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AT THE DOOR 
 OF THE GATE 
 
 BY 
 
 FORREST REID 
 
 " Whither shall I go from Thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from 
 Thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there: if I 
 make my bed in hell, behold. Thou art there. If I take the wings of 
 the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea ; even there 
 shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold me." 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 1916 
 
 [All rights reserved] 
 
TO 
 
 WALTER DE LA MARE 
 
 336832 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PART FIRST 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Mother, I-VIII . - - . . i 
 
 PART SECOND 
 
 PART FOURTH 
 Grace, I-VIII 
 
 . 6i 
 
 PART THIRD 
 Rose, I-VIII ----.. 139 
 
 - 213 
 
 PART FIFTH 
 The Flight, I-IV - - - - - - 263 
 
 PART SIXTH 
 The Vision, 1-VlI - - - - - - 297 
 
PART FIRST 
 THE MOTHER 
 
I 
 
 Mrs. Wilberforce strongly objected to Myrtle Row. 
 The eight cheap houses run up just at the end of 
 Blenheim Gardens by a greedy landlord of plebeian and 
 commercial instincts were a perpetual eyesore to her. In 
 Blenheim Gardens resided eminent physicians, successful 
 lawyers, distinguished professors, well-to-do business 
 men — the ^lite, in short, of the middle class — and here 
 for twenty years the Wilberforces themselves had lived, 
 occupying the house with the creeper, next door to 
 Professor Lanyon's; but in Myrtle Row there dwelt a 
 person who inspected gas-meters, a clerk, a postman, a 
 tram-conductor ; while number eight, a double-house (also 
 next door to Professor Lanyon's), stood revealed as a very 
 unpretending post-office and lending library. Both 
 Mrs. Wilberforce (whose grandfather had been a 
 General) and Professor Lanyon had given notice when, 
 in an incredibly short time. Myrtle Row had ceased to be 
 the mere scheme of a vulgar brain and had become a 
 conspicuous reality, and, though in due course their 
 notices were withdrawn, it was very widely felt that the 
 value of house property in the vicinity must have 
 depreciated, and the occupants of Blenheim Gardens had 
 unanimously and successfully demanded a reduction in 
 their rents. 
 
 As for Mrs. Wilberforce, in spite of this saving of five 
 
THE MOTHER 3 
 
 pounds a year, every time she passed Myrtle Row — and 
 she passed it usually half a dozen times a day — a keen 
 sense of displeasure was awakened in her breast. Nor 
 was this displeasure, on the whole, unjustifiable, for the 
 eight houses were ugly, jerry-built affairs, offering to the 
 eye no consolatory feature, and even if Mrs. Wilberforce's 
 main objections to them were based on grounds social 
 rather than aesthetic, still their unsightliness contributed 
 to her annoyance. What contributed even more was the 
 habit the women had of standing before their doors and 
 conversing with one another in loud tones, when they 
 were not screaming at the children who played noisy 
 games on the footpath. The favourite rallying spot of 
 these innocents seemed to be directly in front of Mrs. 
 Wilberforce's own garden gate. They were for ever 
 there, trailing clouds of glory, peeping over the hedge, 
 staring at her visitors, losing balls among her flower- 
 beds, appealing with unconquerable pertinacity to Mr. 
 Wilberforce for " cigarette pictures," which, " on 
 principle," were never bestowed. 
 
 Each house of Myrtle Row had its own little garden, 
 consisting largely of black iron railings and dirt, though 
 the postman's plot, invigorated by a load of manure, had 
 produced an eruption of marigolds and " piano roses," 
 as well as an active insect colony. The children of the 
 postman, two pert little girls, guarded this unsavoury 
 oasis jealously. " Lizzie Smith, don't you be coming 
 into our garden, or I'll tell my mother on you, y'impudent 
 thing, ye !" was what Mrs. Wilberforce overheard as she 
 passed. The little boys were more generous in their 
 hospitality. They kept " sprickleys " in tubs, and when 
 there was nothing more exciting on hand would invite 
 one another in to fish for these accommodating creatures, 
 
4 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 who, by the aid of baited pins attached to pieces of 
 string, could be recaptured any number of times. 
 
 Number 8 Myrtle Row, the end house, had a 
 distinctive appearance, not only because of its larger size, 
 but from the fact that a public letter-box had been fitted 
 into its front wall; while above the door there hung a 
 board upon which the words " Seawright's Lending 
 Library " were painted in white letters on a black 
 ground. On inquiry within you might obtain additional 
 information as to the terms upon which books were to be 
 borrowed. These terms were twopence per volume, with 
 a fine of one penny should the volume be retained for 
 more than a week. If you were Mrs. Wilberforce, how- 
 ever, you knew that Mrs. Seawright never exacted the 
 fine, and then you kept the books as long as it suited 
 you, usually for a month or two. It must be admitted, 
 nevertheless, that the lady in question had from the first 
 extended her unqualified patronage to Seawright's. Mrs. 
 Seawright she had frequently described as an admirable 
 woman of her class — she was very strong on classes — 
 polite, respectful, obliging. The Seawright children had 
 been extremely well brought up. Their clothes were 
 kept neatly mended and brushed ; they went regularly 
 to church; and the boys, moreover, were remarkably 
 handsome, though the younger boy was neither so 
 pleasant-looking nor so well-mannered as his brother. 
 The girl — really only an adopted child — was distinctly 
 plain. Uninteresting, Mrs. Wilberforce had decided, 
 after devoting a remarkable amount of ingenious research 
 in regard to her origin and prospects. Unfortunately, 
 in this connection, the question direct had not been met 
 with an equally open-hearted reply, and she had been 
 obliged to return to the subject by somewhat devious 
 
THE MOTHER 5 
 
 routes and a great deal oftener than should have been 
 necessary, thus laying the foundation of a certain 
 intimacy with Mrs. Seawright, which had gradually 
 ripened into what, had it not been for the General, might 
 almost have been termed a friendship. To-day, for 
 instance, it was in the friendliest manner possible that 
 she hazarded the opinion that the girl might make a 
 better use of her time than to be for ever playing the 
 piano. As she spoke, the sound of Grace Mallow's scales, 
 revealing on the part of the pianist a remarkable alacrity 
 of the thumb, descended from an upper room, to the 
 floor of which Mrs. Wilberforce raised her eyes prior to 
 transferring them to Mrs. Seawright's rather broad back. 
 In answer Mrs. Seawright produced the slightly dis- 
 concerting remark that if the girl were going to become 
 a professional musician she supposed that the more she 
 practised the better. This was the first time Mrs. 
 Wilberforce had heard of the " professional musician " 
 plan, and she felt an urgent and unaccountable desire 
 to squash it on the spot. Since it was impossible to do 
 so, she inquired, with some severity, the name of Grace's 
 teacher. There followed a second shock. The name 
 Mrs. Seawright so tranquilly mentioned happened to 
 be that of the most prominent musician in Belfast, a quite 
 unreasonable person, whose terms Mr. Wilberforce had 
 emphatically refused to pay when it had been a question 
 of his own daughters receiving instruction. And it 
 appeared that he was teaching Grace Mallow for 
 nothing. Mrs. Wilberforce that afternoon was unusually 
 bitter as she discussed with the Rev. Charles Escott the 
 problem of the education of the working classes, and not 
 at all inclined to fall in v/ith his paradoxical view that 
 children of the highest promise are frequently of humble 
 
6 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 origin. She put a settler on that by quoting to him his 
 " Duty towards his Neighbour " — the bits about keeping 
 to one's station in Hfe, etc. — and she was rather colder 
 than she intended to be when she explained to Mrs. 
 Seawright why the covers of " Concerning Isabel 
 Carnaby," which she was returning to the library, 
 presented so peculiar an appearance. The plain fact 
 was that " Isabel " had been dropped in the mud, and an 
 attempt to improve matters by the application of warm 
 water had not met with success. Mrs. Seawright, how- 
 ever, scarcely glanced at the blistered cloth or muddy 
 title-page. She said it was of no consequence, and, 
 seeing that Mrs. Wilberforce still lingered in the 
 shop, expressed a hope that Martin was giving satis- 
 faction. 
 
 " Martin ?" Mrs. Wilberforce echoed. Her tone gave 
 the repetition an effect of sharpness. Thin, angular, 
 with iron-grey hair and delicate, rather distinguished 
 features, she held herself as stiffly erect as the General 
 himself could ever have done. Her skirts were cut as if for 
 purposes of vigorous pedestrianism, but her shoes were 
 very high-heeled, and she leaned upon a gold-headed, 
 tapping, walking-stick. 
 
 " My eldest boy, ma'am," Mrs. Seawright dutifully 
 reminded her. " He's in the same office as Mr. 
 Wilberforce is. Mr. Wilberforce was so kind as to say 
 a good word for him when he applied to be taken on. . . . 
 He's been working there these six months." 
 
 " Oh ! I think I remember. . . . Mr. Wilberforce said 
 that it would be better if you put him to learn a trade, 
 didn't he ?" 
 
 Mrs. Seawright sighed. " It's not always easy picking 
 and choosing. His father wasn't a tradesman, and 
 
THE MOTHER 7 
 
 unless you've influence or can pay a premium they won't 
 take a boy nowadays." 
 
 All through this conversation the presumptive notes of 
 Grace's piano continued to sound, and it was really they 
 that for just a moment perhaps made it seem fitting that 
 Martin's prospects should not be any brighter than 
 they were. Mrs. Wilberforce's severity, however, had 
 distinctly relaxed when she asked : " And what are you 
 going to do with the other boy ? I suppose he'll be 
 leaving school soon." 
 
 " With Richard ? Indeed I don't know, ma'am. I'm 
 afraid he'll just have to take what comes. He's good at 
 his books, and Mr. Hayes, his teacher — he says that, with 
 him being so quiet, I should make a parson of him. But 
 I dare say he was joking — and of course it's only 
 foolishness any way," she added regretfully. " Who's to 
 pay for his college ? And, even if it could be done by 
 pinching here and there, it wouldn't be fair to Martin." 
 
 " No, no ; of course not," Mrs. Wilberforce agreed 
 hastily. This friendly inquiry into her protegees' 
 affairs had elicited, in spite of Mrs. Seawright's unassum- 
 ing manner, revelations of misplaced ambition such as 
 she had never dreamed of, and she decided not to push 
 it any farther. She left the post-office feeling vaguely 
 depressed and irritated, conscious of the General's 
 mouldering bones, and of how little they were able to 
 effect in an age given over to vulgarity and democracy. 
 
II 
 
 After a minute or two Mrs. Seawright followed her to 
 the door, and stood in the bright September sunlight 
 looking up and down the empty street. She was a 
 woman of medium height, strong and ruddy. There 
 were threads of grey in her black hair, though she was 
 not yet forty, and there were lines in her face, for life 
 had not always been easy — far from it. But her com- 
 plexion was clear, her eyes were clear too, and a little 
 stern. Her mouth was firm, with its thin lips slightly 
 compressed and drooping perceptibly at the corners ; her 
 hands were large, rough, capable. She was very plainly 
 dressed, always in black, with a big spotlessly clean 
 linen apron. 
 
 An odour of cooking told her that Bessie, the girl who 
 helped her, had again left the kitchen door open; or 
 perhaps Grace had opened it, for Mrs. Seawright could 
 no longer hear the piano. She was tired of telling them 
 about that door. As she stood there, tasting the fresh 
 air, she had all the appearance of a countrywoman, 
 though it was more than twenty years since she had left 
 Cresslough, where her father still farmed his own land, 
 and nearly every trace of rusticity had vanished from 
 her speech. 
 
 Grace was the first of the children to join her — Grace 
 Mallow, plain and thin, small for her age, pale and flat- 
 chested, with large serious intelligent eyes of a shade 
 between green and grey, and a good deal of silky brown 
 
 8 
 
THE MOTHER 9 
 
 hair. But in spite of her meagre appearance the 
 girl did not look unhealthy, nor even delicate. 
 Unfortunately, she had a disfigurement, a birth- 
 mark, like a deep wine stain, extending from the 
 roots of her hair down over her left temple. Her 
 hair was obviously arranged with a view to conceal- 
 ing this, but it could not be completely hidden. In her 
 early childhood she had cared little about it, had rarely 
 remembered its existence, even though reminded of it 
 from time to time by school companions in the stress of 
 argument. Now, at fifteen, she had begun to be pain- 
 fully, even morbidly, conscious of it. She was aware, 
 indeed, of the unattractiveness of her whole appearance, 
 which made her dread the scrutiny of strangers and 
 become self-conscious, timid, and gauche as soon as she 
 left the shelter of her own home. 
 
 " Have the boys come yet ?" she asked, advancing a 
 step or two down the path. Her voice was low and 
 slightly husky, but it had a veiled strange charm quite 
 impossible to describe. 
 
 " No ; an' the dinner '11 be spoiled if they don't come 
 soon." Mrs. Seawright's voice had no charm whatever. 
 " Martin told me he mightn't be home at all. He says 
 they're so thronged with work just now. I gave him 
 money to get his dinner at the cafe." 
 
 " He's always wanting to go to that cafe," said the 
 girl, thoughtfully. 
 
 " I expect the cooking's good." 
 
 She was perfectly certain that her own cooking was 
 much better (probably even Bessie's was), and she 
 thought that it was like Grace to leave the remark 
 unchallenged. 
 
 " Here's Ricky, at any rate," the girl murmured, with 
 
lo AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 a sudden and wonderful brightening of her whole 
 face. 
 
 "Look at him!" Mrs. Seawright ejaculated, sternly 
 eyeing the dilatory scholar, who, with one of his com- 
 panions, was carrying on a game of chestnuts ("cheesers," 
 as they called it), which brought them to a halt every few 
 yards. " For all he knows we might have begun dinner 
 ten minutes ago ! And then he'll come in and say he 
 was late getting out." 
 
 " Very likely he's seen us standing here," the girl 
 replied softly. 
 
 Richard and his friend had paused before Mrs. 
 Wilberforce's gate. In turn each boy held up a long 
 string with a chestnut dangling at the end, while the 
 other tried a shot at it. When the shot missed the 
 strings sometimes became entangled and there was a cry 
 of " Slingers ! " with now and then another word, pro- 
 duced more sotto voce^ from the boy who had been 
 " slung," that experience being a decidedly painful 
 one. 
 
 Presently the game came to an end; the "friend" 
 turned back; and Richard advanced alone. He was a 
 dark, brown-skinned boy, of Grace's own age, perhaps. 
 The perfection of his body, as admirable as that of a 
 youthful Greek divinity, was not entirely hidden by a 
 much worn and patched knickerbocker suit. In feature 
 he bore a faint resemblance to his mother, but the mouth 
 had a sulky expression that was accentuated by the 
 thick tumbled locks of loose black hair which dropped 
 down over the broad forehead, and by the eyes, which 
 were much darker even than eyes that are usually called 
 black. His ears projected like the handles of an urn on 
 either side of a tightly fitting cap worn at the back of his 
 
THE MOTHER n 
 
 head, and these ears were what invariably attracted his 
 mother's attention. When he had been a httle boy she 
 had tried to flatten them in to his skull by strips of 
 plaster, but this careful training had not produced the 
 result she had hoped for. Moreover, he had a trick of 
 moving them which distressed her almost ludicrously. 
 To the mother it seemed somehow to bring him into a 
 startlingly close relationship with the quadrupedal 
 world. She had a dim idea that such powers in a boy 
 who attended Sunday-school were illicit, the gifts of an 
 unspiritual creature, and, though she had never seen a 
 picture of a faun, she conjured up in her own mind a 
 vision of a being not wholly dissimilar to that happy 
 denizen of pagan woodlands. 
 
 All his muscles were under admirable control. He 
 could climb trees that other boys couldn't climb. He 
 had walked, after watching a cat do it, the entire length of 
 Myrtle Row upon a narrow parapet stretching from attic 
 to attic. She had nearly fainted when Martin had come 
 running in gleefully to describe this feat, and she had 
 made Richard promise never to do it again. But a little 
 later she had heard of his crossing the river on broken 
 ice, springing from block to block so quickly that he 
 had managed to reach the opposite bank in safety. Yet 
 he didn't play games such as cricket or football. For 
 that matter, none of the boys at his school seemed to 
 play the regulation games. They invented others of 
 their own; they went out cHmbing or swimming. 
 Richard himself was for ever pottering about a livery 
 stable where, so far as she could find out, he had made 
 the acquaintance of an undesirable person who appeared 
 to be training him as if to become a professional 
 pugilist or wrestler. It seemed strange that in spite of 
 
12 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 all this he should be fond of reading and high up in 
 his class at school. 
 
 None of these exploits appealed to her; nor did the 
 boy's character. It was Martin who was the apple of 
 her eye. Not because he was the handsomest boy she 
 had ever seen, though she was quite convinced of that 
 too, but because he was so bright and pleasant. 
 Richard would sit for hours without saying a word, and 
 she never knew what he was thinking about nor what he 
 had been doing. Martin always chattered and was gay, 
 described everything that had happened at school, and, 
 later, at the office — what so-and-so had said, what so-and- 
 so had done. The two brothers went each his own 
 way, and these ways seemed never at any point to 
 meet. They were as completely out of sympathy as 
 only those can be who are temperamentally opposed 
 and at the same time obliged to live together. Mrs. 
 Seawright conceived it to be the younger brother's 
 fault. 
 
 " What are you standing out here for ?" Richard 
 demanded, as he came up, swinging his books. 
 
 " Why don't you come straight home ? Then we 
 wouldn't have to be out looking for you," his mother 
 returned. 
 
 The boy, instead of replying, stood gazing down the 
 road. "Here's Martin — on a car!" he suddenly 
 ejaculated in startled tones. 
 
 The woman and the girl wheeled round, and in an 
 extraordinary silence all three stood with their eyes fixed 
 in the same direction. Martin, as they saw, was not 
 alone, but accompanied by one of his friends, Charlie 
 McGlade, and as soon as the car stopped Charlie jumped 
 down. " He's hurt," he called out quickly to the three 
 
THE MOTHER 13 
 
 standing on the path. Next moment he and the carman 
 were helping, almost lifting, Martin down. 
 
 Richard had a strange sick feeling, but his first 
 glance was at his mother's face. She had swung open 
 the gate while the others supported Martin, who, white 
 as paper, managed to smile faintly. They carried him 
 up to the house, and disappeared indoors. Grace and 
 Mrs. Seawright followed, but Richard stood by the 
 horse's head. It was not till the carman had returned 
 that he ran up after them to the bedroom. 
 
 "We were just gettin' on a tram," Charlie McGlade 
 was explaining. " I was on, an' he was gettin' on, when 
 a cart shaft hit him in the back. The horse was walking 
 at the time, and Martin said he wasn't hurt. He went 
 up to the top just like as if there was nothing the matter, 
 an' then he fainted." 
 
 "I'll be all right," Martin whispered feebly. "It's 
 when I move." 
 
 Mrs. Seawright had turned to Richard. " You and 
 Charlie help him to undress. I'm going to see if I can 
 catch Doctor Robinson before he goes out." She hastened 
 away, and when, a few minutes later, she returned, Martin 
 was safely in bed. 
 
 Charlie now stood by the window smiling, because he 
 always smiled. Richard, solemn-eyed, gazed down from 
 the foot of the bed at his brother lying there. " Charlie, 
 I'm much obliged to you," Mrs. Seawright began. 
 " Richard, you and Grace go on with dinner. The 
 doctor'll be here in a minute, and I'll come down after 
 he's gone." 
 
 " Come back to-night, Charlie, if you've nothing 
 particular on," Martin murmured, as his chum was leav- 
 ing the room. He closed his eyes, but opened them 
 
14 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 again immediately. " Richard or somebody had better 
 *phone to the office to say I won't be down till the 
 morning." 
 
 "All right; Til telephone," Richard gurgled oddly. 
 He ran down quickly after Charlie, who had almost 
 tumbled into the arms of Grace and the open-mouthed, 
 loudly breathing Bessie, as they stood waiting at the 
 foot of the narrow, steep staircase. 
 
Ill 
 
 Richard lounged moodily about the shop and the 
 kitchen. The doctor had made his examination, and they 
 all knew now that Martin had had a very narrow 
 escape. He might easily have been killed, in fact he 
 would have been killed had the horse not been walking 
 at the time. As it was, he was badly hurt. The blunt 
 shaft had struck him below the ribs and above the thigh 
 bone, j ust where there was no protection, and his kidneys 
 had been bruised. He must lie on his back, quite still ; 
 he must eat nothing — a little milk and potash, that was 
 all he was to get at present. And it would be weeks 
 before he would be well enough to go back to his work. 
 
 Mrs. Seawright was up in Martin's room; Grace was 
 reading (she was not allowed to practise, for the house 
 must be kept perfectly quiet); Bessie was in the shop. 
 Richard thought of going out. He had already been to 
 the chemist's and back, and there was nothing else he 
 would be wanted for — at any rate, Grace was there. The 
 girl irritated him as she sat so quietly over her book, 
 raising her big greenish eyes from time to time to rest 
 them upon his face. She spoke in whispers when she 
 spoke at all, and so did Bessie, though in the latter case 
 it was like a horse trying to whisper. He glanced at 
 the clock and saw that it was nearly five. He put on 
 his cap. " I'm going out," he said abruptly, and 
 disappeared. 
 
 When he came back he found everything more or less 
 
 15 
 
i6 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 as he had left it, save that during his absence the table 
 had been laid for tea. His mother was still upstairs; 
 the shop was closed; Bessie had gone home. He and 
 Grace sat down to tea together. 
 
 " How is he ?" he asked. 
 
 " Just the same. Mr. Escott was here." 
 
 "What for?" 
 
 " He had heard about the accident. ... He stayed 
 for nearly twenty minutes — with Martin : and he prayed 
 down here with us." 
 
 " With you and Bessie ?" He suppressed a sudden 
 inclination to laugh. 
 
 " With mother and me. Mother asked him to. Mrs. 
 Wilberforce called ; everybody seems to have heard." 
 
 Richard did not answer, but as he ate his bread-and- 
 butter his mind was busy. 
 
 " Martin's not in danger^ is he ?" he suddenly asked. 
 
 "No; I don't think so. But you heard the doctor 
 saying what a narrow escape he had had. . . . Mother 
 told Mr. Escott that she thought it was a miracle." 
 
 He regarded her dreamily. He had promised to go 
 round to the stables that night, and he was speculating 
 as to how the keeping of this engagement would appear 
 to the others. There were some new fox-terrier pups, 
 and he had been promised one. He had accepted it, but 
 had said nothing about it at home, because he knew his 
 mother disliked dogs. Better just to bring it round 
 without saying anything. 
 
 Grace, meanwhile, had cleared away the tea-things, 
 and she now began to wash them up. When she came 
 back to the kitchen she said : "Charlie McGlade called on 
 his way home." 
 
 The subdued, solemn tone of her voice seemed to him 
 
THE MOTHER 17 
 
 affected and mawkish ; he hated such femininity. " What 
 do you talk as if you were in church for ?" he asked 
 rudely. " It won't do Martin any good." As soon as 
 he had spoken he felt ashamed. 
 
 Grace's green eyes rested on him, but she made no 
 reply, and her silence, with its effect of meekness, of 
 " turning the other cheek," brought him to his feet. He 
 took his school-books from the shelf, and tumbled them 
 down on the table with a bang. 
 
 Her face was charged with mild reproach. " Oh, 
 
 Ricky ! What do you want to make such a noise for !" 
 
 " I don't," he growled angrily, " but I don't see any 
 
 use in all this dreariness, and I can't stand it — especially 
 
 when it's put on." 
 
 " Aren't you sorry ?" Grace asked him. 
 He was furious. " I can be sorry without sticking on 
 a face a yard long and talking in whispers. It's just 
 like you. You can never take things naturally, no 
 matter what they are; you must always work them up 
 and make the most of them." 
 
 Before Grace could reply the door softly opened and 
 Mrs. Seawright came in. " He's sleeping now/' she said 
 quietly, as she turned up the lamp and brought out a 
 basketful of stockings and socks that needed darning. 
 
 Richard opened two or three books, while Grace and 
 his mother talked in subdued voices about Martin, 
 about the doctor, about Mr. Escott, about what Charlie 
 had said when he had called the second time, about what 
 Mrs. Wilberforce had said — the mother repeating the 
 same things over and over again, and Grace listening 
 inscrutably : — she could always listen. For a moment 
 he decided that he hated her. . . . 
 
 He got up and stretched out his hand for his cap. 
 
i8 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 which hung on a peg near the kitchen press. He had a 
 few seconds of intense anxiety while he took a step 
 towards the door, but just as his fingers touched the 
 handle his mother looked up calmly from her work. 
 
 " Where are you going to ?" she asked. 
 
 " I'm goin' out," he muttered indistinctly, his speech 
 getting broader in his agitation. " Jimmy Boal's fox- 
 terrier bitch's had pups, an' he wants me to choose one." 
 He stared at liis boots, blushing. " He told me to come 
 to-niglit if I wanted one." 
 
 " How can you think of fox-terriers with Martin lying 
 dangerously ill !" 
 
 He shuffled his feet, turning his cap round and round 
 in his hands guiltily. " Jimmy told me to come," he 
 repeated. " What harm would it do ?" 
 
 " You see quite enough of Jimmy at other times, and a 
 good deal more than enough. I don't want you to be 
 going there at all — a boy like you with a lot of men — 
 grooms and such. They're not fit company for you. 
 How do I know what you pick up there ! Martin himself 
 told me only yesterday that you oughtn't to be going. 
 Stop twitching your ears like a rabbit, and put away 
 that cap." 
 
 " Jimmy tol' me," he repeated, with the maddening 
 monotony of an obstinate boy. 
 
 To his mother his callousness seemed appalling. " I 
 don't care what Jimmy told you. I'm telling you now. 
 Sit down there to your books." 
 
 " He promised to let me have the pick if I came. If 
 I'm not there he'll give them all away to the others." 
 
 " The pick of what ?" 
 
 " Th' pups." 
 
 " Pups ! What have you got to do with pups ? You 
 
THE MOTHER 19 
 
 know very well that I won't have a dog in the house. 
 Now of all times, too, with Martin to be kept perfectly 
 quiet. Really, I'm astonished at you, Richard !" 
 
 "It wouldn't do Martin any harm. They won't be 
 ready for bringing away just yet." 
 
 His mother sighed. " I wonder you're not ashamed 
 to be so obstinate. You can tell Jimmy the next time 
 you see him that you're not allowed to keep a dog. You 
 might have told him before. You're far too great with 
 Jimmy, that's what it is. Put away your cap, and don't 
 let me have to speak to you again." 
 
 He did not move. The vision of the pups rose before 
 him, little animated balls of white fur, quaint, delightful ; 
 and his lip trembled. " I'd be back in an hour," he 
 muttered. 
 
 Mrs. Seawright did not look up. 
 
 " What difference would it make to Martin if I went ?" 
 
 He still stood there, all the hopes that he had cherished 
 for a fortnight back suddenly dashed to the ground by 
 what seemed to him his mother's unreasonableness. To 
 her, however, he appeared only sullen and disobedient, 
 and as she thought of the boy lying upstairs, who had 
 been so near to death, she felt a curious bitterness against 
 him. 
 
 " Are you going to stand there for the rest of the 
 evening ?" she asked coldly. " If you've no feeling for 
 your brother, you might at least try to hide your want 
 of it." 
 
 He flushed angrily, but he hung his cap up on its peg 
 and went back to his seat at the table. He bent over 
 his books, not daring to look up for fear Grace should be 
 watching him. The hours dragged on miserably. He 
 could not work, because his mind brooded on what he 
 
20 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 considered to be his mother's injustice, and he felt a 
 smouldering resentment against Martin. 
 
 As for Mrs. Seawright, she knew that he was only 
 pretending to be busy. When she had finished the 
 stocking she was mending, she placed it on one side and 
 searched through the heap of those lying still undarned 
 on the table at her elbow. Once only her eyes rested 
 upon Richard, and at that moment he seemed an utter 
 stranger to her. The impression was brief, but while 
 it lasted it affected her almost with fear. She did not 
 understand him, but she knew and understood the boy 
 who was lying upstairs, and her heart went out to Martin 
 in a passion of pity and yearning. 
 
 The evening dragged on, restless, broken by listenings 
 and whisperings, while they seemed to be perpetually 
 waiting, though for what nobody could have said. At 
 ten o'clock Mrs. Seawright went up again to Martin's 
 room. The boy and girl sat on, Richard still with his 
 books spread out before him, his elbows on the table, his 
 chin between his hands. Supper was laid, but nobody 
 appeared in a hurry to begin. He glanced up and 
 became conscious of Grace's hastily averted eyes. 
 " What are you watching me all the time for ?" he asked, 
 ready to resume their quarrel. 
 
 The girl flushed. " Why are you so cross, Ricky ? I 
 didn't know I was watching you. It's rather hard to 
 please you sometimes." 
 
 He grunted a reply that might have been anything. 
 He was conscious of his own ungraciousness; he felt 
 lonely and deserted ; but a stubborn pride kept him from 
 meeting Grace's advances. " Fm sorry about the dogs,** 
 she said softly, keeping back the faint smile that 
 trembled at the corners of her lips. 
 
THE MOTHER 21 
 
 At this his indignation found vent. "It's not the 
 dogs — I don't care about the dogs ! But you'd think 
 I'd committed some crime by wanting to go out for an 
 hour. What harm would it have done? What good 
 has my sitting here all evening done ?" 
 
 Grace tried to pacify him. " Mother didn't mean 
 anything," she explained. "Only, she's so anxious 
 about Martin." She crossed the room and put her arms 
 round his shoulder. She felt a deep pleasure as her lips 
 touched the clear, smooth, brown skin of his cheek. He 
 was angry, and his eyes were extraordinarily beautiful 
 when he was angry, with little sparks of gold light 
 floating in their sooty darkness. Once, a few weeks 
 ago, she had dreamed that he was angry with her, that 
 he had struck her, and had then, in his remorse, been 
 infinitely tender. She had awakened trembling with a 
 strange joy that she had not understood and yet had 
 half understood. Her cheeks had been wet with tears. 
 
 The sound of a footstep upon the creaking stair made 
 her draw back quickly. Mrs. Seawright came in. 
 " He's still asleep," she told them. " I've made up the 
 fire. ... Be very quiet, Richard, when you're un- 
 dressing." 
 
 " You're not going to sit up, mother, are you ?" Grace 
 asked. " The doctor said there was no need to." 
 
 " I can look after him," said Richard, sulkily. 
 
 The mother smiled. " You'd better get your sleep. I 
 expect I'll be in once or twice to see that everything's all 
 right, so that if you hear me you'll know what it is." 
 
 They said good-night, and he and Grace went 
 upstairs, while down in the hall Mrs. Seawright locked 
 and bolted the front door. 
 
 Richard entered the bedroom on tip-toe. There was 
 
22 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 no need to light a candle, for the fire was blazing, and 
 he undressed before it, and put on his nightshirt. He 
 stepped softly over to Martin's bed and looked down 
 at his brother lying there asleep. In the firelight he was 
 not very pale, not nearly so pale as Richard had 
 expected to see him. He gazed at him for a few 
 moments, and then returned to the fire. He did not feel 
 sleepy. Dark shadows flickered over the walls, and the 
 brass knobs of Martin's bed-posts gleamed like the gold 
 in a treasure cave. In the deep quiet the only sound was 
 the sound of the burning coals. He felt forlorn and 
 miserable. What his mother had said to him still 
 rankled in his mind. She had always cared more for 
 Martin — always — always. Then suddenly he realized 
 that mstead of pitying his brother he was cherishing a 
 feeling of anger against him. Instantly he was filled 
 with remorse. He remembered all their past disagree- 
 ments, all his past unfriendliness. Suppose Martin 
 should die ! If he died he would perhaps go to hell ! 
 The thought stabbed him into wakefulness. He saw it 
 in all its horror — Martin writhing and moaning in 
 abominable torments. And he had no doubt at all now 
 that if Martin died he would go to hell — just as he him- 
 self would, supposing he were at this moment to be 
 killed. He knelt down and prayed, prayed that Martin 
 might get well. A thought occurred to him, that 
 perhaps God would spare his brother if he were to offer 
 himself as a substitute. No sooner had the idea come 
 into his mind than it loomed up with a sort of sinister 
 plausibility, as if to compel him to make a choice. He 
 tried to put it from him, but a voice within him 
 whispered, " You must choose now. If you keep silent, 
 that means that you are asking God to let Martin die. 
 
THE MOTHER 23 
 
 You must either offer to die for him or refuse to do so. 
 Are you willing to die instead of your brother ? If not, 
 what are you doing there on your knees? You know 
 that your mother would prefer it, so that there are two 
 against one. Decide then ; don't be a hypocrite. Is it 
 to be Martin or you ?" 
 
 A crowd of old jealousies swept up in his mind, like 
 fallen leaves in a gust of wind, and he scrambled to his 
 feet. He remembered all the innumerable little details 
 that went to make up the formidable total of his sense 
 of wrong. It was as if this last choice, too, had 
 been forced sardonically upon him by Martin. He 
 remembered how if he had ever made a friend it was 
 only a matter of time before that friend turned from him 
 to his brother. It was as if Martin attracted them 
 deliberately. He was sure, indeed, that sometimes he 
 had done this. He had watched the charm acting again 
 and again, too proud to make any struggle to retain 
 what was not given freely. Why, even Charlie McGlade 
 had been his friend first. Martin was the only person 
 who knew that he was jealous, and the knowledge 
 amused and pleased him. . . . And he had nothing in 
 him; nothing really but this inexplicable power to 
 attract people. He was not stupid, but he was shallow 
 and unintelligent. It was only a few months ago since 
 he had had himself tattooed — an elaborate design upon 
 his body. He had saved up, he had suffered consider- 
 able pain, in order to have it done, and he was as proud 
 of it as if it had been some rare distinction. Richard 
 had been sworn to secrecy because it was impossible to 
 hide it from him, and on certain suitable occasions, when 
 a door could be locked and privacy secured, Martin 
 would divest himself of his clothing and exhibit this 
 
24 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 rare work of art to his more intimate chums. What a 
 fool! 
 
 He started, once more shocked by the sense that he 
 was sinning against his brother, thinking unkindly of 
 him. It was horrible. He curled himself up before the 
 hre, and lay gazing at the moving flames. Gradually 
 he grew drowsy, and at last he fell asleep. But his sleep 
 was uneasy, and his brain still continued to work. It 
 seemed to him that he was standing in an immense and 
 stifling darkness. He could see nothing, but he 
 knew that he stood on the edge of an abyss empty, 
 bottomless, the very abyss of space. In his mind a sense 
 of wrong still burned, though he had forgotten the cause 
 >f his anger, knowing only that someone had done him a 
 supreme injury. He wanted to draw back from the 
 gulf at his feet, but he could not. And then, 
 from an infinite depth below, there rose a cry, faint, 
 prolonged, and in the end suddenly and unexpectedly 
 rising to a scream. It was Martin's voice. He stood 
 motionless and trembling, his anger beaten back by a 
 cold wave of dread. He remembered now, clearly and 
 abominably, that he had pushed Martin over, had thrust 
 him down to death. And yet he was not dead, he would 
 never die, and the crying all at once grew plaintive and 
 thin, like the whimpering of a child, and at last like the 
 shrill whistling of a lonely wind. 
 
 He started up, wakened by the horror of his dream. 
 Nothing had changed, yet he felt a difference. His 
 glance turned first to the bed where Martin still lay 
 quietly sleeping ; then to the fire which had burned to a 
 deep red glow. He heard the kitchen clock strike two ; 
 he must have slept for nearly three hours. A sudden 
 uneasiness seized him, and he rose and softly approached 
 
THE MOTHER 25 
 
 the bedside. Martin lay on his back, but with his head 
 turned partially round on the white pillow. His long 
 black eyelashes were shghtly parted, yet when Richard 
 bent down he could not see the dark eyes, but only a 
 faint gleam of silver— a tiny silver streak, like the thin 
 edge of a crescent moon. He had a sudden fear, and 
 bent lower still, listening for Martin's breathing. He 
 could hear no sound, and just then the fire fell in with 
 a little crash, and a flame flickered up, throwing a rest- 
 less band of light across the bed. He touched Martin 
 very softly, putting his hand over his breast, but he could 
 feel no feeblest flutter there. Richard sank on his knees 
 and hid his face in the bedclothes. A dry sob escaped 
 him, though he shed no tears. He had murdered his 
 brother ; he was a murderer ; he was damned. He made 
 no attempt to call anybody. Martin was dead, and he 
 had killed him, had killed him by his wicked thoughts. 
 God had heard them, and now for the rest of his life 
 he would be like Cain. 
 
 There was a movement and a faint sigh from the boy 
 lying in the bed. Richard's heart leaped. He put out 
 his hand and took his brother's. It was warm, and 
 Martin's eyes opened wide. His mouth opened, too, as 
 if to call out, but the sound that issued through his 
 parted lips was thin and faint as the rustle of a dry leaf. 
 " Who's there ? What is it ?" he whispered. 
 
 « It's me— Ricky." 
 
 But Martin had already dropped asleep again. A 
 deep breath of thankfulness came from the kneeling boy. 
 He still held his brother's hand, and he pressed his lips 
 to it passionately and suddenly began to cry, noise- 
 lessly, childishly, burying his face in the counterpane. 
 He lifted his head at the sound of the opening door, and 
 
26 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 the taste of his own tears was salt upon his tongue. It 
 was his mother. She came in very quietly, a lighted 
 candle in her hand. She saw him at once. 
 
 " What are you doing, child, out of bed ?" she asked 
 softly. " Is anything the matter ?" 
 
 Richard got up. A sudden shame at being found 
 there, kneeling beside Martin, made him angry and shy. 
 He was angry with his mother for having detected 
 him — she might even have noticed that he had been 
 crying. 
 
 But Mrs. Seawright was too preoccupied with Martin 
 to think of anything else. She bent down over the 
 sleeping boy, shielding the candlelight from him, and 
 her hard face grew infinitely tender. Then the 
 wretched thought flashed into Richard's mind, " She 
 never looked like that at me," and he drew back, his 
 face stiffening into a dark pride even while the tears were 
 still wet upon his cheeks. His mother busied herself for 
 a minute or two, smoothing the bedclothes. When she 
 turned to the fire and began noiselessly to put on fresh 
 coal Richard was already in bed. 
 
 " Why aren't you asleep ?" she asked him. " Aren't 
 you comfortable ?" 
 
 " Quite comfortable, thanks," he answered coldly. " I 
 only got up for a minute." 
 
 She had been going to kiss him, but the coldness in 
 his voice discouraged her, and she only gave him a 
 rather sad " Good-night " as she closed the door behind 
 her. 
 
 Then upon the room she had just quitted a profound 
 silence fell. Once only it was broken by a strange, 
 disquieting sound, as of a sharply caught breath, a sound 
 that unpleasantly suggested the presence of something in 
 
THE MOTHER 27 
 
 pain. It was not repeated, though there followed a 
 faint rustling, such as might be made by a person 
 wrapping himself more closely, more comfortably maybe, 
 among his bedclothes ; and the sound, after all, had been 
 so muffled that there was little chance of its having 
 awakened Martin. 
 
IV 
 
 It was three weeks before Martin was on his feet again, 
 looking very white and thin, and it would be another 
 three weeks, the doctor said, before he would be really 
 fit to go back to work. Then one evening, to the 
 surprise of everybody, the grandfather from Cresslough 
 turned up, a rough, rheumatic old man, smelling strongly 
 of spirituous refreshment imbibed during the journey, 
 and with a skin like dirty leather. He had received 
 Mrs. Seawright's letter, and had come with the intention 
 of taking the invalid back with him. In honour of " the 
 old boy's " visit — it was the first and last he ever paid 
 at Myrtle Row — Richard stayed at home from school 
 next morning, and, as the hours passed and the "old 
 boy " grew more and more difficult to entertain, the day 
 took on an increasing likeness to Sunday, an illusion 
 fostered by the combined influences of roast beef, best 
 clothes, and the tediousness of having to sit still and 
 do nothing. Fortunately, the traveller departed at one 
 o'clock, and to beguile the long afternoon Mrs. Seawright 
 proposed a walk in the country. They could leave 
 Bessie in charge of the post-office. She and Grace would 
 go at any rate ; Richard might do as he pleased. Only, 
 if he wasn't coming, he was to change his clothes. 
 Accompanied by Grace she went upstairs to put on her 
 bonnet and dolman, leaving her son, in a divided frame 
 of mind, kicking his heels against the legs of a kitchen 
 chair. 
 
 38 
 
THE MOTHER 29 
 
 "Where are you going to?" he asked, when his 
 mother reappeared. 
 
 Mrs. Seawright suggested the cemetery, an exhilarating 
 idea that found favour with both Grace and Richard. 
 They started in the cold bright October weather, after 
 giving Bessie repeated instructions concerning the 
 kitchen fire. Autumn was well advanced. The scarlet 
 creeper that covered Mrs. Wilberforce's house had 
 already lost some of its leaves, though there were still 
 a few yellow roses in the garden, and next door Professor 
 Lanyon's dahlias and purple clematis were magnificent. 
 Mrs. Seawright and her companions — one on either side 
 of her — walked briskly, for the air was sharp. They 
 made directly for the cemetery, which was situated on 
 an open stretch of rising ground at the foot of the Black 
 Mountain. They crossed the dreary expanse of the l.x)g 
 meadows, passed the Cats' and Dogs' Home and tlie 
 huge football-ground, with its hideous walls of 
 corrugated iron, emerging on the upper road at a spot 
 directly opposite the cemetery gates. Here the ground 
 rose steeply, its green surface broken by innumerable 
 white and grey monuments, and threaded with dark 
 trim paths. The hard silhouettes of a few cypresses, and 
 the softer outlines of the trees in the park alongside, 
 stood out against a pale blue sky; while beyond, yet 
 quite close, was a dark low range of hills, the air from 
 which blew down, fresh and cold. Now and then a puff 
 of wind sent a shower of dead leaves whirling and 
 dancing over the grass beneath the park wall, and it was 
 in this direction that Mrs. Seawright, slowly and with 
 many pauses, bent her steps. At length she came to a 
 standstill before a grave which, like most of its com- 
 panions hereabouts, was undistinguished by any 
 
30 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 memorial stone. It was so long since Richard had 
 visited it last that by himself he could not have found it, 
 but he knew it was the grave in which his father lay. In 
 this portion of the cemetery, allotted to the poorer 
 classes, no cypresses grew, but the trees, a little thinned 
 by autumn gales, were planes and beeches. Between 
 their branches the grounds of the park were visible, while 
 with every puff of wind dead leaves were whirled in 
 showers about the graves and along the cinder paths. 
 Here they danced, rustled, pirouetted, fluttered like 
 brown desiccated butterflies, before they took up a 
 temporary resting-place in some sheltered nook, or under 
 the lee of the wall. A faint damp smell arose, filled with 
 suggestions of melancholy and languor. 
 
 A bird alighted upon Mr. Seawright's grave, and 
 began to hop about among the long grass. All at once it 
 ducked its head sharply, and next moment they could 
 see it dragging up an enormous worm, which it valiantly 
 proceeded to swallow. Richard laughed, but when he 
 glanced at his mother and Grace he saw that they looked 
 shocked. 
 
 They walked on, making a circuit of the place. A 
 woman in black, heavily veiled, was bending over a 
 freshly made grave, arranging some draggled white 
 chrysanthemums in a jam-pot, with movements infinitely 
 slow and listless. The caretaker, in uniform, passed 
 behind her, and when he had walked on for half a dozen 
 paces, turned and stared brutally. From the road 
 below came the noise of passing trams. 
 
 Up at the north end of the enclosure a burial service 
 was being conducted. In the green grass the dark, 
 gaping hole, with a pile of red earth beside it, looked 
 strangely sinister. The coffin was lowered as they 
 
THE MOTHER 31 
 
 passed, and they heard the grating sound of the rope 
 rasping against the wood, and the words of the clergy- 
 man, " Earth to earth, ashes to ashes," followed by the 
 hollow pattering of a handful of soil dropped by the 
 gravedigger. 
 
 It was all very ugly and depressing, yet Mrs. 
 Seawright seemed to derive a deep pleasure from gazing 
 at the tombstones. The more elaborate of these she 
 pronounced " beautiful," or " very handsome," as seemed 
 fitting, and sometimes she even hazarded a guess as to 
 what they might have cost. Richard was sure that 
 secretly she yearned to put a stone up over his father's 
 grave. This, indeed, was precisely what Mrs. Sea- 
 wright had in mind as she wandered in and out among 
 the maze of crossing paths. The fact that she considered 
 her husband to have been a poor specimen of humanity 
 in no way diminished the pleasure she derived from 
 erecting, in imagination, something " beautiful " to 
 commemorate him, something " very handsome " that 
 people would stop to admire, with his name in black 
 letters and spaces left for the names of others not yet 
 deceased. She pondered appropriate texts — " The Lord 
 gave, and the Lord hath taken away : blessed be the 
 name of the Lord. . . ." 
 
 Richard sat down on one of the benches. Below the 
 cemetery, and beyond the bog meadows, the town, laid 
 out in uniform streets of little red houses, had in the clear 
 air a quaint appearance that reminded him of the towns 
 he used, not so very long ago, to build out of toy bricks ; 
 but farther to the left, above the city proper, hung a blue 
 cloud of smoke, through which tall mill chimneys and 
 the grey spires of churches pierced, slender and dark. 
 Farther still, over Belfast Lough, the atmosphere cleared 
 
32 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 again, and the clouds, streaked with silver, drifted like 
 fantastic birds, the swan-maidens of fairyland. The boy 
 saw beauty in all this, but he could see none in the 
 marble angel with the broken harp that his mother 
 called upon Grace and himself to admire. 
 
 Sitting there, waiting for the others, his thoughts 
 wandered to his dead father. This person, it was 
 probable, had been, to say the least, unsatisfactory in life, 
 but death had thrown a romantic haze about him. His 
 idea of his father — who had died when Richard was six 
 — was indeed of a rather brilliant, delightful person, 
 always coming and going in an exciting atmosphere of 
 presents. The presents may or may not have been 
 acquired at other people's expense, but that seemed 
 somehow to matter little now, and the actual circum- 
 stances of his death made him pitiful and human. 
 Richard was the more inclined to this view because he 
 guessed that his father had never been forgiven; 
 certainly his name was never by any chance mentioned. 
 All the details of that futile, hopeless story had been 
 carefully kept from the children, but enough had leaked 
 out to give Richard a general idea of what had 
 happened. Poor Mr. Seawright, showy, weak, and un- 
 deniably amiable, had been entrusted with the collection 
 of moneys of some kind, and there had been dishonesty, 
 exposure, perhaps even a prosecution. It was all vague, 
 and in a sense unreal; some day, maybe, he would ask 
 Mr. Escott, but he could never question his mother. . . . 
 " Don't you think we had better be going soon ?" he 
 at last suggested, seeing patient Grace and Mrs. 
 Seawright gravitating slowly towards yet another angel. 
 " Well, I suppose they'll be shutting in a few minutes." 
 Mrs. Seawright admitted this reluctantly ; but the light 
 
THE MOTHER 33 
 
 was waning, and they appeared to have the place now 
 entirely to themselves. Even the caretaker had 
 vanished, and the heavy clang of an iron gate in the 
 distance suddenly startled them. They hurried down 
 the steep path to the main entrance. " How lonely it 
 must be here at night !" the boy thought, with a slight 
 shiver. He wondered what it would be like an hour 
 after the last person was gone. The appalling stillness 
 rose before him — a stillness broken perhaps by sinister 
 rustlings and tappings; and as they passed the little 
 chapel he thought it even now looked ghostly and 
 different, could imagine a pallid light suddenly appear- 
 ing in one of the windows. 
 
 But out on the main road, and with the noise of trams, 
 and the light of street-lamps to make the darkness warm 
 and living, these gruesome fancies vanished. It was on 
 their way home that his mother, without any pre- 
 liminaries, produced the startling question, " How would 
 you like to leave school, Richard, and go to business ?" 
 
 31 
 
" To leave school !" he echoed blankly, but a glance at 
 Grace told him that the question had already been dis- 
 cussed in all its bearings. 
 
 " You're old enough," Mrs. Seawright continued. " If 
 you have to serve your time the way Martin has, you'll 
 be past twenty before you begin to earn anything worth 
 talking about." 
 
 He was silent, overwhelmed. " When do you want me 
 to leave ?" he asked at length, in the subdued tones of 
 one facing the inevitable. 
 
 His manner vexed Mrs. Seawright. It was as if he 
 thought she were condemning him to some unmerited 
 punishment. " Whenever you can get a start," she 
 replied a little dryly. " You'll have to watch the papers 
 and answer advertisements." 
 
 He was sure, however, that there was something much 
 more definite than this in her mind, and it presently 
 came out. " There was one yesterday, wanting a boy as 
 apprentice to the tea trade." 
 
 " The tea trade ! " he repeated with emotion. 
 
 " Yes." Her voice grew a little sharper in spite of her 
 desire to be perfectly kind. 
 
 " But how could I leave now ?" 
 
 " Why not ? What's to prevent you ?" 
 
 " It's the middle of term." 
 
 34 
 
THE MOTHER 35 
 
 " That makes no difference. It's more important that 
 you should get into a good place than that you should 
 finish your term." 
 
 He gazed at her tragically. She could not compre- 
 hend him, for he must have known that his schooldays 
 were drawing to an end. 
 
 " I don't want to go to business," he mumbled. 
 
 Mrs. Seawright checked an exclamation of impatience. 
 " I don't know what you mean, Richard. You surely 
 understand as well as I do that you have to earn your 
 living like everybody else. What did you think you 
 were going to do ?" 
 
 " I It's not that . . ." he answered de- 
 jectedly. 
 
 " What is it, then ? I've kept you at school longer 
 than I kept Martin. I happened to notice this advertise- 
 ment last night, and I thought it might be an opening 
 for you. Very likely nothing will come of it. You may 
 be at school for another six months before you get any- 
 thing. All I want is for you not to miss any chances. 
 And when you've five years to serve you can't start too 
 soon. You'll not be long getting used to it. Look how 
 Martin Hkes it." 
 
 " I won't like it." 
 
 His mother was ready enough to humour him as far 
 as possible, so she did not press this point. " What do 
 you want to do yourself ?" she asked. " I know you're 
 fond of books, and that, but I can't afford to send 
 you to college. Have you been thinking of any- 
 thing ?" 
 
 " I don't know." He did know, but he was sure his 
 mother would not approve of what he knew. 
 
36 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 He glanced at Grace, but Grace had an air of supreme 
 detachment, as if the question were of absolutely no 
 interest to her. She belied this next moment, however, 
 by suddenly announcing, " He wants to write " 
 
 " To write !" Mrs. Seawright kept a library, yet 
 she quite failed to grasp the implication of these 
 words. 
 
 " Books," Grace explained further. " He's always 
 writing poetry." 
 
 "Well, I never!" Mrs. Seawright could not help 
 laughing, though she rarely laughed. 
 
 Richard turned crimson. " I don't want to do any- 
 thing of the sort," he cried angrily. " I want to go into 
 the stables. I could get a job there. Jimmy would get 
 me one." 
 
 Grace regarded him gravely, and then with a faint 
 smile. 
 
 He had no arguments, nothing at all to say, and Mrs. 
 Seawright dismissed the idea at once with all the 
 definiteness he had expected. She connected stables 
 with horses, and horses with racing, and racing with 
 " bookies," and " bookies " with a portion, at least, of the 
 troubles of the late Mr. Seawright, whom she did not 
 want to connect with anything further, not even, now, 
 with a " handsome " tombstone. 
 
 " I'll ask Mr. Escott to come in to-night, and you can 
 talk things over with him," she said, but even this con- 
 cession failed to cheer Richard up. He had quite known 
 how his mother would take his suggestion, and what was 
 the use of discussing it with the curate ? he would rather 
 discuss it with Jimmy. 
 
 As they passed the house where Mr. Escott lodged (it 
 
THE MOTHER 37 
 
 was in Myrtle Row, at the postman's), Mrs. Seawright 
 stopped to inquire if he were in, sending Grace and 
 Richard on to get tea ready and allow Bessie to go home. 
 She could hear the curate whistling, and next moment 
 he came running downstairs in a dressing-gown and a 
 pair of extremely striking carpet slippers, looking, as 
 usual, very untidy. He was short and stout, far from 
 handsome. He did not even look particularly clean, 
 which proves the deceptiveness of appearances, for he 
 had just been taking a bath. An attractive, half- 
 comical expression peeped out from his intelligent 
 eyes. Mrs. Seawright considered him to be decidedly 
 odd. 
 
 Nevertheless, she thought very highly of Mr. Escott, 
 and she did more now than to ask him to come round 
 and talk to Richard ; she prepared the way beforehand 
 by mentioning her son's unfortunate ambition. She had 
 expected Mr. Escott to be, if not shocked, at least 
 astonished, but he was neither. She had in fact to 
 explain to him the reason of her disapproval, and even 
 then he did not seem immensely impressed. " Of course 
 I'll come and talk to him," he promised, "but it 
 would be much better if you sent him round here. You 
 see, unless we're alone he won't tell me anything ; he'll 
 be shy. . . . It's rather beautiful in a way, the shyness 
 of youth — nearly everything that's young is beautiful." 
 He sighed. " Send him round at half-past seven ; I've a 
 meeting at eight. Or perhaps that is unkind. Send 
 him round at half-past nine. Then he can unburden his 
 soul till midnight — though I really don't see, exactly, 
 where I come in. . . . I don't think you quite under- 
 stand him, Mrs. Seawright — not so well as you under- 
 
38 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 stand your other boy. He's got more in him, and he 
 feels things more. Of course you don't believe me. I 
 like him better than the other. Send him round at half- 
 past nine, and I'll give him all the good advice I can 
 think of." 
 
VI 
 
 At half-past nine Richard found the curate, a pipe in 
 his mouth, stooping over the fire, making toast. He 
 waved a welcome with the fork. " Take a chair. You*d 
 better take a cushion too. I hope you're fond of toast." 
 
 Richard accepted this genial invitation, and gazed at 
 Mr. Escott's back. He mentioned shyly that he had had 
 supper before coming in. 
 
 " All the same, you must have some with me. Have an 
 apple, anyway." 
 
 " My mother told me to ask you if I might use your 
 name as a reference ?" 
 
 "A reference to what, dear child ?" He rose with a slight 
 grunt, and went to the sideboard for the apples. The 
 boy glanced about the room. He could not understand 
 why Mr. Escott should live in such a place. 
 
 " Admiring my ornaments ? They're really the land- 
 lady's, down even to the photographs." 
 
 The boy was silent. The pictures of elegant, high- 
 born ladies in languid attitudes, the plush frames, the 
 bright wall-paper — all these things vaguely distressed 
 him, though, as in the case of the very similar adorn- 
 ments of his own home, he did not quite know what was 
 wrong with them. Suddenly he became conscious of a 
 reluctance to produce the manuscript that made so bulky 
 an appearance in his jacket pocket. 
 
 Mr. Escott surveyed him with an amused sympathy. 
 " About this reference," he said ; " what's it for ?" 
 
 39 
 
40 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 Richard opened a pocket-book. He explained that 
 he was answering Messrs. Wynch Brothers' advertise- 
 ment for a " respectable, well-educated youth as 
 apprentice to the wholesale tea and sugar trade." He 
 produced the advertisement as he spoke, and also his 
 application, the latter immaculately written on a sheet 
 of glazed notepaper. Mr. Escott spread it out upon the 
 table-cloth. 
 
 " Dear Sirs, 
 
 " In answer to your advertisement in to-day*s 
 'Northern Herald I beg to offer myself as an apprentice 
 to your firm. I am fifteen and a half years of age, a 
 Protestant (Church of Ireland), and should I obtain the 
 position will do everything in my power to give 
 satisfaction. 
 
 " I remain, 
 
 " Yours respectfully, 
 
 "Richard Seawright. 
 
 " P.S. As references 1 beg to offer the names of 
 Herbert Wilberforce, Esquire, 3, Blenheim Gardens ; and 
 Rev. Charles Escott, M.A., 2, Myrtle Row; who have 
 known me for many years." 
 
 Mr. Escott reflected that he had seen Richard for the 
 first time some eight months ago, but he allowed the 
 inconsistency to pass. " Well, that ought to fetch 'em," 
 he remarked. "And what do you think I know about you, 
 Ricky, in spite of our long acquaintance ?" 
 
 " You know I'm respectable, I suppose," answered 
 Richard, who thought the curate lacking in seriousness. 
 " Mrs. Wilberforce allowed me to use Mr. Wilberforce's 
 name," he added. 
 
THE MOTHER 41 
 
 " And if you get this job — as I've no doubt you will 
 when they see you — will you be greatly pleased ?" 
 
 Richard did not reply until he had had time to give 
 the question due consideration. Then he said am- 
 biguously : " My mother wants me to get it." 
 
 There was a silence. The boy fumbled at the folded 
 papers in his pocket. " I brought you some poems," he 
 muttered indistinctly, without looking at his companion. 
 " Grace said — I mean, I thought perhaps you'd be able 
 to tell me if they're any good." He straightened the 
 manuscript nervously, but appeared loth to do anything 
 more till Mr. Escott stretched out his hand. Then he 
 sat with flushed cheeks and bright eyes while the curate 
 turned the leaves. 
 
 After a preliminary inspection Mr. Escott began to 
 read in a sort of undertone that was perfectly audible 
 to the author and made him feel immensely uncomfort- 
 able. His verses sounded now incredibly childish, and 
 the pain of listening became at last unbearable. He 
 wished that he hadn't brought them. It was Grace who 
 had told him to, but he ought to have had more sense. 
 
 " Please don't read out aloud," he said at last, and the 
 curate stopped at once. 
 
 " Sorry." 
 
 But the silence now seemed even worse, and Richard 
 watched each page, as it was turned, with a growing 
 misery. 
 
 Half-way through the manuscript Mr. Escott paused, 
 and his eyes met those of the youthful poet with a sort 
 of perplexity. 
 
 " You see, these may be good, or they may be bad," 
 he sighed, " but how the deuce am I to know ? I don't 
 think I'm even very sure what they're about." 
 
42 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 Richard fidgeted nervously. His dark eyes shone. 
 
 "They're just little songs, aren't they? — about birds 
 and trees and flowers and clouds ? You're a regular 
 Saint Francis." He gazed at the manuscript again, but 
 without reading any further. 
 
 " Your mother didn't mention anything about this," 
 he went on, a little helplessly, as the taciturn poet offered 
 no explanation of his work. " You've no idea, of course, 
 of trying to make a start in journalism ? That wasn't 
 one of your plans, was it ?" 
 
 Richard shook his head. 
 
 " I think you're very wise. I've a cousin who writes," 
 he continued, gliding easily off on to a side issue. " He 
 lives in London. He's a dramatic critic on one of the 
 dailies, but he does a lot of other work. He's a remark- 
 able person, immensely superior; I wish I could have 
 produced him for you, though, personally, I detest him. 
 Still, I suppose he's what is called successful. I'll send 
 him these, if you like." 
 
 Richard mumbled his thanks. 
 
 " And in the meantime I think you ought to post your 
 letter to Messrs. Wynch Brothers." 
 
 The boy's silent attentiveness really touched him more 
 than his tone betrayed, for who could tell what 
 disappointment lay behind it? He smiled sym- 
 pathetically. " I don't see, you know, why you shouldn't 
 write poetry and be a tea merchant at the same time." 
 
 It was kinder to put it in this way than to tell him to 
 throw his manuscripts into the fire. Nevertheless, he 
 had a suspicion that the kindness was not particularly 
 satisfactory, was not even particularly honest. 
 
 " You don't think they're any good, then ?" said 
 Richard, unexpectedly. 
 
THE MOTHER 43 
 
 Mr. Escott compromised. " All I think is that I'm not 
 qualified to express an opinion. You see, I don't like 
 any poetry. I mean, I never read it, and really know 
 nothing about it. Let us wait till we get the great man's 
 verdict. He's a small-souled person, but I presume he 
 knows his trade. Besides, he might be useful — you 
 never can tell." He looked at the foolscap again, with 
 its round boyish scrawl. He felt rather ashamed. " The 
 spelling's a little queer, here and there. . . . You won't 
 mind my making one or two alterations ?" 
 
 Richard once more thanked him, and got up to go. 
 
 Mr. Escott was slightly taken aback. " But we haven't 
 mentioned what you really came to see me about, have 
 we ?" he asked. " Your mother said something " 
 
 "About the stables?" Richard interrupted. "I 
 promised her that I would apply for this other job." 
 
 " Then you've made up your mind ? Of course, in 
 that case " 
 
 " I promised mother before I came out." 
 
 He left the room, filled with disappointment, and Mr. 
 Escott, who came downstairs with him, was perfectly 
 aware of it. 
 
 Outside, the night was clear, and a full moon hung 
 over the trees in the Botanic Gardens, As the poet stood 
 dejectedly watching it and thinking of the letter to 
 Messrs. Wynch Brothers he was about to drop into the 
 post-box, the Wilberforces passed on their way home — 
 from a concert probably. They were chattering and 
 laughing, and the girls had white fleecy wraps about 
 their heads. Richard, from the other side of the road, 
 watched them gloomily. There was a light burning in 
 Professor Lanyon's study. The blinds were not pulled 
 down, and he could see into the room. And to the boy 
 
44 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 these things — the girls' wraps, the professor's book-Hned 
 walls — were symbols of a brilliant and inaccessible life 
 from which he had permanently been shut out by the 
 accident of birth. 
 
 The old moon looked down mildly upon him, trying 
 to remind him of the songs he had so often sung to 
 her, and to tell him that poets were favourites of hers, 
 even when they wore india-rubber collars, even when their 
 verses were very bad ; but to-night he could not under- 
 stand her, and imagined that she was too sad and lonely 
 and far away ever to have cared. 
 
VII 
 
 The reply from Messrs. Wynch Brothers came by the 
 first post on Monday, and took the form of a request 
 that Mr. Seawright would perhaps, if convenient, call 
 some time during the morning. On the strength of this 
 the mother decided that he must get a new suit of 
 clothes. Long trousers, in her opinion, were essential to 
 the production of a favourable impression upon the 
 mercantile mind, and, leaving things in the charge of 
 Bessie and Grace, with Richard by her side she started 
 for town. 
 
 Here, in a huge shop, where ready-made garments 
 were displayed upon the rigid forms of artificial youths 
 with pink cheeks and glass eyes, Richard's measure was 
 taken, and in a box-like dressing-room he was permitted 
 to don the attire of maturity. The mother, regardless of 
 protests delivered in a muffled undertone so as not to 
 reach the shopman's ears, had chosen the clothes herself, 
 mainly with an eye to their durability and to the fact 
 that he was "growing every day" ; but she was not easily 
 satisfied, and by the time he emerged from the dressing- 
 room he had an uncomfortable feeling that several of 
 the shop assistants were taking a keen interest in the 
 process of his transformation. He also made the 
 discovery that while he had been hidden from view his 
 mother had bought him a tie. It was a distinctly notice- 
 able tie, a bright, gay specimen of its class — pink, with 
 a shining surface that imitated satin. Richard regarded 
 
 45 
 
46 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 it tragically, while his mother administered sundry little 
 tugs to his jacket and waistcoat. 
 
 " I can't wear that, you know," he whispered. 
 
 " Why not ?" Mrs. Seawright demanded ; and a shop- 
 walker, who had been circling round them, scrutinizing 
 the " young man " from various knowing angles, thought 
 it would go nicely with the grey suit. In his opinion it 
 looked " smart " ; and it was also his opinion that the 
 clothes were a perfect fit, the trousers perhaps on the 
 long side, but all they wanted was bracing up. 
 
 " Because I'm not going to," said Richard angrily, 
 ignoring the shopwalker. " I wouldn't be caught dead 
 in it." 
 
 He saw that his mother was hurt by this reflection 
 on her taste, but the thought of walking through the 
 streets in his new clothes and with that pink tie was 
 unbearable. "We can change it," he said desperately, 
 as he watched his mother's impassive face. An acute 
 misery trembled in his voice, and Mrs. Seawright, 
 shrugging her shoulders, turned away from him. She 
 was not pleased. " You always let Martin choose his 
 own things," he went on reproachfully. 
 
 " Martin's a year older than you, and he pays for them 
 himself." But she let him have his way, though she sniffed 
 audibly when in reaction from pink sateen he selected 
 the plainest of black poplins. It turned out, too, that 
 the poplin was more expensive. 
 
 " You'll be needing a hat," the mother reflected coldly. 
 
 The hat department was pointed out to them, and 
 Richard was fitted with a bowler, which he somehow felt 
 added the crowning touch to the conspicuousness of his 
 appearance. They emerged into the busy street, gazed 
 upon, as he imagined, by every eye, and made their way 
 
THE MOTHER 47 
 
 in the direction of Messrs. Wynch Brothers. People 
 did look at him, as a matter of fact, but it was because 
 of his personal beauty, and had nothing to do with his 
 clothes. A tram passed, and when he saw that it was a 
 Malone car he suggested that his mother should take it. 
 
 She stared. "Why would we take it?" she asked. 
 " We'll go now and get the interview over. I can't be 
 coming trapesing into town three or four times a day." 
 
 "But — you're— not coming?" he faltered miserably, 
 ready, in spite of the long trousers and the bowler hat, 
 to cry with vexation at the shame of it. 
 
 " Of course I'm coming," she returned firmly. 
 
 "Oh, you can't — you can't," he said passionately, 
 catching her hand and jerking her to a sudden standstill. 
 A message boy with a basket on his head made a face at 
 him, and he could have sprung at his throat. The boy 
 paused on the curbstone at a distance of a few yards, 
 and grinned derisively at the scene in progress. In a 
 moment he was joined by a companion, then by 
 another. 
 
 Richard turned his back on them. " I must go by 
 myself," he went on quickly, in the same tragic under- 
 tone. " Please let me go by myself." 
 
 She gazed at him a moment. Then, as if a light had 
 dawned upon her : " Are you ashamed of me ?" she 
 asked. 
 
 " You know it's not that," he whispered, with a mixture 
 of indignation and reproach. " But I can't — with you 
 there. ... I won't go at all — I won't — I won't. . . ." 
 
 He saw that she was offended, and much more deeply 
 than she had been about the tie. The thought that he 
 had hurt her distressed him acutely. And he could not 
 explain what it was that made the idea of her accom- 
 
48 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 panying him seem so calamitous. She must not come. 
 He did not want her to come. He did not want to have 
 a lot of clerks staring at her, to see her asking favours. 
 She mustn't come ; she mustn't come. 
 
 She did not understand in the least, but she saw that 
 he was profoundly moved, and gave way. " Well, I 
 suppose I may go and do some shopping, at any rate — 
 you won't object to that !" She glanced up at the Albert 
 Memorial clock. " You'll not be very long, I dare say. 
 I'll meet you here in half an hour. . . . Though what 
 
 harm I'd do " Her features relaxed in an austere 
 
 smile as she saw the look of relief that came into his 
 face. 
 
 " Thanks awfully," he muttered clumsily. 
 
 " You're a queer boy, I must say. But I suppose it*s 
 no use talking. And you needn't let it worry you if 
 you're not successful. If you don't get this place, you'll 
 get another. It's not a matter of life and death." 
 
 He left her there and hastened on alone, fearful lest 
 she should change her mind and decide to follow him. 
 He walked quickly till he judged this danger to be 
 past; then he slackened his pace. He paused before a 
 shop window, in whose plate glass he saw himself 
 reflected. Then he blushed and averted his eyes hastily. 
 As he turned the corner of the street the large grey stone 
 building where Messrs. Wynch Brothers carried on their 
 business rose before him with an alarming suddenness. 
 Instantly he felt a sinking sensation in his stomach. 
 Before the fateful door stood a dray laden with chests of 
 tea, waiting to get in at the gateway. The big brown 
 horse, having been a member of the firm for several years, 
 was sufficiently free from nervousness to be shaking oats 
 from his nosebag, while a gigantic carter, with a black 
 
THE MOTHER 49 
 
 beard and a short clay pipe, leaned against the shaft and 
 eyed Richard benevolently. 
 
 He turned the handle of the door and entered. 
 Nothing dreadful happened. A little man with an 
 armful of tins tied up in brown paper passed out as he 
 was going in, and nodded to him ; a sound of voices and 
 laughter came from an apartment on the left. A yellow 
 clock on the wall made a wheezy and ineffectual attempt 
 to strike the hour. Richard lifted his eyes to it and 
 became conscious of a youth clad in dusty linen who 
 stood watching him from the top of a flight of stairs. 
 As soon as their eyes met the youth disappeared through 
 a swing door, which banged behind him. Richard 
 advanced to the counter on his right, and stood there 
 waiting. He saw a tall, thin, elderly person working at a 
 desk, but was too timid to try to attract his attention, 
 so the tall, thin, elderly person continued to work for 
 several minutes in obliviousness to the fact that he 
 was being examined most minutely. Richard indeed 
 thought his appearance remarkable. He had sandy 
 hair and a sandy beard. His teeth were very white and 
 very prominent, jutting out, like tombstones, with an 
 effect of a perpetual and somewhat ghastly smile. 
 Hollow-cheeked, pale, he looked, if not exactly 
 emaciated, extremely anaemic. He wore a grey tail- 
 coat, and as he worked at his ledger displayed 
 astonishing lengths of bony wrist and knuckly fingers. 
 Presently he raised his head, coughed, and two very 
 pale blue eyes, so pale as to be almost colourless, 
 encountered two extraordinarily dark ones. Richard 
 had removed the bowler, and was clutching it in both 
 hands. His black, lustreless hair tumbled loosely over 
 his forehead. The tall thin person advanced with a 
 
 4 
 
50 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 white, skull-like smile, and in a high-pitched voice 
 wished him " Good-morning." 
 
 " Good-morning, sir. I want to see Mr. Wynch. I 
 had a letter telling me to call." 
 
 He had barely given utterance to this desire when a 
 fussy little man emerged from an inner office, calling 
 out : " Mr. Jackson ! Is Mr. Jackson there ?" 
 
 The tall thin person, who reminded Richard of the 
 rider on the pale horse in the book of Revelation, replied 
 in the affirmative. " This boy wishes to speak to you, 
 sir," he added. 
 
 Mr. Wynch turned abruptly. Small, lean and wiry, 
 he had a keen, rather shrunken, face, with shrewd little 
 eyes, and an air of mingled youth and age that sug- 
 gested a kind of withered evergreen. His quick eyes 
 travelled all over Richard and the new suit before he 
 took a step or two forward, and a smile passed rapidly 
 across his face. " You are Mr. Richard Seawright ?" 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " That's right. Just come this way, Richard." He 
 put his hand on the boy's shoulder and pushed him 
 towards a room which was like a parlour, except that 
 a big green iron safe stood in one corner. 
 
 " You might bring me his letter, Mr. Jackson," he 
 called back over his shoulder. 
 
 " Sit down — sit down." He motioned Richard to a 
 leather-covered chair. He himself remained standing, 
 and when Mr. Jackson appeared with the letter grabbed 
 it so unceremoniously that he appeared to snatch it out 
 of the other's hand. He read the letter, and then 
 turned it over as if looking for something on the back, 
 while he emitted two or three sharp dry little coughs. 
 " You wrote this yourself ?" he asked, with a remarkable 
 
THE MOTHER 51 
 
 suddenness, that might have appeared designed had 
 its effect not been contradicted by an absent expression 
 in the httle grey eyes. 
 
 " Yes, sir," Richard murmured. 
 
 There was a silence, during which Mr. Wynch 
 appeared to be working out a calculation not at all 
 connected with new apprentices. Then he coughed 
 again, and became aware that he was interviewing a 
 boy. " Well, Richard, you write an excellent hand. 
 Don't spoil it. I often find that the young fellows 
 coming here write a good hand, but after a little they 
 become careless and allow it to develop into a scrawl 
 that nobody can read. Keep all your letters round; 
 don't cramp them up. It's important — very important." 
 
 " Yes, sir," Richard agreed. 
 
 " And so you think you would like to learn the tea 
 trade ?" 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Well, if you're a good boy, I don't see why you 
 shouldn't." The quick, flickering smile came again. 
 " You are a good boy, I hope ?" The question popped 
 out with that remarkable abruptness which was 
 apparently a peculiarity of Mr. Wynch's manner. 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 A twinkle in the small shrewd grey eyes made 
 Richard suspect that the last inquiry had been jocular, 
 but he could not be sure. In any event, Mr. Wynch 
 seemed to accept his word. 
 
 " That's right— that's right. Well, Richard, I'm very 
 busy just now, so I won't keep you. Our terms are 
 fifty pounds for five years. The hours nine till 
 five." 
 
 " Yes, sir." He had an idea that this was where his 
 
52 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 mother would have come in, for the terms struck him 
 as disappointing. 
 
 " That's settled then, is it ? When can you come ? 
 To-morrow ?" 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Well then, to-morrow. Be a good boy, and we'll do 
 what we can for you." 
 
 Before he realized what had happened Richard found 
 himself out in the street again. He had expected to be 
 put through some form of examination, he had expected 
 all kinds of questions, and it seemed to him that he 
 had got off wonderfully easily. The gigantic carter 
 was still leaning against the shaft of the dray, the 
 brown horse was still shaking out his oats, but they 
 had now become Richard's brothers, fellow members of 
 the same firm. He walked quickly back to the corner 
 where he was to meet his mother, and hovered about 
 there in a vastly elated frame of mind. At length he 
 saw her coming. " Well ?" she said. 
 
 He blushed and smiled. " Well ! I'm to begin 
 to-morrow morning. It's fifty pounds for five years." 
 
 He tried to make this sum sound imposing, but 
 Mrs. Seawright was not impressed. Her reply was 
 disconcerting. 
 
 " Nonsense. You'll get a hundred pounds or you 
 won't go. This comes of doing things by yourself." 
 
 " But he said that that was what they always gave," 
 Richard answered, doubtfully. " If the others only get 
 fifty I can't ask for more." 
 
 " I can, then ; and it's either a hundred or you look 
 out for another place. Martin and Charlie McGlade 
 and all the other boys get twenty pounds a year. I'll 
 write when I get back." 
 
THE MOTHER 53 
 
 Richard said nothing. He would very much have 
 preferred that his mother should not write, but he knew 
 there was no use arguing the point, and, moreover, he 
 had an idea that Mr. Wynch would not refuse. He 
 had a strange shy feeling that he would like to celebrate 
 the occasion by taking his mother to dine somewhere — 
 at a restaurant — but, unfortunately, no portion of even 
 the fifty pounds had as yet found its way into his 
 pocket. So they waited for their tram, standing side 
 by side, at Gibson's Corner. 
 
VIII 
 
 When they came in Grace Mallow looked at them 
 expectantly. 
 
 " Well, he*s got it," Mrs. Seawright announced. 
 " That is, if they'll be reasonable about terms." 
 
 " Oh, Fm glad," the girl said simply. She followed 
 Richard into the kitchen, where he stood self-consciously, 
 with his back to the range and his hands in his 
 pockets. 
 
 " When are you to begin ?" she asked, smiling. 
 
 " To-morrow." 
 
 " You look so nice ! " she murmured, though she knew 
 it was exactly the kind of thing he hated her to say. 
 
 He blushed and frowned. " Did my other clothes 
 come? They promised to send them." 
 
 "Yes; they're in your room." 
 
 He went, whistling, out of the kitchen, and she 
 watched him go with a peculiar wistfulness. There had 
 been no flattery in her words, for she loved his dark 
 handsome face, with its tumble of black hair. She went 
 into the scullery, and looked at her own countenance 
 in the little square looking-glass that hung there for 
 Bessie's convenience, looked at the dull pallor of her 
 skin, at the grey-green eyes. With a sort of morbid 
 resolution she even pulled back her hair so that the 
 deep stain splashing down her forehead became fully 
 visible. A horrible idea had come to her, that the 
 
 54 
 
THE MOTHER 5$ 
 
 more she felt about things the ugHer she grew. . . . 
 She had only her music. . . . 
 
 Mrs. Wilberforce, chancing to be in the post-office that 
 afternoon, stood for a minute or two listening to her, 
 and remarked to Mrs. Seawright, distracted by other 
 cares, that "that girl" certainly played with great 
 expression. Next morning, hearing her own daughters, 
 Fanny, Ethel and Dora, practising difficult exercises 
 from eleven till two, she decided that their performances 
 were lacking in this quality — particularly Dora's — and 
 resolved to speak about it to their teacher; which she 
 did — rather sharply. 
 
 But Mrs. Seawright, though pleased by the compli- 
 ment paid to Grace, had been too preoccupied really to 
 derive from it all the pleasure that she might have. A 
 very delicate problem hovered before her, and she 
 returned to it as soon as Mrs. Wilberforce, snapping 
 her purse, had departed. It had been worrying her for 
 a week or two back, and sometimes she had thought 
 that she would consult Mr. Escott (to one of whose 
 sermons the problem indeed owed its existence), and 
 again she had decided that she wouldn't. What 
 seemed to make it just now so particularly pressing 
 was her consciousness that Richard was about to embark 
 on a new life in which he would be surrounded by older 
 and, for all Mrs. Seawright knew, less desirable com- 
 panions. She had heard of the temptations that beset 
 unwary youth in large cities, and somehow, perhaps 
 because of his peculiar reserve, it was difficult to know 
 whether for Richard such temptations would prove 
 powerful or weak. At all events, she had been told 
 that ignorance was dangerous. It was inexpressibly 
 distasteful to her to mention matters of such a kind to 
 
56 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 her own son, and in Martin's case she had never done 
 so; but Richard was different. He was not so frank, 
 she thought, and, rightly or wrongly, she could not feel 
 the same confidence in him. 
 
 That evening, after she had written her letter to 
 Messrs. Wynch Brothers, she sat turning over these 
 thoughts in her mind, now inclining to one view, now 
 to another. It was ajready eight o'clock, and probably 
 Grace would soon be coming downstairs. In the mean- 
 time she and Richard were sitting alone together before 
 the kitchen fire, so that the opportunity to say what 
 she had to say was an excellent one. She searched in 
 her mind for a suitable way to open the subject. He 
 was reading, and from time to time she glanced at 
 him over her work. Her face reflected the agitation 
 of her thoughts only in a slight tightening of the lips 
 and in the odd, hesitating looks she bent upon her 
 son. He was so unfathomable, so reserved, and some- 
 times, as this morning, for instance, he behaved so 
 strangely. She had never been able to pet him as she 
 had petted Martin; he had never seemed to want to 
 be petted. She supposed there must be natures like 
 that, natures that were self-sufficient. Yet every now 
 and again she had had a brief uneasy feeling that 
 all was not well. Perhaps he was more sensitive than 
 she believed him to be. She hoped he was. In any 
 case she was glad that she had never made any 
 difference between the boys — none, that was, that could 
 possibly be avoided — though this careful impartiality of 
 treatment had not been easy to maintain. 
 
 She found that her thoughts were wandering from 
 the main issue, and brought them back to it again. 
 Meanwhile, he had stopped reading, and was sitting 
 
THE MOTHER 57 
 
 staring into the fire, while the kettle sang, and the 
 music of Grace's piano grew suddenly more dreamy and 
 undecided. Mrs. Seawright noticed what she had 
 never noticed before, that his face had a distinct tinge 
 of melancholy, and that this was not just a reflection 
 of the mood of the moment, but was a part of the whole 
 cast of his features. Grace had stopped playing — 
 perhaps she had finished for the evening. Mrs. 
 Seawright glanced at the clock. 
 
 But no — Grace had begun again. She was playing, 
 very softly, Mendelssohn's Spring Song. Mrs. Sea- 
 wright cleared her throat, and her stitches became 
 somewhat erratic. . . . 
 
 She had barely spoken a dozen words when 
 Richard's face began to betray a bewilderment that 
 rapidly passed into something else. She had kept her 
 eyes fixed upon her work, but she looked up at him 
 as he sprang to his feet. He was gazing at her in 
 amazement, a deep angry blush flaming to the roots of 
 his hair. Then, before she could utter another syllable, 
 he had left her, shutting the kitchen door behind him. 
 She heard the hall door slam. He had gone out. . . . 
 
 The mother sat on, sewing determinedly. The 
 music of the Spring Song sounded softly through the 
 little house, and presently a tear ran down Mrs. 
 Seawright's ruddy cheek, though her firm mouth did 
 not tremble. Grace continued to play for long — much 
 longer than usual. After a while Mrs. Seawright rose 
 and set out the supper things. Then she sat down 
 again before the fire that was now beginning to burn 
 low. . . . 
 
 A long time seemed to her to elapse before she heard 
 the front door open, and then the kitchen door. She 
 
58 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 knew it was Richard come back, but she did not look 
 round. His supper was waiting for him, and she 
 expected him to go straight to the table. She listened. 
 She wondered what he was doing, for she could hear 
 no sound. Then she heard him move, come over to 
 the chair beside hers, and begin to unlace his boots. 
 She did not speak. Her work lay neglected in her 
 lap. Then suddenly she felt a hand slip into 
 hers. . . . 
 
 Her work slid to the ground as she drew him to her, 
 drew his head down on her breast and kissed the thick 
 black tumbled hair, while her tears fell noiselessly. . . . 
 
 In the room above the music ceased, and there was 
 a sound of a chair being pushed back. The mother 
 and son separated. Mrs. Seawright picked her work 
 up from the floor, and when Grace entered Richard 
 was drawing his chair in to the supper table. She 
 joined him, but Mrs. Seawright still sat on by the 
 fire. 
 
 She was thinking of Richard, and then by insensible 
 gradations her thoughts slid away to the days of her 
 own youth. Looking at Grace, she thought of Henry 
 Mallow, whom she had loved, and whose daughter she 
 had been able to befriend. She thought of her married 
 life, of Charles Seawright, good-tempered, handsome, 
 easy to live with, but appallingly weak and untruthful. 
 A bitterness came into her face. At the end of a few 
 months she had realized that Charles Seawright was 
 not to be trusted, and from that time on her mind 
 had been haunted by a sense of insecurity and fear. 
 She had learned that it is possible to be all that he 
 had at first seemed to her, and yet to be morally so 
 flabby that even virtues turn to vices. His whole 
 
THE MOTHER 59 
 
 nature sapped by weakness, he appeared unable to make 
 even the feeblest struggle in the face of difficulties. He 
 could only take the easiest way out, no matter if it 
 led to the disgrace and ruin of everyone belonging to 
 him. It was dreadful to think of, but his death had 
 brought her before all else a sense of relief and of danger 
 just escaped. It had been a poor death, yet on the 
 whole it had not been quite so poor as the life. There 
 had been every chance that he would have failed here 
 too, but by some miracle he had not failed. Only, Mrs. 
 Seawright could never forgive him. 
 
PART SECOND 
 THE APPRENTICE 
 
He had been told nine o'clock, and he had several 
 minutes to spare when he arrived next morning at the 
 office. He found the doors of Messrs. Wynch Brothers 
 closed, and the blinds in the tall windows pulled down, 
 though a number of men lounged before the entrance. 
 Richard shyly approached the verge of this group. He 
 had already been recognized by the large carter, who 
 addressed several remarks to him, mildly facetious in 
 character. Others joined in. All were very friendly 
 and familiar, and a short, thick-set, grey-haired man, 
 with one shoulder hunched up towards his ear, and the 
 head of a good-natured Socrates, informed him that 
 the doors would be opened when Mr. Hamilton arrived. 
 He imparted this information in a kind of benevolent 
 growl, and Richard strolled as far as the corner, where 
 he stood till he saw a slim, dark young man ride up 
 on a bicycle. This personage — tremendously grown-up 
 and important, with a small, pointed, black moustache, 
 and rather pleasant eyes — took no notice of the new 
 apprentice, but unlocked the doors and wheeled in his 
 bicycle. He was followed by the men and, last of all, 
 by Richard himself. From a cupboard under the stairs 
 brooms and buckets were produced. Very soon, in 
 spite of a liberal sprinkling of water, the air became 
 thick with dust. 
 
 Meanwhile, Mr. Hamilton, the senior apprentice, 
 gazed abstractedly through the glass door at the people 
 
 62 
 
THE APPRENTICE 63 
 
 passing in the street. From time to time he executed a 
 step or two of a clog-dance, and even broke into 
 occasional song. Presently he noticed Richard, like 
 one of the timid disciples, hovering in uncertainty not 
 far from him, and smiled. He held out his hand. 
 " You're the new apprentice ? That blighter Douglas 
 should have been down to show you round. It's just 
 like him not to turn up. You'd better get out the 
 books." 
 
 He conducted Richard to a safe whose doors he had 
 unlocked on first coming in, and, by way of illustration, 
 proceeded to lift out ledgers and day-books and to 
 carry them to their respective desks, while the new 
 apprentice trotted behind him like an eager and well- 
 intentioned dog. 
 
 Mr. Jackson came in, and wished Richard good- 
 morning quite as if they had been old friends. Almost 
 immediately afterwards the two other apprentices 
 arrived, one a heavy youth with straw-coloured hair and 
 pimples, the other a white-faced, knowing-looking boy, 
 about a year older than Richard. Mr. Hamilton, whom 
 they familiarly called Davy, introduced them as Arthur 
 Gregg and Sydney Douglas. Further members of the 
 firm drifted in, Mr. Jackson's assistant, the dispatch- 
 clerk, the town-traveller, the tea-buyer. To each in turn 
 he was introduced. 
 
 " The country travellers are all out on their journeys," 
 Sydney Douglas, who had taken him in charge, 
 explained. " As a rule they don't come in till Friday 
 or Saturday. I'll take you round the boats now. You'll 
 have to go every morning to see what stuff has come 
 in for us ; then you'll have to get Tate's sugar prices — 
 those are the first things." 
 
64 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 And while they were making the round of the steam- 
 boat sheds he threw off with great freedom descriptive 
 sketches of certain of the persons Richard would now 
 be coming into contact with. " There's Jackson ; you'll 
 be out in his office a good deal. He's mad, of course, 
 but decent enough if you keep on the right side of him. 
 I don't, and he'll hardly speak to me. He's a 
 vegetarian, and all that. . . . Been fined about ten 
 times for not having his children vaccinated. You 
 never saw such kids as they are — like something washed 
 up by the sea. . . . Do you play football ?" 
 
 The morning was clear and cold. All along the 
 docks vessels were unloading, and a bright, thin sun 
 danced and glittered on the smooth water. Everywhere 
 was movement, noise, animation; but neither hurry nor 
 confusion. To Richard it was all quite different from 
 what he had expected, much easier and pleasanter. 
 His companion was extremely vivacious, exchanging 
 witticisms with the steamship clerks. Richard had an 
 impression that he was showing off. 
 
 When they returned to the office all was in full swing 
 there. Sydney took him through the various depart- 
 ments, dropping condescending explanations. Upstairs, 
 in the mixing-room, he watched the men, under the 
 supervision of Arthur Gregg, turn the tea over on the 
 floor with spades, shovel it into chests, and tramp it 
 down. The air was thick with dust that got into his 
 eyes and up his nose, and he was glad to get out and 
 shut the door behind him. 
 
 When he looked round Sydney had disappeared. 
 All about him were long rows of chests and half-chests 
 of tea, piled high up, one on top of the other, forming 
 a labyrinth of narrow alleys. In an open space by a 
 
THE APPRENTICE 65 
 
 window he saw Socrates covering one of these chests 
 with brown hessian, while other packages, already 
 coated, stood by him in tall stacks. He worked rapidly 
 and neatly, with movements to which the practice of 
 years had given a mechanical accuracy. From time to 
 time he stayed his hammer and expelled from between 
 his lips a strong thin jet of tobacco-juice and spittle. 
 
 Richard drew near under the encouragement of a 
 mysterious rumbling noise, apparently of friendly 
 intention. " Stay quiet till you see the mouse come out. 
 It's just gone in when it heard you. Sit down an' make 
 yourself comfortable." 
 
 He sat down, and watched his new acquaintance 
 drive in nails with swift, sure strokes that never needed 
 to be repeated. " Do you do this all the time ?" he 
 couldn't help asking. 
 
 "Yes; that's my job." 
 
 Richard was astonished. He wondered what it 
 would be like to drive in tacks and cut strips of hessian 
 all day long and every day, with only the traffic in an 
 uninteresting street far below to provide entertainment. 
 But his thoughts were diverted by the sudden apparition 
 of the mouse, who peered with bright black eyes from 
 between two tea chests. It looked this way and that, 
 lifted a tiny paw, then came closer and began daintily 
 to lick up the tobacco-spittle. 
 
 " Does that every day," Socrates whispered hoarsely, 
 with a sort of innocent gratification. " Damned little 
 beast ! Knows me as well as his own father. . . . And 
 how do you like the tea trade ?" he added 
 conversationally. 
 
 " Very well," Richard replied. 
 
 " Have you been in the hoist yet ?" He put down 
 
 5 
 
66 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 his hammer, and Richard followed him. " You pull 
 this rope, see, an' up she goes. An' you pull that there, 
 an' down she goes. An' when you want to stop her 
 you pull it half-way just. Now we're goin' up to the 
 top loft. Now pull her, not too hard — that's right. 
 You see, she stops level." 
 
 They got out to make a tour of inspection, Socrates 
 growling explanations, mostly monosyllabic. Richard 
 was struck by a sympathy, by something that was 
 almost a rough tenderness, glimmering through the 
 grunts and grumbles of his manner. It astonished and 
 touched him. They stood at the open window and 
 looked down at the street, along which trams were 
 passing, carts, a thin but constant stream of people. 
 The scene was gilded by the wintry sun, and somehow 
 it gave him the impression that he was now fairly in 
 the midst of active and competitive life, that he was 
 a definite part of the busy world passing to and fro 
 below him. 
 
 They returned to the hoist. 
 
 " Pull that'n there — you see, it takes us down. I'll 
 get out here, an' you can go on. It's easier than the 
 stairs." 
 
 But Richard had only descended as far as the sugar 
 loft when a person with creaking boots advanced 
 quickly and stopped the hoist. It was the dispatch- 
 clerk. The new apprentice stepped out, covered with 
 blushes. A hand was laid on his shoulder. " Do you 
 see those stairs, sonny ?" the little man inquired mildly. 
 " There they are, just behind you. Take a good look 
 at them, so that you'll know them again. Those were 
 made for boys like you to run up and down. This is 
 supposed to be a business establishment, and the hoist 
 
THE APPRENTICE 67 
 
 is intended for work, not for little boys to play with. 
 We've seen lads like you before you, you know. Run 
 away on down now, and ask Sydney to show you how 
 to write your forward ing-notes." 
 
 In the outer office, however, he was pounced upon by 
 Mr. Jackson, who wanted him to copy a letter. He sat 
 down, pen in hand, while Mr. Jackson fussed about him, 
 explaining matters. Suddenly, in the midst of these 
 explanations, he broke off" to ask Richard to what 
 denomination he belonged. 
 
 After he had heard the boy's reply Mr. Lambert 
 Jackson shook his head, but did not mention his reason 
 for doing so. He read aloud the letter. 
 
 " We would like you to send us a cheque by return. 
 Seeing that you promised to let us have one ten days 
 ago, and it hasn't yet reached us, we suppose you have 
 overlooked the matter. We regret not being able to 
 forward your order, received per our Mr. Robinson, till 
 the last item, which dates back nearly a year, is 
 remitted for. 
 
 " Yours truly, 
 
 " Wynch Brothers." 
 
 Richard copied this out slowly and carefully, and Mr. 
 Lambert Jackson, when it was finished, read it over and 
 put his initials to it. Meanwhile, the most perplexing 
 noises were to be heard coming from the room which 
 Sydney had described as the tasting-room. Having 
 given his letter to Mr. Jackson, he peeped through the 
 door, and saw Sydney himself there, with the other 
 apprentices. All along the two counters were little 
 papers of tea, and before each paper was a small pot 
 and a handleless cup, these latter standing on narrow 
 
68 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 wooden trays, at present splashed and milk-stained. 
 Davy Hamilton was busy with a bundle of telegraph- 
 forms and sale-catalogues. Arthur Gregg and Sydney 
 were rapidly and noisily tasting the contents of the cups, 
 turning the liquor about on their tongues before spitting 
 it into the tall copper spittoons with great vigour. 
 Nobody else was in the room, and Richard was 
 emboldened to enter. He stood quietly looking on till 
 Sydney, taking a particularly large mouthful, deliber- 
 ately missed the spittoon and splashed it over the new 
 apprentice's boots and the hems of his trousers. Next 
 moment the cold, milky contents of one of the cups was 
 streaming down Sydney's face. He was furious, and 
 rushed to revenge himself, but Davy Hamilton 
 intervened. " Serves you jolly well right." 
 
 " I'll break his mouth for him," Sydney spluttered, 
 struggling to free himself from Davy's clutches, while 
 tea trickled down his face and down his neck. 
 
 " Let him try." Richard stood waiting, with his 
 hands slightly lifted. 
 
 Arthur Gregg's dull face brightened up amazingly at 
 the prospect of a row. 
 
 "We'll let you both try," said Davy Hamilton, 
 dispassionately. " Arthur's got his gloves here, and you 
 can have a scrap after dinner up in the top loft. What 
 time will you be back ?" 
 
 " A quarter-past two." He frowned at Sydney. " I 
 have to do some forwarding-notes. You're to show 
 me." 
 
 " I've done them for you, you sulky little devil. 
 Wait till I get you upstairs." 
 
 Davy Hamilton left the office, pushing Sydney before 
 him. " Don't go out till I give you these wires," he 
 
THE APPRENTICE 69 
 
 called back to Richard over his shoulder, waving the 
 bunch of telegraph-forms and catalogues. " And don't 
 start anything after dinner till Arthur and I come." 
 
 When he arrived home Grace and his mother were 
 standing out in the porch looking for him. 
 
 " Dinner not ready yet ?" he asked, in the important 
 tones of a man addressing his women-folk. 
 
 " Oh yes, it's ready," Mrs. Seawright answered 
 dryly, and Grace laughed with a tinge of mockery. 
 
 When they sat down the girl plied him with 
 questions. " Tell us everything that happened," she 
 said eagerly. 
 
 " Nothing happened ; there's nothing to tell." 
 
 He ate rapidly, casting frequent glances at the 
 clock. 
 
 " Did you get on all right ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " What sort of work have you to do ?" 
 
 " Oh— different things." 
 
 " Are there many other boys there ?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 " How many ?" 
 
 " It depends on what you call boys. There are three 
 apprentices and a message boy." 
 
 " What are their names ?" 
 
 " You wouldn't know them." 
 
 " Don't ask him any more questions," interrupted the 
 mother impatiently. " It's like drawing a tooth to get 
 a word from him. What did Mr. Wynch say about my 
 letter ?" 
 
 " He said it would be all right." 
 
 " About your pay ?" 
 
70 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 " I suppose so." 
 
 " Didn't you ask him ?" 
 
 " No. . . . He said it would be all right." 
 
 On his return he found Davy Hamilton and Arthur 
 Gregg waiting, but there was no Sydney. Save for the 
 men, and for Mr. Wynch, who was always in his private 
 office, the apprentices had the place entirely to them- 
 selves. It was the slackest hour of the day. Still 
 Sydney did not come. Davy Hamilton pounced upon 
 the message boy, who was slipping quietly out upon 
 some affair of his own. " Here ! Where are you 
 going ? You've got to watch the office and blow up the 
 tube if anyone comes in." 
 
 The message boy returned reluctantly, muttering 
 under his breath, and at that moment Sydney, smoking 
 a cigarette, swaggered in by the yard. 
 
 He changed his coat and stepped into the hoist 
 after the other three, indifferent to Davy Hamilton's 
 reproaches. When they reached the top loft they were 
 greeted with a round of subdued and humorous 
 applause by the men, who had evidently been informed 
 of what was going to take place. 
 
 " Heavens, but he'll be sorry before I've finished with 
 him !" said Sydney, with mock ferocity. He had quite 
 recovered his good temper, and appeared to treat the 
 matter as a joke. 
 
 Richard did not understand him. For himself a 
 fight always was a fight, and he took off his coat now 
 as if he had been in the stables under Jimmy's watchful 
 and fostering eye, silent and determined. Davy 
 Hamilton handed him a pair of boxing-gloves, while 
 Arthur Gregg looked after Sydney. The men formed 
 
THE APPRENTICE 71 
 
 a wide, grinning circle, and in an atmosphere of jocosity 
 bets were offered and taken. 
 
 They began to spar. Sydney was agile and quick, 
 and attacked futilely, with a great deal of feinting and 
 hopping about. Richard stood still, his dark eyes fixed 
 on his adversary. Then, as he took Sydney's measure, 
 he adopted a slight crouch, and began to circle slowly 
 round him, with the lithe, padded grace of a young 
 leopard. There was something horribly professional 
 about his whole style and appearance, and the effect was 
 astonishing. In a flash Sydney had pulled off his 
 gloves, flung them into Richard's face, and made a dive 
 through the ring of spectators for the stairs. 
 
 " I won't," he cried comically, as Arthur Gregg, 
 showing unexpected alertness, caught him and dragged 
 him back. " I know he's going to get waxy." 
 
 " Come on ; you've got to," said Arthur, briefly. 
 
 " I won't. If you saw the way he looked at me. He's 
 a bloomin' ' pro/ anyway ; I'll swear he's been trained." 
 
 " Three cheers for Mr. Seawright," an ugly little man, 
 who was always laughing, called out. " Mr. Douglas 
 has renagued. That's a tanner you owe me, Bob." 
 
II 
 
 Richard dropped very quickly into the ways of his 
 new life. Wynch's was an old-fashioned place, 
 characterized by a distinctly homely atmosphere. The 
 apprentices were called by their Christian names, and 
 if they wanted an hour or a day off, it was never 
 refused. On the whole, it seemed to him that he did 
 not work nearly so hard as when he had been at school. 
 It was really only on Saturdays, when the travellers 
 came in to get their samples made up, that the quiet 
 humdrum air gave way to one of noise and bustle. 
 
 In his relations to the other boys things were much 
 the same as they had been in his relations to the boys 
 at school. He got on well enough with them, but it 
 ended there. Outside the office he never saw them. 
 They appeared to take it for granted that his friends 
 would not be their friends, and he himself made no 
 advances. On the other hand, he was a favourite both 
 with Mr. Wynch and with Mr. Lambert Jackson. He 
 was reliable and methodical; he had a sense of 
 responsibility which scatter-brained youths like Sydney 
 were entirely wanting in ; a kind of doggedness which 
 overlaid, like a thin soil, a smouldering fire of restless 
 passions whose existence nobody suspected. 
 
 He was a good deal in Mr. Lambert Jackson's office, 
 where he did all kinds of little jobs that Sydney before 
 him had invariably shirked. Mr. Lambert Jackson, 
 
 7? 
 
THE APPRENTICE 73 
 
 cadaverous and slightly ghastly, moving quickly on 
 long spider legs, with gigantic strides that set the seals 
 on his watch-chain dancing, took him, as it were, under 
 a very bony wing. It was always Richard to whom he 
 entrusted any private commission, such as the buying 
 of his monthly magazines — journals dealing for the 
 most part with " new thought " and giving coloured 
 pictures of people's auras. It was to Richard that from 
 time to time he pointed out a letter in one of the local 
 newspapers signed by the nom de plume of " Hermes." 
 Of course, everybody in the office knew who " Hermes " 
 was, but Mr. Lambert Jackson, always sublimely 
 unaware of what other people knew, imagined that he 
 was bestowing upon Richard a remarkable proof of his 
 confidence and esteem. He gave him the little book 
 he had written on Swedenborg, and sometimes, since 
 they lived in the same quarter of the town, they walked 
 part of the way home together. 
 
 It was a one-sided friendship, for Richard hated these 
 walks, which caused the other apprentices to accuse him 
 of " soaping." He knew that they knew that he didn't 
 " soap," but the hollow accusation was sufficiently 
 disagreeable to make him fight shy of Mr. Jackson's 
 favours. Moreover, his respect for the bookkeeper had 
 suffered a permanent eclipse on the morning when he 
 had come to tell him that a certain Mr. Simpson wanted 
 to speak to him through the telephone, and had watched 
 Mr. Lambert Jackson retire to the yard in order that 
 he, Richard, might be able to reply " truthfully " that 
 he was not in. The only thing, indeed, that the book- 
 keeper and his protege had in common was this 
 eagerness in the pursuit of " truth." The Swedenborgian 
 — more fortunate than the protege — had tracked her to 
 
74 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 her lair a thousand times. She altered, showed many 
 faces, but she was always there, inspiring the utmost 
 confidence. No theory could be too wild to shelter her ; 
 it might have seemed that few could be wild enough. 
 Thus it came about that Mr. Lambert Jackson was 
 extremely happy, and extremely anxious to share his 
 discoveries with his " young friend." 
 
 One summer evening, coming home a little after five 
 o'clock, the " young friend " found Mr. Escott sitting in 
 the kitchen. 
 
 " I think one is enough," the curate was saying, 
 evidently in reference to something that had gone 
 before. What that something was, Richard guessed 
 when Mr. Escott added, with his bright, yet half 
 melancholy smile, " Ricky had better take the afternoon 
 class." 
 
 They must be talking about Martin, about his 
 teaching in Sunday-school, and he looked from one to 
 the other. 
 
 " But if he wants to have the two," Mrs. Seawright 
 persisted. 
 
 " In a year, even in six months from now, I'll have 
 no objection." 
 
 " I don't want to teach," Richard declared. 
 
 " No ? Well, good-bye, Mrs. Seawright. ... A 
 word with you apart," and he caught Richard by the 
 arm. 
 
 They went out together, and walked as far as Mr. 
 Escott's door, where they stood for a few minutes. 
 " Why do I never see you now ?" the curate suddenly 
 asked. " Are you still writing poetry ?" 
 
 Richard shook his head. 
 
THE APPRENTICE 75 
 
 " I hope that pompous idiot's letter didn't discourage 
 you." 
 
 " No ; his letter was all right." 
 
 Mr. Escott noticed a gratuitous roughness in the boy's 
 manner, and regretted it. He hoped that business, and 
 the dawn of adolescence, were not going to spoil him. 
 He paused and sighed. 
 
 " By the way, I don't really care a fig about your 
 coming or not coming to my class — though I talked 
 about it to your mother." 
 
 Richard shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "I'll talk again and tell her that I don't want 
 you." 
 
 " I'll come if you like." 
 
 " No; I'd much rather that you just dropped in now 
 and then to see me in my own house — but not as a 
 matter of duty. I never seem to see anyone now except 
 in an official capacity. It's a little appalling. . . . 
 Well, I won't keep you. Good-bye." 
 
 Richard thought his manner peculiar. He was much 
 given to the consideration of "manners," and to 
 wondering what people meant, when obviously they 
 meant exactly what they said. The most innocent 
 remark was at times capable of arousing in him agoniz- 
 ing searchings of conscience, the results of which were 
 usually pessimistic, and very nearly always fallacious. 
 
 He found Grace alone in the shop when he came back. 
 " What was Mr. Escott talking about to mother ?" he 
 asked her. 
 
 " About Martin chiefly. She was telling him that he 
 wanted to teach in both morning and afternoon Sunday- 
 school, and Mr. Escott thought that one was enough — 
 to begin with." 
 
76 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 " Doesn't he believe he's really converted ?" 
 
 Grace smiled with that faint smile he could never 
 quite interpret. " He could hardly say so, could he, no 
 matter what he believed ? You expect everybody to 
 talk exactly in the way you do, Ricky dear." 
 
 " As a rule you can pick up things without their being 
 * said ' so plainly." 
 
 " Well, of course Martin is changed. . . . Anybody 
 can see that." 
 
 " They can. It's like the oil he sticks on his hair." 
 
 She regarded him pensively. " I'm not sure that I 
 ought to listen to you." 
 
 " Do you know why he was converted ?" 
 
 " I suppose because Well, why is anybody 
 
 converted ?" 
 
 " I'm not talking about anybody. I'm talking about 
 Martin. It was funk — pure funk. He's been in a funk 
 ever since his accident. Of course, once he went to the 
 Mission, the rest was a foregone conclusion. He's no 
 will of his own. Anyone could convert him." 
 
 " You mustn't talk like that before mother. She is 
 very pleased about it. . . . Besides, you don't under- 
 stand." 
 
 He laughed ironically. " It's the last bright jewel in 
 his crown, isn't it ? The one thing that was wanted to 
 make him perfect." 
 
 Grace sighed. " I wish you were a little more like 
 him." 
 
 " You don't," he answered fiercely. " That's a lie. 
 You don't want me to be like Martin." 
 
 " Don't I ?" 
 
 " You don't even want me to be different from what 
 I am." 
 
THE APPRENTICE 77 
 
 "You're very conceited, I think — and then, you're 
 so rude !" 
 
 "I'm not conceited. What I say is the truth. / 
 may want to be different, but you — you don't care a 
 
 She looked at him with a curious provocation. " What 
 made you come home Hke this ?" 
 
 He caught her by the shoulders. His dark eyes 
 blazed into hers. ''Do you care ? Not for that. You 
 want to make a fool of me. I don't know what you 
 care for, but it's nothing good." 
 
 " Ricky ! Sometimes you make me think Well, 
 
 I'll not say what." She smiled ambiguously. 
 
 " You would if you weren't a coward. You never 
 say anything, but you make me say things. You've got 
 a sort of devil in you really, and it's because you think 
 I've got one too that you let me see it. I don't under- 
 stand you. You liked me to catch hold of you that way 
 by the shoulders. Sometimes I think you'd almost like 
 me to hurt you. You're very strange, Grace." 
 
 " If you did hurt me, would you be sorry after- 
 wards ?" 
 
 He did not answer. 
 
 " Tell me," she wheedled, with a kind of feline 
 cajolery. 
 
 " I suppose so." 
 
 " And would you be very good to me — kind and 
 gentle and loving ?" 
 
 He grunted disgustedly, and she laughed again, 
 softly in her throat. Her green eyes half-closed, and 
 her beautiful voice had a lulling sound, like the voice 
 of a spirit that draws a child away from its playmates^ 
 to the woods and the waters. 
 
78 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 He had no time to reply before the shop door swung 
 open to admit Martin, who cast a sidelong glance at 
 them as he walked straight on into the kitchen. To 
 Richard the glance seemed odious, and he drew back 
 quickly, pushing Grace roughly from him, as if some- 
 thing had stung him. 
 
Ill 
 
 He locked the shop door and pulled down the blinds ; 
 then followed Martin and Grace into the kitchen. 
 
 " Where's mother ?" he asked. 
 
 Grace had begun to lay the cloth for tea, while the 
 two brothers sat, one on either side of the hearth, Martin 
 with the evening paper held up before him. 
 
 " She's upstairs, I suppose. You're both earlier than 
 usual to-night. . . . Mr. Escott was here." She 
 dropped this last remark casually, as she passed behind 
 Martin's chair. 
 
 He looked up. " Did he leave any message for me ?" 
 
 " I think so. Mother will know." Then she added 
 carelessly, while she poured hot water into the teapot, 
 " He wants Ricky to take one of your classes." 
 
 " He could hardly do that, seeing that he doesn't 
 even come to church," Martin murmured, colouring a 
 little, for he blushed very easily. Then he coloured more 
 deeply, seeming to detect a shade of irony in Grace's 
 words. 
 
 " You needn't be alarmed ; I've no wish to take it, 
 and he didn't want me to," Richard assured him. At 
 the same time he glanced at Grace. He failed to under- 
 stand why she should have repeated what she knew 
 very well only to have been a joke. 
 
 Martin appeared to think that they had both com- 
 bined to ridicule him. " I was talking to a chap this 
 afternoon," he said, " — one of the wildest fellows about 
 
 79 
 
8o AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 — a man of nearly thirty. He said that no matter what 
 else he might have done, he had always gone to church 
 to please his mother." As he finished speaking he 
 looked at Grace with his soft, appealing smile. 
 
 " Perhaps if he hadn't done some of the other things 
 it might have pleased her even more," Richard 
 suggested. 
 
 He watched his brother as he sat there, watched the 
 bright, handsome, rather delicate face, whose weakness 
 always seemed to him a greater defect than any ugliness 
 of feature could have been. He detested it, that 
 inherent weakness, and it had never been more apparent 
 to him than at this moment. It was so like him to 
 think that a remark about church-going must gain 
 tremendous weight by having been made by a black- 
 guard ! So like him to try to get the third person, or 
 whatever audience there was, upon his side ! The 
 point of view, the appealing, conscious smile, the implied 
 reproof, the glance he had given Grace and himself a 
 few minutes earlier in the shop, all combined, in his 
 present mood, to exasperate him, and an angry light 
 came into his eyes. " You pretend to be religious and 
 converted, yet you go out with Charlie McGlade on 
 Saturdays to shoot birds. ... I saw you shoot a 
 thrush the other day myself. You only broke its wing, 
 and it dropped in the river, and you didn't care. . . . 
 You shoot all kinds of birds. Charlie told me so him- 
 self, although he draws the line at some. You shoot 
 blackbirds and sparrows and robins and thrushes and 
 seagulls — it doesn't matter what they are, so long as 
 they are alive and can be hurt. I'd rather go and drown 
 myself than do dirty things like that. But you were 
 always that sort. ... If ever I come across you doing 
 
THE APPRENTICE 8i 
 
 it again Til hammer the head off you, no matter where 
 you are or who you're with. Yes, and I could do it too ; 
 you needn't laugh, for you know it." 
 
 Martin continued to laugh. " Oh, you're mad ; there's 
 no use talking to you." 
 
 " I'm not mad." 
 
 " It comes of always mooning about by yourself," 
 Martin continued maliciously. "Why don't you go 
 with other chaps a bit ? You never seem to have any 
 friends." 
 
 " I don't want any if they're like yours or hke you— 
 a lot of damned fools." 
 
 "Ricky!" Grace cried, catching hold of him, for he 
 had risen to his feet, with clenched fists. 
 
 It was this scene that met Mrs. Seawright's eyes as, 
 attracted by the noise, she entered the kitchen. 
 
 " What is all this quarrelhng ?" she asked sternly. 
 " Richard, how dare you use such language !" 
 
 " I didn't use half enough," he choked. 
 
 "What's the matter, Martin?" She turned to her 
 elder son, who merely shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know. Who can ever tell what's the 
 matter with him ? Anyway, it's not worth talking 
 about." He got up and went into the back-kitchen, 
 where he could be heard washing his hands in the sink. 
 
 " It'll soon be impossible to speak to you," Mrs. 
 Seawright went on to Richard. " You seem to be losing 
 all control over your temper. I don't know what you're 
 coming to." 
 
 He answered nothing, and presently, when Martin 
 rejoined them, they sat down to tea. 
 
 Every dispute seemed to end thus, by throwing into 
 vivid relief Martin's advantages of temper. He too 
 
 6 
 
82 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 could have been good-tempered, he thought bitterly, if 
 he had been invariably backed up by his mother. 
 
 When tea was over and Martin had gone out, he went 
 upstairs to his bedroom. Grace lingered for a few 
 minutes, and then, when Mrs. Seawright was not 
 looking, slipped noiselessly from the kitchen. She 
 glided upstairs like a ghost, and when she reached 
 Richard's door turned the handle very gently, but the 
 door was locked. She tapped softly. " Ricky — Ricky," 
 she whispered. 
 
 There was no answer, and at that moment Mrs. 
 Seawright's voice, clear and unruffled, came up to her. 
 " Grace !" she called. 
 
 The girl stood hesitating, but made no reply. 
 
 Again Mrs. Seawright called : " Grace ; are you. 
 there ?" 
 
 She still gave no answer, but tapped once more at the 
 door, which this time was opened by Richard. 
 
 " What do you want ?" he asked gruffly. " Mother's 
 calling you." 
 
 " I'll go down m a minute. I want to speak to you 
 first." 
 
 She slipped in through the door that he held, 
 grudgingly, barely wide enough to admit her. 
 
 " I'm sorry," she said. " It was all my fault." 
 
 " How was it your fault ?" 
 
 " I knew you were — cross, and I spoke that way to 
 Martin just to tease you." 
 
 " Don't you think there are rows enough without 
 trying to manufacture them ?" he asked sulkily, 
 
 " I'm sorry. . . ." She was very penitent as she stood 
 there near the door, gazing at him meekly. He sat, in 
 his shirt and trousers, on the side of his bed. 
 
THE APPRENTICE 83 
 
 " What IS the matter, Ricky dear ? 1 am sure some- 
 thing is the matter." 
 
 " Why don't you say at once that IVe a beastly 
 temper? That's what the matter is." 
 
 " I know your temper isn't very good." (He smiled 
 sardonically.) " But I know too that there is something 
 worrying you. Why won't you tell me ?" 
 
 " There's nothing to tell," he growled ungraciously. 
 
 " Well, I must go down. You're not going to sit up 
 here all evening by yourself, are you? It'll look as if 
 you were sulky. Why need you mind what Martin 
 said ? It isn't true, anyway." 
 
 " What isn't true ?" He flashed a glance of suspicion 
 at her and coloured hotly. 
 
 " That you have no friends," said Grace softly. 
 
 " What do I care whether I have friends or not ?" 
 
 " Well, you will come down, won't you ?" 
 
 She was gone as quickly as she had entered, leaving 
 him to stare at the door she softly closed behind her. 
 Her subtlety displeased him. He did not want people 
 to know when he was hurt, or why he was hurt, and 
 Grace invariably knew. She seemed to know every- 
 thing, and he resented the facility with which she read 
 his thoughts. He went downstairs, however, and all 
 trace of his squabble with Martin seemed to be 
 forgotten. 
 
 Yet it was not so. For some unknown reason the 
 incident, not very different from countless others, 
 remained in his mind. All the time Martin had been 
 away from home there had been no rows^ Then, with 
 his return, everything had dropped back at once into 
 the old rut. What was the use of his making good 
 
84 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 resolutions when he could not keep them? It was all 
 very well for Grace to look quietly on at the idolization 
 of his brother, but he could not. He knew he had been 
 in the wrong on this particular occasion, and yet what 
 rankled was the fact that his mother had sided so 
 definitely against him. It was always Martin who set 
 her against him. She had not been like that, he was 
 sure, when Martin was not there. The mere fact of his 
 presence seemed to make her indifferent to everybody 
 else. The very tone of her voice altered, grew softer, 
 when she spoke to him. . . . 
 
 These thoughts moved in him like the germ of an 
 insidious disease, that develops slowly, but inevitably. 
 The first outward symptom was the fact that he gave 
 up his place, or, rather, accepted the only place in Mrs. 
 Sea Wright's affection which she appeared able to give 
 him. He did not think it a very high one, but he 
 ceased to express dissatisfaction with it. In the past 
 he had clamoured too long and too loudly. 
 
 By the time he had reached his eighteenth birthday 
 this unfortunate habit of mind had become definitely 
 fixed. A second, or under-, life seemed to have 
 detached itself almost completely from the stolid 
 painstaking existence which he led outwardly, and 
 which had made his progress down at the office so 
 satisfactory. He began to read books about the origins 
 of things — man, society, religion. It was as if he were 
 pursuing something in the darkness, following through 
 the darkness some fata morgana. Her seriousness, 
 always rather embarrassing, had if anything increased, 
 and Grace, who was growing up with him, felt her 
 brain at times positively reel under the strain of it, so 
 that she was obliged to seek refuge in a levity which 
 
THE APPRENTICE 85 
 
 aroused his indignation. She knew he was taking life 
 in a way that it was never meant to be taken, and she 
 watched his development with a sort of protective 
 sympathetic impatience, wishing that she could endow 
 him with a little of her own philosophy, and ironically 
 aware that he believed her to be incapable of under- 
 standing, or sympathizing with, those profound specula- 
 tions upon which he was engaged, and which appeared 
 to bring him so little satisfaction. 
 
IV 
 
 On the morning of the twelfth of July — a Saturday 
 morning — the Seawright family breakfasted earlier than 
 usual, and it was barely eight o'clock when Mrs. 
 Seawright and Grace began to clear the table. The 
 skirts of their Sunday dresses were pinned up, and the 
 greater part of their persons covered with large aprons. 
 Martin hovered about the kitchen in his shirt sleeves. 
 His best jacket hung over the back of a chair, where 
 he had placed it prior to giving an extra polish to his 
 new brown boots. Every now and again he wandered 
 as far as the front door, through which, when he 
 opened it, a faint rumble of distant drums became 
 audible. Richard alone was not in Sunday attire. His 
 mother had noticed the omission, but without surprise. 
 She was only surprised that he had not raked out still 
 older things to put on, having come to regard it as 
 certain that in any given case he would act in direct 
 opposition to the rest of the family. 
 
 For a time the noise of rattling cups and plates 
 predominated, broken by detached phrases such as : 
 " Best cover up that milk," or, " There's enough bread, 
 I suppose, to do till Monday." Then Martin, who had 
 again been to the door, called out, " They're coming ! " 
 and catching up his jacket, hastily put it on. 
 
 " Who ? The Or'ngemen ?" Mrs. Seawright gasped. 
 
 " No ; the McGlades. I suppose I'd better ask them 
 in?" 
 
 86 
 
THE APPRENTICE 87 
 
 " Well, of course. We can hardly keep them standing 
 out in the street. I'm sure they're early enough ! The 
 train doesn't go till half-past nine." She was not 
 particularly pleased. 
 
 " Go and put on your bonnet, mother. I'll finish the 
 drying," said Grace. 
 
 At the sound of voices and laughter outside Mrs. 
 Seawright snatched off her apron and let down the skirt 
 of her dress, while Martin ushered in the guests. The 
 little kitchen seemed suddenly to overflow with 
 McGlades, and everyone shook hands with everybody 
 else. "Well, Efae!" " Well, Charlie ! " 
 
 Mrs. McGlade, a tall, thin, dry woman, in an 
 elaborately trimmed mantle, took in, with a single 
 quick glance, the signs of disturbed activities. " We're 
 just on the early side for you, Mrs. Seawright, I'm 
 afraid. Don't be hurrying; there's no need." She 
 spoke with a mincing, genteel accent that was apt to 
 disappear in moments of forgetfulness. Her husband, 
 a successful butcher, rotund and good-natured., pro- 
 ceeded to wipe his forehead with a red silk handker- 
 chief. ^'^ 
 
 " Well, if you're as hot as that already, I don't kngw 
 what you will be !" his wife commented. ^ 
 
 Effie was giggling in the corner with Martin. The 
 whole family had a prosperous appearance. Charlie, 
 radiant in a very low-cut waistcoat, and with a rose in 
 his buttonhole, was as brightly and cheerfully vulgar 
 as a picture postcard. Both he and his sister had 
 inherited from their father that highly-coloured, full- 
 blooded appearance which seems to characterize those 
 who absorb daily for many hours the odour of animal 
 juices. Poor Grace, compared with the splendid and 
 
88 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 bouncing Effie, looked more meagre and pallid than 
 usual. 
 
 " We'll miss the procession," Effie regretted ; " an' they 
 say it's to be bigger than ever this year." 
 
 "Where's your or'nge lily, Grace?" asked Charlie, 
 playfully. 
 
 " Well, they're gettin' a grand day, any way !" 
 
 But Mrs. Seawright took a less cheerful view. " It'll 
 be too grand for some of them, I doubt. A grand day 
 for the public-houses, with that heat !" 
 
 " I seen two fellas a bit on already," said Charlie, with 
 his pleasant smile. " You wouldn't believe ! You know 
 that big fat lad they call * Delicate Dick,' that used to 
 work in Jamison's — him an' another, in front of 
 Wilberforce's, shoutin' ' Go on the Blues ! ' and cursin' the 
 Pope — somethin* cruel. Mr. Wilberforce, he came out 
 an' give them all sorts, but they wouldn't move on till 
 three peelers come." 
 
 " It would be far better there was no Twelfth for 
 people that can't behave right," said his mother. " That 
 * Delicate Dick * was always giving trouble anyway. I 
 don't know why they don't put him in jail." 
 
 " He'll be in before night," Charlie assured her, with 
 light-hearted cynicism. 
 
 " Isn't /le coming ?" asked Effie, casting a sidelong 
 glance at Richard. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 Mrs. Seawright noticed that they all looked at him, 
 and her irritation was revived. She felt that he did 
 her discredit. " It's not that he hasn't got another suit," 
 she said ; " but he won't put it on, because he likes to 
 be different from everybody else." 
 
 " I can bring it down and show it to them," Richard 
 
THE APPRENTICE 89 
 
 suggested. " It's hardly fair to ask them to take it on 
 trust." 
 
 "There's many a one gets them on trust," laughed 
 Charlie. " Wait till he's married." 
 
 "Look! He's going to bring a book with him!" 
 cried Effie, who seemed, in addressing Richard, to prefer 
 the indirect method. " He doesn't want the bother of 
 talking to us. Did you ever see such politeness ?" 
 
 Richard had slipped the book he had been reading 
 into his pocket. He looked at her with a faint smile. 
 Martin and Charlie exchanged cigarettes out of silver 
 cases. Both wore rings, the main effect being to 
 accentuate the coarseness of their hands and to render 
 more obvious the fact that Charlie bit his nails. 
 
 Nevertheless, in the view of the McGlade ladies, the 
 appearance presented by Richard, who wore only a 
 loose tennis shirt under his jacket, and a belt instead of 
 braces, detracted from that air of gentility the party 
 would otherwise have achieved, and they resented it, 
 particularly Effie, just as Mrs. Seawright had known 
 they would. " He wouldn't take the bother of dressing 
 to come out with us," the girl whispered to her mother. 
 " It's a wonder he's even put a collar on." 
 
 They sallied forth, Charlie and Richard carrying the 
 baskets, Mrs. Seawright locking the front door after her, 
 and putting the key in her pocket. 
 
 " I hope there isn't an awful crush," said Effie, 
 glancing down at her new costume. " That's the worst 
 of trains; you get your things just ruined." 
 
 " See and keep together at the station," Mrs. McGlade 
 warned them. " Charlie '11 look after the tickets for 
 everybody. There's no use you gettin' any hotter, da, 
 than you are already." 
 
90 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 The station was crowded when they arrived. " Let's 
 get well up to the front," Mrs. McGlade directed them, 
 when Charlie at last emerged from his struggle- at the 
 ticket office. She elbowed her way vigorously, peering 
 into carriages. But empty seats were scarce, and those 
 who had secured places did their best to take up as 
 much room as possible, with that extraordinary 
 selfishness which distinguishes the most good-natured 
 of travellers. 
 
 "We'll have to separate," Mrs. Seawright said 
 helplessly, but the McGlades would not hear of this, and 
 presently " da " was observed to be in conversation with 
 the guard. 
 
 " There's bribery and corruption goin' on there," 
 laughed Charlie. " Wait to you see." 
 
 Suddenly Mr. McGlade beckoned to them, and, as 
 they hurried up, the guard opened the door of the only 
 first-class compartment on the train. They flocked in 
 boisterously, and the guard, slamming the door behind 
 them, turned the key in the lock. 
 
 " This is a little bit of all right," said Charlie 
 knowingly. " It takes da to work the oracle." And 
 amid much laughter baskets were stowed away, coats 
 and umbrellas packed upon the racks, and glances and 
 smiles of the friendliest intention bestowed upon the 
 two legitimate occupants of the carriage, a languid lady 
 and a man with a moustache and golf clubs, who failed, 
 however, to respond to these overtures. 
 
 When the train had started the party settled them- 
 selves more comfortably. Mr. McGlade wiped his 
 forehead and unbuttoned his waistcoat with a smile 
 and a sigh of relief. The two strangers, from their 
 corner seats, watched him, as if uncertain as to how far 
 
THE APPRENTICE 91 
 
 this process of disrobing was going to be carried. At 
 the same time Charhe began to read aloud, with 
 humorous embeUishments, the printed notices in front 
 of him : " Thou shalt not spit in, on, or near the thrain ." 
 The lady closed her eyes with an air of resignation. 
 
 Charlie produced a bag of sweets, and these were 
 handed round. " Perhaps this lady would have some," 
 Mrs. McGlade suggested politely, when her own party 
 had freely helped themselves. 
 
 Charlie presented the bag, with a smile, but the lady 
 refused. She addressed a remark to the somnolent 
 golfer in a carefully colourless undertone, which, never- 
 theless, produced a certain chill in the spiritual 
 atmosphere. 
 
 The lady brought forth a second remark, in the same 
 tone ; then she closed her eyes once more, as if trying to 
 forget the invasion of vulgarity. Probably she would 
 have remained thus for the rest of the journey had not 
 Charlie, to beguile the pause at a station, blown up the 
 paper bag which had contained the sweets, and 
 exploded it with a terrific bang. The golfer opened his 
 eyes; the lady started violently. Charlie apologized 
 profusely, but without the faintest trace of embarrass- 
 ment. Effie was seized with a giggling fit, and 
 remarked, "This heat's something cruel!" The golfer 
 suddenly and unexpectedly laughed, and the lady froze 
 into yet deeper estrangement. She retreated further 
 into her corner, exchanged a glance with her companion, 
 and wrapped herself in a protective atmosphere of frigid 
 patience, as if now prepared for the worst. " There's 
 some that when they go on an excursion would be better 
 hiring a special train," remarked Mrs. McGlade acidly. 
 The lady blushed. 
 
92 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 At last they reached their journey's end. Out on the 
 platform Richard, who had stepped aside to avoid the 
 first rush, got separated from the others. Once he was 
 alone, he felt a reluctance to rejoin them, but they were 
 waiting for him in a little group in the middle of the 
 street when he came out of the station. 
 
 " Where did you get to ?" asked Effie. 
 
 " I wasn't very far away." 
 
 "All I know is that my shirt's sticking to me," 
 Charlie confessed frankly. " I hope the pattern doesn't 
 come off. What about a bathe ?" 
 
 " Where will we meet you then ?" his mother inquired. 
 " Do you want to bathe, da ?" she added doubtfully. 
 " We might all go round the shore later on." 
 
 "Ma, your bonnet's hanging over your ear!" Effie 
 giggled. " If you only saw !" 
 
 " I'm sure it's no wonder, with people pushing and 
 shoving like the station had caught fire !" 
 
 Mr. McGlade, his rubicund countenance beaded with 
 perspiration, cast a wistful glance in the direction of a 
 public-house at the corner. " I think the first thing I'll 
 do will be to have a bottle of Bass," he said 
 tentatively. 
 
 " I'm sure they could all do with a taste of lemonade 
 or something," his wife agreed. She possessed a sort of 
 thin geniality, and was evidently in holiday humour. 
 " If it wasn't a public-house," she added, remembering 
 Mrs. Seawright's views on such subjects. 
 
 " Oh, you needn't be afraid. There'll be a side door 
 and a parlour." 
 
 Mrs. Seawright said nothing. It would have been 
 difficult to tell from either her manner or appearance 
 that she was embarked upon a pleasure excursion. 
 
THE APPRENTICE 93 
 
 " It's a Family Hotel, anyway," said Charlie jocosely, 
 as he and Martin lifted the baskets. 
 
 Richard did not move. " By the way," he said, " I'm 
 not coming. I'm going to climb the mountain." 
 
 " Climb the mountain ! You are looking for some- 
 thing warm!" cried Ef&e peevishly. "I knew he was 
 up to something when he stopped behind like that. He 
 never intended to come with us, I don't believe." 
 Suddenly she recollected that she had ascended Snaefell 
 last August, when they were staying at Douglas, and 
 proposed that they should all climb the mountain. 
 
 Mr. McGlade cast a glance at the summit of Slieve 
 Donnard and shook his head slowly. " You young 
 people can go if you like, but the rest of us, I think, are 
 better down below." He made a movement towards the 
 Family Hotel as he spoke, followed by his wife, who 
 paused, however, and then returned, as she saw that 
 Mrs. Seawright was not coming. Charlie and Martin 
 set down the baskets. 
 
 " I'd like to climb the mountain," Grace said. 
 
 Richard glanced at her and then at Effie. " I'm 
 afraid you'd find it rather tiring on a day like this." 
 
 " Much you care whether we're tired or not," retorted 
 Effte, crossly. " It's just like you, starting off with us and 
 then wanting to go away by yourself ! " 
 
 He did not reply. 
 
 " Well, there's nothing to hinder us all going," said 
 Charlie, good-humouredly. 
 
 " Nothing," Richard answered. 
 
 He crossed to the footpath and gazed at the faded 
 portraits of previous excursionists, exhibited in the 
 window of a little wooden shed where one could have 
 one's likeness taken if one wanted to. He didn't want 
 
94 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 to, though the proprietor of the shed, catching sight of 
 him, presently came out to suggest this fascinating form 
 of relaxation. 
 
 " Well, you'd better make up your minds one way or 
 another," said Mrs. McGlade. She was annoyed by the 
 attitude Mrs. Seawright had adopted concerning the 
 Family Hotel, in the door of which her husband now 
 suddenly appeared, waving to them to come on. As 
 they did not move, and only Charlie replied to his 
 signals, he retired inside again. 
 
 It ended by their deciding that the whole party might 
 go as far as the woods just under the mountain. Then 
 whoever wanted to could make the ascent after lunch. 
 
 Mrs. McGlade turned to her son. " Charlie, go and 
 tell da that we're away." 
 
 " What about the lemonade ?" 
 
 " There's plenty of water," Richard said. " The 
 stream that flows through the estate comes straight 
 down from the mountain." 
 
 " You and da can bring the lemonade, can't you ?" 
 Mrs. McGlade replied, still addressing CharHe. 
 
 They took up the baskets. The day did not seem, 
 somehow, to be commencing very auspiciously. Mrs. 
 McGlade was offended. Effie was cross. Mrs. Sea- 
 wright, disapproving of Mr. McGlade's conduct, and 
 of the example he was setting the boys, was in one of 
 her most unbending moods. Richard suggested leaving 
 the umbrellas and all superfluous clothing at the 
 station, as it obviously was not going to rain, but the 
 suggestion was ignored, and, hot and heavy-laden, they 
 proceeded along the sea road under a broiling sun. 
 
 In the woods, though there was plenty of shade, it 
 was uncomfortably close, and the flies hung in droning 
 
THE APPRENTICE 95 
 
 armies over the bracken where they at last set down 
 the baskets and the lemonade botdes. It was then, as they 
 were beginning lunch, that Mr. McGlade, diving his 
 hand into a capacious pocket, produced another bottle, 
 from which, in spite of violent signals from his wife, 
 he begged Mrs. Seawright to have just a nip, holding 
 it invitingly poised above her tumbler. " Not for the 
 young people," he said humorously, "but for the old 
 stagers who aren't just as spry as they used to be." 
 
 The " nip " was declined. His wife declined one also, 
 more tartly than the occasion seemed to demand; and 
 aware that he had done something which he ought not 
 to have done, Mr. McGlade became melancholy and 
 silent. 
 
 " Are you really going to climb the mountain, 
 Ricky ?" Grace questioned in an undertone, when the 
 meal was ended. 
 
 " Not with Effie." 
 
 " Well, now's the time then." 
 
 That young lady was seated between Martin and 
 Charlie, whose fortunes she was telling, examining their 
 hands alternately, amid much facetious comment from 
 the subjects. Grace and Richard slipped away quietly 
 through the trees. 
 
Following the steep path by the stream's edge, they 
 dimbed higher and higher, passing at last out of the 
 woods, and on up the mountain side. 
 
 " Perhaps we've gone far enough," Richard said 
 suddenly, throwing aside his jacket, which he had been 
 carrying over his arm, and flinging himself down in 
 the heather. " At any rate, we'd better rest for a bit." 
 
 Grace, with a little sigh of relief, seated herself near 
 him. She took the book he had brought from his 
 jacket pocket, and began idly to turn the leaves. 
 
 " Is this for your examination ?" she asked. 
 
 " Yes. It wasn't much use bringing it. I thought I 
 might have been able to read a little in the train." 
 
 He lay on his back, with his eyes shut. Grace was 
 glad he had shut his eyes, for she liked to look at him. 
 The soft whiteness of his shirt made his skin seem 
 browner than usual. 
 
 " What are you going to matriculate for ?" she asked. 
 
 " I don't know. It was Mr. Escott's idea. It was 
 really just something to do in the winter — going over 
 the work. Then I thought I might as well keep on. . . . 
 It was very decent of him. Perhaps I shouldn't have 
 let him do it; but he seemed rather keen about it." 
 
 " You only go to him one evening in the week." 
 
 " 1 know ; but he's very busy. He told me he had 
 practically no time to himself." 
 
 " But if he wanted you to do it." 
 
 96 
 
THE APPRENTICE 97 
 
 " He wanted it because he thought it would be good 
 for me. It can't be very exciting for him." 
 
 Grace was silent, though it seemed to her perfectly 
 right and natural that Mr. Escott should be sacrificed to 
 Richard. 
 
 " Don't you want to stay on in business ?" she asked 
 after a little. 
 
 "Of course I'll have to stay on, in any case, 
 
 whether I want to or not." 
 
 " You like it well enough, don't you ?" 
 
 His eyes suddenly opened and met hers gazing down 
 at him. 
 
 " In a way.'* 
 
 " It isn't much good," he added. " There aren't 
 many openings. If you get a decent job on the road — 
 as a traveller — the pay is sometimes all right; but I 
 won't ever get that." 
 
 " Why not ?" 
 
 " It wouldn't be any use if I did. I can't lick people's 
 boots, and tell them yarns. . . . You've no idea what 
 they're like — these grocers and people. Some of them 
 can hardly open their mouths without insulting you." 
 
 " But isn't there anything else ?" 
 
 " Precious little. . . . Each house has only one 
 buyer. If I got a job of that sort it would only be by 
 the most terrific luck. . . . And, at any rate, I haven't 
 a keen enough sense of smell to be really good at it. 
 If I were out of my time now, the only thing I could 
 do would be to go to India or Ceylon — either that or 
 just become an ordinary clerk." 
 
 Grace waited a moment. 
 
 " And for how long have you known this ?" 
 
 " Oh, for a long time. It's not very cheerful, of 
 
 7 
 
98 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 course; but what can you do? Mother thinks it's all 
 right, and I don't want you to say anything about it." 
 " But surely — there must be things — for a boy like 
 you," she said slowly. " You shouldn't be in an office 
 at all. I've always felt that. You should be working 
 out of doors — on somebody's estate — living in the 
 woods, looking after animals, frightening poachers — 
 you're all wrong in a town." 
 
 Richard did not answer. His hands opened and 
 shut, catching at the heather on either side of him, and 
 presently his eyes narrowed. 
 
 " Even if you get on fairly well, do you think it is 
 much good ?" he asked, with a simple and unconscious 
 pessimism. 
 
 " What do you mean ? Why isn't it good ?" 
 She bent over him. He seemed to her extraordinarily 
 beautiful as he lay there. Something rose in her 
 throat, choking her a little, and she felt that her voice 
 sounded strange. 
 
 " What does it all lead to ? What is it all about ?" 
 He suddenly sat up and clasped his hands about his 
 knees, looking out over the sea that stretched far below 
 them, blue and still. 
 
 " It might be all right," he went on slowly, " — even 
 sitting every day at a desk — if I knew, if I could under- 
 stand, if I could see some meaning in things." 
 " And can't you see any ?" 
 He shook his head. 
 " You think there isn*t any ?" 
 
 " I don't know. I'm not sure. ... If I was sure, I'd 
 drop out. That sort of thing isn't good enough — just 
 by itself — as beginning and end. . . . One evening — 
 it was last Monday — you remember I came home rather 
 
THE APPRENTICE 99 
 
 late. I had been for a walk, and on my way home I 
 had to pass a place where there were no houses — nothing 
 but trees. The town lamps didn't come out so far, and 
 it was fairly dark, but not very. I didn't mind it at 
 first. I've gone along the same road hundreds of times. 
 Why should I mind it ? But this time when I reached 
 a particular point I couldn't go any further. It was 
 quite quiet; nothing moved; I didn't see anything; yet 
 I felt there was something there, a little ahead of me — 
 something I couldn't pass. ... I didn't try to 
 imagine what it might be — didn't think of ghosts or 
 anything like that. Only — I couldn't face it. . . . I 
 went back a little way and waited — had to wait for a 
 long time — but at last I heard the sound of a horse 
 trotting. It was a man in a dog-cart. He stopped 
 when I called to him. I told him just what I have told 
 you. He laughed, and said my nerves must be out of 
 order, but he drove me on to where the houses and the 
 lamps began." He paused, as if trying to piece it all 
 out very deliberately. " Supposing it was partly that — 
 my nerves, I mean — mayn't there be things that we can 
 only get to know about abnormally ? Another world — 
 there, but not there for us^ at ordinary times ?" 
 
 His voice died away ; then began again. " I've been 
 trying to find out things. Nothing seems satisfactory, 
 if you go back far enough. You think you're getting 
 there, and then — it fails, leaves you where you were 
 before. . . . I've talked about things with Mr. Escott. 
 I've read about them. But it's no use — no use to 
 me. . . . And it isn't that I'm not interested in 
 ordinary everyday things. I am^ up to a certain point. 
 
 Only — I don't know I started to write an essay 
 
 for the Debating Society, on * Marriage and the Value 
 
100 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 of the Home.' I got half-way through it, and then I 
 saw that it was all a fake, a pretence. I was interested, 
 but I didn't really care^ though I tried to make myself 
 believe that I did. And it's the same about the other 
 subjects we discuss — most of them. I don't care 
 whether women get the vote or not ; I don't care whether 
 socialism comes or not; I don't care whether we get 
 Home Rule or not. I mean to say, there is something 
 else that I care about infinitely more — something that 
 all these things leave untouched. I don't suppose you 
 understand me, but it's frightfully hard to explain." 
 
 He had lain back again in the heather, and she lifted 
 one of his hands and drew it softly down her cheek 
 and softly across her lips. 
 
 " What is it you care for ?" 
 
 " Something that goes behind those other things. 
 They, somehow, seem superficial. I mean — there must 
 
 be — a purpose. I want Oh, I'm only talking rot. 
 
 I can't tell you." 
 
 Grace was silent. She had never seen him just like 
 this before ; never come so close to him. She wondered 
 what had made him so responsive. And she knew, in 
 her heart, that there was only one thing in the world — 
 if he would but see it. One thing that, if he could but 
 see it and feel it, would make everything else of no 
 importance in comparison with its beauty. 
 
 Presently she asked, " Do you ever write poetry 
 now ?" 
 
 He shook his head. " I can't. The things I did 
 when I was a kid I still rather like ; but what I do now, 
 if I try to do anything, is the sort of feeble, correct stuff 
 you get in magazines. It's no good. My imagination 
 seems dried up. I don't know what it is." 
 
THE APPR'E'K[¥ieS' '>■•'''•''' ' 'loi 
 
 " But can't you enjoy this, Ricky — this that's all 
 round you ?" 
 
 "I do enjoy it. It's not that " He hesitated, 
 
 and was silent. 
 
 She looked into his dark eyes, at his parted lips, at 
 the faint shadow of down on his upper lip. His mouth 
 was very beautiful. It seemed, somehow, wonderfully 
 delicate and innocent. She bent down and kissed his 
 eyes that closed under her light kiss. He did not draw 
 away from her, as he usually did. He even smiled a 
 little. Yet she did not dare to kiss him on his mouth. 
 
 " Would you be frightened to go away, to leave 
 everything behind you and go right out into the world 
 alone ?" she all at once asked, making him look up at 
 her in surprise. 
 
 " The world ?" he repeated wonderingly. 
 
 " Wild places — uncivilized — try your luck. I've 
 always thought of you as an adventurer. You wouldn't 
 be likely to starve." 
 
 " But what do you mean ? It wouldn't be possible !" 
 
 " You'd have to rough it, of course ; work your way ; 
 but you're strong. . . . That's the real life." Her voice 
 had a strange glow of enthusiasm. " What use is there 
 in reading about things that you can't see and touch 
 and smell and taste for yourself ? You could do it, you 
 know. A man can do anything." 
 
 Richard did not answer. What Grace was saying 
 suddenly ceased to strike him as peculiar. It seemed 
 natural, true. 
 
 " There is your adventure waiting for you," she went 
 on. " I don't expect you're ready for it yet, but I 
 believe you will go some day. I can't connect you with 
 towns, with an office, with the life we lead — even, in a 
 
IG2 AT THi: DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 way, with civilization. . . . What is it you would mind 
 leaving ?" 
 
 " I don't know." 
 
 " It's not as if you were so very happy as you are." 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Aren't you sometimes very z/;2happy ?" 
 
 " I don't know." 
 
 " You must know that." 
 
 He did not reply. He tried to think. Then he spoke 
 — disjointedly, almost incoherently, sometimes quickly, 
 sometimes slowly. " It's because I'm lonely ; because . . . 
 Mother doesn't care for me — she never did. She tries 
 to, but she can't. She can only care for Martin, who's 
 a beast. . . . He's done dirty tricks all his life — to 
 me. When I was a little chap, about eight or nine, he 
 used to bully me, twist my arm — do things. That 
 kitten I had he gave to some boys and they killed it — 
 stoned it out of a tree, hunted it with two terriers. Then 
 I began to hate him. I hate him now. But I got 
 stronger — stronger than he was, and he had to let me 
 alone. Only he found other ways. He used to tell me 
 of things he had done, things he knew I would hate, 
 cruel things, like that about the kitten. He may not 
 have done them all — I don't know — but he knew they 
 made me miserable. I was a silly little chap, but I 
 couldn't help it. And he told tales about me to other 
 boys — lies, yet always with a little truth in them — and 
 the others always liked him best — he could turn every- 
 body against me except Jimmy. He got hold of some 
 of my poems, and showed them about at school. . . . 
 I couldn't avoid him, because we always slept together. 
 He knew I liked going round to the stables, that I liked 
 the horses and Jimmy, and that Jimmy was decent to 
 
THE APPRENTICE 103 
 
 me ; so he tried to get mother to say I wasn't to go, told 
 her I would hear things from the men and boys there 
 that I oughtn't to hear. But the worst things I ever 
 heard in my life came from him. ... I had a bad time. 
 I dare say it was very easy to give me a bad time. . . . 
 I could have stopped some of it, perhaps, by telling ; but 
 I didn't tell — I was ashamed, somehow, and didn't 
 want anyone to know. . . . What I used to pray for 
 was to have a friend of my own, and sometimes I 
 dreamed that I had one, a friend I could talk to as I 
 am talking now to you — in dreamland — now and then — 
 a dream only. . . . And when I wakened I would cry, 
 and stuff the bedclothes into my mouth so that no one 
 would hear me. I thought I could never be happy 
 again — stupid little kid. . . . Sometimes it has been 
 horrible — black — with nothing there — nothing but 
 what's hateful. I've blubbed, you know; and I've 
 wished it was over. . . . And there are things about 
 myself that I hate. Sometimes I want to do things — to 
 be a beast. Once mother began to talk to me about all 
 that. I don't know how she guessed " 
 
 He was trembling. He had forgotten everything but 
 the relief of speaking at last. An overwhelming wave 
 of emotion swept through him. He wanted — wanted 
 all that life, as he knew it now, could never give. He 
 hid his face in the heather and began to sob wildly. 
 
 She heard the sound of Charlie's voice hallooing to 
 them. He had just emerged from the wood below, but 
 at once he caught sight of Grace and waved his 
 hand. 
 
 She bent down. " Ricky, they're coming." 
 
 That strange, emotional outburst had already passed, 
 and with his face still turned to the heather he 
 
104 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 dried his tears and then sat up. " Silly fool," he said 
 savagely, angry at his own weakness. " You'll not have 
 any difficulty now in believing that I used to blub when 
 I was a kid." 
 
 Charlie was advancing leisurely, and next moment 
 Effie and Martin also appeared. Richard and Grace 
 watched their approach in silence. 
 
 " Why didn't you say where you were going to ?" 
 Effie began, as soon as she came within speaking 
 distance. " We hunted the whole woods for you, and I 
 got nearly up to my knees in a sort of horrid boggy 
 place that looked just like ordinary grass. I had to 
 take off my boots and stockings and wash them in the 
 stream, and they're only about half dry now, though 
 we hung them in front of the fire. Ma's fussing about 
 the train already. They're going to walk on slowly, 
 and we're to follow them and catch them up before they 
 reach the station." 
 
 As she spoke Richard had a swift vision of the 
 journey back — of his mother hot and flushed, of Effie 
 equally hot, of Charlie and Martin singing songs, of 
 Mr. McGlade, who would probably by this time have 
 finished what remained of the whisky, of the crush and 
 heat and noise — and suddenly it seemed to him that he 
 could not go back to these things just yet. 
 Grace had risen. " Perhaps we'd better go." 
 She did not look at Richard, who made no movement 
 to follow her. 
 
 "You are a lazy brute!" Charlie laughed. "There's 
 not too much time, really — especially if we want to get 
 a carriage to ourselves." 
 
 " I'm not coming," Richard answered simply. 
 Nobody grasped his meaning except Grace. 
 
THE APPRENTICE 105 
 
 " But if we wait we'll only have to rush it," Charlie 
 urged. 
 
 " I know. What I mean is that I'm not coming by 
 this train." 
 
 " There isn't any other train," said Charlie, still not 
 understanding. 
 
 " There will be another to-morrow. I'm going to 
 spend the night here." 
 
 " Don't be an ass," dropped Martin, with brotherly 
 briefness. 
 
 " There's a sort of summer-house, or the remains of 
 one, down there in the woods. You must have passed 
 it on your way up. I can make a bed there. There's 
 no roof, but it isn't going to rain." 
 
 Grace had already begun to descend the hillside, 
 followed by Effie. Martin called after her : " Look 
 here, tell him to come." 
 
 She did not answer.. 
 
 Charlie laughed. " I've half a mind to stay myself," 
 he declared. 
 
 " Do stay." 
 
 Charlie hesitated, but Martin drew him by the arm, 
 and he gave way. " Well, pleasant dreams," he said. 
 
 Richard watched them descend the mountain. Just 
 before they reached the trees Charlie looked back and 
 waved his hat in farewell. No one else turned, and a 
 moment later they entered the outer fringe of the wood 
 and were hidden from view. 
 
 The afternoon was extraordinarily peaceful. The 
 bees droned in the heather, and the grasshoppers made 
 a shrill whirring, now far, now near. In the distance, 
 below the woods, the dark, sun-splashed sea curled in 
 little waves to the stretch of white beach. 
 
io6 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 The sun slanted lower, and presently, after what 
 seemed a long time, through the windless quiet there 
 came the faint sound of an engine whistling. He felt 
 now that he was really alone, and a curious sense of 
 dreaming closed about him. That faint, far whistle 
 seemed to have cut him off for ever from the past, from 
 the old world, the old life. This — this that he was 
 enjoying just now — would be permanent. 
 
 After a little he got up and made his way down to 
 the summer-house, where he prepared his sleeping 
 quarters, cutting armfuls of dry bracken for a bed. He 
 then went on to the village for provisions, and by the 
 time he got back to the wood it was already dusk. He 
 ate his supper by candlelight, the flames of the two 
 candles hardly stirring in the windless air. Not a leaf 
 rustled. 
 
 It was curiously quiet. The birds had gone to roost, 
 and sleep, like an immense curtain, had dropped down 
 over the silent world. 
 
 He folded his jacket for a pillow, and in the soft 
 bracken, with a canopy of trees stooping above his head 
 and shutting out the stars, he slid gently into sleep. 
 
 He awakened in an inky darkness, and for a moment 
 or two could not imagine where he was. Then he 
 remembered. The sound he heard was a faint stirring 
 of myriads of leaves. The night had suddenly found a 
 voice, and was whispering old, old tales ; the same tales 
 that she had whispered to primordial man. He 
 wondered what time it was, for he felt wide awake, yet 
 it was still pitch dark. Presently he got up and went 
 to the door of the shelter. From here, through the 
 trees, he could see patches of bright moonlight, strangely 
 living, yet old, old too, like the voice of the leaves. 
 
THE APPRENTICE 107 
 
 He struck a match, and looked at his watch. It was 
 not quite two o'clock. He felt perfectly wakeful, and 
 a sudden desire to go up to where he and Grace had 
 been in the afternoon seized him. He stumbled on 
 through the light and shadow. Once a whir of wings 
 almost beat in his face, with a startling suddenness. 
 Then, as he passed the wood's edge, he stepped into 
 a magical world for which he was hardly prepared — a 
 world remade, a world bathed in an amazing white fire, a 
 world of mysterious shadows, where nothing was solid. 
 Climbing a little higher, he turned and looked below 
 him. The black wood stretched down, like an immense, 
 crouching beast sleeping upon the radiant mountain 
 side. And the sea, black, glittering, secret, touched with 
 silver fire — that also was ancient, a god, the dwelling- 
 place of gods. 
 
 He sat upon the heather. A cool, fresh wind touched 
 his cheek, the wind that had awakened the whispering 
 leaves. And all the intimacy of the summer night 
 descended upon him like a dream. 
 
 The earth revealed itself to him now with a curious 
 mythopoeic suggestiveness. It was a spirit, an angel, 
 immensely, wonderfully alive. The beauty of the night, 
 the fragrance of the woods, of the heather, stung his 
 senses, mounted to his brain, like a strong wine. He 
 felt intensely excited, yet strangely quiet. Something 
 was going to happen — some blinding, dazzling revela- 
 tion was about to be made to him, that would alter his 
 whole life. He lay very still, yet quivering in all his 
 limbs, his black hair ruffled, his red lips parted, the rich 
 blood warm under his brown skin. For a moment he 
 felt his brain reel, and a kind of f aintness seize him ; 
 but it passed almost instantaneously, and he sat up. 
 
io8 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 He could hear the stream splashing faintly not fifty- 
 yards below him, and, hurriedly pulling off his clothes, 
 he ran down to it, tripping in the heather and rolling 
 over, scratching his body a little. The cool water stung 
 him for a moment, and then its sweetness passed 
 through all his limbs and into his mind and spirit. He 
 stood in the white moonlight on the stream's edge, like 
 the silver statue of a young woodland god, the water 
 dripping from his smooth, shapely body. Then hej 
 clambered up to where his clothes lay tumbled in a heap, 
 dressed himself, and waited for the breaking of the day. 
 
 He listened to the birds awakening, rousing them- 
 selves with a twittering, drowsy sweetness. The sky 
 was of a pale, the palest, green, soft as a chalk drawing, 
 softer than any drawing could ever be. Right across 
 the horizon lay a dark, smoke-grey cloud, tapering to 
 a thread at the ends. Against the sky the heavy masses 
 of the trees were rounded, turning gradually, as the 
 light increased, from black to green. A gold star shone 
 in the pale green sky, and the moon was still there. 
 The wind sighed and passed above him, ruffling his 
 hair. The woods with their lawns and glades had not 
 yet assumed their dayhght appearance, were still filled 
 with mystery. The commonest objects had a strange, an 
 altered aspect, as if he looked at them with new eyes. 
 Then, as the sun rose, the colours sprang out every- 
 where, like flashing fires, and the thin, light mist of 
 dawn melted away. 
 
VI 
 
 On his return he had expected things to be, in some 
 mysterious way, different (above all, his relations with 
 Grace), but a week had now gone by, and the only 
 change he could perceive consisted in the deliberate 
 colourlessness of everything she said and did. Her 
 whole manner discouraged him. It made him feel as 
 if he had given himself away, receiving nothing in 
 return. She did not even express any curiosity as to 
 how he had passed his night in the woods — nothing — 
 the whole episode was closed. 
 
 Apparently she could only take an interest in her 
 two new pupils (children called Campbell — he knew 
 them very well by sight — who lived in a big hou^e up 
 in one of the avenues, and came to church). Grace 
 talked about them all the time. Mr. Campbell was a 
 solicitor, and a widower. His two children, a boy and 
 a girl, were everything that was interesting and charm- 
 ing. She liked them awfully — the whole family. Mr. 
 Campbell was so nice, so thoughtful ; the boy was such a 
 dear; and the little girl was perfectly sweet. 
 
 Sitting at the kitchen table, copying some music, 
 she continued to sing their praises till he was sick of 
 the very sound of their names. And Mrs. Seawright 
 listened to all she said, and made remarks of her own, 
 which Grace seized upon as an excuse for saying 
 more. 
 
 109 
 
no AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 " It's a pity you didn't get to know them a little 
 sooner," he couldn't help interjecting. " All your past 
 life must seem so wasted." 
 
 Grace regarded him with affected surprise, slightly 
 raising her eyebrows. He knew that she knew exactly 
 how this sort of drivel bored him. He even felt that 
 she must be producing it on purpose. What he couldn't 
 understand was why it should give her any pleasure to 
 do so. But she began next moment to talk in much 
 the same way about a novel — a nauseous mixture of 
 sickly erotics and sloppy religious sentiment, which had 
 gone into countless editions. Like the Campbell 
 children, it was " perfectly sweet." 
 
 " What's sweet about it ?" he growled, for he had 
 looked over the book earlier in the evening. 
 
 " The ideas are so nice," she replied softly, " — the 
 thoughts." 
 
 He raised and dropped his head with a quick move- 
 ment expressive of disgust, and Grace added, even more 
 angelically, " You'll like it when you get a little older, 
 Ricky. Of course, it isn't a boy's book." 
 
 At this he got up and said " Good-night," though it 
 was nearly an hour earlier than his usual time for doing 
 so. He took a book from his shelf to read in 
 bed, selecting — rather ostentatiously perhaps — Hume's 
 " Treatise on Human Nature." He felt that such a 
 choice sufficiently squashed Grace's remarks about 
 " boys' books " and " when he got older." 
 She smiled. 
 
 " What are you laughing at ?" he asked, colouring 
 up. " I suppose you think I'm reading this to show 
 off?" 
 
 " Dear Ricky, why should I think so ? I'm 
 
THE APPRENTICE in 
 
 sure you're reading it for pleasure, and perhaps also to 
 improve your mind." 
 
 He went out, slamming the door behind him. To the 
 stairs he confided his repartee, which consisted of a 
 single word. 
 
 Up in his own room, with the book propped against 
 his knees, he read Hume grimly and doggedly, though 
 he didn't want to read him, and nobody would have 
 known if he hadn't read him. Moreover, he couldn't 
 take in what he did read. On the contrary, he found 
 himself thinking all the time of Grace. He resolved 
 that he would never again allow anything she said to 
 ruffle his temper. He had made the same resolve before 
 — more than once — but she always seemed able to get 
 at him in a new way. 
 
 She had such a beastly ironical mind ! He didn't 
 approve, either, of the way she mystified his 
 mother — for it really came to that. His mother had 
 not the slightest idea what Grace was like. How could 
 she have ? He had no very clear idea himself, beyond 
 the fact that he was sure she wasn't, in any given 
 circumstances, in the least like what she was supposed 
 to be. . . . 
 
 And she could never leave him alone. She was 
 always messing about, wanting to kiss him, and next 
 moment getting him into rows, or, as to-night, making 
 him lose his temper. He could not understand why 
 he should sometimes have the feeling that she cared for 
 him — in a queer, unsatisfactory sort of way — more than 
 anybody else did. Probably she didn't care for him at 
 all, really, and he was a fool ever to have thought she did. 
 He opened Hume again, impatiently, but while he 
 read he was actually trying to recall what Grace had 
 
112 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 said to him about adventure — about seeing and tasting 
 and feeling things for himself. His mind suddenly 
 filled with a vision of the darkness and the moonlight, 
 of the woods and the sea. What was it that had been 
 going to happen to him that night, as he lay out on 
 the open hillside ? Something, surely ? And that 
 strange, brief madness which had sent him rurming 
 down naked to the water — as if for protection. 
 Protection from what ? What was there to fear ? He 
 had not really been afraid. And that night on the 
 lonely road ? Yes ; he had been afraid then. 
 
 The door opened softly, and Martin came in. 
 
 " Still at it ?" he smiled, advancing to the foot of the 
 bed and looking down at his brother, his bright, hand- 
 some face a little flushed. 
 
 Richard mechanically turned a page, while Martin 
 began to walk aimlessly about the room, pulling open 
 drawers and closing them. He hung his jacket over 
 the back of a chair, poured some water into a basin, 
 and dipped his face in it. Then, with many further 
 delays, he proceeded to undress. 
 
 It slowly dawned upon Richard, though he could 
 hardly have said why, that all this loitering about was 
 peculiar. He had an idea that Martin wanted to tell 
 him something. The lack of any intimacy between 
 them made conversation, save of the most casual sort, 
 difficult, and he waited with curiosity to see how it 
 would begin. 
 
 " Ever been to the Palace ?" Martin asked, apparently 
 absorbed in his own image as it was reflected in the 
 looking-glass. 
 
 Richard stared over the top of his book, and answered, 
 " No/* 
 
THE APPRENTICE 113 
 
 " There's a good show on there this week. I'll stand 
 you in if you like." 
 
 Richard still stared at Martin's back. Why this 
 mood of generosity ? It did not impress him, and 
 instead of replying he pursued aloud the train of his 
 own thoughts. " Where do you get the money from to 
 go to these places ? Where did you get the money 
 to buy your gun ? Charlie told me you had bought 
 one. 
 
 Martin looked round with a quick, delightful smile. 
 " You see, I've made a little on horses lately. It's all 
 right," he added. " It's quite safe. I know a girl who 
 gets the tips. You needn't be saying anything about 
 it, of course." 
 
 That something in his appearance, in the way he 
 spoke, which had struck Richard as strange, all at 
 once flashed upon him in its true light, giving him, at 
 the same time, a considerable shock. He felt a little 
 sick, felt a sort of physical chill, as if an imminent 
 danger had unexpectedly been revealed to him. Ma^rtin 
 was not quite sober. 
 
 In silence he watched him put on his nightshirt, but, 
 instead of getting into bed, he sat down on the side 
 of it, and produced still further confidences. 
 
 " By the way, Charlie and I happened to drop in at 
 the Palace to-night, and we saw a chum of yours there 
 — at least, he's in your place — a fellow called Douglas." 
 
 Richard felt himself colouring, felt a kind of shame. 
 " Is that why you wanted to stand me in ? I don't 
 suppose he would have mentioned that he had seen you, 
 and if he had I shouldn't have told anybody." 
 
 "Oh, it's all right," Martin laughed. 
 
 The bewildering crudeness of his brother's diplomacy 
 
 8 
 
114 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 suggested to the younger boy a whole train of fore- 
 bodings not directly connected with it. But if a fellow 
 was such an ass as that, there was no saying what 
 scrapes he mightn't get into. And he had a distinct 
 vision — promoted by the thought of the " girl who got 
 the tips " — of the particular kind of scrape that Martin's 
 personal attractiveness would make him liable to. Even 
 what he had learned about him to-night showed how 
 far he must already have fallen from a state of grace. 
 He thought of their mother. 
 
 " Wait a minute," he said, as Martin was getting up 
 to turn out the gas. He hesitated. It was a case, he 
 believed, for being as friendly as possible; and there 
 was always the great advantage that Martin could not 
 be shocked. 
 
 " You're not going with girls — or anything like 
 that ?" 
 
 He was quite wrong. Martin was shocked. " I don't 
 know what you're talking about ! " 
 
 Richard's lips moved in an involuntary murmur : 
 " You always were a liar, you know." 
 
 "What?" Martin asked. 
 
 " Nothing. . . . You do know what I mean, all the 
 same, or you wouldn't deny it. . . . That girl you get 
 your tips from ?" 
 
 " I didn't deny anything. It's just like you to 
 suggest such things, though. You must be thinking of 
 them a good deal yourself or you wouldn't have accused 
 me. 
 
 " You used to talk — in that way." 
 
 " In what way ?" 
 
 " You said the girls in your place were always putting 
 their arms round you when they met you on the stairs 
 
THE APPRENTICE 115 
 
 or in the passages. There wasn't very much you 
 didn't say, if it comes to that." 
 
 Martin was full of righteous indignation, of injured 
 innocence. " That was when I was a kid ; when I first 
 went. Upon my soul ! You've got a nice kind of 
 mind !" 
 
 Richard received this comment in silence, and 
 Martin's indignation vanished as suddenly as it had 
 arisen. 
 
 " I think you ought to give up your Sunday-school 
 class," the younger boy said slowly. 
 
 " How the devil am I to give it up ?" cried Martin, 
 exasperated anew by this suggestion, which appeared, 
 indeed, to touch him more sharply than anything yet. 
 " Do you think I want to keep up the damned thing !" 
 
 " All you've got to do is to tell Mr. Escott." 
 
 " Yes ; you can lie there jawing ; but it's not all I've got 
 to do. I don't care a fig about Mr. Escott. He's a 
 silly ass anyway. But I'd have to tell mother too." 
 
 " You're telling her now, you see — the other thing." 
 
 " What other thing ?" 
 
 " Well, it's pretty low down, isn't it, to go on pretend- 
 ing to be what you're not ?" 
 
 Martin scratched his head, with a half merry, half 
 rueful expression. 
 
 "Mother will mind at first," Richard added. "But 
 very soon she'll get used to the idea. Besides, you can 
 
 say — I don't know what That when Sunday comes 
 
 you're tired, and want to be out in the fresh air — some- 
 thing like that. She'll understand." 
 
 Martin laughed. " You're a rum sort of chap, you 
 know ! Well, we'll give the matter our best considera- 
 tion. Only " 
 
ii6 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 " Only what ?" 
 
 " Couldn't you get me out of it in some way ?" 
 
 " I don't see how." 
 
 Martin glanced obliquely at him, with a dawning 
 smile. " You might work Mr. Escott. Get him to 
 say he thinks I'd be better going for a walk on 
 Sunday, seeing how I'm cooped up in an office all week 
 — any tosh like that. Then I could reluctantly consent, 
 perhaps, and it would be all right." 
 
 " You mean you want Mr. Escott to tell lies in order to 
 save you from the disagreeableness of telling the truth ?" 
 
 " It wouldn't be a lie," said Martin, plaintively. " I 
 would be better going for a walk. You said so your- 
 self a minute ago — before you began to talk like an 
 improving book. At any rate, there would be fewer 
 lies this way than any other. Only imagine all I'm 
 telling now, Sunday after Sunday, by filling up these 
 kids with second-hand religious muck." 
 
 " There's no need for you to tell them muck." 
 
 " Well, you know what I mean. I'd be awfully 
 obliged too. . . . Think of all the things I've done for 
 you r He smiled with a certain conscious rascality that 
 was not without its humour. " It does seem a bit 
 rummy that it should be me and not you who's putting 
 half the kids of the parish in the right path. Think, 
 Ricky, of what I've already done for the community, 
 even if I don^t keep it up." 
 
 Richard was not listening to him. He was turning 
 over ways and means in his mind, and wondering if 
 Martin's plan would not after all be the best way out, 
 considering how their mother took such things. 
 
 " If I ask Mr. Escott to do this," he presently said, 
 " will you promise not to touch drink again ?" 
 
THE APPRENTICE 117 
 
 " Drink !" Martin echoed, with great surprise. 
 
 " You know you've had some to-night." 
 
 " If you call one " 
 
 " I don't believe that." 
 
 " Well, put it at two then. Could you believe in two, 
 Ricky ? No ?" 
 
 " You seem to think it doesn't matter — that it's even 
 rather funny." 
 
 " I think you're rather funny. But I'll promise any- 
 thing you like." 
 
 " On your honour ?" 
 
 " On my honour." 
 
 " You'll never touch drink again ?" 
 
 " Never again." 
 
 ." Then I'll ask him." 
 
 " But if he won't do it ?" 
 
 " He will do it." 
 
 " Well— thanks awfully." 
 
VII 
 
 In the autumn Richard received notice that he had 
 matriculated, but long before then his interest in the 
 matter had ceased. A quite different plan had swum 
 into the horizon, in accordance with which he mapped 
 out a course of reading for the winter. The first book 
 upon his list was Bradley's " Appearance and Reality," 
 but he could make little of that work, and after 
 struggling through fifty pages gave it up. He decided 
 that if Bradley baffled him it was because he should 
 have begun farther back, and, under the guidance of 
 Zeller, Vol. I., embarked upon the tranquil sea of Greek 
 philosophy. 
 
 Mrs. Wilberforce, meeting him one day as he was 
 coming home, stopped to congratulate him upon his 
 success. His mother had told her about the examina- 
 tion; and they all seemed to take it seriously, so 
 seriously that he was ashamed to confess its real 
 insignificance. The vagueness of his purpose, if he 
 could be said to have any purpose at all, was rendered 
 more striking by contrast with the intensely practical 
 ambitions of both Martin and Grace. Study that began 
 and ended in itself was incomprehensible. It was a 
 waste of time. He could not see it, but everybody else 
 saw it, Grace among them; and what emerged for him 
 from a multitude of arguments was the unqualified 
 worldlincss of the point of view he was asked to accept 
 — a point of view that, should he reject it, would place 
 
 ii8 
 
THE APPRENTICE 119 
 
 him definitely in the ranks of visionaries and generally 
 hopeless persons. Grace, from the first, seemed to have 
 achieved success — success, as everybody about him con- 
 ceived of it — and Martin was obviously going to. What 
 they could not, what his mother, above all, could not, 
 understand, was that they had accepted life on their 
 own terms, and that he must accept it on his. It was 
 about this time that Mrs. Seawright began to notice a 
 change in the girl's relation to her younger son. The 
 change was very subtle, very slight. It was not that 
 they were more intimate than before, nor even that they 
 quarrelled less; indeed, it consisted principally in the 
 fact that Grace talked less about him. Her wonderful 
 affection for him, wonderful from the days of childhood, 
 had in the mother's eyes suddenly become an object 
 for meditation. She began to watch them. They 
 would sit in the darkness for an hour at a time, while 
 Grace played to him, and this practice did not commend 
 itself to Mrs. Seawright. She would have liked to 
 forbid it altogether, and invariably, when she came into 
 the room on such occasions, she lit the gas. She even, 
 when she heard the piano, and could think of an excuse, 
 went upstairs on purpose to light it, though she knew 
 such interruptions were annoying in the extreme. Then 
 it seemed to her that a coldness sprang up between 
 them, quite different in kind from the many disagree- 
 ments they had had in the past; but she did not like 
 to question Grace, and Grace, on this point, was as 
 reticent as Richard himself. 
 
 Mrs. Seawright could note the estrangement, however 
 slight its manifestations, but its origin was hidden from 
 her, as so many things nowadays, she told herself, were 
 hidden. All she could say was that at the end of 
 
120 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 January Grace and Richard were no longer the close 
 friends they had once been, with the immediate result 
 that Grace plunged more deeply than ever into her work, 
 and that Mrs. Seawright thought she was unhappy. 
 
 It all dated back really to an evening in December, 
 when Richard, having finished Zeller, Vol. III., on 
 " Socrates and the Socratic Schools," had gone out for a 
 stroll before bedtime. It was as he paused beneath a 
 lamp to light his pipe that he had become aware cf 
 hurried footsteps behind him. Wheeling round, still 
 holding in his hands the lighted and shielded match, he 
 saw a girl approaching rapidly, in fact running. She 
 was fair; strikingly, vividly pretty; and dressed in 
 black. There was, indeed, rather more of vividness 
 about her than the austere student of Zeller wholly 
 approved of. That is to say, her very broad-brimmed 
 hat seemed unnecessarily large, for it was the contrast 
 which this article of adornment made with the girl's 
 dazzling complexion that somehow struck the highest 
 note in his first impression of her. But, agitated, a 
 little breathless, she spoke to him : ** I beg )'our pardon. 
 . . . Would you be so kind as to let me walk with 
 you . . . ? A man has been following me all down the 
 road. ... I don't know what to do. There seem to be 
 no policemen about." 
 
 Richard looked back and saw a figure standing, at 
 a distance of some thirty or forty yards, in the shadow 
 of a wall, ostensibly lighting a cigarette. The figure 
 began to move on, crossing the road, and passing on 
 the other side, only again to come to a pause. All 
 Richard's chivalrous instincts were aroused. "What 
 direction are you going in ?" he asked. 
 
 " Straight on — not very far. . . . It's very strange 
 
THE APPRENTICE 121 
 
 that there should be no poHcemen !" She spoke in a 
 flat Httle voice that had suddenly become nervous, 
 doubtful, as if the impulse that had led her to appeal 
 to him had already failed. 
 
 They walked on quickly, side by side, till, by the wall 
 of the University, she said, " It's down here," and they 
 turned off at a right angle. It was at this point that 
 Richard's first emotion began to suffer a change, and 
 with each step he took it grew colder, till only the 
 ashes remained of that first fine protective blaze. 
 Whether it was that his companion had been so far in 
 advance of her pursuer when she had appealed to him, 
 whether it was a recollection of the terrible Valerie in 
 " La Cousine Bette " (a work he had just read in order 
 to improve his French), whether it was the hat, the 
 dazzling complexion, or merely something in the girl's 
 manner, or all these things together, that was responsible 
 for his altered attitude, would be impossible to say ; but 
 a pang of suspicion had undoubtedly shot across his 
 sympathy. Silently and stolidly he kept pace with. her, 
 severely looking straight before him, though each street 
 lamp, as they came under its splashing glare, urged him 
 to a contrary behaviour. As if in response to his 
 uncertainty the girl herself seemed to become more and 
 more self-conscious, and a glacial constraint closed about 
 them, which he at length tried to break through with 
 a perfunctory remark. She replied nearly inaudibly, 
 and they appeared to have been walking for hours in 
 this frozen silence when she at last stopped before the 
 door of a house half-way down a long, commonplace 
 street, and thanked him. 
 
 " I hope I haven't brought you much out of your 
 way ?" she faltered. 
 
122 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 " Not at aU." 
 
 They waited, neither looking at the other. He 
 managed to bring out that he was dehghted to have 
 been of any service to her, but before he had concluded 
 this effort she had rung the bell. 
 
 " Good-night." 
 
 " Good-night." 
 
 For the first time he now gazed straight into her 
 face. Only for a moment their glances met; then he 
 heard the latch of the door being drawn back, and, 
 lifting his cap, walked away. 
 
 Yet as he retraced his steps, under the same lamps, 
 through the same pools of shadow, he had an impression 
 of two dark, very blue eyes that were certainly neither 
 bold nor wicked. Simultaneously, it came over him 
 that he had behaved odiously. He felt his cheeks glow. 
 The timidity, the sweetness of those eyes kindled 
 within him a hot sense of shame. Their blue was the 
 darkest blue of the sky — deep, cloudless, lovely. He 
 hated himself for his suspicions, which had been as 
 mean as they were stupid. He felt unhappy, miserable, 
 a beast, a fool. The strongly puritanic strain in his 
 nature, that had come to him directly from his mother, 
 had never been in the least modified by his intellectual 
 emancipation, and it rendered him liable to floods of 
 remorse for sins imaginary or otherwise. He felt 
 remorse now, bitter, certainly absurd. If he had obeyed 
 his natural impulse he would have gone back there and 
 then to the house and begged the girl's pardon — for she 
 had known, had known what he had thought. He came 
 home instead, and was cross with Grace at supper. 
 
 Next morning, down at the office, he heard Mr. 
 Lambert Jackson inveighing against a state of society 
 
THE APPRENTICE 123 
 
 which made it impossible for a lady to go about alone 
 without running a risk of being insulted. His own 
 daughter Rose, last night, coming home from a friend's 
 house (she had missed the last tram and had not liked 
 to go back to ask for an escort) — his daughter Rose, 
 in the most respectable quarter of the town, had been 
 spoken to, been followed, by a man, a quite well-dressed 
 man, not young either. Fortunately some boy had 
 come to her rescue and had seen her home. But she 
 had had a shock, had arrived quite nervous, almost 
 ill, had burst into tears, was trembling all over, had 
 hardly been able to tell them what had happened. One 
 might as well be living in Paris or Berlin or any of 
 those foreign cities you hear about ! 
 
 Stricken still with last night's remorse, Richard had 
 not revealed the identity of the rescuer till Mr. Jackson 
 was alone. Stricken still more by Mr. Jackson's 
 gratitude — Rose's indirectly — so undeserved — the girl's 
 fair face, a picture now of wronged innocence, floated 
 before him, two dark blue eyes regarding him reproach- 
 fully. He presently came to see that the tears, the 
 nervousness, must have been more the result of his 
 groundless, his unspeakably cruel suspicions, than of 
 anything else. At a week's end he had come to regard 
 himself as a betrayer of confidence; at the end of a 
 fortnight those so blue, reproachful eyes haunted him. 
 In their sweetness the expression of reproach became 
 unbearable, and a desire to see it change to one of 
 forgiveness began to obsess him. The weeks im- 
 mediately following Christmas were distinguished by 
 the dawn of a romance whose flights were none the less 
 bold for the timidity which prevented Richard from 
 taking even the first step towards their realization. On 
 
124 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 Saturday and Sunday afternoons, in solitary walks 
 along muddy roads, between yellow sodden fields and 
 under grey skies, he pursued its wanderings. These 
 walks were solitary, but not dull; at times they were 
 almost passionately exciting. And he never doubted 
 that Rose, the actual Rose, was the object of his 
 tenderness. He had not seen her again, but an image 
 of her, an image which he believed to be a faithful 
 portrait, hung enshrined and lighted in the fresh swept 
 temple of his imagination. An immense sympathy 
 flooded his heart. He longed for somebody to whom 
 he could talk about Rose. There were times when he 
 came very near to confiding in the most improbable 
 persons — Davy Hamilton,. Sydney, even Mr. Jackson 
 himself. Then he told Grace, and Grace was horrid, 
 in the end astonishing him by a deliberate attack upon 
 the object of his devotion, saying that if girls walked 
 about the roads alone at such hours it was because they 
 ivantcd to be spoken to. He was furious, forgetting 
 that he had at first taken that view himself. 
 
 He called upon Mr. Escott, who had now left Myrtle 
 Row, and was established in a rectory of his own. 
 Unfortunately, he found another visitor already in 
 possession, a young man keenly interested in politics 
 and determined to discuss them. Richard sat on and 
 on, in a room reeking with tobacco smoke, but it was 
 not till nearly eleven o'clock that the young man finally 
 settled the political situation and took his departure. 
 And when he had gone, it seemed to Richard ridiculous 
 to try to switch the conversation on to what was occupy- 
 ing his own mind. 
 
 Mr. Escott smiled, stretched his legs, yawned : " Well, 
 Ricky, and what have you to say for yourself?" 
 
THE APPRENTICE 125 
 
 Ricky appeared to have nothing to say for himself; 
 that was the worst of it ; and the clergyman pushed the 
 tobacco jar towards him, himself filling yet another 
 pipe. It suddenly struck Richard that it was peculiar 
 that Mr. Escott should not be married. 
 
 " Do you want me to go ?" he asked abruptly. " You 
 look rather fagged." 
 
 " No ; no. I am tired, but I never go to bed before 
 midnight." 
 
 Richard sat silent. " Politics seem so unim- 
 portant compared with other things," he ventured at 
 last. 
 
 Mr. Escott was amused. " For instance ?" 
 
 " Well — human relationships." 
 
 He got up and began to pace backwards and for- 
 wards between the bookcase and the hearthrug. 
 
 " Let us talk about human relationships then. Only it 
 is your turn to talk to me." 
 
 Richard paused at the bookcase. " Do you think 
 that women are better than men ?" 
 
 " Quite as good, at any rate. On the whole, perhaps, 
 better." 
 
 Richard blushed. " I've been thinking a good deal 
 about such things lately — I don't know why," he 
 added. 
 
 " And is that your conclusion ?" 
 
 "Yes. . . . There's something about them that's — 
 higher." 
 
 Mr. Escott nodded, as if to indicate a more or less 
 reserved assent. " Of course, such generalizations are 
 a little rash — don't you think ? Personally, I can't see 
 people except as individuals." 
 
 Richard, apparently, could see the whole human race. 
 
126 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 " This is a general quality," he declared, " — what 
 I refer to. And I've never seen it in a man." 
 
 "You haven't told me about it yet, you know," Mr. 
 Escott mentioned sympathetically. " I dare say I shall 
 agree when I hear." 
 
 The boy turned to him eagerly, and his face had a 
 wonderful enthusiasm and innocence. " It's something 
 strange — and far; something that reaches down from 
 another world and brings a kind of beauty into things." 
 
 Mr. Escott accepted this explanation; he was even 
 touched by it, or by the youth of the explainer. " A 
 good woman is usually very good indeed," he said. 
 " But there are good men too. There always have been, 
 always will be." 
 
 Richard looked at him with dark eyes that saw only 
 their own bright vision. " You know the sort of beauty 
 I mean — a kind of secret beauty, innocent and harmless 
 and quiet. You know the feeling that comes to you 
 sometimes when you are away from everything ugly and 
 noisy — on a summer afternoon, above the river, lying on 
 your back in the grass, listening, listening to the birds 
 in the woods, watching the sunlight and feeling it, 
 feeling it go all through you — when everything seems 
 close to a kind of dreamland — that is the world they 
 seem to belong to. A man can only think of it and 
 wonder about it, but they are it." 
 
 " Are they ?" Mr. Escott wondered. " Women are 
 intensely practical," he could not help observing. 
 
 "Oh, I don't mean that they're what I say 
 consciously. Nothing that is self-conscious is really 
 beautiful; nothing that isn't simple is beautiful. Only. 
 ^/leir beauty isn't an acquired thing, like a man's art. 
 It is a part of their being. You can't take it from them. 
 
THE APPRENTICE 127 
 
 You can bruise it and tear it and trample it in the mud, 
 but you can't take it from them any more than you can 
 take its sweetness from a rose by tearing it or trampHng 
 it in the mud." 
 
 Mr. Escott smiled again. " They are certainly the 
 centre of the world," he admitted. " Everything moves 
 about them." 
 
 Richard nodded approval. He stood still before a 
 large framed photograph of the Mourning Demeter. 
 " I can't understand why there were ever any male 
 gods. That is the divinity. The others, Apollo and the 
 
 rest " He shrugged his shoulders. " Look at that 
 
 wretched thing, with its little cloak and its pretty face !" 
 
 " That is the Apollo Belvedere. You really mustn't 
 be rude to my pictures, Ricky. I can't keep on 
 apologizing for them." 
 
 He leaned back in his chair and watched his visitor, 
 a faint smile upon his face, prepared to listen, wonder- 
 ing a little, yet understanding, understanding much 
 better than Richard did. He was not bored — he, was 
 very rarely bored — but he had been overworking himself, 
 and all this rich, innocent romance of youth which was 
 being poured into his ears, these marvellous discoveries, 
 immeasurably precious, awakened echoes that made him 
 feel old and disillusioned. And he sat in silence, while 
 Richard talked with an unusual freedom, an enthusiasm 
 which gave life and charm to what he said — beauty, too 
 — though it was all, in a sense, fantastic, perhaps 
 absurd. 
 
 It was one o'clock when Mr. Escott closed the door 
 behind his departed guest, and instantly, like water that 
 is sucked into dry sand, the floating waves of idealism 
 that had filled the house disappeared, and he was left 
 
128 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 only with the consciousness that he was extraordinarily 
 tired. As a window behind which a light is suddenly 
 put out, his face altered. " I suppose he has fallen, or 
 is about to fall, in love," he remarked pessimistically to 
 the hatstand. " And, I suppose, with luck, in about 
 twenty years from now he may be able to get married. 
 What's going to happen in the meantime we needn't 
 inquire into. Well, ' the sooner it's over, the sooner to 
 sleep ' — all round." 
 
 He turned out the hall gas and began to climb the 
 stairs. 
 
VIII 
 
 With Richard a strong desire to see Rose again began 
 to overshadow everything else, yet it never struck him 
 that he might call upon the Jacksons. Then fortune 
 played into his hands, for Mr. Jackson, to whom he 
 had become exceedingly attentive, asked him to drop 
 in to see them some evening when he should have 
 nothing better to do. 
 
 It was on a Monday when this suggestion was made, 
 and that very afternoon Richard ordered a new suit of 
 clothes. The clothes arrived home on Saturday morn- 
 ing, to become forthwith an object of maternal specula- 
 tion. From the label Mrs. Seawright was able to deduce 
 that the suit must have been made to order — an 
 extravagance. There were printed directions to the 
 effect that the parcel should be opened immediately, and 
 these Mrs. Seawright obeyed, though subsequently, after 
 discussing the point with Grace, she tied it up again. 
 
 For two hours that night Richard lay awake, 
 enjoying in anticipation the visit that had been so long 
 deferred. His entrance, his first words to Rose, the 
 intimate conversation that was to follow, took a 
 hundred different turns, which, nevertheless, one and all, 
 somehow led to a mutual declaration of how much they 
 liad been thinking of each other. Yet when Sunday 
 aitcrnoon came it was so fine that he feared Rose would 
 have gone out for a walk, and put off his visit. 
 
 129 9 
 
130 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 Immediately tea was over he set out. If they should 
 be going to church he would catch them before they 
 had started and walk with her; if they were not, he 
 could at least stay longer than he could have stayed in 
 the afternoon. 
 
 As he came within sight of the house he was seized 
 by a fit of shyness, and passed the door without 
 knocking at it, but before reaching the end of the street 
 he turned back. He knocked rather gently, and no one 
 came. He knocked again, more loudly, and suddenly 
 the door was opened by Mr. Lambert Jackson himself, 
 dressed for going out, with a silk hat on his head and 
 a tightly rolled umbrella in his hand. He seemed 
 surprised to see Richard, and they stood gazing at each 
 other in silence. The bookkeeper was the first to 
 recollect himself. 
 
 " Good-evening. Why didn't you tell me you were 
 coming? They're all out — just gone a few minutes 
 ago to Mrs. Jackson's mother's." 
 
 Richard's face fell. " It doesn't matter — I mean, Tm 
 very sorry. I — just thought I'd drop in for a tew 
 minutes." 
 
 " Even the baby is out," said Mr. Jackson, as if to 
 complete the situation. 
 
 " I hope they're all quite well." 
 
 " Quite well, thanks." 
 
 " And Miss Rose ?" he managed to stammer. 
 
 "Oh, Rose is all right. We had a letter from her 
 yesterday." 
 
 " A letter ?" 
 
 "Yes. From Liverpool. She lives there now, you 
 know, with her uncle and aunt. She has got a position 
 as a typist there." 
 
THE APPRENTICE 131 
 
 A gulf seemed suddenly to have opened at his feet, 
 a gulf into which he watched all his cherished dreams 
 drop heavily, leaving the world cold and void. " But 
 I thought — when you asked me to call " 
 
 " She's been there for several months, in an office. 
 Mrs. Jackson didn't want her to leave home, but Rose 
 seemed to think she would like it." 
 
 " I see." He stood there blankly, as if unable to 
 decide what to do. 
 
 " Well, I'll not ask you in, for the fact is I'm just 
 going out to a meeting. But I'll take you with me. 
 It will interest you. You may never have such an 
 opportunity again." 
 
 Richard felt too dazed by his disappointment to think 
 of making an excuse, and a moment later found himself 
 walking down the street beside the Swedenborgian. As 
 they went Mr. Jackson explained what the opportunity 
 consisted in. It seemed principally to be bound up 
 with the fact that Mrs. Davis, from the States, was at 
 present in Belfast. Richard received this thrilling news 
 in silence, and Mr. Jackson went on to tell him of a 
 remarkable thing that had occurred that morning. The 
 baby, while sitting on his knee, had suddenly grasped 
 a pencil and begun to do automatic writing. They had 
 held their breaths. The writing was difficult to 
 decipher, but they were making it out. 
 
 They paused before a house in the doorway of which 
 stood a boy who smiled at them and wished Mr. 
 Jackson " Good-evening." 
 
 " Many here yet ?" the Swedenborgian affably 
 inquired. 
 
 '' Full house." 
 
 They climbed innumerable stairs, and entered a large 
 
132 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 room occupying the whole of the upper floor. It was 
 already packed by an audience, who were seated in 
 long rows, and so close together that little room was 
 left for elbows and knees. The President, a person who 
 on week days obviously exercised the profession of shop- 
 walker, approached them, shook hands damply, and 
 mentioned that Mr. Jackson would find a couple of seats 
 on the platform. He led the way as if the hosiery 
 department were situated in that vicinity, and Richard 
 found himself in an extremely prominent position, 
 facing the audience. Through his dejection and sense 
 of disappointment his surroundings began to impress 
 themselves upon him. They were far from beautiful, 
 but they had a quality of ugliness that was eminently 
 expressive. The hard white light pouring down from 
 the ceiling illuminated, mercilessly, faces pale, tired, 
 unhappy. It seemed to Richard that he had never seen 
 such queer-shaped heads, such odd features, such weedy 
 or bulging forms, so many of the stigmata of degenera- 
 tion, of unhealthy living, unhealthy parentage. The 
 walls were roughly distempered, and above a long row 
 of hats, coats, and umbrellas, hung a large print of 
 Sir Joshua's " Heads of Angels." The heat was already 
 tropical, but not a window was open. In the front row, 
 immediately facing him, sat a hook-nosed man, soft and 
 pink and pulpy, with a white, silky beard, and pale 
 fat hands that moved about like large, blown-out 
 frogs. He came forward to speak to Mr. Jackson, 
 and his voice and his smile were soft too, ingratiating, 
 very affectionate One of the soft, pale hands 
 moved over Richard, brushing some dust from his 
 jacket. 
 
 The President advanced to the edge of the platform 
 
THE APPRENTICE 133 
 
 and announced a hymn, reading the first verse 
 aloud : — 
 
 " Lead, spirits bright, 'mid earth^s encircling gloom, 
 
 Lead ye me on ; 
 From shades of night to life's immortal bloom, 
 
 Lead ye me on ; 
 From doubts and fears, lead me to light and love, 
 To that blest home where loving spirits move." 
 
 A youth with a sad face and a weak mouth played 
 a few introductory bars on the harmonium, and the 
 congregation rose to its feet. 
 
 The meeting progressed, very much like an ordinary 
 prayer meeting, till a huge, bizarre figure, clad in brown 
 and green robes, rustled in from a door at the back 
 and took a seat not far from Richard and Mr. Lambert 
 Jackson. He knew, of course, that it must be Mrs. 
 Davis, and presently she rose, standing in profile 
 against the pink background, like a figure in an 
 audacious poster. Her large Jewish face was of the 
 colour of old ivory, and terminated in a series of chins. 
 The black eyes were hard and bright, the mouth square, 
 the expression somewhat forbidding, suggestive of 
 possible reappearances, far from reassuring, in the 
 dark. She faced her congregation, colossal, command- 
 ing, and spoke with a strong American twang. Her 
 grammar was appalling and her voice cracked, but it 
 was apparent that she was accustomed to hold an 
 audience. She had an individuality, and it seemed to 
 flood the room. She began to talk first of the healing 
 powers of spiritualism, as recorded in the New 
 Testament, speaking without notes, a stream of dis- 
 connected sentences, usually foolish, invariably vulgar, 
 yet with something behind them that fascinated her 
 
134 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 listeners — and every now and again a gleam of 
 American humour shone out incongruously. With a 
 startling irrelevance she announced that she believed in 
 " free love." " ' Love one another," she quoted, " but 
 remember that you must love proper. When I talk of 
 free love I mean good love. That's what so many men 
 mistakes, and women. You can't be a Christian unless 
 you're a spiritualist, and you can't be a spiritualist 
 unless you're a Christian. I don't say there aren't 
 mediums that do wrong. People tell you that their 
 lost ones wouldn't communicate through a fallen 
 medium. They say when they see a medium drinking 
 in a saloon that his messages aren't true. But I guess 
 that argument's about as feeble as a chicken with heart 
 disease. Here's the spirits thirsting to communicate 
 with their loved ones, and they see a fallen medium. 
 Well, they speak through him same as if you was dying 
 of thirst you would drink out of a dirty cup that might 
 have a germ in it. . . ." 
 
 He wondered if he should ever see Rose again. 
 Probably she would only come home for a few days 
 once or twice a year. He felt a bitterness against life, 
 which seemed to offer tantalizing visions of happiness 
 only to withdraw them. Such happiness would be 
 inexpressibly dear to him — and he had had so little of 
 it. Instead, he had this ! And he felt a sudden anger 
 against Mr. Lambert Jackson, who had dragged him 
 here, into a hotbed of ugliness and stupidity. 
 
 Meanwhile the discourse rambled on, the congrega- 
 tion drinking it in with the greatest seriousness, and 
 the meeting concluding with an example of Mrs. Davis's 
 clairvoyant gifts. When it was over everybody went 
 home, the people who had been most impressed shaking 
 
THE APPRENTICE 135 
 
 hands with the pythoness. Mr. Lambert Jackson was 
 naturally among these, Mrs. Davis having discovered a 
 spirit behind his chair, which, after prolonged cross- 
 examination, had revealed itself as that of his wife*s 
 father. 
 
 "Very fine; very remarkable," he kept jubilantly 
 repeating to Richard all the way home. "We don't 
 often get such positive results. That, for instance, about 
 the young man's brother who had died of con- 
 sumption — she couldn't possibly have known about 
 that." 
 
 Richard drew away from the hand Mr. Jackson had 
 affectionately laid upon his shoulder. " She could see 
 that he's dying of it himself. Everybody in the room 
 could see it." 
 
 " You're prejudiced, my boy. I consider that when 
 the young man asked her what his brother had died 
 of it was a test question — a test question." He chuckled 
 amazingly. 
 
 "Oh, you're mad!" Richard murmured to himself; 
 and only the thought of Rose prevented him from saying 
 it aloud. 
 
 When he reached home he found his mother and 
 Grace sitting in the kitchen, Grace reading aloud from 
 Dean Farrar's " Life of Christ," and Mrs. Seawright 
 palpably dozing. He listened to the girl's beautiful 
 voice, and thought of Rose. He was interrupted by a 
 sound of somebody rattling at the hall-door. 
 
 " That'll be Martin," Mrs. Seawright exclaimed, start- 
 ing into wakefulness. " The latch must have slipped. 
 You'd better go, Richard." 
 
 He was about to do so when they heard the door 
 open, and then shut with a bang. There was a noise 
 
136 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 as of somebody knocking against the hatstand, and 
 next moment the kitchen door was flung wide. Martin 
 stood there, with one hand on the door-post, steadying 
 himself, extraordinarily white. 
 
 "Thought— all in bed," he said foolishly. "Wha' 
 time is't?" He took a step forward, and lurched 
 violently against the table. 
 
 Richard had sprung to his feet. " Come on," he said 
 quietly, catching him by the arm. He led him from 
 the room and up to their bedroom, Martin offering no 
 resistance. 
 
 "Why did you come in like this?" Richard asked. 
 "You might have gone straight upstairs." 
 
 " Upstairs ?" Martin echoed uncomprehendingly. He 
 sat down on the bed, and was suddenly and violently 
 ill. This last calamity appeared to deprive him of all 
 power over his limbs. With glazed eyes he stared about 
 him, already half unconscious. " Awfly sorry," he 
 murmured. " All right in the mornin'. Don' say 
 anythin* about it. It's Charlie's fault. Charlie's full as 
 a bat. That fellow's goin' to hell." 
 
 Richard helped him to undress, and got him to bed. 
 Long before he had cleaned up the room Martin was 
 snoring heavily. 
 
 He went downstairs to the two women, who were 
 sitting just as he had left them, save that Dean Farrar 
 had been put away. In Mrs. Seawright's white face, 
 in her eyes, there was a look that Richard had never 
 seen there before, not even on the day of Martin's 
 accident. Grace slipped quietly from the room. He 
 could not meet his mother's gaze, but sat down in silence 
 at the supper table. The silence continued until he had 
 finished his porridge. 
 
THE APPRENTICE 137 
 
 " Is he all right now ?" Mrs. Seawright asked at 
 length, speaking in a cold, level voice. 
 
 " Yes ; he's asleep." 
 
 The mother said nothing further, and the silence grew 
 oppressive, charged with all the tragic thoughts that 
 he knew were passing through her mind. Again he 
 glanced at her. Her head was now a little bowed, her 
 hands folded in her lap. Then he jumped up from his 
 chair, and came over to where Grace had been sitting. 
 " Mother, it doesn't mean anything," he said in a tone 
 of entreaty. " Don't think about it. The way you look 
 at it is all wrong. He'll be better in the morning. And 
 it doesn't mean anything. I'm telling you the truth. 
 It's not half as bad as if you had found him doing some 
 mean little thing, and you think it's worse. You mustn't 
 mind ; you mustn't mind." He knelt down and pressed 
 his cheek against hers. 
 
 " Why do you say I mustn't mind ?" she asked 
 sternly. " Am I not to mind when I see my son bring 
 himself lower than the beasts ; come home like that— on 
 the Lord's day ?" 
 
 " You mustn't ; you mustn't," he whispered helplessly. 
 "If only you would understand !" 
 
PART THIRD 
 
 ROSE 
 
1 
 
 The image of Rose began to fade from his mind, and 
 when one day, a few months later, Mr. Jackson men- 
 tioned her name, he was surprised to find that it 
 awakened in him but a languid interest. At a year's 
 end she was little more than a shadow; practically he 
 had forgotten her. 
 
 His life was now the monotonous, colourless life of the 
 industrious young clerk, who is rather bookish. His 
 industriousness was recognized, and when, in his 
 twenty-first year, he came out of his time, he was 
 appointed assistant to Mr. Lambert Jackson at a salary 
 of eighty pounds a year. Three times during the next 
 three years his salary was raised, and Mrs. Wilberforce 
 learned from his mother that he was doing very well — 
 though not so well as Martin, who had been unusually 
 lucky. 
 
 The history of these years was almost entirely the 
 history of his education. He read systematically — at 
 the beginning largely under Mr. Escott's guidance. 
 There was something pathetic in the simple diligence 
 with which he made use of those scanty opportunities 
 that are all a provincial town can offer to a youth of 
 liis class for becoming acquainted with what is being 
 done, in the outer world, in art, in literature, in music; 
 but neither art nor literature nor music sufficed to make 
 him happy. There was something else required, some 
 key to be turned, before he could find any fullness of 
 
 140 
 
ROSE 141 
 
 enjoyment in beauty. He was like a slave who listens 
 to the sound of violins, and watches the grace of dancing 
 girls, through the pain of an ever-gnawing passion for 
 freedom, a nostalgia for tropic suns and waving palm- 
 trees and the dusky skins of his old playmates. 
 
 Once he went for a holiday to London. He went 
 alone, and it is significant that the most vivid impres- 
 sion stamped upon his mind during this visit was 
 perhaps that of the stony masks presented by the won- 
 derful ladies he had seen coming out from the opera. 
 He hated them, yet they fascinated him. He was 
 indifferent to the men; it was the women whom he 
 watched as they drove by. He marvelled at their lack 
 of individual expression. There had been two or three 
 who had looked, as they sat staring straight past him, 
 or through him, like painted idols. He conceived the 
 idea that they were intensely callous, self-confident, and 
 dead to all the finer meanings of things. Yet in Hyde 
 Park, listening to the coarse rant of semi-educated free- 
 thinkers and socialists, his democratic sympathies dried 
 up. What he saw among all classes alike was spiritual 
 deadness, and unintelligence. He saw it in the rush 
 and noise of the streets and the tubes, in the feverish 
 ingenuity of commercial competition, in the pale, tired 
 faces of clerks like himself, coming home from their 
 work, in the glittering advertisements of theatres and 
 music-halls, in the sodden hopelessness of the sub- 
 merged. The whole monstrous city gave him an im- 
 pression of desolation. The life was the swarming 
 noisome life of a corpse, out of which gleamed the 
 white bones of death. Death leered in the smile of 
 a painted girl who stared into his face with hard bright 
 eyes, and an unaccountable fear came upon him. 
 
142 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 He felt it most keenly at the end of one hot intermin- 
 able day when, instead of going to a theatre or a con- 
 cert, he wandered about in the open air. He passed in 
 the falling dusk through the Park, which, as the dark- 
 ness gathered, had become beautiful and sad. The 
 moon shone down softly between the trees, and the dim 
 strange light through which he moved seemed to isolate 
 him from the world that discouraged and bewildered 
 him. The darkness deepened rapidly, and the embraces 
 of neighbouring lovers ceased to be obtrusive, became 
 dim, remote, as in a picture by Carriere. The tall 
 lamps, haloed by a hovering swarm of winged insects, 
 cast broad pools of purplish light upon the worn, faded 
 grass; and through the delicate greyness of the trees 
 came the flash of endless vehicles. The muffled roar of 
 traffic sounded almost on a single humming note, save 
 when this was torn across by the scream of an auto- 
 mobile. The air, soft as velvet, warm and stagnant, 
 steeped the whole world in a kind of tropical languor. 
 
 He passed out through the gates, walking slowly, 
 almost at random, by tall, brilliantly-lighted windows 
 that were opened wide to the night, and presently he 
 found himself in Leicester Square. It was then that the 
 sense of an undefined terror suddenly grew strong, beat- 
 ing down the barriers of common-sense and reason. The 
 very aspect of unreality and futility that glittered over 
 the surface of things seemed to mock at him with the 
 elusive and meaningless horror of a dream. He leaned 
 against the railings ^ixQ closed his eyes. By an effort of 
 will he called up a scene that was most opposed to all that 
 now glared and flamed upon his senses — a bare hill-side 
 under the moon, with dark woods below, stretching 
 down to a lonely sea. As he called to it it responded 
 
ROSE 143 
 
 straightway, rising within his mmd again, just as it 
 had been — the faint rustle of wind, the smell of heather, 
 the black curved vault of the open sky, vast and 
 infinitely still — bringing him back to sanity and peace. 
 He returned home three days before his leave was up. 
 
II 
 
 One morning Mr. Jackson told him that Rose had 
 come back. The Liverpool uncle, who was in a bank, 
 had been promoted, it appeared, to the managership of a 
 new country branch, which meant, of course, that his 
 family would go with him. " Rose is looking out for a 
 situation at home," he added, and then proposed, as 
 he had so often proposed before, that Richard should 
 pay them a visit. These vague invitations, equally 
 vaguely accepted, occurred with a frequency that some- 
 times made him wonder if Mr. Jackson were really 
 unaware that he had never been to the house except on 
 that single occasion, long ago, when the Swedenborgian 
 had received him on the door-step. 
 
 Again an interval of several months elapsed, and it 
 was on an evening in October that Mr. Jackson sud- 
 denly surprised him by a definite invitation to tea, and 
 for that very night. He would have refused, had it not 
 seemed simpler to accept and get the matter over. 
 
 Lambert was most friendly and confidential as they 
 walked home together in the soundless autumn dusk, 
 tor that matter, he was always confidential, but this 
 evening he had more than usual to impart. It appeared 
 that the house in Palermo Street was at present the 
 scene of an amazing spiritual activity. Mysterious 
 letters arrived there by no earthly post (Mr. Lambert 
 Jackson had himself detected one fluttering down from 
 the ceiling), letters conveying messages of comfort and 
 
 144 
 
ROSE 145 
 
 exhortation, written, some in hieroglyphs, some in 
 ordinary characters. He instantly produced a couple 
 from his breast-pocket, like a conjuring trick, and 
 Richard inspected them under a street lamp. 
 
 The angelic correspondent wrote an unformed, school- 
 boy hand. He had made use of this, however, to 
 convey to Mr. Jackson the assurance that he was sur- 
 rounded day and night by beneficent powers. That 
 happy child of light stuffed the letters back into his 
 pocket with a little, gleeful laugh. Richard laughed 
 too, but it struck him that matters were beginning to go 
 rather far. These letters were not the only manifesta- 
 tions, Mr. Jackson explained, though they were, on the 
 whole, the most satisfactory. One evening last week a 
 lump of coal had come flying through his study window 
 while he was at work there. Also Everard, the eldest 
 boy, had been discovered lying on the dining-room 
 floor, held down by invisible hands. On another occa- 
 sion, when coming into the house, his strap of school- 
 books had been snatched from him, and whisked away 
 no one knew whither. It was not till four days later 
 that Mrs. Jackson, treading on a loose board in the 
 landing, had found them underneath it. 
 
 " Things seem to settle principally about Everard," 
 Mr. Jackson added thoughtfully. " He is extraordin- 
 arily psychic." 
 
 His white teeth glittered through his pale, scanty 
 moustache, and he rubbed his immense bony hands 
 together as he moved on with rapid strides. His 
 hat, pushed back, revealed his high, white forehead ; his 
 flaxen beard streamed down over his waistcoat; and 
 he presented, with his flapping, flying coat, an appear- 
 ance of some great spindle-legged bird, who would 
 
 10 
 
146 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 presently spread its grey wings and disappear over 
 the chimney-tops. 
 
 " I shall have an account of Everard's case — of course 
 omitting the names — in next month's Algol" he con- 
 cluded. 
 
 Richard looked at him helplessly. "Algol!'* 
 
 " The new psychological magazine. I strongly 
 advise you to take it in. Last month there was a most 
 brilliant article on the personality of Katie King." 
 
 Richard said nothing, and Mr. Lambert Jackson 
 fumbled with his latch-key, for they had now reached 
 the house. At the same moment the door was opened 
 from the inside. ... It was Rose. 
 
 Richard, standing on the lower step, met her eyes 
 over her father's shoulder. She smiled. The interval 
 that had elapsed since their last meeting seemed to 
 slip away like a mist, and while Lambert accomplished 
 a vague form of introduction, which consisted princi- 
 pally in a waving of his right hand, Richard felt the 
 old mysterious attraction stirring, trembling, unfolding, 
 like a seed under the moist warm breath of spring. 
 
 " We've met before, I think — haven't we ?" he said, 
 and Rose suddenly blushed. Then he knew that she 
 remembered him. 
 
 Mr. Lambert Jackson received the announcement 
 
 dreamily. "Met before " he murmured, with a 
 
 large, mild beneficence, and speaking as if the meeting 
 must have taken place in some pre-natal existence. 
 With a friendly grip on Richard's shoulder he pushed 
 him across the threshold, and in the same manner 
 guided him on into the parlour, where tea was laid, and 
 where the rest of the family were assembled, the 
 youngest child chnging to his mother's voluminous 
 
ROSE 147 
 
 skirts. This lady held out a fat, dubious hand covered 
 with cheap rings. As she smiled her tiny black eyes 
 almost disappeared in her large face, and he thought he 
 had never seen anyone who presented such an appear- 
 ance of bulging and breaking out, of unfastened hooks, 
 of gaping spaces and sudden tightnesses. She had an 
 air, though it was six o'clock in the evening, of not 
 having yet had time to dress, and her grey and black 
 hair, escaping in greasy wisps from a loose forest of 
 hairpins, threatened visibly at every moment to come 
 down. Her feet slithered over the floor in loose slippers, 
 and her left hand clutched frequently, now at her hair, 
 now at the bosom of her bodice, now at the back of her 
 skirt, as one habituated to the insecurity of fastenings. 
 Richard was certain that she appeared at breakfast in 
 a dressing-gown with stains down the front, just as he 
 was sure that the band of coffee-coloured lace beneath 
 her many chins marked the line where all application of 
 soap and water ceased. She welcomed him in a. fat, 
 hoarse voice, like an exaggerated whisper, broken by 
 shrill sibilant notes, introducing him to Holly and Ivy 
 Jackson, two anaemic girls with the protruding teeth of 
 their father, and to Everard Jackson, an unwholesome- 
 looking boy of fifteen, and to Baby Jackson, a late and 
 unexpected arrival, who refused to shake hands. 
 
 Suddenly, amid the smiles and preoccupation of these 
 greetings, a protesting and piercing howl rent the air. 
 It came from Baby, and Baby's tearful explanation, 
 " Pinced me ; pinced me," was almost lost in Mr. Jack- 
 son's undisguised jubilation at the visitor's receiving so 
 prompt and remarkable a proof of the angelical 
 invasion. 
 
 To Baby it had been a little too convincing. " There, 
 
148 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 there, darling ! Who pinched you ?" Mrs. Jackson 
 wheezed, clasping the unhappy infant to an ample and 
 swaying bosom. " There, it's better now. Tell mammy 
 to kiss the place." 
 
 But the place, as innocently indicated by Baby, was 
 not one suitable for kissing, and Mrs. Jackson merely 
 clasped him to her heart again. " Indeed, it's getting 
 a perfect nuisance !" she said, " and it's very queer that 
 nothing ever happens except when Everard's around!" 
 She turned to Richard. " I suppose Mr. Jackson has 
 told you about all these goings-on ? Everard ! put 
 back that cake this instant minute!" 
 
 Everard replaced a cake which, in the agitation of 
 the moment, he had transferred from the silver basket 
 to his own pocket. He smiled sheepishly, glancing at 
 the visitor, with small light-coloured eyes under which 
 were deep violet shadows. They sat down at the 
 table. 
 
 Mrs. Jackson's expostulation appeared to have the 
 effect of preventing further celestial activity, at least 
 during tea, a respite obviously regretted by Lambert, 
 whose pale, dreamy gaze kept wandering expectantly 
 to the ceiling. Holly and Ivy sat in silence, except 
 when they whispered admonitions to their brother. " Oh, 
 Ev, how can you be so greedy ! Ev, you're taking all 
 the cream! Ev, nobody else has had any cake yet!" 
 Richard had an uneasy feeling that he was suspected 
 of not doing justice to the preparations that had been 
 made for him. But the aspect of the entire family, witli 
 the exception of Rose, was somehow unappetizing. He 
 had a vision of things having been touched by fingers 
 not scrupulously clean. And the pimples of Everard, 
 and Mrs. Jackson's dirty though jewelled hands, and 
 
ROSE 149 
 
 the jammy cheeks of Baby, were all very much in 
 evidence. He was certain that the hands that had 
 braided Mrs. Jackson's hair would not have been washed 
 before making the toast or cutting the bread and butter. 
 He could only hope that Rose had attended to these 
 duties. 
 
 The girl seemed to him oddly out of place there. 
 She was exquisitely, adorably pretty. She was Kght 
 and slender, with a graceful, rounded figure ; her wrists, 
 her hands, very small; her ears like the petals of a 
 flower. But it was principally her expression that 
 charmed him, her expression which meant nothing and 
 yet meant everything, which was all gentleness and 
 sweetness. He hated to see her surrounded by this appal- 
 ling family of whose shortcomings she appeared to be 
 unconscious, entering into their humour, laughing, say- 
 ing things herself that were far, very far, from brilliant. 
 
 After tea he was dragged to Mr. Lambert Jackson's 
 sanctum, where he listened to a long description of the 
 joys of the mystic way. The high-pitched voice rose 
 and fell in an endless monologue, while Richard, who 
 knew that it was useless to interrupt, moved about the 
 room, bored, impatient, scanning the foolish, pretentious 
 titles of the books, and wondering when he could make 
 his escape. He had the privilege of a peep at the 
 unfinished commentary upon the writings of Swenden- 
 borg that was to be Mr. Jackson's magnum opus, and 
 of which the small, published volume was but a pre- 
 liminary sketch. There was already an enormous pile 
 of manuscript, though Mr. Jackson was only at chapter 
 twenty. He had begun to read aloud from chapter 
 nineteen, when Mrs. Jackson's voice rose from the hall. 
 " Aren't you ever coming down, Lambert ?" 
 
ISO AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 " Yes, yes, my dear, we're just coming." 
 
 During their absence from the parlour all traces of 
 
 the recent festivities had been removed. " Rose is 
 
 putting Baby to bed; she'll be down in a minute or 
 
 two," Mrs. Jackson said to Richard. " Holly and Ivy 
 
 Jackson, you might play something to Mr. Seawright." 
 
 Holly and Ivy giggled a little, but complied with 
 
 this request. They played a duet, while the brass 
 
 candlesticks, and the numerous little photograph-frames 
 
 on the top of the piano, rattled a cheery accompaniment. 
 
 Rose entered. She stood in the doorway a moment, 
 
 smiling, then crossed the room and sat down, folding 
 
 her hands in her lap and keeping her face slightly 
 
 averted from the visitor till the duet was finished. 
 
 Mrs. Jackson wanted them to play another, but Ivy 
 refused. " It's too painful. Holly keeps sticking her 
 nails into me every minute." 
 
 " I can't help it if you won't take your fingers off the 
 notes in time." 
 
 Everard was leaning over the back of Rose's chair, 
 and whispering into her ear. She laughed — a little 
 affectedly, Richard thought. He repressed an inclina- 
 tion to catch the brother by the back of his neck. 
 
 "Everard Jackson, remember your manners!" his 
 mother said hoarsely, while Rose got up to carry out 
 her share of the entertainment. 
 
 As she played she was conscious of the dark 
 absorbed gaze of this strange silent youth — their 
 guest — which never left her face. Yet at the end, 
 through the family applause, his approbation sounded 
 half-hearted and perfunctory. She felt piqued; then 
 concluded that he did not care for music. Meanwhile 
 Mrs. Jackson, who found the visitor distinctly difficult 
 
ROSE 151 
 
 to talk to, urged, as in the case of Holly and Ivy, an 
 encore. Rose turned to him half pouting through her 
 smile. " You don't like music, do you ?" 
 
 " Yes," he answered. " Grace Mallow, who lives with 
 us, plays a good deal." 
 
 Rose's pique was revived. " I expect my playing 
 sounds very poor after Miss Mallow's." 
 
 " She plays very well." 
 
 Holly laughed unpleasantly. " That's one for you, 
 Rose." It was evident that he had offended the 
 family pride. 
 
 Richard flushed. " 1 know nothing about music," he 
 answered shortly. " I like Grace's playing, that is all." 
 
 He caught Everard's quick eyes fixed upon him 
 ironically, and Holly, who seemed to take a malicious 
 pleasure in his discomfiture, went on. " I suppose we 
 needn't ask you what you think of our playing then, if 
 you don't even like Rose's." 
 
 His face darkened. "No, it isn't necessary." 
 " Holly, don't be pert. Don't take any notice of her, 
 Mr. Seawright," Mrs. Jackson wheezed, good-naturedly. 
 
 But he felt that they had all taken a dislike to him, 
 and his anger increased. Fortunately at that moment 
 an interruption occurred in the form of a loud knocking 
 at the hall-door. 
 
 " Ev, you go," said Rose, eagerly. " It's the 
 McVintys." 
 
 Everard disappeared, returning straightway with the 
 new guests, who entered hilariously. Prolonged and 
 detailed introductions followed between Mr. Seawright 
 and Miss and Mr. McVinty, and Mr. Sprott. "Very 
 pleased to meet you." " Very pleased to meet you." 
 The little party now became a good deal brighter. 
 
152 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 though Mrs. Jackson's efforts to draw the pecuHar youth 
 that her husband — and Rose — had seen fit to invite, 
 into its genial circle, proved unsuccessful. So far as 
 he was concerned, gaiety appeared to be anything but 
 " infectious " ; and it was obvious that he was still 
 brooding over Holly's attack. He stood stiffly apart, 
 on his face that dark, sulky expression which had been 
 his mother's despair when he was a little boy. Rose 
 thought he looked wonderfully handsome. 
 
 " I say. Rose, let's play that guessing game we played 
 at the Smiths'," Mr. McVinty suggested. "You and 
 I'll go out first." He had a red face, red hair, and a 
 huge red moustache. His jovial manner seemed to fill 
 the room, and completely overshadowed the quieter 
 charm of Mr. Sprott. 
 
 Rose knew perfectly well what, for Mr. McVinty, 
 constituted the attraction of the " guessing game," and 
 at the Smiths' she had been willing enough to go out 
 of the room with him. To-night she only laughed and 
 shook her head. " I want to talk to Mr. Seawright. . . 
 You others can play. Don't bother about us, and don't 
 try to listen to what we're saying, because we've got 
 secrets." 
 
 "Oh, I say," protested Mr. Sprott. "Secrets! 
 That's against all rules, you know ! " 
 
 But Rose had sat down beside Richard, and Mr. 
 McVinty was obliged to retire with Ivy. 
 
 "You hate all this, don't you?" Rose said softly, 
 when the " guessing game " was in full swing. " I 
 wouldn't have allowed mother to invite them if I had 
 known." She paused. She herself had invited them, 
 but it seemed better to put it in this way. 
 
 " Perhaps you wouldn't have allowed me to be invited 
 
ROSE 153 
 
 if you had known," he answered, with an attempted 
 Hghtness that failed signally to come off. It was diffi- 
 cult to be light and at the same time conscious of an 
 almost passionate hatred for Mr. McVinty, Miss 
 McVinty, Mr. Sprott, Holly, Ivy, and Everard. 
 
 " I know you're not enjoying yourself. Why should 
 you, indeed !" 
 
 " I'm enjoying myself now," he answered. 
 
 "Really? I don't bore you?" She smiled softly, 
 and with a little glance of astonishment in her dark 
 blue eyes. 
 
 That deep dark blue seemed more beautiful than 
 anything he had ever seen. He faltered — the words 
 that he would have liked to say being quite impossible. 
 What he felt was a very simple desire to clasp her in 
 his arms. " It's my fault," he said huskily. " I'm no 
 use at this kind of thing — games and all that." 
 
 He looked at her with a sort of strange, sad gravity 
 that made her think of a retriever — some kind of large 
 dog anyway; and she had an impulse to stroke the 
 thick lustreless black hair that tumbled over his beau- 
 tiful forehead. His beauty, his shapeliness and strength, 
 were vividly present to her, and were far more eloquent 
 than those impassioned conversations which in the old 
 days, in imagination, he had conducted so brilliantly. 
 But he did not know this, and was envious of the social 
 talent of Mr. McVinty, that was at present convulsing 
 the room with laughter. 
 
 Rose, with perhaps rather doubtful wisdom, returned 
 to the subject of Grace Mallow. " Don't mind what 
 Holly said. It was only nonsense. She didn't mean 
 anything. I would love to hear Miss Mallow 
 play." 
 
154 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 He was intensely grateful. " You must. She's going 
 to play at a concert next month — the second Phil- 
 harmonic concert. It will be her first appearance in 
 public, and she is nervous already — though it won't 
 matter when the time comes." 
 
 " Won't it ? How do you know ?" 
 
 " I don't know how I know," he smiled, " but I do. 
 She's got courage — any amount of it; and her nervous- 
 ness will help her. . . . When you're like Grace it 
 does." 
 
 "And are you like her?" 
 
 He shook his head. " You can see that for 
 yourself." 
 
 " But you have courage ?" 
 
 " Not that kind ; not such a good kind. Hers is the 
 sort that keeps her from ever giving in; it has nothing 
 to do with being excited or angry. Anything she wants 
 to do she will do; anything she wants to get she will 
 get." 
 
 " She must be very fortunate. I'm sure I should die 
 of fright if I had to play at a concert. Is she a relation 
 of yours ?" 
 
 " No, only a great friend. When her father and 
 mother died she was left quite alone, so she came to 
 live with us. But that was long ago. Grace is really 
 rather wonderful. She has done what she wanted to 
 do from the very beginning, and without ever having 
 had a row or a fuss, the way I've had. You could only 
 know what that means if you knew my mother. My 
 mother is very kind and very, very good, but she has 
 her own way of looking at things, which isn't at all 
 Grace's — and she's tremendously strong.'* 
 
ROSE 155 
 
 Rose had a fleeting vision of a person she shouldn't 
 like at all, and her eyes rested thankfully on her own 
 unexacting, her bulging and unhooked, parent. "I 
 want to know her so much ! " she said. 
 
 " Who ? My mother ?" 
 
 "Yes; and Miss Mallow." 
 
 " Well, that can be easily arranged." 
 
 Rose hesitated. " Won't you come and talk to the 
 others ? Mr. McVinty's great fun. He travels for 
 Anderson and Ritchie's. They'll think it strange if we 
 sit here together all the time, and Carry McVinty will 
 go round talking — she's awful that way." 
 
 " Would it matter if I went home ? Would it be 
 rude?" 
 
 She looked at him a moment in surprise, and then 
 suddenly laughed. " I'll never ask you to a party 
 again — though of course this isn't a party," she hastily 
 added. " You can go if you want to." 
 
 " But shall I see you again somewhere ?" 
 
 " Perhaps I'll think. ... I sometimes go to the 
 
 * pictures.' " Suddenly she faced him with a rather 
 tremulous smile and with a heightened colour. " The 
 last time we met — do you remember ? — you were a little 
 frightened of me." 
 
 He stammered a reply. 
 
 " You didn't like my speaking to you without 
 
 being introduced. You thought What did you 
 
 think ?" 
 
 He looked so distressed that she repented, and her 
 hand for a moment rested lightly on his sleeve. "It 
 doesn't matter." 
 
 " I wondered who you were, that is all." 
 
156 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 " Well, if you really want to go you'd better slip out 
 now. Nobody's looking." 
 
 He gazed at her apprehensively. " But I must say 
 good-night to your mother," he said. 
 
 " Oh, you have courage !" she gently mocked him. 
 
Ill 
 
 If on that Friday, towards the end of November, which 
 was the day of Grace's concert, he arrived home half an 
 hour later than usual, it was really Rose's fault, though 
 this was not the excuse he gave his mother. 
 
 " There's plenty of time. Martin isn't here yet." 
 
 " Martin isn't going to be here ; he's to meet us at the 
 hall." 
 
 He looked at Grace, who sat crumbling a slice of 
 toast. " You'd better eat something," he said. 
 
 She took no notice, except to smile quietly. 
 
 " Did you give Bessie a ticket ?" 
 
 " I gave her two." 
 
 " You don't feel nervous, do you ?" 
 
 She shook her head. " No, I don't think so. I don't 
 feel anything except that most people are bored by 
 Brahms; but I feel that rather intensely." 
 
 " Not by the Waltzesr 
 
 " Well, you've had time enough to choose," Mrs. 
 Seawright broke in, " and I'm sure you've talked about 
 it enough." 
 
 " Ricky has talked ; I haven't. I have only listened." 
 
 He looked at her uneasily. " For Heaven's sake 
 don't play anything rotten as an encore; you may as 
 well be consistent." 
 
 " I shan't be encored." 
 
 " Well, if you are." 
 
 157 
 
158 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 " I don't know why you can't give them what you 
 think they'll like best," Mrs. Seawright declared 
 candidly. " It seems to me that that's what they pay 
 their money to hear." 
 
 " Of course it is, and Ricky's always the first to cry 
 out if he doesn't get what he likes." 
 
 They had arranged what her encores were to be long 
 ago, but he could never really be sure of her. How any- 
 body could play as she played, and at the same time 
 have such a horrible amount of worldly wisdom, he had 
 never understood. 
 
 Even after he had taken his seat in the hall beside 
 his mother and Martin, he did not know what Grace 
 would play, apart from the two items on the programme, 
 which, of course, she must keep to. 
 
 There was scarcely a vacant seat, a huge crowd having 
 been attracted by the celebrated tenor, who was singing, 
 as usual, his most popular gramaphone records. Richard 
 looked behind him, eagerly scanning the faces in the 
 unreserved area. Nearly at once he saw her. Rose, 
 seated between Everard and Mrs. Jackson. He gazed 
 at her, trying to attract her attention. Then their eyes 
 met, and she smiled. He smiled also, and his colour 
 deepened. He turned round again, boyishly happy in 
 spite of his nervousness. 
 
 A vivid, garish light beat down on the long rows of 
 people. The balcony was packed to overflowing, and 
 in the seats, rising, tier upon tier, from the platform, on 
 either side of the great organ, sat the chorus. There 
 was a murmur of voices, a creaking of chairs, a rustling 
 of programmes. " What a place to listen to music in !" 
 he thought. 
 
 Between her two sons, Mrs. Seawright, in a plumed 
 
ROSE 159 
 
 bonnet and black, velvet-trimmed mantle, sat stiffly 
 erect, glaring straight in front of her. The only people 
 she knew in the hall were the Wilberforces and Bessie. 
 Martin already seemed half-asleep. There was a burst 
 of applause as the conductor came in and bowed. He 
 bowed twice; then, turning round, tapped with hisf 
 baton, and the chorus rose. . . . 
 
 The whole thing struck Richard as ludicrous and 
 unhappy — the electric light, the hard wooden chairs, 
 the gaudy decorations, the protracted business of recog- 
 nizing acquaintances in distant portions of the house and 
 of communicating these discoveries to one's companions, 
 the squeaking boots of the little boys with programmes, 
 the coughings and comments. Grace's name was third 
 on the list, and at the conclusion of the second item — 
 a rollicking bass solo — a feeling of almost unbearable 
 suspense settled upon him. He felt that the audience 
 was impatiently looking forward to the tenor — other- 
 wise the last song would have been encored. This did 
 not promise well for Grace. Martin, reviving, showed 
 signs of amusement, and began to rally his mother. She 
 did not hear him. The drooping lines of her mouth 
 had tightened, her eyes were glued to the door by which 
 Grace would enter, and a deep flush suffused her face. 
 A man crossed the platform to open the lid of the piano, 
 and went out again. . . . What was keeping her ? 
 What could have happened ? Then they saw her 
 coming out from behind the curtain and down the little 
 flight of wooden steps. She was dressed in white, her 
 thin arms bare, with a few red roses that Martin had 
 sent up from town fastened at her waist. Her face, as 
 usual, was absolutely colourless, and her bow was stiff, 
 just a Httle jerk of the head to the good-natured 
 
i6o AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 audience who applauded her. She looked very slight 
 and small. 
 
 For a moment or two after sitting down on the 
 music-stool she paused, and then, without any prelude, 
 began to play the Waltzes. Richard gave a sigh of 
 relief. It was all right. 
 
 With lowered eyes he tried to listen to her as if she 
 were playing to him in the room at home. The delicate, 
 romantic music flowed on dreamily and happily; 
 easily, naturally, like the song of a bird. And but for 
 him she might have been hammering out some cheap 
 tune of Liszt's with the loud pedal down ! No longer 
 nervous, he felt proud and delighted, with a pride and 
 delight that were perhaps more enjoyable than any 
 personal triumph could have been. He was sorry now 
 that he had promised to meet Rose after the concert. 
 He felt sure that Grace would expect him to walk 
 home with her, and he determined to do so. Rose 
 would understand. 
 
 Grace got her encore, and got another for her second 
 piece, the Waldstein Sonata; and she played the 
 things that Richard had suggested — after the 
 Waltzes, Brahms's Intermezzo, and after the Beet- 
 hoven, Grieg's Spring-time. Amid the applause Mrs. 
 Seawright, under instructions, sat severely silent, but she 
 made up for this to some extent by preserving the same 
 attitude during the entire concert. Secretly she was 
 delighted when Martin clapped vociferously. It was 
 Martin, too, who had thought of the roses — he was 
 always like that. 
 
 They had arranged to meet Grace in the porch after 
 the performance, but before reaching the door Richard 
 had overtaken Rose, who lingered near her seat, letting 
 
ROSE i6i 
 
 other people, including Everard and Mrs. Jackson, pass 
 out first. 
 
 "She was splendid!" Rose exclaimed, bright-eyed 
 and happy. 
 
 Martin and Mrs. Seawright looked round. 
 
 " You liked her, then ?" 
 
 " Of course I did. I should have preferred something 
 not quite so classical perhaps. I thought in the encores, 
 for instance, she might " 
 
 " I'm afraid the encores were my fault." 
 
 " That's too bad. She oughtn't to have listened to 
 you." 
 
 " Didn't you like them ?" 
 
 " Yes, I liked them, and I know she played them 
 
 beautifully " She still stood there, looking up at 
 
 him, smiling, and he noticed that Martin and his 
 mother had by this time reached the door, through 
 which Mrs. Jackson and Everard had already dis- 
 appeared. 
 
 " I say, would you mind awfully if I walked home 
 with Grace ? I think she'll expect it, though it didn't 
 occur to me when I saw you this afternoon. She'll want 
 to talk about the concert. I'm awfully sorry." 
 
 Rose's face altered ever so little. " Oh, certainly." 
 
 She followed him in silence, at a snail's pace. Then, 
 as they reached the door, she said, " It doesn't matter 
 if I have to walk home alone. ... I dare say I can 
 get a tram." 
 
 His elation subsided. " But there's no need for that, 
 surely. Your mother and Everard have just gone out 
 this minute. I can easily catch them." 
 
 " No, thanks. I told them not to wait. I should 
 prefer going alone." 
 
 II 
 
i62 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 " Then you want me not to walk home with Grace ?" 
 he asked, his face faUing. 
 
 " I'm sure I don't care who you walk home with. Only 
 please don't keep me standing here in the doorway; it 
 looks rather ridiculous." 
 
 He flushed, for he had in fact stopped short as if 
 to bar her progress. He stepped aside, and she passed 
 out in front of him without looking back. In the 
 vestibule, near the cloak-room door, he saw the others 
 waiting. Grace came forward to meet him. 
 
 " You were frightfully good," he said hurriedly, in a 
 low voice. 
 
 " I'm glad you were pleased. I want you to tell me 
 exactly how it sounded — I had an idea that it mightn't 
 be carrying properly, but I didn't want to thump." 
 
 " Yes." He looked anxiously after Rose, who had 
 gone out without even a glance in their direction. " I'll 
 tell you later. I think I'd better see Miss Jackson home. 
 She's the daughter of my chief, and she's all alone." 
 
 Grace met his eyes with a faint smile, but she said 
 nothing. 
 
 " Good-bye for the present." And he hurried after 
 Rose. 
 
 He caught up with her before she had gone fifty 
 yards. It was raining slightly. He took her umbrella, 
 and held it over her. " You must come home with me," 
 he said, with a sudden, brilliant idea of patching up 
 the situation in this way. " Come and have supper. I 
 want to introduce you to my mother and Grace. You 
 will come, won't you ?" 
 
 " But it's late, and mother won't know where I am." 
 
 " It's barely ten o'clock. You need only stay for half 
 an hour or so. They'll like it awfully if you come." 
 
ROSE 163 
 
 " Are you sure they'll like it ?" asked Rose, hesitating. 
 
 "Quite sure. It will be a sort of congratulatory 
 supper, you know." 
 
 " They won't think it peculiar ? Did they say any- 
 thing about it?" 
 
 " You told me that you wanted to meet mother and 
 Grace. What better opportunity could you have?" 
 
 She allowed herself to be persuaded, but, as they 
 neared the house, she became conscious of further 
 scruples. "Nobody will be there yet! I can't go in 
 with you alone." 
 
 " Oh yes, they*ll be there. They'll have come up in 
 the tram." 
 
 " And your brother ?" 
 
 " I can't promise for him, unless you're willing to stay 
 pretty late." 
 
 " Does he stay out late ?" asked Rose, interested. 
 
 " Usually." 
 
 " And do you ?" 
 
 " No " 
 
 She looked at him in the uncertain light. She had 
 met him six times in all, and their last interview had 
 been prolonged and even intimate, yet her original im- 
 pression of him had not altered. He attracted her 
 strongly, and at the same time made her feel uneasy, 
 now and then almost afraid. There was something 
 about him disquieting and unfathomable. He did not in 
 the least resemble the type of youth whose company 
 she had hitherto found most agreeable. The fascination 
 he had for her lay partly in her power over him — it 
 was like having a power over some strange, beautiful, 
 dangerous creature of the jungle. And in the very idea 
 of his beauty lurked something provocative of that 
 
i64 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 mingled feeling with which she regarded him. She 
 thought of his beauty, of the grace and symmetry of his 
 body, and it was just because she had never had such 
 thoughts before that she shrank from them. She put 
 everything down vaguely to his " peculiarity " ; and, in 
 spite of her nervousness, at this moment, she was over- 
 poweringly curious to discover if the others — his mother, 
 Martin, Grace Mallow — were " peculiar " also. 
 
 Grace had not yet taken off her hat, but was sitting 
 warming herself before the kitchen fire when they 
 entered; and the first thing that struck Rose was that 
 they " sat " in the kitchen. As Richard introduced her 
 to Grace, Mrs. Seawright came in from the scullery, 
 wiping her hands on the large apron she had tied over 
 her Sunday dress. She received Rose very civilly, but, 
 watching her face, he could discover nothing from it 
 as to the light in which she regarded such a visit. The 
 situation was awkward, even a little ridiculous, though 
 he could see no reason why it should be so. Rose was 
 nervous, and unexpectedly developed a genteel manner 
 new to him, and far from reassuring. She appeared to 
 think, as they sat down to supper, that it was incumbent 
 upon her to praise everything lavishly. She desired, he 
 knew, to be ingratiating, but the effect produced was 
 none the less one of patronage, and he could see that 
 his mother did not like it. All the time he had an 
 uneasy feeling that the two women were watching her, 
 judging her, and he coloured with the sense of the 
 false note she was striking, longing to give her a hint. 
 Rose fluttered and chirped, making a good deal of 
 noise, like a brightly-plumaged, uneasy bird, while, as 
 if deliberately, Grace's manner was quieter than usual. 
 Mrs. Seawright was exactly herself, and in contrast 
 
ROSE 165 
 
 with her, and in contrast with Grace, Rose appeared 
 shallow and foolish. He met his mother's eyes, which 
 rested for a moment upon his, but Mrs. Seawright's gaze 
 was quite inscrutable. She was in every way polite to 
 the girl, but the customary dryness of her manner was 
 not in the least abated. His sympathy went out to 
 Rose, whom he had brought here, after all, against her 
 own better judgment. It flashed across his mind that 
 Grace, who forgot nothing, would have remembered the 
 story he had confided in her years ago of their first 
 meeting. Already, he knew, she had summed Rose up 
 — quite wrongly. So had his mother. Compared with 
 either of them, she might not be very deep; but there 
 were things, he felt, that were preferable to depth, and 
 they were just the things that made her what she was. 
 She had a charm which was all the more delightful 
 because it was simple as the charm of a child. 
 
 Conversation naturally hovered about the recent 
 concert. That was all very well, but, filled with sus- 
 picion, there seemed to him something deliberate in the 
 way Grace kept leading it from particularities to the 
 subject of music itself. Rose never showed to advan- 
 tage when discussing " subjects." He tried to divert 
 the talk into other channels, but the girl herself, as if 
 resenting his interference, was evidently bent on main- 
 taining her individuality of opinion. Her remarks were 
 silly and pretentious, and Grace met one and all with 
 an infinite tact and sympathy that infuriated him. He 
 grew angry at last even with Rose. "Why is she so 
 determined to make a fool of herself?" he thought 
 impatiently, as the girl suddenly developed the startling 
 theory that it is only an affectation that makes people 
 say they care for classical music. And each new remark 
 
i66 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 she brought forth was heralded by the dreary little 
 statement, delivered in her flat, sweet little voice, that 
 of course she " didn't profess to know." 
 
 " I don't see why you should be so sure, then, that 
 other people know even less ! " he exclaimed at last, in 
 exasperation. 
 
 " I'm sure I never said any such thing !" Rose replied, 
 indignantly. 
 
 " You said it a minute ago, when you were talking 
 about classical music." 
 
 The girl flushed. " Well, I don't believe anybody 
 really likes those sonatas. You might just as well 
 listen to somebody playing scales and exercises." 
 
 Mrs. Seawright came to her rescue. " I must say 
 I don't care myslf for a lot of the music Grace and 
 Richard admire." 
 
 " That isn't the point," he answered. " All I object 
 to is that I should be accused of not speaking the 
 truth when I say that the Waldstein Sonata gives 
 me pleasure." 
 
 " I never said you weren't speaking the truth," cried 
 Rose, with crimson cheeks. " And I never mentioned 
 a word about the Waldstein Sonata. I've got better 
 manners, I hope, though you don't seem to think so." 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " You must let me play the things you really do 
 like," interrupted Grace, gently. 
 
 But Rose, who considered that Richard had deserted 
 her, tossed her head angrily. " Thanks, I can play them 
 for myself." 
 
 " Oh, I'm sure you can. I only meant that I'd like 
 to play whatever gave you most pleasure." 
 
 So much sweetness did not soothe Richard, though 
 
ROSE 167 
 
 it mollified Rose. He felt just then, as he glowered 
 down at the table-cloth, a profound dislike for all 
 women. "Damn them," he thought, "you can't trust 
 one of them as far as you can see her." He was furious 
 with Grace because of the way Rose was behaving; 
 angry with Rose because her behaviour humiliated him ; 
 angry with his mother because she remained aloof and 
 unsympathetic. 
 
 As soon as they had finished supper Rose got up and 
 said "Good-night." The strain had before this point 
 become slightly relaxed, nevertheless no one made any 
 attempt to induce her to prolong her visit. Apparently 
 she had not forgiven Richard for his brief siding against 
 her ; in fact, it was with him alone that she now seemed 
 annoyed, treating him with a marked coldness. 
 
 She declared stiffly that there was no necessity for his 
 seeing her home, she was quite capable of taking care 
 of herself. This speech was no sooner uttered than it 
 reminded both of them of the circumstances under which 
 they had first met. He did not argue the point, but 
 simply caught up his hat and followed her down the 
 steps. All the way they hardly addressed a word to 
 each other. He began by making one or two advances, 
 but these were received so icily that he soon relapsed 
 into a gloomy silence. At her own door, as she looked 
 for a moment into his face, she relented, and felt a 
 sudden desire to forgive and be forgiven. No desire 
 could have been easier to gratify — she had but to make 
 the faintest sign. But instead she held out her hand, 
 with a frigid " Good-night." 
 
 He answered in the same tone, lifted his hat, and 
 walked quickly away. 
 
IV 
 
 He came home feeling as if some horrible calamity 
 had happened, which could never be set right, and for 
 a long time he lay awake, worrying himself into a 
 fever. It seemed to him that he had been deceived in 
 Rose. He thought bitterly of the indifference she 
 had shown, of her unfairness, of her readiness to sacri- 
 fice their friendship. It could have meant very little 
 to her — nothing at all, probably. Yet each morning he 
 got up with a renewed hope that he would find a letter 
 from her, a sign, a message — but no message came. 
 
 He thought of writing himself, but the memory of 
 her coldness stirred his pride and kept him from making 
 any further advances. If she cared so little he would 
 not force himself upon her; he could do without her. 
 Morbidly he began to wonder if there was something 
 about him essentially unlovable, and he resolved never 
 again to allow himself to become intimate with anyone. 
 Nevertheless, when a whole week had gone by in this 
 fashion, the desire to make yet another appeal over- 
 came everything else. He would write and ask her 
 definitely what he had done to offend her. If she did 
 not reply, he would at least know that all was over. 
 
 It was on a Saturday afternoon that he came to this 
 resolution. Grace was out teaching, and Mrs. Seawright 
 had gone into town, so that he was all alone. He 
 wrote a few sentences of his letter, and then stared out 
 dismally at the people passing in the rain. And 
 
 i68 
 
ROSE . 169 
 
 instantly a painful thrill of excitement went through 
 him, for there, on the other side of the road, with 
 waterproof and umbrella, he saw her. Everything else 
 was forgotten and he rushed downstairs. She looked 
 up as he flung open the door ; she hesitated a moment — 
 then stepped off the muddy footpath to meet him. 
 
 They met in the middle of the road and were nearly 
 run over by a motor. " Come in : you must come in," 
 he said impetuously. " Do come. There's nobody here 
 except Bessie. You must at any rate shelter till this 
 shower is over." 
 
 She stood still, smiling, blushing, letting her umbrella 
 drip on to his shoulder, looking, he thought, adorable, 
 in spite of the shapeless waterproof. And it suddenly 
 occurred to him that if she was there, perhaps it was 
 not a mere accident, but because she had wanted to see 
 him, wanted to make friends. A great eagerness swept 
 over him. It was as if Rose herself were caught up in 
 it, for she obeyed him almost without a word, and they 
 entered the house together. 
 
 " You must take off your wet things," he said, " and 
 we must have tea. Let me help you." 
 
 She obeyed passively, pushing back the hair that 
 had escaped from under her little round toque. As he 
 looked delightedly at her he noticed that there were 
 tears in her eyes, and an immense tenderness filled him, 
 so that for a moment he could not trust himself to 
 speak. 
 
 " Do you know what I was doing when I saw you ?" 
 he asked after a little, his voice slightly trembling. 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Guess." 
 
 " How can I guess ?" she whispered. 
 
170 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 " I was writing to you." 
 
 She laughed shyly. " Really ?" 
 
 " Yes. I had nearly written the first page, and then— 
 I looked out of the window — and I saw you " 
 
 Their voices were very low, yet intensely living. It 
 was as if, in these commonplace words, something 
 immensely important to both of them had been com- 
 municated — a secret joy, something strange and 
 beautiful. 
 
 " You must give me the letter," she said. 
 
 " No : not now. I will tear it up." 
 
 " Please give it to me. I have never had a letter 
 from you." 
 
 He gazed, spell-bound, into her eyes. " You — you 
 would really like it ?" he breathed. 
 
 " Of course I should like it." 
 
 He drew a deep sigh; then he laughed happily. 
 " Well, I'm going to make tea for you first." 
 
 He produced a brown china tea-pot and they looked 
 together for the tea. The kettle was boiling (Bessie 
 had put it on for herself), and very soon they had every- 
 thing prepared. The making of tea seemed a beautiful 
 and intimate task. 
 
 They sat down before the fire and began to talk. 
 What was said did not very much matter : it bore no 
 closer resemblance to the inmost emotion than a star- 
 map does to the glittering midnight sky. What 
 mattered was the firelight and the gathering dusk and 
 the joy of being alone there together. Once, as she gave 
 him back her empty cup, her hand touched his, and a 
 thrill of a strange unknown pleasure sent all the blood 
 tingling through his veins. 
 
 It grew darker, and still they sat on talking, telling 
 
ROSE 171 
 
 those wordless, loving secrets that birds whisper in the 
 green spring woods. Suddenly she said to him, " Get 
 me the letter now : if you don't give it to me now I know 
 you never will." 
 
 He ran upstairs for it. When he came back he 
 handed her the half-written sheet of paper and turned 
 to light the gas. 
 
 " What have you got there ?" she asked. 
 
 He held it out to her shyly, a photograph in a leather 
 frame. " I saw it when I went upstairs, and brought it 
 down to show you. It is the only one I ever had taken. 
 I got it done for a birthday present for mother." 
 
 She took it from him. It was a cabinet photograph 
 representing him at full length, standing with his hands 
 behind his back. She gazed at it, while he stood beside 
 her, leaning over her chair. " How old were you then ?" 
 
 " About fifteen." 
 
 " I like it. I like the way your hair tumbles into 
 your eyes." 
 
 " I remember that that was what the photographer 
 didn't like. He made me go and brush it, but it was 
 no good." 
 
 She lifted her face, smiling divinely. " May I have 
 it ?" she asked. 
 
 He hesitated. " It isn't mine really. It belongs to 
 Grace." 
 
 " Oh." A look of disappointment came into her eyes. 
 Her delicate colour had deepened a little ; the wind had 
 blown loose a tiny wisp of hair behind her ear, and he 
 felt an acute desire to press his lips to it. " I can get 
 another print done for Grace," he said. " She won't 
 mind." He opened the back of the frame and took out 
 the photograph. 
 
172 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 " Are you sure ?" 
 
 " Quite sure." 
 
 " Well, I must go now. I expect the rain is over." 
 
 She got up and they stood facing each other. A 
 curious stillness seemed to come upon them and to hold 
 them motionless. " Where did you put my waterproof ?" 
 Rose faltered. 
 
 He did not reply. For an instant the whole room 
 swam before his eyes, and his limbs shook with a strange 
 weakness. Then everything became blotted out save 
 the consciousness that he had kissed her. 
 
 He felt her tremble, recoil from him; and suddenly 
 she began to cry. But his arms still held her, and it 
 was upon his shoulder that she hid her face. He held 
 her tightly to him, whispering broken apologies, kissing 
 her soft hair. With closed eyes she leaned back her 
 head, and he pressed his mouth to hers. He could feel 
 her heart beating. She strained away from him, and 
 all at once a whiteness came into her face and she lay 
 yielding and motionless in his arms. 
 
 He was frightened now, for he knew that she had 
 fainted, but in a little while the blood flowed back into 
 her cheeks, and opening her eyes, that were the colour 
 of dark wet cornflowers, she smiled at him through 
 her tears. 
 
 "How stupid of me!" she whispered, and he half 
 led, half carried her to the chair she had been sitting in. 
 " I don't know whaf s the matter with me. I'll be all 
 right in a minute." But as he sat beside her, his arms 
 round her, her head leaning on his shoulder, she 
 remained very quiet. Her cheek, and once her lips, 
 rested against his cheek. Beyond, in the shop, they 
 could hear Bessie moving about. And for a long time 
 
ROSE 173 
 
 they sat thus, Rose with her eyes shut, her arms round 
 his neck, her head on his shoulder, till, as he looked 
 down at her, he could almost believe that she had 
 dropped asleep. 
 
 The noise of someone coming in startled her and she 
 sprang away from him. It was Mrs. Seawright, who 
 had returned from town. The mother's quick eyes 
 glanced at them, and they both blushed hotly. 
 
 " I came in to shelter," Rose said quickly. " Mr. 
 Seawright saw me across the road, and insisted that I 
 should come in." 
 
 " I'm glad he was so thoughtful. It's turned out very 
 wet. You'd better wait and have tea now : Grace will 
 be in at six." 
 
 " No, thanks : I must be going." 
 
 She was intensely nervous, and no persuasions would 
 induce her to stay. Richard, stealthily removing 
 the photograph from the table, accompanied her to the 
 door, but she would not allow him to come further. 
 
 He stood at the gate for some time after she had 
 disappeared, loath to return to that cold, reasonable 
 atmosphere which he knew his mother would have 
 brought in with her. But he could not stand there 
 for ever, and, plucking up courage, he came back to the 
 kitchen, whistling, and settling himself with an air of 
 elaborate unconcern in the chair Rose had risen from. 
 His mother was laying the table, and took no notice of 
 him. She had brought home an evening paper and 
 this he opened with ostentation, while he waited for her 
 to say something. 
 
 Mrs. Seawright, however, said nothing, and the silence 
 was broken only by the rattle of china and the open- 
 ing and shutting of the oven door. Presently she went 
 
174 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 out into the shop and he heard her talking to Bessie. 
 He began to think that she wasn't going to allude to 
 Rose at all, and with a sigh of relief threw away the 
 paper. At that moment Mrs. Seawright returned and 
 carefully shut the door behind her. 
 
 " She has a pretty face, but I'm afraid she isn't very 
 strong." 
 
 He blushed. " How do you know ? What makes 
 you think so ?" 
 
 " Oh, I know the kind. They eat nothing, and what 
 they do eat they can't digest. They're all right for a 
 little, but not for long. As soon as they're married it's 
 nothing but medicine and lying down after every meal." 
 
 For some obscure reason he felt bitterly offended by 
 this description. " I think you are making a mistake," 
 he said coldly. " Look at the beautiful colour she has !" 
 
 " There's not much colour in her lips." 
 
 He was silent, but as his mother too was silent this 
 did not help matters. " Do you like her ?" he at last 
 asked faintly. 
 
 " You would be better asking does she like me." 
 
 " I know she does." 
 
 Mrs. Seawright pursued her labours with a somewhat 
 sardonic smile. 
 
 " Surely you must have seen how nervous she was the 
 other night. I never saw her like that before. It was 
 only because she was frightened. I had told her about 
 you." 
 
 His mother gave utterance to one of her rare laughs. 
 " You must have told her nice things if they frightened 
 her!" 
 
 " I did tell her nice things. But I told her you were 
 very strict and — particular. Her own mother isn't. 
 
ROSE 175 
 
 She's good-natured, Fm sure, but she's awfully slack and 
 untidy." 
 
 " It's not a good training for a poor man's wife." 
 
 "But Rose is quite different from the rest of the 
 family." 
 
 "I wonder?" 
 
 " She is. I know she is." 
 
 " Then that settles it," said Mrs. Seawright, drily. 
 " Do you admire her ? Have you begun to get fond 
 of her ?'" 
 
 This was straightforward enough even for Richard, 
 
 and he stammered in his reply. " I Yes, and I 
 
 know her better than you think." 
 
 " Very likely." 
 
 " I intended to say something to you about her." 
 
 " Well, you'd best be careful. She's weak and silly, 
 and you're both very young. Things are sometimes 
 done in a hurry which are afterwards hard to undo." 
 
 As he lifted his eyes he saw that his mother was 
 scrutinizing him closely, and his cheeks grew hot. 
 
 " Why do you look at me like that ?" 
 
 " Them that has a good conscience needn't fear being 
 looked at." But she suddenly stooped and kissed him. 
 
 " Well, I have a good conscience," he replied. 
 
 " She wouldn't suit you, Richard. I'm not just saying 
 that : I know it. She wouldn't make you happy, and 
 you wouldn't make her happy." 
 
 " But " 
 
 " I'm not one that sees things when they're not there. 
 If she had been a different kind of girl I wouldn't have 
 said anything against your being friends with her. But 
 she's fond of you, whether she's told you so or not, and 
 you'd better not go any further. You'll take your own 
 
176 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 way, of course, but at least do it with your eyes open, 
 and try to think of what it'll be like ten years, or for 
 that matter two years, from now. She shouldn't have 
 been here this afternoon, even if it was raining. If she 
 could come out in the rain, she could have gone home 
 in it." 
 
Their courtship, it is to be feared, was carried on largely 
 in the smoky atmosphere of " picture-houses," for as the 
 winter advanced Rose manifested an increasing reluct- 
 ance to accompany him on the rambles he had been 
 used to take on Saturday afternoons. Once he had 
 persuaded her to come to a concert of chamber-music 
 in which Grace was taking part, but the experiment had 
 not proved successful, and the following week they 
 had fallen back again upon the " pictures." She never 
 tired of them, discussing all the thrilling scenes they 
 witnessed with a sort of artless seriousness which seemed 
 to him delightful ; and he liked to sit beside her, to take 
 her hand under cover of the darkness. One day, after 
 an exciting Indian drama, she amazed him by sug- 
 gesting that on the next Saturday they should go to 
 the seaside : she was sure she could get the whole day 
 off if he could. It seemed to him that January was 
 rather an odd month to choose for an excursion, and he 
 also recalled, somewhat tardily, his mother's excellent 
 advice. But in the face of Rose's eagerness these con- 
 siderations fell into the background. 
 
 " Of course, I may not be able to get away," he said, 
 and it was the only objection he had to offer. 
 
 " Surely they'll do that much for you ! It's not as if 
 you were in the habit of asking for days off, the way 
 some people are." 
 
 17; w 
 
1/8 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 He was silent, turning the matter over in his mind a 
 Httle uneasily. He did not want Rose to see this 
 uneasiness; he felt himself rather ashamed of it; but 
 nevertheless it was there. "Will you say anything 
 about it at home ?" he asked tentatively. 
 
 She glanced at him before replying, and suddenly 
 coloured. " Of course I'll tell mother. What a queer 
 question !" 
 
 He was afraid that he had offended her and 
 immediately became enthusiastic. " Where could we 
 go to? Have you thought of any place?" 
 
 " I thought of Newcastle. I remembered your 
 speaking of its being so nice there, and I looked out 
 the trains and everything. But of course if you don't 
 want to come '* 
 
 " I do want to come. I want to come very much." 
 
 At the same time, in spite of this brave assurance, he 
 reflected that it wouldn't do to tell his mother, and he 
 felt this even more when he reached Myrtle Row. Mrs. 
 Seawright looked worried and cross, and she took no 
 notice of him as he came in. 
 
 " What's brought Grace home so soon ?" he asked 
 rather lamely, listening to the brilliant music which filled 
 the little house. 
 
 His mother was baking, and he could tell from the 
 way she rolled out her paste that something had hap- 
 pened to annoy her. " You'd better ask herself," she 
 replied with a good deal of expression. 
 
 He had begun to unlace his boots, but he now paused 
 and sat staring at his mother. "What's the matter?" 
 
 " There's nothing the matter at all — or she wouldn't 
 be playing like that. . . . You'd think she was doing 
 it on purpose," Mrs. Seawright added grimly. 
 
ROSE 179 
 
 " But what has happened ?" 
 
 " She'll be home early every Saturday now. And on 
 Wednesdays too, I suppose." 
 
 His thoughts at once fled to Grace's pupils. " Why ? 
 She hasn't lost the Campbells, has she ?" 
 
 " I don't know who she's lost. You'd think she had 
 the whole world to pick and choose from ! And you 
 daren't ask for a reason. That would be too much to 
 expect." 
 
 " But what has happened ?" he asked again. 
 
 " I'm telling you what has happened, if you'd only 
 let me speak. Mr. Campbell asked her to marry him, 
 and she said ' No. ' " Mrs. Seawright swung round and 
 gave a violent tug at a damper. 
 
 " To marry him !" Richard gaped. 
 
 " You may well wonder. It's not two such chances 
 she'll ever have in this world." 
 
 He was astonished, but at the same time he failed 
 to see any reason for his mother's irritation. " I suppose 
 she doesn't care about him," he suggested. 
 
 " If she didn't, I'd say nothing. But she says she 
 does care about him; she keeps on praising him up, 
 saying how she's always liked and respected him more 
 than any man she knows. Those are the very words 
 she used ; and what more does she want ? It's precious 
 few men that you can either like or respect, whether you 
 marry them or not." 
 
 Richard allowed this generahzation to pass; he had 
 grown very conciliatory of late. " After all, it's her own 
 business," he remarked. 
 
 " Look what a match it would be ! Look at the house 
 she would have ! Driving about in her own motor-car !" 
 
 Richard laughed. 
 
i8o AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 "There's nothing to laugh at!" said his mother, 
 angrily. " It's not as if he was old. He told her his 
 age. Barely fifty, and he doesn't look it. And only 
 those two children, a boy and a girl — that she's always 
 said she likes the best of all her pupils. . . . There's 
 one thing he had sense enough to do, and that was not 
 to let her answer straight away. He made her promise 
 to think it over for three weeks." 
 
 " Well then it may be all right." 
 
 " Aye — maybe. Did you ever know her to change 
 her mind about anything ? She's as obstinate as you 
 are yourself. Just listen to her !" Mrs. Seawright 
 paused, the lid of the flour-bin in her hand, her ruddy 
 face lifted to the ceiling. " And she might have been 
 settled for life, with nothing to do but give orders to 
 her servants." 
 
 " Mother dear, I think all this is rather horrid." 
 
 As he spoke these last words he got up, and left the 
 kitchen before Mrs. Seawright had time to reply. Never- 
 theless, he felt himself that it was a pity. Outside, on 
 the landing, he stood listening for a minute or two 
 before he opened the door. When he entered, Grace 
 did not stop playing. She struck him, indeed, as not 
 at all resembling a young person who has just been 
 carefully considering the claims of a highly eligible 
 suitor, and he thought it very probable that her air of 
 imperturbability had something to do with Mrs. Sea- 
 wright's so opposite demeanour. When she had finished 
 her piece she wheeled half round on the music-stool, a 
 slight smile upon her lips. 
 
 He suddenly found himself taking his mother's point 
 of view. What could be better for her than to be 
 happily married to a man she liked, even if she had no 
 
ROSE iSt 
 
 very sentimental feeling for him— a kindly, pleasant 
 gentleman, such as Mr. Campbell had every appearance 
 of being. It would make her future so secure. He 
 dwelt on this idea with a sort of brotherly benevolence, 
 luxuriating in the emotion of sympathy at second-hand. 
 
 "Mother has been telling me about Mr. Campbell," 
 he began, idiotically. "I should like awfully to see 
 you happy." 
 
 Grace went very white, though she still continued to 
 
 smile. 
 
 It was only when his words were actually spoken that 
 he realized their fatuousness; and with the strange 
 blanching of the girl's face there flashed upon him a 
 sudden, bewildering suspicion as to what the reason 
 was that she had been unable to give to Mrs. Seawright. 
 The whole thing hung there between them, hung there 
 with her own consciousness of its betrayal, and with his 
 consciousness of stupidity and shame. He saw her 
 stare at it, and then take it in, while he stood beside 
 her, too sick with himself even to try to cover it up. 
 He had the courage only not to look away from her, 
 not to pretend not to know. Without saying anything 
 she began again to play, mechanically, with a sort of 
 resignation more painful to him even than her 
 distress. She had understood — understood what he 
 felt, and she was helping him. It was as if something 
 which had hovered for years between them had been 
 torn aside — a veil, a curtain. There was a moment 
 when the cry of her spirit seemed to draw an answering 
 cry from his, and in the strange grey-green light of her 
 eyes he read all that had sounded from time to time 
 through her music, all that he had sometimes suspected, 
 and again had put from him as impossible, as the 
 
i82 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 foolish credulous prompting of his own egotism. And 
 she went on playing. No word was spoken, but he 
 sat down at the other side of the room and listened to 
 her. And an intense sadness, like a cold, heavy mist, 
 seemed to stream into the little room. 
 
VI 
 
 Very few people were in the train when they arrived, 
 and they had no difficulty in getting a carriage to them- 
 selves. He noticed, as they took their seats, her hght 
 flimsy boots, and he could not help thinking of that 
 long walk among the hills which had figured so largely 
 in the plans she had made. It was a cold bright 
 morning, and, once they had left the outskirts of the 
 city behind, a white delicate powder of snow was visible 
 everywhere, glittering on the grass and on the hedges, 
 resting like fine lace-work upon the dark rich soil of 
 arable land. A denser snow, dazzling in the sunlight, 
 covered the upper slopes of the Mourne Mountains, as 
 they caught their first glimpse of them from the window 
 of the train, the black pines standing out stiffly in the 
 clear air. He thought it would be delightful to climb 
 up amongst them, and the view from the summit would 
 be glorious, but of course for Rose, booted as she was, 
 the ascent would be impossible. 
 
 They went straight to the hotel, with the idea of 
 getting an early lunch and making the most of the 
 afternoon. Now that she was actually on the spot, 
 however, Rose seemed to have become much less 
 enthusiastic in regard to an exploration of the country 
 side. She appeared indeed quite content to look at 
 everything through a window. The biting wind blowing 
 straight in from the sea, the wind which sent the rich 
 blood tingling through his veins, caused her to shrink 
 
 183 
 
i84 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 and shrivel like a hot-house flower under exposure. The 
 colour that glowed in his cheeks forsook hers, appearing 
 in other places, her nose, her eyelids, her ears, robbing 
 her cruelly and swiftly of all her prettiness. While he 
 discussed what particular walk they should take, she 
 was obviously loath to leave her chair by the fire, and 
 Richard, standing at the window, gazing out at the 
 grey desolate sea, and the greyer sky, against which 
 the white gulls wheeled in restless screaming circles, 
 wondered if she really intended to go out at all. He had, 
 in truth, been not a little dismayed at the change her 
 altered appearance produced in his feeling towards 
 her. Moreover, the unexpected coldness of the railway 
 journey, and her consciousness that cold invariably made 
 her look at her worst, had brought out a certain peevish- 
 ness in her character which till then he had had no 
 suspicion of. He came over and sat beside her, for 
 nothing would induce her to go for the walk over the 
 golf links, which he had suggested as a means of passing 
 the time till lunch was ready. She looked out at the 
 white expanse of snow-swept sandhills, and at the dark 
 sea tumbling below them, and that was enough. Under 
 the influence of the blazing fire, however, she recovered 
 her good-humour. She began to tell him that yesterday 
 there had been a revival in the spirit manifestations, 
 which ever since his first visit to their house had sunk 
 into abeyance. Her father had received two more 
 letters : they had floated in to him through the open 
 study window. As she described what had happened, 
 he sat watching her uneasily. 
 
 " But you know it's all rot, don't you ?" he ques- 
 tioned anxiously. "I mean, you don't really believe 
 that the letters came from anybody but your brother ? 
 
ROSE 185 
 
 He wrote them and chucked them in through the 
 window. It ought to be stopped. A joke is all very 
 well, but I don't care for this particular kind of joke, 
 and it has been carried a good deal too far already. 
 You see, your father takes these things seriously." 
 
 Rose's face was filled with incredulity and astonish- 
 ment. " You think it was Ev^ then ?" 
 
 " I am sure of it. The whole thing was Ev, and 
 always has been Ev." 
 
 " But that's quite impossible," she answered quickly. 
 " You don't know him : he doesn't tell lies. He's not 
 that sort of boy at all, and I don't think you've any 
 right to accuse him simply because you happen to have 
 taken a dislike to him. It's not fair : it's very unkind 
 of you." 
 
 The unexpected warmth of her manner, its unreason- 
 ableness, and the quickness with which she had taken 
 sides against him, when her brother was in question, 
 exasperated Richard. " He's a pretty young blackgi;iard 
 to enjoy making a fool of his own father," he said, 
 disgustedly. 
 
 " I think you're horrid when you talk like that," Rose 
 answered, tears suddenly appearing in her eyes. " You 
 haven't any right to say such things; especially when 
 he's not here to defend himself." 
 
 " I'd say them if he was here. I told your father 
 long ago that I was sure he was at the bottom of the 
 whole thing." 
 
 "And papa didn't believe you!" cried Rose, 
 triumphantly. 
 
 " No ; he didn't believe me." 
 
 " I think you're most unjust and unkind. You know, 
 too, that Ev isn't very strong." 
 
i86 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 " I daresay he isn't : though I can't see that that has 
 anything to do with the truth of what I have been 
 saying." 
 
 " It has to do with it in this way, that you shouldn't 
 be unkind to him." 
 
 " How am I unkind ?" he asked patiently. 
 
 " You called him names." 
 
 " I didn't mean to. Besides, by ignoring what is 
 going on you're not really doing him any good. He 
 ought to be sent to a farm and made to work in the 
 open air." 
 
 " But you've no proof that he has done anything ! " 
 cried Rose, with renewed indignation. 
 
 "No; I've no proof" 
 
 He said nothing further, but Rose said a great deal. 
 Her fondness for her brother was to Richard incom- 
 prehensible. Everard affected him disagreeably. It 
 was as if his ugliness were a mysterious growth that 
 had spread outward from within, a sort of spiritual 
 fungus that had pushed its way to the surface, 
 materializing at the touch of the outer air. 
 
 But he had not come away to squabble about such 
 matters, and the next half-hour he spent in trying to 
 induce Rose to forgive him. Even when she eventually 
 did so, it was only because he pretended to be convinced 
 that his suspicions were groundless, and expressed the 
 deepest regret for having entertained them. 
 
 At length, when lunch was over. Rose decided to 
 venture forth into the cold. The frozen ground was 
 hard as iron, and they chose the path to the woods, 
 where it seemed to Richard they would be most shel- 
 tered. But when they reached the woods themselves 
 Rose was not happy. The black gaunt trees, the dark 
 
ROSE 187 
 
 mysterious paths winding away into unfathomable 
 shadow, the lonehness and stillness, depressed her. 
 
 "Aren't we trespassing?" she murmured uneasily, 
 clinging to his arm. 
 
 " No ; I don't think so. Visitors are allowed in on 
 Saturdays : at any rate, they are during the summer." 
 
 She shivered as the mournful scream of a seagull came 
 from somewhere below them, with an inexpressible effect 
 of desolation. " If we went back to the hotel we could 
 have tea." 
 
 " We might have had tea without taking the trouble 
 to come on a three hours' railway journey," he replied, 
 unwisely. 
 
 " It's not three hours," she argued. 
 
 " It's three hours, if you count both going and 
 coming." 
 
 "Well, I'm sure I'm sorry I ever suggested it. You 
 can stay here and I'll go back by myself." 
 
 He made no answer, but presently he said, " There's 
 a famous picture in the house — a Velasquez. I daresay 
 they'd let us look at it if we asked at the door. At any 
 rate, they can't do more than refuse. Shall we try ?" 
 
 She was not enthusiastic. " I don't know. What 
 sort of picture is it ?" 
 
 He guessed from her manner that whatever sort it was 
 it would not please her, and he did not press the point. 
 But on their way back to the hotel, as the house itself 
 for a moment came into sight, she suddenly changed 
 her mind. 
 
 " If it won't take us long, I suppose we might as well 
 see it," she murmured, and when, in response to Richard's 
 knock, the door opened, she gazed with undisguised 
 curiosity into the hall. 
 
1 88 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 The servant who listened to their request replied that 
 Mrs. Carroll was away from home, but that she would 
 ask Miss Dick. She left them standing in the porch, 
 returning almost immediately, accompanied by a thin, 
 sharp-featured lady, who bore a remarkable resem- 
 blance to a lean and distracted fowl. This lady 
 inspected them kindly, with a slight smile and a quick 
 jerky motion of her head as she looked from one to the 
 other. She seemed at once, from the manner in which 
 she regarded them, to have leaped to romantic con- 
 clusions concerning their relationship, and her bright 
 glance hovered over them approvingly. Rose was a 
 little awed by the grandeur of the house, and as Miss 
 Dick preceded them up the broad staircase, she drew 
 Richard's attention, by mute signs, to the thick carpet 
 into which their feet sank noiselessly. " It's just like 
 they have in Robinson and Cleaver's," she whispered. 
 In her efforts to obtain clandestine peeps through half- 
 opened doors she dragged a little behind the others. 
 
 "Why it's a portrait!" she exclaimed in disappoint- 
 ment, when she was face to face with the Velasquez. 
 She turned to Richard. " You told me it was a 
 picture !" 
 
 He coloured, but said nothing. 
 
 "You prefer subject-pictures, I expect," Miss Dick 
 remarked kindly. "I prefer them myself; but this was 
 painted by a very famous artist." 
 
 Rose was not convinced. Secretly, she thought it 
 hideous, stiff and stupid, not even bright in colour. She 
 suddenly determined to show that she was not the 
 gaping shop-girl Miss Dick perhaps imagined her to 
 be. " We're staying at the hotel," she announced in her 
 society tone, " and thought it would be pleasant to have 
 
ROSE 189 
 
 a look at the picture. One gets so tired of one's own 
 pictures that one Hkes a change." 
 
 " Of course. I hope you'll find the hotel comfortable. 
 You must have it almost to yourselves just now." Miss 
 Dick's bright eyes rested on Richard, who had coloured 
 again at Rose's last remark. She thought him extra- 
 ordinarily handsome, and later was able to give a vivid 
 description of his appearance to Mrs. Carroll. (" I wasn't 
 quite able to place him. A young plumber or — some- 
 thing of that sort; but of really wonderful personal 
 beauty.") A flood of sympathy for this very young 
 couple had swept into her susceptible heart, and she at 
 once proceeded to give expression to it, throwing 
 prudence to the winds. " 1 expect you won't mind 
 having the place to yourselves, I can't help feeling that 
 you haven't been married very long; indeed, that this 
 must really be your honeymoon." She beamed upon 
 them in the delight of her discovery. 
 
 Richard turned away. He felt a little sick, and Rose 
 saw too that her small fabrication about their stopping 
 at the hotel entailed other consequences than the merely 
 social significance she had intended. 
 
 " Yes," she faltered, seeing that Miss Dick waited for 
 an answer, and that Richard had deserted her. 
 
 The inspection of the portrait had been brief, and 
 Miss Dick now followed them downstairs; but in the 
 hall she again turned to the young man. " If you are 
 fond of pictures, there are some etchings in the library 
 that might interest you ?" (She wondered if he were a 
 printer, perhaps — not a plumber.) " Mr. Peter Waring 
 collected them. You may possibly have heard of him — 
 the art-critic, you know. He used to be constantly here 
 when he was a boy, though we very seldom see him 
 
190 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 now. He lives in Italy. Perhaps, however, you are not 
 interested in etchings ?" 
 
 " No ; I don't know much about them," Richard said, 
 wishing he had never come, and anxious only to get 
 out before some fresh folly fell from Rose's lips. 
 
 They thanked Miss Dick, Rose with an additional 
 " So pleased to have met you," and a hand thrust out 
 which Miss Dick, not having expected it, failed to meet, 
 holding out her own too late. Their exit was not 
 accomplished gracefully. 
 
 " Old cat ! " Rose breathed with unexpected vicious- 
 ness, as they found themselves walking down the drive. 
 " What did she want prying about and asking ques- 
 tions ?" 
 
 " She wouldn't have asked any if she hadn't been 
 told an untruth." He felt a cold resentment against 
 her : she hadn't even allowed him to look at the picture, 
 with her inane posing. 
 
 Rose was silent, and they walked down the drive in 
 the darkness, he nursing his angry feelings, till suddenly 
 a little betraying sound reached his ears and he knew 
 that she was crying. He waited yet a moment longer 
 before putting his arm round her. 
 
 " It doesn't matter," he said, in a voice through whose 
 gentleness a certain weariness might have been detected. 
 
 " It does : it does," she sobbed, flinging herself on 
 his breast. " Our whole day has been horrid ; and I 
 was looking forward to it so. I thought we'd be so 
 happy." 
 
 He kissed her, and they pursued their way back to 
 the hotel, where, after tea, over the fire. Rose rapidly 
 recovered her cheerfulness. 
 
 He looked at his watch, thinking of train time, but 
 
ROSE 191 
 
 there was no hurry. Twenty minutes later they started, 
 and were surprised, on emerging from the hotel grounds, 
 to find the station in darkness, the entrance doors shut. 
 
 " Wait a minute," he murmured, and ran across the 
 road to a greengrocer's shop. 
 
 When he rejoined her he looked worried. " There's 
 not another train," he said. " The last went nearly 
 half an hour ago." 
 
 She gazed at him with startled eyes. "But it said 
 in the Guide seven-twenty-five." 
 
 " Your Guide must be an old one. The seven- 
 twenty-five does not run during the winter. I asked 
 the man." 
 
 She began to fumble in her pocket. 
 
 " Don't bother about it," he went on. " The man 
 knows. Besides, you can see for yourself that the place 
 is shut up for the night. I'd better send a wire home 
 at once. If you go back to the hotel, I'll go on to the 
 post office and do it now. I won't be long." 
 
 He had left her before she had time to speak, and she 
 retraced her steps up the path they had just descended. 
 When he came in she had found the little paper Guide. 
 " It's a September one," she said dolefully. " It's not 
 so very old. And there's even a train at eight-forty, 
 though it says ' Thursdays only.' " 
 
 " Yes. It's lucky that to-morrow will be Sunday. It 
 was very stupid of me. I ought to have made sure of 
 the trains myself." 
 
 " I never knew they changed about that way," Rose 
 quavered, " especially in a little bit of a place like this." 
 
 " This is just the kind of place where they do change. 
 Very few people come down here in the winter, except 
 at Christmas." 
 
192 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 Her eyes questioned him nervously. " What shall 
 we do ?" 
 
 " We'll have dinner." He smiled reassuringly. " After 
 all, it's not a matter of life and death importance." 
 
 But Rose continued to take it very seriously. " You 
 sent the wires ?" 
 
 " Yes : one to your mother, and one to mine." 
 
 " What name did you put ?" she suddenly gasped. 
 
 " My own name, naturally. Why ?" 
 
 "But on mine?" 
 
 " The same. I said we'd missed the train." Then, 
 as he noticed the scared expression upon her face, 
 " What's the matter ?" he asked. 
 
 " It— it's nothing." 
 
 He had a sudden suspicion, and he looked at her 
 closely. "Did you not tell your mother you were 
 coming with me ? You told me you were going to." 
 
 She did not answer, and his suspicion became a 
 certainty. " Did you tell her ?" he persisted. 
 
 " I— I thought " 
 
 " Why did you say you were going to, if you weren't ? 
 You told me she had allowed you to come." 
 
 " I — I was afraid she might object." 
 
 He was helpless before this fresh complication. 
 
 " What did you tell her ?" he questioned at last. " You 
 must have given some excuse for being away all day 
 like this." 
 
 " I told her I was coming with Miss Clarke and Miss 
 Jamison. . . . They're girls in the office, and we went 
 a picnic together last summer." 
 
 For a moment he did not speak. " Well, the wire's 
 gone now," and he shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " I know. And you hurried me so, or I would have 
 
ROSE 193 
 
 told you not to put your name to it. You might have 
 thought of it yourself: but you do everything in such 
 a hurry ! " 
 
 "We needn't begin to find fault with each other. 
 What's done can't be undone." 
 
 " Yes ; it doesn't matter to you ; but what will mother 
 think of me ?" 
 
 " You'll have to tell her the truth — I mean, the whole 
 truth. Don't tell her that I just happened to meet you 
 here by chance, and don't tell her that the other girls 
 were with us." 
 
 She received this not particularly flattering advice 
 submissively. At dinner the very few other persons 
 present were in evening dress, and Rose and her com- 
 panion sat, feeling very much isolated, at a little table 
 in a corner. The waiter was patronizing, and they were 
 invariably helped last. Richard, in imitation of his 
 neighbours, and perhaps a little with the idea of 
 impressing the waiter, asked for the wine list. Neither 
 he nor Rose had ever tasted wine in their lives, and 
 he scanned the list uneasily under the waiter's cynical 
 eye, wishing he knew what had been ordered at the 
 other table. After a hurried consideration of names 
 that suggested nothing to him he remembered having 
 heard Martin say that port was practically a temperance 
 drink, and he knew that he and Charlie McGlade drank 
 it when they were what they called " off booze." He 
 ordered a bottle. 
 
 As dinner progressed a feeling of warmth and com- 
 fort stole over him, and the only thing that now really 
 troubled him in regard to their mishap was the lie Rose 
 had told her mother. He leaned a little to her across 
 the table. " Are you still angry with me ?" he asked. 
 
 ^3 - , 
 
194 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 She coloured. A smile trembled at the corners of her 
 lips and in her dark blue eyes. " It's more my fault 
 than yours." 
 
 The cynical waiter suggested coffee, which they both 
 refused, now suddenly grown bold. Richard wondered 
 whether he ought to give the waiter a tip at once, or 
 keep it till they were leaving the hotel. The other 
 party, consisting of four men and three ladies, had risen 
 from their table. Coffee was to be brought to them in 
 the billiard-room. Rose's opinion of them all had 
 declined when she heard the youngest girl challenging 
 one of the men to give her thirty in a hundred. " They 
 can't be real ladies," she declared. 
 
 " Why ?" 
 
 " If they were they wouldn't go to the billiard-room." 
 
 " But they're all friends. The old man, the one they 
 called Colonel, is her father." 
 
 " He mayn't be a real colonel." 
 
 It was a point which he knew she would be capable 
 of discussing for hours, so he allowed it to pass. " I 
 think I'll go out and see if I can't get a motor to take 
 us back. It's just possible there may be one we could 
 hire." 
 
 " Wouldn't it be frightfully expensive ?" 
 
 " I haven't any idea ; but we'll take it if it's there." 
 
 He left her in the drawing-room while he went to 
 make inquiries. He learned that he might be able to 
 engage a car at the posting establishment; but once 
 more luck was against them. There was a car, but it 
 was out. It had taken some people over to Castlewellan 
 and would not be back till late. A horse car was 
 impossible, the man said, for the roads were slippery as 
 ice. He himself had evidently been keeping out the 
 
ROSE 195 
 
 cold by somewhat liberal potations that produced a 
 strong aroma each time he opened his mouth, and he 
 became insolent as soon as Richard tried to press the 
 point. In the end he was obliged to return to Rose 
 and report his lack of success. 
 
 She appeared to have become much more reconciled 
 to what had occurred. " We must take the first train 
 in the morning," she said, smiling. 
 
 " I suppose so. In the meantime, it's only a little 
 after nine. What would you like to do ?" 
 
 " What is there to do ? I'm certainly not going out 
 for another walk." 
 
 They had the room to themselves and he remembered 
 a volume of Browning's poems that was in the pocket 
 of his overcoat. He went in search of it, with the idea 
 of reading to her, though Browning was hardly likely 
 to be her favourite author. 
 
 For some time the little red book lay unopened on a 
 table near them while they sat talking. The discussion 
 of their situation had engendered in each a cer- 
 tain self-consciousness, and there were lengthy silences 
 between their words. He had never indeed known Rose 
 to be so quiet. The memory of the kiss given and 
 returned on the afternoon when she had come to see 
 him floated about them, and gradually it seemed to 
 create an atmosphere that had not been there before. 
 He was conscious of it, afraid of it, the more afraid 
 because he perceived, or imagined he perceived, that it 
 had taken possession of Rose also. He felt its strange 
 enticement gaining upon him, he felt too that he was 
 not quite himself, and wished now that he had been 
 content to drink water at dinner. He decided that he 
 would go out for a walk alone, but she seemed hurt 
 
196 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 when he proposed to do so, and he gave up the idea. 
 He looked at her as she sat with eyes half closed, in a 
 kind of languor. The soft curves of her form, as she 
 leaned back in her deep chair, appealed to him as they 
 had never appealed before. He took her hand between 
 his two hands, and she looked up at him with a little 
 smile, her eyes liquid and bright under their drooping 
 lashes. Her lips were slightly parted, and he could see 
 the almost imperceptible rise and fall of her breast as 
 she breathed. He knew at that moment that she 
 belonged to him, that whatever he suggested she would 
 comply with. All consciousness of anything else 
 faded from him. He felt himself trembling, and his 
 eyes seemed to cloud over, while a slight shiver ran 
 down his spine. He leaned still closer to her, and he 
 felt her arms go round his neck as she drew down his 
 head. He shut his eyes and with an effort as of a man 
 struggling against a dream started to his feet. The 
 violence of his movement bewildered her. " Let me read 
 to you," he said, catching up the book from the table. 
 And he began to read at once, the book opening at a 
 poem he knew almost by heart, " Porphyria*s Lover." 
 
 He read it with a kind of sombre passion, and when 
 he had finished she shuddered slightly. 
 
 " But it is horrid," she said, " and you read it just as 
 if — as if it was all really true. Why did he kill her? 
 I don't like it at all." 
 
 " He killed her to keep her pure," Richard answered 
 shortly ; " to save her from himself and from herself." 
 
 " Well, don't read me any more, if they're all like 
 that." 
 
 She laughed uneasily, and he threw down the book, 
 " It is too late in any case. I'm going out for a little 
 
ROSE 197 
 
 to get some fresh air before I go to bed. Don't sit up 
 too long, for we'll have to make an early start in the 
 morning. . . . Good-night." 
 
 He was gone before she realized he was going, and a 
 moment later she heard his footsteps pass the window 
 on the frozen gravel outside. 
 
VII 
 
 On arriving home next morning he found the kitchen 
 empty, Grace and his mother being at church, Martin 
 evidently still in bed. When they returned, Mrs. Sea- 
 wright asked fewer questions than he had expected, and 
 in his replies he was careful to avoid mentioning Rose's 
 name. How far his reticence availed him he had no 
 means of judging, for his mother, having once spoken 
 her mind on the subject, had never afterwards alluded 
 to his friendship with the girl, just as she had never 
 again alluded to the matter of Grace and Mr. Campbell. 
 
 There came a ring at the door, and he was about to 
 get up to answer it when Grace forestalled him, return- 
 ing with an envelope which she handed to him in silence. 
 He tore it open and found inside a perfectly formal 
 request from Mrs. Jackson that he would come round if 
 possible that afternoon to Palermo Street. There was 
 nothing more than that; not the slightest hint of what 
 they thought of Rose's escapade; yet somehow, as he 
 read it, a chill of foreboding descended upon him, and 
 ideas which had not occurred to him till then awakened 
 in his mind. He tore the letter into fragments and flung 
 the fragments into the Are. 
 
 Grace and his mother were washing up the dinner 
 things when he slipped out quietly, as if to keep some 
 guilty assignation. At Palermo Street the door was 
 opened by Holly, who having let him in instantly fled, 
 leaving him standing in the hall. This unconventional 
 
 198 
 
ROSE 199 
 
 reception perplexed him, and he stood staring after the 
 vanished Holly when suddenly the parlour door was 
 flung- wide, revealing Mr. Lambert Jackson, who from 
 the threshold beckoned to him mysteriously. Richard 
 obeyed the summons, and still in profound silence Lam- 
 bert retreated before him to the vicinity of the gas-stove, 
 where he took up a position, with his hands clasped 
 beneath the tails of his coat, and his eyes fixed on 
 vacancy. The only other occupant of the room was Mrs. 
 Jackson, who bowed with a reserved and melancholy 
 dignity, but did not offer any further greeting. 
 
 " I am glad you were able to come," Lambert re- 
 marked, after casting an uneasy glance of interrogation 
 at his wife. Judging from appearances, he was any- 
 thing but glad, and his unhappiness would have struck 
 most people as rather comic. Richard, however, was 
 only conscious of something very ominous in the air. 
 Mrs. Jackson, who had developed yet another chin as 
 the effect of her unwonted solemnity, appeared unable 
 to trust herself even to speak. Her silence, on the other 
 hand, was eloquent, and the regard with which she fixed 
 their unhappy visitor was charged with the deepest 
 reproach. 
 
 Richard looked from one to the other anxiously, while 
 Lambert, with his pale eyes fixed on a corner of the 
 ceiling, seemed to search in that vicinity for promptings 
 as to what he should say next. 
 
 " This is a very serious thing," he began. " Serious 
 for Rose, that is." 
 
 Richard stared at him, but the Swedenborgian's 
 glance had never been more elusive, and wandered 
 always above his head. 
 
 " I'm very sorry," he replied. 
 
200 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 Lambert coughed, and with great unexpectedness 
 smiled. At this point Mrs. Jackson also coughed, and 
 her husband immediately resumed his former air. 
 
 " I'm sure it was the result more of thoughtlessness on 
 your part than anything else," he said. " But even after 
 making all allowances, we cannot acquit you of blame. 
 The fact is there, no matter what explanation may be 
 offered. . . . The fact," he added, as if discovering it 
 quite suddenly, " that poor Rose has been most seriously 
 compromised." 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Seawright, how could you ?" Mrs. Jackson 
 interposed, with a sort of husky sob, producing at the 
 same time a much crumpled pocket-handkerchief, which 
 she pressed first against one eye and then against the 
 other. 
 
 The chill that had crept to Richard's heart grew more 
 intense, but he answered nothing. 
 
 " And Rose," Mrs. Jackson went on, " who'd have 
 thought she'd have been so foolish ! Though it shows 
 her innocence : it does indeed." 
 
 " I don't know what you mean," Richard stammered 
 at last, turning a very scared, ingenuous countenance to 
 her; not at all the countenance one would naturally 
 have associated with a wrecker of happy homes. " It 
 was simply an accident, such as might have happened 
 to anybody." 
 
 Mrs. Jackson shook her head. " That may be," she 
 murmured, squeezing her handkerchief more tightly. 
 " Mr. Jackson, why don't you say something ?" she 
 inquired with a sudden sharpness. 
 
 Lambert started guiltily. His features had again 
 relaxed into an absent smile, and again had to be 
 framed to a more becoming gravity. " Yes, yes, my 
 
ROSE 20I 
 
 dear," he agreed hastily. " No, we don't impute any- 
 thing but carelessness to you, Richard." 
 
 Mrs. Jackson darted a glance of disapproval at her 
 husband, who, conscious that he had failed somewhere, 
 was unable to discover where. 
 
 " It will be a blot on her good name for ever," the 
 lady took up. " You might at least have thought, Mr. 
 Seawright, of staying at another hotel." 
 
 " But we stayed at the best hotel !" 
 
 " That's not what I mean. What I mean is that you 
 shouldn't both have been at the same hotel. You ought 
 to have taken a room outside." 
 
 " I — it didn't occur to me." 
 
 " It should have occurred to you. After all, you are 
 a man, not an innocent girl like my poor little Rose, 
 who naturally wouldn't think of such things." 
 
 " But if no one knows, I don't see why it is of such 
 great importance," he argued defensively. 
 
 " They do know." Mrs. Jackson paused a moment so 
 as to make her next words the more impressive. " You 
 were seeriy Mr. Seawright. You were seen getting out 
 of the train this morning by Carry McVinty, and she's 
 not one to let the grass grow under her feet when there's 
 a chance of gossip." 
 
 Very pale now, he stared helplessly into Mrs. Jackson's 
 large face. " How do you know she saw us ?" 
 
 " Rose saw herT 
 
 " She didn't mention it. I looked all round when we 
 got out, and there was no one I knew. There weren't 
 more than a dozen people altogether." 
 
 " Do you doubt her word, Mr. Seawright ?" 
 
 " No, of course not ; but she may have been mis- 
 taken." 
 
202 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 " Do you think it likely that she would make a 
 mistake at such a time?" 
 
 " Yes, it's just the very time she might make one — 
 especially if she was nervous." 
 
 Mrs. Jackson's head wagged mournfully. " No, Mr. 
 Seawright, she wasn't mistaken. Carry was there, 
 though not on your platform. She was there to meet 
 the Bangor train probably. Rose saw her and she saw 
 Rose. She even bowed." 
 
 " I'm absolutely certain that Rose bowed to nobody." 
 
 " She didn't. It would have been much better if she 
 had. She thought, I suppose, that if she took no notice 
 Carry might think she had made a mistake. But Carry 
 won't think anything of the sort : all it will do will be 
 to make her more suspicious than ever." 
 
 Richard had a feeling as of the meshes of a net that 
 were being slowly tightened about him. " What do you 
 want me to do ?" he asked, for all this vagueness was 
 becoming unbearable. " I can't help what happened. I 
 have said I am sorry." 
 
 " Yes, yes, my love ; what do you want him to do ?" 
 chimed in Lambert, this time with a quite irrepressible 
 cheerfulness. " Do you know, it is very odd, but I have 
 a distinct impression of an aura behind his head — an 
 aura in which green seems to predominate, though there 
 are at least three colours. It grows brighter every 
 instant. It " 
 
 " Mr. Jackson !" The warning note brought him back 
 to actualities, and he relapsed into silence as his wife 
 turned to Richard. " We expect you to behave honour- 
 ably, Mr. Seawright. We trust you. We expect you 
 to behave as we should like a son of our own to behave 
 in such circumstances." 
 
ROSE 203 
 
 He moistened his lips with his tongue, and Mrs. 
 Jackson was suddenly amazed to see his ears twitch 
 violently. " I — I don't understand," he stammered. 
 
 " You ought to understand, Mr. Seawright," she 
 replied, recovering from the slight shock which he had 
 unconsciously given her. " But after all, one simple 
 question may solve everything. I ask you, Mr. 
 Seawright, in all straightforwardness, I ask you, as the 
 mother of the sweetest girl that ever breathed, do you 
 love my darling child ?'* 
 
 The encouraging note in her voice, the sudden sym- 
 pathy of her expression, which was yet backed by some- 
 thing cold and inexorable, seemed to cut the ground from 
 under his feet. He knew now, without any faintest 
 doubt, what was expected of him, though no response 
 came from his closed lips. 
 
 Mrs. Jackson fixed him with small beady eyes, and 
 apparently " a mother's love " read the by no means 
 obvious answer in his frightened face, for she heaved a 
 fat sigh of relief as she rose from her creaking chair. 
 " Then, go to her," she cried hoarsely, with a sudden 
 burst of emotion. " Do not keep her any longer in 
 suspense. She's there, waiting for you — in the back 
 parlour. Her heart is yours, she told me her little 
 secret this morning, and you'll have a treasure. You 
 have won a heart of gold, Richard, and true to the 
 core." 
 
 He felt himself drawn overpoweringly towards an 
 immense, heaving area of beaded black satin, while an 
 extremely audible kiss was imprinted on his forehead. 
 Dazed, bewildered, overwhelmed, he tried to stammer 
 out something, but an encouraging though forcible pat 
 on the shoulder moved him appreciably in the direction 
 
204 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 of the door, which Lambert, with unusual presence of 
 mind, had opened. In the hall he again hesitated, 
 trying to find words, but the same friendly force was 
 once more applied, and next moment he found himself, 
 with the door pulled to behind him as if to cut off the 
 last possibility of retreat, standing in the back parlour. 
 
VIII 
 
 Rose was at the window, and even at the sound of the 
 opening- and closing- of the door did not look round. 
 She appeared to be lost in contemplation of a damp and 
 fulig-inous strip of garden, the principal feature of which 
 was an elaborate arrang-ement of clothes-lines. One of 
 her hands crumpled the edg-e of a rather soiled muslin 
 curtain, and her forehead pressed against the pane. 
 Another gas-stove — the house seemed full of them — 
 hummed joyously, in full blaze. 
 
 He took a step forward. " Rose," he murmured, but 
 still she kept her face averted. Then he crossed the 
 room and put his hand upon her shoulder. She was 
 trembling. At his touch she partially turned, but still 
 did not look at him, only, as he drew her to him, buried 
 her face in his breast. He saw, he felt, he knew that she 
 loved him, and for the time it made everything easier. 
 Now, with her arms about him, he felt that he loved her 
 too. 
 
 "Are you sure? Are you sure?" she asked, tears 
 shining in her eyes. " You mustn^t let yourself be 
 influenced by papa or mamma. It doesn't matter what 
 they say. I didn't want them to say anything — really, 
 really, Richard. ... I will tell them that I refused you : 
 I will write a letter and you can show it to them. It was 
 all my fault, and I don't want you unless it comes from 
 yourself and has nothing to do with what they may have 
 talked about." 
 
 205 
 
2o6 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 " Of course it comes from myself," he answered, with 
 a tinge of melancholy. " They don't know anything 
 about it." 
 
 For that matter he didn't know either, but Rose knew, 
 and suddenly she burst into tears of relief and happi- 
 ness. He sat down on the sofa, drawing her to him, 
 and at the same time displaced a folded rug which 
 covered a gaping slit in the cloth. He moved a little to 
 avoid a projecting spring, and slid down into a kind of 
 rounded hollow that was more comfortable. Rose's 
 arms were clasped about his neck, and her fingers passed 
 through his dark hair caressingly, while her joy and 
 affection found issue in a ceaseless babble of not very 
 wise talk. 
 
 " But we won't be able to get married for ages, will 
 we ?" she cooed into his ear. " It's well that we're both 
 so young." And she laughed with a sweet fond foolish- 
 ness that was like the love-twitterings of a bird. 
 
 " We must get married as soon as possible," he 
 replied. 
 
 She was like a delicate flower in the sunshine of a 
 still, summer day, and the charm of her prettiness, and 
 the sweetness of her caresses hid away everything else. 
 But, after a time, out of this love-dream she emerged 
 with more practical considerations. His fate was sealed. 
 She had twined herself about him like a fair and fragile 
 convolvulus, soft and yielding, yet clinging closely, so 
 that only a brutal hand could tear her away, the cruel 
 hand of the destroyer 
 
 He told her what salary he earned at the office — she 
 already knew it — and of a legacy of a thousand pounds 
 each, that had come to him and Martin from their 
 grandfather. She reckoned everything up and thought 
 
ROSE 207 
 
 they could easily manage. She unfolded countless 
 plans. He was amazed indeed at the rapidity with 
 which she developed them. She knew even of a dear 
 little house which they could get for very little ; and she 
 had her own savings, almost a hundred pounds. She 
 could get typing to do at home. She could buy a 
 second-hand machine for very little, and what she would 
 earn in that way would help them considerably. In the 
 midst of these mingled calculations and kisses they were 
 astonished to hear the loud ringing of a hand-bell. She 
 slid from his knee and began patting her hair hurriedly. 
 " Gracious, that must be tea already ! Is my hair awful ? 
 You're going to stay, dear, of course ?" 
 
 In the other room an air of festivity prevailed. 
 Everard began to sing, " There's nothing half so sweet 
 
 in life as " Rose clapped her hand over his mouth. 
 
 She laughed, blushed, a picture of radiant happiness. 
 
 The whole family now called Richard by his Christian 
 name : it was as if they were practising it, so frequently 
 did it buzz in his ears. Mrs. Jackson had discarded her 
 black satin for the more homely dressing-gown, out of 
 which she bulged genially. From behind the tea-pot 
 she beamed upon him, and wondered pressingly if, amid 
 hot barm-bracks and cold apple tart, he " wouldn't take 
 an egg" Lambert's white, glistening smile rested upon 
 the young lovers with the effect of a benediction. Vague 
 and celestial, he left the room three times during the 
 course of the meal, returning after each absence with a 
 deeper air of mystery. No one quite knew what he was 
 doing, but from obscure hints it could be gathered that 
 important visitors, who preferred to linger in the upper 
 rooms, were present on this happy occasion. 
 
 Shortly after nine o'clock Richard went home. Even 
 
2o8 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 as he entered the house he was struck by the intense 
 contrast it presented to the scene he had just quitted, 
 and the knowledge that he was bringing a bomb-shell 
 into its grave tranquillity did not help him. His mother 
 was nodding over a book of sermons, but Grace gazed 
 straight into his face as he came in, and he lowered his 
 eyes. He pretended to ignore her, but he had an uneasy 
 feeling that she knew. He had had the same feeling 
 many times before, and he tried now to work up a 
 protective sense of indignation. He could not; he 
 remembered too much ; remembered, above all, that after- 
 noon when he had blundered about Mr. Campbell; and 
 a dim idea that he was about to make her unhappy — 
 how unhappy he had no means of measuring — depressed 
 him. 
 
 After half an hour Grace left them, but his mother 
 still continued to doze. Every few minutes she would 
 waken up and turn a page of her book : then her head 
 would begin again to nod slowly, sinking lower and 
 lower towards her shoulder, till suddenly she would 
 start up with a jerk of her whole body and read another 
 paragraph. 
 
 He told her abruptly what he had to tell, and Mrs. 
 Seawright ceased to doze. All the muscles in her face 
 tightened, but she said nothing. He had not expected 
 congratulations, yet he looked at her disconsolately. 
 " You do not know Rose yet," he explained. " You have 
 only seen her twice, and you will like her much better 
 when you get to know her." 
 
 " I never <^ij-liked her," Mrs. Seawright replied. " I 
 didn't think she was the companion you would have 
 chosen, that is all." 
 
ROSE 209 
 
 " No. It is usually that way, isn't it ? I mean " 
 
 He did not complete his thought, and there was another 
 silence, till suddenly it appeared to dawn upon him that, 
 in spite of the fact of his having announced himself as 
 an accepted lover, he was not exhibiting any particular 
 elation. " You don't really know Rose yet," he repeated 
 feebly. 
 
 His mother's eyes rested upon him quite as if he had 
 not spoken. " I hope you have not entered into this 
 blindly, Richard," she said. 
 
 " No." 
 
 " You are sure ?" 
 
 " Of course." 
 
 He tried to feel ill-used, while his mother continued 
 to regard him with an expression of doubt. " Marriage 
 is a trying bond," she went on, " and it seems to me that 
 you're too young to be thinking of it at all. It needs 
 plenty of good-will on both sides. Rose and you have 
 very little in common. She needs brightness and amuse- 
 ment, and you are very silent sometimes. It will not do 
 to neglect her, for I'm afraid she hasn't many resources 
 in herself." 
 
 What she really felt was that her son was not easy to 
 live with, and she would have said so, too, had Rose 
 been there instead of Richard. 
 
 " I must go and see her mother," she presently added. 
 " I think you should weigh the matter very, very care- 
 fully.'* 
 
 " I'm afraid I could hardly draw back now, no matter 
 how carefully I weighed it," he answered, and was 
 immediately conscious that the words sounded all 
 wrong. "I don't know that you'll like Mrs. Jackson. 
 
 14 
 
210 
 
 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 She's not — they're none of them, for that matter, — much 
 in your hne." 
 
 " Don't you Hke her ?" Mrs. Seawright asked. 
 
 " Not particularly." 
 
 She gazed at him, and he found it more and more 
 difficult to keep from telling her his whole story. He 
 wanted to tell her everything, to be guided by her and 
 comforted by her, but the habit of years was too strong, 
 and also a sense of loyalty to Rose. " She's not like you, 
 mother, any more than Rose is. You must be prepared 
 for that. And — the others — I'm afraid you'll care for 
 them even less." 
 
 " It doesn't matter about me. What matters is that 
 you will have to, accept them. Have you understood 
 that they'll always be there ? When a man marries, it's 
 his wife's family that becomes his family." 
 
 " You'll visit us occasionally, won't you ?" he smiled 
 dimly. 
 
 But Mrs. Seawright could not smile. " Richard, I 
 can't help thinking you're not really sure in your 
 own mind about all this. Remember, that to be taken 
 with a pretty face isn't enough. I'm not saying anything 
 against Rose. She may be a very good girl. I know 
 nothing at all to the contrary, and indeed I think she 
 is good. All the same I can't help feeling that you have 
 acted over hastily." 
 
 " Mother dear, I knew you would say what you have 
 said, but you must trust me. I am really doing what is 
 right." 
 
 Mrs. Seawright did not reply. She had a strange 
 sense of being out of everything. She could no longer 
 follow the thoughts of her children, among whom she 
 
ROSE 211 
 
 included Grace. They seemed to lead lives that were 
 independent of hers, lives which she could only watch 
 as she might have watched in a theatre, had she ever 
 entered such a place, the fortunes of the imaginary 
 persons there. 
 
PART FOURTH 
 GRACE 
 
I 
 
 He had left Rose beside the peat fire, reading a 
 novelette, for the slight rain that had begun to fall had 
 been sufficient to make her give up all idea of accom- 
 panying him on his walk. They had been here for 
 exactly seventeen days, at this little Donegal hamlet, 
 and in three days more their honeymoon would be over. 
 
 He had spent all morning cooped up in their sitting- 
 room, and now the salt wet wind blowing in from the 
 sea was delicious. The two sheep-dogs belonging to 
 the house, shaggy veterans, wise and staid, ran on 
 ahead, every now and again pausing, looking round 
 with paw lifted, as if waiting a word of command. The 
 rain had already cleared off, just as he had told her 
 it would. 
 
 There were no hedges, and the ground on either 
 side stretched away, rocky and dark, a somewhat 
 sombre and austere landscape, despite the richness of 
 its colour. On the left was the sea, on the right, amid 
 sparsely-grown pasture-land, were yellow patches of 
 peat-bog, where pools of water gleamed and pale beds 
 of rushes shivered under the grey sky. There were 
 few trees, but everything was softened by a dreamy, 
 changing light, which drifted down through the low 
 clouds. Away in the distance, Muckish Mountain was 
 half lost in mist, and the long winding road stretched 
 before him, white as chalk, amid the dark fields, with 
 their boundaries of loosely-piled stones. 
 
 214 
 
GRACE 215 
 
 Dusk was falling when he once more faced home- 
 wards, and something of the elasticity seemed to go 
 out of his step. It was as if, rather reluctantly, he 
 obeyed a call. There was no doubt that they had made 
 a mistake in coming to so quiet a place. They had been 
 thrown too much upon themselves. He wondered if 
 she felt the strain as during the last two or three days 
 he had begun to feel it. And yet it was the kind of 
 place that had always appealed to him. It was Rose 
 who was not in her proper setting here. He knew that 
 most of the time she was thinking of her friends, of her 
 own people, and there were moments when he himself 
 would even have welcomed a visit from them. He had 
 brought a few books with him, but as early as the second 
 day his idea of reading aloud had proved a failure. 
 She denied that she was bored, but for all that she 
 would interrupt him in the middle of a sentence to 
 wonder about the trimming of a hat, or to tell him 
 something Ivy had said. She talked incessantly of her 
 own people and of her friends, until it seemed to him 
 that there was not a detail of their lives that she had not 
 described half a dozen times. 
 
 When he returned to the low, white farm-house, and 
 went up to their room, he found her waiting for him just 
 as he had pictured her. She had not even lit the lamp, 
 but was sitting in the dark, save for the light of the 
 fire, and her silence, as he entered, was a kind of 
 reproach. He sat down beside her, glad to hear the 
 rattle of cups and saucers which heralded the approach 
 of their evening meal. 
 
 After tea, when they were definitely alone for the 
 evening, an idea occurred to him. " Would you like 
 me to read you something I have written? I brought 
 
2i6 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 the manuscript with me because I thought I might work 
 over it a bit." 
 
 " And you never said a word about it ! " cried Rose. 
 " Is it a story ?" 
 
 " No ; it's — just what I've thought about things. I 
 can't describe it, but you'll see for yourself." 
 
 " Whatever made you do it ?" she wondered, without 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 " I don't know. I liked doing it." 
 
 " The idea of keeping it such a secret ! I'm sure if I 
 were to write down all Vve thought about things I'd 
 never have done." 
 
 Her sweet, foolish, little laugh was, under the circum- 
 stances, not particularly encouraging, but he went into 
 the adjoining room, and after some rummaging at the 
 bottom of a bag returned with a brown paper parcel. 
 He moved the lamp and put some fresh turf on the fire 
 before beginning to read. 
 
 They sat close together. Rose nestling up to him, her 
 cheek leaning against his left shoulder. The scene pre- 
 sented a curiously intimate appearance. Outside, the 
 darkness and wind; within the room, the two seated 
 figures, the whiteness of the pages he turned, their faint 
 rustle, the sound of his voice, the burning fire and the 
 soft lamplight. He read on and gradually a peculiar 
 atmosphere stole out from the spoken words, an 
 atmosphere of which even Rose was vaguely conscious. 
 His book was exactly the kind of book a profes- 
 sional writer would never have written, because he would 
 have considered it unsaleable. It was very personal, 
 very young, but made remarkable by a singularly vivid, 
 an almost morbid power of imagery — bold, fantastic, 
 half mad at times, yet seemingly inexhaustible. It was 
 
GRACE 217 
 
 as if everything he mentioned were alive with a strange, 
 watchful, sentient life — the streets and houses, the very 
 chairs and tables. This curious quality so predominated 
 over every other that it came at last to have a vaguely 
 disquieting effect. He paused for a moment and Rose 
 said, " I had a letter from mamma this afternoon. She 
 says that Mr. McVinty has been three times to the 
 house since we left, I wonder if anything will come of 
 it? Don't you think it would be a good thing for 
 Holly r 
 
 " For Holly !" He laid down his manuscript with an 
 indescribable dejection. 
 
 She smiled and gently pinched his ear. " Oh, don't 
 be so stupid, Ricky. You know what I mean very well. 
 Mr. McVinty has a splendid position. The only draw- 
 back is that since he gave up travelling the town he is 
 hardly ever at home except for week-ends." She sud- 
 denly sprang to her feet. " That old lamp's beginning 
 to smoke again. Shall I ring, or shall we just sit in the 
 dark ? I'm sure you're tired of reading anyway." 
 
 " Just as you like." 
 
 She pulled down the extinguisher and then nestled 
 up to him once more. He felt her lips brush lightly 
 over his cheek, 
 
 " I'm afraid you find it very dull here, Rose." 
 
 She moved against him with a caressing, almost 
 feline movement, "What queer things you say!" she 
 laughed. " Fancy anybody finding their honeymoon 
 dull!" 
 
 " Then you don't feel homesick or lonely ?" 
 
 " No, Such a question !" 
 
 "You're sure?" 
 
 "Of course I'm sure. You'll make me think you're 
 
2i8 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 feeling homesick, if you go on like that." She laughed 
 again. All trace of the irritability and languor that 
 had been present in her voice earlier in the day had 
 disappeared. " Do you remember that evening in the 
 hotel at Newcastle ? How frightened we both were ! 
 And now here we are, just as we were then, but with 
 nothing to be frightened about." 
 
 He felt the power that she possessed over him 
 beginning to stir in his blood, and he had time, before 
 it gained upon him, to resent it, to dislike it. During 
 the past fortnight it had been with him too persistently ; 
 there had been nothing else, no way of escape. And 
 he imagined how different it all might have been. 
 There was something in their intimacy which at this 
 moment made him ashamed. He was caught in it, but 
 he felt it like bird-lime clinging to the beating wings of 
 his spirit. It was as if all his life long he had trembled 
 in awe before some holy and mysterious shrine only to 
 find, on drawing aside a curtain, no beautiful and 
 divine figure, but a primitive image of wood or clay. 
 
II 
 
 Though neither would have admitted it in so many 
 words, yet to both the ending of the honeymoon came 
 as an immense rehef. Mrs. Jackson and the girls were 
 in the house to welcome them when they arrived home. 
 He sat talking with them for half an hour : then went 
 out alone to see his mother. 
 
 The house in Myrtle Row appeared to be almost 
 deserted now, though Bessie had taken up a permanent 
 habitation with Mrs. Seawright. First had come 
 Martin's appointment to a post in London ; then, in the 
 summer, following on the shortest of engagements, 
 Grace's marriage to Mr. Campbell ; lastly, there had been 
 Richard's own marriage, which had left Mrs. Seawright 
 all alone. 
 
 She had not expected him, and he had slipped in 
 very quietly. Next moment his arms were round her. 
 He was glad, glad to see her again. She too was glad, 
 he felt, for she had been taken off her guard, and was 
 more demonstrative than usual. 
 
 " Have you heard from Grace ?" he asked, when their 
 first greetings were over. 
 
 " Yes. They're still in Italy." 
 
 " When are they coming back ?" 
 
 " Hasn't she written to you ?" 
 
 " No : she never writes to me." 
 
 " Well, I'll give you her last two letters and you can 
 take them with you. She doesn't say anything about 
 
 219 
 
220 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 coming home. They're going to spend the summer in 
 Germany. She talks about some musical festival at 
 Munich." 
 
 " How can Mr. Campbell stay away so long from his 
 business ?" 
 
 " I suppose his partner looks after it. Grace says it 
 is his first holiday for twelve years." 
 
 " He seems to be making up for lost time." 
 
 They sat silent for a little. The questions she wanted 
 to ask him could not be asked, yet it seemed to her that 
 she could read one or two answers as she watched him. 
 He took her hand between his two hands, and stroked 
 it softly. 
 
 " Aren't you very lonely ?" he said at last. " I was 
 thinking about you when I was away. I don't see why 
 you can't give up the shop altogether and come and live 
 with us." 
 
 She shook her head. " It wouldn't do, my lad. I 
 don't believe in arrangements of that sort." 
 
 " If Rose asked you, wouldn't it be all right ?" 
 
 " No : so don't ask her to ask me. I'm quite con- 
 tented where I am." 
 
 He sighed. " Well, of course, you've got Bessie." 
 
 " Yes ; I've got Bessie. . . . You haven't asked after 
 Martin." 
 
 "No. How is he?" 
 
 " He seems to be flourishing, but he's not a good 
 correspondent. He keeps on sending me those picture 
 postcards, views of the Tower and Saint Paul's, when 
 he knows quite well that what I want is a letter. But 
 I suppose he's very busy and comes home tired in the 
 evenings." 
 
 The idea of Martin coming home tired in the evenings 
 
GRACE 221 
 
 struck Richard as rather a novelty. He smiled, but he 
 accepted the picture, and his mother continued : " You 
 might write to him now and then. I'm sure he feels 
 lonely enough in that strange place." 
 
 " I've got nothing to write about." 
 
 " You ought to have." 
 
 " Nothing that would interest him. And I don't 
 think you need trouble yourself about his loneliness. 
 He has probably dozens of friends by this time." 
 
 " Yes, he always was one to make friends," Mrs. 
 Seawright admitted. " But I'm sure he'd value a letter, 
 and I'm such a poor hand with the pen myself." 
 
in 
 
 Those first weeks of housekeeping were amusing, if 
 highly experimental, but gradually they settled down. 
 Mrs. Jackson came round daily with offers of assistance, 
 and from the beginning the entire Jackson family were 
 a recognized feature of his home life. 
 
 The typing of his manuscript, undertaken by Rose, 
 had for a time given them an interest in common. Then 
 followed the excitement of dispatching it to a publisher. 
 Richard had read of the delays and disappointments 
 which are the usual lot of the young writer, but nothing 
 turned out as he had anticipated. Within a fortnight 
 his book had been accepted, and early in September it 
 was published. One of the six copies that had been 
 sent to him he forwarded to Grace in Germany. It was 
 not till then that he understood to whom his work, all 
 along, had been addressed. And he had not even 
 dedicated it to her. He had dedicated it to Rose. 
 The book, nevertheless, was Grace's, as much as the most 
 intimate letter he had ever written to her — it was 
 Grace's, in a sense, almost as much as it was his. 
 
 Before the first tardy reviews had begun to appear — 
 to be eagerly devoured by Rose, whose enthusiasm, he 
 saw, was considerably damped by their somewhat 
 patronizing tone — ^he had come to regard the whole 
 thing with indifference. Then he recognized, with a 
 kind of sinking of the heart, with a feeling almost of 
 dread, that nothing seemed to matter to him now. 
 
 333 
 
GRACE 223 
 
 This discovery coincided with certain domestic 
 infelicities, which about this time became more pro- 
 nounced. It was natural, of course, that Rose should 
 not wish to give up her own people, but he felt that she 
 might have given them up a little more than she did. 
 Rose herself could hardly have denied that Mrs. 
 Jackson, who appeared to let things go easily enough 
 in her own house, had developed a remarkable activity 
 in the supervision of that of her son-in-law. The first 
 little contention had been occasioned by his insistence 
 on two bedrooms and a study. This, necessitating as it 
 did, extra furniture, both Mrs. Jackson and Rose re- 
 garded as an extravagance. They did not say much, 
 but Mrs. Jackson dropped one or two remarks which 
 appeared to imply that if he intended to live so separate 
 an existence from that of his wife he might almost as 
 well not have married. Richard took no notice of the 
 insinuation, but from the first Rose's lack of any desire 
 for privacy had astonished him. 
 
 As the months passed he noticed other things which 
 surprised him even more. He noticed that, so long as 
 her outer garments pleased her. Rose was perfectly 
 indifferent to her underclothing, and would put on a 
 stocking with half its heel out. Considering her 
 mother's example, it was perhaps only to be expected 
 that she should be a little untidy, but she was more than 
 that. She had a positive genius for making objects 
 serve purposes other than those for which they had 
 originally been designed. She liked to use his books 
 as a wedge for propping open the bathroom window; 
 his pens would disappear, and on his writing-table he 
 would find articles of feminine apparel, a hat, a pair of 
 soiled gloves. The meals, too, were nearly always late. 
 
224 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 and the cooking was bad. Rose, herself a vegetarian, 
 apparently had no ideas beyond chops and steaks, 
 which figured alternately at each midday repast. 
 Always accustomed to work in an office, house-work 
 bored her, and she spent most of her time, so far as he 
 could see — when she was not visiting or receiving 
 visitors — in reading cheap novelettes and magazines. 
 The whole house was littered with them, for even the 
 ordinary library novel seemed to reach beyond Rose's 
 mental horizon. 
 
 But all these things would have been bearable had 
 they not been backed up by others about which he was 
 obliged to keep silent. From his childhood Richard 
 had lived with women whose intelligence was above the 
 average. Possibly he had not realized it before, but 
 certainly he realized it now, when, as so frequently 
 happened, in the presence of Mrs. Jackson, Holly, and 
 Ivy, he was obliged to listen to interminable conversa- 
 tions that appeared to exhaust in themselves every 
 possible variety of triviality. Yet if he did not take his 
 share in all that was going on he was brought to book 
 afterwards, for Rose, in spite of a certain timidity he 
 had not ceased to inspire in her, could never let any- 
 thing pass without an allusion of some sort. Gradually 
 they drifted into a habit of, not exactly quarrelling, but 
 bickering, about things infinitely unimportant, and 
 though their disagreements were short-lived, behind 
 each reconciliation was an erotic impulse of which he 
 felt ashamed. 
 
 Mrs. Seawright, as indeed he had expected, came but 
 seldom to the house. It was quite clear that Rose did 
 not care for her, and the rest of the Jacksons liked her 
 even less. Moreover, things were fast drifting towards 
 
GRACE 225 
 
 a stage when he did not want his mother to come. He 
 saw that she silently noted each sign of untidiness and 
 discomfort, and he hated this even more than the dis- 
 comforts themselves. He had made a mistake, but, 
 though in his heart he admitted it, no one should ever 
 hear him say so. 
 
 In the meantime letters had begun to arrive from 
 
 Grace. Since receiving his book she wrote to him 
 
 punctually once a week. He had begun by reading 
 
 passages aloud to Rose, but after the second or third 
 
 letter she had suddenly declared that she didn't wish 
 
 to hear any more. He submitted to her whim without 
 
 demanding any explanation, a course of action which 
 
 Rose could never understand, and resented more than 
 
 if he had actually got angry. Thus they seemed to live 
 
 at cross-purposes, and more and more she began to ask 
 
 people to the house — her own people and their friends 
 
 — Mr. Sprott, the McVintys, the Smiths, others of the 
 
 same set — and more and more he dropped back into a 
 
 kind of private life. Yet through all he knew that she 
 
 loved him. 
 
 He knew it, though he disliked the nature of the tie 
 that bound them. In his ideals he was almost passion- 
 ately ascetic, but in his blood were other instincts that 
 seemed equally strong. There were black days when 
 he felt a kind of horror of life. It seemed to rise before 
 him as something infinitely lonely and dark, empty and 
 meaningless. He would sit staring at it hour after hour, 
 when Rose thought he was writing. He could not 
 write. He felt dried up, frozen, and when, with an 
 effort, he dipped his pen and scribbled a few sentences, 
 a hand seemed to stretch out of the darkness to stop 
 him, and he would sit listening to the sound of the 
 
226 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 hired piano in the room below, the sound of the vulgar, 
 lilting music that seemed to be the only sort which 
 Rose's friends could tolerate. 
 
 And yet at times a light appeared to be on the verge 
 of breaking; a pallor trembled along the edge of the 
 dark sky, as if before the rising of some moon or star. 
 Then, he waited and watched and listened intently — so 
 intently that he seemed to hear the beating of his heart. 
 But the paleness on the horizon faded, and the night 
 rushed in once more — black, unbroken — an immense 
 darkness that choked and clouded his soul. Through 
 that enveloping darkness the little voice of Rose came 
 trivial and meaningless as the tinkle of a bell. 
 
 One morning in November, as they sat at breakfast, 
 he opened a letter from Grace. " The Campbells will 
 be home to-morrow," he said, after glancing at it. 
 
 Rose, who was busy with her own correspondence, 
 which consisted usually of coloured postcards, did not 
 reply. 
 
 " We ought to go and see them to-morrow evening, I 
 think." 
 
 " If it's to-morrow, I can't," she answered, without 
 looking up. 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " I have an engagement." 
 
 " What engagement ?" 
 
 " It's Ev's birthday and we're all going to the 
 ' Pictures.' " 
 
 " Surely you might be sick of the ' Pictures ' by this 
 time!" 
 
 "Well, I'm not sick of them. If you'd let me know 
 things in proper time, instead of just at the last moment, 
 I might be able to arrange better." 
 
GRACE 227 
 
 " I let you know this as soon as I knew it myself." 
 
 "Well, I'll go some afternoon, and you can go to- 
 morrow evening." 
 
 So he went alone to call upon Grace, and found her, 
 too, alone. She rose from a chair by the fire and came 
 to meet him with an eager light of welcome transforming 
 her face. He was astonished at the alteration that had 
 taken place in her appearance, though he could not have 
 said in what it consisted. It was a year and four months 
 since they had met, and his first impulse was to kiss 
 her, but she only held out her hand, which he grasped 
 for a moment and then let drop. He sat down, feeling 
 for some reason absurdly shy. 
 
 " Henry is downstairs," she said. " He will be up 
 presently, after he has finished talking business with his 
 partner, who dined here to-night. . . . Why don't you 
 come closer to the fire ? It has been so cold all day." 
 
 He changed his seat obediently. " Have you seen 
 mother yet ?" 
 
 " Yes, she came up this morning. How is Rose ?" 
 
 As they talked he found himself watching her with 
 an interest he had never felt in anybody before. How 
 could marriage have so altered her ? The change was 
 wonderful, almost incredible. Yet by-and-by he saw 
 that it was not so much a change as a development. 
 She was still Grace as he had always known her, but 
 with something added. Mentally, spiritually, she had 
 expanded, had opened out, like a flower in the sun. 
 And the sun, he supposed, was just the opportunity of 
 coming under influences which her narrow life in a pro- 
 vincial town had withheld from her. He had recognized, 
 it now seemed to him, from ever so far back, that the 
 capacity was there; but nobody could have foretold 
 
228 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 its 30 rapid evolution. In the old days, he thought, he 
 had been ahead of her; now it appeared to be just the 
 other way. 
 
 For an hour they talked, talked for the most part 
 about old times, and for a little about his book, which 
 she appeared to know nearly by heart. Then, as Mr. 
 Campbell still failed to make an appearance, he asked 
 her to play to him. She had been studying hard, she 
 told him, had taken lessons, and had practised a good 
 many hours a day ; and from the first note he felt that 
 her playing, too, had become subtly different. 
 
 As she sat at the piano it gave him a further oppor- 
 tunity to watch her, and to clarify his impression. She 
 was older, wiser; her imagination, her sympathies, had 
 broadened and deepened. It seemed to him now, as 
 something unpardonably stupid, that he could never in 
 the past have appreciated her. Mr. Campbell had 
 chosen well; he could have secured no more admirable 
 companion for himself and his growing children than 
 this remarkable and delightful woman. 
 
 This conviction grew stronger with each visit he paid 
 at the house. She had not a wide circle of acquaint- 
 ances, and he often marvelled at the patience and 
 sweetness with which she tolerated some of those he 
 happened to meet in her drawing-room. Intellectually, 
 they were immeasurably her inferiors, yet it seemed to 
 him that he detected an insufferable air of patronage in 
 their politeness. They had called upon her because 
 they were friends of her husband's. They could not 
 grasp — how should they, with their narrow, stupid little 
 minds? — that she was a creature infinitely more 
 civilized than they were. All that they could under- 
 stand was that she had once handed out stamps and 
 
GRACE 229 
 
 given change in a post office. This attitude enraged 
 him. He imagined that they found even in her mastery 
 of the art she had studied something professional and 
 unladylike. On the whole he preferred the attitude of 
 Mrs. Wilberforce, who remained severely at a distance. 
 Mrs. Wilberforce, for her old friend Mrs. Seawright's 
 sake, would have called upon Grace had it been pos- 
 sible. But it wasn't. She knew that on the doorstep 
 she should be confronted by the phantom of the out- 
 raged General, waving a flaming sword in her path, 
 like the angel at the gate of Eden ; and though the girls 
 were not married yet, and their prospects seemed to 
 narrow with each year that drifted monotonously by, 
 she could not have borne to see them in Grace's 
 drawing-room, or seated at Grace's dinner-table. 
 
 Thus it came about that Mrs. Campbell's visitors 
 were few, and that far more often than not Richard 
 found her alone. Their old relations were resumed, but 
 with a difference ; and the difference was not merely one 
 of altered surroundings, of what Grace had made of the 
 house, though she had been wonderful here, too. 
 Coming into it was like entering a place of infinite 
 peacefulness, where his nerves were rested, and his mind 
 and spirit could breathe freely. He remembered that 
 he had composed his book while listening^ to her music ; 
 he remembered many things; and the friendship that 
 now opened out before him seemed to him to mark a 
 new period in his life. 
 
IV 
 
 It was never without prolonged deliberation that Mrs. 
 Seawright could make up her mind to go to see her 
 son's wife. To-day, for instance, as she set forth, she 
 knew exactly the annoyance she should experience from 
 the moment she entered the house, and all that she 
 should still further suffer from the forced repression of 
 her disapproval. She flattered herself that no audible 
 comment upon the state of things prevailing there had 
 ever yet passed her lips, but her i/^audible comments 
 were more eloquent than she imagined. To poor Rose, 
 indeed, her visits were nothing else but one endless 
 comment, and she usually heaved a sigh of relief when 
 they came to an end. 
 
 On this particular occasion Mrs. Seawright discovered 
 that the dinner-things were still upon the table, though 
 it was nearly five o'clock. She also noticed the soiled 
 cloth, with a feeling of acute disgust, carefully turning 
 her back to it as she sat down. 
 
 She began by inquiring after Rose's health, and Rose 
 answered with a sort of weary inattention. It was 
 obvious that something more than a mere consciousness 
 of unwashed dishes weighed upon her mind. Apparently 
 she had been sitting in perfect idleness, probably with 
 her elbows on the crumby cloth, ever since dinner. 
 She talked languidly, and with frequent silences, during 
 one of which she startled Mrs. Seawright by suddenly 
 beginning to wipe her eyes, using for the purpose a 
 
 230 
 
GRACE 231 
 
 pocket-handkerchief whose dampness suggested that 
 the present tears were not the first she had shed that 
 afternoon. 
 
 "What is the matter?" Mrs. Seawright demanded, 
 with a somewhat stoical air. " Have you and Richard 
 been quarrelling?" 
 
 " He won't quarrel," Rose said, between her sobs. 
 " He just sits as if you weren't there." 
 
 " He always was sulky," the mother admitted. 
 
 " He doesn't care for me any more : I know he doesn't. 
 To-day, just because the steak was tough he wouldn't 
 eat it, and went back into town without any dinner. 
 It isn't my fault if the butcher sends tough meat." 
 
 "Well, well; you musn't take it too seriously." 
 
 " If he'd only get really angry it would be better than 
 the way he is : it would show at any rate that he was 
 like other people." 
 
 " He's like enough most men if he thinks a good deal 
 of his stomach," Mrs. Seawright returned sententiously. 
 " A man must get his meals properly if there's to be any 
 comfort in the house. And as to being peculiar — you 
 knew what he was before you married him." She 
 brought out these painfully truthful observations with 
 a tranquillity that made Rose detest her. 
 
 " I didn't know he was as queer as he is," she retorted. 
 
 " Even as a child he was more given to brooding over 
 things than to talking about them," said Mrs. Seawright. 
 
 " Well, he needn't brood all the time. Sometimes 
 he'll sit through a whole meal without saying a word. 
 And he never tells me anything. I might as well not 
 be here. If I ask people to the house he'll go and shut 
 himself up in his own room half the evening. The other 
 night I went into his study and there he was in the dark. 
 
2^2 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 doing nothing, just sitting there; and he must have 
 been that way for hours. It's dreadful. You'd almost 
 think he had something on his conscience." 
 
 This picture of her son's habits was more disquieting 
 to Mrs. Seawright than she allowed Rose to guess. 
 The whole thing hung vividly before her, filling her 
 with uneasiness, and even with alarm. It produced in 
 her, at the same time, a feeling of impatience with her 
 daughter-in-law, a light creature, who, in spite of her 
 tears, did not in the least realize the seriousness of 
 what rattled so glibly off her tongue. And probably 
 she talked to other people even more freely. '' Richard's 
 a good boy," she announced quietly. " When people 
 want to find fault, they'd far better begin with them- 
 selves." 
 " I'm not finding fault," cried Rose, indignantly. 
 " Well, what's all the trouble then ? It's surely some- 
 thing more than a mere matter of a spoiled dinner." 
 
 A slightly sullen expression came into Rose's face. 
 " I don't want to make any accusations," she muttered. 
 " You'd far better make them to me than to other 
 people. You must remember Richard is my son." 
 
 " I wasn't the first to think of it, any way," Rose 
 burst out irrepressibly, "or to speak about it either. 
 Martin told me himself — at least he hinted at it — 
 months ago. I didn't think it mattered then : I thought 
 it must be all over." 
 
 "What must be all over?" asked Mrs. Seawright, 
 coldly. 
 
 Rose hesitated. " Between him and Grace," she said 
 below her breath. 
 
 Mrs. Seawright's high colour took a deeper tinge. 
 She maintained, however, the same unemotional atti- 
 
GRACE ^ 233 
 
 tude, and Rose watched her, now that she had uttered 
 the fatal words, like a frightened child. 
 
 " So you discussed such things with Martin ! That 
 wasn't very wise." 
 
 " I didn't. T didn't discuss anything. He just said 
 they used to be always together." 
 
 "When did he say that?" 
 
 " The last time he was over." 
 
 Mrs. Seawright paused. When she spoke again she 
 brought each word out with an extreme deliberation. 
 " If he said anything that need trouble you, he told a 
 lie. Why shouldn't they have been together, living in 
 the same house as they were? Wouldn't it have been 
 a strange thing if they hadn't been friends ?" 
 
 Rose shrank back a little. " I didn't say there was 
 any harm," she faltered. "Only now he's married he 
 oughtn't to go and see her so often. He's always there. 
 I don't know how Mr. Campbell likes him to be in and 
 out of the house that way. Grace perhaps hasn't 
 thought; but other people must notice it." 
 
 " Grace always thinks," replied Mrs. Seawright. 
 " So you want them not to be friends any longer ! 
 What do you do for him ? Look at all this mess ! " 
 She turned in disgust to the neglected dinner-things, 
 of which never for a moment, in spite of having kept her 
 back to them, had she lost consciousness. 
 
 " You're unkind," Rose sobbed. " You've always 
 disliked me." 
 
 Mrs. Seawright stretched out her hand and grasped 
 that other so much slighter hand firmly, but not roughly. 
 " Don't let yourself say things you'll be sorry to 
 have said later. I'm not unkind. I'm not pretending 
 that Richard has been all that he should be: I don't 
 
234 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 know. Tm not saying he is easy to live with : I 
 never thought you'd find him so. What I do say is 
 that you must dismiss all thoughts of jealousy from 
 your mind, or you'll never be happy. If Richard had 
 cared for Grace in the way he cares for you they had all 
 those years to come to an understanding in. And if 
 they didn't do so, then you needn't alarm yourself now. 
 Whatever his faults may be, you can trust him. You'd 
 know better what that means if you'd ever had to live 
 with the other sort. He never looked at a girl in his 
 life until he looked at you. Don't try to make mischief 
 between them : it will only lead to unhappiness — and it 
 is of you I am thinking when I say so. . . . You have 
 these fancies because you are not well," she added more 
 gently. " You'll see, if you have patience, that all will 
 turn out right in the end. But there must be give and 
 take on both sides. . . . Come ; let me help you to clear 
 up all this." And, stooping over Rose, she administered 
 a friendly peck in the middle of her cheek. 
 
 For ten minutes, amid the swish of water and rattle 
 of crockery, little more passed between them. 
 
Mrs. SeawrigHT's opinion, which she had not divulged 
 to anyone, was in the event justified, the arrival of the 
 mysterious stranger putting everything upon a new and 
 more satisfactory footing. The father, as he gazed upon 
 this curious creature, with its wrinkled visage, and eyes 
 like deep forest pools, was filled with a mingled 
 astonishment and happiness. The mother found a new 
 interest in life, simpler and deeper than any she had 
 yet known. A tiny cloud appeared in the horizon when 
 she expressed a desire to bestow upon her son the name 
 of Lambert Jackson, for to Richard this was an 
 unpleasant reminder that it was not unmixed Seawright 
 blood which flowed in the child's veins; but the cloud 
 passed and the baby was called after his father. 
 
 Each of the grandmothers discovered that he took 
 after her own family, and Rose every day found still 
 obscurer resemblances to persons who certainly bore no 
 likeness to one another. She even, one day, produced 
 the alarming theory that baby was " the image " of Ev, 
 which gave Richard a startled moment until a hurried 
 inspection brought him relief. The baby resembled 
 nobody, and as he became more comely he still main- 
 tained his individuality. But from the beginning he 
 was surrounded by a Jackson atmosphere. The Jackson 
 grandmother was perpetually on the spot, holding him 
 
 235 
 
236 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 sprawling in a capacious lap; and when he began to 
 enjoy perambulator exercise, his daily excursion almost 
 invariably ended at the house in Palermo Street, where 
 he disembarked and became for an hour or so the centre 
 of female flutterings. In the presence of others Richard 
 took very little notice of his son, but when he was alone 
 with him he was interested intensely. One day, coming 
 in and discovering Rose nursing the child, he saw her 
 in an altogether new light. He had entered softly, and 
 she had not heard him. She was singing to the baby 
 and rocking it gently to and fro, while the light of an 
 infinite tenderness looked out from her eyes. There 
 was something in the simplicity and naturalness of the 
 picture that gave it beauty, and it dawned upon him 
 that this was the real Rose. Presently she put the baby 
 down on a rug on the floor, where he lay on his back, 
 with screwed-up eyes, laughing and kicking lustily. 
 And the mother sang and laughed too, and said 
 ridiculous things that the baby apparently under- 
 stood. 
 
 Rose had begun to Uye her true life. Before, she had 
 been like an artist who has not discovered his vocation. 
 The baby was Rose's vocation. She had a girl in to 
 help her now with the house, and, though the girl was 
 refractory and far from brilliant, everything went more 
 smoothly than in the past. When Richard came home 
 for dinner there were long stories about baby; foolish, 
 pointless stories, but full of interest and charm ; whereas, 
 in the past, poor Rose's conversation could scarcely have 
 laid claim to either of those qualities. He had recog- 
 nized, even in the days of his courtship, that she had a 
 mind which seemed quite incapable of rising above 
 
GRACE 23; 
 
 personalities. Now she was personal about baby, and 
 nothing could have been more delightful. She was, he 
 discovered, beneath everything, amazingly simple and 
 guileless. She possessed no knowledge either of good 
 or evil. Baby alone had been able to break a small 
 loophole in the walls of conventionality, and Rose could 
 peep through this at one tiny corner of the real. Visitors 
 came much less frequently to the house, for baby, what- 
 ever effect he produced upon his parents, undoubtedly 
 bored Mr. Sprott, the Smiths, and the McVintys. 
 
 Grace, too, sank into the background. Richard still 
 went to see her, but he found her less sympathetic than 
 before, while to his child, had it not been an absurdity, 
 he might have imagined that she had taken a dislike. 
 She listened, she smiled, when the conversation, seldom 
 through any inquiry of her own, turned in that direction, 
 but at the same time she seemed to withdraw into 
 herself, and would take the first opportunity to change 
 the subject. He never guessed that there were moments 
 now when in his parental complacency he infuriated her, 
 when he struck her as having taken an immense stride 
 towards the commonplace. 
 
 Of course, when she went to see Mrs. Seawright, baby 
 was again upon the carpet, served up cold, as it were, 
 with a sauce of grandmotherly sentiment. Once she had 
 even met the whole family — father, mother, and son — 
 on their way to visit Granny Seawright, and Richard 
 had been walking beside the perambulator, with one 
 hand resting upon it. It had been horrible, horrible; 
 the blood had burned in her cheeks for long after they 
 had passed out of sight. She thought it disgusting to 
 see any man in such a position; but Richard ! — he v/as 
 
238 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 the last in the world ! When she got home she sat 
 down at the piano and played Chopin's waltzes with a 
 sort of fury, till in the middle of one of them she burst 
 into tears. With white, convulsed face, she rushed to 
 her room and flung herself face down upon the bed. 
 
VI 
 
 As time passed the little Richard — ^who was called 
 Dick — grew apace, until he reached the stage when he 
 could perform such wonderful feats as blowing out 
 matches or " showing his new shoes." A few months 
 later he learned to say several words, and was able to 
 hold long conversations with his mother. He could 
 indeed, though his vocabulary was so limited, by that 
 time express almost as many and very much the same 
 ideas as poor Rose herself. He had now the smoothest 
 skin imaginable, hair like silk, and eyes like the fish- 
 pools in Heshbon. 
 
 The passage of time was, for his parents, marked 
 almost exclusively by his various exploits ; such of them, 
 at least, as indicated further steps toward a state of 
 Christian responsibility. One or two other events, of 
 minor importance, had occurred. Holly was engaged 
 to Mr. McVinty; Ivy had rejected Mr. Sprott; 
 Grace had played at two or three concerts, and — just a 
 few weeks ago — given her first recital at the Bechstein 
 Hall in London. 
 
 One evening in July Richard returned from the office 
 much later than usual. He had not been home all day, 
 because, Rose's maid having left her at a moment's 
 notice, it was considered more convenient, until she could 
 get someone else, that he should take his meals in town. 
 He did not find her either in the parlour or the kitchen, 
 but upstairs, by Dick's cot. 
 
 ^39 
 
240 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 " Is he asleep ?" he asked, lowering his voice. 
 
 Rose had her back turned to him. " He is not well," 
 she answered. 
 
 Richard tiptoed across the room and bent down over 
 the small green bed, listening to Dick's breathing, which 
 seemed uneasy, with now and then a noisy catch in it. 
 The child's face, too, was puckered into an expression 
 of physical discomfort. " What can have happened ?" 
 he wondered. " Has he been like this for long ?" 
 
 " No ; it came on about half an hour ago, quite 
 suddenly." 
 
 " And was he all right before ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Perhaps he has caught cold." 
 
 " I don't know. ... I think you'd better get a 
 doctor. I'm going to try burning the carbolic." 
 
 She was pale, but quite self-possessed, more so indeed 
 than Richard. He hurried to the doctor's but came 
 back without him. Rose was sitting in much the same 
 position as when he had left her, though Dick was no 
 longer in bed. She had wrapped him in a bundle of 
 blankets and was holding him in her arms. The smell 
 of carbolic was thick on the air. In the candlelight 
 her shadow moved softly to and fro on the flowered 
 wall, as she rocked backward and forward, with a quiet, 
 rhythmic motion. She looked up at him, with parted 
 lips, but did not speak. 
 
 " He'll be here very soon. He was out when I called, 
 but they knew where he was and rang him up on the 
 telephone." 
 
 " Hadn't you better get somebody else ?" 
 
 Her voice sounded to him curiously cold. " Do you 
 think so ? A few minutes surely can't make much 
 
GRACE 241 
 
 difference. He may only be cutting another tooth or 
 something." 
 
 "That wouldn't affect his breathing." 
 
 He was about to start out again, but at that moment 
 the doctor arrived, an elderly man, who had attended 
 Rose at the time of the baby's birth. She watched him 
 now with strained, shining eyes that seemed very large 
 in her white face. The doctor — rather anxious to get 
 back to an interrupted game of bridge — was breezy and 
 optimistic. He found Dick heavy, feverish, and croupy 
 perhaps; but there was nothing to be alarmed at. His 
 
 temperature was too high and Just then Dick 
 
 began to cough, and the doctor became more attentive. 
 
 " If you listen," said Rose, " you can hear a sort of 
 whistling in his breathing." 
 
 The doctor, naturally, had been listening. " Yes, 
 yes ; bronchial." He proceeded to give instructions and 
 his words were followed with an attention that could 
 not have been deeper had he been the Angel of the 
 Annunciation. Compared with that listening silence, 
 his breezy manner seemed fussy and shallow as the 
 buzzing of a fly. 
 
 " I expect that he'll fall asleep and you'll find him 
 much better in the morning. I'll call round first 
 thing." 
 
 He departed on his motor, thinking of the No Trump 
 hand he had been obliged to abandon — a sure thing, 
 and it had been doubled and redoubled. Richard went 
 to the chemist's. 
 
 When he came back Rose was once more bending 
 over the cot. He tried to persuade her that the doctor 
 had said there was no need to be alarmed, but she only 
 gazed at him, as if unable to understand. 
 
 16 
 
242 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 " You must go to bed," he told her at last. " I'll sit 
 
 up." 
 
 " What's the good of my going to bed ? I couldn't 
 sleep. I'd rather stay here." 
 
 He saw it was useless to try to persuade her. " Well, 
 I think then I'd better turn in myself. He may have 
 to be watched to-morrow night too." 
 
 He stooped down and kissed her. " The doctor 
 didn't really seem to think there was much the matter," 
 he said gently. 
 
 Early in the morning she awakened him out of a 
 troubled sleep. " Come quickly," she said. " Dick is 
 worse." 
 
 He hurried into the next room. The face of the 
 sleeping child had altered considerably, even in the few 
 hours that had elapsed since he had seen him. It was 
 slightly swollen and the lips were livid. At every 
 breath there was a catching in the chest, while the cough 
 had become more frequent. Yet his temperature, so 
 Rose assured him, appeared to have gone down. Only, 
 with each breath, there now came that catching, 
 whistling sound. 
 
 " You must go again for the doctor," Rose said. 
 
 He put on some clothes and went, running most of 
 the way. Presently she heard them at the door. 
 Then, side by side. Rose and Richard stood, with 
 beating hearts and pale faces, watching the man on 
 whom so much depended, while he made his 
 examination. 
 
 This time it was more prolonged, and they knew that 
 the case must be serious. The doctor looked up. 
 
 " I'm afraid he's not so well. It is a case of broncho- 
 pneumonia. We must do our best, and he has a very 
 
GRACE 243 
 
 good chance, of course, though just now there is some 
 danger." 
 
 Richard gazed at him. " But what can have brought 
 it on ?" he whispered. 
 
 " He must have caught cold in some way. There 
 may have been a dehcacy. . . . Any Httle thing might 
 be the cause. One can never tell." 
 
 Rose had not moved, but, when the doctor was gone, 
 she sank down beside the bed, and across it looked at 
 Richard with strange, dilated eyes. 
 
 " He will die," she said in a low, husky voice, her hand 
 clutching the iron rail of the cot. And it was as if, 
 in all the horror of prevision, she had pronounced the 
 child's doom. 
 
VII 
 
 For a few weeks after that small pilgrim had returned 
 to the unknown, from which he had so rashly emerged, 
 Rose and Richard seemed, in their sorrow, to be more 
 closely united than they had ever been before. Their 
 relations were for the first time untainted by selfishness, 
 were distinguished by a mutual kindness, a desire on 
 the part of each to bring to the other what consolation 
 might be possible. And every week they took flowers 
 to the grave, planting a rose-tree by the plain marble 
 cross which commemorated the fact that the unfortunate 
 Dick had found time to embrace the tenets of 
 Christianity during his so brief sojourn on our planet. 
 
 On a Saturday afternoon towards the end of October, 
 on their way to the cemetery, they turned aside with 
 the intention of looking in for a few minutes at Myrtle 
 Row. Near the gate they met Mrs. Wilberforce, who 
 had just come out of the shop. Richard lifted his hat 
 and would have passed on after Rose had not Mrs. 
 Wilberforce stopped him, by holding out her hand. " I 
 was so sorry to hear of the little boy's death, Mr. Sea- 
 wright," she said, sympathetically. 
 
 "Yes," he muttered, for he hated to speak of what 
 had happened. 
 
 " He was such a dear little fellow, too. I saw him 
 once when he was with your mother, and another day I 
 stopped to speak to him outside. It was down at 
 Whitehead. I don't suppose your wife knew who 1 was, 
 
 244 
 
GRACE 245 
 
 but I couldn't help stopping for a minute, he looked so 
 charming. It must have been just before he was taken 
 ill." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 For a moment his mind remained blank, and then a 
 horrible suspicion shot across it. He escaped from Mrs. 
 Wilberforce as quickly as he could and went on in to 
 his mother's house. 
 
 At the sound of his step Rose, who had been sitting 
 down, got up instinctively, her face white as chalk. He 
 stood still for a moment; then mechanically bent down 
 and kissed his mother. Mrs. Seawright turned from 
 one to the other, startled by Rose's extraordinary 
 appearance. 
 
 " When were you at Whitehead ?" he asked abruptly, 
 " and what were you doing there ?" 
 
 She began to tremble; her frightened eyes were the 
 only living things in her strained, frozen countenance. 
 But at the sound of her son's voice Mrs. Seawright took 
 a step towards Rose, as if to intervene between them. 
 
 " Why are you speaking to her like that, Richard ? 
 Can't you see how you've frightened her ! What is it. 
 Rose ?" 
 
 Rose seemed unconscious of anybody but Richard. 
 The fear in her eyes, however, had been more than 
 enough for him, and he did not need his mother's 
 warning as he turned away. Rose, on her side, tried 
 to speak, but the words stuck in her throat. Next 
 moment her hand slid from its grasp of the deal table 
 and she sank in a heap of black, crumpled draperies 
 upon the stone floor. Richard lifted her and carried 
 her, light almost as a child, to the sofa. There she lay, 
 perfectly inanimate, while the mother and son did all 
 
246 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 they could think of to bring her back to consciousness. 
 Presently her eyes opened, and she looked at that 
 moment so fragile that one could imagine a puff of wind 
 extinguishing for ever the thin flame of life that flickered 
 in her breast. 
 
 Yet almost immediately she began to speak, rapidly, 
 breathlessly, ignoring Mrs. Seawright's presence so com- 
 pletely that it was doubtful if she were really conscious 
 of it. " I didn't tell you because I knew you wouldn't 
 like it, and I didn't think it was worth while annoying 
 you. And then when baby got worse I was frightened 
 to tell. ... I didn't think there would be any harm; 
 and Martin was going back so soon that when he asked 
 me to spend the day with him I thought it would be 
 unkind to refuse. You weren't coming home for dinner, 
 and it looked such a bright morning. I thought it 
 would do baby good, the sea-air. It was only when we 
 got there that the weather seemed to change. . . . 
 And — it all came on so suddenly. You don't know 
 how I've suffered. It seemed like a judgment because 
 I had told a lie. But if it was, it was cruel. I didn't 
 mean any harm. There was no harm in it. I wanted 
 to tell you, but I kept putting it off, and after baby's 
 death it seemed impossible. I thought you would 
 hate me if I told you — that you would think it was 
 my fault — and it wasn't. When I saw that lady 
 speaking to you, I knew she would tell you. What did 
 I do more than anyone else would have done ? Martin 
 was going back to London in a day or two and he was 
 all alone. And I said 'no * at first, even though I felt 
 it was unkind. Still, I did say * no.' " 
 
 It was Mrs. Seawright who interrupted the torrent of 
 words that flowed, almost without a break between 
 
GRACE 247 
 
 them, from Rose's white hps. "Nonsense, child: of 
 course he knows it wasn't your fault. If God had not 
 wanted your boy He would not have called him. 
 Richard is not thinking of blaming you. The cruellest 
 in the world wouldn't do that." She turned to her son, 
 who had remained absolutely motionless and silent. 
 " Tell her you understand ; that you're not angry," she 
 commanded him sternly, but he still stood there in per- 
 fect quiet, and Rose gave a httle moan, while tears ran 
 down her cheeks. 
 
 " He'll never forgive me," she wailed. " I knew he 
 wouldn't. Never — never — never." 
 
 Richard stooped and kissed her, but his movements, 
 his expression, were like those of one under an hypnotic 
 influence. He obeyed his mother; he forgave Rose; he 
 kissed her, put his arms about her ; but there was no life 
 in any of these actions. And Rose clung to him, 
 sobbing, burying her face in his breast. . . . 
 
 Thus it was that the way of their existence dropped 
 in a single hour to a lower plane. That bright brief life 
 proved after all wasted ; for if Dick had brought peace 
 with him, it is to be feared that he had now taken it 
 back again to his mysterious abode. 
 
 Yet Richard had forgiven Rose. He was even ready 
 to admit that there was nothing to forgive, that she had 
 been little, if at all, to blame. What was it then, within 
 him, that remembered and resented ? Nothing, he 
 would have answered ; for Rose had nothing to do with 
 Martin, and it was only Martin whom he had not for- 
 given. It was curious why his brother's share in this 
 misfortune should appear to dwarf everything else, for, 
 after all, he must have known that Martin's agency had 
 been as unconscious as that of Rose herself. Yet he 
 
248 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 could not forget it. He brooded over it, and it became 
 like a shadow which lengthens as the sun sinks lower, 
 till at last it reached out and out and seemed to poison 
 even his memory of Dick. For each time he thought of 
 Dick he thought of Martin, and after a while the fact 
 that his brother had acted but the part of an involuntary 
 agent seemed almost to cease to matter, and in the end 
 not to matter at all. Once, as he sat late at night over 
 a book, which he had not been reading, the nature of 
 his thoughts suddenly flashed upon him, and he was, 
 for an instant, appalled at the revelation. With all the 
 strength of his will he struggled to get rid of this 
 obsession before it was too late, and he ceased to accom- 
 pany Rose when she went to the cemetery, and as far as 
 possible he ceased to think of his dead son. 
 
 Yet some baleful influence had stolen into his mind, 
 for, though he had acquitted Rose of all blame, somehow 
 the mere fact that she had been with Martin now 
 coloured all his thoughts of her. It was nothing, he 
 would have said, nothing at all, this impalpable shadow 
 that had crept between them; yet day by day, and 
 month by month, it forced them apart. And he noted, or 
 imagined he noted — for everything now moved in this 
 dim, transforming light of imagination : — he noted that 
 Rose's own sorrow for the child was healing more 
 rapidly than he had ever believed it would. By Christ- 
 mas she seemed to him to be almost what she had been 
 before Dick's birth. The only difference was in her 
 appearance. She had certainly grown thinner, and with 
 this a likeness to her father, to her sisters, which he had 
 never even suspected to exist, and which was still faint 
 and remote, became for the first time visible. She had 
 not lost her colour; on the contrary, it was deeper, 
 
GRACE 249 
 
 though not so dehcate, as of old; but her cheeks had 
 grown hollow, and her features sharper, and the soft 
 curves of her form which had once been so attractive 
 were rapidly disappearing. With these changes had come 
 an increasing restlessness of manner. She now seemed 
 always, when he saw her, either to have just come in, 
 or, with her hat on, to be just on the point of going out. 
 And her laugh had grown shriller and more frequent; 
 it got upon his nerves. He accompanied her nowhere. 
 This was the situation which Mrs. Seawright had 
 come to view with foreboding, and for some reason, 
 though there might appear to be less excuse for Rose's 
 behaviour now than before, she no longer found herself 
 upon Richard's side. She remembered the jealousy 
 which Rose had once exhibited, and which had then 
 seemed so unwarrantable. After Dick's birth she had 
 become aware of a slight estrangement which appeared 
 to have sprung up between Richard and Grace, and 
 secretly she had been pleased to see it. She had been 
 the more glad, perhaps, because it had awakened in her 
 a vague doubt — a suspicion that Rose's attitude had 
 not been so unjustifiable as she had at one time 
 imagined it to be. If Grace had drawn back (and she 
 knew that it was Grace who had done so) it could only 
 be because she was herself jealous. And jealous of 
 what ? — of the child ! This subtlety of reasoning 
 brought her little comfort, but it had received over- 
 whelming support on the single occasion when she had 
 seen Grace and Dick together. Richard and Rose had 
 left him with her that day for an hour, as they some- 
 times did, and Grace, happening to come in, had been 
 called upon to admire him. And of course she had 
 admired him, she had admired him vividly, spec- 
 
250 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 tacularly, and been even more enthusiastic than 
 the occasion demanded. Yet her interest, her 
 dehght, had somehow not prevented Mrs. Sea- 
 wright from getting an impression that they covered 
 an emotion deeper still — an impression — ugly, unnatural 
 as it might seem — that she regarded the child with an 
 intense, an unconquerable aversion. 
 
 The discovery had given Mrs. Seawright a profound 
 shock. It seemed to her so revolting that she could not 
 bear to think about it. It undermined her entire con- 
 ception of Grace's character, and she asked herself now 
 if she had ever really known her. Taken in conjunction 
 with her marriage to Mr. Campbell, it opened up depths, 
 indeed, which the mother had neither the desire nor the 
 ability to fathom. Her whole relation to Grace from 
 that moment underwent a change, and, after Dick's 
 death, her uneasiness increased, as the months passed, 
 and she divined, for she had no positive information, 
 that Richard and Grace had once more drifted into their 
 old intimacy. Her sympathies veered round entirely 
 to Rose. If only Rose had been different ! But every 
 time she went to the house she was struck afresh by the 
 hopelessness of that establishment. She thought of 
 speaking to Richard ; she thought of speaking to Grace ; 
 but what could she say ? She had nothing except her 
 sense that they were all drifting towards an irretrievable 
 and unthinkable disaster, and her one hope now lay in 
 the fact that the Campbells were again talking of going 
 abroad. 
 
VIII 
 
 As the long, mild winter seemed about to pass into the 
 first green tenderness of spring, there came, unex- 
 pectedly, at the very end of February, a keen frost much 
 appreciated by the Campbell children. After an early 
 lunch they had sallied forth bravely, each with a pair 
 of brand-new skates, and Grace, seated by the fire, was 
 considering whether she mightn't herself go and watch 
 them for half an hour, when the silence was broken by 
 the ring of a horse's hoofs on the gravel of the drive. 
 It was too early for ordinary visitors, and the instant 
 she heard a man's step in the hall she knew it must be 
 Richard. He came in, bringing with him an icy breath 
 from the frozen world outside, and his brown face, 
 glowing with the healthy sting of the cold dry air, was 
 very pleasant to look upon. 
 
 "All alone!" he said gaily. "I thought I should 
 catch you." 
 
 " You very nearly didn't. The children have gone 
 skating and I had just made up my mind to go and 
 watch them." 
 
 " A holiday ?" 
 
 " Yes : it is Jim's birthday — a day of excitement and 
 joy. The skates were a present from me, and their 
 father is going to take them to see ' Peter Pan ' 
 to-night." 
 
 " Where are they now ?'* 
 
 "Oh, just on that pond beside the golf-links. The 
 
 251 
 
252 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 ice mayn't be very good, but at least they can't drown 
 themselves there. Why are you having a holiday, 
 Ricky ? It isn't your birthday." 
 
 " I came to take you to Ballydrain. The car is 
 waiting at the door." 
 
 " To Ballydrain ! What am I to do there ?" 
 
 " You're to skate with me and then drive home 
 again." 
 
 " My dear Ricky, I haven't been on the ice for years, 
 and I'm not even sure that my skates are here." 
 
 " Well, tell somebody to look for them." 
 
 She hesitated, walking to the window and looking 
 out. 
 
 " Don't be long. It's a glorious afternoon." And 
 sitting down, he stretched out his feet to the bright 
 wood fire. 
 
 "You take things so for granted!" she exclaimed, 
 hesitating still, yet already half yielding. 
 
 He laughed happily. She had not seen him like 
 this for months and months, and it carried her back 
 with a rush to other years. 
 
 " Don't be long," he repeated, and at the repetition 
 of his words she yielded so far as to go and make 
 inquiries about her skates. 
 
 In five minutes she came back to him, buttoning her 
 gloves, though a slight feeling of uncertainty seemed 
 still to linger in her mind. 
 
 " Have you been home ?" she asked, with vague 
 thoughts of Rose. 
 
 "No." He divined the cause of her indecision, and 
 added, " Nothing would induce Rose to venture out 
 in such weather. She's more afraid of cold, I think, 
 than of anything else in this world." 
 
GRACE 253 
 
 The car was standing at the door in the clear grey 
 and gold afternoon, the horse's breath congealing as it 
 blew out into the frosty air, the jarvey, in a heavy coat, 
 slapping his arms vigorously across his chest and 
 stamping on the ground. 
 
 " But " she murmured doubtfully, as Richard 
 
 held out his hand to help her up. 
 
 "But what?" he smiled. "We don't so often have 
 weather like this that we can afford to waste it. There 
 has been nothing like it since the year we all learned to 
 skate." 
 
 " You mean the year you and Martin learned. I 
 never did and never shall." 
 
 " I'm going to teach you this afternoon." 
 
 He laughed again at her timidity, and there was 
 something in his vitality, his high spirits, that overbore 
 her feeble resistance. She submitted half reluctantly, 
 yet with an intense pleasure, and next moment he had 
 pulled the rug over her knees and climbed up himself. 
 
 They drove rapidly along the smooth road, the steps 
 of the trotting horse ringing out with a metallic clear- 
 ness in the still air. She wore a thick veil, and warm 
 furs wrapped her throat, so that, in the absence of wind, 
 she did not even find the drive too cold. On the 
 contrary, she felt stimulated by it, and when they turned 
 in at Ballydrain gate the last shadow of her scruples 
 had disappeared. 
 
 The scene that met their eyes was bright, gay, 
 animated. Overhead, the cold grey sky was already 
 streaked with the scarlet of an early sunset, against 
 which the leafless trees stood out black and naked. The 
 lake stretched from its wooded banks, white, with a 
 thin crisp coating of snow, which crackled like powdered 
 
254 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 crystals under the steel blades of the skates. A low 
 continuous hum rose from the ice, growing rapidly 
 louder as they approached the bank. Everybody 
 seemed happy and amused. Beginners flapped about 
 like large ungainly birds with clipped wings; the more 
 proficient glided along in rhythmic, effortless curves. 
 Boys, with lowered heads and arms waving like wind- 
 mills, dashed recklessly in all directions, to the terror 
 of the nervous. 
 
 He knelt beside her and secured her skates : then he 
 put on his own and she stood timidly watching him for 
 a minute or two while he made a preliminary trial of 
 his skill. How easily he did everything like this ! His 
 beauty had never appeared to her to be more wonderful 
 than at that moment. The wintry background threw 
 into relief his warm brown colouring, and the grace of 
 his movements was delightful to watch. She blundered 
 to him as he held out his hands, not trusting herself, 
 frightened to strike out, and he laughed softly. Then 
 he grasped her hands firmly and they started. 
 
 She let herself go, losing all fear in the consciousness 
 of his strength and skill, though a dozen times she 
 would have fallen had she been alone. On every side 
 came the murmur of voices and laughter. Bright spots 
 of colour — the hats, the dresses of girls — took on a 
 strange brilliance against the background of dark trees 
 and frost-bound woodland. A sea of life seemed to 
 catch her up on its strong, exhilarating tide. She had 
 a sense of freedom, of space, of motion rapid and easy 
 like the flight of birds. And she was side by side with 
 Richard, her hands clasped in his hands, her body 
 swaying with his. She was rapt in the exquisite happi- 
 ness of being alone with him, so close to him. It was as 
 
GRACE 255 
 
 if they were alone together, yet were breathing the 
 pleasure of all those other skaters, an atmosphere of 
 joyousness warm as sunlight, wherein her own joy lived 
 deliciously. When he spoke to her, and she turned 
 slightly, she looked straight into his dark eyes; and 
 their bodies seemed to blend together in one being as 
 they sped on towards the flaming sunset. 
 
 She half closed her eyes, she did not look where they 
 were going; they were skating in a dream from which 
 she would never awaken. All her love for him seemed 
 to wrap about them, to isolate them. He must feel it; 
 he must; for she felt it herself so intensely that it 
 thrilled through every fibre of her body. She smiled up 
 at him through a mist. She had forgotten Rose, had 
 forgotten Mr. Campbell, had forgotten everything save 
 the present hour. She loved him, she was with him, she 
 would be with him all that evening if he came back to 
 dinner : that was at the centre of her consciousness. . . . 
 She would not go to the theatre, she could easily find an 
 excuse. Richard would dine with them, and when the 
 others had gone she would play to him. They would 
 be cosy and warm, with a blazing fire and drawn 
 curtains. The happiness of long hours to come mingled 
 with the happiness of the present. The room, filled with 
 music, and silence, and firelight, rose before her, as if 
 she had invoked it by a spell. 
 
 " Ricky, you'll come back with me, won't you ? I've 
 got some new music that I want you to hear. Besides, 
 I'll be all alone, for I know I shall be far too tired to go 
 out with the others." 
 
 "Yes, ril come. It isn't so bad, after all, you 
 see." He laughed, and she laughed in answer. 
 
 " Oh, I wanted to come." 
 
256 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 " And you're getting along famously. You can skate 
 quite well." 
 
 " I can't, but it doesn't matter. Dear Ricky, this will 
 be my last afternoon on the ice." 
 
 " What nonsense ! We'll come to-morrow." 
 
 " No — no ; it wouldn't do. And the day after to- 
 morrow the frost will have gone, for another five 
 years." 
 
 " We must make the most of it then." 
 
 " Aren't we doing that ?" 
 
 " Well, I'm happy, at any rate." 
 
 " So am I. I wonder if there are people who are 
 happy like this all the time ? Wretches ; I'm sure they 
 don't deserve to be. What nonsense I'm talking. You 
 mustn't listen to me. Chopin could have written a 
 skating ballad — all this is a Chopin rhythm. Don't you 
 hear it ? It's the most wonderful tune." 
 
 " You'll play it for me when we get back." 
 
 " Yes, I'll play it for you. I can't really play to 
 anyone but you. When I played in London I pretended 
 you were there. Look at that girl — the one with the 
 red hat — doesn't she skate well? She's quite plain at 
 ordinary times, but now she's almost beautiful. She 
 moves just like a plant swaying in water. She must 
 have music in her to move like that. She is beautiful, 
 you know. That is the way you move; you ought to 
 ask her to skate with you." 
 
 " All right. Shall I leave you here or take you back 
 to where we started from ?" 
 
 " I told you not to listen to me. No, I must rest, or 
 my feet will ^\\^ way. . . . Look, there's the moon 
 rising over the trees! . . . Ricky, I can't go on; my 
 ankles are getting weaker and weaker." She laughed 
 
GRACE 257 
 
 like a child that does not know whether to laugh or to 
 cry. 
 
 And in the evening, deliciously tired, as they sat over 
 the fire, it was just as she had pictured it; and she let 
 herself sink deeper and deeper into the net of strangely 
 mingled happiness and sadness which had wrapped 
 itself about her. 
 
 He took up a book she had been reading, a volume 
 of Renan, turning the pages, while she watched him with 
 a faint smile upon her lips. 
 
 " Why don't you like him ?" she asked, teasingly, in 
 the old way. 
 
 " I suppose because I can't." 
 
 " Don't you think him serious enough ?" 
 
 " You know very well what I think." 
 
 " But how can he be so preoccupied with religion if 
 he's not serious ?" 
 
 " You can amuse yourself with religion as well as with 
 anything else, I suppose. Yozi only read him for 
 amusement." 
 
 She smiled. " But that seems to me so wrong and so 
 prejudiced ! Why shouldn't I be amused ?" 
 
 " Why, indeed ? All the same, religion is either the 
 one great reality of life, or it is nothing. . . . The other 
 day I stopped to listen to a Salvationist who was 
 preaching at a street corner. It was crude, vulgar, from 
 your point of view absurd : but behind it, for all that, 
 was a great spreading flame — he had seen God. He 
 knew — he knew : — and it was wonderful. It was like 
 listening to someone trying to play ' Tristan ' on a 
 mouth-organ. In that entire crowd he was the one thing 
 real. I and the others were the shadows, the squeaking 
 
 V 
 
258 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 ghosts gibbering before the leaping flame of life, that 
 we had neither the courage nor the imagination to 
 believe in." 
 
 She listened to the low, deep sound of his voice with 
 a strange pleasure, though what he said seemed to her 
 childish and ridiculous. When he ceased speaking she 
 answered nothing. 
 
 A silence fell upon the room — a silence so prolonged 
 that it might have followed upon some momentous 
 confession — yet nothing really had been said to which 
 Grace was not profoundly indifferent. All these things 
 she had settled for herself years ago, and she was not 
 thinking of them now. She was thinking of their 
 childhood — of him, Ricky, the playmate of her child- 
 hood, whom even then she had loved — that beautiful, 
 strange, sullen boy. ... He was the first to speak, but 
 she did not hear what he was saying, so filled was she 
 with the dream that for hours she had been living in. 
 Her head drooped a little, and at last rested against 
 his shoulder. She saw his beautiful dark face, and his 
 beautiful eyes, in which a smouldering light burned. 
 She pressed her cheek against him and all her spirit 
 trembled. She felt that he was very near to her. The 
 warmth of his breath went past her forehead. Then 
 she drew his head down and her lips pressed softly 
 against his cheek. 
 
 She felt him draw back, not roughly, but almost 
 mechanically. She looked at him, and suddenly she 
 knew that he was thinking still of what he had been 
 speaking of. She knew that when she had kissed him 
 she had really kissed only her dream. In his eyes 
 there was a strange innocence. He had not understood, 
 or if he had understood he had only been kind and 
 
GRACE 259 
 
 gentle. Her passion had blown upon him, but it had 
 been like a breath upon a mirror, passing like a breath. 
 
 He became aware, nevertheless, of something peculiar 
 in the atmosphere about him, and he moved uneasily, 
 pushing back his chair. A suggestion had at last 
 reached him, but as yet only vaguely, and he put it 
 from him. Grace did not speak, but sat gazing into the 
 fire. In front of them, above the chimney-piece, hung 
 one of Gustave Moreau's pictures, and he looked at its 
 splendid colour, and the picture seemed part of that 
 vague suggestion, part of that curious atmosphere, as 
 of a dangerous drug. It represented Saint George in 
 the act of killing the dragon. The background was a 
 dark sinister landscape of steep rocks and cliffs. 
 Above the cliffs rose a grey tower, and by the tower 
 there was a crowned, kneeling lady, like some strange 
 idol, whose long slender hands were folded in prayer. 
 The dragon writhed, half dead, by a pool in the 
 shadow of the rocks. Saint George, on his white horse, 
 had pierced it with his lance. The horse was splendid, 
 superb, with blue trappings and flaming tail, but 
 Saint George was only a young and slim knight in 
 armour, with pale floating hair and paler face. His 
 bent head was backed by a yellow halo, and his face 
 was pale with some fever or evil dreaming, that was 
 burning his life away, and had already drawn dark 
 shadows under his eyes. The whole picture was full of a 
 sick and wasting passion, a kind of sickness of the soul. 
 
 Suddenly Grace got up. " I must play to you," she 
 murmured, " and keep my promise. What would you 
 like?" 
 
 But without waiting for his answer she began 
 Chopin's thirteenth prelude. 
 
26o AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 She played very softly, in a kind of undertone, but 
 she played as he had never heard her play before. An 
 intense longing, a desire, unhidden yet conscious of its 
 hopelessness, seemed to have passed into the music. It 
 was not music that he listened to, but the torture and 
 the resignation of a spirit. There was no cry in it, no 
 passion, no reproach : — it was only very quiet. And it 
 produced in him an enervation of his whole being. The 
 black days of his boyhood, old griefs, old desires, 
 crowded about him, the terrible incompleteness of his 
 life. Again he looked at the picture, but the picture 
 and the music now seemed one. Why should he have 
 happiness ? He had learned to do without it. Only, 
 this music tore open half-healed wounds, and reminded 
 him of what he wanted to forget. . . . With her, too, 
 he thought, it had been like this. 
 
 She finished, and then began again — the same music 
 — always the same. 
 
 "Stop!" he cried abruptly, and she stopped at once, 
 turning her head a little and looking at him timidly. 
 
 But his face wore a strange, almost resentful expres- 
 sion, which she did not understand. She looked into 
 his eyes — far — far. It was like looking into an eternal 
 night in which her vision wandered and was lost — a 
 blackness that stretched back and back. Her soul, 
 naked and shivering, seemed to stand on the fringe of 
 that darkness, as a suicide by the edge of a pool. To 
 plunge, to plunge down, and in drowning find the last, 
 the only peace ! Her soul, shivering and weak, cried 
 out to him : " I love you — I love you. . . ." The cry 
 was stifled and lost : it came back to her smothered and 
 thin as from an infinite distance. 
 
 While she stood there submissively before him, the 
 
GRACE 261 
 
 thought of her unhappiness and of her possible happi- 
 ness came to him as the subtlest of temptations. In a 
 world of shadows what could it be but one shadow 
 more, and why should he withhold it ? He took a step 
 forward with the air of a somnambulist whose mind 
 and purpose are caught in the obscure grip of a dream. 
 At the same instant, reading his wavering thoughts, she 
 held out her arms to him and their lips met. With 
 that, indeed, came a moment of fear. But as he kissed 
 her — as he clasped her to him and felt her arms tighten 
 about his body — the despairing passion of her answer- 
 ing kiss seemed to cut off sharply the last possibility 
 of retreat. 
 
PART FIFTH 
 THE FLIGHT 
 
One evening Rose heard of the visit to town of a 
 certain Madame Paula, who could reveal the most 
 secret things, and foretell the future. Such items of 
 news were not uncommon in her father's house, so that 
 when Carry McVinty related several tales of Madame 
 Paula's achievements, they were solemnly discussed, 
 and, though nobody professed to believe in them, 
 all felt that there must be something in the stories, or 
 how could they have originated? Rose struggled for 
 a week against temptation : — then, as Madame Paula's 
 imminent departure was announced in the morning 
 paper, she yielded. 
 
 She came away from the prophetess's house with a 
 sense of humiliation and dejection, slipping out into 
 the street stealthily, and hurrying on, with lowered 
 head, till she had turned the corner. If Richard were 
 to hear of her visit how angry he would be ! The 
 woman was an impostor, a vulgar, common cheat. . . . 
 Certain words repeated themselves in Rose's brain as she 
 walked home in the cool spring afternoon — words that 
 were the answer to a direct question. ... " You will 
 not have another child." 
 
 Why had she gone ? She felt degraded, miserable. 
 The blue sky, the white clouds, the tender green of 
 budding trees, the April sunshine, meant nothing to 
 her. What floated before her was the memory of that 
 odious Httle parlour, of that odious woman. She 
 
 264 
 
THE FLIGHT 265 
 
 wished she could wipe it all from her mind, as a child 
 wipes the figures from a slate; but it was impossible. 
 And perhaps Madame Paula was genuine — in spite of 
 the smell of beer and onions — perhaps she did know. 
 Otherwise, wouldn't she have said quite different 
 things — things to please her and make her come 
 back? 
 
 She walked on home, with the dreary, stupid, little 
 secret she should never tell, locked in her breast. Yet 
 why should she care? Richard no longer loved her. 
 Something had come between them. She did not know 
 what it was, but she felt it — it was there, like a dense 
 black fog that struck a chill to her heart when she tried, 
 futilely, to penetrate it; that choked her and blinded 
 her, so that she could only draw back, shivering and 
 bewildered. 
 
 The old ways of finding distraction were closed to 
 her — or, rather, they had ceased to bring distraction. 
 She felt older, she looked older. She was fast losing 
 her prettiness, if she had not already lost it. Her cheeks 
 had grown hollow, and the colour in them was no longer 
 natural. The first time she had used artificial aids to 
 recapture a reflection of her lost brilliancy, she had felt 
 as if she were committing a secret sin. She no longer 
 felt that ; she " made up " now as deliberately as if she 
 were to appear behind the footlights ; but what purpose 
 did it serve? Whom did she hope to please? For, 
 though her thin face might glow like any milkmaid's, 
 though she took in all her frocks till they once more 
 fitted her, and by an alteration in her way of doing her 
 hair disguised the fact that ever since Dick's birth it 
 had been falling out, she deceived nobody, except those, 
 as she bitterly told herself, who were too little interested 
 
266 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 to care. She had tried to go back to the life that had 
 been pleasant enough before her child's birth had 
 revealed to her a sweeter and a fuller life, but now the 
 old amusements left her cold, her gaiety was forced, 
 and through it all she felt the dead baby's hands clutch- 
 ing at her, his mouth at her breast, his fingers twisted 
 in her hair. 
 
 She allowed herself to sink into a sort of lethargic 
 imitation of indifference. She grew more and more 
 careless of the house. What matter? Richard was 
 never there. Sometimes now he did not even come 
 home for his meals. 
 
 Then, one morning, on opening a drawer that was 
 heaped with all sorts of odds and ends, she came upon 
 two or three of Dick's toys, among them a large stuffed 
 cat made of cloth, and with a comical expression of 
 astonishment upon its broad countenance. To Rose it 
 was tragic. A vision of Dick grasping it upside down 
 swam before her, and in a revulsion of feeling she 
 kissed it passionately, and hugged it to her breast. The 
 cat, who had been Dick's unfailing bedfellow, seemed to 
 touch a secret spring of activity somewhere within her, 
 and in three days all was transformed. 
 
 She engaged a charwoman, and with her help cleaned 
 out the house from top to bottom. She went through 
 all the drawers and cupboards, putting everything 
 neatly away, burning all the rubbish. Dick's things 
 were placed in a cupboard by themselves, a kind of 
 little, sacred museum, to which she would go up in the 
 early summer afternoons, and which she kept sweet 
 with sandal-wood. She busied herself darning 
 Richard's socks; the table-cloths were spotless; there 
 were flowers in the vases, clean curtains on the windows. 
 
THE FLIGHT 267 
 
 Mrs. Seawright, coming now more frequently to the 
 house, was overjoyed at the change, and she and Rose 
 became fast friends. 
 
 Rose began to practise again, working particularly at 
 those pieces which she thought Richard might care for. 
 Unfortunately, most of them were difficult, and it 
 occurred to her that she might get valuable hints from 
 Grace, if she could only bring herself to ask for them. 
 Finally she made up her mind to do so, and one after- 
 noon, primed with this purpose, she went to call upon 
 Mrs. Campbell. 
 
 Grace welcomed her as if she were a frequent visitor, 
 and for ten minutes they sat talking, while Rose cast 
 about in her mind as to how she might soonest arrive 
 at the real object of her visit, without stating it directly. 
 
 Her glance wandered over the room and at last rested 
 on a framed photograph of Richard, standing on a table 
 near the window, and invisible from where she sat unless 
 she leaned slightly to one side. Instantly the pacific 
 intentions with which she had come were forgotten. She 
 stopped talking, almost in the middle of a sentence, and 
 Grace, following the direction of her gaze, saw what she 
 had seen. 
 
 " Oh, you're looking at that photo of Ricky ! It 
 really shouldn't be there. Every time he sees it he asks 
 me to put it away or burn it. He doesn't like it. It is 
 a proof. I don't think he ever got any printed." 
 
 " I don't know." 
 
 She always resented the abbreviation, " Ricky," which 
 she had never used herself, and which was connected 
 with a past she had no share in. Besides, not even his 
 mother called him Ricky : it was only Grace. 
 
 Meanwhile Grace had taken the frame from the table 
 
268 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 and had handed it to Rose. " Of course it's not very 
 good — still, it's like him." 
 
 Rose appeared to study it, bending down so that her 
 face was hidden. "Yes, it's like him," she said after 
 a slight pause. " I don't care for it at all : it has an 
 unpleasant expression. Were you with him when it 
 was taken ?" 
 
 She handed the photograph back to Grace, who 
 laughed as she took it " No, I wasn't with him. I 
 think that's a most unkind suggestion." 
 
 There was a silence. 
 
 " No doubt you have quite a collection of his photo- 
 graphs," Rose remarked next. 
 
 Grace shook her head. " This is the only one." She 
 paused for a moment and then said softly : " I had 
 another, but he took it from me to give to you. Do you 
 remember ?" She smiled. " He would have taken this, 
 too, if he had thought you would have cared for it." 
 
 Rose made no response. 
 
 " But he himself disliked it so : — and I daresay there 
 isn't much point in having a rather poor photograph 
 when one has the original." 
 
 Rose flushed. " If it comes to that, I expect you see 
 more of the original than I do," she said, with a forced 
 smile. 
 
 The words brought an answering flush to Grace's 
 cheeks. She had rung the bell, and, as the maid now 
 brought in the tea-things, " Won't you have some tea ?" 
 she asked nervously, pouring out a cup without waiting 
 for a reply. 
 
 Rose accepted it. 
 
 " We might have had it in the garden," Grace went 
 on, with sudden volubility, " but I didn't think of it. I 
 
THE FLIGHT 269 
 
 daresay, however, we are really more comfortable here. 
 One is always more comfortable in the house, don't you 
 think ? And we can go out into the garden afterwards, 
 if you would care to. Not that there is much to see. 
 Everything is rather backward this year." 
 
 " You must be very happy, with such a beautiful 
 house and garden," Rose replied. 
 
 " Yes, the garden is nice in summer. In winter it 
 doesn't make much difference." 
 
 " Oh, but you have your music. And then there are 
 your step-children — you are very fond of them, aren't 
 you ? — and your husband." 
 
 Grace stared, trying to believe that these extra- 
 ordinary remarks were produced in all innocence, trying 
 at the same time, in her anxiety to avert a catastrophe, 
 to keep ever a move in advance, though Rose's lack 
 of finesse made this extremely difficult. " Of course," 
 she answered. 
 
 " I see so little of Richard," Rose went on. 
 
 " I suppose he is very busy," Grace murmured. 
 " Henry has been very busy, too, though to-day he said 
 he would be home about five. You must wait till he 
 comes or he will be quite annoyed. The children will 
 be coming in, too, I daresay. Jim is getting a big boy 
 now, and we are thinking of sending him to a public 
 school next year." 
 
 It came to Rose, as a sort of inspiration, that if all else 
 failed she might appeal to Mr. Campbell himself. 
 " Richard comes here a great deal, doesn't he ?" she 
 persisted wonderfully. " Naturally it is pleasanter here 
 than in our poor little house." 
 
 It was all rather desolating and impossible, and 
 Grace knew that she could not go on ignoring it for 
 
2/0 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 ever. She sat in silence for a few seconds, looking at 
 her companion. Then she said very quietly, " I don't 
 know — but I imagine you have something — that is 
 troubling you. ... If it is what I think it is, you are 
 labouring under a quite wrong impression. Won't you 
 believe me when I tell you this? Won't you take my 
 word ?" 
 
 Rose did not flinch. " Is it quite wrong to have the 
 impression that he spends nearly all his spare time 
 here?" 
 
 " Quite, quite wrong." 
 
 " Then I have made a mistake indeed," said Rose, 
 bitterly. 
 
 Grace's colourless face had not altered, but her lips 
 whitened, and she bit now on the under one. " You 
 mean ?" 
 
 " I mean that he has been taken from me," said Rose, 
 in a low voice. " Hadn't you enough without him ? 
 What do you want to do with him anyway ? You have 
 your own husband. I don't understand. I don't 
 understand how Mr. Campbell allows it. And what 
 must his children think ? They are growing up." 
 
 " You may be quite sure that, whatever they think, it 
 is nothing odious," Grace answered softly. "And I 
 don't know why you should persist in your idea that he 
 comes very often to the house. I have told you that he 
 doesn't. It is more than a week since he was here last." 
 
 " Where does he go to then ?" asked Rose, helplessly ; 
 and Grace shook her head with an air of weariness. 
 
 "Tm afraid I can't tell you. I didn't even know 
 he went anywhere. If he comes to see me once in a 
 while, surely you can understand that, considering what 
 old friends we are." 
 
THE FLIGHT 2;i 
 
 There was something in these words — echoing as they 
 did what Mrs. Seawright, using almost the same phrase, 
 had told her long ago — something still more in the 
 quietness of Grace's manner, that kindled a sudden 
 recklessness in Rose. Rising to her feet, she flung from 
 her the last tattered remnants of pride. " Will you give 
 me your solemn word here and now that it is only as 
 a brother you care for him ?" she asked, advancing 
 a step towards Grace, who had remained seated for a 
 moment or two longer, but who now also got up, as if to 
 meet her accuser. 
 
 Her reply rang clear as a bell. " Yes," she answered 
 calmly, looking straight into the other woman's eyes. 
 
 But Rose's attitude had grown more menacing. 
 " You may swear it till you're black in the face," she 
 whispered huskily, " but it's a lie. I've seen you with 
 him, I've seen you watching him, and I know. If he'd 
 asked you instead of me you'd have married him, and, 
 if he was to ask you now, you'd leave everything else 
 behind you and follow him to the ends of the earth." 
 
II 
 
 Grace, standing there motionless, yet stricken by those 
 last words as by a blow in the face, watched her go 
 out, and she was still standing in the same position 
 when Mr. Campbell entered. She would hardly have 
 been surprised had Rose come back with him, to repeat 
 in his presence her accusation, but he closed the door 
 behind him, and crossed over, in all unconsciousness, to 
 where she awaited him, rigid and speechless. 
 
 He looked at her with a certain perplexity. " Well, 
 my dear, aren't you going to give me any tea ?" 
 
 The sound of his smooth quiet voice awakened her 
 to a sense of the unusualness of her attitude, and she 
 rang the bell. Meanwhile Mr. Campbell, his hands in 
 his pockets, strolled to the window, where he remained 
 looking out till the maid had left the room. Seen thus, 
 he presented himself as a slightly round-shouldered, 
 middle-aged man, inclined to baldness, not particularly 
 distinguished, save that he looked kind and had singu- 
 larly innocent eyes, which appeared to be thirty years 
 younger at least than the rest of his countenance. He 
 looked, in fact, exactly what he was. Even the details 
 fitted in — the taste for the lighter branches of philo- 
 sophy, for Peacock's novels, the hobby for collecting 
 works dealing with folk-lore. Presently he came over 
 to the table where Grace was pouring out his tea. He 
 had been whistling almost inaudibly, but he now 
 stopped, and, as he rolled a slice of bread and butter, 
 
 272 
 
THE FLIGHT 273 
 
 remarked that he had met Mrs. Richard on the door- 
 step. "She appeared to be greatly disturbed. She 
 could scarcely say * How do you do ?' to me." 
 
 " Naturally she was disturbed, seeing that she came 
 here with the express purpose of making a scene." 
 
 " What about ? She very nearly pushed me down the 
 steps in her anxiety to get away." 
 
 Grace gave a movement of impatience. " I don't 
 know. Something about Richard. She's insanely 
 jealous — not of me, in particular, but of everybody." 
 
 Mr. Campbell helped himself to another slice of bread 
 and butter. " Doesn't she like him to come here ?" 
 
 " Evidently not. . . . She doesn't like him to go 
 anywhere. Even his own mother has practically had 
 to give up visiting them. She said he came here every 
 evening. I tried to undeceive her, but heaven knows 
 whether she believes me or not." 
 
 Mr. Campbell glanced thoughtfully at his tea-cup. 
 " She certainly didn't look as if she believed you. It's 
 rather unpleasant, isn't it?" 
 
 Grace shrugged her shoulders. Her air of indiffer- 
 ence was slightly overdone. " What is one to do ? She 
 is stupid." 
 
 " Mightn't it be better if he did come a little less 
 often ?" Mr. Campbell suggested mildly. " I mean, if 
 she takes it in the way you describe. After all, if she 
 allowed herself to make a scene here, think of what she 
 will do at home !" 
 
 " I don't want to think of it. She's vulgar and silly 
 and altogether odious. ... I wish we could go away 
 somewhere," she wound up suddenly, to his profound 
 astonishment. 
 
 "On account of this ?" 
 
 18 
 
2/4 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 " I don't want to see heir again or to be reminded of 
 her." 
 
 "Well, I shouldn't worry about it," Mr. Campbell 
 recommended. " Of course, such scenes are unpleasant, 
 but the best plan is to pretend they haven't happened." 
 
 " Unfortunately, that won't prevent them from 
 happening again." 
 
 " Then we'll go away. The children won't object. 
 . . . Will you, Jim ?" he added, as a fair-haired, sturdy 
 boy of twelve or thirteen burst into the room. 
 
 " Object to what ?" 
 
 " To going away." 
 
 " Rather not. Where to ?" 
 
 " Oh, you'll have to settle that between you. You can 
 talk it over." 
 
 " I votes Ballycastle. I say, do come and see my new 
 rabbits. There are four of them. They must have been 
 born this morning while I was at school." 
 
 He took Grace's hand to draw her from the room. It 
 was obvious that they were great friends. 
 
 " We must watch that the cat doesn't get them," she 
 exclaimed gaily. " I saw her prowling about there just 
 before lunch." And as they went out together the boy's 
 voice could be heard eagerly explaining a plan for the 
 extension of the run, if he only had some more wire 
 netting. Did she know where he could get any ? etc., 
 etc. 
 
Ill 
 
 Her movements were swift, once she had come to a 
 decision, and two days later, that is to say, on the 
 Saturday following Rose's visit, all arrangements had 
 been made. They intended, she and the two children, 
 to leave for Ballycastle on Monday morning, though the 
 town house would still be kept open for Mr. Campbell, 
 who could not join them before the end of the month. 
 She had not spoken the truth to Rose or to her husband 
 in the account she had given of her interviews with 
 Richard, but it had really seemed to her not far from it. 
 For they did see each other less often than before, and 
 when they met it was not the same as it had been. The 
 shadow of Rose was now between them, a blight seemed 
 to have been cast upon their friendship, and she knew 
 it was because on his side there had never been anything 
 more than that. 
 
 She waited for him now, on this Saturday afternoon, 
 with an impatience that increased as his usual hour for 
 calling came and passed. Yet she was certain he would 
 come, for she had dropped him a note to say that she 
 expected him. Four o'clock struck, and then five. She 
 could not imagine what was keeping him. Something 
 must have happened, and she wondered if Rose had 
 told him, or had told Mrs. Seawright, of their quarrel ; 
 or if he had not got her letter, which she had addressed 
 to him, as usual, at the office. Her anxiety at last 
 
 275 
 
2;6 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 became so great that she determined to go to meet him. 
 Anything was better than sitting still. Besides, Henry 
 and the children would be coming in soon, and she 
 must see Richard alone. Leaving word that she would 
 be back in a few minutes, she set forth. Just as she 
 reached the end of the avenue she saw Rose herself, and 
 one of her sisters, pass on the top of a tram. They had 
 not seen her — Grace was sure of that — for they had both 
 been staring in the opposite direction. A sudden and 
 irresistible temptation caused her to hasten her foot- 
 steps. 
 
 The slight, dark figure moved rapidly, presently 
 turning to the right through the gates of the Botanic 
 Gardens. She followed the main walk there, and in a 
 few minutes reached the network of streets lying beyond 
 the Gardens, always hastening, till at last she paused 
 before a house. 
 
 Richard was in; she heard his footsteps in the hall; 
 and before she had time to ring the door was pulled 
 wide to admit her. He stood, smiling a little, waiting 
 for her to enter, but she still remained on the topmost 
 step. 
 
 " I won't come in. I just happened to be passing, on 
 my way home." She thought he looked surprised. 
 
 " But you were walking in the opposite direction. I 
 saw you coming." 
 
 " Ricky, I'm too tired to argue. Didn't you get my 
 letter ?" 
 
 " Yes, but I was kept late at the office. You may as 
 well come in now you are here. How did you know 
 Rose was out ?" 
 
 She was annoyed at the tactlessness of his question. 
 " I didn't know, of course." 
 
THE FLIGHT 277 
 
 " Well, come in for a few minutes at any rate." 
 
 She hesitated, and to gain time said, " You must tell 
 Rose that Fm sorry she was out." Even as it passed 
 her lips she felt that the speech was odious in its useless 
 hypocrisy, but such things now appeared to trip off her 
 tongue with a terrible glibness. 
 
 She saw he did not like it. " She always spends 
 Saturday afternoon and evening at her mother's," he 
 replied, a trifle grimly. 
 
 Suddenly she yielded to the impulse that had brought 
 her, and crossed the threshold. 
 
 He followed her into the parlour. " What was it you 
 wanted to see me about so particularly ?" 
 
 She had known from the first moment that Rose had 
 told him nothing, and she replied, " It is only that we 
 are going away on Monday and probably will be away 
 all summer." Abruptly she sat down at the piano, 
 Rose's piano, on which had been practised every day the 
 music that was to please Richard. 
 
 She felt it was quite wrong for her to be there, 
 horribly wrong from every point of view. What was 
 perhaps even more wrong, and what her companion 
 could not even have understood, was the subtle desire 
 she now experienced to play on this piano, and to play 
 this very piece lying open upon the music-rest, and which 
 she knew Rose must have been working at quite 
 recently. She played it. 
 
 " And now that's enough. Let us go." 
 
 " I never thought that old piano could sound so well," 
 he murmured innocently. 
 
 " It's not a bad piano. Of course I don't know it, and 
 one requires to get to know a piano before one can play 
 on it; still " 
 
2;8 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 "Grace!" 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 He did not say what he had been going to say, for, 
 as he paused, they both heard a key turn in the lock of 
 the hall-door. Grace's hands still rested on the notes, 
 and into her green eyes there came an extraordinary 
 expression, clear, implacable, cold as steel, an expres- 
 sion before which he shrank involuntarily. It passed as 
 rapidly as it had come. " My God ! " she whispered 
 below her breath. 
 
 " What's the matter ?" he asked, in bewilderment. 
 
 Rose had already opened the door, but she stood on 
 the threshold as if about to go out again, not looking at 
 Grace, who had risen from the music-stool and now 
 advanced to meet her. 
 
 " I came in to say good-bye," Grace murmured, in her 
 low beautiful voice, dropping her outstretched hand, of 
 which Rose had taken no notice. " We are going away 
 on Monday." 
 
 " Yes, I guessed you would come here when you 
 saw me on the tram. It was a pity that Ivy saw 
 you^ 
 
 Grace's eyes half closed. " I am going with the 
 children to the shore." Her smile was wonderful : it 
 seemed to rest upon them both, sadly, strangely. 
 
 Rose, however, took no notice of it, nor of what she 
 said. "Well, I'm afraid I'm disturbing you!" She 
 went out of the room quickly, leaving them to stand 
 gazing at the closed door. 
 
 He turned, in confusion, to Grace. She still smiled 
 dimly, but from her white face the mask had dropped, 
 and it was a countenance distorted with an almost 
 physical pain that was revealed to him. " It's no use," 
 
THE FLIGHT 279 
 
 she half whispered, with an ineffable weariness. " For- 
 give me, Ricky. Good-bye." 
 
 " But you can't go like this," he burst out. 
 
 " I must, Ricky dear. Don't come to-night. I will 
 write to you when I have had time to think. It won't 
 do — it won't do." 
 
 He looked at her helplessly. " She had no right. 
 She " 
 
 " She knows, Ricky dear." 
 
 " She knows what ?" 
 
 " Everything. She will tell you. She has always 
 
 known. Nobody else knew not even you; but she 
 
 has always known." 
 
 "Grace!" 
 
 She had already reached the door, through which she 
 passed without looking back, and a moment later he 
 knew that she had gained the street. He stood Still for 
 a while, thinking. 
 
 When he went upstairs. Rose had taken off her hat, 
 and before the looking-glass was fixing her hair. Out 
 of the mirror her face stared at him, pale, save for the 
 vivid red in her thin cheeks, but determined. 
 
 ** Is it to insult me that you bring that woman to the 
 house ?" she asked. Then suddenly she swung round 
 upon him, her eyes dark and wide, while her words 
 poured out in a torrent. " A false, white-faced, green- 
 eyed creature ! Why didn't you marry her ? Oh, I 
 know all about you. Your own brother told me first. 
 But she was clever. Now she has the money and you 
 as well. I pity her poor husband that she's made a 
 fool of. Why don't you go and live with her altogether. 
 If you weren't a coward, you would." She broke into a 
 shrill laugh. 
 
28o AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 "Stop!" he said. 
 
 " I won't stop. I've put up with it long enough. Tve 
 tried not to see anything, because I was frightened of 
 what I might see. But now that she's not content with 
 your going to her own house, but has taken to following 
 you here, it is too much. I don't know what may have 
 
 been between you in the past " She paused, but it 
 
 was only because a fit of coughing prevented her from 
 going on. 
 
 " There was never anything between us," he said, 
 " except what you chose to imagine. From the first 
 moment you saw her you decided to dislike her — I don't 
 know why. It would have seemed too stupid to be true, 
 if everything you did, every word you said, hadn't 
 proved it." 
 
 " And I was right : you know I was right. You can't 
 even now deny it, though she may deny it." 
 
 He did not answer, but sat there on the side of the 
 bed, gazing at the flowered wall-paper, as if in its 
 pattern he read some message of absorbing interest 
 She watched him. She was not really sure of the truth 
 of her accusation. She wanted him to deny it. She 
 wanted him to deny it even if it were true. And, as if 
 in answer to her unspoken desire, he repeated automati- 
 cally, " There has never been anything between us." 
 His tongue flickered over his dry lips, and he relapsed 
 once more into that strange abstraction. 
 
 Rose's gaze passed beyond him and encountered 
 Dick's green cot. With a little cry she flung herself 
 down beside Richard and clasped him in her arms. 
 She kissed him and clung to him, her cold, tear-stained 
 face pressed to his. " I will never say anything again," 
 
THE FLIGHT 281 
 
 she moaned. " I wish I was dead, Hke Dick. I don't 
 want to live unless you can care for me." 
 
 He held her to him, but she felt the lifelessness of his 
 embrace, and a last hopelessness descended upon her as 
 they sat there, clinging together, shivering and afraid 
 like children in the dark. 
 
IV 
 
 Tired out, Rose slept soundly through the first hours of 
 the night, and when she awoke in the coolness of early 
 morning everything seemed to have become quite clear. 
 Outside, the sparrows were chirping, and where the 
 blind bulged, a narrow band of sunlight streamed into 
 the room. She got up, and, treading noiselessly with 
 bare feet, went to Richard's door, which she opened 
 softly. He was asleep, his brown face half buried in 
 the soft pillow. She gazed at him and then, fearing 
 that he might awaken, crept back to her own bed. But 
 her mind was made up, and with wide eyes she lay 
 thinking, making her plans. 
 
 She knew now that even if he gave up Grace it would 
 make little difference. She doubted if he had ever really 
 loved her. She had cheated herself into a sort of half- 
 belief in his love, but from the beginning she had had 
 hours when she had known she was cheating herself. 
 The very way their marriage had come about was 
 wrong. She did not believe now that he had ever 
 wanted to marry her. 
 
 Most of that day she spent at her mother's, and on 
 Monday morning, after Richard had set off for the 
 office, she made her final preparations. He came home 
 at one o'clock for dinner. Then, when he had gone out 
 again, she felt herself at last free to act. She went into 
 his room and sat down at his writing-table. 
 
 282 
 
THE FLIGHT 283 
 
 " Dearest Richard," she wrote. " When you get this 
 I shall have gone away. I have thought it all over and 
 I see now that we can no longer live happily together. 
 I have made promises in the past, not to you but to 
 myself, and I have always broken them, and I should 
 break them in the future. There is no use your trying to 
 follow me, for I will never come back. I will write to 
 you, and you needn't be anxious about me, for I have 
 plenty of money to go on with and can easily get work 
 the way I did before. I have telegraphed to Martin to 
 meet me at the station so that I shall not even be quite 
 alone when I arrive. I will not write any more except 
 to say that I will always be 
 
 " Your loving 
 
 " ROSE." 
 
 This letter finished, she wrote another note, which she 
 left lying on the table where he would be sure to see it 
 when he came in. It was to say that she had gone to 
 Palermo Street, and would not be home till late in the 
 evening. He was not to sit up for her as Ev would see 
 her home. 
 
 She knew he always went to bed about half-past 
 ten, and this would leave her free till the next morning, 
 when he would get the letter telling him the truth. She 
 laid the table for tea, and then, after a last look round, 
 went out to get a cab. Fortunately, Richard never 
 spoke to his next-door neighbours, so that there was 
 nothing to prevent her departing quite openly, with her 
 luggage. 
 
 But the hours of inaction, spent at an hotel near the 
 docks, were almost unbearable. At length she felt she 
 might safely go on board the steamer, and once there 
 
284 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 she descended immediately to her cabin. All night 
 long she lay listening to the throbbing of the screw, 
 and the long low wash of the water breaking past the 
 port-hole. The tea which the stewardess brought her 
 in the morning revived her, but the effect was only tem- 
 porary, and when she got into the train at Lime Street 
 she felt jaded and weary. She had been fortunate 
 enough to secure a compartment to herself, and hoped 
 to get a short sleep before they reached London; but 
 just as the train was leaving the station an elderly man, 
 stout and flushed, hurried up, puffing and blowing, and 
 to her disappointment a porter pulled open the door of 
 her carriage and pushed him in there. He tumbled into 
 the corner seat opposite Rose, and sat noisily recovering 
 his breath, while he fanned himself with a folded news- 
 paper which he held tightly grasped in a fat hand. 
 
 Rose closed her eyes and tried to doze, hoping that 
 her companion would presently go out to the breakfast- 
 car, but in this too she was disappointed. A complete 
 change had taken place within her mind, and the whole 
 aspect of her undertaking had altered with it. Her 
 confidence had vanished. It would have been better, 
 she now thought, to have stopped at Liverpool, where 
 she might have found work at her old place : it would 
 have been best of all to have stopped at home. The one 
 thing she clung to was the certainty that Martin would 
 be there to meet her at her journey's end ; Martin whom 
 she had liked so much, and who had given her the 
 impression of being willing to do anything for her. 
 
 She was aroused from her reverie by a slight noise; 
 her fellow-traveller had dropped his newspaper. He 
 made no attempt to pick it up, though he had not read, 
 had not even unfolded it. She glanced timidly at him 
 
THE FLIGHT . 285 
 
 and saw that he was staring straight into her face, with 
 blank, foohsh eyes. His head leaned back against the 
 cushion, one of his hands drooped listlessly, the other 
 rested on his knee. The purplish glow had faded from 
 his cheeks, leaving them a pale, yellowish white, like 
 discoloured wax. He was very common-looking, clean- 
 shaved except for short side whiskers of a reddish grey ; 
 and he sat with his mouth slightly open, while his pale 
 and rather prominent eyes stared so fixedly at her that 
 she got up and moved to the other end of the carriage, 
 under the pretence of being interested in the view. Yet 
 from time to time she could not help glancing at him, 
 and it was always to observe that same cold expression- 
 less stare in his eyes. He no longer looked at her, but 
 at the photographs of coast scenery on the wall 
 immediately before him. A curious nervousness began 
 to creep into her mind. She shut her eyes and tried 
 to sleep, but found herself constantly opening them to 
 cast a furtive glance at the man in the corner, a,t the 
 hands and at the fat pale yellow face, which swayed and 
 jerked grotesquely with the rocking of the train. She 
 had never seen anybody who gave her such an impres- 
 sion of absolute limpness as this man, who appeared 
 to be at the mercy of each jolt of the carriage. 
 
 She shivered. The hands were curiously unhealthy, 
 pale like tallow, with a reddish down growing half way 
 up the broad flat fingers. And the glazed eyes never 
 moved. Then all at once it struck her that the eyelids 
 had not blinked. 
 
 Her trouble and two sleepless nights had told upon 
 her nerves, and a strange, sickening dread now 
 paralyzed her. She shrank up in her corner, watching 
 her companion intently. All she had to do was to open 
 
286 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 the door and go out into the corridor, but she could 
 not move. She tried to reason with herself — and each 
 time the train swayed she saw the man make a sudden 
 spasmodic jerk in his seat, though always to fall back 
 again into the same comfortable position. 
 
 Presently, to her intense relief, the guard appeared. 
 He snipped Rose's ticket and stretched out his hand 
 for that of the other passenger, who still sat motionless 
 and impassive. He seemed curiously deaf, too, and 
 even when the guard grasped him by the shoulder it 
 did not arouse him — only his head drooped down side- 
 ways, with a rather silly, rather ugly kind of droop. 
 The guard instantly relinquished his grasp, as if he 
 had touched something exceedingly unpleasant, and a 
 startled look was visible on the face he turned to Rose. 
 " You'd better get into the next compartment, miss. 
 There's something wrong with this gentleman. 'Ad a 
 stroke or something." 
 
 Rose needed no second bidding. A few moments 
 later she heard a voice calling in the passage, " Any 
 gentleman here a doctor?" The voice died away, 
 repeating its question on down the train, and next she 
 saw a little man with a black hand-bag hurrying past 
 in the wake of the guard. 
 
 She felt herself trembling, almost fainting, when some- 
 body entered her carriage. It was the guard. "I 
 'ope it 'asn't upset you, miss. Very unpleasant for you. 
 'E's dead, poor gentleman. 'Eart failure. Must *ave 
 died shortly after getting into the train. A Mr. Perkins, 
 *e is. Lives in Liverpool but travels a good deal on 
 this line. 'E's quite cold already." 
 
 She murmured something, and at the next station 
 she knew from the commotion on the platform that they 
 
THE FLIGHT 287 
 
 were carrying out the body. She sat huddled in her 
 corner, and when the train had started the guard 
 appeared once more, this time with her hand-bag and 
 umbrella, which she had forgotten. 
 
 " That was the station 'e was getting out* at, any- 
 way," the guard commented, " and 'e 'as got out there — 
 a friend waiting for 'im on the platform, too." 
 
 Fortunately the other occupants of Rose's carriage 
 were all in the breakfast-car, so that when they came 
 back, though they chattered about what had occurred, 
 nobody asked her any questions. Her thoughts, never- 
 theless, took on the gloomiest tinge. She could not dis- 
 miss from her mind that this tragedy was an evil omen, 
 and when the train arrived at Euston she was in a 
 state of extreme nervousness. There were not many 
 people on the platform, and she looked out eagerly for 
 Martin. She told a porter to get her boxes, but did not 
 accompany him to the luggage van, so fearful was she 
 of missing her brother-in-law. Meanwhile the other 
 passengers rapidly dispersed, and when the porter 
 rejoined her, the last stragglers had vanished. He had 
 her luggage on a truck, and stood waiting for further 
 instructions, but still there was no sign of Martin. 
 
 " Keb, miss ?" the porter suggested, noticing her 
 bewilderment. 
 
 " No, thanks. Tm expecting a friend." 
 
 She waited for another five minutes while the porter 
 lounged near, whistling the opening bars of various 
 tunes. 
 
 " I think I'll leave the boxes in the left-luggage office," 
 she said at last, recognizing that she could not keep 
 the man standing there for ever. She followed him and 
 got a ticket. Then she tipped him, and was alone. 
 
288 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 She sat down to wait, watching the hands of the 
 station clock move slowly on. She waited for three- 
 quarters of an hour, while her heart sank lower and 
 lower. Martin had not come. She was alone here in a 
 vast city, and without the least idea where she ought 
 to go to. She sat cold and afraid, though the sun was 
 shining and there was the bustle of life all round her. 
 She thought of driving to Martin's address, but if he 
 had not come, that showed that he did not want her, 
 and she was too dejected, too miserable, to force herself 
 upon him. But it was cruel of him to leave her like 
 this ! In her sense of utter abandonment her tears 
 began to fall. She was unconscious of them and left 
 them to dry upon her cheeks. At last she determined 
 to ask when the next train from Liverpool arrived. She 
 learned that it was due in fifty minutes. She remem- 
 bered that she had had practically nothing to eat since 
 the previous day, but she was too frightened of missing 
 Martin if he should come, to go to the refreshment room. 
 She knew it was ridiculous to expect him now, yet she 
 waited and waited. She had a faint, momentary revival 
 of hope when the next train came in, but Martin 
 did not meet this either. 
 
 She went to the refreshment room and drank a cup of 
 tea and ate a slice of bread and butter. Then she took 
 a taxi and drove to Martin's lodgings. 
 
 The door was opened by a portly person with quan- 
 tities of yellow hair, very hard eyes, and an ingratiating 
 smile. Rose asked for Mr. Seawright. 
 
 " Mr. Seawright isn't at home ; but perhaps you're the 
 lady he left this note for ?" And the portly person held 
 out a sealed envelope which Rose took eagerly. 
 
 " Won't you step inside ?" 
 
THE FLIGHT 289 
 
 Rose did not even hear her. She had already torn 
 open the letter and was reading its contents, while the 
 landlady, to whom the seal had been a source of con- 
 siderable annoyance all day, watched her with mingled 
 suspicion and curiosity. 
 
 It did not take her long to grasp the purport of 
 Martin's note, though in form it was somewhat lengthy. 
 He had been obliged to go out of town on important 
 business, but had given instructions that a room should 
 be got ready for her, should she require it. He strongly 
 urged her to return home, however, either to-night or 
 to-morrow, for he was certain that she had made a mis- 
 take, though, fortunately, it was not an irretrievable one. 
 He was more sorry than he could say that he had not 
 been able to meet her. He would have telegraphed to 
 her if she had given him time to do so. He had tele- 
 graphed to Richard — he hoped she would forgive him — 
 who would certainly cross that night and be with her 
 in the morning. In the meantime she was to make use 
 of his rooms quite as if they were her own. His land- 
 lady was an excellent cook and he hoped would look 
 after her well. But he advised, he implored 
 
 She read it through once, and the landlady, who was 
 becoming impatient, again asked her to " step inside." 
 
 The very sight of that smirking face was odious to 
 Rose. " No, thanks," she answered, with wonderful firm- 
 ness. " You might tell Mr. Seawright that I called, 
 and that I've decided to go back to Ireland to-night." 
 She descended the steps, crumpling Martin's letter in 
 her hand. Her taxi was still waiting for her, and she 
 called out to the driver, " Back to Euston, please." 
 
 She was in the train again, rushing through the flat, 
 
 19 
 
290 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 uninteresting country, crouched in a corner by the win- 
 dow. She no longer thought very clearly; she felt too 
 sick, too dazed, to think; but morbid fancies floated 
 through her brain in a kind of waking dream. She had 
 realized at last that her plan was a failure; she had 
 neither strength of mind nor strength of body to carry 
 it through. She had bought some food from a boy on 
 the platform, but when she tried to eat it her throat 
 seemed to contract and she foimd it difficult to swallow. 
 Very soon she gave up the attempt. She tried to sleep, 
 but that too was impossible, and fitful visions of the past 
 swarmed in her mind. She thought of her baby and it 
 now appeared to her that his death had not been 
 accidental. She had not been worthy to bring up a 
 child, so it had been taken from her. 
 
 In Lime Street station she roused herself sufficiently 
 to see that her boxes were put on the cart for the boat. 
 Then she stood still. A boy loitering there glanced 
 at her. Struck perhaps by her tragic face, he asked if 
 he could do anything for her. " The passengers' bus 
 is over there," he said, pointing it out. 
 
 She thanked him and moved mechanically towards it, 
 but, after she had taken a few steps, stopped again. A 
 jarvey leaned from his seat. "Belfast boat, miss?" 
 
 His words seemed to awaken a plan of action that 
 sprang instantaneously into being, probably because it 
 had lain dormant for many hours in her distraught 
 mind. She spoke even with a certain tranquillity. " I 
 want to go to a chemist's, please." 
 
 " Right you are, miss." 
 
 Next moment, still clasping her handbag and 
 umbrella, she was being driven down a noisy street. The 
 city seemed evil and hideous to her — the glaring lamps, 
 
THE FLIGHT 291 
 
 the white faces, the squaHd figures, the flare and flame 
 of pubhc-houses. They stopped before a chemist's and 
 she dismounted. When she emerged from the shop she 
 asked the man to drive her to a good hotel. 
 
 He saw that she was in trouble, and considered for a 
 moment. " Yes, miss," he said, at last. " You want a 
 quiet, respectable 'ouse, you do. I think I know w'at'll 
 suit you." Then he added pensively : " If you're in a 
 strange plice by yourself, and wanting an hotel, I don't 
 know but the best plan ain't to ask the p'lice. Not but 
 wot you aren't safe as a lamb with me." 
 
 He gave a jerk of his reins and they drove on, turn- 
 ing to the left, down a broader, quieter street. In a few 
 minutes he pulled up and Rose once more dismounted, 
 asking him what his fare was. He eyed her doubtfully. 
 " You 'aven't got no luggage nor anything," he said. 
 " Sometimes they 'as rules in these hotels about not 
 letting rooms to single ladies. I think I'd better wait. 
 You can send out the 'all-porter to pay me." 
 
 " But I have luggage," Rose said faintly. " It was 
 taken down to the boat. I intended to cross at first." 
 
 " Well, if they says anything saucy, just you tell 'em 
 that." 
 
 She passed through the wide, brightly-illuminated 
 vestibule, and going up to the oflice asked for a room, 
 explaining that her luggage had gone on by mistake. 
 She had an idea at first that the clerk was going to refuse 
 her, so long did he seem to hesitate, and she felt bitterly 
 that it needed only this to make matters complete. But 
 apparently she passed muster, for he called out a 
 number, and one of the servants officiously seized her 
 little bag. 
 
 The elevator took her up to the third storey, and, half 
 
292 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 way down a long passage, the man opened a door and 
 switched on the Hght. He put down her bag and asked 
 if he should ring for the chamber-maid. She nodded; 
 then, remembering the cabman, took out her purse. 
 
 As soon as she was alone she sank down on the side 
 of the bed. An overpowering faintness had seized her. 
 When it passed, and she sat up, it suddenly appeared 
 to her that she recognized her surroundings. Had she 
 been here before ? or was it but her first impression that 
 had been forgotten when she had turned sick ? For 
 she seemed to know the pale, flowered hangings of the 
 bed, the wardrobe with its red curtained doors, the pale 
 blue paper with its pattern of silver rose leaves. Was 
 she dreaming now or was she going mad ? She 
 started to her feet. Then, glancing down at the bed, 
 she saw something lying there — somebody very pale 
 and still, the hands folded, the feet straight and stiff. 
 The floor swayed, swept up to her, and if she had not 
 grasped the bed-post she would have fallen heavily. 
 When she opened her eyes again the vision had gone. 
 
 All this seemed to have occupied hours, yet it was 
 only now that the chamber-maid's knock sounded at 
 the door. Rose started violently, and it was not till the 
 knock was repeated that she called out, " Come in." 
 
 The woman entered, bringing a can of hot water. She 
 pulled down the bed-clothes and arranged the pillows. 
 She was going out again when Rose began to talk to 
 her eagerly, saying anything that came into her head, 
 anxious only to keep her. The chamber-maid replied 
 to her questions, but evidently was not disposed to 
 linger, for at the first pause in Rose's incoherent remarks 
 she made her escape. 
 
 Then, standing there, Rose listened to the bang of a 
 
THE FLIGHT 293 
 
 distant door, that was followed by an intense silence, a 
 strange, unnatural silence. She went out into the pas- 
 sage, hoping to hear the sound of voices, but everything 
 was still as the grave. She made the comparison in 
 her own mind, and at once the hackneyed, literary image 
 became charged with a terrible meaning. She shud- 
 dered, and leaned her burning forehead against the 
 cold wall. 
 
 The upper storeys of the hotel appeared to be quite 
 deserted, and as, in the dim light of the passage, she 
 faced the door of her own room, which for some reason 
 she had carefully closed behind her, she was seized with 
 a superstitious dread, and was afraid to turn the handle. 
 Something was on the other side, waiting for her, grim 
 and quiet. 
 
 She thought of going downstairs; then she made a 
 strong effort to regain her self-control, and flung the 
 door wide. The bright illumination inside dispelled her 
 nervousness, and this time she locked herself in. She 
 pulled aside the blind and looked through the window, 
 hoping to see the street below, but what she gazed down 
 into was a kind of garden, gloomy and black, with a 
 high wall, above which rose the gaunt outline of a single 
 tree. 
 
 She began to remove her clothing, but every now and 
 again she stopped and remained for a few seconds per- 
 fectly motionless. Once her gaze was arrested by her 
 own image in the mirror, and she did not recognize the 
 face that looked out at her with shining eyes. 
 
 And suddenly the purpose that had taken her to the 
 chemist's swam up into her mind. She completed her 
 undressing and, now in her nightgown, poured the con- 
 tents of the little bottle she had bought into a tumbler. 
 
294 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 When she had drunk it she turned off the light and got 
 into bed. Closing her eyes, she tried to compose herself 
 to sleep. A heavy darkness hovered before her, and 
 she believed that she was going to sink softly down 
 into it, when it broke and disappeared. She opened 
 her eyes. As they grew accustomed to the gloom, the 
 different objects around her took on their several identi- 
 ties. She could see the wardrobe with its red curtains 
 that were now black; she could see the dressing-table, 
 the wash-stand. And then, against the paler back- 
 ground of the window blind, she saw something else. 
 
 She nearly screamed, perhaps she did scream, for a 
 strange, high sound rang through the room. She saw 
 him perfectly distinctly — the man who had died in the 
 train. He had glided into the room and he stood now 
 just before the window. He stared at her in all his 
 flabby ugliness. He never moved, but his mouth 
 expanded slowly in a dreadful distortion of his whole 
 face, as he waited and watched. She shut her eyes, 
 but when she opened them a little later he was still 
 there. Some part of her brain kept repeating that she 
 was alone, that what she saw was an hallucination, but 
 though she struggled desperately against it, it remained. 
 And simultaneously a fear of death rushed in upon her — 
 the death that would bring him nearer. She wanted to 
 cry out, to cry for help. She would tell them she had 
 taken poison. They must get a doctor — and quickly, 
 very quickly. She cried again and again, but she could 
 hear no sound pass her lips and at last she lay still. 
 " It is not there — it is not there," she moaned. " It is 
 not there. There is nothing there but the window. . . . 
 Why does not somebody take it away ?" Another cry 
 rose in her throat, but, like the rest, this too was sound- 
 
THE FLIGHT 295 
 
 less. She became confusedly conscious of a clamour out- 
 side her door, of a rending, smashing sound that shook 
 the room. " It is not there. There is nothing there 
 but the window," she explained eagerly to a crowd of 
 persons who seemed, she knew not how, to have come 
 in, bringing with them a sudden, dazzling light. " There 
 is nothing there — nothing. . . ." 
 
PART SIXTH 
 
 THE VISION 
 
I 
 
 She did not recognize him when, late in the evening, he 
 at last found her. From the nurse he learned all there 
 was to learn. Rose had attempted to poison herself, 
 but this had nothing to do with her present illness, for 
 the chemist, whose suspicions had been aroused, had 
 supplied her with a quite harmless sleeping-draught. 
 
 She died that night, without regaining consciousness. 
 
 For Richard the moment when he saw her parents 
 dismounting from their cab at the hotel door was a 
 terrible one. It was clear that they regarded him as 
 directly responsible for all that had occurred, and it 
 became clearer still when, after his return home, he 
 chanced one day to meet Everard in the street, and the 
 boy passed him with a single glance of hatred and 
 scorn. 
 
 From this time forward he became a stranger to the 
 Jacksons and their friends. Lambert alone found such 
 an attitude impossible to keep up, and one morning, 
 about six weeks after Rose's death, he mentioned that 
 he had received a direct message from his daughter, 
 exonerating Richard from all blame, and desiring that 
 a reconciliation should take place. 
 
 A fixed darkness had descended upon his life. The 
 vision of Rose alone in London, of her return journey, 
 and of that last scene in the hotel, haunted him. It was 
 the hour, indeed, of Rose's triumph. As he saw her 
 now she seemed strangely young. When he thought 
 
 298 
 
THE VISION 299 
 
 of her, it was either as when he had first met her, or as 
 when he had watched her nursing their child. Dead, 
 she seemed to claim him, and her power increased daily. 
 
 From Grace he had received no message, no sign of 
 any kind. He did not write to her; still less did he 
 think of going to see her. Sometimes, when he came 
 home from work, he read Martin's letter to Rose. It 
 fascinated him curiously, and very soon he knew it by 
 heart. 
 
 He began to pray. Night by night he prayed with 
 a dogged persistency that a light of some kind might 
 dawn upon him, that he might have faith, that he might 
 find God : and night by night he rose from his knees 
 with a dull feeling of failure, with a sense of spiritual 
 exhaustion, that fortunately was usually followed by a 
 deep sleep. 
 
 It seemed to him at last that he could not go on living 
 unless he could feel certain of the existence of God. It 
 was not that he wanted God to save him ; all that was 
 as nothing in his desire to see clearly, once and for all, 
 that behind the miserable accidents of life there was a 
 spiritual reality, a purpose, a power for good, which was 
 not the mere invention of a few exalted minds. 
 
 There was a verse from the New Testament which 
 repeated itself like a refrain through everything : — 
 " Ask, and it shall be given you ; seek, and ye shall find ; 
 knock, and it shall be opened unto you." He heard 
 it everywhere; it was in all the rhythms of the streets; 
 the feet passing on the pavement drummed it out, the 
 noise of every vehicle. He would knock ; he would find. 
 All the strength of his will was put into his determina- 
 tion. There was something that might have appeared 
 either ludicrous or insane in that fierce, protracted 
 
300 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 beating at the gate of the infinite. He sought no human 
 help or advice; an instinct told him that the struggle 
 must be his own. And again and again he read the 
 story of Jacob wrestling all night long with the 
 angel : — " I will not let thee go, except thou bless me." 
 No one knew or suspected what was passing in his 
 mind. At the office they saw that he was more silent 
 than usual, but in his manner there was an irritability, 
 a moroseness, which was far from suggesting any pre- 
 occupation with religious things. It was supposed that 
 he was sorrowing for his wife's death, and Mr. Wynch 
 urged him to take a holiday. 
 
II 
 
 Close upon this came a letter from his mother — the 
 third or fourth, indeed, — begging him to come down to 
 Ballycastle, where she herself was staying with Grace. 
 She had not wanted to go, she would have much pre- 
 ferred being with Richard, but he had insisted that she 
 should. Nevertheless, the thought of his solitary exist- 
 ence in that deserted house was constantly on her mind, 
 and in her last letter she threatened that if he did not 
 come to her she would return to town. She had been 
 on the point of adding that they expected Martin 
 towards the end of the week. Then some instinct had 
 kept her from doing so — merely an instinct, for she 
 knew nothing of the part Richard conceived Martin to 
 have played in the recent tragedy, and in a tragedy 
 earlier still. 
 
 It was a brilliant autumn morning when he set out, 
 and it was still fine, though not so fine, when he arrived 
 at his destination. During the journey his mind had 
 veered round again. The more he thought of meeting 
 Grace, the more distasteful the idea now became to him. 
 The dead woman rose between them — the mother of his 
 child — the memory of the look he had seen for a moment 
 on Grace's face on that last afternoon, when Rose had 
 found them together. Had there been a train back he 
 would have taken it; but it was Sunday, and there was 
 no train — none, at least, until the afternoon. 
 
 He left the station, and, keeping to the road beside 
 
 301 
 
302 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 the golf-links, avoided the Campbells' house. He met 
 nobody, and, after continuing his way along the shore 
 for perhaps half an hour, he began to climb the cliff 
 leading to Fair Head. Here he could remain all morn- 
 ing. In the afternoon he would go back to town, and 
 they need never learn of his visit at all. 
 
 The path was steep, though not at all difficult, having 
 been dug out of the cliff-side. Beside it, down a fissure 
 in the rock, fell a stream, which overflowed in places, 
 and gushed coldly against his hands as he grasped at 
 the stones. The loose soil slid away in showers under 
 his feet. 
 
 From the top of the cliff the ground still rose, sloping 
 up on the left in a steep grassy hill, strewn with 
 boulders; and this was the most tedious part of the 
 climb, for the short sapless grass was dry and slippery, 
 and his feet slipped back at every step. On the topmost 
 ridge a solitary white goat was silhouetted against the 
 sky. 
 
 He scrambled up the last few yards, which were 
 steeper than the rest, climbed the loose wall of stones, 
 and stood, where the goat had stood, upon the summit. 
 
 All around him was a broad table-land, reaching 
 back from the cliff's edge, carpeted with heather and 
 strewn with grey rocks. A little way inland, there 
 gleamed the smooth waters of a lake, and below him lay 
 the sea, breaking in white foam against the stony shore. 
 A fresh wind was blowing. Great clouds rolled above 
 his head, and the sun disappeared and reappeared. He 
 kept close to the edge of the cliffs, and presently the 
 atmosphere seemed to grow clearer, the colour of the 
 sea changed, and out of it, far away, a mysterious island 
 emerged, blue against the blue heavens. Jura with its 
 
THE VISION 303 
 
 three cone-shaped hills, a dimmer, fainter blue than the 
 water, but slightly darker than the sky. Sky, land, 
 and sea seemed to be melted together, and the white 
 clouds, long and slender, were like painted shadows. 
 In all this wide expanse of air and land and water there 
 was nothing to suggest human life. He seemed to have 
 come to the very home of the winds, which sang exultant 
 notes in his ears, and hummed among the dry heather 
 at his feet. 
 
 Every moment the light was altering, and now 
 directly before him he saw immense dark clouds rolling 
 up above the horizon, while at the same instant the 
 island was blotted out. He walked on quickly in the 
 hope of reaching Murlough Bay before the rain began, 
 but as he neared the Grey Man's Path, down in the 
 hollow there, he saw someone lying on his back, and 
 knew that it was Martin. He felt no surprise : it was 
 as if all along he had expected to find him here. 
 
 Martin was alone. He lay bare-headed among the 
 heather, his face upturned to the sky. Richard stood 
 gazing at him, and presently he looked round. 
 
 " Hello, Ricky ! " He sprang lightly to his feet and 
 held out his hand. Richard, instead of grasping it, 
 made a sudden clutch at his hat, which he continued to 
 hold, and Martin sat down again upon the heather. 
 
 " The mater told me she didn't think you were 
 coming. Have you been to the house yet ?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 Martin once more stretched himself at full length. 
 " Looks like rain," he said, " but we can get shelter 
 under some rock." Then it appeared to strike him that 
 an expression of sympathy was required, for he added, 
 " You've had infernally rough luck, Ricky. I intended 
 
304 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 to write to you, but then — well, there are things one 
 carCt write, aren't there ? and letters at the best " 
 
 " Go on — go on," Richard encouraged him. He felt 
 a sudden wildness in his blood. They were alone here 
 — alone on the earth, alone under the sky, far away from 
 civilization, in the wind, with the immense sea rolling 
 down there six hundred feet below them. 
 
 Martin glanced up quickly, coloured, and looked 
 annoyed. 
 
 " I only wished to say I was sorry," he muttered, " but 
 if you don't want me to " 
 
 " Sorry for what ?" 
 
 " Sorry for . Look here, Ricky, what did you 
 
 come down for ? You aren't going to be nasty, are you ? 
 I don't see what I've said to offend you. Of course, I 
 can understand that you're feeling '' 
 
 " I want to know what you are sorry for," Richard 
 interrupted him. A seagull flew out from the cliff and 
 screamed as it circled downward to the water. 
 
 Martin shrugged his shoulders and closed his eyes. 
 
 " Are you sorry for things in general, or for your own 
 particular share in them ?" 
 
 Martin got up and looked round for his iiat. 
 
 " Before you go I want you to tell me." 
 
 " I think you are mad. What did I do ?" 
 
 " I can remind you if you have forgotten." And 
 suddenly a red light of hatred glean^ed through the 
 darkness of his eyes. " You had your hand in it from 
 the beginning. It was you who first made her jealous. 
 It was you who, in the end, failed her. If you had met 
 her at the station all would have been well. At any 
 rate, it would not have been what it was. But you were 
 afraid. You were afraid that she would saddle herself 
 
THE VISION 305 
 
 upon you. You were afraid of the unpleasantness of 
 being in any way connected with such matters; so you 
 had important business which took you out of town. 
 You wrote a beautiful letter of advice instead. I have 
 it at home. I think I could repeat it to you. You poor 
 miserable creature." 
 
 Martin flushed angrily. He kicked at a loose stone, 
 which rolled to the edge of the cliff and disappeared. 
 " Look here, keep a civil tongue in your head, or else 
 clear out of this. You needn't try to blame me for your 
 own dirty conscience. If she wanted to be jealous she 
 had good enough cause to be. I'm not quite so much 
 in the dark as you imagine.'* 
 
 " Also you helped to kill my son," Richard persisted 
 curiously. There was a strange singing in his ears, that 
 may have been the wind, or may have been only the 
 voices that were shouting in his blood. " It was you 
 who did kill him. I don't say you did these things 
 on purpose — the way you used to do things long ago — 
 do you remember? But you did them, all the same, 
 because it is your nature to produce evil and cause 
 suffering. ... Do you remember the things you did 
 
 in the old days Do you ? . . . I remember them — I 
 
 remember them all now. ... Do you think it matters 
 to me whether you actually stuck a knife in him, or 
 were only the silly cause of mischief and pain ? It was 
 to satisfy a whim of yours that Rose went with you that 
 day against her will." 
 
 " I think you've said nearly enough now. If you 
 chose to neglect your wife and run about with another 
 
 woman, whom you have made equally miserable " 
 
 Richard struck him on the mouth. 
 There was a pause. Martin had staggered back a 
 
 20 
 
3o6 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 pace, and when he recovered himself a thin trickle of 
 blood was running down his chin. He appeared to 
 hesitate, retreating a step or two, while his lips twitched 
 nervously. Then he accepted the inevitable. . . . 
 
 They fought savagely, blindly, but only for a few 
 moments like this. Then the sound of feet moving in 
 the slippery heather, of blows given and guarded, 
 abruptly ceased. There was now no sound at all, but 
 as he felt himself locked in that grip which he had not 
 encountered since the days of their boyhood, a look of 
 terror was visible in Martin's face. He tried to force 
 himself loose, struggling viciously, the whites of his 
 eyes showing, and his lips curling back from his teeth. 
 
 " Let me go. I'll fight you fair," he half squealed. 
 " Let me go, damn you." For he knew that they were 
 swaying there almost at the cliff's edge, and that the 
 ground was treacherous. He tried to use his feet, his 
 teeth, but he could not. His breath came in bursting 
 sobs, and he no longer struggled to free himself, but 
 clung with all his might. He had no chance; he knew 
 he had no chance; and this devil would murder him; 
 they would both be killed. Suddenly Richard let him 
 go. Martin still clung, but an immense impelling force 
 tore away his grip. There was a scuffling noise as of 
 sliding sand, a scream, a moment of waiting, and then, 
 from somewhere down below, a faint thud. 
 
 For perhaps ten seconds the silence continued, while 
 Richard stared at the vacant sky before him, with parted 
 hps and eyes of horror. Then he ran to the path and 
 half slid, half clambered down. He reached the bottom, 
 by a miracle, without breaking his neck, but Martin was 
 there before him. He lay on the grass, in an ugly, 
 unnatural attitude, with his arms spread out, and one 
 
THE VISION 307 
 
 of his legs bent back under him. His face wore an 
 expression of astonishment, but there was no colour in 
 it, save where a bloody froth oozed from the mouth. 
 Kneeling down, Richard raised the head, then gently 
 lowered it He put his hand upon the heart, but all 
 was still; he looked into the wide-open eyes that were 
 already glazing over. He did these things mechani- 
 cally, for he knew that death must have been 
 instantaneous, that the body must be horribly broken, 
 and for this reason he feared to move it. 
 
 " I did not mean it : I did not mean it," he repeated 
 to himself. He looked up at the perpendicular wall of 
 rock. He looked round at the grey sea, moving 
 desolately beneath heavy clouds. Thirty yards below 
 the grassy slope on which Martin lay, a thin line of 
 foam curled over against the loose rocks and stones that 
 edged the shore. There was nothing living within 
 sight — not even a seagull. Richard knelt there quite 
 still. Presently he began to cry softly, like a little boy, 
 while the slow breaking of the waves murmured with a 
 low sad sound. 
 
 He thought of his mother. For her this would be 
 the end of all things. Her love for Martin had been 
 the great reality of her life — and he cried softly below 
 his breath. He could never face her again. He had 
 cut himself off from his mother; he had cut himself off 
 from everyone; he had cut himself off from God. He 
 rose to his feet, not glancing again at Martin. The path 
 by which he had descended was close at hand, but he 
 walked past it, and began the upward climb at a spot 
 where it seemed impossible. He climbed slowly, and 
 when he had made two-thirds of the ascent he paused 
 and deliberately looked down. A single false step now, 
 
3o8 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 the loosening of a stone in that brittle treacherous 
 basalt, and he would be as Martin was. He climbed 
 on and presently emerged over the edge and scrambled 
 to his feet. 
 
 He retraced his steps to the spot where the struggle 
 had taken place. He could see no signs of it in the 
 springy heather, save where, in one spot, Martin, in 
 falling, had torn up the ground. But on Martin himself 
 there might be signs, though he had not struck him on 
 the face, with the exception of the first blow, which had 
 cut his lip. These thoughts were not suggested by any 
 sense of personal danger — as to that he felt a complete 
 indifference — but it was better, for her own sake, that 
 his mother should not know. 
 
 He struck across the heath directly inland, making 
 towards the point where he knew the road to lie. The 
 rain, which had been threatening for an hour past, had 
 now begun to fall. It grew rapidly heavier, coming 
 down at last in a blinding torrent, so that by the time 
 he reached the road it was streaming with water. Bare 
 and storm-swept, it stretched before him, offering no 
 chance of shelter. He quickened his steps and presently 
 broke into a run. 
 
Ill 
 
 He walked home through town, but, when he reached 
 the corner of the street in which he Hved, he felt he 
 could not face the long evening in that desolate house 
 alone. He wondered to whom he could go. Mr. Escott 
 was practically his only friend, and Mr. Escott would be 
 busy. With that he became conscious of church bells 
 ringing all around him, and their summons seemed to 
 offer at least a temporary solution of his difficulty. 
 
 He arrived a little late, and made his way to his old 
 seat. The warmth, the light, the loud drone of many 
 mingled voices, produced upon him a curious effect of 
 dreaming, and he rose, and sat down, and rose again, 
 with the others, mechanically. He had an extraordinary 
 impression of being present, yet not corporeally present 
 — an impression that he was invisible to all those people 
 assembled there. The sound of the words spoken 
 reached his ears, meaningless as the patter of raindrops 
 on green leaves, seeming to accentuate his isolation, to 
 create a viewless yet impassable barrier about him, to 
 cut him off, as it were, from participation in that 
 common life. Mr. Escott preached, but Richard made 
 no attempt to follow what he said. Detached sentences 
 floated into his mind and hovered there a moment, like 
 idle, coloured butterflies — but no more. . . . 
 
 He was on his feet again and the organ was playing. 
 Suddenly he realized that everyone was going out, and 
 caught up his hat. 
 
 309 
 
310 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 In the porch he waited for Mr. Escott. 
 
 " Well, Ricky, I suppose I ought to congratulate you 
 upon your reappearance in our midst." 
 
 " Are you busy ? Are you going anywhere ?" 
 
 " Nowhere that matters. Come home with me and 
 have some supper." 
 
 They had only to cross the road, and three minutes 
 later Richard was seated in an arm-chair. " I'll be with 
 you in a second," Mr. Escott said. " Fm just going to 
 change my coat and get a pair of slippers." 
 
 He left the room, and the instant he was gone Richard 
 had a vision of Martin lying at the foot of the cliffs in 
 the long, wet grass, with an immense darkness above 
 and around him. He tried to put it from him, but it 
 had flashed upon his mind so suddenly and vividly 
 that a feeling of horror persisted, a sense of something 
 about which it was not safe to think, but which, never- 
 theless, had still to be faced. Mr. Escott rejoined him. 
 
 After supper, sitting opposite each other, they smoked 
 in silence. 
 
 An hour passed, and he rose from his chair. " I must 
 go. It is getting late and I have to be up early in the 
 morning." 
 
 Mr. Escott looked at him with an uneasy sense that 
 all was not well. From the first he had been struck by 
 Richard's expression, which was that of a man who has 
 been subjected to a mental or spiritual shock, an 
 experience which, from its very nature, produces a kind 
 of moral disorganization. " There's no hurry," he said, 
 " so far as I am concerned." Then he added, " I don't 
 know why, but just now, sitting here, it occurred to me 
 that there was something you wanted to tell me." 
 
 Richard did not reply, and as he did not sit down 
 
THE VISION 311 
 
 again the clergyman, too, got up. "One has such 
 fancies occasionally." 
 
 Next morning, down at the office, he received the 
 telegram he was expecting, and in the afternoon he set 
 out on the inevitable journey back. Grace was on the 
 platform when the train came in. It was the first time 
 they had met since Rose's death. 
 
 " Did you bring nothing with you ?" she asked, 
 thinking he had perhaps left his bag in the train. 
 " Surely you are going to stay ?" 
 
 " Yes— I forgot." 
 
 There was something so abstracted and indifferent in 
 his manner that she could not help glancing at him 
 uneasily. " Of course Henry can lend you anything 
 you need." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 They proceeded in the direction of the house, one of 
 two villas close by the golf-links and facing the sea ; but 
 as they drew near it he suddenly stopped. 
 
 " Let us go on a little way. You haven't told me 
 yet what arrangements have been made." 
 
 She yielded reluctantly, for she knew, and he must 
 know, that Mrs. Seawright was waiting for them. 
 " There is nothing to tell." 
 
 " Nothing ?" 
 
 " Except that your mother wants him to be buried 
 here. ... A letter came for Martin this morning. I 
 brought it with me. I think you had better open it." 
 
 She gave it to him, and he glanced at the address 
 sprawled all over the violet-tinted envelope. The 
 wisdom of Grace in keeping it from his mother was 
 apparent when he opened it. After a brief inspection 
 
312 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 he thrust it into his breast pocket, saying nothing to 
 her of its contents, which she had probably guessed. 
 
 " I think we had really better turn," she murmured. 
 " Your mother is expecting you." 
 
 " When did they find him ?" he asked, abruptly. 
 
 " On Sunday night. We knew he had gone to Fair 
 Head, but we thought he might be sheltering somewhere 
 from the rain, which came on very heavily about one 
 o'clock. It was not till it was beginning to get dark 
 that it occurred to us an accident might have 
 happened. Two young fellows staying in the next 
 house offered to go with Henry in search of him. They 
 thought it quite possible that he had tried to come 
 round the bottom of the cliffs and had sprained his 
 ankle. They took a car with them, and lanterns. 
 They found him close to the Grey Man's Path. For- 
 tunately they had brought a rope, for it was very 
 slippery and the rain was coming down in torrents." 
 
 " He was dead when they found him ?" 
 
 " Yes. He must have been killed instantaneously, 
 falling from such a height." 
 
 They had reached the house and he followed Grace 
 into the hall. His mother came out of the dining-room 
 as they entered, but, do what he would, he could not 
 meet her eyes. Taking a hasty step forward he put his 
 arms round her, while she kissed his cheek. Grace 
 slipped away, leaving them together. 
 
 He followed his mother into the dining-room. He 
 sat with lowered eyes, and then turned to the window; 
 but all the time he felt that she was watching him, and 
 that very soon she must know, must guess, the truth. 
 At length she asked him, " Will you come upstairs ?" 
 
 He wanted to refuse, but could not. Only, when they 
 
THE VISION 313 
 
 reached the door of the room in which he knew Martin 
 must be lying, he found it impossible to go any further. 
 " No," he said desperately, while a look of inexpressible 
 aversion crossed his face. 
 
 She made no protest, and they returned to the room 
 downstairs. Mrs. Seawright resumed her seat near the 
 fireplace, looking very old and grey. She scarcely 
 spoke now, and the idea of what her thoughts must be 
 became so unbearable to him that at last, muttering an 
 incoherent excuse, he left her and went out of the house. 
 
 When he returned Mr. Campbell was there, and the 
 children. The greater part of the evening he spent 
 seated at the writing-table, though he wrote only two 
 letters. 
 
 In the morning the funeral took place, Mrs. Seawright 
 and Grace coming to the grave. When all was con- 
 cluded, Richard went back with them to their carriage, 
 while Mr. Campbell, with Jim by his side, stood talking 
 for a moment to the parson. Richard handed his 
 mother in first; then Grace; but instead of following 
 them, he shut the door. " I'll say good-bye to you here. 
 I think I'll walk back." 
 
 " But why good-bye ?" Grace asked. 
 
 He did not look at her. " I'm going up by the next 
 train. I won't have time to come to the house." 
 
 "But !" She stopped suddenly. 
 
 Mrs. Seawright said nothing at all. She sat gazing 
 fixedly straight before her, motionless as a figure 
 carved in granite. 
 
 " I must catch this train," he said huskily. " Good- 
 bye. Good-bye, mother." 
 
 Next moment he had hurried away, avoiding Mr. 
 Campbell and the parson, who had their backs turned 
 
314 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 to him. He took a short cut across the fields, so that 
 the carriages might not overtake him, and when he came 
 to the village post-office he dropped the two letters he 
 had written the previous night into the box. Then 
 turning down the hill on the left he gained the station. 
 
IV 
 
 Nevertheless, on his arrival in town, he did not go to 
 the office. He went for a long walk, first following the 
 river, but in the end taking to the fields. His relief at 
 finding himself once more alone gradually gave place 
 to an acute feeling of depression. And once again 
 there surged up within him that intense yearning for 
 life — not mere physical life, but something deeper and 
 more real. He would have prayed had he not felt that 
 it was useless. He had struggled long and with all his 
 strength, and now, as if tired out, he felt that he could 
 struggle no more. The wind rustled in the trees above 
 his head, setting a shower of dead leaves wheeling 
 about him; and in the sound of the wind he seemed to 
 hear the sound of words : " As the hart panteth after 
 the water brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O 
 God." 
 
 He walked on, unconscious of the gathering storm, till 
 the first heavy drops of rain began to fall, and he heard 
 the growl of distant thunder. Before him the ground 
 rose in a low, rounded hill; behind, were the trees and 
 shelter. But he climbed the hill and turned to watch 
 the great dark clouds beating up against the wind. 
 Below him was the winding sluggish river, twisting and 
 gleaming like an immense grey serpent ; and every now 
 and then a blaze of lightning, like the lash of a whip, 
 
 315 
 
3i6 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 spat out across the sky. Quite suddenly, with the leap 
 of an angry beast, the storm was upon him. Down 
 poured the rain, warm, heavy, splashing on the grass, 
 whipping the river till the surface boiled; and a cloud 
 of darkness appeared to sweep upward from the earth 
 to meet the darkened sky. The lightning flamed out 
 of the gloom, and to his fancy seemed to shriek as it 
 tore the heavy clouds from end to end. The thunder 
 broke above his head, no longer in growls and rumbles, 
 but in terrific explosions. He stood there, and the 
 warm rain drenched him, running down his face, 
 soaking through his clothes. He had no fear, only a 
 sense of wonder and admiration. And he watched the 
 storm pass rapidly as it had arisen; he watched the 
 clouds sweep away till they were like a dark mountain 
 on the horizon. It seemed to him that it took but a 
 few minutes, yet it must have been more than an hour 
 after he had ascended the hill, when the last low 
 mutterings died into silence. The sun, now far down 
 in the west, shone across the streaming earth. The low 
 earth-music again became audible — the trickling of 
 water, the distant murmur of a weir, the rustle of leaves, 
 the splash of the rain dropping from the drenched trees, 
 the cries of happy birds. 
 
 And suddenly, as if he had awakened out of a dream, 
 it came to him that all this rain-washed world was new. 
 He had no idea what had happened : only a barrier 
 had broken down within his soul, and a light had 
 entered there. It transfigured everything, it poured 
 into his spirit as it poured over the fragrant earth. He 
 dropped down upon the soaked grass. He had no 
 thought of personal salvation, he had nothing save a 
 
THE VISION 317 
 
 sense of being at one with this great glorious earth, and 
 at one with God. He felt himself as a minute part of 
 a vast whole. He remained perfectly passive, and that 
 dazzling Hght engulfed him, lapped about him like a 
 sea, entered into all his being, with a gift of peace. All 
 he had to do was to offer no resistance, simply to 
 let it flow over him in wave after wave, gentle and 
 strong, a great cleansing flood that sanctified and 
 blessed. 
 
 It was quite dark when he came down from the hill 
 to the river, but he had had no knowledge of the 
 passing of time, there had been no time, for in the 
 interval between his dropping down on the grass and 
 his rising, cramped and stiff, to his feet, his soul had 
 been caught up into the spirit of God. He still felt 
 that spirit close to him, breathing with his breath. The 
 actual vision was gone, but he knew that it had left 
 something behind it which, though it might at times 
 grow dim, could never leave him. He had been with 
 God; he had been in God. It was real; it was true; 
 there was a meaning though he might not grasp it : but 
 it was there — he knew. 
 
 And as he walked home along the river bank, beside 
 the darkening water, a strange tranquillity descended 
 upon him. He had no feeling of repentance, no sense 
 of sin, no assurance of forgiveness, simply a sense of 
 God and an acquiescence in His will. He did not ask 
 why such a vision should have been granted to him, he 
 did not wonder as to his own worthiness or unworthi- 
 ness, he did not trouble about the past nor about the 
 future. He knew that his way would be made plain to 
 him, that there was a light to guide him, and that he 
 
3i8 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 would follow this light whithersoever it led. His state 
 of mind was simple as that of a lost child, who suddenly, 
 in some dark and desolate place, is found by his mother, 
 his mother come with a friendly lantern and a half- 
 anxious, half-smiling tenderness, to fetch him home. 
 
During the drive back to the house Grace scarcely 
 ventured to glance at her companion. She was only 
 conscious of Mrs. Seawright's sitting very straight and 
 motionless beside her, wrapped in thoughts she did not 
 dare to penetrate. She did not herself understand 
 Richard's behaviour, which seemed to her unnatural in 
 the extreme, and she knew that his mother would 
 understand it even less, because she would infallibly 
 charge it with a definite meaning. 
 
 When they reached home she observed with relief 
 that during their absence the blinds had been pulled 
 up. Mrs. Seawright noticed it, too. " They are in a 
 great hurry to forget," was what she said. 
 
 " Shall I pull the blinds down again ?" Grace asked 
 meekly. 
 
 " No — no. Let what's done remain. The dead are 
 of no account. A man is remembered till his mother 
 dies : for the rest, it doesn't matter — to - day or 
 to-morrow. How can you expect strangers to care, 
 when even his own brother is only anxious to be rid of 
 him as quickly as may be ! " 
 
 They sat down to a very subdued mid-day meal. In 
 Mrs. Seawright's presence the Campbell children were 
 depressed and unhappy. Grace had drummed into 
 them the necessity of keeping perfectly quiet, and they 
 spoke in whispers, with furtive glances at the grey stern 
 woman who had so jealous an eye for breaches of 
 
 319 
 
320 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 decorum. If they had been questioned they would 
 have answered at once that they were very sorry for her, 
 but what they actually felt was that they didn't like her. 
 The incident of the blinds had been a warning to Grace, 
 and she was now on her guard. Seemingly wrapped in 
 sorrow, the mother noticed everything. She noticed that 
 Mr. Campbell had laughed once, almost imperceptibly, 
 it is true, when talking to the parson; she noticed the 
 eagerness with which the children escaped from the 
 room after lunch, and how, once beyond the door, their 
 unlifted voices immediately assumed a joyous note, as 
 of birds escaped from a snare. She noticed that Mr. 
 Campbell took up the newspaper, and lit his pipe. 
 And Grace knew that she resented all these things — the 
 first faint ripples of the waters of oblivion. 
 
 She had ordered a fire to be lit, with an idea of 
 making the sitting-room a little more cheerful, but she 
 was left to extract such solace as it might afford alone, 
 for Mrs. Seawright retired to her own room, where there 
 was no fije. 
 
 The time passed slowly. Grace tried to settle down 
 to a book, but found it impossible. She struck a few 
 notes on the piano, and instantly remembered Mrs. 
 Seawright. She would have gone out,. only she was 
 afraid that the mother might come downstairs and find 
 her gone. Her husband was probably with the 
 children. She crossed to the window. Yes, there they 
 all were, down on the croquet lawn, and the children 
 were actually playing. Henry might have taken them 
 for a walk instead! She was certain that Mrs. 
 Seawright, whose room faced in that direction, must 
 have seen them. 
 As she stood gazing out, the postman came across 
 
THE VISION 321 
 
 the bridge and on over the grass to the house. She 
 beckoned to him silently, receiving the letters through 
 the open window. Only one was addressed to her, and 
 she observed with surprise that it was from Richard. 
 Grace laid the other letters on the table, and returning 
 to the fire read and re-read the single sheet of paper 
 that was closely covered with his small handwriting. 
 Then she leaned forward, and, placing it carefully in 
 the middle of the fire, watched it burn. 
 
 She was still watching the ashes when Mr. Campbell 
 entered. He stood leaning against the chimney-piece, 
 and presently he said, " You look tired, Grace. Hadn't 
 you better lie down for a little ?" 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " Where is Mrs. Seawright ?" 
 
 " Upstairs. Are you going back to town to-night ?" 
 
 " No ; it's hardly worth while : I'll go up to-morrow." 
 
 " I think I'll go up with you then. The children will 
 be all right here with mother." 
 
 " It won't be very cheerful for them. What do you 
 want to do in town ? Can't I do it for you ?" 
 
 " No. I want to see Richard." 
 
 " Richard ! Didn't you see him yesterday and this 
 morning ? Why didn't he come back here ?" 
 
 " I don't know." 
 
 " I must confess I thought it very peculiar — his dis- 
 appearing like that, at the earliest possible moment — 
 especially when his mother was so upset. He hardly 
 spoke to her even when he was here." 
 
 " Richard, of course, is peculiar. But, as you say, he 
 should have stayed. I had no idea that he wasn't 
 going to. There is something I must talk to him 
 about." 
 
 21 
 
322 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 " Couldn't you write ?" 
 
 " I don't think so." She smiled. " You know what 
 Richard is." 
 
 He looked at her a little strangely. " I'm afraid I 
 don't. If you're determined to go up to town, how- 
 ever, I shall stay on here," 
 
 " Why ?" 
 
 " I think the reason is sufficiently obvious." 
 
 " You don't want me to go, then ?" 
 
 " I don't think it is fair to leave the children alone 
 here with Mrs. Seawright. You know yourself what it 
 has been like for the last two days." 
 
 " In that case I could go up to-night, and come down 
 to-morrow by the first train." 
 
 Mr. Campbell frowned. " What is there so very 
 pressing about this business? I really see no reason 
 why you should go. You can ask Richard down for 
 the week-end : that will give you plenty of time to talk 
 to him." 
 
 " I think I must go at once." 
 
 There was a silence, during which she felt her 
 husband's eyes fixed upon her. " Oh, very well," he 
 said at last, coldly. 
 
 She did not answer, and he gave an impatient kick 
 at the fire, sending a shower of sparks up the chimney. 
 " If you insist, in spite of my disapproval, you had 
 better send a wire to the house to say you are 
 coming." 
 
 " Yes, I'll do that." 
 
 She went upstairs at once, for she had not much 
 more than time to catch her train; but when she was 
 safely upon her way she began to think. Henry was 
 very angry with her, or he would never have left her 
 
THE VISION 323 
 
 to come alone to the station. But soon she forgot 
 Henry, forgot that for the first time they had been on 
 the verge of a quarrel. She did not know what would 
 happen; she only knew that Richard must need her; 
 and suddenly an extraordinary light, almost of 
 triumph, came into her face. 
 
VI 
 
 When she arrived in town she took a taxi. It never 
 occurred to her that Richard might not be at home, and 
 on reaching the house she paid the man and allowed 
 him to drive away. But no one came to the door in 
 answer to her knock. She knocked and rang three 
 times before a dreadful idea flashed across her mind, 
 turning her sick with apprehension. She drew back, 
 wondering what she could do, looking up helplessly at 
 the dark windows. The street was deserted, save for a 
 group of youths, who, at a little distance, stood talking. 
 They stared at her, and she walked as far as the comer, 
 where she waited with the wild idea of getting a police- 
 man to force an entrance. No policeman came into 
 sight, and she was about to go round to the back of the 
 house, when she heard the sound of approaching foot- 
 steps. It was he — Richard — and an immense relief 
 banished every other feeling. 
 
 He did not recognize her till he was quite close. 
 
 " Grace 1 I hope you haven't been waiting long !" 
 
 " No ; only for a minute or two." 
 
 He unlocked the door and she entered. Then, in the 
 hall, she turned quickly to him and kissed him on his 
 cheek. 
 
 " But you're wet through !" she exclaimed in surprise. 
 
 " Yes ; we had a thunderstorm and I happened to get 
 caught in it." 
 
 324 
 
THE VISION 325 
 
 " You must change your things at once. Why didn't 
 you shelter ?" 
 
 " Oh, ril be all right." 
 
 He opened the parlour door and lit the gas : then put 
 a match to the fire which was laid in the grate. " I'll 
 be down in a few minutes, if you don't mind waiting." 
 
 She had been struck by the quietness of his manner; 
 she did not understand it, and though she had come 
 with the express purpose of helping him, somehow, 
 instead of bringing relief, it produced in her a vague 
 sinking of the heart. She sat gazing into the smoky fire 
 till she once more heard his step upon the stairs. 
 
 " I'm afraid you'll find it very untidy and uncom- 
 fortable here," he said, as he came in. 
 
 She had risen to meet him, and she now put a hand 
 on his shoulder and leaned her head against his breast. 
 
 '* Ricky dear, I came because Oh, I could cry 
 
 when I think of it all." 
 
 He stood quite still. " You should not have come," 
 lie said at last, very gently. " You must not stay 
 long. . . . Does anybody know you are here ?" 
 
 " What matter how much they know ! " 
 
 " It matters a great deal, Grace." 
 
 "No; it is only you I think of. . . . But I told 
 Henry." 
 
 She paused, drawing a deep breath. His beautiful 
 eyes had a strangely calm expression. He was not in 
 the least as she had expected to find him. She had 
 come to help him, to console him, and he did not seem 
 to need either help or consolation. 
 
 " I should not have written to you," he said. " But 
 at the time I felt that I must tell somebody. It was 
 stupid and weak : all that it has done is to make you 
 unhappy." 
 
326 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 " Yes, I am unhappy. That is why I am here. You 
 said in your letter that you were going away. I want 
 to come with you." She forced herself to speak hope- 
 fully, though there was already a chill at her heart. 
 " Let us begin at the beginning and try to see our way. 
 What you told me is true, isn't it — the whole truth ? 
 And you have made up your mind to go ?" 
 
 " I cannot stay on here." 
 
 She looked at him fixedly. " Ricky, why are you 
 afraid of me ?" 
 
 "Afraid!" 
 
 " Yes. I can see it in your face. I must speak the 
 truth now I am here : there must be nothing hidden. I 
 came, knowing the dreadful thing you told me, because 
 I wanted to be with you, to share your future, whatever 
 it may be. You need not be sorry that you wrote to 
 me, for I am glad. It is true. I am glad — glad." 
 
 They were standing close together, but she came 
 closer still. His dark eyes rested upon hers, and for a 
 space she even believed that she had gained her point. 
 But next moment she knew that if he hesitated for a 
 word, it was not for the word she longed for. 
 
 " You must not talk like that," he said, with the same 
 peculiar quietness, which from the first had seemed to 
 shut her out from all that was passing in his mind. 
 " You must go back, Grace. What you propose is 
 impossible. It is not that I am ungrateful, not that I 
 do not understand. But I don't know myself what I 
 am going to do, where I am going to. I can see little 
 beyond the present hour. You have your home, and 
 your life is bound up with the lives of others. I cannot 
 go back to that life." 
 
 He stood looking at her a little helplessly, and the 
 
THE VISION 327 
 
 fact that he was so obviously trying to be kind and to 
 think of what was best, drove her to despair. She drew 
 a sharp breath that was almost a sob, and out of her 
 white face her eyes shone, watching, searching his, with 
 a painful eagerness. There was a silence, and then at 
 last a deep blush overspread her face. 
 
 " I will write to you," he stammered. 
 
 She had covered her face with her hands, but she now 
 let him once more look upon her abasement. " No — no," 
 she wailed. " I don't know what is happening, what I 
 am doing, and we must settle something before I leave. 
 What is it, Ricky ? There is no danger^ is there ?" 
 
 He had a moment of wonder, while it dawned upon 
 him that she must actually think he had lied to her. 
 
 " I am only frightening you," he repeated. " There is 
 no danger." 
 
 " But this — all this that has happened — how can you 
 bear it alone ? I don't understand. Ricky — don't you 
 care ? But if you don't care, why need you go away ?" 
 
 " I must go ; I must go," he murmured. It was impos- 
 sible for him to explain. There was a long pause, and 
 as she watched him his face seemed gradually to change, 
 his eyes to look beyond her, and beyond the room, with 
 a strange fascinated expression, as if at some flaming 
 vision in the sky. " Perhaps you are right," he said at 
 last. " But — a few minutes ago it all seemed perfectly 
 clear." 
 
 She trembled slightly, drawing back a little. " You 
 didn't kill him on purpose ?" she breathed. 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 " Yet if it was known — known that you had had a 
 quarrel," she went on eagerly, " they might not believe 
 you" 
 
328 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 Suddenly his eyes seemed to burn straight into her 
 soul. " I have seen Him," he said in a low voice. " I 
 have been with Him — face to face." 
 
 She stared, and, for the first time, a vague fear began 
 to take possession of her. With it she felt that the last 
 slender thread binding him to her had snapped, and 
 that it was beyond her power to touch him. " Whom 
 have you seen ?" she whispered. 
 
 " I have seen God. He has been with me ; I know 
 now that He has been with me from the beginning. I 
 thought He was not there, because He was everywhere. 
 I remember once, when I was a boy, being too frightened 
 to go down a certain road alone, because He was in 
 the trees waiting for me; speaking in the moving 
 branches. I heard His voice, but I did not recognize 
 il and was afraid. Now I can see Him wherever I turn. 
 I do not know where He will lead me; I do not know 
 what He will do with me. But wherever I go He will 
 be there. That is why I must be alone. I must have 
 no ties, no one depending on me. I must be His, so 
 that He can claim my life or death at any moment." 
 
 She gazed at him in pale, voiceless stupor. She saw 
 the hope she had secretly cherished curl up, vanish, like 
 a mist in the scorching blaze of some terrific sun. Then, 
 at last, words broke from her in a kind of moan. " No ; 
 no ; you must not leave me. Not now — not now." 
 
 She clung to him, but he gently unloosed her hands ; 
 and in his very gentleness she read an immovable 
 determination. She tried to grasp the meaning of his 
 words. She wanted to plead with him, implore him, 
 but she could say nothing save his name, which she 
 repeated, wretchedly, two or three times. 
 
 There was another silence before she turned at last 
 
THE VISION 329 
 
 wearily away, looking for her waterproof, which she 
 fastened about her with trembling fingers. " I ought 
 never to have come," she said. " You do not want me. 
 You never wanted me. All your life long you have 
 never thought of anyone but yourself, and now it is your 
 own salvation you are thinking of." 
 
 He listened to her with bowed head. " Will you not 
 forgive me, Grace?" 
 
 " Yes, oh yes — if it is any consolation, if it means any- 
 thing to you. I daresay you have done all that was 
 possible." 
 
 She went out into the hall and he followed her. 
 
 " Shall I walk home with you ?" he asked, but she 
 shook her head. 
 
 He leaned his forehead against the cold wall. " If I 
 am wrong now, God help me !" he muttered. 
 
 At the door she looked out for a moment into the 
 rain which had again begun to fall. " This, then, is the 
 last ?" she said, turning towards him in dreary 
 acquiescence. "All my life I have never really known 
 you, and I do not know you now. My life has been 
 nothing but a sort of perpetual trying to understand; 
 a perpetual hope and a perpetual deception, for I always 
 believed that some day I should see you as you are." 
 
 " You see me as I am, now." 
 
 " I see nothing — nothing but waste. I do not even 
 know whether you are good or bad." 
 
 " I do not know myself." 
 
 " Probably you are very good." 
 
 But beneath the appalling bitterness of her words she 
 could scarcely stifle the sob that rose in her breast. 
 
 " You still blame me. I have done what I could. 
 Perhaps — if things had been different at the beginning 
 
330 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 — they might be different now. Sometimes I have 
 thought that my life was poisoned at the beginning." 
 
 " Poisoned by an insane jealousy." 
 
 " It may be that." 
 
 " It was your mother you loved best of all (if you 
 ever loved anyone) — not Rose — not me." 
 
 He said nothing and she went down the three steps 
 before turning round for the last time. 
 
 " Good-bye." 
 
 " Good-bye." 
 
VII 
 
 And once more she found herself out in the rain-swept 
 street, in the feeble, blurred gas-light. She walked on 
 blindly, hurriedly, and presently taking a wrong turning 
 found herself on the railway bridge. She stopped 
 abruptly, and leaning over the low wall gazed down 
 into the darkness. She became aware, then, that two 
 men, passing behind her, had also stopped, and were 
 watching her. 
 
 She hastened on, and in a few minutes emerged into 
 a brightly-lit square. Here, at a cab-stand, stood a 
 single belated four-wheeler. It was splashed with mud, 
 and between the shafts stood a broken-kneed, dejected 
 horse. She looked at the patient beast, and a misery 
 hopeless as her own, and infinitely less deserved, was 
 revealed to her. The driver, fat, with a red, bloated 
 face, stepped hastily out of the shelter as she approached. 
 He opened the door of the cab encouragingly, but she 
 turned away. No; she must walk, or she would wait 
 for a tram. She went on a few steps and then came 
 back. The driver had retreated to the door of the 
 shelter, but as she approached him he again came for- 
 ward. 
 
 " Why do you keep the poor horse out in the rain like 
 that ?" 
 
 She had expected derision, but he regarded her in a 
 silence that seemed charged with profound meditation. 
 " Well, ma'am, you see IVe my living to earn." 
 
 331 
 
332 AT THE DOOR OF THE GATE 
 
 She felt in her pocket for her purse. " Will you take 
 him home now if I give you what you think you might 
 make between this and your usual time for going 
 home ?" 
 
 The driver greeted this proposition with another and 
 more lengthy silence. Suddenly a light appeared to 
 dawn upon him, and he mentioned the sum that would 
 induce him to yield to so remarkable a request. 
 
 Grace paid him, and watched him climb up on the 
 box. She waited till the cab rattled laboriously off 
 into the night, and then lingered yet longer, looking out 
 for a tram that would take her home. In a few minutes 
 she saw one coming. It was crowded inside and out, 
 and she stood near the door, in a stuffy atmosphere 
 reeking of waterproofs and wet clothing. Mrs. Wilber- 
 force, returning from the theatre with her husband and 
 one of the girls, cramped and uncomfortable, resenting 
 intensely the intrusion of each new passenger, bowed to 
 her frigidly. Mrs. Wilberforce was aware of Martin's 
 death, and had written a letter of condolence to his 
 mother : but Grace she had never cared for, and one 
 cannot get over a life-long aversion at a moment's 
 notice. 
 
 BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTfiRS, GUILDFORD, ENGLAND 
 
14 DAY USE 
 
 RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED 
 
 LOAN DEPT. 
 
 This book is due on the last date stamped below, or 
 
 on the date to which renewed. 
 
 Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. 
 
 ■ 20Nov'59FK 
 
 
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 i;OV 12 1959 
 
 
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 (A17248l0)476B ^'"''*"g,£^,^^'^**'"" 
 
YB 39691 
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY