CHAPTER XIV

"My river runs to thee: Blue sea, wilt welcome me?"

--EMILY DICKINSON.

The winter, that dealt so sternly with Janet, smiled on Anne. She spent Christmas in London, for the Duke was, or at least he said he was, in too delicate a state of health to go to his ancestral halls in the country, where the Duchess had repaired alone, believing herself to be but the herald of the rest of her family; and where she was expending her fearful energy on Christmas trees, magic-lanterns, ventriloquists, entertainments of all kinds for children and adults, tenants, inmates of workhouses, country neighbours, Sunday School teachers, Mothers' Unions, Ladies' Working Guilds, Bands of Hope, etc., etc. She was in her element.

Anne and her father were in theirs. The Duke did not shirk the constant inevitable duties of his position, but by nature he was a recluse, and at Christmas-time he yielded to his natural bias. Anne also lived too much on the highway of life. She knew too many people, her sympathy had drawn towards her too many insolvent natures. She was glad to be for a time out of the pressure of the crowd. She and her father spent a peaceful Christmas and New Year together, only momentarily disturbed by the frantic telegrams of the Duchess, commanding Anne to despatch five hundred presents at one shilling suitable for schoolgirls, or forty ditto at half-a-crown for young catechists.

The New Year came in in snow and fog. But it was none the worse for that. On this particular morning Anne stood a long time at the window of her sitting-room, looking out at the impenetrable blanket of the fog. The newsboys were crying something in the streets, but she could hear nothing distinctive except the word "city."

Presently she took out of her pocket two letters, and read them slowly. There was no need for her to read them. Not only did she know them by heart, but she knew exactly where each word came on the paper. "Martial law" was on the left-hand corner of the top line of the second sheet. "Dependent on Kaffir labour" was in the middle of the third page. They were dilapidated-looking letters, possibly owing to the fact that they were read last thing every night and first thing every morning, and that they were kept under Anne's pillow at night, so that if she waked she could touch them. It is hardly necessary to add that they were in Stephen's small, cramped, mercantile handwriting.

Stephen had been recalled to South Africa on urgent business early in the autumn. He had been there for nearly three months. During that time, after intense cogitation, he had written twice to Anne. I am under the impression that he was under the impression that those two documents were love letters. At any rate, they were the only two letters which Stephen ever composed which could possibly be classed under that heading. And their composition cost him much thought. In them he was so good as to inform Anne of the population of the town he wrote from, its principal industries, its present distress under martial law. He also described the climate. His nearest approach to an impulsive outburst was a polite expression of hope that she and her parents were well, and that he expected to be in England again by Christmas. Anne kissed the signature, and then laughed till she cried over the letter. Stephen did, as a matter of fact, indite a third letter, but it was of so bold a nature--it expressed a wish to see her again--that, after reading it over about twenty times, he decided not to risk sending it.

When Anne was an old woman she still remembered the population of two distracted little towns in South Africa, and their respective industries.

Stephen was as good as his word. His large foot was once more planted on English soil a day or two before Christmas. In spite of an overwhelming pressure of business, he had found time to dine with Anne and her father several times since he arrived. The Duke had met him at a directors' meeting, and quite oblivious of Anne's refusal of him, had pressed him to come back with him to dinner. The Duke asked him constantly to dine after that. The old attraction between the two men renewed its hold.

These quiet evenings round the fire seemed to Stephen to contain the pith of life. The Duke talked well, but on occasion Stephen talked better. Anne listened. The kitchen cat, now alas! grown large and vulgar, with an unmodulated purr, was allowed to make a fourth in these peaceful gatherings, and had coffee out of Anne's saucer, sugared by Stephen, every evening.

Then, for no apparent reason, Stephen ceased to come.

Anne, who had endured so much suspense about him, could surely endure a little more. But it seemed she could not. For a week he did not come. In that one week she aged perceptibly. The old pain took her again, the old anger and resentment at being made to suffer, the old fierceness, "which from tenderness is never far." She had thought that she had conquered these enemies so often, that she had routed them so entirely, that they could never confront her again. But they did. In the ranks of her old foes a new one had enlisted--Hope; and Hope, if he forces his way into the heart where he has been long a stranger, knows how to reopen many a deep and barely healed wound, which will bleed long after he is gone.

And where were Anne's patience, her old steadfastness and fortitude? Could they be worn out?

As she stood by the window, trying to summon her faithless allies to her aid, her father came in, with a newspaper in his hand.

"This is serious," he said, "about Vanbrunt."

She turned upon him like lightning.

The Duke tapped the paper.

"I knew Vanbrunt was in difficulties," he said. "A week ago, when he was last here, he advised me sell out certain shares. It seems he would not sell out himself. He said he would see it through, and now the smash has come. I'm afraid he's ruined."

A beautiful colour rose to Anne's face. Her eyes shone. She felt a sudden inrush of life. She became young, strong, alert.

Her father was too much preoccupied to notice her.

"Vanbrunt is a fine man," he said. "He had ample time to get out. But he stuck to the ship, and he has gone down with it. I'm sorry. I liked him."

"Are you sure he is really ruined?"

"The papers say so. They also say he can meet his liabilities." The Duke read aloud a paragraph which Anne did not understand. "That spells ruin even for him," he said.

He took several turns across the room.

"He has been working day and night for the last week," he said, "to avoid this crash. It might have been avoided. He told me a little when he was last here, but in confidence. He is straight, but others weren't. He has not been backed. He has been let in by his partners."

The Duke sighed, and went back to his study on the ground floor.

Anne opened the window with a trembling hand, and peered out into the fog.

* * * * *

Stephen was sitting in his inner room at his office in the City, biting an already sufficiently bitten little finger. His face bore the mark of the incessant toil of the last week. His eyes were fixed absently on the electric light. His mind was concentrated with unabated strength on his affairs, as a magnifying glass may focus its light into flame on a given point. He had fought strenuously, and he had been beaten--not by fair means. He could meet the claims upon him. He could, in his own language, "stand the racket;" but in the eyes of the financial world he was ruined. In his own eyes he was on the verge of ruin. But a man with an iron nerve can find a foothold on precipices where another turns giddy and loses his head. Stephen's courage rose to the occasion. He felt equal to it. His strong, acute, alert mind worked indefatigably hour after hour, while he sat apparently idle. He was not perturbed. He saw his way through.

He heard the newsboys in the streets crying out his bankruptcy, and smiled. At last he drew a sheet of paper towards him, and became absorbed in figures.

He was never visible to anyone when he was in this inner chamber. His head clerk knew that he must not on any pretext be disturbed. And those who knew Stephen discovered that he was not to be disturbed with impunity.

He looked up at last, and rose to his feet, shaking himself like a dog.

"I can carry through," he said. "They think I can't, but I can. But if the worst comes to the worst--which it shall not--I doubt if I shall have a shilling left."

He took a turn in the room.

"Wait a bit, you fools," he said half aloud; "if your cowardice does ruin me, wait a bit. I have made money not once, nor twice,--and I can make it again."

A tap came to the door.

He reddened with sudden anger. Did not Jones know that he was not to be interrupted till two, when he must meet, and, if possible, pacify certain half frantic, stampeding shareholders?

The door opened with decision, and Anne came in. For a moment Stephen saw the aghast face of his head clerk behind her. Then Anne shut the door and confronted him.

The image of Anne was so constantly with Stephen, her every little trick of manner, from the way she turned her head, to the way she folded her hands, was all so carefully registered in his memory, had become so entirely a part of himself, that it was no surprise to him to see her. Did he not see her always! Nevertheless, as he looked at her, all power of going forward to meet her, of speaking to her, left him. The blood seemed to ebb slowly from his heart, and his grim face blanched.

"How did you come here?" he stammered at last, his voice sounding harsh and unfamiliar.

"On foot."

"In this fog?"

"Yes."

"Who came with you?"

"I came alone. I wished to speak to you. I hear you are ruined."

"I can meet my liabilities," he said proudly.

"Is it true that you have lost two millions?"

"It is--possibly more."

A moment of terror seemed to pass over Anne. The lovely colour in her cheek faded suddenly. She supported herself against the table, with a shaking gloved hand. Then she drew herself up, and said in a firm voice:

"Do you remember that night in Hamilton Gardens when you asked me to marry you?"

Stephen bowed. He could not speak. Even his great strength was only just enough.

"I refused you because I saw you were convinced that I did not care for you. If I had told you I loved you then you would not have believed it."

Stephen's hand gripped the mantelpiece. He was trembling from head to foot. His eyes never left her.

"But now the money is gone," she said, becoming paler than ever, "perhaps, now the dreadful money is gone, you will believe me if I tell you that I love you."

And so Stephen and Anne came home to each other at last--at last.

* * * * *

"My dear," said the Duke to Anne the following day, "this is a very extraordinary proceeding of yours. You refuse Vanbrunt when he is rich, and accept him when he is tottering on the verge of ruin. It seems a reversal of the usual order of things. What will your mother say?"

"I have already had a letter from her, thanking Heaven that I was not engaged to him. She says a good deal about how there is a Higher Power which rules things for the best."

"I wish you would allow it freer scope," said the Duke. "All the same, I should be thankful if she were here. It will be my horrid, vulgar duty to ask Vanbrunt what he has got; what small remains there are of his enormous fortune. I hear on good authority that he is almost penniless. One is not a parent for nothing. I wish to goodness your mother were in town. She always did this sort of thing herself with a dreadful relish on previous occasions. You must push him into my study, my dear, after his interview with you. I will endeavour to act the heavy father. That is his bell. I will depart. I have letters to write."

The Duke left the room, and then put his head in again.

"It may interest you to know, Anne," he said, "that I've seen handsomer men, and I've seen better dressed men, and I've even seen men of rather lighter build, but I've not seen any man I like better than your ex-millionaire."

Two hours later, after Stephen's departure, the Duke returned to his daughter's sitting-room, and sank exhausted into a chair.

"Really I can't do this sort of thing twice in a lifetime," he said faintly. "Have you any salts handy? No--you--need not fetch them. I'm not seriously indisposed. How heartlessly blooming you are looking, Anne, while your parent is suffering. Now remember, if ever you want to marry again, don't send your second husband to interview me, for I won't have it."

"Come, come, father. Didn't you tell me to push him into your study? And I thought you looked so impressive and dignified when I brought him in. Quite a model father."

"I took a firm attitude with him," continued the Duke. "I saw he was nervous. That made it easier for me. Vanbrunt is a shy man. I was in the superior position. Hateful thing to ask a man for his daughter. I said, 'Now look here, Vanbrunt, I understand you wish to marry my daughter. I don't wish it myself, but----'"

"Oh! father, you never said that?"

"Well, not exactly. I owned to him that I could put up with him better than with most, but that I could not let you marry to poverty. He asked me what I considered poverty. That rather stumped me. In fact, I did not know what to say. It was not his place to ask questions."

"Father, you did promise me you would let me marry him on eight hundred a year."

"Well, yes, I did. I don't like it, but I did say so. In short, I told him you had worked me up to that point."

"And what did he say?"

"He said he did not think in that case that any real difficulty about money need arise; that at one moment he had stood to lose all he had, and he had lost two millions, but that his affairs had taken an unexpected turn during the last twenty-four hours, and he believed he could count on an odd million or so, certainly on half a million. I collapsed, Anne. My attitude fell to pieces. It was Vanbrunt who scored. He had had a perfectly grave face till then. Then he smiled grimly, and we shook hands. He did not say much, but what he did say was to the point. I think, my dear, that while Vanbrunt lasts, his love for you will last. He has got it very firmly screwed into him. But these interviews annihilate me."

The Duke raised the kitchen cat to his knee, and rubbed it behind the ears.

"I made the match, Anne," he said; "you owe it all to me. I asked him to dinner when I met him at that first directors' meeting a fortnight ago. I had it in my mind then."

"Father! You _know_ you had not."

"Well, no. I had not. I did not think of it! I can't say I did. But still, I was a sort of bulwark to the whole thing. You had my moral support. I shall tell your mother so."

CONCLUSION

"So passes, all confusedly As lights that hurry, shapes that flee About some brink we dimly see, The trivial, great, Squalid, majestic tragedy Of human fate."

--WILLIAM WATSON

I wish life were more like the stories one reads, the beautiful stories, which, whether they are grave or gay, still have picturesque endings. The hero marries the heroine, after insuperable difficulties, which in real life he would never have overcome: or the heroine creeps down into a romantic grave, watered by our scalding tears. At any rate, the story is gracefully wound up. There is an ornamental conclusion to it. But life, for some inexplicable reason, does not lend itself with docility to the requirements of the lending libraries, and only too frequently fails to grasp the dramatic moment for an impressive close. None of us reach middle age without having watched several violent melodramas, whose main interest lies further apart from their moral than we were led, in our tender youth, to anticipate. We have seen better plays off the stage than even Shakespeare ever put on. But Shakespeare finished his, and pulled down the curtain on them; while, with those we watch in life, we have time to grow grey between the acts; and we only know the end has come, when at last it does come, because the lights have been going out all the time, one by one, and we find ourselves at last alone in the dark.

Janet's sweet melancholy face rises up before me as I think of these things, and I could almost feel impatient with her, when I remember how the one dramatic incident in her uneventful life never seemed to get itself wound up. The consequences went on, and on, and on, till all novelty and interest dropped inevitably from them and from her.

Some of us come to turning-points in life, and don't turn. We become warped instead. It was so with Janet.

Is there any turning-point in life like our first real encounter with anguish, loneliness, despair?

I do not pity those who meet open-eyed these stern angels of God, and wrestle with them through the night, until the day breaks, extorting from them the blessings that they waylaid us to bestow. But is it possible to withhold awed compassion for those who, like Janet, go down blind into Hades, and struggle impotently with God's angels as with enemies? Janet endured with dumb, uncomplaining dignity she knew not what, she knew not why; and came up out of her agony, as she had gone down into it--with clenched empty hands. The greater hope, the deeper love, the wider faith, the tenderer sympathy--these she brought not back with her. She returned gradually to her normal life with her conventional ideas crystallised, her small crude beliefs in love and her fellow-creatures withered.

That was all George did for her.

The virtues of narrow natures such as George's seem of no use to anyone except possibly to their owner. They are as great a stumbling-block to their weaker brethren, they cause as much pain, they choke the spiritual life as mercilessly, they engender as much scepticism in unreasoning minds, as certain gross vices. If we are unjust, it matters little to our victim what makes us so, or whether we have prayed to see aright, if for long years we have closed our eyes to unpalatable truths.

George's disbelief in Janet's rectitude, which grew out of a deep sense of rectitude, had the same effect on her mind as if he had deliberately seduced and deserted her. The executioner reached the gallows of his victim by a clean path. That was the only difference. So much the better for him. The running noose for her was the same. Unreasoning belief in love and her fellow-creatures was followed by an equally unreasoning disbelief in both.

Janet kept her promise. She held firm. Amid all the promises of the world, made only to be broken, kept only till the temptation to break them punctually arrived, amid all that débris one foolish promise remained intact, Janet's promise to Cuckoo.

George married. Then, shortly afterwards, Fred married the eldest Miss Ford, and found great happiness. His bliss was at first painfully streaked with total abstinence, but he gradually eradicated this depressing element from his new home life. And in time his slight insolvent nature reached a kind of stability, through the love of the virtuous female prig, the "perfect lady," to whom he was all in all. Fred changed greatly for the better after his marriage, and in the end he actually repaid Stephen part of the money the latter had advanced to Monkey Brand, for Janet's sake.

Janet lived with the young couple at first, but Mrs Fred did not like her. She knew vaguely, as did half the neighbourhood, that Janet had been mixed up in something discreditable, and that her engagement had been broken off on that account. Mrs Fred was, as we know, a person of the highest principles; and high principles naturally shrink from contact with any less exalted. Several months after the situation between the two women had become untenable, Janet decided to leave home. She had nowhere to go, and no money; so, like thousands of other women in a similar predicament, she decided to support herself by education. She had received no education herself, but that was not in her mind any bar to imparting it. Anne, who had kept in touch with her, interfered peremptorily at this point, and when Janet did finally leave home, it was to go to Anne's house in London, till "something turned up."

It was a sunny day in June when Janet arrived in London, for the first time since her ill-fated visit there a year ago. She looked up at Lowndes Mansions, as her four-wheeler plodded past them, towards Anne's house in Park Lane. Even now, a year after the great fire, scaffoldings were still pricking up against the central tower of the larger block of building. The damage caused by the fire was not even yet quite repaired. Perhaps some of it would never be repaired.

Mrs Trefusis was sitting with Anne on this particular afternoon, confiding to her some discomfortable characteristics of her new daughter-in-law, the wife whom she had herself chosen for her son.

"I am an old woman," said Mrs Trefusis, "and of course I don't march with the times, the world is for the young, I know that very well; but I must own, Anne, I had imagined that affection still counted for something in marriage."

"I wonder what makes you think that."

"Well, not the marriages I see around me, my dear, that is just what I say, though what has made you so cynical all at once, I don't know. But I ask you--look at Gertrude. She does not know what the word 'love' means."

"I'm not so sure of that."

"I am. She has been married to George three months, and it might be thirty years by the way they behave. And she seemed such a particularly nice girl, and exceedingly sensible, and well brought up. I should have thought she would at any rate _try_ to make my boy happy, after all the sorrow he has gone through. But they don't seem to have any real link to each other. It isn't that they don't get on. They do in a way. She is sharp enough for that. She does her duty by him. She is nice to him, but all her interests, and she has interests, seem to lie apart from anything to do with him."

"Does he mind?"

"I never really know what George minds or doesn't mind," said Mrs Trefusis. "It has been the heaviest cross of the many crosses I have had to bear in life, that he never confides in me. George has always been extremely reticent. Thoughtful natures often are. He will sit for hours without saying a word, looking----"

"_Glum_ is the word she wants," said Anne to herself, as Mrs Trefusis hesitated.

"Reserved," said Mrs Trefusis. "He does not seem to care to be with Gertrude. And yet you know Gertrude is very taking, and there is no doubt she is good-looking. And she sings charmingly. Unfortunately George does not care for music."

"She is really musical."

"They make a very handsome couple," said Mrs Trefusis plaintively. "When I saw them come down the aisle together I felt happier about him than I had done for years. It seemed as if I had been rewarded at last. And I never saw a bride smile and look as bright as she did. But somehow it all seems to have fallen flat. She didn't even care to see the photographs of George when he was a child, when I got them out the other day. She said she would like to see them, and then forgot to look at them."

Anne was silent.

"Well," said Mrs Trefusis, rising slowly, "I suppose the truth is that in these days young people don't fall in love as they did in my time. I must own Gertrude has disappointed me."

"I daresay she will make him a good wife."

"Oh! my dear, she does. She is an extremely practical woman, but one wants more for one's son than a person who will make him a good wife. If she were a less good wife, and cared a little more about him, I should feel less miserable about the whole affair."

Mrs Trefusis sighed heavily.

"I must go," she said, in the voice of one who might be persuaded to remain.

But Anne did not try to detain her, for she was expecting Janet every moment, though she did not warn Mrs Trefusis of the fact, for the name of Janet was never mentioned between Anne and Mrs Trefusis. Mrs Trefusis had once diffidently endeavoured to reopen the subject with Anne, but found it instantly and decisively closed. If Janet had existed in a novel, she would certainly have been coming up Anne's wide white staircase at the exact moment that Mrs Trefusis was going down them, but, as a matter of fact, Mrs Trefusis was packed into her carriage, and drove away, quite half a minute before Janet's four-wheeler came round the corner.

Anne's heart ached for Janet when she appeared in the doorway. She almost wished that Mrs Trefusis had been confronted with the worn white face of the only woman who had loved her son.

Janet and Anne kissed each other.

Then Janet looked at the wedding ring on Anne's finger, and smiled at her in silence.

Anne looked down tremulously, for fear lest the joy in her eyes should make Janet's heart ache, as her own heart had ached one little year ago, when she had seen Janet and George together in the rose garden.

"I am so glad," said Janet. "I did so wish that time at Easthope--do you remember?--that you could be happy too. It's just a year ago."

"Just a year," said Anne.

"I suppose you cared for him then," said Janet. "But I expect it was in a more sensible way than I did. You were always so much wiser than me. One lives and learns."

"I cared for him then," said Anne, busying herself making tea for her friend. When she had made it she went to a side table, and took from it a splendid satin tea cosy, which she placed over the teapot. It had been Janet's wedding present to her.

Janet's eyes lighted on it with pleasure.

"I am glad you use it every day," she said. "I was so afraid you would only use it when you had company."

Anne stroked it with her slender white hand. There was a kind of tender radiance about her which Janet had never observed in her before.

"It makes me happy that you are happy," said Janet. "I only hope it will last. I felt last year that you were in trouble. Since then it has been my turn."

"I wish happiness could have come to both of us," said Anne.

"Do you remember our talk together," said Janet, spreading out a clean pocket-handkerchief on her knee, and stirring her tea, "and how sentimental I was? I daresay you thought at the time how silly I was about George. I see now what a fool I was."

Anne did not answer. She was looking earnestly at Janet, and there was no need for her now to veil the still gladness in her eyes. They held only pained love and surprise.

"And do you remember how the clergyman preached about not laying up our treasure on earth?"

"I remember everything."

"I've often thought of that since," said Janet, with a quiver in her voice, which brought back once more to Anne the childlike innocent creature of a year ago, whom she now almost failed to recognise, in her new ill-fitting array of cheap cynicism.

"I did lay up my treasure upon earth," continued Janet, drawn momentarily back into her old simplicity by the presence of Anne. "I didn't seem able to help it. George was my treasure. I mustn't think of him any more because he's married. But I cared too much. That was where I was wrong."

"One cannot love too much," said Anne, her fingers closing over her wedding ring.

"Perhaps not," said Janet, "but then the other person must love too. George did not love me enough to carry through. When the other person cares, but doesn't care strong enough, I think that's the worst. It's like what the Bible says. The moth and rust corrupting. George did care, but not enough. Men are like that."

"Some one else cares," said Anne diffidently--"poor Mr de Rivaz. He cares enough."

"Yes," said Janet apathetically. "I daresay he does. We've all got to fall in love some time or other. But I don't care for him. I told him so months ago. I don't mean to care for any one again. I've thought a great deal about things this winter, Anne. It's all very well for you to believe in love. I did once, but I don't now."

Janet got up, and, as she turned, her eyes fixed suddenly.

"Why, that's the cabinet," she said below her breath. "Cuckoo's cabinet!" Her face quivered. She saw again the scorched room, the pile of smoking papers on the hearth, the flame which had burnt up her happiness with them.

Anne did not understand.

"Stephen gave me that cabinet a few days ago," she said.

"It was Cuckoo's. It used to stand under her picture."

"Don't you think it may be a replica?"

"No, it is the same," said Janet, passing her hand over the mermaid and her whale. "There is the little chip out of the dolphin's tail."

Then she shrank suddenly away from it, as if its touch scorched her.

* * * * *

"Where did you get the Italian cabinet?" said Anne to Stephen that evening, as he and De Rivaz joined her and Janet after dinner in her sitting-room.

"At Brand's sale. He sold some of his things when he gave up his flat in Lowndes Mansions. He has gone to South Africa for his boy's health."

Stephen opened it. Janet drew near.

"I had to have a new key made for it," he said, letting the front fall forward on his careful hand. "Look, Anne! how beautifully the drawers are inlaid."

He pulled out one or two of them.

Janet slowly put out her hand, and pulled out the lowest drawer on the left-hand side. It stuck, and then came out. It was empty like all the rest.

Stephen closed it, and then drew it forward again.

"Why does it stick?" he said.

He got the drawer entirely out, and looked into the aperture. Then he put in his hand, and pulled out something wedged against the slip of wood which supported the upper drawer, without reaching quite to the back of the cabinet. It was a crumpled, dirty sheet of paper. He tore it as he forced it out.

"It must have been in the lowest drawer but one," he said, "and fallen between the drawer and its support."

Janet was the first to see her brother's signature, and she pointed to it with a cry.

It was the missing I O U.

"I always said it would turn up," said Stephen gently.

"But it's too late," said Janet hoarsely, "too late! too late! Oh! why didn't George believe in me!"

"He will believe now."

"It doesn't matter what he believes now. Why didn't he _know_ I had not burnt it?"

"I believed in you," said De Rivaz, his voice shaking. "I knew you had not burnt it, though I saw you burning papers. Though I saw you with my own eyes, I did not believe."

There was a moment's pause. Her three faithful friends looked at Janet.

"I burnt nothing," she said.

* * * * *

Janet married De Rivaz at last, but not until she had nearly worn him out. It was after their marriage that he painted his marvellous portrait of her, a picture that was the outcome of a deep love, wed with genius.

She made him a good wife, as wives go, and bore him beautiful children, but she never cared for him as she had done for George. Later on her daughters carried their love affairs, not to their mother, but--to Anne.

* * * * *

GEOFFREY'S WIFE

"Oh, how this spring of love resembleth Th' uncertain glory of an April day."

Every one felt an interest in them. The mob-capped servants hung over the banisters to watch them go downstairs. Alphonse reserved for them the little round table in the window, which commanded the best view of the court, with its dusty flower-pots grouped round an intermittent squirt of water. Even the landlord, Monsieur Leroux, found himself often in the gateway when they passed in or out, in order to bow and receive a merry word and glance.

Even the _concierge_, who dwelt retired, aloof from the contact of the outer world in his narrow, key-adorned shrine, even he unbent to them and smiled back when they smiled. It was a queer little old-fashioned hotel, rather out of the way. Nevertheless, young married couples _had_ stayed there before. Their name, indeed, at certain periods of the year was Legion. There were other young married couples staying there at that very moment, but everybody felt that a peculiar interest attached to this young married couple. For one thing, they were so absurdly, so overwhelmingly happy. People, Monsieur Leroux himself, and others, had been happy in an early portion of their married lives, but not like this couple. People had had honeymoons before, but never one like this couple. Although they were English, they were so handsome and so sunny. And he was so well made and devoted, the chambermaids whispered. And, ah! how she was _piquante_, the waiters agreed.

They had a little sitting-room. It was not the best sitting-room, because they were not very rich; but Geoffrey (she considered Geoffrey such a lovely name, and so uncommon) thought it the most delightful little sitting-room in the world when she was in it. And Mrs Geoffrey also liked it very much; oh! very much indeed.

He had had hard work to win her. Sometimes, when he watched her tangling many-coloured wools over the mahogany back of one of the tight horsehair chairs, he could hardly believe that she was really his wife, that they were actually on that honeymoon for which he had toiled and waited so long. Beneath the gaiety and the elastic spirit of youth there was a depth of earnestness in Geoffrey which his little wife vaguely wondered at and valued as something beyond her ken, but infinitely heroic. He looked upon her with reverence and thanked God for her. He had never had much to do with womankind, and he felt a respectful tenderness for everything of hers, from her prim maid to her foolish little shoelace, which was never tired of coming undone, and which he was never tired of doing up. The awful responsibility of guarding such a treasure, and an overpowering sense of its fragility, were ever before his mind. He laughed and was gay with her, but in his heart of hearts there was an acute joy nigh to pain--a wonder that he should have been singled out from among the sons of men to have the one pearl of great price bestowed upon him.

They had come to Paris, and to Paris only, partly because it was the year of the Exhibition, and partly because she was not very strong, and was not to be dragged through snow and shaken in _diligences_ like other ordinary brides. The bare idea of Eva in a _diligence_, or tramping in Switzerland, was not to be thought of. No; Geoffrey knew better than that. A quiet fortnight in Paris, the Opera, the Exhibition, Versailles, St Cloud, Notre Dame--these were dissipations calculated not to disturb the exquisite poise of a health of such inestimable value. He knew Paris well. He had seen it all in those foolish bachelor days, when he had rushed across the water with men companions, knowing no better, and enjoying himself in a way even then.

And so he took her to St Cloud, and showed her the wrecked palace; and they wandered by the fountains and bought _gaufre_ cake, which he told her was called "_plaisir_," only he was wrong--but what did that matter? And they went down to Versailles, and saw everything that every one else had seen, only they saw it glorified--at least he did. And they sat very quietly in Notre Dame, and listened to a half divine organ and a wholly divine choir, and Geoffrey looked at the sweet, awed face beside him, and wondered whether he could ever in all his life prove himself worthy of her. And though of course, being a Protestant, he did not like to pray in a Roman Catholic Church, still he came very near it, and was perhaps none the worse.

And now the fortnight was nearly over. Geoffrey reflected with pride that Eva was still quite well. Her mother, of whom he stood in great awe--her mother, who had an avowed disbelief in the moral qualities of second sons--even her mother would not be able to find any fault. Why, James himself, his eldest brother, whom she had always openly preferred, could not have done better than he had done. He who had so longed to take her away was now almost longing to take her back home, just for five minutes, to show her family how blooming she was, how trustworthy he had proved himself to be.

The fortnight was over on Saturday, but at the last moment they decided to stay till Monday. Was it not Sunday, the night of the great illuminations? suggested Alphonse reproachfully. Were not the Champs Elysées to present a spectacle? Were not fires of joy and artifice to mount from the Bois de Boulogne? Surely Monsieur and Madame would stay for the illuminations! Was not the stranger coming from unknown distances to witness the illuminations? Were not the illuminations in honour of the Exhibition? It could not be that Monsieur would suffer Madame to miss the illuminations.

Eva was all eagerness to stay. Two more nights in Paris. To go out in the summer evening, and see Paris _en fête_! Delightful! Geoffrey was not to say a single word! He did not want to! Well, never mind, he was not to say one; and she was going instantly, that very moment, to stop Grabham packing up, and he was to go instantly, that very moment, to let Monsieur Leroux know they intended to stay on.

And they both went instantly, that very moment, and they stayed on. And he was very severe in consequence, and refused to allow her to tire herself on Saturday, and insisted on her resting all Sunday afternoon, as a preparation for the dissipation of the evening. They had met some English friends on Sunday morning, who had invited them to their house in the Champ Elysées in the course of the evening to see the illuminations from their balcony. And then towards night Geoffrey became more autocratic than ever, and insisted on a woollen gown instead of a muslin, because he felt certain that it would not be so hot towards the middle of the night as it then was. She said a great many very unkind things to him, and they sallied forth together at nine o'clock as happy as two pleasure-seeking children.

"You will not be of return till the early morning. I see it well," said Monsieur Leroux, bowing to them. "Monsieur does well to take the little _châle_ for Madame for fear later she should feel herself fresh. But as for rain, will not Madame leave her umbrella with the _concierge_? No? Monsieur prefers? _Eh bien! Bon soir!_"

It was a perfect night. It had been fiercely hot all day, but it was cooler now. The streets were already full of people, all bearing the same way toward the Champ Elysées. With some difficulty Geoffrey procured a little carriage, and in a few minutes they were swept into the chattering, idle, busy throng, and slowly making their way toward the Langtons' house. Every building was gay with coloured lanterns. The Place de la Concorde shone afar like a belt of jewelled light. The great stone lions glowed upon their pedestals. Clear as in noonday sunshine, the rocking sea of merry faces met Eva's delighted gaze; she beaming with the rest.

And now they were driving down the Champs Elysées. The fountains leaped in coloured flame. The Palais de l'Industrie gleamed from roof to basement, built in fire. The Arc de Triomphe, crowned with light, stood out against the dark of the moonless sky, flecked by its insignificant stars.

"Beautiful! Beautiful!" and Eva clapped her hands and laughed.

And now it was the painful, the desolating duty of the driver to tell them he could take them no further. Carriages were not allowed beyond a certain hour, and either he must take them back or put them down. Geoffrey demurred. Not so Mrs Geoffrey. In a moment she had sprung out of the carriage, and was laughing at the novel idea of walking in a crowd. Geoffrey paid his man and followed. There was plenty of room to walk in comfort, and Eva, on her husband's arm, wished the Langtons' house miles away, instead of a few hundred yards. She said she must and would walk home. Geoffrey must relent a little, or she on her side might not be so agreeable as she had hitherto shown herself. She was quite certain that she should catch a cold if she drove home in the night air in an open carriage. What was that he was mumbling? That if he had known _that_ he would not have brought her? But she was equally certain that it would not hurt her to walk home. Walking was a very different thing from driving in open carriages late at night. An ignorant creature like him might not think so, but her mother would not have allowed her to do such a thing for an instant. Geoffrey quailed, and gave utterance to that sure forerunner of masculine defeat, that "he would see."

It was very delightful on the Langtons' balcony, with its constellation of swinging Chinese lanterns. Eva leaned over and watched the people, and chatted to her friends, and was altogether enchanting--at least Geoffrey thought so.

The night is darkening now. The streets blaze bright and brighter. The crowd below rocks and thickens and shifts without ceasing. Long lines of flame burn red along the Seine, and mark its windings as with a hand of fire. The great electric light from the Trocadéro casts heavy shadows against the sky. Jets of fire and wild vagaries of leaping stars rush up out of the Bois de Boulogne.

And now there is a contrary motion in the crowd, and a low murmur swells, and echoes, and dies, and rises again. The torchlight procession is coming. That square of fire, moving slowly down from the Arc de Triomphe through the heart of the crowd, is a troop of mounted soldiers carrying torches. Hark! Listen to the low, sullen growl of the multitude, like a wild beast half aroused.

The army is very unpopular in Paris just now. See, as the soldiers come nearer, how the crowd sweeps and presses round them, tossing like an angry sea. Look how the soldiers rear their horses against the people to keep them back. Hark again to that fierce roar that rises to the balcony and makes little Eva tremble; the inarticulate voice of a great multitude raised in anger.

They have passed now, and the crowd moves with them. Look down the Champs Elysées, right down to the cobweb of light which is the Place de la Concorde. One moving mass of heads! Look up toward the Arc de Triomphe. They are pouring down from it on their way back from the Bois in one continuous black stream, good-humoured and light-hearted again as ever, now the soldiers have passed.

It is long past midnight. Ices and lemonade and sugared cakes have played their part. It is time to go home. The summer night is soft and warm, without a touch of chill. The other guests on the Langtons' balcony are beginning to disperse. The Langtons look as if they would like to go to bed. The crowd below is melting away every moment. The play is over.

Eva is charmed when she hears that a carriage is not to be had in all Paris for love or money. To walk home through the lighted streets with Geoffrey! Delightful! A few cheerful leave-takings, and they are in the street again, with another English couple who are going part of the way with them.

"Come, wife, arm-in-arm," says the elder man; adding to Geoffrey, "I advise you to do the same. The crowd is as harmless as an infant, but it will probably have a little animal spirits to get rid of, and it won't do to be separated."

So arm-in-arm they went, walking with the multitude, which was not dense enough to hamper them. From time to time little groups of _gamins_ would wave their hats in front of magisterial buildings and sing the prohibited Marseillaise, while other bands of _gamins_, equally good-humoured, but more hot-headed, would charge through the crowd with Chinese lanterns and drums and whistles.

"Not tired?" asked Geoffrey regularly every five minutes, drawing the little hand further through his arm.

Not a bit tired, and Geoffrey was a foolish, tiresome creature to be always thinking of such things. She should say she _was_ tired next time if he did not take care. In fact, now she came to think of it, she was _rather_ tired by having to walk in such a heavy woollen gown.

"Don't say that, for Heaven's sake, if it is not true!" said the long-suffering husband, "for we have a mile in front of us yet."

The other couple wished them good-night and turned off down a side street. Everywhere the houses were putting out their lights. Night was gaining the upper hand at last. As they entered the Place de la Concorde, Geoffrey saw a small body of mounted soldiers crossing the Place. Instantly there was a hastening and pushing in the crowd, and the low, deep growl arose again, more ominous than ever. Geoffrey caught a glimpse of a sudden upraised arm, he heard a cry of defiance, and then--in a moment there was a roar and shout from a thousand tongues, and an infuriated mob was pressing in from every quarter, was elbowing past, was struggling to the front. In another second the whole Place de la Concorde was one seething mass of excited people, one hoarse jangle of tongues, one frantic effort to push in the direction the soldiers had taken.

Geoffrey, a tall, athletic Englishman, looked over the surging sea of French heads, and looked in vain for a quarter to which he could beat a retreat. He had not room to put his arm round his wife. She had given a little laugh, but she was frightened, he knew, for she trembled in the grasp he tightened on her arm. One rapid glance showed him there was no escape. The very lions at the corners were covered with human figures. They were in the heart of the crowd. Its faint, sickening smell was in their nostrils.

"No, Eva," he said, answering her imploring glance, "we can't get out of this yet. We must just move quietly, with the rest, and wait till we get a chance of edging off. Lean on me as much as you can."

She was frightened and silent, and nestled close to him, being very small and slight of stature, and by nature timid.

Another deep roar, and a sudden rush from behind, which sent them all forward. How the people pushed and elbowed! Bah! The smell of a crowd! Who that has been in one has ever forgotten it?

This was a dreadful ordeal for his hothouse flower.

"How are you getting on?" he asked with a sharp anxiety, which he vainly imagined did not betray itself in his voice.

She was getting on very well, only--only could not they get out?

Geoffrey looked round yet again in despair. Would it be possible to edge a little to the left, to the right, anywhere? He looked in vain. A vague, undefined fear took hold on him. "We must have patience, little one," he said. "Lean on me, and be brave."

His voice was cheerful, but he felt a sudden horrible sinking of the heart. How should he ever get her out of this jostling, angry crowd before she was quite tired out? What mad folly it had been to think of walking home! Poor Geoffrey forgot that there had been no other way of getting home, and that even his mother-in-law could not hold him responsible for a disagreement between the soldiers and the citizens.

Another ten minutes! Geoffrey cursed within himself the illumination and the soldiers and his own folly, and the rough men and rougher women, whom, do what he would, he could not prevent pressing upon her.

She did not speak again for some time, only held fast by his arm. Suddenly her little hands tightened convulsively on it, and a face pale to the lips was raised to his.

"Geoffrey, I'm very sorry," with a half sob, "but I'm afraid I'm going to faint."

The words came like a blow, and drove the blood from his face. The vague undefined fear had suddenly become a hideous reality. He steadied his voice and spoke quietly, almost sternly.

"Listen to me, Eva," he said. "Make an effort and attend, and do as I tell you. The crowd will move again in a moment. I see a movement in front already. Directly the move comes the press will loosen for an instant. I shall push in front of you and stoop down. You will instantly get on my back. I insist upon it. I will do my best to help you up, but I can't get hold of you in any other way. The faintness will pass off directly you are higher up and can get a breath of air. Now do you understand?"

She did not answer, but nodded.

There was a moment's pause, and the movement came. Geoffrey flung down his stick, drew his wife firmly behind him, and pressing suddenly with all his might upon those in front, made room to stoop down. Two nervous hands were laid on his coat. Good God! she hesitated. A moment more, and the crowd behind would force him down, and they would both be lost. "Quick! Quick!" he shouted; but before the words had left his lips the trembling arms were clasped convulsively round his neck, and with a supreme effort he was on his legs again, shaking like a leaf with the long horror of that moment's suspense.

But the tight clasp of the hands round his neck, the burden on his strong shoulders, nerved him afresh. He felt all his vitality and resolution return tenfold. He could endure anything which he had to endure alone, now that horrible anxiety for her was over. He could no longer tell where he was. He was bent too much to endeavour to do anything except keep on his feet. A long wait! Would the crowd never disperse? Moving, stopping, pushing, pressing, stopping again. Another pause, which seemed as if it would never end. A contrary motion now, and he had not room to turn! No. Thank Heaven! A tremor through the crowd, and then a fierce snarl and a rush. A violent push from behind. A plunge. Down on one knee. Good God! A blow on the mouth from some one's elbow. A wild struggle. A foot on his hand. Another blow. Up again. Up, only to strike his foot against a curbstone, and to throw all his weight away from a sudden pool of water on his left, into which he is being edged.

The great drops are on his brow, and his breath comes short and thick. He staggers again. The weight on him and his fall are beginning to tell. But as his strength wanes a dogged determination takes its place. He steels his nerves and pulls himself together. It is only a question of time. He will and must hold out. His whole soul is centred on one thing, to keep his feet. Once down--and--he clenches his teeth. He will not suffer himself to think. He is bruised and aching in every limb with the friction of the crowd. Drums begin to beat in his temples, and his mouth is bleeding. There is a mist of blood and dust before his eyes. But he holds on with the fierce energy of despair. Another push. God in Heaven! almost down again! He can see nothing. A frantic struggle in the dark. The arms round his neck tremble, and he hears a sharp-drawn gasp of terror. Hands from out of the darkness clutch him up, and he regains his footing once more. "Courage, Monsieur," says a kind voice, and the hands are swept out of his. He tries to move his lips in thanks, but no words come. There is a noise in the crowd, but it is as a feeble murmur to the roar and sweep and tumult of many waters that is sounding in his ears. He cannot last much longer now. He is spent. But the crowd is thinning. If he can only keep his feet a few minutes more! The crowd is thinning. He catches a glimpse of ground in front of him. But it sways before him like the waves of the sea. One moment more. He stumbles aside where he feels there is space about him.

There is a sudden hush and absence of pressure. _He is out of the crowd._ He is faintly conscious that the tramp of many feet is passing but not following him. The pavement suddenly rises up and strikes him down upon it. He cannot rise again. But it matters little, it matters little. It is all over. The fight is won, and she is safe. He tries to lift his leaden hand to unloose the locked fingers that hurt his neck. At his touch they unclasp, trembling. She has not fainted then. He almost thought she had. He raises himself on his elbow, and tries to wipe the red mist from his eyes that he may see her the more clearly. She slips to the ground, and he draws her to him with his nerveless arms. The street lamps gleam dull and yellow in the first wan light of dawn, and as his haggard eyes look into hers, her face becomes clear even to his darkening vision--and--_it is another woman!_ Another woman! A poor creature with a tawdry hat and paint upon her cheek, who tries to laugh, and then, dimly conscious of the sudden agony of the gray, blood-stained face, whimpers for mercy, and limps away into a doorway, to shiver and hide her worn face from the growing light.

* * * * *

It was one of the English acquaintances of the night before who found him later in the day, still seeking, still wandering from street to street.

His old friend Langton came to him and took him away from the hotel to his own house. Alphonse wept and the _concierge_ could not restrain a tear.

"And have they found _her_ yet?" asked Mrs Langton that night of her husband when he came in late.

His face was very white.

"Yes," he said, and turned his head away. "I've been to--I've seen--no one could have told--you would not have known who it was. And all her little things, her watch and rings--they were all gone. But the maid knew by the dress. And--and I wanted to save a lock of hair, but"--his voice broke down.--"So I got one of the little gloves for him. It was the only thing I could."

He pulled out a half-worn tan glove, cut and dusty with the tramp of many feet, which the new wedding ring had worn ever so slightly on the third finger. He laid it reverently on the table and hid his face in his hands.

"If he could only break down," he said at last. "He sits and sits, and never speaks or looks up."

"Take him the little glove," said his wife softly. And Langton took it.

The sharpness of death had cut too deep for tears, but Geoffrey kept the little glove, and--he has it still.

* * * * *

THE PITFALL