Читать книгу Dividing Waters - I. A. R. Wylie - Страница 4

CHAPTER III

AN EXPERIMENT

Breakfast with the Ingestres was a movable and unsociable feast. The various members of the family came down when it suited them, the only punishment being the inevitable one of cold eggs and bitter tea, and conversation was restricted to the barest necessities. The Rev. John was usually engrossed in parochial letters, Mrs. Ingestre was never present at all, and Miles only at such a time when it pleased him. Thus Nora, choosing on the morning following the momentous interview to be an early riser, found little difficulty in making her escape. The Rev. John was more absorbed than usual in his post, since it contained not only letters dealing with his cure of souls, but also some disagreeable business facts which he swallowed with his tea in melancholy gulps.

Nora kissed him lightly on the high forehead as she ran toward the open French window. Rather to her surprise, the customary caress seemed to arouse her father from his reflections. He looked up and blinked, like a man who is trying to remember some important matter.

"My dear," he said, before Nora had reached the lawn, "is it really true that you want to go abroad? Your mother was talking to me about it last night."

"We were thinking about it," Nora admitted, fidgeting nervously with the blind-cord. "Mother said she thought it would be good for me."

"But, my dear child, what shall we do without you?" her father complained.

Nora made an almost imperceptible movement of impatience. She knew of what her father was thinking, and it did not move her to any great degree of sympathy.

"You will manage all right," she said. "Mr. Clerk will help you with your letters." And then, to cut the conversation short, she went out into the garden and along the gravel pathway towards the road.

The sun shone gloriously. All the charm of an English summer morning lay in the air, and Nora drew in great breaths with a joyous, unconscious triumph in her own fresh youth and health. The garden was the one place in the village which she really loved. The ugly, modern red-brick church, the straggling "square," with its peppermint bull's-eye monument to some past "glorious victory," in which the inhabitants of Delford were dimly supposed to have had their honourable share, the stuffy cottages, interspersed here and there by an ivy-overgrown residence of some big-wig of the neighbourhood—these features were unaccountably connected in Nora's mind with her father's sermons, the drone of the organ, and the dull piety of Sundays. But the garden was all her mother's. Nora believed that within its peaceful limits the forgotten and despised fairies of ancient lore took refuge from the matter-of-fact bigots who formed Delford's most respectable community. She had even christened a certain rose-corner the "Fairy Castle," and it amused her riotous young fancy to imagine an indignant and horrified Queen Mab scampering across the lawn in disorganised flight, before the approach of the enemy in the form of Mrs. Clerk, the curate's wife, or Mrs. Chester of the Manor. The garden was, as it were, Mrs. Ingestre's self-created Eden in the drab-coloured land of the Philistines, and even the Rev. John was an intruder and disturber of its poetic peace. Nora felt all this, and in a dim, unformed way understood why her mother's roses were different to the roses in other and richer gardens, why the very atmosphere had its own peculiar perfume, the silence its own peculiar mystery. She felt that her mother had translated herself into the flowers, and that the depths of her quiet, unfathomable heart were revealed in their beauty and sweetness. She felt that if she could have read their language, the very daisies on the lawn would have lifted the veil which hung between her and the woman who seemed to her the most perfect on earth. For, in spite of their close and tender relationship, Mrs. Ingestre's inner life was for her daughter a sort of Holy of Holies, into which no human being had ever ventured.

Thus, once beyond the reach of her father's voice, Nora lingered willingly between the rose beds, making mental comments on the progress of the various favourites and for the moment forgetting the matter which was weighing heavily on her mind. At the gate opening out on to the road, however, she pulled herself sharply together, with a sudden gravity on her young face. Either the church steeple visible above the trees, or the sight of an inquisitive face peering through the blinds of the house opposite, reminded her that the frontier of Eden was reached, and that the dull atmosphere of respectability was about to encompass her. She went quickly through the village. Most of the villagers touched their caps as she passed, and Mrs. Clerk, early bird of charity that she was, attempted to waylay her, to discuss the desirability of procuring parish relief for bedridden old Jones, and, incidentally, of course, to discover how far the pleasantly lugubrious reports respecting the Ingestres' disabled fortunes were founded on fact. Nora, however, avoided her enemy with the assistance of an absent-minded smile and increased speed, and managed to reach her destination without further interruption.

Her destination was a stile which led out on to a narrow pathway over the fields. She was fond of the spot, partly because if you turned your back to the east it was quite possible to forget that such things as Delford or the church or the peppermint bull's-eye monument existed, partly because westwards the limitless stretch of undulating fields seemed to suggest freedom and the great world beyond, of which Nora thought so much. On this particular morning it was not the view which attracted her, as her rather unusual conduct testified. She arranged her ruffled brown hair, stooped, and tightened a shoelace, undid the second shoelace and retied it with methodical precision. Then some one said "Good morning, Nora," and she sprang upright with her cheeks red with surprise or exertion, or anything else the beholder chose to suppose.

"Good morning, Robert," she said.

The new-comer took the friendly, outstretched hand.

"I was coming to pay a disgracefully early morning call," he said. "I am awfully glad we have met."

"I knew you would come over the fields this way," she said. "I came because I wanted to see you."

He flushed crimson with pleasure.

"That was decent of you, Nora. You are not always so kind."

"This is an exceptional occasion," she answered gravely.

She perched herself on the stile and sat there gazing thoughtfully in front of her. In that moment she made a sweet and pleasing picture of English girlhood. The sunlight played through the trees on to her hair, picking out the shining red-gold threads, and touching with warmer glow the softly tinted skin. The clean-cut, patrician features, dark-arched eyebrows, and proud, rather full lips seemed to contrast strangely with the extreme simplicity of her flowered muslin frock. And indeed she came of another race of women than that of which Delford and its inhabitants were accustomed—something finer, more delicate, more keenly tempered. It was almost impossible to think of her as the Rev. John's daughter—quite impossible as Miles Ingestre's sister. One could only understand the small, aristocratic features when one remembered that Mrs. Ingestre was her mother. Captain Arnold remembered the fact keenly that moment.

"I declare you are Mrs. Ingestre's miniature!" he exclaimed. "This morning, one would positively think she had been made twenty years younger, and perched up there as a surprise-packet."

Nora turned on him with a pleased smile.

"This is a nice compliment," she said; "but I have no time for such things just now. Any moment Mrs. Clerk might scurry round the corner, and then my reputation would be gone for ever. She would probably tell every one that I had come out to meet you on purpose."

"Which is true, by the way, isn't it?" he inquired, smiling.

"Yes, quite true; only my reason is respectable—not the sort of reason that Mrs. Clerk would put down to my credit."

He came closer and, leaning his elbows on the cross-bars of the stile, looked up into her face.

"I hope it is a nice reason," he said.

"No," she answered, "it is a serious reason, and not in the least nice. I expect you have already heard something about it, haven't you?"

He hesitated.

"Of course—I have heard rumours," he said. "As a rule I ignore such things, but I could not altogether ignore this; it concerned you and yours too closely."

"Besides, it is true," she added.

"True, Nora?"

"Yes, quite true. We are ruined."

"My dear girl!"

"At least, comparatively ruined," she corrected.

For a moment he was silent, apparently intent on the study of his own strong square hands linked together in front of him.

"How did it happen?" he asked at last.

"I don't know," she answered impatiently. "Father bought some shares that aren't any good. I suppose he wanted to make money." Her tone was unconsciously scornful.

"We all want to do that," Arnold observed in defence.

The strongly arched eyebrows went up a degree.

"At any rate," she said, "it is frightfully rough on mother. Her life was hard enough before—what with ill-health and that sort of thing. Now it will be ten times worse." She clenched her hands in a sudden passionate protest. "I can't help it," she went on, "it seems to me all wrong. She is the best, the cleverest woman I have ever met. She ought to be the wife of a genius or a great, good man—not father's wife. Father ought to have married Mrs. Clerk. Why did she marry him? It is wicked, but it is the thought which comes into my mind every time I see them together. And now, when I think that she will have to scrape and save as well I——" She stopped short and looked at her companion defiantly. "I suppose you are very shocked," she said. "That comes of always feeling as though you were one of the family. I have to say just what is passing in my mind."

"I am glad you have so much confidence in me," Arnold answered seriously. "All the same, I do not think that you are just to your father. He is a thoroughly good man. Many people would think Mrs. Ingestre very lucky."

"Perhaps they do think so," Nora said, with indifference. "That is because no one about here is capable of understanding her. In any case, it's no good talking about it. This latest trouble is quite enough."

"I suppose Miles will be able to stay in the Army?" Arnold asked.

"Oh, yes, that's settled."

"What about your studies? They will have to be given up, of course?"

"Why 'of course'?" she flashed out.

"Because there won't be enough money for them," he explained in a matter-of-fact tone. "For my part," he went on, "I shall be glad. I dreaded the thought of coming home on leave and finding you gone. It would have been sickening."

"It will be still more 'sickening' now," she said, rather revengefully. "I am going away for a long time, and to a place a long way off."

"Nora! In Heaven's name where and why?"

She laughed at his astonished, troubled face.

"To Karlsburg, in Germany—as a companion."

"To Germany! Why do you want to go there?"

"Because I do not want to vegetate here."

"Nora, you will hate it. You will be ill with home-sickness. You don't know what it will be like. It is not as though you will be among your own country-people. You will hate their manners, their customs, their ways, and they will treat you like a servant. Little Nora, I can't bear the thought of it."

He spoke earnestly, almost incoherently.

Nora shook her head.

"There is no other alternative," she said.

"There is one other alternative, Nora. Will you be my wife?"

He had taken her hand, and she did not attempt to draw it back. Nor had she changed colour. Her clear eyes studied his thin, rather gaunt face, and passed on with frank criticism to his tall figure, loosely built and rather stooping, in the grey Norfolk suit.

"Nora," he said sternly, "I have asked you a question. You do not need to look at me like that. I am not different to what I usually am."

"But I am looking at you in a different light," she said.

He seemed to think that she was laughing at him, or that she had not taken him seriously. A deep flush mounted his sun-burnt cheeks.

"Nora, I am very much in earnest," he said, his grasp on her hand tightening. "Though you are a child you must have felt long ago that I cared for you as something more than my little comrade. I love you, and I have loved you a long time. Will you be my wife?"

She shook her head gravely and regretfully.

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"Because I do not love you."

"Are you sure? How can you tell? You know nothing of love."

"No," she agreed. "That is the very reason I will not marry you."

He let her hand go and stood looking at her with his lips tightly compressed, as though on a storm of protest.

"Would you mind if I was quite honest?" she went on. "I would rather tell you everything, even if it makes you think me bad and heartless."

"I shall never think that of you," he said painfully.

"Well, then, I did know you cared for me," she continued. "I was always ashamed of myself for knowing. It seemed conceited of me to imagine that a grown-up man should want such a child as I am—still, I couldn't help it. I felt it. It seems one does feel that sort of thing. It is like electricity in the air. Anyhow, it did not worry me very much. I made up my mind that one of these days I would marry you. It seemed so probable and natural that I should. We had known each other since I was a baby and you a school-boy; our families were connected; we lived in the same neighbourhood; we saw each other at regular intervals; we never quarrelled—or hardly ever; we knew each other's faults better than most people do who marry. Everything seemed to point in the same direction. But I was such a school-girl. I felt that there was heaps of time for me to grow to love you—or perhaps find out that I loved you already. You see, I wasn't sure. I liked to be with you; but then, I like to be with any one who is jolly and amusing, so that wasn't a sure test. Yesterday I knew that there was no time left me. I guessed that I should have to decide between you and Karlsburg. It sounds horrid, but it is the truth. And I could not decide—I simply could not. Then I thought—perhaps if you asked me, perhaps if you told me about your love, it would awaken some sort of an answer in me—I should feel some sort of signal such as I should imagine a woman would feel if the being with whom she is destined to spend her life, and perhaps more, stood at her side and held her hand. So I came out here, so that you would ask me to be your wife. Are you angry?"

He shook his head, frowning straight before him.

"No."

"It may sound heartless," she went on; "I did not mean it to be. I thought it would be better if everything was spoken out clearly between us. I knew you loved me, and I cared for you—I cared for you enough to be glad if I found I loved you. For my own sake I should have been glad. I know my life would be safe in your hands—that you are all an English gentleman need be, but——"

"Now comes the 'but,' he said, with bitterness.

"It is no good," she said. "I can't pretend, can I? When you took my hand, when you spoke, I felt nothing—absolutely nothing, or, perhaps, only a little more critical than usual. I noticed, for instance, that you stoop. It had never struck me before. I tell you that because it shows you just how I feel."

"Thank you," he said.

She put her hand on his shoulder.

"Don't be angry," she pleaded. "I do care for you."

"Then, if you care for me, couldn't you give me a chance—won't you trust yourself to me, Nora? Love will come little by little."

He had taken her hand again, and she felt that he trembled with restrained feeling.

"I have an idea that love never comes little by little," she said.

They were a long time silent. Arnold had buried his face on his arms on the cross-bars. Presently he looked up, and met her sorrowful gaze with pale composure.

"So it is to be Karlsburg?" he asked.

"Yes, I think so."

"Nora, I shan't give up hope."

"It wouldn't be fair of me to say 'don't.'"

"Still, when you come back?" …

"I can't promise anything," she said, but her eyes were full of pity and kindness. "I am so sorry, Robert."

"That's all right, dear. You can't help it." He pressed her hand a last time. "I won't come on now. You understand—I would rather be alone. Good-bye."

"Good-bye."

She watched him till he was out of sight. A tear rolled down her cheek. She rubbed it quickly and impatiently away. Then she sprang down and went home. She felt shaken and vaguely regretful, and was filled with the one desire to be with her mother.

Mrs. Ingestre was in the garden when Nora reached the vicarage. She was looking paler than usual, but she greeted her daughter with the customary grave, affectionate smile.

"You are out early to-day," she said.

Nora came and slipped her arm through her mother's.

"I have something serious to tell you," she said. "Robert has asked me to be his wife."

She spoke quickly, breathlessly, as though disburdening her heart of an uncomfortable load. Mrs. Ingestre said nothing, but waited quietly for what was to come. She held a bunch of roses, and if Nora had been less self-absorbed, she would have seen that the white hand trembled.

"I wanted him to propose to me," Nora went on with her confession. "I wanted to find out if I cared—I wanted to care, but—I don't—not enough. So I said 'No.' I am glad it is over."

Mrs. Ingestre pressed the arm resting on her own.

"And I am glad that you have said 'no,'" she said. "I should always have been afraid if it had been 'yes' that Karlsburg and vegetation had given the casting vote. It is dangerous to treat marriage as an escape loop-hole. Sometimes it means the tragedy of a lifetime."

They talked of other things, as people do who have touched on a subject too near the heart's innermost and untrodden places, but Mrs. Ingestre had unconsciously lifted a corner of the veil. The words "a tragedy of a lifetime" remained ineffaceable, and, though they had been untouched with self-pity or bitterness, Nora believed she understood.

From that moment she saw in her mother's face, words, and acts a new meaning—the revelation of a harsh punishment nobly and patiently accepted.

CHAPTER IV

OUTWARD BOUND

After the final decision, events moved swiftly in Nora Ingestre's life. It was almost as though Mrs. Ingestre was afraid delay might develop imperceptibly into a gradual surrender to the protests of her husband and the scoffing criticisms of her son. The former treated Nora's journey as a sort of soul-contaminating emigration into the land of the Moabites—a matter full of spiritual danger for her, and, incidentally, of annoyance for him. During the six weeks that passed in correspondence between Delford and Karlsburg and in busy preparations, he varied the table conversation with anxious appeals to a watchful, if occasionally inexplicable Providence on behalf of his dearest child and a fretful review of his own crippled condition without her assistance.

"God forbid that I should criticise my fellow-creatures," was his usual introductory sentence, "but foreigners are not as we. They have ways and customs which I cannot believe are well-pleasing in His sight. Do not, my child, be led astray by the creeping influence of example; do not surrender the proud and glorious tenets of your country because you see many, less fortunate, following other paths than those you have been taught to tread. They may seem fair, but remember the end is not here. Be careful that a light and frivolous conception of a terrible God does not taint your blood. I shall think of you always, dear child, but most of all on Sundays, in our beloved church, when I shall pray that you too are joining in the universal praise in some suitable place of worship."

After which he was wont to remark that his sermon was not yet copied out, and on Nora having offered to perform the task, only too thankful that her soul's condition should cease to be made the subject for an after-dinner's conversation, he would draw her to him and kiss her.

"What shall I do without my right hand?" he usually added, with a grave and melancholy shake of the head.

It was then Miles's turn to take up the ball and keep it rolling after his own methods and ideas. References to fat Germans and to people who chose to associate with that sort of foreign bounder rather than stay at home with decent English people were plentiful, and became tiresome even in their variations. But alike to her brother's pungent sarcasm and her father's periods Nora bore the same determined front. She was on her mother's side, blindly and devotedly, and in spite of the fact that at the bottom of her heart she shared the prejudices of the masculine element in her family. She had the firm conviction that her mother was right, and felt, moreover, that anything—even Karlsburg—was better than the dreary Puritan monotony of her present life.

As for Mrs. Ingestre, she said little, but went on quietly with the necessary arrangements and ignored the constant, if indirect, attacks of her husband and son. Neither ventured to criticise her plans to her face. Miles lived in a wholesome shamefaced awe of his mother's dignity and keener insight into his own weaknesses; the Rev. John had his private reasons for caution. He had, in fact, waged one battle royal with his wife, and had been momentarily forced to realise that for twenty-five years he had been living with a master who had acted willingly as his slave. Not that the awakening was more than momentary. When he first recovered from the shock of finding himself confronted by an iron wall of opposition, he had dozed back into the old delusion that he was sent with a divine mission to be the guide and support to a frail and helpless woman. But there were a few words uttered in the course of a short and painful interview which the Rev. John could not forget. They rankled in his mind as the proof of the injustice, ingratitude, and perversity of the best of women.

"We look at things from a different standpoint," Mrs. Ingestre had said wearily. "You regard the world and all that it has to offer in beauty and happiness as something to be hated and avoided. You do hate the world. You boast of the fact. I am different. I believe that I was put into the world to enjoy it to the uttermost power of my capability, that every day in which I had not seen or done something new or experienced some fresh wonder was a day wasted. I believed all this in spite of my home and upbringing. I simply waited for the time when I should be allowed to live as I understood living. I married you—and then too late I saw that your ideas and mine clashed. It was a mistake, John, but in all justice you must admit it was a mistake which you have never had to feel. I have done my best to smother my wishes and instincts because I realised that it was not your fault that I had seen more in you than was really there. I have stood by you loyally—I felt it was my duty to do so even at the cost of my own individuality. I had made a mistake. But it was a mistake none the less, John, and it is one for which Nora shall not suffer. My responsibility to her is greater than it is to you. She is my daughter. She shall live as her character requires—as my character required. She shall not be stunted and dwarfed in her growth. This is the first time I have ever opposed you. I do so because I must."

And, strangely enough, the Rev. John had found nothing to say. He prayed very earnestly for his wife against the hydra-headed monster of worldliness and vanity which he firmly believed had taken hold upon her soul, but from that moment his protest confined itself to an increased gravity in her presence and the indirect reproach of his after-dinner orations.

Thus time slipped past, and almost before she knew it the day of departure dawned for Nora. In the fresh autumnal air and bright sunshine she forgot the pangs of the previous night, when she had wept a few tears of regret and vague remorse. In the darkness she had reproached herself to the point of believing that to desert her father and the copying of his sermons was a piece of unfilial selfishness. Even Robert Arnold appeared to her in a new light—that light which our "good-night" thoughts, first cousins to "last" thoughts, cast about those dear to us. He seemed very dear to her at midnight. A dozen episodes, grave and gay, in their common life recurred to her, also illuminated by the same tender regret. A year's parting from him caused her almost intolerable heartache, the more so because she had repulsed him and the love after which she began to hunger. "If he will only wait, I am sure I shall grow to love him," she confided to her damp pillow, more than half convinced that the love had come already, startled to life by the fear of loss and separation.

But the morning sunshine is a spritely, cold-hearted magician. As the shaky old four-wheeled cab, glorified in the village by the name of "the brougham," rolled over the uneven cobbles, she found herself nodding a cheerful, almost triumphant, farewell to the church and the monument. They were in her eyes the symbols of a life she was leaving behind her, like the gates of a not intolerable prison. She was quite sorry that Mrs. Clerk failed to be on her usual watchful guard at the window. Certainly, if the village was a sort of prison, Mrs. Clerk was its spiritual gaoler, and Nora would have dearly loved to flourish her dawning freedom in the disapproving face of her natural enemy. But Mrs. Clerk was nowhere to be seen, and Nora's flashing glance encountered only her mother's grave, thoughtful eyes.

Against all advice, Mrs. Ingestre had determined to accompany her daughter up to London. Perhaps she feared her husband's last exhortations, perhaps she was urged by a secret heart-hunger. Yet her whole face brightened with warm sympathy as she read in Nora's smile and heightened colour the proud, bold joy of youth plunging for the first time into the full tide of life.

"You are glad to go?" she asked in a low voice that was without the faintest tone of reproach.

Nora nodded.

"I am excited," she said. "I feel like a pioneer setting out on the discovery of new worlds. And so I am. What does it matter that millions of people have been where I am going? I have never been before. It is all new to me."

Her father sighed in pained disapproval.

"Let us hope that your adventures in foreign lands will not cost you too dear, Nora," he said. "May they bring you back to your home contented and grateful for its blessed peace."

Mrs. Ingestre leant forward and laid her hand on Nora's. The movement might have been made in confirmation of her husband's words—it might also have had another meaning. It might have meant, taken in conjunction with the almost youthful flash in the dark eyes: "Be of good cheer! The world and life are before you. Grasp both in spite of every one. They are worth fighting for!"

And Nora's clasp responded. Her spirits were at their highest pitch. She was afraid of nothing; the long journey, the foreign country, and its despised inhabitants had no terrors for her. Youth and morning sunshine swept her forward on a wave of impetuous joy. She even found it in her heart to be thankful for the "blows of Providence," though for other reasons than those of her piously resigned parent. "After all, now I shall be able to fight my own battles," was her proud thought.

The day in London cast the first shadow over her courage. They arrived in the metropolis at midday, and as the boat-train left at eight o'clock in the evening there was a whole afternoon to be spent wandering about the busy streets—a pleasant occupation if you understand how to go about it. But this was one thing that the Rev. John did not understand. He belonged to the class of people for whom London is a great black, smutty monster, replete with all the vices and crimes of Babylon, and his passage through its heart was a veritable penance. His sincerely Puritan temperament—for, to do him justice, he was but half a hypocrite and only that much unconsciously, like the rest of us—found "sermons in stones," and in everything else from the wicked luxury of the lady lounging in her victoria to the ragged profligacy of the beggar. Sermons he delivered, therefore, and Nora, trudging wearily at his side, with all her eyes on the ignored shop windows, listened in sullen defiance. She loved London with the almost passionate love which is given to no other city in the world. She loved the fogs, its dirt, its stern, relentless bustle; she felt a sort of vague kinship with its vagabonds, its grandees, its very policemen, and her father's criticisms goaded her to distraction. Yet once, as they dragged themselves into an A.B.C. for tea, she saw her mother's face, and her anger died down, yielding to the first cold touch of home-sickness. There was something written on the pale, worn face which she could not read but which filled her with vague pain. Visited by what unshed years of regret, longing, and unavailing remorse had those quiet eyes watched the tide of life flow past them? Nora did not know. In an instinctive, almost childish, sympathy she slipped her hand into Mrs. Ingestre's.

"Dear, dear mother!" she said, "I wish I could make you happy—really happy."

The Rev. John had gone to order the buns and tea which were to form the pièces de résistance of their evening meal. Mrs. Ingestre looked down into the young, earnest face. Her own face relaxed an instant from its own usual serenity. It was as though a sudden gust of wind had passed over a lake, ruffling its smooth, peaceful surface.

"Be happy," she said almost imperatively. "Whatever else happens, remember that you have the right to happiness. And to be happy you must open your heart wide—you must welcome all that is good, even if it is not the good you have been taught to know. Don't let Delford or—or even us make your standard. Keep the past and those that love you, but don't let them hem you—don't let them stand between you and the future. Show your new world a big, generous, open heart, and it will open a heart as big and generous to you. Be arrogant and petty, and everything about you will reflect yourself. Oh, Nora, I am not preaching; a narrow heart is a curse to others and to itself."

There was a peculiar emphasis in her words, a note in her voice so like despair that it rang long afterwards in Nora's memory. It cast a deeper shadow over her sinking spirits, and as she walked by her mother's side towards the station which was to mark their first long parting, the hot, burning tears welled up in her eyes and only by a strong effort were kept back from overflow. Since that morning, with its brilliant sunshine, its youth and hope, all had changed within her and without. The sunshine had yielded to cold, dark shadows, youth and hope lagged wearily, overcome by the growing tide of home-love. "Dear old England!" Nora whispered to herself. "Dear old England!" And the very shop windows, casting bright golden patches on the thickening fog, seemed to have a special light of their own. The faces of the passers-by were dear to her because they were English faces and because she was going to a strange country, where she would see them no more. Even the red-brick church and "the monument" became hallowed in her memory. In that moment of youthful grief she would have given worlds to know that she was going home, that there were to be no partings, that she was to live her life in the dull peace to which she had waved a joyous farewell that very morning.

They entered the great station. The bustle and confusion brought her no relief—rather, it increased the sense of helplessness which was growing stronger and stronger. For a moment she lost sight of her father and mother, and it was then she felt for the first time all the poignancy of the loneliness which was, in less than a quarter of an hour, to become an irreparable reality. She turned, dazedly seeking a familiar face, and in the same instant a firm, warm hand clasped hers.

"Nora—little girl!"

It was Arnold who stood beside her. She recognised his strong, gaunt face with a sudden, joyous start which brought the colour to her cheeks. Had she unconsciously been longing for him? Had the heartache been a little because she had not seen him, because ever since that decisive morning he had kept away from her, taking her dismissal as final? Was it final? These were things he at least might have asked as he felt the quick response of her touch and saw the light flash back into her tear-filled eyes. But Nora thought of nothing—asked no questions. She clung to his arm like a tired, lost child.

"Oh, I am so glad," she said, almost incoherent with relief, "so glad!"

"I couldn't keep away," he said, himself shaken by her sudden self-abandonment. "I did my best, but in the end I had to come. I could not let you go so far from me without a God-speed. And something seemed to tell me that you would be glad to see me."

"I am!" she cried. "Of course I am!"

They reached Mrs. Ingestre and her husband, who were busy with the luggage registration. A shadow seemed to pass over the latter's face as she saw the two together, but she greeted Arnold with her usual serene courtesy.

"Miles has come too," she said.

Miles was, indeed, very much en évidence. He had made himself what he called "smart" for the occasion, and an extraordinary high collar and a flagrantly red tie certainly put him beyond all danger of being overlooked. His face was a trifle flushed—perhaps with the hurry of his arrival—and his manner jocose.

"You look as though you might flood the station any minute," he told Nora. "I bet anything you'd give your bottom dollar to be out of it."

"Don't, Miles!" she answered gently. "Of course I am sorry to leave you all. It is only natural."

Her eyes met Arnold's, and perhaps they said more than she knew. He came back to her side.

"Let us go and find a comfortable corner for you," he suggested.

She followed him passively, and they walked along the platform to the end of the train, where the crowd of passengers was less dense.

"Dear little Nora!" he said, looking down at her with infinite pity and tenderness. The tears rushed again to her eyes. She fought them down courageously, but her voice shook as she answered:

"It is so hard to go," she said, "much harder than I thought this morning. I have only just realised how dear everything—everybody is to me."

"Nora, that is what I hoped. You are so young—you do not know your own heart. Now perhaps you can tell better—if there is any chance for me."

She saw the pleading in his face, and she made no answer. Her throat hurt her and she was no longer so sure. She did care for him, and if she had felt no thrill of passion at his touch, his presence seemed to envelop her in a warm, comforting glow of protecting tenderness infinitely precious.

"Nora," he went on, "even now it is not too late. My dearest, what are you waiting for? What are you expecting to find? I believe I could make you happy—my love is so great."

She threw up her head with the determined gesture he knew so well.

"I must go," she said. "It would be weak and cowardly to turn back at the last minute. Only——"

"You will come back soon?"

She nodded, her lips trembling.

"I feel I must," she said.

"And you will write to me?"

The Rev. John bustled up to them. He was flustered and nervous, as people are to whom a journey of any sort is an event full of dangerous possibilities.

"You must get in at once," he said fussily. "The train is just off. There, God bless you, my dear child! Remember all I have said. And if you are not happy, or the people not nice, let us know at once."

Mrs. Ingestre clasped her daughter in a short, almost passionate embrace.

"Be happy!" she said again; and the words were a blessing.

The carriage door slammed to; somewhere from the rear they heard the guard's shrill whistle, and gradually the train began to glide forward, leaving behind the little group of dearly loved faces.

Arnold walked at the carriage side.

"You will write to me often?" he pleaded.

"Yes, yes, I will write."

"Tell me everything—everything you think and feel. Oh, Nora, it is so hard to let you go! But I have taken fresh hope. I believe you will come back soon—I believe it will all come right for us both."

The train was gathering speed. He had to run to keep pace with her carriage.

"Nora, after all—you do care a little, don't you?"

She nodded. She was so tired, so heart-sick, that had it been possible she would have sprung out and put her hand in his in weary, thankful surrender. But it was too late. She could only look at him, and again her eyes told more than she perhaps would have said. He stood still, hat in hand, and waved to her, and the last she saw of him was a face full of hope and gratitude.

"When you send for me, I shall come," he said.

The train glided into the suffocating darkness of a tunnel, and when they once more emerged the station was far behind, and they were travelling faster and faster into the night. The lights of London, of home, of England swept past in blurred lines of fire.

Nora Ingestre watched them, fighting bravely; but when they had disappeared she covered her eyes with her hand and wept the silent, bitter tears of a first exile.