— don't count on anything.'

'Of course not.' Captain's Fry's voice rang out like a trumpet. 'We shall be no worse off than before. And we've had all the excitement of helping to lift ourselves out of the rut for a bit.'

'Yes. I must ring off. Somebody's knocking. Daddy, is it very hot in the flat?'

'A bit sultry, but I like it. A good preparation for my hereafter. Goodbye, darling. Good luck.'

Nan swallowed down the lump in her throat as she opened the door to a maid who bore a message. 'The nurse says the master would like to see you, please, miss.'

NAN had to screw up her courage for the ordeal as she walked down the broad corridor, scented with roses from the roof-garden at its far end.

She had only seen Monkey once, when her father had forcibly introduced her to her cousin in a restaurant. She remembered an undersized youth, in immaculate evening dress, with a tight, parchment-pale face and old, cynical eyes. He was in the company of some smart and sophisticated, women, and he made no secret of the fact that he was not interested in his young relative.

The bedroom, which had belonged to Grandfather Fry, was of vast proportions which dwarfed even the heavy furniture, all of which were museum-bits. Nan's eye was caught at once by a large oil-painting of Grandfather Fry hanging over a marble console-table on which stood an enormous cut-crystal bowl of great value. It was plain to see that Monkey had inherited his appearance from him, for even the flattery of the portrait painter depicted him as a dwarfish monkey-like man. Yet he dominated the scene by his expression, with its ruthless fixity of will.

'In the end you will all of you have to reckon with me,' it said.

Nan crossed to the great carved walnut bed, and with an effort looked down on Monkey. He was even more shrunken, and his simian face was grey, but she no longer felt the instinctive antipathy of her first meeting. A sudden rush of pity made her eyes fill with tears. Monkey looked faintly interested in her emotion.

'Nan?' he queried weakly.

'Yes.' She tried to smile. 'Silly name. Like a goat'

'No. Old Morty's the goat. Nan, I want you to have my money.'

'Oh— don't!'

'Yes... Yes. You. Not him.' His voice faded from weakness, and Nurse Hopkins touched Nan and nodded towards the door. Nan took Monkey's hand instinctively and spoke to him, as though he were one of her brothers— now boarded out in charity schools.

'Get well,' she said huskily.

When the door had closed behind her Monkey lay, nursing his strength for the lawyer's visit. For the first time in his life he was responsive to a rush of human sympathy which his instinct recognised as genuine. Women had looked at him with amusement, cupidity or contempt; but Nan's grey eyes held such kindness that even, the insult of her pity could not hurt him. He told himself that the poor relation seemed down on her luck. She knew what it was to be hungry; in that case they could shake hands, for, owing to a defective gland— or something equally amusing— he was practically starved to death.

He was a moralist's awful warning on the penalties of misapplied wealth; but his spirit was still strong as he nodded to the portrait of Grandfather Fry.

'You don't want that gambler, Mortlake, to get your tin, old-timer?' he thought. 'I know. Leave it to me.'

Punctually at four o'clock the lawyer entered the bedroom, accompanied by his clerk. He rather resembled a character from Dickens, being thin and dark, with a shrivelled, apple-red face above an old-fashioned stock. He had come to read to Monkey his completed will and testament.

As the heavy black curtains fell behind him Mortlake and Flor appeared in the corridor. It was here that the drama of the race between life and death was chiefly staged. Sooner or later everyone in the house came to the corridor.

The butler, as official courier for the domestic staff, frequently stole over the thick carpet, which muffled every footfall, to get the latest news from the nurses. Mortlake and Flor seldom left their station on a divan, which commanded a view of Monkey's bedroom door.

They talked together in whispers as they smoked cigarettes endlessly. The sight of them always repelled Nan, because of then suggestion of being on the spot to take instant possession. She was forced to be a spectator against her will, since the lawyer had told her to remain on the premises lest Monkey should ask for her. In order to get some fresh air she usually sat in the roof-garden at the end of the corridor.

Barely ten minutes after his arrival the lawyer came out of Monkey's bedroom, accompanied by his clerk. Both men looked ominously grave. From behind her screen of pink and crimson roses Nan saw Flor and Mortlake advance to meet the lawyer. But she would not join the group; although their interests were identical her pride refused to fight for scraps of news with the other vultures.

She had to come out of her refuge, however, when Mortlake softly called her name. She knew at once that things had come out against her.

'Mr. Wills has some very bad news for us, I am sorry to say.' Mortlake's voice was suavely regretful.  'He is afraid that poor Monkey is sinking.'

The lawyer nodded.

'I very much fear he has transacted his last bit of business,' he said. 'Although it was so trifling, the effort was too much for him. He collapsed directly afterwards. The nurse is now telephoning the doctor.'

IT was not until the blow had fallen that Nan realised how much she had been building subconsciously on the future. Now the door was slammed In her face. Steeling herself to endure Flo's smile, she waited in the corridor for the doctor's arrival. He came soon after the summons, and without speaking to anyone hurried into Monkey's room. It seemed a very long time before he came out again.

He was a big, important looking man, with a sphinx like face, which Nan scanned in vain for some gleam of hope.

'Well, doctor?' Mortlake spoke with exaggerated anxiety. 'How is he?'

'I can tell you nothing definite,' replied the doctor. 'I have Just given' him an injection. The danger is that his strength may give out before he can respond to It.'

'I see.' Mortlake glanced at Nan. 'Would he respond sufficiently to sign his name?'

'Surely you don't intend to worry the poor fellow with business?' protested the doctor.

'Of course not!' cried Nan indignantly. 'But can you tell me if there is any hope?'

'While there's life,' murmured the doctor tritely.

The doctor left a disturbed mental atmosphere in his wake; but Nurse Hopkins, who appeared at the door for a minute's interview, had no hope at all.

'He's letting himself go,' she whispered. 'He's lost the wish to live.'

Nan went back to her room with leaden feet. She could not endure the thought of her father's disappointment when he heard the news. But there was nothing to be done now but wait for the end.

Presently she began to dress for dinner. Although she longed to plead illness her pluck would not let her shirk the ordeal. She went to the dining-room feeling sorry for herself, sorry for her father, and, above all, sorry for poor Monkey. No one teemed to care about his death. To the lawyer he was a client— to the doctor and nurses 'the patient'— to Mortlake and Flor legitimate prey.

Unable to eat while at any moment he might be drifting out, she sat in a dejection which provoked Flor to a sudden attack.

'Is this a pose?' she asked. 'Or has hope deferred taken away your appetite?'

As Nan remained obstinately silent Flor laughed sarcastically.

'Don't be a humbug,' she said. 'The only difference between us is that we are honest.'

Nan looked at Flor's dinner-gown of palest pink angel-skin. 'No,' she dissented. 'The chief difference is that I need money more than you could dream of. But I'd rather die in the gutter than wish for someone to die.'

Pushing away her chair, she ran from the room, followed by the butler's sympathetic gaze.

But although she did not know it, even then the tide had begun to turn. By imperceptible degrees Monkey was passing from the coma of exhaustion to the fringe of sleep. Although Nurse Hopkins went off duty in the firm belief that his life would flicker out during the night, the nurse who relieved her took a more optimistic view.

Nurse Black was a buxom Scotch lassie, red and smiling as the dawn. When she opened the door of the bedroom later in the evening, Nan, who was pretending to read a magazine in the corridor, felt a sudden revival of confidence.

THE nurse whispered her bulletin to the handsome couple in Impressive evening dress.

'His strength is being maintained. What he needs is a long sleep. Of course he's in a bad way, but I've pulled through patients who've been a lot worse than he is. I'm always lucky with my cases.'

Beaming on them, she shut the door.

Flor turned abruptly and went into her own room, followed by her husband. The curtains were drawn, but she stopped Mortlake when he went to switch on the light.

'No, don't. Mortlake, he's going to rally.'

'Well, it's not my fault.'

'Listen!' Her face glimmered whitely in the heavy-scented gloom. 'You've got to do something.'

He was caught by the meaning in her voice.

'Do you mean—?' he whispered.

'Yes.'

'You're mad. I'm not a bloke who bumps people off. Too squeamish.'

'Too cowardly.'

'Now, don't be a blooming fool. Do you want me to drop poison in his medicine or choke him, just to amuse the nurse? Besides, If I could— I draw the line at murder!'

'Then you're going to let a fortune slip through your fingers.' Flor's whisper was vicious as the hiss of a snake.

'Don't rub it In',' muttered Mortlake. 'Anyway, there's no chance of getting away with it. I'd only swing.'

With a sudden change of mood Flor laughed. 'No, I can't spare you, my brave, strong man. Besides, you'd only bungle it.'

'Go on, sneer. But I'm dead to shame. Besides, I don't believe in that Highland lassie and her white-heather luck, I tell you Monkey's all in. His life's hanging only on a slight thread.'

'And don't forget, a fortune is hanging on that same thread. We can risk nothing. I must think.'

She dropped into a chair and pressed her fingertips to her brow, while her husband, in a sort of hypnotised trance, watched the light glitter on her scarlet nails. The room— like the rest of the house— was so still that the ticking of a clock in the corridor could be heard faintly, like the beating of a dying mans heart.

The great mansion was situated in a quiet residential square, and the layer of tar on the road deadened the sounds of occasional traffic. There was only a discreet hum of engine and a muffled rattle whenever a car passed by. Presently Flor stared at her husband with eyes expressionless as black lacquer.

'Sleep,' she murmured. 'The nurse said he needs deep, refreshing sleep. Suppose he was suddenly aroused by some loud noise. The shock would prove fatal.'

Mortlake shook his head. 'My dear girl,' he said, 'this barracks of a place isn't your ancestral gingerbread flat. Grandfather Fry's bedroom is soundproof. He had it specially constructed with double walls and doors to shut him off completely from the rest of the house. The Last Trump wouldn't wake Monkey if Gabriel sounded It in the corridor.'

Suddenly mindful of the empty stage and the unfinished drama, Flor rose.

'Let's go outside and wait,' she said.

Nan was already seated in the corridor, an unopened magazine on her lap. There could be no question of going to bed in the present state of tension, she glanced at Flor and Mortlake, but as they ignored her completely she pretended to read, although conscious the while of their hostile atmosphere. In a hot, airless silence they awaited the last bulletin.

IT was nearly eleven when there was a stir behind the black velvet curtain, and Nurse Black appeared In the corridor. It was plain that she bore good news, for she was smiling.

'He's in a nice natural sleep,' she told them. 'His pulse is stronger. In fact, he's doing fine.'

'Oh, I'm glad,' cried Nan. 'Will he get really well?'

In spite of her optimism Nurse Black would not go too far.

'Well, we must take short views for the present. But I expect a real improvement to-morrow.'

'Oh, good!' remarked Mortlake, as he lit a cigarette with shaking fingers. He was doing his utmost to observe the decencies, but there was an ugly gleam in his eyes as he turned to Nan.

'You win,' he said, forcing a smile. 'Congratulations!'

Before she could protest, Nurse Black interposed, driving the three of them before her like a motherly hen.

'Now to bed, all of you, and get some sleep. Don't worry about the laddie any more.'

Nan was grateful to obey. Sensitive to the vibrations of the clash of human passions, she was appalled by her recent glimpse into the depths. While Mortlake's cupidity disgusted her, Flor's eyes filled her with actual fear.

'I believe she'd murder him,' she thought. 'But thank Heaven he's too well watched. She hasn't the chance.'

Her own conscience was clear. She knew that, had she the power over life, Monkey would live to reach the allotted span. But when she reached her room it mocked her no longer by its ironic luxury, but seemed a sanctuary. There was magic in the leaping reminder that one day it might actually be hers, and that the spectres of poverty and unemployment would be banished for ever.

She was about to ring up her father to cheer him with news of the latest development, but she laid down the instrument again.

'Better not raise false hopes. Too many bridges yet to cross. Monkey may not rally enough to sign.'

Although her lids were leaden, she could not get to sleep. Presently she became aware that she was nervous of some hidden peril. A submerged sense of caution kept her continually on the jump so that she started at the slightest sound.

'At this minute,' she thought, 'I am the most important person in this house. I'm the heir. If anything happened to me in the night Mortlake would come into the fortune.'

It was not a pleasant bedtime thought as she remembered the relentless blackness of Flor's Chinese eyes. Even while she told herself that she was the victim of fantastic suspicion, she crumpled at last under the strain, of the cumulative suspense of the day.

Slipping out of bed, she locked her door.

Her melodramatic action proved an almost instant cure for insomnia. Almost directly she dropped off to sleep, with no premonition of a swift and terrifying awakening.

Yet she need not have feared for her personal safety, for far more important issues were at stake.

When Flor and Mortlake reached their room Mortlake bit off a curse and then began to tear off his collar.

'Well, that's that.' He spoke with affected calm. 'Better get to bed.'

'Don't undress.' Flor's command was curt. 'We've got to work quickly.'

Her husband turned on her with sullen resentment, 'I thought I'd told you I'm not going to get into a jam. Hanging's a bad pain to the neck.'

'Don't worry, but do as I tell you. You've only got to order a drink. And that's no hardship to you.'

'Why?'

'Because you must keep that wretched butler away from the hall. Tell him to bring you a gin-and-it into the library, and when he's there, hold him. Talk about the race. Ask him what he backed. Discuss form. Anything.'

Once again Flor bent her husband to her win. When Mortlake crossed the vast marble ball the butler appeared as usual, from some ambush. Like the family, he was constantly on the alert for fresh developments.

Mortlake  obeyed his wife's instructions, although he found it a strain to talk easily to the man with whom he had never established cordial relations. His eyes strayed continuously to his watch, while his anxiety in; creased with the passage of each minute. He did not trust Flor, and feared she might drag him, after her, into the pit.

Presently, at a faint but welcome sound to the hall, he drained his glass and, without a parting word to the butler, hurried from the library.

Racing up the stairs, he burst into his bedroom, to find Flor lying on the . bed, blowing rings up to the ceiling.

'Well?' he asked.

'Well,' she repeated. 'Nothing to tell, except that I wouldn't sell my chance of a fortune now for ten thousand pounds.'

Mortlake felt a flicker of sudden hope, but he knew that she was in her  irritable mood when it was useless to question her. As he watched her, she raised her read, in a tense poise of listening, like a cobra about to strike. The next second the sound reached his own ears— a far-away roar, like a series of small explosions. Almost immediately it worked up to a crescendo of metallic din, shattering the stillness of the Square, as a fire engine— followed by a second and then a third —crashed past the houses with dynamic force and fury.

The night was oppressively hot, so the windows were open to Monkey's room, where he lay lingering reluctantly to the dim border-land between life and death. Recalled to reality too violently by the note, the shock gave him his welcome release. His heart gave one leap, like a wounded bird, and then ceased to beat.

THE din awoke Nan, who leaped from bed trembling from a premonition of disaster. She forgot that she had locked the door, and tugged at it to a panic, believing she was trapped to a fire. When she reached Monkey's room her first glance at the shrunken figure to the bed told her that her cousin was dead. Completely stunned by the tragedy, she scarcely heard Nurse Black's lament.

'First case I've lost this year.  But it was just sheer bad luck. No one could anticipate a fire alarm.'

Yet someone had anticipated it.

When they were together to their room again, Mortlake— for the first time to his experience— saw his wife's calm shattered by triumph and excitement.

'I slipped out to the call-box when you were holding the butler,' she explained. 'I gave them a frantic message that the hall at Number Twenty Three was on fire and the staircase was a furnace. I screamed that there were children sleeping on the top floor and we feared they would be cut off. You see, it's not far, and as it was a case of life and death, I guessed they'd turn out to force and come hell-for-leather.'

Mortlake regarded her with admiration. 'You're a better man than me,' be said. While he would have regarded the administration of poison or any act of violence as positive murder, his twisted mentality accepted the indirect method of achieving. Monkey's death as legitimate.

'What does it feel like to bump off a man, Lady Macbeth?' he asked.

'I did not murder him,' was the reply. 'I merely hastened the end. The doctor told us only to expect a flicker.'

That flicker would have been enough to have beggared us,' Mortlake smiled cruelly.  'The only darned thing the blighter wanted was to see me kicked into the gutter. Well, he knew he was licked. He must have hated it like hell.'

He broke off, at a sudden thought.

'Flor— will they suspect anything?'

'They may,' shrugged Flor. 'But they can prove nothing.'

Flor's forecast was correct, for the butler had his private suspicion of foul play. Like the other servants he had slept little, for he guessed that Mortlake would sack the entire staff.

WORRIED about his future, he waited for an opportunity to speak to Nan as she came reluctantly downstairs to breakfast.

'Might I speak to you in confidence, miss?' he asked. Nan nodded assent. Her eyes were black-ringed and her face seemed to have shrunk during the night, like some fragile spring flower nipped by an east wind.

'Have you heard that the fire at Number Twenty-three was a false alarm?' he asked. 'An act of malice on the part of some person unknown. Came from a call-office, so cannot be traced. But I'm of opinion as I could give a name to the lady.'

He lowered his voice. 'Last night, just before it happened, young Mr. Fry called me into the library to fetch him a drink, although there was whisky there. He kept me talking, although he's never been affable before, and he didn't listen to what was said. All the time he was listening, and that set me listening too. I heard the front door open and shut in a cautious way. And there he was off like a shot.'

Nan's eyes flashed as she listened, but almost immediately the fire died from her face.

'Even if this is true,' she said, 'it would be impossible to prove anything. We cannot bring the young master back to life. Don't repeat this to anyone, for it might injure your future prospects.'

'Very good, miss. I only felt you ought to know.'

It was the last thing Nan wanted to know. She was feeling the aftermath of frustrated hope. Besides, she was gripped by the horror underlying the man's whisper. If his conjecture were correct, someone in the house was a murderer. It could only be those who benefited by Monkey's death.

She shrank from the prospect of meeting Mortlake and Flor. The knowledge that she and her father had been cheated out of their inheritance made it difficult to accept Mortlake's triumphant smile as he greeted her with exaggerated courtesy.

She noticed at once that Flor had made her gesture, for She had sat down to breakfast to order to sit at the head of the table. It was her house, and she let Nan know it as she posed as hostess to a poor relation. Presently she mentioned the funeral.

'We would like you and your father to attend. Flowers are ruinous just now. I hope you will choose something worthy of poor Monkey, and have it put down to the bill for expenses.'

'Thank you.' Nan spoke with difficulty. 'Daddy and I will provide our own flowers.'

'As you like.' Flor shrugged her shoulders as her face suddenly changed from boredom to interest.

'Here's Wills coming up the street. He's an early bird.'

'Good man,' said her husband. 'Now we can talk business.'

MORTLAKE'S teeth flashed in a radiant smile as he met the lawyer at the front door with outstretched hand. Mr. Wills, however, merely nodded, and asked if Miss Fry were down.

'Having breakfast,' replied Mortlake heartily, leading the way to the morning-room. The lawyer followed him, a curious, dry smile flickering around his mobile lips. He lingered on the threshold to order to remark Flor's air of possession and Nan's troubled face. He admired the courage which urged her to force a smile as he took her cold hand.

'I came early,' he told her, 'to bring you some good news and to congratulate you. Your cousin, my late client, made a will leaving half his fortune to you.'

His speech had the effect of a bursting bombshell. Nan's face flooded with colour as she stared at him with startled, incredulous eyes. Flor sprang to her feet and gripped her husband's arm.

'Is this a bad Joke?' asked Mortlake icily. 'Monkey died intestate.'

'On the contrary,' replied the lawyer, drawing a long envelope from his overcoat pocket, 'I brought this will— ready prepared— to his bedroom yesterday at four o'clock. He signed his name, and my clerk and Nurse Hopkins witnessed the signature. Of course, they were bound to secrecy.'

Mortlake broke into a scornful and derisive laugh.

'Why will you persist to pulling my leg?' he asked. 'That will is only waste-paper. Monkey was a minor when he signed.'

The lawyer shook his head. 'A common fallacy,' he said. 'But it is a fact of law, although not a matter of common knowledge, that a person actually comes of age the day before his twenty-first birthday*— I explained this to the poor fellow and made him smile, although he was all in. I really believe the knowledge that his wishes were going to be carried out drew all the sting from death. It was his victory.'

________

* This decision is a case of the year 1771. It and other authorities will be found collected to Halsbury's Digest of the Laws of England, Vol. 37, p. 454 par. 898. The relevant passage is: 'If a man was born on the 1st February, and lived to the 31st January, twenty-one years after, and on five o'clock on the morning of that day makes his will and dies by six at night, that Will is good.' The name of the case is Roe & Wrangham v. Henry, 3rd Wilson's Reports, p. 274.

________________

Table of Contents

- 1: The Ghost Gavotte
- 2: The Unknown
- 3: Catastrophe
- 4: Thumbs Down
- 5: Underground
- 6: The Seven Years' Secret
- 7: A Bad-Good Woman
- 8: Noblesse Oblige
- 9: The Pillow
- 10: Maids of Honour
- 11: The Day
- 12: The Suicide and the Saint
- 13: The Counter-Irritant
- 14: The Cellar
- 15: Don't Dream on Midsummer's Eve
- 16: The Fairy Pot
- 17: If You Can... Lose
- 18: It Hung on a Thread