Читать книгу The Garden of Memories - Henry St. John Cooper - Страница 5

CHAPTER VII

"HOW WONDERFUL—THE WAY OF THINGS"

"Bless my soul!" Sir Josiah said, "Bless my soul!" He said it several times, there was a look of astonishment on his red round face, "Bless my soul, sir!"

He walked up and down the large and imposing room, his hands behind his back.

"And how about the drains, did you make any enquiry about the drains?

"No!" said Allan.

"No, you wouldn't, nor about the water! Is water laid on, eh, answer me that?"

"I—I don't know, father, I am afraid I—I was a bad representative!"

"It's enough to worry a man's head off," cried his father. "Here do I go trusting you to go and—and—not a thing do you know! Hand over my cheque for five hundred pounds like it was a bagatelle as the saying is. You don't know anythin' about the title deeds, nothing about the drains, nothing about the water, while you admit the state of repair of the house is somethin' disgraceful!"

"Father, I wish you had gone yourself, I told you——"

"Yes, I know, you told me I know, you did—told me you weren't no good at bargaining, and I'm afraid you were right! Here you go and—and—and——" Sir Josiah paused, a little breathlessly.

"Well, what's the place like? Just try my lad and pull yourself together and describe it!"

"Homewood Manor is——"

"What Manor?"

"Homewood—it bears the same name as we do, father!"

Sir Josiah sat down, he sat down abruptly and stared wide eyed at his son.

"Homewood——" he gasped, "Little Stretton—Homewood Manor—well, well if this don't beat anything—anything I've ever heard—Homewood——"

"It is an odd coincidence," said Allan.

"Odd coincidence, it's more—it's more. It is the very hand of Fate, that's what it is, the hand of Fate, you don't understand of course you don't——" he paused. "Allan, did you ever hear the name Pringle?"

"Pringle?" asked Allan, puzzled, "of course I have heard it, but——"

"Heard it, just heard it—eh? That's all, just heard it, mentioned and nothing more, eh?"

"It's a name I have heard, father, that's all!"

"And don't signify anything to you, nothing particular, out of the way, eh?"

"Nothing, father!"

"Bless me, bless me, you never heard me speak of Allan Pringle of The Green Gate Inn in Aldgate?"

Allan shook his head.

"A wonderful man!" said Sir Josiah. "Allan, his name was, the same as yours and Allan was his father before him and his father before him, yes Allans all along the line, till they came to me, only me they called Josiah, Josiah after Josiah Rodwell, my mother's father, hoping to get a bit out of the old man, which they never did, bless me! and never heard of Allan Pringle, you haven't?

"Queer too," Josiah rambled on, "that he should be the kind of man he was, they said of him as he could squeeze gold out of a stone and I b'lieve he could. Coming from the country, a farm hand he was and his father a gardener and his father's father a gardener, grubbing about in the earth, Allan, and yet Allan Pringle came to London, a farmer's boy and makes a little fortune!"

"But who was he?"

"My grandfather, Allan Pringle was. He laid the foundation of our fortune! My father was keen and clever, not up to the old man though. Still he did not do so badly, he left me forty thousand when he died, that's what I've been building on, Allan, and now—now—maybe it's nearer twenty times forty thousand, my boy! That comes of having a head on you—a head which you haven't got and never will have!"

"Then your name is—is Pringle?"

"Was!" said Sir Josiah. "It was my father who took the name of Homewood when he began to get on a bit and wanted to sink the aleshop, called himself Homewood after the place where his father was born and where all the family came from——"

"And it is this very place that to-day——?"

Sir Josiah nodded. "The very place!" he said. "Queer, isn't it, Allan? Very queer! When I heard the name Little Stretton, it set me thinking, but even then I didn't quite catch on. But now, Homewood Manor, why bless me, boy—my grandfather, Allan Pringle's mother, was maid in that very house and my great grandfather, Allan Pringle he was, Allan, the same as you, he and she was sweethearting, her the lady's maid, he the under gardener, and got married, they did. A wonderful pretty young woman, so I've heard and a sad story if what one hears is true, hadn't been married a year when she died when the boy was born, him as afterwards kept the Green Gate Inn in Aldgate. And now, now after all these years, Allan, here am I, buying the very house, the very house, my boy, where my great-grandfather was under gardener and my great-grandmother was lady's maid. Wonderful, isn't it? Wonderful the way of things, Allan?"

"Wonderful!" Allan said dreamily. "Very wonderful—the way of things—Father——" He turned suddenly on Sir Josiah, "This—this marriage of mine——"

"Well, what about it?"

"It—it must go on—there's no way——"

Sir Josiah stared, his round face grew redder, it turned purple. "Way," he shouted, "to what? Are you going to kick against it now? Are you going to, to turn everything down now? But—but you can't do it—you can't do it! If you do I'll never forgive you, never to my dying day and after and then—think of her ladyship—Lady Kathleen, do you mean you want to back out of it, Allan, now?"

Allan did not answer, he stared out of the window, he did not see the gloomy London Square, he saw a garden, sweet with flowers and down the paved pathway a little maid with sunkissed hair and eyes as blue as the Heavens came tripping towards him.

"Allan, Allan," she said, "my dear, I love you so!"

"Allan you—you can't do it!" Sir Josiah's old voice trembled, he came and put a hand on Allan's shoulder. "It—it isn't as if it was only a promise to me, to me now, it's a promise to her, you can't shame and disgrace her—Lady Kathleen—you can't—by—by Heaven you can't! Allan, it isn't a thing that even I'd do, much less a gentleman like you!"

"I understand, father, I understand that, it—it must go on, I shall not back out of it as you say—it shall go on!"

"Ah!" Sir Josiah said, "ah, a lady, an Earl's daughter, Lady Kathleen Homewood of Homewood Manor, that sounds good, Allan boy, eh? Sounds good, don't it? I can hear myself saying it at the Club—my daughter-in-law, Lady Kathleen Homewood! No, you can't back out of it now, Allan, I'd never forgive you if you did—Besides, why should you? Last night, you weren't against it, Allan——"

"Last night," Allan said, "last night——" he paused. How far away seemed last night! Sir Josiah was watching him anxiously and Allan smiled.

"Yes, I understand, it must go on now, but—last night—was last night!"

CHAPTER VIII

"KATHLEEN—DO YOU REMEMBER?"

My lady sat with her chin in her hand, her dressing gown had slipped over the polished loveliness of her white shoulders, on which the soft dark brown of her hair fell in heavy glistening curls.

She had sat here for many minutes, her thoughts away in the past. Now she stirred, she sighed a little, she roused herself and laughed wearily, then reached out a white hand and took a ring from the dressing table. A magnificent ring, one of immense value, a ring worthy of her and of the man who had put it on her finger, yet she doubted if Allan had bought it. It looked in its ostentatious magnificence more like his father, somehow, and she shivered suddenly and cast the ring aside. And then laughed again a queer, uncertain, trembling little laugh that might have sounded naturally enough from the lips of a maiden of eighteen, but which came a little oddly from the lips of a woman of twenty-eight.

But to-night her eyes were soft and misty. To-night memory was there, tapping at the door of her soul. "You can't shut me out," it seemed to say, "close the door, bolt it, bar it against me, but you can't shut out memory, you never, never can! Fight against me, but I am always here, always ready to come to you—a chance word, a chance gesture, the scent of a flower or a perfume, the music of an old song and though you think you have locked the door against me, see I am back again! Listen, even the ticking of the clock—the little clock on your mantel. Kathleen, do you remember how the clock ticked that night when you—you and he——"

She threw out her hands suddenly, she rose, a tall, queenly young figure.

"The past is past, is dead and will remain dead!" she said, then she crossed the room, and very resolutely she unlocked a drawer, from the drawer took a little steel japanned box, she unlocked it and from it took a packet of letters.

Should she read them before she destroyed them? Should she? No, and yet she hesitated—the strength and resolution of a moment ago were gone, she sat down and toyed with the ribbon that held the papers together.

"Just for the last time," she said, "and then I shall forget them utterly!" So she untied the ribbon and took the letters one by one and read them and the misty look in her eyes seemed to grow more soft and more gentle and there came a sweet womanly tenderness to her lips that the world until now had thought a little hard and contemptuous.

Is there not some little packet of old letters jealously hidden away in your possession? Haven't you treasured just one or two? Open the packet with reverent fingers, touch them gently, for here are holy things!

A child's unformed hand, the unsteady letters yet so neatly and so carefully made. Can't you see him as he makes them? that little chubby fist, that somehow cannot hold the pen in just the way the master says it must be held.

Can't you see the little curly head leaning a little to one side? Slowly he forms the great round "Os" and fashions the long tailed "Ys" and does his honest best to keep them fair and square upon the pencilled line that even now you can see ruled faintly on the old paper?

A child's letter, a little odd glove, a lock of yellow hair, his hair! Only these, but they bring back memories, don't they? Do you remember—? Ah, can you forget? When you held him so tightly in your arms that day—when he went away for ever. Such a great strong fellow, so brave, so confident of the future! How he looked into that future with clear shining eyes, eyes that were unafraid.

"Dear, it is all right, I shall come back to you, safe and sound!" So he said, and then the waiting, the agony of it, the long suspense, the silence, the hourly prayers to Almighty God that all might be well with him—and then—then the news—that came at last!

And all that you have now is the child's letter—the little glove and the curl of yellow hair.

And there are other letters, yours, Kathleen. I wonder did he think when he wrote them ten long years ago that you would be sitting here to-night reading them over yet once again? I wonder, did he think that those letters of his could bring the tears to your eyes, Kathleen? Did he dream when in his eagerness and his passion and his love for you, as he penned them, never weighing his words, only eager to pour out his soul to you, that you would keep them and cherish them all these years, Kathleen, only to destroy them at last?

The unsteady writing fades and is gone. Your eyes through a mist of tears see a young, ardent, boyish face, you see eyes that plead and are filled with a hope that fights valiantly against despair. Those hastily scrawled, passionate words are as voices that come to you out of the past, voices that remind you of how he loved you once—when you were but eighteen!

There came from the little clock on, the mantel a whirring sound, then it struck One—Two—She lifted her head for a moment, there was a step on the stairs outside, her father come home from the Club, he passed her door.

A mist was before her eyes, the letters were all blurred and indistinct, the writing—she could no longer see, yet, she knew every word written there. How many times had she read them over and over and yet over again!

And what need to read them when, she knew them so well? Would she ever forget them? So many pages, so closely written and yet all that had been said, could have been said in but three words, three short words, "I love you!"

So she sat there with the letters all in a heap in her lap, and her head bowed.

Memory—Memory was monarch of all to-night. Memory ruled and reigned supreme.

That night, do you remember, Kathleen? The night when the raindrops pattered on the glossy leaves of the magnolia that grew beneath your window? Do you remember how he stood there looking up at you, the light from your lamp on his face? Do you remember? And that day, the day you met him by the end of the lane and put your hand in his and went with him down the long road? Do you remember? And then again——

She moved suddenly, she flung her head back, her face was white and drawn and there was agony in her eyes. She rose suddenly and thrust the letters into the empty grate, she bent over them and struck a match and watched them burn.

And then, when the last was turned to grey and black ash, she went back to the table and took up the great expensive, glittering ring, the ring that represented more money than He had ever owned. And so she turned it over and over between her white fingers and laughed suddenly. But the laughter was not good to hear.

CHAPTER IX

HOW SIR JOSIAH OPENED HIS PURSE

Sir Josiah garaged his two thousand guinea car in the old coach house of "The Fighting Cocks" Inn. He ordered a sumptuous repast in that antique house of call, the best and the oldest wines must be brought up from the cellars for him.

A keen money getter, yet he was at heart a very generous man. The respect, the bobbing curtseys, the doffed hats and smiling faces here at Little Stretton delighted him. He felt just a thrill of regret that he had bought the old place for Allan rather than for himself. He had an idea that he would make a far better and more imposing Lord of the Manor than Allan.

In the City of London he was "somebody," but here in little quiet out of the world Little Stretton, he was "everybody."

Mr. Dalabey fawned on him, he fetched and carried, he was hat in hand. A cunning, artful fellow Mr. Dalabey, he sized Sir Josiah up, he called him "Squire," and Sir Josiah glowed with satisfaction.

"A good feller, that Dalabey, a sensible man!" Sir Josiah said to Allan, "a useful feller!" It puzzled the Baronet that his son refused to accompany him on his many trips to Little Stretton and Homewood. Allan went once, and on that once he was moody and silent. While his father stamped about the house and thrust the blade of his pen-knife into suspicious woodwork, Allen held aloof, he went out into the old garden by himself and stood staring at the battered nymph, whose slim stone figure was reflected in the dark pool. He sat down, on the old mossy stone seat in the great circle about the sundial and stared at the weeds and decay, and somehow the desolation of the place seemed to creep into his heart. He was glad to get away.

He loved his father, he knew what a fine old fellow he was at heart, what noble and generous impulses he was capable of. But to-day his father's loud self-confident voice, his intense self-satisfaction, his huge importance, Dalabey's servility all irked him. He was intensely glad to leave Homewood behind him and thereafter he always found some excuse that prevented him from accompanying Sir Josiah on his many visits to Homewood.

So the Baronet came and gave his orders to Dalabey and to the builders and decorators and the gardeners, and he spent money like water.

"When I do things, I don't half do things, eh Dalabey?" Sir Josiah enquired.

"No, that you don't, Squire, beg your pardon, Sir Josiah!" said Dalabey. "Never was such a free and open handed gentleman, sir!"

"Your Mr. Van Norden wouldn't have done the thing in such style, eh?" enquired Sir Josiah.

"No, sir, not to be thought of, not for a moment, Squire!"

It meant thousands, yet what did thousands matter to Sir Josiah with his hundreds of thousands? He spent and spent, he was extravagant. Before, as he said himself, one could say "Jack Robinson," he had an army of workpeople slaving at the place, and he walked about the house and garden and saw his men doing his work and drawing his pay, and for the first time in his life he felt himself a really great man.

And once—once his forebears had delved and dug this very soil that was now his own! Once for a few miserable shillings a week had they turned over the sweet brown earth over which he was lord and master.

In Little Stretton, in Homewood, at Bargate and Bushcorner, and all the little villages round about, there were smiling faces and curtseys for him and he was utterly unconscious that one pair of blue eyes grew hard and bitter and one red lipped mouth curled with contempt and dislike, that in one soft little breast a usually tender little heart was filled with hate for him. For this was the mab who had bought "her" garden, and who was spoiling it, spoiling it so that it would never, never again, be as it hud been. With one wave of his thick hand he had banished all those dear ghosts of the past who had been her friends, even more her friends than the honest, red faced rustics who were very much real flesh and blood, and who regarded her with commiserating eyes as a "queer" maid.

Oozing satisfaction and gold, Sir Josiah was beloved of everyone save of this unreasonable little maid, who hated his jolly round red face and loathed the sound of his loud and domineering voice.

"Get some of them old trees cut down and out of the way, Dalabey, get all this tangle rooted out of it and get that wall pointed, yes that's what it wants—pointing, make it look smart—and Dalabey——"

"Yes, Squire?"

"How about some broken class along the top of the walls? We don't want people climbing over and trespassing, Dalabey!"

"Certainly, Squire, broken glass!"

So on moonlight nights broken glass, securely set in cement, glittered and twinkled like a line of frost along the top of the walls and the little maid looked at it with bursting heart and a terrible sense of loss.

"Very sullen, not to say quiet, my granddarter du be getting," said Mrs. Hanson to Mrs. Colley, her neighbour.

"Maids du get that way," said Mrs. Colley. "'Tis a home of her own her be pining for—gone eighteen your maid be, Mrs. Hanson?"

"Gone eighteen Feb'ry last," said Mrs. Hanson.

"Then time it is her was married and in a home of her own, with, things to look after to keep her hands and her mind full! Marriage be the right and proper and nat'ral thing for young maids of her years——"

"And her not wanting for chances," said Mrs. Hanson; "why she hev but to hold up her finger and there be a dozen ready to run to she!"

Mrs. Colley wagged her head. "And who be they?" she asked jealously, for she had a granddaughter of her own who was as yet unappropriated. "There be Tom Spinner, who du be spending his evenings in the bar of the Three Ploughs, and Bob Domer, a nice ne'er-do-well he, and young Frank Peasgood as du make eyes at every maid he sees. Why I did order him the door myself when he would have come a-courting my 'Lizbeth."

"And there be Abram Lestwick," said Mrs. Hanson, "who be a fine and proper young man, reg'lar to Church, one as walks in fear of the Lord and no beer drinker, nor smoker neither, and a steady worker with a nice cottage of his own, and standing high with Farmer Patcham. Aye, there be Abram Lestwick as would kneel down and kiss the very floor my maid treads on!"

Mrs. Colley sniffed. She had had designs on Abram Lestwick herself for her 'Lizbeth, but Abram had always stolidly passed her inviting door by and never had be given a second glance to sallow faced, black haired, shrewish tempered 'Lizbeth Colley.

"Too mysterious he be and too quiet and sullen like, I count him, for a young man. I like young men as enjoys life, not such as walks about with a book in his pocket and scarce ever takes his eyes from the ground. Fair and square and open I du like young men to be, Mrs. Hanson, and as for your Abram Lestwick, I give him to you, I du!"

"Very gen'rous you be, givin' what bain't yours to give!" said Mrs. Hanson with spirit; "and thank you kindly, I be sure, Mrs. Colley!"

So they parted, not the best of friends, but into Mrs. Hanson's mind had come an image of Betty settling down with Abram Lestwick as her partner, and that same evening she opened fire on Betty with:

"A very proper young man be Abram Lestwick, a pity 'tis there bain't a few more like he!"

Betty made no answer.

"And very frequent he du pass this cottage, whiles round by Perry's medder be the nearest and nighest way for he."

"Well, what about Abram Lestwick, Grandmother?"

"I du believe, Betty, he hev serious intentions," said the old lady, "and a nice little cottage, well furnished and steady money coming in, not less than thirty-five shillings every week, as would make a maid happy and comfortable."

Betty sprang to her feet, her face flushed, her eyes seemed to dart points of light.

"What do 'ee mean, Grandmother? Be 'ee goading I to marry Abram Lestwick? Do 'ee want to get rid o' I, is that it?"

"Bless me, my maid, what tantrums 'ee do fly into!" cried the astonished old body. "Wherever did 'ee get thy temper from I don't know, a peaceful soul thy mother was and thy father being my own son, was as easy a man as ever trod and here be 'ee, my maid, with a hot temper, of which I be ashamed, and down on your knees and ask God to forgive 'ee and make a better maid of 'ee!"

"I shan't!" said Betty.

Mrs. Hanson rose: "'Tis the first time as ever 'ee said shan't to me, Betty Hanson, and after this I be determined and my mind be made up—marry Abram Lestwick 'ee shall!"

"No, no!"

"Or out through that door do 'ee go, never was there a maid so bad and so ungrateful as 'ee be. Go to your room and consider of things, Betty Hanson, till 'ee be come to a better frame of mind!"

CHAPTER X

CONFIDENCES

When Sir Josiah had enquired of Mr. Dalabey how long it would take to put Homewood into the order in which he desired to see it, Mr. Dalabey had scratched his head.

"Three months, maybe four, and I shouldn't he s'prised, seeing how powerful a lot there du be to du, no I shouldn't be s'prised, Squire, if it warn't five months, aye, all five months I should say it would be!"

"And now, listen to me, Dalabey," said Sir Josiah, "two months I say, and not a minute longer, two mouths I give you and if the last workman isn't out of the house and the last bit of timber and papering and what not in and done with, the garden straight and all the rest of it, then I'll get someone else to do my work for me, Dalabey!"

"Har!" said Dalabey.

"And it's not money I'm stinting you of, my man, get twenty more men at work on the place, I don't care, get as many as you can handle, but two months is the time I give you and then I clear you all out, lock, stock and barrel. So get busy, Dalabey my man, if you wish to remain in my good graces."

Dalabey got busy. He hired more painters and carpenters and joiners, more labourers and gardeners, stone masons and brick layers till Homewood was given over to a small industrial army, of which Dalabey was the indefatigable general.

There was no slacking at Homewood, Dalabey saw to that, he was here, there and everywhere. He himself was doing very well, he had no cause to complain, he charged his own time very handsomely and there were other pickings besides. But he worked, he was honest at least in that, and he made the others work. A week did wonders, a fortnight shewed an amazing change, at the end of the first month Sir Josiah nodded approval.

"Getting to be something like shipshape, Dalabey," he said. "And you got talking to me about five months, here we ain't been five weeks on the job and look you——"

"You be right, Squire, and I were wrong," said Dalabey humbly.

In one thing at least Dalabey was to be highly complimented. He was out to "restore" the old place, to make it look as nearly like it had been in the time of the Elmacotts as possible. He introduced no newfangled ideas and innovations, no modern improvements, except of course the power plant and the dynamo and the huge collection of storage cells which were to light the old house with electricity. Except for the electric lighting outfit, the old house was to look so like its old own and original self that had an eighteenth century Elmacott come to life and walked in through the hall door, he would not have been in the least surprised by anything he saw.

In the garden Dalabey had a very able lieutenant in old Markabee.

"Restore," said Dalabey, "find out all the lines of the old beds and borders and replace 'em, clean up the stone work, but not too much. You got to remember, Markabee, as time du meller things, an old garden this be and an old garden it hev got to remain, mark that, Markabee. It have got to look like, so be as if a gentleman in powdered wig and silk stockings and maybe a sword at his side were to come strolling down yon path, a-taking snuff out of his box and walking with a lady in hoops, Markabee, and patches and her hair all done high and whitened, as—as you wouldn't take, it to be the Fifth of November, Markabee, you get the hang of my meaning?"

"I du!" said Markabee, and he did his work well.

Inch by inch the old ground was reclaimed, the old yew hedge was clipped and trimmed, till it began to assume a faint suggestion of its once fanciful shape, the grass was scythed and weeded and patched and rolled and mowed. The weeds were torn up from the crevices in the old pathway of stone, but Markabee was artist enough to leave many a flower blooming where perhaps a flower should not have been.

The stonemasons and the rest would have pulled down and replaced the little stone nymph, but Dalabey ordered them off sternly.

"You leave yon maid alone, her be in keeping wi' the old place, her be! Too true some o' they weeds might be cleared off the pond, Markabee, but there be a line beyond which no one must go, so let the stone maid bide!"

So the little nymph was left in her old place, and the sunlight kissed her white stone shoulders, and dappled the slender little stone body with splashes of vivid brightness, and, little by little, the old garden came back to its own again. The weeds were all gone and the flowers bloomed, and the June sunshine and the June showers made the grass green and pleasant to the sight.

Meanwhile Allan stayed away; he was in London and his time was not unpleasantly employed.

He was too healthy and too young to brood over what after all had been merely a dream. It had been wonderfully real and wonderfully tender and beautiful while it had lasted. He had come back to reality with a sense of loss and a heartache for the little maid who had looked at him with such love in her blue eyes, who had put her arms about, his neck and called him her dear and kissed his eyes. Very, very real it had been and for many a day and many a night he could not put it out of his memory.

But this was to-day and there was all the world about him and he was to be married to a girl who was beautiful and good, and for whom he felt a liking and admiration that bordered on real affection.

Most of all he felt sorry for her, why he hardly knew, sometimes when she did not know that he was looking at her, there was a sadness about her eyes, a sad pensive little droop to her lips, which was gone all in a moment if he spoke to her.

There was a very comfortable understanding between them. They were going to be man and wife very soon, in the natural course of events they would have to live their lives together. They were beginning that life with mutual regard, liking and friendship. Love and passion were entirely absent.

"I am old, Allan," Kathleen said, "much, much older than you dear, in every way, not only in years, but——" she paused.

"In suffering and knowledge!" she might have said, but did not.

"You will never be old, I think," he said, he took her hand. "Kathleen, we understand one another. I—I'm a clumsy fellow, clumsy and slow of speech. I belong to a different world from yours!"

She shook her head.

"I am not going to apologise for my people, for in my heart I am proud of them. They were nothing and nobodies and they have made a place for themselves in the world—I love my father, honour and respect him, though I know, I know that you in your heart cannot like him."

"Your father is kind and generous, mine cynical and selfish, I think that you are richer in this matter than I am, Allan, but——"

It was the first night of a new play. London was still full, the season had not waned, the new play was dull and lifeless, the audience was yawning consumedly. These two had retired to the back of the box which Lord Gowerhurst had quitted just now and found more interest in discussing their own affairs than in following the fortunes of the characters on the boards.

Kathleen was looking wonderfully, regally beautifully to-night, and Allan was looking—what he was—an honest, clean living, stalwart young Englishman, whose dress clothes sat well on his shapely body. Son of the people he might be, but he was not a man to feel shame for.

"I do not disguise anything from myself, Allan, nor from you. I want to feel that you are my friend, that you are the friend I can come to and open my heart and speak to plainly as I might to one who is truly and indeed my friend!"

He pressed her hand by way of answer.

"I've wanted this opportunity to speak to you, it has come unexpectedly, but I shall speak now," she paused. "Our marriage was only a bargain, a very sordid bargain, and it—it hurt me at first, it hurt me a great deal. I—I hated myself, despised myself for agreeing to it, but since then, since I have come to know you better and understand you better, Allan, I think we can make something more of our lives than most others similarly placed might. I do not love you, my dear, and I know that you do not love me—No, don't speak yet, Allan, let me say what I have to say! Years ago there was someone—I was scarcely more than a child and I loved him very, very truly, very deeply. He was poor and so was I, marriage was impossible. He—went, away, I have never seen him since and I shall never see him again—the night we became engaged—you and I—I burned his letters. It hurt a little, Allan, but I did it, dear, because I want to come to you without a secret on my soul. I want to lay my heart bare to you. I want to look you in the face, to take your hand, knowing that I am keeping nothing back from you, knowing there is no secret that might lead to bitterness and anger and perhaps even to dislike. Though I feel very, very old sometimes, Allan, I know that I am young yet; we are both young, there are many years before us in the natural course of events. All those years we must spend together, so we will be truthful and frank and honest with each other and keeping our own self-respect, dear, we shall keep our respect for one another."

He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it.

"You are a good, sweet, woman, Kathleen!" he said.

She laughed a little, very softly, "And you, Allan, have you nothing to tell me?"

"Nothing!" he said, yet hesitated and smiled to himself.

"I think there is something——" she said, "was there never even for a little while, someone!"

"Yes," he said, "a girl who called me her dear, who looked at me with loving tender blue eyes, who put her arms about my neck and kissed me——"

"Oh Allan, and yet——"

"Wait!" he said, he smiled, he still held her hand. "To me she was the most wonderful, the most lovely thing I ever saw, I loved her with all my heart——"

Kathleen would have drawn her hand away, gently, yet have drawn it away, but he, smiling down at her, would not let the little hand go.

"But she was not real, she was only a dream maiden. I never thought to tell anyone, Kathleen, but will you listen to me?"

"Yes!"

And so, still holding her hand, he told her.

"That was a very wonderful dream, Allan," she said.

"It was a very wonderful dream, and when I looked about me and saw all the weeds and the desolation, then I felt as if I had lost something—as if——"

"I understand!" she said. She was pensive and thoughtful. "What can it mean? Why should such a dream be sent to you? There was some meaning behind it, something—I wish I knew!"

"It was only a dream, and I am trying to forget it, perhaps I have nearly forgotten it—the sense of loss is passing away—not quite——"

She looked at him. "It will never quite pass, I think," she said. "Allan," she hesitated, "Allan, if—if it ever became real, if someone else, someone who awakened your heart ever came into your life——"

"I should remember that you are——"

"No, no, listen, I want you to promise me something, to promise me on your honour, and I know that I can trust that—if such a thing comes to you, if the real love that may come that comes into nearly every man's life does come—Allan, will you tell me, frankly, as one friend to another, will you tell me, dear?"

"I promise," he said, "and you, Kathleen!"

"It—it came—it can never come again—I was only a child, but he was all my world. I have never seen him since and shall never see him again——"

"But if you did—then will you tell me, will you be less frank with me than I with you?"

"No!" she said. "I will tell you, I promise, if—but it never, never will, still, if—if it should—then I promise, always we will be frank with one another!"

"Always!" he said.

Lord Gowerhurst opened the door of the box and closed it very softly behind him.

"Ah!" he said, "quite so; you are wise, the play is not the thing—it is rubbish—I am sorry for the author, I am sorry for the management, but as usual I am sorry most of all for myself. You two young people have something more interesting to discuss. I don't blame you! No, hang me, I don't blame you! Now I'll confess, I met Lumeyer, an excellent fellow, one who knows of good things, he put me on to one 'The Stelling Reef Gold Mine,' shares bound to go up. I've a good mind to have a flutter. By the way, Allan, where's your father? Our worthy and excellent Baronet!"

Allan flushed. He always did when his Lordship spoke of his father. Unintentional it might be, but there was always a suggestion of a sneer in the cultivated voice of the man whose pockets were at this moment supplied with the Baronet's money.

"My father is at Little Stretton to-day and staying over night, he is very busy down there at Homewood, sir, our—my—our future home—he takes a great interest in it and is doing the place up thoroughly!"

"An excellent man, you're lucky to have such a father!"

"I never lose sight of that fact, my lord!" Allan said gravely.

"Quite right, quite right—would to Heaven——" his lordship said tragically, "would to Heaven Kathleen could say the same! She can't, she can't, sir, too deuced honest to tell lies! She is like her sainted Mother! Bless me this drivel doesn't seem to be shaping for a finish. Supposing we clear out, eh? What about a snack of supper at Poligninis?"

Kathleen rose, "I would prefer to go home," she said, "I am tired to-night!" She looked at Allan, her eyes were very bright, very kind and friendly.

"My dear child," said his lordship, "at Poligninis they have some eighty-seven Heidsick, which I regard practically as my own property. It is never offered to casual customers. Polignini is an excellent fellow who appreciates my taste and keeps it for me," he paused.

"I am tired and I shall go home!" Kathleen said briefly.

"I will see you home!" Allan said.

His lordship shrugged his shoulders. "So be it, I will go to my lonely caravanserie and a frugal meal. I'm an old fellow, an old fellow, I realise that youth must be served!" He waved a white hand. "Youth, youth!" he said. "How lightly we hold it when it is ours, how we even resent it, and how, when it is lost to us forever, do we worship and yearn and long for it. Oh the happy, goutless indigestionless days of our long since fled youth, how precious they were! And how ill spent! Give me my lost youth back again, as I think it was Faust, remarked, and what would I do with it? I am afraid, my dears, I would do with it exactly as I did with it before. We never learn wisdom! Adieu mes enfants, bon repos, my Kathleen! May angels guard thee and bring happy dreams! Allan, dear lad, good night, my respectful compliments to the Baronet, an old man, my dears, and a lonely; I realise that youth is impatient of garrulous though well intentioned age! Good night once again!" He waved his hand and the box door closed on him, he was gone.

Kathleen sighed a little, she looked at Allan with a queer smile on her lips.

"Yes, I think Allan," she said, "you are more fortunate than I, and now, dear, I am tired, I am going home—to bed!"