r. 
 
 ^ 
 
 BERKELEY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY m 
 CALIFOPHU 
 
 [John Habhies.I 
 
 (late Waters) 1 
 
 BookselUr 
 
 Wmtbouihi GM»t*J 
 
MOTH AND RUST 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 RED POTTAGE. 
 
 DIANA TEMPEST. 
 
 SIR CHARLES DANVERS. 
 
 A DEVOTEE. 
 
 THE DANYERS' JEWELS. 
 
MOTH AND RUST 
 
 TOGETHER WITH GEOFFREY'S 
 WIFE AND THE PITFALL 
 
 By MARY CHOLMONDELEY, 
 
 AUTUOR OF "RED POTTAGE." 
 
 ■• Rnsl ill tliy <r<'l(l. ii Jiintli is in thine array.' 
 
 — Christina RofJSKrji. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET 
 
 1902 
 

 TO 
 
 ESSEX. 
 
 Not chance of birth or place has made us friends. 
 
 090 
 
PREFACE 
 My best thanks are due to the Editor of 
 The Graphic for his kind permission to re- 
 pubHsh " Geofirey's Wife," which appeared 
 originally in The Graphic. 
 
 MARY CHOLMONDELEY. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 MOTH AND RUST 1 
 
 GEOFFREY'S WIFE 241 
 
 THE PITFALL 267 
 
MOTH AND RUST 
 
MOTH AND RUST 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 " Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, -wliere 
 moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves 
 break through and steal." 
 
 npHE Vicar gave out the text, and 
 proceeded to expound it. The Httle 
 congregation settled down peacefully to 
 hsten. Except four of their number, the 
 " quality " in the carved Easthope pew, 
 none of them had much treasure on earth. 
 Their treasure for the greater part consisted 
 of a pig, that was certainly being " laid up " 
 to meet the rent at Christmas. But there 
 would hardly be time for moth and rust 
 to get into it before its secluded Hfe should 
 migrate into flitches and pork pies. Not 
 that the poorest of IMr Long's parishioners 
 had any fear of such an event, for they 
 never associated his sermons with anything 
 
4 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 to do with themselves, except on one occa- 
 sion when the good man had preached ear- 
 nestly against drunkenness, and a respect- 
 able widow had ceased to attend divine 
 service in consequence, because, as she ob- 
 served, she was not going to be spoken 
 against Hke that by any one, be they who 
 they may, after all the years she had been 
 "on the teetotal." 
 
 Perhaps the two farmers who had driven 
 over resplendent wives in dog-carts had 
 treasure on earth. They certainly had 
 money in the bank at Mudbury, for they 
 were to be seen striding in in gaiters on 
 market-day to draw it out. But then it 
 was well known that thieves did not break 
 through into banks and steal. Banks some- 
 times broke of themselves, but not often. 
 
 On the whole, the congregation was at its 
 ease. It felt that the text was well chosen, 
 and that it applied exclusively to the four 
 occupants of "the Squire's" pew. 
 
 The hard-worked Vicar certainly had no 
 treasure on earth, if you excepted his princi- 
 pal possessions, namely, his pale wife and 
 
MOTH AND RUST 6 
 
 little flock of rosy children, and these, of 
 course, were only encumbrances. Had they 
 not proved to be so ? For his cousin had 
 promised him the family h\ ing, and would 
 certainly have kept that promise when it 
 became vacant, if the wife he had married 
 in the interval had not held such strong 
 views as to a celibate clergy. 
 
 The Vicar was a conscientious man, and 
 the conscientious are seldom concise. 
 
 "He held with all his tedious might, 
 The mirror to the mind of God." 
 
 There was no doubt he was tedious, and 
 it was to be hoped that the portion of the 
 Divine mind not reflected in the clerical 
 mirror would compensate somewhat for His 
 more gloomy attributes as shown therein. 
 
 Mrs Trefusis, " Squire's " mother, an old 
 woman with a thin, knotted ftice hke worn- 
 out elastic, sat erect throughout the service. 
 She had the tight-lipped, bitter look of one 
 who has coldly appropriated as her due all 
 the good things of hfe, who has fiercely 
 rebelled against eveiy untoward event, and 
 who now in old age offers a passive, im- 
 
6 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 potent resistance to anything that suggests 
 a change. She had had an easy, comfort- 
 able existence, but her life had gone hard 
 with her, and her face showed it. 
 
 Near her were the two guests who were 
 staying at Easthope. The villagers looked 
 at the two girls with deep interest. They 
 had made up their minds that " the old lady 
 had got 'em in to see if Squire could fancy 
 one of 'em." 
 
 Lady Anne Varney, who sat next to IVIrs 
 Trefusis, was a graceful, small-headed woman 
 of seven - and - twenty, dehcately featured, 
 pale, exquisitely dressed, with the indefin- 
 able air of a finished woman of the world, 
 and with the reserved, disciplined manner of 
 a woman accustomed to conceal her feehngs 
 from a world in which she has lived too 
 much, in which she has been knocked about 
 too much, and which has not gone too 
 well with her. If Anne attended to the 
 sermon — and she appeared to do so — she 
 was the only person in the Easthope pew 
 who did. 
 
 No; the other girl, Janet Black, was 
 
MOTH AND RUST 7 
 
 listening too now and then, catching dis- 
 jointed sentences with no sense in them, as 
 one hears a few shouted words in a high wind. 
 
 Ah me I Janet was beautiful. Even Mrs 
 Trefusis was obliged to own it, though she 
 did so grudgingly, and added bitterly that 
 the girl had no breeding. It was true. 
 Janet had none. But beauty rested upon 
 her as it rests on a dove's neck, varying 
 with every movement, every turn of the 
 head. She was quite motionless now, her 
 rather large, ill- gloved hands in her lap. 
 Janet was a still woman. She had no 
 nervous movements. She did not twine 
 her muff- chain round her fingers as Anne 
 did. Anne looked at her now and then, 
 and wondered whether she — Anne — would 
 have been more successful in life if she had 
 entered the arena armed with such beauty 
 as Janet's. 
 
 There was a portrait of Janet in the 
 Academy several years later, which has 
 made her beauty kno^vn to the world. 
 We have all seen that celebrated picture 
 of the calm IMadonna face, with the mark 
 
8 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 of suffering so plainly stamped upon the 
 white brow and in the unfathomable eyes. 
 But the young girl sitting in the East- 
 hope pew hardly resembled, except in 
 feature, the portrait that, later on, took 
 the artistic world by storm. Janet was 
 perhaps even more beautiful in this her 
 first youth than her picture proved her 
 afterwards to be ; but the beauty was ex- 
 pressionless, opaque. The soul had not 
 yet illumined the fair face. She looked 
 what she was — a httle dull, without a 
 grain of imagination. Was it the dulness 
 of want of abihty, or only the dulness of 
 an uneducated mind, of powers unused, 
 still dormant? 
 
 Without her transcendent beauty she 
 would have appeared uninteresting and 
 commonplace. 
 
 " Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth." 
 
 The Vicar had a habit of repeating his text 
 several times in the course of his sermon. 
 Janet heard it the thu-d time, and it forced 
 the entrance of her mind. 
 
MOTH AND RUST 9 
 
 Her treasure was certainly on earth. It 
 consisted of the heavy, sleek-hau-ed young 
 man with the sunburnt complexion and the 
 reddish moustache at the end of the pew — 
 in short, " the Squire." 
 
 After a short and ardent courtship she had 
 accepted him, and then she herself had been 
 accepted, not without groans, by his family. 
 The groans had not been audible, but she 
 was vaguely aware that she was not received 
 with enthusiasm by the family of her hero, 
 her wonderful fairy prince who had ridden 
 into her hfe on a golden chestnut. George 
 Trefusis was heavily built, but in Janet's 
 eyes he was slender. His taciturn dulness 
 was in her eyes a most dignified and be- 
 coming reserve. His inveterate unsociability 
 proved to her — not that it needed proving 
 — his mental superiority. She could not be 
 surprised at the coldness of her reception as 
 his betrothed, for she acutely felt her own 
 gi'cat unworthiness of being the consort of 
 this resplendent personage, who could have 
 married any one. Why had he honoured 
 her among all women? 
 
10 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 The answer was sufficiently obvious to 
 every one except herself. The fairy prince 
 had fallen heavily in love with her beauty ; 
 so heavily that, after a secret but stubborn 
 resistance, he had been vanquished by it. 
 Marry her he must and would, whatever his 
 mother might say. And she had said a good 
 deal. She had not kept silence. 
 
 And now Janet was staying for the first 
 time at Easthope, which was one day to be her 
 home — the old Tudor house standing among 
 its terraced gardens, which had belonged 
 to a Trefusis since a Trefusis built it in 
 Henry the Seventh's time. 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 "On peut choisir ses amities, mais on subit Tamour." 
 
 — Princess Karadja. 
 
 After luncheon George offered to. take Janet 
 round the gardens. Janet looked timidly at 
 Mrs Trefusis. She did not know whether 
 she ought to accept or not. There might be 
 
MOTH AND RUST 11 
 
 etiquettes connected with afternoon walks 
 of which she was not aware. For even 
 since her arrival at Easthope yesterday it 
 had been borne in upon her that there 
 were many things of which she was not 
 aware. 
 
 " Pray let my son show you the gardens," 
 said INIrs Trefusis, with impatient formality. 
 " The roses are in great beauty just now." 
 
 Janet went to put on her hat, and ^Irs 
 Trefusis lay do^vn on the sofa in the drawing- 
 room with a httle groan. Anne sat down by 
 her. The eyes of both women followed 
 Janet's tall, magnificent figure as she joined 
 George on the terrace. 
 
 " She dresses like a shop-girl," said Mrs 
 Trefusis. " And what a hat ! Exactly what 
 one sees on the top of omnibuses." 
 
 Anne did not defend the hat. It was 
 beyond defence. She supposed, with a 
 tinge of compassion, what was indeed the 
 case, that Janet had made a special pilgrim- 
 age to Mudbury to acquire it, in order the 
 better to meet the eyes of her future mother- 
 in-law. 
 
12 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 All Aime said was, "Very respectable 
 people go on the top of omnibuses nowa- 
 days." 
 
 *' I am not saying an)1:hing against her 
 respectabihty," said poor ^Irs Trefusis. 
 " Heaven knows if there had been anything 
 against it I should have said so before now. 
 It would have been my duty." 
 
 Anne smiled faintly. '' A painful duty." 
 
 *' I'm not so sure," said ]\Irs Trefusis 
 grimly. She never posed before Anne, nor, 
 for that matter, did any one else. " But 
 from all I can make out this girl is a model 
 of middle - class respectability. Yet she 
 comes of a bad stock. One can't tell how 
 she wiU turn out. What is bred in the bone 
 wiU come out in the flesh." 
 
 " There are worse things than middle- 
 class respectability. George might have 
 presented you with an actress with a past. 
 Lord Lossiemouth married his daughter's 
 maid last week." 
 
 " I don't know what I've done," said Mrs 
 Trefusis, " that my only son should marry a 
 pretty horse-breaker." 
 
MOTH AND RUST 18 
 
 " I thought it was her brother who was a 
 horse-breaker." 
 
 " So he is, and so is she. It was riding to 
 hounds that my poor boy first met her." 
 
 " She rides magnificently. I saw her out 
 cub-hunting last autumn, and asked who she 
 was." 
 
 " Her brother is disreputable. He was 
 mixed up with that case of drugging some 
 horse or other. I forget about it, but I 
 know it was disgi-aceful. He is quite an 
 impossible person, but I suppose we shall 
 have to know him now. The place will be 
 overrun with her relations, whom I have 
 avoided for years. Things like that always 
 happen to me." 
 
 This was a favourite expression of INIrs 
 Trefusis'. She invariably spoke as if a curse 
 had hung over her since her birth. 
 
 *' What does it matter who one knows ? " 
 said Anne. 
 
 Mrs Trefusis did not answer. The knots 
 in her face moved a little. She knew what 
 country life and country society were better 
 than Anne. She had all her hfe lived in the 
 
14 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 upper of the two sets which may be found 
 in every country neighbourhood. She did 
 what she considered to be her duty by the 
 secondary set, but she belonged by birth 
 and by inclination to the upper class. It 
 was at first with bewildered surprise, and 
 later on with cold anger, that she observed 
 that her only son, bone of her bone, 
 very son of herself and her kind dead 
 husband, showed a natural tendency to 
 gravitate towards the second-rate among 
 their neighbours. 
 
 Why did he do it? Why did he bring 
 strange, loud-voiced, vulgar men to Easthope, 
 the kind of men whom JMr Trefusis would 
 not have tolerated ? She might have known 
 that her husband would die of pneumonia 
 just when her son needed him most. She 
 had not expected it, but she ought to have 
 expected it. Did not everything in her lot 
 go crooked, while the lives of all those around 
 her went straight? What was the matter 
 with her son, that he was more at ease with 
 these undesirable companions than with the 
 sons of his father's old friends ? Why would 
 
MOTH AND RUST 16 
 
 he never accompany her on her annual pil- 
 grimage to London ? 
 
 George was one of those lethargic, vain 
 men who say they hate London. Catch 
 them going to London ! Perhaps if efforts 
 were made to catch them there, they might 
 repair thither. But in London they are 
 nobodies ; consequently to London they do 
 not go. And the same man who eschews 
 London will generally be found to gravitate 
 in the country to a society in which he is 
 the chief personage. It had been so with 
 George. Fred Black, the disreputable horse- 
 breaker, and his companions, had sedulously 
 paid court to him. George, who had a 
 deep-rooted love of horse-flesh, was often 
 at Fred's training stables. There he met 
 Janet, and fell in love with her, as did most 
 of Fred's associates. But unlike them, 
 George had withdrawn. He knew he 
 should " do " for himself with " the county " 
 if he married Janet. And he could not 
 face his mother. So he sulked Uke a fish 
 under the bank, half suspicious that he is 
 being angled for. So ignorant of his fellow- 
 
16 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 creatures was George that there actually 
 had been a moment when he suspected 
 Janet of trying to " land him," and he did 
 not think any the worse of her. 
 
 Then, after months of sullen indecision, 
 he suddenly rushed upon his fate. That 
 was a week ago. 
 
 Anne left her chair as Mrs Trefusis did 
 not answer, and knelt down by the old 
 woman. 
 
 *' Dear Mrs Trefusis," she said, " the girl 
 is a nice girl, innocent and good, and with- 
 out a vestige of conceit." 
 
 " She has nothing to be conceited about 
 that I can see." 
 
 " Oh ! yes. She might be conceited about 
 marrying George. It is an amazing match 
 for her. And she might be conceited about 
 her beauty. I should be if I had that 
 face." 
 
 " My dear, you are twenty times as good- 
 looking, because you look what you are — a 
 
 lady. She looks what she is — a " 
 
 Something in Anne's steady eyes discon- 
 certed ]Mrs Trefusis, and she did not finish 
 
MOTH AND RUST IT 
 
 the sentence. She twitched her hands rest- 
 lessly, and then went on : " And she can't 
 come into a room. She sticks in the door. 
 And she always calls you * Lady Varney.' 
 She hasn't called a girl a ' gurl ' yet, but I 
 know she will. I had thought my son's 
 wife might make up to me a little for all 
 I've gone through — might be a comfort to 
 me — and then I am asked to put up with 
 a vulgarian." 
 
 Anne went on in a level voice : " Janet is 
 not in the least vulgar, because she is unpre- 
 tentious. IMiddle-class she may be, and is : 
 so was my grandmother ; but vulgar she is 
 not. And she is absolutely devoted to 
 George. He is in love with her, but she 
 really loves him." 
 
 " So she ought. He is making a great 
 sacrifice for her, and, as I constantly tell 
 him, one he will regret to his dying day." 
 
 " On the contrary, he is only sacrificing 
 his own pride and yours to — himself. He 
 is considering only himself. He is maiTy- 
 
 ing only to please himself, not " Anne 
 
 hesitated — " not to please Janet." 
 
 B 
 
18 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 " Now you are talking nonsense." 
 
 "Yes, I think I am. It felt like sense, 
 but by the time I had put it into words, it 
 turned into nonsense. The little things you 
 notice in Janet's dress and manner can be 
 mitigated, if she is willing to learn." 
 
 " She won't be," said Mrs Trefusis, with 
 decision. " Because she is stupid. She will 
 be offended directly she is spoken to. All 
 stupid people are. Now come, Anne ! 
 Don't try and make black white. It 
 doesn't help matters. You must admit 
 the girl is stupid." 
 
 Anne's gentle, limpid eyes looked de- 
 precatingly into the elder woman's hard, 
 miserable ones. 
 
 " I am afraid she is," she said at last, and 
 she coloured painfully. 
 
 "And obstinate." 
 
 " Are not stupid people always obstinate ? " 
 
 " No," said Mrs Trefusis. " I am obstin- 
 ate, but no one could call me stupid." 
 
 " It does not prevent stupid people being 
 always obstinate, because obstinate people 
 are not always stupid." 
 
MOTH AND RUST 19 
 
 " You think me very obstinate, Anne ? " 
 There were tears in the stern old eyes. 
 
 " I think, dear, you have got to give way, 
 and as you must, I want you to do it with 
 a good grace, before you estrange George 
 from you, and before that unsuspecting 
 girl has found out that you loathe the 
 marriage." 
 
 " If she were not as dense as a rhinoceros, 
 she would see that now." 
 
 " How fortunate, in that case, that she is 
 dense. It gives you a better chance with 
 her. Make her Uke you. You can, you 
 know. She is worth liking." 
 
 "All my life," said Mrs Trefusis, "be 
 they who they may, I have hated stupid 
 people." 
 
 " Oh ! no. That is an hallucination. You 
 don't hate George." 
 
 IMrs Trefusis shot a lightning glance at 
 her companion, and then smiled grimly. 
 '* You are the only person who would dare 
 to say such a thing to me." 
 
 " Besides," continued Anne meditatively, 
 " is it so certain that Janet is stupid ? She 
 
20 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 appears so because she is unformed, ignorant, 
 and because she has never reflected, or been 
 thrown with educated people. She has not 
 come to herself. She will never learn any- 
 thing by imagination or perception, for she 
 seems quite devoid of them. But I think 
 she might learn by trouble or happiness, or 
 both. She can feel. Strong feeling would 
 be the turning-point with her, if she has 
 sufficient abihty to take advantage of it. 
 Perhaps she has not, and happiness or 
 trouble may leave her as they found her. 
 But she gives me the impression that she 
 might alter considerably if she were once 
 thoroughly aroused." 
 
 " I can't rouse her. I was not sent into 
 the world to rouse pretty horse-breakers." 
 
 If Anne was doubtful as to what Mrs 
 Trefusis had been sent into this imperfect 
 world for, she did not show it. 
 
 " I don't want you to rouse her. All I 
 want is that you should be kind to her." 
 Anne took Mrs Trefusis' ringed, claw-hke 
 hand between both hers. " I do want that 
 very much." 
 
MOTH AND RUST «1 
 
 "Well," said Mrs Trefusis, blinking her 
 eyes, " I won't say I won't try. You can 
 always get round me, Anne. Oh 1 my 
 dear, dear child, if it might only have 
 been you. But of course, just because 
 I had set my heart upon it, I was not 
 to have it. That has been my life from 
 first to last. If I might only have had 
 you. You think me a cross, bitter old 
 woman, and so I am : God knows I have 
 had enough to make me so. But I should 
 not have been so to you." 
 
 "You never are so to me. But you 
 see my affections are — is not that the 
 correct expression ? — engaged." 
 
 "But you are not." 
 
 " No. I am as free as air. That is 
 where the difficulty comes in." 
 
 " Where is the creature now ? " 
 
 "In Paris. The World chronicles his 
 movements. That is why I take in the 
 World, If he had been in London this 
 week, I should not — be here at this 
 moment." 
 
 " I suppose he is enormously run after ? '* 
 
22 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 " Oh yes ! By others as well as by 
 me ; by tons of others younger and better 
 looking than I am." 
 
 "Now, Anne, I am absolutely certain 
 that you have never run a yard after him." 
 
 " I have never appeared to do so," said 
 Anne, with her faint, enigmatical smile. 
 "The proprieties have been observed. At 
 least by me they have. But I have 
 covered a good deal of ground, never- 
 theless." 
 
 " I don't know what he is made of." 
 
 "Well, he is made of money for one 
 thing, and I have not a shilling. He 
 knows that." 
 
 " He ought to be only too honoured 
 by your being willing to think of him. 
 In my young days a man of his class 
 would not have had a chance." 
 
 " Milhonaires get their chance nowa- 
 days." 
 
 " Then why doesn't he take it ? " 
 
 " Because," said Anne, her lip quivering, 
 " he thinks I hke him for his money. He 
 has got that firmly screwed into his head." 
 
MOTH AND RUST 23 
 
 "As if a woman like you would do 
 such a thing." 
 
 "Women extremely hke me are doing 
 such things all the time. How is he to 
 know I am different ? " 
 
 " He must be a fool." 
 
 "He does not look like one." 
 
 "No," said Mrs Trefusis meditatively, 
 "I must own he does not. He has a 
 bullet head. I saw him once at the 
 Duchess of Dundee's last summer. He 
 was pointed out to me as the biggest 
 thing in millionaires since Barnato. But 
 I must confess he was the very last person 
 in the world whom I should have thought 
 you would have looked at — for himself, 
 I mean." 
 
 "That is what he thinks." 
 
 "He is so very unattractive." 
 
 "He is an ugly, forbidding-looking man 
 of forty," said Anne, who had become 
 very pale. 
 
 " I should not go as far as that," said 
 ^Irs Trefusis, somewhat disconcerted. 
 
 " Oh ! I can for you ! " said Anne, her 
 
U MOTH AND RUST 
 
 quiet eyes flashing. " He is all these 
 things. He is exactly what I would rather 
 not have married. And I think he knows 
 that instinctively, poor man ! But in 
 spite of all that, in spite of everything 
 that repels me, I know that we belong 
 to each other. He did not choose to hke 
 me, or I to hke him. I never had any 
 choice in the matter. When I first saw 
 him I recognised him. I had known him 
 all my life. I had been waiting for him 
 always without knowing it. I never 
 really understood anything till he came. 
 I did not fail in love with him ; at least, 
 not in the way I see others do, and as 
 I once did myself years ago. I am not 
 attracted towards him. I am him. And 
 he is me. One can't fall in love with 
 oneself. He is my other self. We are 
 one. We may hve painfully apart as we 
 are doing now — he may marry some one 
 else : but the fact remains the same." 
 
 Mrs Trefusis did not answer. Love is 
 so rare that when we meet it we reahse 
 that we are on holy ground. 
 
MOTH AND RUST 25 
 
 " You and he will marry some day," she 
 said at last. 
 
 Her thoughts went back to her own 
 youth, and its romantic love and marriage. 
 There was no romance here as she under- 
 stood it, nothing but a grim reality. But 
 it almost seemed as if love could go deeper 
 without romance. 
 
 "I do not see how a misunderstanding 
 can hold together between you." 
 
 "You forget mother," said Anne. 
 
 INIrs Trefusis had momentarily forgotten 
 her closest friend, the Duchess of Quorn, 
 that notorious match-making mother of a 
 quartette of pretty, well-drilled daughters, 
 all of whom were now advantageously 
 married except Anne — the eldest. And 
 if Anne was not at this moment wedded 
 to George Trefusis it was not owdng to 
 want of zeal on the part of both mothers. 
 Mrs Trefusis was irrevocably beliind the 
 scenes in Anne's family. 
 
 "Mother ought by nature to have been 
 a man and a cricketer," said Anne, " instead 
 of the mother of many daughters. She 
 
26 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 is 'game' to the last, she is a hard hitter, 
 and she will run till she drops on the 
 chance of any catch. But her bowhng 
 is her strong point. Young men have 
 not a chance with her. Her style may 
 not be dignified, but her eye is extra- 
 ordinary. Hany Lestrange did his silly, 
 panic-stricken best, but — he is married to 
 Cecily now." 
 
 " Did he really try to get out of it ? " 
 
 "He did. He liked Cecily a little; he 
 had certainly fluled with her when she 
 came in his way, but he never made the 
 least effort to meet her, and he did not 
 want to marry her." 
 
 "And Cecily?" 
 
 " Cecily did not dislike him. She was 
 only nineteen, and she had — so she told 
 me — always hoped for curly hair ; and of 
 course Harry's is quite straight, what little 
 there is of it. She shed a few tears about 
 that, but she did as she was told. They 
 are a nice - looking young couple. They 
 WTite quite happily. I daresay it will do 
 very well. But, you see, unfortunately^ 
 
MOTH AND RUST 27 
 
 Harry was a friend of INIr Vanbrunt's, and 
 I know Harry consulted him as to how to 
 get out of it. Well, directly mother's 
 attention was off Harry, she found out 
 about Mr Vanbrunt; how I don't know, 
 but she did. Poor mother ! she has a heart 
 somewhere. It is her sporting instincts 
 which are too strong for her. When she 
 found out, she came into my room and 
 kissed me, and cried, and said love was 
 everything, and what did looks matter, and, 
 for her part, if a man was a good man, she 
 thought it was of no importance if he had 
 not had a father. Think of mother's saying 
 that, after marrying poor father? But she 
 was quite sincere. Mother never minds 
 contradicting herself. There is nothing 
 petty about her. She cried, and I cried 
 too. We seemed to be nearer to each 
 other than we had been for years. I was 
 the last daughter left at home, and she 
 actually said she did not want to part with 
 me. I think she felt it just for the moment, 
 for she had had a good deal of worry with 
 some of the sons-ui-law, especially Harry. 
 
28 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 But after a little bit she came to herself, 
 and she gave me such advice. Oh, such 
 advice I Some of it was excellent — that 
 was the worst of it — but it was all from the 
 standpoint of the woman stalking the man. 
 And she asked me several gimlet questions 
 about Mr Vanbrunt. She said I had not 
 made any mistake so far, but that I must 
 be very careful. She was like a tiger that 
 has tasted blood. She said it was almost 
 like marrying royalty — marrying such wealth 
 as that. I beheve he has a property in 
 Africa rather larger than England. But 
 she said that I was her dear child, and 
 she thought it might be done. I implored 
 her not to do anything — to leave him alone. 
 But the truth is, mother had been so suc- 
 cessful that she had got rather beyond 
 herself, and she fancied she could do any- 
 thing. Father had often prophesied that 
 some day she would overreach herself. 
 However, nothing would stop her. So she 
 settled down to it. You know what mother's 
 bowhng is. It did for Harry — but this time 
 it did for me." 
 
MOTH AND RUST 29 
 
 " ^Ir Vanbrunt saw through it ? " 
 
 "From the first moment. He saw he 
 was being hunted down. He bore it at 
 first, and then he withdrew. I can't prove 
 it, but I am morally certain that mother 
 cornered him and had a talk wdth him one 
 day, and told him I cared for him, and 
 thought him very handsome. JMother 
 sticks at nothing. After that he went 
 away." 
 
 " Poor man ! " 
 
 " She asked him in INIay to stay with us 
 in Scotland in September, but he has 
 refused. I found she had given a httle 
 message from me which I never sent. 
 Poor, poor mother, and poor me I " 
 
 " And poor miUionaire ! Surely if he 
 has any sense he must see that it is 
 your mother and not you who is hunting 
 him." 
 
 " He is aware that Cecily did as she was 
 told. He probably thinks I could be 
 coerced into marrying him. He may know 
 a great deal about finance, and stocks, and 
 all those weary things, but he knows very 
 
30 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 little about women. He has not taken 
 much account of them so far." 
 
 " His day will come," said IMrs Trefusis. 
 " What a nuisance men are ! I wish they 
 were all at the bottom of the sea." 
 
 " If they were," said Anne, with her 
 rueful httle smile, " mother would order a 
 diving-bell at once." 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 " might}'- love, passion and desire, 
 That bound the cord." 
 
 — The Heptameron. 
 
 Janet's mother had died when Janet was 
 a toddhng child. It is observable in the 
 natural history of heroines that their mothers 
 ahnost invariably do die when the heroines 
 to whom they have given birth are toddling 
 children. Had Di Vernon a mother, or 
 Evelina, or .Jane E}a'e, or Diana of the 
 Crossways, or Aurora Leigh ? Dear Ehza- 
 betli Bemiett certauily had one whom we 
 
MOTH AND RUST 81 
 
 shall not quickly forget — but Elizabeth is 
 an exception. She only proves the rule 
 for the majority of heroines. Fathers they 
 have sometimes, generally of a feeble or 
 callous temperament, never of any use in 
 extricating their daughters from the en- 
 tanglements that early beset them. And 
 occasionally they have chivalrous or dis- 
 reputable brothers. 
 
 So it is with a modest confidence in the 
 equipment of my heroine that I now present 
 her to the reader denuded of both parents, 
 and domiciled under the roof of a brother 
 who was not only disreputable in the 
 imagination of Mrs Trefusis, but, as I hate 
 half measures, was so in reality. 
 
 If Janet had been an introspective person, 
 if she had ever asked herself whence she 
 came and whither she was going, if the 
 cruelty of life and nature had ever forced 
 themselves upon her notice, if the apparent 
 incompleteness of this pretty world had ever 
 daunted her, I think she must have been a 
 very unhappy woman. Her surroundings 
 were vulgar, coarse, without a redeeming 
 
S2 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 gleam of culture, even in its crudest forms, 
 without a spark of refined affection. Never- 
 theless her life grew up white and clean in 
 it, as a hyacinth will build its fragrant bell 
 tower in the window of a tavern, in a stale 
 atmosphere of smoke and beer and alcohol. 
 Janet was self-contained as a hyacinth. She 
 unfolded fi'om within. She asked no ques- 
 tions of life. That she had had a happy, 
 contented existence was obvious ; an exist- 
 ence spent much in the open air, in which 
 tranquil, practical duties well within her 
 reach had been all that had been required 
 of her. Her brother Fred, several years 
 older than herself, had one redeeming point. 
 He was fond of her and proud of her. He 
 did not understand her, but she was what 
 he called " a good sort." 
 
 Janet was one of those blessed women — 
 whose number seems to diminish, while 
 that of her highly- strung sisters painfully 
 increases — who make no large demand on 
 life, or on their fellow-creatures. She took 
 both as they came. Her uprightness and 
 integrity were her own, as was the simple 
 
MOTH AND RUST 33 
 
 religion which she followed blindfold. She 
 expected little of others, and exacted nothing. 
 She had, of course, had lovers in plenty. 
 She wished to be married and to have 
 children — many children. In her quiet 
 ruminating mind she had names ready for 
 a familj^ of ten. But until George came 
 she had always said " No." When pressed 
 by her brother as to why some particularly 
 eligible parti — such as Mr Gorst, the suc- 
 cessful trainer — had been refused, she could 
 never put forward any adequate reason, and 
 would say at last that she was very happy 
 as she was. 
 
 Then George came, a different kind of 
 man from any she had kno^vn, at least 
 different from any in his class who had 
 oflfered marriage. He represented to her 
 all that was absent from her own surround- 
 ings — refinement, culture. I don't know 
 what Janet can have meant by culture, but 
 years later, when she had picked up words 
 like "culture" and "development," and 
 scattered them across her conversation, she 
 told me he had represented all these glories 
 
34 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 to her. And he was a httle straighter than 
 the business men she associated with, a good 
 deal straighter than her brother. Perhaps, 
 after all, that was the first attraction he 
 had for her. Janet was straight herself. 
 She fell in love with George. 
 
 " L'amour est une source naive." It was 
 a very naive spring in Janet's heart, though 
 it welled up from a considerable depth ; a 
 spring not even to be poisoned by her 
 brother's outrageous delight at the engage- 
 ment, or his congratulations on the wisdom 
 of her previous steadfast refusal of the 
 ehgible INIr Gorst. 
 
 " This beats all," he said ; " I never 
 thought you would pull it off, Janet. I 
 thought he was too big a fish to land. 
 And to think you will queen it at East- 
 hope Park." 
 
 Janet was not in the least perturbed by 
 her brother's remarks. She was accustomed 
 to them. He always talked Uke that. She 
 vaguely supposed she should some day 
 "queen it" at Easthope. The expression 
 did not offend her. The reflection in her 
 
MOTH AND RUST 35 
 
 mind was ; " George must love me very 
 much to have chosen me, when all the 
 most splendid ladies in the land would be 
 glad to have him." 
 
 And now, as she walked on this Sunday 
 afternoon in the long, quiet gardens of 
 Easthope, she felt her cup was full. She 
 looked at her affianced George with shy 
 adoration from under the brim of her 
 violent new hat, and made soft answers 
 to him when he spoke. 
 
 George was not a great talker. He 
 trusted mainly to an occasional ejaculation, 
 his meaning aided by pointing with a stick. 
 
 A covey of partridges ran with one con- 
 sent across the smooth lawn at a little 
 distance. 
 
 " Jolly little beggars," said George, with 
 explanatory stick. 
 
 She Uked the flowers best, but he did not, 
 so he took her down to the pool below 
 the rose garden, where the eager brook ran 
 through a grating, making a httle water 
 prison in which solemn, portly personages 
 might be seen moving. 
 
36 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 " See 'em ? " said George, pointing as 
 usual. 
 
 " Yes," said Janet. 
 
 " That's a three-pounder." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 That was all the stream said to them. 
 
 She lingered once more in the rose-garden 
 when he would have drawn her onwards 
 towards the ferrets, and George, willing to 
 humour her, got out his knife and chose a 
 rose for her. Has any woman really lived 
 who has not stood once m silence in the 
 June sunshine with her lover, and watched 
 him pick for her a red rose which is not as 
 other roses, a rose which understands ? Amid 
 all the v.^orld of roses, did the raiment of 
 God touch just that one, as He walked in 
 His garden in the cool of the evening ? And 
 did the Divine love imprisoned in it reach 
 forth towards the human love of the two 
 lovers, and blend them for a moment with 
 itself? 
 
 " You are my rose," said George, and he 
 put his arm round her, and drew her to him 
 with a rouo-h tenderness. 
 
MOTH AND RUST 37 
 
 " Yes," said Janet, not knowing to what 
 she said "yes," but vaguely assenting to 
 him in everything. And they leaned to- 
 gether by the sun-dial, soft cheek against 
 tanned cheek, soft hand in hard hand. 
 
 Could anything in hfe be more common- 
 place than two lovers and a rose ? Have we 
 not seen such groups portrayed on lozenge- 
 boxes, and on the WTappers of French 
 plums ? 
 
 And yet, what remains commonplace if 
 Love but touch it as he passes ? 
 
 Let Memorj'^ open her worn picture-book, 
 where it opens of itself, and make answer. 
 
 Anne saw the lovers, but they did not 
 see her, as she ran down the steps cut in 
 the turf to the little bridge across the 
 trout stream. She had left ^Irs Trefusis 
 composed into a resigned nap, and she 
 felt at liberty to carry her aching spirit 
 to seek comfort and patience by the 
 brook. 
 
 Anne, the restrained, disciplined, digni- 
 fied woman of the world, threw herself 
 
38 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 down on her face in the short, sun-warm 
 grass. 
 
 Is the heart ever really tamed ? As the 
 years pass we learn to keep it behind bolts 
 and bars. We marshal it forth on set 
 occasions, to work manacled under our eyes, 
 and then goad it back to its cell again. But 
 is it ever anything but a caged Arab of the 
 desert, a wild fierce prisoner in chains, a 
 captive Samson with shorn locks which 
 grow again, who may one day snap his 
 fetters, and pull down the house over our 
 heads. 
 
 Anne set her teeth. Her passionate heart 
 beat hard against the kind bosom of the 
 earth. How we return to her, our Mother 
 Earth, when life is too difficult or too 
 beautiful for us ! How we fling ourselves 
 upon her breast, upon her solitude, finding 
 courage to encounter joy, insight to bear 
 sorrow. First faint foreshadowing of the 
 time when we, " short-lived as fire, and 
 fading as the dew," shall go back to her 
 entirely. 
 
 Anne lay very still. She did not cry. 
 
MOTH AND RUST 39 
 
 She knew better than that. Tears are for 
 the young. She hid her convulsed face in 
 her hands, and shuddered violently from 
 time to time. 
 
 How long was she to bear it? How 
 long was she to drag herself by sheer force 
 through the days, endless hour by hour ? 
 How long was she to hate the dawn ? How 
 long was she to endure this intermittent 
 agony, which released her only to return ? 
 Was there to be no reprieve from the in- 
 vasion of this one thought ? Was there no 
 escape from this man ? Was not her old 
 friend the robin on his side ? The meadow- 
 sweet feathered the hedgerow. The white 
 clover was in the grass, together with the 
 Httle purple orchid. Were they not all his 
 confederates ? Had he bribed the robin to 
 sing of him, and the scent in the white clover 
 against her cheek to goad her back to acute 
 remembrance of him, and the pine-trees to 
 speak continually of him ? 
 
 " He is rich enough," said poor Anne to 
 herself, with something between a laugh and 
 a sob. 
 
40 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 But he had not bribed the brook. Tor- 
 mented spirits ere now have walked in dry 
 places, seeking rest and finding none. But 
 has any outcast from happiness sought rest 
 by running water, and found it not ? 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 " I have not sinned against the God of Love." 
 
 — Edmund Gosse. 
 
 When Anne returned to the house an hour 
 or two later she heard an alien voice and 
 strident laugh through the open door of 
 the drawing-room as she crossed the hall, 
 and she crept noiselessly upstairs towards 
 her own room. She felt as if she were 
 quite unable to bear so soon again the 
 strain of that small family party. But 
 halfway up the stairs her conscience pricked 
 her. Was all well in the drawing-room ? 
 Slie sighed, and went slowly downstairs 
 again. 
 
 All was not well there. 
 
MOTH AND RUST 41 
 
 Mrs Trefusis was sitting frozen upright 
 in her high -backed chair, listening with 
 congealed civility to the would-be-easy con- 
 versation, streaked with nervous laughter, 
 of a young man. Anne saw at a glance 
 that he must be Janet's brother, and she 
 instinctively divined that, on the strength 
 of his sister's engagement, he was now 
 making, unasked, his first call on IMrs 
 Trefusis. 
 
 Fred Black was a tall, sufficiently 
 handsome man seen apart from Janet. He 
 could look quite distinguished striding about 
 in well-made breeches among a group of 
 farmers and dealers on market-day. But 
 taken away from his appropriate setting, 
 and inserted suddenly into the Easthope 
 drawing-room, in Janet's proximity, he 
 changed like a chameleon, and appeared 
 dilapidated, in spite of being over-dressed, 
 irretrievably second-rate, and unwholesome- 
 looking. He was so like his sister that 
 a certain indefinable commonness, not of 
 breeding but of character, and a suggestion 
 ot cunning and insolence observable in him. 
 
42 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 were thrown into high reUef by the strong 
 superficial resemblance of feature betAveen 
 them. 
 
 Janet was sitting motionless and em- 
 barrassed before the tea-table, waiting for 
 the tea to become of brandied strength. 
 JNIrs Trefusis, possibly mindful of Anne's 
 appeal, had evidently asked her future 
 daughter-in-law to pour out tea for her. 
 And Janet, to the instant annoyance of 
 the elder woman, had carefully poured 
 cream into each empty cup as a preUminary 
 measure. 
 
 George was standing in sullen silence by 
 the tea-table, vaguely aware that something 
 was wrong, and wishing that Fred had not 
 called. 
 
 The strain relaxed as Anne entered. 
 
 Anne came in quickly, with a gentle 
 expectancy of pleasure in her grave face. 
 She gave the impression of one who has 
 hastened back to congenial society. 
 
 If this be hypocrisy, Anne was certainly 
 a hypocrite. There are some natures, 
 simple and patient, who quickly perceive and 
 
MOTH AND RUST 43 
 
 gladly meet the small occasions of life. 
 Amie had come into the world willing 
 to serve, and she did not mind whom she 
 served. She did gracefully, even gaily, 
 the things that others did not think 
 worth while. This was, of course, no 
 credit to her. She was made so. Just 
 as some of us are so fostidiously, so 
 artistically constituted as to make the 
 poor souls who have to Uve with us 
 old before their time. 
 
 Mrs Trefusis' face became less knotted. 
 Janet gave a sigh of relief George said : 
 "Hi, Pontol How are ye?" and affably 
 stirred up his sleeping retriever with his 
 foot. 
 
 Anne sat down by Janet, advised her 
 that Mrs Trefusis did not like cream, 
 and then, while she swallowed a cup of tea 
 sweetened to nausea, devoted herself to 
 Fred. 
 
 His nervous laugh became less strident, 
 his conversation less pendulous between 
 a paralysed constraint and a galvanized 
 familiarity. Anne loved horses, but she 
 
44 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 did not talk of them to Fred, though, 
 from his appearance, it seemed as if no other 
 subject had ever occupied his attention. 
 
 Why is it that a passion for horses 
 writes itself as plainly as a craving for 
 alcohol on the faces of the men and 
 women who live for them ? 
 
 Anne spoke of the Boer war in its most 
 obvious aspects, mentioned a few of its best- 
 known incidents, of which even he could 
 not be ignorant. Janet glanced with fond 
 pride at her brother, as he declaimed 
 against the Government for its refusal to 
 buy thousands of hypothetical Kaffir 
 ponies, and as he posted Anne in the 
 private workings of the mind of her 
 cousin, the Prime Minister. Fred had 
 even heard of certain scandals respecting 
 the hospitals for the wounded, and opined 
 with decision that war could not be con- 
 ducted on rose-water principles, with a bottle 
 of eau-de-Cologne at each man's pillow. 
 
 " Fine woman that ! " said Fred to Janet 
 afterwards, as she walked a few steps with 
 him on liis homeward way. " AA^oman of 
 
MOTH AND RUST 45 
 
 the world. Knows her way about. And 
 how she holds herself! A little thin per- 
 haps, and not much colour, but shows her 
 breeding. Who is she ? " 
 
 "Lady Varney." 
 
 " Married ? " 
 
 "N— no." 
 
 " H'm I Look here, Janet. You suck 
 up to her. And you look how she does 
 things, and notice the way she talks. 
 She reads the papers, takes an interest in 
 politics. That's what a man likes. You 
 do the same. And don't you knock 
 under to that old bag of bones too much. 
 Hold your own. We are as good as she is." 
 
 " Oh, no, Fred ; we're not." 
 
 '* Oh I it's all rot about family. It's 
 not worth a rush. We are just the same 
 as them. A gentleman's a gentleman 
 whether he lives in a large house or a 
 small one, and the real snobs are the 
 people who think different. Does it 
 make you less of a lady because you live 
 in an unpretentious way ? Not a bit of 
 it. Don't talk to me." 
 
46 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 Janet remained silent. She felt there 
 was some hitch in her brother's reasoning, 
 which, until to-day, had appeared to her 
 irrefutable, but she could not see where 
 the hitch lay. 
 
 "You must stand up to the old woman, 
 I tell you. I don't want you to be rude, 
 but you let her know that she is the 
 dowager. Don't give way. Didn't you 
 see how I tackled her ? " 
 
 "I'm not clever like you." 
 
 " Well, you are a long sight prettier," 
 said her brother proudly. "And I've 
 brought some dollars with me for the 
 trousseau. You go to the Brands to- 
 morrow, don't you ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "Well, don't pay for anything you can 
 help. Tell them to put it down. Get 
 this Lady Varney or Mrs Brand to re- 
 commend the shops and dressmakers, 
 and then they will not dun us for money." 
 
 " Oh, Fred ! Are you so hard up ? " 
 
 " Hard up I " said Fred, his face becom- 
 ing suddenly pinched and old. " Hard 
 
MOTH AND RUST 47 
 
 up ! " He drew in his breath. "Oh I 
 I'm all right. At least, yes, just for the 
 moment I'm a bit pressed. Look here, 
 Janet. You and Mrs Brand are old pals. 
 Get Brand," his voice became hoarse, 
 " get Brand to wait a bit. He has my 
 I O U, and he has waited once, but he 
 warned me he would not again. He said 
 it was against his rules ; as if rules matter 
 between gentlemen. He's as hard as 
 nails. The I O U falls due next week, 
 and I can't meet it. I don't want any 
 bother till after you are spliced. You 
 and INIrs Brand lay your heads together, 
 and persuade him to wait till you are 
 married, at any rate. He hates me, but 
 he won't want to stand in your light." 
 
 " I'll ask him," said Janet, looking 
 earnestly at her brother, but only half 
 understanding why his face was so white 
 and set. " But why don't you take my 
 two thousand and pay him back ? I said 
 you could borrow it. I think that would 
 be better than speaking again to ^Ir 
 Brand, who will never listen." 
 
48 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 " No, it wouldn't," said Fred, his hand 
 shaking so violently that he gave up 
 attempting to light a cigarette. He knew 
 that that two thousand, Janet's Httle 
 fortune, existed only in her imagination. 
 It had existed once ; he had had charge 
 of it, but it was gone. 
 
 "Ask Brand," he said again. "A man 
 with any gentlemanly feeling cannot refuse 
 a pretty woman anything. I can't. You 
 ask Brand— as if it was to please you. 
 You're pretty enough to wheedle anjiihing 
 out of men. He'll do it." 
 
 " I'll ask him," said Janet again, and 
 she sighed as she went back alone to the 
 great house which was one day to be hers. 
 She did not think of that as she looked 
 up at the long lines of stone-mulhoned 
 windows. She thought only of her George, 
 and wondered, with a blush of shame, 
 whether Fred had yet bori'owed money 
 from him. 
 
 Then, as she saw a white figure move 
 past the gallery windows, she remembered 
 Anne, and her brother's ad\'ice to her to 
 
MOTH AND RUST 49 
 
 make a friend of " Lady Varney." Janet 
 had been greatly drawn towards Anne, 
 after she had got over a certain stolid 
 preliminary impression that Anne was 
 "fine." And Janet had immediately 
 mistaken Anne's tactful kindness to her- 
 self for an overture of friendship. Perhaps 
 that is a mistake which many gentle, 
 commonplace souls make, who go through 
 hfe disillusioned as to the sincerity of 
 certain other attractive, brilliant creatures 
 with whom they have come in momentary 
 contact, to whom they can give nothing, 
 but from whom they have received a 
 generous measure of dehcate sympathy 
 and kindness, which they mistook for the 
 prelude of friendship ; a friendship which 
 never arrived. It is well for us when we 
 learn the difference between the donations 
 and the subscriptions of those richer than 
 ourselves, when we realize how broad is 
 the way towards a person's kindness, and 
 how many surprisingly inferior individuals 
 are to be met therein ; and how strait 
 is the gate, how hard to find, and how 
 
 D 
 
50 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 doubly hard, when found, to force it, of 
 that same person's friendship. 
 
 Janet supposed that Anne hked her as 
 much as she herself liked Anne, and, being 
 a simple soul, she said to herself, " I think 
 I will go and sit with her a little." 
 
 A more experienced person than my 
 poor heroine would have felt that there 
 was not marked encouragement in the 
 civil " Come in " which answered her 
 knock at Anne's door. 
 
 But Janet came in smiling, sure of her 
 welcome. Every one was sure of their wel- 
 come with Anne. 
 
 She was sitting in a low chair by the open 
 window. She had taken off what Janet 
 would have called her " Sunday gown," and 
 had wrapped round her a long, diaphanous 
 white garment, the like of which Janet had 
 never seen. It was held at the neck by a 
 pale green ribbon, cunningly drawn through 
 lace insertion, and at the waist by another 
 wider green ribbon, which fell to the feet. 
 The spreading lace-edged hem showed the 
 point of a green morocco slipper. 
 
MOTH AND RUST 51 
 
 Janet looked with respectful wonder at 
 Anne's dressing-gown, and a momentary 
 doubt as to whether her presence was 
 urgently needed vanished. Anne must have 
 been expecting her. She would not have 
 put on that exquisite garment to sit by 
 herself in, 
 
 Janet's eyes travelled to Anne's face. 
 
 Even the faint, reassuring smile, which 
 did not come the first moment it was 
 summoned, could not disguise the fatigue of 
 that pale face, though it effaced a momentary 
 impatience. 
 
 •* You are very tired," said Janet. " I 
 wish you were as strong as me." 
 
 Janet's beautiful eyes had an admiring 
 devotion in them, and also a certain wist- 
 fulness, which appealed to Anne. 
 
 " Sit down," she said cordially. " That is 
 a comfortable chair." 
 
 " You were reading. Shan't I interrupt 
 you ? " said Janet, sitting down neverthe- 
 less, and feeling that tact could no further 
 go. 
 
 " It does not matter," said Anne, closing 
 
5i2 MOTHANDRUST 
 
 the book, but keeping one slender finger in 
 the place. 
 
 " What is your book called ? " 
 
 " ' Inasmuch.' " 
 
 " Who wrote it ? " 
 
 " Hester Gresley." 
 
 " I think I've heard of her," said Janet 
 cautiously. " IMrs Smith, our Rector's wife, 
 says that INIr Smith does not approve of 
 her books ; they have such a low tone. I 
 think Fred read one of them on a visit 
 once. I haven't time myself for much 
 reading." 
 
 Silence. 
 
 " I should like," said Janet, turning her 
 clear, wide gaze upon Anne, " I should like 
 to read the books you read, and know the 
 things you know. I should like to — to be 
 like you." 
 
 A delicate colour came into Anne's face, 
 and she looked down embarrassed at the 
 volume in her hand. 
 
 "Would you read me a little bit?" said 
 Janet. " Not beginning at the beginning, 
 but just going on where you left off." 
 
MOTH AND RUST 53 
 
 " I am afraid you might not care for it 
 any more than Mr Smith does." 
 
 " Oh I I'm not deeply read hke Mr Smith. 
 Is it poetry ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " I'm glad it isn't poetry. Is it about 
 love?" 
 
 - Yes." 
 
 " I used not to care to read about love, 
 but now I think I should like it very 
 much." 
 
 A swift emotion passed over Anne's face. 
 She took up the book, and slowly opened it. 
 Janet looked with admiration at her slender 
 hands. 
 
 " I wish mine w^re white like hers," she 
 thought, as she looked at her own far more 
 beautiful but slightly tanned hands, folded 
 together in her lap in an attitude of 
 attention. 
 
 Anne hesitated a moment, and then began 
 to read : 
 
 " I had journeyed some way in life, I 
 was travel-stained and weary, when I met 
 
54 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 Love. In the empty, glaring highway I 
 met him, and we walked in it together. 
 I had not thought he fared in such steep 
 places, havmg heard he was a dweller in 
 the sheltered gardens, which were not for 
 me. Nevertheless he went with me. I 
 never stopped for him, or turned aside 
 out of my path to seek him, for I had 
 met his counterfeit when I was young, and 
 I distrusted strangers afterwards. And I 
 prayed to God to turn my heart wholly to 
 Himself, and to send Love away, lest he 
 should come between me and Him. But 
 when did God hearken to any prayer of 
 mine? 
 
 "And Love was grave and stern. And 
 as we walked he showed me the dew upon 
 the grass, and the fire in the dew, the 
 things I had seen all my life and had never 
 understood. And he drew the rainbow 
 through his hand. I was one with the 
 snowdrop and with the thunderstorm. And 
 we went together upon the sea, swiftly up 
 its hurrying mountains, swiftly down into 
 its rushing valleys. And I was one with 
 
MOTH AND RUST 55 
 
 the sea. And all fear ceased out of my 
 life, and a great awe dwelt with me instead. 
 And Love wore a human face. But I knew 
 that was for a moment only. Did not 
 Christ the same? 
 
 *' And Love showed me the hearts of my 
 brothers in the crowd. And, last of all, he 
 showed me myself, with whom I had lived 
 in ignorance. And I was humbled. 
 
 " And then Love, who had given me all, 
 asked for all. And I gave reverence, and 
 patience, and faith, and hope, and intuition, 
 and service. I even gave him truth. 1 
 put my hands under his feet. But he said 
 it was not enough. So I gave him my 
 heart. That was the last I had to give. 
 
 " And Love took it in a great tenderness 
 and smote it. And in the anguish the 
 human face of Love vanished away. 
 
 "And afterwards, long years afterwards, 
 when I was first able to move and look up, 
 I saw Love, who, as I thought, was gone, 
 keeping watch beside me. And I saw his 
 face clear, without the human veil between 
 me and it. And it was the Face of God, 
 
66 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 And I saw that Love and God are one, 
 and that, because of His exceeding glory, 
 He had been constrained to take flesh even 
 as Christ took it, so that my dim eyes might 
 be able to apprehend Him. And I saw 
 that it was He and He only who had walked 
 with me from the first." 
 
 Anne laid down the book. She looked 
 fixedly out across the quiet gardens, with 
 their long shadows, to the still, sun-Ht 
 woods beyond. Her face changed, as the 
 face of one who, in patient endurance, has 
 long rowed against the stream, and who at 
 last lets the benign, constraining current 
 take her whither it will. The look of awed 
 surrender seldom seen on a living face, 
 seldom absent from the faces of the newly 
 dead, rested for a moment on Anne's. 
 • • • • • 
 
 " I don't think," said Janet, " I quite 
 understand what it means, because I was 
 not sure whether it was a lady or a gentle- 
 man that was speaking." 
 
MOTH AND RUST 57 
 
 Anne started violently, and turned her 
 colourless face towards the voice. It 
 seemed to recall her from a great dis- 
 tance. She had forgotten Janet. She 
 had been too far off to hear what she had 
 said. 
 
 " I like the bit about giving Love our 
 hearts," said Janet tentatively. " It means 
 something the same as the sermon did this 
 morning, doesn't it, about not laying up 
 our treasure upon earth ? " 
 
 There was a silence. 
 
 " Yes," said Anne gently, her voice and 
 face quivering a little, " perhaps it does. I 
 had not thought of it in that way till you 
 mentioned it, but I see what you mean." 
 
 " That we ought to put religion first." 
 
 " Y— yes." 
 
 " I am so glad you read that to me," con- 
 tinued Janet comfortably, " because I had 
 an idea that you and I should feel the 
 same about " — she hesitated — " about love. 
 I mean," she corrected herself, " you would, 
 if you were engaged." 
 
 " I have never been engaged," said Anne, 
 
58 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 in the tone of one who gently but firmly 
 closes a subject. 
 
 " When you are," said Janet, peacefully 
 pursuing the topic, and looking at her 
 with tender confidence, *' you will feel like 
 me, that it's — just everything." 
 
 " ShaU I ? " 
 
 " I don't know any poetry, except two 
 Unes that George copied out for me — 
 
 ' Don't love me at all, 
 Or love me all in all' " 
 
 Anne winced, but recovered herself in- 
 stantly. 
 
 "It's like that with me," continued Janet. 
 " It's all in aU. And then I am afraid that 
 is laying up treasures on earth, isn't it ? " 
 
 " Not if you love God more because you 
 love George." 
 
 Janet ruminated. You could almost hear 
 her mind at work upon the suggestion, as 
 you hear a coffee-mill respond to a handful 
 of coffee berries. 
 
 " I think I do," she said at last, and she 
 added below her breath, *' I thank God all 
 
MOTH AND RUST 59 
 
 the time for sending George, and T pray 
 I may be worthy of him." 
 
 Anne's eyes filled with sudden tears — not 
 for herself. 
 
 " I hope you will be very happy," she 
 said, laying her hand on Janet's. It seemed 
 to Anne a somewhat forlorn hope. 
 
 Janet's hand closed slowly over Anne's. 
 
 " I think we shall," she said. " And yet 
 I sometimes doubt, when I remember that 
 I am not his equal. I knew that in a way 
 from the fii*st, but I see it more and more 
 since I came here. I don't wonder Mrs 
 Trefusis doesn't think me good enough." 
 
 " Mrs Trefusis does not take fancies 
 quickly." 
 
 " It is not that," said Janet. " There's 
 two ways of not being good enough. Till 
 now I have only thought of one way, of 
 not being good enough in myself, like such 
 things as temper. I'm not often angry, but 
 if I am I stay angry. I don't alter. I was 
 once angry with Fred for a year. I've 
 thought a great deal about that since I've 
 cared for George. And sometimes I fancy 
 
60 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 I'm rather slow. I daresay you haven't 
 noticed it, but Mrs Smith often remarks 
 upon it. She always has something to say 
 on any subject, just like you have ; but 
 somehow I haven't." 
 
 " I don't know Mrs Smith." 
 
 " I wish you did. She's wonderful. She 
 says she learnt it when she went out so 
 much in the West End before her mar- 
 riage." 
 
 " Indeed ! " 
 
 " But since I've been here I see there's 
 another way I'm not good enough, which 
 sets Mrs Trefusis against me. I don't 
 think she would mind if I told lies and 
 had a bad temper, and couldn't talk like 
 Mrs Smith, if I was good enough in her 
 way — I mean if I was high-born like 
 you." 
 
 The conversation seemed to contain as 
 many pins as a well-stocked pincushion. 
 The expression " high-born " certainly had 
 a sharp point, but Anne made no sign as 
 it was driven in. She considered a moment, 
 and then said, as if she had decided to 
 
MOTH AND RUST 61 
 
 risk something : " You are right. Mrs 
 Trefusis would have been pleased if you 
 had been my sister. You perhaps think 
 that very worldly. I think it is very 
 natural." 
 
 " I wish I were your sister," said Janet, 
 who might be reckoned on for remaining 
 half a field behind. 
 
 Anne sighed, and leaned back in her 
 chair. 
 
 " If I were your sister," continued Janet, 
 wholly engrossed in getting her slow barge 
 heavily under way, " you would have told 
 me a number of little things which — I 
 don't seem to know." 
 
 " You could easily learn some of them," 
 said Anne, " and that would greatly please 
 Mrs Trefusis." 
 
 "Could you tell me of anything in 
 especial ? " 
 
 '•Well! For instance — I don't mind 
 myself in the least — but it would be better 
 not to call me 'Lady Varney.'" 
 
 " I did not know you would like me to 
 call you ' Anne.' " 
 
62 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 " You are quite right. We do not know 
 each other well enough." 
 
 '* Then what ought I to call you ? " 
 
 " My friends call me ' Lady Anne.' " 
 
 " Dear me I " said .Janet, astonished. 
 " There's Lady Alice Thornton. She mar- 
 ried ^Ir Thornton, our member. Fred sold 
 him a hunter. And she is sometimes called 
 ' Lady Alice Thornton ' and sometimes 
 * Lady Thornton.' Mrs Smith says " 
 
 "Then," continued Anne, who seemed 
 indisposed to linger on the subject, " it 
 would please Mrs Trefusis if you came 
 into a room with more courage." 
 
 Janet stared at her adviser round-eyed. 
 
 "It is shy work, isn't it?" said Anne. 
 " 1 always had a great difficulty in getting 
 into a room myself when I was your age. 
 (O Anne I Anne!) I mean, in getting 
 well into the middle. But I saw I ought 
 to try, and not to hesitate near the door, 
 because, you see, it obliges old ladies, and 
 people like Mrs Trefusis, who is rather 
 lame, to come nearly to the door to meet 
 us. And we young ones ought to go 
 
MOTH AND RUST 63 
 
 up to them, even if it makes us feel 
 shy." 
 
 " I never thought of that," said Janet. 
 *' I will remember those two things always. 
 Mrs Smith always comes in very slow, but 
 then she's a married woman, and she says 
 she hkes to give people time to reahse 
 her. I will watch how you come in. I 
 will try and copy you in everything. 
 And if I am in doubt, may I ask you ? " 
 
 Anne laughed, and rose Hghtly. 
 
 *' Do," she said, " if you think I could 
 be of any use on these trivial matters. I 
 live among triviahties. But remember 
 always that they are trivial. The only 
 thing that is of any real importance in 
 this uphill world is to love and be loved. 
 You will know that when you are my 
 age." 
 
 And Anne put her arm round the tall 
 young figure for a moment, and kissed 
 her. And then suddenly, why she knew 
 not, Janet discovered, even while Anne 
 stood smiling at her, that the interview 
 was over. 
 
64 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 It seemed a pity, for, when Janet had 
 reached her own room, she remembered 
 that she had intended to consult Anne as 
 to the advisabiUty of cutting her glorious 
 hair into a fringe, like Mrs Smith's. 
 
 Anne and Janet travelled together to 
 London next day, and on the journey 
 Janet laid before Anne, in all its bearings, 
 the momentous question of her hair. 
 Fred had said she would never look up 
 to date till she cut a fringe. George had 
 opined that her hair looked very nice as 
 it was, while Mrs Smith had asseverated 
 that it was impossible to mix in good 
 society, or find a hat to suit the face, 
 without one. 
 
 Anne settled once and for all that Janet's 
 hair, parted and waving naturally, like the 
 Venus of Milo's, was not to be touched. 
 She became solemnly severe on the subject, 
 as she saw Janet was still wavering. And 
 she even offered to help Janet with her 
 trousseau, to take her to Vernon, her own 
 tailor, and to her own hatter and dress- 
 
MOTH AND RUST 65 
 
 maker. Janet had no conception what a 
 sacrifice of time that offer meant to a person 
 of endless social engagements like Anne, 
 who was considered one of the best- dressed 
 women in London. 
 
 But to Anne's secret amusement and 
 thankfulness, this offer was gi-atefully de- 
 clined in an embarrassed manner. 
 
 Janet's great friend, INIrs Macalpine 
 Brand, to whose flat in Lowndes Mansions 
 she was now on her way, had offered to 
 help her with her trousseau. Did Lady 
 Var — Anne know Mrs Macalpine Brand? 
 She went out a great deal in London, so 
 perhaps she might have met her. And she 
 was always beautifully dressed. 
 
 Anne remembered vaguely a certain over- 
 dressed, would- be- smart, insufferable Mrs 
 Brand, who had made bare-faced but fruit- 
 less attempts to scrape acquaintance with 
 herself when she and Anne had been on 
 the same committee. 
 
 " 1 have met a very pretty Mrs Brand," 
 she said, "when I was working with Mrs 
 Forrester. She had an excellent head for 
 
 E 
 
66 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 business — and had she not rather a pecuhar 
 Christian name ? " 
 
 " Cuckoo." 
 
 " Yes, that was it. She helped Mrs For- 
 rester's charity most generously when it 
 was in debt." 
 
 " She is my greatest friend," said Janet, 
 beaming. *' I shall be staying with her all 
 this next fortnight. ISIay I bring her with 
 me when I come to tea with you ? " 
 
 Anne hesitated half a second before she 
 said, "Do." 
 
 She was glad afterwards that she had said 
 it, for it pleased Janet, and poor little Mrs 
 Macalpine Brand never took advantage of 
 it. Even at that moment as they spoke of 
 her, she was absorbed, to the shutting out 
 even of plans for social advancement, in 
 more pressing subjects. 
 
 The two girls parted at Victoria, and the 
 last time Anne saw Janet's face, in its halo 
 of happiness, was as Janet nodded to her 
 through the window of the four-wheeler, 
 which bore her away to her friend IVIrs 
 Brand. 
 
MOTH AND RUST 67 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 "Tous les hommes sont menteurs, inconstants, faux, 
 bavards, hj^ocrites, orgueilleux, ou laches, mdpris- 
 ables et sensuels : toutes les femmes sont perfides, 
 artificieuses, vaniteuses, curieuses et d^pravt^es : 
 . . . mais il y a au monde une chose sainte et 
 sublime, c'est Funion de deux de ces 6tres si 
 imparfaits et si affreux." — Alfred de Musset. 
 
 As the four-wheeler neared Lowndes Square 
 the traffic became blocked, not by carriages, 
 but by large numbers of people on foot. 
 At last the cabman drew to the side, un- 
 corked himself from the box, and came to 
 the window. 
 
 " Is it Lowndes Mansions as you're a- 
 asking for?" he said. 
 
 " Yes," said Janet. 
 
 " Why, it's there as the fire was yester- 
 day." 
 
 " The fire ! " 
 
 " Yes ! The top floors is mostly burnt out. 
 You can't get a wehicle near it." 
 
68 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 " Were any lives lost ? " said Janet. The 
 Brands lived on one of the upper floors. 
 
 "No, miss," said a policeman, approach- 
 ing, urbane, helpful, not averse to impart- 
 ing information. 
 
 Janet explained that she was on her way 
 to stay in the Mansions, and the poUceman, 
 who said that other " parties " had already 
 arrived with the same object but could not 
 be taken in, advised her to turn back and go 
 with her luggage to one of the private hotels 
 in Sloane Street, until she could, as he ex- 
 pressed it, " turn round." 
 
 Janet did as she was bid, and half an 
 hour later made her way on foot through 
 the crowd to the entrance of Lowndes 
 Mansions. 
 
 The hall porter recognised her, for she 
 had frequently stayed with the Brands, and 
 Janet's face was not quickly forgotten. He 
 bade the policeman who barred the entrance 
 let her pass. 
 
 The central hall, with its Oriental hangings 
 and sham palms, was crowded with people. 
 Idle, demoralized housemaids belonging to 
 
MOTH AND RUST 69 
 
 the upper floors, whose sphere of work was 
 gone, stood together in whispering groups 
 watching the spectacle. Grave men in high 
 hats and over-long buttoned-up frock-coats 
 greeted each other silently, and then pro- 
 duced passes which admitted them to the 
 jealously guarded iron staircase. The other 
 staircase was burnt out at the top, though 
 from the hall it showed no trace of any- 
 thing but of the water which yesterday had 
 flowed down it in waves, and which still 
 oozed from the heavy pile stair - carpet, 
 which the salvage men were beginning to 
 take up. 
 
 The hall porter and the unemployed hft 
 man stood together, silent, stupefied, broken 
 with fatigue, worn out with answering 
 questions. 
 
 " Are Mr and Mrs Brand all right ? " 
 gasped Janet, thrilled by the magnitude of 
 the unseen disaster above, which seemed to 
 strike roots of hoiTor down to the basement. 
 
 "Every one is all right," said the lift 
 man automatically. ** No lives lost. 
 Two residents shook. One leg broke 
 
70 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 hamong the hemployees — compound 
 fracture." 
 
 "Mrs Brand was shook," said the hall 
 porter callously. " She had a fall." 
 
 " Where is she now ? " enquired Janet. 
 
 The hall porter looked at her apathetic- 
 ally, and continued : " Mr Brand was taking 
 'orse exercise in the Park. Mrs Brand 
 was still in her bedroom. The fire broke 
 out, cause unbeknownst, at ten o'clock 
 yesterday morning precisely. Ten by the 
 barracks clock it was. The hemployees 
 worked the hose until the first hingine 
 arrived at quarter past." 
 
 " Twenty past," corrected the lift man. 
 
 " And Mrs Brand ? " said Janet again. 
 
 *' Mrs Brand must 'ave been dressing, 
 for she was in her dressing-gown, and she 
 must ha' run down the main staircase afore 
 it got well alight; at least, she was found 
 unconscious-like three flights down. Some 
 say as she was mazed by the smoke, and 
 some say as she fell over the banisters." 
 
 "The banisters is gone," said the lift 
 man. 
 
MOTH AND RUST 71 
 
 "Where is she now? Where is Mr 
 Brand? I must see him at once," said 
 Janet, at last realizing that the history of 
 the fire would go on for ever. 
 
 "Mrs Brand was took into the billiard- 
 room," said the lift man. "Mr Brand is 
 with her, and the doctor. There! The 
 doctor is coming out now." 
 
 A grey-haired man shot out through the 
 crowd, ran down the steps, and disappeared 
 into a brougham privileged to remain at 
 the entrance. 
 
 " Take me to JMr Brand this instant," 
 said Janet, shaking the haU porter by the 
 arm. 
 
 The man looked as if he would have 
 been surprised at her vehemence if there 
 were any spring of surprise left in him, 
 but it had obviously run down fi'om over- 
 winding. He slowly led the way through 
 a swing door, and down a dark passage 
 lit by electric light. At a large ground- 
 glass door with " Billiard-Room " on it he 
 stopped, and tapped. 
 
 There was no answer. 
 
72 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 Janet opened the door, went in, and 
 closed it behind her. 
 
 She almost stumbled against Mr Brand, 
 who was standing with his back towards 
 her, his face to the wall, in the tiny ante- 
 chamber, bristUng with empty pegs, which 
 led into the billiard-room. 
 
 It was dark save for the electric light 
 in the passage, which shone feebly through 
 the ground-glass door. 
 
 Mr Brand turned slowly as Janet almost 
 touched him. His death -white face was 
 the only thing visible. He did not speak. 
 Janet gazed at him horror-struck. 
 
 Gradually, as her eyes became 
 accustomed to the dim light, she saw the 
 little dapper, familiar figure, with its 
 immaculate frock-coat, and corseted waist, 
 and the lean, sallow, wrinkled face, with 
 its retreating forehead and dyed hair, and 
 waxed, turned-up moustaches. One of 
 the waxed ends had been bent, and 
 drooped forlornly, grotesquely. It was 
 perhaps inevitable that the money-lender 
 should be nicknamed " JNIonkey Brand," 
 
MOTH AND RUST 73 
 
 a name pronounced by many with a sneer 
 not devoid of fear. 
 
 " How is she ? " said Janet at last. 
 
 " She is dying," said Monkey Brand, his 
 chin shaking. " Her back is broken." 
 
 A nurse in cap and apron silently opened 
 the inner door into the billiard-room. 
 
 "Mrs Brand is asking for you, sir," she 
 said gently. 
 
 " I will come," he said, and he went 
 back into the billiard-room. 
 
 The nurse looked enquiringly at Janet. 
 
 " I am Mrs Brand's friend," said Janet. 
 " She is expecting me." 
 
 " She takes it very hard now, poor thing," 
 said the nurse ; " and she was so brave at 
 first." 
 
 And they both went into the biUiard- 
 room, and remained standing at the further 
 end of it. 
 
 It was a large, gaudily-decorated room, 
 adorned with sporting prints, and ht by 
 a skylight, on to which opaque bodies, 
 evidently fallen from a height, lay in 
 blots, starring the glass. 
 
74 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 The billiard - table was littered with 
 doctors' appliances, and at the end near 
 the door the nurse had methodically 
 arranged a line of towels and basins, with 
 a tin can of hot water and a bucket 
 swathed in flannel with ice in it. 
 
 The large room, with its glaring upper 
 light, was hot and still, and smelt of 
 stale smoke and chloroform. 
 
 At the further end, on an improvised 
 bed of mattresses and striped sofa cushions, 
 a white, rigid figure was lying, the eyes 
 fixed on the skylight. 
 
 Monkey Brand knelt down by his wife, 
 and bending over her, kissed, without 
 raising it, one of the pale clenched 
 hands. 
 
 "Cuckoo," he said, and until she heard 
 him speak it seemed to Janet that she 
 had never known to what heights tender- 
 ness can reach. 
 
 His wife turned her eyes slowly upon 
 him, and looked at him. In her eyes, 
 dark with coming death, there was a 
 great yearning towards her husband, and 
 
MOTH AND RUST 75 
 
 behind the yearning an anguish un- 
 speakable. Janet shrank before it. The 
 fear of death never cut so deep as that. 
 
 A cry, uncouth, terrible, as of one pushed 
 past the last outpost of endurance to the 
 extremity of agony, rent the quiet room. 
 
 "I cannot bear it," she wailed. And 
 she, who could not raise her hands, to 
 which death had come already, raised them 
 once above her head. 
 
 They fell heavily, lifelessly, striking her 
 husband's face. 
 
 "I would die for you if I might," said 
 Monkey Brand, and be hid his face against 
 the hand that had struck him. 
 
 Cuckoo looked at the bowed, blue-black 
 head, and her wide eyes wandered away 
 past it, set in the vacancy of despair. 
 They fell on Janet. 
 
 "Who is that?" she said suddenly. 
 
 The nurse brought Janet forward. 
 
 " You remember me. Cuckoo ? " said 
 .Tanet gently, her calm smile a little 
 tremulous, her face white and beautiful 
 as that of an angel. 
 
76 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 "It is Janet. Thank God!" said 
 Cuckoo, and she suddenly burst into tears. 
 
 They passed quickly. 
 
 " I have no time for tears," said Cuckoo, 
 smihng faintly at her husband, as he 
 wiped them away with a shaking brown 
 hand. "Janet is come. I must speak to 
 her a Uttle quite alone." 
 
 " You would not send me from you ? " 
 said Monkey Brand, his face twitching. 
 "You would not be so hard on me, 
 Cuckoo?" 
 
 "Yes," she said, "I would." 
 
 The pretty, vulgar, dying face, under 
 its crooked fringe, was illuminated. A 
 sort of shadow of Cuckoo's hard little 
 domineering manner had come back to 
 her. 
 
 " I must be alone with Janet for a 
 Httle bit, quite alone. You and the nurse 
 will go outside, and wait till Janet comes 
 to you. And then," she looked at her 
 husband with tender love, "you will come 
 back to me, and stay with me to the 
 last" 
 
MOTH AND RUST 77 
 
 He still hesitated. 
 
 " Go now, Arthur," she said, " and take 
 nurse with you." 
 
 The habit of obedience to her whim, her 
 fancy, her slightest wish, was ingrained 
 years deep in him. He got upon his 
 feet, signed to the nurse, and left the 
 room with her. 
 
 " Is the door shut ? " said Cuckoo. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Go and make sure." 
 
 Janet went to the door, and came back. 
 
 "It is shut." 
 
 " Kneel down by me. I can't speak 
 loud." 
 
 Janet knelt down. 
 
 " Now listen to me. I'm dying. I'm 
 not going to die this minute, because 1 
 won't ; but all the same it's coming. I 
 can't hold on. There is no time for being 
 surprised, or for explanations. There's 
 no time for anything, except for you to 
 listen to me, and do something for me 
 quickly. WiU you do it ? " 
 
 "Yes," said Janet, 
 
78 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 Cuckoo looked for a moment at the 
 imiocent, fair face above her, and a faint 
 colour stained her cheek. But she re- 
 membered her husband, and summoned 
 her old courage. She spoke quickly, with 
 the clearness and precision which had 
 made her such an excellent woman of 
 business, so invaluable on the committees 
 of fashionable charities. 
 
 " I am a bad woman, Janet. I have 
 concealed it fi*om you, and from every one. 
 Arthur — has never guessed it. Don't 
 shudder. Don't turn away. There's not 
 time. Keep all that for later — when I'm 
 gone. And don't drive me to distraction 
 by thinking this is a dying hallucination. 
 I know what I am saying, and I, who 
 have Hed so often, am driven to speak the 
 truth at last." 
 
 " Don't," said Janet. " If it's true, don't 
 say it, but let it die with you. Don't 
 break Mr Brand's heart now at the last 
 moment." 
 
 Cuckoo's astute eyes dwelt on Janet's 
 face. How slow she was I What a 
 
MOTH AND RUST 79 
 
 blunt instrument had Fate vouchsafed to 
 her. 
 
 " I speak to save him," she said. " Don't 
 interrupt again, but listen. It all goes 
 back a long way. I was forced into 
 marrying Arthur. I disliked him, for I 
 was in love with some one else — some one, 
 as I see now, not fit to black his boots. 
 I was straight when I married Arthur, 
 but — I did not stay straight afterwards. 
 Arthur is a hard man, but he was good 
 and tender to me always, and he trusted 
 me absolutely. I deceived him — for years. 
 The child is not Arthur's. Arty is not 
 Arthur's. I never was really sorry until 
 a year ago, when he — the other — left me 
 for some one else. He said he had fallen 
 in love with a good woman — a snowflake." 
 Even now Cuckoo set her teeth at the 
 remembrance of that speech. But she 
 hurried on. "That was the time I fell 
 ill. And Arthur nursed me. You don't 
 know what Arthur is. I never seemed 
 to have noticed before. Other people 
 fail, but Arthur never fails. And I seemed 
 
80 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 to come to myself. I could not bear him 
 out of my sight. And ever since I have 
 loved him, as I thought people only loved 
 in poetry books. I saw he was the only 
 one. And I thought he would never 
 know. If he did, it would break his heart 
 and mine, wherever I was." 
 
 Cuckoo waited a moment, and then 
 went on with methodical swiftness : 
 
 "But I never burnt the — the other 
 one's letters. I always meant to, and I 
 always didn't. It has been in my mind 
 ever since I was ill to bum them. I 
 never thought I should die like this. I 
 put it oiF. The truth is, I could not 
 bear to look at them, and remember how 
 I'd — but I meant to do it. I knew when 
 I came to myself at the foot of the stairs 
 that I was dying, but I did not really 
 mind — except for leaving Arthur, for he 
 told me all our flat was burnt and every- 
 thing in it, and I only grieved at leaving 
 him. But this morning, when the place 
 was cold enough for people to go up, 
 Arthur told me — he thought it would 
 
MOTH AND RUST 81 
 
 please me — that my sitting-room, and 
 part of the other rooms, were still stand- 
 ing with everything in them, and he heard 
 that my picture was not even touched. 
 It hangs over the Italian cabinet. But 
 when I heard it I thought my heart 
 would break, for the letters are in the 
 Italian cabinet, and I knew that some day 
 when I am gone — perhaps not for a long 
 time, but some day — Arthur would open 
 that cabinet — my business papers are in 
 it, too — and would find the letters." 
 
 Cuckoo's weak, metallic voice weakened 
 yet more. 
 
 "And he would see I had deceived 
 him for years, and that Arty is not his 
 child. Arthur was so pleased when Arty 
 was born." 
 
 There was an awful silence ; the ice 
 dripped in the pail. 
 
 " I don't mind what happens to me," 
 said Cuckoo, " or what hell I go to, if 
 only Arthur might stay loving me when 
 I'm gone, as he always has — from the 
 very first." 
 
82 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 "What do you want me to do?" said 
 Janet. 
 
 "I want you to go up to the flat with- 
 out being seen, and burn those letters. 
 Try and go up by the main staircase. 
 They may let you if you bluff them ; I 
 could do it; — and it may not be burnt 
 out at the top as they say. If it really 
 is burnt out, you must go up by the iron 
 staircase. If they won't let you pass, 
 bribe the pohceman : you must go up all 
 the same. The letters are in the lowest 
 left-hand drawer of the Italian cabinet. 
 The key— O my God I The key 1 Where 
 is the key?" 
 
 Cuckoo's mind, brought to bay, rose 
 unflinching. 
 
 " The key is on the pearl chain that I 
 wear every day. But where is the chain? 
 Let me think. I had it on. I know I 
 had it on. I wear the pearls against my 
 neck, under my gown. I was in my 
 dressing-gown. Then I had it on. Look 
 on the bilhard-table." 
 
 Janet looked. 
 
MOTH AND RUST 83 
 
 "Look on the mantelpiece. I saw 
 the nurse put somethmg down there 
 which she took off me." 
 
 Janet looked. " There is a miniature 
 of Arty on a ribbon." 
 
 " I had it in my hand when the alarm 
 reached me. Look on me. Perhaps I 
 have got it on still." 
 
 Janet unfastened the neck of the dress- 
 ing-gown, which, though lacerated by the 
 nurse's scissors, still retained the semblance 
 of a garment. After an interminable 
 moment she drew out a pearl chain. 
 
 "Thank God!" said Cuckoo. "Don't 
 raise my head ; I might die if you did, 
 and I can't die yet. Break the chain. 
 There I Now the key slips off. Take 
 it, go up, and burn the letters. There 
 are a good many, but you will know 
 them because they are tied with my hair. 
 The lowest left-hand drawer, remember. 
 You will burn them — there are some 
 matches on the mantelpiece behind 
 Arthur's photogi-aph — and wait till they 
 are really burnt. Will you do this, Janet ? "' 
 
84 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 "I wiU." 
 
 " And will you promise me that, what- 
 ever happens, you will never tell any one 
 that you have burnt anything ? " 
 
 " I promise." 
 
 " You swear it ? " 
 
 " I swear it." 
 
 " Let me see ; you must have some reason 
 for going, in case you are seen. If you are 
 asked, say I sent you to see if my picture 
 was uninjured. I am a vain woman. Any- 
 one will beheve that. Stick to that if you 
 are questioned. And now go. Go at once. 
 And throw away the key when you have 
 locked up the cabinet. I shall not be able 
 to be alone with you again, Janet. Arthur 
 won't leave me a second time. When you 
 come back, stand where I can see you ; and 
 if you have destroyed everything put your 
 hand against your forehead. I shall under- 
 stand. I shall not be able to thank you, 
 but I shall thank you in my heart, and I 
 shall die in peace. Now go, and tell Arthur 
 to come back to me." 
 
 Janet found INIonkey Brand in the ante- 
 
MOTH AND RUST 86 
 
 chamber, his ashen, ravaged face turned 
 with dog-like expectancy towards the biUiard- 
 room door, waiting for it to open. Without 
 a word, he went back to his wife. 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 "... a strong man from tlie North, 
 Light-locked, with eyes of dangerous grey." 
 
 It was a Httle after twelve as Janet entered 
 the central hall, and the salvage men were 
 coming down for their dinner. A cord had 
 been stretched across the foot of the grand 
 staircase, and a policeman guarded it. As 
 Janet hesitated, a young man and woman 
 came boldly up to him, and demanded leave 
 to pass. 
 
 " I can't let you up, sir," said the police- 
 man. " It ain't safe." 
 
 " I have the right to go up to my own 
 flat on the fourth floor," said the man. 
 " Here is my card. You will observe my 
 address of these Mansions is printed on it." 
 
86 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 " Yes, my lord ; certainly, my lord," said 
 the policeman, looking at the card with 
 respect. "The fire ain't touched anything 
 lower than the fifth floor; but we have to 
 keep a sharp look-out, as a many strange 
 characters are about trying to get up, to see 
 what they can lay hands on," 
 
 Janet had drawn up close behind the 
 young couple, and when the cord was with- 
 drawn went upstairs as if with them. They 
 did not even see her. They were talking 
 eagerly to each other. When they reached 
 the first landing she slackened her pace, and 
 let them go on in front. 
 
 The fire had broken out on the seventh 
 floor of the great block of buildings, and 
 had raged slowly downwards to the sixth 
 and fifth. But at first, as Janet mounted 
 the sodden staircase, there was hardly any 
 trace of the devastation save in the wet, 
 streaked walls, and the constant dropping 
 of water from above. 
 
 But the fourth floor bore witness. The 
 ceilings were scored with great cracks. The 
 plaster had fallen in places, and everything— 
 
MOTH AND RUST 87 
 
 walls, ceilings, doors, and passages — was 
 blackened as if licked by great tongues of 
 smoke. 
 
 The young couple were standing at the 
 further end of a long empty passage, trying 
 to open a door. As Janet looked, she saw 
 the man put his shoulder to it. Then she 
 turned once more to the next flight of the 
 staircase. It was strewn with wreckage. 
 The bent iron banisters, from which the 
 lead hung in congealed drops, supported 
 awkwardly the contorted remains of the 
 banisters from above, which had crashed 
 down upon them. The staircase had ceased 
 to be a staircase. It was a steep, sHding 
 mass of fallen debris, down which the demon 
 of fire had hurled, as into a well, the ghastly 
 entrails of the havoc of his torture chambers 
 above. 
 
 Janet looked carefully at the remnants of 
 the staircase. The heat had reached it, but 
 not the fire. She cHmbed half way up it, 
 securing a foothold where she could among 
 the debris. But, halfway, the banisters 
 from above blocked her passage, tilted 
 
88 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 crazily towards her, insurmountable. She 
 dared not touch them for fear of bringing 
 them, and an avalanche of piled rubbish 
 behind them, down upon her. She turned 
 back a few steps, deliberately climbed, in 
 her short country skirt, over the still stand- 
 ing banisters, and, holding firmly by them, 
 went up the remainder of the flight, cautious 
 step by step, as she and Fred had done as 
 children, finding a foothold where she could, 
 and not allowing her eyes to look down into 
 the well below her. At the next landing 
 she climbed over the banisters again, felt 
 them for a sickening moment give under 
 her weight, and stopped to take breath and 
 look round her. 
 
 She was on the fifth floor. 
 
 Even here the fire had not actually been, 
 but the heaps of sodden ashes, the gaping, 
 burst panels, the seared doors, the blackness 
 of the disfigured passages, the long, dis- 
 traught wires of the electric lighting, showed 
 that heat had been here ; blinding, scorching, 
 blistering heat. 
 
 The Brands' flat was on the sixth floor. 
 
MOTH AND RUST 89 
 
 Janet looked up once more, and even her 
 steady eyes were momentarily daunted. 
 
 The staircase was gone. A raging fire 
 had swept up its two last flights as up a 
 chimney, and had carried all before it. 
 What the fire had refused it had flung 
 down, choking up the landing below. 
 Nothing remained of the staircase save the 
 iron supports, sticking out of the wall like 
 irregular, jagged teeth, and marking where 
 each step of the stairs had been. 
 
 Higher still a zinc bath remained sticking 
 against the charred, naked wall. The bath- 
 room had fallen from it. The bath and its 
 twisted pipes remained. And above aU the 
 blue sky peered down as into a pit's mouth. 
 
 Janet looked fixedly at the iron supports, 
 and measured them with her eye. Her 
 colour did not change, nor her breath 
 quicken. She felt her strength in her. 
 Then, hugging the black wall till it crumbled 
 agamst her, and shading her eyes till they 
 could see only where to tread, she went 
 swiftly up those awful stairs, and reached 
 the sixth floor. 
 
90 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 Then her strength gave way, and she 
 sank down upon something soft, and 
 shuddered. A faint sound made her look 
 back. 
 
 One of the supports, loosened by her 
 footstep, stirred, and then fell. It fell a 
 long way. 
 
 Even her marvellous inapprehensiveness 
 was shaken. But her still courage returned 
 to her, the quiet confidence that enabled 
 her to break in nervous horses with which 
 her recklessly foolhardy brother could do 
 nothing. 
 
 Janet rose slowly to her feet, catching 
 them as she did so in something soft. 
 Stamped into the charred grime of the 
 concrete floor by the feet of the firemen 
 were the remains of a sable cloak, which, 
 as her foot touched it, showed a shred of 
 rose-coloured lining. A step further her 
 foot sank into a heap of black rags, evi- 
 dently hastily flung down by one in head- 
 long flight, through the folds of which gold 
 embroidery and a pair of jewelled clasps 
 gleamed faintly. 
 
MOTH AND RUST 91 
 
 Janet stood still a moment in what had 
 been the heart of the fire. The blast of 
 the furnace had roared down that once 
 familiar passage, leaving a charred, rent 
 hole, half filled up and silted out of all 
 shape by ashes. Nevertheless her way lay 
 down it. 
 
 She crept stumbling along it with bent 
 head. Surely the Brands' flat was exactly 
 here, on the left, near the head of the stair- 
 case. But she could recognise nothing. 
 
 She stopped short at a gaping cavity 
 that had once been a doorway, and looked 
 through it into what had once been a bed- 
 room. The fire had swept all before it. 
 If there had once been a floor and walls, 
 and ceiling and furniture, all was gone, 
 leaving a seared, egg-shaped hole. From 
 its shelving sides three pieces of contorted 
 iron had rolled into the central puddle — 
 all that was left of the bed. 
 
 Could this be the Brands' flat ? 
 
 Janet passed on, and peered through the 
 next doorway. Here the flames had not 
 raged so fiercely. The blackened semblance 
 
92 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 of a room was still there, but shrunk like 
 a mummy, and ready to crumble at a 
 touch. It must have been a servant's 
 bedroom. The chest of drawers, the bed, 
 were still there in outline, but all ashes. 
 On pegs on the wall hung ghosts of gowns 
 and hats, as if drawn in soot. On the 
 chest of drawers stood the effigy of a 
 bedroom candlestick, with the extinguisher 
 over it. 
 
 Yes, it was the Brands' flat. The outer 
 door and little entrance hall had been 
 wiped out, and she was inside it. This 
 evidently had been the drawing - room. 
 Here were signs as of some fi-ightful con- 
 flict, as if the room had resisted its fate to 
 the death, and had only been overpowered 
 after a hideous struggle. 
 
 The waU-paper hung in tatters on the 
 wall. Remnants of furniture were flung 
 about in all directions. The door was 
 gone. The windows were gone. The 
 bookcase was gone, leaving no trace, but 
 the books it had contained had been thrown 
 all over the room in its downfall, and lay 
 
MOTH AND RUST 98 
 
 for the most part unscorched, pell-mell, 
 one over the other. Among the books 
 crouched an agonised tangle of wires — all 
 that was left of Cuckoo's grand piano. 
 The pictures had leapt wildly from the 
 walls to join in the conflict. A few pieces 
 of strewed gilding, as if torn asunder with 
 pincers, showed their fate. Horror brooded 
 over the place as over the dead body of one 
 who had fought for his life, and died by 
 torture, whom the destroyer had not had 
 time to mutilate past recognition. 
 
 Had the wind changed, and had the fiend 
 of fire been forced to obey it, and leave 
 his havoc unfinished ? Yes, the wind must 
 have changed, for at the next step down the 
 passage, Janet reached Cuckoo's boudoir. 
 
 The door had fallen inward, and by some 
 miracle the whole strength of the flames 
 had rushed dovm the passage, leaving even 
 tlie door unburnt. Janet walked over the 
 door into the httle room and stood amazed. 
 
 The fire had passed by on the other side. 
 Everything here was untouched, unchanged. 
 The yellow china cat witli an immensely 
 
94 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 long neck was still seated on its plush 
 footstool on the hearthrug. On the sofa 
 lay an open fashion paper, where Cuckoo 
 had laid it down. On every table photo- 
 graphs of Cuckoo smiled in different atti- 
 tudes. The gaudy room, with its damask 
 panels, bore no trace of smoke, nor even 
 of heat, save that the two palms in tubs, 
 and the hydrangeas in the fireplace, were 
 shrivelled up, and in the gilt bird-cage in 
 the window was a tiny, motionless form, 
 with outstretched wings, that would fain 
 have flown away. 
 
 For a moment Janet forgot everything 
 except the bullfinch — the piping bullfinch 
 that Monkey Brand had given to his wife. 
 She ran to the cage, brushing against the 
 palms, which made a dry rustling as she 
 passed, and bent over the little bird. 
 
 "BuUy," she said. ''Bully!" For that 
 was the name which, after much thought, 
 Monkey Brand had bestowed upon it. 
 
 But "Bully" did not move. He was 
 pressed against the bars of his Chinese 
 pagoda, with his head thrown back and his 
 
MOTH AND RUST 95 
 
 beak open. " Bully " had known fear before 
 he died. 
 
 Janet suddenly remembered the great fear 
 which some one else was enduring, to whom 
 death was coming, and she turned quickly 
 from the window. 
 
 De Rivaz's extraordinary portrait of 
 Cuckoo smiled at Janet from the wall, in 
 all its shrewd, vulgar prettiness. The hard, 
 calculating blue eyes, which could stare 
 down the social ladder so mercilessly, were 
 mercilessly portrayed. The careful touch of 
 rouge on the cheek and carmine on the lip 
 were faithfully rendered. The manicured, 
 plebeian hands were Cuckoo's, and none but 
 Cuckoo's. The picture was a studied insult, 
 save in the eyes of Monkey Brand, who saw 
 in it the reflection, imperfect and inade- 
 quate, but still the reflection of the one 
 creature whom, in his money-getting Hfe, 
 he had found time to love. 
 
 Janet never could bear to look at it, and 
 she turned her eyes away. 
 
 Directly underneath the picture stood £he 
 Italian cabinet, with its ivory figures let into 
 
96 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 ebony. It was untouched, as Cuckoo had 
 feared. The mermaid was still tranquilly 
 riding a whale on the snaffle, in the midst 
 of a sea with a crop of dolphins' tails 
 sticking up through it. 
 
 Janet fitted the key into the lock, and 
 then instinctively turned to shut the door. 
 But the door lay prone upon the floor. She 
 stole into the passage and listened. 
 
 There were voices somewhere out of sight. 
 Human voices seemed strangely out of place 
 in this cindered grave. They came nearer. 
 A tall, heavily-built man came stooping 
 round the corner, with another shorter, 
 shghter one behind him. 
 
 "The floors are concrete; it's all right," 
 said the first man. 
 
 Janet retreated into the room again, to 
 wait till they had passed. But they were 
 in no hurry. They both glanced into 
 the room, and, seeing her, went on. 
 
 "Here you have one of the most ex- 
 traordinary effects of fire," said the big 
 man, stopping at the next doorway. 
 " This was once a drawing-room. If you 
 
MOTH AND RUST 97 
 
 want to paint a realistic picture, here is 
 your subject." 
 
 " I would rather paint an angel in the 
 pit's mouth," said the younger man 
 significantly, leaning his delicate, artist 
 hand against the charred doorpost. "Do 
 you think, Yanbrunt, this is a safe place 
 for angels without wdngs to be going 
 about alone ? You say the floors are 
 safe, but are they?" 
 
 Stephen Yanbrunt considered a moment. 
 
 Then he turned back to the room where 
 Janet was. He did not enter it, but stood 
 in the doorway, nearly filling it up — a tall, 
 powerfully-built, unyouthful - looking man 
 with shaggy eyebrows and a grim, clean- 
 shaved face and heavy jaw. You may 
 see such a face and figure any day in 
 the Yorkshire mines or in a stone-mason's 
 yard. 
 
 The millionaire took off his hat with a 
 large blackened hand, and said to Janet: 
 " I trust the salvage men have warned 
 you that the passages on your right are 
 unsafe?" He pointed towards the way 
 
 G 
 
98 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 by which she had come. It was evidently 
 an effort to him to speak to her. He was 
 a shy man. 
 
 His voice was deep and gentle. It gave 
 the same impression of strength behind it 
 that a quiet wave does of the sea. He stood 
 with his head thrown slightly back, an 
 austere, massive figure, not without a certain 
 dignity. And as he looked at Janet, there 
 was just room in his narrow, near-sighted 
 sHts of eyes for a stern kindliness to shine 
 through. Children and dogs always made 
 a bee-line for Stephen. 
 
 As Janet did not answer, he said again . 
 
 *' I trust you will not attempt to go down 
 the passage to your right. It is not safe." 
 
 " No," said Janet, and she remembered 
 her instructions. " I am only here to see 
 if De Rivaz' picture of Mrs Brand is safe." 
 
 "Here is De Rivaz himself," said 
 Stephen. " May we come in a moment 
 and look at it ? I am afraid I came in 
 without asking last night, with the police 
 inspector." 
 
 "Do come in," said Janet. 
 
MOTH AND RUST 99 
 
 The painter came in, and glanced at 
 the picture. 
 
 "It's all right," he said indifferently. 
 "Not even a Hck of smoke. But," he 
 added, looking narrowly at Janet, "if Mr 
 Brand wishes it I will send a man I can 
 trust to revarnish it." 
 
 "Thank you," said Janet. 
 
 "Here is my card," he continued, still 
 looking at her. 
 
 " Thank you," said Janet again, wonder- 
 ing when they w^ould go. 
 
 "You are, no doubt, a relation of the 
 Brands?" he continued desperately. 
 
 " I am a friend." 
 
 "I will come and see Mr Brand about 
 the picture," continued the young man, 
 stammering. "May I ask you to be so 
 kind as to tell him so ? " 
 
 "I will tell him," said Janet; and she 
 became very pale. While this man was 
 manufacturing conversation Cuckoo was 
 dying — was dying, waiting with her eyes 
 on the door. She turned instinctively to 
 Stephen for help. 
 
100 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 But he had forgotten her. He was 
 looking intently at the dead bird in the 
 cage, was touching its sleek head with a 
 large gentle finger. 
 
 " You are well out of it, my friend," he 
 said below his breath. "It is not good to 
 be afraid, but it was a short agony. And 
 it is over. You will not be afi-aid again. 
 You are well out of it. No more prison 
 bars. No more stretching of wings to fly 
 with that may never fly. No more years 
 of servitude for a cruel woman's whim. 
 You are well out of it." 
 
 He looked up and met Janet's eyes. 
 
 "We are trespassers," he said instantly. 
 " We have taken a mean advantage of 
 your kindness in letting us come in. De 
 Rivaz, I will show you a background for 
 your next picture a fcAV yards further on. 
 ^Ir Brand knows me," he continued, pro- 
 ducing a card in his turn. "We do business 
 together. He is my tenant here. Will you 
 kindly tell him I ventured to bring INIr 
 De Rivaz into the remains of his flat to 
 make a sketch of the effects of fire ? " 
 
MOTH AND JlUST 101 
 
 "I will tell him," said Janet, only half 
 attending, and laying the card beside De 
 liivaz'. Would they never go? 
 
 They did go immediately, Stephen per- 
 emptorily aiding the departure of the 
 painter. 
 
 When they were in the next room De 
 Rivaz leaned up against the blackened 
 wall, and said hoarsely : " Vanbrunt, did 
 you see her?" 
 
 " Of course I saw her." 
 
 "But I must paint her. I must know 
 her. I shall go back and ask her to sit 
 to me." 
 
 " You will do no such thing. You will 
 immediately apply yourself to this scene 
 of desolation, or I shall take you away. 
 Look at this charnel-house. What un- 
 chained devils have raged in it! It is 
 jealousy made visible. What is the use 
 of a realistic painter like yourself, who 
 can squeeze all romance out of life till 
 the whole of existence is as prosaic as 
 a string of onions ; what is the use of 
 a Avretched worm like you making one 
 
lO^ MOTH AND RUST 
 
 of your horrible portraits of that beautiful, 
 innocent face ? " 
 
 " I shall paint her if I live," said De 
 Rivaz, glaring at his friend. *' I know 
 beauty when I see it." 
 
 *' No, you don't. You see everything 
 ugly, even beauty of a high order. Look 
 at your picture of me." 
 
 Both men laughed. 
 
 " I will paint her," said De Rivaz. 
 " Half the beauty of so-called beautiful 
 women is loathsome to me because of the 
 sordid or frivolous soul behind it. But I 
 will paint a picture of that woman which 
 will show to the world, and even to 
 rhinoceros - hided sceptics like you, Van- 
 brunt, that I can make the beauty of the 
 soul shine through even a beautiful face, 
 as I have made mean souls shine through 
 lovely faces. I sliall fall damnably in love 
 with her while I do it, but that can't be 
 helped. And the picture will make her 
 and me famous," 
 
MOTH AND RUST 103 
 
 CHAPTEK VII 
 
 " Doch wenn du sagst, ' Ich liebe dich,' 
 Dann muss Icli weinen bitterlich." 
 
 Janet listened to the retreating footsteps, 
 and then flew to the cabinet. 
 
 The key would not turn, and for one 
 sickening moment, while she wrenched 
 clumsily at it, she feared she was not 
 going to succeed in opening the cabinet. 
 Janet had through life a great difficulty 
 in all that involved delicate manipulation, 
 except a horse's mouth. If a lock resisted, 
 she used force, generally shooting it ; if the 
 hinge of a door gave, she jammed it. But 
 in this instance, contrary to her usual ex- 
 perience, the lock did turn at last, and 
 the whole front of the cabinet, dolphins and 
 mermaid and all, came suddenly forwards 
 towards her, disclosing within a double tier 
 of ebony drawers, all exquisitely inlaid with 
 ivory, and each having its tiny, silver-scrolled 
 lock. 
 
104 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 Some water had dripped on to the cabinet 
 from a damp place in the ceiUng, and a few 
 drops had penetrated down to the inner 
 drawers, rusting the silver of the lowest 
 drawer — the left-hand one. 
 
 Janet fitted the key into it. It turned 
 easily, but the drawer resisted. It came 
 out a little way, and then stuck. It 
 was quite full. Janet gave another pull, 
 and the narrow, shallow drawer came out, 
 with difficulty — but still, it did come out. 
 
 On the top, methodically folded, were 
 some hand-written directions for fancy 
 work. Cuckoo never did any needlework. 
 Janet raised them, and looked underneath. 
 Where was the packet tied with hair? 
 It was nowhere to be seen. There were 
 a quantity of letters loosely laid together. 
 Could these be they ? Evidently they had 
 not been touched for a long time, for the 
 grime of London air and fog had settled 
 on them. Janet wiped the topmost with 
 her handkerchief, and a few words came 
 clearly out : " JMy darling. My treasure." 
 Her handkerchief had touched sometliing 
 
MOTH AND RUST 105 
 
 loose in the comer of the drawer. Could 
 this dim, moth-fretten lock have once been 
 Cuckoo's yellow hair ? Even as she looked, 
 out of it came a moth, dragging itself 
 slowly over the face of the letter, opening 
 its unused wings. It crawled up over the 
 rusted silver scroll-work, and flew away 
 into the room. 
 
 Yes. These must be the letters. They 
 had been tied once, and the moth had 
 eaten away the tie. She took them 
 carefully up. There were a great many. 
 She gathered them all together, as she 
 thought; looked again at the back of the 
 drawer to make sure, and found a few 
 more, with a little gilt heart rusted into 
 them. Then she replaced the needlework 
 directions, pushed to the drawer — which 
 resisted again, and then went back into 
 its place — locked it, extracted the key, 
 locked the cabinet, and threw the key 
 out of a broken pane of the window. 
 She saw it light on the roof lower down, 
 and shde into the safe keeping of the 
 gutter. 
 
106 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 Then she moved away the shrivelled 
 hydrangeas which stood in the fire-place, 
 and put the letters into the empty grate. 
 Once more she went to the door and 
 listened. All was quite still. She came 
 back. On the chimney-piece stood a photo- 
 graph of Monkey Brand grinning smugly 
 through its cracked glass. Behind it was a 
 silver match-box with a pig on it, and 
 " Scratch me " written on it. Cuckoo 
 affected everything she called " quaint." 
 
 Janet struck a match, knelt down, and 
 held it to the pile of letters. 
 
 But love-letters never yet burned easily. 
 Perhaps they have passed through the flame 
 of life, and after that no feebler fire can 
 reach them quickly. The fire shrank from 
 them, and match after match went out, 
 flame after flame wavered, and refused to 
 meddle with them. 
 
 After wasting time in several exactly 
 similar attempts when one fiiilure would have 
 been sufficient, Janet opened and crumpled 
 some of them to let the air get to them. 
 The handwriting was strangely familiar. 
 
MOTH AND RUST 107 
 
 She observed the fact without reasoning on 
 it. Then she sprinkled the remainder of the 
 letters on the top of the crumpled ones, and 
 again set the pile alight. 
 
 The fire got hold now. It burned up 
 fiercely, bringing down upon itself the upper 
 letters, which toppled into the heai-t of the 
 miniature conflagration much as the stair- 
 case must have toppled on to the stairs be- 
 low, in the bigger conflagration of yesterday. 
 How famihar the handwTiting was I How 
 some of the sentences shone out as if wi-itten 
 in fire on black sheets : " Love hke ours can 
 never fade." The words faded out at once, 
 as the dying letters gave up the ghost — the 
 ghost of dead love. Janet gazed fascinated. 
 Another letter fell in, opening as it fell, dis- 
 closing a photogi'aph. Fred's face looked 
 full at Janet for a moment out of the little 
 gi-eedy flames that hcked it up. Janet drew 
 back trembhng, suddenly sick unto death. 
 
 Fred's face ! Fred's writing ! 
 
 She trembled so violently that she did not 
 notice that the smoke was no longer going 
 up the chimney, but was fiUing the room. 
 
108 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 The chimney was evidently blocked higher 
 up. 
 
 She was so paralysed that she did not 
 notice a hght footfall in the passage, and a 
 figure in the doorway. Janet was not of 
 those who see behind their backs. The 
 painter, alarmed by the smoke, stood for a 
 moment, brush in hand, looking fixedly at 
 her. Then his eye fell on the smoking 
 papers in the grate, and he withdrew noise- 
 lessly. 
 
 It was out now. The second fire was out. 
 What violent passions had been consumed 
 in it I That tiny fire in the grate seemed 
 to Janet more black with horror than the 
 appalling scene of havoc in the next room. 
 She knelt down and parted the hot films of 
 the httle bonfire. There was no scrap of 
 paper left. The thing was done. 
 
 Then she noticed the smoke, and her 
 heart stood still. 
 
 She pushed the cinders into the back of 
 the grate with her hands, replaced the 
 hydrangeas in the fire-place, and ran to the 
 window. But the wood-work was warped 
 
MOTH AND RUST 109 
 
 by the heat. It would not open. She 
 wasted time trying to force it, and then 
 broke the glass and let in the air. But the 
 air only blew the smoke out into the pas- 
 sage. It was hke a bad dream. She seized 
 the prostrate door, and tried to raise it. But 
 it was too heavy for her. 
 
 She stood up panting, watching the tell- 
 tale smoke curl lightly through the door- 
 Avay. 
 
 More steps in the passage. 
 
 She went swiftly into the next room, and 
 stood in the doorway. The lift man came 
 cautiously down the passage, accompanied 
 by an alert, spectacled young man, note- 
 book in hand. The lift man bore the em- 
 baiTassed expression of one whose sense of 
 duty has succumbed before too large a tip. 
 The young man had the decided manner 
 of one who intends to have his money's 
 worth. 
 
 " Where are we now ? " he said, scribbling 
 for dear life, his spectacles turning all ways 
 at once. " I don't like this smoke. Can 
 the beastly place be on fire still ? " 
 
no MOTH AND RUST 
 
 But the lift man had caught sight of 
 Janet, and the sight of her was obviously 
 unwelcome. 
 
 " The floors ain't safe here," he said con- 
 fusedly. " There's a deal more damage to 
 be seen in the left wing." 
 
 " Is there ? " said the young man drily. 
 " We'll go there next " ; and he went on 
 peering and scribbling. 
 
 A voice in the distance shouted im- 
 periously, " Number Two, where does this 
 smoke come from ? " 
 
 There was a plodding of heavy, hastening 
 feet above. 
 
 In an instant the young man and the lift 
 man had disappeared round the corner. 
 
 Janet ran swiftly down the black passage 
 along which they had come, almost brushing 
 against the painter in her haste, without 
 perceiving him. She flew on, recognising 
 by instinct the once familiar way to the 
 central hall on each landing. Here it was 
 at last. She paused a moment by the gap- 
 ing lift, and then walked slowly to the head 
 of the iron outer staircase. 
 
MOTH AND RUST 111 
 
 A policeman was speaking austerely to a 
 short, stout, shabbily-dressed woman of de- 
 termined aspect, who bore the unmistakable 
 stamp of those whose unquenchable desire 
 it is to be where their presence is not desired, 
 where it is even deprecated. 
 
 " Only ladies and gents with passes is 
 admitted," the poUceman was saying. 
 
 " But how can I get a pass ? " 
 
 " I don't precisely know," said the police- 
 man cautiously, " but I know it must be 
 signed by Mr Vanbrunt or INlr Brown." 
 
 " I am the Duchess of Quorn, and I am 
 an intimate fiiend of JMr Vanbrunt." 
 
 Janet passed the couple with a beating 
 heart. But apparently there were no re- 
 strictions about persons going out, only 
 about those trying to get in. The pohce- 
 man made way for her at once, and she went 
 down unchallenged. 
 
 In the bilhard-room time was waxmg 
 short ; was obviously running out. 
 
 The child had arrived from the country 
 
112 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 with his nurse. Monkey Brand took him 
 in his arms at the door, and knelt down 
 with him beside Cuckoo. 
 
 "Arty has come to say * good-morning ' 
 to Mammy," he said, in a strangled, would-be 
 cheerful voice. 
 
 Cuckoo looked at the child wildly for a 
 moment, as the little laughing face came 
 within the radius of her fading sight. She 
 suffered the cool, flower-hke cheek to touch 
 hers, but then she whispered to her husband, 
 *' Take him away. I want only you." 
 
 He took Arty back to his nurse, holding 
 him closely to him, and returned to her. 
 
 Death seemed to have advanced a step 
 nearer with the advent of the child. 
 
 They both waited for it in silence. 
 
 " Don't kneel, Arthur," said Cuckoo at 
 last. " You will be so tired." 
 
 He obediently drew up a little stool, and 
 crouched hunched up upon it, her cold hand 
 between his cold hands. 
 
 *' Is there any one at the door ? " she 
 asked, after an age of silence. 
 
 *' No one, dearest ; we are quite alone." 
 
MOTH AND RUST 118 
 
 " I should like to see Janet to say * good- 
 bye.'" 
 
 " ^lust I go and look for her ? " 
 
 " No. I sent her to see if my picture was 
 really safe. It is all you will have to re- 
 member me by. She will come and tell 
 me directly." 
 
 "I do not want any picture of you, 
 Cuckoo." 
 
 Another silence. 
 
 " I can't wait much longer," said Cuckoo 
 below her breath ; but he heard it. "Are you 
 sure there is no one at the door, Arthur ? " 
 
 " No one." 
 
 Silence again. 
 
 "Ask God to have pity on me," said 
 Cuckoo faintly. " Isn't there some one 
 coming in now ? " 
 
 " No one." 
 
 " Ask God to have pity on us both," said 
 Cuckoo again. " Pray so that I can hear." 
 
 But apparently iVIonkey Brand could not 
 pray aloud. 
 
 " Say something to make the time pass," 
 she whispered. 
 
 H 
 
114 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 " The Lord is my Shepherd," said IVIonkey 
 Brand brokenly, his mind throwing back 
 thirty years ; " I shall not want. He leadeth 
 me beside the still waters. He " 
 
 " I seem to hear steps," interrupted 
 Cuckoo. 
 
 " He leadeth me beside the stiU waters. 
 Yea, though I walk" — the voice broke 
 down — "though I walk in the valley of 
 the shadow of " 
 
 "Some one is coming in now," said 
 Cuckoo, in a faint, acute voice. 
 
 " It is Janet." 
 
 "I can't see her plainly. Tell her to 
 come nearer." 
 
 He beckoned to Janet. 
 
 " I can see her now," said Cuckoo, the 
 blindness of death in her wide eyes, which 
 stared vacantly where Janet was not ; "at 
 least, I see some one. Isn't she holding 
 her hand to her forehead ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 The last tears Cuckoo was destined to 
 shed stood in her bhnd eyes. 
 
 " Good-bye, dear Janet," she gasped. 
 
MOTH AND RUST 115 
 
 " Good-bye, Cuckoo." 
 
 " Send her away. Is she quite gone, 
 Arthur?" 
 
 " Yes, dearest." 
 
 " I must go too- I don't know how to 
 leave you, but I must. I cannot see you, 
 but you are with me in the darkness. Take 
 me in your arms and let me die in them. 
 Is that your cheek against mine? How 
 cold it is I Hold your dear hands to my 
 face that I may kiss them too. They have 
 been kind, kind hands to me. How my 
 poor Arthur trembles ! You were too good 
 for me, Arthur. You have been the only 
 real friend I've ever had in the world. 
 More than father and mother to me. JMore 
 than any one." 
 
 " You did love me, little one ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "Only me?" 
 
 '* Only you." 
 
 He burst into a passion of tears. 
 
 " Forgive me for having doubted you," he 
 said hoarsely. 
 
 *' Did you ever doubt me ? " 
 
116 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 " Yes, once. I ought to have known 
 better. I can't forgive myself. Forgive 
 me, my wife." 
 
 Cuckoo was silent. Death was hard upon 
 her, heavy on voice and breath. 
 
 " Say, 'Arthur, I forgive you,' " whispered 
 her husband through the darkness. 
 
 "Arthur, I forgive you," said Cuckoo 
 with a sob. And her head fell forward on 
 his breast. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 " But it was even thou, my companion, my guide, 
 and mine own familiar friend." 
 
 It was not until Janet was sitting alone 
 in the room she had taken at an hotel 
 that her dazed mind began to recover 
 itself It did not recoil in horror fi-om 
 the remembrance of that grim ascent to 
 the flat. It did not dwell on Cuckoo's 
 death. 
 
 Janet said over and over again to her- 
 
MOTH AND RUST 117 
 
 self, in tearless anguish, " Cuckoo and 
 Fred I Cuckoo and Fred ! " 
 
 The shock had succeeded to a great 
 strain, and she succumbed to it. 
 
 She sat on her box in the middle of the 
 room hour after hour in the stifling heat. 
 The afternoon sun beat in on her, but 
 she did not pull down the blind. There 
 was an armchair in the corner, but Janet 
 unconsciously clung to the box, as the 
 only familiar object in an unfamihar world. 
 Late in the afternoon, when Anne found 
 her, Janet was still sitting on it, gazing 
 in front of her, with an untasted cup of 
 tea beside her, which the chambermaid 
 had brought her. 
 
 Anne sat doAvn on the box and put her 
 arms round her. 
 
 "My dear," she said; "my dear." 
 
 And Janet said no word, but hid her 
 convulsed face on Anne's shoulder. 
 
 Janet had a somewhat confused remem- 
 brance of what happened after that. Amie 
 ordered, and she obeyed, and there was 
 another journey in a cab, and presently 
 
118 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 she was sitting in a cool, white bedroom 
 leading out of Anne's room ; at least Anne 
 said it did. Anne came in and out now 
 and then, and forced her to drink a cup 
 of milk, and smoothed her hair with a 
 very tender hand. But Janet made no 
 response. 
 
 Anne was of those who do not despise 
 the little things of life. She saw that 
 Janet was suffering from a great shock, 
 and she sent for the only child there was 
 in the great, dreary London house — the 
 vulgar kitchen kitten belonging to the 
 cook. 
 
 Anne silently held the warm, sleepy 
 kitten against Janet's cheek. It purred 
 when it was touched, and then fell asleep, 
 a little ball of comfort against Janet's neck. 
 The white, over - strained face relaxed. 
 Anne's gentle touch and presence had not 
 achieved that, but the kitten did. Two 
 large tears rolled down into its fur. 
 
 The peace and comfort and physical well- 
 beinff of feeUnoj a little life warm — asleep, 
 pressed close against you, is perhaps not 
 
MOTH AND RUST 119 
 
 new. Perhaps it goes back as far as the 
 wilderness, which ceased to be a wilder- 
 ness when Eve brought forth her fost- 
 born in it. I think she must have for- 
 gotten aU about her lost Garden of Eden 
 when she first heard the breathing of her 
 sleeping child against her bosom. The 
 brambles and the thorns would prick very 
 little after that. 
 
 Later on, when Anne came in softly, 
 Janet was asleep, with the kitten on her 
 shoulder. 
 
 An hour later Anne came in once more 
 in a wonderful white gown, and stood a 
 moment watching Janet. Anne was not 
 excited, but a Uttle tumult was shaking 
 her, as a summer wind stirs and ripples 
 all the surface of a deep-set pool. She 
 knew that she would meet Stephen to- 
 night at the dinner-party for which she 
 was already late, and that knowledge, 
 though long experience had taught her that 
 it was useless to meet him, that he would 
 certainly not speak to her if he could help 
 it, still the knowledge that she should see 
 
120 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 him caused a faint colour to burn in her 
 pale cheek, a wavering light in her gi-ave 
 eyes, a slight tremor of her whole delicate 
 being. She looked, as she stood in the 
 half-light, a woman to whose exquisite hands 
 even a poet might have entrusted his diffi- 
 cult, double-edged love, much more a hard 
 man of business such as Stephen. 
 
 Janet's face, which had been so wan, 
 was flushed a deep red. She stirred un- 
 easily, and began speaking hoarsely and 
 incoherently. 
 
 " All burnt," she said, over and over 
 again. "All burnt. Nothing left." 
 
 Anne laid down the fan she held in her 
 hand, and drew a step nearer. 
 
 Janet suddenly sat up, opened her eyes to 
 a horrible width, and stared at her. 
 
 " I have burnt them all, Fred," she said, 
 looking full at Anne. " Ever5^i;hing. There 
 is nothing left. I promised I would, and I 
 have. But oh I Fred, how could you do it ? 
 How could you, could you, do it ? " And 
 she burst mto a low cry of anguish. 
 
 Anne took her by the arm. 
 
MOTH AND RUST 121 
 
 " You are dreaming, Janet," she said. 
 " Wake up. Look ! You are here with 
 me, Anne — your friend." 
 
 Janet winced, and her eyelids quivered. 
 Then she looked round her bewildered, and 
 said in a more natural voice : " I don't know 
 where I am. I thought I was at home with 
 Fred." 
 
 " I have sent for your brother, and he will 
 come and take you home to-morrow." 
 
 " Something di-eadful has happened," said 
 Janet. "It is like a stone on my head. 
 It crushes me, but I don't know what it 
 is." 
 
 Anne looked gravely at Janet, and half 
 unconsciously unclasped the thin chain, with 
 its heavy diamond pendant, from her neck. 
 Her hand trembled as she did it. She was 
 not thinking of Janet at that moment. " I 
 shall not see him to-night," she was saying 
 to herself. And the delicate colour faded, 
 the hidden tumult died down. She was 
 calm and practical once more. She wi'ote 
 a note, sent it down to the waiting carriage 
 to deliver, got quickly out of the flowing 
 
122 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 white gown into a dressing-gown, and re- 
 turned to Janet. 
 
 • • • • • 
 
 Fred came to London the following day. 
 Even his mercurial nature was distressed at 
 Cuckoo's sudden death, and at Janet's wan, 
 fixed face. But he felt that if his sister 
 must be ill, she could not be better placed 
 than in that ducal household. A good 
 many persons among Fred's acquaintances 
 heard of Janet's illness during the next few 
 days, and of the kindness of the Duke and 
 Duchess of Quorn. 
 
 The Duke and Duchess really were kind. 
 The benevolence of so down-trodden and 
 helpless a creature as the Duke — who was 
 of no importance except in affairs of the 
 realm, where he was a power — his kindness, 
 of course, was of no account. But the 
 Duchess rose to the occasion. She was one 
 of those small, square, kind-hearted, deter- 
 mined women, with a long upper hp, whose 
 faces are set on looking upwards, who can 
 make life vulgarly happy for strugghng, 
 middle-class men, if they are poor enough 
 
MOTPI AND RUST 123 
 
 to give their wives scope for an unceasing 
 
 energy on their behalf. She was a femme 
 
 incomprise, misplaced. By birth she was 
 
 the equal of her gentle-mannered husband, 
 
 but she was one of Nature's vulgarians all 
 
 the same, and directly the thin gilt of a 
 
 certain youthful prettiness wore off — she 
 
 had been a plump, bustling little partridge 
 
 at twenty — her innate commonness came 
 
 obviously to the surface ; in fact, it became 
 
 the surface. 
 
 " Age could not wither her, nor custom stale 
 Her infinite vulgarity." 
 
 There was no need for her to push, but 
 she pushed. She made embarrassing jokes 
 at the expense of her children. In society 
 she was familiar where she should have been 
 courteous, openly curious where she should 
 have ignored, gratuitously confidential where 
 she should have been reticent. She never 
 realized the impression she made on others. 
 She pursued her discomfortable objects of 
 pursuit, namely, eligible young men and 
 endless charities, with the same total dis- 
 regard of appearances, the same ungainly 
 
124 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 agility, which an elderly hen will sometimes 
 suddenly evince in chase of a butterfly. 
 
 Some one had nicknamed her " the steam 
 roller," and the name stuck to her. 
 
 She was — perhaps not unnaturally — 
 annoyed when Anne brought a stranger 
 back to the house with her in the height of 
 the season, and installed her in one of the 
 spare rooms, while she herself was absent, 
 talking loudly at a httle musical tea-party. 
 But when she saw Janet next day sitting 
 in one of Anne's dressing-gowns in Anne's 
 sitting-room, she instantly took a fancy to 
 her; one of those hea\y, prodding fancies 
 which immediately investigate by questions 
 — the Duchess never hesitated to ask 
 questions — all the past life of the victim, as 
 regards iUnesses, illnesses of relations, 
 especially if obscure and internal, cause of 
 death of parents, present financial circum- 
 stances, etc. Janet, whose strong constitu- 
 tion rapidly rallied from the shock that had 
 momentarily prostrated her, thought these 
 subjects of conversation natural and even 
 exhilarating. She was accustomed to them 
 
MOTH AND RUST 125 
 
 in her own society. The first time the 
 Smiths had called on her at Ivy Cottage, 
 had they not enquired the exact area of her 
 little drawing-room ? She found the society 
 of the Duchess vaguely delightful and 
 sympathetic, a welcome relief from her own 
 miserable thoughts. And the Duchess told 
 Janet in return about a very painful ailment 
 from which the Duke suffered, and which it 
 distressed him " to hear alluded to," and all 
 about Anne's millionaire. When, a few 
 days later, Janet was able to travel, the 
 Duchess parted from her with real regret, 
 and begged her to come and stay with them 
 again after her marriage. 
 
 Anne seemed to have receded from 
 Janet during these last days. Perhaps 
 the Duchess had elbowed her out. 
 Perhaps Anne divined that Janet had 
 been told all about her unfortunate love 
 affair. Anne's patient dignity had a cer- 
 tain remoteness in it. Her mother, whose 
 hitherto thinly-draped designs on Stephen 
 were now clothed only in the recklessness 
 of despair, made Anne's life well-nigh un- 
 
126 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 endurable to her at this time, a constant 
 mortification of her refinement and her 
 pride. She withdrew into herself. And 
 perhaps also Anne was embarrassed by 
 the knowledge that she had inadvertently 
 become aware, when Janet's mind had 
 wandered, of something connected with 
 the burning of papers which Janet was 
 concealing, and which, as Anne could see, 
 was distressing her more even than the 
 sudden death of JMrs Brand. 
 
 Fred took charge of his sister in an 
 effusive manner when she was well enough 
 to travel. She was very silent all the 
 way home. She had become shy with 
 her brother, depressed in his society. 
 She had always kno^vn that evil existed 
 in the world, but she had somehow 
 managed to combine that knowledge 
 with the comfortable conviction that the 
 few people she cared for were " different." 
 She observed nothing except what 
 happened under her actual eyes, and then 
 only if her eyes were forcibly turned in 
 that direction. 
 
MOTH AND RUST 127 
 
 She knew Fred drank only because 
 she had seen him drunk. The shaking 
 hand, and broken nerve, and weakly- 
 violent temper, the signs of intemperance 
 when he was sober, were lost upon her. 
 She dismissed them with the reflection 
 that Fred was like that. Cause and 
 effect did not exist for Janet. And those 
 for whom they do not exist sustain heavy 
 shocks. 
 
 Cuckoo her friend, and Fred her brother ! 
 
 The horror of that remembrance never 
 left her during these days. She could 
 not think about it. She could only 
 silently endure it. 
 
 Poor Janet did not realize even now 
 that the sole reason why Cuckoo had 
 made friends with her was in order to 
 veil the intimacy with her brother. The 
 hard, would-be smart woman would not, 
 without some strong reason, have made 
 much of so unfiishionable an individual 
 as Janet in the first instance, though 
 there was no doubt that in the end 
 Cuckoo had grown fond of Janet for her 
 
128 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 own sake. And her genuine liking for 
 the sister had survived the rupture with 
 the brother. 
 
 The dog-cart was waiting for Fred and 
 Janet at JSludbury, and, as they drove 
 in the dusk through the tranquil country 
 lanes, Janet drew a long breath. 
 
 " You must not take on about JMrs 
 Brand's death too much," said Fred at 
 last, who had also been restlessly silent 
 for the greater part of the journey. 
 
 Janet did not answer. 
 
 " We must all die some day," continued 
 Fred. " It's the common lot. I did 
 not like IVIrs Brand as much as you did, 
 Janet. She was not my sort — but still — 
 when I heard the news " 
 
 " I loved her," said Janet hoarsely. 
 " I would have done anything for her." 
 
 "You must cheer up," said Fred, "and 
 try and look at the bright side. That 
 was what the Duke was saying only 
 yesterday when I called to thank him. 
 He was in such a hurry that he hardly 
 had a moment to spare, but I took a 
 
MOTH AND RUST 129 
 
 great fancy to him. No airs and soft 
 sawder, and a perfect gentleman. I 
 shall call again when next I am in London. 
 I shan't forget their kindness to you." 
 
 Again no answer. 
 
 " It is yom- duty to cheer up," continued 
 Fred. " George is coming over to see 
 you to-morrow morning." 
 
 " I think, don't you think, Fred," said 
 Janet suddenly, "that George is good — 
 really good, I mean ? " 
 
 "He is all right," said Fred. "Not 
 exactly open-handed. You must lay 
 your account for that, Janet. You'll 
 find him a bit of a screw, or I'm much 
 mistaken." 
 
 Janet was too dazed to reahze what 
 Fred's discovery of George's meanness 
 betokened. 
 
 Silence again. 
 
 They were nearing home. The lights 
 of Ivy Cottage twinkled through the 
 violet dusk. Janet looked at them with- 
 out seeing them. 
 
 Cuckoo her friend, and Fred her brother 1 
 
130 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 " I suppose, Janet," said Fred suddenly, 
 " you were not able to ask JMrs Brand — 
 
 no — of course not But perhaps you were 
 
 able to put in a word for me to Brand 
 about that — about waiting for his money ? " 
 
 " I never said anything to either of 
 them," said Janet. " I never thought of 
 it again. I forgot all about it." 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 " Yea, each with the other will lose and win, 
 Till the very Sides of the Grave fall in." 
 
 - W. E. Henley. 
 
 It was a summer night, hot and still, six 
 weeks later, towards the end of July. 
 Through the open vdndows of a house in 
 Hamilton Gardens a divine voice came out 
 into the hstening night : — 
 
 •* She comes not when Noon is on the roses — 
 Too bright is day. 
 She conies not to the Soul till it reposes 
 From work and play. 
 
MOTH AND RUST 131 
 
 " But when Night is on the hills, and the great Voices 
 Roll in from Sea, 
 By starlight and by candlelight and dreamlight 
 She conies to me." 
 
 Stephen sat alone in Hamilton Gardens, 
 a massive figm-e under a Chinese lantern, 
 which threw an unbecoming light on his 
 grim face and heavy brows, and laid on the 
 grass a grotesque boulder of shadow of the 
 great capitalist. 
 
 I do not know what he was thinking 
 about, as he sat listening to the song, 
 biting what could only by courtesy be 
 entitled his little finger. Was he under- 
 going a passing twinge of poetry ? Did 
 money occupy his thoughts ? 
 
 His impassive face betrayed nothing. 
 When did it ever betray anything? 
 
 He was not left long alone. Figures 
 were pacing in the half-lit gardens, two 
 and two. 
 
 Prose rushed in upon him in the shape 
 of a small square body, upholstered in grey 
 satin, which trundled its way resolutely 
 towards him. 
 
MOTH AND RUST 
 
 The Duchess feared neither God nor 
 man, but if fear had been possible to her, 
 it would have been for that dignified, yet 
 elusive, personage, whom she panted to call 
 her son-in-law. 
 
 She sat down by him with anxiety and 
 determination in her eyes. 
 
 "By starlight, and by candlelight, and 
 dreamlight she comes to me," said Stephen 
 to himself, with a sardonic smile. " Also 
 by dayUght, and when noon is on the roses, 
 and when I am at work and at play. In 
 short, she always comes." 
 
 " What a perfect night I " said the Duchess. 
 
 " Perfect." 
 
 " And that song — how beautiful ! " 
 
 " Beautiful." 
 
 " I did not know you cared for poetry ? " 
 
 " I don't" 
 
 Stephen added to other remarkable quali- 
 ties that of an able and self-possessed liar. 
 In business he was considered straight even 
 by gentlemen, foolishly strait-laced by men 
 of business. But to certain persons, and the 
 Duchess was one of them, he never spoke 
 
MOTH AND RUST 133 
 
 the truth. He was wont to say that any 
 lies he told he did not intend to account 
 for, in this world or the next ; and that the 
 bill, if there was one, would never be sent 
 in to him. He certainly had the courage 
 of his convictions. 
 
 " I want you to think twice of the dis- 
 appointment you have given us aU by not 
 coming to us in Scotland this autumn. 
 The Duke was really quite put out. He 
 had so reckoned on your coming." 
 
 Stephen did not answer. He had a 
 colossal power of silence when it suited 
 him. He had liked the Duke for several 
 years before he had made the acquaintance 
 of his family. The two men had met fre- 
 quently on business, understood each other, 
 and had almost reached friendship when 
 the Duchess intervened, to ply her " savage 
 trade." Since then a shade of distant 
 politeness had tinged the Duke's manner 
 towards Stephen, and the self-made man, 
 sensitive to anything that resembled a sense 
 of difference of class, instinctively drew 
 away fi'om him. Yet, if Stephen had but 
 
134 MOTH AND RtTST 
 
 known it, the change in the Duke's manner 
 was only owing to the unformulated sus- 
 picion that the father sometimes feels for 
 the man, however eligible, whom he sus- 
 pects of filching from him his favourite 
 daughter. 
 
 " We are all disappointed," continued 
 the Duchess, and her power of hitting on 
 the raw did not fail her, for her victim 
 winced — not perceptibly. She went on : 
 "Do think of it again, jNIr Vanbrunt. If 
 you could see Larinnen in autumn — the 
 autumn tints, you know — and no party. 
 Just ourselves. And I am sure from your 
 face you are a lover of Nature." 
 
 " 1 hate Nature," said Stephen. " It bores 
 me. I am very easily bored." 
 
 He was longing to get away from London, 
 to steep his soul in tlie sympathy of certain 
 solitary woodland places he knew of, shy 
 as himself; where perhaps the strain on his 
 aching spirit might relax somewhat, where 
 he could lie in the shade for hours, and 
 listen to running water, and forget that 
 he was a plain, middle-aged millionaire, 
 
MOTH AND RUST 135 
 
 whom a brilliant, exquisite creature could 
 not love for himself. 
 
 " When I said no party I did not mean 
 quite alone," said the Duchess, breathing 
 heavily, for a fi'ontal attack is generally 
 also an uphill one. " A few cheerful friends. 
 How right you are 1 One does not see 
 enough of one's real friends. Anne often 
 says that. She said to me only yesterday, 
 when we were talking of you " 
 
 The two liars were interrupted by the 
 advance towards them of Anne and De 
 Rivaz. They came silently across the 
 shadowy gi-ass, into the little ring of light 
 thrown by the Chinese lantern. 
 
 De Rivaz was evidently excited. His 
 worn, cynical face looked boyish in the 
 garish light. 
 
 " Duchess," he said, " I have only just 
 heard by chance from Lady Anne, that 
 the unknown divinity whom I am turning 
 heaven and earth to find, in order that I 
 may paint her, has actually been staying 
 under your roof, and that you intend to 
 ask her again." 
 
1S6 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 "Mr De Rivaz means Janet Black," 
 said Anne to her mother. 
 
 " I implore you to ask me to meet her," 
 said the painter. 
 
 " But she is just going to be married," 
 said the Duchess, with genuine regret. 
 Here was an opportunity lost. 
 
 " I know it ; it breaks my heart to 
 know it," said De Rivaz. "But married 
 or not, maid, wife, or widow, I must paint 
 her. Give me the chance of making her 
 acquaintance." 
 
 "I will do what I can," said the 
 Duchess, gently tilting forward her square 
 person on to its flat white satin feet, and 
 looking with calculating approval at her 
 daughter. Surely Anne had never looked 
 so lovely as at this obviously propitious 
 moment. 
 
 "Take a turn with me, young man," 
 continued the Duchess, "and I will see 
 what I can do. And Anne," she said 
 with a backward glance at her daughter, 
 "try and persuade Mr Vanbrunt to come 
 to us in September." 
 
MOTH AND RUST 137 
 
 " I will do my best," said Anne, and 
 she sat down on the bench. 
 
 Stephen, who had risen when she joined 
 them, looked at her with shy, angry 
 admiration. 
 
 It was a new departure for Anne so 
 openly to abet her mother, and it wounded 
 him. 
 
 "AVon't you sit down again?" said 
 Anne, meeting his eyes firmly. " I wish 
 to speak to you." 
 
 He sat down awkwardly. He was 
 always awkward in her presence. Perhaps 
 it was only a moment, but it seemed to 
 him an hour while she kept silence. 
 
 The same voice sang across the starlit 
 dark: 
 
 "Some souls have quickened, eye to eye, 
 And heart to heart, and hand in hand; 
 The swift fire leaps, and instantly 
 They understand." 
 
 Neither heard it. Nearer than the song, 
 close between them some mighty enfold- 
 ing presence seemed to have withdrawn 
 them into itself. There is a moment 
 
138 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 when Love leaves the two hearts in which 
 He dwells, and stands between them re- 
 vealed. 
 
 So far it has been man and woman 
 and Love — three persons met painfully 
 together, who cannot walk together, not 
 being agreed. But the hour comes when 
 in awe the man and woman perceive, 
 what was always so from the beginning, 
 that they twain are but one being, one 
 foolish creature who, in a great blindness, 
 thought it was two, mistook itself for two. 
 
 Perhaps that moment of discovery of 
 our real identity in another is the first 
 lowest rung of the steep ladder of love. 
 Does God, who flung down to us that 
 nearest empty highway to Himself, does 
 He wonder why so few travellers come 
 up by it; why we go wearily round by 
 such bitter sin-bogged, sorrow-smirched by- 
 paths, to reach Him at last? 
 
 There may be much love without that 
 sense of oneness, but when it comes it 
 can only come to two, it can only be 
 born of a mutual love. Neither can feel 
 
MOTH AND RUST 139 
 
 it without the other. Anne knew that. 
 By her love for him she knew he loved 
 her. He was slower, more obtuse ; yet 
 even he, with his limited perceptions and 
 calculating mind, even he nearly believed, 
 nearly had foith, nearly asked her if she 
 could love him. 
 
 But the old self came to his perdition, 
 the strong, shrewd, iron-willed self that 
 had made him what he was, that had 
 taught him to trust few, to follow his own 
 judgment, that in his strenuous life had 
 furnished him with certain dogged con- 
 ventional ready-made convictions regarding 
 women. JNIen he could judge, and did 
 judge. He knew who would cheat him, 
 who would fail him at a pinch, whom he 
 could rely on. But of women he knew 
 little. He regarded them as apart from 
 himself, and did not judge them in- 
 dividually, but collectively. He knew 
 how one of Anne's sisters, possibly more 
 than one of them, had been coerced into 
 marriage. He did not see that Anne 
 belonged to a different class of being. 
 
140 MOTH AND RUSt 
 
 His shrewdness, his bitter knowledge of 
 the seamy side of a society to which he 
 did not naturally belong, its uncouth 
 passion for money, blinded him. 
 
 He had become very pale while he sat 
 by her, while poor Anne vainly racked 
 her brain to remember what it was she 
 wished to say to him. The overwhelming 
 impulse to speak, to have it out with her, 
 the thirst for her love was upon him. 
 When was it not upon him? He looked 
 at her fixedly, and his heart sank. 
 How could she love him — she in her wand- 
 like delicacy and ethereal beauty? She 
 was not of his world, she was not made 
 of the same clay. No star seemed so 
 remote as this still dark-eyed woman beside 
 him. How could she love him ? No, the 
 thing was impossible. 
 
 A very ugly emotion laid violent momen- 
 tary hold on him. Let him take her whether 
 she cared for him or not. If money could 
 buy her, let him buy her. 
 
 He glanced sidelong at her, and then 
 moved nearer to her. She turned her 
 
MOTH AND RUST 141 
 
 head, and looked full at him. She had 
 no fear of him. The fierce, harsh face 
 did not daunt her. She understood him, his 
 stubborn humility, his blind love, this 
 momentary hideous lapse, and knew that 
 it was momentary. 
 
 " Lady Anne," he said hoarsely, " will 
 you many me?" 
 
 It had come at last, the word her heart 
 had ached for so long. She did not think. 
 She did not hesitate. She, who had so often 
 been troubled by the mere sight of him 
 across a room, was calm now. She looked 
 at him with a certain gentle scorn. 
 
 "No, thank you," she said. 
 
 "I love you," he said, taking her hand. 
 " I have long loved you." 
 
 It was his hand that trembled. Hers 
 was steady as she withdrew it. 
 
 " I know," she said. 
 
 "Then could not you think of me? I 
 implore you to marry me." 
 
 " You are speaking on impulse. We 
 have hardly exchanged a word with each 
 other for the last three months. You 
 
142 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 had no intention of asking me to many 
 you when you came here this evening." 
 
 " I don't care what intentions I may or 
 may not have had," said Stephen, his temper, 
 always quick, rising at her self-possession. 
 " I mean what I say now, and I have 
 meant it ever since I first saw you." 
 
 " Do you think I love you ? " 
 
 " I love you enough for both," he said with 
 passion. " You are in my heart and my 
 brain, and I can't tear you out. I can't 
 live without you." 
 
 " In old days, when you were not quite 
 so rich, and not quite so worldly-wise, 
 did you not sometimes hope to marry for 
 love ? " 
 
 " I hope to marry for love now. Do you 
 doubt that I love you ? " 
 
 " No, I don't. But have you never hoped 
 to many a woman who would care for you 
 as much as you did for her?" 
 
 " I can't expect that," said the miUionaire. 
 " I don't expect it. I'm not — I'm not the 
 kind of man whom women easily love." 
 
 "No," said Anne, " you're not," 
 
MOTH AND RUST 143 
 
 " But when I care, I care with my whole 
 heart. Will you think this over, and give 
 me an answer to-morrow ? " 
 
 " I have ah'eady answered you." 
 
 " I beg you to reconsider it." 
 
 " Why should I reconsider it ? " 
 
 " I would try to make you happy. I^et 
 me prove my devotion to you." 
 
 She looked long at him, and she saw, 
 without the possibihty of deceiving herself, 
 that if she told him she loved him he 
 would not believe it. It was the con- 
 ventional answer when a millionaire offers 
 marriage, and he had a rooted belief in 
 the conventional. After marriage it would 
 be the same. He would think duty 
 prompted it, her kiss, her caress. Oh ! 
 suffocating thought. She would be farther 
 from him than ever as his wife. 
 
 " I think we should get on together," 
 he faltered, her refusal reaching him 
 gradually, like a cold tide rising round 
 him. " I had ventured to hope that you 
 did not dishke me." 
 
 " I do not dislike you," said Anne 
 
144 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 deliberately. " You are quite right. The 
 thing I dislike is a mercenary marriage." 
 
 He became ashen white. He rose 
 slowly to his feet, and di*awing near to 
 her looked steadily at her, lightning in 
 his eyes. 
 
 "Do I deserve that insult?" he said, 
 his voice hardly human in its suppressed 
 rage. 
 
 He looked formidable in the uncertain 
 Hght. 
 
 She confronted him unflinching. 
 
 "Yes," she said, "you do. You calmly 
 offer me marriage while you are firmly 
 convinced that I don't care for you, and 
 you are surprised — you actually dare to be 
 surprised — when I refuse you. Those who 
 offer insults must accept them." 
 
 " I intended none, as you well know," he 
 said, drawing back a step. He felt his 
 strength in him, but this slight woman, 
 whom he could break with one hand, was 
 stronger than he. 
 
 " Why should I marry you if I don't love 
 you ? " she went on. " Why, of course 
 
MOTH AND RUST 145 
 
 because you are Mr Vanbriint, the greatest 
 millionaire in England. Your choice has 
 fallen on me. Let me accept with gratitude 
 my brilliant fate, and if I don't actually dis- 
 like you, so much the better for both of 
 
 US. 
 
 Stephen continued to look hard at her, 
 but he said nothing. Her beauty astonished 
 him. 
 
 " And what do we both lose," said Anne, 
 " in such a marriage — you as well as I ? Ts it 
 not the one chance, the one hope of a mutual 
 love ? Is it so small a thing in your eyes that 
 you can cast the possibility from you of a 
 love that will meet yours and not endure it, 
 the possibility of a woman somewhere, who 
 might be found for diligent seeking, who 
 might walk into your life without seeking, 
 who would love you as much as " — Anne's 
 voice shook — " perhaps even more than you 
 love her ; — to whom you — you yourself — 
 stern and grim as you seem to many — 
 might be the whole world ? Have you 
 always been so busy making this dreadful 
 money, which buys so much, that you have 
 
 K 
 
146 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 forgotten the things that money can't buy ? 
 No ; no. Do not let us lock each other 
 out from the only thmg worth having ui this 
 hard world. We should be companions in 
 misfortune." 
 
 She held out her hands to him with a 
 sudden beautiful gesture, and smiled at him 
 through her tears. 
 
 He took her hands in his large grasp, and 
 in his small quick eyes there were tears too. 
 
 " We have both something to forgive 
 each other," she said, trembUng Hke a reed. 
 *' I have spoken harshly, and you unwisely. 
 But the day wiU come when you will be 
 grateful to me that I did not shut you out 
 from the only love that could make you, 
 of all men, really happy — the love that is 
 returned." 
 
 He kissed each hand gently, and released 
 them. He could not speak. 
 
 She went swiftly from him through the 
 trees. 
 
 " INIay God bless her,'' said Stephen. 
 "May God in heaven bless her." 
 
MOTH AND RUST 1^7 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 " Thine were the weak, slight hands 
 That might have taken this strong soul, and bent 
 Its stubborn substance to thy soft intent." 
 
 — "William Watson. 
 
 It was hard on Stephen that when he walked 
 into a certain drawing-room the following 
 evening he should find Anne there. It was 
 doubly hard that he should have to take her 
 in to dinner. Yet so it was. There ought to 
 have been a decent interval before their next 
 meeting. Some one had arranged tactlessly, 
 without any sense of proportion. Though he 
 had not slept since she left him in the garden, 
 still it seemed only a moment ago, and that 
 she was back beside him in an instant, with- 
 out giving him time to draw breath. 
 
 She met him as she always met him, with 
 the faint enigmatical smile, with the touch 
 of gentle respect never absent from her man- 
 ner to him, except for one moment last 
 night. He needed it. He had fallen in 
 
148 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 his own estimation during that sleepless 
 night. He saw the sudden impulse that 
 had goaded him into an offer of marriage — 
 the kind of offer that how many men make 
 in good faith — in its native brutality — as he 
 knew she had seen it. When he first per- 
 ceived her in the dimly-lighted room, and he 
 was aware of her presence before he saw her, 
 he felt he could not go towards her, as a 
 man may feel that he cannot go home. 
 Home for Stephen was wherever Anne was, 
 even if the door were barred against him. 
 
 But after a few minutes he screwed his 
 " courage to the sticking-place," and went 
 up to her. 
 
 " I am to take you in to dinner," he said. 
 " It is your misfortune, but not my fault." 
 
 " I am glad," she said. *' I came to you 
 last night because I had something urgent 
 to say to you. I shall have an opportunity 
 of saying it now." 
 
 The constraint and awkwardness he had 
 of late felt in her presence fell from him. 
 It seemed as if they had gone back by some 
 welcome short cut to the simple intercourse 
 
MOTH AND RUST 149 
 
 of the halcyon days when they had first 
 met. 
 
 He cursed himself for his mole - like 
 obtuseness in having thought last night 
 that she was playing into her mother's 
 hands. When had she ever done so ? 
 AVhy had he suspected her? 
 
 In the meanwliile the world was 
 
 " At rest with will 
 And leisure to be fair." 
 
 The Duchess was not there, suddenly and 
 mercifully laid low by that occasional friend 
 of society — influenza. The Duke, gay and 
 cUhonnaire in her absence, was beaming on 
 his hostess whom he was to take into dinner, 
 and to whom he was sentimentally linked 
 by a mild flirtation in a past decade, a flirta- 
 tion so mild that it had no real existence, 
 except in the imaginative remembrance of 
 both. 
 
 Presently Anne and Stephen were walking 
 in to dinner together. It was a large party, 
 and they sat together at the end of the 
 table. 
 
150 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 Anne did not wait this time. She began 
 to talk at once. 
 
 " I am anxious about a friend of mine," 
 she said, " who is, I am afraid, becoming 
 entangled in a far greater difficulty than 
 she is aware. But it is a long story. Do 
 you mind long stories ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 Stephen turned towards her, becoming a 
 soUd block of attention. 
 
 "My friend is a Miss Black, a very 
 beautiful woman, whom Mr De Rivaz is 
 dying to paint. You may recollect having 
 seen her where lie saw her first, the day 
 after the fire in Lowndes Mansions, in 
 the burnt - out flat of that unfortunate 
 Mrs Brand." 
 
 " I saw her. I remember her perfectly. 
 I spoke to her about the dangerous state of 
 the passages. I thought her the most 
 beautiful creature, bar none, I had ever 
 seen." 
 
 Stephen pulled himself up. He knew it 
 was most impoUtic to praise one woman to 
 another. They did not like it. It was 
 
MOTH AND RUST 151 
 
 against the code. He must be more care- 
 ful, or he should offend her again. 
 
 Anne looked at him very pleasantly. Her 
 eyes were good to meet. She was evidently 
 not offended. Dear me 1 Mysterious crea- 
 tures, women I It struck him, not for the 
 first time, that Anne was an exception to 
 the whole of her sex. 
 
 ** Isn't she beautiful I " said the exception 
 warmly. " But I am afraid she is not quite 
 as wise as she is beautiful. She is in a great 
 difficulty." 
 
 " What about ? " 
 
 " It seems she burned something when 
 she was alone in the flat. At least she is 
 accused by JNIr Brand of burning something. 
 A very valuable paper — an I O U for a 
 large sum which her brother owed INIr 
 Brand, and which became due a month 
 ago — is missing." 
 
 " She did bm-n something," said Stephen. 
 " I was on the floor above at the time, and 
 smelt smoke, and came down, and De Rivaz 
 told me it was nothing; only the divinity 
 burning some papers. He was alarmed, and 
 
152 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 left his sketch to find where the smoke came 
 from. He saw her burn them." 
 
 " He said that to you," said Anne, " but 
 to no one else. I talked over the matter 
 with him last night, and directly he heard 
 Miss Black was in trouble, he assured me 
 that he had thoughtlessly burnt a sheet of 
 drawing-paper himself. That was what 
 caused the smoke. And he said he would 
 tell JMr Brand so." 
 
 " H'm ! Brand is not made up of 
 credulity." 
 
 "No. He seems convinced IMiss Black 
 destroyed that paper." 
 
 " And does she deny it ? " 
 
 " Of course." 
 
 "She can't deny that she burned some- 
 thing." 
 
 "Yes, she does. She sticks to it that 
 she burned nothing." 
 
 " Then she must be a fool, because three 
 of us know she did. De Rivaz knows it, 
 1 know it, and I see you know it." 
 
 " And it turns out the lift man knows it ; 
 at least he w^as reprimanded for being on 
 
MOTH AND RUST 153 
 
 the upper floors without leave, and he said 
 he only went there because there was a 
 smoke, and he was anxious ; and the smoke 
 came from the Brands' sitting-room, which 
 Miss Black left as he came up. He told 
 Mr Brand this, who put what he thought 
 was two and two together. Fred Black, it 
 seems, would have been ruined if JNIr Brand 
 had enforced payment, and he believes ^liss 
 Black got hold of the paper at her brother's 
 instigation and destroyed it." 
 
 " Well ! I suppose she did," said Stephen. 
 
 " If you knew her you would know that 
 that is impossible." 
 
 Stephen looked incredulous. 
 
 " I've known a good many unlikely things 
 happen about money," he said slowly. " I 
 daresay she did it to save her brother." 
 
 " She did not do it," said Amie. 
 
 " If she didn't, why doesn't she say what 
 she did burn, and why ? What's the use of 
 sticking to it that she burned nothing when 
 Brand knows that's a he ? A lie is a deadly 
 stupid thing unless it's uncommonly well 
 done," 
 
154 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 " She has had very little practice in lying. 
 I fancy this is her first." 
 
 " The only possible course left for her to 
 take is to admit that she burned something, 
 and to say what it was. Why doesn't she 
 see that ? " 
 
 " Because she is a stupid woman, and she 
 does not see the consequences of her insane 
 denial, and the conclusions that must inevi- 
 tably be drawn from it. When the room 
 was examined, ashes were found in the grate 
 that had been paper." 
 
 " How does she explain that ? " 
 
 " She does not explain it. She explains 
 nothing. She just sets her teeth and 
 repeats her wretched formula that she 
 burned nothing." 
 
 "What took her up to the flat at all 
 then, just when her friend was dying ? " 
 
 " She says Mrs Brand sent her up to see 
 if her portrait was safe. But Mr Brand 
 does not beheve that either, as he says 
 he had ah-eady told his wife that it was 
 uninjured." 
 
 "This Miss Black is a strong liar," said 
 
MOTH AND RUST 155 
 
 Stephen. " I should not have guessed it 
 from her face. She looked as straight 
 and innocent as a child ; but one never 
 can tell." 
 
 ** I imagine I do not look Hke a liar. 
 But would you say if I also were accused 
 of lying that you never can tell ? " 
 
 Stephen was taken aback. He bit his 
 little finger and frowned at the wonderful 
 roses in front of him. 
 
 " I know you speak the truth," he said, 
 " because you have spoken it to me. I 
 should believe what you said — always — 
 under any circumstances." 
 
 "You believe in my truthfulness from 
 experience. Do you never beUeve by 
 intuition ? " 
 
 "Not often." 
 
 "When first I saw INIiss Black I per- 
 ceived that she was a perfectly honest, 
 upright woman. I did not wait till she 
 had given me any proof of it. I saw it." 
 
 " I certainly thought the same. To say 
 the truth, I am surprised at her duplicity." 
 
 " In my case you judged by experience. 
 
156 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 In her case I want you to go by intuition, 
 by your first impression, which I know is 
 the true one. I would stake my life 
 upon it." 
 
 " I don't see how my intuitions would 
 help her." 
 
 " Oh ! yes, they will. Mr Brand is 
 aware from the lift man, who saw you, 
 that you were on the spot directly before 
 he smelt smoke. INIr Brand will probably 
 write to you." 
 
 " He has written already. He has asked 
 me to see him on business to-morrow 
 morning. He does not say what business." 
 
 "He is certain to try and find out fi*om 
 you what INIiss Black was doing when 
 you saw her in his flat. It seems you 
 and ^Ir De Rivaz both left your cards on 
 the table — why I can't think — but it shows 
 you were both there. He came up himself 
 next day and found them." 
 
 " We both sent messages to Brand by 
 ISIiss Black." 
 
 " It seems she never gave them. She 
 says now she forgot all about them." 
 
MOTH AND RUST 157 
 
 Stephen shook his head. 
 
 *' If Brand comes I shall be obliged to 
 tell him the truth," he said. 
 
 " That was why I was so bent on seeing 
 you. I am anxious you should tell him 
 the truth." 
 
 Stephen looked steadily at her. 
 
 "What truth?" he said. 
 
 "Whatever you consider will disabuse 
 his mind of the suspicion that she burned 
 her brother's I O U. JNIr De Rivaz' 
 view of the truth is that the smoke came 
 from a burnt sheet of his own drawing- 
 paper." 
 
 " I am not accountable for De Rivaz. 
 He can invent what he likes. That is 
 hardly my line." 
 
 He coloured darkly. It was incredible 
 to him that Anne could be goading him 
 to support her friend's ftibric of lies by 
 another lie. He would not do it, come 
 what might. But he felt that Fate was 
 hard on him. He would have done almost 
 anything at that moment to please her. 
 But a lie — no. 
 
158 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 *' I fear your line would naturally be 
 to tell the blackest lie that has ever been 
 told yet, by repeating the damaging facts 
 exactly as they are. If you do — ^to a man 
 like him — not only will you help to ruin 
 Miss Black, but you will give weight to 
 this frightful falsehood which is being 
 circulated against her. And if you, by 
 your near-sighted truthfulness, give weight 
 to a lie, it is just the same as telling one. 
 No, I think it's worse." 
 
 Stephen smiled grimly. This was 
 straight talk. Plain speaking always 
 appealed to him even when, as now, it 
 was at his expense. 
 
 "Are you certain that your friend did 
 not burn her brother's I O U ? " he said 
 after a pause. 
 
 " I am absolutely certain. Remember 
 her face. Now, Mr Vanbrunt, think. 
 Don't confuse your mind with ideas of 
 what women generally are. Think of her. 
 Are not you certain too ? " 
 
 " Yes," he said slowly, " T am. She is 
 conceahng something. She has done some 
 
MOTH AND RUST 169 
 
 folly, and is bolstering it up by a stupid 
 lie. But the other, that's swindling — 
 no, she did not do that." 
 
 " Then help the side of truth," said Anne. 
 ** My own conviction is that she burned 
 something compromising Mrs Brand, at 
 JNIrs Brand's dying request, under an oath 
 of secrecy. And that is why her mouth 
 is shut. But this is only a supposition. 
 I ask you not to repeat it. I only mention 
 
 it because you are so " she shot a glance 
 
 at him unlike any, in its gentle raillery, 
 that had fallen to his lot for many a long 
 day — " so stubborn." 
 
 He was unreasonably pleased. 
 
 ** I should still be in a dry goods ware- 
 house in Hull if I had not been what you 
 call stubborn," he said, smiling at her. 
 
 "^lay I ask you a small favour for 
 myself?" she said. "So far I have only 
 asked for my friend." 
 
 " It seems hardly necessary to ask it. 
 Only mention it." 
 
 "If my mother talks to you, and she 
 talks to you a great deal, do not mention 
 
160 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 to her our — our conversation of last night. 
 It would be kinder to me." 
 
 Stephen bowed gravely. He was sur- 
 prised. It had not struck him that Anne 
 had not told her mother. A brand-new 
 idea occurred to him, namely that Anne 
 and her mother were not in each other's 
 confidence. H'm ! That luminous idea 
 required further thought. 
 
 " And now," said Anne, " having got out 
 of you all I want, I will immediately desert 
 you for my other neighbour." And she 
 spoke no more to Stephen that night. 
 
 • •••OS 
 
 " INly dear," said the Duke of Quorn to 
 Anne as they drove home, " it appeared to 
 me that you and Vanbrunt were on un- 
 commonly good terms to-night. Is there 
 any understanding between you ? " 
 
 ** I think he is beginning to have a kind 
 of glimmering of one." 
 
 " Really ! Understandings don't as a 
 rule lead to marriage. JNIisunderstandings 
 generally bring about those painful disloca- 
 tions of life. But the idea struck me this 
 
MOTH AND RUST 161 
 
 evening — I hope needlessly — that I might 
 after all have to take that richly gilt 
 personage to my bosom as my son-in- 
 law." 
 
 " Mr Vanbrimt asked me to marry him 
 yesterday, and I refused him." 
 
 The Duke experienced a slight shock, 
 tinged with relief. 
 
 "Does your mother know?" he said at 
 last in an awed voice. 
 
 " Need you ask ? " 
 
 " Well, if she ever finds out, for goodness' 
 sake let her inform me of the fact. Don't 
 give me away, Anne, by letting out that 
 I knew at the time. If she thought I was 
 an accomphce of the crime — your refusal — 
 really if she once got that idea into her 
 head But next time she tackles Van- 
 brunt, perhaps he will tell her himself. 
 Oh, heavens ! " 
 
 " I asked him not to mention it to her." 
 
 The Duke sighed. 
 
 " And so he really did propose at last. 
 I thought your mother had choked him 
 off. Most men would have been. Well, 
 
 L 
 
162 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 Anne, I'm glad you did not accept him. 
 I don't hold with mixed marriages. In 
 these days people talk as if class were 
 nothing, and the fact of being well-born 
 of no account. And, of course, it's a 
 subject one can't discuss, because certain 
 things, if put into words, sound snobbish 
 at once. But they are true all tlie same. 
 The middle classes have got it screwed 
 into their cultivated heads that education 
 levels class differences. It doesn't, but 
 one can't say so. Not that Vanbrunt is 
 educated, as I once told him." 
 
 " Oh ! come, father. I am sure you did 
 not." 
 
 "You are right, my dear. I did not. He 
 said himself one day, in a moment of ex- 
 pansion, that he regretted that he had never 
 had the chance of going to a public school, 
 or the University, and I said the sort 
 of life he had led was an education of a 
 high order. So it is. That man has lived. 
 Really when I come to think of it, I almost 
 — no, I don't— Ahem I Associate fi-eely 
 with ail classes, but marry in youi* own. 
 
MOTH AND RUST 163 
 
 That is what I say when no one is h'stening. 
 By no one I mean of course yourself, my 
 dear." 
 
 Anne was silent. There had been days 
 when she had felt that difference keenly 
 though silently. Those days were past. 
 
 *' Vanbrunt is a Yorkshire dalesman, with 
 Dutch trading blood in him. It is extra- 
 ordinary how Dutch the people look near 
 Goole and Hull. I shall like him better 
 now. I always have liked him till — the 
 last few months. You would never say 
 A^anbrunt was a gentleman, but you would 
 never say he wasn't. He seems apart from 
 all class. There is no hall-mark upon him. 
 He is himself. So you would not have him, 
 my little Anne ? That's over. It's the very 
 devil to be refused, I can teU you. I was 
 refused once. It was some time ago, as you 
 may imagine, but — I have not forgotten it. 
 I learned what London looks hke in the 
 dawn, after walking the streets all night. 
 So it's his turn to wear out the pavement 
 now, is it ! Poor man ! He'll take it hard 
 in a bottled-up way. W^hen next I see him 
 
164 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 I shall say : ' Aha ! money can't buy every- 
 thing, Vanbrunt.'" 
 
 " Oh ! no, father. You won't be so 
 brutal." 
 
 " No, my dear, I daresay I shall not. I 
 shall pretend not to know. Really I have a 
 sort of regard for him. Poor Vanbrunt 1 " 
 
 CHAPTEK XI 
 
 " C'est son ignorance qui fixe son malheur." 
 
 — Maeteelinck. 
 
 Did you ever, as a child, see ink made? 
 Did you ever watch, with wondering in- 
 tentness, the mixing of one little bottle of 
 colourless fluid — which you imagined to be 
 pure water — with another equally colour- 
 less ? No change. Then at last, into the 
 cup of clear water, the omnipotent parent 
 hand pours out of another tiny phial two 
 or three crystal drops. 
 
 The latent ink rushes into being at the 
 contact of those few drops. The whole 
 
MOTH AND RUST 165 
 
 cup is black with it, transfused with im- 
 penetrable darkness, terrible to look upon. 
 
 We are awed, partly owing to the ex- 
 ceeding glory of the magician with the 
 Vandyke hand, who knows everything, and 
 who can work miracles at will, and partly 
 because we did not see the change coming. 
 We were warned that it would come by 
 that voice of incarnate wisdom. We were 
 all eyes. But it was there before we knew. 
 Some of us, as older children, watch with 
 our ignorant eyes the mysterious alchemy in 
 our little cup of life. We are warned, but 
 we see not. We somehow miss the sign. 
 The water is clear, quite clear. Something 
 more is coming, straight from the same 
 Hand. In a moment all is darkness. 
 
 A wiser woman than Janet would perhaps 
 have known, would at any rate have feared, 
 that a certain small cloud on her horizon, no 
 larger than a man's hand, meant a great 
 storm. But until it broke she did not 
 realize that that ever-increasing ominous 
 pageant had any connection with the 
 hurricane that at last fell upon her : just as 
 
166 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 some of us see the rosary of life only as 
 separate beads, not noticing the divine con- 
 straining thread, and are taken by surprise 
 when we come to the cross. 
 
 • • • • • 
 
 The cloud first showed itself, or rather 
 Janet first caught sight of it, on a hot 
 evening towards the end of June, when 
 Fred returned from London, whither he 
 had been summoned by Mr Brand, a fort- 
 night after his wife's death. 
 
 The days which had passed since Cuckoo's 
 death had not had power to numb the pain 
 at Janet's heart. The shock had only so far 
 had the effect of shifting the furniture of 
 her mind into unfamiliar, jostling positions. 
 She did not know where to put her hand 
 on anything, like a woman who enters her 
 familiar room after an earthquake, and finds 
 the contents still there, but all huddled to- 
 gether or thrown asunder. 
 
 Her deep affection for her brother, and 
 her friend Cuckoo, were wrenched out of 
 place, leaving horrible gaps. She had 
 always felt a vague repulsion to lUonkey 
 
MOTH AND RUST 167 
 
 Brand, with his dyed hair and habit of 
 starmg too hard at her. The repulsion 
 towards him had shifted, and had crashed 
 up against her love for Fred, and Monkey 
 Brand had acquired a kind of dignity, even 
 radiance. Even her love for George had 
 altered in the general dislocation. Its halo 
 had been jerked oif. Who was true ? Who 
 was good ? She looked at him wistfully, 
 and with a certam diffidence. She felt a 
 new tenderness for him. George had 
 noticed the change in her manner towards 
 him since her return fi'om London, and, 
 not being an expert diver into the recesses 
 of human nature, he had at first anxiously 
 inquired whether she still loved him the 
 same. Janet looked slowly into her own 
 heart before she made reply. Then she 
 turned her gi-ave gaze upon him. " More," 
 she said, as every woman, whose love is 
 acquainted with grief must answer if she 
 speaks the truth. 
 
 It was nearly dark when Janet caught 
 the sounds of Fred's dog-cart, driving swiftly 
 along the lanes, too swiftly considering the 
 
168 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 darkness. He drove straight to the stables, 
 and then came out into the garden, where 
 she was walking up and down waiting for 
 him. It was such a small garden, merely 
 a strip out of the field in front of the house, 
 that he could not miss her. 
 
 He came quickly towards her, and even 
 in the starlight she saw how white his face 
 was. Her heart sank. She knew Fred had 
 gone to London in compliance with a re- 
 quest from My Brand. Had Mr Brand 
 refused to renew his bond, or to wait ? 
 
 Fred took her suddenly in his arms, and 
 held her closely to him. He was trembling 
 with emotion. His tears fell upon her face. 
 She could feel the violent beating of his 
 heart. She could not speak. She was 
 terrified. She had never known him like 
 this. 
 
 " You have saved me," he stammered, 
 kissing her hair and forehead. " Oh ! my 
 God ! Janet, I will never forget this, never 
 while I live. I was ruined, and you have 
 saved me." 
 
 She did not understand. She led him to 
 
MOTH AND RUST 169 
 
 the garden seat, and they sat down together. 
 She thought he had been drinking. He 
 generally cried when he was drunk. But 
 she saw in the next moment that he was 
 sober. 
 
 " Will Mr Brand renew ? " she said, 
 though she knew he would not. Monkey 
 Brand never renewed. 
 
 Fred laughed. It was the nervous laugh 
 of a shallow nature, after a hairbreadth 
 escape. 
 
 " Brand wiU not renew, and he will not 
 wait," he said. " You know that as well 
 as I do. Janet, I misjudged you. All 
 these awful days, wliile I have been ex- 
 pecting the blow to fall — it meant ruin, 
 sheer ruin, for you as well as me — all this 
 time I thought you did not care what 
 became of me. You seemed so different 
 lately, so cold." 
 
 " I did care." 
 
 " I know. I know now. You are a 
 brave woman. It was the only thing to 
 do. If you had not burnt it he would 
 have foreclosed. And of course I shall 
 
170 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 pay him back when I can. I said so. 
 He knows I'm a gentleman. He has my 
 word for it. A gentleman's word is as 
 good as his bond. I shall repay him 
 gradually." 
 
 " I don't miderstand," said Janet, who 
 felt as if a cold hand had been laid upon 
 her heart. 
 
 " Oh ! You can speak freely to me. 
 And to think of your keeping silence all 
 this time — even to me. You always were 
 one to keep things to yourself, but you 
 might have just given me a hint. My 
 I O U is not forthcoming, and Brand as 
 good as knows you burned it. He knows 
 you went up to his flat and burned some- 
 thing when his wife was dying. He wasn't 
 exactly angry ; he was too far gone for that, 
 as if he couldn't care for anything one way 
 or the other. He looks ten years older. 
 But, of course, he's a business man, whether 
 his wdfe is alive or dead, and I could see he 
 was forcing himself to attend to business to 
 keep himself from thinking. He said very 
 little. He was very distant. Infernally 
 
MOTH AND RUST 171 
 
 distant he was. He is no gentleman, and 
 he doesn't understand the feeHngs of one. 
 If it hadn't been that he was in trouble, and 
 well — for the fact that I had borrowed 
 money of him — I would not have stood it 
 for a moment. I'm not going to allow any 
 cad to hector over me, be he who he may. 
 He mentioned the facts. He said he had 
 always had a high opinion of you, and that 
 he should come down and see you on tlie 
 subject next week. You must think what 
 to say, Janet." 
 
 " I never burned your I O U," said Janet 
 in a whisper, becoming cold all over. It was 
 a revelation to her that Fred could imagine 
 she was capable of such a dishonourable 
 action. 
 
 " Why, Fred," she said, deeply wounded, 
 " you know I could not do such a thing. 
 It would be the same as stealing." 
 
 " No, it wouldn't," said Fred, with instant 
 irritation, " because you know I should pay 
 him back. And so I will — only I can't at 
 present. And, of course, you knew too, 
 you must have guessed, that your two 
 
172 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 thousand And as you are going to 
 
 be maiTied, that is important too. I should 
 have been ruined, sold up, if that I O U 
 had turned up, and you yourself would 
 have been in a fix. You knew that when 
 you got hold of it and burned it. Come, 
 Janet, you can own to me you burned it — 
 between ourselves." 
 
 " I burnt nothing." 
 
 Fred peered at her open-mouthed. 
 
 "Janet, that's too thin. You must go 
 one better than that when Brand comes. 
 He knows you burnt something when you 
 went up to his flat." 
 
 " I burnt nothing," said Janet again. It 
 was too dark to see her face. 
 
 Did she realise that the first heavy drops 
 were falling round her of the storm that 
 was to wreck so much? 
 
 " Well," said Fred, after a pause, " I take 
 my cue from you. You burnt nothing 
 then. I don't see how you are going to 
 work it, but that's your affair. . . . But 
 oh, Janet, if that cursed paper had remained I 
 If you had known what I've been going 
 
MOTH AND RUST 173 
 
 through since you came home a fortnight 
 ago, when my last shred of hope left me 
 when I found you had not spoken to the 
 Brands. It wasn't only the money — that 
 was bad enough — it wasn't only that — 
 
 but " 
 
 And Fred actually broke down, and 
 sobbed with his head in his hands. Pre- 
 sently, when he recovered himself, he told 
 her, in stammering, difficult words, that he 
 had something on his conscience, that his 
 life had not been what it should have been, 
 but that a year ago he had come to a 
 turning-point ; he had met some one — even 
 his light voice had a graver ring in it — 
 some one who had made him feel how — in 
 short, he had fallen in love, with a woman 
 like herself, like his dear Janet — good and 
 innocent, a snowflake ; and for a long time 
 he feared she could never think of him, 
 but how at last she seemed less indifferent, 
 but how her father was a strict man and 
 averse to him from the first. And if he 
 had been sold up, all hope — what httle hope 
 there was — would have been gone. 
 
174 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 "But, please God, now," said Fred, "I 
 will make a fresh start. I've had a shock 
 lately, Janet. I did not talk about it, but 
 I've had a shock. I've thought of a good 
 many things. I mean to turn round and 
 do better in future. There are things I've 
 done, that lots of men do and think nothing 
 of them, that I won't do again. I mean to 
 try from this day forward to be worthy of 
 her, to put the past behind me ; and if I 
 ever do win her — if she'll take me in the 
 end — I shall not forget, Janet, that I owe 
 it to you." 
 
 He kissed her again with tears. 
 
 She was too much overcome to speak. 
 Cuckoo had repented, and now Fred was 
 sorry too. It was the first drop of heahng 
 balm which had fallen on that deep wound 
 which Cuckoo's dying voice had inflicted 
 how many endless days ago. 
 
 "It is Venetia Ford," said Fred shyly, 
 but not without triumph. " You remember 
 her? She is Archdeacon Ford's eldest 
 daughter." 
 
 A recollection rose before Janet's mind 
 
MOTH AND RUST 175 
 
 of the eldest IMiss Ford, with the pretty 
 pink and white empty face, and the demure, 
 if shghtly superciHous, manner that befits 
 one conscious of being an Archdeacon's 
 daughter. Janet knew her shghtly, and 
 admired her much. The eldest Miss Ford's 
 conversation was always markedly suitable. 
 Her sense of propriety was only equalled 
 by her desire to impart information. Her 
 slightly clerical manner resembled the full- 
 blown Archidiaconal deportment of her 
 parent, as home-made marmalade resembles 
 an orange. Archdeacon Ford was a pom- 
 pous, much-respected prelate, with private 
 means. Mrs Smith was distantly related 
 to the Fords, and very proud of the con- 
 nection. She seldom alluded to the eldest 
 ^liss Ford without remarking that Venetia 
 was her ideal of what a perfect lady 
 should be. 
 
 "O Fred, I am so glad!" said Janet, 
 momentarily forgetting everjrthing else in 
 her rejoicing that Fred should have attaclied 
 himself seriously at last, and to a woman for 
 whom she felt respectful admiration, who had 
 
176 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 always treated herself with the cold civility 
 that was, in Janet's eyes, the hall-mark of 
 social and mental superiority. 
 
 " And does she like you ? " she said, with 
 pride. She could not see Fred any longer, 
 but her mind's eye saw him — handsome, 
 gay, irresistible. Of course she adored 
 him. 
 
 " Sometimes I think she does," said Fred, 
 "and sometimes I'm afraid she doesn't." 
 And he expounded at great length, gar- 
 nished with abundant detail, his various 
 meetings with her ; how on one occasion 
 she had hardly looked at him ; on another 
 she had spoken to him of Browning — that 
 was the time when he had bought Brown- 
 ing's works ; on a third, how there had 
 been another man there — a curate — a beast, 
 but thinking a lot of himself; on a fourth 
 she had said that balls — the Mudbury ball 
 where he had danced with her — were an 
 innocent form of recreation, etc., etc. 
 
 Janet drank in every word. It reminded 
 her, she said, of " her and George." Indeed, 
 there were many salient points of resem- 
 
MOTH AND RUST 177 
 
 blance between the two courtships. The 
 brother and sister sat long together hand 
 in hand in the soft summer night. Only 
 when she got up at last did the thought 
 of the missing I O U return to Janet. 
 
 " O Fred ! " she said, as they walked 
 towards the house, "supposing after all 
 your I O U turns up? How dreadful! 
 What would happen?" 
 
 "It won't turn up," said Fred, with a 
 laugh. 
 
 When Janet was alone in her room she 
 remembered again, with pained bewilder- 
 ment, that Fred had actually beheved that 
 she had destroyed that missing paper. It 
 did not distress her that Monkey Brand 
 evidently believed the same. She would, 
 of course, tell him that he was mistaken. 
 But Fred ! He ought to have known 
 better. Her thoughts returned speedily to 
 her brother's future. He would settle down 
 now, and be a good man, and marry the 
 eldest JVIiss Ford. She felt happier about 
 him than she had done since Cuckoo's 
 death. Her constant prayer, that he might 
 
178 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 repent and lead a new life, had evidently 
 been heard. 
 
 As she closed her eyes she said to herself, 
 " I daresay Fred and Venetia will be married 
 the same day as George and me." 
 
 Monkey Brand appeared at Ivy Cottage a 
 few days later. Janet was in the field with 
 Fred, taking the setter puppies for a run, 
 when the " Trefusis Arms " dog-cart from 
 Mudbury drove up, and Nemesis, in the 
 shape of Monkey Brand, got slowly down 
 from it, wrong leg first. Even in the ex- 
 treme heat Monkey Brand wore a high hat 
 and a long buttoned - up frock-coat and 
 varnished boots. As he came towards them 
 in the sunshine, there was a rigid, controlled 
 desolation in his yellow hned face, which 
 made Janet feel suddenly ashamed of her 
 happiness in her own love. 
 
 " I had better go," said Fred hurriedly. 
 " I don't want to be uncivil to the brute in 
 my own house." 
 
 " Go ! " said Janet. " But, of course, you 
 
MOTH AND RUST 179 
 
 must stop. Mr Brand has come down on 
 purpose to see us." 
 
 She went forward to meet him, and, as he 
 took her hand somewhat stiffly, he met the 
 tender sympathy in her clear eyes, and 
 winced under it. 
 
 His face became a shade less rigid. He 
 looked shrunk and exhausted, as if he had 
 undergone the extreme rigour of a biting 
 frost. Perhaps he had. 
 
 " I have come to see you on business," he 
 said to Janet, hardly returning Fred's half 
 nervous, half defiant greeting. 
 
 Janet led the way into the Uttle parlour, 
 and they sat down in silence. Fred sat 
 down near the door, and began picking at 
 the rose in his buttonhole. 
 
 Monkey Brand held his hat in his hand. 
 He took off one black glove, dropped it into 
 his hat, and looked fixedly at it. 
 
 The cloud on Janet's horizon lay heavy 
 over her whole sky. A smgle petal, loosened 
 by a shaking hand, fell from Fred's rose on to 
 the floor. 
 
 " I am sure, Miss Black," said Monkey 
 
180 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 Brand, " that you will offer me an explana- 
 tion respecting your Adsit to my flat when 
 my wife was dying." 
 
 " I went up at her wish," said Janet, 
 breathing hard. She seemed to see again 
 Cuckoo's anguished fading eyes fixed upon 
 her. 
 
 '• Why ? " 
 
 " She asked me to go and see if her 
 picture was safe." 
 
 " I had already told her it was safe." 
 
 Janet did not answer. 
 
 The rose in Fred's buttonhole fell petal by 
 petal. 
 
 INIonkey Brand's voice had hardened when 
 he spoke again. 
 
 " I am sure," he said, and for a moment 
 he fixed his dull sinister eyes upon her, 
 "that you will see the advisabihty, the 
 necessity, of telHng me why you burnt some 
 papers when you clandestinely visited my 
 flat." 
 
 " I burnt nothing." 
 
 He looked into his hat. .Janet's be- 
 wildered eyes followed the direction of his. 
 
MOTH AND RUST 181 
 
 and looked into his hat too. There was 
 nothing in it but a glove. 
 
 " There were ashes of burnt papers in the 
 grate," he continued. " The lift man saw 
 you leave the room, which had smoke in it. 
 A valuable paper, your brother's I O U is 
 missing. I merely state established facts, 
 which it is useless, which it is prejudicial, to 
 you to contradict." 
 
 " I burnt nothing," said Janet again, but 
 there was a break in her voice. Her heart 
 began to struggle like some shy wood- 
 land animal, which suddenly sees itself sur- 
 rounded. 
 
 Monkey Brand looked again at her. His 
 wife had loved her. Across the material, 
 merciless face of the money-lender a flicker 
 passed of some other feeling besides the 
 business of the moment ; as if, almost as if 
 he would not have been averse to help her 
 if she would deal straightforwardly with 
 him. 
 
 " You were my wife's friend," he said after 
 a moment's pause. " She often spoke of you 
 with affection. I also regarded you with 
 
182 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 high esteem. A few days before you came 
 to stay with us I was looidng over my 
 papers one evening, and I mentioned that 
 your brother's I O U would fall due almost 
 immediately. She said she believed it would 
 ruin him if I called in the money then. 1 
 said I should do so, for I had waited once 
 already against my known rules of business. 
 I never wait. I should not be in the position 
 which I occupy to-day if I had ever waited. 
 She said, * Wait at least till after Janet's 
 wedding. It might tell against her if her 
 brother went smash just before.' I replied 
 that I should foreclose, wedding or none. 
 She came across to me, and, by a sudden 
 movement, took the I O U out of my hand 
 before I could stop her. ' I won't have 
 Janet distressed,' she said. ' I shall keep 
 it myself til] after the wedding,' and she 
 locked it up before my eyes in a cabinet I 
 had given her, in which she kept her owai 
 papers. I seldom yield to sentiment, but 
 she — she recalled to me my own wedding — 
 and in this instance I did so. It was the 
 last evening we spent at home alone together. 
 
MOTH AND RUST 183 
 
 She went much to the theatre and into 
 society, and I seldom had time to accompany 
 her." 
 
 Monkey Brand stopped a moment. Then 
 he went on : 
 
 " My wife saw you alone when she was 
 dying. She was evidently anxious to see 
 you alone. It was like her, even then, to 
 think of others. If you tell me, on your 
 word of honour, that she asked you to go up 
 to the flat and burn that I O U, and that 
 she told you where to find it — No ; if she 
 even gave you leave, as you were no doubt 
 anxious on the subject, — if you assure me 
 that she yielded to your entreaties, and that 
 she even gave you leave to destroy it, — I 
 win believe it. I will accept your state- 
 ment. The last wish of my wife — if you say 
 it was her wish — is enough for me." JNIonkey 
 Brand looked out of the window at the still 
 noonday sunshine. " I would abide by it," 
 he said, and his face worked. 
 
 " She never spoke to me on the subject of 
 the I O U," said Janet, two large tears roll- 
 ing down her quivering cheeks. *' She never 
 
184. MOTH AND RUST 
 
 gave me leave to burn it. I didn't burn it. 
 I burnt nothing." 
 
 "Janet," almost shrieked Fred, nearly 
 beside himself. " Janet, don't you see that 
 
 — ^that Confess. Tell him you did it. 
 
 We both know you did it. Own the 
 truth." 
 
 Janet looked from one to the other. 
 
 " I burnt nothing," she said, but her eyes 
 fell. Her word had never been doubted 
 before. 
 
 Both men saw she was lying. 
 
 Monkey Brand's face changed. It be- 
 came once again as many poor wretches had 
 seen it, whose hard-wrung money had gone 
 to buy his wife's gowns and diamonds. 
 
 He got up. He took his glove out of the 
 crown of his hat, put on his hat in the room, 
 and walked slowly out of the house. In the 
 doorway he looked back at Janet, and she 
 saw, directed at her for the first time, the 
 expression with which she was to grow 
 familiar, that which meets the swindler 
 and the liar. 
 
 The brother and sister watched in silence 
 
MOTH AND RUST 185 
 
 the rigid little departing figure, as it climbed 
 back wrong leg first into the dog- cart and 
 drove away. 
 
 Then Fred burst out. 
 
 ** Oh ! you fool, you fool ! " he stammered, 
 shaking from head to foot. " Why didn't 
 you say Mrs Brand told you to burn it ? 
 His wife was his soft side. Oli ! my God ! 
 what a chance, and you didn't take it. 
 That man will ruin us yet. I saw it in 
 his face." 
 
 " But she didn't tell me to burn it." 
 
 Janet looked like a bewildered, distressed 
 child, who suddenly finds herself in a room 
 full of machinery of which she understands 
 nothing, and whose inadvertent touch, as she 
 tries to creep away, has set great malevolent 
 wheels whirring all round her. 
 
 " I daresay she didn't," said Fred fiercely, 
 and he flung out of the room. 
 
 He went and stood a long time leaning 
 over the fence into the paddock where his 
 yearlings were. 
 
 *' It's an awful thing to be a fool," he said 
 to himself. 
 
186 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 " II n'est ancun mal qui ne naisse, en derni^re analyse 
 — d'une pens^e dtroite, ou d'un sentiment mediocre." 
 
 — Maeterlinck. 
 
 The storm had fallen on Janet at last. She 
 saw it was a storm, and met it with courage 
 and patience, and without apprehension as 
 to what so fierce a hurricane might ultimately 
 destroy, what foundations its rising floods 
 might sweep away. She suffered dumbly 
 under the knowledge that Monkey Brand 
 and Fred both firmly believed her to be 
 guilty, suffered dumbly the gradual ahena- 
 tion of her brother, who never forgave her 
 her obtuseness when a way of escape had 
 been offered her, and who shivered under an 
 acute anxiety as to what Monkey Brand 
 would do next, together with a gnawing 
 suspense respecting the eldest Miss Ford, 
 who had become the object of marked atten- 
 tions on the part of a colonial Bishop. 
 
 Janet said to herself constantly in these 
 
MOTH AND RUST 187 
 
 days, " Truth will prevail." She did not 
 believe in the principle, but in her version 
 of it. Her belief in the power of truth 
 became severely shaken as the endless July 
 days dragged themselves along, each slower 
 than the last. Truth did not prevail. The 
 storm prevailed instead. Foundations began 
 to crumble. 
 
 How it came about it would be difficult to 
 say, but the damning evidence against Janet, 
 the suspicion, the almost certainty of her 
 duplicity, reached Easthope. 
 
 Mrs Trefusis seized upon it to urge her 
 son to break with Janet. He resisted with 
 stubbornness his mother's frenzied entreaties. 
 Nevertheless after a time his fixity of pur- 
 pose was undermined by a sullen, growing 
 suspicion that Janet was guilty. Fred had 
 hinted as much. Fred's evident conviction 
 of Janet's action, and inability to see that it 
 was criminal, his confidential assertion that 
 the money would be repaid, pushed George 
 slowly to the conclusion that Janet had been 
 her brother's catspaw — perhaps not for the 
 fii'st time. George felt with deep if silent 
 
188 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 indignation, that with him, her future hus- 
 band if with any one, Janet ought to be 
 open, truthful. But she was not. She re- 
 peated her obvious lie even to him when at 
 last he forced himself to speak to her on 
 the subject. His narrow, upright nature 
 abhorred crookedness, and, according to his 
 feeble searchlight, he deemed Janet crooked. 
 
 His mother's admonitions began to work 
 in him hke leaven. How often she had said 
 to him, " She has lied to others. The day 
 wiU come when she will lie to you." That 
 day had already come. Perhaps his mother 
 was right after aU. He had heard men say 
 the same thing. " What is bred in the 
 bone will come out in the flesh." " Take a 
 bird out of a good nest," etc., etc. 
 
 And George who, in other circumstances, 
 would have defended Janet to the last drop 
 of his blood, who would have carried her 
 over burning deserts till he fell dead from 
 thirst — George, who was capable of heroism 
 on her behalf — weakened towards her. 
 
 She had fallen in love with him in the 
 beginning, partly because he was " straighter " 
 
MOTH AND RUST 189 
 
 tlian the men she associated with. Yet this 
 very rectitude which had attracted her was 
 now ahenating her lover from her, as per- 
 haps nothing else could have done. Strange 
 back-blow of Fate, that the cord which had 
 drawn her towards him should tighten to a 
 noose round her neck. 
 
 George weakened towards her. 
 
 It seems to be the miserable fate of 
 certain upright, closed natures, who take 
 their bearings from without, always to fail 
 when the pinch comes ; to disbelieve in 
 those whom they obtusely love when sus- 
 picion falls on them, to be alienated from 
 them by their success, to be discouraged 
 by their faults, incredulous of their higher 
 motives, repelled by their enthusiasms. 
 
 George would not have failed if the pinch 
 had not come. Like many another man, 
 found faithful because his faith had not 
 been put to the test, he would have made 
 Janet an excellent and loving husband, and 
 they would probably have spent many happy 
 years together — if only the pinch had not 
 come. Anne early divined, from Janet's 
 
190 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 not very luminous letters, that George was 
 becoming estranged from her. Anne came 
 down for a Sunday to Easthope early in 
 July, and quickly discovered the cause of 
 this estrangement (which Janet had not 
 mentioned) in the voluble denunciations of 
 Mrs Trefusis, and the sullen unhappiness of 
 her son. 
 
 Mrs Trefusis had wormed out all the 
 most damning evidence against Janet, partly 
 from Fred's confidence to George, and partly 
 from Monkey Brand, with whom she had 
 had money dealings, and to whom she 
 appUed direct. She showed Anne the 
 money - lender's answer, in its admirable 
 restrained conciseness, with its ordered 
 sequence of inexorable facts. Anne's heart 
 sank as she read it, and she suddenly re- 
 membered Janet's words in delirium. " I 
 have burnt them all. Everything. There 
 is nothing left." 
 
 The letter fell from her nerveless hand. 
 She looked at it, momentarily stunned. 
 
 " And this is the woman," said Mrs 
 Trefusis, scratching the letter towards her 
 
MOTH AND RUST 191 
 
 with her stick, and regaining possession of 
 it, "this is the woman whom you pressed 
 me, only a month ago, to receive as my 
 daughter-in-law. Didn't I say she came of 
 a bad stock ? Didn't I say that what was 
 bred in the bone would come out in the 
 flesh ? George would not listen to me then, 
 but my poor deluded boy is beginning to 
 see now that I was right." 
 
 Mrs Trefusis wiped away two small tears 
 with her trembling claw-hke hand. Anne 
 could not but see that she was invincibly 
 convinced of Janet's guilt. 
 
 " You think I am vindictive, Anne," she 
 said. " You may be right ; I know I was at 
 first, and perhaps I am still. I always hated 
 the connection, and I always hated her. 
 But — but it's not only that now. It's my 
 boy's happiness. I must think of him. He 
 is my only son, and I can't sit still and see 
 his life wrecked." 
 
 " I am certain Janet did not do it," said 
 Anne suddenly, her pale face flaming. 
 " George and you may beheve she did, if 
 you like. I don't." 
 
192 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 Anne walked over to Ivy Cottage the 
 same afternoon, and Janet saw her in the 
 distance, and fled out to her across the fields 
 and fell upon her neck. But even Anne's 
 tender entreaties and exhortations were of 
 no avail. Janet understood at last that her 
 mechanically-repeated formula was ruining 
 her with her lover. But she had promised 
 Cuckoo to say it, and she stuck to it. 
 
 "Why does not George beheve in me 
 even if appearances are against me ? " said 
 Janet at last. " 1 would beheve in him." 
 
 " That is different." 
 
 " How diflerent ? " 
 
 " Because you are made like that, and he 
 isn't. It's a question of temperament. You 
 have a trustful nature. He has not. You 
 must take George's character into considera- 
 tion. It is foolish to love a person who is 
 easily suspicious, and then allow him to 
 become suspicious. You have no right to 
 perplex him. Just as some people who 
 care for us must have it made easy to 
 them aU the time to go on caring for us. 
 If there is any strain or difficulty, or if 
 
MOTH AND RUST 193 
 
 they are put to inconvenience, they will 
 leave us." 
 
 Janet was silent. 
 
 "As you and George both love each 
 other," continued Anne, " can't you say 
 something to him ? Don't you see it would 
 be only right to say a few words to him, 
 which will show him — what 1 am sure is 
 the truth — that you are concealing some- 
 thing, which has led to this false suspicion 
 faUing on you ? " 
 
 Janet shook her head. " He ought to 
 know it's false," she said. 
 
 " Could not you say to him, even though 
 you cannot say so to your brother or Mr 
 Brand — that you burnt some compromising 
 papers at Mrs Brand's dying request ? He 
 might believe that, for it is known that you 
 did burn papers, dearest, and it is also 
 obvious that you must have burnt a good 
 many. That one I O U does not account 
 for the quantity of ashes." 
 
 " I could not say that," said Janet, whiten- 
 ing. " And besides," she added hastily, " I 
 have said so many times " (and indeed she 
 
 N 
 
194 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 had) "that I burnt nothing, that George 
 would not know what to behave if I say 
 first one thing and then another." 
 
 " He does not know what to beheve now. 
 Unless you can say something to reassure 
 his mind, you will lose your George." 
 
 " You beheve in me ? " 
 
 " Implicitly." 
 
 " Then why doesn't George ? " continued 
 Janet, with the feminine talent for reasoning 
 in a circle. " That is the only thing that is 
 necessary. Not that I should say things 
 I can't say, but that he should trust me. I 
 don't care what other people think so long 
 as he beheves in me." 
 
 She, who had never exacted anything 
 heretofore, whose one object had been to 
 please her George, now made one demand 
 upon him. It was the first and last which 
 she ever made upon her lover. And he 
 could not meet it. 
 
 " His belief is shaken." 
 
 " Truth will prevail," said Janet stub- 
 bornly. 
 
 " It will no doubt in the end, but in the 
 
MOTH AND RUST 195 
 
 meanwhile ? And how if the truth is 
 masked by a He ? " 
 
 Janet did not answer. Perhaps she did 
 not fully understand. She saw only two 
 things in these days : one, that George 
 ought to beheve in her ; and the other, that, 
 come what might, she would keep the 
 promise made to Cuckoo on her death- 
 bed. She constantly remembered the rigid 
 dying face, the difficult whisper : " Pro- 
 mise me that whatever happens you will 
 never tell anyone that you have burnt any- 
 thing." 
 
 " I promise." 
 
 " You swear it." 
 
 " I swear it." 
 
 That oath she would keep. 
 
 Anne returned to London with a hea\y 
 heart. She left no stone unturned. She 
 interviewed De Rivaz and Stephen on the 
 subject, as we have seen. But her efforts 
 were unavailing, as far as George was con- 
 cerned. The affair of the burning of papers 
 was hushed up, but it had reached the only 
 
196 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 person who had the power to wreck Janet's 
 happiness. 
 
 Some weeks after Anne's visit Janet one 
 day descried the large figure of Stephen 
 stalking slowly up across the fields. Janet 
 tired her eyes daily in scanning the fields 
 in the direction of Easthope, but a certain 
 person came no more by that much fre- 
 quented way. 
 
 The millionaire had a long interview with 
 Janet, but his valuable time was wasted. 
 He could not move her. He told her that 
 he firmly believed the missing I O U would 
 turn up, and that in the meanwhile he had 
 paid ]Mr Brand, and that she might repay 
 him at her convenience. He could wait. 
 For a moment she was frightened, but a 
 glance at Stephen's austere, quick eyes, bent 
 searchingly upon her, reassured her. She 
 trusted him at once. It was never known 
 what he had said to Monkey Brand, as to 
 his having seen Janet in the burnt flat, but 
 INIonkey Brand gained nothing fi-om the 
 discussion of that compromising fact — except 
 his money. 
 
MOTH AND RUST 197 
 
 Fred was awed by the visit of Stephen, 
 and by the amazing fact that he had paid 
 Monkey Brand. Fred said repeatedly that 
 it was the action of a perfect gentleman, 
 exactly what he should have done if he had 
 been in Stephen's place. He let George 
 hear of it at the first opportunity. But the 
 information had no effect on George's mind, 
 except that it was vaguely prejudicial to 
 Janet. 
 
 Why had she accepted such a large sum 
 from a man of whom she knew next to 
 nothing, whom she had only seen once 
 before for a moment, and that an equivocal 
 one ? Women should not accept money 
 fi'om men. And why did he offer it ? 
 
 He asked these questions of himself To 
 Fred he only vouchsafed a nod, to show that 
 he had heard what Fred had waylaid him to 
 
 say. 
 
 Some weeks later still, in August, De 
 Rivaz came to Ivy Cottage, hat in hand, 
 stammering, deferential, to ask Janet to 
 allow him to paint her. He would do 
 anything, take rooms in the neighbourhood, 
 
198 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 make his convenience entirely subservient 
 to hers if she would only sit to him. He 
 saw with a pang that she was not conscious 
 that they had met before. She had for- 
 gotten him, and he did not remind her of 
 their first meeting. He knew that hour had 
 brought trouble upon her. Her face showed 
 it. The patient, enduring spirit was begin- 
 ning to look through the exquisite face. 
 Her beauty overwhelmed him. He trembled 
 before it. He pleaded hard, but she would 
 not listen to him. She said apathetically 
 that she did not wish to be painted. She 
 was evidently quite unaware of the dis- 
 tinction which he was offering her. His 
 name had conveyed nothing to her. He 
 had to take his leave at last, but, as he 
 walked away in the rain, he turned and 
 looked back at the house. 
 
 " I will come back," he said, his thin face 
 quivering. 
 
 It was a wet August, and the harvest 
 rotted on the ground. No one came to Ivy 
 Cottage along the sodden footpath from 
 Easthope. A slow anger was rising in 
 
MOTH AND RUST 199 
 
 Janet's heart against her lover, the anger 
 that will invade at last the hearts of humble 
 sincere natures, when they find that love 
 and trust have not gone together. 
 
 George never openly broke with Janet, 
 never could be induced to wTite the note to 
 her which, his mother told him, it was his 
 duty to ^vl•ite. No. He simply stayed 
 away from her, week after week, month 
 after month. When his mother urged him 
 to break off his engagement formally, he 
 said doggedly that Janet could see for her- 
 self that all was over between them. 
 
 The day came at last when Janet met 
 him suddenly in the streets of jMudbury, on 
 market day. He took off his hat in answer 
 to her timid greeting, and passed on looking 
 straight in front of him. 
 
 Perhaps he had his evil hour that night, 
 for Janet was very fair. Seen suddenly, 
 unexpectedly, she seemed more beautiful 
 than ever. And she was to have been his 
 wife. 
 
 After that blighting moment, when even 
 Janet perceived that George was determined 
 
200 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 not to speak to her ; after that Janet began 
 to see that when foundations are under- 
 mined that which is built upon them will 
 one day totter and — fall. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 " The heart asks pleasure first, 
 And then, excuse from pain ; 
 And then, those little anodynes 
 That deaden suffering ; 
 
 And then, to go to sleep ; 
 
 And then if it should be 
 The will of its Inquisitor, 
 
 The liberty to die." 
 
 — Emily Dickinson. 
 
 There are long periods in the journey of 
 life when " the road winds uphill all the 
 way." There are also long periods when 
 the dim plain holds us, endless day after 
 day, till the last bivouac fires of our youth 
 are quenched in its rains. 
 
 But when we look back across our jour- 
 ney, do we not forget alike the hill and the 
 plain? Do we not rather remember that 
 
MOTH xVND RUST 201 
 
 one turn, exceeding sharp, of the narrow 
 inevitable way, what time the Hght failed, 
 and the ground yawned beneath our feet, 
 and we knew fear? 
 
 There is a slow descent, awful, step by 
 step, into a growing darkness, which those 
 know who have strength to make it. Only 
 the strong are broken on certain wheels. 
 Only the strong know the dim landscape of 
 Hades, that world which underlies the lives 
 of all of us. 
 
 I cannot follow Janet down into it. I 
 can only see her as a shadow, moving among 
 shadows ; going down unconsciously with 
 tears in her eyes, taking, poor thing, her 
 brave, loving unselfish heart with her, to 
 meet anguish, desolation, desertion, and at 
 last despair. If we needs must go down that 
 steep stair we go alone, and who shall say 
 how it fared with us? Nature has some 
 appalhng beneficent processes, of which it 
 is not well to speak. Life has been taught 
 at the same knee, out of the same book, 
 and when her inexorable disintegrating hand 
 closes over us, the abhorrent darkness, from 
 
MOTH AND RUST 
 
 which we have shrunk with loathing, be- 
 comes our only friend. 
 
 In the following autumn and winter 
 Janet slowly descended, inch by inch, step 
 by step, that steep stair. She reached at 
 last the death of love. She thought she 
 reached it many times before she actually 
 touched it. She believed she reached it 
 when the news of George's engagement 
 penetrated to her. But she did not in 
 reality. No, she hoped against hope to the 
 last day, to the morning of his wedding. 
 She did not know she hoped. She supposed 
 she had long since given up all thought 
 of a reconciliation between her and her 
 lover. But when the wedding was over, 
 when he was really gone, then something 
 broke within her — the last string of the lyre 
 over which blind Hope leans. 
 
 There are those who tell us that we have 
 not suffered till we have known jealousy. 
 Janet's foot reached that lowest step, and 
 was scorched upon it. 
 
 Only then she realised that she had never, 
 
MOTH AND RUST 203 
 
 never believed that he could really leave her. 
 Even on his vi^edding morning she had 
 looked out across the fields, by which she 
 had so often seen him come, which had 
 been so long empty of that familiar figure. 
 She knew he was far away at the house of 
 the bride, but nevertheless she expected 
 that he would come to her, and hold her 
 to his heart, and say : " But, Janet, I could 
 never marry anyone but you. You know 
 such a thing could never be. What other 
 woman could part you and me, who cannot 
 part ? " And then the evil dream would 
 fall fi'om her, and she and George would 
 look gravely at each other, and the endless, 
 endless pain would pass away. 
 
 Wrapt close against the anguish of love 
 there is always a word such as this with 
 which human nature sustains its aching 
 heart — poor human nature which beHeves 
 that, come what come may, Love can 
 never die. 
 
 " Some day," the woman says to herself, 
 half knowing that that day can never dawn, 
 
204 MOTH AND RtTST 
 
 " some day I shall tell him of these awful 
 months, full of days like years, and nights 
 like nothing, please God, which shall ever 
 be endured again. Some day — it may be 
 a long time off — but some day I shall say 
 to him : ' Why did you leave me ? ' And 
 he will tell me his foolish reasons, and we 
 shall lean together in tears. And surely 
 some day I shall say to him : * I always 
 burnt your letters for fear I might die 
 suddenly and others should read them. 
 But see, here are the envelopes, every one. 
 That envelope is nearly worn out. Do you 
 remember what you said inside it? That 
 one is still new. I only read the letter it 
 had in it once. How could you — could 
 you write it?'" 
 
 " Some day," the man says to himself, 
 when the work of the day is done — " some 
 day my hour will come. She thinks me 
 harsh and cold, but some day, when these 
 evil days are past, and she understands, I 
 will wrap her round with a tenderness such 
 as she has never dreamed of. I will show 
 
MOTH AND RUST 205 
 
 her what a lover can be. She finds the 
 world hard, and its ways a weariness — let 
 her; but some day she shall own to me, 
 to me here in this room, that she did not 
 know what life was, what joy and peace 
 were, until she let my love take her." 
 
 Yet he half knows she will never come, 
 that woman whose coming seems inevitable 
 as spring. So the heart comforts itself, 
 telling itself faiiy stories until the day 
 dawns when ReaUty's stern, beneficent 
 figure enters our dwelling, and we know 
 at last that not one word of all we have 
 spoken in imagination will ever be said. 
 What we have suffered we have suffered. 
 The one for whom it was borne will hear 
 no further word from us. 
 
 The moth and the rust have corrupted. 
 
 The thieves have broken through and 
 stolen. 
 
 Then rise up, lay hold of your pilgrim's 
 staff, and take up life with a will. 
 
206 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 " My river runs to tliee : 
 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, 
 beheving 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, enter- 
 tainments of all kinds for children and 
 adults, tenants, inmates of workhouses, 
 country neighbours, Sunday School teachers, 
 INIothers' 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 
 
MOTH AND RUST 207 
 
 duties of his position, but by nature he was 
 a recluse, and at Christmas-time he yielded 
 to his natural bias. Anne also hved 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, com- 
 manding Anne to despatch five hundred 
 presents at one shilling suitable for school- 
 girls, 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 
 
208 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 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 neces- 
 sary 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 im- 
 pression that those two documents were 
 love letters. At any rate, they were the 
 only two letters which Stephen ever com- 
 
MOTH AND RUST 209 
 
 posed 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 -wTote 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 to^vns in South Africa, and their re- 
 spective 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 
 
 o 
 
210 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 spite of an overwhelming pressure of busi- 
 ness, he had found time to dine with Anne 
 and her father several times since he arrived. 
 The Duke had met him at a directors' meet- 
 ing, and quite oblivious of Anne's refusal of 
 him, had pressed him to come back with 
 him to dinner. The Duke asked him con- 
 stantly 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, 
 
MOTH AND RUST 211 
 
 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 aUies to her aid, her 
 father came in, with a newspaper in his 
 hand. 
 
 "This is serious," he said, "about Van- 
 brunt." 
 
 She turned upon him like lightning. 
 
 The Duke tapped the paper. 
 
 " I knew Vanbrunt was in difficulties," he 
 
212 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 said. " A week ago, when he was last here, 
 lie 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 afi-aid 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 httle when he was last here, but in confi- 
 
MOTH AND RUST 213 
 
 dence. 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 trembhng 
 hand, and peered out into the fog. 
 
 Stephen w^as sitting in his inner room at 
 his office in the City, biting an akeady 
 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 con- 
 centrated with unabated strength on his 
 affliirs, 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 
 
214 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 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, 
 
MOTH AND RUST 215 
 
 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 in- 
 terrupted 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 for- 
 ward to meet her, of speaking to. her, left 
 him. The blood seemed to ebb slowly 
 from his heart, and his grim face blanched. 
 
216 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 " How did you come here ? " he stam- 
 mered at last, his voice sounding harsh 
 and unfamiHar. 
 
 " 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 Hamil- 
 ton Gardens when you asked me to marry 
 you?" 
 
 Stephen bowed. He could not speak. 
 Even his great strength was only just 
 enough. 
 
MOTH AND RUST 217 
 
 " 1 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 trembUng 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 extra- 
 ordinary proceeding of yours. You re- 
 fuse 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 liim. She says a good deal about how 
 
218 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 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 good- 
 ness 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 hesLvy 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 hke better than your 
 ex-millionaire/' 
 
MOTH AND RUST 219 
 
 Two hours later, after Stephen's depar- 
 ture, 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 re- 
 member, 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 
 
MOTH AND RUST 
 
 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 
 milUons, but that his affairs had taken 
 an unexpected turn during the last twenty- 
 four hours, and he beheved he could count 
 on an odd million or so, certainly on 
 
MOTH AND RUST 221 
 
 half a million. 1 collapsed, Anne. My 
 attitude fell to pieces. It was Vanbrunt 
 who scored. He had had a perfectly 
 gi'ave 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 I You knoiv you had not." 
 
 " Well, no. I had not. 1 did not think 
 of it I 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." 
 
9SSL MOTH AND RUST 
 
 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 dociUty to the requirements 
 of the lending libraries, and only too 
 frequently fails to grasp the dramatic 
 moment for an impressive close. None 
 
MOTH AND RUST 223 
 
 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 fife 
 never seemed to get itself wound up. The 
 consequences went on, and on, and on, 
 till all novelty and interest dropped in- 
 evitably from them and from her. 
 
 Some of us come to turning-points in 
 
224 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 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 do^vn blind 
 into Hades, and struggle impotently witli 
 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 crystaUised, her small 
 crude beliefs in love and her fellow-creatures 
 withered. 
 
MOTH AND RUST 225 
 
 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 httle 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 differ- 
 ence. So much the better for him. The 
 running noose for her was the same. Un- 
 reasoning behef in love and her fellow- 
 creatures was followed by an equally un- 
 reasoning disbelief in both. 
 
 Janet kept her promise. She held firm. 
 
MOTH AND RUST 
 
 Amid all the promises of the world, made 
 only to be broken, kept only till the temp- 
 tation to break them punctually arrived, 
 amid all that debris one foolish promise 
 remained intact, Janet's promise to Cuckoo. 
 
 George mamed. Then, shortly after- 
 wards, Fred married the eldest JNIiss Ford, 
 and found great happiness. His bliss was 
 at first painfully streaked with total abstin- 
 ence, but he gradually eradicated this de- 
 pressing element from his new home Hfe. 
 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 IMonkey 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 dis- 
 creditable, and that her engagement had 
 been broken off on that account. Mrs 
 
MOTH AND RUST 227 
 
 Fred was, as we know, a person of the 
 highest principles ; and high principles natu- 
 rally shrink from contact with any less 
 exalted. Several months after the situation 
 between the two women had become un- 
 tenable, Janet decided to leave home. She 
 had nowhere to go, and no money ; so, like 
 thousands of other women in a similar pre- 
 dicament, 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 INlansions, 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 
 
228 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 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, 1 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 
 
MOTH AND RUST 229 
 
 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 hfe, 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 IVIrs Trefusis. " He 
 does not seem to care to be with Gertrude. 
 And yet you know Gertrude is very taking, 
 
230 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 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." 
 
MOTH AND RUST 231 
 
 " Oh ! my dear, she does. She is an ex- 
 tremely 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 IMrs Trefusis of 
 the fact, for the name of Janet was never 
 mentioned between Anne and Mrs Tre- 
 fusis. IVlrs Trefusis had once diffidently 
 endeavoured to reopen the subject with 
 Anne, but found it instantly and deci- 
 sively 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 be- 
 
MOTH AND RUST 
 
 fore Janet's foui'- wheeler came round the 
 corner. 
 
 Anne's heart ached for Janet when she 
 appeared in the doorway. She ahnost 
 wished that ^Mrs Trefusis had been con- 
 fronted 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 re- 
 member? — 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." 
 
MOTH AND RUST 233 
 
 " 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 
 
MOTH AND RUST 
 
 daresay you thought at the time how silly 
 I was about George. I see now what a fool 
 
 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 clergy- 
 man 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 tlie child- 
 like 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. I^ut 
 I cared too much. That was where I was 
 wrong." 
 
MOTH AND RUST 235 
 
 " 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. INIen are like that." 
 
 " Some one else cares," said Amie diffi- 
 dently — "poor Mr de Rivaz. He cares 
 enough." 
 
 " Yes," said Janet apathetically. " I dare- 
 say 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 1 " Her face 
 
236 MOTH AND RUST 
 
 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 repUca ? " 
 
 " No, it is the same," said Janet, passing 
 her hand over the mermaid and her whale. 
 " There is the httle 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 Afi'ica 
 for his boy's health." 
 
MOTH AND RUST 237 
 
 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 
 carefril hand. " Look, Anne I how beauti- 
 fully 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 for- 
 ward 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 
 
MOTH AND RUST 
 
 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 1 too late ! Oh ! why didn't 
 Georsfe believe in me ! " 
 
 " He will believe now." 
 
 " It doesn't matter what he believes now. 
 Why didn't he Tcnow I had not burnt it ? " 
 
 " I beheved in you," said De Tlivaz, 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 mar- 
 vellous portrait of her, a picture that was 
 the outcome of a deep love, wed with genius. 
 
MOTH AND RUST 239 
 
 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 affiiirs, not to their mother, but — 
 to Anne, 
 
GEOFFREY'S WIFE 
 
 Q 
 
 su 
 
GEOFFREY'S WIFE 
 
 " Oh, how this spring of love resembleth 
 Th' uncertain glory of an April clay." 
 
 T^VERY one felt an interest in them. 
 The mob-capped servants hung over 
 the banisters to watch them go down- 
 stairs. Alphonse reserved for them the 
 httle 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, INIonsieur Leroux, found him- 
 self 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 
 
244 GEOFFREY'S WIFE 
 
 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 pecuUar interest 
 attached to this young married couple. 
 For one thing, they were so absurdly, so 
 overwhelmingly happy. People, INIonsieur 
 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 hke 
 this couple. Although tliey were Enghsh, 
 they were so handsome and so sunny. 
 And he was so well made and devoted, 
 the chambermaids whispered. And, ah ! 
 how she was loiquante, the waiters agreed. 
 
 They had a Httle 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 
 
GEOFFREY'S WIFE 245 
 
 delightful little sitting-room in the world 
 when she was in it. And INIrs Geoffrey 
 also Hked it very much ; oh ! very much 
 indeed. 
 
 He had had hard work to win her. Some- 
 times, when he watched her tanghng 
 many-coloured wools over the mahogany 
 back of one of the tight horsehair chairs, 
 he could hardly beHeve 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 shoe- 
 lace, which was never tired of coming 
 undone, and which he was never tired 
 of doing up. The awful responsibility 
 
246 GEOFFREY'S WIFE 
 
 of guarding such a treasure, and an over- 
 powering 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 hke 
 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 com- 
 
GEOFFREY'S WIFE 247 
 
 panioris, 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 
 ^'plmsir," 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 
 
248 GEOFFREY'S WIFE 
 
 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 Elysdes 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 I Was 
 not the stranger coming from unknown 
 distances to witness the illuminations? 
 Were not the illuminations in honour of 
 
GEOFFREY'S WIFE 249 
 
 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 fete ! 
 Delightful I 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 fiiends on Sunday morning, who 
 had invited them to their house in the 
 Champ Elysees in the course of the evening 
 to see the illuminations from their balcony. 
 
250 GEOFFREY'S WIFE 
 
 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 salhed forth to- 
 gether 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 ^lonsieur 
 Leroux, bowing to them. " Monsieur does 
 well to take the little clidle for IMadame for 
 fear later she should feel herself fresh. But 
 as for rain, will not Madame leave her um- 
 brella with the concierge ? No ? Monsieur 
 prefers ? Eh hien I 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 
 Elysees. With some difficulty Geoffi-ey 
 procured a little carriage, and in a few 
 minutes they were swept into the chatter- 
 ing, idle, busy throng, and slowly making 
 
GEOFFREY'S WIFE 251 
 
 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 dehghted 
 gaze ; she beaming with the rest. 
 
 And now they were driving down the 
 Champs Elysees. The fountains leaped in 
 coloured flame. The Palais de ITndustrie 
 gleamed from roof to basement, built in fire. 
 The Arc de Triomphe, crowned with hght, 
 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. 
 Geofirey demurred. Not so INIrs Geoffrey. 
 In a moment she had sprung out of the 
 carriage, and was laughing at the novel idea 
 
252 GEOFFREY'S WIFE 
 
 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 httle, 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 thcut 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 
 
GEOFFREY'S WIFE 253 
 
 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 Trocadero 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 
 
254 GEOFFREY'S WIFE 
 
 just now. See, as the soldiers come nearer, 
 how the crowd sweeps and presses round 
 them, tossing hke an angry sea. Look 
 how the soldiers rear their horses against 
 the people to keep them back. Hark 
 asrain 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 Elysees, right down to the cob- 
 web 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 
 
GEOFFREY'S WIFE 255 
 
 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 ! De- 
 lightful ! 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 
 
256 GEOFFREY'S WIFE 
 
 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 Geoffi-ey regularly 
 every five minutes, drawing the Httle 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. Every- 
 where 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. In- 
 
GEOFFREY'S WIFE 257 
 
 stantly there was a hastening and pushing 
 in the crowd, and the low, deep growl arose 
 again, more ominous than ever. Geoffrey 
 caught a ghmpse 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, atliletic Enghshman, 
 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 
 
 R 
 
258 GEOFFREY'S WIFE 
 
 crowd. Its faint, sickening smell was in 
 their nostrils. 
 
 " No, Eva," he said, answering her implor- 
 ing 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 hot- 
 house flower. 
 
 " How are you getting on ? " he asked 
 with a sharp anxiety, which he vainly 
 imagined did not betray itselt 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, anyiv^here? 
 
GEOFFREY'S WIFE 259 
 
 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. 
 
260 GEOFFREY'S WIFE 
 
 " Geoffrey, I'm very sorry," with a half 
 sob, "but I'm afraid I'm going to faint." 
 
 The words came Hke a blow, and drove 
 the blood from his face. The vague un- 
 defined 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 
 
GEOFFREY'S WIFE 261 
 
 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, skaking Uke 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 dis- 
 perse ? Moving, stopping, pushing, pressing, 
 stopping again. Another pause, which 
 seemed as if it would never end. A con- 
 trary motion now, and he had not room to 
 
262 GEOFFREY'S WIFE 
 
 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 faU are 
 beginning to teU. 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 
 
GEOFFREY'S WIFE 263 
 
 of blood and dust before his eyes. But he 
 holds on with the fierce energy of despair. 
 Another push. God in Heaven I almost 
 down again ! He can see nothing. A 
 frantic struggle in the dark. The arms 
 round his neck tremble, and he hears a 
 sharp-dra^^Ti gasp of terror. Hands from 
 out of the darkness clutch him up, and he 
 regains his footing once more. " Courage, 
 IMonsieur," says a kind voice, and the hands 
 are swept out of his. He tries to move his 
 lips in thanks, but no w^ords 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 I 
 The crowd is thinning. He catches a 
 glimpse of ground in front of him. But 
 it sways before him Hke 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 
 
264 GEOFFREY'S WIFE 
 
 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 Httle, it matters httle. 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 shps to the 
 ground, and he di'aws her to him with his 
 nerveless arms. The street lamps gleam 
 dull and yellow in the first wan light 
 of da^vn, and as his haggard eyes look into 
 hers, her face becomes clear even to his 
 darkening vision — and — it is another woman / 
 Another woman I 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 
 
GEOFFREY'S WIFE 265 
 
 into a doorway, to shiver and hide her worn 
 face from the growing Hght. 
 
 • ••••• 
 
 It was one of the EngHsh 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. 
 
 "i\nd 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." 
 
^66 GEOFFREY'S WIFE 
 
 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 stilU 
 
THE PITFALL 
 
THE PITFALL 
 
 PART I 
 
 " Oh Thou who didst with Pitfall and with Gin 
 Beset the Road I was to wander in." 
 
 — Omar KhayyXm. 
 
 T ADY INIAKY GARDEN sat near the 
 open window of her blue and white 
 boudoir looking out intently, fixedly across 
 Park Lane at the shimmer of the trees in 
 Hyde Park. It was June. It was 
 sunny. The false gaiety of the season was 
 all around her; flickering swiftly past her 
 in the crush of carriages below her window ; 
 dawdUng past her in the walking and 
 riding crowds in the park. She looked 
 at it without seemg it. Perhaps she had 
 had enough of it, this strange conglomera- 
 tion of alien elements and foreign bodies, 
 this houille-a-haisse which is called " The 
 
 269 
 
270 THE PITFALL 
 
 Season." She had seen it all year after 
 year for twelve years, varying as little as 
 the bedding out of the flowers behind the 
 railings. Perhaps she was as weary of 
 society as most people become who take it 
 seriously. She certainly often said that it 
 was rotten to the core. 
 
 She hardly moved. She sat vdth an 
 open letter in her hand, thinking, thinking. 
 
 The house was very still. Her aunt, 
 with whom she hved, had gone early into 
 the country for the day. The only sound, 
 the monotonous whirr of the great machine 
 of London, came from without. 
 
 JMary was thirty, an age at which many 
 women are still young, an age at which 
 some who have heads under their hair are 
 still rising towards the zenith of their 
 charm. But INIary was not one of these. 
 Her youth was clearly on the wane. She 
 bore the imprint of that which ages — 
 because if unduly prolonged it enfeebles — 
 the sheltered life, a life centred in con- 
 ventional ideas, dwarfed by a conventional 
 religious code, a life feebly nourished on 
 
THE PITFALL 271 
 
 cut and dried charities sandwiched between 
 petty interests and pettier pleasures. She 
 showed the mark of her twelve seasons, 
 and of what she had made of life, in the 
 slight fading of her delicate complexion, 
 the fatigued discontent of her blue eyes, 
 the faint dignified dejection of her manner, 
 which was the reflection of an unconscious 
 veiled surprise that she of all women — she 
 the gentle, the good, the religious, the 
 pretty Mary Garden was still — in short was 
 still ^lary Garden. 
 
 The onlooker would perhaps have shared 
 that surprise. She was indubitably pretty, 
 indubitably well bred, graceful, slender, with 
 a delicate manicured hand, and fair waved 
 hair. Her fringe, which seemed inclined to 
 gi'ow somewhat larger with the years, was 
 nearly all her own. She possessed the art 
 of dress to perfection. You could catalogue 
 her good points. But somehow she remained 
 without attraction. She lacked vitality, and 
 those who lack vitality seldom seem to get 
 or keep what they want, at any rate in this 
 world. 
 
272 THE PITFALL 
 
 She was the kind of woman whom a man 
 marries to please his mother, or because she 
 is an heiress, or because he has been jilted 
 and wishes to show how little he feels it. 
 She was not a first choice. 
 
 She was one of that legion of perfectly 
 appointed women who at seventeen deplore 
 the rapacity of the older girls in ruthlessly 
 clutching up all the attention of the simpler 
 sex ; and who at thirty acidly remark that 
 men care only for a pink cheek and a baby 
 face. 
 
 Poor Mary was thinking of a man now, 
 of a certain hght-hearted simpleton of a 
 soldier with a slashed scar across his hand, 
 which a Dervish had given him at Omdur- 
 man, the man as commonplace as herself, 
 on whom for no particular reason she had 
 glued her demure, obstinate, adhesive affec- 
 tions twelve years ago. 
 
 Our touching faithfulness to an early love 
 is often only owing to the fact that we have 
 never had an adequate temptation to be 
 unfaithful. Certainly with INIary it was so. 
 The temptations had been pitiably inade- 
 
THE PITFALL 273 
 
 quate. She had never swerved from that 
 long-ago mild flirtation of a boy and girl 
 in their teens, studiously thrown together 
 by their parents. She had taken an un- 
 wearying interest in him. She had petitioned 
 Heaven that he might pass for the Army, 
 and he did just squeeze in. By the aid of 
 fervent prayer she had drawn him safely 
 through the Eg^^tian campaign, while other 
 women's husbands and lovers fell right and 
 left. He had not said anything definite 
 before he went out, but INlary had found 
 ample reasons for his silence. He could not 
 bear to overshadow her life in case, etc., etc. 
 But now he had been safely back a year, 
 two years, and still he had said nothing. 
 This was more difficult to account for. He 
 was fond of her. There was no doubt about 
 that. They had always been fond of each 
 other. Every one had expected them to 
 marry. His parents had wished it. Her 
 aunt had favoured the idea with hea\y-footed 
 zeal. Her brother. Lord Rollington, when 
 he had a moment to spare from his training- 
 stable, had jovially opined that "^laimie" 
 
274 THE PITFALL 
 
 would be wise to book Jos Carstairs while 
 she could, as if she was not careful she might 
 outstand her market. 
 
 INIary, who had for many years dreamed 
 of gracefully yielding to Jos's repeated and 
 urgent entreaties, had even begun to wonder 
 whether it would not be advisable if one of 
 her men relations were to "speak to Jos." 
 Such things were done. As she had said to 
 her aunt with dignity, " This sort of thing 
 can't go on for ever," when her aunt — who 
 yearned for the rest which, according to 
 their own account, seems to elude stout 
 persons — pleaded that difficulties clustered 
 round such a course. 
 
 The course was not taken, for Jos suddenly 
 engaged himself to a girl of seventeen, a new 
 girl whom London knew not, the only child 
 of one of those ruinous unions which had 
 been swallowed up in a flame of scandal 
 seventeen years ago, which had been for- 
 gotten for seventeen years all but nine days. 
 
 It was sedulously raked up again now. 
 People whispered that Elsa Grey came of 
 a bad stock ; that Jos Carstairs was a bold 
 
THE PITFALL 275 
 
 man to marry a woman with such ante- 
 cedents ; a woman whose mother had sHpped 
 away out of her intolerable home years ago 
 for another where apparently life had not 
 been more tolerable. 
 
 Jos brought his Elsa to see Mary, for he 
 was only fit to wave his sword and say, 
 " Come on, boys." He did not understand 
 anything about anything. He only remem- 
 bered that ]Mary was a tender, loving soul. 
 Had she not shown herself so to him for 
 years ? So he actually besought Mary to 
 be a friend to the beautiful young sombre 
 creature whom he had elected to marry. 
 
 Mary behaved admirably according to her 
 code, touched Elsa's hand, civilly offered the 
 address of a good dressmaker (not her best 
 one), and hoped they should meet frequently. 
 The girl looked at her once, wistfully, in- 
 tently, with unfathomable lustrous eyes, as 
 of some untamed, prisoned, woodland crea- 
 ture, and then took no further notice of her. 
 
 That was a fortnight ago. They were to 
 be married in three weeks. 
 
 Mary sighed, and looked once again for 
 
276 THE PITFALL 
 
 the twentieth time at the letter in her 
 hand. It was a long epistle from her bosom 
 friend, Lady Francis Bethune, the electric 
 tramways heness, joylessly married to the 
 handsomest man in London, the notorious 
 Lord Francis Bethune. 
 
 "iMy dear," said the letter, "men are 
 always hke that. They are brutes, and it 
 is no good thinking otherwise. They will 
 throw over the woman they have loved for 
 years for a flower-girl. You are too good 
 for him. I have always thought so. (So 
 had Mary.) But the game is not up yet. 
 I could tell him things about his Elsa that 
 would surprise him, not that he ought to 
 be surprised at anything in her mother's 
 daughter. He is coming to me this after- 
 noon to tea. He said he was busy ; but I 
 told him he must come as it was on urgent 
 business, and so it is. He is my trustee, 
 you know, and there really is something 
 wrong. Francis has been at it again. After 
 the business is over I shall tell him a few 
 things very nicely about that girl. Now, 
 my advice to you is— chuck the Lestrange s 
 
THE PITFALL 277 
 
 water-party this afternoon, and come in as 
 if casually to see me. I shall leave you 
 alone together, and you must do the rest 
 yourself. You may pull it off yet, after 
 what I shall say about Elsa, for Jos has a 
 great idea of you. Wire your reply by code 
 before midday." 
 
 Mary got up slowly, and walked to the 
 "vvriting-table. Should she go and meet 
 him ? Should she not ? She would go. 
 She wrote a telegram quickly in code form. 
 She knew the code so well that she did not 
 stop to refer to it. She and Jos had played 
 at code telegrams when he was cramming 
 for the Army. She rang for the servant and 
 sent out the telegram. Then she sat down 
 and took up a book. It was nearly midday, 
 and too hot to go out. 
 
 But after a few minutes she cast it sud- 
 denly aside, and began to move restlessly 
 about the room. What was the use of 
 going, after all? What could she say to 
 Jos if she did see him ? How could she 
 touch his heart ? Like many another woman 
 when she thinks of a man, INIary stopped 
 
278 THE PITFALL 
 
 before a small mirror, and looked fixedly 
 at herself. Was she not pretty ? Had she 
 not gentle, appealing eyes? See her little 
 hand raised to put back a strand of fair 
 hair. Was not everything about her pretty, 
 and refined, and good ? The vision of Elsa 
 rose suddenly before her, with her dark, 
 mysterious beauty and her formidable youth. 
 Mary's heart contracted painfully. " I love 
 him, and she doesn't," she said to herself, 
 with bitterness. But Jos would never give 
 up Elsa. She would make him miserable, 
 but — he would marry her. Oh ! what was 
 the use of going to waylay him to-day ? 
 Why had she lent herself to Lady Francis's 
 idiotic plan ? Why had she accepted from 
 her help that was no help ? She would 
 telegraph again to say she would not come 
 after all. No. She would follow up her 
 own telegram, and tell her friend that on 
 second thoughts she did not care to see 
 Jos. 
 
 She ran upstairs, put on her hat, and in 
 a few minutes was driving in a hansom to 
 Bruton Street. The Bethunes' footman 
 
THE PITFALL 279 
 
 knew her and admitted her, though Lady 
 Francis was technically "not at home." 
 
 Yes, her ladyship was in, but she was 
 engaged with the doctor at the moment in 
 the di*awing-room. The footman hesitated. 
 "They were a-tuning of the piano in her 
 ladyship's boudoir," he said, and he tenta- 
 tively opened the door of a room on the 
 ground floor. It was Lord Francis' sitting- 
 room. 
 
 " Was his lordship in ? " 
 
 " No, his lordship had gone out early." 
 
 " Then 1 will wait here," said Mary, " if 
 you will let her ladyship know that I am 
 here." 
 
 The man withdrew. 
 
 Mary's face reddened with annoyance. 
 She disliked the idea of telling Lady 
 Francis she had changed her mind, and 
 the discussion of the subject. Oh I why 
 had she ever spoken of the subject at 
 all? Why had she telegraphed that she 
 would come? 
 
 The painful, reiterated stammering of the 
 piano came to her fi'om above. It seemed 
 
280 THE PITFALL 
 
 of a piece with her own indecision, her own 
 monotonous jealousy. 
 
 Suddenly the front door bell rang, and an 
 instant later the footman came in with a 
 telegram, put it on the writing-table, and 
 went out again. 
 
 Her telegram ! Then she was not too 
 late to stop it. She need not explain after 
 aU. 
 
 The drawing-room door opened, and Lady 
 Francis' high metallic voice sounded on 
 the landing. 
 
 Mary seized up the pink envelope and 
 crushed it in her hand ! What ? The 
 drawing-room door closed again. The con- 
 ference with the doctor was not quite over 
 after all. She tore open the telegram and 
 looked again at her foohsh words before 
 destroying them. 
 
 Then her colour faded, and the room 
 went round with her. Who had changed 
 what she had said? Why was it signed 
 -Elsa"? 
 
 She looked at the envelope. It was 
 plainly addressed — " Lord Francis Bethune." 
 
THE PITFALL 281 
 
 She had never glanced at the address till 
 this moment. The contents were in code 
 as hers had been, but it was the same code, 
 and before she knew she had done so, she 
 had read it. 
 
 What did it mean ? What could it 
 mean ? Why sliould Elsa promise to meet 
 him after the Speaker's Stairs — to-day — at 
 Waterloo main entrance? 
 
 Mary was not quick-witted, but after a 
 few dazed moments she suddenly under- 
 stood. Elsa was about to go away with 
 Lord Francis. But what Elsa ? Her heart 
 beat so hard that she could hardly breathe. 
 Could it be Elsa Grey? 
 
 As we piece together all at once a puzzle 
 that has been too simple for us, so IMary 
 remembered in a flash Elsa's enigmatical 
 face, and a certain ball where she had seen 
 — only for a moment as she passed — Lord 
 Francis and Elsa sitting out together. Elsa 
 had looked quite different then. It icas 
 Elsa Grey. She knew it. Degraded crea- 
 ture, not fit to be an honest man's wife, 
 ;Mary shook from head to foot under a 
 
THE PITFALL 
 
 climbing, devastating emotion, which seemed 
 to rend her whole being. The rival was 
 gone from her path. Jos would come back 
 to her. 
 
 As she stood stunned, half blind, trem- 
 bling, a hansom dashed up to the door, and 
 in a moment Lord Francis' voice was in 
 the hall speaking to the footman. 
 
 " Any letters or telegrams ? " 
 
 " One telegram on your writing-table, 
 my lord." 
 
 The servant went on to explain some- 
 thing. Lady JNIary Garden, etc., but his 
 master did not hear him. He was in the 
 room in a second, and had closed the door 
 behind him. Lord Francis' beautiful, thin, 
 reckless face was pinched and haggard. He 
 seemed possessed by some fierce passion 
 which had hold of him and drove him 
 before it as a storm holds and spins a 
 leaf. 
 
 Mary was frightened, paralysed. She 
 had not known that men could be so 
 moved. He did not even see her. He 
 rushed to the writing-table, and swept 
 
THE PITFALL 
 
 his eye over it. Then he gave a sharp, 
 low, hardly human cry of rage and 
 anguish, and turned to ring the bell. As 
 he turned he saw her. 
 
 "I beg your pardon. I don't under- 
 stand," he said hoarsely. "AVhy did my 
 fool of a servant bring you in here ? " 
 
 Then he saw the open telegram in her 
 hand, and his face changed. It became 
 alert, cold, implacable. There was a 
 deadly pause. From the room above 
 came the acute, persistent stammer of 
 the piano. 
 
 He took the telegram from her nerve- 
 less hand, read it, and put it in his pocket. 
 He picked up the envelope from the 
 floor, and threw it into the waste-paper 
 basket. Then he came close up to her, 
 and looked her in the eyes. There w^as 
 murder in his. 
 
 " It was in cypher," he said. 
 
 She was incapable of speech. 
 
 "But you understood it? Answer me. 
 By — did you understand it, or did you 
 not?" 
 
284 THE PITFALL 
 
 "I did not." She got the words out. 
 
 " You are lymg. You did, you paid spy. 
 Now listen to me. If you dare to say one 
 word of this to any living soul I'll " 
 
 The door suddenly opened, and Lady 
 Francis hurried in. 
 
 *' Sorry to keep you, my dear," said the 
 high, unmodulated voice. " Old Carr was 
 such a time. What ! You here, Francis ? 
 I thought you had gone out." 
 
 " I have been doing my best to entertain 
 Lady INIary till you appeared," he said. 
 
 " I came to say I'm engaged this 
 afternoon," said INIary. " I can't go with 
 you to your concert." 
 
 The footman appeared with another 
 telegi'am. 
 
 Lord Francis opened it before it could 
 reach his wife, and then tossed it to her. 
 
 "For you," he said, and left the room. 
 
 "Well, my dear," said Lady Francis, 
 " in this you say you will come, and now 
 you say you wont, or am I reading it 
 wi'ong? I don't understand." 
 
 "I have changed my mind," said Mary 
 
THE PITFALL 285 
 
 feebly. " I mean I can't throw over the 
 Lestranges. I only ran m to explain. I 
 must be going back now." 
 
 Lord Francis, who was in the hall, put 
 her into her hansom and closed the doors. 
 As he did so he leaned forward and said : 
 
 " If you dare to interfere with me you 
 will pay for it." 
 
 PAKT II 
 
 " All ! woe that youth should love to be 
 Like this swift Thames that speeds so fast, 
 
 And is so fain to find the sea, — 
 That leaves this maze of shadow and sleep, 
 These creehs do^vn which blown blossoms creep, 
 
 For breakers of the homeless deep." 
 
 — Edmund Gosse. 
 
 The little river steamer, with its gay 
 awning, was hitched up to the Speaker's 
 Stairs. The Lestranges were standing at 
 the gangway welcoming their guests. 
 There was a crowd watching along the 
 parapet of Westminster Bridge just above. 
 
286 THE PITFALL 
 
 "Are we all here? It is past four," 
 said Captain Lestrange to his wife. 
 
 Mrs Lestrange looked round. " Eighteen, 
 twenty, twenty-four. Ah I Here is Lady 
 Mary Garden, late as usual. She is the 
 last. No. There is one more to come. 
 Miss Grey." 
 
 "Which Miss Grey?" 
 
 " Why, the one Jos Carstairs is to 
 marry. She is coming under my wing. 
 And now she isn't here. What on earth 
 am I to do? We can't wait for ever." 
 
 A tall white figure was advancing slowly, 
 as if dragged step by step, through the 
 shadow of the great grey building. 
 
 " She does not hurry herself," said JMrs 
 Lestrange indignantly, and she did not 
 welcome Elsa very cordially as she came 
 on board. The youngest of the party had 
 made all the rest of that distinguished 
 gathering wait for her. 
 
 Mary, in a gown of immaculate white 
 serge stitched with black, was sitting under 
 the awning when Elsa passed her on her 
 way towards a vacant seat lower down. 
 
THE PITFALL S87 
 
 The two women looked fixedly at each 
 other for a moment, and m that moment 
 Mary saw that Elsa knew that she knew. 
 Even in that short time Lord Francis had 
 evidently warned the girl against her. 
 
 Do what she would, INIary could not help 
 watching Elsa. This was the less difficult, 
 as no one ever talked for long together to 
 INIary. The seat next her was never reso- 
 lutely occupied. Her gentle voice was one 
 of those which swell the time-honoured 
 complaint, that in society you hear nothing 
 but the same vapid small talk, the same 
 trivial remarks over and over again. She 
 was not neglected, but she awakened no 
 interest. Her china blue eyes turned more 
 and more frequently towards that tall figure 
 with its lithe, panther-like grace sitting in the 
 sun, regardless of the glare. IMary, whose 
 care for her own soul came second only to 
 her care for her complexion, wondered at 
 her recklessness. 
 
 Mrs Lestrange introduced one or two men 
 to Elsa, but they seemed to find but little to 
 say to her. She was distraite, indifferent to 
 
288 THE PITFALL 
 
 what was going on round her. After a 
 time she was left alone, except when Mrs 
 Lestrange came to sit by her for a few 
 minutes. Yet she was a marked feature 
 of the party. Wherever Elsa might be 
 she could not be overlooked. INIysterious 
 involuntary power which some women 
 possess, not necessarily young and beautiful 
 like Elsa, of becommg wherever they go a 
 centre, a focus of attention whether they 
 will or no. 
 
 INIarried men looked furtively at her, and 
 whispered to their approving wives that 
 Carstairs was a bold man, that nothing 
 would have induced them to marry a woman 
 of that stamp. The unmarried men looked 
 at her too, but said nothing. 
 
 At seventeen Elsa's beauty was mature. 
 It was not the thin wild-flower beauty of 
 the young English girl who emerges but 
 slowly from her chrysalis. It was the 
 splendid pale perfection of the magnolia 
 which opens in a night. The body had 
 outstripped the embryo spirit. Out of the 
 exquisite face, with its mysterious fore- 
 
THE PITFALL 289 
 
 shadowing of latent emotion, looked the 
 grave inscrutable eyes of a child. 
 
 Elsa appeared quite unconscious of the 
 interest she excited. She looked fixedly at 
 the gliding dwindling buildings, at the little 
 alert brown-sailed eel-boats, and the solemn 
 low-swimming hay barges, burning yellow in 
 the afternoon sun, and dropping gold into the 
 grey water as they went. Sometimes she 
 looked up at the overhanging bridges, and 
 past them to the sky. Presently a white 
 butterfly came twinkling on toddhng, un- 
 steady wings across the water, and settled 
 on the awning. Elsa's eyes followed it. 
 ** It is coming with us," she said to Captain 
 Lestrange, who was standing near her. The 
 butterfly left the awning. It settled for a 
 moment on the white rose on Elsa's breast. 
 Now it was off again, a dancing baby fairy 
 between the sunny sky and sunny river. 
 Then all in a moment some gust of air 
 caught its tiny spread sails, and flung it 
 with wings outstretched upon the swift 
 water. 
 
 Elsa gave a cry, and tearing the rose out 
 
 T 
 
290 THE PITFALL 
 
 of her breast, leaned far over the raiUng 
 and flung it towards the butterfly. It fell 
 short. The current engulfed butterfly and 
 rose together. 
 
 Captain Lestrange caught her by the arm 
 as she leaned too far, and held her firmly till 
 she recovered her balance. 
 
 "That was rather dangerous," he said, 
 releasing her gently. 
 
 " I could not stand by and see it drown," 
 said Elsa, shivering, and she turned her 
 eyes back across the river, to where in the 
 distance the white buildings of Greenwich 
 stood almost in the water in the pearl haze. 
 
 Who shall say what Elsa's thoughts were 
 as she leaned against the raihng, white hand 
 against white rose cheek, and watched the 
 tide which was sweeping them towards the 
 sea? Did she realise that another cuiTcnt 
 was bearing her whither she knew not, was 
 hurrying her little barque, afloat for the first 
 time, towards a surging line of breakers 
 where white sails of maiden innocence and 
 faith and purity might perchance go under ? 
 Did she with those wonderful melancholy 
 
THE PITFALL 291 
 
 eyes look across her youth and dimly fore- 
 see, what all those who have missed love 
 learn in middle hfe, how chill is the deepen- 
 ing shadow in which a loveless hfe stands ? 
 Did she dimly see this, and shrink from the 
 loveless marriage before her, which would 
 close the door against love for ever ? Did 
 she in her great ignorance mistake the 
 jewelled earthen cup of passion for the wine 
 of love which should have brimmed it? 
 Did she think to allay the thirst of the soul 
 at the dazzhng empty cup which was so 
 urgently proffered to her ? Who shall say 
 what Elsa's thoughts were as the river 
 widened to the sea. 
 
 • • • • • 
 
 They were coming back at last, beating 
 up slowly, slowly against the tide towards 
 London, lying low and dim against an 
 agony of sunset. To Mary it had been 
 an afternoon of slow torture. Ought she 
 to speak to Elsa? "After the Speaker's 
 Stairs " the telegram had said. Then Elsa 
 meant to join Lord Francis on her return 
 this evening. Ought not she, Mary, to go 
 
292 THE PITFALL 
 
 to Elsa now, where she sat apart watching 
 the sunset, and implore her to go home ? 
 Ought she not to tell her that Lord Francis 
 was an evil man, who would bring great 
 misery upon her? Ought she not to show 
 her that she was steeping her young soul in 
 sin, ruining herself upon the threshold of 
 life ? Something whispered urgently to 
 Mary that she ought at least to try to hold 
 Elsa back from the precipice, whispered 
 urgently that perhaps Elsa, friendless as she 
 was, might listen to her even at the eleventh 
 hour. And Elsa knew she knew. 
 
 Was it Mary's soul — dwarfed and starved 
 in the suffocating bandages of her straitened 
 Hfe and nan'ow religion — which was feebly 
 stirring in its shroud, was striving to speak ? 
 
 Mary clenched her Uttle blue - veined 
 hands. 
 
 No, no. Elsa would never listen to her. 
 Elsa knew very well what she was doing. 
 Any girl younger even than she knew that 
 it was wicked to allow a married man to 
 make love to her. Elsa was a bad woman 
 by temperament and heredity, not fit to be 
 
THE PITFALL 293 
 
 a good man's wife. Even if Mary could 
 persuade her to give up her lover, still Elsa 
 was guilty in thought, and that was as bad 
 as the sin itself. Did not our Saviour say 
 so ? Elsa was lost already. 
 
 "No, no," whispered the inner voice. 
 ** She does not know what she is doing." 
 
 She did know very well what she was 
 doing — Mary flushed with anger — she was 
 always doing things for effect, in order to 
 attract attention. Look how she had 
 made eyes at Captain Lestrange about 
 that butterfl)''. If there is one thing more 
 than another which exasperates a conven- 
 tional person it is an impulsive action. The 
 episode of the butterfly rankled in Mary's 
 mind. Several silly men had been taken in 
 by it. No. She, Mary, would certainly 
 speak to Elsa ; she would be only too glad 
 to save a fellow-creature from deadly sin if 
 it was any use speaking — but it was not. 
 And she did not care to mix herself up with 
 odious, disgraceful subjects unless she could 
 be of use. She had always had a high 
 standard of refinement. She had always 
 
294 THE PITFALL 
 
 kept herself apart from "that sort of 
 thing." Perhaps, in her meagre hfe, she 
 had also kept herself apart from all that 
 makes our fellow-creatures turn to us. 
 
 Lord Francis' last threat, spoken low and 
 distinct across the hansom doors, came back 
 to her ears — " If you dare to interfere with 
 me you will pay for it." 
 
 The river was narrowing. The buildings 
 and wharves pushed up close and closer. 
 The fretted outlines and towers of West- 
 minster were detaching themselves in palest 
 violet from the glow in the west. 
 
 A river steamer passed them with a band 
 on board. A faint music, tender and gay, 
 came tc them across the water, bringing 
 with it the promise of an abiding love, 
 making all things possible, illuminating 
 with sudden distinctness the vague mean- 
 ing of this mysterious world of sunset sky 
 and sunset water, and ethereal city of 
 amethyst and pearl ; and then — as sud- 
 denly as it came — passing away down 
 stream, and taking all its promises with it, 
 leaving the twilight empty and desolate. 
 
THE PITFALL 295 
 
 The sunset burned dim like a spent fur- 
 nace. The day lost heart and waned all at 
 once. It seemed as if everything had come 
 to an end. 
 
 And as, when evening falls, jasmine grows 
 white and whiter in the faUing light, so 
 Elsa's face grew pale and paler yet m the 
 dusk. 
 
 Once she looked across at IMary, and a 
 faint smile, tremulous, wistful, stole across 
 her lips. Tears shone in her eyes. " Is 
 there any help anywhere ? " the sweet 
 troubled eyes seemed to say. But appa- 
 rently they found none, for they wandered 
 away again to the great buildings of West- 
 minster rising up within a stone's throw 
 over the black arch of Westminster Bridge. 
 
 The steamer slowed and stopped once 
 more against the Speaker's Stairs. 
 
 The Lestranges put Elsa into a hansom 
 before they hurried away in another them- 
 selves. All the guests were in a fever to 
 depart, for there was barely time to dress 
 for dinner — and they disappeared as if by 
 magic. IMary, whose victoria was a moment 
 
296 THE PITFALL 
 
 late, followed hard on the rest. As she was 
 delayed in the traffic she saw the hansom in 
 front of her turn slowly round. She saw 
 Elsa's face inside as it turned. Then the 
 hansom went gaily jingling its bell over 
 Westminster Bridge, and was lost in the 
 crowd. 
 
 PART III 
 
 " Thou wilt not with Predestination round 
 Enmesh me, and impute my Fall to Sin ? " 
 
 — Omah KhayyXm. 
 
 The scandal smouldered for a day or two, 
 and then raged across London like a fire. 
 Mary stayed at home. She could not face 
 the glare of it. She said she was iU. Her 
 hand shook. She started at the slightest 
 sound. She felt shattered in mind and 
 body. 
 
 " I could not have stopped her," she said 
 stubbornly to herself a hundred times, 
 lying wide-eyed through the long, terrify- 
 
THE PITFALL 297 
 
 ing nights. She besieged Heaven with 
 prayers for Elsa. 
 
 On the fourth day Jos came to her. 
 
 She went down to her httle sitting-room, 
 and found him standing at the open window 
 with his back to her. She came in softly, 
 trembHng a httle. She would be very 
 gentle and sympathetic with him. She 
 would imply no reproach. As she entered 
 he turned slowly and faced her. The first 
 moment she did not recognise him. Then 
 she saw it was he. 
 
 Jos' face was sunk and pinched, and the 
 grey eyes were red with tears fiercely sup- 
 pressed by day, red with hard crying by 
 night. Now as they met hers they were 
 fixed, unfhnching in their tearless, enduring 
 agony, hke those of a man under the sur- 
 geon's knife. 
 
 " Oh ! Jos, don't take it so hard," said 
 ^lary, laying her hand on his arm. 
 
 She had never dreamed he would feel it 
 like this. She had thought that he would 
 see at once he had had a great escape. 
 
 He did not appear to hear her. He 
 
298 THE PITFALL 
 
 looked vacantly at her, and then recollected 
 himself, and sat down by her. 
 
 " You saw her last," he said, biting his 
 lips. 
 
 Mary's heart turned sick within her. 
 
 " The Lestranges saw her last," she said 
 hastily. He made an impatient movement. 
 He knew all that. 
 
 " You were with her all the afternoon on 
 the boat ? " 
 
 "Yes. But, of course, there were 
 numbers of ethers. I had many friends 
 whom I had to " 
 
 "Did you notice anything? Did you 
 have any talk with her ? Was she different 
 to usual ? " 
 
 "She does not generally talk much. She 
 was rather silent." 
 
 " You did not think she looked as if she 
 had anything on her mind." 
 
 " I couldn't say. I know her so very 
 slightly." Mary's voice was cold. 
 
 " She did not care for me," said Jos. " I 
 knew that aU along," and he put his scarred 
 hand over his mouth. 
 
THE PITFALL 299 
 
 ** She was not worthy of you." 
 
 He did not hear her. He took away his 
 hand and clenched it heavily on the other. 
 
 " I knew she didn't care," he said in a 
 level, passionless voice. " But I loved her. 
 From the first go-ofF I saw she was different 
 to other women. And I thought — I know 
 I'm only a rough fellow — but I thought 
 perhaps in time ... I'm not up to much, 
 but I would have made her a good husband 
 — and at any rate, I would have taken her 
 away from — her father. He said she was 
 willing. I — I tried to believe him. He 
 wanted to get rid of her — and — I wanted to 
 have her. That was the long and the short 
 of it. We settled it between us. . . . She 
 hadn't a chance in that house. I thought 
 I'd give her another — a home — where she 
 was safe. She had never had a mother to 
 tell her things. She had never had any up- 
 bringing at that French school. She had 
 no women friends. She had never known a 
 good woman, except her old nurse, till I 
 brought her to you, JNIary. I told her 
 you were good and gentle and loving, and 
 
SOO THE PITFALL 
 
 would be a friend to her; and that I had 
 known you all my life, and she might trust 
 
 you." 
 
 "She never liked me," said Mary. It 
 seemed to her that she must defend herself. 
 Against what ? Against whom ? 
 
 " If she had only confided in you," he 
 said. " I knew she was in trouble, but I 
 could not make out what it was. She was 
 such a child, and I seemed a long way off 
 her. I took her to plays and things after I 
 had seen them first, to be sure they were all 
 right; and she would cheer up for a little 
 bit — she liked the performing dogs. I had 
 thought of taking her there again ; but she 
 always sank back into low spirits. And I 
 knew that sometimes young girls do feel 
 shy about being married — it's a great step — 
 a lottery — that is what it is, a lottery — so I 
 thought it would all come right in time. I 
 never thought. I never guessed." Jos' 
 voice broke. " I see now I helped to push 
 her into it — but — I didn't know. ... If 
 only you had known that last afternoon, 
 and could have pleaded with her ... if 
 
THE PITFALL 301 
 
 only you had known, and could have held 
 her back — my white lamb, my little Elsa." 
 
 He ground his heel against the poHshed 
 floor. There was a long silence. 
 
 Then he got up and went away. 
 
 It was not until the end of July that JMary 
 saw him again. She heard nothing of him. 
 She only knew that he had left London. 
 He came in one evening late, and IVIary's 
 aunt discreetly disappeared after a few 
 minutes' desultory conversation. 
 
 He looked worn and aged, but he spoke 
 calmly, and this time he noticed JNIary's 
 existence. "You look pulled down," he 
 said kindly. " Has the season been too 
 much for you ? " 
 
 " It is not that," she said. " I have been 
 distressed because an old friend of mine is in 
 trouble." 
 
 He looked at her and saw that she had 
 suffered. A great compunction seized 
 him. He took her hand and kissed it. 
 
 " You are the best woman in the world," 
 he said. "Don't worry your kind heart 
 
S02 THE PITFALL 
 
 about me. I'm not worth it." Then he 
 moved restlessly away from her, and began 
 turning over the knick-knacks on the silver 
 table. 
 
 "Bethune has been tackled," he said 
 
 suddenly. " The Duke of did it, and 
 
 he has promised to marry her — if — if " 
 
 '* If what ? " 
 
 " If his wife will divorce him. The Duke 
 has got his promise in black and white." 
 
 " I don't think Lady Francis will divorce 
 him." 
 
 " N-no. I've been with her to-day for an 
 hour, but I couldn't move her. She doesn't 
 seem to see that it's — life or death — for 
 Elsa." 
 
 "You would not expect her under the 
 circumstances to consider Elsa." 
 
 "Yes, I should," said the simpleton. 
 "Why should not she help her? There 
 are no children, and she does not care for 
 Bethune. She never did. She ought to 
 release him for the sake of — others." 
 
 " I don't think she will." 
 
 "I want you to persuade her, Mary." 
 
THE PITFALL 303 
 
 Mary's heart swelled. This then was what 
 he had come about. 
 
 "Aren't you her gi'eatest friend? Do 
 put it before her plainly. I'm a blundering 
 idiot, and she seemed to think I had no 
 right to speak to her on the subject. 
 Perhaps I had not. I never thought of 
 
 that. I only thought of . But do 
 
 you go to her, and bring her to a better 
 mind." 
 
 " I will try," said IMary. 
 
 " I wish there were more women like you, 
 Maimie," he said, using for the first time 
 for years the pet name which he had called 
 her by when they were boy and girl 
 together. 
 
 JNIary went to I^ady Francis next day, 
 but she did not make a superhuman effort 
 to persuade her friend. She considered 
 that it was not desirable that Elsa should 
 be reinstated. If there were no punishment 
 for such misdemeanours, what would society 
 come to? For the sake of others, as a 
 warning, it was necessary that Elsa should 
 suffer. 
 
304 THE PITFALL 
 
 All she said to Lady Francis was: 
 " Are you going to divorce Lord Francis ? " 
 
 "No, my dear," said that lady with a 
 harsh Uttle laugh. "I am not. Not that 
 I could not get a divorce. He has been 
 quite brute enough, but if I did it would 
 be forgotten in about a quarter of an hour, 
 whether I had divorced him or he had 
 divorced me. I have a right to his name, 
 and I mean to stick to it. It's about all I've 
 got out of my marriage. I don't intend 
 to go about as a divorced woman under my 
 maiden name of Huggins. The idea does 
 not smile on me. Besides, I know Francis. 
 He will come back to me. He did — 
 before. He has not a shilhng, and he is 
 in debt. He can't get on without me. 
 I was a goose to marry him ; but still I am 
 the goose that lays the golden eggs." 
 
 Jos' parents sent Mary a pressing 
 invitation to stay with them after the 
 season. Mary went, and perhaps she 
 tasted something more like happiness in 
 that quiet old country house than she had 
 known for many years. Jos' father and 
 
THE PITFALL 805 
 
 mother were devoted to her, with that 
 devotion, artificial in its origin, but genuine 
 in its later stages, of parents who have 
 made up their minds that she was "the 
 one woman" for their son. Mary played 
 old Irish melodies in the evenings by the 
 hour, and sang sweetly at prayers. She 
 was always ready to listen to General 
 Carstairs' history of the fauna of 
 Dampshire, and to take an interest in 
 Mrs Carstairs' Sunday School. She had 
 a succession of the simplest white muslin 
 gowns (she could still wear white) and 
 wide-brimmed garden hats. JNIary in the 
 country was more rural than those who 
 abide in it all the year round. 
 
 Jos was often there. There was no 
 doubt about it. Jos was coming back to 
 his early allegiance. Perhaps his parents, 
 horrified by his single unaided attempt at 
 matrimony, were tenderly pushing him 
 back. Perhaps, in the entire exhaustion 
 and numbness that had succeeded the 
 shock of Elsa s defection, he hardly realised 
 
 what others were planning round him. 
 
 u 
 
S06 THE PITFALL 
 
 Perhaps when a man has been heartlessly 
 slighted he turns unconsciously to the 
 woman of whose undoubted love he is 
 vaguely aware. 
 
 Jos sat at Mary's feet, not metaphorically 
 but hterally, for hours together by the sun- 
 dial in the rose-garden; hardly speaking, 
 hke a man stunned. Still he sat there, 
 and she did her embroidery, and looked 
 softly down at him now and then. The 
 doors of the narrow, airless prison of her 
 love were open to receive him. They 
 would be married presently, and she 
 should make him give up the Army, and 
 become a magistrate instead. She would 
 never let him out of her sight. A wife's 
 place is beside her husband. She knew, 
 for how many wives compact of experience 
 had assured her during the evening hour 
 of feminine confidence when the back hair 
 is let down, that the perpetual presence 
 of the wife was the only safeguard for 
 the well-being of that mysterious creature 
 of low instincts, that half- tamed wild 
 animal, always liable to break away unless 
 
THE PITFALL 807 
 
 held in by feminine bit and bridle, that 
 irresponsible babe, that slave of impulse — 
 man. She would give him perfect freedom 
 of course. She should encourage him to 
 go into the Yeomanry, and she should 
 certainly allow him to go out without 
 her for the annual training. He would 
 be quite safe in a tent, sm-rounded by his 
 own tenantry; but, on other occasions, 
 she, his wife, would be ever by his side. 
 That was the only way to keep a man 
 good and happy. 
 
 • . • • • 
 
 Early in September Jos went away for 
 a few days' shooting. Mary, who generally 
 paid rounds of visits after the season at 
 dull country houses (she was not gi-eatly 
 in request at the amusing ones), still 
 remained with the Carstairs, who implored 
 her to stay on whene\xr she suggested 
 that she was paying them "a visitation." 
 
 Jos was to return that afternoon, for 
 General Carstairs was depending on him 
 to help to shoot his own partridges on the 
 morrow. But the afternoon passed, and 
 
THE PITFALL 
 
 Jos did not come. The next day passed, 
 and still no Jos. And no letter or 
 telegram. His father and mother were 
 silently uneasy. They said, no doubt he 
 had been persuaded to stay on where he 
 was, and had forgotten the shoot at home. 
 ISIary said, "No doubt," but a reasonless 
 fear gathered hke thin mist across her 
 heart. Where was he ? The letters that 
 had been forwarded to his last address all 
 came back. A week passed, and still no 
 Jos, and no answers to autocratic 
 telegrams. 
 
 Then suddenly Jos telegraphed from 
 London saying he should return early 
 that afternoon, and asking to be met at 
 the station. 
 
 When the time drew near, Mary 
 estabUshed herself with a book in the 
 rose-garden. He would come to her there, 
 as he had so often done before. The 
 roses were well-nigh over, but in their 
 place the sweet white faces of tlie Japanese 
 anemones were crowding up round the old 
 gi-ey sundial. The sunny windless air was 
 
THE PITFALL 309 
 
 full of the cawing of rooks. It was the 
 time and the place where a desultory love 
 might come by chance, and linger awhile, 
 not where a desperate love, brought to 
 bay, would wage one of his pRched battles. 
 Peace and rest were close at hand. Why 
 had she been fearful ? Surely all was well, 
 and he was coming back. He was coming 
 back. 
 
 She waited as it seemed to her for hours 
 before she heard the faint sound of his 
 dog-cart. She should see him in a moment. 
 He would speak to his parents, and then 
 ask where she was, and come out to her. 
 Oh 1 how she loved him ; but she must 
 appear calm, and not too glad to see him. 
 She heard his step — strong, light, alert, 
 as it used to be of old, not the slow, 
 dragging, aimless step of the last two 
 months. 
 
 He came quickly round the yew hedge 
 and stood before her. She raised her eyes 
 slowly from her book to meet his, a smile 
 parting her lips. 
 
 He was looking hard at her with burn- 
 
310 THE PITFALL 
 
 ing scorn and contempt in his lightning 
 grey eyes. 
 
 The smile froze on her lips. 
 
 " I have seen Elsa," he said. " I only 
 came back here for half-an-hour to — speak 
 to you." 
 
 A cold hand seemed to be pressed against 
 Mary's heart. 
 
 " I found by chance, the merest chance, 
 where she was," he continued. " I went 
 at once. She was alone, for Bethune has 
 gone back to his wife. I suppose you knew 
 he had gone back. I did not. I found 
 
 her- " He stopped as if the remembrance 
 
 were too acute, and then went on firmly. 
 " We had a long talk. She was in great 
 trouble. She told me everything, and how 
 he, that devil, had made love to her from 
 the first day she came back from school, and 
 how her father knew of it, and had obliged 
 her to accept me. And she said she knew 
 it was wrong to run away with him, but 
 she thought it was more wrong to marry 
 without love, and that the nearer the day 
 came tlie more she felt she must escape, 
 
THE PITFALL 311 
 
 and she seemed hemmed in on every side, 
 and she did love Bethune, and he had 
 sworn to her that he would marry her 
 directly he got his divorce, and that his 
 wife did not care for him, and would be 
 glad to be free, and that all that was 
 necessary was ^ little courage on her part. 
 So she tried to be brave — and — she said she 
 did not think at the time it could be so 
 very wicked to marry the person she really 
 loved, for you knew, and you never said a 
 word to stop her. She said you had many 
 opportunities of speaking to her on the boat, 
 and she knew you were so good, you would 
 certainly have told her if it was really so 
 veiy wicked." 
 
 '* I knew it was no use speaking," said 
 JNIary, hoarsely. 
 
 " You might have tried to save my wife 
 for my sake," said Jos. " You might have 
 tried to save her for her own. But you 
 didn't. I don't care to know your reasons. 
 I only know that — you did not do it. You 
 deliberately — let — her — drown." His eyes 
 flashed. The whole quiet, commonplace 
 
312 THE PITFALL 
 
 man seemed transfigured by some over- 
 mastering, ennobling emotion. "And I 
 have come to tell you that I think the 
 bad women are better than the good ones, 
 and that I am going back to Elsa ; to Elsa 
 — betrayed, deserted, outcast, my Elsa, who, 
 but for you, might still be like one of these." 
 He touched one of the white anemones with 
 his scarred hand. " I am going back to her 
 — and if — in time she can forget the past 
 and feel kindly towards me — I will marry 
 her." 
 
 And he did. 
 
 THE END 
 
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